This is priceless. It's all gold, but I think my favorite part is the cruel, cruel insult: "an African Margaret Thatcher." Wow, and I thought the comparisons of Bush to Hitler were harsh! But seriously, folks, does anyone doubt that if Africans were even remotely capable of producing a leader like Margaret Thatcher, their biggest problem today would likely be the HD-DVD/Blu-Ray conversion debate? And Angelina would be off adopting Canadians or something.
Anyway, Bono's outburst reminded me of this great Ambivablog post. One of the Easterly quotations that lept out at me:
"The ideology of Development is not only about having experts design your free market for you; it is about having the experts design a comprehensive, technical plan to solve all the problems of the poor. These experts see poverty as a purely technological problem, to be solved by engineering and the natural sciences, ignoring messy social sciences such as economics, politics, and sociology."
Sociology. It's not just about markets, not just about institutions - it's about people.
Which brings me to this fascinating new book:
"As the progeny of the rich pervaded all levels of society, Dr. Clark considered, the behaviors that made for wealth could have spread with them. He has documented that several aspects of what might now be called middle-class values changed significantly from the days of hunter gatherer societies to 1800. Work hours increased, literacy and numeracy rose, and the level of interpersonal violence dropped.
Another significant change in behavior, Dr. Clark argues, was an increase in people’s preference for saving over instant consumption, which he sees reflected in the steady decline in interest rates from 1200 to 1800.
'Thrift, prudence, negotiation and hard work were becoming values for communities that previously had been spendthrift, impulsive, violent and leisure loving,' Dr. Clark writes."
Thrift? Hard work? What!? Where was the UN? Where was Bono? Where was Sachs???
Oh, yeah:
"Many commentators point to a failure of political and social institutions as the reason that poor countries remain poor. But the proposed medicine of institutional reform 'has failed repeatedly to cure the patient,' Dr. Clark writes. He likens the 'cult centers' of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund to prescientific physicians who prescribed bloodletting for ailments they did not understand."
Modern historians, meanwhile, are appalled to learn that individuals might actually matter:
"Historians used to accept changes in people’s behavior as an explanation for economic events, like Max Weber’s thesis linking the rise of capitalism with Protestantism. But most have now swung to the economists’ view that all people are alike and will respond in the same way to the same incentives. Hence they seek to explain events like the Industrial Revolution in terms of changes in institutions, not people."
Institutions, not people. Charity, not culture. Transfers instead of transformations. No wonder Africa is doomed.
(by the way, these modern historians don't understand how people succeed because they refuse to even acknowledge success - they look at the West and see not an Industrial Revolution, but centuries of racism, patriarchy, hegemony, imperialism, and war-mongering. As for Africa, it has to them no identity except as a victim of all of the above.)
(oh, and one more thing: there's a very good chance I'll end up teaching in Africa at some point. Before you roll your eyes, that's different! Actually living with a community, and teaching its children, is different than throwing money at it. You know, that whole fish story. And no, I don't think it will actually matter, but nothing really does, and sometimes you just have to keep pushing those boulders up those mountains)
In conclusion, when it comes to the troubles with Africa today, just keep in mind this simple slogan: It's not the economy, stupid!
Showing posts with label Rock Stars. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Rock Stars. Show all posts
Friday, August 17, 2007
Monday, June 11, 2007
David Chase (spoilers ahead)
Can go *&%$ himself, as far as I'm concerned. That was a cheap, low-down trick. It's one thing to go with a "life goes on" ending, which is anything but original at this point, and is an artistic cop-out in any case. Yeah, real life just goes on, it has no neat ending, it doesn't wrap things up neatly - that's why we watch television, for chrissake's! You're supposed to entertain us and provide us with storylines that actually end, not just string us along for years just to make a puerile and entirely obvious point about how life goes on, you dumb &*%$.
But even if you do decide to go the way of irresolution, then at least have the balls to stick to your guns. End the series with a mundane family scene at a diner, fine. But pretending to cut off the feed and having the screen go blank - like I said, just %$^& off, you big jerk. Imagine if in the last Harry Potter book, J.K. Rowling just leaves the last chapter blank as some sort of faux-deep meta-statement on the nature of participatory art. Millions of kids would commit suicide, but oh, how profound, what a statement, what a controversial, brave artistic decision. Yeah, well Rowling would never do that, because she's not a %$#& like David Chase.
And yes, some of the commenters over at Althouse are already fawning over the perfection of the finale, and Chase's genius. Entirely predictable reaction. Build up your image as an artist, and if you then piss on your audience they'll thank God for the refreshing drizzle. Chase just should have had Tony walk towards the pool and then walk on the water, a la Chauncey Gardner. It would have been so deep, so very full of meaning. The critics would have loved it.
Oh, and the final song? Journey. Yes, that's right, Journey. This fake artistic poseur is nothing but a self-involved hippie. A classic rock radio baby boomer jerk. The show pretends to be intelligent, but it's limited to the cheapest, most-dumbed down allusions possible like freaking classic rock lyrics! This way, its viewership can pretend to be intelligent and superior, when all they're doing is trying to find meaning in lyrics written by vapid seventies rock stars, like a bunch of stoner idiots finding the meaning of life in a Pink Floyd album. (Not to mention Yeats' "Second Coming," which everyone studies in grade school - what, Hamlet's soliloquy would have been too long, and some other show already did Prufrock?) Hey, on the bright side, at least he didn't end the series with "Stairway to Heaven."
UPDATE: More discussion on this over at Ambivablog.
FURTHER UPDATE: Deadline Hollywood nails it. It "robbed the audience of visual closure" and "Chase clearly didn't give a damn about his fans. Instead, he crapped in their faces. This is why America hates Hollywood." That is indeed (one of several reasons) why America hates Hollywood. Peter Suderman savors Chase's delight in infuriating his entire fan base, but what Suderman doesn't mention is that Chase relied on those very fans to make him rich and famous. When Hollywood types start out and are struggling, they'll do whatever it takes to please their audience, to make it big, but as soon as they have that success, far too many of them lose their sense of obligation and responsibility towards their audience and instead selfishly delight in defying expectations and playing the rebel. A true artist rebels from day one, pisses people off from the start, and I can respect that. But I will not respect those phonies, just like Chase, who play nice only until they know they can afford to piss people off. That is absolute cowardice.
But even if you do decide to go the way of irresolution, then at least have the balls to stick to your guns. End the series with a mundane family scene at a diner, fine. But pretending to cut off the feed and having the screen go blank - like I said, just %$^& off, you big jerk. Imagine if in the last Harry Potter book, J.K. Rowling just leaves the last chapter blank as some sort of faux-deep meta-statement on the nature of participatory art. Millions of kids would commit suicide, but oh, how profound, what a statement, what a controversial, brave artistic decision. Yeah, well Rowling would never do that, because she's not a %$#& like David Chase.
And yes, some of the commenters over at Althouse are already fawning over the perfection of the finale, and Chase's genius. Entirely predictable reaction. Build up your image as an artist, and if you then piss on your audience they'll thank God for the refreshing drizzle. Chase just should have had Tony walk towards the pool and then walk on the water, a la Chauncey Gardner. It would have been so deep, so very full of meaning. The critics would have loved it.
Oh, and the final song? Journey. Yes, that's right, Journey. This fake artistic poseur is nothing but a self-involved hippie. A classic rock radio baby boomer jerk. The show pretends to be intelligent, but it's limited to the cheapest, most-dumbed down allusions possible like freaking classic rock lyrics! This way, its viewership can pretend to be intelligent and superior, when all they're doing is trying to find meaning in lyrics written by vapid seventies rock stars, like a bunch of stoner idiots finding the meaning of life in a Pink Floyd album. (Not to mention Yeats' "Second Coming," which everyone studies in grade school - what, Hamlet's soliloquy would have been too long, and some other show already did Prufrock?) Hey, on the bright side, at least he didn't end the series with "Stairway to Heaven."
UPDATE: More discussion on this over at Ambivablog.
FURTHER UPDATE: Deadline Hollywood nails it. It "robbed the audience of visual closure" and "Chase clearly didn't give a damn about his fans. Instead, he crapped in their faces. This is why America hates Hollywood." That is indeed (one of several reasons) why America hates Hollywood. Peter Suderman savors Chase's delight in infuriating his entire fan base, but what Suderman doesn't mention is that Chase relied on those very fans to make him rich and famous. When Hollywood types start out and are struggling, they'll do whatever it takes to please their audience, to make it big, but as soon as they have that success, far too many of them lose their sense of obligation and responsibility towards their audience and instead selfishly delight in defying expectations and playing the rebel. A true artist rebels from day one, pisses people off from the start, and I can respect that. But I will not respect those phonies, just like Chase, who play nice only until they know they can afford to piss people off. That is absolute cowardice.
Sunday, June 10, 2007
Bono Update
I made fun of how Bill Clinton played to his audience of college kids by equating Bono with Mother Teresa and Martin Luther King Jr. This news is a few days old, but I'm very glad to see that Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper doesn't buy the hype.
The man attacking Harper in that article is Bob Geldof. You may remember him from the spectacularly successful Live Aid concert, which revitalized the African continent. As Geldof so astutely realized, the only thing holding back Africa's tremendous potential was a few unbalanced checkbooks - a situation he and his followers corrected with a graceful ease. Who could have known that sending a few million dollars to Africa's rulers would lead to such a sudden and miraculous turnaround? Today, of course, the nations Geldof helped are infinitely better off, living in peace and prosperity, outpacing much of Europe in rates of productivity and growth. Proving the cynics and skeptics wrong, a few million phone calls and a great big rock concert really were enough to change the face of a continent - indeed, of the world. Oh, wait.
You know, I probably shouldn't criticize Geldof too harshly. Compared to the hundreds of millions of African deaths caused by other mindless liberal fashion trends, Live Aid's relatively minor death toll may in fact be cause for celebration.
p.s. there is one huge factual error in that article about Geldof I linked to, so glaring that I am amazed that nobody at the Guardian caught it before publication. As every Harvard student knows, the Ukrainian famine was not a direct result of Stalinist policy, but a bad break in a tough year. I mean, duh.
The man attacking Harper in that article is Bob Geldof. You may remember him from the spectacularly successful Live Aid concert, which revitalized the African continent. As Geldof so astutely realized, the only thing holding back Africa's tremendous potential was a few unbalanced checkbooks - a situation he and his followers corrected with a graceful ease. Who could have known that sending a few million dollars to Africa's rulers would lead to such a sudden and miraculous turnaround? Today, of course, the nations Geldof helped are infinitely better off, living in peace and prosperity, outpacing much of Europe in rates of productivity and growth. Proving the cynics and skeptics wrong, a few million phone calls and a great big rock concert really were enough to change the face of a continent - indeed, of the world. Oh, wait.
You know, I probably shouldn't criticize Geldof too harshly. Compared to the hundreds of millions of African deaths caused by other mindless liberal fashion trends, Live Aid's relatively minor death toll may in fact be cause for celebration.
p.s. there is one huge factual error in that article about Geldof I linked to, so glaring that I am amazed that nobody at the Guardian caught it before publication. As every Harvard student knows, the Ukrainian famine was not a direct result of Stalinist policy, but a bad break in a tough year. I mean, duh.
Thursday, June 7, 2007
Bill Clinton's speech: preliminary take
I'll be honest, I enjoyed his speech, even though it was almost all b.s. and he's so gosh-darned slick that it's impossible to take anything he says seriously anyway. I'll write about its substance at length when I have more time (busy all day with the folks and grad events and packing this week), but I did want to mention my favorite non-substantive parts. Clinton talked about the other serious speakers invited to class day (it's usually comedians, like Ali G or Will Ferrell, or this amazing, must-read Conan O'Brien speech), and singled out the following: Martin Luther King (who was killed that very spring, so his wife gave the speech), Mother Teresa, and (I swear I'm not making this up) .... Bono! I have to admit, I lost it, and kept on cracking up uncontrollably every time he came back to this (he did quite often) and repeated the MLK, Mother Teresa, and Bono line. I'm sorry, but Bono? The people behind me definitely thought I was nuts, but I couldn't help it, I kept on giggling every time he said Bono.
I also cracked up when he spoke of his world travels and used incredibly corny lines, like "In the African village I visited, they have a word, bobada, and it means 'that which connects us all'" or like "the villagers there don't say 'How are you?', they say 'I see you' - but do we really see each other?" These aren't verbatim, and I made up the african word he used (but it sounded something like that [UPDATE: It was ubuntu]), but are basically the lines he used. Then he told what should have been a very moving story about a woman who lost nine of her ten children in the tsunami, and how he saw her remaining child, and "it was the most beautiful baby I've ever seen." I'm sorry, but the way he said it, with all his squinting and over-the-top 'charisma', I was giggling like a schoolgirl. When he then told the story of meeting another African baby, and naming it 'Dawn,' because it represented hope, I was literally pinching myself to keep from guffawing.
Another classic moment: after his speech, the organizers brought out a saxophone and asked him to play it. He got mad. I mean, visibly angry. I was shocked. It was incredibly rude of the organizers to bring out a sax like that, after a serious speech, and expect him to act like a trained monkey and amuse the students, but still, I was expecting him to joke about it and refuse with a smile, but he really got pissed off for a moment there. Also, and I'll get to this when I cover the substance of his speech (short version: what we all have in common is far more important than what distinguishes us - I liked it since it reminded me of Flannery O'Connor's vision of all our virtues being burned away), but even though he got huge applause, his words clearly went in one ear and out the other, because the speakers almost immediately went back to the very attitude that his entire speech was against.
On a closing note, the best line of the day, from a student speaker, giving a very funny speech. He was talking about Love Story (set at Harvard) and how much it reminds him of his own life. "I, too, have cancer [the crowd goes quiet, very confused, concerned] . . . Not 'real' cancer, but cancer . . . for Harvard." Huge uncomfortable silence, everyone on stage behind him looked shocked and disgusted (except one friend of mine, who was cracking up). Anyway, in very poor taste, but I loved it, very Sarah Silverman-y (mature content and language warning there, btw).
I also cracked up when he spoke of his world travels and used incredibly corny lines, like "In the African village I visited, they have a word, bobada, and it means 'that which connects us all'" or like "the villagers there don't say 'How are you?', they say 'I see you' - but do we really see each other?" These aren't verbatim, and I made up the african word he used (but it sounded something like that [UPDATE: It was ubuntu]), but are basically the lines he used. Then he told what should have been a very moving story about a woman who lost nine of her ten children in the tsunami, and how he saw her remaining child, and "it was the most beautiful baby I've ever seen." I'm sorry, but the way he said it, with all his squinting and over-the-top 'charisma', I was giggling like a schoolgirl. When he then told the story of meeting another African baby, and naming it 'Dawn,' because it represented hope, I was literally pinching myself to keep from guffawing.
Another classic moment: after his speech, the organizers brought out a saxophone and asked him to play it. He got mad. I mean, visibly angry. I was shocked. It was incredibly rude of the organizers to bring out a sax like that, after a serious speech, and expect him to act like a trained monkey and amuse the students, but still, I was expecting him to joke about it and refuse with a smile, but he really got pissed off for a moment there. Also, and I'll get to this when I cover the substance of his speech (short version: what we all have in common is far more important than what distinguishes us - I liked it since it reminded me of Flannery O'Connor's vision of all our virtues being burned away), but even though he got huge applause, his words clearly went in one ear and out the other, because the speakers almost immediately went back to the very attitude that his entire speech was against.
On a closing note, the best line of the day, from a student speaker, giving a very funny speech. He was talking about Love Story (set at Harvard) and how much it reminds him of his own life. "I, too, have cancer [the crowd goes quiet, very confused, concerned] . . . Not 'real' cancer, but cancer . . . for Harvard." Huge uncomfortable silence, everyone on stage behind him looked shocked and disgusted (except one friend of mine, who was cracking up). Anyway, in very poor taste, but I loved it, very Sarah Silverman-y (mature content and language warning there, btw).
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