Archive for June, 2010
| Newer Entries »It’s Not Easy Being White
[ 1 Comment ]Posted on June 4, 2010 by admin in Lifestyle & Culture
Friday, June 4th, 2010I mean REALLY white. It’s hard to believe that in the 21st century, albinos remain an ostracized and oppressed minority.
 Model/actress Connie Chiu is one of the few that has turned her albinism into an asset |
I mean really white. As a white heterosexual male, you’d probably think I’d have it made when it comes the treatment I receive in our culture. Well, the problem is, I’m a little too white. That probably sounds silly to you, but although I’m not an actual albino, my lack of pigmentation has had a profound impact on my life, and led me to always identify more with just about any culture that isn’t “the American white”. Being hopelessly pale – much like being a “ginger“, an effeminate male, a masculine female, or a black, asian, or Muslim person (among countless other “minorities”) – sets you up for decades of being treated differently in America. If you’re pale, you’re assumed to be frail, introverted, and afraid of the sun and sports. All of which were quite the opposite of the truth for me. We like to think that in the 21st century, we treat people more or less the same, but the fact is, you’re probably more comfortable around “average” looking people than stunningly beautiful people, even if you’re stunningly beautiful yourself. And depending on your race and national origin, you probably have a profoundly different set of reactions to people other than “your own”. I can only begin to imagine what it feels like to be an albino; in spite of their rather insignificant actual differences, their visual appearance seems so dramatically different as to almost appear alien. And I’d bet that their relative rarity isn’t the only reason you probably don’t have any albino friends. Historically, albinic people have always been regarded as either evil or magical in some way, when in fact the only difference they possess is a simple lack of pigment and possible vision impairments. The results of this cultural bias can be downright horrifying; in African countries like Tanzania and Burundi there have been numerous witchcraft-related killings of albinos in recent years. Parts of their bodies are used in potions sold by witchdoctors. In Zimbabwe, belief that sex with an albinistic woman will cure a man of HIV has led to rapes and subsequent HIV infections. To learn more about Africa’s “tribe of ghosts”, see this Daily Mail piece. And if you want to offer aid to this very real problem – 53 children and adults with albinism have been killed since 2007 in East Africa alone – visit the National Organization for Albinism and Hypopigmentation’s web site.
Entertainment For The Braindead
[ Comments Off ]Posted on June 3, 2010 by admin in Music
Thursday, June 3rd, 2010No, it’s not a roundup of this summer’s blockbusters, it’s a charming lo-fi electrofolk music act from Cologne Germany.
The sixteen year old me is really mad at Julia Kotowski, the twenty-something from Cologne, Germany that is the voice and talent behind Entertainment For The Braindead. You see, when I was first mumbling my moody songs into a microphone in my bedroom as a teenager, if I wanted to layer my simplistic guitar picking, I had to take my open-reel Revox tape machine and put scotch tape over the erase head to create multiple tracks with a method we called sound on sound. There was no way I could perform the stuff live in a cafe, staring at my feet moodily mumbling to charm the audience with my shy genius after setting up a groove on my digital looper. Plus I probably had to walk barefoot uphill both ways in a foot of snow to get to the gig, just like my grandad who worked in the coal mine did. Okay. I’m not mad anymore. See how temporal teen angst can be? It’s hard to stay mad at someone like Kotowski if you just toss on some of her music; the stuff was literally recorded in her bedroom, and although this kind of post-emo lo-fi electrofolk can be really annoying, there’s a delicate genuineness here that works. And the price is right; the two releases I’ve listened to – Hydrophobia and Hypersomnia are available as free downloads. Entertainment For The Braindead also seems to receive some kind of distribution support from “netlabels” aaahh-records.net and Aerotone.be, which as of this writing both seem to be restructuring their sites. ETFB’s site also has an amusing note on the “shop” page about how they received more than 75 orders and couldn’t keep up with the demand. Time to come out of the bedroom guys. Read the rest of this entry »
What Will Replace The “Dead Tree Edition”?
[ Comments Off ]Posted on June 2, 2010 by admin in Popular Media
Wednesday, June 2nd, 2010While the continuing demise of major print news sources is inevitable, what will replace them?
The fact that the term “dead-tree edition” even exists is a clear expression of the state of newspapers today. It’s clear that big changes are afoot, and it’s even clearer that no-one knows where those changes will take us. While Steve Jobs is talking about his fear of America turning into a nation of bloggers, Yahoo News is banking on exactly that as a big moneymaker. And while Rupert Murdoch loves the iPad – which is being touted as “being to news what the iPod was to music” – he has also lost billions on his takeover of the Wall Street Journal, while not ruining it in the ways everyone expected. And though people have been arguing for a while that Google has somehow contributed to the demise of print news, this piece in The Atlantic not only points out that Google CEO Eric Schmidt wants to help print news (and ironically said so in a December 2009 Op-Ed piece in the WSJ), it also points to some of the real causes of the newspapers’ demise – mostly loss of ad revenue. And mostly in forms you wouldn’t imagine, like classified ads, which with many papers generated as much as 30% of their income. I’m personally excited to see where it all goes, as long as the Huffington Post doesn’t become the leading on line news source as some expect, and as long as Google doesn’t become the world’s news filter, with their search portal dominance dictating which news Web sites we can find. Oops! We forgot that the new AP Style guide says it’s “website”, not “Web site”. Not that the AP has quite the nearly-biblical influence it used to; even their net income is down 65%, and their very identity is being parodied daily by crappily edited sites that wantonly violate half their guidelines with almost every sentence.
Why Is The American Political Process So Darn Serious?
[ 3 Comments ]Posted on June 1, 2010 by admin in Politics
Tuesday, June 1st, 2010Maybe American politics would benefit from some British style jeers and snarks.
 Just think of how much more fun Dick Cheney would be with a wig. |
As I pondered today’s Supreme Court ruling that in order to invoke your right to remain silent, you have to not remain silent, I was reminded once again that I no longer live in the country that I grew up in, but rather, a vaguely Orwellian version of it. I mean, it doesn’t get more “double speaky” than having to speak to affirm that you’re remaining silent, right? It’s a strange feeling to live in a new country without having gone anywhere. I don’t know if I like it. But it gets me pondering other nations’ governments. I mean, imagine if our leader stepped down gracefully whenever he screwed up. Or if the vocal outbursts typical of the British House of Commons were the norm in congress instead of the appalling exception. We’d probably watch a lot more C-Span. Especially if it meant we’d have some hope of hearing snarks like those of Winston Churchill in the last century like “The best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter“. Because you know that’s what most politicians in Washington are really thinking these days.