Harvard students by the hundreds are now studying ancient Chinese philosophy, for success & better lives

Why hundreds of Harvard students now studying ancient Chinese philosophy to change their lives for the better?  

How to be truly successful and enjoy a balanced life of tranquility? Let us learn from the world's oldest living civilization with over 5,000 years of recorded history. The wisdom of ancient Chinese philosophy and Confucian moral teachings offer the rest of the world priceless insights, more non-Chinese like hundreds of Harvard University students in the United States are learning all these nowadays. It is not only the "economic miracle" of China and Asia which should be the reason for us to study Chinese culture, but its unique Chinese philosophy and diverse ideas.

Let me share this interesting article from The Atlantic authored by Christine Gross-Loh on October 8, 2013: 

Image below of America's oldest and most prestigious Harvard University, sourced from www.top10rankings.org 

Below is image of Hong Kong actor Chow Yun Fat playing the role of the great teacher and philosopher Confucius, image sourced from www.seeraa.com  

Why Are Hundreds of Harvard Students Studying Ancient Chinese Philosophy?

The professor who teaches Classical Chinese Ethical and Political Theory claims, "This course will change your life."

BY: CHRISTINE GROSS-LOH OCT 8 2013, 10:49 AM ET

Picture a world where human relationships are challenging, narcissism and self-centeredness are on the rise, and there is disagreement on the best way for people to live harmoniously together.

It sounds like 21st-century America. But the society that Michael Puett, a tall, 48-year-old bespectacled professor of Chinese history at Harvard University, is describing to more than 700 rapt undergraduates is China, 2,500 years ago.

Puett's course Classical Chinese Ethical and Political Theory has become the third most popular course at the university. The only classes with higher enrollment are Intro to Economics and Intro to Computer Science. The second time Puett offered it, in 2007, so many students crowded into the assigned room that they were sitting on the stairs and stage and spilling out into the hallway. Harvard moved the class to Sanders Theater, the biggest venue on campus.

Prof. Michael Puett, image below sourced from  ealc.fas.harvard.edu

Why are so many undergraduates spending a semester poring over abstruse Chinese philosophy by scholars who lived thousands of years ago? For one thing, the class fulfills one of Harvard's more challenging core requirements, Ethical Reasoning. It's clear, though, that students are also lured in by Puett's bold promise: “This course will change your life.”

His students tell me it is true: that Puett uses Chinese philosophy as a way to give undergraduates concrete, counter-intuitive, and even revolutionary ideas, which teach them how to live a better life.  Elizabeth Malkin, a student in the course last year, says, “The class absolutely changed my perspective of myself, my peers, and of the way I view the world.” Puett puts a fresh spin on the questions that Chinese scholars grappled with centuries ago. He requires his students to closely read original texts (in translation) such as Confucius’s Analects, the Mencius, and the Daodejing and then actively put the teachings into practice in their daily lives. His lectures use Chinese thought in the context of contemporary American life to help 18- and 19-year-olds who are struggling to find their place in the world figure out how to be good human beings; how to create a good society; how to have a flourishing life.

Puett began offering his course to introduce his students not just to a completely different cultural worldview but also to a different set of tools. He told me he is seeing more students who are “feeling pushed onto a very specific path towards very concrete career goals” than he did when he began teaching nearly 20 years ago.  A recent report shows a steep decline over the last decade in the number of Harvard students who are choosing to major in the humanities, a trend roughly seen across the nation’s liberal arts schools. Finance remains the most popular career for Harvard graduates. Puett sees students who orient all their courses and even their extracurricular activities towards practical, predetermined career goals and plans.

Prof. Michael Puett of Harvard, image below sourced from  www.asia-institute.org

Puett tells his students that being calculating and rationally deciding on plans is precisely the wrong way to make any sort of important life decision. The Chinese philosophers they are reading would say that this strategy makes it harder to remain open to other possibilities that don’t fit into that plan. Students who do this “are not paying enough attention to the daily things that actually invigorate and inspire them, out of which could come a really fulfilling, exciting life,” he explains. If what excites a student is not the same as what he has decided is best for him, he becomes trapped on a misguided path, slated to begin an unfulfilling career. Puett aims to open his students’ eyes to a different way to approach everything from relationships to career decisions. He teaches them that: 

The smallest actions have the most profound ramifications. Confucius, Mencius, and other Chinese philosophers taught that the most mundane actions can have a ripple effect, and Puett urges his students to become more self-aware, to notice how even the most quotidian acts—holding open the door for someone, smiling at the grocery clerk—change the course of the day by affecting how we feel.

That rush of good feeling that comes after a daily run, the inspiring conversation with a good friend, or the momentary flash of anger that arises when someone cuts in front of us in line—what could they have to do with big life matters? Everything, actually. From a Chinese philosophical point of view, these small daily experiences provide us endless opportunities to understand ourselves. When we notice and understand what makes us tick, react, feel joyful or angry, we develop a better sense of who we are that helps us when approaching new situations. Mencius, a late Confucian thinker (4th century B.C.E.), taught that if you cultivate your better nature in these small ways, you can become an extraordinary person with an incredible influence, altering your own life as well as that of those around you, until finally “you can turn the whole world in the palm of your hand.”

Recent research into neuroscience is confirming that the Chinese philosophers are correct: Brain scans reveal that our unconscious awareness of emotions and phenomena around us are actually what drive the decisions we believe we are making with such logical rationality. According to Marianne LaFrance, a psychology professor at Yale, if we see a happy face for just a fraction of a second (4 milliseconds to be exact), that’s long enough to elicit a mini emotional high. In one study viewers who were flashed a smile—even though it was shown too quickly for them to even realize they had seen it—perceived the things around them more positively.

Decisions are made from the heart. Americans tend to believe that humans are rational creatures who make decisions logically, using our brains. But in Chinese, the word for “mind” and “heart” are the same. Puett teaches that the heart and the mind are inextricably linked, and that one does not exist without the other. Whenever we make decisions, from the prosaic to the profound (what to make for dinner; which courses to take next semester; what career path to follow; whom to marry), we will make better ones when we intuit how to integrate heart and mind and let our rational and emotional sides blend into one.  Zhuangzi, a Daoist philosopher, taught that we should train ourselves to become “spontaneous” through daily living, rather than closing ourselves off through what we think of as rational decision-making. In the same way that one deliberately practices the piano in order to eventually play it effortlessly, through our everyday activities we train ourselves to become more open to experiences and phenomena so that eventually the right responses and decisions come spontaneously, without angst, from the heart-mind.

If the body leads, the mind will follow. Behaving kindly (even when you are not feeling kindly), or smiling at someone (even if you aren’t feeling particularly friendly at the moment) can cause actual differences in how you end up feeling and behaving, even ultimately changing the outcome of a situation.

While all this might sound like hooey-wooey self-help, much of what Puett teaches is previously accepted cultural wisdom that has been lost in the modern age. Aristotle said, “We are what we repeatedly do,” a view shared by thinkers such as Confucius, who taught that the importance of rituals lies in how they inculcate a certain sensibility in a person.  In research published in Psychological Science, social psychologist Amy Cuddy and her colleagues found that when we take a power stance (stand with our legs apart, arms thrust out, taking up space), the pose does not only cause other people to view us as more confident and powerful; it actually causes a hormonal surge that makes us become more confident.

At the end of each class, Puett challenges his students to put the Chinese philosophy they have been learning into tangible practice in their everyday lives. “The Chinese philosophers we read taught that the way to really change lives for the better is from a very mundane level, changing the way people experience and respond to the world, so what I try to do is to hit them at that level. I’m not trying to give my students really big advice about what to do with their lives. I just want to give them a sense of what they can do daily to transform how they live.” Their assignments are small ones: to first observe how they feel when they smile at a stranger, hold open a door for someone, engage in a hobby. He asks them to take note of what happens next: how every action, gesture, or word dramatically affects how others respond to them. Then Puett asks them to pursue more of the activities that they notice arouse positive, excited feelings. In their papers and discussion sections students discuss what it means to live life according to the teachings of these philosophers.

Once they’ve understood themselves better and discovered what they love to do they can then work to become adept at those activities through ample practice and self-cultivation. Self-cultivation is related to another classical Chinese concept: that effort is what counts the most, more than talent or aptitude. We aren’t limited to our innate talents; we all have enormous potential to expand our abilities if we cultivate them. You don’t have to be stuck doing what you happen to be good at; merely pay attention to what you love and proceed from there. Chinese philosophers taught that paying attention to small clues “can literally change everything that we can become as human beings,” says Puett.  

To be interconnected, focus on mundane, everyday practices, and understand that great things begin with the very smallest of acts are radical ideas for young people living in a society that pressures them to think big and achieve individual excellence. This might be one reason why, according to the Chronicle for Higher Education, interest in Chinese philosophy is taking off around the nation—not just at Harvard. And it’s a message that’s especially resonating with those yearning for an alternative to the fast track they have been on all their lives.

One of Puett’s former students, Adam Mitchell, was a math and science whiz who went to Harvard intending to major in economics. At Harvard specifically and in society in general, he told me, “we’re expected to think of our future in this rational way: to add up the pros and cons and then make a decision. That leads you down the road of ‘Stick with what you’re good at’”—a road with little risk but little reward. But after his introduction to Chinese philosophy during his sophomore year, he realized this wasn’t the only way to think about the future. Instead, he tried courses he was drawn to but wasn’t naturally adroit at because he had learned how much value lies in working hard to become better at what you love. He became more aware of the way he was affected by those around him, and how they were affected by his own actions in turn. Mitchell threw himself into foreign language learning, feels his relationships have deepened, and is today working towards a master’s degree in regional studies. He told me, “I can happily say that Professor Puett lived up to his promise, that the course did in fact change my life.”

CHRISTINE GROSS-LOH is the author of Parenting Without Borders: Surprising Lessons Parents Around the World Can Teach Us (Avery, 2013)

Image below of Confucius quotation in ancient Chinese calligraphy and its English translation, sourced from www.chilture.com

I read this inspiring story about this courageous and idealistic Jewish rabbi named Herschel Schacter. Ideal for Holy Week reading.

I highly recommend that we read and share this story to others. Uphold goodness, faith and righteousness in this world! Best wishes!

(Image below of Buchenwald student conference - David Shechter - September 2011, sourced from haaretz.com)







Rabbi Herschel Schacter Is Dead at 95; Cried to the Jews of Buchenwald: ‘You Are Free’

via Yad Vashem

Rabbi Herschel Schacter leading the Shavuot prayer service for survivors in the Buchenwald camp in Germany in 1945.

New York Times article by  Margalit Fox

Pu

blished: March 26, 2013

The smoke was still rising as Rabbi Herschel Schacter rode through the gates of Buchenwald.

Multimedia

Photographs

Buchenwald’s Liberation, as Seen by Louis Nemeth

Librado Romero/The New York Times

Rabbi Herschel Schacter in 1999.

It was April 11, 1945, and Gen. George S. Patton’s Third Army had liberated the concentration camp scarcely an hour before. Rabbi Schacter, who was attached to the Third Army’s VIII Corps, was the first Jewish chaplain to enter in its wake.

That morning, after learning that Patton’s forward tanks had arrived at the camp, Rabbi Schacter, who died in the Riverdale section of the Bronx on Thursday at 95 after a career as one of the most prominent Modern Orthodox rabbis in the United States, commandeered a jeep and driver. He left headquarters and sped toward Buchenwald.

By late afternoon, when the rabbi drove through the gates, Allied tanks had breached the camp. He remembered, he later said, the sting of smoke in his eyes, the smell of burning flesh and the hundreds of bodies strewn everywhere.

He would remain at Buchenwald for months, tending to survivors, leading religious services in a former Nazi recreation hall and eventually helping to resettle thousands of Jews.

For his work, Rabbi Schacter was singled out by name on Friday by Yisrael Meir Lau, the former Ashkenazi chief rabbi of Israel, in a meeting with President Obama at Yad Vashem, Israel’s Holocaust memorial.

In Buchenwald that April day, Rabbi Schacter said afterward, it seemed as though there was no one left alive. In the camp, he encountered a young American lieutenant who knew his way around.

“Are there any Jews alive here?” the rabbi asked him.

He was led to the Kleine Lager, or Little Camp, a smaller camp within the larger one. There, in filthy barracks, men lay on raw wooden planks stacked from floor to ceiling. They stared down at the rabbi, in his unfamiliar military uniform, with unmistakable fright.

“Shalom Aleichem, Yidden,” Rabbi Schacter cried in Yiddish, “ihr zint frei!” — “Peace be upon you, Jews, you are free!” He ran from barracks to barracks, repeating those words. He was joined by those Jews who could walk, until a stream of people swelled behind him.

As he passed a mound of corpses, Rabbi Schacter spied a flicker of movement. Drawing closer, he saw a small boy, Prisoner 17030, hiding in terror behind the mound.

“I was afraid of him,” the child would recall long afterward in an interview with The New York Times. “I knew all the uniforms of SS and Gestapo and Wehrmacht, and all of a sudden, a new kind of uniform. I thought, ‘A new kind of enemy.’ ”

With tears streaming down his face, Rabbi Schacter picked the boy up. “What’s your name, my child?” he asked in Yiddish.

“Lulek,” the child replied.

“How old are you?” the rabbi asked.

“What difference does it make?” Lulek, who was 7, said. “I’m older than you, anyway.”

“Why do you think you’re older?” Rabbi Schacter asked, smiling.

“Because you cry and laugh like a child,” Lulek replied. “I haven’t laughed in a long time, and I don’t even cry anymore. So which one of us is older?”

Rabbi Schacter discovered nearly a thousand orphaned children in Buchenwald. He and a colleague, Rabbi Robert Marcus, helped arrange for their transport to France — a convoy that included Lulek and the teenage Elie Wiesel — as well as to Switzerland, a group personally conveyed by Rabbi Schacter, and to Palestine. 

For decades afterward, Rabbi Schacter said, he remained haunted by his time in Buchenwald, and by the question survivors put to him as he raced through the camp that first day.

“They were asking me, over and over, ‘Does the world know what happened to us?’ ” Rabbi Schacter told The Associated Press in 1981. “And I was thinking, ‘If my own father had not caught the boat on time, I would have been there, too.’ ”

Herschel Schacter was born in the Brownsville section of Brooklyn on Oct. 10, 1917, the youngest of 10 children of parents who had come from Poland. His father, Pincus, was a seventh-generation shochet, or ritual slaughterer; his mother, the former Miriam Schimmelman, was a real estate manager.

Mr. Schacter earned a bachelor’s degree from Yeshiva University in New York in 1938; in 1941, he received ordination at Yeshiva from Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik, a founder of the Modern Orthodox movement.

He spent about a year as a pulpit rabbi in Stamford, Conn., before enlisting in the Army as a chaplain in 1942.

After Buchenwald was liberated, he spent every day there distributing matzo (liberation had come just a week after Passover); leading services for Shavuot, which celebrates the revelation of the Torah to Moses at Mount Sinai, and which fell that year in May; and conducting Friday night services.

At one of those services, Lulek and his older brother, Naftali, were able to say Kaddish for their parents, Polish Jews who had been killed by the Nazis.

Discharged from the Army with the rank of captain, Rabbi Schacter became the spiritual leader of the Mosholu Jewish Center, an Orthodox synagogue on Hull Avenue in the north Bronx. He presided there from 1947 until it closed in 1999.

He was a leader of many national Jewish groups, including the Conference of Presidents of Major Jewish Organizations, of which he was a past chairman. He was most recently the director of rabbinic services at Yeshiva.

Rabbi Schacter, who in 1956 went to the Soviet Union with an American rabbinic delegation, was an outspoken advocate for the rights of Soviet Jews and an adviser on the subject to President Richard M. Nixon.

A resident of the Riverdale section of the Bronx, Rabbi Schacter is survived by his wife, the former Pnina Gewirtz, whom he married in 1948; a son, Rabbi Jacob J. Schacter, who confirmed his father’s death; a daughter, Miriam Schacter; four grandchildren; and eight great-grandchildren.

And what of Lulek, the orphan Rabbi Schacter rescued from Buchenwald that day? Lulek, who eventually settled in Palestine, grew up to be Rabbi Yisrael Meir Lau.

Rabbi Lau, who recounted his childhood exchange with Rabbi Schacter in a memoir, published in English in 2011 as “Out of the Depths,” was the Ashkenazi chief rabbi of Israel from 1993 to 2003 and is now the chief rabbi of Tel Aviv.

On Friday, when Rabbi Lau told Mr. Obama of his rescue by Rabbi Schacter — he thanked the American people for delivering Buchenwald survivors “not from slavery to freedom, but from death to life” — he had not yet learned of Rabbi Schacter’s death the day before.

“For me, he was alive,” Rabbi Lau said in an interview with The Times on Monday. “I speak about him with tears in my eyes.”

Inspiring family business saga! The 30-year-old Lynsi Torres is called the billionaire "Burger Queen" of America due to the inspiring business success of her closely-held family enterprise In-N-Out Burger, wow!

(Image below of Lynsi Torres sourced from huffingtonpost.com)





(Image below sourced from gearpatrol.com)







(Image below of the mansion of Lynsi Torres , plus the logo of her In-N-Out Burger super-imposed, sourced from la.curbed.com)






Below is an interesting article featuring the inspiring success story of In-N-Out Burger:

Youngest American Woman Billionaire Found With In-N-Out

By Seth Lubove - Feb 5, 2013 5:50 AM GMT+0800 Bloomberg News

Play

Lynsi Torres' Rise to Billionaire Burger Queen

Lunchtime at the flagship In-N-Out Burger restaurant in Baldwin Park, California, is a study in efficiency. As the order line swells, smiling workers swoop in to operate empty cash registers. Another staffer cleans tables, asking customers if they’re enjoying their hamburger. Outside, a woman armed with a hand-held ordering machine speeds up the drive-through line.

Feb. 4 (Bloomberg) -- Bloomberg Billionaires Editor Matthew G. Miller talks about Billionaire Drag Racer and In-N-Out Burgers President Lynsi Torres. He speaks on Bloomberg Television's "In The Loop." (Source: Bloomberg)

Feb. 4 (Bloomberg) -- John Gordon, founder of San Diego-based restaurant consultant Pacific Management Consulting Group, talks to Bloomberg's Seth Lubove about In-N-Out Burger restaurant's 30-year-old owner Lynsi Torres and the possibility she will maintain ownership after gaining full control of the franchise in five years. Torres's most visible presence has been on the drag strip. She competes in the National Hot Rod Association’s Super Gas and Top Sportsman Division 7 categories. (Source: Bloomberg)

Feb. 4 (Bloomberg) -- Watch Bloomberg's Joe Wiesenthal, Tom Keene, Max Abelson, Stephanie Ruhle and Erik Schatzker sample the best burgers on Wall Street. They eat on Bloomberg Television's "Market Makers." (Source: Bloomberg)

Youngest American Woman Billionaire Revealed With In-N-Out Chain

Adam Lau/AP Photo

Cars line up in the drive-thru lane at In-N-Out Burger in Baldwin Park, California.

Cars line up in the drive-thru lane at In-N-Out Burger in Baldwin Park, California. Photographer: Adam Lau/AP Photo

Such service has helped In-N-Out create a rabid fan base -- and make Lynsi Torres, the chain’s 30-year-old owner and president, one of the youngest female billionaires on Earth. New store openings often resemble product releases from Apple Inc. (AAPL), with customers lined up hours in advance. City officials plead with the Irvine, California-based company to open restaurants in their municipalities.

“They have done a fantastic job of building and maintaining a kind of cult following,” said Bob Goldin, executive vice president of Chicago-based food industry research firm Technomic Inc. “Someone would love to buy them.”

That someone includes billionaire investor Warren Buffett, who told a group of visiting business students in 2005 that he’d like to own the chain, according to an account of the meeting on the UCLA Anderson School of Management website.

The thrice-married Torres has watched her family expand In- N-Out from a single drive-through hamburger stand founded in 1948 in Baldwin Park by her grandparents, Harry and Esther Snyder, into a fast-food empire worth more than $1 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.

Biblical Citations

Famous for its Double-Double cheeseburgers, fresh ingredients and discreet biblical citations on its cups and food wrappers, In-N-Out has almost 280 units in five states. The closely held company had sales of about $625 million in 2012, after applying a five-year compound annual growth rate of 4.6 percent to industry trade magazine Nation’s Restaurant News’s 2011 sales estimate of $596 million.

In-N-Out is valued at about $1.1 billion, according to the Bloomberg ranking, based on the average price-to-earnings, enterprise value-to-sales and enterprise value-to-earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization multiples of five publicly traded peers: Yum! Brands Inc. (YUM), Jack in the Box Inc., Wendy’s Co. (WEN), Sonic Corp. (SONC) and McDonald’s Corp. (MCD) Enterprise value is defined as market capitalization plus total debt minus cash.

One private equity executive who invests in the food and restaurant industry said the operation could be valued at more than $2 billion, based on its productivity per unit, profitability and potential for expansion. The person asked not to be identified because he is not authorized to speak about his company’s potential investments.

Plane Crash

“In-N-Out Burger is a private company and this valuation of the company is nothing more than speculation based on estimates from people with no knowledge of In-N-Out’s financials, which are and always have been private,” Carl Van Fleet, the company’s vice president of planning and development, said in an e-mailed statement.

Torres, who has never appeared on an international wealth ranking and declined to comment for this article, came to control In-N-Out after several family deaths. When her grandfather Harry died in 1976, his second son, Rich, took over as company president and expanded the chain to 93 restaurants from 18.

Torres’s father, Harry Guy Snyder, became chief executive following Rich’s 1993 death in a plane crash at age 41. The chain expanded to 140 locations under Guy, who inherited his father’s passion for drag racing.

Ford Cobra

When he died of a prescription drug overdose at age 49 in 1999, Snyder’s estate included 27 cars and other vehicles, including a 1965 Ford Cobra and a pair of 1960’s-era Dodge Dart muscle cars, according to his will.

Torres’s grandmother Esther -- Harry’s widow -- maintained control of the company until her death in 2006 at age 86. When she died, Torres was the sole family heir. She now controls the company through a trust that gave her half ownership when she turned 30 last year, and will give her full control when she turns 35.

The company has no other owners, according to an Arizona state corporation commission filing.
Few in the restaurant industry have met or know much about the hamburger heiress.

“I have no clue about her,” said Janet Lowder, a Rancho Palos Verdes, California, restaurant consultant, who said she was one of the few people to extract the company’s internal finances from Esther Snyder in the 1980’s for industry-wide surveys. “I was even surprised there was a granddaughter.”

Limited Menu

Technomic’s Goldin said the lack of visibility extends to management.
“I’ve been in the industry a long time, and I don’t think I’ve ever seen any of their people at an industry meeting,” he said. “They’re very quiet. That’s their culture.”

Torres has little formal management training and no college degree. The company was structured to carry on after the demise of its founders, according to a 2003 Harvard Business School case study. In-N-Out has never franchised to outside operators, the Harvard researchers said, giving up a low-cost revenue stream in exchange for maintaining quality control.

In a 2005 article in the Harvard Business Review, Boston- based Bain & Co. consultants Mark Gottfredson and Keith Aspinall attributed the company’s estimated 20 percent profit margins at the time to the simplicity of its limited menu. Contrast that with competitors such as Oak Brook, Illinois-based McDonald’s and Miami-based Burger King Worldwide Inc. (BKW), which regularly change their food offerings.

Over-sized Tires

“Other chains seem to change positions as often as they change their underwear,” said Bob Sandelman, chief executive officer of San Clemente, California-based food industry researcher Sandelman & Associates.

Butchers carve fresh beef chuck delivered daily to the company’s distribution facility in Baldwin Park, where hamburger patties leave for restaurants on 18-wheeled refrigerated trucks outfitted with over-sized tires so the In-N-Out logo can be better seen on the highway. The company only expands as far as its trucks can travel in a day, either from the Baldwin Park complex or a newer facility in Dallas, the only two places where the company makes hamburger patties.

‘Calculated Growth’

In-N-Out expanded to Texas in 2011, after building a warehouse and the patty facility. There are now 16 units in the state. Conrad Lyon, a Los Angeles-based senior restaurants analyst for B. Riley Caris, said additional expansion will continue to be gradual.

“I would expect slow, calculated growth,” he said in a phone interview. “To outsiders the company’s growth out West likely appears sluggish. However, it was management carefully leveraging its brand, real estate and distribution. As a private company-owned system, In-N-Out has the luxury of calling the shots to replicate its success without succumbing to potentially detrimental outside influences.”

The company’s pace of expansion was one of the issues at stake in an exchange of lawsuits in 2006 between Torres, In-N- Out executives and Richard Boyd, the company’s former vice president of real estate and development. Boyd was one of two trustees overseeing the trust that controls the company’s stock on behalf of Torres.

Complaints, Allegations

Among other allegations filed in California state court in Los Angeles, Boyd claimed Torres and Mark Taylor -- her brother- in-law from a half-sister -- conspired to remove Esther Snyder from the company to gain control of In-N-Out. He filed a separate petition with the probate court seeking to prevent Torres from removing him as a trustee.

Torres denied the allegations in both a formal answer to Boyd’s complaint and a 2006 letter to the editor published in the Los Angeles Times, in which she said she only had “minimal involvement” in the company’s business decisions, and didn’t favor rapid expansion.

The company in turn filed a breach of contract lawsuit against Boyd, alleging fraud and embezzlement in connection to Boyd’s relationship to one of In-N-Out’s outside construction firms. Boyd’s lawyer, Philip Heller of Fagelbaum & Heller LLP in Los Angeles, said all the litigation was dismissed following a confidential settlement. Boyd resigned from the company and the trust.

“They were all in the end amicably resolved,” Heller said.

16 Bathrooms

Since then, Torres has refused most interview requests, even by author Stacy Perman, who wrote a 352-page book about In- N-Out in 2009. Torres asked to set up a meeting with the author after the book’s publication, but it never occurred, Perman wrote in an afterword to the 2010 paperback edition.

Torres popped up in real-estate blogs in September, after buying a $17.4 million, 16,600-square-foot mansion in the wealthy enclave of Bradbury, California, in the foothills of the San Gabriel Mountains. A Realtor.com listing for the house described it as having seven bedrooms, 16 bathrooms, a pool, a tennis court and other amenities.

Torres is one of almost 90 hidden billionaires discovered by Bloomberg News since the debut of the Bloomberg Billionaires Index in March 2012. Among them: Dirce Camargo, the richest woman in Brazil, and Elaine Marshall, the fourth-richest woman in America.

Like Camargo and Marshall, Torres maintains a low profile. Her most visible presence has been on the drag strip. She competes in the National Hot Rod Association’s Super Gas and Top Sportsman Division 7 categories, alternating between a 1970 Plymouth Barracuda and a 1984 Chevrolet Camaro, according to NHRA results. Her third husband, Val Torres Jr., is also a race- car driver.

‘Open Question’

She also inherited her Uncle Rich’s interest in religion, funding a non-profit organization called Healing Hearts & Nations that proselytizes in Africa, according to a 2010 Form 990 foundation filing that lists Torres as the chief financial officer. Former In-N-Out executive Boyd alleged in his 2006 cross-complaint against the company that Torres attempted to fire him because he was not a “man of God,” and because he didn’t attend prayer meetings at her home. She denied Boyd’s claims in the company’s answer.

Whether the mother of twins will maintain ownership in the chain after she gains full control in five years is uncertain, said John Gordon, founder of San Diego-based restaurant consultant Pacific Management Consulting Group.

“It’s an open question whether she may have different feelings later,” said Gordon. “Like most kids, or second or third generations of a very wealthy family, I don’t know that she has restaurant blood in her veins, or if she’s a trust fund baby.”

WOW! Billionaire Hedge Fund Tycoon John Paulson Donates US$100 Million for Central Park

My Comments:   I'm very impressed with this act! This guy is also a financial genius, a self-made businessman, a philanthropist from the Jewish minority, he's a business and civic leader.

Billionaire Paulson Donates $100 Million for Central Park

By Henry Goldman - Oct 23, 2012 10:53 PM GMT+0800 Bloomberg

Billionaire John Paulson and the Paulson Family Foundation are donating $100 million to the Central Park Conservancy, the largest parks donation ever.

Paulson, 56, is founder of Paulson & Co., a New York-based hedge fund that manages $21 billion across 10 funds. Paulson was worth $11.8 billion yesterday, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. His contribution will help renovate and maintain park facilities and pay for recreation programs, said Doug Blonsky, president of the conservancy, which is responsible for its maintenance and operations. Half will bolster the park’s endowment, which now stands at $144 million, Blonsky said.

Billionaire Paulson Donates $100 Million for NYC’s Central Park

Rick Maiman/Bloomberg

John A. Paulson, president of Paulson & Co.

Oct. 23 (Bloomberg) -- Billionaire John Paulson and the Paulson Family Foundation are donating $100 million to the Central Park Conservancy, according to a news release today. (Source: Bloomberg)

Keyur Khamar/Bloomberg

Residential buildings line Central Park in this aerial photo taken over New York.

“The Conservancy is responsible for transforming and sustaining Central Park as the celebration of culture, nature and democracy that it is today,” Paulson said in a statement. “It is my hope that today’s contribution will help it endure and flourish.”

The park’s 843 acres (341 hectares) stretch from 59th Street to 110th Street in Manhattan and make up a leafy oasis on an island of concrete. Conservancy crews care for 250 acres of lawns, 24,000 trees, 150 acres of lakes and streams and 130 acres of woodlands, according to its website.

“Central Park is a paradise unlike anywhere else in the world today,” said Paulson, whose Fifth Avenue apartment faces the park’s east side and overlooks its reservoir. “I wanted the amount to make a difference.”

Queens Product

Paulson was raised in the middle-class Beechhurst section of Bayside, in New York’s Queens borough. As a child, his parents took him through the park in a stroller, he said. He was valedictorian at New York University and attended Harvard Business School.

After working in risk arbitrage at Bear Stearns Cos., Odyssey Partners and Gruss Partners, Paulson founded Paulson & Co. in 1994, with $2 million from friends and family.

Paulson in 2009 donated $20 million to New York University Stern School of Business and the following year, along with his wife, Jenny, donated $5 million to Southampton Hospital in New York, which named an emergency department after them.

Paulson also donated $15 million to a children’s and maternity hospital in Guayaquil, Ecuador, according to a Nov. 21, 2010 statement.

The nonprofit Central Park Conservancy was founded in 1980, according to its website. Its mission was to restore America’s foremost urban public space to the condition envisioned by its 19th-century designers, Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux. In 1998, the Conservancy and the city of New York signed a management agreement formalizing their then 18-year public- private partnership.

“Central Park has an enormous economic impact on our city -- 40 million annual visitors generating $1 billion in economic activity -- and that’s in large part due to the great work of the Central Park Conservancy, the Parks Department and the New York City Police Department, who have worked together since 1980 to restore Central Park to its glory and take it to new heights,'' Mayor Michael Bloomberg said in a prepared statement. The mayor is founder and majority of Bloomberg News parent Bloomberg LP.

WHY I ADMIRE SELF-MADE BUSINESSMAN MITT ROMNEY. This is not about politics. I admire self-made man Mitt Romney for his amazing success.

Win or lose in the USA presidential election in November 2012, ex-Governor Mitt Romney has my utmost respect for flourishing in business, in his wholesome family life and ultimately in his sincere faith in God!






Some of the reasons why I admire and respect Mitt Romney:

1. He is a self-made man, who built up success via hard work and resourcefulness.

2. He is a savvy businessman, who understands the importance and inherent superiority of the free enterprise system to propel socio-economic progress. I admire his advocacy of small businesses!

3. He turned around the Winter Olympics in Saly Lake City, USA.

4. He turned around Massachusetts state when he was its governor.

5. He turned around business companies he led.

6. He is a disciplined man with solid moral values.

7. He is a good family man who loves his wife with fidelity and good to their kids.

8. Although I'm not a Mormon like Romney, I admire his sincere and lifelong devotion to faith in God.








Apologies for the political opinions expressed below by the Forbes contributor, though articulate and thoughtful those opinions, but let us objectively examine and focus on Mitt Romney's solid track record as a self-made businessman and also as a capable leader?

Read on and share your comments to me here in this blog or via email?

Richard Finger, Contributor to Forbes magazine|

9/04/2012 @ 12:22PM |2,981 views

Why Is Success Being Punished?

see photosAP

Click for full photo gallery: Election 2012: Battleground States Where It’s All About Women

For the first time in my lifetime, business success is being vilified as smarmy and the attendant corollary, the profit motive is therefore sleazy as well. Democrats derisively promulgate Mitt Romney’s net worth estimated at $200 to $250 million inferring that this is a disqualifying factor to allow him to be Presidential material.  Throughout the history of our great nation, a self made man like Mitt Romney has been celebrated.

Indeed, he is a paradigm of success to be emulated. Are criticisms equally vociferous of very rich democratic politicians? Ex-presidential contender John Kerry, worth hundreds of millions, with his passel of estates, new $7 million yacht…….his most accretive act was a brief fifteen minute ceremony to the widow Heinz.

Seldom, no never, have I heard any criticism of the Kennedy wealth….and this despite the fact that the last two generations, other than politics, work little and the family lucre allegedly coalesced around illegal import of alcoholic beverages (aka bootlegging) during the prohibition era. Does noblesse oblige now have stronger merit than hard work?

Compare Romney who started from scratch, worked for years, scraped, fought hard and got “dirt under his fingernails” to earn his money, to the hypocrisy of elitist rich democrats who inherited or married into their fortunes. Is Romney really the one who is out of touch with ordinary Americans?

His Tax Rate

Romney has been roundly disparaged for paying such low effective income tax rates. The disdain implies there is something unethical for paying the statutory mandated rates. Much of the Romney’s income comes from dividends and capital gains.

Devoting much of the last dozen or so years as an unpaid public servant, (three years as Chairman of 2002 Salt Lake City Olympics, donating his $1.4 mm salary and severance to charity and four years as Governor of Mass. )  it only makes sense that his estate would be managed to generate significant amounts of low tax rate income.

For 2010 and 2011 Romney’s returns show over $7 million in charitable donations on $42.5 million of income. This means they gave away 16.4% of their income and if this is added to their effective tax rates then the Romney’s paid in taxes and gave away over 30% of their money.

Perhaps Governor Romney believes that the charities of the private sector are much more efficient allocators of capital than our spendthrift federal government.

Different Business Models

This election is about a choice between two starkly different business models. On the left is the statist system where government becomes more and more intrusive into citizen’s lives. The most recent example being the to be implemented government mandated health care system. Statism means more and more welfare and subsidies.

When our current leader took office 40% of Americans were receiving some form of government aid. That figure has bulged up to 55%. Nearly 50% of all people pay no federal income taxes whatsoever. Continual higher taxes and more and more fiscal stimulus will be the answer to all problems.

More and more burdensome regulations will dot the business landscape. Our national debt will exceed $16 Trillion when the gavel falls Tuesday, in honor of the opening of the Democratic convention. What a symbolic start.

Our Debt to GDP ratio has soared from 70% to over 100% in less than four years. America looks more and more like continental Europe every day. And last time I looked there were still quite a few unresolved fiscal issues on their side of the Atlantic.

The facts are clear. As governor of Massachusetts, Governor Romney closed first a $650 million and the following year an estimated $3 billion deficit eventually achieving budget surplus. He slashed spending, eliminated some tax loopholes, reduced some local funding, and even cut some higher education dollars……it wasn’t a perfect solution but nothing is and at the end of the day it got done even with both legislative houses solidly Democratic. So Republicans and Democrats worked together.

Romney is a man who can compromise. The Salt Lake Olympics were running $379 million short of revenue goals and in the midst of a bribery scandal when Romney took charge.

Bottom line was the Games made a $100 million profit. So the other side of the ledger offers a man who has both a long history of private sector experience in addition to a proven record that he has the expertise and the will to change budget deficits into surpluses.

Bain Capital And The Campaign

Mitt Romney founded Bain Capital in 1984. It is the crown in his magnificently successful career. Of over 350 direct investments over 80% of companies have increased revenues. But this campaign seeks to denigrate his achievements.

Deflecting the debates away from the real issue, which are policies to achieve economic growth to childish attempts to focus on tax rates paid by a self made man shows signs of desperation? Tonight or tomorrow the Democrats have recruited a couple of Bain employees to speak.

While the lineup is uncertain, one is thought to be Jonathan Lavine, a democratic “money bundler” and managing partner at Sankaty Advisors, a Bain subsidiary. Another may be Steve Pagliuca, Bain managing director and part owner of the Boston Celtics.

Their supposed mission is to portray Governor Romney as a person who invested in companies to take all the money out, bankrupt them, destroy all the jobs and make millions for himself…..and all these nefarious deeds done with malice aforethought. That’s hardly the result at Staples and many, many of other success stories.

I am really interested to see how a guy like Mr. Pagliuca bashes Romney when he has made enough money at the company Romney founded, to be part owner of a sports franchise with a worth probably over $1 billion. I wonder if John Kerry is giving him a ride down to Charlotte on his Gulfstream.  

Do the private equity (PE) investments sometimes lose jobs or is PE a provider of capital to allow small businesses to thrive, expand and increase their worker base by exponential amounts? The answer is both. But net, net PE is far and away an enterprise that is a net creator of employment. You don’t have to believe me but you can’t hide from the statistics.

The giant pension fund CalSTERS has invested $1.25 billion with Bain Capital. Spokesman Ricardo Duran says that since “1988 Bain and private equity companies like them have outperformed every asset class which CalSTERS has allocated the cash of its 856,360 largely unionized members.”

From 1998 to 2008 Purdue, U.of Virginia, U.of California, U.of Michigan and U.of Washington trusted at least $425 million to Bain. Princeton, Yale, and Harvard all bastions of liberal thought have invested their endowment funds with Bain. Since 2000 another group of a dozen state pension groups including Texas, Ohio, and Pennsylvaniahave given over $1.56 billion of retiree’s money to Bain.

Would these giant pensions and endowments continually over 10 and 20 year periods continue pouring assets into a money losing venture? The answer is unequivocally no….of course not. These men and women who are the money managers are fiduciaries, so as trustees they are bound to protect their employee base.

Please note the wonderful irony in all of this; Bain Capital providing consistent investment returns to pension funds, in which many of the retirees’ were heavily democrat union members.

Great Hypocrisy

If PE is “Darth Vader” -like evil empire, then why would the current administration seek help from Washington based PE firm Carlyle Group to save a Philadelphiaoil refiner owned by Sunoco (SU) slated for closure? Carlyle will invest $200 million to upgrade the facility which will protect the 850 union workers slated for layoff before November elections.

Naturally, EPA emissions standards have been relaxed which was part of the reason the refinery was closing in the first place. It is interesting, no it is the apogee of hypocrisy, that Carlyle is defined as “good” PE and Bain the unsavory.

It is sad commentary that our current leadership must attempt to belittle a great American success story to deflect focus from his own failed policies.

Has the ethos of our country shifted to such extent that the citizenry cannot hail a man who not only has been made his wealth honestly but also donates millions of dollars annually?

As a recent bumper sticker articulated so well, “I really don’t care where he was born, it’s where he lives is the problem.”

Success lessons from Olympic heroes  The Philippine Star August 13, 2012 Bull Market, Bull Sheet column By Wilson Lee Flores I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. ---II Timothy 4: 7 In the dust of defeat as well as the laurels of victory, there is a glory to be found if one has done his best. ---Eric Liddell             What are the many priceless success lessons we can learn from Olympic heroes? Here are some: 1.      Team Work---The 1992 USA basketball “Dream Team” led by Michael Jordan, 2012 U.S. basketball team and come-from-behind 2012 China gymnastics men’s team all won on the strength of their dynamic team work. (The gold medal-winning USA basketball "Dream Team" standing on the podium at the Sports Palace of Barcelona City, Spain on August 8, 1992 during the Barcelo Olympics. Agence France Presse photo) 2.      Perseverance---Asian sports star and entrepreneur Li Ning started training in gymnastics at eight years old, then was selected for the China national team at age 17. He kept training and winning until at age 21, he won 6 medals at the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics (3 of which were golds). American swimmer Mark Spitz started competing at only age 6, began training at age 9 under swimming coach Sherm Chavoor who mentored seven Olympic medal winners. Spitz was only 15 when he competed in his first international competition, the 1965 Maccabiah Games (open to all the world’s Jews) in Tel Aviv where he won four golds.   At age 22, he won a then unprecedented seven gold medals (surpassed only by Michael Phelps in 2008 Beijing) at the 1972 Munich Olympics. In 1972, Spitz set new world records in all seven events in which he competed, a record that still stands. Li Ning and Mark Spitz are only two examples of what journalist Malcolm Gladwell’s 2008 book Outliers referred to as the "10,000-Hour Rule", based on a study by Anders Ericsson. Gladwell claims this as key to success in any field, that practising a specific task for around 10,000 hours can make people world-class successes like self-made billionaire Bill Gates in computers and the Beatles in pop music. (Gymnast Li Ning winning in the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics) American swimmer Mark Spitz started competing at age six, began training at age nine under swimming coach Sherm Chavoor, who mentored seven Olympic medal winners. Spitz was only 15 when he competed in his first international competition, the 1965 Maccabiah Games (for Jewish athletes worldwide) in Tel Aviv, where he won four golds. At age 22, he won a then-unprecedented seven gold medals (surpassed only by Michael Phelps in 2008 Beijing) at the 1972 Munich Olympics. In 1972, Spitz set new world records in all seven events in which he competed, a record that still stands. (The great swimmer Mark Spitz with his record-breaking 7 Olympic gold medals) Li Ning and Mark Spitz are the only two examples of what journalist Malcolm Gladwell’s 2008 book Outliers referred to as the “10,000-Hour Rule,” based on a study by Anders Ericsson. Gladwell claims this as key to success in any field, that practicing a specific task for around 10,000 hours can make people world-class successes like self-made billionaire Bill Gates in computers and the Beatles in pop music.

3.      Aim for perfection---Nobody’s perfect, but we should all still try. Romania’s Nadia Comaneci aspired for excellence and won three gold medals at the 1976 Montreal Olympics at only age 14, also becoming the first gymnast to ever win a perfect 10 score (she got a total of seven perfect 10 scores). She also became the youngest ever Olympic gymnastics all-around champion.

(The amazing Nadia Camaneci of Romania)

4.      Overcome crises and skeptics---Michael Phelps was age 9 when his parents divorced and he was in the sixth grade when diagnosed with attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). In the 2008 Beijing Olympics, his teen idol Australian swimmer Ian Thorpe said it was highly unlikely for Phelps to win eight gold medals. Phelps stuck Thorpe’s remarks on his locker as motivation, he then disproved Thorpe other experts by winning a record-shattering eight gold medals.

In the 1988 Seoul Olympics, U.S. athlete Greg Louganis shocked TV viewers worldwide by accidentally slamming his head into the springboard while completing a dive in the preliminary rounds, resulting in a concussion. Amazingly, he recovered and courageously went on to recover and went on to win the gold medal.

(Photo below of Australian swimmer Ian Thorpe, who wrongly predicted that Michael Phelps couldn't win eight gold medals in the 2008 Beijing Olympics)

(Sports Illustrated magazine had Michael Phelps on its August 2008 cover, wearing all eight of his gold medals---a new world record---in a shot similar to the iconic 1972 photo of Mark Spitz, who wore seven Olympic gold medals.) 

In the 1988 Seoul Olympics, US athlete Greg Louganis shocked TV viewers worldwide by accidentally slamming his head on the springboard while completing a dive in the preliminary rounds, resulting in a concussion. Amazingly, he recovered and courageously went on to win the gold medal.

(Photos of diver Greg Louganis)

5.      Success is the best revenge---In the 1981 Oscar-winning film Chariots of Fire, it tells the tale of Cambridge-educated British Jew Harold Abraham who run to defy anti-Jewish racial prejudice (the other story was that of Scottish Christian Eric Liddell who run for the glory of God). Abraham won gold in the 100-meter sprint in the 1924 Paris Olympics by breaking the Olympic record.

A black sharecropper’s son Jesse Owens of the U.S. stunned the world and defied Nazi Germany’s racist Adolf Hitler by winning four gold medals and becoming the biggest star at the 1936 Berlin Olympics.

1960 Rome Olympics gold medallist Muhammad Ali overcame racial prejudice,  political controversies as well as arrest and stripped of his boxing title for refusing to join the U.S. military due to his opposition to the immoral Vietnam War.   

Ali wrote in his 1975 autobiography that he threw his Olympic gold medal into the Ohio River after being refused service at a “whites-only” restaurant and fighting with a white gang. Years later Ali was given a replacement medal during the 1996 Atlanta Olympics in Atlanta where he lit the torch at the opening ceremony.

After overcoming many crises, Ali would win many victories to become a legendary world heavyweight boxing champion whom Sports Illustrated in 1999 crowned as “Sportsman of the Century”.

(Harold Maurice Abraham)

A black sharecropper’s son, Jesse Owens of the US stunned the world and defied Nazi Germany’s racist Adolf Hitler by winning four gold medals and becoming the biggest star of the 1936 Berlin Olympics.

In 1960, Rome Olympics gold medallist Muhammad Ali overcame racial prejudice an political controversies. He was arrested and stripped of his boxing title for refusing to join the US military due to his opposition to the Vietnam War.

Ali wrote in his 1975 autobiography that he threw his Olympic gold medal into the Ohio River after being refused service at a “whites-only” restaurant and fighting with a white gang. Years later, Ali was given a replacement medal during the 1996 Atlanta Olympics, where he earlier lit the torch at the opening ceremony.

(Muhammed Ali Art work below by Gary Tymon)

After overcoming many crises, Ali would win many victories to become the legendary world heavyweight boxing champion whom Sports Illustrated in 1999 crowned as “Sportsman of the Century.”

6.      Lose with dignity---China’s legendary track superstar and world’s best hurdler Liu Xiang lost in the 2012 London Olympics. He knocked over the first hurdle, injuring his right ankle and inflaming an Achilles tendon injury which in 2008 ruined his medal hopes at the Beijing Olympics.

Despite the shocking fall, Liu stood up and painfully hopped on his left foot all the way down the remainder of the track in a symbolic completion of the race. He then stopped to kiss the final hurdle and was taken away on a wheelchair.  

Simon N. Ricketts of The Guardian said: “A cracking bit of Olympic spirit. Hurdler Liu Xiang, despite injury, goes back to complete the 110 meter hurdles.” Trinidad and Tobago’s former world sprint champion and ESPN sportscaster said: “The 110 hurdles isn’t as fun without Liu Xiang. Always thought he was amazing to watch.” BBC quoted Liu’s winning competitor Great Britain's hurdler Andy Turner saying: “In my opinion, Liu Xiang is the greatest hurdler ever.”

 (Olympic spirit: Despite his shocking fall, Chinese hurdler Liu Xiang stood up and painfully hopped the remainder of the track in a symbolic completion of the race)

7.      Winning beyond gold and glory---2012 London Olympics chief and former athlete Sebastian Coe said of Michael Phelps after the latter won a record 19th Olympic medal: “I think you can say it is self-evident that he is the most successful. I am not sure he is the greatest.” I agree with Coe, because I personally believe the greatest Olympian was the heroic Scottish runner and international rugby athlete Eric Henry Liddell.

Liddell was one of two athletes whose stories became the excellent movie Chariots of Fire. Even officially atheist China called him “China’s first Olympic champion” due to his birth, work and death in that Asian country.

A devout Christian, Liddell made world headlines in the 1924 Paris Olympics for refusing to race on a Sunday because it was the Sabbath day and he was forced to withdraw from his favorite event---the 100 meters.

Though unfavored in the 400-meters race, Liddell wanted to compete. As he prepared near the starting blocks, an American slipped a piece of paper in his hand with the Bible verse from 1 Samuel 2:30 saying: "Those who honour me I will honour." Liddell ran with that piece of paper in his hand. He won and broke the existing world record with a time of 47.6 seconds.

(An extraordinary man who gave his whole life to God and others, Scottish athlete Eric Liddell may be the greatest Olympian of all time)

Instead of seeking success after Olympics glory, Liddell went to war-torn China to work as a missionary and following in the footsteps of his father. He worked as a chemistry and sports teacher for a boys school.

When the Japanese armies invaded, he sent his wife and kids to Canada but he stayed in Tianjin City to continue his mission. Once in 1938, Liddell heard that a wounded Chinese soldier lay helpless in a temple 20 miles from the mission hospital. He cycled the rough terrain to help him and found another injured soldier who had survived a Japanese execution. He made a makeshift cart to push both men to the hospital.

When Liddell was detained at an internment camp, he worked tirelessly---helping the elderly, conducting Bible study, teaching kids lessons or organizing sports. In a prisoner exchange bargain, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill arranged for his liberty, but Liddell selflessly gave up his freedom to let a pregnant woman leave instead.

Liddell became sick inside the prison camp in 1944 and died on February 21, 1945 at age 43. He never saw his third child, Maureen Liddell.

A fellow prisoner, Stephen Metcalfe, later wrote about Liddell: “He gave me two things. One was his worn-out running shoes, but the best thing he gave me was his baton of forgiveness. He taught me to love my enemies, the Japanese, and to pray for them.”

He was an extraordinary man who gave his whole life to God and for others; I admire the Scottish athlete Eric Liddell as the greatest Olympian of all time.

                                                              ***


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