etranger_esprit

For The Bible Tells Me So

Tue, 08 Dec 2009 07:52:13 GMT

I can stay as neutral as possible for a variety of subjects, but this is one that I can't help but choose a side in. I don't normally write personal entries in this journal, but...

Mom, Dad, I'd like you to take the time to watch this all the way through.

Do it at home where you can have the time and quiet to think. It is very important to me because this video shows the invisible pressure that surrounds us. Even here, where homosexuality is legal. It's important to me, who can be so clumsy with words, to have something to show you a taste of what it's like.

I have been lucky, but at the same time there are invisible pressures from society that people don't think about unless they're made to see.

Journey of Life

Thu, 19 Nov 2009 08:11:13 GMT

Journey of life

"Strip away our technology and we're all still cavemen."

A look back at the origins of humans both biologically and culturally. A fascinating look on the biologies of our bodies and how they differ from chimpanzees. How did we survive those harsh times when a volcano's eruption blocked out the sun for six years? How is talking a biological function that we are willing to die for? The answers are all here. We created a cultural and intellectual revolution and saved ourselves from extinction.

Egypt, The Habit of Civilization

Thu, 19 Nov 2009 08:07:07 GMT

Egypt, the habit of civilization

A look back at Egypt from the time of the pharoahs to the time of the Greeks to its Islamic roots now. The cultures and the way of life that are presented here are still viable in today's Egypt in some ways and the civilzation that grew around it has aspects that have also been passed down throughout the ages. It talks about the great Pyramids as well as the Islamic Prophets, it explores the supposed tomb of Alexander the Great and talks about the strange mixture of the Greek and Egyptian gods, the mixing of cultures that became concrete with the onset of Islam within Egypt and monotheism.

Also, the commentator is kind of adorable. He is the Steve Irwin of Egyptologists, at one moment sober and academic. Then the next he is excited as a child in a way that makes you think that he's going to yell "Crikey!" at any moment.

The Amazing World of Psychic Phenomena

Tue, 17 Nov 2009 04:09:05 GMT

The Amazing World of Psychic Phenomena

"We are Energy and we are forever."

This is a documentary from the seventies or eighties that explores phenomena as astral projection, telekinesis and telepathy. It is so old that it is really more of a joke than anything else as there are very few actual scientific facts. It presents their evidence, but rather than leading you towards a subtle conclusion, they will state their answer. It is poorly shot, poorly linked together and while it is interesting to watch, it doesn't give much in the way of actual scientific data.

There are very few scientists talking in this respect and I for one, would love to see Richard Dawkins take this host on. While watching this, please expect cheesiness. :p

No place like...

Tue, 17 Nov 2009 04:03:01 GMT

Home
A film by Yan Arthus-Bertrand

"We are living in exceptional times. Scientists tell us that we have 10 years to change the way we live, avert the depletion of natural resources and the catastrophic evolution of the Earth's climate. The stakes are high for us and our children. Everyone should take part in the effort, and HOME has been conceived to take a message of mobilization out to every human being.

For this purpose, HOME needs to be free. A patron, the PPR Group, made this possible. EuropaCorp, the distributor, also pledged not to make any profit because Home is a non-profit film.

HOME has been made for you : share it! And act for the planet."

The embedding of this movie has not been allowed, but you can find it streaming on youtube here.

References:
HOME official website: http://www.home-2009.com
PPR: http://www.ppr.com
Carbon offset movie: http://www.actioncarbone.org
Good Planet: http://www.goodplanet.info

Dangerous Knowledge

Sun, 15 Nov 2009 04:05:34 GMT

Dangerous Knowledge

"Beneath the rules of the world are the rules of science,
but beneath them, there are a far deeper set of rules,
a matrix of mathematics which explains the nature of the rules of science
and how it is that we can understand them in the first place."

What is the system that everything has to adhere to if there is no god? David Malone looks into the lives of four brilliant minds. Georg Cantor, who searched for the numerical value of infinity and was driven insane by the answer when he found the answer to his query. Ludwig Boltzman, who undermined the timeless undercurrent of physics in a time that craved certainty and introduced the ideas of entropy. Kurt Gödel, who was the first to realise that there are statements that are true that could never be mathematically proven and who then tries to tackle the same problem as Cantor with horrific results. Lastly, Alan Turing, who broke the German Enigma Code during World War II, but he was also the man who made the Incompleteness Theory even worse and made the first comparisons of the human mind to that of a computer.

"A timeless and perfect world never changes, but it is dead.
The real world, the thermodynamic world is alive
precisely because it is full of change."

The Virus of Faith

Sat, 14 Nov 2009 23:02:35 GMT

The Root of All Evil?
Part Two: The Virus of Faith

"Religion is an insult to human dignity.
Without it, you'd have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things,
but for good people to do evil things, it takes religion."

Dawkins claims to want to know why these children are being segregated and whether it is to stop them from finding reality. He argues that if a child does not shake off doctrination in their adult life, they are stuck in a state of infancy which leads to a sort of warped morality.

The journey is bewildering as Dawkins infiltrates Hell Houses which are productions set up by evangelicals in order to leave an "indelible impression upon [people's lives] that sin destroys". They bring the children in at 12 to watch shows that change their lives and are frightening and disturbing even to an adult watcher.

It also touches on homosexuality, finding that fundamentalists call it "a deeply confused lie", about a man who believes that Adulterers should be executed and the people who fight abortions and murder abortion doctors.

The God Delusion

Sat, 14 Nov 2009 20:56:30 GMT

The Root of All Evil?
Part One: The God Delusion

A UK television documentary that was written by Richard Dawkins, the God Delusion explores the belief of organized religions touching on Islam, Christian Fundamentalism, Catholicism and others. He argues that faith should be countered by reason and that religion is not reasonable. The faith that people put in the various religions kills ideas, separates people and at the same time, unites certain bits of people into a homogenous society. What this ultimately does is erases all trace of dischordant thought and the effect of religion on the world is that it could bring our scientific processes, our understanding of the world, to a halt.

While Dawkins is obviously not objective, he is reasonable and if his bitterness about religion comes across at times, it is understandable when you see the certainty of the people he faces. Science is about having an open mind and about expanding or changing theories in order to better understand our changing universe while Religion relies on staunch faith in facts that have not been proven. It was a fascinating documentary to watch that touches on not only the mindset of religious people, but the serious harm that can do the world politically.

Lighthouse Keeping by Jeanette Winterson

Sun, 02 Aug 2009 01:03:06 GMT

After the Talking Bird, the nice man at the Tavistock Clinic kept asking me why I stole books and birds, though I had only ever stolen one of each.

I told him it was about meaning, and he suggested, very politely, that might be a kind of psychosis.

"You think meaning is psychosis?"

"An obsession with meaning, at the expense of the ordinary shape of life, might be understood as psychosis, yes."

"I do not accept that life has an ordinary shape, or that there is anything ordinary about life at all. We make it ordinary, but it is not."

He twiddled his pencil. His nails were very clean.

"I am only asking questions."

"So am I."

There was a pause.

I said, "How would you define psychosis?"

He wrote on a piece of paper with his pencil: Psychosis: out of touch with reality.

Since then, I have been trying to find out what reality is, so that I can touch it.

A Murder Most Foul.

Fri, 17 Jul 2009 18:10:19 GMT

In New Orleans, a Creole-style mansion in the midst of the French Quarter was the home of Dr. Louis Lalaurie and his wife Delphine. She was a beautiful woman, known for giving extravagant parties. Even though they seemed like a respectable pair, there was something strange about how submissive the slaves were to Mme Lalaurie. Even though she would be gentle to them while there were other people around, stories abounded including a young girl chased off a roof, slaves beaten and whipped beyond what was allowed.

Prompted by a dream, the head cook set the kitchen on fire in 1834. Mme Lalaurie seemed indifferent to the plight of the servants, who were locked inside the house and instead told the members of the volunteer fire brigade to save her valuables instead. When the firemen broke int a locked attic room, they were stunned by what they saw. According to "The Human Predator" by Katherine Ramsland there were several accounts that "...dead slaves were chained to the walls, but the piteous cries coming from cages revealed several who were still alive--if barely. Once the fire was contained, they were rescued, but some of them were in such a state, it might have been more merciful to let them die. Most had been severely maimed by medical experiments. One man had been surgically transformed into a woman, and one woman was so deformed she looked like a human crab. Her arms and leg bones had been broken and reset at odd angles. Another woman's arms had been amputated and her skin peeled off in a spiral pattern, while the lips of a third were sewn shut. A few had skin grafts and some had been dissected, with their organs still exposed. One man had a stick portruding from a hole in his skull. Scattered around the room were pails full of body parts, organs, and severed heads. Among those who had died were males whose face had been grotesquely disfigured."

Despite Ramsland's claims however, there is no proof of these grotesque crimes and a reading of the New Orlean Bee which mentioned that crime states that all the servants were found alive. It is most likely the work of sensationalists that have made this into the gruesome legend that it is.

References
Ramsland, Katherine. The Human Predator. Penguin Group, 2005.
The New Orlean Bee

divaguer

Sun, 21 Jun 2009 23:54:44 GMT

It confuses me sometimes, how we as a society abhor pain. Pain is the ever present thread that links all of us together whether it be physical, emotional, mental or spiritual. Pain is the one thing that none of us go through the day without even if its measure is small. There is pain at birth, pain at death, pain for each step taken.

Yet we fear it. We desperately run away from the pain, drowning it in alcohol, in prescription medication, in pointless distractions.

We fear pain so much that we turn that fear into hate and allow that hatred to control us, making us reach for the aspirin each time something hurts. We protect our children from pain and by doing so, gift to them a rude, jagged and harsh awakening later on in their life.

Why is pain feared when it is the ability to withstand and face one's pain that gives the image of strength?

While I understand the need for medications and the need for relief from the most extreme of pains, I do not see the need for the constant abuse of that relief that I see daily. We have become weak, you know, as a society and through that, unable to stand up to the challenges that life throws at us.

When the end of ages comes, when the seas boil from the pollution that we have poisoned the atmosphere with or when we stand in a nuclear wasteland, we will despair. For we know not how to take our pain and train it, use it and through its use make it our strongest ally. When life hands us our defeats and knocks us from our knees, we won't know how to get back off our feet because we've never truly had to.

Pain is necessary to grow, it is a part of life that cannot and should not be avoided. To do so makes trivial matters become the end of the world and allows us to become apathetic to the truly heartbreaking events that are taking place in the world today.

And hand in hand with lack of pain, walks ignorance. It is our own pain that allows us to empathize with the pain of others, it is our own frustrations and desires that drive us to seek something beyond our current woes and better ourselves. It is pain that cleanses even as it tears, making us the stronger for it.

So in the end, what becomes more frightening? Pain or living a pain-free but useless and empty existence?

I know what my choice would be.

Daily Newsbits that Caught My Eye.

Mon, 15 Jun 2009 21:00:39 GMT

"Energy and persistence conquer all things."
- Benjamin Franklin

In Tehran, Iran's election process (which was called in favour of the current president Ahmadinejad) is in an uproar. Protests and the quelling of those protests have become violent as people scream "Death to the Dictator". Ahmadinejad, who called the election in his favour a couple days ago, is unphased by what the supporters of his opposition, Mousavi, say is a stolen election. The decision has sparked protests world wide including ones in Toronto. It seems now that the election results are going to be looked at again, by a neutral third party.

The G8 met recently to plan an exit strategy for the recession. The stress tests that the United States performed on the banks seems to be holding up while the rest of the world follows in step. There is some tension between the European Nations and Berlin as the latter refused to, saying that it could undermine the fragile economic confidence of their people. In direct opposition to that though, the tests that were performed on the U.S. banks, flawed as they may have been have been essential in bolstering confidence and raising capital for those banks.

As the U.S. economy seems to be hitting the very lowest it can go, people are celebrating what they seem to be the lowest of the low. What they're forgetting about is that everything can only go up from here, this includes inflation. Prices for everything are already on the rise, including gas prices which went over a dollar per litre in Canada last week.

Reports from the Toronto Star now say that 50% of the car dealerships in Canada are to close which will leave massive amounts of land that have been paved over. The decision of what to do with these huge parking lots is being debated within the government, but it seems that in some cases they may be donated to create art museums or new housing units.

Scientists from York University have unveiled a plan for a tower that is 20 KM high. They plan to build the tower using inflatable modules so that it can eventually be used as a space elevator. Using it like this, as a space tether to the space station is an idea that would allow humans to reach the space station without having to use chemical rockets and minimizing the environmental consequences. While this is all highly theoretical right now, the idea of being able to use the elevator for tourism is attracting the eyes of investors.

Today's profile is of a place called Vulcan, Alberta. A town that shares the same name as Spock's home planet. While it was virtually unknown before, the release of the movie along with some help from Leonard Nimroy has precipitated a 30 % increase in tourism for the city. The city is full of Trek related signs, including ones that say 'Trespassers will be vaporized". Star Trek's influence can even be felt in the restaurants where menu items are listed first in Klingon and then in English.

Links:
Vulcan Tourism: http://www.vulcantourism.com/st-tours.html

The Lost World of Corporate Social Responsibility

Mon, 08 Jun 2009 22:51:42 GMT

In today's society, it's almost impossible to imagine a world without corporations. They have become a huge part of our economy, one that controls our banks, means of communication and even our water supply. To imagine a world without a stock market or the corporations that feed it is something that not many people can bring themselves to do. Even in a weak economy like we currently have, an economic recession that corporate greed played a large part in, thinking of a life without corporations can hardly be fathomed. Even amid the calls for reforms within the way corporations are run, the incredible amount of power that corporations have over our governments and over our very lives can be seen. The abuse of power is blatant, the frivolous spending thrown in the faces of tax-payers even as more money is asked for to save the dying industries. Since corporations have become an integral part of the global economy, their power must be checked in order to protect every day people from the unfair advantages that corporations have over them. The current system of restrictions on corporate governance has failed the western economies with the world's foremost superpower at the very forefront of this wave of economic collapse and through the actions of a few, entire nations have been brought to their knees more efficiently than any army could have dreamed of. In order to not dominate society, corporate restrictions must be tightened for the well-being of society as a whole rather than the capital gains of a few individuals.

Corporate social responsibility (or CSR) is something that is widely disagreed upon. It is generally considered to be the "...private sector’s way of integrating the economic, social, and environmental imperatives of their activities."(1) It is seen by the public as a way for corporations to in a sense justify the amount of money that they're earning as well as doing something good for the environment or society as a whole as well. While CSR never used to be a big issue, it has increasingly become a focal point for the public to rally behind. There is enough inhumanity in the world without corporations increasing it simply to make a profit. Here, however, the corporations often find themselves at a crossroads. The public wants them to be more socially responsible while the shareholders are interested in short term gains. The type of management that is currently employed in the United States is something called Managerial Capitalism, which is explained by Lousis G. Putterman and Randy Kroszner as the type of business that employs a hierarchy of managers in order to function smoothly.(2) The reason for this emergence of a new type of capitalism is that corporations have grown so large that it would be impossible for a single manager to control all the assets of the company. As a result, for the first time in history, managers became the dominant power within the corporate world. While there have been managers within the workforce for a long time, it has only been within the past half-century that a class of businessmen called "professional managers" has emerged.(3) With the separation of ownership from control, managers have in fact become the key decision makers of the company. Generally managers are hired to protect the interests of the shareholders while keeping the shareholders from becoming so greedy that the company itself goes under, but ironically, depending on the integrity of the manager that has been hired.

Even if the manager does do what they are hired to do and maintain excellent returns for shareholder, crimes can still be committed in the name of profit. Halliburton, as an example, is one of the most profitable corporations in the United States, but has been charged repeatedly with crimes that include (and are not limited to) providing equipment that could be used to detonate nuclear weapons to countries such as Libya and Iraq, creating fraudulent expenses and billing the United States government for them, and illegally bribing politicians in Nigeria.(4) The oil industry is another place where cutting corners can be incredibly profitable. Unalocal Corporation was fined 1.5 million dollars for discharging over 8 million gallons of petroleum thinner into state waters during a period that spanned 50 years.(5) While it can be hard for some to understand the motives that drive these decisions, it would be ludicrous to assume that managers make these decisions with a desire to do harm to other human beings, instead, it is generally accepted that their actions are profit-driven and thus, by doing these things that harm the environment, misuse the economic system and impoverish (or in some cases endanger) human lives. It is because of this that people such as Reich, Porter, and Kramer have theorized that social responsibility is incompatible with corporations since the goals of the two ideas are so different that it is nearly impossible for the two to meet naturally. In a world driven by profit, being kind to the environment and employees is an expense that many corporations see as unnecessary. As Reich explains it, consumers within a market want to spend the least amount of money in order to purchase a product or service. Being socially responsible is much more expensive than cutting corners and shows very little in the way of short-term profits. In some cases, it is hard to even measure the benefits of socially responsible programs in a monetary sense. Health care for employees, for example, is something that would be hard to measure since there is no monetary reward in return. It is much easier, when it comes to social responsibility to make a sizable donation to a certain charity, but even this must be carefully planned out or else it simply looks like a shady attempt to gain public sympathy while getting a substantial tax break from the government. Reich argues that without government intervention, corporate social responsibility is an impossibility.
Porter and Kramer, however, have a much more optimistic view of the CSR situation. While they agree that corporations and social responsibility are inherently incompatible, they argue against government intervention. A corporation, when it has set CSR goals for itself in a clear and organized fashion will be able to meet those goals in a way that is satisfactory for all. The problem with this idea however is convincing corporations that there is need for such a thing. After all, it is something that is hard to quantify. The good will of a society or the beneficial environmental impacts of a socially conscious company is not something that can accurately be measured with numbers. According to Kramer and Porter, health care for employees can be measured in increased productivity and fewer sick days, but this is something that is hard to measure, especially when it comes to short term financial goals. Considering that managers can be short-lived in their positions, the easiest way for them to keep their jobs is to increase shareholder profits and while being socially conscious is not something that will necessarily hurt the corporation within the short-term, neither will it increase profits right away. It is for this reason, that the idea of Corporate Social Responsibility on a universal scale without the intervention of government is something that is nearly unfathomable.

One thing that Reich, Kramer and Porter can all agree on is the need for an organized view of corporate social responsibility, the current disorganization of their methods serves only to undermine their efforts and put them in a position that is lower than that of their competition. In a market where low prices often dictate where consumers go, to be socially responsible on a large scale can be seen as something close to economic suicide. While certain companies such as Starbucks make a living off of appearing socially responsible by treating their workers well in comparison to their competitors while boasting that they only use beans that are granted through free trade, there is something inherently dishonest about them despite the propaganda that the average consumer is bombarded with. Their underhanded methods when it comes to dealing with those workers who wish to unionize is one such issue and it becomes apparent that even if a company is socially responsible in one area, that does not necessarily mean that they will be willing to be as lenient in other areas where profit is not as easily measured. In this sense, Reich is right in that it is the government that needs to make companies socially responsible through mandates and new legislation. An example of the success of such a venture was the creation of an electric car by General Motors after the state of California passed legislation stating that any car company that wished to sell in California must reduce its emissions by a certain percentage each year. Force to comply, General Motors started production of an electric car, one that ran purely on electricity and whose battery would last at least seventy miles per charge. The legislation was revoked, however, after pressure was put on the California Air Resources Board by Gas and Oil interests as well as the car companies themselves. Afterwards, all electric cars were recalled back to the dealerships and summarily crushed.(6) It is scenarios like this that show that while corporations are capable of being socially responsible, it is often more financially prudent in their minds to not do so unless forced to.

The key problem with trying to sell Social responsibility to corporations without government legislation is that there is no proof that it will be profitable for the company in the short or long term. While there is indeed a market for virtue, it is limited and it isn't growing, especially in these tough financial times when people are unwilling to pay higher prices even when they know that those higher prices enable corporations to create a better environment for their workers and in the case of the environment, the common citizen as well.(7) One of the main difficulties with such a proposal is that the average citizen gets most of their information about firms through the advertisements that the firms themselves endorse. Considering the amount of misinformation that is passed to the general public in this manner, it is unsurprising that most people are not aware of the violations that many corporations commit. It is a combination of a lack of information available to the public, coupled with a general apathy that allows corporations to continue on in this way.(8) Perhaps William Easterly, an economist from New York University is right when he theorizes that while CSR is a great concept, it is something that is often used by corporations to increase good will towards their companies without really having to do much. Because of this, Easterly states, without any sort of disciplined follow through, companies won't adapt CSR in an efficient manner and often "...middle and more junior managers are forced to make choices between managing costs and keeping to budget whilst investing in CSR.".(9) In the end, he concludes that the cost argument wins out which when put taken out of context is something that makes perfect sense as corporations, while providing public services, exist in order to make money for their shareholders.

It is when such actions are put into a different kind of context that the implications of a lack of social responsibility become scarily clear. Since corporations have the ability to pollute on a colossal scale, in a way that an individual human could not dream of doing and since corporations also have an amount of power over people's lives, letting them run free without any sort of regulation is an invitation for them to endanger the planet. While statements like that may seem like fear mongering, the truth is that when put into the context of us only having one Earth that we all must share and with looming environmental threats such as global warming and pollution, it is becoming clear that the capitalist idea of everyone for themselves will not work out for future generations. In a world where everyone is connected, the actions of corporations can negatively affect the entire race and while things such as environmentally conscious mining aren’t financially prudent, they are necessary in today’s world to avoid further damage to the environment. There are many benefits to positive CSR, but there’s no data to back them other than theories. Some of them (as listed by Business Links) include that a good reputation makes it easier to recruit employees as well as easing business transactions between the local authorities. The site also claims that it will get employees to stay longer with the company, making them more motivated and thus, more productive. Finally it claims that “CSR can make you more competitive and reduces the risk of sudden damage to your reputation (and sales). Investors recognise this and are more willing to finance you.”(10) All of this however is unproven and some of it goes directly against that which is theorized by Reich. While there definitely are benefits to being socially responsible it is uncertain and in most cases unlikely that those benefits will be profits (and even less likely for them to be short term profits.

Instead, it’s important for the government to step in as Reich said. In a failing economy, where some of the largest corporations in North America are failing and in need of bailouts using taxpayer money, it’s important to not just look at how the industries are managing their money, but to also rebuild them from the bottom. While the capitalist and democratic systems have given us many good things, but when we look back at the damage that they’ve done to society, to the environment and to our very standard of living, we need to realise that while a lot of good things have come from allowing corporations this enormous amount of power, all of them have come at a terrible price, one that we may not be able to pay off completely in our lifetimes, nor our children in theirs. It is imperative, now more than ever, that the government step in. Not to take over corporations, but to legislate laws that force corporations to act in a way that is good for society, to tear down the idea that the ends justify the means and force them to realise that what is happening in this world can be rectified or at least, can begin to be rectified if each and every corporation is forced to adhere to the same rules. This is not something that can be ignored for much longer, nor is it something that should be. Corporate Social Responsibility is something that is desperately needed in a world that is becoming increasingly violent, increasingly nuclear and increasingly polluted with every passing day. In a world where the gap between the rich and poor is growing all the time, something needs to be done not to necessarily redistribute the wealth, but to get those who can afford to pay extra taxes or to put money towards environmentally friendly initiatives to do so. Separated by classes or not, in a world where the environment is not looked after and the people who are not lucky enough to be born in a Western nation are dying by the thousands every day, we should be able to put aside our baser human needs and instincts to turn our attention towards higher causes since those who are in positions of wealth and power have more time and more resources to do so. If corporations are not forced to be socially accountable by our governments and if we do not pressure our governments to pass these sorts of legislation, then at the end of the day we are nothing more than “mafia wives” and are proven guilty by our passivity and apathy to the state of the world around us.

Endnotes

1. "Corporate Social Responsibility - Home." Industry Canada / Industrie Canada. 05 June 2009 <http://www.ic.gc.ca/eic/site/csr-rse.nsf/eng/home>.
2. Putterman, Louis G., and Rand Kroszner. The Visible hand. Cambridge UP, 1996. Page 81.
3. Daems, H. The Rise of Managerial Capitalism. Leuven UP, 1974.
4. Marshall, Clinard B., and Peter C. Yeager. Corporate Crime. Transaction, 2005. Page xix
5. Marshall, Clinard B., and Peter C. Yeager. Corporate Crime. Transaction, 2005. Page xx
6. Who Killed the Electric Car. Dir. Chris Paine. DVD. Sony Pictures Home Entertainment, 2006.
7. Weiss, Tara, Matthew Kirdahy, and Klaus Kneale. "In Their Own Words: CEOs On CSR - Forbes.com." Forbes.com - Business News, Financial News, Stock Market Analysis, Technology & Global Headline News. 16 Oct. 2008. 2 May 2009 <http://www.forbes.com/2008/10/16/ceos-csr-critics-lead-corprespons08-cx_tw_mk_kk_1016ceos_slide_7.html?thisspeed=15000>.
8. Weiss, Tara, Matthew Kirdahy, and Klaus Kneale. "In Their Own Words: CEOs On CSR - Forbes.com." Forbes.com - Business News, Financial News, Stock Market Analysis, Technology & Global Headline News. 16 Oct. 2008. 2 May 2009 <http://www.forbes.com/2008/10/16/ceos-csr-critics-lead-corprespons08-cx_tw_mk_kk_1016ceos_slide_7.html?thisspeed=15000>.
9. Weiss, Tara, Matthew Kirdahy, and Klaus Kneale. "In Their Own Words: CEOs On CSR - Forbes.com." Forbes.com - Business News, Financial News, Stock Market Analysis, Technology & Global Headline News. 16 Oct. 2008. 2 May 2009 <http://www.forbes.com/2008/10/16/ceos-csr-critics-lead-corprespons08-cx_tw_mk_kk_1016ceos_slide_7.html?thisspeed=15000>.
10. "The business benefits of corporate social responsibility | Business Link." Business support, information and advice | Business Link. 05 June 2009 <http://www.businesslink.gov.uk/bdotg/action/detail?r.l1=1074404796&r.l3=1075408468&r.lc=en&type=resources&itemid=1075408491&r.l2=1074446322&r.s=sc>.

Works Cited:
"The business benefits of corporate social responsibility | Business Link." Business support, information and advice | Business Link. 05 June 2009 <http://www.businesslink.gov.uk/bdotg/action/detail?r.l1=1074404796&r.l3=1075408468&r.lc=en&type=resources&itemid=1075408491&r.l2=1074446322&r.s=sc>.
"Corporate Social Responsibility - Home." Industry Canada / Industrie Canada. 05 June 2009 <http://www.ic.gc.ca/eic/site/csr-rse.nsf/eng/home>.
Daems, H. The Rise of Managerial Capitalism. Leuven UP, 1974.
Marshall, Clinard B., and Peter C. Yeager. Corporate Crime. Transaction, 2005.
Porter and Kramer, “The Link between Competitive Advantage and Corporate Social Responsibility,”
Putterman, Louis G., and Rand Kroszner. The Visible hand. Cambridge UP, 1996.
Reich, “Responsible Capitalism and Democracy”
Weiss, Tara, Matthew Kirdahy, and Klaus Kneale. "In Their Own Words: CEOs On CSR - Forbes.com." Forbes.com - Business News, Financial News, Stock Market Analysis, Technology & Global Headline News. 16 Oct. 2008. 2 May 2009 <http://www.forbes.com/2008/10/16/ceos-csr-critics-lead-corprespons08-cx_tw_mk_kk_1016ceos_slide_7.html?thisspeed=15000>.
Who Killed the Electric Car. Dir. Chris Paine. DVD. Sony Pictures Home Entertainment, 2006.

Addtional Notes:
This is horribly cited. I lost a lot of marks (and rightfully so) for the sloppy citations and the poor writing, but the topic, I thought, was still interesting enough to warrant sharing.

Native Tongues

Sun, 29 Mar 2009 00:22:28 GMT

1. The word "barbarian" whose etymological root is barbaros was originally used by ancient Greek travelers to designate foreigners who did not speak Greek because when they spoke their own languages, it sounded like sheep bleating. ("Baa baa")

2. There are at least 2,796 separate languages being spoken on our planet right now (according to the Academie Francaise). Along with that, there are 7000 to 8000 dialects.

3. There are only about 50, 000 pure Aboriginal Australians left in this world, but they speak more than 200 different languages. These languages are dying out as the small tribes disappear.

4. The number of world languages has been decreasing notably in the past hundred years. Several centuries ago, the number of separate tongues probably numbered more than 10,000.

5.The word "babel" may be traced to the Aramaic Bab-ilu (Gateway of God) which was the place which the Greeks called Babylon and is the place where the original Tower of Babel was thought to have been built. In Hebrew, "Bilbel" means confusion, a references to the dispersion of the works. "Babel" has come down to modern languages as the English "babble"; the Italian "babele"; the Spanish "babel" and "balbuceo"; and the French "babil".

6. Of all the spoken languages still in use, Basque, a unique tongue spoken in northern Spain and southwestern France, may be the most difficult to learn, being related to nothing on earth except to a small language pocket in the Caucasus Mountains. Basque is probably a remnant of a cave language spoken before the glaciers covered great parts of the Northern Hemisphere. Its extremely difficult structure and vocabulary have elicited the Spanish proverb: "When God wished to punish the Devil he condemned him for seven years to study Basque."

7. The word "mile" comes from the Latin "mille" (one thousand) which refers to a thousand complete paces, left foot and right foot, of the legion's formal parade step, (which is about 5.2 feet) and was the regular Roman way of measuring the distance between towns.

8. Modern Greek is closer to ancient Greek than the Romance languages are to Latin. A literate modern Greek can read and understand the inscriptions cut in stone by his ancestors 25 hundred years ago.

9. In general, almost all the polysyllabic words in English are of French-Latin origin while the one-syllable words come from Anglo-Saxon.

10. The word for Vagina is a feminine noun in all the Latin languages but French, where it is masculine (le vagin).

References:
Berlitz, Charles. Native Tongues Castle Books: New Jersey. 1982.

$&#@*!

Fri, 27 Mar 2009 01:37:06 GMT

"How the fuck did I work that out?"
- Pythagoras

When it comes to linguistics and etymology, it is possible for you to find papers and studies done on aspects of the English language that you never even realised existed until now. But despite that, it is still incredibly hard to find research done on the linguistic properties of swear words. One of the main problems may be that in order to write about such a topic, one has to use words such as shit, fuck and cunt, but there may be a deeper problem than just this. There is a social taboo on using swear words that makes them seem uncouth, politically incorrect and will make you seem uneducated if you fall back on using them.

This is something that the author of Expletive Deleted, Ruth Wajnryb cannot understand for as she put it: "...certain nether areas of the body are also not for polite company or pas devant les enfants. Yet we have urologists, proctologists and gynecologists, who aren't afraid to put their particular "-ist" next to their name on a plaque. We don't ban snails from texts on biology simply because they are unsightly. Sociologists continue to study the criminal mind no matter how perverse the crime. If these specialists can investigate their chosen areas without imbuing the subjects with value or imposing others' aesthetic judgments, then why can't linguists?"

One of the major reasons for the taboo would be the false notion that swearing is destructive. There is such a thing in North America called the "Cuss Control Academy" which is made up of non-relgious people who are dedicated to informing the general public about the negative impacts that swearing can have. Since swearing in their minds not only makes you look bad, but also corrupts the language, the institute offers workshops where one can learn "ten tips for taming the tongue" for a reasonable price. It's not only citizens however who speak out about swearing. In 2003, Doug Ose made a huge deal over the fact that Bono from U2 had used a swearword on-stage. During the Golden Globe Awards, Bono had the audacity to say the phrase "fucking brilliant".

Because of this incident, Doug Ose came up with something called the Clean Airwaves Act which targeted eight swear words to be banned from the media. No matter how they were being used, in order to protect the decent people of America, they had to be deleted. (And no, I could not find the list anywhere. I don't know why.)

As time goes on though, it is becoming apparent that rather than becoming more of a taboo, swearing is becoming more and more accepted. In fact, the more that people try to enforce a society where swearing is not allowed, the more that people (especially youth) are tempted to defy that taboo. Take South Park for example or all the swearing that you can see while watching stand-up comics. The late George Carlin, the comic genius of his time, had an infamous list of seven major words that you're not allowed to say on television. "Shit, piss, fuck, cunt, cocksucker, motherfucker and tits." Despite his vulgarity, Carlin was seen as an incredibly intelligent and well-informed man right up until the time that he died. It's obvious that his use of swear words did nothing to detract from his intelligence, rather they enhanced his performance and attracted enough attention for people to listen to what he was saying.

The usage of what is classed as "bad language" is still an ongoing point of public interest, but hopefully as more of the taboos are forced away, this one will stop being as important as well.

References:
Wajnryb, Ruth. expletive deleted: a good look at bad language. Free Press: New York. 2005.

Links:
Cuss Control Academy: http://www.cusscontrol.com/
Swear Away: http://listen.to/swearing
Swearotron: http://www.rathergood.com/swearotron.html

Personal Identity: A Dying Concept?

Fri, 27 Mar 2009 00:49:41 GMT

Picture a world without affordable global communication. In a world that is increasingly becoming more and more connected, it is becoming difficult to imagine not being able to communicate with people at great distances. It is even more difficult to consider not knowing many people outside of a mile radius of where one lives. Technology is growing exponentially, making the world faster and more efficient with every passing day. Contrary to the way that the world was run in the past, today’s society is run by information instead of traditions and the pace of an information-run world is leaving people behind at an alarming rate. The ability to be connected with millions of other people with a simple click of a button is something that is seen as mundane now, ordinary. Most people do not realise how complicated these systems are, never mind how they are affected by these systems. In Art Spiegelman’s Maus II and Don DeLillo’s White Noise, it is easy to see how other people’s feelings and experiences can affect one’s own mentality. As a human being, one is shaped by his/her experiences and the experiences of those they know, but because they are bombarded with the experiences of other in the modern world, it is hard to figure out exactly where the shared identity of society ends and one’s own personal identity begins.

In Maus II, Spiegelman is so affected by his father’s story that it warps him too. All his life, his father’s experiences have hung over him and skewed somewhat his view on life. Spiegelman himself never suffered through the horrors of the concentration camps, but he can picture them vividly through his father’s words and this affects him. He talks about his childhood and how as a child, he would pretend that he had to choose between his father and mother for only one could survive. The idea of survivor’s guilt and the strange habits that Spiegelman’s father picked up as a direct result of being in the concentration camps for so long, took hold in Spiegelman’s mind as a child. Deep rooted empathy towards the experiences of his father still affect him even when he is an adult. He makes constant mentions to his father, even after Vladek has passed away. Whatever individual identity that he can possibly claim is a direct result of the influence that his father has over him.

The effects of outside influences on one’s personality is even more obvious in White Noise. It is hard to find a single page in White Noise that does not make some reference to the media, be it television or radio. While reading the novel, it seems at times that the Gladneys do not actually have a personality of their own. All the information that they base their lives around is from a source that lies outside the family unit, the images that they have built up for themselves are false ones. For example, Jack’s image as the founder of Hitler studies is one that has been carefully crafted. The dark glasses, the robe and his very demeanour help to present an image of a very different Jack Gladney than the one that is seen while he is with his family. J.A.K Gladney is seemingly untouchable. He is not a person that fears death, nor is he a person that is easily intimidated by dire circumstances. One could very easily see J.A.K. looking up at the poisonous fumes of the Airborne Toxic Event and shrugging his shoulders before he goes back to work. Jack Gladney is a completely different story. While he attempts to keep up the façade that he’s created, the nerves are easily visible to the reader, especially during the disaster. By creating J.A.K., without knowing it, Jack created a fiction that he’ll never be able to live up to, one that makes it pitifully obvious just how human he is.

In today’s world, identity crises are becoming almost a mundane thing. Whereas before, trying to find your place in the world was something that was reserved for people who were being rebellious. Now, having an identity crisis is almost a rite of passage for today’s teenagers. New terms are being coined all the time. Mid-life crisis is normal and now quarter life crises are becoming more and more common. Today’s teens live in a world that is incredibly connected. The world wide web has also become something that is mundane and expected, as is the incredible amount of information that one is able to pull off it. It is this exposure to millions of different stories, experiences and feelings that influences one now. There is such a feeling of shared identity, a shared society that it’s incredibly hard to actually be an individual these days. Society is all exposed to the same media, the same information and while subcultures are springing up faster than ever, there is an underlying air of conformity within all of them.

Both Speigalman and DeLillo touch on identity crisis within their novels and show the effects that a shared identity has on one’s personal sense of self. In the modern world especially, it is becoming more and more difficult for one to find their place in a fast-paced, highly technological environment. As the global network becomes more efficient it is harder to escape from the shared social identity that it creates. The line between society and self has become blurred to the point where it is almost unrecognizable, for even if you belong to a subculture, each subculture has its own society and rules and a level of conformity that is expected. As this phenomenon continues to progress, it is easy for one to consider that maybe the science fiction writers of the fifties had the right idea and that one day, society will be completely automated and uniform with the entire population having one shared consciousness.

References

DeLillo, Don. White Noise. Penguin Books: New York. 1986
Spiegelman, Art. MAUS II. Random House, Inc.: New York. 1986

A note on this essay:

For this course, all of the essays that we wrote were opinion papers. While we were supposed to use the text to prove our points, we did not need to anything more in the way of notation than to use a bibliography. Therefore, there are no notations in this essay.

The Great Economists and Their Inclinations to Contradict Each Other.

Thu, 26 Mar 2009 22:12:26 GMT

There are very few people in the Western world today who do not know of capitalism and the role it plays in the world economy. In fact, even in the Eastern societies or even communist society where capitalism is portrayed as the destroyer of all things good, it plays its part. Capitalism is the driving force of the world economy along with the idea of scarcity. To participate in the world market today, a capitalist economy is practically required as the most powerful country in the world, the United States of America, uses this economic system and through that power forces the world to follow suit. Adam Smith; considered by some to be the father of modern economics, had an optimistic view on the division of labour and all that comes with the idea. Karl Marx and John Maynard Keynes on the other hand, believed that there were innate flaws within Smith's visions, flaws that could not be fixed by the “invisible hand” that is so often touted by economists of the laissez-faire doctrine. Upon closer inspection, the division of labour through Smith's ideology demeans the workers, creates an unsupportable economic climate and only gives more power to not the bourgeoisie that Marx predicted but to the incredibly powerful corporations that have become an immutable force within our world.

Smith's Divison of Labour is something that is used even unto today, which can be strange to think about considering how long ago he penned the words for his treatise, but while reading it, it can seem less like a text on how the economics of the world must be run and more the observations of an absent-minded and likeable professor. He looks at the way that things are produced and manufactured, saying that a “consequence of the division of labour” is a “great increase of the quantity of work” that a single shop or manufacturer can produce (Smith, 1976, 11). This great increase hinges on three different things according to Smith, the first of which being “the increase of dexterity in every particular workman”. Basically, this means the skill of every worker can be utilized to its full potential as each worker only does one part of the creation process. Due to this fact, they become increasingly skilled at it to the point of near-perfection. The second circumstance is “the saving of time which is commonly lost in passing from one species of work to another”. In a society where labour is not divided, it is necessary for a single worker to move from one job to the next, a task which Smith cites as a task which makes workers prone to “sauntering” and “indolent careless application” once they start their new task. It is this waste of time that is done away with in a society where labour is divided and one worker only needs to do the same simple task over and over again. The last and final circumstance is “the invention of a great number of machines which facilitate and abridge labour, [thus enabling] one man to do the work of many”.

While it can be argued that all three of these circumstances are in fact ideas to be praised, there is an innate problem with Smith's views when actually applied to the real world. For such a system to work, an ideal society must be realised which is something that we are incapable of creating as long as there is such a wide gap between the classes. Another aspect of the market within Smith's doctrine is that it regulates itself, using competition and the demands of society to decide which products stay and which don't, as well as moderating the actual production of goods. The introduction of a central market system along with competition allows humans and technology to grow along with theoretically bestowing prosperity among the masses. As humans are innately selfish and are determined to better themselves “with no thought of others”, the market creates a space in which all these like-minded people are forced to compete by driving their prices lower (Heilbroner and Thurow, 1998, 27). It is Smith's “invisible hand” which keeps the markets in play as they are supposed to be. The end result would theoretically be a society where excesses are avoided in order to maintain profits and where workers are paid according to their skills.

The world is imperfect however, a fact which both Marx and Keynes recognised early on. Smith failed to realise the tensions that such a market could create and how it would widen the gap between the rich and the poor to the point where most of the world's wealth would be in the hands of a few select people. Marx saw that in order to create the maximum amount of profit, the work of the labourers would have to be devalued. No matter how efficiently everyone works, their pay remains the same and if they bring their company mass amounts of money, their reward will be in the form of a raise, a small pittance compared to the money that the employers are raking in. In the end, Marx realised that the ability to create profit “essentially resides in underpaid labour” (Heilbroner and Thurow, 1998, 36). This would create instability in the market as it is the labourers themselves who buy the products that are created and any vast accumulation of capital would have to pick its way through the shakiness of the market system. (Heilbroner and Thurow, 1998, 36). He was also able to see a problem that the monopoly-hating Smith could not. The free market left alone to the mercies of the crises that tend to be produced in such an economy leans towards the trend of big businesses or corporations (Heilbroner and Thurow, 1998, 37). A revolutionary, Marx believed that the market as it was would grow and the gap between the rich and the downtrodden workforce would increase until the rich employers were overthrown to create a new and equal society. Although his idea of communism is something that many believe in, it too is a social structure that depends on a perfect society, one that is free of corruption. For once the proletariat take power and that one person is put at the head of it with that amount of power, there is no saying that they will be inclined to give it back once their term ends.

Keynes, to put it very simple, can be classed as the happy medium between Marx and Smith. While Smith advocates the markets be left to regulate themselves and Marx believes that a lack of regulation can only lead to disaster, Keynes' theories are that of a mixed economy (Heilbroner and Thurow, 1998, 40). Keynes predicted that the economy could reach a stagnation and that the self-regulation of the market would fail to protect the people and their businesses if no one was willing to invest. He concluded that if there was such a state of stagnation within the economy and no investors dared to risk their capital, the government was the only place to get that money from (Heilbroner and Thurow, 1998, 42). His policies can be seen today in the efforts of a desperate government to jump start the economy through bailouts and tax cuts. In order to promote the free flow of capital once more, governments have stepped in to save industries and jobs, but in doing so have also freed the corporate executives who took too much upon themselves in order to enrich their own lives.

The theories of Keynes, Smith and Marx all have their faults when applied to the real world as it is too fluid and unstable, especially with the onset of the technological era where information and the technology that we possess quickly become outdated. In a monetary system where the money that is provided to the public is based on a broken fractional reserve system, it is impossible to achieve anything other than becoming a slave to wages and to debt. The current state of the economy looks bleak, already being called the new Great Depression by some overzealous news networks and changes must be made when it comes to looking at the market system. Monopolies are dangerously close to being created, corporations have the power to affect governments and more than half the world lives in complete poverty. Suggestions to switch to a resource-based economy have fallen on deaf ears, especially when the power that is bestowed by financial gain will be eradicated. In such a fractured, broken world, it is hard to believe that the free market can save anything including itself when it has already failed us so many times. The only real question now is if there will be the great changes that were talked about before and what comes after it.

Reference List

Heilbroner, Robert and Thurow, Lester. “Three Great Economists” from Economics Explained: Everything You Need to Know about How the Economy Works and Where it's Going. Touchstone Books. 1998.
Marx, Karl. “The Rise of the Political Economy and the Market” from Business History: Canada in the Global Community, 2nd edition, Captus Press. 2000.
Smith, Adam. “Excerpts from the Wealth of Nations” from The Wealth of Nations: Books I-III, Penguin Books 1986.

Ramblings

Thu, 26 Mar 2009 06:08:03 GMT

Perhaps the most frustrating thing these days is not that the world is full of inequalties, but that people flock to groups and sects that are "fighting" for rights. While this is an understandable and noble undertaking, it often seems that through efforts to find equality the distances between men and women, black and white, gay and straight are widened rather than bridged. These distinctions, these differences that are manufactured by our prejudices, culture and even our language are unnecessary.

For in the end, whatever our sex, race, financial status or religion, we are bound together solely by the fact that we are all human beings.