Night Apartment

The Curiosity of Republican Politics

In a discussion with another member of this blog, I came upon a realization. Not earth-shattering, but nevertheless, curious and interesting. The dominant discourse promoted by McCain, Palin, Bush and Cheney can be summed up thusly:

"Do not vote for anything the Democrats want because it will take something away from you."

In other words, they play on your fears. That you will lose more money from taxes. Do you really make more than $250,000??

That you will lose the ability to "choose" your healthcare, even if Republicans know you don't have any to begin with and they certainly aren't about to help you acquire some affordable, let alone decent, healthcare for you or your kids.

That you will "lose" your civil rights by voting for someone or some bill. Better to vote for a negative: vote against any and all things and people.

That's the Republican ticket in a nutshell: Vote against ideas and people, rather than be positive and vote for someone or a set of ideas.

Indeed, throughout the entire debate with Obama, all McCain could do was reiterate how people supposedly loved him and how bad he thought Obama was. But not once did he demonstrate a plan. About anything.

About tax relief. About healthcare. About education.

Voting for Obama means a vote for real goals and ideas. But McCain is just like so many other Republican politicians: make people afraid and get them to vote negatively, against a void, rather than positively for something.

Strange

Symposium in L.A. on Architecture and Urbanism/Urban Planning

If you're planning on being in L.A. this November, check this out at UCLA!

Asia in LA: Global Cities in Asia, Asia in the Global City

The first Asia in LA program brings together leading architects, designers, and UCLA faculty working in and on Asia.

Saturday, November 08, 2008
1:30 PM - 5:30 PM
Tom Bradley International Hall
UCLA Campus
Los Angeles, CA 90095

You Can Look it Up: McCain Lies in the Debate

McCain cannot help himself. He lies even when debating. He lied when he said that Barack Obama voted to increase people's taxes who make $42,000. Of course. Because McCain has shown himself to be like BUSH/Cheney/ROVE: do whatever it takes to win, lie louder and longer and hopefully, people won't notice that you have no platform:

1: no tax relief for 95% of our population
2: no health care plan to cover the uninsured CHILDREN he says he cares about
3: no plan to take care of GI's and Veterans
4: no plan to improve education

In short, McCain is WORSE than Bush because he has even less plans. All he talks about? He loves the troops, though he has voted against every GI and Veterans bill during his tenure as senator. Hmm.

See the LA Times article on McCain's lies.

And as for Palin, does the word hypocrite mean anything? From the Washington Post:

Sarah Palin has taken 41 gifts totaling $25,367
"Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, who has made a crackdown on gift-giving to state officials a centerpiece of her ethics reform agenda, has accepted gifts valued at $25,367 from industry executives, municipalities and a cultural center whose board includes officials from some of the largest mining interests in the state, a review of state records shows."

McCain's Superfluos in Bailout, Yet Exploits it as Political Opportunity

An excerpt from Mark Anderson's blog on the Strategic News Service, which argues that McCain is not only superfluous to brokering a deal--he isn't even part of the committee--but that he is exploiting it, an opportunity to politicize what transcends this small man's personal goals. In short, he is using this as an opportunity to aggrandize himself, even though he is doing nothing and is unimportant to the entire situation.

"September 25th, 2008

It’s hard to be a hero, when no one wants you.

Imagine, John McCain talks George Bush into having a special meeting of just him, George, Obama (which will make him look like he is being beckoned), and a few Congressional heads, to sort out the big mess.

Only problem: it was already sorted out.

Then, a few hours late from his campaign speech at the Clinton Initiative in NYC, McCain shows up. Unfortunately, he has a whole new document in hand, that no one, not the president, not the cabinet, not the taxi driver, has seen before.

As Reid put it later: we had a deal, and then McCain showed up.

McCain NEEDS dissension, so he can look like a leader. He also needs an excuse to prevent him from showing up at the debate with Obama, where he will probably lose.

Most important, he needs to show the far right that he is NOT Bush.

So, decrying campaing politics, he uses Bush to call an un-needed meeting, while the real negotiators are doing really good work, then he shows up, blows up the meeting, blows off Bush et al., and — the country is nowhere, and he creates a situation in which he now can say that he must really skip the debate, because, thanks to him, there really is no deal.

In some races, there is a disqualifying behavior. Cheating, for instance. If this presidential campaign were a footrace in Somalia, McCain would be drawn and quartered.

Cheating is bad."

And the NY Times' view is that Congressional Republicans remain skeptical of McCain's "helpfulness" in resolving this crisis, the single largest financial bailout proposed in US History, which will essentially create an "Economic Czar" with NO oversight.

"Mr. McCain’s advisers cast his role on Friday as a supportive, essential presence to Republicans who were enraged by what they considered their harsh treatment at the White House on Thursday afternoon, and the dismissive attitude of their Republican colleagues in the Senate. They also tried to push back against a narrative that emerged Thursday, which portrayed Mr. McCain as injecting partisan politics into delicate dealmaking, and replace it with the image of a presidential candidate who stopped a bad deal from going through...many House Republicans remain deeply skeptical of Mr. McCain, and it is not clear whether he would have had the clout to change any minds in the Republican caucus. One of Mr. McCain’s own advisers said Friday that the financial crisis found the senator working with people who were “not historically his closest friends on Capitol Hill.”

Representative Jack Kingston, Republican of Georgia, said that “if McCain came out and said, ‘Here’s a deal that I like,’ that would be significant.” But when asked if lawmakers would back a deal just because it had Mr. McCain’s support, Mr. Kingston said: “Not so much. This becomes a vote of conscience. It’s a vote of principle.”

Finally, why is it that no one notices that, once again, the Bush/Cheney axis is proposing another significant governmental move that increases BIG GOVERNMENT without regulation.

With our civil rights continually being whittled away, we should be more vigilant about the "package" being proposed now.

As for McCain, do we really want someone who thinks that all that matters today is to appear as hawkish as possible regarding the Iraq war, hoping that no one will notice that he was WRONG about the war, and that he will "cut spending."

Did no one notice he has no plan. For anything?

McCain is Senile

Listening to McCain right now is as like listening to a robot who has been instructed to make certain points. He cannot debate, but instead, he looks for a single word that seems to allow a segue for him to make his three points:

1) Take care of veterans, even though he has voted against every single GI and Veteran bill put forth in front of Congress.

2) Cut spending, cut spending, cut spending, except when it means for big government to bail out the financial crisis to the tune of $700 billion dollars. And by the way, who cares about helping ordinary people with tax cuts because we should focus on giving businesses who benefit from our swiss-cheese tax code from paying any taxes at all. Finally, is McCain serious? He compares the economy of Ireland to ours?

3) I am a maverick: translation, I am really volatile, I am mean, and I am unpredictable when I get angry. That's why I have the Pork Barrel Queen as a running mate.

A Chronology of Failures, Bailouts and Sales

A chronology of the dissolution of various investment corporations, banks. Note where McCain's comment on the economy falls. And people trust this person?

March 16: BearStearns is sold to JP Morgan Chase
July 11: IndyMac Bank fails; placed in FDIC conservatorship
September 14: Lehman Brothers files for bankruptcy; Merrill Lynch sold to Bank of America
September 8: Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac taken over by the US gov't
September 15: Lehman Brothers declares bankruptcy
September 15: McCain says the economy is fundamentally sound
September 17: AIG Insurance group is lent $85 BILLION by the Federal Reserve
September 21: Lehman Brothers is sold
September 25: WaMu sold to JP Morgan Chase

A Washington Post article details McCain's championing of deregulation in various economic sectors over the past two decades. Amongst the highlights, including how he pushed through legislation that has contributed to this mess. And that his mentor, former Senator Phil Gramm, was the author of this legislation:

"In 2002, McCain introduced a bill to deregulate the broadband Internet market, warning that "the potential for government interference with market forces is not limited to federal regulation." Three years earlier, McCain had joined with other Republicans to push through landmark legislation sponsored by then-Sen. Phil Gramm (Tex.), who is now an economic adviser to his campaign. The Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act aimed to make the country's financial institutions competitive by removing the Depression-era walls between banking, investment and insurance companies.

That bill allowed AIG to participate in the gold rush of a rapidly expanding global banking and investment market. But the legislation also helped pave the way for companies such as AIG and Lehman Brothers to become behemoths laden with bad loans and investments."

and

"In the 1990s, he backed an unsuccessful effort to create a moratorium on all new government regulation. And in 1996, he was one of only five senators to oppose a comprehensive telecommunications act, saying it did not go far enough in deregulating the industry."

World News

The fallout from Thabo Mbeki's ouster, finally. After his constant support of Mugabe, in the face of opposition by all of Zimbabwe's other neighbors, it was clear that Mbeki had self-serving agendas which overrode the political stability of South Africa's neighbor.

See more at the Dailymail.co.uk

Robert Mugabe continues to cement his reputation for running a unilateral dictatorship, vowing that he will never resign. See the article in The Harare Tribune

Why Did McCain Pull Out,?

Excerpts from the Washington post article on McCain's sad attempt to escape the first debate. One wonders if this is because he knows that his weakness with the economy. Consider these points:

1) the Deregulator while Chair of the Senate Commerce Committee,
2) the candidate who recently thought the economy was financially sound, and then
backtracked by saying he meant "the workers" (huh?)
3) who thinks it is a good idea to cobble together a commission to study the situation
even after government bailout of Freddie Mac, Fannie Mae, AIG, and Lehman Brothers
4) and whose concept of personal wealth is so skewed as to be unaware of his own
property holdings

"...Obama called McCain early this morning to seek a joint statement on on their goals for the bailout measure now being negotiated between Congress and the Bush administration. But before that statement was issued, McCain went before television cameras to say he was putting the campaign on hold and wanted to delay Friday night's presidential debate on foreign policy. Among other things, McCain senior adviser Steve Schmidt said McCain would begin unilaterally pulling down his campaign ads and cease fundraising...

The Commission on Presidential Debates (CPD) said that it is "moving forward with its plan for the first presidential debate at the University of Mississippi in Oxford, MS this Friday, September 26," despite the McCain announcement. "We believe the public will be well served by having all of the debates go forward as scheduled," the Commission said."

And the LA Times:

""This is exactly the time the American people need to hear from the person who in approximately 40 days will be responsible for dealing with this mess," Obama said. "In my mind, [the debate] is more important than ever."

The Commission on Presidential Debates said it planned to hold the debate on Friday despite McCain's request.

"The plans for this forum have been underway for more than a year and a half," the commission said. "The CPD's mission is to provide a forum in which the American public has an opportunity to hear the leading candidates for the president of the United States debate the critical issues facing the nation. We believe the public will be well-served by having all of the debates go forward as scheduled."


See also the NY Times.

Other articles regarding McCain's cynical and pathetic gambit.

Analysis: McCain's debate ploy a sign of weakness which highlights that McCain's ploy was meant to derail Obama's 9 point lead according to some polls.

Another poll finds a 46%-34% lead by Obama on economic issues--no wonder McCain doesn't want to have a debate now:

Obama-McCain debate to go ahead: commission

Poll: Wis. voters may be swayed by debates

Looking Back on the Olympics

Now that the Olympics are over, the pejorative gaze on China has reemerged in our media regarding the tainted milk.

Which leads me back to musing on those young white protesters at the Olympic games. What were they protesting? That same litany: China has no respect for human rights. And these young white people, as always, the Great White Hopes, were there to draw attention to that fact.

Exactly which population were they protesting for, however? Not the downtrodden Chinese people. No, because they are a monolith, part of the dominant “Oppressor” population. No. Instead, they were protesting for the minorities who are supposedly “othered” such as the favorite darling of Western cultural colonialists, the Tibetans. And why are they protesting on behalf of the Tibetans? Because the big, bad Chinese “people” (not the government, just all Chinese people are demonized by Americans) do not respect the sovereignty of Tibetans.

It always amuses me how Americans enjoy pointing fingers at other cultures about problems they themselves engage in. In other words, Euro-Americans like to project. Rather like Republican politicians. And they do it so well. I never see these same young white people protesting how so many Black people were oppressed and continue to be oppressed by our government’s Katrina policies. I don’t see those same people protesting the continuous oppression different American-Indian tribes suffer through government policies regarding land. I met one man born in the early 70’s who was removed from his parents care as an infant, forcibly made to attend a Catholic school, and then whose parents were forcibly removed from their land in Texas because the Federal government found oil on their land.

Gee, where are the protesters when they are needed? Too busy externalizing their collective imperialistic guilt to look in their own backyards, apparently.

Baby's Playtime

I have noticed that many white people of wealth are often tall. The men that is. Grandpa was tall. Wearing a pale blue v-neck sweater and pressed pants. Father, also tall, was more casually attired, an untucked, striped linen shirt, pressed jeans and loafers. Mama was most interesting. Overweight and overdressed, in a hot pink fuschia bubble dress. And grandma? Nicely thin. Red ballet slipper flats, pressed slim black pants made of some sort of gabardine, and a white poplin shirt with a discreet neck pleat: all pressed just so. She in particular reminded me of a woman I knew very well from back east, the North Shore to be particular. Wealth exuded from their very walk. And after all, we were in a wealthy town. But what marked them as different was that they were in a western beach town, where wealth is worn differently. People here intentionally display their wealth by wearing expensive versions of what used to be called sweatshirts, but are now called “hoodies” their jeans, though they are purchased from barney’s, appear as if they were cut off haphazardly with a pair of crooked scissors. And their t-shirts, so arfully torn at the shoulders to approximate a muscle shirt, are acquired from a boutique inside Bergdorfs.

So this family, they were quite conspicuous. Because if it wasn’t other white mothers with their expensive “street” clothing, it was colored nannies. Either Latino women or Southeast Asian women. and then there was me. Chinese. Not dressed sloppily, indeed, in my version of casual. But since I cannot afford, nor do I care for the intentional “slumming, yet expensive” look, nor do I want to conspicuously stick out by wearing overly nice clothes, I take the Hong Kong approach: no one there ever wears clothing that is not nicely turned out. They respect not only themselves, but others, too well, to do that. Indeed, there was a time in the States when one actually used effort in dressing: that outfits were not merely a statement of defiant, trying-too-hard-to-have-street-cred wealth, but an acknowledgment of one’s position as well as the respect to others. Others are the ones, after all, who are looking at your $200 torn jeans and your ripped tshirts. So there is that acknowledgment as well in my approach.

I know that I was somehow marked because I didn’t look quite like a nanny, but then again, I wasn’t white.

As they passed, the grandfather nodded regally to me and deigned to say, “it’s turned out to be a nice day, hasn't it?” I replied yes, it has. He nodded in approval and continued on.

They all sat on a bench together, three adults, while the mother in her fuschia dress that made her resemble an eggplant, ventured onto the sand with her son, who was periodically called to by Grandpa as “Bud.”

He was the most obvious marker of Boston: white duck pants they had carefully rolled twice so as not to get sand on the bottoms. But the shirt was a triumph. A Polo rugby multi-colored striped shirt. And inside? Another polo shirt, Kelly green. Both collars flipped up. The hair, too, was a bit too well-shaped for most West Coasters.

He wanted to go on the rocking animals in the sandbox. First, he tried the one nearest me and then abandoned it. He preceded to the middle animal. And then, my daughter wanted to get up on the animal closes to me. She is far younger than at only a year and a half, so she needed my presence, both to mount the thing and make it rock. The previous day when I had turned my head away from her, although I was standing right next to her, she had done a faceplant in the sand. She wasn’t hurt and she thought the experience was quite amusing:--kept giggling periodically after. But this morning, I determined not to turn my head to the left, but only look right, past her head if I were to look anywhere other than at her, as I had my hand near her back. I put my foot on the “stirrup” to rock it. This being a necessary component of my job since her cute little chubby legs are far too short. I’ve been told that she is tall, in the 95% percentile, and that her legs are “juicy”, meaning they are quite, quite chubby. While all this is cute, it conspires to a condition requiring me to rock her animal for her.

The little boy happened to look over at me as I began. He espied my foot on the stirrup, rocking the animal. And he began to whine. Vociferously. He looked at his grandmother and then demanded to ride the animal my daughter was on. And then I heard my daughter make sounds, not in response to him, she’s far too young for that and she is quite impervious to other children's whines, but just because she had been playing for quite some time and was tired. I said to the grandmother, well, she’ll probably want to get off soon. But his grandmother demurred and said it was good for him not to get everything he wanted. I thought, yes, I’m certain he is learning how to curtail his desires from you lot. The boy espied my foot again, rocking my daughter, and a look of angry envy suffused his face.

I wonder what he shall be like when he is older.

Get Out and Vote!

A friend who was listening to Amy Goodman last week on the radio heard this lament, paraphrased: Obama was leaning "towards the middle" and appeared to be compromising on his early stances.

This is one step away from saying, "Well, they're the same, McCain and Obama."

Isn't this the argument people were using when Kerry was running against Bush in 2004? I think it is safe to say they are NOT the same. We would not be spending billions of dollars on the Iraq Imperial Invasion and we would not have done things like "fix" the K-12 educational crisis by merely testing students every year using culturally-biased testing.

And to those who protest that Obama will compromise, taking a "moral high ground" is by definition naive. There is too much at stake during this election and they are NOT the same. Do you really want Palin as a possible president?? Do you want to be the spoiler? Several states are in contestation, and sorry to say, but if you are not part of the solution, what are you?

My Dog is SOO "Zen"

Translation: I am extremely neglectful but my dog still puts up with it and me.

The Bailout: Republicans Advocate Big Government

In case this is of concern, the tab is $700 billion dollars.

See the LATimes

The irony of course is that this is bigger government than anything ever done in the past by either party. But the hypocrisy is that Republicans are always clamoring for "smaller government."

Translation: We don't want to pay for any programs that do not directly benefit our own pet projects, i.e.earmarks. Sarah Palin's Bridge to Nowhere ring any bells? Indeed, it appears Republicans are not concerned with helping anyone who actually needs it:

1) Children without health care insurance: we're only discussing giving them reasonable ACCESS, here.
2) Single parents: Because, after all, they must be colored, right?
3) Lower ratio of Teacher-to-Student: Let's just test our students, rather than actually improving teacher pay, infrastructure, and access for all people, no matter their social and economic class, let alone their race.

It certainly does appear that Republicans are for Big Government--when it suits them.

Sarah Palin and Corruption

Sarah Palin initially asked for this investigation, but now a McCain spokesman is saying that her husband will refuse to testify before a Republican Alaska State Senate Committee regarding her attempt to abuse power and fire a former brother-in-law from his position as a State Trooper. The reason? The process has become "politicized."

Republicans enjoy projecting. Clearly

As for Palin, is this truly the face of "reform" that McCain is touting?

Here are some excerpts from the Washington Post:

"Sarah Palin initially welcomed the bipartisan investigation into accusations that she dismissed the state's public safety commissioner because he refused to fire her ex-brother-in-law, a state trooper. "Hold me accountable," she said.

But she has increasingly opposed it since Republican presidential candidate John McCain tapped her as his running mate. The McCain campaign dispatched a legal team to Alaska including O'Callaghan, a former top U.S. terrorism prosecutor from New York to bolster Palin's local lawyer."

Hillary supporters, take note. This woman is not Hillary. Surprised? Not every woman is the same. That would be why so many colored woman objected to Hillary as serving their needs when she was a candidate.

Rio

ABC, not as easy as 1-2-3

I'm always kind of leery of hanging out with a bunch of Asian people. Last week was no exception. In the contest of "how Chinese are you?", I always wish to be disqualified. If I HAD to be called something, I feel most comfortable being called "1.5"...at least this implies that I belong to both worlds, "Chinese" and "American". And my thinking about this has made me very confused about what is "Chinese" and what is "American" and why it annoys me so much when people call me an "ABC." I'm actually more ok with people calling me a "FOB." I know, I know, totally offensive but it doesn't bother me as much maybe because I feel more confident about where I am in relation to the plane I got off of in 1979. I've heard that some Asian Americans find it hip to be called "ABC" (really?!), but I mean, why do we have an acronym anyway? "American born Chinese" would be still be a loaded term, but at least less flippant. It'll probably take me a lifetime (or never) to figure out why I dislike the term so much.

Last month an older Chinese man from Hong Kong called me a "banana." Spoke English real well. Sigh...if I had a banana, I might of hit him with it! It's no excuse, but I bet if my peer called me one, I might have wanted to take out a bunch of bananas and a few other choice fruits.

When at the Park, Your Child is NOT Your Playdate

Enough said.

The Discourse of Elitism and Higher Education

Sometime during the past ten years, quite possibly with the Bush presidency, higher education became a pejorative term. Higher education became associated with "elitism," implying that once one acquired a graduate degree, one could no longer understand the travails of "common men and women."

Strange. All of those in power, liberal or conservative, hold higher degrees. Many of them from our most revered institutions. That, in essence, is what trains them to be able to perform higher offices. Indeed, that Bush was a "C" student at Harvard's MBA program demonstrates clearly why the U.S. is in its current predicament.

Moreover, it is assumed that those with advanced degrees are somehow genetically predisposed to eschew children and families: only if one holds a B.A. at the highest can one fully embrace "family values". Oddly, that is defined solely by Euro-Americans and is extremely exclusive: no one of different color, no one with large, extended families, and definitely no one with a religion other than an often Evangelical form of Christianity. Moreover, family values seems to have absolutely no compassion in the hands of these people: they don't care about the less fortunate than themselves because they are a "drain" on the system.

Rather than defending those with advanced degrees, let's consider the other side of the argument. Why should catering to the lowest common denominator be the single-most invoked criterion for measuring a person's ability to lead, in any capacity? Why is it inspirational for someone who has not done well in school to be the U.S. President? Why do we measure our leaders based on whether they are "like me" (they aren't, that's why they are in positions of power) and not whether they are qualified? In short, when did ignorance, depravity, immorality and brazenness become equated with family values? Why is it that if one is vociferously vituperative, the public doesn't question the content of the words?

What happened to critical thinking?

McCain's Economic "Plan"

According to Mark Anderson, CEO of Strategic News Service, McCain has no viable economic plan.

In case you are a couple making less than $250k or single and making less than $150k, and are planning on voting for McCain, consider these observations from someone who is not backing either candidate:

1) McCain's top economic advisor is the failed, fired CEO of HP, Carly Fiorina

2) McCain was Chair of the Senate Commerce Committee that deregulated the Banking Industry, which has directly resulted in the economic crisis the U.S. is experiencing. He is therefore not credible to those serious in the financial world, according to Anderson.

3) McCain's assertion that he will fix the broken system while his opponent, Obama, will "raise taxes" is patently false: McCain's ad, to real financial people, sounds like he is merely instilling fear to get people's votes.

4) McCain's solution is to start a commission to study the economic crisis--Obama actually has concrete solutions. McCain does not. Obama will regulate, and then he lays out clearly a concrete plan.

Hear the entire program from TheWorld.org

Interesting Links on the Campaign

Sarah Palin continues to be exposed. In a NYTimes article entitled

"Once Elected, Palin Hired Friends and Lashed Foes,"

Palin again demonstrates her ability for unrepentant, unethical and cronyist behavior.

Some highlights:

"So when there was a vacancy at the top of the State Division of Agriculture, she appointed a high school classmate, Franci Havemeister, to the $95,000-a-year directorship. A former real estate agent, Ms. Havemeister cited her childhood love of cows as a qualification for running the roughly $2 million agency."

"...an examination of her swift rise and record as mayor of Wasilla and then governor finds that her visceral style and penchant for attacking critics — she sometimes calls local opponents “haters” — contrasts with her carefully crafted public image (i.e. Palin projects, or accuses others of exactly what she herself does).

Throughout her political career, she has pursued vendettas, fired officials who crossed her and sometimes blurred the line between government and personal grievance, according to a review of public records and interviews with 60 Republican and Democratic legislators and local officials."

And this is what Karl Rove has to say about McCain's egregious and relentless lies, in the Washington Post:

"Rove said McCain 'has similarly gone one step too far, attributing to Obama things that are, you know, beyond the 100 percent truth test.'''

Of course, Rove also critiqued the Obama campaign. But that this party faithful (if there ever was one) has critiqued the Republican ticket demonstrates the depths to which the seemingly senile, beleaguered McCain will stoop in order to try to win.

See also Taxpayers for Common Sense, Factcheck.org for a rundown on the tax plans. Btw, McCain cuts taxes for the wealthiest 1%.

China, Foreign Policy and the Language Fetish

Research jobs regarding China policy at the Council on Foreign Relations, the Brookings Institute and the Rand Corporation all shared one criterion: fluency in Mandarin.

This is interesting. Assuming this is a valid requirement, one must look a bit deeper into the assumption. That is, if one is fluent in Mandarin, then automatically, and especially given the collective linguistic retardation of 95% of all Americans (after all, why speak other languages when the States are sooo important?), linguistic capability is a significant plus. This is especially true when so many Americans who travel abroad think that they do not need to speak any language other than English because the States are the center of the globe.

However, there is a caveat. For those Euro-Americans (that means Americans of European descent, though white-Americans are so used to being just "American" and everyone else is othered) who do study Chinese, a few characteristics emerge.

1) Euro-Americans who study Mandarin tend to fetishize it. That means, even if they are receiving a Ph.D. in some field of Chinese Studies, they concentrate so intently and intensely on acquiring Mandarin skills (speech and written) that they spend absolutely no time developing critical thinking skills.

2) The result being that many non-Chinese Ph.D. students graduate brag about their linguistic skills (i.e. accent, ability to replicate calligraphic characters, to name a few) to the detriment of any significant substantive research, which tends to be very conservative.

3) That means that those who focus on acquiring linguistic skills have not explored different ways of thinking about material in Chinese. They simply replicate the same old methodologies: translate the material, take all the historical signifiers mentioned in the text as actual fact, situate those "facts" (rather than metaphors and didactic signifiers) in a historical landscape, and VOILA! A new translation that has been completely misconstrued is added to our fount of "knowledge" about Chinese history.

4) Which means, finally, that what we know about China: its history, its religion, its women, has been tinged by that initial linguistic fetishization.

Foreign policy think tanks should reconsider the absolute requirement of linguistic fluency for those who have Ph.D.'s in East Asian fields, but who also demonstrate an ability to think critically, creatively, and especially in this day of lemmings, individually.

The Underexposed City 2

Upon reading Henri Lefebvre's chapter on "Spatial Architectonics" in his book, The Production of Space, it becomes clear that architecture has been mistaken for a visual system of objective containment. Or, that architecture somehow exists in an objective realm that transcends coding. Architecture is more accurately the subjective sequencing of boundaries. Its importance lies not merely in how it shelters and protects from the elements but in how it communicates inward and outward thresholds, transitions, changes in physical, psychological, intellectual and spiritual states. Architecture is therefore a transformative orchestration of boundary maintenance or transgression for very specific and culturally-defined subjectivities.

As Lefebvre notes, monuments are distinct from mere buildings. because they represent the nodes, or the "strong points" in the web of meaning--or as he relates monuments to music, they possess a "horizon of meaning." They stand out in the fields; they are the significant knots in the fabric.

In reference to Beijing, the monuments are perhaps not what they appear to be. Rather, those buildings designated as monuments may in fact not perform as true monuments in all senses. They may serve as such in the visual realm or in the realm of spatio-historical tourism, but in terms of new cultural forms they are merely buildings. Where, then, are the true monuments of present-day Beijing?

Another View of the Election

A member of this blog has been keeping up on the entries, which lean heavily political right now. Here are some important responses which deserve consideration, not only to offer balance, but to afford an even deeper understanding of the issues:

"...in law school, I read case law and law journal articles that revealed how little change has been effected through the courts/laws. And often, whenever there is change, it is rolled back through the courts/laws to a point where the initial vision of the change is lost and forgotten (as in affirmative action). Some argue, and I believe this as well, that one of the major reasons for the failure to achieve social justice through the law is that the Constitution is flawed. It's the wrong document with which to base our whole system of laws. It sanctioned slavery, the disenfranchisement of women, the oppression against Native Americans, internment, etc., etc... Plus there is the historical fact that the Framers were white supremacist patriarchs. In addition, the non-elites were actually generally against the ratification of the Constitution. There were even riots in some areas. Ultimately the Constitution was ratified through trickery, deceit, and violence. In fact, if anything, trickery, deceit and violence are the keys by which our government continues to operate...

...Obama's nomination and possible presidency are highly significant for the reasons many have talked about. There are concerns, though. One is that it will be harder to argue for the existence of systemic racism when we have a Black president. (Related to that is the possibility that voting for a Black president might serve to ameliorate white guilt--"I'm not racist. I voted for Obama."--the step-child of the more well known, "I'm not racist. My best friend is Black.") Another concern is that Obama, when faced with the realities of representing the interests the President often must represent, will lose sight of his initial vision. Plus, on a societal level, the rednecks aren't the ones we have to worry about. They're like the smokescreen that hides the systemic racism. Notice how (even, and especially liberal) white folks loooove to hate on the Klan, but then turn around and talk about single welfare mothers and their "hand outs" or unqualified job candidates and government "set asides/quotas."

Truth and McCain/Palin

McCain and Palin have repeatedly been exposed as lying about both themselves and about Obama. They have drawn considerable and justifiable criticism for resorting to lying, rather than admitting a few things:

1. McCain has no health care plan that will significantly relieve the condition of the uninsured who are overwhelmingly poor and of color--supposedly the demographic he cares about. This is why he focuses on Obama's plan: so no one will notice his lack of one.
2. McCain's repetition of "drill for oil offshore" will do nothing to alleviate current oil shortages and does nothing to reframe the fundamental issue: a reliance on oil. He is, indeed, continuing the Bush legacy.
3. Palin does the ultimate flip-flop, from not being someone who thinks global warming is caused by people to believing that there may be something to what the scientists, who are actually educated, have discovered. Odd how Republicans think science is merely a convenience.

A story on McCain, "McCain Barbs Stirring Outcry as Distortions," from the NYTimes. And another story entitled "Palin Under Fire after Grudging U-turn on Global Warming," from The Guardian.

"The Reality Behind the Claims" (NYTimes, September 13, A13):

"Taxes: 'Barack Obama and out-of-touch Congressional leaders' have plans for 'painful tax increases on working families.'

Reality Check: The Tax Policy Center, a nonpartisan research group, analyzed both candidates' tax plans and concluded that Mr. Obama 'offers much larger tax breaks to low- and middle-income taxpowers (bold added).' It found that for four-fifths of the population--households making $112,000 a year or less--Mr. Obama's tax cuts would mean a net savings (bold added) of more than $900 a year on average while Mr. Mccain's proposals would save people less than half that (bold added).

Energy: 'Senator Obama doesn't want to have nuclear power, and he doesn't want to drill offshore.'

Reality Check: Mr. Obama has been less enthusiastic about nuclear power (and why explore that when we can explore scientifically-driven wind and solar?? Where is Mr. McSame on those issues?) and offshore drilling than Mr. McCain, but he has repeatedly said he is open to both. He has said he would be open to increased offshore drilling (though that will do nothing to alleviate current problems and will not for several years) as part of a broader energy plan, and to more nuclear power plants if the government resolves questions about hte safe disposal of nuclear waste and the security of nuclear materials.

Health Care: Mr. Obama's 'plan will force small businesses to cut jobs and reduce wages and force families into a government-run health care system where a bureaucrat stands between you and your doctor.'

Reality Check: Under Mr. Obama's plan, eople could keep their current insurance. For the uninsured, he would create a voluntary public plan. He would require coverage for children only, a position that set him apart from his rivals in the Democratic primary. His plan exempts very small businesses from the requuirement that they either offer health coverage or contribute money to the new plan. It offers tax credits to encourage them to provide coverage.
And now for the Lies of Sarah Palin:

Earmarks: 'I told Congress, thanks, but no thanks for that 'Bridge to Nowhere' in Alaska. If we wanted that bridge, we'd build it ourselves.'

Reality Check: As a candidate for governor, Ms. Palin supported the project to build a bridge to a sparsely populated Alaskan island. She told The Anchorage Daily News in2005 that she would like to see it and other projects built sooner rather than later, (bold added) "while our Congressional delegation is in a strong position to assist." After (italics added) the bridge drew national ridicule, making it harder to secure more federal money to meet rising cost projections, Ms. Palin abandoned it, citing the financial shortfall. Alaska was able to keep the federal money and direct it to other projects."

The Underexposed City

In his book Hong Kong: Culture and the Politics of Disappearance, Ackbar Abbas considers the challenges of photographing the spaces of Hong Kong. He describes the post-colonial city as so "overexposed" as to be impossible to capture in photographs. Attempts to capture the city in photographs loop back and reference the flood of images already contained in the West's cultural imaginary of the "Orient" or "Hong Kong."

Most recently, Beijing has been subjected to a similar sort of overexposure, leading up to the Olympics. The term "Beijing fatigue" was noted in a recent Architectural Record commentary. The condition Abbas reveals, however, is in fact the underexposure that occurs due to the limitations of a Western gaze, overly laden with colonial and Orientalist history. The anonymous spatial conditions of such historically-charged cities are overlooked in favor of nearly ready-made Asian spectacles, whether so-called "traditional" or the spatial upheaval of new modernities.

As Abbas notes, photography can serve to evoke the city even though it may fail to define it. By photographing the anonymous, the banal, the everyday buildings that make up most of a city such as Beijing, the city begins to reappear from the spectacle of large spatial systems. The specificity of place begins to replace the totalizing assumptions of "foreign" or "exotic" space.

Media Coverage and the Election

First, a caveat: The Nation has its agendas, admittedly. But especially given the sensationalist, alarmist-driven publications today, The Nation offers a refreshing antidote to the talking heads from, for example, The NY Times, once considered the premier outlet of well-researched, comprehensive, objective, and yes, even liberal-leaning, news. No longer. It has capitulated--has since the turn of the century--to the sensationalist tactics one associates with Fox and Rupert Murdoch's other brands.

To wit: Eric Alterman of The Nation, in the September 22, 2008 issue, observes that the narrow mind-set of the pundits

"finds no significance in the sight of a middle-class white woman from North Carolina standing before 80,000 people and countless millions on TV and the Internet proclaiming her allegiance to a biracial man for the presidency just five decades after he might have been lynched for looking at her funny.

Instead of focusing on the astonishing power of the historical moment--evidenced in thousands of ways during this extraordinary convention--the media obsessed about dramas o their own making. Tiny, clownlike clusters of Hillary hardliners--people with the political judgment of Naderite nudniks and even less intellectual coherence--got more coverage than the nearly 80 percent of Democrats who told pollsters they support their nominee. (Obama's support form his party is higher than was Gore's or John Kerry's at the same point in their candidacies, but you'd never know that from the coverage.)"

See the entire article

The New Face of Middle School Education

A good friend returned from a week-long program in Worcester for teachers of sixth-graders. We hope that this person will contribute about this training week in more detail. But, in the meantime, the facts, as are known by the contributors of this blog, are this. For a public middle school that has a community over-represented by single mothers of color, the ultimate rate of graduation from college from this school hovers around 95%.

Amongst some of the more impressive conditions: one, after a lecture/overview of material, students will then gather in groups of two and three to discuss the material presented. Inevitably, each student absorbs different aspects of the material and the discussion with their peers helps them incorporate the different aspects they may not themselves have initially understood in a vibrant, yet non-threatening environment. Indeed, when teachers observing this method approached students about what they were discussing, they were encouraged to ask the question, but then move on and not wait for an answer. The reason? Because if the students engage the teacher/authority figure, then their focus becomes pleasing the authority figure, rather than discussing and incorporating the new material with their peers.

Another feature of this teaching methodology was that it did not require the kind of hours of individual preparation teachers at both magnet and charter schools often experience. Again, the reason was the collective structure of the teaching model.

The statistics alone bears serious examination and reconsideration by schools across the country. It is certainly much more effective than testing our children repeatedly, which only prepares them for test-taking, rather than actually imparting both knowledge, and more importantly, the ability to critically assess new information.

Fact-checking the Republican Ticket

The McCain/Palin ticket has told numerous lies, about themselves and about the Obama/Biden proposals, over the past several days. This is, after all, what Republican politicians excel at: lying loudly so as to drown out the truth. Which is why we no longer blink at having our wireless phone records mined by government officials, are resigned at having our phones tapped, and why we anticipate the continued loss of our civil rights. We’ve been deadened by lies.

And by the fact that McCain/Palin have NO PLATFORM. Has anyone noticed this fact? They just spend their time lying.

A few facts to combat the lies. This fact-checking has been provided by three sources: Politifact.com, supported by the St. Petersburg Times, the NY Times, and USA Today (surely conservatives cannot argue with that source) and Taxpayers for Common Sense.

1. The Bridge to Nowhere:

Congress decided to kill this particular earmark before SP ever got her chance to say no. Indeed, she said yes UNTIL she realized that funding for it was going to be killed anyway. Conveniently for SP, Alaska still got to keep the over $200,000,000 (200 million dollars) of the $220,000,000 originally slated for the bridge to spend on other projects. How nice.

2. Fighting the Earmarks and the “Establishment”:

SP, Governor of “Pork Central,” has requested $197 million alone for 2008—and the year isn’t even over. That is, by the way, more per person than any other state has received. As mayor of a town of less than 7000, SP received $27,000,000 (27 million) in earmarks.

3. The Tax Plan:

Obama’s plan lets the Bush cuts expire for couples making $250,000 or more and individuals making $200,000 or more. NO ONE ELSE. Obama REDUCES taxes for all those couples and individuals who make less than those amounts, respectively. Thus, according to the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center, 95.5% of those with children will receive a tax cut, and 81% of those without children would receive a tax cut. This results in taxpayers keeping roughly $2,200 more per year (about 5%). The top 1% of income earners would pay about $19,000 more in taxes—sorely needed.

McCain’s plan reduces the corporate income tax rate (didn’t know they needed a tax break). McCain reduces people’s taxes about 3%. McCain also cuts the top 1% of income earners taxes by more than $125,000 (didn’t know they needed it, either, but we could certainly use their taxes for other programs like education and health care). Whose side do you think he’s on?

4. Rudy Giuliani’s constant clarion cry: “When I dealt with 9/11…”

Like McCain, that Giuliani dealt with a crisis hardly makes him an authority about anything. But his assertion that Democrats don’t discuss terrorism is wrong—they did discuss it during the convention and now. It is just that they don’t sensationalize and exploit issues for their own gain. Perhaps this is what Giuliani doesn’t recognize: the inability or unwillingness to exploit because it is immoral, which he certainly does.

5. The Mantle of “Family Values”:

Bristol is getting married, in a gunshot wedding because she is pregnant. Her husband advocates seceding from the Union. It is difficult to see how this does not reflect upon Palin as a choice for Vice President. An inexperienced, slick, earmark-loving, lying woman who thinks that being a pit bull soccer mom is a good example of family values?

6. Drilling and Nuclear Power

McCain never explains that drilling will not alleviate our current problems. If he did, people would suddenly see through his ploy, to play on people’s fears to get their votes. At least, one would hope.

Stairs

The Presidential Race

With the stakes so high, it is impossible not to enter the discourse. To preface, the Mccain/Palin ticket have implied that the Obama/Biden ticket, and their Democratic ilk, are "poverty pimps" and "limousine liberals." Implying that while these Democrats may profess concern for the general populace, they are neither in touch with, nor are they interested in, helping those people. In short, Democrats are presumably elites. Republicans represent the "people" since they are like them. Many forget that though most people thought George Bush seemed "nice" and that they could "break bread" with him, in actuality he is an elite, extremely wealthy oil man, like his V.P.: it's simply that he talks like an idiot.

Lest we forget certain facts.

1: Obama's mother was the quintessential single American mother who pulled herself up from her bootstraps to help herself and her son, and later daughter, succeed. That this is so successfully masked by the dominant Republican discourse exemplifies the power of shouting lies about Obama's "elitism": soon, people will listen to your lies, no matter how blatantly false the information is. By the way, what is wrong with having an intelligent, educated president? We've already had eight years of a dumb one.

2. In re: family values. If Biden's oldest daughter were a hard-drinking, party-hearty gal of seventeen, you can bet the Republicans would not agree that she were "off limits" but aver that this is indicative of the decadence of the Democratic ticket. Instead, and we must not forget this, it is the Republicans who are dissipated, decadent, and out of touch. Sarah Palin's daughter is an underage, hard-partying child of a father who advocates cessation from the union. This is who could be the first lady and first man if John Mccain gets ill? Frightening. See photos below.

3. For those who are still feeling hurt about Hillary, it is reasonable and understandable. If Obama had lost, it would be the same for many others. But unlike the 2000 and 2004 campaigns, during which many could be heard to say, "They're the same," this is not the case. Two words:

SUPREME COURT.

The two oldest members will most likely retire this next term. They are John Paul Stevens, 88 and Ruth Bader Ginsburg, 75. Stephen Breyer is 69. Bush has already appointed two justices and we already see the tightening of our civil rights. For those of you concerned about that, remember, these people will decide not only your civil rights over the next thirty years, but whether women have the right to not "choose" but DETERMINE what they can and cannot do.