Musings of Indifference

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June 3rd, 2012
fyeah-history: Democratically elected President Salvador Allende moments away from death during military coup at Moneda presidential palace in Chile, 1973Salvador Allende, President of Chile, died during the Chilean coup of 1973 by the Chilean Army Commander-in-Chief Augusto Pinochet. Although he reportedly committed suicide shortly after giving a radio speech to the Chilean people, there has been great controversy regarding the circumstances of his death. Allende supporters have always dismissed the military junta’s version events because they believe he was assassinated.

fyeah-history:

Democratically elected President Salvador Allende moments away from death during military coup at Moneda presidential palace in Chile, 1973
Salvador Allende, President of Chile, died during the Chilean coup of 1973 by the Chilean Army Commander-in-Chief Augusto Pinochet. Although he reportedly committed suicide shortly after giving a radio speech to the Chilean people, there has been great controversy regarding the circumstances of his death. Allende supporters have always dismissed the military junta’s version events because they believe he was assassinated.

(via philphys)

kohenari: So … who’s thirsty? Oh hey, Bloomberg’s proposed ban of super-sized soda isn’t really all that random. The research completely backs it: Soda serving sizes have had the largest increase of restaurant portions.

kohenari:

So … who’s thirsty?

Oh hey, Bloomberg’s proposed ban of super-sized soda isn’t really all that random. The research completely backs it: Soda serving sizes have had the largest increase of restaurant portions.

kohenari: Chris Hayes began his show yesterday morning by apologizing again for his comments last weekend about heroism and the military: Hero, he continued, “hardly seems a designation that is mine to deny or even to confirm… which was, in a very clumsy way, what I was trying to say, or what I was trying to discuss.” I’m sure this is what a lot of people were waiting for Hayes to admit. He was wrong, they thought, and they wanted him to be specific about why he was wrong (as opposed to his apology last week, in which he said, “I don’t think I lived up to the standards of rigor, respect and empathy for those affected by the issues we discuss that I’ve set for myself”). Hayes is right, in a sense: Heroism isn’t a designation that he alone can confer on someone or deny to someone. That’s a task that a society has to take on. But Hayes is also wrong, in a sense: He seems to be implying that heroism is something that each person decides for herself. Or at least, that’s most likely how his statement will be understood. I took Scott Allison to task for precisely this relativistic way of thinking about heroism last week. Allison wrote: If you haven’t read our book, our definition of a hero is quite clear.  Put simply, we don’t have one.  The reason?  Heroism is in the eye of the beholder. We’ve asked hundreds of people to list their heroes and to provide reasons for labeling someone as a hero.  After studying these lists, we see that our taste in heroes is as varied as our taste in music, movies, and paintings.  Defining a hero is like defining a good meal at a restaurant.  It depends on your values and your personal preferences. Allison’s is a much clearer statement of Hayes’ notion that heroism “hardly seems a designation that is mine to deny or even to confirm.” Heroism, on this reading, is whatever anyone wants it to be. What this sort of reasoning does, however, is rob us of the conversation about heroism, about what we value or aspire to as a society. It allows us to simply punt on that difficult task … and that was precisely the task that Hayes’ controversial segment on the military and heroism might have occasioned. As Will Wilkinson argued, “The cheapening of ‘hero’ is a symptom of a culture desperate to evade serious moral self-reflection by covering itself in indiscriminate glory for undertaking wars of dubious value.” You think every soldier is a hero, I think some soldiers are heroes, and someone else thinks no soldiers are heroes? Great news; we’re all right! But we can’t all be right about this because these answers about heroism conflict with one another … unless by “right” we simply mean that we don’t care enough to discuss the matter or that we’re too afraid of the consequences of that discussion.

kohenari:

Chris Hayes began his show yesterday morning by apologizing again for his comments last weekend about heroism and the military:

Hero, he continued, “hardly seems a designation that is mine to deny or even to confirm… which was, in a very clumsy way, what I was trying to say, or what I was trying to discuss.”

I’m sure this is what a lot of people were waiting for Hayes to admit. He was wrong, they thought, and they wanted him to be specific about why he was wrong (as opposed to his apology last week, in which he said, “I don’t think I lived up to the standards of rigor, respect and empathy for those affected by the issues we discuss that I’ve set for myself”).

Hayes is right, in a sense: Heroism isn’t a designation that he alone can confer on someone or deny to someone. That’s a task that a society has to take on.

But Hayes is also wrong, in a sense: He seems to be implying that heroism is something that each person decides for herself. Or at least, that’s most likely how his statement will be understood.

I took Scott Allison to task for precisely this relativistic way of thinking about heroism last week. Allison wrote:

If you haven’t read our book, our definition of a hero is quite clear.  Put simply, we don’t have one.  The reason?  Heroism is in the eye of the beholder. We’ve asked hundreds of people to list their heroes and to provide reasons for labeling someone as a hero.  After studying these lists, we see that our taste in heroes is as varied as our taste in music, movies, and paintings.  Defining a hero is like defining a good meal at a restaurant.  It depends on your values and your personal preferences.

Allison’s is a much clearer statement of Hayes’ notion that heroism “hardly seems a designation that is mine to deny or even to confirm.” Heroism, on this reading, is whatever anyone wants it to be.

What this sort of reasoning does, however, is rob us of the conversation about heroism, about what we value or aspire to as a society. It allows us to simply punt on that difficult task … and that was precisely the task that Hayes’ controversial segment on the military and heroism might have occasioned.

As Will Wilkinson argued, “The cheapening of ‘hero’ is a symptom of a culture desperate to evade serious moral self-reflection by covering itself in indiscriminate glory for undertaking wars of dubious value.”

You think every soldier is a hero, I think some soldiers are heroes, and someone else thinks no soldiers are heroes? Great news; we’re all right!

But we can’t all be right about this because these answers about heroism conflict with one another … unless by “right” we simply mean that we don’t care enough to discuss the matter or that we’re too afraid of the consequences of that discussion.

anticapitalist: Undocumented Artist Gives American Apparel’s Farmer Ad a Political Twist When Julio Salgado saw American Apparel’s new magazine ad — in which a scantily-clad young white woman identified as ‘studying public relations’ clings gingerly to a dark-skinned Latino ‘farmer’ named Raul — Salgado didn’t bother pretending not to be pissed off. “My first thought was, this is so unrealistic,” says Salgado. “I did construction work for a couple of summers while I was in college, and I worked with guys who looked like that - you know, day laborers. And that image in the ad brought me back to one time when we were working on a hotel, putting in tile. Women who look like that model were walking by, and would pass by and totally not pay attention to us, would ignore us. The reality is, people like that usually are ignored. “So what exactly is it that American Apparel is trying to say here? Is it, ‘See? There’s unity? We like you!’ That’s not how it happens, and American Apparel has always used people, especially women, as objects. Were they just doing this to get on the undocumented wagon?”

anticapitalist:

Undocumented Artist Gives American Apparel’s Farmer Ad a Political Twist

When Julio Salgado saw American Apparel’s new magazine ad — in which a scantily-clad young white woman identified as ‘studying public relations’ clings gingerly to a dark-skinned Latino ‘farmer’ named Raul — Salgado didn’t bother pretending not to be pissed off.

“My first thought was, this is so unrealistic,” says Salgado. “I did construction work for a couple of summers while I was in college, and I worked with guys who looked like that - you know, day laborers. And that image in the ad brought me back to one time when we were working on a hotel, putting in tile. Women who look like that model were walking by, and would pass by and totally not pay attention to us, would ignore us. The reality is, people like that usually are ignored.

“So what exactly is it that American Apparel is trying to say here? Is it, ‘See? There’s unity? We like you!’ That’s not how it happens, and American Apparel has always used people, especially women, as objects. Were they just doing this to get on the undocumented wagon?”

The secret of Obama’s “principles” is that he has none. A political chameleon without independent ideas, democratic convictions or moral scruples, Obama’s personality is that of a bureaucratic state functionary. He identifies himself with the military and intelligence apparatus that he officially “commands,” always under the watchful eye of his counterterrorism advisor, the former CIA official John Brennan.

More important than what the state killing program says about Obama personally, however, is what it exposes about the ruling political establishment as a whole. It testifies to the wholesale repudiation of core constitutional principles at the highest levels and a real political and moral breakdown of the entire US government.

If the assassination of an American citizen is “easy”, of what crimes are this president and his administration not capable? Clearly, the institutionalization of kill lists, targeting committees and fascistic justifications for state murder have profound implications at home as well as abroad.

Obama’s role in the selection of drone missile targets (via arielnietzsche)

(via anticapitalist)

Socialist Assassin Pony: Media still uncritically reporting those killed in Drone Strikes as "Militants"

theamericanbear:

“Mr. Obama embraced a disputed method for counting civilian casualties that did little to box him in. It in effect counts all military-age males in a strike zone as combatants, according to several administration officials, unless there is explicit intelligence…

June 2nd, 2012
Ousted Egyptian leader Hosni Mubarak sentenced to life in prison The former Egyptian leader, shown from the cage he was held inside the courtroom, is the first former leader convicted in the wake of the Arab Spring revolutions in the past 16 months. Mubarak’s conviction, however, may not stand — he was convicted for killings of unarmed protesters in the early days of the protests in Egypt, but many of the officials under him were acquitted for the same actions. Nonetheless, a significant event in the Arab Spring’s history. (photo via Reuters TV)

Ousted Egyptian leader Hosni Mubarak sentenced to life in prison

The former Egyptian leader, shown from the cage he was held inside the courtroom, is the first former leader convicted in the wake of the Arab Spring revolutions in the past 16 months. Mubarak’s conviction, however, may not stand — he was convicted for killings of unarmed protesters in the early days of the protests in Egypt, but many of the officials under him were acquitted for the same actions. Nonetheless, a significant event in the Arab Spring’s history. (photo via Reuters TV)

(via kohenari)

americawakiewakie: One Party System

americawakiewakie:

One Party System

(via noam-chomsky)

Whoever thought that he had understood something of me had merely construed something out of me, after his own image.
Friedrich Nietzsche 

(Source: quotelibrary.info, via myquotelibrary)

Lightening Dark Skin For Beauty, Money and Cancer

anticapitalist:

jensenjaundice:

Until today I’d assumed “whitewashing” (the practice of bleaching one’s skin to alter its color to a lighter and thus more appealing tone) had all but died in most parts of the modern world.

Holy fuck was I wrong.

This year, British Vogue’s November 2011 cover features none other than Rihanna (aka, the sexiest woman I’ve ever known) posing in one of her classic fierce stances in a blonde wig. When I first saw the cover I was a bit confused why Rihanna looked so different; but, knowing Rihanna’s penchant for unconventional hairstyles, I was initially able to naively overlook her seemingly Marilyn Monroe-inspired do; but a doubletake of the whole ensemble made me realize something a little disconcerting. Rihanna doesn’t just have Marilyn’s hair, but also her eyes, her pose, even her skin. “But Vogue is a fashion magazine, that look is chic, sexy, couture.” Vapid fashion vocabulary aside, it certainly sells, right? Now, I definitely don’t want to deny or minimize the blatant and subliminal sexism the fashion industry is chronically rife with; given fashion magazine’s long history of blatant sexism, it might not be immediately disconcerting to the average reader. But what is disconcerting to anyone who loves the Barbadoan babe like I do is how fucking white Rihanna looks.

As colorlines.com so eloquently put it:

It could be the actual lighting on set, it could be that we’ve gotten used to her wearing a fire engine-red wig, or it could be that someone forget to tell Vogue’s retoucher that Rihanna is in fact black.

Now before you chime in with “what’s so wrong about white skin?” I’d like to point out that there’s absolutely nothing wrong with it. However, there’s certainly nothing wrong with looking black, either. And call me cracked, but in my mind a few red flags go up when I see an international organization that claims to decide what’s hot and what’s not is photoshopping a world-famous superstar in the name of fashion sense.

Apparently Rihanna hasn’t been the only one “touched-up” with the desaturation tool either. Back in January of this year, ELLE India went with a lighter-tinted version of Aishwarya Rai, the sensational Star of Bollywood making headlines all over the internet and the world, and named by 60 Minutes as the Most Beautiful Woman in the World.

So why does the supposed “Most Beautiful Woman in the World” need any photoshopping? Isn’t she already the pinnacle of perfection? Thankfully, not everyone agrees. Especially Miss Rai, who stated to The Times of India that the former Miss World is “furious with the bleaching blotch-up” and is considering pursuing legal action against the magazine. 

But unfortunately Miss Rai isn’t the only celebrity ELLE’s taken to the light room. Oscar-nominated actress Gabourey Sidibe also miraculously changed colors on the cover of U.S. edition of ELLE back in October of 2010.

And judging from some more photo shoots taken in 2009, L’oréal isn’t above whitewashing either. Just do a double-take of international stars Beyoncé and Freida Pinto. Any red flags yet?

As colorlines.com journalist Julianne Hing points out: 

It’s a common, tired practice, and the routine is well-practiced: beauty companies and fashion magazines regularly lighten women’s skin (and darken the faces of black men), pissed off consumers shout back, and sometimes an apology is issued. But come the next fall collection or election season, photo retouchers are inevitably back to trying to make women of color more attractive by lightening them, and darkening the skin of men of color to make them seem more dangerous and suspect. Color, still, is everything.

At some point you have to stop and wonder just what the fuck is going on.

Fortunately, in the case of Aishwarya Rai at least, Change.org has begun a campaign asking the magazine to issue a public apology. However, in light of the situation (no pun intended), why should a campaign be necessary? Shouldn’t ELLE make a statement free of coercion by activist groups, regretting the mistake they knowingly made? I mean they do regret their “mistake,” right? Which brings me around to my point: Why the fuck is this still occurring? 

In July in India, Vaseline launched a facebook app that allows the user to lighten their profile pictures to a more “appealing” tone. In 2005 Indian cosmetics mogul Emani began a new product campaign aimed at both men and women’s insecurities, launching their new skin-whitening cream for men called “Fair and Handsome” (the women’s version of course being called “Fair and Lovely”).

Closer to home, a study conducted by Dr. S. Allen Counter of Harvard Medical School in 2003 showed some pretty frightening findings:

96% of over 300 patients in the Southwestern United States that have higher than normal mercury levels were female and all had used skin lightening products; likewise 90% of women tested in clinics in Arizona who were Mexican-American had been using the same products (2).

Women more often try to whiten their skin and as a consequence poison their bodies. These lightening creams such as ‘Crema de Belleza-Manning’, which is made in Mexico, contain mercurous chloride and is easily absorbed through the skin.

As you may or may not know, toxic levels of mercury lead to mercury poisoning, which causes neurological and kidney damage, as well as being a possible cause of psychiatric disorders. It can also cause birth defects. So it’s some pretty serious shit.

Aside from the horrors that survey alone should instill, there’s more where it came from:

Doctors in the UK were confused by symptoms presented by a woman when no reason for her weight gain, stretch or stripe marks and inability to conceive could be found. It was only after further questioning that she admitted to using a skin lightening product (1).

The product, which is illegal in the EU, was clobetasol. This is a cream containing high levels of the steroid corticosteroid. Typically this cream is prescribed for skin conditions including eczema and psoriasis, and is only to be used for up to two weeks at a time.

The UK doctors reported that the woman far exceeded the recommended usage, using two tubes of clobetasol a week for over seven years.

Such products are being increasingly used by people in a number of countries in an attempt to lighten the skin. Older people as well use skin lightening to remove age or liver spots and other skin darkening conditions.

However few people are warned of the dangers of the toxic ingredients which, as well as containing steroids, includes hydroquinone. While hydroquinone is allowed in the US by the FDA, it is banned in Europe because of the potential to cause cancer.

The list of side effects of the steroid corticosteroid is long. The most serious is Cushing’s disease, a malfunction of the adrenal glands leading to an overproduction of cortisol. Other side effects include:

* increased appetite and weight gain
* deposits of fat in chest, face, upper back, and stomach
* swelling
* slowed healing of wounds
* osteoporosis
* cataracts
* acne
* muscle weakness
* thinning of the skin

Kind of ruins that old saying “beauty is only skin deep,” doesn’t it?

So yeah, there’s that. If it wasn’t already alarming that people are getting whiter on paper, in reality the lightening products themselves have some terrible, toxic side affects. If you’re willing to lighten your skin color for the sake of appearing more attractive, you’re also willing to risk a myriad of other much more devastating skin problems (if psoriasis, eczema, acne, and thin skinning weren’t enough of an indication). In the end, the real cost of lighter skin is often paid in irreparable or even fatal damage to the user’s health, mind, and body—and often the products themselves advertise much better than they actually perform. So why does the fashion industry support this? Why, despite not only obvious health risks and the even more obvious fact that dark skin is beautiful all by itself, is lighter skin encouraged? Maybe it happens because people don’t really know all the serious risks behind skin whitening; maybe fashion companies are simply more concerned with a better quarterly statement than the health of their customers. Or maybe skin lightening is a symptom of the stigma that remains after hundreds of years of oppression, colonialism, and racism latent in our still very segregated and unequal world today. Maybe it’s all true. Whatever way you choose to view it, it’s a grim reality and a heavy price to pay, all for the ‘right look.’ But in our world, it’s the price of beauty.

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June 1st, 2012
gjmueller: A Gap in College Graduates Leaves Some Cities Behind As cities like this one try to reinvent themselves after losing large swaths of their manufacturing sectors, they are discovering that one of the most critical ingredients for a successful transformation — college graduates — is in perilously short supply. Dayton sits on one side of a growing divide among American cities, in which a small number of metro areas vacuum up a large number of college graduates, and the rest struggle to keep those they have.

gjmueller:

A Gap in College Graduates Leaves Some Cities Behind

As cities like this one try to reinvent themselves after losing large swaths of their manufacturing sectors, they are discovering that one of the most critical ingredients for a successful transformation — college graduates — is in perilously short supply.

Dayton sits on one side of a growing divide among American cities, in which a small number of metro areas vacuum up a large number of college graduates, and the rest struggle to keep those they have.

There is no longer any social necessity for human beings to be treated as mechanical elements in the productive process; that can be overcome and we must overcome it by a society of freedom and free association, in which the creative urge that I consider intrinsic to human nature, will in fact be able to realise itself in whatever way it will.
Noam Chomsky (via noam-chomsky)

(Source: chomsky.info, via noam-chomsky)

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Hello, my name is Rachel Inderhees, and sometimes I kick ass.

Hello, my name is Rachel Inderhees, and sometimes I kick ass.

theatlantic:

In Focus: Afghanistan, May 2012

This month, President Obama and members of NATO involved in Afghanistan formally agreed on a transition plan, preparing to hand over security responsibilities to Afghan forces by the summer of 2013. France’s new president, François Hollande, restated an earlier pledge to remove all French combat forces from Afghanistan by the end of this year. Suicide bombings, IEDs, and a growing number of “green on blue” attacks (men in Afghan uniforms attacking coalition forces) continue to take a toll and limit security efforts.

Top: The chained leg of Jalaluddin, a drug addict, during his 40-day incarceration at the Mia Ali Baba Shrine in Jalalabad, Afghanistan, on May 7, 2012. The shrine is a holy place, and those who care for it say that spending 40 days here will, God willing, free Jalaludin from his personal prison of mental illness.

Center-left: Jake Beaudoin, a U.S. Army Private of 508 BSTB, 4th Brigade Combat Team, 82nd Airborne Division, takes cover during a controlled detonation to clear an area for setting up a check point in Zahri district of Kandahar province, on May 31, 2012.

Center-right: Stephanie Montgomery of Atlanta, Georgia, lies on the ground while visiting her brother’s grave, Army Staff Sgt. Thaddeus Montgomery, 29, in Section 60 at Arlington National Cemetery in Arlington, Virginia, on May 28, 2012.

Bottom: Dust lights up the rotors of a CH-47 Chinook helicopter as paratroopers with 3rd Squadron, 73rd Cavalry Regiment load for an air assault mission near Combat Outpost Ab Band in Ghazni province, Afghanistan, on May 23, 2012.

See the rest. [Images: U.S. Army, AP, Reuters]