ThinkorSwim.com: The Best Stock Trading Software

Tried Muriel Siebert, Schwab, and various other trading engines that are now defunct.

Thinkorswim.com is the best! And unless you do high volume trading, not most people, it's way cheaper than Scottrade.com at $5.00 per order.

Can't beat that. Plus, analysis, charts, software to download to your desktop, great customer service.

Buddhism, Like All Religions, Has Cultural Connotations Westerners Don't Get

I was attending a lecture at UCLA by Professor Gregory Schopen. As is clear, the man is no slouch in the intellect department nor is he uninformed about Buddhism, the South Asian and Southeast Asian kind that Euro-Americans are so enamored of.

Several months ago, I won't quote who, a professor in that same department said in an LA Times article that Buddhism was anything one brought to it. It was as if it was a free-floating thing. Transcending culture. Time. Timeless.

I'm not certain what he meant. But I know what a lot of Euro-Americans think: "Hey, Buddhism is, like, this totally cool religion! I can, like, meditate, and feel good! Like I'm not making all this bad karma, you know? And it's so open. This Noble Eight-fold Path is great, the Four Noble Truths are great, and if I follow them, I am soo superior to my fellow average white American! And you know what? If I add a few new-agey, completely stupid ideas that came out of my own head, hey, that's alright because it's Buddhism! Everything and anything goes! Oh, and we're apolitical, the Buddha doesn't like that. Except when it comes to China. Then we're really political, but the Dalai Lama says it's okay."

Something like that.

I have few things to say about those opinions. First, they are wrong. Buddhism is not an open, free-floating religion that accepts all the stupid ideas that you can come up with. It's not the "new religion" that can replace the narrow-mindedness you associate with Christianity. It's also not a way to forget you are a white, Euro-American. Sorry. You don't get to just adopt the "good bits" and feel good about yourself, all the while maintaining your white superiority. Doesn't work like that.

Buddhism is a very culture-specific religion. Like all religions. There are certain practices, tenets, and beliefs that reflect very specific times, places and people. That's right, folks. You can't just plug in, take what you want, and say blithely, "Hey, I'm a Buddhist! Everything goes!"

What does this very brief cultural critique of white Americans who feel like if they don't fit into the Christian tradition, they can easily adopt and culturally colonize this other one? Well, exactly this. That during this faculty lecture, amongst the many arguments Schopen was making was that not only was the Buddha portrayed in many narratives as a businessman, but that he was an eminent pragmatist. That his concern was not to remain "up in the clouds, meditating" the way all these annoying Euro-Americans do when they're trying to escape the pain in their lives. That he was often portrayed in dialogues as teaching very practical lessons regarding institutional longevity and even basic successful institutionalization that rather less-than-pragmatic monks often did not grasp. Else what was the need for such didactic texts?

He also argues that the idiots always "meditating" were considered the fringe. Rather like they are here. Loser fringe people who can't make it in the mainstream world, so they run away to the "land of spirituality", India. Which probably doesn't appreciate all these annoying Euro-Americans looking in someone else's backyard for things they should be seeking in their own.

Moreover, and I find this particularly entertaining in re: these Euro-Americans here, things like the Noble Eightfold Path and the Four Noble Truths? Well, guess what? They weren't universal.

Gasp!

Yes, it's just that these were amongst the few scriptures that were translated into English. So lots of white people got their hands on them, assumed that they were representative of all of Buddhism, and voila! Globalization! Universalization! Stupidity.

The crux of the problem is that the majority of white Americans "practicing" Buddhism don't speak any language other than American English. They haven't grasped the fact that there are literally stacks and stacks of volumes at UCLA's YRL, East Asian Library, that have yet to be explored. Of course, that would require the average American interested in this sort of thing to be, oh, bilingual. Perish the thought!

Can't do it. Much easier to remain in a haze of ignorance abroad, traveling around India, Nepal, or wherever the heck it is convenient for these fringe Americans to be and not confront the fact that they cannot succeed in their own country. That they have to go abroad for some Cultural Imperialism before they can feel good about themselves.

Rafael Vinoly Grant

They rejected the best grant proposal they are going to get in a long time. I think so, anyway, and since I wrote the thing, why wouldn't I think that? But still, the fact that they didn't pick this as one of the five grantees makes me wonder. What are they afraid of? A real Ph.D. candidate? One who isn't getting a Ph.D. in architecture, where they don't know real research if it bit them on the you-know-where, but in a field where architecture requires knowing other disciplines. Fields. An undergraduate degree that isn't primarily a skilled trade degree?

So here it is:

Despite all recent press, a close reading of China’s urbanization has not been performed by those trained in its history, language, culture, historiography or epistemology. Western, Orientalist discourses privilege the “Nest,” the “Egg,” CCTV or hutongs as the sole relevant examples of Chinese urbanization. They exemplify China’s modernity and its failings, along with superior Western design. Presumably China cannot attain true modernity, producing grotesque imitations plagued by uniquely Chinese problems: alienation, exploitation and the spectacle amidst indiscriminate demolition.

"This project transforms the entire discourse on Chinese urbanization, transcending narrow studies on “hutong preservation” or “migrant housing”. It frames context: Western discourses portray projects as decontextualized icons. We investigate an entire area of all formal, informal, small and medium-scale projects and spaces. Most importantly, we situate them in their larger context. We study Beijing because it has become the proxy for China’s failed modernization and has been so grossly misrepresented.

At stake is fundamentally changing strategies and policies for urbanizing China—not just Beijing—to prevent what Westerners lament and yet replicate: designs disassociated from China’s cultural and historical context. By documenting how architects, China’s government, residents and the Western gaze construct Beijing, this project will shape advanced strategies and policies."

My guess that the post-Orientalist, and anti-Orientalist approach was too much for their rather narrow, dare I even suggest racist? minds. I think so. They'd rather have some Chinese person from China, who doesn't question basic American epistemology about China, to make a proposal about China.

This was a grant about emerging economies, the BRIC economies, and I think it is just too threatening for conventional people not educated outside of the architectural field to contemplate something different. I guarantee none of them has ever read Edward Said. Or, dare I suggest a woman? Chandra Talpade Mohanty?

I await the de-Orientalizing of the architecture field

The Discourse of "Skin Whitening in Asia"

A story on the PRI radio show, The World, made much of the idea that this trend of skin whitening is not so much one of a long history as it is one of the cultural colonialism of the West.

I would suggest that that arrogance is itself evidence of the West's Cultural Colonialism.

How? Because historically, light skin was not "white" skin that supposedly mimicked Western Europeans or Euro-Americans.

It signified wealth. How? Because wealthy people did not labor in the marketplaces or in the fields. In other words, they had enough money, and servants, to do all of that for them. They themselves could engage in the more heady activities of politics, social policy, and the like.

Another cultural specificity that Euro-Americans just don't get? Fat babies. They don't get them. Pride in a fat baby? Don't call her fat, they say! That will give her a complex.

Beyond the practical stupidity of that statement--no, babies don't have that Euro-American obsession with being skinny, that's for adults--fat babies meant something very specific. That you had enough food to feed your baby. That your baby would then be healthy. And that because of that, you in turn must be if not wealthy, at least comfortable.

So before Euro-Americans go patting themselves on the back, again, for setting the "trend" for what constitutes desirable all over the world, maybe they should step back for a moment and consider the culture of which they speak.

Discrimination Against "Same-Sex" Marriage and Autism in "Liberal" California

California is not a liberal state. Witness how we are making an entire class of people institutionally discriminated against. We are denying them rights we consider basic to the most destitute Tibetans. Think not? Visit any "Free Tibet" website and see how hypocritical we are.

Oh, so you think this is a debate about religion? It isn't. It is about demarcating what is "authoritative" "normal" and what passes for "legitimate", especially in the eyes of the law.

So, an entire sector of the population continues to be denied their rights. To have the same protections as people who just happen to be heterosexual. Think it's abnormal to be homosexual? Ever read any of the European Classics? From Greece?

Talk about denying people their Human Rights, let alone Civil Rights.

Hypocrisy. Nothing short. The LA Times has done a series on this issue, and they bear examination: 1, 2.

And now that it appears that the State Supreme Court will uphold the "law" all I can say is, I am ashamed.

And as for the discrimination against those with Autism, this is a severe blow to those people who have children with any form of Autism, from Asperger's Syndrome to the full-blown Autistic cases.

Discrimination, pure and simple. Having worked for Ivar Lovaas at UCLA before he formed the actual "Lovaas Institute", I can attest to the astonishingly effective, yet labor intensive work that autistic children require. They also require intervention at a very young age.

For insurance companies to not only deny such care, but to redefine what comprises necessary care for these people is shameless.

And it is a certainty that these are the same people who decry abortion as "killing an unborn child."

Too bad they don't care about these children once they are born with severe illnesses that need equally intense treatments.

Hypocrisy is apparently live and rampant in California.

Morgan Tsvangirai and the Beleaguered Zimbabwe Nation

Well, as I reported yesterday, some of the early AP reports carried on some other sites, like the unfortunately equally-beleaguered Yahoo, were carrying reports that Susan Tsvangirai was seriously injured but not dead. I checked later and the story Yahoo's AP feed was carrying finally acknowledged that she had died.

I cannot express enough sadness for this country and its struggles since it finally threw off the shackles of colonialism.

Now of course there are questions of whether this was an intentional assassination attempt on Tsvangirai himself. That remains to be seen, and is clearly a very sensitive subject given the very delicate position he occupies, vis-a-vis Robert Mugabe and his cohort.

But I express my deepest, most heartfelt sympathy for the man, and his movement. And I hope that the situation improves, though I have my doubts.

Zimbabwe's Primer Minister Tsvangirai Injured, Wife Susan Dies in Crash

The accident occurred south of Harare and was evidently caused by, amongst other factors, that most streets are not two-way. So overtaking cars is the norm. The details aren't clear, though the story by The World appears most reliable. Other sources are citing that Susan Tsvangirai is severely injured, but one wonders whether as reputable a show as The World would declare her death unless they had confirmed with several reliable sources. One hopes.

But though the American eye may be focused on Pakistan, Iran and Iraq, even Afghanistan, I can't help but lament American foreign inattention to countries like Zimbabwe. Evidently since we cannot colonize them, exploit their resources, or otherwise subjugate them, they don't really register on our foreign policy radar, let alone your average person.

But this country's struggles over the past year and a half to establish something of truce between Robert Mugabe, the President of over 28 years, and Morgan Tsvangirai, the opposition leader, has been a lasting indictment of the pernicious vestiges of colonialism in Africa. Though Robert Mugabe was initially hailed as a "Democratic-Western-style" leader when he led his country to independence, Westerners are now shocked and amazed at how he has remained unwilling to relinquish power.

Hypocrisy-much?

Not to mention that whenever Western NGO's have offered help, especially last year with all the slayings of Tsvangirai supporters over the election Mugabe seemed to have lost, many of Mugabe's ministers would staunchly aver that there was no way they were going to let Western organizations in their country. Who knows, they might try to colonize them again. Take resources, labor and power away from the Zimbabweans.

Sound crazy? Look at Iraq.

I don't have judgment about what's going on Zimbabwe about "Human Rights Violations" because I don't believe we should be pointing the finger at anyone else when the West is the reason they are in this mess in the first place. But I do have a lot of sympathy for the people. That nation. And it's really sad history.

That seems a nation worth volunteering for.

James Otis Auctions Mohandas Gandhi's Items

It's true, the Indian businessman who successfully bid on the glasses and other personal items from James Otis, a self-proclaimed "pacifist".

But the problem with Mr. Otis, and others in this country like him, is that although he claims to respect India, he refused to honor their sovereignty by fundamentally recognizing that his act of putting them up for auction was a cultural, if not ethical and moral violation.

Why is it a violation? Imagine if some Indian, or, gasp, Chinese person owned some memorabilia of Abraham Lincoln's. Can you imagine the uproar, the American national outrage? And then, imagine if this foreign national said, "Well, I'll give these over to your government to display in the Smithsonian, but only if you agree to raise your national spending on Welfare Programs, especially for single parent households."

Imagine that. Can't do it? Well, that's exactly what Mr. Otis did. Since when did we allow someone from another country who possessed cultural icons from our country hold those items hostage until we changed our domestic policies? Never? Right.

So where do Americans think it's alright to coerce other countries that they should change their policies or they'll go right on doing the wrong thing and sell off/auction off their cultural icons?

Oh, right, Western Europeans and Euro-Americans like James Otis, and Mr. Berge, Yves Saint Laurent's partner.

Pro-Tibet Rhetoric by Euro-Americans Often Is Racist

It is interesting that many Chinese-Americans will not join in the Pro-Tibet rallies. Why not, you wonder? Are they all so awful, have they all been so indoctrinated that they simply cannot contemplate that Tibetans civil, not human, let's call it something that Americans can relate to in their own past, civil rights, are being violated?

The short answer: no. Chinese-Americans, or rather, American-Chinese, get it. Of course they are offended. They think it's wrong. So why don't they join in the debate?

Because pro-Tibet rallies that critique Chinese people are often shorthand for racism against Chinese.

How, you ask?

Let's begin with some basics. Ever notice a white person criticizing Tibet? Think about this. Do they have a lot of American-Chinese friends? No? Number one, then.

Number two, why not? Because they assume that all Chinese people must be bad, because their government, and let's face it, white people always say it's your government since they immediately forget that lots of Chinese people have been here for generations. They're still not American, hence the term American-Chinese, rather than Chinese-American. So, alright. They don't have any faith that these people have any critical thinking skills and can critique the Chinese government. Even though per capita, there are more Chinese people born here and abroad who have professional jobs than Euro-Americans, per capita.

Third, let's see. When was the last time a Chinese person born anywhere suffered from racism, I mean of the institutionalized kind that makes them feel if they are violated even verbally, they can't say anything, they just have to swallow it because otherwise people will just say, "Oh, you're being too sensitive." Yesterday? Okay, so yesterday that just happened. Sanctioned by the community, who doesn't want to hear that you're just too sensitive. You're just being too "touchy." That's right. Institutionalized racism.

Soo, that person next to you complaining about all those civil rights violations occurring across the world? Does she or he care about how the civil rights of that Chinese person standing next to them are constantly being violated, flouted, or otherwise ignored?

And does that person care about how Latinos, so often just "Mexicans" as if it's a dirty word, are being exploited? How their labor is exploited but the government won't legalize them. So they can be exploited and then deported conveniently, to whatever country they come from, when we're done exploiting their labor? Does that person crying "Foul" about Tibet care about them?

Do you see those people demonstrating in the streets? In San Francisco? In Los Angeles? Anywhere? About the poor black man caught smoking pot forty-five years ago in the South and is still in jail? Along with hundreds of his now compadres? Or protesting the government, yes, the federal government, initially introduced drugs to South and East L.A. to keep the black people down who were finally feeling their civil rights? Do you see them protesting that, and all the ills that have resulted from it? Do you see it?

I heard from someone that after all, there isn't a ranking of these kinds of social ills. The one is as bad as the other.

No. They aren't. If it's happening in your own backyard, that's worse. Because you have to take care of your own house before you go pointing the finger at how someone else's is corrupt. Something American's are soo good at doing: pointing the finger elsewhere. Can't think about how we still oppress people here.

It's so much easier to point the finger at China and Tibet. It's not an issue of condoning heinous civil rights violations abroad. It's about doing something about the heinous, continued civil rights violations here, in the U.S., of the poor, disadvantaged or just plain colored people.

If you're so worried about civil rights violations, shut up. And do something. Here. In your community. With your government. Protest that. Or are you too racist or bigoted to care about the poor people in the South? The disadvantaged colored people in the cities? And the exploited migrant women and men picking all your vegetables?

French Man Refuses to Return China's Imperial Bronzes

It should have been deemed an illegal auctioning of two Chinese imperial bronzes looted from the Imperial Palace when the French and the English sacked it during the Opium "War." That "war, by the way, was really a shameless attempt again by the Brits and French to colonize China because, after all, they were so used to colonizing everyone else in the world. Christie's response? They couldn't deny the right to auction the pieces, owned by the partner of the late Yves Saint Laurent.

One wonders. If this were the Italian government, protesting that the Getty had yet again acquired more statues illegally, of course both Christie's and this French man, would have acquiesced, stopped the auction and returned the pieces.

But it's China. Hey, they are just so easy to scapegoat. Again and again. So this French man said that he would return the illegally obtained bronzes if China "improved its human rights record."

That's shorthand for, you know, I'm really irresponsible, I'd rather have the money, and since everyone else points to China's human rights, I will too. It's convenient, rather than actually confronting the central issue: these were looted bronzes, illegally obtained during a war that was, frankly, a colonialist attempt by the French to subjugate the Chinese by inducing rampant drug addiction. When that didn't work, hey, why not just invade them? It's our right, after all, isn't it? We're from the West, we're French. We can do anything.

Why doesn't Mr. Pierre Berge confronting real history and examining what his country did to acquire these pieces in the first place?

The issue is not what China does do, the issue here is what other countries also do but don't take responsibility for because they avoid the issue by pointing the finger at China. That's the issue Westerners often don't grasp.

See the entire article here.

Indie103.1.com

Ever since Indie 103.1 went off the FM airwaves on January 16, 2009, there has been chatter about what will happen to the online-only radio station.

I have a few things to say about it. First of all, Indie 1031.com is still great--it is not a shadow of its former airwave radio self. Moreover, Indie 103.1.com is better by far than any other Independent/Alternative radio station. This includes another favorite of this blog, Morning Becomes Eclectic, now hosted by Jason Bentley. It's good, but not as good. Too much, well, eclecticism. I don't always want to listen to some weird, breathy woman from Brazil trying to be ethereal, if you know what I mean.

As for the few pseudo-news (i.e. blog posts) that lament that Indie 103.1.com is a shadow of its former self now that Jonesy's Jukebox is no more, I disagree. I appreciate Steve Jones and all but I am not one who laments the passing of his show. I mean, one can only listen to so much 70's music, which often comprised the majority of his two hour show. Ugh. It is sad that Henry Rollins's show, Harmony in My Head is moving to KCRW, but Indie still rules.

And for the many who want Indie to live on beyond the internet, there was one person who was evidently petitioning Entravision, the owners of the station who are still evidently willing to support it online. I remain unconvinced how effective that was.

And while it is great that Henry Rollins will be moving to KCRW for a new forum for his show, Harmony in My Head, I still think that Indie 103.1 is by far the best radio around. I will be sticking with it!

Being Western Isn't Enough of a Credential Anymore

The days when being a Westerner, especially one form Western Europe (read: Britain) or from the U.S., in order to be instantly credible, experienced and desirable, are over. In what context? In the East Asia context.

Americans and Western Europeans who travel to India still experience some cache, as do those same people who also travel to other countries in South Asia. They've been colonized enough to be "used to" Westerners who treat a trip to India, for example, as a spiritual pilgrimage. Usually these same people don't subscribe to a "conventional religion" but they sure don't mind using an entire country to activate their "spirituality."

But more and more, partly because much of East Asia was not colonized by these same Western countries, Americans, Brits, French, they aren't instantaneously viewed as more capable, more skilled, more intelligent, or otherwise more informed, than the indigenous peoples. Travel to any of the major cities in China, for example, and one will find more sophistication in the young people than anything Americans might offer. More ambition, better gadgets, and for those born in the city, better educated.

It must be so disappointing for travelers who assume that just because they are less than stellar in their own country, either sexually or professionally, they can still establish their cultural hegemony over there. Well, they can no longer.

Being Euro-American just isn't enough of a credential anymore. Wherever one goes in East Asia, one will find that not only can they do things just as well, they can often do it better, with better technology. It can be done more quicker, and their adoption of newer, more sustainable and efficient technologies is far more rapid and agile than the slow process made in Euro-American countries. Except perhaps those in North-western Europe, where many of these technologies originate.

Nevertheless, the idea of the BRIC economy is more than merely the latest wave of strong, developing economies. It is of cultures that are rapidly gaining on those of the West, building upon both their developments and their mistakes. Americans in particular should take note and stop being so arrogant.

"I don't like Chinese food" Often Equals Racism

It does sound like a leap, but bear with this reasoning.

In an article the other day, an actor who was filming in Hong Kong over the summer vehemently declared he "hated Chinese food." He was there for three months, had nothing to say about traveling, the culture, different as it is from China since it was a colony for 150 years and is inexorably changed, and nothing to say about the experience. Just that he hated Chinese food.

Hmm. What happened to all the other aspects of Hong Kong that are interesting? I know, for the sanitized white tourist, it's far too difficult to embrace.

Imagine that same white tourist, this one from Boston where the actor was from, in, say, India. Suddenly things change, don't they? Because India was a colony for over 300 years, white people who find it far too intimidating to travel to China or even Hong Kong will travel to India. Why? Because int he popular imaginary, there is nothing threatening about India. The people, most obviously, have been subdued for centuries. That they finaly threw off the shackles of colonialism happened only in the recent past. Look how long it's been trying to overcome the long-lasting effects of centuries of slavery and you'll understand that fifty years means nothing compared to hundreds of years. India was a colony for over 300.

So people know that the Indians will speak English. They feel that they ar a non-threatening peole. They aren't violent. They've adopted an originally British Indianized dish of Chicken Tiki Masala, just for the Western palate, even. And theydon't do violent things. They are, in short, nonthreatening.

Imagine China, now. People do't speak the language. The government has never been touched by a Western hand. And the Communism? It wasn't as Marx envisioned. It was never an economic system in China, just another form of imperial control, under a different name. The peole have never been cowed. They do things so differently. There isn't a lot of history about China that has not aready been sanitized by hundreds of years of Western scholars. There are, in short, unknown. Hence threatening. And the likelihood that a Westerner traveling to China knows the language? Right.

So when someone says, I don't like Chinese food, what they are saying is Chinese food is a proxy for a culture and a people they find different, threatening, scary and unable to e cowed. By Western values of "democracy" or "humanity"--yes, that's why we criminalize same-sex marriage, here, homosexuality, colored people, single mothers--yes, we are humane, here, incarcerating old men over fifty years in the South because once, a black man sold some pot. Gee. And what happens to Robert Downey, Jr.? A few months? Hmm. But we are humane. Yes, we are. We value human rights. We don't incarcerate, criminalkize or otherwise discriminate. Unless somehow those groups deserve it.

And imagine if someone said, I hate hot dogs and baseball. What would be the reaction? You mean you hate America?