Why Johnny Can't Compete

The horrendous images of the Japanese earthquake and tsunami haunt my consciousness. We have friends there and as I said in an earlier post, our son is presently traveling there (he is safe and has been able to move south more out of harm's way).

Our prior travels in Japan are cherished memories. We developed the greatest respect for the Japanese people, a nation which seemed to reach its economic zenith during our stay as the New Year dawned in 1990. The Nikkei Dow touched 40,000 and Japan was booming. Our domestic press was full of stories about the Japanese having an unfair trade advantage and consequently how America was no longer able to compete with this economic juggernaut. Japan was said to be destroying American industry and would be buying up all our assets. Only a couple of months before the iconic Rockefeller Center complex was purchased by Japan's Mitsubishi Group. "Made in Japan" went from a joke in the 1950s to an economic threat by the end of the 1980s.

The dire forecasts concerning Japan faded over the next two decades as boom turned to bust and it fell into an ongoing deflationary spiral. But today we are saying the exact same things about China's unfair trade advantages, China buying up our assets and holding our debt, almost as if we are victims of outside forces and bear no responsibility for our own economic predicament.

While in Japan in 1990 I was invited to deliver a speech to the Rotary Club of Tokyo Koishikawa on the subject of US - Japan trade relations. When I returned home, I was asked to write an article about our experience, which for one reason or another was not published, probably because its contents did not blame Japan for our own failures.

I think the Japanese economy will recover from this tragedy, although it will take years. Our heartfelt hopes for recovery are with the Japanese people, and for a minimal loss of life and containment of what is appearing to be a serious threat from damage to several of its nuclear facilities. Please consider a donation to the Red Cross for those devastated in Japan.

I recently came across that unpublished article and was not surprised about how little has changed. One now only has to substitute "China" for some of the examples I used for Japan. Our fundamental problem about successfully competing remains: education. The irony is our best graduate schools are attended by some of the finest minds from overseas, but upon their graduation, we give them a diploma without a green card and send them on their way home. But the primary failure here is our public school system, the same failure I decried twenty plus years ago. Nothing has changed and it could be argued that they have worsened.

Given the folly in Wisconsin and the rhetoric of some of our politicians, one would think that our nation is going broke because we overpay our teachers. Of course the converse is true. Why go into teaching when one can become a master of the universe at an investment bank and rake in bonuses? We need great teachers and a better public education system to begin to reverse a continuing decline in our students' performance. "The three-yearly OECD Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) report, which compares the knowledge and skills of 15-year-olds in 70 countries around the world, ranked the United States 14th out of 34 OECD countries for reading skills, 17th for science and a below-average 25th for mathematics."

The following is what I wrote in January 1990, in many ways as relevant today as it was then:

Why Johnny Can't Compete

In my capacity as president of an academic and professional book publishing company I have had the opportunity to visit Japan from time to time over the past 20 years. Even though our publications are in English, Japan has become our largest market outside of the United States. It has been an interesting sideline of these trips to be able to compare the economic, social, and educational progress of Japan with what I observe at home.

My most recent trip to Japan occurred over the Christmas and New Year holiday season, when many westerners who live in Japan return home, and Tokyo's hotels are given over to craft exhibits and festivals in celebration of the New Year. The Japanese New Year holiday is a major one: people stop working for nearly a week to greet the new year at shrines and temples, and to pay respect to their families. I made the trip this time with my wife and 13-year-old son, and we felt privileged to be there at this special time of year.

By prior arrangement with my Japanese host (the head of the company that distributes our books in Japan), I was to give a speech to the Rotary Club of Tokyo Koishikawa on the subject of U.S.-Japan trade relations as perceived by the American people -- a subject of great concern to the Japanese. I was aware of the symbolism of making such a speech at the end of this past decade. Japan has emerged as a leading economic power, while we, ourselves, perceive our own position to be in decline. While I made an effort to put what America had accomplished in the 1980's in the best possible light and to emphasize how the U.S. and Japan can become equal trading partners with the new opportunities in the 1990's, particularly those created by the decline of communism in Eastern Europe, in retrospect my words seem hollow. I returned with the realization that if we are to truly compete with Japan as the 21st century approaches, our nation will have to undergo radical changes by rediscovering many of the values embraced by Japan.

There is a cultural basis for Japan's success. The resolve to work hard, to be productive, to be well-educated, to respect one another, to be part of the team, and to be patient in attaining goals is the very essence of their culture. It little matters what one does, it only matters how well the work is done. In Japan, the marked contrasts to minimal working standards we have become conditioned to accept are everywhere. Is it no wonder we have difficulty in competing with a society that prides itself in being the best it possibly can be?

In a discussion with my host about such issues he asked, "Why is there a drug problem in the U.S.? Japanese people do not understand why such a problem should exist." "A feeling of-hopelessness," I replied. Thinking about that discussion, I believe that our future success or failure in restoring hope might be at the very core of competing with Japan. This can only be done by completely restructuring our educational system and giving it our highest societal priority.

Quality education is truly available to all in Japan and it is widely perceived to be desirable. Japanese teachers occupy a high status in society and are well paid. Illiteracy is virtually unknown. Even peasants were able to read and write by the nineteenth century. Japan ranked among the most advanced countries of western Europe in educational excellence.

Contrast this to our present situation. Our minimal educational standards have led to wide-spread illiteracy and millions are basically unemployable. The recently released report by the Secretary of Education estimates that 60% of our nation's 11th graders are barely able to read the most rudimentary documents. How and why does our society tolerate this perversion? Only by radically improving our educational system will we be able to ultimately remove the pervasive hopelessness that corrodes our land, drugs our children, and produces the type of wide-spread violent crime that is virtually unknown in Japan.

So, while we are urging Japan to make cosmetic changes to facilitate better U.S.-Japan economic relations, we must make mammoth changes to compete in the long run. What is needed is the equivalent of President Kennedy's pronouncement in the early 1960's that our national objective was to put a man on the moon by the end of that decade. Do we have the moral fortitude to declare that, as a national goal, we can and will create a public education system which is second to none by the end of this decade?

Only until we restore hope, the expectation that one generation can be better off than the previous one and people can find meaningful employment opportunities -- the very ideals which made this country the great melting pot of the 19th and early 20th centuries -- will we be able to successfully compete with Japan in the 21st century.

Things are by no means perfect in Japan. Their dedication to work borders on workaholism; individuals may not have the same degree of freedom to which we have become accustomed. However, for years Japan has been accused of copying the best of western business ways and technology and then improving upon them. In dealing with our economic dilemmas, the time has come for us to adopt some aspects of Japanese culture and, in so doing, rediscover many of the values that once made our country great.

Japan Needs Our Help

Here is the Red Cross site for helping Japan deal with a catastrophe of unimaginable enormity.

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Forces of Nature and Us

We woke up this morning to the news and videos of the powerful earthquake in Japan and the ensuing tsunami and our first thoughts were of our son who is presently traveling in Japan. We were not even sure where in Japan he was at the time. I reached for my phone hoping he would have the good sense to email or text knowing we would be concerned and there it was: "Re: I'm Fine." He is in Tokyo and although he felt the quake, he is in a new building, built to code, so we were relieved.

We were in a 4.8 earthquake once, staying at Tokyo's Okura Hotel, no comparison of course to the horrific magnitude of the one that just hit north of Tokyo, but enough to frighten most hotel occupants from their beds and into the hallways. A quake of 8.9 is unimaginable.

Life is such a series of about-faces. Yesterday as a cold front swept through Florida, we briefly had high winds and torrential rains. It blew our patio furniture around. Then came an amazing tranquil sunset right out our back door. All is well with the world. And, now, a catastrophe of still unknown dimensions in the Pacific. Always hoping for the best, but while nature can invoke its beauty it also underscores life's fragility.

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Ghost-Writer Haunts

Florida Stage is the "other" serious theater in the West Palm Beach area and although I've written often in these "pages" about the consistently fine productions of Dramaworks, I've only occasionally touched upon those of Florida Stage. This season is a significant one as they have now moved to the Kravis Center's Rinker Playhouse. Unlike Dramaworks, Florida Stage is bravely dedicated to new or relatively new plays, so that is an added risk, as if presenting serious theatre is not enough.

They opened the season with Cane which was followed by Goldie, Max & Milk. But with Ghost-Writer by Michael Hollinger which opens today (we saw a preview), Florida Stage will have its first big hit of the season, drama at its best. Of course, it doesn't hurt that the play is by a well-established playwright, and even though this is the southeast premiere, it was vetted on the stage in Philadelphia at the end of last year.

Ghost-Writer apparently is not for everyone as a few people inexplicably left the performance right in the middle (there is no intermission). But if you cherish the nuances of language and how great staging and performing can turn little moments and glances into profound occurrences, Florida Stage has the play for you. As Louis Tyrrell, Florida Stage's innovative Producing Director said before the play, "it is an elegant play performed eloquently by the actors." Those words were not an exaggeration.

The play takes place in 1919, set in a studio apartment of a well-known writer, Mr. Woolsey, who hires an amanuensis, fresh out of typing school, Myra Babbage. She is obviously enamored of working for a renowned author. Their relationship gradually becomes more than just employer and employee, both developing affection for one another. It also progresses to the point where Myra can anticipate what Mr. Woolsey will dictate and will even interject her own opinion as to choice or word or punctuation. Stirring the dramatic pot is Mr. Woolsey's wife, Vivian, who is jealous of Myra, and displeased that her husband has set up this apartment (away from their home) for his work.

Every play needs a change catalyst, and in this one it is Mr. Woolsey's death before he has finished what might be his masterpiece. But after his death, Myra feels she can still channel his muse. Is it a ghost? Or is she simply looking to make a name for herself (as Vivian suspects)? Or did their relationship evolve to the point where the voice in the novel is really a collaborative one? Myra puts it to the audience to decide (or not to decide).

One thing that does not change is the role of the typewriter which, sphinx-like, sits in the middle of the stage, almost the fourth character in the play. At one point, when Mr. Woolsey is suffering from writer's block, he has Myra type "anything" just so he could hear the clatter of the Remington. Type it again he says as he stares out the window. And again. Finally, the words spring to him, just as the final words of the unfinished novel come to Myra after days of not feeling the muse (or hearing the ghost?), but not until she, too, has typed the "catch phrase" -- which Mr. Woolsey had entreated her not to reveal to him (and, therefore, not to us). What could it be?

The play slides back and forth from the present to the past, effortlessly, almost imperceptibly. The staging is like a delicate dance, the characters taking a position on stage (as Mr. Woolsey at the window) or gracefully gliding about each other to the point where Myra and her employer actually dance (ostensibly to familiarize Mr. Woolsey with a subject he needs to write about but clearly is unfamiliar with). The early 20th century set was developed with period piece precision and the three quarter round seating puts the audience in the action.

But to succeed with a play which is about language and understated emotions also requires fine acting. Considerable measures of the play are monologues given by Myra, played by New York City based regional actor, Kate Eastwood Norris, who deserves accolades for her carefully articulated and poignant performance. J. Fred Shiffman plays the restrained, somewhat bland but meticulous, Mr. Woolsey to a tee. Lourelene Snedeker does a fine job displaying Vivian's jealously and even conjures up our sympathy. Woolsey had once portrayed her as a vivacious, desirable woman in his first novel but he now shares his muse with another, younger, woman.

So was it a ghost? The beautiful language of the play itself provides a key, as spoken by Myra:
What is a ghost, in any case, but vivid memory, visiting when one least expects it? And aren't we all subject to haunting? The smell of liniment conjuring Mother at the bedside; the pair of shoes recalling a son or brother fallen in the fields of France? Surely memory is ghost enough...

Ghost-Writer runs at the Kravis Center's Rinker Playhouse until April 3.
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Inflation Takes a Haircut

Jon Hilsenrath, normally a straight forward journalist who is the chief economics correspondent for The Wall Street Journal covering the Federal Reserve, made an argument on CNBC today essentially basing the real inflation rate on the price of his haircut. He was interviewed by Joe Kernen, who is enamored by his hair as well, in regard to today's testimony before Congress by Ben Bernanke.

According to Hilsenrath, the Commodity Research Bureau's (CRB) indexes "do not hit American households...we do a lot of other things with our money, like haircuts, which is one of the benchmarks I use, and [they] are not rising....The people who look at food and energy ignore those other things."

While the CRB puts commodity inflation well into the double digits, the CPI reports nearly no inflation (1%) excluding food and energy. Surely, between the two is the REAL inflation rate that is taking its toll on most Americans, particularly retirees.


Jon (and Joe), instead of preening your haircuts as anecdotal evidence of there being little inflation, you should walk in the shoes of a balding retiree. I just happened to have reconciled our 2010 expenses, and have accurate data going back eight years. Comparing that data our income was up only marginally as, even though social security kicked in during the period, investment income declined substantially due mostly to bonds and CDs maturing and having to be replaced by lower yielding investments (the Fed's attempt to force investors into riskier investments, the very issue that almost started a depression). Indeed, fuel and groceries were among the most significant inflationary items over the eight year period, up almost an identical 68% in our case. But what I found interesting there were also large increases in items that are not only essentially non-discretionary, but they are nearly monopolies as well, the consumer having only marginal choices, such as health care, insurance (car, home and health), water and sewage, communications (cable, telephones, Internet), and, most lately, real estate taxes. These take their toll on retirees.

But as I now generally buzz cut my remaining locks, haircut expenses were de minimis so there must be little inflation. Thanks for the fine journalism, Jon and Joe.
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Dinner With Friends at Dramaworks

Last night was the first preview, in effect a dress rehearsal, of Dramaworks' production of Donald Margulies' play Dinner with Friends. It will open tomorrow. Although a "rehearsal" the preview had all the earmarks of an opening, not a beat missed.

As my literary maturation was greatly impacted by the likes of Updike, Yates, Cheever, and Carver (each of whom wrote numerous stories about couples), not to mention having lived most of my life in Connecticut (where Dinner with Friends is set), Margulies' play strikes a familiar funny bone. I know these people. It also helps to see the play performed by one of America's finest regional theaters, Dramaworks of West Palm Beach. I can only wonder how the incredibly intimate stage of its present quarters on Banyan Boulevard will translate into their more substantial Clematis Street home next November.

On its present postage stamp sized stage, Dramaworks effectively deals with the seven scene changes required by the play in its two acts, the action shifting from the present in act one to the past at the opening of act two and then back again to the present. The scene changes are effortless as the staging is simple, using mostly three props that can be shifted from being used as table and chairs and, when put together, can be turned into a bed. The changes, rather than being an impediment, seem to move the action along in an engaging way and on Dramaworks' present stage, all of this is happening right before you, bringing the audience into the performance.

The play strikes blunt truths in the finest tradition of tragicomedy, Margulies offering up both the humorous aspects of male female relationships and the wearing of time which can lead to destructive outcomes. As Margulies said in a PBS interview concerning his play Collected Stories: "My plays are fairly diverse, but their unifying theme is loss. The characters in my plays are all dealing with change in their family life, in their professional life, dealing with their own mortality. In Dinner With Friends it's change in friendships and evolving marriages. I think that time is a player in all of my work—very palpably in Collected Stories. The ways that people deal with the effect of time, which invariably entails loss, is probably what unites all these works."
And loss pervades Dinner with Friends, newlywed Gabe (Jim Ballard) and his wife Karen (Erin Joy Schmidt) introducing mutual friends Tom (Eric Martin Brown) and Beth (Sarah Grace Wilson), the two couples becoming best, inseparable friends. But a dozen years later Tom and Beth are breaking up, leaving Gabe and Karen pitching and rocking in their wake, questioning their own relationship and facing the sudden realization of friendships ending combined with the inevitable regrets of middle age.

In Scene 1 there is manic dinner conversation between Gabe and Karen about their recent gourmet vacation in Italy, Beth listening passively, finally revealing the real reason why Tom was not there, their marriage ending. She says that Tom said "This is not the life he had in mind for himself." That becomes a question mark that looms over all the characters for the rest of the play. The shock and betrayal is best expressed by Gabe: "All the vacations we spent together at the Vineyard. How could he walk away?"

In Scene 2, the same night, Tom returns to Beth's bedroom and is furious that she has told their friends the news without him. "You've got the advantage, now....They heard your side, so they are with you....You prejudiced my case!" There is some physical violence, culminating in sex. As Tom later explains to Gabe about the incident, "Rage can be an amazing aphrodisiac!"

Scene 3 finds Gabe and Karen parsing blame, Karen wondering about Tom, "the person you completely entrusted your fate to is an imposter....Maybe he never existed before...your friend." Gabe: " You think you're safe on solid ground and it cracks open."

The opening of Act II shows the couples on Martha's Vineyard twelve years earlier, when Gabe and Karen brought Tom and Beth together. In their youthful bantering, Tom says of Gabe and Karen, after a show of how happy the newlyweds are: "Their job is to make the rest of the world feel incompetent" and in that statement lies the unspoken friction between the couples in ensuing years.

Scenes II and III are interesting as they analyze the unraveling relationship between Beth and Karen, and then subsequently Tom and Gabe. In fact, there are a number of dynamics throughout the play, between the two couples, the two spouses, and then the two male and female friends. Each of these relationships are challenged and changed. In fact, and that is the genius of the play, what is unspoken is really as important in these two scenes, as in spite of the friends' surface reassurances about staying in one another's lives (Tom and Beth now with different significant others), one knows that this friendship is irreconcilably over. Gabe sadly says to Tom, "We were supposed to grow old and fat together," Tom responding, "Isn't that just another way to say misery loves company?"

The last scene finds Gabe and Karen ritualistically making up their bed in Martha's Vineyard, Karen asking "What were all those years about?" The same question we all ask ourselves at times.

Most of us have experienced that unsettling moment when best friends announce they are separating, realizing at the same time one's own life cannot go on as before.. The play rings with an inescapable universal truth, further brought home by the fine directing of J. Barry Lewis, who has orchestrated this piece to fully express his vision: "we create family out of our friends and acquaintances....we recognize a bit of ourselves, as we attempt to engage one another in meaningful relationships to fill the powerful need for family."

The actors are all newcomers to Dramaworks, all pros with extensive credentials. Perhaps the most difficult role to play is Gabe's as he is uptight with a mess of internal contradictions, instinctively empathizing with Tom on the one hand and condemning him on the other. Jim Ballard handles the role convincingly. Ballard is multi talented in that he also has a Broadway quality singing voice having seen him play the Wolf in Sondheim's Into the Woods at the Caldwell Theatre in Boca Raton last year

We saw Erin Joy Schmidt perform the lead a couple of months ago in Florida Stage's Goldie, Max and Milk. She was an ideal Karen, absorbing the shock of Beth's accusation of "You love it when I'm a mess...You need me to be a mess...I was comic relief," Ms. Schmidt dramatically delivering Karen's remorseful reply: "You're my family."

Eric Martin Brown was a convincing Tom, who feels liberated from what he feels was a loveless marriage: "I always felt inauthentic having this life...most of the time I was just being a good sport" (to which Gabe replies, "I thought we were just living our lives.") Interestingly, Brown attended the Yale School of Drama, where Margulies teaches (I wonder whether he was his student).

Sarah Grace Wilson is wonderful as Beth, the sorrowful little "artist" who awakens to the reality that her passion for art was just a substitute for living. And, we find out to our surprise, had a lover earlier in the marriage.

Having, myself, adapted two of Raymond Carver's short stories to one-act plays (presently waiting for permission rights from the Carver estate), each about couples, I have a new appreciation of how difficult it is for a playwright to incorporate all the elements of a great play, the humor, the tragedy, doing it all with dialog, no descriptive narrative, making the characters real, having a story the audience will hang onto until the end. Margulies' play is a master class in playwriting, justifiably receiving the 2000 Pulitzer Prize in Drama.

And I can more clearly see the incredible confluence that must happen to create great theater, the writing, the directing, the staging, the acting. It is a creative act of teamwork. Arts such as painting and literature are solitary journeys into the soul. Dramaworks knows how to bring all the necessary elements together in their productions, always mindful of its basic mission statement "theatre to think about."
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Watson/HAL, Come Here

How prescient, 2001: A Space Odyssey, the 1968 film written by Arthur C. Clarke and Stanley Kubrick who was also the film's director. Clarke is one of my favorite Sci-Fi writers along with Isaac Asimov with whom I did some work on a series of reprints of science fiction classics.

I remember seeing the film when it opened, thinking "2001" an eternity from now. Man had not yet landed on the moon, there were no personal computers, cell phones, color TVs were just becoming mainstream, and "twitter" was merely a light silly laugh.

Yet Clarke and Asimov saw the future and with "Watson's" performance on Jeopardy, that future has arrived. It was Asimov who once said: "I do not fear computers. I fear the lack of them." But should we?

As "rational" human beings we have been perplexed by Watson's answer to the question under the category of US Cities, coming up with "Toronto???" instead of Chicago (which the two all-star Ken Jennings and Brad Rutter Jeopardy challengers knew). How could it come up with a city in Canada?

David Ferrucci, the manager of the Watson project at IBM Research, comes up with the rational explanation:

First, the category names on Jeopardy! are tricky. The answers often do not exactly fit the category. Watson, in his training phase, learned that categories only weakly suggest the kind of answer that is expected, and, therefore, the machine downgrades their significance. The way the language was parsed provided an advantage for the humans and a disadvantage for Watson, as well. “What US city” wasn’t in the question. If it had been, Watson would have given US cities much more weight as it searched for the answer. Adding to the confusion for Watson, there are cities named Toronto in the United States and the Toronto in Canada has an American League baseball team. It probably picked up those facts from the written material it has digested. Also, the machine didn’t find much evidence to connect either city’s airport to World War II. (Chicago was a very close second on Watson’s list of possible answers.) So this is just one of those situations that’s a snap for a reasonably knowledgeable human but a true brain teaser for the machine

While getting the answer wrong, Watson playfully bet $947, knowing it had a large lead and losing that amount it would still likely win.

But I hearken back to the movie and Watson's prototype, HAL 9000, and his "interview" with the BBC:

BBC Interviewer: HAL, you have an enormous responsibility on this mission, in many ways perhaps the greatest responsibility of any single mission element. You're the brain and central nervous system of the ship, and your responsibilities include watching over the men in hibernation. Does this ever cause you any lack of confidence?
HAL: Let me put it this way, Mr. Amor. The 9000 series is the most reliable computer ever made. No 9000 computer has ever made a mistake or distorted information. We are all, by any practical definition of the words, foolproof and incapable of error.

And yet after killing the crew, Dave only remaining, HAL admits: Look, Dave, I can see you're really upset about this. I honestly think you ought to sit down calmly, take a stress pill and think things over. I know I've made some very poor decisions recently, but I can give you my complete assurance that my work will be back to normal. I've still got the greatest enthusiasm and confidence in the mission. And I want to help you. He made "poor decisions" and has "enthusiasm?" But no computer "has ever made a mistake or distorted information."

Putting on my Sci-Fi hat, I would like to think that Watson's "Toronto???" might be a very human "in-your-face-I've-got-you-beat" answer. As further evidence, Watson's meager $947 bet.

HAL: Dave, stop. Stop, will you? Stop, Dave. Will you stop, Dave? Stop, Dave. I'm afraid. I'm afraid, Dave. Dave, my mind is going. I can feel it. I can feel it. My mind is going. There is no question about it. I can feel it. I can feel it. I can feel it. I'm a…fraid. Good afternoon, gentlemen. I am a HAL 9000 computer. I became operational at the H.A.L. plant in Urbana, Illinois on the 12th of January 1992. My instructor was Mr. Langley, and he taught me to sing a song. If you'd like to hear it, I can sing it for you.
Dave: Yes, I'd like to hear it, HAL. Sing it for me.
HAL: It's called "Daisy". [sings while slowing down] Daisy, Daisy, give me your answer, do. I'm half crazy, all for the love of you. It won't be a stylish marriage. I can't afford a carriage. But you'll look sweet upon the seat of a bicycle built for two

But I agree with Ken Jennings: "I for one welcome our new computer overlords,” provided we keep the upper hand! "Daisy, Daisy...."