[Oe List ...] OpEd Monday, Aug. 12

Sat Aug 10 21:25:45 PDT 2013

Jaime,

You can get all the work we have on the golden pathways on grid and gridding by putting the following into your Google search. <grid site: wedgeblade.net>. Here is one of the sites that gives the 54 areas. <http://wiki.wedgeblade.net/bin/view/Main/PlacesIndex> Now that Hong Kong is part of the China continent rather than Seapac so new work needs to be done. I would guess that Manila becomes an area rather than a region. Would love your take on it.

Good writing!

Jack

On Aug 10, 2013, at 11:08 PM, Jaime R Vergara <svesjaime at aol.com> wrote:

> This is primarily for Jack who led us to the book mentioned in the article.  I am on the tailend of my writing stint with the Saipan Tribune as it has become obvious I will not be returning to the Marianas anytime soon, if ever.  My classes in China begin August 26, which may very well the be last day I submit an article.
> 
> The article is also an example on how the wisdom of the Order has seeped through our being - from the grid to playing with images.  For the curious.  Should any other that has been influenced by my association with this listserv, I will post it, with Tim's permission. 
> 
> Which reminds me, how do I assess a copy of the grid, the 54 areas, and the article on  gridding itself?
> 
> Thanks, Jack.
> 
> Jaime
> 
> 
> 
> Majulah Singapura
>  
> We chanced last Saturday on the National Day Parade of Singapore, a live broadcast from TV’s NewsAsia, and live streamed in the Internet.
>  
> Singapore glowed in white and red - yellow, green, blue, gray, along all the colors of the rainbow, as one group after another, from children to elders, civil and military, paraded and performed for an island massively attired in tropical casuals led by the father-son Lee Kwan Yew-Lee Hsien Loong, leaders since the country’s inception without forced dynastic succession.  Wedged was Goh Chok Tong who followed LKY, was PM for 14 years before LKY’s son, a former General, took over.
>  
> What made us perk up while watching the show is the recent acknowledgement from the book, The Metropolitan Revolution: How Cities and Metros Are Fixing Our Broken Politics and Fragile Economy, that metropolises in the US fuel the nation’s economy and is defining a new local polity.  The account had columnist Tom Friedman write: “… if you want to be an optimist about America today, stand on your head.  The country looks so much better from the bottom up – from its major metropolitan areas – than from the top down … the great laboratories and engines of our economy are now our cities.”
>  
> We promoted a trans-rational geo-social grid of the world since the 70s.  We divided the world around major metropolitan areas: NYC, Chicago, Houston, LA, Vancouver, and Montreal, for North America, one of nine continents we identified from three spheres.  Sphere West was North America, Western Europe, and Eurasia (former USSR). Sphere East was SubAsia, China, and South East Asia-Pacifica (SEAPac).  Sphere South was South America, Southern Africa, and North Africa and the Middle East (NAME).
>  
> NAME and SEAPac are nebulous.  SEAPac to us is a continent of six metropolitan areas: Tokyo, Hong Kong, Singapore, Bangkok, Sydney, and Suva.  After the lead of the earthrise image from the moon, the national boundaries so precious to the post-colonial arrangements faded in the new global configuration.  The metropolises were defining political and economic arrangements.
>  
> Singapore went ahead even in the cultural pole.  This year, its theme of “many stories, one Singapore” recognizes the function of stories and how unity can be attained in the recognition of diversity.  Just start with its three major languages of Chinese, Malay, and Tamil, and its overarching Singalish, and already, the cultural challenge is formidable.  We’ve felt that Singapore was too small a geography, and too specialized in its financial and commercial practices (thought of Singapore as primarily a transit point that encouraged a lot of bookkeeping shenanigans) that we earlier dismissed it as an exception rather than the rule.
>  
> Now comes an account in the aforementioned book of a metropolitan revolution stirring in America.  Not content to wait for Washington to get its act together, the authors relate how pragmatic leaders are taking the helm of governance in cities like NYC finally capitalizing on its diversity; Portland, Oregon, deep in selling “sustainability” solutions to urban problems, and Northeast Ohio where groups use industrial-age skills to invent 21st C materials, tools and processes.  Then there’s Houston helping immigrants ascend the employment ladder, Miami forging ties with southern “neighbor” Brazil and other nations, Denver and Los Angeles building world-class urban centers, and even Boston and now bankrupt Detroit finding innovative ways into the economy of the new century.
>  
> Coming through strongly in their stories are the catalytic and facilitative nature of the network of leadership in the new metropolises.  Sounds like Singapore.
>  
> Obviously, Saipan is no Singapore, though some argue that with a Casino in Saipan, it can.  Sorry, folks.  Zhongguo already has Macau and Hong Kong, and Korea has offerings we cannot even come close to duplicating for well-off Nippon and nouveau riche Renmin.  Tinian Casino has yet to make a dime.  Nope.  Pentagon looms too large in the shadows and we do not have the political muscle of a Guam to assert ourselves beyond being a strategic military location.  At best, we can stick a handout further for more food stamps, or, surreptitiously promote baby tourism since we do not do money laundering well!
>  
> We are not being cynical here, though we are not surprised many of our young are.  We can develop a catalytic and facilitative leadership style, willing to look reality in the eye, forsake the illusory economic boom in the past (we could not even connect water pipes, though we did provide cushy jobs in government and its agencies) forego the delusion of grandeur in the future (we are Pentagon’s strategic military location), and live with what we’ve got: a handful of Chamolinians, lots of Chinese, Filipinos, sprinkling of other Micronesians and Austro-Polynesians, Bangladeshis, Pakistanis, Indians, Caucasians via America, Australia, and Europe, Africans from all over, et al.  Hey, we have enough ingredients to make up an incredible stew.  So, why don’t we?
>  
> That’s what we can learn from Singapura – many stories, even many directions, but one concerted endeavor.  Biba, Marianas?
> 
> Jaime Vergara
> pinoypanda2031 at aol.com
> yesterday, appreciate; tomorrow, anticipate; today. participate. In all, celebrate!
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