Tuesday, August 31, 2010

One Stop Shopping {GIVEAWAY}

When it comes to one-stop shopping, there's nowhere that fits the bill like CSN Stores.  You can find anything in this collection of more than 200 specialized shopping sites from table lamps (I've had my eye on this one for weeks now):


To toys (Gabrielle and Alaina would love two of these!):


And everything in between.  Need some cute fall boots?



A housewarming gift?


Or some new curtains to brighten up your space?


CSN Stores has you covered.  With the holidays not-so-far-away (I know, I know, it's not even Labor Day yet, but they'll be here before you know it!), what could be better than doing all of your shopping at once?  I know!  Doing all of your shopping at sites that offer free shipping and hassle free returns on just about everything.  There's no arguing with that.

CSN Stores generously offered me a $60 credit to use myself or offer up as a giveaway to one of my readers and guess what?  Christmas Day is about to come early for one of you!


To enter to win the $60 CSN Stores credit, visit any of their 200+ websites and post a comment here telling me what item or items you'll put the credit toward if you win along with a link to it (this is mandatory).  PLEASE NOTE: The $60 credit CANNOT be put toward shipping costs but it can be applied to a more expensive item if you'd like to pay the difference.  For additional entries:
  • Subscribe to AFOMFT or let us know you are a subscriber
  • "Like" AFOMFT on Facebook -- http://tinyurl.com/AFOMFTFBFAN
  • "Like" CSN Stores on Facebook
  • Ask your friends to "like" AFOMFT on Facebook by sending them this link - http://tinyurl.com/AFOMFTFBFAN - and post a comment here with the names of each one who does.  You'll earn one entry per new friend who "likes" our page and names will be cross-checked.
  • Follow CSN Stores & AFOMFT on Twitter (@csnstores & @AFOMFT or click the birdie icon on the sidebar) and tweet this post by clicking the graphic above or this giveaway:  #Win a $60 credit to one of @csnstores 200+ stores @AFOMFT - http://tinyurl.com/AFOMFT
  • Click here to vote for AFOMFT on Top Baby Blogs and post a comment here that you did - Vote For Us @ topbabyblogs.com Top Baby Blogs.  You can vote once per day per computer so if you vote every day or on different computers, be sure to post one comment for each one.
  • Grab our button and put it on your blog or website and post a link here showing us.
  • Blog or post on Facebook about this giveaway with a link to this post (worth 2 entries so please post two comments) and make sure your comments include a link to your status or blog post.
Please leave a separate comment for each entry (two if you've blogged about the giveaway) and make sure to include a link to your tweet, blog post, etc. All entries must be posted on AFOMFT as a direct comment to this post.  Comments on Facebook will not count as entries.  This giveaway is open to residents of the U.S. and Canada and ends September 14th at 11:59 pm EST. The winner will be selected by random.org and announced on AFOMFT on September 15th. If the winner doesn't contact AFOMFT within 48 hours, a new drawing will be held so be sure to check back to see if you've won!

Images: CSN Stores

Eyewitness Reports Charity Art Auction: Bid on Original Artwork by Three Blue Rose Girls and Other Children's Illustrators

Grace Lin, Anna Alter, and Meghan McCarthy of the Blue Rose Girls all have paintings up for sale this week in the Eyewitness Reports Auction. The profits from this fundraiser go entirely to support 826LA, a fabulous literacy organization. Bid on an original piece of art by a children's illustrator and support a great cause!

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Grace's Painting
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Anna's Painting
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Meghan's Painting
Click here to bid on their paintings and the artwork
of many other talented children's illustrators.

Monday, August 30, 2010

Ten-Hut! {GIVEAWAY}

I get lots and lots of e-mails from people looking for cute clothes for little boys and I have to admit, I usually don't have a good answer.  It isn't due to lack of looking, either - for a while, it seemed like all of my friends were having boys and trying to find outfits that weren't too cutesy but still unique and stylish wasn't an easy task.  And then I found Alpha Industries and boy, oh boy, are their designs fabulous!


Their clothing has distinctive a military feel and for good reason - back in 1959, the Department of Defense recruited the company to revamp the military's outerwear.  You know the flight jacket you think of Tom Cruise wearing in Top Gun?  He might have been sporting something much different if it hadn't been for Alpha Industries!

Alpha recently launched a boy's line, featuring pint-sized versions of their men's apparel.  The Collegiate Collection is Ivy League-inspired and full of rugby stripes and school crests. 


I love the Blaze Jacket all the way on the right of this picture.  It has a removal hoodie vest built in!


Then there's the Wildlife Collection, which is made up of soft plaid flannels and durable outwear, perfect for the little guy who adores the outdoors. 


The last collection is the Classic, which draws from Alpha's signature men's designs.  This is where the military styling is most apparent.


How great is the Classic outerwear?  Some of my favorites include the Maverick (See? Top Gun!), a warm, nylon flight jacket with vintage patches (seen below on the top right); the Weston Jr. (bottom left), a replica of Alpha's larger military-style jacket in authentic army green and the US Navy Pea Coat (middle right) which will keep your little dude warm and looking his finest.


Even the sweaters and shirts in the Classic collection reflect the military in a stylish and practical way.

Alpha Industries has men's and women's lines too, as well as some adorable clothes for girls.  I'm drooling over some outerwear options for Gabrielle and Alaina.  How darling is the 40's style Princess Pea Coat?
And the hot pink patent leather Tori Trench is to die for!
But in my opinion, it's the boy's lines that really stand out from the crowd.  Almost all of the pieces come in sizes from 2T up to 14/16 so there's something for every guy on your list.  And consider this - for more than 50 years, Alpha Industries has been manufacturing outerwear to protect Air Force, Army, Navy and Marine Corps personnel.  If their designs can hold up to the wear and tear of our armed forces, what your kids will put them through will be no problem!


And one lucky AFOMFT reader is going to be able to put Alpha Industries through their paces because the company has generously offered to give away one of their awesome Weston, Jr. jackets!


To enter, tell me your favorite things about having a boy or about the boy you'd give this jacket to if you win (this is mandatory).  For additional entries:
  • Visit Alpha Industries and post a comment here telling me what your favorite product of theirs is.
  • Subscribe to AFOMFT or let us know you are a subscriber
  • "Like" AFOMFT on Facebook -- http://tinyurl.com/AFOMFTFBFAN
  • Ask your friends to "like" AFOMFT on Facebook by sending them this link - http://tinyurl.com/AFOMFTFBFAN - and post a comment here with the names of each one who does.  You'll earn one entry per new friend who "likes" our page and names will be cross-checked. 
  • Follow AFOMFT on Twitter ( @AFOMFT or click the birdie icon on the sidebar) and tweet this post by clicking the graphic above or this giveaway:  #Win an amazing military-inspired jacket for your little guy worth from Alpha Industries at @AFOMFT - http://tinyurl.com/AFOMFT
  • Click here to vote for AFOMFT on Top Baby Blogs and post a comment here that you did - Vote For Us @ topbabyblogs.com Top Baby Blogs.  You can vote once per day per computer so if you vote every day or on different computers, be sure to post one comment for each one.
  • Grab our button and put it on your blog or website and post a link here showing us.
  • Blog or post on Facebook about this giveaway with a link to this post (worth 2 entries so please post two comments) and make sure your comments include a link to your status or blog post.
Please leave a separate comment for each entry (two if you've blogged about the giveaway) and make sure to include a link to your tweet, blog post, etc. All entries must be posted on AFOMFT as a direct comment to this post.  Comments on Facebook will not count as entries.  This giveaway is open to residents of the U.S. and Canada and ends September 6th at 11:59 pm EST. The winner will be selected by random.org and announced on AFOMFT on September 7th. If the winner doesn't contact AFOMFT within 48 hours, a new drawing will be held so be sure to check back to see if you've won!

Images: Alpha Industries

AND THE WINNER IS.... {DISCOUNT}


Congratulations KRISTA!  You've won a $25 credit to Sweet Baby Girl!  You posted that you'd put it toward starting a charm bracelet for your little girl.  I love that idea!


Please e-mail me at afomft@gmail.com by end of day Wednesday, September 1st to claim your prize. If I do not hear from you by then, a new winner will be chosen. 


Even if you didn't win, you can still get a 15% discount on all of your purchases at Sweet Baby Girl!  Just enter AFOMFT15 at checkout and the discount will be applied to your order.  Please note, the discount does not apply to shipping costs.  Happy shopping and and a huge thank you to Sweet Baby Girl for this wonderful giveaway and discount!

Friday, August 27, 2010

Going Back to School...with Poetry 2010

Messing Around on the Monkey Bars and Other School Poems for Two Voices
Written by Betsy Franco
Illustrated by Jessie Hartland
Candlewick, 2009

This collection of nineteen poems touches on many different aspects of a typical school day—including a “wild” bus ride, writing animal reports, library class, recess activities, looking through “weird” stuff in the lost and found, pencil tapping, lunch money, homework, and a new kid at school. The lively rhyming poems, written for two voices, would be perfect to use in a choral reading activity in an elementary classroom. Franco even provides suggestions for “adventurous ways to read the poems” in the back matter of the book.

Here are excerpts from a few poems to give you a taste of this school-themed collection.


From New Kid at School

Where did you come from?

Far away.

Miss your friends?

Every day.

Where do you live?

Maple Street.

What’s your name?

Call me Pete.



From Animal Reports

I might do mine on the great blue whale.
I’m thinking about the valley quail.

Or maybe I’ll try the spitting spider.
There’s always the yellow-bellied glider.

I might look up the lazy sloth.
My mom said, Do the luna moth.”



From Messing Around on the Monkey Bars

Time for recess!
Here we are,

messing around
on the monkey bars!

Hand over hand,
fast or slow,

calling to
our friends below.


Franco uses straightforward language to capture the essence of an elementary school day from the morning bus ride to the final bell in her lighthearted verse. Hartland’s humorous childlike gouache illustrations add to the fun of this collection that is sure to appeal to young children.

Click here to view an inside spread.

Click here to download a teacher’s guide.


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School Poems and Poetry Book Reviews from Wild Rose Reader

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Falling Down the Page: A Book of List Poems compiled by Georgia Heard (April 2010)
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Stampede!: Poems to Celebrate the Wild Side of School by Laura Purdie Salas (September 2009)
Click here to check out Laura Salas’s Stampede! website.
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Click here to look inside Countdown to Summer.
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Swimming Upstream: Middle School Poems by Kristine O’Connell George (August 2007)

Click here to look inside Swimming Upstream.

Click here for the Middle School Companion Guide for Swimming Upstream.

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Poetry Book Review from Blue Rose Girls

POETRY FRIDAY: This Is Just to Say. This post includes a review of Joyce Sidman’s book This is Just to Say: Poems of Apology and Forgiveness (March 2007)

Click here for a reader’s guide for This Is Just to Say.

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At Blue Rose Girls, I have a lovely poem titled FIREFLIES by Marilyn Kallet--as well as lots of pictures of my summer vacation in Maine.


The Poetry Friday Roundup is at Book Aunt.







Thursday, August 26, 2010

Here & There: August 26, 2010

Back to School

From Reading Rockets: Bright Ideas for Back-to-School Night … and Beyond (2010)

From Scholastic: Back-to-School Planning Guide

From Modern Family: Back to School Books

From The PlanetEsme Plan: MESSING AROUND ON THE MONKEY BARS (POETRY) and NEW BACK-TO-SCHOOL BOOKS (September 2009)



Other Issues

From NCTE
NCTE Executive Committee Cancels 2012 Phoenix Convention
The 2012 NCTE Annual Convention will be held in Las Vegas, Nevada, November 14-19

On August 9, 2010, NCTE cancelled its Annual Convention that had been scheduled to be held November 14-19, 2012, in Phoenix, Arizona. The NCTE Executive Committee determined that Arizona law S.B. 1070 made it inadvisable to hold the meeting. Through the law, conditions have been created which would undercut NCTE’s core value commitment to diversity and
present a risk for many members who might be detained for an immigration check should they be stopped by police, with or without a warrant, during their stay in the city.



From Publishers Weekly
By John A. Sellers (8/18/2010)
Authors Withdraw from Teen Lit Festival

Excerpt:
Blogs, Twitter, and Facebook have been abuzz in the last 24 hours with news that four YA authors have pulled out of the annual Teen Lit Fest in Humble, Tex., a Houston suburb. The authors withdrew in support of writer Ellen Hopkins, who announced in a blog post last week that she had been disinvited from the festival, which is organized by the Humble Independent School District, and is scheduled for January 2011. In the post, entitled “Censorship Bites,” Hopkins announced that her invitation had been revoked after a middle-school librarian and parents approached a superintendent and the school board about her participation. Hopkins’s novels in verse deal with gritty subject matter: her Crank series, which concludes next month with Fallout, centers on meth addiction, while her 2009 novel, Tricks, was about teen prostitution. “We all feel badly that we’re making this stand,” Hopkins told School Library Journal. “We don’t want our readers to feel like we’re punishing them. But this is about having the right to read our books, and these people don’t have the right to say you can’t.”

Who killed Mr. Masa Tse (update!)

The unbelievable incompetency of the Filipino police and government has, naturally, led to many conspiracy theories. I have been in the view that the negotiation (or non-negotiation) of the authority is more to blame than the police/SWAT team -- because according to the survivors (e.g. Mr Chan -- who was smart enough to stock his backpack with bottled water and shield his head with the backpack and his both hands), Mendoza fired at them shortly after Mr. Masa Tse was shot. i.e. that would make the timing well before the hammering fiasco. (yes, they were incompetent, the lost an hour which could have saved a few of the wounded. but it was the failed negotiation that triggered the shooting)

However, evidence has surfaced (shown in TVB tonight as well) that there was a suspicious bullet hole in the front of the bus, quite likely from the outside, exactly at the time when Mr Tse fell. (which was before the bus moved and got shot at the tires)


from this cnn video (titled "manila hostage crisis mishandled?), one of the victim was shot from his left ear.



I do not know who this victim (shot at his left ear) is. But it won't be difficult to find out.
  1. Mr. Tse was facing the door at the time
  2. If Mendoza shot him, he would be shot from behind
  3. If the SWAT team shot him, there would be a bullet hole on his left face, quite likely his left ear but can be other area on the left side of his face or neck. And the bullet track would be going in from lower left to upper right.
Now his body is in HK. An autopsy will tell us whether 2 or 3 is the case. An it would be easy to find out who shot him. Follow the red line on the figure, the shooter is not too far from the bus in the front.

If Mr. Tse was shot by the SWAT team. There may indeed be a conspiracy -- and an explanation to why they went in length to smash the harmless window panes. And if a SWAT member was the first to shoot a hostage -- what triggered Mendoza's outrage may not be his brother being handcuffed, but maybe he felt that he would be blamed for killing Mr Tse anyway -- and will be shot at the spot.

Survivor Chen was unable to see Tse at from his seat. So Chen may not know what happened in the front. But the driver was in a position where he could witness it. Has he seen it? Does he have a side (or made to choose side) in this conspiracy?

Update: (ATV & TVB News) The Philippines authorities released the autopsy report, showing Tse shot by a bullet on the neck, with ATV's graphic illustration initially showed the bullet from right in, left out -- seems to refute the conspiracy theory (and perhaps consistent with the speculation that the same bullet went through and hit the front window pane. However, it was not clear if the the 'direction' of the bullet was unambiguously concluded. This is reinforced TVB news illustration which only mentioned that the bullet went through Tse's neck. i.e. omitting the direction of the bullet, while stating/drawing with no ambiguity the directions of the bullets for other victims.

Update 2: According to Ming Pao (Aug 28, quoting GMA TV in Philippines), Tse was shot form left side, supporting the conspiracy theory.
  • 8名死者中,機智致電回港通報的領隊謝廷駿是頭部中槍死亡,子彈由左至右射入其頸部對上位置
update 3: Singtao (AUG 29) spelled out the issue as well
  • 菲律賓驗屍報告顯示,謝廷駿是左臉頰中槍,惟港方卻發現他是頸項中槍。據調查透露,謝是被槍手射殺,當時謝站在車頭面向車門(左臉頰向車頭玻璃方向,所站處地方狹窄),其身體右邊則暴露在槍手,推測槍手從謝的右邊開出致命一槍,但卻是左臉中槍,存在疑點。

    Tuesday, August 24, 2010

    President Benigno Aquino III, "Even in Russia..." ???

    "....But, as you know, even in Russia—they have resources and sophistication—when they had that theater hostage taking situation, the casualties were even more severe.” President Benigno Aquino III said in an interview, seemingly smiling with certain degree of satisfaction for his team's achievement. Or maybe I am wrong, his face always looks like that -- I should apologize if I am mistaken, but that is what my mother said, she had been silent until she saw the smiley from him.

    So i looked up what happened in Russia, in Beslan, and in Dubrovka Theater Moscow.

    Beslan, from wiki
    • hostage = 1200 hostages
    • terrorists = 32
    • total death of hostages =334 (if include special force and "others" 354) , total injured hostages = 783 (including special force)
    • death <30% of total hostages
     Dubrovka Theater Moscow, from wiki
    • hostage = 850-900 hostages
    • terrorists = 33(+)
    • total death of hostages =129-204, total injured hostages = 783 (including special force)
    • death <25% total hostages
    Manila
    • death = 8/15 = 54%
    • hostage taker 1
    "the casualties were more severe?" Are you serious Mr. the Third? you mean 25%-30% is more severe than 50+%?

    The specific demand of the hostage taker is not entirely clear yet. it is reported he wanted his job back and his name cleared. Among the requests whick were bluntly denied include just an meeting with the media (MEDIA NOW in his note on window) and perhaps have an open hearing to his case, which could be granted to anyone in principle. The answer from the Philippines government could simply be "yes, we would open the case and let the media to judge, but you would also need to face the consequence of what you did today" which is reasonable enough.

    This is fundamentally different from what the terrorists wanted in Russia's cases. So the cases are really not comparable, but I would give you the comparison just for your smiley face sake.

    Anyway, I, for one, will never visit this country again, for business or leisure, until this government can demonstrate that it is willing to respect lives of visitors, or any person in general. If I have to, I would rather go to Russia instead, or Israel / Palestine. Yes, I know these are terrible places with high risks. But I also know if anything happens there, my survival rate will be higher, significantly higher, at least higher than the miserable 46% you provide. As a matter of fact, I would rather play Russian rollette than being taken hostage in your country. Playing Russian roulette my survival rate will be exactly 50%. BTW, I would like to play that game with you, my friend.

    And more importantly, they care more about that than you do. And I won't be "smiled" at even if I am expended in the rescue action. So, thank you for reminding me of that comparison, President Aquino III, for I wouldn't have known the difference in survival rate if not for you. I might have to face a tough choice of picking between Russia and Philippines in future, who knows? But at least I have done my homework and I would have no regret -- because this is a totally rational choice, backed up by numbers.


    ===

    Aquino explains his stand on Monday's hostage crisis

    By GENALYN KABILING
    August 24, 2010, 10:51am
    Where was President Benigno Aquino III during the 12-hour hostage crisis in Manila last Monday?

    The President explained that he was monitoring the hostage drama from the Palace but left the matter to concerned police authorities for them to effectively handle.

    Appearing in a press conference aired early Tuesday in Malacañang after the hostage drama ended with the death of the hostage-taker and eight hostages, the President also claimed that it would not do good if he interfered with the work of the ground commander to secure the captives.

    Aquino was nowhere in sight as the hostage drama involving a former policeman and a busload of Hong Kong tourists unfolded Monday.

    He only appeared in public three hours after the crisis was over, apologizing to the Hong Kong government for the casualties and expressing condolences to the families of the victims. Afterwards, he went to the Quirino Grandstand, the scene of the incident, early Tuesday morning and inspected the bus hijacked by former police officer Rolando Mendoza.

    “Nalaman ko po itong insidenteng ito kaninang umaga pa po actually, at mula nung umaga, tayo ay kumakausap na sa ilan sa mga kinauukulang awtoridad. Hindi ko naman po siguro kakailanganin pang i-publicize ‘yong mga ginagawa po natin. (I learned about the incident early Monday morning. Since then, we were already talking to some concerned authorities. I don’t have to publicize my every move),” he said.

    “Consciously, from the morning since we were informed of this incident, we were asking to be kept apprised of the developments, but consciously, it had to lay the delegated authority to the rightful persons who are tasked to carry out the functions and secure the situation,” he added, in his apparent first security crisis since assuming the presidency last June.

    Aquino, in explaining his low-profile role in the hostage drama, also said the ground commander should be given confidence since “he is the person who is there on the sight who will have to make these tough decisions if necessary."

    “It does not help him to have somebody looking over his shoulder and micro-managing everything that he has to do,” he said.

    The President added that he was busy prohibiting some people from derailing the resolution of the hostage crisis.

    “Isa sa mga pinaka-mahirap na parte ‘nung araw natin ay ‘yong mga pag-aawat nitong mga nag-mi-miron (One of the difficult parts of my day was the stopping of those nosy observers),” he said.

    Citing an example, the President said he asked Interior and Local Government Secretary Jesse Robredo to restrain an official from the National Police Commission from further meddling in the hostage incident. Without identifying the person, he said this police official immediately rejected the demands of the hostage-taker despite ongoing efforts to secure the safe release of the hostages.

    “Kumbaga sinira agad ang (As if he ruined) avenues for negotiation so I [had] to task Jesse Robredo to call up this particular NAPOLCOM official to tell him to keep quiet because he was, for whatever reason, greatly complicating the tense situation already,” he said.

    The President, meantime, ordered concerned government agencies to investigate the hostage crisis at the Quirino Grandstand, saying the problem should have been handled more efficiently.

    He said his administration would also find ways to improve the capability of security forces in dealing with hostage situations.

    “This resulted in a tragedy. Obviously, we can improve and we should be improving. We are also cognizant of the circumstances, training, budgets for instances for incidents such as this,” he said.

    He said the provision of new and better equipment and more training of security forces would ensure the safety of the public during crisis situations. He said the method employed by the armed members of Special Weapons and Tactics (SWAT) team for a possible assault on the bus was unsuccessful. “Obviously we will need better equipment and more training to be able to successfully breach such scenario,” he said.

    Asked if he thought there were lapses in the way the crisis was handled, he said: “How can I be satisfied if there are people who died? But, as you know, even in Russia—they have resources and sophistication—when they had that theater hostage taking situation, the casualties were even more severe.”

    On questions why the government waited for so long to employ force to end the hostage drama, he said they cannot use the “final option as the first option” due to concerns it might put the hostages at unnecessary risks.

    He said they initially hoped there would be amicable and peaceful solution to the hostage crisis given the hostage-taker’s release of some hostages early Monday. Unfortunately, he said the situation deteriorated rapidly when the hostage-taker started shooting at negotiators, prompting authorities to storm the bus and rescue the hostages.

    Saturday, August 21, 2010

    Shame on the Economist

    The Economist is usually good, often very good. In fact, it is one of the best, if not the best, magazine that I read. It is for this reason that I would hold a higher, and a much higher standard for the Economist. So it is devastating to see the standard of the Economist fall to that of political propaganda in line with the Pentagon/CIA white papers, or that of a loaded Apple Daily editorial. In fact, reading the recent report below, I fear it is aiming towards that of the People's Daily.

    I am not going to rip the Economist report apart. I will just quote this paragraph (and the words in bold)
    • In a weeklong assault the Chinese seized much of Arunachal, as well as a slab of Kashmir in the western Himalayas, and killed 3,000 Indian officers and men. Outside Tawang’s district headquarters a roadside memorial, built in the local Buddhist style, commemorates these dead. At a famous battle site, below the 14,000-foot pass that leads into Tawang, army convoys go slow, and salute their ghosts.
    • In wayside villages of solid white houses fluttering with coloured prayer-flags, China’s two-week occupation of Tawang is also remembered. Local peasants, aged 60 and more but with youthful Tibetan features, light-brown and creased by the wind, recall playing Sho (Tibetan Mahjong) with the invaders. Many say they remember them fondly: the Chinese, they note, helped get in the wheat harvest that year. “They were little men, but they were always ready to help. We had no problem with them,” says Mem Nansey, an aged potato farmer. The Chinese withdrew to Tibet, their superiority established but their supply lines overstretched, barely a fortnight after they had come. “We weren’t sorry to see the back of them, either,” says Mr Nansey, concerned, it seems, that no one should doubt his loyalty to Delhi, 1,500km (930 miles) to the west.
      His ambivalence is widely shared. China and India, repositories of 40% of the world’s people, are often unsure what to make of each other. Since re-establishing diplomatic ties in 1976, after a post-war pause, they and their relationship have in many ways been transformed. The 1962 war was an act of Chinese aggression most obviously springing from China’s desire for western Aksai Chin, a lofty plain linking Xinjiang to Tibet. But its deeper causes included a famine in China and economic malaise in both countries. China and India are now the world’s fastest-growing big economies, however, and in a year or two, when India overtakes Japan on a purchasing-power-parity basis, they will be the world’s second- and third-biggest. And as they grow, Asia’s giants have come closer.
    Perhaps the Economist can no longer afford to hire Oxbridge graduate as their writers, but wouldn't anyone, any journalist, at least do some research before writing something on a single (and very likely to be biased) source?

    "killing 3000 officers and men"? soldiers or just men? can you at least make it clarify that?

    "an act of Chinese aggression"? have you at least check wiki or its source? or the recently declassified CIA report?
    • The facts related to the cause of 1962 Sino-Indian war has been well documented by British journalist/scholar Neville Maxwell, American Navy researcher James Calvin and many others, and even in the wiki edit war the facts has been more or less clarified. In short, Nehru wanted to push and test the Chinese limit to defend its border claim with his "Forward Policy", i.e., push forward beyond China's existing border posts by "cutting their supply line and force China to retreat".
    • Who started the act of aggression? From the CIA report: 
    • "Attempting to impede further criticism of his "soft" policy, Nehru spoke in tones of striking belligerency, The military situation on the border, he began, had changed progressively in India's favor because of recently strengthened defenses. He then promised :
       We w i l l continue t o build these things up so that ultimately we may be in a position
      t o take effective action to recover such t e r r i t o r y as is in their possession.
      This was the most explicit public statement that - Nehru had made regarding an intention t o take military action to regain land held by Chinese forces.
      The Chinese for good reason l a t e r cited it to demonstrate Indian responsibility for border clashes.
      Nehru went on t o give an account of India's hard moves, Although the Chinese had established three posts in Ladakh, he said, India had set up six, including one a t Daulat Beg O l d i near the garakoram Pass, He also cited a steady buildup of Indian forces and noted that 500 t o 1,000 men were required to 'provide l o g i s t i c support for one 50-man post
      Compelled in t h i s way t o demonstrate Indian m i l i tary aggressiveness, Nehru a t times spoke about outposts in d e t a i l , exposing his and his aides' confusion about certain crucial facts; Regarding the time three "new" posts were established, Nehru stated in Parliament
      on 20 November that it had been '*in. recent weeks" and, on 28 November, that it had been "during the 2ast two years" or, on second consideration, "during last summer" Regarding location, he stated on the 28th that rttwo..,are practically on the international frontier between Tibet and Ladakh" but, on second consideration, "we are not quite certain whether they are a  m i l e or    t w o on t h i s s i d e or on that side,?-
      When a member of Parliament claimed that "then, they - m u s t be on t h i s (lndia's) s i d e ; if there is any doubt, they are obviously on this side," Nehru agreed:
      -
      Let us presume that. We have presumed that. But I am merely saying that they are near the international frontier. Nehru's ambiguity and uncertainty suggests t h a t the Indian charge that the three Chinese posts were "new" may not have been accurate,+*
    "springing from Chinese desire to for Western Aksai Chin"? or India's desire for Aksai Chin?
    • China not only controlled Aksai Chin well before the war started. It has already built a road passing through it. Given that India didn't even knew about the road before it was completed (the area was more or less deserted no man's land), it is perhaps more appropriate to say it is caused by "India's desire"
    • From the CIA report (declassified in 2007), "The Chinese apparently were motivated to attack by one primary consideration--their determination to r e t a i n he ground on which PLA forces stood in 1962 and to punish the Indians for trying t o t a k e that ground. In general
      terms, they tried to show the Indians once and for a l l that China would not acquiesce in a military "reoccupation" policy. The secondary reasons for the attack, which had made it desirable but not necessary, included a desire (1) to damage Nehru's prestige by exposing Indian weakness and
      (2) to expose as traitorous Khrushchev's policy of supporting Nehru against a Communigt country. They attained almost unqualified success with the 9 irst objective, but attained the second only w i t h respect to parties already in t h e i r camp."
    "deeper causes included a famine in China"? If anything, the 1959-1961 famine (which is theactual almost over by 1962), together with gun war over Kinmen in Taiwan Strait, would only decrease the likelihood or willingness of China going to war. All these attention diversiin on are fabricated later by India for propaganda purpose, at the time the Communist government in China were firmly in charge and had no need for attention diversion. The story they told their people is that the Soviet Union for China to repay the debt for the Korean War and Aid in building factories in early 1950s -- which are lies but taken without question by its people.

    I will stop here. If you are interested in what happened in 1962, read the links under wiki, or just the CIA report linked above. For why the negotiation in the 1990s stalled, read this interview conducted by the Indian reporter, and its other report. Putting the Indian report and the Economist side by side, ICBE! I Can't Believe its the Economist!

    ====
    Below is the Economist report. The graphics are quite nice (unlike the extremely sloppy maps in the 2010 pentagon report, which for example, purposefully leaves out the larger chunk of the area in dispute), and the interviews with the Tawan residents are interesting and insightful.

    ---

    India and China - A Himalayan rivalry

    Asia’s two giants are still unsure what to make of each other. But as they grow, they are coming closer—for good and bad

    Aug 19th 2010 Beijing, Delhi and Tawang


    MEMORIES of a war between India and China are still vivid in the Tawang valley, a lovely, cloud-blown place high on the south-eastern flank of the Himalayas. They are nurtured first by the Indian army, humiliated in 1962 when the People’s Liberation Army swept into Tawang from next-door Tibet. India now has three army corps—about 100,000 troops—in its far north-eastern state of Arunachal Pradesh, which includes Tawang.
    With another corps in reserve, and a few Sukhoi fighter planes deployed last year to neighbouring Assam, they are a meaty border force, unlike their hapless predecessors. In 1962 many Indian troops were sent shivering to the front in light cotton uniforms issued for Punjab’s fiery plains. In a weeklong assault the Chinese seized much of Arunachal, as well as a slab of Kashmir in the western Himalayas, and killed 3,000 Indian officers and men. Outside Tawang’s district headquarters a roadside memorial, built in the local Buddhist style, commemorates these dead. At a famous battle site, below the 14,000-foot pass that leads into Tawang, army convoys go slow, and salute their ghosts.

    In wayside villages of solid white houses fluttering with coloured prayer-flags, China’s two-week occupation of Tawang is also remembered. Local peasants, aged 60 and more but with youthful Tibetan features, light-brown and creased by the wind, recall playing Sho (Tibetan Mahjong) with the invaders. Many say they remember them fondly: the Chinese, they note, helped get in the wheat harvest that year. “They were little men, but they were always ready to help. We had no problem with them,” says Mem Nansey, an aged potato farmer. The Chinese withdrew to Tibet, their superiority established but their supply lines overstretched, barely a fortnight after they had come. “We weren’t sorry to see the back of them, either,” says Mr Nansey, concerned, it seems, that no one should doubt his loyalty to Delhi, 1,500km (930 miles) to the west.
    His ambivalence is widely shared. China and India, repositories of 40% of the world’s people, are often unsure what to make of each other. Since re-establishing diplomatic ties in 1976, after a post-war pause, they and their relationship have in many ways been transformed. The 1962 war was an act of Chinese aggression most obviously springing from China’s desire for western Aksai Chin, a lofty plain linking Xinjiang to Tibet. But its deeper causes included a famine in China and economic malaise in both countries. China and India are now the world’s fastest-growing big economies, however, and in a year or two, when India overtakes Japan on a purchasing-power-parity basis, they will be the world’s second- and third-biggest. And as they grow, Asia’s giants have come closer.
    Their two-way trade is roaring: only $270m in 1990, it is expected to exceed $60 billion this year. They are also tentatively co-operating, for their mutual enrichment, in other ways: for example, by co-ordinating their bids for the African oil supplies that both rely on. Given their contrasting economic strengths—China’s in manufacturing, India’s in services—some see an opportunity for much deeper co-operation. There is even a word for this vision, “Chindia”. On important international issues, notably climate-change policy and world trade, their alignment is already imposing.
    Their leaders naturally talk up these pluses: at the summit of the BRICs (Brazil, Russia, India, China) in Brasília in April, for example, and during celebrations in Beijing earlier this year to commemorate the 60th anniversary of India’s recognition of the People’s Republic. “India and China are not in competition,” India’s sage-like prime minister, Manmohan Singh, often says. “There is enough economic space for us both.”
    China’s president, Hu Jintao, says the same. And no doubt both want to believe it. The booms in their countries have already moved millions out of poverty, especially in China, which is far ahead on almost every such measure of progress (and also dismissive of the notion that India could ever rival it). A return to confrontation, besides hugely damaging the improved image of both countries, would plainly jeopardise this movement forward. That is why the secular trend in China-India relations is positive.
    Yet China and India are in many ways rivals, not Asian brothers, and their relationship is by any standard vexed—as recent quarrelling has made abundantly plain. If you then consider that they are, despite their mutual good wishes, old enemies, bad neighbours and nuclear powers, and have two of the world’s biggest armies—with almost 4m troops between them—this may seem troubling.

    Forget Chindia
    There are many caveats to the recent improvement in their relationship. As the world’s oil wells run dry, many—including sober analysts in both countries—foresee China-India rivalry redrawn as a cut-throat contest for an increasingly scarce resource. The two oil-gluggers’ recent co-operation on energy was, after all, as unusual as it was tentative. More often, Chinese state-backed energy firms compete with all-comers, for Sudanese oil and Burmese gas, and win.
    Rivalry over gas supplies is a bigger concern for Indian policymakers. They fear China would be more able to “capture” gas by building massive pipelines overnight. Water is already an object of contention, given that several of the big rivers of north India, including the Brahmaputra, on which millions depend, rise in Tibet. China recently announced that it is building a dam on the Brahmaputra, which it calls the Yarlung Tsangpo, exacerbating an old Indian fear that the Beijing regime means to divert the river’s waters to Chinese farmers.
    As for Chindia, it can seem almost too naive to bother about. Over 70% of India’s exports to China by value are raw materials, chiefly iron ore, bespeaking a colonial-style trade relationship that is hugely favourable to China. A proliferating range of Chinese non-tariff barriers to Indian companies, which India grumbles about, is a small part of this. The fault lies chiefly with India’s uncompetitive manufacturing. It is currently cheaper, an Indian businessman says ruefully, to export plastic granules to China and then import them again in bucket-form, than it is to make buckets in India.
    This is a source of tension. India’s great priority is to create millions of jobs for its young, bulging and little-skilled population, which will be possible only if it makes huge strides in manufacturing. Similarly, if China trails India in IT services at present, its recent investments in the industry suggest it does not plan to lag for long.
    Yet there is another, more obvious bone of contention, which exacerbates all these others and lies at the root of them: the 4,000km border that runs between the two countries. Nearly half a century after China’s invasion, it remains largely undefined and bitterly contested.
    The basic problem is twofold. In the undefined northern part of the frontier India claims an area the size of Switzerland, occupied by China, for its region of Ladakh. In the eastern part, China claims an Indian-occupied area three times bigger, including most of Arunachal. This 890km stretch of frontier was settled in 1914 by the governments of Britain and Tibet, which was then in effect independent, and named the McMahon Line after its creator, Sir Henry McMahon, foreign secretary of British-ruled India. For China—which was afforded mere observer status at the negotiations preceding the agreement—the McMahon Line represents a dire humiliation.
    China also particularly resents being deprived of Tawang, which—though south of the McMahon Line—was occupied by Indian troops only in 1951, shortly after China’s new Communist rulers dispatched troops to Tibet. This district of almost 40,000 people, scattered over 2,000 square kilometres of valley and high mountains, was the birthplace in the 17th century of the sixth Dalai Lama (the incumbent incarnation is the 14th). Tawang is a centre of Tibet’s Buddhist culture, with one of the biggest Tibetan monasteries outside Lhasa. Traditionally, its ethnic Monpa inhabitants offered fealty to Tibet’s rulers—which those aged peasants around Tawang also remember. “The Tibetans came for money and did nothing for us,” said Mr Nansey, referring to the fur-cloaked Tibetan officials who until the late 1940s went from village to village extracting a share of the harvest.
    Making matters worse, the McMahon Line was drawn with a fat nib, establishing a ten-kilometre margin for error, and it has never been demarcated. With more confusion in the central sector, bordering India’s northern state of Uttarakhand, there are in all a dozen stretches of frontier where neither side knows where even the disputed border should be. In these “pockets”, as they are called, Indian and Chinese border guards circle each other endlessly while littering the Himalayan hillsides—as dogs mark lampposts—to make their presence known. When China-India relations are strained, this gives rise to tit-for-tat and mostly bogus accusations of illegal border incursions—for which each side can offer the other’s empty cigarette and noodle packets as evidence. In official Indian parlance such proof is grimly referred to as “telltale signs”. It is plainly garbage. Yet this is a carefully rehearsed and mutually comprehensible ritual for which both sides deserve credit, of a sort. Despite several threatened dust-ups—including one in 1986 that saw 200,000 Indian troops rushed to northern Tawang district—there has been no confirmed exchange of fire between Indian and Chinese troops since 1967.

    Hands extended—and withdrawn
    It would be even better if the two countries would actually settle their dispute, and, until recently, that seemed imaginable. The obvious solution, whereby both sides more or less accept the status quo, exchanging just a few bits of turf to save face, was long ago advocated by China, including in the 1980s by the then prime minister, Deng Xiaoping. India’s leaders long considered this politically impossible. But in 2003 a coalition government led by the Hindu-nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party—which in 1998 had cited the Chinese threat to justify its decision to test a nuclear bomb—launched an impressive bid for peace. For the first time India declared itself ready to compromise on territory, and China appeared ready to meet it halfway. Both countries appointed special envoys, who have since met 13 times, to lead the negotiations that followed. This led to an outline deal in 2005, containing the “guiding principles and political parameters” for a final settlement. Those included an agreement that it would involve no exchange of “settled populations”—which implied that China had dropped its historical demand for Tawang.
    Left, India, right, China, salute
    Yet the hopes this inspired have faded. In ad hoc comments from Chinese diplomats and through its state-controlled media—which often refer to Arunachal as Chinese South Tibet—China appears to have reasserted its demand for most of India’s far north-eastern state. Annoying the Indians further, it started issuing special visas to Indians from Arunachal and Kashmir—after having denied a visa to an Indian official from Arunachal on the basis that he was, in fact, Chinese. It also objected to a $60m loan to India from the Asian Development Bank, on the basis that some of the money was earmarked for irrigation schemes in Arunachal. Its spokesman described a visit to Tawang by Mr Singh, ahead of a general election last year, as “provocative and dangerous”. Chinese analysts warn against understanding from these hints that China has formally revised its position on the border. But that is India’s suspicion. And no one, in either country, is predicting a border settlement soon.
    In fact, the relationship has generally soured. Having belatedly woken up to the huge improvements China has made in its border infrastructure, enabling a far swifter mobilisation of Chinese troops there, India announced last year that it would deploy another 60,000 troops to Arunachal. It also began upgrading its airfields in Assam and deploying the Sukhois to them. India’s media meanwhile reported a spate of “incursions” by Chinese troops. China’s state-controlled media was more restrained, with striking exceptions. Last year an editorial in the Global Times, an English-language tabloid in Beijing, warned that “India needs to consider whether or not it can afford the consequences of a potential confrontation with China.” Early this year India’s outgoing national security adviser and special envoy to China, M.K. Narayanan, accused Chinese hackers of attacking his website, as well as those of other Indian government departments.
    Recent diplomacy has brought more calm. Officials on both sides were especially pleased by their show of unity at the United Nations climate meeting in Copenhagen last December, where China and India, the world’s biggest and fourth-biggest emitters of carbon gas, faced down American-led demands for them to undertake tougher anti-warming measures. A slight cooling in the America-India relationship, which President George Bush had pushed with gusto, has also helped. So, India hopes, has its appointment of a shrewd Mandarin-speaker, Shivshankar Menon, as its latest national security adviser and special envoy to China. He made his first visit to Beijing in this role last month; a 14th round of border talks is expected. And yet the China-India relationship has been bruised.

    Negative views
    In China, whose Communist leaders are neither voluble nor particularly focused on India, this bruising is mostly clear from last year’s quarrel itself. The Chinese, many of whom consider India a dirty, third-rate sort of place, were perhaps most obviously to blame for it. This is despite China’s conspicuous recent success in settling its other land disputes, including with Russia and Vietnam—a fact Chinese commentators often cite to indicate Indian intransigence. Chinese public opinion also seems to be turning against India, a country the Chinese have been wont to remark on fondly, if at all, as the birthplace of Buddhism. According to a recent survey of global opinion released by the BBC, the Chinese show a “distinct cooling” towards India, which 47% viewed negatively.
    In garrulous, democratic India, the fallout is easier to gauge. According to the BBC poll, 38% of Indians have a negative view of China. In fact, this has been more or less the case since the defeat of 1962. Lamenting the failure of Indian public opinion to move on, Patricia Uberoi, a sociologist at Delhi’s Centre for the Study of Developing Societies, notes that while there have been many Indian films on the subcontinent’s violent partition, including star-crossed Indo-Pakistani romances, there has been only one notable Indian movie on the 1962 war: a propaganda film called “Haqeeqat”, or “Truth”, supported by the Indian defence ministry.
    Hawkish Indian commentators are meanwhile up in arms. “China, in my view, does not want a rival in Asia,” says Brajesh Mishra, a former national security adviser and special envoy to China, who drafted the 2005 agreement and is revered by the hawks. “Its main agenda is to keep India preoccupied with events in South Asia so it is constrained from playing a more important role in Asian and global affairs.” Senior officials present a more nuanced analysis, noting, for example, that India has hardly been alone in getting heat from China: many countries, Asian and Western, have similarly been singed. Yet they admit to heightened concern over China’s intentions in South Asia, and foresee no hope for a settlement of the border. Nicholas Burns, a former American diplomat who led the negotiations for an America-India nuclear co-operation deal that was concluded in 2008, and who now teaches at Harvard University, suspects that over the past year China has supplanted Pakistan as the main worry of Indian policymakers. He considers the China-India relationship “exceedingly troubled and perturbed” and thinks that it will remain “uneasy for many years to come”.

    Fear of encirclement
    For foreign-policy realists, who see China and India locked in a battle for Asian supremacy, this is inevitable. Even fixing the border could hardly mitigate the tension. More optimistic analysts, and there are many, even if currently hushed, consider this old-school nonsense. Though both India and China have their rabid fringe, they say, they are rational enough to know that a strategic struggle would be sapping and, given each other’s vast size, unwinnable. Both are therefore committed, as they claim, to fixing the border and fostering better relations. Yet there are a few impediments to this—of which two are most often cited by analysts in Beijing and Delhi.
    One is represented by the America-India nuclear deal, agreed in principle between Mr Singh and Mr Bush in 2005. Not unreasonably, China took this as a sign that America wanted to use India as a counterweight to China’s rise. It also considered the pact hypocritical: America, while venting against China’s ally, North Korea, going nuclear (which it did a year later), was offering India a free pass to nuclear-power status, despite its refusal to sign the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. Indian analysts believe that China, in a cautious way, tried to scupper the deal by encouraging some of its opponents, including Ireland and Sweden, to vote against it in the Nuclear Suppliers Group, a 46-member club from which it required unanimous approval.
    This glitch reflects a bigger Chinese fear of encirclement by America and its allies, a fear heightened by a recent burst of American activity in Asia. The United States has sought to strengthen security ties with South-East Asian countries, including Vietnam and Indonesia. It has also called on China, in an unusually public fashion, to be more accommodating over contested areas of the South China Sea—where America and India share concerns about a Chinese naval build-up, including the construction of a nuclear-submarine base on the Chinese island of Hainan. In north-east Asia, America has launched military exercises with South Korea in response to North Korea’s alleged sinking of a South Korean warship in March. Some Chinese analysts, with ties to the government, consider these a direct challenge to China.
    China is deeply suspicious of America’s military campaign in nearby Afghanistan (and covertly in Pakistan), which is supported from bases in Central Asian countries. It is also unimpressed by a growing closeness between India and Japan, its main Asian rival. Japanese firms are, for example, expected to invest $10 billion, and perhaps much more, in a 1,500km “industrial corridor” between Delhi and Mumbai. In 2007 Japanese warships took part in a naval exercise in the Bay of Bengal, also involving Indian, Australian and Singaporean ships and the American nuclear-powered vessels USS Nimitz and USS Chicago, which was hosted by India and was the biggest ever held in the region.
    This seemed to back a proposal, put about by American think-tankers, for an “axis of democracies” to balance China. Officially, India would want no part of this. “We don’t want to balance China,” says a senior Indian official. But, he adds, “all the democracies do feel it is safer to be together. Is China going to be peaceful or not? We don’t know. In the event that China leaves the path of peaceful rise, we would work very closely together.”
    India also fears encirclement, and with reason. America’s Pentagon, in an annual report on China’s military power released on August 16th, said China’s armed forces were developing “new capabilities” that might extend their reach into the Indian Ocean. China has also made big investments in all India’s neighbours. It is building deepwater ports in Pakistan and Bangladesh, roads in Nepal and oil and gas pipelines in Myanmar. Worse, it agreed in 2008 to build two nuclear-power plants for its main regional ally, Pakistan—a deal that also worried America, who saw it as a tit-for-tat response to its nuclear deal with India. (China has become Pakistan’s biggest supplier of military hardware, including fighter jets and guided-missile frigates, and in the past has given it weapons-grade fissile material and a tested bomb design as part of its nuclear support.)

    Muffling Tibet
    Hawkish Indians consider these Chinese investments as a “string of pearls” to throttle India. Wiser ones point out that India is too big to throttle—and that China’s rising influence in South Asia is an indictment of India’s past inability to get on with almost any of its neighbours. Under Mr Singh, India has sought to redress this. It is boosting trade with Sri Lanka and Bangladesh, and sticking, with commendable doggedness in the face of little encouragement, to the task of making peace with Pakistan. That would be glorious for both countries; it would also remove a significant China-India bugbear.
    The other great impediment to better relations is Tibet. Its fugitive Dalai Lama and his “government-in-exile” have found refuge in India since 1959—and China blames him, and by extension his hosts, for the continued rebelliousness in his homeland. A Tibetan uprising in March 2008, the biggest in decades, was therefore a major factor in last year’s China-India spat. It led to China putting huge pressure on India to stifle the anti-China Tibetan protests that erupted in India—especially one intended to disrupt the passage of the Olympic torch through Delhi en route to Beijing. It also objected to a visit to Tawang by the Dalai Lama last November, which it predictably called a “separatist action”. This visit, from which leftover banners of welcome still festoon the town’s main bazaar, perhaps reminded China why it is so fixated on Tawang—as a centre of the Tibetan Buddhist culture that it is struggling, all too visibly, to control.
    Mindful of the huge support the Dalai Lama enjoys in India, its government says it can do little to restrict him. Yet it policed the protest tightly, and also barred foreign journalists from accompanying him to Tawang. India would perhaps rather be spared discreet balancing acts of this sort. “But we’re stuck with him, he’s our guest,” says V.R. Raghavan, a retired Indian general and veteran of the 1962 war. Indeed, many Indian pundits consider that China will never settle the border, and so relinquish a potential source of leverage over India, while the 75-year-old lama is alive.
    A dangerous child
    After his death, China will attempt to control his holy office as it has those of other senior lamas. It will “discover” the reincarnated Dalai Lama in Tibet, or at least endorse the choice of its agents, and attempt to groom him into a more biddable monk. In theory that would end a major cause of China-India discord, but only if the Chinese can convince Tibetans that their choice is the right one, which seems unlikely. The Dalai Lama has already indicated that he may choose to be “reborn” outside China. There is talk of the important role Tawang has often played in identifying incarnations of the Dalai Lama, or even that the 14th may choose to reincarnate in Tawang itself.
    For the abbot of Tawang’s main monastery, Guru Tulku Rinpoche, that would be a great blessing. “If his holiness chooses to be born in Tawang, we would be so happy,” he says in his red-carpeted monastic office, as half a dozen skinny lads file in to be inducted into monkhood. Silently, they prostrate themselves before the abbot, while he scribbles down their new monastic names. Outside his window, the early morning sun sparkles through the white clouds that hang low over Tawang. It is hard to think that this remote and tranquil spot could have caused such a continent-sized ruckus. Yet, if the abbot has his wish, it will cause a lot more trouble yet.

    Friday, August 20, 2010

    Geography Quiz: Foreign Policy and ATK's infamous 65

    Look at the pictures and guess what the names of the cities are. This will be extremely hard. Full of surprises and counter-representative pictures, e.g. why Dublin is ranked above Osaka and Mumbai, the choice of the picture for Los Angeles. Oops, spoilers, but that won't help you a lot. The real hint is ATK has taken an arbitrary 65 cities based on certain people's personal choices and an arbitrary matrix of pseudo-quantitative ranking with random weighting to rank the 65.

    Metropolis Now  Foreign Policy (via ESWN)

    Don't forget to read the comments below for some of the obvious errors in the captions (e.g. Vienna).

    Methodology (extremely vague) and the rank table (with absolutely no scoring breaking but GDP and Population to show you how small their weights are in the "scoring"

    Party Peeks

    Sorry I was MIA yesterday but I am in full-on party planning mode right now.  Combine that with a full-time job, this blog and two toddlers and things get a little nutty.  But since I'm all about celebrations at the moment, I figured I'd share of a few favorites I've seen recently.

    Without a doubt, the most creative theme around has to be this "One Year Old in a Flash" bash Stacy at Elle Belle threw for her daughter, Liv's, first birthday.


    The invitations from Beyond Design are darling and perfectly captured the party's photography theme.


    And Stacy came up with an amazing idea - to create a time capsule for Liv to open on her 18th birthday.  She asked all of the guests, including out-of-towners who might not be able to come, to send something to include in this memento.  Such a wonderful gift for her little lady! {this party found via Bella Grace Designs & photography is by Dawn at Elemental Image}

    So many people write to me asking for unique themes for boy's parties and this one from Brandi of Brandi Brown Events has to be one of best I've ever seen.  For her twin boys' first birthday, she chose a Tom Sawyer & Huckleberry Finn theme, and together with the fabulous Kate Landers, from Kate Landers Events, she created something her guests won't ever forget!  Just take a look at the "hay couch" made to mimic the rustic vibe of life on the Mississippi.


    There was perfectly themed - and kid-friendly - food.


    And she even brought in live animals from a local zoo to delight the kids.


    Amazing!  Read more about how Kate and Brandi brought this party to life here. {photos by Inga Finch Photography}

    Kori Clark from Paper & Pigtails also came up with a one-of-a-kind theme, designing a stunning bash for her daughter's birthday based on Lilly Pulitzer's Tort Party ware.  The result was a Preppy Turtle party that girls of any age would die for.


    I adore the gorgeous combination of patterns throughout the party and the small details that pull everything together.  Look at this divine this dessert table!


    Again, the food was kid-friendly - Cheerios, powdered donuts and cupcakes were the perfect treats.

     
    Get more details, as well as all of the source information, on the Paper & Pigtails blog. {photos by Courtney Vickers Photography}

    And last, but not least, this fantabulous Sesame Street themed soiree that Jenny Cookies threw for her son Hudson just knocked my socks off.  Even rain couldn't put a damper on this playful party.  The invitation from Less Ordinary Designs set the tone for everything.


    From the cake:


    And cupcakes:


    To the games:


    And goodies:


    Guests even took home their own goldfish as favors!


    Is that the cutest or what?

    I hope you enjoyed a little peek at some fun festivities!  Do you have a favorite party or one you want to share?  We want to hear about it.  You could be featured in our next party round up.

    Images: Elle Belle, Elemental Image, Brandi Brown Events, Inga Finch Photography, Paper & Pigtails, Courtney Vickers PhotographyJenny Cookies