Let's Stop Saying, 'Balkanization'
A word that is oft tossed around freely is Balkanization. In its truest form, it refers to the breakup of the country that was formerly known as Yugoslavia. In its most idiotic form, it is used to refer to collection of smaller items that separate from a larger one. I have a crazy idea: stop using this word.
As you can see from the Wikipedia article that I linked to, there isn't really any history given as to how the word came about. Obviously it came in to use as former Yugoslavia started to fall apart, but there isn't any mention as to who was the first person to coin it in to the common vernacular. At this point, it doesn't really matter. What does matter is that it's an offensive word. Why people can't simply say, "breakup", "collapse", or "separation" is the same reason that we use French words for wine varietals, in that one believes one has the air of being educated if one is to use this bigger, fancier word.
Do any of you who use this word think of the people who actually live in this region of the Western Balkans and what this means to them? It would be like saying every time you serve a bad meal that it's suffered "Britization". No one wants that and it's an unfair association to a region that never asked for the word to be used in the first place. And I pick on the British in this example as I suspect them of starting common use of the word, such as in this article on the BBC that's actually about Africa. It's just one of many.
Beyond the offense of the word, there is just the complete blindness to history. Yugoslavia was actually comprised of various states that had been independent at various points throughout history. So, Yugoslavia was an artificial entity that was bound to separate just like countless other larger countries that have broken up over the centuries. Of course we don't say USSRization, Czechoslovakization, British Empirization, or even Austro-Hungarization. No, we say Balkanization and we say it too much. It's a word we need to lose and just revert back to the normal words I mentioned before. Saying Grenache instead of Garnacha may sound "fancier" to some, but saying, Balkanization just shows that you have no true grasp of what you're talking about, leaving you to fumble for large words to attempt to cover that fact up.
30 09 2008 6 comments
Tags: language, politics, the balkans, the europe
Days of Books and Food
For those who might have been sitting around wondering, "Huh, did I forget about something happening this last weekend?" you missed out on the SF Public Library Annual Book Sale. I only caught the closing minutes of it on Friday due to work running over too much, but #1 Fan took the bullet and went ahead to scout out proper titles to take home. Naturally, we're very happy with what we came away with, and at $28 for 13 books, you really can't beat that. Some people went a little overboard there, looking like they were stocking up for the next year with reading material. In the end, I'm just thrilled that we now have San Sombrèro to round out the Jetlag Travel Series.
Being that we were up in the hood, we decided to splurge and have dinner at Greens. Yeah, I know, it's vegetarian and that has the potential for overall suckiness, but for starters, this isn't vegan poo dirt they're serving like they do at Millennium. They use cheese and other kinds of goodness. Secondly, these guys just know what they're doing. Toss in the view of the Golden Gate Bridge if the fog hasn't rolled in and you've got one hell of a romantic setting. Even if you're a staunch meat lover (and lord knows I am) you'll have a good meal there. Great wine list too.
But, Greens is old news. The newer news is Crown & Crumpet up at Ghirardelli Square. It's the newest tea salon in San Francisco. At some point, I need to do a tea in SF roundup as I realize that I've been to all but two tea spots in the city. Crown is one of the better ones. They have a well-honed list of teas and the desserts are heavenly, especially the scones. The only two downsides are that a) it's not cheap and b) it's verges on being really girlie. I'm not sure if the prices will change, but if they just got rid of the pink and white floor, it would be great. Judging by how easily it gets scuffed, this might happen, but I won't hold my breath. It's a shame as tea is seen to be such a weakling thing here and this image doesn't help. It also doesn't do much to get the guys to want to go with their women up there as opposed to Tal y Tara out in the Richmond, which takes on a more English edge and no one should be ashamed of being seen at.
28 09 2008 0 comments
Tags: books, food, san francisco
Whitey Strikes Again with the Questionless Asking
A little while back, I asked, Why Can't White People get to the Question? It's an honest question because while I myself am very much white, I am still amazed at how white folk just can't ask questions. Read that article if you'd like to hear more about my theories on this.
I revisit the subject again because after the flat discussion yesterday, I got confronted with the white man and the white woman postulating a doctoral thesis before finally getting to the slight uptick in their tone which indicates that they have finally felt it time to act as if they were asking a question. It's ridiculous. I've not actually seen anyone I know personally do this, so it makes me wonder if these people are generally idiots or if it's just that when once handed the microphone, it electrifies them and they feel like they're the king of the world. I don't really know, but I do know that it has made me hyper sensitive to when I ask questions in a crowd to make sure that I get right to the question. And just if you were curious, there was a Korean guy who asked three questions and had them answered in the time it took this one goofy white guy to get to the weak question mark at the end of his own personal discussion.
Folks, just think about it in the future. When you're an audience member, you're there for a reason in that you weren't asked to speak. Just because you are allowed to ask a question doesn't mean that then you get to act like one of the speakers. Watch out for this and take note because I've got my eye on all you other whities right now.
25 09 2008 0 comments
Tags: language, race, us america
When Information is Less than Informative
Last night, after checking out the Lolcats book release at my new co-working space, Parisoma, I headed over to counterPulse for:
"A discussion of African liberation movements and decolonialization [sic] from 1945 to the present, of political problems of the post-independence period—coups, civil wars, struggles against oppressive regimes, economic problems of post-independence, of cultural renaissance, and of links to movements in diaspora. Immanuel Wallerstein and Walter Turner and Will Grant."
If you're sitting there, thinking, "Hmm, that sounds like a big topic about an enormous continent to fit into an hour long talk?", then you would be thinking correctly. It was an asinine assumption by the presenters that this kind of topic could be fit in to such a short talk. Africa is 20% of the world's landmass and comprised of 53 countries. How on earth do you fit that in to such a short talk? Just trying to do one country like say, Burundi would prove difficult for this format. Then, toss in to the mix that the people doing the discussion were all Americans and you've got a recipe for a talk that was long on words, but short on content.
The panelists weren't horrible, but they weren't great. The most qualified was Immanuel Wallerstein, but his manner of talking was incredible slow and full of long, dead pauses that killed the momentum of what essentially a history lesson. Will Grant was alright, but he just seemed to be the token young guy full of zeal and again, most history. Walter Turner was the least qualified of the group and talked for about a third of his time on where he had traveled, a third on books that he's read, and a third on loose history. Needless to say, he came across as having the least depth and thought in what he discussed.
That was it, just a lot of history that can be read anywhere, a smattering of facts and figures, and then little actually analysis. The worst part in all of it was how smothering the audience was, kowtowing to the "great knowledge" of the panelists. And it's not that people in the audience were necessarily stupid, they're just American and ignorant. If people are going to take a vested interest in a place like Africa, then they really need to educate themselves.
As it is, I feel that panels like these do much more harm than good. People come out of them feeling like now they're informed and now they know, but it doesn't go anywhere. Sure, they might join a Save Darfur campaign (which by the way is a messed up situation that is not as simple as right and wrong: Darfur region--victim, Sudan government--evil) but they don't really grasp anything substantial. It also saturates people with piles of ephemera that can be looked up on Wikipedia. For instance, everything that Grant said about Zimbabwe, I had read on Wikipedia in about 30 minutes (you can too). But the audience that was there was much like family members whom I shall not mention that fear Wikipedia. Why do they fear it? Because it has facts. Not opinions, but facts. Facts are scary because the face you with truth and once you see truth, and you're an intelligent person, you realize that you have to do something. You realize that the petition you signed to have Congress tell DR Congo to protect their gorillas was really a waste of time. And this is where it gets nasty because you know that really being informed is going to require getting your hands dirty and none of us in the US like that...
24 09 2008 0 comments
Tags: cultures, history, in to africa, us america
Maneno Hits Beta
One of the things that been taking up most of my waking hours beyond normal work is getting Maneno functional. I've mentioned this project here and there, but now it deserves an article unto itself as it's finally moved in to the 'beta' phase. While this term has been massively overused in the whole Web 2.0 shebang, it still has it's purposes. For instance, the version up to this point was Alpha. It was rough and there were a lot of things still unknown about it. With this Beta release, people who might have checked it out before should check it out again. The site looks and interacts on a completely different level now. It is much more complete and now we are working to refine elements to it.
The focus of the site has been honed as well. In what we're deeming, Stage 1, we're focusing on creating a blogging, communication, and media platform for Sub-Saharan Africa. Many people might be asking, "Why? There's already Wordpress, Blogspot, and a slew of others." This is true and when it comes to large blogging systems, many of these do an excellent job. The main issue with them is that they're for the web at large as viewed from developed nations. The web in developing nations is a much different beast.
To that end, we're really focusing on a few key points:
- Number One is localization. We're really working like crazy to get Maneno translated and functional in six languages. And by localized, we mean every part. Someone will eventually be able to only speak Swahili or French and be able to use the entire site without anything popping up in English. It's not as easy as it sounds because the internet by definition is English-centric (due to the parts that make it being developed in the US in English), but we're working to make this possible.
- Number Two is download speed. Web 2.0 came up with the brilliant plan that any website can be up to one meg a page to download. While this can work for those in the US, the further away from the server you get, the longer the website takes to load. And of course, if you factor in that most people in the world are not on broadband internet, then you run in to real problems. With Maneno, we're working to keep the pages as small as possible in order to keep up accessibility for everyone. Right now, the home page is about 60kb and I'm striving to shave even a little bit more off that is possible. Compare that to a normal Wordpress blog home page, at about 225kb (if there aren't any images to the articles) and you understand what I mean.
- Number Three is an eventual plan to allow alternative updating to the site. In other words, users won't have to use the web to write articles. This is also a very key point as internet connectivity is paltry over the vast majority of Sub-Saharan Africa. There are a few options out there which I'm exploring now, but this will be an eventual feature that we'll add to the site, so more on it later.
These three points are the main ones. We're working to have all of this come together in to a system that will work to inform better than any before it and have the ability and elasticity to not only last for awhile, but be able to change and incorporate other good things that come along on the web. After all, this isn't just an installation of Wordpress, Typepad, or Drupal; it's an application.
22 09 2008 0 comments
Tags: internet, in to africa, maneno
Thank you for the Pollution Oracle Bus
Last night, I was joking around, when I kicked out this twit. But it is true, this stupid Oracle bus keeps circling by and growling up the hill every 5-8 minutes throughout the day. Annoying isn't a strong enough word for it. The air and noise pollution this thing is doing in a day is unimaginable.
It's here for their Oracle Open World conference which takes over a huge chunk of SOMA and makes life hell for all who live there. I'm guessing that it's either some kind of shuttle, a rolling advertisement, or they just can't park the thing. Whatever the case, the fact that they're trying their, "greener gestures" is laughable with this bus constantly tooling around.
21 09 2008 0 comments
Tags: business, environment, transportation
Treasure Island Fer Free!
This last weekend was the Treasure Island Music Festival. When initially hearing about it, I looked at the itinerary and said, "Who the hell are all these bands? Sure, I know and love Goldfrapp, but Vampire Weekend? Do they do music?!! Is this what crap the kids are listening to now?!! I need to go ask those stupid art students across the street about this!!!" The Outside Lands shindig a few weeks back had a great number of acts that I knew and loved and were it not for the high ticket price to see others I didn't care for all that much, I would have gone. Such was not the case with Treasure Island. I looked at the lineup and thought, "Hmmm, I'll pass."
Then, out of the blue, #1 Fan won two tickets to the thing. So, this of course meant going there and putting off going to the Dachshund Meetup. The sacrifices were great, but hey, we had free tickets to the concerts and it's been maybe five years since I've been to a real concert.
Upon arriving, it became quite clear as to why there was this half a decade absence. I don't like concerts. I think I stopped liking them at 23. The sound is never very good when compared to the album or a more intimate venue. The people pack in. The people are drunk and/or stoned. The people love to smoke in my face. The people pay $7 for a 20dl Heineken. It's just kind of dumb, but I knew this going in to the whole thing. I've been to concerts before. I know the deal.
But there was still the issue of Goldfrapp to see. Right before them, Amon Tobin happened to be playing, which seemed cool as he has a couple of songs I like from his Supermodified album. He also happened to be the only other act that I knew of besides one-hit wonder, CSS. Well, Tobin sucked. He sounded nothing like what is on his albums. It was an hour-long set of drum, bass, noise, and occasionally distorted rat farts. It was not good.
Thankfully, due to the two stage setup, Goldfrapp fired up right away. They (and I always feel weird using the plural as it's Alison Goldfrapp's last name, although it's her and Will Gregory writing everything) were great. They started out slow with some of the aural songs from the new album, Seventh Tree and then worked their way up in to the faster, heavier music of previous albums. I seem to remember an interview when they were asked why they shifted gears so heavily from Felt Mountain to Black Cherry and they admitted to really wanted to have some songs that would play better live. It's very true. Songs like Strict Machine and Twist really get a crowd moving, just like Ooh La La from Supernature.
The only thing that was unfortunate in their performance is that a) It was too short and b) It was the wrong crowd. It seemed like the group that were there were bummed that Burning Man was over, couldn't wait for Love Parade, weren't sure if they were going to check out Folsom Street Fair this year, and might spend the winter in Maui running a "sweet" fruit and veg stand. I'm just saying that it didn't seem like Goldfrapp's crowd. We tend to be a wee bit geekier.
21 09 2008 2 comments
Tags: hipsters, music, san francisco
A List isn't Complete without Obiang and Mann
One of the time waster sites that I read published, 6 Real-Life Vigilantes Crazier Than Batman and 5 Real World Criminals Who Were Certified Super-Villains. They're pretty wild lists, but maybe a bit incomplete, because if they're going to mention Papa Doc as a Super-Villian, then they should probably list Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo who is the current president-for-life of Equatorial Guinea. If you're not familiar with this country, that's not surprising. While it's on the west coast of Africa, it's rather small and it happens to be the only country in Africa with Spanish as its official language. Not a lot of information comes out of the country and this is mostly due to Obiang who seems quite happy to run the place for nearly 30 years and amass $600 million in ill-gotten money from plundering the state in a small homage to Mobutu.
But beyond being corrupt, the man is a bit nuts and drunk with power. For instance he believes that he is "in permanent contact with the Almighty" and "can decide to kill without anyone calling him to account and without going to hell." Of course this only natural given that he declared himself to be a god, although he still swears he's Catholic. I suppose it's in case the whole self-deification thing doesn't pan out. Then of course there are the rumors circulating that he's a cannibal as well, although that's most likely just to keep the masses in line. It's rather surprising how Robert Mugabe gets all the press these days, when Obiang is far, far worse.
Maybe it's because of this or maybe it was just because Spain, South Africa, and maybe the US and UK thought that they wanted to have more of a hand in governing the third largest oil producing country in Sub-Saharan Africa that they decided to set in motion and assassination attempt. And if it wasn't enough to have several large countries backing this, why not toss in Mark Thatcher (yeah, the son of former British Prime Minister, Marget Thatcher) in to the mix as well. But wait, that's not really enough. Let's hire one of the most impressive mercenaries I've ever heard of in the form of Simon Mann. Take a look at that guy's Wikipedia page. While he's more mercenary than vigilante, he still should have been on one of the lists I mentioned earlier. He's like a real life manifestation of any lead character in Michael Bay film.
I'm not going to get in to intricacies of how the whole assassination plot when down, but needless to say, it failed and failed hard when the mercenaries involved were in Zimbabwe of all places and got captured by Mugabe's forces. If you want to read all the gritty details, take a look at CNN and Reuters . Then read up on Executive Outcomes. Due to the fact that Mann was extradited to Equatorial Guinea and is now serving time in Black Beach Prison (where he'll probably die), I see a good chance of a movie being made of this beyond the British production of Coup! in 2006. Something big. Something with a lot of money. Something with Michael Bay as the director perhaps? I like the odds.
Cross-posted at Subsaharska.
18 09 2008 0 comments
Tags: equatorial guinea, in to africa, politics, south africa, zimbabwe
The Fake Palin
For those who don't have their finger wired in to the pulse of the internet (which is probably most normal people) there is this great Fake Sarah Palin on Twitter. Often these kinds of things are lame, but the person writing this one is genius and it's probably one of the most popular Twits out there.
Also, just to justify Tina Fey's paychecks, her Palin impersonation is just scary. I mean, it's not that easy to be a complete conservative lunatic and have it actually be plausible when you think about it
17 09 2008 0 comments
Tags: internet, politics, twitter
When all Else Fails, Pull the Race Card
Years ago, I worked for this behemoth, slightly high-end clothing store in the stock department. Stock, unlike sales a pretty motley group with all different ethnicities and incomes. I found that I got along with most people and it was one of the rare times in my life where I've managed to have more than just white friends. One friend was this girl named Shanda and as most people would guess, yes she was black. We would joke around a lot, but one day, I was sleepy, wasn't watching what I was doing and stepped on her shoe. Immediately I got, "Damn, Hudin, you just went and stepped on my kicks." "Oh, sorry. I wasn't watching what I was doing." "Yeah, well you better be careful or the next time I'm gonna get black on your ass." I still run with the assumption that she was joking, but to this day, I think that she could have easily have been serious and I wasn't really about to find out what, "getting black on my ass" meant. It didn't sound like a plate of jelly beans.
It appears that advertisers have picked up on the fact that most whites take the voice of the black woman to be the most authoritative and powerful. Especially since the Corn Refiners Association has pulled out the following ad to try and tell us that high fructose corn syrup isn't bad for us:
While it initially seems to make the black woman in the commercial is smarter than the white woman and in theory this is paying a compliment, it is actually quite insulting. They use the black woman to play off the fear of, "Oh no, she's black and I'm white. If I argue with what she's saying, I'll be racist." Thus, it allows the argument of high fructose corn syrup being not bad for you to stand. Let's make sure that we understand that they only say it's not bad for you. They never say that it's good for you and it must be had, "in moderation". "Moderation" is a term advertisers use when they want to say, "Yeah, this will probably be what kills you, but we've lobbied to be able to sell it, so use it just a little." Like many people, I've mentioned that high fructose corn syrup isn't good for you and apparently the message is catching on or the Corn Mafia wouldn't be on the defensive, which in reality is a pretty pathetic defense.
They also happen to have another ad, which plays on the issue of sexism instead of racism to try and back up their claims.
The couple seems all nice and pleasant, but the husband is terrified to contradict his wife because he has no facts and while she really has no facts either (no, the premise that corn syrup is from corn is not a fact, it's common sense) he defaults to her argument instead. This is much akin to two people finding a container of a toxic chemical and not knowing what's really in it and hurt each others' feelings trying to figure it out, they decide that they might as well just drink it. I'm rather terrified that we live in an age where the media is able to dictate and override primal instincts that got us to where we are today.
