blog of kaiyen

A Chevrolet Camaro for the MBA set – BusinessWeek.

My little secret, just for announcement on my open blog…I would love to get one of these new Camaros (Camaroes?).  29mpg on the freeway with a powerful V6, and talk about passing power.  And it looks sporty, powerful, and just…yeah, manly.

Hybrid this, hyrbid that (actually, I relish in the fact that hybrids are not the most “green” cars out there, with the large carbon footprint of their batteries).  304 horsepower at 29mpg on the freeway?

Oh yeah.

For Airlines, Fees Become Lifelines – BusinessWeek.

What strikes me about this article is the percentages that revenue from fees for ancillary items – luggage surcharges, paying for blankets, etc – account for some airline’s total income.  It’s quite amazing.  Rynnair is 20%, and it outpaced overall revenue growth by a huge margin (35% revenue growth in ancillary items revenue, compared to 21% for overall).

I see paying for these things as just part of doing business now.  If I looked at them any other way I’d probably go insane from frustration.

BBC NEWS | UK | Scotland | South of Scotland | Bomber publishes appeal documents.

So…as if it weren’t controversial enough that Scotland released the terrorist behind Pan Am 103, now he has released documents that “prove” his innocence.

Newsweek had a mini-article – the stuff they have in the front now, that are analysis but not a full blown article – about how Scotland asserted itself with the release of Abdelbaset Ali al-Megrahi as a legit international state.  It wasn’t clear whether it was a good move or not, just that at least Scotland pushed forward their existing compassion for convicted felons with terminal illnesses.

For all the times that I have been tired of rhetoric, especially lately, where it feels half of what the administration says is because it needs to say it, not because it’s what should be said…I am behind all those that have condemned this move.  I have two reasons.

The first is personal.  I do remember Pan Am 103, even though I was only 10 when it happened.  No, I did not quite get the fact that this was a terrorist act, or what it meant that someone had done this in the name of something.  What did hit me was that someone had meant to do this.  And why would anyone want to do something so terrible?  Selfish reason, I guess, to let my own pre-teen shock be a factor.  But it’s my blog so..

The second has to do with a book I read a few years back called “Explaining Hitler.” *  The book put forth the following notion – is Hitler on the spectrum of morality within which we all exist, but on the very, very extreme edge?  Or is he actually off the chart (meaning that we exist in a “normal” range, though with some pretty crazy extremes nonetheless)?

I think that the same question can be asked here.  Megrahi is at least at the far extreme, IMO.  I don’t think he’s off the chart, if indeed Hitler was, and I don’t think he’s as far over as Hitler, either.  But the point is that there is a spectrum, and if Megrahi is towards one end, then maybe Scotland’s political history of compassion shouldn’t apply in this case…

*NB – I don’t think anyone will ever be able to explain or help us really understand Hitler.  But Rosenbaum tried to examine each of the arguments for what forces created such a…I’m loath to say “monster” in general but maybe it’s right this time and their validity in terms of history, etc.

NB^2 – I am not saying that this book is “the” book on the topic.  Just one that I read.

ECON 405:  Macroeconomics
At a glance

• Workload:  Moderate
• Teaching Style:  Lecture
• Interest in students: High
• Relevance to outside world: High, especially if you’re into economics

Overall Professor Rating: 3 (she can get a bit impatient at times)

Overall Course Rating: 4 (but she can also make the course entertaining while getting the teaching across

The Review

This is the latest of my reviews on the professors I’ve had while an MBA student at Santa Clara University’s Leavey School of Business. There are lots of sites out there that provide feedback and rates – ratemyprofessor is the most notable. The SantaClaraMBA Yahoo group also has a big database of comments and lots of additional information in its message archive. That database can be a bit hard to wade through, and the comments are short and often just link to other threads, which are themselves pretty short and superficial. Only here can I write as much as I want 

I review professors from a variety of perspectives.  First, I explain the context(s) under which I took the class.  Time of year, time of day, etc.  Then I talk about the quality of the class and the professor, and finally about the professor as a person.  After all, we are trying to learn about our interactions with people, so knowing that side of a teacher is critical, too.  So these would be interactions outside the classroom, etc.  I also just write whatever it is that I think is relevant or will be helpful to others.  That is my overall goal.

The facts

I took ECON 405, Macroeconomics, in Winter 2009.  This is the second of two required economics courses, and Professor Kamas teaches several sections.  I took the later section of the evening, and I think that some of my comments about her patience, etc might be a result of that.

Them’s the facts (slim as they are). Now read on for the review.
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