Nice update on Cantor Fitzgerald and Lutnick

BUSINESS: "To hell and back: Howard Lutnick rebuilt Cantor Fitzgerald against the odds. But he will struggle to reconquer his industry," The Economist, 11 August 2007, p. 60.

I had the opportunity to interact with Lutnick a number of times during my collaboration with Cantor prior to 9/11, including one lengthy briefing. He is everything everyone describes him to be--both good and bad--and that befits his legendary reputation.

Nice piece by the mag here, capturing his amazing ride since 9/11. There is much to admire in this story, as I have written in PNM.

2 from the WaPo

ARTICLE: 'Iranian Unit to Be Labeled 'Terrorist': U.S. Moving Against Revolutionary Guard,' By Robin Wright, Washington Post, August 15, 2007; Page A01

Reasonable move. Target the problem areas without overgeneralizing your punishment.

ARTICLE: Obama Says He Can Unite U.S. 'More Effectively' Than Clinton, By Dan Balz, Washington Post, August 15, 2007; Page A01

Less interesting to me than "healing" America is reconnecting America to the world.

Me? I am intrigued by the possibility of Obama's globalized background, right down to his middle name "Hussein."

But Clinton would naturally reconnect us to the world, even if she keeps us divided at home. Being a woman would constitute a natural plus, but resurrecting the Clinton vibe would be huge--sort of a reboot, if a backward-glancing one.

The Economist is also not overly sanguine about Darfur's Lake Ptolemy

ARTICLE: "A dream writ in water: Claims that an underground lake can resolve the conflict are exaggerated," The Economist, 11 August 2007, p. 38.

Recalling my post on the subject, more good arguments for not relying on resource solutions to end alleged "resource wars."

Milblogs all the strategic comms we need

ARTICLES: Blogging the Iraq War, Communication Currents, June 2007

Looks like a nice collection of analysis of this fascinating revolutionary element.

As far as I am concerned, these are all the strategic comms we need, the kind that brings us up to speed on the reality of the tasks ahead.

Better to focus on that dissemination of knowledge versus the peddling of propaganda. Why? The former changes our actions for the better and actions speak louder than words.

As for potential morale damage? Worth the risk.

Emerging Asia as natural proving ground--and rule set correction--for this era's globalization

ASIA: "For whosoever hath, to him shall be given, and he shall have more: Income inequality in emerging Asia is heading toward Latin American levels," The Economist, 11 August 2007, p. 36.

The main cause is no surprise: China. The second great cause is the same the world over: those who get more education get more income.

So the mag asks the right question: So long as poverty falls, does this inequality matter?

As a matter of history, you'd say no, but the concentration geographically is truly worrisome: the rich coast versus the poor interior of China (or the increasingly Blue China versus one that would remain far more open to Red China).

The prescription is exactly what Hu and Wen have preached: harmonizing the rural level of development somewhat with the coastal.

Corruption is a problem, so Hu and Wen and their successors must inevitably decide which evil is worse.

Leave the bottom billion, join the Economist's country briefing line-up

SPOTLIGHT ON COUNTRY BRIEFINGS: "New members in the country club," The Economist, 11 August 2007, p. 15.

No surprise, the states that still get no "country briefing" treatment from the Economist are all Gap states (to include a trio buried within the Core--see my contiguity argument in BFA on that).

But the real concentration of non-briefings corresponds nicely to Collier's "bottom billion," or basically the landlocked of Central Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa.

The real post-9/11 generation

COMMENTARY: "Inside Iraq. The troops in Baghdad are making progress--and are likely to emerge as leaders of a post-9/11 America," by William Kristol, Time, 20 August 2007, p. 24.

An excellent little note on the future that underscores why I've made my entire career revolve around working the mid-level officers and senior NCOs:

The soldiers who have done well in Iraq will be major figures in American life for the next few decades. They are no less suited to leadership than entrepreneurs or lawyers.

Almost all of my mentors in my career were Vietnam vets. That's just the way it was. An unpopular war, sure, but one that generated a lot of natural leaders.

One thing that crew always lamented was how few of their cohort made it into senior political levels, certainly nowhere near the level of the WWII generation.

One of the big reasons why I remain optimistic on American leadership is that the Long War will logically replenish those leadership ranks.

I don't believe in predicting the future. I believe in owning it.

These future leaders will own that future, and that's yet another reason why I would do Iraq all over again. It was never a question of being easy. It was always a matter of how much we'd commit to necessary change precisely because it's so hard.

Connecting East Africa by sea

DASHBOARD: "High-Speed Internet for Africa," Source: International Finance Corp, Time, 20 August 2007, p. 16.

ARTICLE: "Not so EASSy," The Economist, 11 August 2007, p. 58.

With less than 4% of Africans enjoying Internet access, there's a huge need to connect the continent with more than just one undersea cable from Portugal. So the IFC, the private-sector arm of the World Bank, does what it should do: focus on pure connectivity by financing an East Africa Submarine Cable System.

The EASSy will link Sudan, Somalia, Djibouti, Kenya, Tanzania, Mozambique, Madagascar, Swaziland, Lesotho and South Africa directly.

Connecting through that coastal group will also be the interior states of Botswana, Zimbabwe, Zambia, Malawi, Burundi, Rwana, Uganda, the DRC, the CAR, Chad and Ethiopia.

By 2009, as many as 250 million more people can connect to the Web.

See the Economist for the expected difficulties in execution.

Watch the Chinese experiment on domestic security

ARTICLE: "Chinese Launch High-Tech Plan To Track People," by Keith Bradsher, New York Times, 12 August 2007, p. A1.

Controversial? You bet. But the West will experiment with this face recognition stuff like crazy in coming years, I guarantee it.

It's just that we have already in place a legal rule set to protect people on that score. Will that rule set change in response to this reach for new technology? You bet.

But don't assume that China's currently weak rule set automatically portends a slide toward increased authoritarianism. There is a significant criminal problem in China. When I am there, I am less impressed by the amount of police than I am troubled by how few there seem to be on the street compared to the vast sea of humanity.

There is no question China is authoritarian when it comes to political freedom, but there is a question as to whether such technology and efforts to boost security will do much to bolster that sort of authoritarianism. It may somewhat, but quite frankly, I remain more concerned about China spinning out of control than China becoming more authoritarian.

With all the simultaneous revolutions going on inside China right now, we have to expect them to reach for every control element they can. You can say it's bad for American companies to be involved in this, but the alternative of being shut out doesn't exactly answer any mail either.

So I say, participate and observe and keep up an active dialogue. We can't expect China to not reach for such technologies simply because its political evolution dramatically trails its economic evolution.

How the Dems can win in 2008 by sounding sensible on Iraq

ARTICLE: "Democratic Field Says Leaving Iraq May Take Years: Few See Pullout in '08; With Single Exception, Even Critics of War Plan Gradual Exit," by Jeff Zeleny and Marc Santora, New York Times, 12 August 2007, p. A1.

ARTICLE: "Attacks target Kurdish sect, kill 175 in Iraq," by Kim Gamel (Associated Press), Indianapolis Star, 15 August 2007, p. A1.

EDITORIAL: "Wrong Way Out of Iraq," New York Times, 13 August 2007, p. A22.

All the "end this war" silliness aside (when peacekeepers leave a civil war, they don't exactly end it, now do they?), the question on Iraq now is not about pullout but about pullback--as in, from combat. Pullback from combat and casualties go down, and that's the only way we can sustain any numbers politically, so pullback we will.

In that process, killing is likely to increase. A certain amount of this is unavoidable. Our pullback will simply speed the killing. Most definitely, we'll see strong efforts to destabilize the Kurdish region, like yesterday's attacks.

What is the alternative to pulling back? Sustaining a surge that to date has not triggered political reconciliation in Iraq. To me, that's doubleplusunsustainable.

Pullback is not pullout. It involves substantial in-theater presence, both on the ground and naval. The capacity to stage large-scale strikes must remain. The military training and hunting of AQI must continue, so tens of thousands of troops will remain in lower Iraq. The protection of the Kurdish Regional Government must also be assured, so expect troop basing there. Our sizable troop numbers in Kuwait are unlikely to decline much.

But admitting to all that still means we could continue this engagement at substantially lower troop levels.

If the argument offered is like that of the NYT editorial board (fewer troops mean we abandon this front of terrorism), then I think we're mixing apples and oranges. There is the Shiia-Sunni fight and there's AQI. I cannot stop the former and there's no need to occupy the entire country en masse to fight the latter.

In many ways, this debate is already moot. Troop rotational strains mean a certain pathway is already set. The Bush Administration is doing just enough to accommodate that emerging reality without really stressing itself to make it work in a regionally-comprehensive manner.

The Bush team's unwillingness to go pedal-to-the-metal on the missing diplomatic surge is regrettable, but it doesn't change the underlying dynamics of the pullback/drawdown--all Manichean rhetoric aside.

Our "gotcha day" three years hence

A special celebration for our immigrant daughter, who is well aware she's from China, and so our Chinese-American family remembers that most amazing day.

Modelled behavior is our military's most important export

POLITICS & ECONOMICS: "In Liberia, an Army Unsullied by Past: U.S. Helps African Nation Build Military Without Ties to Atrocities of Its Civil War," by Michael M. Phillips, Wall Street Journal, 14 August 2007, p. A4.

To those who view America's military history as one long list of evil deeds, this argument is insane. But to those who've spent their lives in the military or working with it, as I have, the notion of modeled behavior is a biggie.

If you're raised without a dad, how do you learn how to be a man? If you're raised in a broken home, how do you learn how to be a married spouse?

Same thing holds for militaries. If you've never been exposed to a good one, how do you know how to behave like one?

Yeah, you can send your future leaders abroad for training, but militaries are built from the bottom ranks up, not top down.

If the U.S. is the only military with a global reach, do you reflexively reach for the "global empire" arguments, or do you accept the logic of a networked presence for a networked world where--at this point in history--the stabilizing effect of a "Microsoft" like gold-standard, however flawed, beats none at all?

If, in that effort, you rely on contractors for lots of routine tasks, like DynCorp doing background checks, do we knee-jerkedly reach for comparisons to Rome? Or are we a bit more sophisticated in our analysis than that?

If you want to understand a complex world, reach for complex explanations. Don't give in to lazy thinking. Strategic "junk food" ruins your mind, expanding your intellectual "waistline" and nothing more.

The NYPD study on the path to terrorism

Just heard it over MSNBC and it strikes me as reasonable:

1) a personal crisis hits the rather well-off student
2) In the resulting existential crisis ("Who am I?"), he returns to cultural roots
3) but the bookstore and the Internet prove more important than the mosque, because this guy wants radical action, and religion in general is too mild
4) in the end, this guy's move to action is his strategy of connecting: to his time, to his sense of injustice, etc. Dislodged from his past trajectory, he grabs that which provides the most immediate sense of identity.

In terms of the delivery systems over here, this makes sense to me, but remember where this guy's sense of injustice comes from.

Talking to Davos

Just had a short phonecon with the World Economic Forum guy running the upcoming show in Australia (at a gorgeous island resort just off the Great Barrier Reef--I know, sometimes this job is a bitch), which is part retreat for the senior leadership of the Australian government and part regional meeting.

The guy wanted to know if I'd do the opening night keynote on Friday, even as I'm just getting on this island after flying up from Sydney (like going Miami to Boston), which--of course--comes on the heels of the huge flight from LAX to Sydney, which comes on the heels of the DC-to-LA jaunt.

Hmm. Measure the fatigue factor against the cool factor . . .

Easy choice. I do the opening night keynote. Only 30 minutes, so not a marathon.

I basically have Saturday to veg and network and attend sessions, and then Sunday I do a session on private-public partnerships/hard-versus-soft power, plus participate in a lunch session on geo-strategy in Asia. Two names mentioned as co-panelists are old buddy Minxin Pei and Clyde Prestowitz, so clearly we're talking a stellar cast.

Couldn't be more psyched.

The inevitable self-flagellation over the Minnesota bridge collapse

COMMENTARY: "The Can't-Do Nation: America has lost its knack for gettiing big things done," by John McQuaid, Washington Post National Weekly Edition, 13-19 August 2007, p. 25.

Add the bridge to Katrina and the Green Zone. Can we chalk it all up to Bush incompetency? Or do we label it the "system-wide" government breakdown, as Gingrich does, naturally tracing the blame back to FDR and LBJ.

Naturally, this guy (besides selling his book on the "coming age of superstorms"!!!!!) is referring to the U.S. Government whenever he refers to America, so he sees a failure of big government, combined with the revolutionary shift to outsourcing (no, American history has NEVER featured any of that!), so again we're being sold on the hollow state being crushed by the complexity of today (ah, to embrace our inner Mad Max and simply hole up in our desert communes!).

Or maybe all that outsourcing is just the natural rebalancing of our system during an age of huge expansion and integration of frontiers. Just because America itself fails to grow as a political union doesn't mean our economic union isn't growing at a fast clip, globalizing as it were. In all that rising complexity we find ourselves resorting to a frontier-age reliance on private-public sector alliances that make a lot of pro-big-government types very uncomfortable, especially those within the national security realm who want to control everything themselves (otherwise it's "UNRESTRICTED WARFARE!!!!!" What is "unrestricted warfare"? "It's everywhere, all the time, involving everything!!!!" In other words, it's the devil, or the end-times, or the evil god "chaos" for all the national security types. Plus, sold well, it's like their full-employment act.)

You have no idea how many meetings I sit through where national security types suddenly wake up to some emerging aspect of globalization's reality and then freak out, declaring that the whole thing must be kept classified and under military control. Frankly, for most of these old-timers, it's simply a matter of getting old and dying off, because they will never be anything be incredibly uncomfortable in this world.

America's heading toward a serious realignment with the world. In this realignment, our government will have to let go of things more often, reaching a new balance with both the private sector and the world at large, reminding us--yet again, as I like to note consistently--that our most important export is rules. Rising complexity means governments must more adeptly pick and choose those things they can manage effectively, thus providing us the strange combination noted by Paul Light: government body numbers are down, but the reach of its work continues to rise.

Death of the state or its transformation? The latter, of course. Naturally, some observers take any short-term trajectory and then extrapolate it beyond reason to induce fear: there are no shortages of slippery-slope doom-and-gloomers.

But I see a different reality: the success of the spread of our approach to markets is transforming the world. Our problem right now, as I like to emphasis, is not how slow globalization is moving but how fast.

Highlighting the can't-don'ts as we navigate the early years of this profound global transformation is certainly worthwhile, but indicting the whole system on that basis is a bit much. We will try and fail until we try and succeed.

I know, I know, Inconceivable to many of a certain age, less so to the Nintendo crowd.

Know-your-supply-chain seguing to know-your-biological-chain

THE ECONOMY: "Different Paths From the Farm to the Table: A two-part, 100-year-old system means some U.S. food is inspected, but much is not," by Renae Merle, Washington Post National Weekly Edition, 13-19 August 2007, p. 21.

ARTICLE: "China's Farmers, in the Dark: Scientific advances and policy changes about food trickle out to remote areas," by Ariana Eunjung Cha, Washington Post National Weekly Edition, 13-19 August 2007, p. 22.

These two pieces come together like bookends: the farther up the chain our regulatory bodies go, the more they penetrate foreign food-source countries like China, reaching all the way into their most remote agricultural regions. Fascinating to watch.

The U.S. system came together, in historical terms, at roughly the same point in development as China reaches now: all those scandals yielding to the progressive era represented by Teddy Roosevelt. China needs a lot of Teddy Roosevelts right now, from police commissioners in major cities through undersecretaries of armed forces right up to the presidency of the country.

But the U.S. system also came together much like China's will likely congeal: as a result of scandals. We have Upton Sinclair's "The Jungle" and that gets us the USDA inspecting meat, whereas the FDA covers the rest. What slips through that crack is sometimes fish, 80 percent of which we import.

So expect, as always, scandals to drive reform. America has a great rule set for 1910, but we don't live in the 20th century anymore, even as we participate in the great global experiment known as "China rising."

Boo-hoo-ing about the loss of the family businesses is routine in emerging economies

ARTICLES: "Retailers Rally Against Wal-Mart as It Edges Into India: Stores Seen as Threat To Traditional Shops," by Amelia Gentleman, New York Times, 10 August 2007, p. C3.

EDITORIAL: "Wal-Mart in India: Why everyday low prices aren't the norm in Delhi," Wall Street Journal, 11-12 August 2007, p. A8.

ARTICLE: "Warming Threatens Farms In India, U.N. Official Says: More frequent floods and droughts could decimate the food supply," by Somini Sengupta, New York Times, 8 August 2007, p. A6.

A huge chunk (like 40%) of American labor was in the ag sector in 1900. Now, it's about 3 percent. Cue up Willie Nelson for the tears, unless you grew up in a farming community like I did and witnessed what a tough life that is (I have worked in many jobs over the years, but nothing ever compared to farmhand in terms of sheer effort).

The efficiencies of big farming, coupled with the efficiencies of big-chain store supply chains, means the price of food will drop significantly as your country industrializes, but yeah, a lot of small businesses get crushed as a result.

This is a sad loss of history to some, but a serious uptick in living standards to the masses.

And Wal-Mart, that clever marketer to the bottom of the pyramid, is exactly the type of change agent for the job of upgrading the retail/food sectors.

Wal-Mart is currently trying to sneak into India, where the government, in its infinite protectionist wisdom, does not allow multibrand foreign retailers to sell directly to consumers, although it does allow wholesale ops. So Wal-Mart is buying into a joint venture with the Bharti Group to generate a bunch of large Sam's Club-like outlets.

Naturally, this brings a fear-threat reaction from local business, not unlike those Wal-Mart faces when it comes into any town. European supermarket chains face similar resistance in India.

The cry is a familiar one: millions will lose their jobs. But if you've ever been to India, it's clear the place is one vast sea of under-employment. You go into any shop and you've got this huge ratio of workers to customers, with everyone sort of working.

But it's the supply chain behind all those shops that's truly inefficient. As the WSJ points out:

The biggest problem facing Indian retailers and consumers is a dysfunctional supply chain. Because the market is highly fragmented--about 96% of the retail marketplace consists of small shopkeepers--economies of scale are elusive and both producers and retailers depend on long chains of middlemen to bring goods to market. Agricultural produce typically travels from farmer to trader to commission agent to wholesaler to retailer, and each step imposes new costs.

By one count, the amount an India consumer pays for food is five times the amount the farmer actually receives. In the U.S., the ratio is closer to 2-to-1. Waste is also a problem--about 60% of the value of India's agricultural output is lost between farm and market, as processing delays and "wear and tear" on delicate produce take their toll on quality.

Tell me how anyone is served by this state of affairs, especially the environment?

And yeah, with global warming, that environment is going to get a lot harsher for already steamy India, so the question of rationalizing that system is more than crucial, unless you believe the job of India's ag and retail sector is to be as pollutive as possible and to underemploy as many people as possible.

The simple reality remains for India: it is nowhere close to matching America's sort of efficient multi-state economic union (again, from the WSJ editorial):

Indian has also yet to match America's feat of creating a single internal market for consumer and agricultural goods. Each state imposes its own inspection requirements, duties and regulations on shipments that cross its borders, even en route to another state. In the U.S., a trucker can haul a load 1,000 miles in about 20 hours. The equivalent journey in India takes four to five days.

Again, you make that system more efficient or it chokes on its own growth and ambition.

A reminder on the "clash of civilizations"

POLITICS & ECONOMICS: "Nanking Efforts Examine Massacre, Seek Healing: Films, Plays Aim To Engage China, Japan in Dialogue," by Jason Leow, Wall Street Journal, 13 August 2007, p. A6.

The 70th anniversary looms, reminding us of the sort of wound that never heals and thus dooms competing civilizations to eternal conflict.

Or maybe not . . .

Every time I speak about China's rise in Asia, I get the feedback from people about the rising nationalistic fervor that separates Japan and China and foretells their inevitable conflict. People love to point out that it's the young people who are most nationalistic, thus disproving the thesis that connectivity leads to stability.

What I wrote in BFA was this:

As all these “inconceivables” begin to pile up and investors start labeling you an “emerging market,” the tipping points will begin coming at you in waves. One of the first will be a dramatic ramping up of your pollution, especially air pollution. Cities will be transformed from what they’ve been for centuries, as the past is wiped out in favor of huge blocks of new high-rise developments. Many lower-class people will get priced out of their longtime homes, and real estate bubbles will expand and burst with painful regularity. Disorientation will be the order of the day, but if you’re lucky, enough of your population will be enthralled by opportunities for lifestyles that would have seemed—there’s that word again—inconceivable to their parents.

With all that change and opening up to the outside world, your youth will represent everything that’s new and aggressive, and your older generations everything that’s dated and out of style. Young people will simultaneously display an insatiable taste for all things foreign and a new heightened tendency toward rabid nationalism. What’ll hold these two opposing concepts together will be a profound sense of idealism: these kids will expect a much better future and they’ll expect their leaders to provide it or get out of their way. But a youth-tilted culture will also just want to have fun, so you’ll know you’ve made it (or are making it) into the Core when there is a specific MTV network dedicated to your nation (Brazil, China, Germany, India, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Korea, Taiwan/Hong Kong, United Kingdom) or region (Europe, Latin America, Southeast Asia).

Conversely, if your country's rising sense of nationalism, triggered by new and rising levels of connectivity, spawns violent rejectionist ideologies ("We're being polluted by all this foreign junk!"), that too will be centered in your youth, again typically well-educated and well-off, because they have the most access and the smarts to make their objections seem most compelling.

So it's a yin-yang mix that confuses a lot of people: young people simultaneously excited to try new foreign things and yet prone to heated rejection of such things because they challenge long-held identities.

Again, from BFA:

All these economic shifts are difficult, because they push societies from their communal past to a far more individualized future where it no longer feels like “we’re in this together.” The group-think of more communal societies places a premium on age for leadership, which is fine, but it tends to result in younger generations’ not being sufficiently educated to think for themselves, hence the tendency to substitute religion for free thought. Moving off that dime isn’t easy, because the elders in any communal society don’t care to give up their authority. And the youth aren’t particularly ready to think for themselves, plus when they are given the chance too rapidly, you can end up with a rather revolutionary cohort of young people who don’t just want to think for themselves, they want to smash the old system and replace it with something better. Given their limited sense of the outside world and its possibilities, such revolutionary youth in a more traditional society will often, as the Salafi jihadists do, reach for some “pure” vision of the past, before all the “corruption” of the present accumulated.

Sounds like being a teenager, doesn't it?

And that was another point I made in BFA about the journey from Gap to Core:

The journey from the Gap to the Core is essentially an aging process, then, from the Gap’s youth to the New Core’s middle ages to the Old Core’s maturity and high proportion of elders. So the process is one of moving from a focus on educating the young to providing them fulfilling careers to erecting the social safety nets and financial networks that allow for postretirement lifestyles that aren’t just free from want but are fulfilling. This journey is a daunting task, as we in the Old Core are finding out as our populations age rapidly, but it is one all countries must make if we are to shrink the Gap.

More to the point of this piece, however, is the far cooler theme that, when governments fail to act, individuals take it upon themselves to improve the situation that must inevitably be improved.

Yes, it will be a slow process, but building up trust by dealing with past grievances is always a slow process.

We have this tendency to cite only the bad and destabilizing and negative actions of transnational actors, but when you survey the global scene with less hyperbole, you find that the actions of the connectors vastly outweigh the actions of the disconnectors. It's just that the work of the former is rarely considered newsworthy (here, simply because it recalls past violence).

Number one way to die abroad . . . isn't from terrorism!

COVER STORY: "Foreign roads can be deadly for travelers: crashes, especially in developing countries, present growing threat," by Gary Stoller, USA Today, 14 August 2007, p. 1A.

Anyone who's traveled abroad a lot will tell you this: security is one thing and disease is another, but the biggest danger you face is driving/riding in a car. It's the number one way healthy Americans die abroad.

Most of my scariest experiences abroad have been in an auto or bus, with Panama and China ranking highest in sheer fear factor, although Naples was stunning (I was in a government vehicle with siren so the driver simply obeyed no rules whatsoever) and Nairobi and Djibouti have kept my attention.

I am having Jenn, my manager, set me up with International SOS for future overseas travel. It's a few hundred bucks every year, but it's worth the safety net. They do evacs if required.

Yet another reason why Lincoln and I are often confused

NATION/WORLD: "Study determines Lincoln was lopsided," by Associated Press, Indianapolis Star, 15 August 2007, p. A5.

Based on his famous death mask, Lincoln suffered from facial asymmetry, otherwise known as cranial facial microsomia.

Of course, that one doesn't even make Lincoln's top-ten list of maladies, but it's one we share. I was diagnosed as a teenager. The specialist was checking me out because I kept getting all these negative "mono spot" tests and yet had high white counts (I later had a bone marrow to rule out leukemia) my senior year in HS, so my mom was dragging me around to see these experts and one guy noted this about me, saying I was lopsided throughout my body (left side bigger). He opined I must have slept on my right side too much in the womb (yet another thing to blame on Mom!).

I still like to sleep on my right side, and I still lean to the left if you've ever watched me on TV.

Why does it matter? Screwed up my teeth (too little room on the right side) and that led to a sinus abnormality that gives me all the infections. It's also why I need such strong prisms in my glasses to avoid double vision when I tire (left eye significantly higher than my right one, which is why I've never been able to use binoculars and always had to look into my Viewmaster as a kid with one eye shut). That in turn leads to my cockeyed optimism, so you see, it all does come down to genes.