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America In Decline: 10 Reasons You Should Start Studying Mandarin TODAY

[ 3 Comments ]Posted on June 28, 2012 by admin in Editorial & Opinion

Thursday, June 28th, 2012

The decline of the American Empire will be hard for some of us, but I for one welcome our new Chinese overlords. And the opportunity to brush up on my Mandarin.

A long time ago, I managed a Chinese restaurant for a couple of years, and found myself quickly adopted as a sort of Honorary Asian. I have to say, I honestly feel much more at ease with a lot of the cultural vibe of Chinese people than that of most American people. I won’t bore you with all the reasons why; but this will certainly come in handy in the impending econopocalypse. Someone observed back in the late 90′s that if China kept buying US treasury bonds at the rate they were, they’d own them all by 2018. But as a result of our self-destruction as a country over the last fifteen years or so, this has become kind of a moot point. China is now routinely discussed as a possible replacement for America as the world’s next superpower. The US dollar as the global standard for currency exchange is no longer a de facto assumption, and the trade balance between the US and China is… well…let’s just say that if the two countries were Facebook friends, their status would say they’re “In a relationship, but it’s complicated”. But I’m not here to get granular about the specifics of China and the US in relation to global finance, I’m here to help ease you into the future, by pointing out in broad strokes the things that have made it more or less inevitable that soon we’ll all be celebrating the New Year in February, buying our groceries with Yuan, and speaking Mandarin. At least the smarter of us will be speaking Mandarin, anyway. You’re much more likely to end up in management that way. So if you need to bone up and take things beyond the “ni hao” and “xie xie” stage, they say Fluenz Mandarin language software is the latest and greatest. But it’s also almost 400 bucks (about 2500 Yuan), so you might want to check out the trusty old Rosetta Stone, at a mere 150 bucks (or 950 Yuan). Anyway, below are the things we did to ourselves, and the reasons you may just want to sign up for that Mandarin class NOW. Read the rest of this entry »

Am I A Racist, Sexist Bastard?

[ Comments Off ]Posted on January 26, 2011 by admin in Editorial & Opinion

Wednesday, January 26th, 2011

Apparently so. And if you’re American, there’s a good chance you are too, in ways you didn’t even realize.

Today I watched President Obama’s State of the Union address with a friend who – and for the record, this would ordinarily be irrelevant – happens to be black. The reason this fact is relevant in this case is because – as a result of talking about the address – we were both reminded of how racist we really are. I’ll explain why in a bit, but first, a little background. I’m in the demographic that largely comprises the teabaggers of America. I’m a white male over forty with a reasonable education who is not what you’d call affluent. However, I’m not one of these guys, and I’m generally about as color blind as a person can be. My most overt forms of racism are usually directed at “my own kind”, i.e. white male business people. Partly because they are often predictably sexist, and at least moderately judgmental based on race, if not in fact secretly racist. But also because over the last couple of decades much of my professional work has been with people from various cultures that are not white American. Specifically: Arab, Central European, and Asian. The basis of a lot of my jabs at white business men is the fact that so many of them frankly have no trust or honor whatsoever in their dealings, and always want some kind of contract. They’ll also never put up a fight when you offer to pay for lunch. To me, these are two harsh reflections on a person’s basic character. I pass on a lot of business because of this mentality, but I’m quite happy being a little reverse racist in my work life if it means not having to do business with people who will never trust me. One more piece of relevant background information is that I live in one of the most culturally diverse cities in America, and that is in fact the only thing I really like about this place. Because if I head about ten miles in any direction, I’ll literally be standing in a corn field. And if I head to the house nearest that corn field, the person who answers the door is likely to be in that teabagger demographic I mentioned earlier. So now that I’ve established my credentials as a card-carrying member of the United Colors of Benetton Generation, let me ask you – if you happen to have voted for Barack Obama – the question my friend asked me. And try to be really honest with yourself… If Obama had campaigned with all the same promises and in the same articulate manner, but had been a white man with a name like Bob Roberts, would you have voted for him? When my friend tabled this question, I jokingly put on a Scissor Gang Mafia pose and in my best Ali G voice said: “You only ask me that question ’cause I are black”. We had a little laugh, then I thought about it, and said “I guess not”. If the choice had been between some white guy spewing Obama’s rhetoric and Hillary Clinton, I probably would have voted for Hillary. Which I then realized makes me racist and sexist. I was voting for change, not a candidate, and change meant “not a white male”. I’ve had other interesting conversations that highlight some of the stealth racism that still exists in abundance in our lives; years ago I worked in a restaurant that had a very tight and family-like, culturally diverse staff. One evening someone started a series of questions that went something like “You’re walking down a city street late at night, and a white man in a business suit is walking toward you on the sidewalk. What do you do?” You then take the same scenario and put a black man in a suit, or a young white guy in a hoodie in it, and so on. You pretty quickly realize that no matter what race you are and how open-minded you think you are, you make a hell of a lot of decisions based on race. And unfortunately, this problem runs much, much deeper than any of us in America like to think. Although satire like Ali G or this Onion News parody (video also below) – in which a judge dictates that a white female teen murderer be tried as a 300 pound black man – can put a thin veneer of humor on the topic, the fact is that – running much deeper than the more obvious forms of racism in daily American life – there’s a vast and entrenched subculture that few are aware of, and fewer discuss. I’m referring of course to America’s racist criminal justice system. If you don’t think there’s still a profound race problem in America, read this piece (unfortunately on HuffPo) by Michelle Alexander, author of The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness . You may be shocked by the numbers, and her observations about how “Jim Crow” racial segregation laws have been replaced by mass incarceration as a system of social control, and how we haven’t ended the racial caste system in America; we’ve simply redesigned it. I’ve only skimmed the book, but Alexander’s thorough and academic examination of issues like how America’s “War On Drugs” appears to actually be an intentional tool for social stratification throws a lot of our correctional system and urban crime problems into an entirely new light. Read the rest of this entry »

Who Discovered America?

[ Comments Off ]Posted on October 8, 2010 by admin in Holidays

Friday, October 8th, 2010

We’ve asked all the right questions and answered them for you just in time for Columbus Day. Including Eddie Izzard’s “Do you have a flag?”


This painting always makes me think of
Eddie Izzard’s Do You Have A Flag routine.

Thanks to the three-day weekend many people will enjoy because of the fact that Monday is Columbus Day, this topic is bound to come up in conversation, so we thought we’d help you out. First, don’t bother Googling it. You’ll get several pages of rambling articles and opinions. This is one of those times that WolframAlpha came in handy. See for yourself (image below). Yup. Asians walked across Beringia way before any Europeans made the trip by boat. How simple was that? So, now that we know that the first humans arrived in North America around 14,000 years ago, we can move on to other interesting questions, like “well, who was second then?” and “why the heck do they call it America, anyway?” and “so why do we keep celebrating Columbus Day, now that the facts are in?” In order, the answers are the Vikings, no-one is sure but we assume it’s because of Amerigo Vespucci, and that last question? Probably because it would take congress years to pass the legislation to abolish Columbus Day even if public sentiment were strong enough. Which it doesn’t appear to be, at least according to this 2009 Rasmussen poll. Personally, I think a poll like that may be skewed by people not wanting to lose a three day weekend, and that we should at least celebrate something different, like “Jesus Christ When Did They Start Advertising Christmas BEFORE Halloween?” day. And although I lightheartedly shared some of my thoughts on this topic last year, I really do believe we should do away with the tradition, partly for simple historical accuracy, but more importantly because 1/8 of me is descended from the people that ended up being called “Indians” and were then nearly annihilated by those who followed in Columbus’ brutal footsteps. If you’re also of a mind that we could do away with Columbus Day, I don’t know what to tell you. The most organized group addressing the topic – Reconsider Columbus Day – didn’t update their site this year. Let us know if you know of anything besides this petition. Last year’s video below. Read the rest of this entry »

The Terrorists Have Finally Won

[ Comments Off ]Posted on September 9, 2010 by admin in Editorial & Opinion

Thursday, September 9th, 2010

Jesus America, you really blew it on this one.

It’s hard to believe it’s been almost ten years since those airliners crashed into the World Trade Center. Harder still to believe that America’s psyche still seems to be reeling from the events. I like to think that we’re not a bunch of Chickenshit Crybabies, but I never seem to see evidence to the contrary. Don’t tell me again about the tragedy of the nearly 3,000 people that died that day. Over 100,000 people have died as a result of the bizarre and poorly conceived invasion of Iraq that was made possible only through the perverse manipulation of American sentiment and ignorance in the wake of the attacks on September 11, 2001. Whenever I think about the symbolic hole of sorrow and tragedy in New York City that is slowly becoming a building once again, I think of Warsaw, and how in spite of the fact that the Nazis wiped out more than 85% of the city, the Poles chose to restore as much of it as possible, in some cases completely recreating entire buildings, and using as much of the original material as possible. Here in America, we spent as long debating what to do and duking out the details in court as the Polish did rebuilding an entire city. The recent debates about the “mosque at ground zero” and the attention the press is giving that fucktard in Florida are in my opinion simply more evidence that America needs to get up off its collective ass, wipe the tears from its eyes, and show some dignity. Until then, I’m sad to say that those 19 Sauds achieved much of their goal, and bumpkins like Terry Jones are only helping wave the flag of their victory.

Cynicism Is A Sorry Kind Of Wisdom

[ 1 Comment ]Posted on September 10, 2009 by admin in Politics

Thursday, September 10th, 2009

What did YOU think about Obama’s health care speech?

This is not a CNN Poll
Do You Think The Obama White House Can Fix Health Care?
YES
NO
This is not a scientific poll

It’s rather poignant somehow that it was Barack Obama who said that on the campaign trail. The statement implies a kind of positive hopefulness that is one of the key reasons I voted for the man. I struggle with a certain cynicism about the current administration though; I wonder on occasion if I’ve been duped again by a clever campaign, and I wonder, as I’ve said before, if President Obama is doomed to a Carter-like presidency; a fairly decent man, swimming in the shark tank that is Washington. However, the confidence and clarity of his health care speech last night (full text, single page here ) reinvigorated some of my flailing hope for change in the capitol. I’m almost ashamed that his remark that “I am not the first President to take up this cause, but I am determined to be the last” made me think of Clinton, who would’ve prided himself on the ambiguity of the statement, in that he’s not claiming to fix the problem, he might just be the last president to try. I’m not fundamentelly cynical, but I think that to not be cynical about politics is naïve. And although on an individual basis with humans I’m one of the most hopeful people you’ll meet, the ongoing “Brady Bunch Dividing Line” that some American citizens have drawn between themselves seems irreversible, and completely immune to rational thought and discourse. Especially when we have a desperately struggling, profit-driven news media fanning these attitudes at every turn. So a speech like President Obama’s speech last night keeps me going, even if one of the most inspiring lines in the speech was written by Ted Kennedy: “What we face is above all a moral issue; at stake are not just the details of policy, but fundamental principles of social justice and the character of our country.” If we can remember as a country that our real, deeper American values are those regarding a certain character based on decency and reason, we’ll be alright. And I thank the president for reminding us of that. What do you think? Read the rest of this entry »

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