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Stalingrad

Over the weekend I tried to explain to my kids why the battle of Stalingrad was a pivotal event in 20th century history. It was not the Superbowl that inspired this unasked for fatherly perspective, but my reading of Anthony Beevor's history of the batttle. On August 22nd, 1943 the 6th Army broke though the Soviet right flank and crossed in one day from the river Don to the river Volga threatening to cut the European part of the country in two. At that time the 6th was the largest concentration of German troops in the USSR.   Five months later it completely surrendered. Of its roughly 260,000 troops only about 5,000 ever returned to Germany.  By winning the battle the Soviet Union gained another 50 year lease on life but the cost of this victory for the Russians was staggering, by one estimate 1.1 million dead. The ruthless methods Soviets used (they were estimated to have shot 13,000 of their own troops during the battle) were another cost.

How is history going to judge the American military adventure in Iraq compared with the battle of Stalingrad? Can we really either win or lose there?

 

Cap Rate

The Capitalization Rate (or Cap Rate) calculation incorporates a property's selling price, gross rents, non-rental income, vacancy amount and operating expenses.  The Cap Rate is calculated as follows:

Cap Rate = (Net Operating Income / Market Value) x 100

Cap Rate = (NOI / MV) x 100

Example:

Net Operating Income (NOI): $239,430

Market Value (MV): $3,420,000

Cap Rate = (239,430 / $3,420,000) x 100

Cap Rate = 7%

The Cap Rate of 7% represents the annual return before mortgage payments and income taxes on the total investment of $3,420,000.

The Net Operating Income is the cash remaining after deducting the Operating Expenses from the Effective Gross Income (EGI). There are several items must be deleted before calculating the Net Operating Income (NOI).

1. Debt Service, i.e., principal and interest payments are ignored because the Net Operating Income reflects the earning capacity of the property exclusive of financing.
   
2. Depreciation allowances or any other purely bookkeeping or Income Tax deductions are ignored.
   
3. Capital Expenditures which provides long term benefits such as replacing appliances, painting of the building etc. are omitted.

The End of Newspapers?

It is fascinating to read newspapers before and after the advent of advent of the Morse code. Before the telegraph newspapers had limited readership, idiosyncratic editorial policies, and incongruous content – much like blogs today. Because of the initial expense of the telegraph, newspapers flourished as way for many people to share the cost of news from far off places. Newspapers served a real purpose. The biggest battle in the War of 1812 was fought months after the Treaty of Ghent was signed but only 40 years later they disseminated news so quickly that the Civil War wound down quickly after the Lee's surrender at Appomattox Court House. Except to wrap fish, that purpose may have been served.

Baseball? Nein danke - ohne mich!

What is it about baseball that brings out the worst aspects of American cultural imperialism?  I find myself being forced to sign a Parent Code of Conduct Form for my kids. Although generally the contract is harmless or even laudable, clause 3 "I will learn the rules of the game" has me steamed. From my earliest childhood I have endeavored mightily not to learn the rules of baseball. Why is obvious. Baseball is boring and understanding the rules would only make it more boring.

Now I understand a lot of people get a lot out of baseball. A lot of people get a lot out of sadomasochism too (yes master, another inning please). That does not mean I care to be punished. From Ken Burns to George Will the culture forces the idea that a slow, dying, pointless activity has some universal meaning. Its as if Sanskrit scholars had to justify their interests to the rest of the world. What is the first thing we do when we invade and occupy a country like Japan? Teach them baseball! Nein danke - ohne mich.

Spammed in Kanji

editor免费计程车
   一位父亲打算带着他的妻子和孩子到城里去。
  他拦下一辆计程车;
  然后问司机：“请问到城里要多少钱？”
  司机说：“你和你太太每人一百元，四个孩子完全免费。”
  “快跳上去，孩子们！”父亲马上对孩子说：“你们免费乘他的车子，我和妈妈会抄近路去的。

If I need a reminder of why I need to study Chinese. This is it. Can anyone tell me what this says?

Its Time for a New Noble Prize

Opening my complementary copy of USA Today this morning I was shocked - shocked to learn that since 1901 while seven hundred and twenty five (725) men had won the Nobel Prize, the same honor had be awarded to only thirty-three women (33) and eighteen organizations (18). Now I can understand the low number of organizations since committees never get a damn thing done in my experience, but the low number of women is harder to fathom. Of course most of the prizes awarded in fields like physics, chemistry, medicine, and economics which emphasize higher math skills rather than color coordination but even so it does not seem right.

What to do to address this gender imbalance in the future you ask gentle reader? One way would be to give women Nobel Prizes that they do not really deserve like awarding Lauren Weisberger the Noble Prize for Literature for The Devil Wore Prada. (see what happened right after they gave Pearl Buck the 1938 Literature Prize for The Good Earth - WWII?). This also smacks to me of tokenism. That is why I am calling on the Swedish Academy to create Nobel Prizes in the areas that women excel like shopping and complaining.

A Nobel Prize for Shopping might be a more workable solution than a Nobel Prize for Complaining, since some men I know are pretty good at complaining, but when it comes to shopping few men hold a candle to the vast majority of women. (Plus imagine the nightmare of the complaining acceptance speech “why is this medal so small”, “couldn’t they give it away in warmer place than Stockholm”, "does this gown make my ass look fat" etc. ?)

So having a Nobel Prize in Shopping would be a long way to addressing the gender imbalance in the number of prizes awarded. From architecture, to media, to credit cards our culture and our economy is increasingly based on shopping. Shopping has turned our airports, office buildings, and stadiums into malls. Since the fall of communism, consumerism is the only ideology holding the world together. Its time the little ladies got some recognition for how they have changed society!

The Weather Underground

Returned from the Enterprise Software Summit to watch a fairly interesting documentary about The Weather Underground. In the late 1960's and throughout the 1970's this radical offshoot of the Students for a Democratic Society attempted to overthrow the United States Government by blowing up bombs.

Although they were taken very seriously at the time, in retrospect their efforts were self defeating. Coming from much the same social class as the Weathermen, I felt as much embarrassed by their self-absorbed, short sighted political vision as by their propensity to blow themselves up with their own bombs.

Calling themselves the Weathermen after the Bob Dylan lyric "You don't need a weather man To know which way the wind blows" the group adopted a Marxist view of class struggle and attempted to align themselves with the groups they assumed would be the eventual winners. Many of the members of The Weather Underground where high profile members of the Students for a Democratic Society one of the largest anti-war movements and the documentary captures some of their television appearances at the time. Needless to say they looked young and callow.

Yet as part of the SDS, the Weathermen had a achieveable political objective in ending the war and  measurable influence over that objective. Once they went underground they exiled themselves from the political dialog of the time and neutralized any real influence they had achieved. Mark Rudd, in my opinion the most charismatic of the Weathermen, summed it up neatly when he said something like "I was sitting on a park bench reading a newspaper when just a year ago I had been leader of the largest student groups in the country." One wonders if that outcome would have been as inevitable in the current age of blogs and instant messenger.

With their new political objective of rearranging society to achieve their version of a utopia the Weathermen did not enjoy broad support for their goals and their political actions did more good for those who opposed their views than those who agreed with them. This is not to say the Weathermen were not bright, innovative, and dedicated as individuals. Coming from much the same background only smarter, they completely understood the mentality of the FBI agents pursing them and despite being so dangerously recognizable were almost all able to avoid capture and conviction.  But being so careful about their contact with one another strained the basic social cohesion of the group and eventually their community dissolved once the Vietnam War was over. Having a lot sex together and doing a lot of drugs probably did not help either. 

If the brief passages the Weather Underground nailed into the pages of the history book where not so filled with the unnecessary suffering they caused both to innocent bystanders and themselves the group's slap in the face by the collective forces of history would be almost comic. In the end, they helped the almost ideologically opposite group achieve their goals in the Regan Revolution.

Kennedy for Treasurer

My old next door neighbor, Cary Kennedy, has made it official and is running for the post of Treasurer here in the State of Colorado. Although we don't agree about anything in politics she has my support because that what our decentrilized political system is ultimately about and because we were good neighbors. Cary is better known as the author of Amendment 23 than for living next door to me. Her web site is located at kennedyfortreasurer.com. Please contribute to her campaign.

Oracle Acquires Siebel

The news that Oracle will acquire Siebel makes me think that if everyone has 15 minutes of fame then I am at 14:50.

The Blogs of New Orleans

If you were lucky enough to have Internet access, you were more likely to find useful information - about, for example, which parts of the city were dry, or where drinking water was available - on blogs than on any government site.

Nicholas Lemann writting in the September 12th issue of The New Yorker.