Tag Archives: things you should know

You’ve got to read this. “Nobody in this country got rich on his own. Nobody.”

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Or you can watch her in action.

 

Or you can read her words in plain text:

There is nobody in this country who got rich on his own. Nobody. You built a factory out there? Good for you. But I want to be clear: you moved your goods to market on the roads the rest of us paid for; you hired workers the rest of us paid to educate; you were safe in your factory because of police forces and fire forces that the rest of us paid for. You didn’t have to worry that marauding bands would come and seize everything at your factory, and hire someone to protect against this, because of the work the rest of us did. Now look, you built a factory and it turned into something terrific, or a great idea? God bless. Keep a big hunk of it. But part of the underlying social contract is you take a hunk of that and pay forward for the next kid who comes along.

Slow News Day

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Have you ever seen mean comments left by irate YouTubers for people who videotapes the television as a show was going on and uploaded the footage of that onto YouTube?

“Hey loser. Why are you taping your own TV and then put that on YouTube?!”

 

I am a loser so I take pictures of magazines that I read and I post them on the Interweb…

 

Rarely did I take one look at The Economist and burst out laughing...

 

 

The Economist can be raunchy, and it has a sense of humor. Who knew?!

 

Hey, at least they refrained from using the picture of the now famous "bulge"... The ending of this article titled, The Weiner War, (of course), once again showed The Economist can be raunchy, IF they want to.

 

"THE earthquake, tsunami and nuclear accident that struck Japan three months ago have revealed something important about the country: a seam of strength and composure in the bedrock of society that has surprised even the Japanese themselves."

“THE earthquake, tsunami and nuclear accident that struck Japan three months ago have revealed something important about the country: a seam of strength and composure in the bedrock of society that has surprised even the Japanese themselves.”

To me, this picture chosen by The Economist to accompany this article, says so much about what is quintessential and unique about Japan. From the “light-hearted” (as much as one could in this situation) reference to the ubiquitous 7 Eleven, to a quiet, subtle display of the much-vaunted attention to efficiency, adaptability, cleanliness, orderliness, and personal appearances (Notice how the mother looks much more put together than I am on a daily basis, and in such chaos and under such duress…)

And then read these two stories of exemplary spirits:

24-year-old Miki Endo, who used the loudspeaker system in Minamisanriku, a fishing port close to the focus of the 9.0 earthquake, to urge residents to do what they could to escape the incoming tsunami. She drowned at her post. Television footage shows the rising sea approaching, with her haunting voice echoing over the waves…

One fisherman tells of the four days he spent clearing the wreckage of his village, with no knowledge of the whereabouts of his eldest son. When his son eventually appeared, walking down off the mountain after a long cross-country trek to reach his parents, the two wiped tears from their eyes but did not say a word to each other. The son did not wish to disturb his father’s toil.

 

All the world is watching, holding their breath, especially their neighbors in Asia, because, as some commentators in the news media in China, India and Taiwan have said, If the Japanese people, with all their disciplines, their perseverance, their technological know-hows, their attention to details and rules, cannot pull through, we are all doomed when the same thing happens on our soil.

The Curious Case of Ruby, the Anti-Barbie

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I suspect that you have been seeing this picture popping up on your Facebook and/or Twitter stream this week. I did. Like you, I had a visceral response to it.

FUCK YEAH!

Was exactly what I said to the monitor as I responded to the plea on Facebook “This was an ad made by bodyshop. But Barbie INC. found out about it and now it’s banned. Repost if you think this ad deserves to be seen,” and hit the SHARE button before I could say “Happy National Donut Day!”

Then my inner Cyber Sleuth / Internet Meme Historian took over. “I wonder whether this is yet another hoax?” Ok. Fine. It was also my inner cynic’s doing. I googled it.

Good news (or is it in fact bad news?) : This is for realz. The Body Shop did wage such a brilliant war against The Barbie.

Bad news (or does it really matter?) : It was from 1998.

The late Anita Roddick, founder of The Body Shop, wrote in 2001:

In 1998, The Body Shop debuted its self-esteem campaign, featuring the generously proportioned doll we dubbed “Ruby.” … …

Ruby was a fun idea, but she carried a serious message. She was intended to challenge stereotypes of beauty and counter the pervasive influence of the cosmetics industry, of which we understood we were a part. Perhaps more than we had even hoped, Ruby kick-started a worldwide debate about body image and self-esteem.

But Ruby was not universally loved. In the United States, the toy company Mattel sent us a cease-and-desist order, demanding we pull the images of Ruby from American shop windows. Their reason: Ruby was making Barbie look bad, presumably by mocking the plastic twig-like bestseller (Barbie dolls sell at a rate of two per second; it’s hard to see how our Ruby could have done any meaningful damage.) I was ecstatic that Mattel thought Ruby was insulting to Barbie — the idea of one inanimate piece of molded plastic hurting another’s feelings was absolutely mind-blowing.

In 2002, Ms. Roddick again wrote about Ruby when the Danish pop band Aqua was sued by Mattel for their song “Barbie Girl”. In the same post, she also mentioned how an American artist, Tom Forsythe, had been engaged in lengthy legal battle against Mattel when Mattel sued him for his photographic project “Food Chain Barbie“. (You’d be happy to know that in 2004, after five years and millions of dollars in legal expenses, Mattel was ordered by court to pay $1.8 million in legal fees for Mr. Forsythe.)

Googling also led me to believe that every year or so, this poster of daring and clever protest by The Body Shop would resurface to the Internet’s attention but then the buzz would die down as fast as it started. For example, this article in Mother Jones from 2007.

It seems that more and more people are being outraged on Twitter and Facebook asking people, “It is banned by Mattel. OMG! RETWEET IF YOU WANT THIS POSTER TO BE SEEN!” It has caught on like a bad rumor. (It has now appeared on BuzzFeed with no historical context).

At first I wanted to “set the record straight” by shouting from the mountain top: This was from 1998, people. Case closed!

Then I thought about what Ms. Roddick wrote:

It makes me angry, not only because it is a male-dominated industry built on creating needs that don’t exist, but because it seems to have decided that it needs to make women unhappy about their appearances. It plays on self-doubt and insecurity about image and ageing by projecting impossible ideals of youth and beauty.

Things have not changed much since 1998 when the world first met Ruby. And yes, the world needs to be reminded of Ruby once in a while. We are a forgetful people with short attention spans which seem to get shorter with each new generation.

Ruby, who still watches us from posters throughout The Body Shop’s offices, won’t let us forget.                                     — Dame Anita Roddick

The Real American Idols

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Source: I saw this cartoon via Paul Rieckhoff today.

 

My 13-year-old is working on a debate project for school. His topic? Support for Death Penalty. (He has turned in a written article against death penalty last week. The teacher wants them to be able to argue from both sides for the topic they are each assigned to)

He was telling me all about the horrible cases he has read on the Internet, including some high profile cases of brutal assault and murder on young children. I cringed. My first instinct was to tell him to stop. Aren’t there some things in the world simply to horrifying to learn about? Isn’t it sometimes better if one simply does not know such evil existed and still exists?

I don’t remember how we went from death penalty, to Amendment to the U.S. Constitution (from women’s right to vote, to the right to bear arms, to the freedom of speech), but all of a sudden I found myself telling them about Westboro “Church” (Church is in quotation mark for obvious reasons…)  Naturally the boys were astounded to find such ridiculousness is being practiced by a bunch of grownups.  I went on to tell them about the Supreme Court ruling earlier this year that even Westboro “Church” is protected under the First Amendment.

“Can you just imagine these stupid people protesting at the funerals of soldiers who died just so these stupid people could have their stupid freedom of speech?” (Just substitute Stupid with Fucking)

“Can you imagine their parents who just lost their children having to see these stupid people at the funeral??!!”

I started tearing up.

 

I am trying to explain via my rambling above why I woke up this morning and decided to google “Memorial Day + Westboro” without even knowing that Westboro “Church” had planned to picket the memorial service in Joplin, MO because President Obama was going to be there. (According to tweets and the latest news I could find: POTUS was there; Westboro was not. Several unconfirmed reports said that Westboro crazies were in town but their presence at the memorial service was thwarted due to citizen actions…)

Then I saw the tweets from Paul Rieckhoff, founder of Iraq & Afghanistan Veterans of America (IAVA) who is there right now at the Arlington National Cemetery:

 

I will just stop here because, wow, I don’t know what to say…

 

 

 

Footnote: Although I self-process to be a bleeding heart liberal, I often wonder what the official definition of that label is. Does it include an unexamined stance against war? Coming from a different country, different culture, different hemisphere, I am not completely anti-war. *gasp* War becomes inevitable when your country is being invaded and your people is being physically attacked on your physical territory. China went through the pillaging and ravaging by the Western world in the beginning of the 20th century; the whole people suffered humiliation under the greedy and power-hungry paws of the colonial forces.  (How do you think Hong Kong ended up being “leased” to the British Empire for 99 years?)  China fought against Japan in the brutal Sino-Japanese war two years before the so-called World War II started in Europe when Poland was invaded. And Taiwan? Taiwan was a Japanese colony for 50 years. When the KMT first retreated to Taiwan, in order to consolidate and ensure their power, the KMT government massacred the majority of the intellectual leaders.  And now? Taiwan is constantly living with the threat that China may decide to invade one day. (Or from their perspective, simply “take back what is rightfully part of China”…) All the male children are required to serve in the army for 12 months (it used to be 2 years).

What I am trying to explain by way of the above rambling is that I have an instinctual respect and admiration for people who serve(d) their countries because I have learned the horror from Chinese histories of when a country was not able to defend itself and the brutality of war itself.

Instinctual the same way I feel about teachers. (Confucius is really quite influential despite my grumblings against all the stereotypes and stupid Confucius quotes on Twitter)

National Jukebox

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Did you hear about the National Jukebox project unveiled by the Library of Congress earlier this month?

When I heard it on NPR, I was so excited I almost crashed my car into the truck with a Calvin peeing sticker in front of me.

The National Jukebox is, according to NPR,

“the largest collection of historical recordings ever made publicly available online.”

The new website provides access to more than 10-thousand historical recordings for free on a streaming-only basis – no downloads. It covers the first quarter of the twentieth century and includes music, poetry, political speeches and other spoken word recordings. Right now, it only includes recordings made by the Victor Talking Machine Company, which Sony controls. The project is also a collaboration with the University of California, Santa Barbara – and its Encyclopedic Discography of Victor Records – which is helping to create a searchable database for every recording in the National Jukebox.

 

I am so happy that the big shots over at Sony decided to grant the access to and sharing of the recordings they own. This is a truly amazing treasure trove of historical records that one could spend a lot of time on, just by randomly browsing the catalogue.

Popular music (3585)
Ethnic music (1525)
Opera (1366)
Classical music (1223)
Ethnic characterizations (729)
Humorous songs (613)
Ragtime, jazz, and more (603)
Religious (486)
Comedies (222)
Monologues, dialogues, and recitations (205)
Descriptive specialties (133)
Blues (112)
Ethnic spoken word (94)
Traditional/Country (73)
Whistling (62)
Speeches (35)
Yodeling (32)
Spoken word (13)

 

Some of these categories intrigued me: “Ethnic spoke word”. “Ethnic characterizations”. Remember, these were from the first quarter of the 20th century and we all know what it was like back then. Therefore, the LOC posts this warning on every single page:

WARNING: Historical recordings may contain offensive language.

and the full disclaimer says:

These selections are presented as part of the record of the past. They are historical documents which reflect the attitudes, perspectives, and beliefs of different times. The Library of Congress does not endorse the views expressed in these recordings, which may contain content offensive to users.

Good times, eh?

 

My favorite feature has got to be the Jukebox Day by Day. You select a date, and out pop the available recordings made on the said date. Naturally, I tried my birthday.

 


By Paul Whiteman Orchestra recorded on July 11, 1924. I was truly not born then. (For once, I am being honest about my birth year…). And it was composed none other than George Gershwin.

 

How amazing that we now have free and open access to the following recording, with George Gershwin himself playing the piano?

By Paul Whiteman Concert Orchestra, recorded on June 10, 1924.

 

Technology rocks. Internet is awesome.

 

Arms akimbo in the land of lotus eaters

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This paragraph from A Visit From the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan, which won the 2010 National Book Critics Circle Award (ETA: AND the 2011 Pulitzer Prize!) for fiction, is one of the most hauntingly vivid descriptions of a marriage that I have ever read. At the same time the description sounds clinical, meticulous, it strikes me as one of the saddest things I have ever read.

 

Yet each disappointment Ted felt in his wife, each incremental deflation, was accompanied by a seizure of guilt; many years ago, he had taken the passion he felt for Susan and folded it in half, so he no longer had a drowning, helpless feeling when he glimpsed her beside him in bed: her ropy arms and soft, generous ass. Then he’d folded it in half again, so when he felt desire for Susan, it no longer brought with it an edgy terror of never being satisfied. Then in half again, so that feeling desire entailed no immediate need to act. Then in half again, so he hardly felt it. His desire was so small in the end that Ted could slip it inside his desk or a pocket and forget about it, and this gave him a feeling of safety and accomplishment, of having dismantled a perilous apparatus that might have crushed them both. Susan was baffled at first, then distraught; she’d hit him twice across the face; she’d run from the house in a thunderstorm and slept at a motel; she’d wrestled Ted to the bedroom floor in a pair of black crotchless underpants. But eventually a sort of amnesia had overtaken Susan; her rebellion and hurt had melted away, deliquesced into a sweet, eternal sunniness that was terrible in the way that life would be terrible, Ted supposed, without death to give it gravitas and shape. He’d presumed at first that her relentless cheer was mocking, another phase in her rebellion, until it came to him that Susan had forgotten how things were between them before Ted began to fold up his desire; she’d forgotten and was happy — had never not been happy — and while all of this bolstered his awe at the gymnastic adaptability of the human mind, it also made him feel that his wife had been brainwashed. By him.

 

I read this book over the winter holidays and till this day, I am still haunted by this passage. From time to time I would take this book off from the bookshelf, flip to this page and read this passage again, word by word, while caressing the rough edge on the side of the book as if it were an adequate substitute for human warmth.

Of course, per usual, I identify with the wrong character. I want to jump in and rescue Susan.

Wake up, Susan. Wake up. Remember what it was like. Remember what you were like. I want to give her a blog.

Here’s to being decidedly alive even if at the risk of being miserable. Here’s to kicking and screaming. Here’s to never be folded up into a tiny pocket.

Here’s to never forget.

 

This post is dedicated to a dear friend who is standing arms akimbo in defiance in the land of lotus eaters.

Things You Should Read

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Instead of reading my blog, here are two things I came across today that you should read over the weekend:

From the New York Times, A Gay Former N.B.A. Player Responds to Kobe Bryant, by John Amaechi, who in 2007 was the first NBA player to come out. We have all heard that Kobe called a referee in the heat of an argument the F-word. Many came to his support, claiming that it’s just the way the Sports World, the good ol’ boys club works. Mr. Amaechi begged to differ, in a rational, respectful and persuasive voice.

Here is a quote from the very powerful, and may I say, surprisingly well-written (yes, I have my bias against people in sports. SORRY!) article:

Many people balk when L.G.B.T. people, even black ones, suggest that the power and vitriol behind another awful slur — the N-word — is no different from the word used by Kobe. I make no attempt at an analogy between the historical civil rights struggle for blacks in the United States with the current human rights struggle for L.G.B.T. people, but I can say that I am frequently called both, and the indignation, anger and at times resignation that course through my body are no greater or less for either. I know with both words the intent is to let me know that no matter how big, how accomplished, philanthropic or wise I may become, to them I am not even human.

 

 

With a title 9 Things The Rich Don’t Want You To Know About Taxes, how can you not be intrigued? Unless of course you are this guy:

The "NEW" GE way indeed...

These are the 9 secrets:

1. Poor Americans do pay taxes.
2. The wealthiest Americans don’t carry the burden.
3. In fact, the wealthy are paying less taxes.
4. Many of the very richest pay no current income taxes at all.
5. And (surprise!) since Reagan, only the wealthy have gained significant income.
6. When it comes to corporations, the story is much the same—less taxes.
7. Some corporate tax breaks destroy jobs.
8. Republicans like taxes too.
9. Other countries do it better.

Charts and numbers galore!