February 2002
The Pyramid of Speed
(excerpt from Chapter 78)
“Listen here cone-dodger, why don’t you save it and post your racing resume on Hot-Jobs.com? Maybe there’s a Wal-Mart manager somewhere who’ll need you to drive the golf-kart for parking lot security. They can use a guy like you to dodge the cones and shopping carts. In the mean time, I suggest you and Sofranas bring some cones and throw them on the track the night before to confuse the real drivers out there.”
THE DEMON IN THE FREEZER
Most people today have no immunity to smallpox. The vaccine begins to wear off in many people after ten years. Mass vaccination for smallpox came to a worldwide halt around twenty-five years ago. There is now very little smallpox vaccine on hand in the United States or anywhere else in the world. The World Health Organization once had ten million doses of the vaccine in storage in Geneva, Switzerland, but in 1990 an advisory committee recommended that most of it be destroyed, feeling that smallpox was longer a threat. Nine and a half million doses are assumed to have been cooked in an oven, leaving the W.H.O. with a total supply of half a million doses — one dose of smallpox vaccine for every twelve thousand people on earth. A recent survey by the W.H.O. revealed that there is only one factory in the world that has recently made even a small quantity of the vaccine, and there may be no factory capable of making sizable amounts.
Slate: The Rise of the Asian Superjocks
The fastest man in Major League Baseball is Asian. The most eagerly anticipated NBA rookie in years? Asian. The world’s greatest golfer, the quickest pro hockey player, the most precocious relief ace? Asian, Asian, Asian.
[Ichiro] Suzuki and Yao [Ming] are just the start. The world’s greatest golfer, hailed as the most dominant athlete in any sport, is Tiger Woods, who has more Asian ancestry than he does anything else. In women’s golf, Korean Se Ri Pak is ranked No. 2.
Pick a sport: In soccer, South Korea stormed to the World Cup semifinals this year, knocking off the likes of Italy along the way. In hockey, Paul Tetsuhiko Kariya is consistently among the NHL scoring leaders and is widely regarded as the league’s best pure skater. The most celebrated athlete in the Salt Lake Olympics was short-track speed-skater Apolo Ohno. The WBC and WBA boxing titleholders include Osamu Sato, Yodsanan Nanthachai, Masanori Tokuyama. Twenty-three of the last 35 Little League World Series champions have come from Taiwan, Japan, or Korea. Who led the Dallas Cowboys with 172 tackles last year? Linebacker Dat Nguyen, from Vietnam.
Viking kittens, self-explanatory
NY Times: U.S. Says Japan Must Make Bolder Economic Changes
Japan, the world’s second-largest economy, remains bogged down by tepid growth, deflation, a deeply depressed stock market and a bank system burdened by hundreds of billions of dollars in problem loans.
The frustration grew markedly today after Japan’s finance minister, Masajuro Shiokawa, argued with his own ministry about whether Japan might be ready to use public money in cleaning up more than $400 billion in problem bank loans Û a move many experts have long advocated.
Mr. Shiokawa said on Friday that he told Mr. O’Neill it was possible. But the Ministry of Finance issued a correction shortly afterward, denying that the minister had talked about a publicly funded rescue. Then, hours later, Mr. Shiokawa angrily insisted that, yes, he had meant what he said.
Always good when the finance minister and his own department disagree publicly.