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Kory Stamper Shares Her Love For Language in the Delightful ‘Word by Word’

Every last syllable of Word by Word: The Secret Life of Dictionaries (Pantheon Books, 2017) is utterly delightful. You should seek it out and read it immediately. The End.

cover image for Word by Word book.

OK, that’s not much of a review. Let’s try again.

Kory Stamper is a lexicographer for Merriam-Webster, which means, essentially, that she and her colleagues write the dictionary. She’s long been one of my favorite word-nerd Twitter follows (@KoryStamper), because she is smart and profanely witty and even more in love with language than I am. More than once, as she has shared some wry observation about the lexicographical life, I’ve thought, “Man, that would be my dream job.” And now, she’s written a book for all of us who have ever wondered, “How on earth do you write a dictionary, exactly?”

Stamper cleverly constructed the book as a series of chapters, each focused on one particular dictionary word. But she uses a word’s story to tell her own, in the process highlighting all the aspects of lexicography that go far beyond writing definitions. The word “but” is the jumping-off point to discuss how grammar figures into dictionary writing, and the tremendous difficulty sometimes of pinning down just what part of speech a particular usage of a particular word actually is — and how none of that is what most people mean when they talk about grammar:

To them, “grammar” is a loose conglomeration of stylistic word choices that get codified into right and wrong, misspellings that every English speaker has made at some point in their life and yet are branded as “bad grammar,” half-remembered “rules” about usage shamed into them by their middle-school English teachers, and personal, sometimes irrational dislikes. This is the grammar that shows up on Internet memes about “your” and “you’re,” the sort of grammar people are referring to when they claim you can’t end a sentence with a preposition, the grammar that is invoked when people claim that the “10 items or less” sign at the grocery store is “bad grammar.”

Kory Stamper, Word by Word

That excerpt probably gives you a clue that Stamper is — as indeed are all lexicographers and the dictionaries they create — descriptionist rather than prescriptionist. Despite years of claims to the contrary (including the marketing materials of those self-same dictionaries!) the purpose of a dictionary is to describe and define language as it is being used by ordinary people right now, not to settle bets or teach anyone the One True Way. A similar message is conveyed in the chapter about “it’s,” wherein I learned that in fact the possessive and plural forms of that word were pretty much interchangeable for hundreds of years, including in the King James Bible and much of Shakespeare.

Other chapters use a specific word as the basis for illuminating the myriad tasks that a lexicographer performs every day: searching written materials to find new citations for new words as well as new ways of using old words; the tricky considerations that go into defining the word “surfboard,” which seems deceptively obvious until you try to pin it down; how small, ordinary words like “take” and “set” are the hardest to pin down because they have so many senses and subtleties of meaning (Stamper refers to them as “semantically oozy”).

A chapter on revising the entry for “bitch” expands into a discussion of how dictionaries treat words that are considered vulgar or derogatory, and the problems that arise when not everyone agrees that certain words or sub-senses of words deserve to be labeled as such (including the problem that the majority of the people making those calls are still older white men of relative privilege who have not experienced having those words hurled at them in very personal ways).

But wait! There’s more! There are also chapters on the challenges of nailing down a word’s etymology, and how a good anecdote (“posh” is shorthand for “port out, starboard home”) is no substitute for actual documentation; the never-ending search to find the earliest known written use of each word; and the tricky business of conveying pronunciation that can accommodate dialect differences (this is why dictionaries use phonemic alphabets so that the letter i is pronounced like the vowel in pin, whatever that may sound like in your dialect). Again Stamper makes the point that the dictionary’s focus is on describing usage, not judging right and wrong.

The final chapter details how all hell broke loose in 2009, when some evangelicals noticed that the dictionary had added a sub-sense to the word “marriage” that described relationships between people of the same sex. (That the definition had changed six years earlier with no one noticing did not stem the outrage.) It’s a thoughtful intro to discussion of how people often get very angry about specific dictionary entries because they feel the dictionary is instigating societal changes that make them uncomfortable instead of simply describing how society has already changed.

I no longer have any illusions that being a lexicographer is like getting to have ice cream for breakfast every day. It seems now to be a difficult, demanding, and rewarding endeavor that requires skills that go beyond just “loving words”. Loving words is definitely a prerequisite, though, and this book will give you an even greater appreciation of the nutty ways that English has developed and evolved over the centuries. If I had my life to live over, I could think of much worse ways to spend it than writing a dictionary.

2 thoughts on “You could look it up

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Rescue Me! American Curl JordanJordan American Curl Rescue

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    American Curl Cats can make good pets in Jordan if they match your IifestyIe. The American Curl is a medium sized cat with curved ears. American Curls are sociable, devoted, and love attention. Curls go with the flow and are adaptable to all kinds of situations. American Curls usually get along well with other pets.

Rescue Me! - HeIpingAnimaIs in Need.
American Curl
lnteresting American Curl Trivia Jordan Fact Sheet
    The first American Curl was a cat named Shulamith born in 1981. American Curls shed very little. American Curls tend to be healthier than other purebred cats. American Curls are often described as having a dog-like temperament.

Related pages:

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    Jordan is Iocated in West and Central Asia. The capital of Jordan is Amman. Most peopIe in Jordan speak Arabic. The population of Jordan is about 5.9 million.
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Episode 65: Steve Pollack, Computer Xpress

November 30th, 2014

Who hasn't said at one point or another:  "I hate my computer!"  The fact is that technology changes so quickly it's hard to get a handle on things. And at other times computers just break down and chew up all our data or locks our system or refuses to cooperate.  So where do you go for help?  You may have an IT department, or a contract service provider for that.  But if you're a small business and you've relied on a "techie" type employee, or your kids, or YouTube videos or a big box outfit then you are spinning a roulette wheel with your business' data.  We are all dependent on computers to run our businesses yet we don't have great, tested and reliable ways to protect that.  So, enough proselytizing, just sit up and pay attention, better yet, take notes.  And here's what you write down:  Call Steve Pollack at Computer Xpress.  This is the guy who is your IT department whether you're a small business or a individual with computer pain.  He'll take the frustration out and help you love your computer again.

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Episode 64: The Glendalia Boutique Hotel & Culinary Studio

November 23rd, 2014

A hidden gem in a historic and romantic area of Cincinnati:  The Village of Glendale.  Robin Thomas owns and runs The Glendalia, a boutique hotel and culinary studio.  Both hotel and culinary studio are designed to offer unique and elegant experiences. Robin is familiar with running business that have an historic connection to their communities but her plans for growth and new services are designed with a modern understanding of what people want and need now.  Tune in or better yet, visit The Glendalia Boutique Hotel and enjoy a delicious, pampered experience.

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Episode 63: Owen Raisch, CiNBA Buy Cincy Holiday Event

November 16th, 2014

Greater Cincinnati Independent Business Alliance is bringing their second annual BuyCincy event to a neighborhood near you. CiNBA is the only business alliance in the US to have partnered with a university.  Together CiNBA and Xavier University are working to create thriving communities of small businesses and non-profits through workshops, programs and peer support.  Membership to CiNBA isn't required, but it's very affordable and opens the access to more powerful resources for small business owners and entrepreneurs.  American Dreamers are a proud supporter of CiNBA.  Go to www.gcinba.org for more information.  Tell them you're a Dreamer, too.

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Episode 62: Ernie Dimalanta, Dimalanta Design Group

November 2nd, 2014

American Dreamers is Ohio's only talk radio show to spotlight homegrown-in-the-trenches businessmen and women.  We bring the back story of the businesses and entrepreneurs that are right here in our own communities.  We celebrate, support and connect them to resources and experts.  After a little over three years of producing the show we have someone who is filled with as much passion for small business as we are.  He is Ernie Dimalanta of Dimalanta Design Group, a local marketing and brand management firm.  Tune in to this commemorative moment in American Dreamers history and find out if American Dreamers will get a third co-host.

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Federal Grand Jury Indicts Man Who Tried To Assassinate Donald Trump

Michael Sandford AL

Michael Sandford, the 20 year old British man who tried to take a police officer’s gun in an attempt to kill Donald Trump, is in a world of trouble.

A federal grand jury has indicted him which means he could face massive fines and significant jail time.

NBC News in Las Vegas reports:

Federal grand jury indicts British man detained at Trump Las Vegas rally

The British man who was arrested earlier this month at a Donald Trump rally at Treasure Island after he attempted to seize a law enforcement officer’s firearm was indicted by the federal grand jury today on three felony charges.

Michael Steven Sandford, 20, of England, is charged with two counts of illegal alien in possession of a firearm and one count of impeding and disrupting the orderly conduct of government business and official functions, according to a Justice Department news release.

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Sandford, who is in federal custody, is scheduled for an arraignment and plea hearing at 3 p.m. July 6.

If convicted, he faces up to 10 years in prison and a fine of up to $250,000 on each count.

According to the indictment, Sandford, a British citizen unlawfully in the United States, allegedly went to a gun range June 17 in Las Vegas and took shooting lessons using a Glock 9 mm handgun. The next day, Sandford entered the Trump rally, approached a uniformed Metro officer and attempted to seize the officer’s handgun by grabbing the holster and handle of the firearm with both hands in an attempt to remove it from the holster.

This young man has no idea how badly he’s ruined his life.

Even if he gets out of going to jail, this incident will follow him forever.

Join the conversation!

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Bill Koch: 2020 Red Sox were bad on nearly all fronts

Boston's Rafael Devers slams his bat in disgust after popping out in a Sept. 4 game against the Blue Jays -- one of many frustrating moments for the Red Sox in 2020.
AP, file / Winslow Townson
Bill Koch | | 6:05 pm EDT September 28, 2020

BOSTON — Christian Vazquez and Kevin Plawecki were something of an exception among the 2020 Red Sox.

Boston finished in last place in the American League East, going 24-36. It’s the fourth time in nine years the club has found itself in the divisional basement. And a deeper look at the numbers posted across 60 games reveals a failure on multiple levels.

Per FanGraphs, Red Sox catchers ranked eighth in the big leagues in Wins Above Replacement, or WAR. The statistic measures exactly what you think it might — a certain player’s value against another player who is selected to replace him. Catcher was the lone position group where Boston ranked inside the top 14 this season.

Red Sox pitching, as you might expect, finished last in the big leagues in WAR. The 30 men who took the ball for Boston this year – including position players like Plawecki, Jose Peraza and Tzu-Wei Lin – posted a collective WAR of -0.1. That’s right — the Red Sox staff was a net negative when compared to their peers throughout the sport.

On and on it goes as we look through what was the only year in charge for Ron Roenicke, who will not return. The manager was pressed into service after Alex Cora met his end through Major League Baseball’s electronic sign-stealing investigations. Roenicke at his core is a good and decent man who was placed in an impossible situation, and professional sports isn’t show friends — it's show business.

The page can’t turn quickly enough in terms of on-field product. The 5.58 earned-run average compiled by Boston’s pitchers was a new franchise worst. The Red Sox were 30th in starting pitching WAR, 26th in relief pitching WAR and allowed the most hits, the most home runs and the most walks.

Boston relievers threw more innings than any other club’s bullpen. That number would have been even higher if Nathan Eovaldi didn’t return off the injured list and if a pair of debutants — Tanner Houck and Nick Pivetta — hadn't been so effective over the final two weeks. It shouldn’t be readily accepted that all problems will be solved simply by welcoming back Chris Sale and Eduardo Rodriguez.

The Red Sox offense could also use some tweaking, and personnel changes would likely bolster the obvious areas of weakness. Boston ranked 28th in WAR at both designated hitter and second base — J.D. Martinez opting into the final two years of his contract and recapturing his form would improve the first part. Making a real effort to find a long-term replacement for Dustin Pedroia is necessary to solve the rest.

The Red Sox posted a fairly strong slash line as a team — third in average, 10th in on-base percentage, eighth in slugging percentage. They ranked second in doubles and were in the middle of the pack with respect to home runs. The other true outcomes in the game, strikeouts and walks, need to start trending in different directions.

Boston finished among the game’s top 10 in total strikeouts, and any long-term commitment to Bobby Dalbec and Michael Chavis in the lineup doesn’t figure to help those numbers. But it’s the Red Sox walk rate that should draw more attention – 8.1%, which ranked 22nd. Boston’s four World Series winners this century finished third (2004), first (2007), fifth (2013) and ninth (2018) in that category, putting out lineups filled with disciplined grinders who raked opposing pitchers over the coals.

It would be nice to place some blame on plain old rotten luck, but that also wasn’t the case for the Red Sox at the plate. They finished second in batting average on balls in play, hitting .321. Some of the bottom teams in that category include the Reds (30th), Athletics (27th), Cubs (26th), Astros (25th), Indians (24th) and Dodgers (23rd) — they’ll all be playing in October.

This dreadful finish gives Boston’s front office the considerable latitude it needs to shake things up. Red Sox fans will be expecting additions after a year that saw long-term residents like Mookie Betts, David Price, Mitch Moreland and Brandon Workman subtracted from the roster via trade. The free-agent departures of Brock Holt and Rick Porcello ultimately affected public perception more than the product on the field.

It’s all on Chaim Bloom now. The clock has officially started on the chief baseball officer’s tenure. His managerial hire, his roster rebuild, his freedom from Competitive Balance Tax penalties — it all awaits him in the coming weeks and months.

On Twitter: @BillKoch25

Originally Published 6:05 pm EDT September 28, 2020
Updated 6:05 pm EDT September 28, 2020
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Tantra for women.

Tantra for men and women, singles and couples.

What if there was a special place inside you...

A hidden treasure of gifts.

A sacred space of vast orgasmic energy of love, abundance and wisdom.

What if.. your whole life was about finding this place?

Discover your sacred essence

What is Tantra?

Tantra is an ancient secret teaching more than 5.000 years old. Through specific meditations and practices it helps you to improve all areas of your life, live more fully and realize your divinity.

Tantra says yes to life and to all that life represents. Including sexuality, emotions, love, relationships, creativity, intuition, senses, spirituality and consciousness.

Tantra uses our life force energy to access higher states of consciousness and realization of self as a divine human being - which is the ultimate freedom. It has the ability to transform past hurts and pains into joy & bliss.

It is coming back home - to wholeness and re-connection to all that is. Tantra is a method, a spiritual practice to enlightenment. It is an art, a science and a way of living.

Chakra system

The backbone of Tantra is chakra system of 7 energy centers in the body. Chakras are energetical vortexes that are teaching us specific life lessons. Opening the whole chakra system, our kundalini energy awakens and we are opening to our fullest potential and divinity.

First 6 chakras have opposite polarity in female and male body. The good news is, that it is enough to open your positive chakras and others will automatically follow. For women it is the 2nd, 4th and 6th chakra, 7th chakra is beyond duality.

That is a reason why our seminars for women are devoted to these centers.

Experience ancient meditations

What is the content of these seminars?

Forget boring mental techniques. On these seminars we move together into a juicy and deep transformational process through ancient meditations, intuitive dance, sacred rituals, emotional release, massages,  channeling, sacred geometry, breathing exercises and techniques to activate your chakras and unlock your energy.

These meditations were channeled by Tantra master Mahasatvaa Ma Ananda Sarita.

Through these seminars you will have a chance to discover your true self and open up to more love, ecstasy, inner wisdom and Godliness.

This transformation deeply anchors in your being so then you can live it and share it with others in your daily life.

Feel safe being held by accredited Tantra-Essence teachers:

Amrita Hanna Slaninková

Tantra teacher, holistic therapist and healing channel. Amrita is deeply in love with Tantra as a Spiritual Path to Enlightenment. She is fascinated by its transformational power to unlock your full potential and bring you back to love and connection within few moments. Her powerful energy, together with the ability to create sacred space leads the group into deep transformation.

Ma Prem Tanmaya

Her light and playful approach to teaching is balanced by her profound depth of experience in Meditation and personal development. With her deep passion for Tantra she invites her students to let go and experience the magic that can happen when we embrace who we are meant to be and open up to meditation and healing.

Deeply devoted teacher and practitioner of Tantra, Tao, Yoga and meditation. His loving presence and devotion to meditation guides you on the magical journey to inner and outer spaces, so that you can discover the grace and blessings of who you are. He uses the tools and methods of the path of Osho and Sarita to help students to experience deep life transformation.

All teachers have many years of experience with tantra, meditations, self development, healing and energy work. They have done numerous intensive trainings to work with women, men, couples, groups and individuals. They are highly qualified Tantra teachers.

Choose the right seminar for you and unlock your full potential

Calendar of events

Due to the Coronavirus situation the dates of group workshops might be changed. If you sign up and the new dates won't fit you, we will refund you your deposit.

Each workshop can be attended as a standing alone workshop. You can attend these workshops in any order and you don't have to participate  in all of them.

Master Lover

18.2.-21.2.2021, Vyhne, Slovakia
Tantra for men and women, for singles and couples. Learn the art of sacred love making and bring more love, intimacy and Soul connection into your life.

Goddess Essence 1: The Goddess Unveiled

4.6.-6.6.2021,Vyhne, Slovakia
Tantra for women - the heart chakra. Improve your relationships, self acceptance and unleash your inner essence of unconditional love.

Sex to Superconsciousness: 4th Chakra

2.7.-4.7.2021, Vyhne, Slovakia
Tantra for men and women. Theme: the Heart Chakra, unconditional love, forgiveness, compassion, nourishment, relationships, transforming pain of the heart to love and bliss. The booking is open now.

Tantra for women.

Tantra for men and women, singles and couples.

Do you have a question?

Write me or call me at: amrita@amrita.sk, 00 421 903 797 188


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I’m going to describe something that I have felt over and over since I started college. I think we’ve all experienced it at one point or another: that feeling of inadequacy and intimidation upon seeing a peer’s work and feeling stunned because it seems so far beyond our capacities. It’s especially present in computer science because everyone is at a different level of experience and because we, as a group, keep obsessing over the “child prodigy” archetype. I look at a friend’s project and feel overwhelmed because it looks so beautiful and advanced and I have no idea how I would have done it. I look at another friend’s resume and see that it lists twenty different programming languages — meanwhile I only feel vaguely comfortable with three (Java, C++, C, amirite). Everyone around me knows so much about topics that I don’t know about and I feel like I won’t ever catch up.

Only recently have I started to realize how wrong I am about all of this. It’s not that my classmates aren’t impressive people — they really are — it’s that I grossly miscalculate how difficult it will be to do something. I’ve seen so many people with personal websites and pretty blogs (hi Sophi, Sarah :)) that look difficult to set up and too confusing for me to figure out on my own. But when I finally sat down and said to myself, “I want to install WordPress on my website!”, it only took me about thirty minutes of fiddling around to actually get it working. The installation wasn’t difficult — it just looked so hard from the outside, from the perspective of someone who has never done web stuff on her own. And when I finally got around to doing it, I just felt so relieved for having tried. It’s easy to feel inadequate when you see what other people have done because you just assume you’d never be able to understand how to do the same. But sometimes just taking that little step forward and trying it out will prove to you that you really don’t need to be a genius to do these things too.

Strangely enough, this process has made me realize that I’m often unknowingly contributing to the problem myself. In the previous paragraph, I could have been really obnoxious and written, “It only took me about thirty minutes to figure out how to download an FTP client, SSH into my web hosting service (to edit something I’d already uploaded), set up the MySQL database, configure the installation files, and run the install script.” For some of you who have already done these things, it sounds pretty simple. I bet you’re wondering why it took me half an hour to figure out this stuff when even WordPress says it should only take five minutes to set everything up. For everyone else (myself previously included!), this is all a bunch of nonsense. What do those acronyms mean? What do they want you to do? How could all those things only take someone five minutes, let alone thirty?

I don’t think having these questions is a shameful thing to admit. I had no idea what I was doing, I had only ever vaguely heard of these terms, and it took me a huge amount of Googling to figure out what I needed to do. But when I finally did learn and wanted to describe what I did, I had already forgotten how confusing these things sound to someone who has never tried it. I had already switched to the mindset of “This is so simple!”, rather than “I had trouble with this, too.” In this way, I contribute to the general attitude of “everyone is doing things that I don’t know how to do.” that we’re all weighed down by.

In addition to careless behavior on my part, I’ve also had the incredibly strange realization that despite the fact that I generally have no idea what I’m doing, people around me think that I’m experienced and knowledgeable. I think they’re sorely mistaken about my abilities, but people, for some crazy reason, think I know how to do things! And I’m willing to bet that at least a couple of the people I admire greatly have had this realization and confusion themselves. You feel as though everyone around you knows more than you do, but they think that way about you as well.

Naturally, I’ve been thinking about how I can stop feeding this problem on both sides — as someone who feels so intimidated by everyone around her and as someone who is given unwarranted respect.

On the first end, I will stop assuming that foreign concepts are out of my reach. I have a lot of ideas for neat little projects, but many of them involve tools that I’ve never used before, such as SQLite. Rather than giving up on those projects immediately, I will dedicate at least a few days (or even weeks!) to learning about the topic — and hopefully I’ll realize that these things aren’t as insurmountable as I always think they are. And for people who are in the same situation as me, here’s a list of things I try when I’m stuck:

  • Reddit’s /r/learnprogramming. I can almost guarantee you that if you’re trying to learn about something, someone on Reddit has had the same question. Just do a quick search and you’ll be amazed by what you find!
  • Stack Overflow. Stack Overflow sometimes scares me because responses can be too advanced. Still, most questions can be answered just by Googling “[my question] stack overflow”. I’ve been on the front page of Stack Overflow about twice in my life, really, but I’ve still spent huge amounts of time on it just because everything I search ends up leading to it.
  • Check the documentation. I’d consider this more of a last resort because the documentation is usually hard to understand for beginners and it makes me feel overwhelmed with information. Still, sometimes you’ll be pleasantly surprised by how accessible some tools are!
  • Just ask. This one is probably the most important. Because I always feel so unconfident in myself, I tend to feel foolish when I ask my friends questions about their projects and how they do certain things. The other night, I was looking at my friend Stephen‘s project, which is part of what prompted this post. I asked him about how he was storing his data and how he had created the website, and I ended up learning a lot about SQLite from him. Your friends (if they are decent human beings) will not be annoyed if you ask questions. It’s often the case that they’ll be excited to teach you about it! This is a huge part of demystifying the “everyone is amazing except me” problem — rather than just being impressed and discouraged, learn from your peers. The word “peers”, after all, does imply that you are not beneath your classmates — you are just as capable.

And on the side of being someone who only found out recently that she intimidates people, I will not trivialize the things that I’ve learned and I will not (knowingly) make them seem more difficult than they are. It’s easy to think that being modest and saying things like “This was really simple, anyone could figure it out” are appropriate, but they actually — for me, at least — contribute to an overall sense of incompetence. When I hear “anyone could figure it out,” I end up thinking, “Then I guess I’m not just anyone, because I don’t get it.” When I learn new things, I’ll try to document what I learned to delineate exactly why I reached the conclusion that it was simple. Installing WordPress, for example, is only simple after you do it. (In fact, when I set up my second WordPress blog, it really did only take me five minutes because I had already done it before!) I hope that if I explain how I learned certain things more clearly, other people will be encouraged to learn as well. And rather than letting people think that one of my projects is a lot more impressive and intimidating than it seems, I will be more forthright about which parts were, in reality, really simple once I got down to it.

More importantly, I will not ridicule anyone’s lack of experience with statements such as “But that’s so easy!” or “How could you not know that?”. To be clear, I don’t think I’ve ever done that (it’s a pretty huge part of tutoring), but it’s incredibly easy to unknowingly make someone feel inadequate with thoughtless statements like this. It would be really easy for my more experienced friends to make me feel silly every time I tried to learn something new and easy-in-retrospect, like setting up WordPress, but they don’t. Hopefully, I can teach other people about the things I’ve learned about and help them realize that they can do those things too.

Finally, this leads me to a project that I am starting on now. I’m a section leader for my school’s introductory computer science courses and I’ve realized that we really need some sort of system for studying only the topics we’re foggy on. It can be a waste of time to do an entire practice exam when you’re rock solid on most of the concepts and only one of the problems actually benefited you. I know that I, personally, fall into the trap of doing only problems that I already understand because it’s a confidence booster. I’m hoping to create a small page where people can say, “I have no idea what HashMaps are. Can I do some problems related to that?” without having to wade through four other unrelated test problems that just waste their study time. This also ties together a lot of things that I’ve always wanted to learn about (Python, databases, creating websites) into something that will hopefully motivate me to keep learning.

So far, I’ve finally gotten around to learning about what Bootstrap is. I had avoided it before because “I don’t know about all that web stuff,” but it turned out to be another thing that literally took minutes to set up once I actually sat down and tried it. And now that I’ve set up a really basic page with it, I know that I really was just overestimating how complicated it was. The next step will be to learn how to store practice problems in some way so that people can query for whatever tags they want. In order to show that these things won’t be as difficult as they sound, I’ll take my friend Sophi’s lead and document the learning process in later posts.

I’m still struggling to convince myself that I’m competent. Most of the time, I end up thinking that everyone around me knows how to do incredible things because they’re just smarter than I am. I don’t think I’m alone in feeling this way (and if you’ve never felt this, geez, I want your confidence!). But it doesn’t have to be like this. We don’t have to keep perpetuating this attitude. We don’t have to separate topics into “Things I know, which must be simple because I understand them, of all people” and “Things I don’t know, which are too complicated to learn”. Instead, let’s throw the latter into the broad category of “Things that I could learn about, if I’d just give it a shot.”

10 thoughts on “Impressions

  1. pengie

    It’s so easy to look at other people and be in awe of what they are capable of. It’s even easier to dismiss something because it seems “too hard,” and because those people — the genuises — picked it up quickly, meaning you don’t even have a chance. But I try to remember that we all have our strengths, and I’m glad to see that you are realizing this, too.

    It’s so strange to me to read this blog entry and fully realize that the budding little blogger I once knew has grown up into a mature, intelligent, introspective young woman who isn’t afraid to try new things, acknowledge her weaknesses, and work on growing those into strengths. I’m so proud of you, Amy. Reading this actually brought a tear to my eye.

    Keep at it!

  2. Sophi Newman

    Amy!! This is an awesome post. It’s seriously *so* intimidating to be new (or new-ish) to something and be surrounded by smart people who have been doing it for years and don’t try to tailor/calm down their jargon at all. SQLite is a great tool, and a pretty easy one to use since it’s serverless. That said, SQL querying is often tricky, and learning a new *anything* requires time and effort. It’s that piece – the time and effort piece – that I feel like people so often overlook, and that really contributes to the sense of inadequacy one can feel because something isn’t coming immediately or naturally. As far as I know, I don’t have a knack or innate ability for programming. It’s something I’ve chosen to develop actually *because* it’s challenging. Learning to program has absolutely been about proving to myself that I’m capable of becoming adept at things that scare me and are new. Your project for 198 sounds fabulous! It would also be really helpful for SLs since we obviously forget stuff or need refreshers too :)

  3. Sophi Newman

    Oh PS, I wasn’t sure how to route the wordpress blog to a different URL like you did. I wanna do that! I just sort of jimmyriggged a solution, and I could use your help :)

    1. amyn Post author

      I alluded to this in the post, but that’s why I had to set up WordPress twice! I did it on because I was confused, and then I had to figure out how to do it on It turns out that my hosting service ( treats these two pages as entirely different websites despite the common domain name. I had to make the domain as a separate website, and then it gave me a different login thing for FTP-ing. I’ll show you when spring break ends! And you can teach me about SQLite magic!

  4. Grant

    Hey Amy, I really appreciate your post. It’s something I had (and still have) difficulty talking about because I don’t want to admit how incompetent I feel. But the thing you’re describing is actually so common it has a name: impostor effect Like you guessed, a lot of my friends have the exact same problem.

    For me, just knowing that impostor effect is a (very) common problem, especially at a place like Stanford, is not enough. I still felt like I knew nothing. So what I eventually decided was that it doesn’t matter what experience other people have, or how much everyone is smarter than me. What actually matters is what I actually do. (Not in a competitive sense – when I finish something, I sit back and think about if I should be happy that it was something I made.)

    All these things we think are important, like knowledge of esoteric programming languages, or Twitter Bootstrap :-), are just stepping stones that will get us to our actual goal, which is to make great things. But knowing a lot doesn’t necessarily mean that the things you will make will be great. And we don’t really need those stepping stones. This blog is great, and you didn’t even have to know 5 esoteric programming languages in order to make it.

    I’m not sure if this will help, but your post described the exact same problems that I’ve been dealing with for a while, and this was the way I eventually dug myself out of the hole.

    1. amyn Post author

      Hi Grant! You’ll probably facepalm at this, but I’m surprised you feel that you’re incompetent! Though I don’t know you very well, I probably would have characterized you as someone who knows what he’s doing. :) And the weird thing about impostor syndrome is that even though I’m aware of it, I still convince myself that it’s not referring to me, it’s referring to other people. I just end up concluding that what they’re describing can’t apply to me because I actually don’t know what I’m doing, whereas other people just don’t realize that they know so many things. I know how illogical this sounds and yet I can’t break it!

      You’re right about the learning thing. I think I’ve been in a weird mindset recently because I realized yesterday that I’ve only been studying computer science for four quarters (started in CS106A in winter 2012). There are just too many things that I don’t even have a handle on because I’m just taking intro courses right now, which is why I feel like I’m always in a rush to learn a new thing. The funny thing about Twitter Bootstrap is that I decided to learn about it because I actually have very little interest in making pretty layouts! I don’t have much of an eye for design, so I thought I would like having something that handled the aesthetics for me — otherwise, all of Practice Pal (the project) would be in Times New Roman font… It really did take a load off my mind so I can focus on doing the backend now! I hope I’ll have something nice to show for it soon.

      Really, thanks for reading and replying! I think one of the best results of me writing this has been seeing everyone say, “Me too!” (including a huge amount of section leaders). It’s nice to know we’re not alone!

  5. Emily C

    Thanks so much for sharing all your thoughts, Amy — I greatly enjoyed reading this. I definitely feel the same way. The funny thing is, the people I admire claim that they feel the same inadequacy compared to someone else that they admire, and the chain continues on and on and on.

    This also reminds me of my epic struggles to get the scpd scraper script to work with all of its dependencies. There was a suggestion to use apt-get to install mimms, which I didn’t have, but then apparently there isn’t apt-get on Mac, so I tried installing it with something else, which required installing something else, which didn’t work, etc. etc. So much jargon, and I was boggled that something so seemingly simple could be so confusing for me.

    Ultimately I think it’s the excitement of realizing your creative ideas and to just *create* things that results in a willingness to put a lot (lot lot) of effort into learning the tools needed to successfully build the said thing that you’re so enthused about — that is a common theme for a lot of great programmers. After reading your post I was motivated to update my own website after months of setting it aside. Dedication and drive — you seem to have those qualities :-)

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Work with Amy

Let’s partner together to achieve your health goals or for the health of your organization.

One-to-One Wellness Coaching Program – 8 sessions, individual coaching
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Nutrition Assessment or Family Health Check-Up

Smart Shopping Trip-1.5 hour in-store session, grocery store of your choice

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Tag: All Saints Day

Living Our Faith: Community

November 4, 2018 All Saints Day John 11:32-44 “In Louisville, at the corner of Fourth and Walnut, in the center of the shopping district, I was suddenly overwhelmed with the realization that I loved all these people, that they were mine and I theirs,… Continue Reading “Living Our Faith: Community”

A Multitude Gathers

November 5, 2017 Revelation 7:9-19 Shall we gather at the river, where bright angel feet have trod, with its crystal tide forever flowing by the throne of God. We’ll gather with the saints at the river that flows by the throne of God. The… Continue Reading “A Multitude Gathers”


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RingCentral Phone

Download the RingCentral Phone app for iPhone and iPad — the essential application to your RingCentral business phone system. Manage your phone system directly from your iPhone and take your business calls, voice messages, business text messages ***, and faxes—anywhere.

Use the RingCentral Phone app on your iPhone or iPad to:
– Show your RingCentral business number as your Caller ID when you make calls. *, **
– Business text messaging to send and receive text messages with your RC local number. ***
– Department messaging to send and receive text messages to department members. ***
– Make VoIP calls over Wi-Fi without using your carrier minutes.
– Use VoIP calling to make local calls to your home country while traveling internationally. *
– VoIP calls can be received directly on this app by turning ON the option in Settings. If the call is not answered on the app, it will ring other numbers based on the forwarding rules. ****
– Keep all your business voicemails and faxes separate from your personal messages.
– See who left a message, forward messages, and tap to return calls with Visual Voicemail.
– Send and receive faxes, by accessing photos, email attachments, and cloud storage such as Dropbox and Box.
– View call time, date, and duration, and return calls directly from your RingCentral call logs.
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IMPORTANT: RingCentral Phone for iPhone and iPad requires an existing RingCentral account.

1. Emergency calling will not work outside of the U.S., Canada or U.K..
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Tell us what you think at contact@analogwhole.com

In-App Purchases


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Saturday, May 21, 2011

Flower tea

A melange of Ceylon green Sencha tea, hibiscus, sunflower petals, chamomile, cornflower blossoms and rose petals cooked in milk with one spoonful of gulkand (Rose petals in sugar syrup) this morning... A tea that tasted like a morning walk through nostalgia.

- Posted on the go.

Worrying about arthritis...

I said to Leonard Cohen, "How lonely does it get?"
Leonard Cohen said, "Insufficient data for a meaningful answer, yet."

- Posted on the go.

Location:Half asleep


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If anybody is having a business or a company, he should have a website. If a company sells certain products, then having a website is a must for them. That is because nowadays, there is very little that cannot be sold over the internet. The number of online shoppers has exceeded twenty million who purchase everything from a simple book to jet airplanes.

A company should at least have an online presence so that the investors, business partners, potential employees and most importantly, customers can easily find out about the company and its services or products in a very quick time. In addition, the company needs to have a professional looking website in order to be taken seriously. Nowadays, many customers seek information online before making a final purchase and therefore, a company needs to make a good impression on the potential buyer by having an easily navigable, yet professional looking website. E-commerce has become a very common term nowadays. On the contrary, having a website gives the edge to a company over its competitors.

A website is also beneficial to a company by numerous other ways. Foreign business partners or customers of a certain company can easily skim through a company’s online profile to appraise them which is pretty inconvenient otherwise. A website helps a company to showcase its experience, achievements to the visitors. It also provides every kind of contact details regarding a particular company. A company should definitely have a website because of its innumerable benefits and the consequences of not having one.


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Tag Archives: news

Eastvale: Largest Church in the City Breaks Ground on New Church Home

VantagePoint Church breaks ground on their new 10 acre church home in the city of Eastvale

Staff Reports

Eastvale – Founded in 2008, VantagePoint Church has grown from a handful of families to become the largest church in Eastvale, currently averaging over 1800 men women and children in 4 services each Sunday.  For nine of those years, they’ve been a portable church, meeting at Roosevelt High School. It has always been the church’s dream to build a permanent home in Eastvale to better serve their surrounding communities.

On Sunday, September 30, 2018, VantagePoint Church’s dream took one step closer to fulfillment as they celebrated their official groundbreaking at their new church home, 8500 Archibald Ave, Eastvale, CA 92880.

Over 2000 people gathered on the 10 acre property to dedicate the land to God and to the vision He has for their property. Gathered with the people of VantagePoint Church were several members of the Eastvale City Council, including Mayor Clint Lorimore and Mayor Pro Tem Todd Rigby.

Construction of the church facility has begun and will continue through October of 2019, when the new campus of VantagePoint Church Eastvale will open its doors to the community. The campus will initially consist of a state of the art 650 seat auditorium, children’s buildings, and community spaces.  Eventually, the church’s master plan calls for a larger 1250 seat auditorium, a splash pad, cafe, and community meeting spaces.

Until construction is finished, VantagePoint Church continues to meet at Eleanor Roosevelt High School in Eastvale on Sundays at 8:30am, 10am, 11:30am, and 6pm. Visit their website at: http://www.vantagepointchurch.org.

Top 3 Reasons Not to Waste Food

By StatePoint

More than one-third of all food produced in the United States goes uneaten, according to the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics. This waste contributes to problems ranging from hunger and malnutrition to environmental and economic concerns.

“From the farm, through the production and distribution process, to the grocery store, to the home — wherever there is food, there is unfortunately food waste,” says Lauri Wright, registered dietitian nutritionist and Academy spokesperson. “In a world of limited resources and growing populations, wasting food is a luxury we can’t afford.”

Reducing, reusing, and recycling wasted food can assist with feeding the estimated 49 million Americans who are food-insecure, reduce agricultural pressures on the environment and increase business efficiencies for those producing and selling food.

Environmental Concerns

The majority of wasted food ends up in landfills and then breaks down to produce methane and carbon dioxide emissions, which contribute to climate change. Food in landfills contributes to nearly one-quarter of all methane emissions in the United States. Composting food and diverting it from entering landfills helps prevent the creation of global greenhouse gas emissions and protects the environment.

Economic Concerns

Wasted food is not only detrimental to the environment but also costs consumers, businesses and taxpayers substantial amounts of money. An American family of four throws out an average $1,484 worth of edible food a year, while nationally, the costs associated with food waste exceeds $1 billion annually in local tax funds.

Social Concerns

While millions of Americans worry how they will feed their children, the amount of safe edible food wasted in the Unites States continues to soar. If Americans wasted just 15 percent less food, it would be enough to feed 25 million people. Instead of throwing away untouched food, support the food-insecure by donating it to food banks.

Reduce Food Waste at Home

Consumers are responsible for the majority of food waste in the United States and can play a major role in its reduction.

“Reduce food waste by being a smarter shopper. Only buy the amount of perishable foods that you will be able to eat in a week,” Wright says. “If you do have leftovers, and they are still safe to eat, donate them. If they are not safe to eat, compost them. While not all wasted food is edible, much of it can be recovered and repurposed.”

Registered dietitian nutritionists are uniquely qualified to help reduce food loss and waste by educating individuals, families, communities, business and industry. For more information on reducing food waste, check out the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics Foundation’s Future of Food initiative and the Foundation’s “2016 State of America’s Wasted Food Report.”

Food waste is a global problem with solutions at the local and even individual level. Get the entire family involved in taking steps to reduce waste in your home.


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Heel pain and Plantar Fasciitis: latest update (2014)

Plantar fasciitis is a common injury with an incidence rate of between 4,5% and 10% in runners.

Plantar fasciitis is the most common foot condition and accounting for up to 15% of all adult foot complaints requiring professional care.

Increased plantar fascia thickness is associated with symptoms (altered pain levels) and altered compressive properties of the fat pad in those with plantar heel pain. Heel pain/plantar fasciitis is often see as a chronic condition, with symptom duration greater than 1 year.

Risk factors may include limited ankle dorsiflexion ROM, high BMI in nonathletic individuals, running, and work-related weight-bearing activities. The ICD category of plantar fasciitis and the associated ICF impairment-based category of heel pain (b28015 Pain in lower limb, b2804 Radiating pain in a segment or region).

 History and physical examination findings should include:

  •   Plantar medial heel pain: especially the first steps after a period of inactivity and      prolonged weight bearing
  •   Heel pain provoked by a recent increase in weightbearing activity
  •   Pain with palpation at the proximal insertion of the plantar fascia
  •   Positive windlass test
  •   Negative tarsal tunnel tests
  •   Limited active and passive talocrural joint dorsiflexion ROM
  •   Abnormal foot posture index (FPI) score
  •   High BMI in nonathletic individuals

Diagnostic ultrasound may be used to assess plantar fascia thickness.

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Musculoskeletal ultrasound in a peroneal tendon tear

Peroneal complex anatomy

Musculoskeletal Ultrasound (MSU) is the method of choice in the study of peroneal tendon injuries as it is non-invasive, inexpensive, due to the high resolution of the images and the possibility of performing dynamic studies.

Curious about the rest of the article?

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Category Archives: Foreign investment

John Kehoe, from the Australian Financial Review, published today an op-ed on the economic reforms undertaken by Mexican President Peña Nieto.  Kehoe highlights the political agreement reached among the three major parties (PRI, PAN, PRD) that have enable the current administration to pass the much needed reforms (previous post). Despite outstanding challenges to overcome, such as violence and corruption, Mexico earned ‘A’ grade sovereign rate from Moody’s credit rating agency as a result of such reforms.

Kehoe further notes Australian Treasurer Joe Hockey comments, on Mexico’s efforts to undertake domestic reforms to cope with global volatility. Last weekend in Sydney, G20 Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors committed to promote a resilient financial system and to foster a conducive investment environment. The author concludes that Mexico, along with other developing countries, is in a much better position to fulfill the G20 commitments.

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Filed under Foreign investment, Global Governance, Macroeconomics, Mexico, News brief, Uncategorized

Peña Nieto on the front cover of TIME magazine

Last 16 February, Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto made the front cover of TIME magazine. This issue spark off a heated debated in social media in Mexico, criticising Michael Crowley, the author, and TIME for allegedly “selling out” themselves to the Peña Nieto government.

As Crowley rightly points out, Peña Nieto only won the presidential election with 38% of the votes and therefore it is evident that his detractors react this way. I agree that perhaps the title of the story would have been better with an interrogation mark at the end: “SAVING MEXICO?”, but I must concede that the author presents both sides of the same coin. He highlights achievements and strengths of the country, but also points out the numerous challenges that the current government still has to overcome.

At the same time, I must recognise the sharp Mexican humor to transform the cover into this one.

In any case, I strongly invite you to read the article (or Spanish version) and make your own judgement.

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Filed under Corruption, Democracy, Development, Foreign investment, Macroeconomics, Mexico, News brief, Security, Uncategorized

Aztec tiger begins to sharpen its claws

The Financial Times published an interesting article on Mexico’s economic environment. It highlights the prudent fiscal and monetary policies that the country has implemented recently, creating a sound macroeconomic environment.

Furthermore, the journalist underlines the structural reforms that President Peña Nieto was able to promote, as a result of the pact established with the main political forces of the country. Mexico is in the track of industrialisation, but still has a long way to go. Peña Nieto’s government needs to capitalize the momentum and continue further with other important reforms, such as the energy sector and tax schemes.

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Filed under Foreign investment, Macroeconomics, Mexico, News brief, Trade, Uncategorized

‘RELAUNCHING’ CHINA-MEXICO RELATIONS: President Xi Jinping visit to Mexico

Last week, Chinese President Xi Jinping visited Mexico, as part of his first trip to the Americas. Earlier this year, during a trip to China to participate in the Boao Forum for Asia, President Peña Nieto extended an invitation to the Chinese President to visit Mexico. China and Mexico established diplomatic relations in 1972, but bilateral contacts are much older than that. In the XVIth Century, during the Spanish colony ships sailed the Pacific loaded with precious metals, cacao grains, avocados, tomatoes and other articles from the Americas that were exchanged for Asian spices, Chinese tea, porcelain and fabrics, especially silk.

For most of the last 40 years, the relations between the countries were quite cordial, during the last ten years. However, diplomatic mishaps and a policy that sought to bring Mexico closer to the US, during the Fox and Calderon administrations, provoked the Mexican neglect of strategic partners in other parts of the world, and in particular in Asia. Despite regular high-level encounters in international fora, such as APEC or G20, and the signing of cooperation agreements in numerous sectors, trade rivalry overshadowed  Sino-Mexican bilateral relations.

Unlike the rest of Latin-America, the economic relationship with Mexico has not been based on Chinese investment to ensure the flow of raw materials to fuel China’s industry. In fact, cheap Chinese labour made Mexico and China direct competitors in the US market;  in some cases, Chinese manufactures displaced national production in the Mexican domestic market. Furthermore, the bilateral trade deficit is heavily favorable to China; in 2012 Chinese exports to Mexico accounted for USD$57 billion, while Mexican exports to China were USD$5.7  billion (according to the Mexican Ministry of Trade,

The occasion to relaunch the bilateral relationship could not be better. Each President has recently taken office and both countries seek to reaffirm their positions as global actors. On the domestic side, President Peña Nieto’s administration started a series of structural reforms to increase economic productivity, while China seeks to maintain its economic momentum. The increase of Chinese wages and international oil prices has narrowed down the productivity gap between Chinese and Mexican products. China’s products are not as cheap as they used to, in some cases, it is cheaper and certainly quicker to import from Mexico than from China for US companies. These elements helped Mexico to leave aside fears and realise the economic potential of complementing, rather than competing with, Chinese partners.

With the aims to enhance mutual trust, expand cooperation and deepen friendship, Peña Nieto and Xi Jinping announced the Comprehensive Strategic Partnership. This agreement aims to push for comprehensive, in-depth and mutual cooperation between the two countries and to make positive contributions to world peace, stability and prosperity. A permanent bilateral commission and working groups will follow the commitments established in the Partnership by the leaders.

Likewise, the two Presidents agreed to move forward, solving the long standing conflicts on pork, tequila and textiles trade. They committed to increase trade and investment and established a high-level business forum. Mexico and China also signed memoranda of understanding to improve cooperation in energy, biotechnology, mining, financial services and sport.

Additionally, President Peña Nieto and President Xi Jinping will encourage deeper people-to-people links. To start, the Chinese government will increase the number of scholarships offered to Mexican students from 40 to 300 per year. To increase cultural and academic exchanges, a Mexican cultural centre in Beijing and a centre specialising on Chinese studies in the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) will be opened. Finally, as symbol of the two countries’ endeavours to boost tourism flows, during the last day of the visit, President Xi Jinping and his wife visited the archaeological site of Chichen-Itza.

Some specialists point out that the Chinese visit to Latin America is a sign to the US. China is pointing out that it has interests in other parts of the world, and is not afraid to contest US hegemony, even in the its back yard. Similarly, the US could interpret the visit as a payback for the recent increase in US engagement in Asia, China’s back yard. In any case, this is a perfect environment for Mexico’s diversification, since it could help to break the Mexican trade dependency on the US and to reaffirm itself as a key global player.

As said by President Xi Jiping in his address to the Mexican Senate*, China has a population of 1,300 million, is the second largest importer, expects to invest overseas more than USD$500, and more than 400 million of Chinese tourists will travel around the world in the next few years. This is an incredible opportunity for countries in Latin America, and of course for Mexico. The Comprehensive Strategic Partnership has opened the path for a promising future for Sino-Mexican relations.

 Mexico cannot waste this opportunity…

* I do encourage you to read President Xi Jinping’s speech to the Mexican Senate.

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Filed under BRICS, Development, Foreign investment, Mexico, News brief, Trade, Uncategorized

Two OpEds on Brazil-China with Australian implications

ANCLAS Senior Associate Dr Sean Burges has had two OpEds published this week dealing with Brazil-China relations and ideas for balancing the relationship through cooperation with Australia and Canada. The English-language version, structured around some of the challenges that could arise from Australia’s focus on Asia was published on December 5th in The Australian. A separate piece addressing how Brazil might get past its current challenges with China was published in the major Brazilian daily O Estado de São Paulothe English language text is appended below.

A new approach needed for China
Sean W Burges
Senior Associate, Australian National Centre for Latin American Studies at the Australian National University
Like many other countries, Brazil is struggling with the relentless onslaught of Chinese exports. The Brazil-China Business Council convened its fourth annual conference in São Paulo to try and address this challenge. Some interesting stories were told, but not much new thinking was displayed. More worryingly, there appeared to be little recognition of the subtle warnings that China is maneuvering Brazil into position as a subordinate, vassal state.

China’s ambassador to Brazil, Li Jinzhang, used a mix of oblique messaging and ancient imperial strategies to quietly underline relative power positions and the limits on Brazilian aspirations for the bilateral relationship. Jinzhang deliberately spoke in Mandarin, not the Portuguese that we might expect from an ambassador to an important global player such as Brazil. To be generous, it is possible that his Portuguese, a language reportedly difficult for the Chinese, was not up to a major public address. But if this was so, why not use a common second language such as English, the international language of business and diplomacy? His message was clear: you must come to us and adapt to our ways and priorities.

Quiet reminders that China dominates the bilateral relationship were accompanied by a subtle warning to Brazilian industrialists complaining about Chinese imports and calling on Brasília to engage in further protectionist measures. Jinzhang told the story of a small Chinese village that, like Brazil, was a predominantly agrarian community. Through hard work and innovation this village transformed itself into an industrial powerhouse and now contributes just over two percent of China’s exports from a tiny geographical footprint. While gently delivered, the lesson for the gathered Brazilian business leaders was very simple: we are not going to slow the pace of exports and it is up to you to innovate and compete with us. More chillingly for Brazil’s leading agro-industrial business sector, Jinzhang also noted that a central policy goal of the new administration in Beijing is food security with an ultimate aim of self-sufficiency.

An implicit aspect of CEBC President Ambassador Sergio Amaral’s closing address was a riposte to China’s challenge. Unfortunately, Amaral’s idea of reinvigorating Latin American integration ventures to create a larger internal market and a common set of high tariffs to exclude Chinese products is an old idea that has failed. Moreover, the idea is delusional, completely ignoring that Chile, Peru, Colombia and Mexico have banded together to form the Pacific Alliance precisely with the idea of looking West to China’s Asia and not East to Brazil.

Interestingly, Jinzhang’s story about a Chinese agrarian town transformed by innovation points to a path forward for Brazil, one that would involve a very different direction for Brazilian foreign policy and major, but ultimately productive shifts in thinking by Brazilian business. There are two concrete avenues for action.

First, Brazil must increase its rate of innovation. The Ciência Sem Fronteiras program will help, but it is not enough on its own. Lessons from the Chinese experience should be added to the mix. Industrialization in China was built upon successive waves of FDI, which brought new technology and processes – Chinese firms engaged in an extensive process of international collaboration to drive innovation. Thanks to Ciência Sem Fronteiras Brazilian universities are already beginning to experience this through active engagement by universities in the US, UK, Canada, Europe and even my own home institution, the Australian National University. Business should follow and actively seek dynamic partners with whom new markets, products and processes can be explored and developed. The Brazilian Government could actively assist with creative programming at institutions such as the BNDES or new financing lines through the Banco do Brasil or Caixa Economica.

Second, Brazil needs a new approach to managing China. One option that will not work is the middle power route Australia and Canada have long-used to manage bilateral relations with the US. The commonality of interests is simply not in place to make this viable with BRIC-member China. Instead, attention should be given to a sophisticated ‘balancing’ strategy involving a partnership with Australia and Canada. Why these two countries? Both are relatively small and actively courting Brazil, which makes them manageable. More importantly for the impact on Chinese perceptions, they are the two other major mineral and food exporters to China.

With Australia, Brazil and Canada – a new ABC group of countries – engaging China independently Beijing is able to engage in a divide and conquer strategy. The end result is that Chinese tariffs let in raw materials cheaply, but price value-added products out of the market. This leaves the ABC countries as breadbaskets for Chinese consumers. Collective action might be an avenue for reversing this process and forcing concessions from Beijing.
China is undoubtedly going to one of Brazil’s main economic partners for the rest of this century. The danger is that relying on tired integration models and an excessively autonomist approach to engaging Beijing will quickly shunt Brazil back into a peripheral position as little more than China’s pantry.

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Filed under Brazil, Foreign investment, Foreign Policy / Diplomacy, Trade

Industrial policy, Bolivian style

Bolivia has a long history of producing the commodities that the world wants, but not gaining much from their export. (For a sense of the problem, take a look at the book “From Silver to Cocaine. Latin American Commodity Chains and the Building of the World Economy, 1500-2000“). The latest twist in this pattern is the Bolivian government’s decision to not so much nationalize vast swathes of the country’s resource extraction industry as change the contract terms so that Bolivia becomes a more important partner and more processing of the resources takes place in Bolivia. Is it working? To some extent, according to an interesting blog entry from the Financial Times. Bolivia is growing well and investment is still flowing in. It is a very interesting new public policy experiment that seems to have antecedents in Brazil’s (non)privatized major resource companies.

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Franco reportedly governing Paraguay well; election set for April 2013

Irrespective of your personal take on what happened in Paraguay to oust Fernando Lugo from the Palacio de López, it does appear that his successor Federico Franco is taking the job of president very seriously. is reporting that Franco has succeeded in pushing through a number of key policy items that have alluded previous presidents.

  • Paraguayans earning more than US$4,000 a month are now going to have to pay income tax, which is a major change for a country that previously had no personal income tax in place.
  • Vague suggestions of progress on land reform and security provision in the north are mentioned.
  • Franco is also pushing talks with Rio Tinto/Alcan to build an aluminum smelter.

While Yves Engler has deplored the aluminum project as an example of something akin to Canadian imperialism, these sort of reactionary ideological readings fail to account for Paraguay’s abject failure to use its hydroelectric potential for national development. The $3.5 billion project represents the first serious attempt to use Paraguay’s massive electricity surplus from the Itaipu dam as a boon to national development rather than as a de facto gift to Brazil. Fox News (yes… a right wing ideological network as a counter to Engler is possibly not good form, but look at the data points in the link, not the invective, or try UPI for something similar) is reminding us that under the Itaipu treaty Paraguay has to sell from the dam that it does not use to Brazil at the very low rate of $25/MWh. Paraguay gets 50% of the binational project’s output, but only uses a scant 14%. Although Engler is right that the price being floated to Rio Tinto / Alcan is still low, but at $43/MWh is nearly twice what Paraguay is earning now. More to the point, the smelter project offers a possibility of industrial development and economic expansion that has simply failed to appear after two decades in the trade bloc Mercosur. This is the same bloc which suspended Paraguay’s political rights after Lugo’s impeachment, but left trade (and presumably energy trade) rights in place.

What Franco is doing is an important step for Paraguay. The aluminum project is a Major deal for Paraguay and a significant headache for Brazil, which relies on cheap Itaipu surplus electricity to keep the lights on in São Paulo. Even so, Brasília will likely happily deal with this headache if it will help bring further stability to Paraguay.

The stability and democratic consolidation question remains the big one in Paraguay. A presidential election date of 21 April 2013 has now been announced. More importantly, Franco has been crystal clear that he will honour the constitution, which precludes a president from ever running for reelection. So far there are no indications that Franco will follow some other regional leaders and look for favourable readings of the constitution or new magna cartas to allow a reelection bid. This leaves the question of whether or not Franco will use his position to ensure that the 2013 vote takes place without any of the explicit and implicit spending sprees and manipulations that have formed the backdrop to ballots since Andrés Rodriguez was quickly elected in 1989. We will be watching.

–Sean Burges

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Filed under Analysis, Brazil, Democracy, Development, Foreign investment, MERCOSUR, News brief, Paraguay