Daily Kos : $350 million and a PR goldmine lost

Happy New Year -- Daily Kos :: $350 million and a PR goldmine lost.

The discussion is interesting too...but I'm afraid that none of us can imagine the indifference of those in power to what the rest of the world thinks.

The Cold War strategy of "winning hearts and minds" has been slowly transformed into "shock and awe."

As ignominious as the Intelligence strategies were in the Cold War, and as destructive to democracy, at least we admitted that other people had minds and hearts to win.

those generous Americans

In a comment on a previous thread about US ignorance/indifference to the rest of the world, I was chided by "anonymous" with statistics and the admonition that western countries give al lot of aid. OK. Here are the OECD stats: The US and Foreign Aid Assistance.

You'll notice that in proportion, in 2003, the US ranks 22 of developed countries and gives a measly .14 of its GDP as "Official Development Assistance" to the rest of the world, well behind Norway's .92 per cent topping the list and Denmark's .84 per cent in the number two position.

Now the talking heads from Bush and Co. and USAID are going to tell you that we give the MOST to the UN relief orgs, but that's not true according to the proportion of our GDP. It's the Norwegians who give the most. Now I'm not a fricking economics major, but even I know what PROPORTIONALLY means. And the Bushies are going to say that there is a lot of giving through religious charities. But I'd like to assert the importance of state giving as a public and national gesture of generosity and insist that the government can make no claim on or take credit for religious giving, which in the multireligiosu region affected by the quake brings with it a whole lot of BAGGAGE.

And by the way, to repeat myself in the comments column, I didn't say that the US or West wasn't giving ENOUGH, I'm saying that under normal circumstances most Americans in general are totallly ignorant of and indifferent to the fate of the rest of the world. Except when it can play as an exotic background to our Messianic fantasies about saving the world - all I can say is, Buddha help us!

cities of the dead

At the end of 1908, as Art Cashin reminds me, there occurred one of
the greatest and certainly one of the most disastrous earthquakes in
European history. It caused severe damage in much of the
Mediterranean area but nowhere quite as harshly as Messina in Sicily.
Actually, even before the earthquake began, it was not a good day for
Messina. Beginning the night before, a pelting heavy rain had arrived
along with near gale force wind. Now with the streets already
flooded, a predawn tremor stuck Messina. It lasted about ten seconds.
A few rocks fell, a few church bells rang spontaneously, a couple of
foundations cracked and several statues toppled. Then the second wave
hit. It was a whopping 7.5 (even pre-Richter). At its epicenter off
shore it raised a tidal wave over 60 feet high (but more on that
later). This shock toppled stone structures all over town,trapping
tens of thousands in the rubble and leaving the rest of the citizens,
still in their bedclothes, standing in freezing rain. There was no
shelter since the public buildings were among the most devastated.
The grand Cathedral collapsed. The town hall collapsed. And the wall
of the prison collapsed, thus granting an unexpected post-Christmas
furlough to 750 of Sicily's meanest. Just to prove they were not out
of practice they immediately set about looting the corpses; often
cutting off fingers to get at the rings. Occasionally they found some
people with rings who claimed not to be corpses but they were soon
convinced otherwise. As this merry band worked its way down the
hillside,quake survivors fled toward the harbor just in time for the
arrival of the aforementioned 60-foot tidal wave. It killed thousands
of the ambulatory as well as drowning nearly everyone trapped in the
rubble. Then came the third and largest quake, which managed to
rupture the gas lines and set the town on fire despite the freezing
rain. Order was restored the next day when three Russian warships, on
maneuvers in the area, pulled into port to help out. The Russian
sailors followed an old custom of civilization called "shooting the
looters" which has the uncanny effect of restoring order. When it was
over, it seemed that the quake,the tidal wave, and the looting had
killed over 90,000 people in a town of 130,000. So for three decades
the people of Sicily referred to Messina as "La Citta Morte". - Via
UBS

blogs help too

according to the BBC, bloggers around asia and elsewhere have started efforts to support the tsunami relief campaigns. this article is worth reading, even if (like most western media) elswehere they keep returning to counting dead tourists from the nordic countries and germany. as the funds for aid now amount to over $500m from the World Bank, individual countries and citizens, kofi annan proposed an increased focus on this crisis, and germany suggested a g8 relief fund. blogs, it would seem, are an appropriate forum to track all these global efforts, but some are doing more than that: they provide crucial observations not gathered by the western news organizations, and they suggest different ways to help.

students? red or blue?

I'm glad to see that there is organizing going on campuses to counter the right's move onto campus Are Students Red or Blue? by Sam Graham-Felsen.

Duty Free

So while most Americans feel "duty free" little to no responsibility for prisoner torture and Guatanomo, or according to Naomi Klein of the Nation, a misguided sense of responsibilty for the daily catastrophe of our making in Iraq, will the Asian tsunami disasters change our national consciousness of the world and amplify our awareness of the situation of people in Indonesia, India, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Somalia, Myanmar?

It seems unlikely. I usually resist the MORALIZATION and DEPOLITICIZATION of responsibiity (faith-based charities) as well as the do-goodnik Christian impluse of most charities, but we should support the ngo's and UN here and give and continue to give to organizations such as Doctors Without Borders .

One of the most terrible consequences of US isolationism is that OTHER countries appear on our radar only when -- 1) there is a hideous disaster which inspires brief and fitful attentiveness (Somalia in the 90s, Kosovo in the 90s, Sudan now, sort of , Congo, and now South Asia, 2) when a country (Cuba, the former USSR, France, the new Germany) is getting uppity and stepping out of line, or 3) when a country is becoming too prosperous and (Japan of the 80s, the new China) threatens us with trade deficits and real estate investments in the center of our cities.

articles of disbelief

The Republicans are still getting away with claiming that global warming and tobacco's link to cancer are junk science, but creationism should be taught in schools. But if you're closer to the ground than the Beltway, you can feel on your cheeks what is going on: climate change, if not shame. 2004 was the fourth hottest ever recorded and the past decade was the warmest since measurements began in 1861. Global surface temperature increased by more than 0.6 C in the past century. The rate of change for the period since 1976 is roughly three times that for the past 100 years as a whole.

You are not getting this story on television or in the press, even though eventually, it will lead to much starker images than the earthquake of a few days ago. You might check out the RealClimate commentary site on climate science, or stare at the data compiled by the World Metereological Organization. Will you finally believe that the ice changes around earth's frozen caps, and that therefore the sea level is rising, if the source is NASA? Will you begin to consider species extinction before you turn to the universal declaration on cultural diversity adopted by UNESCO?

Just go ask those who can see it all with their own eyes. To the Arctic Indigenous Peoples, the Arctic Climate Impact Assessment (ACIA) could not be more simple - global climate change is happening and accelerating in ways that have widespread consequences. Read their documents for yourself: "Time for Action on Climate Change. A Statement by Arctic Indigenous Peoples", signed by Michael Zacharof (President, Aleut International Association), Gary Harrison (International Chair, Arctic Athabaskan Council), Joe Linklater (Chair, Gwitch'in Council International), Sheila Watt-Cloutier (International Chair, Inuit Circumpolar Conference), Sergei Haruchi (President, Russian Association of Indigenous Peoples of the North), and Geir Tommy Pedersen (President, Saami Council), October 2004.

discriminating against cons

Here it is again, thanks to Mirko, a story that just won't go away
Yahoo! News - Conservative Students Target Liberal Profs.

So while David Horowitz of Students for Academic Freedom chides liberal profs for being sissies about getting hate mail...other conservative students indulge in a bit of sissified whining themselves. "A lot of people feel discriminated against," says UNC conservative student Kris Wampler. Well no one is forcing Kris to go to UNC.

Well I guess this is what liberals get for espousing the really weak slogans of "teaching tolerance" and diversity: one of these days the cons were going to say, "Why don't you tolerate my intolerance? That really offends my right to offend."

There are plenty of conservative professors and universities right-wing students can choose to attend if they want to find a "fair and balanced view."

Their Offensive strategies are being countered by the very stoic, "Let's ignore them until they stop." But I think it's about time we started "Coalition of Offensive Professors."

earthquake, tidal waves

The devastating effects of yesterday's earthquake off Sumatra sent chills down my spine, but most of all, it makes me hate Hollywood disaster movies. What a stupid idea of disaster they have there - and the consequences are only ever bad for Americans! But I suppose it is a petty bourgeois, Chinese immigrant nightmare of my own - I'm relaxing on vacation somewhere, asleep on the sand one minute - and the next minute I'm being swept kilometers off shore by a tsunami. These are lesson that I was always taught: 1) you never go on vacation, 2) you never let your guard down, 3) you don't get a suntan... That tsunami is my superego coming to swallow me up in all its punitive glory.

'Nothing to come back to'

It's the dog in this story that gets me. BBC NEWS | World | Middle East | Inside Falluja: 'Nothing to come back to'

Well, yes, there is something to come back to in Falluja -- it's something called devastation...Only 30% of buildings have been left standing. Corpses and hungry dogs.

You won't see this reported in the US press...but anti-anti-war arguments will be -- can we pull out now that we have made such a mess of the situation?

All I want for XMAS -- a Donald Rumsfeld fan club!

Listen here -- BBC - Radio 4 - BH Donald Rumsfeld Soundbites as Rummy demonstrates his sovereignty.

I think he's extra sexy -- that is Clint Eastwoodesque in his Dirty Harry phase -- when Rummy is dissing US soldiers for complaining about lack of armor for personnel and vehicles. That utter indifference to the human plight may from some bleeding heart vantage points seem COLD -- the neo-cons know that he has to remain in power because he is just as impervious to criticism, self-reflection or consideration of empirical fact as his boss.

With his square jawed, stoical demeanor, he can melt the clinically glacial Ann Coulter -- Kyoto Protocols be damned! This man's insanity is hot!

hello kitty at 30: tupperware investing

now that hello kitty is celebrating her big three-oh with a new wave of killer merch... er, cuteness, how has her outlook on life in asia changed? well, as middle age encroaches, she is seen more often with daniel - thoughts of their diminutive offspring and a (presumably less diminutive) nest egg cannot be far behind.

the new thing in taiwan is the tupperware-style investment party. you get a bunch of neighbors and friends together, serve some home-style cooking, and let loose a gaggle of female, middle-aged asset managers. they will tell you about shorts, margin, distressed shares, and stock swaps until your ears spin. then they ask you about children, retirement, income, security. and after desert and wine they ask for contributions into their home-spun hedge-fund. supplement your future pension, put some money away for your little ones.

sanrio, the company enjoying worldwide growth with its aggressively cute brands, is a good bet, one might assume, to benefit from children investing. but it will be a much bigger test of intellectual property law in europe and north america than the heritage of uncle walt disney when ever so slightly different cuties compete for your attention at the local supermarket. who can even tell kitty from her daniel? not me; not my preschooler.

Who is Maher Arar?

George Bush is Time's Man of the Year? Well, take a look at Canada's Man of the Year, by way of Crooked Timber - or on TIME Canada.com.

And then we'll need to start a Rumsfeld fan club. That man just looks SO HOT when he disses the veterans...

modernization without modernity

Professor Tsai of the Institute of Philosophy at Sun Yat-sen University in Kaohsiung described the situation in Asia in this way: "modernization without modernity" over dinner in a rooftop restaurant with a full-length swimming pool right next to our table and Christmas carols piped in to remind us of the season. Jameson's theory of postmodernism seems to be less than useful in understanding the waves upon waves of state-sponsored reforms and initiatives in modernization pursued by the government here.

He also reminded us of something else that is very important -- since the fall of the military dictatorship in 1987, intellectuals in Taiwan have yet to find their role. In a sense, any form of dissent can become appropriated as part of "modernization." Intellectual autonomy is difficult to achieve -- as proven by the work of historians of the US Cold War cultural policies.

As "Beyond Freedom, Beyond Control: Approaches to Culture and the State-Private Network in the Cold War" by W. Scott Lucas shows, the CIA was fantastically willing to collaborate with private institutions to set academic and cultural agendas; in the organization of not just the Congress for Cultural Freedom or Encounter, they were willing to work to create an "intellectual and cultural milieu." Following Frances Stonor Saunders, Lucas points out that the CIA sponsored the Committee of Correspondence, a group of well-placed women in New York which was to wage a "Battle for Women's Minds." One goal was to prove the greater freedom women enjoyed in the West, as compared to the Soviet Union.

State Sponsored Feminism by any other Name? This gives the patriarchy a whole new ALLURE...

weather reports, consumer retorts

back when "weather report" was just another super-band, academics in the humanities were making fools of themselves (as blogged here earlier), telling everyone that the weather, too, was just a social construct. now that the US has just experienced two watery record months in a row, maybe we ought to come out of our parkas and look back upon cultural studies as we do on a century of increasingly aberrant weather data: november 2004 was almost 30 per cent wetter than the average, ranking 5th in the last 100 years, following the 8th wettest october in a century. even assuming this december is going to be average, it is still going to have been a year that was a full third wetter than last year. it's no longer a concern only for the northwest or the rural folk, something a farmer's almanac might track - it's something that impacts all residents of north america on visceral level. and yet the government flouts scientific fact and continues to ignore the kyoto protocol, although it comes into force on feb 16 next year (following its official ratification by russia on nov 18 this year). even as some of its closest allies across the globe are distancing themselves from the ignorant pursuit of short-term leverage in return for long-term devastation, post-Kyoto climate negotiations look troubled. it should be obvious that public opinion on other continents, especially asia, ought to become more relevant to the united states in light of the current trade and currency imbalances, before its domestic economy deteriorates irreparably when asia stops buying its debt. yet the bush team continues to ignore the resounding warnings, even as europe has again urged a reconsideration of bush's historical mistake, breaking in 2001 with the accord president clinton had signed in 1997. and in the latest perverse twist, while that about-face was widely reported in the US, there has been very little recent coverage of the persistent efforts by other world powers to appeal to the white house, or of bush's brazen rhetoric in deflecting any participation in international accords. in effect, this is america's war on itself, following an established pattern of self-destruction, while american journalism has become enslaved to the republican party machine. whatever floats your censor-ship. it cannot be repeated too often that here, the US is the rogue nation.

in China's shadow

The Mainland Chinese are very touchy about the Japanese right now. I'm no fan of Lee Teng-hui former president of Taiwan, but can't he visit Japan?

The Mainlanders seem intent on isolating Taiwan from all official foreign relations, leaving the island in a virtual limbo. Meanwhile, Taiwan's government is left to negotiate with virtually non-existent countries like Vanatu for diplomatic relations.

Sovereignty, the Taiwan government claims, lies with the island'/country's 23 million inhabitants. The Mainlanders call Taiwan a "rogue province."

I am filled with nostalgia and admiration for Mainland China -- especially Beijing, where I spent some time as a child -- but really Mao!

Mao Now! With friends like these, who needs enemies?

I had a colleague who insisted that we include Mao in our required Basic Seminar Reading List for Graduate Students -- she heaped contempt upon our bourgeois, subjectivist tendencies. Psychoanalysis pfui!

Now that I look back upon it, her tactics were true to her Leninism -- my leftism was disgustingly close to liberalism. Of course, we all said yes, Mao now! How silly of us not to have included him! This victory over our liberal tolerance emboldened her.

She wasn't afraid to take power by any means possible -- and in a small department, this meant allying oneself with the most institutionally most powerful party, the Chair. He was an eminent bureaucrat.

If I had been a true Maoist, and not only one who knew him by the book as Shakespeare would say, I would have mobilized our small core of highly discontented graduate students in a sort of Red Guard rebellion.

Had I been less liberal, I would have said that we don't read Stalin or Hitler -- Mao was responsible for the deaths of countless millions of Chinese -- 35 million by last count -- but I am very sensitive to Cold War knee jerk anti-Communism, so I demurred. What have we got to lose? Well, in fact a lot, because my colleague understood that my liberalism would be no match for her.

But if we were to set up a Celebrity Death Match between Freud and Mao on the level of intellectual merit, I would have to give it to Sigmund.

I mean, "Power comes from the barrel of a gun?" My four year old knows that!

In a nutshell, she demonstrated that by precipitating as many crises in decision as possible (our legislative body was the voting faculty) -- she could draw clear lines of alliance and show herself ready, always ready to impose her views by mere stridency and completely pragmatic endorsement of the Chair's positions.

We were left with dissent -- she with tactics -- luckily, we had very little power, except over our graduate students.

Against Sex in America

As if he had read this blog, now Frank Rich gives up journalism himself, indulging instead in a lurid piece on what he calls "The Plot Against Sex in America" - intermingling some dirty media politics (ahh, isn't that conservative "base" influential in Washington) with some considerably less topical American history (ohh, wasn't the homophobic J Edgar Hoover gay...) The problem, I would retort to Frank Rich, is not what people make of the recent Kinsey movie, nor even what remains of Kinsey's findings in the new century - the problem is above all that pieces like his must, in order to get published these days, indulge in exactly the kind of moralizing they pretend to indict. Enough already.

Should there be a right to advertising? Hardly. Let the advertising people conduct their sleazy business as they see fit - as Rich mentions at the end of his piece, the New York Times also initially refused to accept advertising for Kinsey's book, and that did not kill the story. That is not what is at stake in this snapshot of media-realpolitik. In the end, there can hardly be any better documentation for how PR fortunes are mis-spent; and in the balance, another article covering protest against the movie is just more PR for it, but another article about the "moral values" pushed by the current US administration is not going sell anyone anything - least of all that they are moral, or that they are values.

Little Ding Dong

So what's up with this anime character's unbelievable popularity in Japan and Taiwan? He's a chubby mischievous cyborg cat who is always getting into trouble and having a laugh or two at his owner's expense. He lives in the future! That's as much as I have been able to figure out.

Why doesn't he have ears?

Why is he so irresistible?

Why is cute THE only accepted currency for the teen mobs here?

whitening creams/saving face

There are more skin whitening creams and more advertising for skin whitening creams here in Taiwan than you can shake your fancy blemish-stick at -- beautiful milky-complexioned models stroke their faces auto-erotically on the oft-repeated commercials on TV -- everyone pushing some miracle-product that will clear up spots, smoothen your skin, give you that pearly-peachy tone that seems to elude most of the population... (In fact, I've never seen so much bad skin!)

Is there some secret Michael Jackson fetish? Are the Taiwanese just imitating the Japanese, but in the sub-tropics where heat, sun and humidity conspire to keep good skin away? Is it post-colonial?

At the local water park, a beautifully designed multi-acre palace of fun with swimming pools, wading pools, slides fountains, playgrounds and more, mothers huddle under umbrellas while the children scamper and play.

Every woman wants her face to be a blank page, white and powdery as mochi.

the end of journalism

Well, that's it, the last journalist just turned the lights out. Frank Rich, the only remaining reason to read the New York Times (that bastion of embarrasing mistakes and unacknowledged errors) penned an excellent article on the fake "bloggers-kill-TV" story in the Times recently, once again over-exposing the glaring fact that not only are politicians pandering media-whores, now the managers and owners of US media have finally managed to sink below the beltway standard. (By the way, good thing this blog is not hosted by MSN, or I could not use the self-evident and unavoidable term 'media whores' here...)

Rich demonstrates all too well how even a journalist as well-intentioned and honest as Kevin Sites, embedded freelance cameraman and blogger in Iraq, is being being bullied into submission and silence by a totally dumb-headed, death-threat-toting, red-state-hugging campaign - from his own employers!

US journalism has been reeking for a few years - it is now officially dead. RIP. I hope someone in Canada or the Pacific Rim - or even old, old Europe - will hire Frank Rich. Or at least keep him alive, in some kind of international witness protection program: for testimony to this heinous homicide against free journalism in America.

and one more thing about life in taiwan

It's not a particularly sensual or sexual culture -- overtly -- despite the subtropical weather, the humidity, the langourous bamboo forests. The Han Chinese sense of modesty is too great, but for some reason, the photocopying cards issued to me by the department are covered with soft core porn images no University department in the US would ever distribute --one of them of a naked woman in yoga's child pose, the other, of an amply endowed woman hiding her luxurious breasts with one arm.

life in taiwan

On a lighter note: everyday when I go to throw something out in the trash can of my university dorm kitchen here, I read the English logo, "Satisfactory" written in curly, cursive letters.

It's not an excellent trash can, just a "Satisfactory" one...

Offending Right-Wing Students

A friend has written to me about a right-wing student's threatened 'reporting' to the University President and Fox News on an assistant professor's liberal postings on his office door. The student said she was "offended." This assistant professor is about to come up for tenure.

Friend writes, "Apparently, the right's strategy is to single-out faculty and make a case -- to scare the shit out of everyone else." This has been the right's approach with regard to Joseph Massad, Middle Eastern Studies assistant professor at Columbia University.

It is no accident that both these case involve untenured professors. I'm not saying that there is a concerted attack, yet. -- There is only the whiff of vulnerability about the ass prof that excites the easily offended. They see that an example may be made. In Chinese, there is a saying about killing a chicken to scare the monkeys.

In Massad's case, enough high level publicity generated by the publicness of the attacks on him may in the end protect him. But in the first case, the student's intimidation of the professor moved prof to take everything off his door. His case will receive little to no publicity.

I remember in my early days of teaching at Minnesota, self-censoring on the critique of organized religion, difficult when teaching the French Enlightenments since Voltaire was one of the most wicked critics of the Catholic Church. In my then new Mid-Western digs, I realized that I had to deal with a certain percentage of church-going students who were easily "offended" by any whiff of secularism. Why I wondered, in my lowest moments, for the love of Jesus (literally) did they want to major in French? Why not something less potentially upsetting to their world view?

What I think is woefully, painfully obvious is that there is no successful counterattack strategy to the conservative co-optation of the complaint that originated in identity politics discourse, "I'm offended that..." Intoxicated by their sense of power, they will be demanding less offense.

Dangerous spawn of neo-liberal, self-help politics that not only shuts down debate, but gives "political" correctness a new right-wing twist....