Jered Stoehr » Current Affairs

American Beef

admin — Fri, 08 Jan 2010 08:12:30 +0000

In the last month there has been daily discussion in Taiwan about the recent decision to import US beef. They already import US beef, but previously Taiwan did not allow “high risk” beef to be imported from the USA. High Risk includes ground beef and beef offal (I have no idea what this means, but it should mean internal organs). There are several potential reasons for Taiwanese people being so upset about it, but the story I get is that those parts of the cow are the most likely to harbor diseases, especially Mad Cow Disease. As an American, I would never even think about Mad Cow as a risk of eating Beef. However, it seems that the rest of Asia (Korea went through this last year) thinks American cows are potentially crazy.

In response to this, Taiwan has gotten organized. All over town, restaurants are posting this picture in their windows:

I have been seeing this picture everywhere! You can see from the symbolism that they’ve said NO to US Beef. The red head on the cow shows that it is in fact MAD, and there’s even a number at the bottom unique to this store. The situation has gotten to the point where Taiwan has asked America to respect its wishes and will stop importing these beef parts. Last week, the Taiwan Legislature revised a law to ban the import of the Beef and now the executive branch is busy explaining why to the US government.

The Air in Taipei

admin — Wed, 27 May 2009 04:28:53 +0000

Speaking of fresh air, Nono and I recently moved from our place in downtown to a nice suburb called TienMu. It’s north of town, borders the mountains and a national park (Yang Ming Shan). The temperature is a bit cooler than in downtown, and the air is better. I took a bus from our new house to downtown recently and was really Shocked at how much of a difference there was in the air.

Last weekend Nono and I had signed up for a 10k run in Taipei. It was put on by Puma and took place on a Saturday night at 6:30pm. I hadn’t thought twice about it, but it ended up being a bad idea. I believe Puma chose an evening run because they wanted to have a post-run party and concert. There were some semi-famous names there for the performances after.

May is really hot and humid. There’s frequent rain and the weather isn’t ideal. So, on race day the weather was typical. 85 and humid. Saturday morning I bought the newspaper and looked at this:

I had to teach a class in the morning, it’s on the 25th floor downtown. Here’s what the air was looking like at 10am. Add a busy day of 500,000 scooters, cars and everything else, the air is only going to get worse too. We decided to skip the run and saw a movie instead

Uncommon common sense

admin — Sun, 22 Feb 2009 13:35:05 +0000

I watched this video today and loved it. It’s from a recent TED conference, and the speaker offers a slightly different understanding of what happened in the American financial institutions. From there, he talks about how we as a nation are dealing with the problems today and what our politicians are doing. In America we call them Regulations and Incentives. In the East, they call it Carrots and Sticks.

Time: 21:00 minutes

Subject: The side effects of only using Regulations and Incentives. How does virtue play a role?

Blows the doors off the concept “Renewable Energy”

admin — Fri, 23 May 2008 12:40:01 +0000

I watched this video the other night and couldn't sleep after I saw it. I don't know the best way to introduce it, but it was a video
that expanded what I thought was possible. To think about what
is going to happen in my lifetime is going to be nothing short of a
dream.

It's so easy as a businessman to get caught up thinking
about the world as being about Google or making cheaper widgets in
China to be sold at Walmart. There is so much more going on in the
world than what you read about in the NY Times.

Time: 32:00 (First 10:00 is everything; rest is Q & A)
Subject: Software that creates life using DNA; which consumes waste and creates usable energy