architectural social commentary

Dutch architects Willem Jan Neutelings and Michiel Riedijk manage social critique through their Netherlands Institute for Sound and Vision while simultaneously preserving what they criticize in ghostly images. But they also subject those who visit and, more importantly, those who work in the building daily to what sounds like a rather harsh interpretation they've placed on media. The building, compared by this journalist to the Beinecke Library at Yale, looks gorgeous, but how will the inhabitants feel about it in ten years? Have the architects managed to balance usability with a flexible social critique?

People buy modern-day ecological indulgences to compensate for driving SUVs while Cindy Sheehan quits the war movement saying that her son "did indeed die for nothing" in a society that cares more about who the next American Idol is than how many troops will die in Iraq in the next month.

And here I am soon to leave the country again...

Remember when Michael Moore shared with us in Stupid White Men that he feels nervous being flown by commercial pilots who make less than the kid at Taco Bell? I don't feel any safer that so many underpaid and undertrained security guards protect our likeliest terrorist targets. How about quality rather than quantity in paranoia? How much training and pay do our favorite friendly folk at the TSA receive, I wonder?

If only people would band together to raise money for causes more worthy than buying $26,000 worth of peanuts in order to get to veg out in front of another season of Jericho.

It still upsets me greatly to think that many of the Americans dying in Iraq are my age or younger. I suppose this isn't the most reasonable or urgent thing to be perturbed by, but it hits close to home.

The man who started the camera phone revolution was really just an engineering nerd whose wife was going into labor.

Some moving stories about Asian American pioneers. Normally I wouldn't resolve to watch a movie because I never watch even the movies I intend to see, but doctor-turned-survivor-turned-Academy-Award-winning actor Haing S. Ngor's comment before his murder, "If I die from now on, OK! This film [The Killing Fields] will go on for a hundred years," makes it just memorable enough to put this film on my list.

the murse

My brand familiarity clearly ranks me amongst the wealthiest in America with an annual income of over $300,000... because unlike all these luxury-man-purse-buying men, I'm familiar with Gucci, Louis Vuitton, and Prada, but I actually had no idea what Coach was until this year. Go figure.

By the way, if anyone ever gets me one of these things, I'll return it. Way to waste your money spending it on the thing you're carrying your money in and that folks will snatch when they realize you have a fortune dangling off you.

I'm still amused at the skinny young Asian woman I saw getting off the bus around Park Avenue one afternoon whose slick pink trenchcoat and giant handbag blared the most expensive brands on the planet. "That girl's rich," the requisite gregarious Commentator at the front of the bus informed the driver after we took off again.

The article asserts that "the luxury handbag is the accessory that defines the wealthy woman." I wonder how that bright green handbag with flowers and grass hanging off it in the Milano subway defined its middle-aged owner, then. I'm sure it was more expensive than any of the handbags I passed by in LV.

</end rant>

Save the Sagrada Familia!

A high-speed tunnel connecting Barcelona and Madrid? Great. Running it 5 feet from the Sagrada Familia despite the protests of everyone from Gaudi's successor on the project to MIT professors? Royally bad idea.

Will Earthly bacteria take over the universe? Or at least some poor unwitting Martian's solar system?

D.C.'s first female police chief dropped out of school and had a baby at 15, yet has come farther than most women in the country. We need more role models like this. Wow.

Also, this is why the death penalty is not only barbaric, but also a waste of precious taxpayer dollars.

We Americans are so bad at trying to look good that it's almost funny. As reported by the BBC:

"We made official apologies on the part of the US government and payments of about $2,000 for each death," [US army spokesman Col John Nicholson] said, after US officials visited some of the families left bereaved by the incident.

US forces were accused of killing the civilians during shooting near the city of Jalalabad.... At least eight Afghan civilians had been killed, with a further 35 injured. Reports said that as they left the scene along a busy highway, the Americans fired indiscriminately on civilians and their vehicles.

Journalists said at the time that US troops confiscated their photos and video footage of the aftermath of the violence.

$2,000? Is this some kind of joke? Oh, wait. They're Afghans. That means their lives couldn't possibly be worth more... than a 15-inch MacBook Pro.

not funny.

really just not funny.

So this is what happens to recycled rechargeable batteries!

And this is the heartwarming story of what happens to unused paint!

And... this is what happens when a tanker catches fire and destroys some Bay Area highways.

when did comfort = exploitation?

I know there are even more hideous stories around the world, but somehow the thought of 50,000 to 200,000 "comfort women" (what an outrageous euphemism) enslaved by Japan's military in the Philippines, South Korea, and Taiwan during and after WWII, and the explosive popularity of their services amongst American troops during the occupation is the most abhorrent thing I have read in a while. Those women could hardly have fought for themselves, considering the culture they came from and the obligations they must have felt to their impoverished families. Even recently, not a single Japanese woman felt justified or unembarrassed enough to step forward and claim an official apology and compensation from the Asian Women's Fund, which was just closed. But just take a look at the attempts male authorities made at justification: "Sadly, we police had to set up sexual comfort stations for the occupation troops," recounts the official history of the Ibaraki Prefectural Police Department, whose jurisdiction is just northeast of Tokyo. "The strategy was, through the special work of experienced women, to create a breakwater to protect regular women and girls."

British town of 1,500 bans plastic bags

Breaking news: Over 70% of people who read newspaper articles online about towns banning plastic bags would support a ban on plastic bags in their own towns. Wowsers!

Great way for a tiny town to get its name on the international news, now that I think about it.

Is it any surprise that a Dutchman built a new Noah's Ark? Perhaps it is a surprise, however, that a creationist should inadvertently draw more international attention to global warming.

Lois Poppema, visiting from California, said she thought the Netherlands was exactly the right place for an ark.

"Just a few weeks ago we saw Al Gore on television ... saying that all Holland will be flooded" by rising sea levels, she said.

"I don't think the man who made this ever expected that global warming will become (such an important) issue -- and suddenly having the ark would be meaningful in the middle of Holland."
...
[Dutch creationist Johan] Huibers said he hopes the project will renew interest in Christianity in the Netherlands, where churchgoing has fallen dramatically in the past 50 years. He also plans to visit major cities in Belgium and Germany.

Doesn't this sound like an article out of an old DOS version of Sim City?

"WASHINGTON (AP) -- Families victimized by tainted spinach and peanut butter put a human face Tuesday on a recent string of high-profile outbreaks of foodborne illness..."

A better headline, and unexpected: House passes legislation to increase math and science teachers. For real?! I didn't know our legislators were educated enough to realize that this might be important. Perhaps my opinion was recently lowered when somebody told me recently that only about a third of legislators actually possess American passports. *shudder*

I also want to express my excitement about the ambitious and highly worthwhile local startup campaign Critical Brisk Stroll. The cry for help: "I am looking for volunteers to help me organize this event. I propose that we schedule and promote a brisk stroll from the Village Gate to a bar in the South Wedge, occuring at some point within the next month, starting at precisely 7 PM."

Although if pressed, I am likely to admit that I would gladly run any pedestrians off the pavement if I felt the need to cycle on the sidewalk.

the dark side of the tech boom

China continues to crush free speech and as Internet users we're all complicit.

In other news, traveling gourmet dinner parties of strangers in the Bay Area. Something to add to the list of "things I want to visit before I die" list that I started on Tuesday's extra studio class. That list began with "One of the regional 'P.O. Boxes' to which IRS tax forms are sent each April." I envision several warehouses exploding with envelopes arriving by the truckful on the due date rather than your normal cubbyhole-in-the-wall. I don't understand why I never thought to start such a list before. Perhaps even before I learned the news of Virginia Tech, covered surprisingly thoroughly on Wikipedia as John brought to my attention, I had mortality on the mind.

rabbit liberation or massacre?

Five thousand rabbits blocked a highway in Hungary on Monday, tying up traffic after the truck that was carrying them collided with another vehicle and overturned. Neither driver was hurt, but some 500 rabbits were killed. 4,500 were gathered up, and the remaining 100 will run/hop/skip/jump free forever in the Hungarian fields.

real news

Ozzy Osbourne: New album first I've done sober. He didn't want his life to go to "pieces."

In other news of the retarded, a guy tried to yoink an ATM but was unsuccessful because his prosthetic leg fell off.

Yet other mildly thought-inducing stories:
Have spatula, will travel describes the joy of learning to cook local cuisines while traveling. I think this is great, but unless you have the luxury of traveling a lot, would't you want to spend more time exploring the places and enjoying the local food as a restaurant customer?

The Navy has used dolphins to protect harbors for a long time. I had no idea that our government employed marine mammals and gave them retirement benefits. What are the terms of their contracts and benefits?

Although they found a way to not return Ingrid's money to me (quel outrage), the SNCF deserves some credit for setting the world record train speed of 574.8 km/h (357 mph). Hello, Amtrak?

EDRT

The UR has an "Emotionally Disturbed Response Team?" I know the article isn't something to laugh at. But really, is this a typo?

Also typoed: In Brussels, the homeless have had to spend a first night on the streets."