in pursuit of riches

quick thoughts on lottery games

Many states in America depend upon income from lottery games to support public education and other important social services. The ends seem satisfactory —when you buy a lottery ticket, not only do you have a chance of winning a lot of money, but proceeds are also going to educate children. It seems like a win-win situation.

However, many studies have shown that lotteries actually function like a regressive tax. Someone earning several million a year isn’t going to be tempted by the lotto game, whereas low-income single mothers see winning the lottery as an opportunity out of poverty, and could regularly buy several tickets a week. If their weekly earnings are only near minimum wage, e.g. $250 or so, then $5 is a 2% tax. This may not seem like a lot, but I remember reading about how difficult it was for people to afford the fare increases with public transportation which only amounted to a few dollars each week. Through supposed “voluntary contributions”, the lottery has basically made the poor pay an unfair share of state services.

Meanwhile, studies have shown that lottery winners returning to their same level of happiness as before. The burdens of wealth can cause an undue strain on relationships with family and friends. Lottery winners can also end up poorer than before by buying cars, houses and electronics that they cannot sustain with their income (especially because lottery winnings are often paid out over a long time period so people end up taking out loans to make these purchases). Lower-income winners of the lottery are probably more susceptible to this as they are less educated about proper financial management.

While winning the lottery may promise an end to payday-to-payday subsistence to a few select, it does nothing to alleviate systemic poverty. It dangles false hopes of happiness and riches for the poor and for the middle class. Instead of being content with what we have, we find ourselves secretly hoping for a quick solution to our problems—getting rich really fast and easy.

So yes, lottery games are a good government revenue generator—but do they do any good?



* There was recently a huge lottery jackpot a few months ago. Our office had a pool and despite the fact that several years ago, I had made a decision not to buy lottery tickets, I found myself tempted to participate in my office pool. It didn’t seem like a big deal. It would only be a dollar or two contributions, and I found myself daydreaming about what I could do with all the money—pay off my loans, pay for graduate school, pay off my parents’ mortgage. It seemed so easy and it was so hard not to pull out a dollar from my wallet. But I don't want to support a system that is unjust to the poor, nor do I want to chase pipe dreams of wealth, because I want to be content with what I have. And for all that I do not have right now, I want to trust that God will provide. All those high and lofty things said aside, I did breath a huge sigh of relief when I found out that my office did not win. Life returns to normal. And those dreams of wealth are put to rest, atleast for the time being.

killing religion, tolerating culture

Apparently, China’s State Administration of Religious Affairs has instituted Order No. 5, a law announcing: “the management measures for the reincarnation of living Buddhas in Tibetan Buddhism.” This “important move to institutionalize management on reincarnation” basically prohibits Buddhist monks from returning from the dead without government permission”

Slavoj Zizek in a New York Times op-ed piece, responds:

It is all too easy to laugh at the idea of an atheist power regulating something that, in its eyes, doesn’t exist. However, do we believe in it? When in 2001 the Taliban in Afghanistan destroyed the ancient Buddhist statues at Bamiyan, many Westerners were outraged — but how many of them actually believed in the divinity of the Buddha? Rather, we were angered because the Taliban did not show appropriate respect for the “cultural heritage” of their country. Unlike us sophisticates, they really believed in their own religion, and thus had no great respect for the cultural value of the monuments of other religions.

The significant issue for the West here is not Buddhas and lamas, but what we mean when we refer to “culture.” All human sciences are turning into a branch of cultural studies. While there are of course many religious believers in the West, especially in the United States, vast numbers of our societal elite follow (some of the) religious rituals and mores of our tradition only out of respect for the “lifestyle” of the community to which we belong: Christmas trees in shopping centers every December; neighborhood Easter egg hunts; Passover dinners celebrated by nonbelieving Jews.**

“Culture” has commonly become the name for all those things we practice without really taking seriously. And this is why we dismiss fundamentalist believers as “barbarians” with a “medieval mindset”: they dare to take their beliefs seriously. Today, we seem to see the ultimate threat to culture as coming from those who live immediately in their culture, who lack the proper distance.**

Perhaps we find China’s reincarnation laws so outrageous not because they are alien to our sensibility, but because they spill the secret of what we have done for so long: respectfully tolerating what we don’t take quite seriously, and trying to contain its political consequences through the law.

~

On a side note, Zizek also points out that these government measures may pale in comparison to other economic transformation—Lhasa now is also home to karaoke bars and Disney-like Buddhist theme parks:

“In short, the media image of brutal Chinese soldiers terrorizing Buddhist monks conceals a much more effective American-style socioeconomic transformation: in a decade or two, Tibetans will be reduced to the status of the Native Americans in the United States. Beijing finally learned the lesson: what is the oppressive power of secret police forces, camps and Red Guards destroying ancient monuments compared to the power of unbridled capitalism to undermine all traditional social relations?”

Better than all the crusades and genocides and laws, what better killer of religion than the promise of material comfort?


* Except that for all I know, there’s nothing ACTUALLY Christian about Christmas trees and Easter egg hunts. I guess I owe my thanks to Hallmark, but I can’t be too critical, I use their e-cards.
** As a counterpoint, Meic Pearse argues in his book Why the Rest hates the West: "By their constant, mindlessly inaccurate resort to the “f-word” – fundamentalism – to describe the upsurge of religious fervor in much of the non-West, Western secularists are employing a boo-word that long ago lost its original meaning and has come to signify “more-religious-than-I-happen-to-like”—and thus to say more about the speaker than about the persons, things or phenomena described. It is one more signifier that Western self-styles “multiculturalists” are, in fact, refusing to take seriously any culture but their own

super market choices

We sometimes do quite a bit of research on what we buy. We read reviews about car mileage and maintenance and comparison shop our electronics. Yet when it comes to food, the very items we use to nourish our bodies, we often don’t ask where it comes from and we end up having our choices made for us. Michael Pollan’s The Omnivore’s Dilemma explores the food industry and the findings are initially rather dismal.*

Low-income Iowa farmers purchase vast amounts of fertilizer, pesticides and corn seed, in order to produce more generic corn (which only pulls down prices, which will only erode the land and pollute the water). The corn will then be purchased and transformed into high fructose corn syrup and partially hydrogenated oil, the backbone of processed foods (and also found in a surprising number of other foods—cereal and bread).

Cows and chickens are crammed in confined quarters, and forced fed meat and corn mixtures (contrary to their natural diets) until they are ready for slaughter. Egg hens are crammed even more tightly than meat hens, with as many as 10% dying from the confined conditions.

While organic once offered an alternative to our mass-produced supermarket choices, it has also turned into economies of scale affair. As Gene Kahn, former (?) CEO and founder of Cascadian Farms (a big corporate organic produce company) comments, “Everything morphs into the way the world is.”

Organic produce mostly comes from large industrial size farms since it’s cheaper than buying from many individual farmers, and then tons and tons of oil are expended in shipping the produce fresh across the nation or even across the globe. Free range chickens are only given a small door open to the outside in the last two weeks of their nine week lifespan (after they have grown accustomed to staying indoors in their cooped up pen, only slightly better than those of the non-free-range variety). As Joel Salatin of Polyface Farm, “Now which chicken shall we call ‘organic’? I’m afraid you’ll have to ask the government, because now they own the word.” I guess organic ceases to mean anything anymore when organic TV dinners are now sold at Whole Foods. (All that being said, organic food has greatly diminished the amount of pesticides and chemicals poured into our soils and waters).

So it saddens me to see even the most integral choices of our lives embedded with injustice to the poor and damage to the environment. I find it harder and harder to imagine being able to live without participating in these injustices, as I am certainly one who has benefited greatly from the comforts that these systems have afforded us.

As Geez magazine puts it, I wake up finding myself “somewhere between dreams for a better world and a padded, private life (I) didn’t exactly choose”. In today’s supermarket abundance, the vast array of flavours and textures, I don’t feel like I have very many real choices.



* This entry was compiled from quick notes I made in response to the earlier half of Pollan’s book, which was rather depressing. If I ever get around to it, I will write my response to the second half of his book, which was far more hopeful, and does offer some alternatives to our usual supermarket choices. By the way, Omnivore’s Dilemma is an excellent book—I highly recommend it. Not only does Pollan succeed in making 100 pages written about corn engrossingly interesting, he’s also made me rethink what and how I eat. I actually have an extra copy… so please contact me if you would like to borrow it/have it (you have to promise to read it!).

there's a whole world out there

Lots of blogs have many entries that consist mainly of interesting links (e.g. The Elegant Variation). Since nothing in this world is truly original, I'm debating whether or not to do this permanently on a weekly or monthly basis, so I'm trying it out.

Basically, here are some interesting links (articles, sites, thoughts) I've stumbled upon recently. Most of them have probably made me want to write a blog entry about them, but by now, I know that I will never get around to it, but I think these links are worthy enough to be shared.

In order to disclaim any credit for my own web surfing skills (though I do probably spend too much time on the internet), most of my article browsing comes from: Arts and Letters Daily (actually most of my links come from here), the Philadelphia Inquirer, Footnoted, Craftzine blog and the NY Times. I occasionally visit McSweeney's, Adbusters, and Slate. I keep the Economist on my bookmarks toolbar folder to motivate myself to read it and keep up with international relations and economics, but I never actually do. I've also started frequently the Daily Pennsylvannian blog, now that my friend Nick is blogging for it. I have now finally started using Google Reader, which wonderfully cuts down on the amount of listless surfing I do.

• The whole Dawkins/Hitchens/Harris atheist debates are raging on. Just as a few Christians may not agree with others of the same faith, the same thing seems to be happening in the arena of non-belief. A Third Edge article presents a more balanced view of religion. And a glowing review of the recent book, Darwin's Angel: An Angelic Riposte to the God Delusion can be found here (okay, this may not have been written by an atheist, but as far as I know, it is a secular publication).
  


• An academic blog debate has spurred as a result of Bitch PhD's ranting complaint about her $5000+/month salary. Oh No a WoC PhD writes an excellent "Shame List" regarding academia in response.


• Since carbon offsets are now morally questionable, the latest development in keeping our carbon footprint small is to stop having children.
  


• Both Madeline L'Engle and Luciano Pavarotti have passed away recently. If you have not read Madeline L'Engle, I highly recommend that you start with A Wrinkle in Time.
  


• Seward Johnson has some amazing trompe l'oeil sculpture copies of famous paintings. Much of his collection can be found at Grounds for Sculpture, a 35-acre sculpture garden in NJ.
  
  
• Knitting is not boring (except when I'm really trying hard to finish a sweater). I want to be able to make this someday. I also wouldn't mind being able to spin out this vest. In the meantime, I will stick to bunny rabbits. There's also been quite a boom in knitting art: These sweatshirts can keep you up to date with the news. There was also that knitted homes of crime exhibit at the ICA.

I'm sorry

I’m sorry about all my mad ranting against sweatshops. I'm sorry if you felt judged. Please forgive me.

I was angry and upset, so I used big words and vulgar images and whatever other tricks I could conjure out of my little bag. I only did it because it hurt me so much to hear and read what was going on. I desperately wanted things to change.

I did not mean to judge those who may work for or buy from these various companies-- I'm sure if you looked at my list of monthly purchases, you will still find companies who engage in unethical and unjust practices. I have to admit I don't really know whether it's objectively right or wrong to buy from Wal-Mart or to work for Halliburton*, but I do hope for a world where we don't have to ask these questions because Wal-Mart treats its employees and suppliers well and Halliburton actively promotes and pursues renewable energy sources.

So I do not mean to condemn you, because I am in the same position as you. Rather, I want to exhort you to yearn (and to strive for) a society where injustices are not so deeply embedded in the way that we live, so much so that we often do not even know that they are there.

Try shopping only thrift stores for a few months, or learn how to make your own soap. You can talk to the homeless man on the streets or volunteer to plant trees or start your own herb potted plant garden in your apartment. Why not take the riskier, lower-paying job that you really love? Or maybe you just want to start praying.

When we go against the pattern of the world, in the opposite direction of the pull and the tug of what everyone else is doing, we often find ourselves surprisingly blessed by a joy much greater than the comfort and convenience of what we left behind.


*Though if you do feel slightly uneasy about it, perhaps it's worth questioning it.

luxury is artificial poverty

I was browsing in the bookstore today and stumbled upon a book called Deluxe: How Luxury Lost its Luster by Dana Thomas. The book describes the transformation of old luxury brands such as Chanel and Louis Vuitton into mass-produced corporate commodities.

The writer is nostalgic for an old aristocratic age when luxury still signified quality, and not a mere brand name. Today, even the supposed luxury brands are mass produced. Corporate brands even deceive the consumer: a common practice is to manufacture most of a handbag or a shoe where it is cheap ( e.g. China). "Made in China" stickers are put on the products, but then are later removed. Then, a smaller portion of the product is manufactured in Italy (a bag handle, an insole) and inscribed with "Made in Italy" so the consumer assumes that the entire object is made by some skilled craftsman in Italy. So a $2,000 bag by Chanel could very easily be made by the same 15-year-old laborer in a sweatshop as a Wal-Mart $10 purse.

Though I have no desire to return to the former hierarchical class structure and the material symbols of distinction, I too admire elegant design and craftsman quality, and am disappointed that good, valuable products are hard to find in these assembly line days. We have a million copies, but nothing real. The loss of authenticity continues.

I am also saddened by the power luxury brands exert over us—Japanese girls who prostitute themselves so they can buy Louis Vuitton. A recent college graduate chooses to work as an investment banker, regularly working 100 hour weeks, in order to buy Gucci diamonds with her lucrative bonuses. Suburban mothers run up high-interest credit card debt to buy the latest Hermès scarf. And I catch myself desiring the products in the glamorous fashion magazine photo spread, or envying the aura of sophisticated looking women who shop in the Burberry and Coach stores near my workplace.*

Contentment is natural wealth, luxury is artificial poverty.

~ Socrates

* Money aside, looking that way would take so much maintenance that I would probably have to spend 2 hours a day grooming and ironing in order to achieve it. You become that which you seek after.

** An alternative to luxury brands is esty.com, a website where tons of individuals or small organizations sell handmade arts and crafts, from jewelry to handbags to screen-printed t-shirts and clothing. 10 Thousand Villages, a non-profit, that sells fair trade products is also pretty cool, though you run the risk of your apartment looking a bit too "exotic".

outsourcing morality

In today's world of RED campaigns*, carbon offset purchases, and fair trade products, it seems easy to feel good about what we're doing.** But can any real good could come of these seemingly selfish, easy and convenient ways of raising money for the poor and "saving the world"?

Special events and galas don't raise that much money after factoring in all expenses, but they do have other effects in terms of raising awareness and recognizing important donors. But does it not seem odd that people come to galas wearing $10,000 gowns when they've only donated $5,000 to the organization or the cause? The RED campaign does not alleviate the injustices of the clothing sweatshop industry, but money is going to help AIDS in Africa right?

Are all these methods still effective and able to do some good because they redirect funds and resources to those who need it? Or do they perpetuate injustice (and perhaps cause more damage) even as they carry the illusion of helping the greater good?***

I stumbled upon an interesting article in Spiked, Is carbon offsetting just eco enslavement?, that criticizes the recent trend of buying carbon offsets. Carbon offsets are a marketing genuis-- they're so wonderfully abstract-- what exactly are they? I don't know. But who cares? They're good for the environment and they'll slow down global warming, right?

Some excerpts from the article:

The details of this carbon-offsetting scheme are disturbing. Cameron offsets his flights by donating to Climate Care. The latest wheeze of this carbon-offsetting company is to provide 'treadle pumps' to poor rural families in India so that they can get water on to their land without having to use polluting diesel power. Made from bamboo, plastic and steel, the treadle pumps work like 'step machines in a gym', according to some reports, where poor family members step on the pedals for hours in order to draw up groundwater which is used to irrigate farmland. These pumps were abolished in British prisons a century ago. It seems that what was considered an unacceptable form of punishment for British criminals in the past is looked upon as a positive eco-alternative to machinery for Indian peasants today.

...

Carbon offsetting is not some cowboy activity, or an aberration, or a distraction from 'true environmentalist goals' - rather it expresses the very essence of environmentalism. In its project of transforming vast swathes of the developing world into guilt-massaging zones for comfortable Westerners, where trees are planted or farmers' work is made tougher and more time-consuming in order to offset the activities of Americans and Europeans, carbon offsetting perfectly captures both the narcissistic and anti-development underpinnings of the politics of environmentalism. Where traditional imperialism conquered poor nations in order to exploit their labour and resources, today's global environmentalist consensus is increasingly using the Third World as a place in which to work out the West's moral hang-ups.

The rise of the carbon-offsetting industry shows that a key driving force behind environmentalism is self-indulgent Western guilt. It is Western consumers' own discomfort with their sometimes lavish lifestyles - with all those holidays, big homes, fast cars and cheap nutritious foods - that nurtures today's green outlook, in which consumption has come to be seen as destructive and a new morality of eco-ethics and offsetting (formerly known as penance) has emerged to deal with it (6). It is no accident that the wealthiest people are frequently the most eco-conscious. British environmental campaign groups and publications are peppered with the sons and daughters of the aristocracy, while in America ridiculously super-rich celebrities (Al Gore, Leonardo DiCaprio, Brad Pitt) lead the charge for more eco-aware forms of consumption and play. The very nature of carbon offsetting - where the emphasis is on paying money to offset one's own lifestyle, in much the same way that wealthy people in the Middle Ages would pay for 'Indulgences' that forgave them their sins - highlights the individuated and self-regarding streak in the Politics of Being Green.

As the world grows increasingly complicated, and the effects of my actions have the potential to lead to unanticipated negative consequences, I wonder: how do I go about living a life that is in shalom (in peace, in harmony, corresponding to the way God intended it to be) with the created world and with other created beings?

*The U2 Bon Jovi campaign that designates certain products as RED-- if you purchase them, a certain (oftentimes meager) amount of the profits will go towards helping out with the AIDS crisis in Africa. For more information and commentary, please see my entry on Campaign Red.
** Take a look at Selfish Giving.
*** A large megachurch in the United States donated millions of dollars to development and aid in Rwanda (I believe....). Though the immediate impact was helpful, its long-term effects were devastating. It completely destroyed the micro-finance industry and many businesses, because of all the "free money" available. If you dump a lot of fish somewhere, people might forget how to fish.
**** Other links to pursue: Wikipedia's entry on carbon offsets, Nonprofit Eye's commentary on fundraising events (be sure to read the comments). Feel free to add more links in the comments.

through a glass (or bars) darkly

You see the world as you are, not as it really is.

The remark above was made by William Chaney, Director of Volunteer Services at the City of Philadelphia Prison System, when commenting on what made certain released inmates work towards change, and what made others commit crimes again and end up reincarcerated. (Reincarceration rates in Philadephia hovers around 60%.)

It was refreshing to hear the critical role that an individual’s beliefs play in affecting their behavior. Ultimately, what mattered was not the social services or programs available (though they definitely helped), but what the individual believed the world was like.

If we grow up surrounded by opportunity, naturally we are more inclined to believe the world is full of chances for improving our lives. However, if we grow up surrounded by failure, we are more inclined to believe that there isn’t much hope, and that the world is against us. So why bother through the tedious process of reforming ourselves when it probably would end disastrously anyways? (80 hour weeks and a subsistence standard of living.)

I hope that our society continues towards making prisons more rehabilitative, that justice can be administered without being destructive. If we treat prisoners and criminals as such, they will probably continue to be such. If we treat them as people with the potential to be valuable citizens in our society, then perhaps they can grow into the crowns we hold over their heads.**

When an individual changes, the world changes.

* For more discussion on this topic, check out this article in the Boston Review: Why Are So Many Americans in Prison.

** Though, interestingly enough, William Chaney commented that he thought things were getting worse on whole, though there was still hope for individuals.

*** I apologize for my long absence (nearly a month!). I don’t know what exactly was the cause of it, but no for awhile I didn’t have any inclinations to write, despite the fact that I’ve been heavily reading (usually the more I read, the more I blog). Perhaps I felt that the books said all the things I wanted to say, just more eloquently worded.

book reviews (first half of 2007)

I feel a bit self-conscious posting up my little book reviews, given the amount of debates that have been going on about the value of literary blogs vs. formal publications. But you can never beat a recommendation by a friend. This is by no means an authoritative judgment of the quality of books, but just my little subjective perspective on the world of words. These reviews are also being posted up on Good Reads where I encourage you to befriend me. The premise of the site is great—letting you see what books your friends have read, but the navigation and layout is awful. In any case, I have high hopes that they will improve. I am also using their star rating system:

* didn’t like it
** it was ok
*** liked it
**** really liked it
***** it was amazing

On a side note, I’m also beginning to use the library again. College put me in a mode where I had to buy all my books, but that’s just not financially or physically feasible (I already own way too many books), especially when there’s no need for me to highlight every single word in a book. I love library cards. And library book sales! I purchased DeLillo’s hardcover edition of Underworld for $1!

Fiction

***** The Remains of the Day (Kazuo Ishiguro) ~ This book is the first I’ve read of Kazuo Ishiguro. It’s also the first book that really rejuvenated my delight of reading after months of fumbling through books that just didn’t quite grab my attention. What can I say? This book is really good! A very subtle biography and psychological study. A butler nearing the end of his life reflects upon his life in service and the choices that he has made, and questions whether or not any of it had meaning….

** Blindness (Jose Saramago) ~ I was attracted to this book because of its premise. A blindness plague strikes a nameless city and people become blind one by one and are quarantined. Although Saramago is an excellent writer, the book did not live up to my expectations. Though it was fairly enjoyable to read and certain scenes are narrated incredibly well, the book didn’t leave me feeling satisfied or amazed. Its central message was rather cliché and drilled into the reader rather awkwardly —a humanistic exposition of our capacity for both evil and good, and a reflection on the fragility of life.

**** Name of the Rose (Umberto Eco) ~ Two monks investigate a series of murders that take place in a monastery—a body is found at the foot of a cliff, another body is stuck in gigantic jar of pig’s blood and so forth. The resolution to the mystery is just as much a philosophical pondering as it is an answer to the question “whodunit”. This book was very enjoyable and quite a page turner… once you can get back the first 100 pages and manage to skip over the long sections of medieval history. It also offers quite a bit of food for thought in terms of thinking through modernism, rationalism and sign theory.

* Robinson Crusoe (Daniel Defoe) ~ I think some very important dead white guy said something about this book being one of the greatest ever. I can’t quite say, as an Asian female that is quite alive, that I found the same appeal. If anything, the book is long and boring and took me forever to read, more along the styles of a documentary than a narrative. There are huge sections dedicated to the daily adventures of Robinson Crusoe as he figures out how to survive alone on a desert island and build his little habitation. What perhaps is of greater value are the sections that talk about how he thinks about himself as the master of the island and his remarks about civilizing the barbarian cannibals and his famous servant Friday, which demonstrate the “racist” imperial outlook of that time. (I put racist in quotation marks because back then, it was so engrained in culture that calling someone racist ceases to really have meaning). In any case, I read this book because it has been analyzed, critiqued and parodied by so many colonial and post-colonial writers and academics. I guess aside from adding one more checkbox to the list of books I’ve read from the Western canon, I can’t say I derived that much more enjoyment from this book.

*** Never Let Me Go (Kazuo Ishiguro) ~ As one would expect from Ishiguro, this book is very subtle and understated. It tells the story of a sheltered and idyllic childhood at a boarding school. The only twist is that the kids are clones, raised to have their vital organs harvested in a series of “donations”. Not quite as good as “The Remains of the Day”, this book does present a chilling image of the atrocities we are capable of inflicting upon others for the sake of our comfort and security. And how that system or practices of injustice are so engrained (and not questioned) in society that it’s very hard to imagine anything otherwise. (Sweatshops and the garment industry comes to mind).

**** Bonfire of the Vanities (Tom Wolfe) ~ Sherman McCoy, a hot-shot bond tradesman, living the upper-echelon life of New York City, gets entangled in a messy hit-and-run accident. Wolfe writes cynically about New York society in the eighties, from the rich Upper East Siders (“hemorrhaging” away money) to the Bronx County attorney to the Harlem preacher. This book reveals an excellent snapshot of all the different politics at play in that era. Wolfe has quite the gift of vividly depicting memorable (and despicable) characters. The book also happens to be a pageturner and incredibly funny.

*** Galapagos (Kurt Vonnegut) ~ Oftentimes, we forget that we ourselves have a “culture”, in that the practices we engage in, the underlying assumptions in our value systems, are not universal but rather can appear very strange to someone from a different culture. Vonnegut takes this idea about a million years into the future and writes a novel commenting on human evolution over one million years going forward. In effect, he comically reflects on the strangeness of the complicated way we live our lives today. This book is very funny and enjoyable, and though it offers no groundbreaking insight, it certainly forces you to question and rethink the benefits of being a homo sapien.

*** Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (J.K. Rowling) ~ ***SPOILERS*** Though if by now, you’ve either read the book, or have not read the book but do not care enough if the ending is spoiled for you. In any case, I guess I found the book a little too predictable. Everything that you would expect to happen happened so it lacked the surprising plot twists that made the other volumes of Harry Potter so delightful. And the epilogue was cheesy. I also felt I should have read back a few volumes so I could remember all the characters and past events and objects. That being said, the book was still fun and I always enjoy finding out about new magical objects such as the Deathly Hallows.

Non-fiction

*** Fit to be Tied (Bill & Lynne Hybels) ~ Despite a cheesy cover and a cheesy title, this book on marriages contains some really important and valuable insight. Bill and Lynne, the writers of the book, have had a twenty year marriage that started off with 10 very rocky years. They pass along the lessons they have learned throughout marriage – from understanding personality differences, to communication, to conflict resolution, to forgiveness—there’s a huge focus on the importance of having a spirit of reconciliation. Their advice for deciding who to marry is a little lacking-- it focuses primarily on waiting and waiting and making sure, and fails to delve into the more intangible and difficult to explain matters of calling.

*** Anime from Akira to Howl’s Moving Castle: Experiencing Contemporary Japanese Animation (Susan Napier) ~ This book offers critical analysis of various mainstream anime films and books, such as Spirited Away, Ramna ½, Akira, Ghost in the Shell. It focuses mainly on the mode of different animes (carnival, elegiac, and apocalyptic) and analyzes them in light of identity theory and contemporary Japanese society. It’s enjoyable to skim through and to reflect upon, but like much criticism out there, this book is full of “interesting insight”, but leaves the big questions unanswered. There is no response to the question “so what’s the point of all this?” beyond cocktail and coffee shop conversation.

** Blue like Jazz (Donald Miller) ~ I have to admit, this book didn’t quite live up to the hype, but it may also be do to the fact that I read this several years after it came out. What was very novel and refreshing to read in Christian literature a few years ago is fairly common now, or atleast in the circles I run in, so many of Donald Miller’s ideas now seem cliché. In general though, I feel like Miller was trying too hard to be “cool” and “clever” and “postmodern”. All that being said, he does have a very approachable and easy-going style, and offers a refreshing perspective on Christianity for those who are accustomed to thinking of it as conservative Republicans opposed to dancing and drinking. Miller has an excellent way of illustrating his ideas through anecdotes and offers little well-written nuggets of insight, that though heavy-handed, are usually concise, memorable and true.

**** A History of US: All the People (Joy Hakim) ~ This is one of the last books in a series called “A History of US”, books on American history written for children middle school age or younger. I’m not usually a history fan since I usually can never remember anything and it all ends up being facts and figures. However, this book related the past in terms of how it leads us to where we are today, offering a historical and narrative context to our situation today. In some ways, I felt like I was reading about America today, rather than the past. Hakim also does a great job of appealing to young readers (and old ones like me!) by making different events and historical figures seem really interesting and inviting the reader into imagining themselves into those times. It also poses a lot of critical questions towards our current day assumptions. And it has pictures! My only criticism would be that it tends to jump around episodically quite a bit and does not connect the events together as well.

what little money can buy

I was asking a friend who works at a recent start-up nonprofit in Philadelphia how her organization is funded. I was surprised to discover that… it basically had no funding. Basically, the nonprofit is operating off one small grant that goes towards my friend's salary. However, at this point, she only has about a month and a half of salary left to go, and is facing the prospect of a potential leave of absence. The building where they operate is owned by a board member who does not charge rent. The nonprofit has less than $400 in their bank account and is currently applying for grants and appealing for contributions, though none have been confirmed so far.

Yet, the lack of resources has opened doors for more community involvement. The nonprofit has been blessed with volunteers who are excited to be there and offer their time and commitment. Others have given generously, including donating beautiful plants for a backyard garden. It seems that people in the neighborhood have begun to invest in and take ownership in what the non-profit is doing in the area.

While many nonprofits may have stronger financial footing, they fail to connect with their neighbourhood. With greater resources, they often get perceived as some outsider trying to "save the poor black kids in lower-income neighbourhood". So despite financial difficulties, my friend's organization seems to be doing well in connecting with the neighborhood, by allowing the neighbourhood to help it, instead of always the other way around.

Sometimes, it's better to enter in humility with little to offer, because it allows the community to give (That was Jesus's model). Sometimes, it's better to enter with little money, because there's a lot that it cannot do. In fact, money often brings out the worst in people, while not having it frequently brings out the best. *

*That being said, unless an organization is willing to depend on God's provision daily (which some do do), a financially precarious situation is not desirable for long-term sustainability. So I hope that my friend's nonprofit is able to secure more reliable funding in the future. But while it isn't there, I hope that not having money will be just as valuable as having it.

**The main ideas in this post is built on John McKnight's book "The Careless Society", which I highly recommend.

what dreams are made of

Do you remember the crazy things you dreamed you would become when you were little? The dreams that you leave behind you as you come to grasp the limitations of your circumstances and your abilities. The dreams that get discarded as you realize how foolish and delusional it is to continue trying to reach those castles in the sky.

When I was young, I wanted to be an Olympic figure skater. Then, when I realized that if I couldn't do any double jumps at the age of 12 and my mother was unwilling to spend thousands of dollars a years for training, it just wasn't going to happen. Then I went through all the other usual aspirations: I entertained myself as a famous movie star, a song-writer, a movie director. And now I find myself embarrassed to admit that I wanted to be all these silly things.

And now as I enter adulthood, and find myself flirting with the prospect of settling with a pleasant life—a husband, potentially 2.5 kids, a good job. I feel myself slowly letting go of aspirations to become a writer, a professor, a cultural critic...

And as I let go of these little bundles of dreams, or atleast, hold them a little less tightly, I wonder… to what degree have I come to an acceptance of my limitations? To what degree have I begun to realize the superficiality and banality of the things I aspire to be and the selfishness that motivates me in achieving them? To what degree, has letting go of these dreams allowed me to appreciate and understand the true joys of life in marriage, friendship and children? And to what degree have I given up on striving for something truly meaningful (something that God has intended for me to do) and resigned myself for something safe and comfortable?

everyone else is doing it

I’ve been reading a children’s book on American history and was struck by how recent the civil rights movement in the United States was. For some reason, the days of MLK and Rosa Parks seem far and distant to me, but they happened only a generation away.

When segregation ended in school, black students were taunted, mocked, and physically abused as they entered into formerly white schools. During the bus boycotts in Montgomery, houses were burned, churches were bombed and blacks were arrested en masse and put into jail. It wasn’t just a few stray individuals, but large portions of the society, many of whom were culturally Christian, that inflicted such violence. Attitudes and action that are so clearly “wrong” for us were completely acceptable then. They were the pattern of their world.

“Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.”

I think that verse of scripture is often used nowadays to refer to excessive drinking and drugs and promiscuous sex. But I think “the pattern of the world” runs much deeper than a set of external behaviors. What accepted actions of our society today will be judged harshly in the future? What assumptions and attitudes do we hold today that will be deemed completely wrong tomorrow?

If we as Christians are to be salt and light to the earth, we are to live with critical minds, minds that test and question what we see and hear, from both society at large and the church. We must refuse to say that anything is acceptable simply because everyone else is doing it. If we are to bring God’s kingdom of justice and love down onto earth, then we must be wary of this world.

what money can't buy

Raising kids well is hard work. In fact, it’s probably one of the hardest things that we can ever do. We want them to become attractive, well-adjusted, intelligent and successful adults.

In recent years, parents have flocked to buy various electronic toys for their children in hopes of boosting their intelligence and ultimately improving their chances of success. However, evidence begins to suggest that all these gadgets and toys are more likely to be damaging to a child’s development.

“But two recent studies suggest that the oft-touted educational benefits of such toys are illusory, and child development experts caution that kiddie electronics, even those bought purely for entertainment, can have negative side effects such as inhibiting creativity and promoting short attention spans… Electronic toys remove social interaction and in many respects may inhibit creativity. The toy provides the fantasy and removes the opportunity for a child to mentally produce something hypothetical or imagined.”*

In the end of the day, what kids need, is not the newest and latest educational toy featuring Curious George and Thomas the Tank Engine. They need a childhood where they can be free, with grass, bugs and dirt, maybe a few simple toys, and the wonders of their imagination. Less is more. Because when we’re not consumed by objects and waiting to be entertained, we’re given the opportunity to make our own fun.**

* From "Sucker-Me-Elmo" by Christine Rosen on The New Atlantis

**On a side note, I was browsing a book called Buy, Buy Baby: How Consumer Culture Manipulates Parents and Harms Young Minds, which mentions a whole “princess cult” surrounding Disney movies (Ariel, Jasmine, Belle etc…), where little girls aspire and want to be princesses. Cinderella is by far the most popular. Ironically, little girls forget all about Cinderella’s qualities that made her worthy to be a princess (her humility and her hard work), and instead end up cranky and spoiled, whining after the latest Disney merchandise, a character disposition more akin to the stepsisters.

***My family was fairly poor when I was little. I was more than happy with my library books, my backyard, my old and used toys. It was only when I saw more commercials and kids with toys cooler than mine that discontent began to stir.

the simple way: petition for green space

dear all,

some of you may have heard on the news that a large fire burned down an abandoned factory and a surrounding 8 or 9 houses in the kensington area in philadelphia.

my friend (and perhaps your friend too) has been involved with the simple way, a grassroots christian nonprofit in the area. (some of you may know the founder of the organization shane claiborne, author of "the irresistible revolution"). the "staff" of this nonprofit work part-time jobs elsewhere and spend rest of their time devoted to the neighborhood, doing stuff like after school programs and community gardens. (one of their two houses was actually burned down in the fire).

the simple way, along with the neighborhood is currently petitioning the government to turn the area where the factory once stood into a park for the neighbourhood. there is no green space in the area for kids to play in.

please consider signing it!

their petition as well as additional information and links to philadelphia inquirer news articles are available at their website.

regards,
your friendly neighborhood blogger

i like this website

Houtlust is a blog that regular posts nonprofit advertising and social campaigning ads that are particularly outstanding.

A recent favourite: Basics for a New Home, a spoof series on Louis (or is it Luis?) Vuitton handbag ads.

p.s.

oh by the way, I also got engaged.
several months ago in fact.

a liberal helping of change

Thus, the people who are the public voice of American liberalism rarely have any real connection to the ordinary working people whose interests they putatively champion. They tend instead to be well-off, college-educated yuppies from California or the East Coast, and hard as they try to worry about food stamps or veterans’ rights or securing federal assistance for heating oil bills, they invariably gravitate instead to things that actually matter to them – like the slick Al Gore documentary on global warming.

...

“Unfortunately, today, when you talk about the ‘American left,’” he says, “as often as not you’re talking about wealthy folks who are concerned about the environment (which is enormously important) who are concerned about women’s rights (which are enormously important) and who are concerned about gay rights (which are enormously important).

“But you’re not really referring to millions of workers who have lost their jobs because of disastrous trade agreements,” he says. “You’re not talking about waitresses who are working for four bucks an hour.” As often as not, he says, you’re talking about “sophisticated people who have money.”

...

A hell of a lot of what the left does these days is tediously lecture middle America about how wrong it is, loudly snorting at a stubbornly unchanging litany of Republican villains. There’s a weirdly indulgent tone to all of this Bush-bashing that goes on in lefty media, a tone that’s not only annoyingly predictable in its pervasiveness, but a turnoff to people who might have tuned in to that channel in search of something else.

...

Rich liberals protesting the establishment is absurd because they are the establishment; they’re just too embarrassed to admit it. When they start embracing their position of privilege and taking responsibility for the power they already have – striving to be the leaders of society they actually are, instead of playing at being aggrieved subjects – they’ll come across as wise and patriotic citizens, not like the terminally adolescent buffoons trapped in a corny sixties daydream they often seem to be now.

~ excerpts from the article The American Left's Silly Victim Complex by Matt Taibbi on Adbusters

~

This articles touches upon alot of what annoys me about "liberals" in contemporary American culture. It's quite cool and trendy to be liberal, and sometimes I'm tempted to call myself one. But I try to remind myself, that at the end of the day, regardless what I call myself, I am in a position of amazing privilege in this world. I am part of the establishment. I am part of the problem as much as I can potentially be part of the solution.

~

When we were done, I started wondering if we had accomplished anything. I started wondering whether we could actually change the world. I mean, of course we could -- we could change our buying habits, elect socially conscious representatives and that sort of thing, but I honestly don't believe we will be solving the greater human conflict with our efforts. The problem is not a certain type of legislation or even a certain politician; the problem is the same that it has always been.

I am the problem.

I think every conscious person, every person who is awake to the functioning principles within his reality, has a moment where he stops blaming the problems in the world on group think, on humanity and authority, and starts to face himself. The problem is not out there; the problem is the needy beast of a thing that lives in my chest.

The thing I realized on the day we protested, was that it did me no good to protest America's responsibility in global poverty when I wasn't even giving money to my church, which has a terrific homeless ministry.

I tried to get my head around this idea, this idea that the problem of the universe lives within me. I can't think of anything more progressive than the embrace of this fundamental idea.

~ Donald Miller on leaving a protest against a World Bank meeting in Blue like Jazz

A man on a park bench in Rittenhouse Square spoke to me in a soft gentle voice today. He mentioned something about wanting to buy something at WaWa. I wasn't listening very closely. I don't like giving money. I don't like changing my plans for others. So I walked away, without hearing the rest of what he had to say. Heart hardened. No, not even hardened, just dead.

making money matter more

(RED)

Because of some reading I was doing today on the (RED) campaign, I stumbled across Gap Inc.'s social responsibility page, which is full of fancy smooth language about their efforts in improving factory conditions. I'm wondering what to make of it, since most of the language is so vague I'm suspecting it's full of crap. (Check out what's written about the Gap at Responsible Shopper: http://www.coopamerica.org/programs/rs/profile.cfm?id=229)

There's a website/non-profit called Buy Less Crap that criticizes the (RED) campaign, which if I'm not mistaken, designates certain consumer items with RED, indicating that proceeds from the purchase of that item will be donated towards combating AIDS in Africa and other causes. Various news sources have highlighted the fact that more money was spent on these advertising campaigns than actually donated. However, other bloggers have indicated that there are residual effects from this campaign that are positive-- raising awareness of AIDS in Africa and increasing the connection between sales and corporate social responsibility.

So who knows whether Gap Inc. is honestly pursuing social responsibility or whether it's a slick cover-up of a really despairing truth or whether it's just another corporate strategy to sell more stuff? I don't think Dov Charney of American Apparel actually cares very much about social responsibility. I think he just found a good way to distinguish his line of clothing and make money. And philanthropy is an industry that sells moral feel-good and social status, but in the end, it funnels money to a variety of good causes. Perhaps in this broken world, we can't avoid broken ways altogether.*

If being socially responsible really means greater profits, then corporations will pursue that route and perhaps there will be some benefits to our society. So to some degree, I appreciate the fact that Gap Inc. is atleast trying to be vaguely "socially responsible" (let's be honest though-- minimum wage in Thailand isn't much), even if it may be more publicity than truth. It's a step in the right direction. *

But for us as consumers, we have to be careful that we don't just believe what the marketers say. We have to investigate deeper than some company's social responsibility website. And for us as individuals with agency, to remember Buy (Less) Crap's open invitation "Join us in rejecting the ti(RED) notion that shopping is a reasonable response to human suffering". Believe it or not, it's more effective to give money to a good cause directly than it is to give it indirectly via (RED).

*Though how do we go forward acknowledging the good that broken ways achieve, while still striving for better ways to do more good?


** All that being said, even if Gap Inc. were producing their clothing ethically, I don't particularly feel the urge to rush back into those store doors and start shopping. It's relieving to have an easy reason to say no to a store. My sweatshop-free year (it's almost been a year) may not have freed many indentured servants laboring in garment factories, but it's certainly helped free me a bit from the constant desire of wanting more, and is teaching me how to be content with what I have.
*** In the meantime, I've recently found a few garments in Zara produced in Cambodia, so their entire "stream-lined in Spain" doesn't seem to hold true. I'm disappointed.

touchy subject

Being a financial analyst by occupation and a writer/reader at heart, I usually work with the substances that cannot be touched. Abstract numbers, thoughts and ideas, shuttling back and forth from computer screen to paper to words. It is work that I have to continuously interpret to others, with more words, in order to explain its value. Sometimes, it's just so refreshing to just be able to hold something in my hands and not feel obliged to say anything at all.

Tom Wolfe, in his novel The Bonfire of the Vanities, illustrates the simplicity and the intrinsic value of working with the tangible. Sherman McCoy is a hotshot bond salesman at one of the top investment banks in New York, but struggles to tell his daughter Campbell exactly what he does*:

"Daddy... what do you do?"
What did he do?
"Do? What do you mean, sweetheart?"
"Well, MacKenzie's daddy makes books, and he has eighty people working for him."
"Oh ho! Eighty people!" said Sherman's father, in the voice he used for small children. "My, my, my!"
Sherman could imagine what the Lion (his father) thought of Garland Reed. Garland had inherited his father's printing business and for ten years had done nothing with it but keep it alive. The "books" he "made" were printing jobs given him by the actual publishers and the products were as likely to be manuals, club rosters, corporate contracts, and annual reports as anything remotely literary. As for the eighty people-- eighty ink-stained wretches was more like it, typesetters, pressmen, and so forth. At the height of his career the Lion had had two hundred Wall Street lawyers under his whip, most of them Ivy League.
"But what do you do?" asked Campbell, now growing impatient. She wanted to get back to MacKenzie to give her report, and something impressive was clearly called for.
"Well, I deal in bonds, sweetheart. I buy them, I sell them, I --"
"What are bonds? What is deal?"
Now his mother began laughing. "You've got to do better than that, Sherman!"
"Well, honey, bonds are -- a bond is -- well, let me see, what's the best way to explain it to you."
"Explain it to me, too, Sherman," said his father. "I must have done 5000 leveraged purchase contracts, and I always fell asleep before I could figure out why anyone wanted the bonds."
"Your grandfather's only joking, honey." He shot his father a sharp look. "A bond is a way of loaning people money. Let's say you want to build a road, and it's not a little road but a big highway, like the highway we took up to Maine last summer. Or you want to build a big hospital. Well, that requires a lot of money, more money than you could ever get by just going to a bank. So what you do is, you issue what are called bonds."
"You build roads and hospitals, Daddy? That's what you do?"
Now both his father and mother started laughing. He gave them openly reproachful looks, which only made them merrier. His wife was smiling with what appeared to be a sympathetic twinkle.
"No, I don't actually build them, sweetheart. I handle the bonds, and the bonds are what make it possible-- "
"You help build them?"
"Well, in a way."
"Which ones?"
"Which ones?"
"You said roads and hospitals."
"Well, not any one specifically."
"The road to Maine?"

Later on, Sherman speaks to his wife who is an interior decorator for rich people.
"Well... atleast you're able to point to something you've done, something tangible, something clear-cut-- Even if it's for people who are shallow and vain, it's something real, something describable, something contributing to simple human satisfaction, no matter how meretricious and temporary, something you can at least explain to your children. I mean, at my company, what on earth do you tell each other you do every day?"

*This a cut excerpt from the novel. A lot of the detail has been eliminated. This is an excellent book by the way- page turner yet also an incredibly incisive social critique of New York in the eighties.
** Another notable quotable from the book: "She was thinking about the way men are in New York. Every time you go out with one, you have to sit there and listen to two or three hours of My Career first."
*** Perhaps these pictures are evidence of my only real achievements during my own New York sojourn.

lost in television

Yesterday, Matt and I finally finished watching three seasons of Lost. We started watching early March, and have been watching through some sixty or so episodes in the last three months.

Though part of me longs to watch more and find out more about the show, the rest of me is relieved that this too is over. I have felt chained to the television for the last three months. It was fun and entertaining at first, an enjoyable activity that Matt and I could share with each other. But soon it became an all too easy and comfortable answer to the question "What should we do together?" And though we would spend hours together, we would feel like we had not spent any quality time together at all, since we had spent those hours staring passively at a television screen.

It was easy to get used to being entertained and letting the hours pass, instead of finding creative ways to spend meaningful time together. It was easy to slip into a mode where television controlled us and not the other way around.

Recently, Ray Bradbury clarified that his novel, Fahrenheit 451, which describes an authoritarian society where books are burned, is not about government censorship, but about the dulling effects of television. The government does not use televisions as a medium of control, but rather the people choose it as an easy opiate. The fireman in the novel says "We give them what they want".

Books require too much work, too much active engagement. Television is an easy answer to all the difficult questions we may have, because it allows us to forget about them and escape into the world of special effects and good-looking actors. And so the books burn.*

I am looking forward to life without a television and without Lost. No longer can I cope with my boredom or loneliness with a flip of a remote control, letting the colours and sounds wash over me. No longer can I forget about my fears and problems by distracting myself with some mediocore tv program. Instead, I might actually be able to find some real solutions.




* More on his website and in an article in the LA Times:.
** And by the way, I actually like Lost alot. I think it's a great show. I just didn't like how it semi-dominated all my free time for three whole months. :P