Photo of the Day: Le Tour

David Millar of Britain collapses after crossing the finish line to win the 140-mile 12th stage in Annonay on July 13, 2012. (Peter Dejong/Associated Press) #

David Millar-iin Racing Through the Dark-iig ene jiliin eheer unshsan. Hedii mundag nom bish bolovch mergejliin duguich boldog zamnaliig ih todoor haruulsan baisan. Mun sonirhvol Millar-iin FT-d ugsun yariltslagiig unshaaray.

Hervee Tour de France-iin talaar sonirhoj ehelj baigaa bol "Chasing Legends"-iig zaaval uzeerey. Tegeed bolj ugvul Phil Liggett-iin commentary-tay buh video-g :)

Ene bas cycling-iig social context-d ni avch uzsen Philip Gourevitch-iin suuld unshsan neleed sonirholtoy niitlel:

Cycling is an excruciating sport—a rider’s power is only as great as his capacity to endure pain—and it is often remarked that the best cyclists experience their physical agonies as a relief from private torments. The bike gives suffering a purpose. Jock, who was one of America’s foremost cycling champions in the nineteen-eighties, told me that he got into racing to get out of the house after his parents divorced. “I relate to pain,” he said. Gasore’s home-town teammate, Sibo, told me much the same thing. When he bought his first bike (like Gasore, with earnings from growing potatoes), Sibo had gone joyriding. With the bike, he felt rich and tried to act accordingly, like a man of leisure and ease: “Every time I’d come to a beautiful place, I’d pedal around, checking it out.” Then he took up racing, and he found the hardship addictive. “The bike is good. I forgot all the pain I had before I joined the team,” Sibo told me. “Cycling is like a fatal drug. When you get into it, you don’t want to do anything else. You don’t look to one side or another.”

Addendum: Mongolia Bike Challenge - it's on my bucket list :)

Perfect Library

from Bookshelf Porn

Addendum: Antilibrary + A House to Look Smart In

Red Blue Chair

Uuriinhuu hamgiin durtay Gerrit Rietveld-iin Red Blue Chair-iin jijig zagvariig hiij uzev. Ungursun jil München-ii Pinakothek der Moderne dotor barag 300 EUR gej baisan bolhoor sharandaa gants hoyor mod niiluulj horhoigoo darav. Naddaa l хаваасаг bolloo.

Daraagiin udaad harin New England Fan Back Chair (yur ni bol Adirondack Chair) hiij uzdeg yum biluu gej bodood baigaa. New England yavah hoirhoigoo tegj l darahaas :)

Best Sentences I Read Today

[T]he critical skills of the best surgeons I saw involved the ability to handle complexity and uncertainty. They had developed judgment, mastery of teamwork, and willingness to accept responsibility for the consequences of their choices. In this respect, I realized, surgery turns out to be no different than a life in teaching, public service, business, or almost anything you may decide to pursue. We all face complexity and uncertainty no matter where our path takes us. That means we all face the risk of failure. So along the way, we all are forced to develop these critical capacities—of judgment, teamwork, and acceptance of responsibility.

In commencement addresses like this, people admonish us: take risks; be willing to fail. But this has always puzzled me. Do you want a surgeon whose motto is “I like taking risks”? We do in fact want people to take risks, to strive for difficult goals even when the possibility of failure looms. Progress cannot happen otherwise. But how they do it is what seems to matter.

from Atul Gawande's commencement address at Williams College

The United Nations estimates that poverty has been reduced more in the past 50 years than in the previous 500 years. And much of that reduction has taken place in the last 20 years. The average Chinese person is 10 times richer than he or she was 50 years ago — and lives for 25 years longer. Life expectancy across the world has risen dramatically. We gain five hours of life expectancy every day — without even exercising! A third of all the babies born in the developed world this year will live to be 100.

All this is because of rising standards of living, hygiene, and, of course, medicine. Atul Gawande, a Harvard professor who is also a practicing surgeon, and who also writes about medicine for The New Yorker, writes about a 19th century operation in which the surgeon was trying to amputate his patient’s leg. He succeeded — at that — but accidentally amputated his assistant’s finger as well. Both died of sepsis, and an onlooker died of shock. It is the only known medical procedure to have a 300 percent fatality rate. We’ve come a long way.

from Fareed Zakaria’s commencement address at Harvard

Addendum:

Some of your worst days lie ahead. Graduation is a happy day. But my job is to tell you that if you are going to do anything worthwhile, you will face periods of grinding self-doubt and failure. Be prepared to work through them. I'll spare you my personal details, other than to say that one year after college graduation I had no job, less than $500 in assets, and I was living with an elderly retired couple. The only difference between when I graduated and today is that now no one can afford to retire.

from 10 Things Your Commencement Speaker Won't Tell You

Poem of the Day

The More Loving One
by W.H. Auden

Looking up at the stars, I know quite well
That, for all they care, I can go to hell,
But on earth indifference is the least
We have to dread from man or beast.

How should we like it were stars to burn
With a passion for us we could not return?
If equal affection cannot be,
Let the more loving one be me.

Admirer as I think I am
Of stars that do not give a damn,
I cannot, now I see them, say
I missed one terribly all day.

Were all stars to disappear or die,
I should learn to look at an empty sky
And feel its total darkness sublime,
Though this might take me a little time.

1957

Misremembering Chingis Khan

Suuliin uyed Mongoliin talaarh gadnii sudalgaanuud unshdag ajiltay bolood baigaa. Yur ni Mongol hel hetsuugiin deer medeelliin eh survalj homs tul zarim neg gadnii sudlaachid haa hamaaguy zuils yarih ni elbeg yum. Gehdee bas tednii dund mash chanartay sudalgaa hiideg nuhduud ch baina. Yalanguya Caroline Humhprey, David Sneath, Chris Kaplonski, Uradyn Bulag, Alicia Campi, Manduhai Buyandelger zereg sudlaachid Mongoliin talaar chanartay buteeluud togtmol tuurvij baina.

Yutay ch unshsan sudalgaanuud dotroos hamgiin ih setgel hudulgusun ni Kaplonski-giin "The Case of the Disappearing Chingis Khaan" bailaa. Uuniig unshsanii daraa Mongoliin talaarh neleed olon bodluud maani emh tsegtstey boloh shig bolloo. Bolvol zavaaraa unshaad setgegdelee uldeegeerey. Bas Mongoliin talaar bichigdsen uursdiin durtay uur busad sudalgaanii buteeluud baival huvaaltsana uu.

This remembered past, even if different from the documented past, serves not only to tell people who they are, but it also tells them who they were [...] The elision of Chinggis Khaan from the socialist world serves to heighten the contrast between then and now. Forgetting, or misremembering, that Chinggis Khaan was indeed remembered, is an integral part of Mongolian identity formation. There is a necessity for a certain amount of amnesia to create a past that all can look to. As Ernest Renan taught us, part of being a nation (or any other group) is getting our history wrong. And in many contexts, this is just not a matter of forgetting in a negative sense, but misremembering in a more active, positive sense. What I have shown here is how and why this happened in Mongolia, but the theoretical lesson is more broadly applicable. The reinvention of Chinggis Khaan in the present is ultimately the key to understanding the misremembering of how he was portrayed in the socialist period. Chinggis Khaan, when all is said and done, was not “banished to oblivion” because the socialists needed him to be. Rather, he was and is banished from the recalled past because post-socialist Mongolia needs him to be now.

'The case of the disappearing Chinggis Khaan: dismembering the remembering' Ab Imperio, 4/2005: 147-173.

Addendum: Also don't forget to check the works of two talented young social anthropologists, Grégory Delaplace of U-Paris X and Franck Billé of University of Cambridge, who are currently researching the post-socialist identity of Mongolians.

Nostalgie

Ulaanbaatar, circa 1998. Als die Dinge einfach waren.

Нэг мэдэхэд миний мэдэх Улаанбаатараас юу ч үлдэхгүй бололтой. Социализмын жилүүдэд зугуухан боссон нийслэл хот хүссэн хүсээгүй шинэчлэгдэх жамтай ч XX зууны Монгол улсын түүх, дүр төрхийг гэрчилсэн хэдэн сайхан байшин, ганц нэг гудамж талбайг үлдээхсэн.

Сүйтгэн байгуулалт - Цэрэнжав

Poem of the Day

I Have a Rendezvous with Death
by Alan Seeger

I have a rendezvous with Death
At some disputed barricade,
When Spring comes back with rustling shade
And apple-blossoms fill the air-
I have a rendezvous with Death
When Spring brings back blue days and fair.

It may be he shall take my hand
And lead me into his dark land
And close my eyes and quench my breath-
It may be I shall pass him still.
I have a rendezvous with Death
On some scarred slope of battered hill,
When Spring comes round again this year
And the first meadow-flowers appear.

God knows 'twere better to be deep
Pillowed in silk and scented down,
Where love throbs out in blissful sleep,
Pulse nigh to pulse, and breath to breath,
Where hushed awakenings are dear...
But I've a rendezvous with Death
At midnight in some flaming town,
When Spring trips north again this year,
And I to my pledged word am true,
I shall not fail that rendezvous.

Addendum: Also by Alan Seeger,

Whether I am on the winning or the losing side is not the point with me. It is being on the side where my sympathies lie that matters. Success in life means doing that thing then which nothing else conceivable seems more noble or satisfactory or remunerative. And then being ready to see it through to the end.

Kipling's "If" - Rowing Version

Mongolian translation of "If" by Amarsanaa

Perfection

from The Sartorialist

Poem of the Day

Hard Life with Memory
by Wisława Szymborska

I’m a poor audience for my memory.
She wants me to attend her voice nonstop,
but I fidget, fuss,
listen and don’t,
step out, come back, then leave again.

She wants all my time and attention.
She’s got no problem when I sleep.
The day’s a different matter, which upsets her.

She thrusts old letters, snapshots at me eagerly,
stirs up events both important and un-,
turns my eyes to overlooked views,
peoples them with my dead.

In her stories I’m always younger.
Which is nice, but why always the same story.
Every mirror holds different news for me.

She gets angry when I shrug my shoulders.
And takes revenge by hauling out old errors,
weighty, but easily forgotten.
Looks into my eyes, checks my reaction.
Then comforts me, it could be worse.

She wants me to live only for her and with her.
Ideally in a dark, locked room,
but my plans still feature today’s sun,
clouds in progress, ongoing roads.

At times I get fed up with her.
I suggest a separation. From now to eternity.
Then she smiles at me with pity,
since she knows it would be the end of me too.

A Lesson to Learn from Chile vol.2

From today's FT comment section, an article by the finance minister of Chile:

Chile, for example, runs fiscal policy according to a structural rule whereby spending is determined by anticipated revenue, which depends on an independent committee’s estimates of the long-term copper price and potential output growth. Fiscal policy is countercyclical, resulting in a surplus in the good times and a deficit in the bad times. The rule has allowed Chile to accumulate more than $20bn (about 9 per cent of GDP) in sovereign wealth funds, most of which can be used in case of significant shocks.

[...] These elements are at the core of the contingency plan we have been designing in Chile during the past few months. At recent meetings with my emerging market colleagues, especially from Latin America, we have discussed the design of contingency programmes that will enable us to respond effectively should the international outlook deteriorate further. In this way, emerging markets can not only help themselves but also help cushion the rest of the global economy. In other words, we now have a clear opportunity to be part of the solution instead of being part of the problem.

Addendum: Lesson vol.1

Opportunity Knocks

The new kid on the block, particularly for China, is Mongolia, providing a rapidly developing alternative for Chinese buyers to Australian imports. Mongolian coking coal exports to China rose 37 percent year-on-year to 17.5 million tons in Jan-Nov 2011. With Mongolia’s expansions continuing, HSBC expects Mongolia’s coking coal exports to rise from 21 million tons in 2011 to 28 million tons in 2012.

Mongolian coal has both a grade and price advantage over domestic Chinese coking coal and a price advantage over Australian imports, so the trend of rising Mongolian imports to the detriment of Australia and the US is likely to continue in 2012. If Chinese steel production slows, or even contracts in 2012, this trend will simply be exacerbated.

Steelmakers Welcome Falling Coking Coal Price Trend via Mongoliana

Music of the Day: Амартvвшин

УДБЭТ-ын гоцлол дуучин Энхбатын Амартүвшин П.И.Чайковскийн "Нам звезды кроткие сияли"-г дуулж байна. An incredible rendition! Bravo, Bravo!

And here are some comments on the video:

milutina1: Увы,наши певцы должны теперь учиться у монгола,как петь Чайковского.
В большинстве своем они перестали владеть тайной душевного пения,
которая раньше отличала русских певцов.

Sa743512: да, и не только многие русские, вообще почти все певцы перестали владеть тайной пения душой. кто теряет духовность - не может петь сердцем, а значит не может передать сокровенную силу своего чувства зрителю. именно русский дух давал и даёт нашим певцам это свойство проникать в глубину сердца.
Амартувшин Энхбат поёт сердцем, это передаётся сразу. Дай Бог ему это сохранить!

Here's a much more impressive performance of Verdi's Rigoletto

+ Ж.Бямбажав "Благословляю вас, леса..."
+ Ч.Энхтайван: from Ruggero Leoncavallo's Pagliacci

Addendum: Mongolia: Ballet, a Soviet Legacy Continues To Thrive in Ulaanbaatar

Photo of the Day

Элчин сайд Д.Баярхүү ЛБНИУ-ын Ерөнхийлөгч Махмуд Ахмадинежадад итгэмжлэх жуух бичгээ барив

Addendum: New Mongolian ambassador submits his credentials to President Ahmadinejad + Ахмадинежадад бараалхсан торгон агшин

Has Anyone Heard of Beer Hall Putsch?

Манай хувьсгалч найзууд нэр дэвших эрхтэй болсон надад баяр хүргэхийн хамт миний нөхрийг "өрөвдөж" өнөө орой пивоны ширээний ард цуглаж ярилцлаа. Бидний хүрсэн шийдэл бол "ХУВЬСГАЛ ГАРЦААГҮЙ!!!"

Setguulch Uyanga

A Note for Magnai (chihshig)

The questions people seem to come back to over and over again is: to what extent can one change the current system from within, and can one compromise with it? How do you answer these questions?

You can't change this system from within. Its founding principles are corruption, hypocrisy, and cynicism. If you join this system, your main instruments become corruption, hypocrisy, and cynicism, and it's impossible to build anything with such instruments. I have my own experience with trying to reform the system from within -- I spent a year in Kirov [as an advisor to the Kirov governor] -- and I've also seen the experience of other wonderful people, like [former finance minister] Aleksei Kudrin, who became part of the system instead of changing it.

People who talk about changing the system from within are lying. They're trying to justify their own hypocritical position, to defend the fact that, as part of the system, they're deriving material or political benefits from it.

So then what's the plan? How do you change the system?

You can change the system using a tool invented by human civilization. This tool is called "democracy" and "free elections." We need to have free elections. Then we need to participate in these elections and win, to show that our principles for building a government, unlike those of corruption and cynicism, are better.

The End of Putin: Alexey Navalny on why the Russian protest movement will win

Addendum: One of the best recent films on this subject: Elite Squad: The Enemy Within

Larry Summers on Education

Unabashedly lucid Larry Summers asks the following question and gives a six-point answer:

Suppose the educational system is drastically altered to reflect the structure of society and what we now understand about how people learn. How will what universities teach be different?

Photo of the Day: Faces

Photo courtesy of shuud.mn

Checks and Balances

Suuliin uyed AH zasgiin gazraas garsand haramsaad barahguy baigaa humuus neleed bii bolson bololtoy. Deputatiin uner avsan zarim ni bur ene uil yavdliig Mongol Ulsiin tusgaar togtnoliig busnuilj baigaa hereg gej uzeh ni holguy baina. End nuhduud bogino hugatsaanii togtvortoy baidliig bodood urt hugatsaanii ur dagavariig tootsohguy shig baih yum. Neg talaasaa ene bol ugaasaa daraagiin songuuliig amdan hiij bui zailshguy alham. Harin ch iim shiidver garaaguy baisan bol AH-iin udirdlagiin tenegiig gaihaad barahguy baih bailaa. Uls tur gedeg bol yuruusuu daisnaa todorhoiloh urlag. Ted buruu, harin bid zuv gesnii undsen deer uls turiin huchiig olj avdag. Bi chi dee tulahguy neg tsul zuil yavaad baival tegeed hend ni songogchid sanalaa uguh bolj baina?

Nuguu talaasaa ene bol Mongoliin ardchilliin suuri yadaj ungun taldaa buh baigaag haruulsan yavdal. Olon namiin togtoltsoog bid 1990 ond haa hamaaguy shaltgaanaar songooguy shuu dee. Neg nam nuguuhiinhuu huchiig hazaarlaj baij ardchilal bat buh boldog. Harin ch hoyor gol nam hoyul hamtdaa uvur turiidee orood baival bid sanaa zovoh uchirtay (harin AH "tuuhen uurgee guitsetgesen" ene ter bol tusdaa asuudal). Uuruur helbel AH zasgiin gazraas garsnaar Mongoliin ardchilal yadaj uragshlaaguy yum aa gehed aragsh uharsan aldaagaa zassan yavdal bolson yum.

Addendum: I am proud of the fact that we can say something like this in public without any fear of political persecution whatsoever. In the end, this is what will save us, not revolution: