From: psc@sei.cmu.edu (Peter Capell)
Subject: Oriental Dancing (curt)
Organization: Software Engineering Institute
Date: Tue, 12 Jan 1993 11:10:13 EST



07-Jan-93 18:14	curt@access.digex.com (curt williams)	Re: "Oriental Dancing"

Mr. Lorenzo has already answered you better than I will, but anyway...

>I'm not attacking you, but I don't believe it.  Who selected "our best?"  Who
>selected "their best?"  What was used to test?  Who validated the test?  Who
>validated selection of the participants?  Who selected the people who
>made the selections?  Cite your source for this so called
>test and let's look into the specifics and see if there is any validity to
>your claim. 

Time Magazine reported this about 2 years ago.  It was also reported on CBS
and in our local newspapers.  I can try to dig up the specifics, but it was
public knowledge.  There is no "test" for my claim.  I'm reporting what I
read--and I do believe it.  From my personal experience, I know that students
that we get from places like India and Iran, who have failed out of their
national exams (largely due to the lack of available slots in universities at
home and the extreme competition), typically breeze through the electrical
engineering and comp. sci. curricula here at Carnegie Mellon.   

Anyway, it is common knowledge in educational circles that the US is currently
no leader at all in world math ability.  I don't feel obliged to look up
sources for you benefit because they are so easily available.

>Who should be "beholden" to us?  Let me count the countries.  You can start
>off with all of Europe, China and Southeast Asia whose collective asses were
>saved by Americans in WWII.  Something about the Marshall Plan and rebuilt
>economies.  Have you studied history?  What did Hitler do to Europe?  What
>did Japan do to China and Korea.  What more would they have done had
>American's not stepped in?  What is happening to people in China today?

Indeed.  Here is a source: Prof. Robert Colodny (History prof./veteran of the
Spanish Civil War) has a list of 110 companies in the US who maintained sales
to Nazi Germany throughout WWII.  Call him up.  (412) 624-4141 (U. of Pgh.
information).  To me, WWII was a major war among imperialist nations.  If
Japan and Germany had their butts saved, it was in our interest that we did so
under the Marshall plan.  It was not an act of kindness.  

>Incidentally, I've been all over the rest of the world, and IMHO large
>sections of it are a pile of dung.

I have no doubt of this.  You are attributing the pile of dung to the
residents.  I do not.  The US has intervened in many ways to the detriment of
other nations.  Again I think of Iran.  We overthrew their democratically
elected government (Mossadegh) in 1953, replacing it with our hand-chosen
puppet (the Shah).  This is public knowledge.

In 1973, the US (with help from ITT and CIA) overthrew the democratically
elected government of Salvador Allende in Chile--largely because we feared his
leftist politics.  This is also public knowledge, although if you really want
a source (like providing a source for the shuttle disaster) I have at least a
book at home.  

And it is generally acknowledged among every Indian that I know, that India
became impoverished at the hands of the British.

These tragedies aside, I still believe we haven't owned up to the price we ar
to pay for the total annihilation of the Native Americans.  We systematically
destroyed millions of people.  

Yeah, we hold the gold right now.  This says nothing of the ingenuity of other
cultures.  As far as I am concerned, we live in the lap of luxury largely for
our sapping the rest of the world of its wealth.  One of the reasons the
Brazilians are critical of our pressure for them to stop destroying the rain
forests is because they are clearing the land to raise cattle to feed our meat
craving--not theirs.

>But I'm open to new ideas.  Give me some specific examples of those things
>that the rest of the world has, of which we are bereft.  I'll be happy
>to discuss them.

Mostly we are rapidly becoming bereft of the possibility of R & R in my view.
People are working too hard and not screwing off enough.  I guess the worst in
this category is Japan.  I think of us in the middle.  I have heard that
Germany has the highest productive output from its workers and the longest
vacations on average.  I'd like that--6 weeks they say.

Anyway, I don't believe we have the best kung fu here, that's for sure.