Sociological Images

Peeped one of Lunch-meet's magazines the other day. The Indian edition of Elle. In it was an article about transracial adoptions with the following lede:

Throughout her childhood, her white foster mother's assurances that she was "not really black", made author Precious Williams believe that her skin colour was something unpleasant. That's why reading about transracial adoptions by celebrities fills her with dread.

Yes, folks. This was the illustration they chose to put above the title. Ho ho!

And the piece de resistance, a bloody advert for skin-lightening sunscreen on the page right after the article, because, folks, dark skin really is unpleasant. All one need do is feign horror at those who express such a view openly (and, possibly, keep your fairness cream out of plain sight).

They Were Surely Mad

It’s dark. I was heading to my friend's apartment, and walking up the stairs behind an Indian lady...

Their Tears Are Sweet to Behold

Somebody call the fucking Waaahmbulance for the editors at the Wall Street Journal. Those dirty little commie bastards at The Guardian are taking baseball bats to kneecaps and they don't like it one bit:

We also trust that readers can see through the commercial and ideological motives of our competitor-critics. The Schadenfreude is so thick you can't cut it with a chainsaw. Especially redolent are lectures about journalistic standards from publications that give Julian Assange and WikiLeaks their moral imprimatur. They want their readers to believe, based on no evidence, that the tabloid excesses of one publication somehow tarnish thousands of other News Corp. journalists across the world.

"Competitor-critics"? Spare me. 

Of course, those meanies at The Guardian couldn't help but clap back. If those clowns in Congress get their act together on the whole debt ceiling thing, I might actually be able to enjoy the schadenfreude.

Sociological Images

Get thee away from me, thou foul and dark creature!

Class Warfare

The office was out of toilet roll today, so I ended up using newspaper. Had the pleasure of cleaning up with Lloyd Blankfein’s face.

…

Don't give me that look.

Job Creation

“The wheels turn slower in India, you’ll have to take the time to get used to this.” – Rahu 

When you have a population of over a billy, how do you keep as much of it as you can in employment? Some will point to India’s vast informal economy. Fools! After nearly two weeks in the country I am supremely qualified to ask that we consider the Indian civil service – To the peeps at the shiyakusho: all is forgiven! 

Every foreigner who will be residing in India for 180 days or longer has to register at their local Foreign Residents Registry Office within 14 days of their arrival. Without a foreigner registry card you can’t do much of anything that requires some kind of contract: bank accounts, phone lines, home internet, and the like. Needless to say that without these it would be very difficult to do my thing. 

My experience of Indian bureaucracy to date has convinced me – for the moment – that the whole thing is one giant middle-class growing perpetunator™. Lawd knows what use there was, apart from the salaries, for the layers that stood between me and my foreigner card.

The Wife

Shasti

I’ve been spending a lot of time with my colleague, another newbie; let’s call her Shasti. We're sharing a service apartment until we find more permanent accommodation. We went for a walkabout the other day, which was fucking hilarious. She wanted to open a bank account and I think we damn near scandalised the whole bank looking like the oddest couple. Me in my shorts and yellow t-shirt, contrasting with my dark brown skin. She in her turquoise salwar kameez. A glowing, youthful face juxtaposed with a significant number of snow-white locks. The looks on people’s faces suggested they were trying to figure out precisely what our relationship was: Sugar mama, wife, illicit lover?

Indians Don't Stare

Indians don’t stare. I’ve noticed a few older people and young kids give long glances of curiosity, but for the most part – in my experience of a mere 7 days. Yes, I’m a dadburned expert in Indian culture now! – Indians, more precisely Bangaloreans, don’t stare. 

They might be thinking all sorts of shit about darkest Africa when they see me on the street, but so far no one has given me a look like they know all about “my kind”, no woman has given me furtive glances, or cowered in fear at my proximity, no one has crossed the street upon seeing me come towards them, and no one has damn near caused a traffic accident rubbernecking. 

So far it’s been a nice contrast to some parts of Londinium and Japan. I love my Japanese brothers and sisters, but sometimes… 

…

I give it one month before I’m venting about Indians in the same way. Or perhaps not. Maybe here the fumduckery starts at two black men walking down the street.

言ったはずだ。

Eamon Fingleton discusses "The myth of Japan's 'lost decades'" over at The Atlantic. Interesting piece - think the South Park episode where the Japanese claim they have small penises to deflect attention from their plans of world domination. I was talking about it with a friend and we didn't think it quite passed the smell test. Our conversation is after the jump.

Discussions in Black History Month: On Black Conservatives

During the six months or so of my fruitless job hunting in the US, my friends and I used to joke about getting a job as a Black Conservative. It seems to be a growing industry in the age of Obama. I would ride the monster of American history to financial stability. All I'd need do is stand looking at myself in the mirror after an evening of slagging off black people for fun and profit.

Discussions in Black History Month: Those Who Don't Want To Know

While living in the United States I came to think that much of the energies of the national psyche are directed towards pretending the existence of African Americans and related structural inequalities does not signify evidence of some of the greatest crimes in their country's history.

It is, in my opinion, precisely this failure to wrestle the monster of history that leads to things like the Mississippi Sons of Confederate Veterans' efforts to have the state issue specialty license plates honoring an early leader of the Klu Klux Klan - Mississippi is the state with the highest proportion of African American residents.

I'm having a hard time understanding why anyone would want to honour a man who ran a "Negro Mart", and conspired to enslave millions of human beings. Those are his accomplisments. If, as his defenders argue, his last minute expression of regret is supposed to wipe the slate clean, what is there left to celebrate?

Clearly A Mossad Plot

... I found the clip below about two separate recordings of a UFO above the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem mildly interesting. 

Probably not Elohim, folks. If it were, I'd definitely be left wondering why it doesn't have better things to do than faff around over a temple. 

I give it three days before my brother-in-law comes in with a grin that says: explain this one away, insipiens!

So Let Me Get This Straight...

You fell off a ladder and broke your leg while looking at a house -you didn't have permission to be in that house, but the owners did you a big favour and decided not to press charges. You waited until the statute of limitations on a trespassing charge ran out, then sued the homeowners for negligence?

Arsehole. 

H/T: Mistermix.

Human Ingenuity

I was impressed with this effort by Colombian drug smugglers.


I can only imagine what ingenious methods have been cooked up by Nigerians. "Pigeons? We off that. But if you insist, here's a formula for assigning appropriately weighted loads to each bird.... That'll be $1000 for the consultation."

It was only a matter of time... (cont.)

You may remember my post last year about Chatroulette, a site that lets you have video chats with random strangers. It seems the site owners have finally figured out a way to make money out of all the guys who like to... perform... over the webcam. Surprised it took them so long:

The onslaught of disgusting naked men that seemingly destroyed interest in Chatroulette is now earning the site $100,000 a month. After being flagged by other users a certain number of times, the masturbators — there are about 50,000 on the site every day — are automatically redirected to adult pay sites with which Chatroulette has made agreements. The site's founder, Andrey Ternovskiy, claims that you'll run into a penis only once an hour now — still more surprise penises than you typically experience in an hour outside of Chatroulette, but a vast improvement nonetheless.

H/T

Rethinking Russian Humour

I remember a friend of mine regaling me with tales of her experiences in the Soviet Union, and trying to get me to understand the unique aspects of Russian humour... I laughed at none of the punchlines. I think I may have seen the light, because this dig at the US over Wikileaks has me in stitches.

The Chinese basically got all pissy at what they perceived as Western sanctimony, and went and staged their own awards ceremony, The Confucius Prize. This latest salvo by the Russian government uses Assange - a man I'm sure they'd like to discover has come up missing - to expose the kind of  hypocrisy they would like to keep hidden in the case of their own interests. You have to laugh.

Wikileaks

Can't really say I have too much beef with them. Secretary Clinton's claims that this latest release of data has put lives at risk are an exaggeration, methinks. And only serves to make me tune out the politicians falling over themselves to condemn Julian Assange in the strongest terms possible.

I got a kick out of news that many leaders in the Arab world, wanted the U.S. to take action against Iran's nuclear programme. Mark Klieman's comment elicited a good laugh:

... the Saudis (and our other Arab quasi-friends) are willing to fight Iran to the last American.

 A hit! A palpable hit! Perhaps it's because I've been in such a foul mood lately that I find this whole brouhaha rather amusing.

Simple Answers to Simple Stupid Questions Cont.

After quoting this post from Juan Cole:

Rep. John Shimkus (R-Ill.), who will seek the Energy and Commerce Committee chairmanship maintains that we do not have to worry about climate change because God promised in the Bible not to destroy the world again after Noah’s flood.

About half the newly elected Congressmen are climate deniers (and if past experience is any guide, about a third of them are criminals).

 John Cole asks:

Do other nations look at us and just laugh?

Basically yes, until we realise what the fumduckery of your lawmakers may mean for the rest of us.

Crank Up The Wingnut Wurlwitzer!

I expect lots of crowing from the pundits about "the people" having delivered their verdict on the so-called big government tax and spend policies of the Obama administration, and I shall pay them no mind. I have little time for those who largely kept quiet while an inherited surplus was transformed into a structural deficit with  tax cuts, two wars, and a new programme - all unpaid for. Furthermore I'm quite certain that if you were to ask people specific policy questions they would not opt for a roll back of provisions for people with pre-existing conditions, nor for another transfer of wealth to the rich and super-rich through the Bush tax cuts. 

The economy sucks, incumbents always get soaked when the economy sucks. In fact considering how many people are hurting I'm surprised that the drubbing the Democrats received wasn't much worse 

What annoys me most about the result is that now the Republican leadership has no incentive whatsoever to actually get to grips with the business of governance. These knuckleheads spent the last two years ginning up fear about a secret muslim Kenyan socialist usurper, and they've been rewarded with control of the lower house of Congress and quite a few state legislatures - I expect some real wailing and gnashing of teeth when districts are redrawn. The next two years should be even more fun: crazy bills with no chance of making it through the senate and frivolous investigations (to keep the base nice and angry), increased legislative paralysis, the inaction and its consequences shamelessly blamed on Obama.

I can't wait!

Insidious

I've been away for a while on a holiday (of sorts) to Atlanta - more on that in later posts- so I've been trying my best to avoid the daily reads and the ensuing desire to give forth on them, but alas...

A few days after my arrival I noticed, quite by accident, an op-ed in the New York Times by John Edgar Wideman. The article details Wideman's experiences on the train between his home in New York City and his workplace in Providence:

Over the last four years, excluding summers, I have conducted a casual sociological experiment in which I am both participant and observer. It’s a survey I began not because I had some specific point to prove by gathering data to support it, but because I couldn’t avoid becoming aware of an obvious, disquieting truth.

Almost invariably, after I have hustled aboard early and occupied one half of a vacant double seat in the usually crowded quiet car, the empty place next to me will remain empty for the entire trip.

I’m a man of color, one of the few on the train and often the only one in the quiet car, and I’ve concluded that color explains a lot about my experience. Unless the car is nearly full, color will determine, even if it doesn’t exactly clarify, why 9 times out of 10 people will shun a free seat if it means sitting beside me.

The account was so similar to experiences I've had, and those of some of my acquaintances of colour, as to be banal. In hindsight, perhaps it would be nice if some readers became more mindful of their behaviour. Anyway, it wasn't saying anything I didn't already know so I didn't really pay the article any mind. I was therefore, rather taken aback by John McWorther's response.

It really is a thing of beauty.