A Flat World and a pie in the face

The site was down this weekend, which is a convenient excuse for me not posting anything.

Anyhow, Tom Friedman, author of the World is Flat, recently got a pie in the face while talking about globalization and the environment.

Which leads me to ask this question: Is there a better way to promote your book than a pie in the face?

Daily Show correspondent John Oliver on Fair Trade, China, and Outsourcing

Worried that China is going to dominate the global economy? Stop. Oliver assures us that they won’t because Chinese people will never buy inflatable grills.

What about Free Trade? Oliver says we should demonize unfair trade.

Outsourcing? Yes. Oliver outsources his jokes to a 10-year old Indonesian boy.

Watch the video. It’s just another example of why we should be electing comedians to the land’s highest offices.

Today’s writing exercise: Rolphing

If only I would have discovered Rolphing before I finished my book. I’m sure it would have taken my creativity to whole other level. Matt Sloan and Aaron Yonda of Chad Vader fame spoke at the conference this past weekend and introduced a room full of middle-aged women to rolphing. Some of the women may have thought it was funny. I thought it was hilarious.

Obama’s T-Shirts: Made in USA

I can look out the window of my day job’s office in Greenville, Ohio, and see the company (Tiger Eye Design) that’s printing and shipping T-shirts, buttons, key chains, and other swag to Obama-backers everywhere. All the products are made in the USA by union workers.

The company was featured in Time Magazine and also on the local news:

Things I’m excited about: Finding Osama at Sundance & Bliss

1. Morgan Spurlock’s new film Where in the World is Osama Bin Laden recently debuted at the Sundance Film festival. I probably won’t be able to see it for some time since films like this don’t come to a theater near me in Muncie, Indiana. So, I’ll have to wait for the DVD. Until then here’s a taste:

2. Eric Weiner’s book The Geography of Bliss. Weiner a former NPR correspondent banished to report from the world’s most depressing places visits the happiest places on Earth. I’m all about chasing an idea from culture to culture and trying to make sense of it. It’s a bold move looking for something as abstract as happiness, but from what I’ve heard about the book, he does a good job of it.

Here’s a question for you:

Which is easier to find Osama Bin Laden or Bliss?

Powerful video: Indigenous People in Guatemala Evicted

I saw this video posted here. If you want to skip right to the meat, start at 2:30. The lady in the pink shirt is amazing. No one else has the balls to tell the “Compania” what they think. She does.

The Pinky Show on globalization

The NLC would like to slap you in the face

This video produced by the National Labor Committee has some pretty powerful images, including young Bangladeshi women sleeping with their faces smooshed against the side of their sewing machines.

I’m all for people knowing where and who make their clothes, but I think this video has some faults. The narration is a bit extreme and completely dismisses the context in which the workers live.

The narrator says that the factories reach 100-degrees in the summertime and that the worker’s clothes are covered in sweat as if the workers have a place to escape the heat. They don’t. If they weren’t at the factory, they would be sitting in 100-degree heat in their home. Granted, workers coloring cloth, using irons, or presses work in areas painfully hot year-round.

Is a woman who is allowed eight seconds to sew on a button, and who does this time and time again, any different than any factory worker anywhere in the world that puts the same widget in the same place day-in and day-out? A factory is a factory. Doing a repetitive job efficiently is factory work. I know people in Ohio who have spent most of their lives doing the same thing.

The narrator also mentions that the workers don’t have pensions or health care plans. Few people do in Bangladesh. To say it as if the workers don’t get it like everybody else in the country is misleading.

The narrator makes broad generalizations as if all of the women workers’ families are falling apart and all the supervisors beat the workers.

Without a doubt the video is shocking – somewhat misleading but shocking. Maybe that’s what people need. Personally, I want the whole story and this video is not the whole story. But maybe I saw a video like this years ago and it planted the idea for this quest. This video could be the that kernel for someone else.

Maybe we need a little slap in the face before we actually think about something.

In case you are sick of Turkey

Here’s a bit from the Onion:

Gap Unveils New ‘For Kids By Kids’ Clothing Line

My Ohio State vs. Michigan memories – monks

I’ve spent more than a few holidays away from home: Easter in Bangladesh, 4th of July in Guatemala, Halloween in Thailand, and Ohio State vs. Michigan in Nepal living with monks.

Ohio State vs. Michigan might not be a holiday to you, but then you must not be from Ohio or Michigan.

Yesterday’s game, which OSU won, reminded me of being in Kathmandu watching the evening news with my monk friends. The news is kind of boring when you don’t know what the heck they’re saying. So, when images of Columbus, Ohio, erupting in riots following a particularly heated OSU vs. Michigan game flashed across the screen, I perked up.

“Isn’t that where you are from?” Asked my buddy Dorjee Lama.

“Yep.”

Then silence as drunk painted people turned over cars and lit fires. The rioters made radical Maoist rebels look reasonable.

I guess I could try to explain the images to Dorjee: All this world is suffering, especially when your team loses. Instead, we just sat and watched.

Monks are peaceful. Buckeyes and Wolverines are not.