Weather, whether

I underestimated how cool it would be here.

Or maybe we can just chalk this up to (chuckle, chuckle) "global warming"...!

I was told last night that this is about as cold is it ever gets here.  Great.  I didn't bring a jacket (not counting sportcoats) or any sweaters with me, as I thought the weather in the winter was mostly in the 60s and 70s, warming up the longer I would be here.  The Tropic of Cancer runs right through Taiwan, a few miles north of Tainan, in fact, so technically we are "subtropical" here, and I didn't expect to have to brace a cold breeze on my morning walks to Starbucks.  So I've been putting on three or four layers of short and long-sleeve shirts in the morning to stay warm, while everyone else here is walking or riding around bundled up in winter coats and scarves.  Of course, while the northeast US is getting hammered by another big, cold snowstorm, I should point out that the low temps here are dipping all the way down to 11 degrees Celsius, a  brutal 52 F!

I had dinner with Yungnane after he arrived back from Hong Kong on Friday, and learned a little more about one of the projects he wants me to be involved in while I'm here.  Yungnane and another professor who is Chair of the Department of Chemical Engineering at NCKU (who has apparently helped develop a process for creating rain!) are leading a project that is focused on changing the governance structure of the university.  A number of years ago there was an unsuccessful attempt to "corporatize" the National universities here, in an effort to give them greater autonomy from some of the fiscal and/or budgetary constraints that come with being government entities (and thus all employees being civil servants).  So now the folks at NCKU are trying a different tack -- they are proposing to create a new "board" for the university to which the university administrators will be accountable, rather than being accountable directly to the Ministry of Education as is the case currently.  The university vice-president I met with on Tuesday, who was Vice-Chancellor of the University of Texas-Dallas prior to coming to NCKU, is in favor of the plan, and may be the one spear-heading this effort, although I'm not entirely sure about that.  In any case, Yungnane and Prof. Chin Cheng Chen have apparently been tasked with trying to get this idea implemented.

The problem, as is always the case with organizational change, is that there is some resistance to the idea, in particular by some of the NCKU faculty.  So apparently Yungnane has told VP Feng and Prof. Chen that I am an OD expert, someone with expertise in organizational change, and that it would be good for me to get involved in this project.  So my growing suspicion is that I am supposed to help them figure out how to get past the opposition they are encountering from some of their colleagues.  The situation is complexified (not really sure that's a word, but it should be) by the fact that a new university president is about to come on board, which likely will mean other transitions in positions of power, and attendant uncertainty regarding how much support there will be among the new administration for the idea of creating a university board.  In any case, the project is inevitably a very political one, and reasonably high profile in the sense that NCKU, if the change is implemented, becomes something of a test case for a change that might then be implemented throughout the entire National university system.

My time over the last few days has been spent catching up on a "to do" list of things I didn't get done before I left, getting going on a couple new projects of my own I'd like to make progress on while I'm here, watching a little of the Australian Open (congrats to Na Li, or Li Na as I presume she calls herself, for being the first person from China to make it to a Grand Slam final!), and of course keeping up on global news.  In the latter case, the most exciting of course is the explosion of "people power" in Tunisia and Egypt, spreading already to many other countries where frustrated masses are starting to display their discontent with ruling elites who aggregate great wealth and power while most of the people struggle to survive.  (For those interested, I've provided a link to a good discussion of this situation in the Interesting Stories box.)  Following events in Iceland, Greece, and elsewhere in Europe last year, there is good reason to believe that the people of the world are getting fed up with the banksters and the Zionists (or are these one and the same?) and their puppets in governments around the world.  Some observers are suggesting that the events in North Africa signal the fact that we are reaching a "tipping point" which could readily accelerate and explode into a global revolution through which the masses through off the shackles of the controllers and claim the freedom that is their birthright (http://dailybail.com/home/amazing-video-of-the-revolution-taking-place-in-egypt-plus-l.html).

A compelling question is whether this revolution will eventually spread to the US; if or when the American people will finally get tired and angry enough about being shafted by the corporatocracy that they also take to the streets to demand systemic change.  So far they seem essentially fine with the fact that billions of dollars of "taxpayers' money" is being redistributed directly and explicitly into the hands of the banksters and Zionists (again, is this redundant -- can you say Bernie Madoff-with-the-loot?).  I guess that's because the media talking heads do a great job of convincing them that it's for their own good, you know, the "economic recovery" and all that.  What a joke!  Our insolvent, unconstitutional, house-of-cards, Ponzi-scheme fiat-money system -- overrun with nearly a quadrillion dollars worth (that's $1,000,000,000,000,000)  of fraudulent "financial derivates" that Warren Buffett famously called "financial weapons of mass destruction" -- cannot and will not recover.  It is dying, collapsing, and plenty of people "in the know" seem to think that this is essentially inevitable.  Be assured, "quantitative easing" has nothing to do with helping to ease the economy back to "normal" and everything to do with helping the boys at Goldman Sachs and the US Treasury (oops, no difference there either!) ease their way through the collapse.  As things get worse, which it certainly looks like they will, it will be intriguing to see how the American public responds.  All in all, I'm glad I get to watch it unfold from a distance. 

In any case, today, this American in Taiwan stands in solidarity with my brothers and sisters in Tunisia and Egypt and elsewhere who are risking their lives to step out of the darkness and into the light.

Peace out, y'all.