How, in the world, did the US get the Swiss banks

In 2009, UBS turned over information of 5000 American clients. How did the US get them to do it? First, the cross-border practice of the Swiss bank was illegal. Second, they lured client's money for the purpose to evade tax. Brad Birkenfeld, an employee of the bank, was the whistleblower. However, he got 3+ years of jail time. Upon release, the IRS rewarded him over $100 million dollars.

Weather of 2 cities (SFO vs. LAX)

~LAX (Fullerton) and ~SFO (Mountain View)

Average temperature (high/low) and precipitation

From Hot to Scorched at Commerce One

[zz: businessweek]


When Mark Hoffman was pushed out as CEO of Sybase (SY) in the summer of 1996, his first thought was to retire to his 20-acre horse ranch in the shadow of the Bay Area's Mt. Diablo. He had co-founded the company and built it into the world's then-second-largest maker of relational database software. Yet he had also made a crucial mistake -- producing a new version of Sybase's database in the mid-1990s that didn't sync well with applications from the likes of Oracle Corp. (ORCL) and Germany's SAP (SAP). That hurt sales. When Sybase ran into trouble, Hoffman was shoved out the door.


Just a couple of weeks later, though, his hopes were reborn. Jeffrey T. Webber, a venture capitalist pal of Hoffman's, had suggested he poke around at a tiny company, DistriVision in suburban Concord, Calif., that was creating electronic product catalogs on CD-ROMs. The founders didn't have much polish. Tom Gonzales Sr., who wore jeans and cowboy boots, had trained ex-cons how to drive 18-wheelers before the PC bug bit and he started setting up computer systems for mom-and-pop businesses. His son, Thomas Jr., was a quiet, stay-up-all-night programmer.


Hoffman saw huge potential. The world had discovered the Internet. While most people were fascinated with consumer Web sites such as Amazon (AMZN) and Yahoo! (YHOO), Hoffman foresaw a time when the Net could be harnessed to automate the dealings between companies, saving billions of dollars in costs.


In DistriVision, he glimpsed the glimmerings of a way to do that. Rather than deliver electronic catalogs on disks, DistriVision could put them on the Internet, where anybody could easily get to them. Hoffman volunteered to run the company -- soon changing its name to Commerce One (CMRC) and moving to bigger digs in the California towns of Walnut Creek and then Pleasanton.





When dot-coms posed a grave threat to old-line businesses, Hoffman came off as a trusted friend





No flashy leader, Hoffman is 5'8", with a placid face and a voice that rarely rises above a whisper. But at a time when dot-coms posed a grave threat to old-line businesses, he came off as a trusted friend of the Establishment. Alexis de Raadt-St. James, later an executive at Commerce One, recalls meeting Hoffman at a technology conference in Monaco in 1999. She was Shell International's e-commerce chief at the time. At a cocktail party, a then-famous dot-com CEO told her contemptuously that he "'wouldn't work with Shell if it was the last company on earth.'"


Hoffman was a stark contrast. He asked her detailed questions about Shell's business processes. "I could see this was fascinating for him. He could see what would come next," says de Raadt-St. James.

The Season of Hype

What came next defied all reason. It also planted the seeds for Commerce One's eventually fall from grace. While some dot-coms already were starting to fail in 1999, it was the business-to-business (B2B) e-commerce companies' turn to rocket toward the stars. Analysts confidently predicted that by 2005, $6 trillion of commerce between businesses would be handled via the Net. Large tech companies such as Microsoft (MSFT), Oracle, and IBM (IBM) weren't even in the game. The leaders were Ariba Technologies (ARBA) and Commerce One. And they made the most of it.


Commerce One became a marketing machine. Hoffman and then-strategy chief Chuck Donchess spoke at practically every B2B conference -- and there were dozens. The company held its own conferences, too, called eLink. All it had to do to get in the news was issue a press release, and a dozen reporters would call. "It was like throwing cows into a lake full of piranhas," says Andrew McCarthy, who was then director of PR.


The rivalry with Ariba was a gift. With these two companies running neck and neck, every feat of one-upmanship made good copy. Commerce One used the competition to whip its troops into a frenzy. Then-sales chief Mark Biestman, whose nickname was The Biest, passed out "Aribanator" T-shirts--with pictures on the front of Arnold Schwarznegger as The Terminator. One day, dressed as General Patton, he drove a Harley-Davidson motorcycle into a hotel during a sales training event.





Heeding the Get Big Fast mantra, Commerce One didn't even set up a beta-testing program for new software





No behavior seemed too outrageous. A few weeks before Commerce One's July 1, 1999, initial public offering, the executives gathered at MoMo's, a trendy San Francisco restaurant that some jokingly called Commerce Two because they spent so much time there. The occasion: a deal to sell software to Japanese telecom giant NTT (NTT). Webber, the venture capitalist, who was then on the board of directors, remembers peeling off a J Wine Company sweatshirt and a Commerce One polo shirt, and, bare-chested, presenting them ceremoniously to the Japanese. Everybody hooted with laughter. "It was a fun culture," he says.


But the go-go attitude opened the door to mistakes that didn't show up until later. In the glow of easy victories, Hoffman didn't keep a close enough watch on basic operations, according to several former managers. Commerce One's engineers and marketers were frequently at loggerheads. Heeding the Get Big Fast mantra of the moment, the company didn't even set up a beta-testing program for new software releases. The result: an array of products that didn't work well together. Customers suffered, and ultimately it spoiled Commerce One's reputation.

The Road to Rapid Riches

During its heyday, everything Commerce One touched seemed to turn to dough. Its stock rose by more than 1,000% by the end of 1999, then peaked on Mar. 9, 2000 with a $21.5 billion market cap. The key to its success was the emergence of a new phenomenon, the electronic marketplace, which also led to Commerce One's undoing.


This was Hoffman's baby. Back in 1997, he quietly started building software for e-marketplaces, Web sites where sellers and buyers would come together to trade everything from paper clips to raw steel. Commerce One's breakthrough came in the Old Economy bastion of Detroit. In October of 1999, General Motors (GM) procurement chief Harold R. Kutner staged a bake-off between Commerce One and software giant Oracle for the right to power GM's e-marketplace. The carmaker set harsh terms. It wanted stock in the tech companies, and it wouldn't pay for software or services. Oracle refused to play by those rules.





Customers were competing with one another to land Commerce One as their supplier





At first, Hoffman also recoiled. But while taking a shower at home in California a day after hearing GM's ultimatum, he realized that running its trading exchange could set Commerce One up for huge transaction fees. He decided it was worth the gamble, so he agreed to negotiate on those terms. After around-the-clock talks in Detroit on Oct. 29, Hoffman and Donchess ran out of clean clothes and bought University of Michigan duds at a hotel shop -- hoping that would curry a little favor with the GMers. The next day, they struck a deal.


The GM deal set off a business bonanza that made Commerce One the fastest-growing Nasdaq company -- ever. It signed up dozens of e-marketplaces, from aerospace to wood products. And at the peak, customers even competed with one another to land it as their supplier. After logging just $33.6 million in sales in 1999, Commerce One racked up $401 million in 2000, and was on a pace to double that in 2001.


Even while Commerce One was riding high, Hoffman fretted. At a brainstorming session at the Walnut Creek Marriott in January, 2000, he worried about a new alliance between Ariba, IBM, and supply-chain software maker i2 Technologies (ITWO). Commerce One needed a strong partner that would lend it credence in giant corporations that were more comfortable buying software from the likes of IBM. SAP, the king of corporate software, looked like the best choice.

Transatlantic Courtship

Hoffman called SAP Co-CEO Hasso Plattner and got turned down. But a month later, Plattner reconsidered. SAP was getting written off as a has-been for falling behind on the Internet, and an alliance with Commerce One would put that issue to rest.


The first face-to-face meeting almost didn't happen. On his way to the W Hotel in San Francisco, Plattner hit a speed bump in his Aston Martin and scraped off his engine's oil pan. He was 45 minutes late, but Hoffman waited. By June, the two companies had a deal. They would combine their engineering teams to deliver a new set of products and then unleash their sales teams on Corporate America. No two technology companies had ever tried to combine forces so thoroughly -- short of merging. The coupling brought Commerce One instant credibility and nearly $500 million in cash.


Nothing captures the jittery energy of that era better than the last days leading up to the deal being struck. SAP and Commerce One people met, and regrouped, and met again in Las Vegas hotels and conference rooms leading up to SAP's big user conference. They finally finished at 8 a.m., just before Plattner and Hoffman were to appear on-stage before an audience of thousands.





By the end of 2000, rank-and-file employees were holding stock options worth hundreds of thousands





Gary Fromer, then chief strategy officer for SAP's e-marketplace subsidiary, recalls sitting in the audience when the two CEOs strode into the spotlights. And suddenly he couldn't stand it. "I had spent so much time and effort on it that I couldn't watch. I got up and walked out," he says. Just as he got to the exit, he saw that Rob Tartkoff, his counterpart at Commerce One, was also heading out. They went off to the blackjack tables together -- and won about $500 apiece.


By the end of 2000, Commerce One's fortunes were soaring. The company boasted 567 customers and 157 e-marketplaces. Everybody there got a taste of riches. Rank-and-file employees saw their stock options grow to be worth hundreds of thousands of dollars. Top salespeople became ridiculously wealthy. And customers and partners shared in the bounty. At the peak, Hoffman hosted 2,800 people at a conference in the swanky Bellagio Hotel in Las Vegas. He watched in the Drink nightclub while hundreds of his guests danced wildly to the R&B riffs of Jim Belushi and his Sacred Heart Band.

Downhill from Here

The problem was, it didn't get any better than that. In the first quarter of 2001, demand began to taper off. Revenues of $170 million were down 10% from the previous quarter. At Commerce One's eLink event in Berlin, starting on Feb. 19, only 1,000 guests showed up. Berlin's Brandenburg Gate was wrapped in cloth for repairs, and to some Commerce One people, it seemed the same would soon be true for them.


What went wrong? A bunch of things. Some of the early e-marketplaces took many months to get going, partly because of problems with the technology but mainly because the industry consortiums that formed the e-marketplaces had trouble getting coordinated. Those delays put a damper on hopes for quick and easy riches.


Then the slow economy put the brakes on all kinds of technology spending. "People were buying vision in 2000. In 2001, they were looking for return on investment," says Robert M. Kimmitt, then Commerce One's president and now an executive vice-president at AOL Time Warner (AOL). When the new products from Commerce One and SAP were ready to conquer the world in early 2001, the world had changed. E-marketplace software was no longer in demand.


The team eventually retooled the products to handle private e-marketplaces, where individual corporations would interact with their suppliers. But that fell flat, too. And so did Commerce One's revenues, dropping to $101.25 million in the second quarter of 2001 -- roughly half of their peak.





Commerce One's bet on linking with SAP left it uncompetitive as a solo act





By then, Commerce One's fate was totally entangled with SAP. The U.S. company had spent a year focusing its 400 engineers on combining its technology with SAP's e-commerce applications. When hard times arrived, Ariba was able to strip away everything else and fall back on its e-procurement business, which is desktop software used by corporate employees for ordering supplies via the Net.


But Commerce One had bet everything on the SAP relationship and had let its e-procurement software slip. It wasn't competitive anymore as a stand-alone company. So when Plattner proposed merger talks during an August 10, 2001, lunch at SAP's Silicon Valley offices, Hoffman put aside his dreams of building an independent software powerhouse and said yes.


Despite all the signals that the glory days were over, Hoffman had a hard time accepting it. Commerce One had more than 3,000 employees through most of 2001. It still promoted itself as the worldwide leader in e-marketplace software long after the market had gone sour. Hoffman confesses that he kept hoping the economy would turn around.


Instead, he kept building for a brighter future. Dennis Jones, the longtime chief information officer of Federal Express, came on as Commerce One's chief operations officer in April of 2001 to provide big-company business processes. Donchess resigned for personal reasons, and Hoffman replaced him with de Raadt-St. James. She had just finished an MIT masters degree. Her thesis topic: managing expansive growth.


So just when Commerce One needed to shrink and refocus smartly, its new executives were best suited for a big company that was getting even bigger. "It was like bringing in a podiatrist when what you needed was a brain surgeon," says Roy Satterthwaite, a former marketing vice-president.

Painful Divorce

Undoing the SAP relationship practically ruined Commerce One. The deal fell through a couple of weeks after the September 11 terror attacks. Plattner, who had forged the alliance with Hoffman and was loath to give up on it, got a back-channel call from a board member. "They pre-preempted it. They asked me not to spend any more money on Commerce One," says Plattner.


Hoffman already had a gut feeling that something was amiss. The intensity of merger talks had dropped off precipitously after the attacks. Werner Brandt, SAP's chief financial officer, didn't mince words when he called Hoffman in late September. "'It's not going to work out, given all the stuff that's going on,'" Hoffman recalls Brandt saying. Looking back, Hoffman wishes he had handled the alliance differently from the start. "I wouldn't let myself so closely align" with another company, he says. "It has been very difficult to extract."


Indeed, breaking up was extremely hard to do. The companies' products were thoroughly integrated with one another, and they were pushing a single e-marketplace package. Because most major corporations already had relationships with SAP, many of the new deals were written as addenda to existing SAP contracts. Now, though they maintained a marketing partnership, most of their relationship had to be unwound.


At the same time, SAP started warning corporations that they had better play it safe and buy technology from big, stable suppliers -- undercutting Commerce One. Hoffman had learned the hard way to avoid intertangling alliances.

The Internal Split

At a time when Hoffman needed a unified team behind him, his lieutenants were at war over the company's soul. It was the newbies vs. the old guard. When Jones had proposed Commerce One's first-ever beta-testing program in the summer of 2001, he caught flack from managers who believed it would slow things down when new products needed to be launched quickly.


Some Commerce One veterans thought de Raadt-St. James wasn't qualified to set strategy for a software company. They privately mocked her frequent references to "S-curves" -- a way of tracking growth in a booming market -- as laughable pedantry. "We didn't mix well from a cultural and style point of view," says Mike Micucci, who then ran marketing and quit when he lost a power struggle with her.


De Raadt-St. James acknowledges that she met plenty of resistance. "I caused a lot of tension around running a company in a very structured way," she says, recalling that people came into her office, "angry, crying, saying they were leaving." That was something she urged them to do if they felt they couldn't adapt to a new way of operating.





"I have to go on my gut. I don't like our chances"





Indeed, many of Commerce One's faithful were abandoning ship. Strategic marketer Mark Nittler and merger expert Robert Tarkoff left before the end of 2001. At a Jan. 7 dinner at Moose's restaurant in San Francisco, Hoffman asked Biestman to hold on for six months, by which time he hoped the company would begin to show signs of life. "I said, 'I have to go on my gut. I don't like our chances,'" recalls Biestman, who's now CEO of SEVEN Networks, a telecom startup. "I told him I thought we had lost our way as a management team." Three months later, The Biest was gone.


Just when Commerce One hit the skids, co-founder Thomas Gonzales Jr. died of a rare form of cancer. Last Dec. 13, more than 600 friends and colleagues gathered for an evening memorial service at the Blackhawk Auto Museum in the hills east of San Francisco. Like the treasures of a pharaoh, Gonzales' prize possessions, F1 McClaren and Ferrari F50 sports cars, were placed on display -- as were drawings of the dream house he never got to build.


At the end, people lingered in the parking lot in the dark. For some, this was the ultimate downer. Gonzales grew up poor in a cabin in California's Sierras. He had worked hard. He was a team player -- always ready to stay up all night to finish a project or fly to any city to show the company's newest technology to potential customers. And thanks to the Internet gold rush, he had attained wealth beyond his dreams. Now he had died way too young. "When Thomas died, something died within the company. The spirit went out," says Biestman.


Indeed, the Blackhawk farewell is a fitting epitaph for a whole generation of Internet startups. They came. They soared. And, like Commerce One, they're in danger of fading away without fulfilling their promise.

Rubic's cube solution

[source]

Step 1: Cross

Step 2: Bottom layer corners

Step 3: Middle layer edges

Step 4: Edge Orientation

F (R U R' U') F'

f (R U R' U') f'
or U2 F (U R U' R') F'

Step 5: Corner orientation

R U R' U R U2 R'

Case A: 
if TWO corners are yellow: rotate top layer until a yellow sticker is on the bottom left,facing front.

Case B:
if ZERO corners are yellow: rotate top layer until a yellow sticker is on the bottom left, facing left.

Step 6: Corner permutation

R' F R' B2 R F' R' B2 R2

 Step 7: Edge permutation

(R U') (R U) (R U) (R U') R' U' R2

兩封代禱信

第一封：

各位親愛的主內肢體平安：

一.許多人關心我的健康情況，除了感謝各位代禱外。在此向大家報告病況：

2006年7月起，我就發現全身皮膚發癢發紅，看了幾個皮膚科的診所都沒有改善，癢到非抓不可，抓到皮破為止；生活品質大受影響（夜間完全無法入睡），病情時好時壞，8月初住入榮總治療，檢查認定是「紅皮症」是因為長期過勞，壓力太大致使身體免疫力失調的疾病；(欲瞭解該病詳情者不妨上網查詢，嚴重者可能致死)這是一種因為過敏而引起的皮膚病。住院四天之後我即出院，出院之後我不以為意，仍像以前一樣的馬不停蹄的服事主，完全忽略了對身體=聖靈的殿的照顧；近日來自覺元氣大傷，精神體力不大如前，病況不僅沒有好轉而且有惡化的趨勢，10月16日再赴榮總複診，皮膚部劉主任要求我作切片（他懷疑我身上可能有淋巴癌）次日住院（為了強迫我完全的休息），9天之後日出院在家完全休養迄今，其間作了一般性全身檢查、抽血檢查以及全身的 MRI；其中除抽血檢查發現癌症指數偏高外檢查的結果都沒有發現癌症，感謝主！）目前每週按時回診及服藥（包括類固醇，止癢劑、抗過敏藥、..）；由於找不出病因（過敏原），無法對病下藥，目前所有的治療都是在治標，只能說保持病情穩定，迄今尚末痊癒；食物改吃清淡有機食物，不外食也不吃以前沒有吃過的食物，可能會引起過敏的食物例如海鮮、筍、鴨、羊肉…也都不碰以免過敏，再加上吃一些極少種類健康食品，除了極少數的短講外，講道事奉幾乎全部停止，希望保持病況穩定，不要復發。

二.我的心情：

1. 突然從「一條龍」變成「一條蟲」，從「生猛海鮮」變成「廢物一個」實在非常難以調適，生命似乎要寫下句點。
2. 不知這病何時會復發？何時又要住院？
3. 對於以後的日子完全無法安排和掌握（去年答應某教會下個禮拜的佈道能不能講？）
4. 我靠著主的恩典迄今沒有抱怨、只有凡事謝恩； 我一點也不怕死，因為到 主那裡去那是好的無比，我只是對內人、家人、親人、主內肢體、朋友的千萬個不捨以及台灣還有百分之九十七以上還沒有得救者靈魂沉重負擔。

三.我的生活：

1. 因為藥物的副作用以及心情低落因此靈修和代禱生活都不如以前，提不起精神禱告和讀經。
2. 家中大小事全部由內子一人無怨無悔的一肩承擔，使我非常心疼和不忍！
3. 完全的休息，正在學習靠 主無憂慮。
4. 睡眠品質不好，原因之一是因為癢，每晚要服用鎮靜劑。

四. 我的萬分感謝和感恩：

從發病至今，教會同工費神替我安排各處講道的代替方案、有人電話關心、有人堅持到醫院和舍下探訪、有人送慰問卡/信/金、水果、蔬菜、各種食品或親自烹煮的精美食物、健康食品（一個月的用量即高達數萬元）和藥品(祖傳秘方)，又有人推薦醫生、又有幫忙掛號、也有人奉獻指定去作非常昂貴但極精密體檢、更有人指定用在購買防塵被，更不知道有多少人為我代禱(前幾天晚上一群牧者到舍下，其中一位答應我的病連續四十天為我禁食禱告，令我感動的當場落淚)、有主內醫生幫我作免費但昂貴精密檢驗(將我的血送到美去查病因—過敏原)、有人陪伴我外出散心（放風）、醫生及護理人員也對我特別關愛(他們並不都是基督徒)、……。這一切的一切若不是上帝的恩和愛在你們當中怎會這樣？每每想到這些深情厚愛常令我感動不已而淚流滿面，除了求神賜福報答你們外我想我到了永世中都無法報答每一位。

　　五.目前我的尋求：

好友們提出兩種不同的意見，其一是完全休息，在一段時間內（一年或三年）內完全停止講道的事奉；其次是保持一週一次講道，逐漸恢事復(他們擔心我若暫時停止一切的事奉恐怕不能適應)。

　　六.我的請求：

請您繼續懇切代求，使我在任何情況下都榮耀 主的名、不要失去對衪的信心和盼望，不要在晚年時「晚節不保」，保守我『無論是生是死讓基督在我身上照常顯大』；也請勿費神前來舍下探訪，因為我會情緒激動又會說個不停而傷神，但是您的回信卻是我的喜樂和力量。耑此奉陳並敬祝

以馬內利
主僕
范大陵
敬謝 2006年11月底

email:darling.fan@msa.hinet.net
p.s.病中友人贈送我書，閱後大得激勵和安慰，特此推薦(校園；『以神為樂( IT’S NOT ABOUT ME)；作者REV. MAX LUCADO；譯者吳 品』

第二封：

范大陵病塌心聲

一. 感恩事項：

1. 透過主內同工的介紹和妥善安排，2012/2/13 發病第一天立刻住院就醫；又接受最好的治療，衪從不誤事。
2. 許多多人主動為我們禁食禱告、關懷(電話、簡訊、email)、探訪、贈送(水果、食物、營養品、祖傳密方、…)、…. ；雪中送炭的温暖，我們一生感激不盡，主必賜福報答每一位愛我們的人！

二. 病情近况：

1. 我罹患急性腎衰竭(我的腎臟短時間喪失 90%的功能，無法排出體內血液中毒素，俗稱血液尿毒症，情况嚴重：詳情請上網查詢) 。 
2. 急性腎衰竭患者會有兩種可能不同方向的發展：1)腎臟細胞壞死，只能依賴長期洗腎；2)部份腎臟細胞可以恢復， 功能某種程度恢復。
3. 雖然腎臟切片(也有可能查不出病因)因目前我的凝血速度不符而暫停，但醫生為爭時間先是朝著使腎臟細胞恢復的治療方式進行(短期內使用大量的類固醇礙止發炎) ，其療效及結果短期並無法得知，I just pray and wait with thanksgiving！
4. 病因：感冒 or 中毒or 長期的勞累和壓力(我自覺早已達到心力交瘁的地步) 是罹患急性腎衰竭的原因。由於近兩年來神為我大大開福音之門，其屬靈效果和範圍令我這個不配的五十年以上老佈道者都「前所未有、跌破眼鏡、嘆為觀止、令人敬畏、瞠目結舌、無言以對」；只能將全部讚嘆和榮耀歸給神！因此我奮不顧身擺上，只希望在有生之年作個忠心有見識的小奴僕，早就忘了我是年逾古稀的資深公民。

三. 病塌心聲

1. 我一生的心志：與其荀且偷生，不如戰死屬靈戰場；米該雅和施洗約翰是我極其羨慕的榜樣先知--他們至死忠心傳祂的信息。
2. 我當然祈求主垂聽全體代禱者而完全醫我，但不是照個人的意思，而是衪的旨意成全；無論是生是死，健康或疾病，成或敗、榮或辱，順或逆、貧或富、活的長或短、…但每天求主幫助我一生榮神益人，凡事謝恩！千萬不要「晚節 不保」
3. 我決定暫停今年三至五月份的全部講道事奉，希望能重新得力。

四. 懇求代禱

1. 為我因愛而服事五十年以上的教會「林南」急需要懲治>悔改>潔淨>復興禱告；五年來發生的所謂「林南悲劇」，造成有超過三百位以上熱心愛主資深有洞見的肢體含淚陸續離開教會流浪(此為長期以來造成我心力交猝而罹患急性腎衰竭的主因)，個人也同時惨遭受林南極少數重要人士無情的人格謀殺；感謝主！「地方教會同工會」對針對「林南悲劇」已提出「審理報告」，還原了真相。
2. 求主給我智慧，作出合乎衪旨意的「餘生規畫」，適度調整步調，不再作「野驢」。
3. 為內人多年來陪伴我無悔無怨走這路窄/苦/死/永生/蒙福之路所遭遇的一切代禱，我倆每天為都需要祂超然的恩 典過日子。

一點請求：
煩將「范大陵病塌心聲」傳給每一位願意為我們禱告的人，這是一件善事！

范大陵滿心感激掏心掏肺寫於2012 年2 月下旬

Mr. Sterling Mace's "Battleground Pacific"

I haven't read the whole book yet, but I'm already intrigued by it. An 88-year-old man's first hand experience of WWII by itself is intriguing, I think, let alone the well-written texts (I just read the Prologue on Amazon). When it begins with the death of the man's elder sister when he was only four years old, it felt like the deep and resonant sound from a cello, piercing and with resonance in the innermost part of one's soul, mixed with profound and yet tear-less sadness. It's a book I look forward to read.

Another point to make here is equally intriguing but more on the negative side. I could feel the author's unresolved (perhaps unresolvable?) hatred towards the enemy of himself and his country, but in a rather narrow view. Here's an excerpt from the Prologue:

"...that sneak attacks by little yellow bastards would not go unpunished by the United States of America."

Mr. Mace, and many other like him, fought heroically in the pacific front. At the time of war, this was inevitable, I suppose. How else would you prepare young soldiers heading towards the front line, into the rain of bullets coming from the enemy? So in retrospect, I would like to understand his remark by reminding myself that sneak attacks by evil forces had taken place in Europe, and equally would not, and did not, go unpunished. Pearl Harbor was a trigger for the U.S. to be involved, but Roosevelt and others certainly understood the villains in Europe had to be stopped, too. Bravery was equally evident in the fights half a world away.

The victory in WWII shows that any evil acts will be countered with greater strength and resolve. No matter who did it, yellow or white, little or great, nor would it matter which nation it was done to, be it U.S., Poland, England, Russia, China, or Kuwait for that matter.

With that understanding and my utmost respect, I solute to Mr. Mace, and all those who fought bravely against evil in the great war. They not only served their countries well, but all mankind.

p.s. On a light note, I read Mr. Mace on Reddit and found that he's a delightful man. In answering questions from a youngster about how to cope with the past and the one advise he would give, the answer was the same and had only one word: Martini.

Cheers!

毛家第四代

This lovely little girl is one of the 4th generation of China's Mao's family. Born in 2008, she is now a kindergartner in Beijing's 六一幼兒園.

confidante = 閨蜜

法國人發明的字，在21世紀的中國有最貼切的翻譯。不知兩者是否同樣出自一個巨變的時代。

蔣家圖譜