DB's Pixnet

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, 2003 J.K. Rowling, Scholastic Inc.

What is the Order of the Phoenix? We can take an investigating look into J.K. Rowling's novel in the Chapter Five, "The Order of The Phoenix."
First is the words said by Sirius, "...at least you've been able to get out and about, stretch your legs, get into a few fights...I've been stuck inside for a month...There's not much I can do for the Order of the Phoenix."
-(A)---Obviously the Order is some kind of static activities which Sirius doesn't like.

Then is Harry asking Sirius, "how come he's in the order?"
"He's useful...also very loyal."
The third is Harry describing his status, "I asked Ron and Hermione but they said we're not allowed in the Order."
"And they're quite right," said Mrs. Weasley. "You're too young."
-(B)---Children and adolescents are receiving more respect in the west society. Sometimes they have suits and ties just like their adults' counterpart. They would be also addressed as "Sir", or "Junior".

"Since when did someone have to be in the Order of the Phoenix to ask questions?" asked Sirius.
"Harry's been trapped in that Muggle house for a month. He's got the right to know what's been happen..."
"You've too young, you're not in the Order," said Fred, "Harry's not even of age!"
"It's not my fault you haven't been told what the Order's doing," said Sirius calmly.
"He's not a member of the Order of the Phoenix!" said Mrs. Weasley.
"He's only fifteen and--"
"--and he's dealt with as much as most in the Order," said Sirius.
"Are you kidding?" said Bill incredulously.
"Dumbledore was the only one You-Know-Who was ever scared of!"
"Thanks to you, Dumbledore was able to recall the Order of the Phoenix about an hour after Voldemort returned," said Sirius.
"So what's the Order been doing?" said Harry.
-(C)---Knowledge is Power", as Francis Bacon said. When Bill asking to confirm that You-Know-Who was ever scared of the Headmaster Dumbledore, the learned scholar, the answer is that Dumbledore was able to recall the Order of the Phoenix about an hour after Voldemort returned.

"Working as hard as we can to make sure Voldemort can't carry out his plans," said Sirius.
"Tonks here, for one--she's too young to have been in the Order of the Phoenix last time."
"Didn't you see the Daily Prophet last week? They reported that he'd been voted out...and they're talking about talking away his Order of Merlin, First Class, too."
...she looked at Sirius, "You've given Harry plenty of information. Any more and you might just as well induct him into the Order straightaway."
"Why not?" said Harry quickly.
"I'll join, I want to join. I want to fight--"
"No"
It was not Mrs. Weasley who spoke this time, but Lupin.
"The Order is comprised only of overage wizards," he said.
"Wizards who have left school," he added.
-(D)---Kind of, sort of saying that wizards are not the best, not only left school, but just like dropouts from schools, whatever reasons they have left school.

David CK Chang, SSN057-86-4042,
May 14, 2012,
New Taipei City Library,
Panchiao, New Taipei City

Harvard Business Review, May 2012
Page 142, Case Study
Do Social Deal Sites Really Work?
The Experts Respond
Gideon Lask

Allie James is right that Flanagan needs to provide a better customer experience to sustain the business for the long term. What she doesn't see is that social-media discounts might be the perfect way to help the company work toward that goal. But those discounts must be handled with care.

A part of a broad promotional mix, price is a powerful way to drive sales--it always has been and always will be. Social-media discounts extend and refine the benefits of pricing by allowing merchants to reach beyond their usual pools of potential consumers and turn newly acquired customers into online advocates for a product or brand. The advocacy raises brand awareness.

But discounts can destroy margins. At BuyaPowa, we have a sign on the wall that says "Revenue is vanity. Profit is sanity." Many business owners forget that and focus more on the total dollars coming in than on how profitable each customer is. That makes it too easy for merchants--and their customers--to get addicted to discounts...

DB, SSN057-86-4042,
May 9, 2012, Wednesday,
National Central Library,
Taipei City

The Hunger Games, novel reading;

Katniss loves her sister Prim very much, even volunteers to be the tribute of District 12 to replace Prim because the twelve-year-old Prim is selected in the 74 Hunger Games as tribute. The sibling alike love also appears in Chapter 15 for another girl from District 11 called Rue, who spent quite a lot of time getting along with Katniss in the tree by the river, talking to mockingjay, chewing and spreading the herb on the injured calf of Katniss, a girl with Thresh from District 11. Rue in Chapter 18 is killed by a boy from District 1 by the spear. There are also some descriptions of the selecting of these young tributes:

“…You become eligible for the reaping the day you turn twelve.
That year, your name is entered once.
At thirteen, twice.
And so on and so on until you reach the age of eighteen,
the final year of eligibility,
when your name goes into the pool seven times…
So, at the age of twelve,
I had my name entered four times.
Once because I had to,
and three times for tessae for grain and oil for myself,
Prim and my mother…
So now, at the age of sixteen,
my name will be in the reaping twenty times.
Gale, who is eighteen and has been either helping or single-handedly feeding a family of five for seven years,
will have his name in forty-two times.”

The Hunger Games novel of Suzanne Collins, Book One, has 27 chapters, and in the Seventy-fourth Hunger Games, two victors from District 12, Katniss Everdeen and Peeta Mellark, in the Chapter 25 of the novel have already won the 74th hunger game. The remained two chapters, in the Chapter 26 it is dedicated to describe the Post Trauma Stress Disorder(PTSD) alike reaction of Katniss when she sees the doctors working on Peeta through the glass, and listens to the suggestion from Haymitch (about how to talk to the public or the press),
"Your only defense can be you were so madly in love you weren't responsible for your actions."

But we can see that Katniss is in doubt in her own conscious words that,
"I can't pull off the girl-driven-crazy-by-love scenario Haymitch has suggested."

That will be like caught between the Scylla and Charybdis a situation for Katniss to choose her own strategy.

The final chapter in Chapter 27 collects small details about daily life of the bread winners and lovers, also in words of Katniss that “dreading the moment when I will finally have to let go.”

David CK Chang, 

SSN057-86-4042,

May 4, 2012,

New Taipei City Library,

Panchiao, New Taipei City

The Economist, April 14TH-20TH, 2012
Page 69, E-book publishing
A too-cosy world?
New York
Readers may not be the ultimate winners in an e-book antitrust case

The price-fixing complaint that America's Department of Justice(DOJ) filed this week against Apple and five of the world's "Big Six" book publishers has a triumphalist tone, describing secret meetings in "upscale Manhattan restaurants". But it seems to take a rather narrow view of what is going on in the e-book industry.

Until two years ago Amazon, the dominant player in the market thanks to its Kindle e-reader, kept publishers on the "wholesale model" for e-books. This let them set the wholesale price but let Amazon sell the books at a loss, making it harder for newer e-reader makers such as Barnes & Noble to challenge its near-monopoly. That made for cheap e-books, competing against the print versions. Publishers and authors also feared that if Amazon remained dominant, it would eventually impose wholesale prices on them too, forcing weaker publishers and other book booksellers out of business. They were therefore delighted when Apple, on launching the iPad in 2010, offered them an "agency model", whereby they set the retail prices and give the retailer a fixed cut...

David CK Chang, SSN057-86-4042,
April 26, 2012,
National Central Library,
Taipei City

Time, April 23, 2012 

Page 30, United States
Inside the Presidents Club
By Nancy Gibbs and Michael Duffy

...No matter what may separate American Presidents when it comes to politics, personalities or petty grievances, they are members of unique and exclusive fraternity, and they are bound together by experiences that no one else can understand...The Presidents club may not be in the Constitution or any book or bylaw, but neither is it a metaphor or figure of speech. It was created in 1953 at Dwight Eisenhower's Inauguration...

"You will be our President when you read this note," George H.W. Bush wrote to Clinton, the man who had just defeated him...Bush who had to contend with four former Presidents during his time in office, consented to meet. And so in October, Obama flew to Texas A&M in College Station, home of Bush's presidential library, to toast Bush in a speech about public service...

...His work helped earned him the Nobel Prize in 2002; Carter even admits he is a better former President than he was a President...Even Carter points to what he calls "a quiet, fraternal feeling" that exists among the men who have sat at the big desk...

...But, Clinton added, "When my President summons me, then I come, and I would play golf in a driving snowstorm." Which is just another duty that comes with membership in the Presidents Club.

David CK Chang, SSN057-86-4042,
April 24, 2012,
New Taipei City Library,
Panchiao, New Taipei City

Page 48, The Culture
James' Bondage
The shy British mum whose naughty book set U.S. hearts afire
By Belinda Luscombe

...Until recently James was posting her stories online for free, and she readily acknowledges that they are heavily based on another person's work. Yet her trilogy Fifty Shades of Grey, Fifty Shades Darker and Fifty Shades Freed is set to be published by Vintage, a division of Random House, in a reported seven-figure deal...Grey dearly wishes that Ms. Steele, as he often calls her, would sign a nondisclosure agreement as well as a contract in which she agrees to let him control everything she eats and wears and to let him "flog, spank, whip or corporally punish" her as he sees fit. And she can't ever touch him. Also she's a virgin.

Despite the field-size red flags all this raises, she's torn: "No man has ever affected me the way Christian Grey has, and I cannot fathom why. Is it his looks? His civility? Wealth? Power?" Nothing, after all, says civility like a guy who, when he trusses you up, uses an expensive necktie.

In some hands, exploration of the erotic hinterlands where danger and desire coexist can be thought-provoking and perceptive. Story of O. Last Tango in Paris, Beauty and the Breast...

David CK Chang, SSN057-86-4042,
April 23, 2012,
New Taipei City Library,
Panchiao, New Taipei City

Bill Clinton, An American Journey, Great Expectations, Nigel Hamilton, 2003
Chapter 39, The Perils of Running for President;

1. p.568, section: The Money Factor;
..Jim McDougal's wife later recalled how at college she had been asked by Bill for a campaign contribution the first time he met her--and when she'd protested she was only twenty and a student, he had told Jim to give her the money to contribute!

Myth 1: Governor Frank White's daughter studied in the Chinese Culture University(CCU) in 1990, MBA program until 1994.
Myth 2: Because Ms Betsey White her mother had died for quite a while since 1981 or 1982. Who was Jim McDougal's wife? A relative, friend, or her (Betsey White's) step-mother?

2.p.570, section: A Court Summons;
..Bakker had become president of the most successful of American televangelist ministries ever created, only to be literally thrown into chains and locked up in Rochester, Minnesota where, as Tammy Faye Bakker later described, he was "given the dirtiest job in the prison": cleaning the toilets.

Myth 1: A doubting conflict point found. Mr Bakker's wife Mrs Bakker had died at 1981's or 1982's Thanksgiving Eve of a car crash.
Myth 2: Another reference of reminding description found in Deception Point, by Dan Brown, a novel 2001 and 2011, paperback, page 65, section 16, "Rachel Sexton"; page 66, "Thanksgiving Day apart."; page 67, "Route Twenty-five..I'm sorry. She died on impact."

3a. Clinton before 1990 was publicly against the secret service(anti-war) and the behavior of using pseudonyms(to sign military or government contracts). The first request in exchange for presidential nomination was asking Governor Clinton to concede for this point. And W.J. Clinton openly granted to change his name to "Bill Clinton".

3b. The Republican and Yale University fraternal order was asking Governor Clinton to take care of his political strategist "Dick Morris", a short guy, because they said Dick Morris had insulted them. And Clinton after collecting election funds at Taiwan, which was Republican source, back to the US, gave Dick Morris a blow. The Republicans were satisfied with this because "Bill hit his own man."

3c. The Arkansas former governor Frank White was detained in prison on November 1, 1990 because he planned to identify Clinton who appeared at Taiwan. Then US President George Bush who was a Yale alumni of Ivy League and a Republican politician as Governor Frank White, seeking ways to save the governor from prison, also solving the multiple identity issue presented publicly, granted to assist Bill and Hillary couples to elect into the White House.

3d. 1991. President George Bush talked to his son Mr Bush Jr.(who seemed to be visiting friend at Taiwan), that Yale as well as Harvard were all Ivy League universities, shared the same brotherhood and university fund donation sources. Do not restrict in partisan issue to help a Democrat candidate to be elected. Actually, Mr Clinton had his Yale recommendation from his step-father seniors coming to seek our paternal seniors to the admission to the Yale University.(And in return, they help you in the Harvard admission of MBA program.)

3e. 1991 July or September(Picture in "Living History", Hillary Clinton's autobiography, 2003), Bill and Roger came to visit the White House per request of China Embassy to identify a man previously in spring 1991, appeared in the Library of "Chinese" National Chiao Tung University(NCTU, or Jiao Tong University). Mr Roger was wearing the same polo-shirt when seeing me from behind my library seat to the White House. After the Ford-truck nation-wide campaigns, the Bill and Hillary won the presidential election.

3f. 1991 June or April, Mrs Hillary Clinton came to Taipei City YWCA, ICRT(International Community Radio Taipei) music club, with a word said to me(David Chang, NCTU sophomore), saying not to use Chinese language in the gathering. She was previously coming to visit DPP(Democratic Progressive Party) Mr Chen Sui-bian, who told her that he could not meet her because he was no longer a local city council member but a "central" legislator. Mrs Hillary then was seeking to visit the KMT(Kuomintang) officials which were also rejected her because they were sided with the Republican presidential candidate. It was notified that this was a lose-face for the USA, because the Ivy League alumni was rejected by Taiwan. No sooner had Mrs Hillary Clinton returned to the US(White House aide job) than Bill was announced elected to the White House.

David CK Chang, SSN057-86-4042,
April 20, 2012, Friday,
National Central Library,
Taipei City

the psychologist march 2012
Page 250, Looking Back
George Kelly and the Garden of Eden
Trever Butt finds an interesting recurring theme in the later work of the famous personality theorist

...Following the publication of The Psychology of Personal Constructs, Kelly became a key figure in the development of clinical psychology in the USA. He was invited to speak all over the country and embarked on a world tour in 1961. Many of his essays, articles and talks were drawn together after his death and published by one of his ex-students, Professor Brendan Maher(1969). In these collected papers, Kelly moved to correct the growing misapprehension that construing was synonymous with thinking, and therefore the cause of behavior. There is an emphasis on construing as action and not in some strange way behind it. Personal constructs are not yet another way of constituting the ghost in the machine.

Although Kelly always insisted that a construct was not a concept, his 1955 definition focused on things: 'A way in which some things are construed as being alike and yet different from others'(1955, p.105). This allows(and perhaps even encourages) the reader to think in terms of concepts...

David CK Chang, SSN057-86-4042,
April 18, 2012, Wednesday,
National Central Library,
Taipei City

Harvard Business Review, April 2012
Page 137, Case Study
A supplier contemplates cutting off one of its biggest accounts,
by Robert S. Kaplan
When to Drop an Unprofitable Customer

…"And what about that industry conference last month?" Jane prompted.

"Yes, the conference. In London. Well, lots of talk about Chinese suppliers there. Impressive group, actually. Lots of buzz about them. But our CEO gave the keynote, focusing on the benefits of our relationships with local suppliers. He's passionate about supporting UK businesses, you know, and the press ate it up."

"We so often overlook the intangibles that we get from our loyal customers," Jane said. "The showrooms, too." She picked up a glossy booklet from Steve's desk and handed to Tommy. He flipped through it, glancing at the photos of Westmid's new chain of decorator showrooms at high-end sites around London. She pointed to a picture. "Our doors," she said.

"This is a small part of Westmid's business now," she went on, "but it's bound to grow once the economy picks up. Our products have to be in these showrooms. Am I right?" This time Steve refrained from speaking, because the question was clearly aimed at Tommy.

The only sound in Steve's office was that of Tommy turning the heavy pages. The booklet showed many images of Egan's doors--beautiful, top-of-the-line, thermally insulating products with fan lights and other expensive features. He looked at Jane...

DB, SSN057-86-4042,
April 13, 2012, Friday,
National Central Library,
Taipei City

International Herald Tribune, Wednesday, April 11, 2012
Page 7, Health + Science
The giant iceberg was only part of the story
by William J Broad

What doomed the Titanic is well known, at least in outline. On a moonless night in the North Atlantic, the liner hit an iceberg and disaster ensued, with 1,500 lives lost.

The theories on the sinking vary widely, placing the blame on everything from inept sailors to flawed rivets.

Now, a century after the liner went down in the early hours of April 15, 1912, two new studies argue that rare states of nature played major roles in the catastrophe.

The first says Earth's nearness to the Moon and the Sun--a proximity not matched in more than 1,000 years--resulted in record tides that help explain why the Titanic encountered so much ice, including the fatal iceberg.

And a second, put forward by a Titanic historian from Britain, contends that the icy waters created ideal conditions for an unusual type of mirage that hid icebergs from lookouts and confused a nearby ship as to the liner's identity, delaying rescue efforts for hours.

The author, Tim Maltin, said his explanation helps remove the stain of blunder from what he regards as a tragedy...

David CK Chang, SSN057-86-4042,
April 11, 2012, Wednesday,
National Central Library,
Taipei City

International Herald Tribune, Tuesday, April 10, 2012
Page 9, Views
The gullible center
by Paul Krugman

...The reaction from many commentators was a howl of outrage. The president was being rude; he was being partisan; he was being a meanie. Yet what he said about the Ryan proposal was completely accurate.

Actually, there are many problems with that proposal. But you can get the gist if you understand two numbers: $4.6 trillion and 14 million.

Of these, $4.6 trillion is the revenue cost over the next decade of the tax cuts embodied in the plan, as estimated by the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center. These cuts--which are, by the way, cuts over and above those involved in making the Bush tax cuts permanent--would disproportionately benefit the wealthy, with the average member of the top 1 percent receiving a tax break of $238,000 a year.

...But the "centrists" who weigh in on policy debates are playing a different game. Their self-image, and to a large extent their professional selling point, depends on posing as high-minded types standing between the partisan extremes bringing together reasonable people from both parties--even if these reasonable people don't actually exist. And this leaves them unable either to admit how moderate Mr. Obama is or to acknowledge the more or less universal extremism of his opponents on the right...

David CK Chang, SSN057-86-4042,
April 11, 2012, Wednesday,
National Central Library,
Taipei City

Newsweek, April 9, 2012
Page 36 

Voyage of The Damned
All walks of life teemed aboard the RMS Titanic--from dollar dukes to striving immigrants. Little did they know how they would be betrayed.
By Simon Schama

The broken halves of RMS Titanic had barely settled on the ocean floor, 12,600 feet below the surface of the Atlantic, when the craving to see it at the movies began.

The one-reeler Saved From the Titanic, made by Éclair American Co. at its super-modern, glass-covered Fort Lee studio in New Jersey, was released 29 days after the liner sank and took 1,517 lives with it. In one respect at least, the 10-minute movie will never be bettered for authenticity, since its main attraction, the heavy-lidded, cushion-lipped, 22-year-old Dorothy Gibson-star of Revenge of the Silk Masks and It Pays to Be Kind, and cover girl of countless magazines--was a survivor from Lifeboat 7. Starting work a few days after landing back in New York off the rescue ship RMS Carpathia, Dorothy had only to play herself, which she apparently did with frightening aplomb...And you thought Kate Winslet was interesting? Silly you...

David CK Chang, SSN057-86-4042,
April 10, 2012,
New Taipei City Library,
Panchiao, New Taipei City

Time April 2, 2012
Page 38
French Toast?
Polls suggest Nicholas Sarkozy may lose France's presidency. How a globally respected statesman found himself on the verge of defeat at home.
By Bruce Crumley /Paris

...Voters are also put off by Sarkozy's reputation as "the President of the rich," a moniker first inspired by a round of tax cuts in 2007 that mostly benefited the wealthy. Sarkozy's unabashed fondness for money and his friendships with some of France's wealthiest people have solidified his image as the king of bling. So too has his posh life with his third wife, former model and millionaire Carla Bruni, who this month drew titters for defending her husband's taste for luxury, assuring a journalist, "We're modest people."

...In 2007, voters flocked to the uncompromising commitment and supreme confidence of Sarkozy, who promised a modernized French presidency. His stubborn intransigence struck many as refreshing after 12 years of flip-flopping stasis under his predecessor Jacques Chirac. His single-mindedness was also key to Sarkozy's two successful stints as Frances's Interior Minister, during which he vowed to purge troubled housing projects...

...That message echoed Sarkozy's earlier promise to slash immigration to France because "we have too many foreigners."...

David CK Chang, SSN057-86-4042,
April 8, 2012,
New Taipei City Library,
Panchiao, New Taipei City

International Herald Tribune, Friday, March 30, 2012
Page 6, Views
When stealing isn't stealing
by Stuart P. Green

The U.S. Justice Department is building its case against Megaupload, the hugely popular file-sharing site that was indicted earlier this year on multiple counts of copyright infringement and related crimes. The company's servers have been shut down, its assets seized and top employees arrested. And, as is usual in such cases, prosecutors and their allies in the music and movie industries have sought to invoke the language of "theft" and "stealing" to frame the prosecutions and, presumably, obtain the moral high ground.

Whatever wrongs Megaupload has committed, though, it's doubtful that theft is among them.

From its earliest days, the crime of theft has been understood to involve the misappropriation of things real and intangible. For Caveman Bob to "steal" from Caveman Joe meant that Bob had taken something of value from Joe--say, his favorite club--and that Joe, crucially, no longer had it...

--Stuart P. Green is a professor at Rutgers Law School in Newark and author of the forthcoming "13 Ways to Steal a Bicycle: Theft Law in the Information Age."

David CK Chang, SSN057-86-4042,
March 31, 2012, Saturday,
National Central Library,
Taipei City

Psychology Today April 2012

"A picture is worth a thousand words," a sentence citing from the Time magazine in 1996 April before I went to the New York City for my City University of New York Baruch Business Graduate School study, which was read out by a Canadian, something felt like dating with me...so Mr Ken talked to me intimately by patting my leg and explained that he was not a gay. A manager in the Dutch ABN AMRO Taiwan sector. Last weekend advertised by the radio station and advertising flag around National Central Library at Taipei City, that the Canadian foreign study program agency has some introduction of the Canadian international students programs these following weekends around this island to Taiwan students. That reminds me almost twenty years ago that kindly banking financial sector Manager Mr Ken. He gave me a red maple leaf symbol of Canadian national flag badge before we shook hands with each other and said goodbye. I threw it away in year 2000 before US 911. How could words only suffice for our spirits in this material world? "Smart but not lazy", sounds like a slip of son. Oh, When the Rubber Meets the Road, by Meatloaf in their album, Welcome to the Neighborhood. But maybe we were always hurting each other, and we still are. That's just OK, I think. Why don't you apply? 

On Page 30, Good Two-Shoes, "Two shoes is better than one shoe", is that right? From a mocking several years ago of the HSBC and the Citi Banks competing advertising slogan. How could we just only wear one shoe? But on page 31, everyone loved your hard-partying college roommate, "you may want to pretend that person never existed." Were it happened, how sad an atmosphere would there be when a man with a young son by a backdrop setting off the depression of noble sensations. Say, in Paris Eiffle Tower? A Reno taxis, though, by the way. Recently, there was a cashier receipt fraud happened in the McDonald's restaurant at Taipei City in the French Carrefour Mall which I experienced on the State Department Secretary Mrs Hillary R. Clinton's birthday on last October 26. I had posted the details on Yahoo! and Google websites, which was a copy from my Twitter and Plurk messages several days ago. I learned to go to McDonald's after the 2001 trip to the Europe, when somebody sounds like Paris mayor in the De Gaulle Airport Sheraton Hotel when I went to the McDonald's had a small talk to me, though he just invited me to a French restaurant, I think. But I recalled that the French boss said that I should seek the Americans to resolve my problem. Therefore, I learned to go to the McDonald's. That's it.

I have to present in the criminal investigating court again on April 2. I plan to sue the prosecutor malfeasance to halt the investigating legal process, then sue the New Taipei City Criminal Police Department along with Breeze Center Liao false charge. 

by David CK Chang,
SSN:057-86-4042, P.T. Subscribe ID:26--501, 
March 28, 2012, Wednesday, 
New Taipei City Library, 
Panchiao, New Taipei City