Wednesday, March 03, 2004
Have made cup and straw kazoos with Jose, Jeremy and Niall. What you do; take a paper soda cup, after you've emptied it, wash it out, and punch a hole through the center of the bottom side with your straw, and stick your straw in partway. Clench with your teeth the side of the straw that's sticking out of the bottom and suck in air through your teeth. Tada! Cup kazoos!
Unfortunately, Jeremy and Paul, his roommate, cannot for love or money, make their kazoos work.
Jeremy is like this though; he's terrible with woodwinds. He has a bamboo flute he got at Rennfest which he tried to learn to play. It's one of those flutes which, unlike a recorder or a penny whistle, you don't blow directly into, but hold it sideways across your mouth and blow across the mouth hole, for better sound quality. Well, he can't do it. I told him that it's just like blowing across the mouth of a soda bottle to produce a low whooping sound, but apparently he can't do that either. I think this "trained incapacity" (as Sociology 101 would have it) comes from playing trombone all these years... perhaps his mouth is conditioned to only move in a certain way.
Unfortunately, Jeremy and Paul, his roommate, cannot for love or money, make their kazoos work.
Jeremy is like this though; he's terrible with woodwinds. He has a bamboo flute he got at Rennfest which he tried to learn to play. It's one of those flutes which, unlike a recorder or a penny whistle, you don't blow directly into, but hold it sideways across your mouth and blow across the mouth hole, for better sound quality. Well, he can't do it. I told him that it's just like blowing across the mouth of a soda bottle to produce a low whooping sound, but apparently he can't do that either. I think this "trained incapacity" (as Sociology 101 would have it) comes from playing trombone all these years... perhaps his mouth is conditioned to only move in a certain way.
Tuesday, March 02, 2004
Politically Noncommital Girl Strikes Again!
Went to see a screening of a documentary called Life Over Debt organized by Oxfam, an organization against global hunger that I'm kinda in. Chris (Brian's twin brother and head of the Economics Club) sprung on me saying, "You're an econ major? Would you like to be more involved in contemporary economic issues?" and I was like, "sure..." because I've lately been trying to make an effort to partake in more student events, with marginal success. Besides, I've always felt a bit guilty about being such an uninformed voter and so politically inactive. I can't even classify myself as either liberal or conservative, much less find a party or a politician to support. I didn't even vote in the Maryland primaries today. I was reminded in the morning, but then I forgot by lunchtime, and in any case, all the Democrats seem alike to me. I feel bad about this; voting is what Nick and Malex and Andrew would've wanted me to do. At any rate, the documentary, which I did remember to go to see, was about how Jamaican farmers are driven out of business by foreign corporations which sell things at lower prices, or something like that and is very anti-globalization.
I found it like Bowling for Columbine in that instead of taking the responsibility of being an objective film, it goes for emotional manipulation and cinematography instead. Not that it wasn't artfully done but I'm just saying it seemed a bit too perfect. You know, it of course must have many shots of carousing tourists (always fat and white and sunburned) with (poor, black) people working in factories, and analogies comparing foreign corporations in Jamaica to colonial slavery. Obviously many of the people representing the anti-globalization point of view had to be impassioned blacks with thick Jamaican accents while the sole speaker for the WTO had to be a bald white man with glasses who was coolly composed and well-spoken, the very epitome of a (imperialist) corporate shark. (Also he had no eyebrows. Is that freaky or what?) So whether intentionally or not, a lot of the documentary took advantage of people's guilt over being relatively affluent, or their residual white guilt over historic oppression of other cultures, or xenocentrism (where people sentimentally find other people's cultures to be more wiser, richer, and more wonderful than their own simply because it's exotic) to be emotionally manipulative regarding the issues instead of being informative about them.
The discussion following the screening was pretty much a recruitment drive for the Coalition Against Global Exploitation, a local Baltimore association. Personally I think this makes any sort of educational and informative documentary screening and discussion lose a bit of credibility as being .. well... educational and informative. Because if the impartial facts truly and rationally stood for themselves, education without proselytization would be enough to convince someone of the merits of CAGE or a similar organization. All you'd have to do is say "This screening sponsored by CAGE and Oxfam" on the posters and have a contact e-mail address. The fact that most of the "discussion" period was devoted to the logistics of joining CAGE and what they as an organization do, instead of the documentary or the issue itself, seemed rather to defeat the purpose. There was no real "discussion" because there was no real dissent- it wasn't possible to express dissent without sounding like an asshole. (I, for my part, didn't speak out at all on everything I've written here, and nobody else did.) I'm sure the people with CAGE are nice and very tolerant; it's just the nature of public groups that nobody wants to be the sole dissentor.
I don't know what I think of it really; maybe protectionism is better for developing countries to be able to develop their own enterprises. It is true that people ought to have a right as consumers to buy whatever they wish, be it local or foreign goods (which was the argument of our WTO corporate shark*), but this may not be a priority if it thwarts the growth of local businesses. US businesses based in a country ought to be subject to health and labor regulations of some sort, though obviously the idea is that these regulations will be more lenient in another country than in the US, hence encouraging investment. "Free trade zones" sound like cowpoo* to me. I appreciate the infrastructure and new technology that foreign investment provides, but it is also cowpoo that free trade provides jobs to people who otherwise wouldn't have them. This may be true in some cases but in many cases it takes away jobs by driving away local businesses by encouraging imports instead local production. Also, short-term loans to countries, with interest, is pretty dumb because they can't use that money for long term investment and just end up in debt. Obviously, we ought to stop subsidizing American enterprises that produce things for which there is no demand and instead fund the transitions of some of those enterprises into other venues.
However, I still don't think globalization is generally evil.
*Who probably isn't as much of an asshole in real life as the documentary makes him; anyone can seem an asshole in documentaries when juxtaposed with shots of mournful mothers and starving children.
*Cowpoo! Like bullshit but better.
Went to see a screening of a documentary called Life Over Debt organized by Oxfam, an organization against global hunger that I'm kinda in. Chris (Brian's twin brother and head of the Economics Club) sprung on me saying, "You're an econ major? Would you like to be more involved in contemporary economic issues?" and I was like, "sure..." because I've lately been trying to make an effort to partake in more student events, with marginal success. Besides, I've always felt a bit guilty about being such an uninformed voter and so politically inactive. I can't even classify myself as either liberal or conservative, much less find a party or a politician to support. I didn't even vote in the Maryland primaries today. I was reminded in the morning, but then I forgot by lunchtime, and in any case, all the Democrats seem alike to me. I feel bad about this; voting is what Nick and Malex and Andrew would've wanted me to do. At any rate, the documentary, which I did remember to go to see, was about how Jamaican farmers are driven out of business by foreign corporations which sell things at lower prices, or something like that and is very anti-globalization.
I found it like Bowling for Columbine in that instead of taking the responsibility of being an objective film, it goes for emotional manipulation and cinematography instead. Not that it wasn't artfully done but I'm just saying it seemed a bit too perfect. You know, it of course must have many shots of carousing tourists (always fat and white and sunburned) with (poor, black) people working in factories, and analogies comparing foreign corporations in Jamaica to colonial slavery. Obviously many of the people representing the anti-globalization point of view had to be impassioned blacks with thick Jamaican accents while the sole speaker for the WTO had to be a bald white man with glasses who was coolly composed and well-spoken, the very epitome of a (imperialist) corporate shark. (Also he had no eyebrows. Is that freaky or what?) So whether intentionally or not, a lot of the documentary took advantage of people's guilt over being relatively affluent, or their residual white guilt over historic oppression of other cultures, or xenocentrism (where people sentimentally find other people's cultures to be more wiser, richer, and more wonderful than their own simply because it's exotic) to be emotionally manipulative regarding the issues instead of being informative about them.
The discussion following the screening was pretty much a recruitment drive for the Coalition Against Global Exploitation, a local Baltimore association. Personally I think this makes any sort of educational and informative documentary screening and discussion lose a bit of credibility as being .. well... educational and informative. Because if the impartial facts truly and rationally stood for themselves, education without proselytization would be enough to convince someone of the merits of CAGE or a similar organization. All you'd have to do is say "This screening sponsored by CAGE and Oxfam" on the posters and have a contact e-mail address. The fact that most of the "discussion" period was devoted to the logistics of joining CAGE and what they as an organization do, instead of the documentary or the issue itself, seemed rather to defeat the purpose. There was no real "discussion" because there was no real dissent- it wasn't possible to express dissent without sounding like an asshole. (I, for my part, didn't speak out at all on everything I've written here, and nobody else did.) I'm sure the people with CAGE are nice and very tolerant; it's just the nature of public groups that nobody wants to be the sole dissentor.
I don't know what I think of it really; maybe protectionism is better for developing countries to be able to develop their own enterprises. It is true that people ought to have a right as consumers to buy whatever they wish, be it local or foreign goods (which was the argument of our WTO corporate shark*), but this may not be a priority if it thwarts the growth of local businesses. US businesses based in a country ought to be subject to health and labor regulations of some sort, though obviously the idea is that these regulations will be more lenient in another country than in the US, hence encouraging investment. "Free trade zones" sound like cowpoo* to me. I appreciate the infrastructure and new technology that foreign investment provides, but it is also cowpoo that free trade provides jobs to people who otherwise wouldn't have them. This may be true in some cases but in many cases it takes away jobs by driving away local businesses by encouraging imports instead local production. Also, short-term loans to countries, with interest, is pretty dumb because they can't use that money for long term investment and just end up in debt. Obviously, we ought to stop subsidizing American enterprises that produce things for which there is no demand and instead fund the transitions of some of those enterprises into other venues.
However, I still don't think globalization is generally evil.
*Who probably isn't as much of an asshole in real life as the documentary makes him; anyone can seem an asshole in documentaries when juxtaposed with shots of mournful mothers and starving children.
*Cowpoo! Like bullshit but better.
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