I'm currently reading an e-book titled "Einstein Defiant" by Edmund Blair Bolles, i was able to download the e-book from the national academies press website http://www.nap.edu. Although lately, it's been almost impossible to connect to the site.
Anyway, the book is about Einstein's life and work after the first world war, specifically it discusses the development of Einstein's work on quantum physics. I have not finished the book yet, but this has been the central focus of the chapter I have read so far.
So, I was reading the book when I came across this passage
"In Japan, Einstein enjoyed a triumphal tour that outdid even his huge successes in America and England. He conversed with Japan’s empress in French and was cheered by sold-out audiences who listened to him give scientific talks in German. His image filled newspapers. He played the violin, gazed on Mount Fuji, and attended kabuki theater.
There were also women. Folk wisdom reports: Your husband runs around with many other women? That’s not good. Your husband runs around with one other woman? That’s bad. Elsa had known from the start that her marriage to her cousin would not be so good. Her philandering husband would leave her at home to go off to an evening with somebody younger, prettier, and after he became world famous, what had been easy became even easier. The word groupie had yet to be coined, but young women who wanted to have sex with famous strangers were already common. Einstein was not as popular that way as, say, Babe Ruth, but neither was he ignored."
I have never thought about Einstein this way, as a man, who indulges his whims and passions. I know that I should have, all men are men, and the more things change, the more they stay the same. But it's hard to think of our heroes as less than heroes, maybe this passage can remind us that even the greatest heroes are also men with human weaknesses and that the weakest human can maybe become a hero
Wednesday, January 19, 2005
Monday, January 17, 2005
Guardian Unlimited | The Guardian | By Jupiter, the astrologers missed a trick
Guardian Unlimited | The Guardian | By Jupiter, the astrologers missed a trick
Why, many formerly trusting followers of horoscopes may be asking, was this colossal event ( the Asian Tsunami) not presaged in the stars? Or, failing that, in someone's palm, crystal ball, tea leaves or chicken's entrails? How, in the circumstances, are they to carry on believing? If an event such as this can go unpredicted by leading, professional astrologers, could it mean the whole edifice of astrology is an abject superstition? That the constellations are not, as previously advertised, heavenly guides to life on Earth, but as indifferent, and as meaningless as "a patch of curiously shaped damp on the bathroom ceiling" (as Richard Dawkins once, unforgettably put it) ...
Wednesday, January 12, 2005
The Manila Times Internet Edition | BUSINESS > Not in the labor force!
The Manila Times Internet Edition | BUSINESS > Not in the labor force!
I don't know if the Manila Times have an online achive, but I think this article deserves to be archived for reference
LABOREM EXERCENS
By Rene E. Ofreneo
Not in the labor force!
If you are 25 years old, an AB philosophy graduate and has given up on the challenge of looking for a job because you could not find any in the last three years, what will you tell a job surveyor from the National Statistics Office who is asking if you are employed or unemployed?
Most likely, you will answer: pagod na ako, hindi na ako naghahanap ng trabaho. And most likely too, the NSO enumerator will not include you in the ranks of the employed or in the “unemployed” category. You will be lumped in the large statistical concept called “not in the labor force”—those of working age (15 years old and above), not working and not looking for any work.
In the October 2004 NSO survey, as many as 18 million, or one-third of the 54 million total working-age population, were classified as not in the labor force (NILF).
The NILF Filipinos have no luxury of looking for any work because they are supposed to be doing full-time housekeeping, schooling or recuperating from infirmity or disability.
But is housekeeping really a full-time preoccupation these days? Maybe for a few thousand elite housewives. Working to make both ends meet is a universal necessity for both husbands and wives.
As to schooling, how many students of working age can devote full-time attention to schooling without thinking of work? At the most, they cannot be more than three million at any given time, for most of the student-enrollees in the Philippines are elementary and secondary pupils, below 15 years old.
As to the disabled and sickly, we do not have any clear statistical indicators. However, they cannot be more than the full-time students of working age.
The point is that the NILF hides many underutilized human resources and reduces the unemployment/underemployment figures.
In the October 2004 survey, the unemployed was estimated to be 3.9 million, or 10.9 percent of the labor force, and the underemployed (the employed seeking additional work), 5.4 million, or 16.9 percent of the 35.6-million-strong labor force. The joke among the labor economists is that if the government wants to reduce the unemployment figure, all it has to do is put some of the unemployed into the category not in the labor force.
Which is what some are probably trying to do by introducing the so-called “ILO Concept.” According to the NSO, the ILO Concept defines the unemployed as without work, seeking work and available for work. In contrast, the traditional NSO Concept defines the unemployed as without work and seeking work, with the latter criterion relaxed a bit to include those “not looking for work because of the belief that no work was available, or because of temporary illness/disability, bad weather, pending job application or waiting for job interview.”
By adopting the “stricter” ILO Concept, the unemployment situation changes dramatically. Instead of 3.8 million unemployed, the country only had 2.4 million as of October 2004. Through a change in unemployment concepts, 1.4 million unemployed Filipinos disappeared from the statistics, swallowed by the NILF category which expanded by the same number, thus rising from 18 to 19.4 million! Instead of a double-digit unemployment figure, we now have only 7.1-percent unemployment rate—the lowest since the martial law days!
But who are we kidding by fudging the unemployment and underemployment statistics? How can we have a more realistic assessment of unemployment/underemployment and a more scientific education-manpower development planning if we try to “prettify” the employment outlook?
I don't know if the Manila Times have an online achive, but I think this article deserves to be archived for reference
LABOREM EXERCENS
By Rene E. Ofreneo
Not in the labor force!
If you are 25 years old, an AB philosophy graduate and has given up on the challenge of looking for a job because you could not find any in the last three years, what will you tell a job surveyor from the National Statistics Office who is asking if you are employed or unemployed?
Most likely, you will answer: pagod na ako, hindi na ako naghahanap ng trabaho. And most likely too, the NSO enumerator will not include you in the ranks of the employed or in the “unemployed” category. You will be lumped in the large statistical concept called “not in the labor force”—those of working age (15 years old and above), not working and not looking for any work.
In the October 2004 NSO survey, as many as 18 million, or one-third of the 54 million total working-age population, were classified as not in the labor force (NILF).
The NILF Filipinos have no luxury of looking for any work because they are supposed to be doing full-time housekeeping, schooling or recuperating from infirmity or disability.
But is housekeeping really a full-time preoccupation these days? Maybe for a few thousand elite housewives. Working to make both ends meet is a universal necessity for both husbands and wives.
As to schooling, how many students of working age can devote full-time attention to schooling without thinking of work? At the most, they cannot be more than three million at any given time, for most of the student-enrollees in the Philippines are elementary and secondary pupils, below 15 years old.
As to the disabled and sickly, we do not have any clear statistical indicators. However, they cannot be more than the full-time students of working age.
The point is that the NILF hides many underutilized human resources and reduces the unemployment/underemployment figures.
In the October 2004 survey, the unemployed was estimated to be 3.9 million, or 10.9 percent of the labor force, and the underemployed (the employed seeking additional work), 5.4 million, or 16.9 percent of the 35.6-million-strong labor force. The joke among the labor economists is that if the government wants to reduce the unemployment figure, all it has to do is put some of the unemployed into the category not in the labor force.
Which is what some are probably trying to do by introducing the so-called “ILO Concept.” According to the NSO, the ILO Concept defines the unemployed as without work, seeking work and available for work. In contrast, the traditional NSO Concept defines the unemployed as without work and seeking work, with the latter criterion relaxed a bit to include those “not looking for work because of the belief that no work was available, or because of temporary illness/disability, bad weather, pending job application or waiting for job interview.”
By adopting the “stricter” ILO Concept, the unemployment situation changes dramatically. Instead of 3.8 million unemployed, the country only had 2.4 million as of October 2004. Through a change in unemployment concepts, 1.4 million unemployed Filipinos disappeared from the statistics, swallowed by the NILF category which expanded by the same number, thus rising from 18 to 19.4 million! Instead of a double-digit unemployment figure, we now have only 7.1-percent unemployment rate—the lowest since the martial law days!
But who are we kidding by fudging the unemployment and underemployment statistics? How can we have a more realistic assessment of unemployment/underemployment and a more scientific education-manpower development planning if we try to “prettify” the employment outlook?
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)