There’s trouble in twin-town. Mary Kate Olsen wants her own place, her own identity, and her own college education. These videos shut down my office for 30 minutes. oops. Don’t tell Ben (he’s in Africa). – JJ
Very Mary-Kate: Extension from Mary-Kate Olsen on Vimeo.
Very Mary-Kate: Paper from Mary-Kate Olsen on Vimeo.
Very Mary-Kate: Baby from Mary-Kate Olsen on Vimeo.
This article by J. Wes Ulm, Harvard Medical School physician-researcher, argues that we should take a second glance at Darwin’s findings and consider the possibility that we have stretched them to fit a context he didn’t intend. Ulm urges us to “reconcile the seeming contradiction of a competitive society steeped in compassion.” Super interesting. Check. it. -Rebekah K.
From UTNE Reader:
Nice guys finish last. Survival of the fittest. Eat or be eaten. For Americans, such catchphrases strike familiar chords. Stemming from an unwieldy synthesis of social Darwinism and (until recently) trendy Chicago School economics, this ethos claims that mercilessly competitive conditions weed out the weak while preserving and enhancing the strongest members of an institution, a market, or a civilization. Roughness and ruthlessness render us more competitive, thicker-skinned, and simply better than the rest of the pack.
When this belief system bleeds over into the realm of political discourse, it transmogrifies into a paradoxical badge of honor, a disposition toward sink-or-swim hard-heartedness. “The public be damned!” William H. Vanderbilt famously told a reporter who asked the 19th-century tycoon about social responsibility. His sentiments can still be heard today, couched in PR-friendly euphemisms or offered as hearty retorts to the soft communitarianism of Scandinavia, Continental Europe, and Canada.
Of course, there have been dissenting voices. Progressive leaders in charge of the New Deal exemplified this spirit in the early 20th century. But dissenters have rarely questioned the premise of social Darwinism itself.
Even in the wake of the 2008 economic meltdown, opposition to the “cachet of the cutthroat” is generally confined to ethical qualms about the suffering and personal cost imposed on hard-pressed individuals and families—deploring the scale of the misery, rather than addressing its roots.
Across the ideological spectrum, prevailing wisdom holds that institutionalized harshness generates a more productive, adaptive, and wealthy society, with “liberalism” left to debate merely whether the resulting human collateral damage is an acceptable cost of doing business. Although moral objections are clearly relevant, the most devastating counterargument to the cachet of the cutthroat is that it is simply wrong.
If there is any lesson to be gleaned from the churn of society’s various “isms,” it is that both nature and human communities are too complex to reduce to a single, linear theory. So it is with the curious history of social Darwinism.
The work of the 19th-century naturalists Charles Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace led to a coherent theory of evolution by natural selection, culminating in Darwin’s 1859 publication of On the Origin of Species. Neither cast his work as a recommendation for the complex, fast-changing domain of human societies, populated by intelligent members whose conduct was guided by ethical codes.
For the rest of the article, go here.
Gil Scott-Heron: a revolutionary, and one of Jay-Z’s biggest influences. Here’s part of the reason why. – JJ
Check out this video from the Enough Project that helps explain the complex issue of conflict minerals. You may have already seen the commercial that has provoked discussion surrounding the production policies of electronic companies–and you can read a response from Steve Jobs here. While it’s not a promise to change a policy or anything, it’s an encouraging reminder that our voice as consumers can be effective in creating some sort of accountability. -Rebekah K.
Is this real life? Because it really feels like Michael Scott would sign up for this in an episode of The Office. -Rebekah K.
From CNN:
In China, white people can be rented.
For a day, a weekend, a week, up to even a month or two, Chinese companies are willing to pay high prices for fair-faced foreigners to join them as fake employees or business partners.
Some call it “White Guy Window Dressing.” To others, it’s known as the “White Guy in a Tie” events, “The Token White Guy Gig,” or, simply, a “Face Job.”
And it is, essentially, all about the age-old Chinese concept of face. To have a few foreigners hanging around means a company has prestige, money and the increasingly crucial connections — real or not — to businesses abroad.
“Face, we say in China, is more important than life itself,” said Zhang Haihua, author of “Think Like Chinese.” “Because Western countries are so developed, people think they are more well off, so people think that if a company can hire foreigners, it must have a lot of money and have very important connections overseas. So when they really want to impress someone, they may roll out a foreigner.”
Or rent one.
Last year, Jonathan Zatkin, an American actor who lives in Beijing, posed as the vice president of an Italian jewelry company that had, allegedly, been in a partnership with a Chinese jewelry chain for a decade.
Zatkin was paid 2,000 yuan (about $300) to fly, along with a couple of Russian models, to a small city in the central province of Henan where he delivered a speech for the grand opening ceremony of a jewelry store there.
“I was up on stage with the mayor of the town, and I made a speech about how wonderful it was to work with the company for 10 years and how we were so proud of all of the work they had done for us in China,” Zatkin said. “They put up a big bandstand and the whole town was there and some other local muckety-mucks.”
The requirements for these jobs are simple. 1. Be white. 2. Do not speak any Chinese, or really speak at all, unless asked. 3. Pretend like you just got off of an airplane yesterday.
Those who go for such gigs tend to be unemployed actors or models, part-time English teachers or other expats looking to earn a few extra bucks. Often they are jobs at a second- or third-tier city, where the presence of pale-faced foreigners is needed to impress local officials, secure a contract or simply to fulfill a claim of being international.
“Occasionally companies want a foreign face to go to meetings and conferences or to go to dinners and lunches and smile at the clients and shake people’s hands,” read an ad posted by a company called Rent A Laowai (Chinese for “foreigner”) on the online classified site thebeijinger.com.
It continued: “There are job opportunities for girls who are pretty and for men who can look good in a suit.”
Go here to read the rest of the article and to watch the video.
Although the Congo gained independence from Belgium 50 years ago, the country remains in a state of war, corruption, and poverty. BBC News featured photographer Stephan Vanfleteren’s photos and stories of the people of Congo, as a commemoration of how they embody hope and perseverance.
Abel, schools inspector, 71: “I should have retired in 2001, but people don’t retire anymore. So I’m still working. I’m a schools inspector. The monthly salary isn’t always paid. The teachers go hungry. The level of education is very low.”
Chance: “My mother is sick. She is in the hospital here. I don’t know what’s wrong with her. I don’t know my father, or where he is. I don’t know where I was born. I have been living here all my life, as far as I can remember.”
Seyota Ndamuso m’Rashagua , famer’s wife: “My husband died from hunger six years ago. Sometimes we had to give up our meager proceeds to soldiers. That was terrible, but it was better than a beating, or, worse still, having one of our children carried off.”
Jeans Berghmans Mushegerha, teacher, 50: “The educational level has deteriorated…They have no time to study as they have to work the land. Some are traumatized by the war. It’s my duty to prepare these children so this country can get back on its feet.”
For more photos and stories, go here.
We hope you’re ready…because Warped Tour 2010 has officially LAUNCHED! And coming soon to a city near you.
There are 60 PLUS bands featured this year, including The All-American Rejects as one of the headlining bands.
If you’re not convinced already, here’s a major reason why you should come, (besides getting to chill with Alex and Ivory, two of our favorite peops): Invisible Children will have a booth on the grounds and we’re launching a texting campaign with help from our sponsors at Starkey Hearing Foundation where you can help raise money for a girl’s dorm in Uganda.
Here’s the deal: TEXT “IC & Your Fave Warped Band” to 85944 to Donate $5. Reply YES to confirm donation.
All the money raised will go toward a girls’ dormitory at one of our partner schools in Uganda.
Also at our booth we’ll have some new tank tops and hats out on the tour and are especially grateful for a collaboration bracelet with Jac Vanek, available on her website soon.
Warped Tour is coming to 45 different cities all across the U.S. Go here to see when Warped Tour is coming to your area. See you there!
“Get your head out of the clouds.” “Come back to earth.” “Stop daydreaming.”
We have all been told this at some point during our childhood…or maybe just the other day. While daydreaming is most commonly looked upon as a frustration and hindrance to getting things done, this article from the New York Times offers some hope to the dreamers of the day as well as a convincing defense that mind-wandering may actually help you in achieving long-term goals. Too good to be true? Read– i mean, dream on. -Rebekah K.
From the New York Times:
At long last, the doodling daydreamer is getting some respect.
In the past, daydreaming was often considered a failure of mental discipline, or worse. Freud labeled it infantile and neurotic. Psychology textbooks warned it could lead to psychosis. Neuroscientists complained that the rogue bursts of activity on brain scans kept interfering with their studies of more important mental functions.
But now that researchers have been analyzing those stray thoughts, they’ve found daydreaming to be remarkably common — and often quite useful. A wandering mind can protect you from immediate perils and keep you on course toward long-term goals. Sometimes daydreaming is counterproductive, but sometimes it fosters creativity and helps you solve problems.
…
Mind wandering, as psychologists define it, is a subcategory of daydreaming, which is the broad term for all stray thoughts and fantasies, including those moments you deliberately set aside to imagine yourself winning the lottery or accepting the Nobel. But when you’re trying to accomplish one thing and lapse into “task-unrelated thoughts,” that’s mind wandering.
During waking hours, people’s minds seem to wander about 30 percent of the time, according to estimates by psychologists who have interrupted people throughout the day to ask what they’re thinking. If you’re driving down a straight, empty highway, your mind might be wandering three-quarters of the time, according to two of the leading researchers, Jonathan Schooler and Jonathan Smallwood of the University of California, Santa Barbara.
“People assume mind wandering is a bad thing, but if we couldn’t do it during a boring task, life would be horrible,” Dr. Smallwood says. “Imagine if you couldn’t escape mentally from a traffic jam.”
You’d be stuck contemplating the mass of idling cars, a mental exercise that is much less pleasant than dreaming about a beach and much less useful than mulling what to do once you get off the road. There’s an evolutionary advantage to the brain’s system of mind wandering, says Eric Klinger, a psychologist at the University of Minnesota and one of the pioneers of the field.
“While a person is occupied with one task, this system keeps the individual’s larger agenda fresher in mind,” Dr. Klinger writes in the “Handbook of Imagination and Mental Simulation”. “It thus serves as a kind of reminder mechanism, thereby increasing the likelihood that the other goal pursuits will remain intact and not get lost in the shuffle of pursuing many goals.”
Read the rest of the article here.
Roko Belic, the oscar-nominated director of Genghis Blues, is working on his new project: A film exploring the idea of Happiness. He has traveled the world collecting stories of those that have found it. Below is a video explaining his project…
Visit his Kickstarter page to help him reach his goal and make this film! Become part of this story.
- JJ
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/RokoBelic/happy-a-documentary
Our friends at Apolis recently featured Laren Poole in their blog. Shea Parton writes, “While studying in San Diego, Laren and I found common ground in our shared passions for surfing and social development. I have always been inspired by Laren’s steadfast, humble leadership approach, mixed with his California-surfer-lingo, which makes him truly one of a kind. Poole was raised in San Diego to parents that shared a strong appreciation for social justice, and he was always encouraged to “try the impossible.” While studying structural engineering and computer science for three years at UCSD, Laren lifeguarded and served coffee at a local roaster; however, in 2004, he decided to surround himself with like-minded friends and to create a career of his own. This risk would lead to a career of film-making and would ultimately affect the hearts and lives of countless individuals worldwide…”
To read the entire post, go here.
