Last fall, media critic and writer Douglas Rushkoff asked Are jobs obsolete?. I think he’s on to something.

We now have more human workers than jobs. Much of that is due to off-shoring and globalization. American workers are being replaced by non-American workers and at lower wages.

However, at least as much of this shift is due to dying industries and massive automation. The rise of e-mail means we have less postal mail. The rise of self-checkout and self-serve gadget vending machines means we need fewer cashiers and sales people. Manufacturing in China is cheaper right now but is any country’s manufacturing base really safe from robots?

Machine workers can replace people workers. So what does that mean for people?

I have more questions than answers.

Modifying labor laws to shorten the work week means that companies would have to hire two people to do the work that one person now does in 40 hours. Should we each give up some of our work hours so that others might earn?

While a shorter mandated work week would mean more people would have jobs, it could also mean smaller paychecks for everyone. But what if we also increased minimum wage to $15 or $20 per hour?

If we automate industry, and need fewer people to work, should corporations financially support workers they’ve displaced?

“If you don’t work, you don’t eat,” passes for political discourse in some corners of the United States. But if there is no work to be had, should people be homeless and starving? What responsibility do we collectively have to each other as citizens and people? And I haven’t even touched on healthcare and how it’s structured in the U.S.

Do we need to make fewer people? Probably so, if we lack the political will and moral/ethical center to ensure that the rise of machines does not mean the decline of people. But if we have fewer children as a country, and as a world, what economic and physical infrastructure changes do we need, and can we agree to make them?

Like I said: more questions than answers.

What do you think?

Also see: Are the American people obsolete?, a July, 2010 piece from Salon.com.

Since the 1980s, the main driver of Finnish education policy has been the idea that every child should have exactly the same opportunity to learn, regardless of family background, income, or geographic location. Education has been seen first and foremost not as a way to produce star performers, but as an instrument to even out social inequality.

From What Americans Keep Ignoring About Finland’s School Success.

Remember the fake boarding pass that was in Schneier’s hand? Actually, it was mine. I had flown to meet Schneier at Reagan National Airport because I wanted to view the security there through his eyes. He landed on a Delta flight in the next terminal over. To reach him, I would have to pass through security. The day before, I had downloaded an image of a boarding pass from the Delta Web site, copied and pasted the letters with Photoshop, and printed the results with a laser printer. I am not a photo-doctoring expert, so the work took me nearly an hour. The T.S.A. agent waved me through without a word. A few minutes later, Schneier deplaned, compact and lithe, in a purple shirt and with a floppy cap drooping over a graying ponytail.

That’s from Vanity Fair‘s wonderful article Smoke Screening.

What we’ve been dealing with ever since is a painful process of “deleveraging”: highly indebted Americans not only can’t spend the way they used to, they’re having to pay down the debts they ran up in the bubble years. This would be fine if someone else were taking up the slack. But what’s actually happening is that some people are spending much less while nobody is spending more — and this translates into a depressed economy and high unemployment.

This is Paul Krugman’s assessment of our economic situation from his latest column Block Those Metaphors.

The ellipse is the Frisbee of art, the circle freed from its flatness that sails out into imagined space tilting this way and that and ending up on the top of the soup bowl and silver cup in Jean-Baptiste Chardin’s still life or, imagine this, on the wheels of the speeding Batmobile.

From James Mc Mullan’s New York Times editorial, The Frisbee of Art, about the ellipse as a foundation of drawing.

This took me back to my 9th grade studio art class.

I started this thing months ago after buying the bead on a lark while strolling through downtown Decatur. I finally finished it tonight.

Coral and silver center bead. Strung with brown Druk glass, carnelian and silver spacers. Silver clasp. Strung on Beadalon. About 16″ (choker length). Coral bead from Mingei World Imports. Other beads from my secret stash (translation: I can’t remember where I bought them).

The pairing of “Islam” and “fascism” has no parallel in characterizations of extremisms tied to other religions, although the defining movements of fascism were linked to Catholicism – indirectly under Benito Mussolini in Italy, explicitly under Francisco Franco in Spain. Protestant and Catholic terrorists in Northern Ireland, both deserving the label “fascist,” never had their religions prefixed to that word. Nor have Hindu extremists in India, nor Buddhist extremists in Sri Lanka.

No really: watch the clip. Or read the quote:

I have opponents in this race who do not want to change the Constitution. But I believe it’s a lot easier to change the Constitution than it would be to change the word of the living God. And thats what we need to do is amend the Constitution so it’s in God’s standards rather than trying to change God’s standards so it lines up with some contemporary view of how we treat each other and how we treat the family.

And what scares me even more is that the majority of the Christians in this country wouldn’t see one thing wrong with doing so. The same folks who cower under their blankets fearing ‘Islamofacism’ — a buzzword that denies our effed-up neo-colonial policies as a contributing factor to the current rage against us — are completely okay with making the rest of us conform to the Jesus-loving variant* that I’ll call Christiofacism.

As an atheist with Buddhist leanings who would be one of the first victims of a Christian Society**, this scares me.

*Mind you, Jesus-loving is not the problem. The problem is when we argue that Christianity should be the single, universal moral basis for making laws.

**No, we are not currently a Christian Society or a Christian Nation. We are a society and a state with a predominantly Christian population. There is a difference. Our founders were clear about the role the state in religion and religion in the state, though they were clear that their religion guided their politics.

Ingredients (amounts approximate):

• Shucked Pacific oysters. I used small ones, about half of an 8 oz jar.
• 2 cups crushed tomatoes
• 1/2 an onion, chopped
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 1 cup frozen peas
• 1 tsp. lemon zest
• 2 tsp. dried parsley flakes
• A splash of marsala cooking wine (2 tbsp. maybe)
• 1 tsp. sugar (more or less to taste. The point is to cut the tartness of the tomatoes.)
• Salt to taste — use black truffle salt if you have it. It adds a subtle, yet detectable richness and depth. 1000 times better, I promise
• 4 tbsp. butter
• 2 tbsp. olive oil
• 1/4 cup grape tomatoes chopped
• Crusty French bread

1. Heat 1 tbsp. olive oil and 2 tbsp butter in a skillet and toast your bread. Set it aside.
2. In another skillet (or the same… whatever), heat the remaining butter and olive oil
3. Add the onions. Cook until translucent.
4. Add the garlic, cook for 1 minute or so, until it’s fragrant
5. Add the tomatoes (crushed and grape) and let it heat through
6. Add the peas and cook until they’re thawed out and bright green
7. Add the oysters and simmer until they almost look like they’re done (I think I cooked them for 10 minutes)
8. Season with wine, lemon zest, sugar, parsley, and truffle salt or regular salt
9. Spoon the oyster-y goodness over your toast, eat and enjoy

But it was too late. I felt the burn.

It was like the hot pain of cigarette ashes. Or maybe like someone touched a smoldering match to my face. I screamed and doubled over in pain. I dropped my glasses and clutched my forehead in agony. Aaaaah! It got me.

That’s right. A m*****f*****g bee stung me right between the eyes. Now I’m all doped up on Benadryl trying to ward off swelling. I don’t think the stinger was left behind, but I definitely have a sore spot on my forehead — and another one on my arm where Young Beezy’s li’l homie stung me a few minutes before.

Even worse than the pain is the fact that my vision is horrible. When I dropped my glasses, I was essentially Velma-ized. Crawling around on my hands and knees in grass and dirt is not a good look. Thank goodness I remembered that I had an old pair of specs in the house otherwise I might still be crawling around my yard fighting off the rest of the Eastside Bee Mafia.

The result? Spicy, but yummy. A rough recipe follows the photo.

Click the photo to view notes about what all of that goodness is.

A note about how I cook: I only use measurements when baking. Baking is basically edible chemistry, so the exact proportions are more important. Not so with cooking. So I guess and eyeball amounts and add more if I think it necessary.

In other words, all amounts are approximate. If it looks like more or less in that dinner plate (which I believe is 10 inches in diameter), go with the dinner plate estimate .

Ingredients

• 4 cloves of garlic, minced
• 1 medium onion, sliced
• 1/8 cup minced ginger
• 3 small thai chilies, or 1-2 green ones
• About 10 whole cardamom pods (or 2 spoonfuls of ground cardamom)
• 2 teaspoons whole cloves (or 2 teaspoons of ground cloves)
• 2 teaspoons fennel seed
• ½ teaspoon ground black pepper
• 2 cinnamon sticks (or 1 teaspoon cinnamon)
• 2 tablespoons turmeric
• 3 tablespoons paprika
• 2 teaspoons cumin
• 2-3 dried bay leaves
• 2 boneless, skinless chicken breasts cubed
• 15 ounce can of tomato puree
• ½ cup vegetable oil
• Salt and sugar to taste

On using ground spices versus whole ones: I think whole ones have a better flavor since there is less surface area exposed to the flavor-changing effects of air. However, whole spices mean you’ve got to pick more stuff out as you’re eating. Your choice.

What to do

1. Heat the oil in a sturdy skillet
2. Add the chicken and simmer in the oil until it’s lightly browned
3. Add the onions, ginger, garlic and chilies. Simmer / fry until the onions are translucent.
4. Add the rest of the spices and simmer / fry for about 5 minutes.
5. Add the tomato puree, season to heart’s content with salt and sugar. Let simmer to your desired state of gloppiness.

Pick out all of the big spicy bits (bay leaf and any cloves or cardamom pods you can find), and serve over rice. Basmati rice is particularly nice.

If you make it, let me know how it goes.

Robinson is definitely one of the most exciting players in the NBA.

Rarely can a book manage to be both funny and serious. Martha Southgate has managed to do just that with her novel, “Third Girl from the Left,” which is fresh out in paperback ($12.95; Mariner Books. Paperback released September 5, 2006).

Southgate’s novel tells the story of three generations of women — Mildred, her daughter Angela and granddaughter Tamara — using their shared love of movies as a foundation for their story.

Most of the novel centers around Angela, a former blaxploitation actress who left the stifling (as she saw it) culture of Tulsa, Oklahoma to become an actress in anything-goes Los Angeles. Her dream was to become a movie star. Instead she fell in love with a woman who became her life partner, although she rejects the labels “lesbian” and “dyke.”

Mildred, Angela’s mother, is a survivor of the 1921 Tulsa race riot. For her, movies are an escape — a way to vicariously experience how others live. Movies — rather, the movie theater’s projection man is also an escape for her. Eventually Mildred is confronted with having to choose what is expected of her or doing what she wants.

Tamara, Angela’s daughter, makes movies. That she makes films is progress. Though she struggles to make ends meet and produce her thesis film, she is confident in her craft. For her, creating movies becomes a chance to give voice to herself and be a voice for those women who came before her.

Throughout the novel, the women struggle to escape or change what other people think. In Mildred’s case, it was the notion that a proper woman is a homemaker. For Angela, it’s small town gossip and sexual standards. With Tamara, it’s being a black woman filmmaker when her mother and society tells her that it might not happen.

Rather than the heavy-handed, sometimes somber tone of other black women writers with similar themes, Southgate manages to make her writing fun and accessible to a pop-fiction audience. With this novel Southgate reveals the complexity of black women’s struggle for self-worth and self-definition.

Ouch! Visit the site Laffy Taffy Rots Your Teeth for more. Check the video “Everything is Different Now,” which is actually a hot ode to traditional hip-hop. You can also download and pass around the 10-track album mixtape.* Think of it as freeware hip-hop .
Via Cheryl Coward.

And also via Cheryl, and Rod 2.0: a rememberance of Willi Ninja, the dude who taught Madonna how to vogue. The New York Times has a piece: “Willi Ninja, 45, Self-Created Star Who Made Vogueing Into an Art, Dies”

*Haven’t listened to the album yet. Not sure how good it is.It’s a pretty decent collection.

He has some powerful shit to say about the effect of our work lives and our market-driven, capitalist culture on our spiritual selves and how right-wing politicians manipulate this spiritual crisis for self-serving means.

Dude is a total badass, IMO. Worth a listen.

Love,
Tiffany