In 1988 we bought a Sony camcorder for our family vacation to the Bahamas; two families got together for the trip. The first night, after sightseeing and cruising on one of those underwater see-through boats, we connected the camcorder to a TV set and enjoyed watching our joyful day. We saw ourselves giggling, complaining about the scorching sunlight, enjoying shopping, and anything else touristy you can imagine. One of us suddenly brought up an interesting point about a hypothetical situation that asks, how would life be if our everyday life were videotaped and reviewed at night. Would we be more careful? Well... I think so. 10 years later I had an embarrassing experience in playing back one cell-phone message that was recorded by mistake while driving. It was a 15 min segment of me scolding my kid for 15 minutes of driving. In an old-fashioned cellphone, the recorded message stopped only after playing back all the way to the end. Oh my God... It was exactly same as my tiger mom's yelling that I hated so much when I was young. For we could not see ourselves from other people's perspective, we are often too generous when assessing ourselves. When we were exhausted with kids, the line often times blurred between discipline and a temper as many parents nodded. With New Year's just up ahead, it's the perfect time to think the years gone by and redefine the core value of our life. Happy New Year!!
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The $1.01 trillion spending plan Obama signed yesterday is projected to cut the federal government's deficit by $23 billion over 10 years. The Pentagon law authorizes a $526.8 billion ceiling for military spending and includes pay raises for troops.(Bloomberg)
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On Dec. 16, U.S. District Court Judge Richard Leon ruled that a program that collects telephone metadata likely violates the Fourth Amendment... On Dec. 27, U.S. District Judge William J. Pauley said the bulk collection of Americans' telephone records is legal. (WP)
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The Dow Jones Industrial Average and the S&P 500 both hit record highs on Thursday. The largest Wall Street firms have reportedly set aside more than $91 billion for year-end bonuses. In response, an activist group called The Other 98% has launched a petition calling on employees of finance sectors to donate their bonuses to the 10 million Americans made homeless by the housing crisis.(DN)
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Egypt's military-backed interim government has declared the Muslim Brotherhood a terrorist group, criminalising all its activities, its financing and even membership to the group from which the country's ousted president hails. (Guardian)
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While short of the 3.3 million enrollees that the Obama administration was hoping for by now, the number signing up for insurance is a dramatic improvement from the early weeks of the program, when barely 150,000 got coverage because of a series of technical problems with the federal website HealthCare.gov. (Reuters)
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The Italian premiere of "12 Years a Slave" officially kicked off Italy's 18th annual Capri Hollywood film festival on Friday without talent in tow, following controversy sparked by the pic's teaser posters that placed the focus on Brad Pitt and Michael Fassbender rather than Chiwetel Ejiofor, the star of the film.(Variety)
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