cedar sprig's blog

A recent article about successful hagglers in China (groups of shoppers team up and demand discounts) has brought this question to my mind.

Where's classic haggling gone in this country?

References to it show up everywhere. Bargaining for the best price used to be a standard skill, used in everything from buying the days groceries to taking over another country. Maybe haggling is still used in the latter, but it's certainly not in practice at the local supermarket. The pricetag is definite and immutable (until next week's sale). The same goes for department stores, mall kiosks, conventions and sports events.  Read More »

According to an article in the Washington Post, over a third of soldiers returning from Iraq have suffered from "psychic distress". Whether or not this is high depends on your viewpoint. More Iraqi veterans suffer from some psychic trauma than soldiers stationed in Kosovo or Vietnam, but then, there's a lot more trauma going on in Iraq. 19% of returning combatants reported a mental health problem, as opposed to 11% from Afghanistan and 8% from other places.  Read More »

In a previous post, I wrote about the growing prevalence of CDADs (clostridium difficile associated disease) in hospitals. The number of people struck by c. diff, a vicious little bacteria that resides in the GI tract, is growing, but not just through hospitals. The comments I received pointed me toward the antibiotic Clindamycin, although it's not the only culprit.  Read More »

"Civil nuclear technology" is the political currency being traded now between the USA and India, and the politics are as delicate as the technology itself. The US would like to sell nuclear fuel and reactors; India needs some source of power to supplement the coal and expensive oil that it currently uses for energy needs. But there's more than one catch.

India has been passed over before because it didn't sign the 1970 treaty of nuclear non-proliferation, a promise to not make nukes from power plant byproducts. If it gets forgiven for that now, the US loses some authority with Iran and North Korea, two other countries guilty of the same sort of nuclear program. However, India claims it is willing to separate its nuclear weapon program from its nuclear power program. AND, the international community would get to come in, poke around, and keep a close eye on what India is doing with its nuclear power plants. The international community has already shown that it likes to do this sort of thing.  Read More »

Fortunately for us humans, avian influenza is affecting only birds, for the most part. However, the situation is not promising. Here are things as they stand:

After starting in East Asia last year, bird flu has been working its way outward, through China, Russia, and now European countries (especially around the Mediterranean). Africa is also affected, mainly in Nigeria but also in bordering country Niger. Human cases are rare, occurring when a person has a lot of direct contact with sick birds. However...  Read More »

At the moment, discussion in regards to abortion is at an impasse. Some people insist on the rights of women to chose what happens to their own bodies, other people say that life is sacrosanct from conception onward. The debate about sterilization is less heated, perhaps because no one has built vast lobbies on it either way. Generally a man or woman who chooses sterilization is not subject to the same bitter revilement as gets directed at abortion. But sterilizing a repeat rapist, for example, is still a big no-no in this culture, even though it would prevent the situation of abortion from arising in the first place.  Read More »

While all this hullaballoo has been focused on the US, Europe, China, and the middle East, important countries like Canada and Denmark have been completely overlooked. Their political skirmishes, while no less passionate than those we see reported on front pages all over, are passed over as less important. (Or possibly I just missed the momentary frenzy last year.)  Read More »

A nation is reflected in its young people, its students. They are the next generation, they are going to be responsible for upholding whatever ideals the country aspires to. For a country that highly esteems liberty, the students ought to know enough history to appreciate it and have enough skills to do it justice. The world requires more than just basic reading and arithmetic, but also the capacity to survive the tangled snarl we call modern life.   Read More »