Blog of Q\’s

… In 2001, President Vladimir V. Putin signed into law a bill making it
illegal to employ “electromagnetic, infrasound … radiators” and other
weapons of “psychotronic influence” with intent to cause harm. An
official note attached to the bill said Russian scientists were trying
to create “effective methods of influence of humans at a distance.”

Evidently,  they’ve perfected their close-range methods, and they use them in spite of their illegality.
Remember what President Bush said about his meeting with Putin. “I looked the man in the eye. I found him to be very straight forward and trustworthy … I was able to get a sense of his soul.”

(CSRwire) 01/19/2005 Press release from: Whole Foods Market, Inc.

Whole Foods Market Announces Director of Animal Compassion Foundation
Austin, Texas - Whole Foods Market

(CSRwire.com) 01/25/2005  Press release from: SOHU

SOHU and Miss World Organization Join Hands to Raise AIDS Awareness in China

 BEIJING, CHINA … All contestants who took part in
the recently concluded 54th Miss World Contest have contributed a
favorite personal item that will be auctioned on SOHU’s online store.
… The proceeds will be donated to the [China Center for Disease
Control].

… This announcement contains forward-looking statements. Statements
that are not historical facts, including statements about our beliefs
and expectations, are forward-looking statements. These statements are
based on current plans, estimates and projections, and therefore you
should not place undue reliance on them. Forward-looking statements
involve inherent risks and uncertainties. We caution you that a number
of important factors could cause actual results to differ materially
from those contained in any forward-looking statement. Potential risks
and uncertainties include, but are not limited to, SOHU’s historical
and possible future losses, limited operating history, uncertain
regulatory landscape in the People’s Republic of China, fluctuations in
quarterly operating results, and the company’s reliance on online
advertising sales, e-subscriptions (most of which are collected from a
few mobile telecom operators) and e-commerce for its revenues. Further
information regarding these and other risks is included in SOHU’s
Annual Report on Form 10K for the year ended December 31, 2003, and
other filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

In other words, don’t bid too much for that Teddy Bear.
                                                   

* Corporate Social Responsibility

From the Press Conference at the U.N.

Q: Ms. Veneman, the United Nations in general and UNICEF in particular
have long-standing policies on reproductive health and education for
girls that are at odds, regularly, with the Bush Administration…
Ms. Veneman: I don’t come with any agenda with regard to those or any
other social issues. I come with an agenda of helping children,
particularly in the areas of education and health and to address the
issues of hunger and malnutrition. … I don’t believe that these issues
are relevant to the missions of UNICEF.

This is in sharp contrast to her predecessor, Carol Bellamy. The prestigious British medical journal, The Lancet, culminated its long-standing criticism of her in a December editorial: “Her
distinctive focus has been to advocate for the rights of children. This
rights-based approach to the future of children fits well with the
zeitgeist of international development policy. But a preoccupation with
rights ignores the fact that children will have no opportunity for
development at all unless they survive… Child survival must sit at
the core of UNICEF’s advocacy and country work. Currently, and
shamefully, it does not.”

12/21/2004     by William Baue

(SocialFunds.com)
-

Cornell and University of North Carolina Business Professor Stuart Hart’s Capitalism at the Crossroads perfectly complements University of
Michigan Business Professor C. K. Prahalad’s The Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid, perhaps even surpassing
it in significance. The two professors collaborated from 1998 through 2002 on the seminal article
that gave birth to the “bottom of the pyramid” (BOP) concept that Prof. Prahalad explains so
eloquently in his book (see related book review). The BOP market
theory holds that multinational corporations (MNCs) can simultaneously profit and help
reduce global poverty by serving a market they have largely ignored until recently: the 4 billion
people in the world living on less than $2 a day.

This theory is all the buzz nowadays.

Jan 20th 2005

From The Economist print edition
The movement for corporate social responsibility has won the battle of ideas. That is a pity, argues Clive Crook (interviewed here)

OVER the past ten years or so, corporate social responsibility (CSR) has blossomed as an idea, if not as a coherent practical programme. CSR
commands the attention of executives everywhere—if their public
statements are to be believed—and especially that of the managers of
multinational companies headquartered in Europe or the United States…

On the face
of it, this marks a significant victory in the battle of ideas. The
winners are the charities, non-government organisations and other
elements of what is called civil society that pushed for CSR
in the first place… In fact, their opponents never turned up…

CSR cannot
be a substitute for wise policies … In several
little-noticed respects, it is already a hindrance to them. If left
unchallenged, it could well become more so.

The above excerpts are from the introduction to the Economist’s
(Jan. 22) survey of corporate social responsibility. Although we often disagree
with that libertarian magazine’s placing all its faith in markets, it
does well to slow down the paradoxically politically correct CSR bandwagon that leads corporations to supplant governments.

Two news items from the Eastern Front caught our eye last week.

Wednesday January 12, 9:58 am ET; By Alexa Olesen, Associated Press Writer
U.S. Commerce Secretary Donald Evans Gets Chilly Reception in Beijing
BEIJING (AP) — China’s commerce minister told outgoing Secretary of Commerce Donald Evans on Wednesday …”Judging from the view of friends and judging from the achievements of your work, I should say that 70 percent of what you have done has been pretty good,” … A visibly uncomfortable Evans responded with surprise.”Oh, hey, that’s almost flunking,” he said. “That’s almost failure.” Later, Evans told The Associated Press that [Commerce Minister Bo Xilai] meant the comment as praise…

Secretary Evans might have made a pointed rejoinder instead of a profound kow-tow. He might have even given his host a worse than flunking grade for exploiting workers, persecuting believers, etc. Surely he knows that saving face rates extra-credit points in the Middle Kingdom. But his hesitation is understandable if we consider what our Communist Friends and Strategic Partners were doing across town that day:

BEIJING, Jan. 13 (from the Washington Post) — … Four legislators from [South Korea] who were on a fact-finding mission to China called a news conference Wednesday to urge the Beijing government to show leniency toward refugees from North Korea and to release South Korean activists jailed for helping them. But Chinese security agents cut the lights in the hotel meeting room, then shoved dozens of journalists out of the room. The men struck at least one photographer on the head. … A spokesman for the Chinese Foreign Ministry said …”My feeling is they didn’t come to China to seek friendship or understanding or to expand cooperation. … Their behavior should be more cautious and self-disciplined.”

In his second inaugural speech, President Bush proclaimed, “We will encourage reform in other governments by making clear that success in our relations will require the decent treatment of their own people.” If and when he goes to China again, we hope he gives life to these fine words. And we hope he brings the Marines to his press conference.

Wednesday January 12, 9:58 am ET
By Alexa Olesen, Associated Press Writer

BEIJING (AP) — China’s commerce minister told outgoing Secretary of
Commerce Donald Evans on Wednesday …”Judging from the view of friends
and judging from the achievements of your work, I should say that 70
percent of what you have done has been pretty good,” … A visibly
uncomfortable Evans responded with surprise.”Oh, hey, that’s almost
flunking,” he said. “That’s almost failure.” Later, Evans told The
Associated Press that [Commerce Minister Bo Xilai] meant the comment as
praise…

See our editorial, My Secretary Went to China and the Only Gift He Bought Me Was This Bloody T-Shirt.

Martin Luther King Day is the least
popular federal holiday—only 29 percent of employers give their workers the day
off. … Black comedian Chris Rock says, “You gotta be pretty racist to
not want a day off from work.”

We have the strange feeling down in Montgomery that in our struggle we have cosmic companionship.

… David Chappell reversed the usual approach to the civil rights
movement. Instead of dismissing its religious rhetoric as only that,
and concentrating on its politics, he actually listened to what Martin
Luther King Jr. — the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. — was saying.