PNM's multiple horizontal scenarios continue to unfold

Dateline: above the garage in Portsmouth RI, 22 July 2004

I wrote PNM last August and September. In January I got the final proofs on the dust jacket cover and noticed that Putnam wanted to use my old geocities site as my web address. A long-time fan from the IT sector, Critt Jarvis, says I gotta get a better site and helps me set up this one, cleverly blackmailing me into making him my webmaster. He convinces me I need to write a weblog to accompany the site. So I start one, with Critt's help, in late March. The blog becomes its own presence, and that gets me the last 24 hours:

∑ Journalist Mark Thompson of Time calls and asks for a quick interview regarding the findings of the 9/11 Commission. He knows I am not in favor of a cabinet-level intell czar. How did he know that? He reads the blog, after he read the book, which he really liked.

∑ Last night I get an email from Li Haidong, associate professor in the Institute of International Studies in China Foreign Affairs University in Beijing. He's just finished the book and has been utilizing my "excellent" website for an article he's writing about my ideas for his institute's journal. So we go back and forth about Wilsonism and how that differs from what I'm talking about.

∑ This morning I spend an hour on the phone with Hiroyuki Akita, Chief Correspondent of Nikkei Newspaper in Washington DC. Nikkei is the Dow Jones of Tokyo, and the paper is known in Japan as Japan Economic Journal, or Nihon Keizai Shimbun. It is the Wall Street Journal of Japan. Akita says he has become my "student" via the book and the blog, and would like to establish a long-term relationship with me for stories about how defense and national security issues in the U.S. are being transformed. His big interest is the current negotiations between the U.S. and Japan over proposed troop withdrawals there. He is amazed I am willing to go on the record. I say, it's all in the blog anyway, so what's to hide?

∑ Later in the afternoon I send an email to Yu Keping, Director of both the China Center for Comparative Politics & Economics (CCCPE) and Beijing University's Center for Chinese Government Innovations. Beijing University Press is publishing PNM in China. As my wife and I got our firm travel dates today regarding our adoption trip, I now know on which days Prof. Yu can schedule me at BU for a series of meetings and discussions with Chinese scholars and other officials regarding the ideas in the book and the blog. My posts are available in Mandarin via a Taiwanese website that translates all my posts involving Asia.

A year ago today I was wandering around my house, unable to sleep, eat or speak after a substantial throat surgery. In a daze from the pain killers, I knew only that my agent had just successfully landed me a book deal with G.P. Putnam's Sons. As I contemplated the year ahead, I knew that the Putnam deal was a vertical scenario that would alter my life and generate a host of horizontal scenarios whose myriad of pathways I could only dimly imagine from that vantage point.

As my wife Vonne said at the time: "See, I told you it would be a good idea to finally write a book. A year from now, who knows where this could all lead?"

Indeed.

Time to book some airline tickets!

Today's catch:

Kidnappings: a tool of choice in the Middle East

"Iraqi Insurgents Report Grabbing 6 More Hostages: Beheadings Threatened; Kidnappings Come After Philippines Yielded to an Earlier Seizure," by Ian Fisher, New York Times, 22 July, p. A1.

"For Many Iraqis, A New Daily Fear: Wave of Kidnapping; As Wealthy Pay for Guards, Gangs Target Middle Class; 'It's Only About Money,'" by Yochi J. Dreazen, Wall Street Journal, 22 July, p. A1.

"Head of Gaza Police Kidnapped By Gunmen and Paraded in Streets: Chief Accused of Corruption as Palestinian Fissure Grows," by John Ward Anderson, Washington Post, 17 July, p. A12.

Osama's worse nightmare: American Muslim women with attitude

"Muslim Women Seeking a Place in the Mosque: More Are Challenging Segregated Roles in American Services," by Laurie Goodstein, NYT, 22 July, p. A1.

"Woman's Mosque Protest Brings Furor in the U.S.: Challenging rules and traditions, and paying a price," by Laurie Goodstein, NYT, 22 July, p. A16.

Henry Ford, meet Deng Xiaoping

"Carmakers Profiting From Loans Not Cars: The Action Is In Asia," by Danny Hakim, NYT, 22 July, p. C1.

"China's Buick Infatuation: The Stodgy American Auto Is a Prerevolutionary Icon For Booming Middle Class," by Peter Wonacott, WSJ, 22 July, p. B1.

The life of the party in China: how wealth gets spread

"China's 'It Couple' Builds Sleek Towers And a High Profile: Yuppie Pair Becomes Darling Of the Changing Media; Who Wore What at Party," by Kathy Chen, WSJ, 22 July, p. A1.

"Japan Almost Doubles Forecast for Economic Growth," by Todd Zaun, NYT, 22 July, p. W1.