Want to know what is going on in the world today ? Here are two facts that will tell you everything that you need to know. 1. Next year China will invest 90 billion dollars in high speed rail transport. 2. Next year the US will invest 9 billion dollars in high speed rail transport. Need I say more ?

I often listen to the online lectures of the University of Berkeley. The other day I was listening to this class about globalization when all of a sudden I could hear the sound of a cell phone ringing. Without missing a beat the prof said " That call better be from god . "

Here in Japan I have had about 4 years experience teaching classes of around 20 people in their late teens or early twenties. They all have at least one cell phone. Miraculously , I have never once heard one of those cell phones ring during one of my classes!

There is a drawback to being well informed and a little old. On each day of the past week I have learned about the deaths of famous people who I have known quite a lot about for quite a long time . Yesterday I learned that the journalist/reactionary William Saffire had died. Today I learned that the photographer Irving Penn had died....... These were names that I grew up with. Ignorance is sometimes bliss.