RUST COMMENTARY: EDUCATION MONTH: SCHOOL BONDS, SEMO INAUGURATION EVENTS

Cape started EDUCATION month off right with the voters passing (with 65 percent voting yes) the new public school bond issue. This is a positive reinforcement for those inside and outside the community that we understand the importance education can make for the future growth and prosperity of our community and the citizens we produce.

Our next major education event is this week's series of programs showcasing SOUTHEAST MISSOURI STATE UNIVERSITY regionally and nationally centered on the inauguration ceremony of PRESIDENT DALE NITZSCHKE ... as we have been chronicling all week.

Having a good education is like hitting a high percentage of your free throws. ... It doesn't assure success, but it is generally the deciding factor between average or above average outcomes.

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WENDY and I got back last week after spending two weeks in JAPAN and THAILAND.

We were visiting our son GARY II, his wife SUZUYO (who was just accepted for graduate studies in Osaka's top university) and two of our 11 grandchildren who live in OSAKA, Japan. Gary's in education in the dual administration role for a private Japanese school and an international school.

We toured the bilingual international school along with daughter PENNY and husband ALAN TERRY of Fayetteville, N.C. ( who are home schooling their two kids this year) and shared two days of overlapping trips before they left for BEIJING, CHINA.

At the international school, English and Japanese are the two languages, and the major funding comes from tuition and from subsidies provided by Japanese industries. They know the importance of having an international school for the children of corporations wanting to locate in Asian communities where their corporate executives families have good educational opportunities.

The 5-year-old international school ... the first in Osaka...was built from scratch with initial funding of $100 million dollars.

It's great to know that Cape will shortly have comparable facilities and with much better computer technology than the Japanese school currently has (but which they were updating the week we left).

While flying for a combined total of 40 hours traveling from St. Louis to Chicago to Tokyo to Osaka to Bangkok to Chiangmai, Thailand, and back to St. Louis, I got to do a lot of reading and will be sharing some of my enlightenment in this and next week's column.

One area will feature highlights from the article "Education and the Wealth of Nations" in the March 29 issue of "The Economist", which cost me 850 yen.

Unknown to most U.S. citizens ... although Japan is still the leading economic force of the PACIFIC RIM ... it is projected to be shortly passed by CHINA and the combined "tiger group" including THAILAND, MALAYSIA, INDONESIA, SOUTH KOREA, VIETNAM and the PHILIPPINES.

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Three of the slowest but least boring aspects of our trip included 1) an hour-and-40-minute elephant ride into the northern woods and river of Thailand, 2) a one-hour bamboo pole raft ride in heavy rain and 3) a 45-minute TUK-TUK (three-wheeled motorcycle taxi) in the crowed streets of Bangkok at night.

The most boring part of the trip was being stuck for an hour and 10 minutes while moving three-fourths of a mile in the hour-and-40-minute ride from the Bangkok airport to our hotel.

Two million people live in Bangkok, which has some of the least and most expensive hotels in the world. It also has an infrastructure which has not been able to keep up with the rapid growth, creating possibly the most crowded streets in the world ... and the most construction of new large office buildings I've seen in any city recently. (Note: Son Gary says Shanghai, China, is building twice as many.)

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One of the books which caught my attention was "MEGATRENDS ASIA" by John Naisbitt, author of "Megatrends" (which sold 8 million copies worldwide) and "Global Paradox" which I had previously read.

Naisbitt interned for one year in Bangkok 30 years ago when it was the backward impoverished country it isn't today.

I certainly recommend this book to anyone who wants to understand what's inevitably going to happen economically in the next 10 years (and also to understand the ASIAN connection to the big-influence money solicited by the Clinton administration which is now coming to light).

The book was published in late 1995 and went paperback in January of this year. (It cost me $24 U.S. in Bangkok where it had a different cover and publisher than the $12 version in the U.S.

I'll discuss some of the highlights next week, but the back-cover summary will suffice for now:

"In 'MEGATRENDS ASIA,' John Naisbitt, best-selling author and world-renowned trend forecaster, focuses on the explosive events occurring in Asia and reveals the dramatic impact the Asian Renaissance will have in a global shift of the world's center of economic and political gravity.

"Drawing on more than three decades of firsthand observations and interviews with politicians, entrepreneurs and business leaders, Naisbitt identifies eight principal trends that are shaping Asia into a new network of nations that will soon rival the West. The modernization of Asia is best understood not as Westernization, but rather the Asianization of Asia as the global axis of influence shifts from West to East.

"John Naisbitt's new book provides the data, trend analysis, regional and cultural patterns that will empower you to seize the moment and profit from the cutting edge of change."

(The demographics and numbers will knock your socks off.)

"A very credible scenario for how Asia will develop into an economic force to be reckoned with by the next century. Most surprising will be the region's new approach to working women and a move away from a purely Western style of development." -- The Good Book Guide

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Gore's Office Responds

On Easter Sunday we released an open letter to Al Gore on human rights in China. Yesterday, Gore's press secretary called those of us who signed the letter "right-wing extremists"! Once again, the Clinton administration has decided to use personal attacks and smears rather than seriously debate policy. The "right-wing extremists" who signed the letter included former Democratic Gov. Bob Casey of Pennsylvania; John Dilulio, a Democratic social scientist; Jim Dobson; Chuck Colson; other evangelical leaders; Catholic leaders and academic experts from places like Princeton.

In view of this outrageous personal attack, we are requesting a meeting with the vice president to ask him to explain what is "right-wing" or "extreme" about defending human rights. -- Washington Update, Gary Bauer, president

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ST. FRANCIS MEDICAL CENTER will miss EDYTHE DAVIS, executive director of the St. Francis Medical Center Foundation, who recently retired. Edythe has been professional, fun, understanding and knowledgeable in dealing with the media, the community and the hospital she has so well represented since the building of the new facility and its many expansions.

~Gary Rust is president of Rust Communications, which owns the Southeast Missourian and other newspapers.