Genius kid’s fast-track education sparks debate

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Made In China By CHOW HOW BAN

ZHANG Xinyang has been in the limelight since he was 10. Then he became the youngest person in China to study at a university.

At 13, he continued his master’s degree at Beijing University of Technology. Yet again the now 16-year-old genius made history when he was accepted by Beihang University in Beijing last month to study doctorate in mathematics.

Zhang’s fast-track education has sparked a debate over whether it is against the law of nature or whether it is the right thing for China to do to encourage young children to jump classes and grow to become adults though in reality they are not ready or mature.

In his recent interview with China Central Television (CCTV), Zhang showed his childishness and unreasonable thinking by saying that he had on several occasions threatened to stop his studies if his parents refused to buy an apartment for him in Beijing.

Genius or rebel?: A photo of Zhang grabbed from the Insight programme broadcast on China Central Television recently.

His remarks have caused a stir on the Internet, with many netizens saying that he should not pressure his parents who obviously cannot bear the exorbitant house prices and he should earn his own money to buy the apartment instead.

“What a selfish boy! What use to receive so much education?” said a netizen. Another commented that Zhang should be labelled as an “abnormal kid” instead of genius.

Others said that if Zhang were not China’s youngest doctorate student, his words would not have weighed so much.

“It was we who had different thoughts on an ordinary 16-year-old kid because of his reputation. He is only a rebellious boy like many at that age,” they said.

Zhang was raised by an ordinary middle-income family from Liaoning province. His father Huixiang, who works as a civil servant, discovered that he was smarter than his peers when he was very young.

Since then, Huixiang has educated his son to be an active learner and encouraged him to think and question.

The boy would speak about serious topics from the Iraq war to city image. Sometimes he would argue with his father when they have different views on certain subjects.



Fun it might seem for Zhang to bury in his books, walk into the examination hall together with his older classmates and skip so many levels of education. But, he revealed, in the interview, that it was not enjoyable after all.

When Zhang started to distract from his studies and play with computer games, his father scolded him. At the heat of the argument, his angry father walked out of Zhang’s hostel and walked 50km home in Langfang, Hebei province that night.

“He wanted to punish me but in reality, he was actually punishing himself,” Zhang said of his father’s reaction during the incident.

He said his father would certainly suffer from a more painful heartache than other parents of normal children if he failed to do well in his studies, because of the way his father had groomed him.

“He wished he could feed me with milk forever but it would not happen.

“The later he loosens his grip and let me go, the greater the repercussion would be,” he said.

With tremendous pressure from his parents and high expectations he had on himself, Zhang failed some subjects during his master’s degree and faced the danger of not able to complete his studies. He even thought of killing himself.

In the interview with CCTV, Huixiang said he could not make a difference throughout his life and all he could do was to cultivate his son hoping that he could spread his wings in future.

Huixiang has come out with a book titled The Miracle of Learning.

The book relates how he and his wife raised their son – they had never watched television nor muted TV programmes when their son was around.

When his son threatened him to buy an apartment, Huixiang and his wife had no choice but rented an apartment near his son’s university to persuade him to finish his studies.

Zhang said he started to think about having their own house in the Chinese capital after studying at university and being influenced by the media and the materialistic world.

He claimed that it was his parents who wanted him to pursue his studies in Beijing and realise a dream that they could not fulfil themselves.

“I am not sure if they impose their thoughts or dream on me or not, but I am inheriting my father’s dream. They wanted me to stay in Beijing so they should work hard for it,” he said.

Huixiang said his son changed after coming to Beijing and being exposed to the pomps and vanities of city life.

“He is after only money. He came into contact with such things too early and thought it would be hard to survive without money or even if he has knowledge and ability,” he added.

Zhang was quoted by Beijing Evening News as saying that he had reasoned to his parents, when they were staying in Tianjin, that if they did not buy an apartment then it would be too late as house prices would continue to increase.

He said he was aware of the debate on the Internet over what he said but added that it would impossible for everyone to understand him.

“I would rather maintain a positive thinking. Now I just want to forget about the episode, remain low-key and continue with my studies,” he added.

Web porn stops men from performing

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Research: Web porn stops men from performing

by Chris Matyszczy

Men in their 20s have a lot to worry about.

Will they ever get a job? Will they ever keep that job for more than a few months? Will they ever have enough money to pay their student loans and still be able to spend $100 a week on pot? Will they ever put their pants on the right way round at the first attempt?

Now it seems that something they do for recreation, in order to take their mind off their worries, is having increasingly worrying effects.

My hard-core reading of Psychology Today caused me to come across a pained and painful piece called "Porn-Induced Sexual Dysfunction is a Growing Problem."

The thesis behind this frightful news--supported by research performed in Italy and elsewhere--is that Internet porn desensitizes young men to such a degree that, when actually faced with a real human from their target sex group, they are entirely unable to participate as they should.

No, no. Not a good idea.

(Credit: CC AmusingThailand/Flickr)

Indeed, research from the University of Padua in Italy suggested that erectile dysfunction due to excessive Web porn begins for many men in their teens. 70 percent of those young men who came to seek help for performance issues said they were Web porn habitues.

The weary and wise might offer that this problem must be psychological. Yet the researchers declare: "Hold on there, big brains."

For their belief is that Web porn simply numbs men's pleasure receptacles, desensitizing responses to the neurochemical dopamine. This is a chemical associated with reward and, in young men, researchers believe that gorging on Internet porn simply shuts down the physiological sense of reward from sex.



Because the Web allows for so many different--and, if the user so chooses--ever more intense stimulations, the mind-body continuum begins to feel nothing at all. Yes, it's a little like 15 minutes of "Keeping Up With the Kardashians."

It seems that when these young men are suddenly confronted with a real sexual encounter, the idea of coupling with a real human being feels suddenly numbing--and therefore frightening.

You might wonder what happens when young men try to wean themselves off their Web porn habits. Studies show that they experience all sorts of withdrawal pains, including insomnia and catchall flulike symptoms.

I know that the Web is supposed to be the repository of all that is open and shared and loving. It seems possible, though, that its very ease offers so much of a good thing that the put-upon males of Generation Y just can't cope, poor dears.

Perhaps all porn Web sites should exclude anyone under 35. For public health reasons, you understand.

Chris Matyszczyk

Chris Matyszczyk is an award-winning creative director who advises major corporations on content creation and marketing. He brings an irreverent, sarcastic, and sometimes ironic voice to the tech world. He is a member of the CNET Blog Network and is not an employee of CNET.

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Wild Wild West of Libya, Gadhafi killed, his Rise and Fall! How much is True?

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Wild Wild West of Libya

BEHIND THE HEADLINES By BUNN NAGARA

In the heat of battle, vengeance is once more mistaken or substituted for justice.

Technically, Gaddafi was treated much the same way he had treated his enemies

SHOUTS of jubilation were punctuated by celebratory gunfire.

It was the Wild Wild West Asia and North Africa show in real time. Whoops of triumphalism rang out through Sirte, then all of Libya, at a tyrant’s death.



More than anything else, confusion reigned over the death of Col Muammar Gaddafi.

United States President Barack Obama indicated the US role made it all possible. Nato intimated it was the chief sponsor of the military effort.

France claimed credit for this biggest kill of their air campaign. French warplanes had strafed a convoy whisking the fallen strongman from Sirte.

The National Transitional Council (NTC) claimed credit for locating and killing Gaddafi. It said a comrade had shot Gaddafi dead with a 9mm pistol.

Then confusion deepened when they seemed to distance themselves from the killing. The certainty of Gaddafi’s death was matched only by the fuzziness of how he had died.

He was said to have been shot in both legs, then just one, and also in the abdomen or back. He was then shot in the arm and in the head and, in between, he was beaten.

Throughout this messy melee, thoughtful considerations became obscured as vulgar festivities and gloating hung over his murder.

The rabble loosely identified with the NTC were full of it. For them there would be no trial, no sentencing, no execution, not even a kangaroo court.

Some foreign leaders felt similarly even if they used different words. It went with the kind of mentality that would bomb and strafe civilian populations in Libya.

Technically, Gaddafi was treated much the same way he had treated his enemies.

There was therefore a sense of equivalence and much vengefulness, but justice would be something else.



Mob violence

If he had been tried in a court of law, he might well have been sentenced to death. But there he would have been subjected to due process, placed at the mercy of judicial institutions that a new Libya is supposed to build.

Instead, he was subjected to mob violence and an extra-judicial killing.

By treating him the way he had treated his enemies, the rag-tag militants showed they were no better and no nearer their supposed ideals of democracy and constitutionalism.

Both sides indulged in political violence and routine summary killing.

Beyond the shade of their sentiment, and the tenor of their rhetoric to distinguish them, was only the duration of their bloodfests.

Gaddafi was not only a wanted man in Libya by Libyan jurists, he was a wanted figure by the International Criminal Court.

Dispatching him with a bullet helped him evade both.

NTC officials were first keen to claim credit for his capture and defeat. But they failed to bring him to justice nationally and internationally.

Libyans, particularly those vehemently opposed to Gaddafi, missed an excellent opportunity to defeat what he had stood for.

By subjecting him to due judicial process, they could have shown everyone that a once-mighty tyrant could be humbled and humiliated by the strength of their own country’s judicial and democratic institutions.

If the Western powers that had hastily hounded Gaddafi had helped Libyans subordinate him to a trial, they too would have scored better by demonstrating the power of democracy over dictatorship.



But all that was not to be, once the political process was subjected to the baser instincts and appetites of the trophy hunter’s self-gratification.

There was the argument that Gaddafi refused to quit like Egypt’s Hosni Mubarak, as if to justify his killing.

By staying on Gaddafi made things tougher for the NTC, but that would not affect the course or demands of justice.

Adding to the confusion was US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who visited Libya on Tuesday, saying she hoped Gaddafi would soon be captured or killed.

Then she added: “Revenge attacks and vigilantism have no place in the new Libya.”

That was some 48 hours before Gaddafi was attacked and killed by Libyan vigilantes. Sifting through Clinton’s “wow” factor when she first learned of his killing, it is unclear what her stand is.

Legitimate government

Through this hazy surrealism, it seemed only natural for the leading punters to contradict themselves.

Countries like the US that were among the first to recognise the NTC as Libya’s legitimate government saw a “new era” for Libya only upon Gaddafi’s death.

The same shallow sentiment rang through the streets of Sirte and the corridors of the United Nations in New York.

The fact is that Gaddafi’s regime had fallen months ago, on Aug 21 when Tripoli fell. Since then he was never able to mount a return, nor could any of his sons have succeeded him.

The new Libya had sprouted two months before. The fall of Sirte defended by dwindling loyalists was irrelevant because it was only symbolic, the city being Gaddafi’s birthplace and his final bastion after Bani Walid.

For the French President and the British and Turkish Prime Ministers, then Clinton, to confidently visit Tripoli showed that Gaddafi and his forces had long been defeated.

In confusing Gaddafi’s regime with Gaddafi the man, they also confused actual triumph with mere triumphalism.

On the day Clinton was in Tripoli, Amnesty International released a report detailing how the US, Britain and France were among the Western countries that supplied arms to Gaddafi, Mubarak, Assad and others in troubled countries since 2005.

What better way to boost their arms industry than to supply weapons to both sides, then use them on Libya as well? Such was the irony that among Gaddafi’s “golden guns” retrieved by the Sirte mob was reportedly a gilded Browning .45 automatic.

The gun used to kill him might have been a Western weapon as well. The same goes for many of the other guns dangerously circulating around the country.

Commentary by: Colonel  Lim 
They are not telling us about Gaddafi

 HOW MUCH OF THIS IS TRUE?

The international media, influenced by the Americans, has successfully painted Gaddafi as a hard-core dictator, tyrant or whatever you want to call him. However, the media as usual has also failed to show the kind, giving Gaddafi we never heard of. Gaddafi unlike most dictators has managed to show his humane side, the very side we dream of seeing in other dictators. I consider Libyans lucky to a certain extent and one wonders with the new democratic rule they cry for will it improve or worsen life for them. Yes, Gaddafi has spent millions of Libya`s money on personal ventures but is the average Libyan poor? We know others who take a country and destroy it until you feel like there is no hope of restoring this country… looting some prefer to call it. Did Gaddafi loot Libya in any way? 

Now let us get to the unknown facts about the Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi: 

1. There is no electricity bill in Libya; electricity is free for all its citizens.
2. There is no interest on loans, banks in Libya are state-owned and loans given to all its citizens at 0% interest by law.
3. Home considered a human right in Libya – Gaddafi vowed that his parents would not get a house until everyone in Libya had a home. Gaddafi’s father has died while him, his wife and his mother are still living in a tent.
4. All newlyweds in Libya receive $60,000 Dinar (US$50,000) by the government to buy their first apartment so to help start up the family. 

Traditional wedding in Tripoli, Libya

5. Education and medical treatments are free in Libya. Before Gaddafi only 25% of Libyans are literate. Today the figure is 83%.
6. Should Libyans want to take up farming career, they would receive farming land, a farming house, equipments, seeds and livestock to kick-start their farms – all for free.
7. If Libyans cannot find the education or medical facilities they need in Libya, the government funds them to go abroad for it – not only free but they get US$2,300/mth accommodation and car allowance.
8. In Libyan, if a Libyan buys a car, the government subsidized 50% of the price.
9. The price of petrol in Libya is $0.14 per liter.
10. Libya has no external debt and its reserves amount to $150 billion – now frozen globally. 

Great Man-Made River project in Libya… $27 billion

11. If a Libyan is unable to get employment after graduation the state would pay the average salary of the profession as if he or she is employed until employment is found.
12. A portion of Libyan oil sale is, credited directly to the bank accounts of all Libyan citizens.
13. A mother who gave birth to a child receive US$5,000
14. 40 loaves of bread in Libya costs $ 0.15
15. 25% of Libyans have a university degree
16. Gaddafi carried out the world’s largest irrigation project, known as the Great Man-Made River project, to make water readily available throughout the desert country.

Which other dictators have done so much good for his people?

Best Regards, Col.Lim

I have to agree with you Colonel, as that was my reading in between the lines when I heard about him in London decades’ ago. He is humorous too.

In an interview decades ago by BBC ( ?) asking him for his opinion on Ronald Reagan who call him a terrorist, Colonel Gaddafi replied “ whatever he calls me, I am a Colonel.

Whatever he says about himself, he is an actor !”

The minority govt could not have overthrown him without NATO’s  military might ( a combinations of the Great might of the US, Britain, France ..etc. to bully a 3rd world country ) especially the bombings. 

You wonder why they don’t want to bomb Burma’s dictator, NO OIL ?  Hypocrites championing human rights where they have monetary interest !