visited 33 states (14.6%)
Create your own visited map of The World or try another Douwe Osinga project
Thursday, January 29, 2009
South America and the Pacific are mocking me!
visited 33 states (14.6%)
Create your own visited map of The World or try another Douwe Osinga project
Saturday, October 04, 2008
I've got a bailout for ya
People describe the movie “Pretty Woman” as a modern day fairy tale, where a down-on-her-luck working girl is rescued from her plight by a wealthy corporate raider. However, what no one seems to remember is that scandalous stuff Julia threw on Richard – you know the stuff that made Richard give up his penchant for choppin’ up companies to get back to the real economy.
Talk about a project for scaling up!
Talk about a project for scaling up!
Saturday, August 23, 2008
As of now I'm rooting for Barcelona
Susan Jacoby in her new book (2008), “The Age of American Unreason,” asserts that “America is now ill with a powerful mutant strain of intertwined ignorance, anti-rationalism and anti-intellectualism.”
I believe The Bahamas too has been infected with this mutant strain, though I must hasten to add that both countries have seemingly been afflicted with some version of this disease for at least a while. The New England Puritan writer John Cotton sadly wrote in 1642 "[t]he more learned and witty you bee, the more fit to act for Satan will you bee." While in The Bahamas, Dennis Dames, who led students from C C Sweeting School to parliament to protest over delapidated conditions at the school on February 3, 1983, said “[t]here are times when it seems we don´t want an informed society. Most people are anti-education, anti-intellectualism... Politicians don´t want people criticising them. But this means there is no true democracy." (Taken from a piece by John Marquis, The Tribune, Monday, November 22, 2004)
Ms Jacoby blames television, video games and the internet at least partly for the resurgence of American anti-intellectualism over the past 20 years, arguing that they have distracted from two activities crucial to intellectual life: reading and conversation. Ironically enough, there is not a deep pool of Bahamian scholarship from which I can begin to extract well researched arguments about the roots of Bahamian anti-intellectualism.
There is an article by Nicolette Bethel, "On History", which argues that "[t]he success of Majority Rule in the 1960s created a kind of intellectual myopia that led us to reject everything that oppressed us before in our embracing of our newfound freedom." There are probably a number of other important pieces that touch on other aspects of our intellectual atrophy as well, but as of now I am not aware of them.
There is indeed much work to be done in the way of public discourse and even basic conversation in The Bahamas. Yes I know education reform is a big part of it, as well as the strengthening of the College of The Bahamas and all that; but, I am particularly intrigued however with the power of art in this regard.
To bring back Ms Bethel, her article "On Art and Truth" argues that "the development of the arts helps keep a society honest. This is because the arts provide avenues for communication." With this in mind, I recall my most recent film going experience, "Vicky Cristina Barcelona", and find in Woody Allen's communication a challenge to think beyond the sorts of puritanical anti-intellectualism we have on our side of the world today toward more open-minded forms of expression.
I hope those afflicted in both countries take up that challenge.
I believe The Bahamas too has been infected with this mutant strain, though I must hasten to add that both countries have seemingly been afflicted with some version of this disease for at least a while. The New England Puritan writer John Cotton sadly wrote in 1642 "[t]he more learned and witty you bee, the more fit to act for Satan will you bee." While in The Bahamas, Dennis Dames, who led students from C C Sweeting School to parliament to protest over delapidated conditions at the school on February 3, 1983, said “[t]here are times when it seems we don´t want an informed society. Most people are anti-education, anti-intellectualism... Politicians don´t want people criticising them. But this means there is no true democracy." (Taken from a piece by John Marquis, The Tribune, Monday, November 22, 2004)
Ms Jacoby blames television, video games and the internet at least partly for the resurgence of American anti-intellectualism over the past 20 years, arguing that they have distracted from two activities crucial to intellectual life: reading and conversation. Ironically enough, there is not a deep pool of Bahamian scholarship from which I can begin to extract well researched arguments about the roots of Bahamian anti-intellectualism.
There is an article by Nicolette Bethel, "On History", which argues that "[t]he success of Majority Rule in the 1960s created a kind of intellectual myopia that led us to reject everything that oppressed us before in our embracing of our newfound freedom." There are probably a number of other important pieces that touch on other aspects of our intellectual atrophy as well, but as of now I am not aware of them.
There is indeed much work to be done in the way of public discourse and even basic conversation in The Bahamas. Yes I know education reform is a big part of it, as well as the strengthening of the College of The Bahamas and all that; but, I am particularly intrigued however with the power of art in this regard.
To bring back Ms Bethel, her article "On Art and Truth" argues that "the development of the arts helps keep a society honest. This is because the arts provide avenues for communication." With this in mind, I recall my most recent film going experience, "Vicky Cristina Barcelona", and find in Woody Allen's communication a challenge to think beyond the sorts of puritanical anti-intellectualism we have on our side of the world today toward more open-minded forms of expression.
I hope those afflicted in both countries take up that challenge.
Friday, August 22, 2008
Why are we in the Caribbean so fast?
"Is President Bush even now considering a blockade of Kingston harbor to ensure that the reggae runners are never again dispatched to an international meet?"
Fun question indeed, but is there really something behind the apparent concentration of speed in our little sub-region? Just in this year's Olympics alone, we have seen Bolt, Powell, Fraser, Simpson, Stewart, Frater, Campbell-Brown, Martina, Robles, Thompson, Burns, and of course, Stirrup, Ferguson-McKenzie, and Atkins run to sprint semis, finals and of course medals.
Lil sis thinks that Jamaican genes have been spliced with those of aliens. I have a few questions of my own though:
Is it because we have years of running from slave masters programmed in our genes?
Is it a happy confluence of factors, including sun exposure, running barefooted in the sand and yams?
Or (and I might be on to something here) is it the high and growing levels of 99¢/lb chicken consumption?
Whatever the reason, I think the case warrants some deeper, if not serious investigation ... and as lil sis exclaims: "May we bongey [the Americans] in the relays!"
Fun question indeed, but is there really something behind the apparent concentration of speed in our little sub-region? Just in this year's Olympics alone, we have seen Bolt, Powell, Fraser, Simpson, Stewart, Frater, Campbell-Brown, Martina, Robles, Thompson, Burns, and of course, Stirrup, Ferguson-McKenzie, and Atkins run to sprint semis, finals and of course medals.
Lil sis thinks that Jamaican genes have been spliced with those of aliens. I have a few questions of my own though:
Is it because we have years of running from slave masters programmed in our genes?
Is it a happy confluence of factors, including sun exposure, running barefooted in the sand and yams?
Or (and I might be on to something here) is it the high and growing levels of 99¢/lb chicken consumption?
Whatever the reason, I think the case warrants some deeper, if not serious investigation ... and as lil sis exclaims: "May we bongey [the Americans] in the relays!"
Thursday, July 10, 2008
New stuff ...
1. Ghent, New York/Lisboa vs Barcelona vs Salvador/Queer eyes
2. Haitian fantasies
3. Emerald cut diamond engagement rings
4. The Monégasque
5. Architectural Digest/Radon inspections/Gaudí
6. Ghanaian doctors with needles
7. Tampon chandeliers/Bhutanese art
8. Australian interior design
9. Love of female Pacific Islanders
10. Haruki Marukami
11. Being a godmother/Kanga shopping
12. Son Cubano
13. Drive-ins (well at least in my adult years)
14. Tower Pilates
15. Appellation wine & spirits
2. Haitian fantasies
3. Emerald cut diamond engagement rings
4. The Monégasque
5. Architectural Digest/Radon inspections/Gaudí
6. Ghanaian doctors with needles
7. Tampon chandeliers/Bhutanese art
8. Australian interior design
9. Love of female Pacific Islanders
10. Haruki Marukami
11. Being a godmother/Kanga shopping
12. Son Cubano
13. Drive-ins (well at least in my adult years)
14. Tower Pilates
15. Appellation wine & spirits
Sometimes all I need is the air that I breathe and a little bit of Santogold :)
This article brings to mind conversations that I have had with a long lost friend about the importance of self-examination and -criticism.
Wednesday, March 12, 2008
The real girl
Benguelê was just about as beautiful as any artform I can imagine. It actually quieted the whole prickly thing I have going on from time to time, whereby I swear off all human beings and their stinkin little neuroses forever ... or at least until CSI comes on.
Mind you, sometimes I love New York, especially those trees in Central Park, with whom I've developed the kind of relationship I had with that friend of my mother's who plaited my hair on the weekends: Both are pretty chatty and amusing, making fun of me when I'm in pain and shit... but in the end you do come out looking and feeling way better than you did going in.
I guess community in whatever form is everything, or a lot more than we give it credit for. The absence of it can breed the little shits that believe that they should be first in line no matter whose toes they step on in the process; and the presence of it can help a man with all the foundation of a serial killer get through a crisis involving delusions and sex dolls.
Mind you, sometimes I love New York, especially those trees in Central Park, with whom I've developed the kind of relationship I had with that friend of my mother's who plaited my hair on the weekends: Both are pretty chatty and amusing, making fun of me when I'm in pain and shit... but in the end you do come out looking and feeling way better than you did going in.
I guess community in whatever form is everything, or a lot more than we give it credit for. The absence of it can breed the little shits that believe that they should be first in line no matter whose toes they step on in the process; and the presence of it can help a man with all the foundation of a serial killer get through a crisis involving delusions and sex dolls.
Wednesday, January 23, 2008
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