Archive for July, 2004
Graphology
What does it say about our society that some of our largest and most powerful firms, including financial giants such as Merrill Lynch and Prudential, have resorted to “handwriting analysis” to “weed out potentially troublesome hires1 and to monitor the behavior of existing employees”? To be honest, I’m not really sure. I do know that […]
Robots
It is now commonplace, thanks especially to the widespread popularity of the book Chaos, that a simple set of rules can produce complex results. But when Isaac Asimov first started writing his Robot stories in the late thirties he was a visionary. He saw his robots, not as Frankenstein monsters who turn against their creator, […]
Silence
This silence can not last.
What are you still doing here? Click on the link! Now.
Betel Nut
Annette Lu (呂秀蓮) is the Vice President of Taiwan. She has always been criticized for being “outspoken.” Although I feel many of the things she’s said are nutty, I’ve often been willing to give her the benefit of the doubt because I think there is a tendency to attack women for having strong views on […]
Censure
Congresswoman Corrine Brown (D-FL) represents 600,000 Americans in the Duval County/Jacksonville area.
She was censured by Congress for suggesting that the UN be brought in to observe the elections.
The thing is, it isn’t just Florida, it’s the whole country that needs UN observers…
Chicken
Why did the Iraqi Chicken cross the road?
There are a bunch of different answers, but here is the one offered by army translators:
Chicken he corss street because bad she tangle regulation. Future chicken table against my request.
That’s from a joke made by an army translator herself! It seems the military […]
Borjigin
Mongolians need surnames. Actually, they had surnames, but they lost them. How do you loose your surname? Well, it seems that the use of Surnames was banned during the communist era in order to “eliminate the clan system, the hereditary aristocracy and the class structure.” But now they need them again, and unfortunately for the […]
Lançados
The term lançados is derived from the Portuguese verb “to throw out.” It refers to Portuguese settlers who came to the coast of West Africa as well as the nearby islands after being expelled from their home country. Many, but not all, were Jews who fled the Portuguese Inquisition in 1536. In a parallel development […]
Outsourcing Revisited
Here is an idea for India: Instead of taking jobs away from Americans, offer low-paid call-center jobs in India to Americans looking for adventure, spiritual enlightenment (free yoga classes?) and a chance to see the world!
Think the idea is far-fetched? China seems to be successfully using this model to attract Japanese workers at Chinese-run call […]
American Jews
Ever since the 1993 Oslo Accord proved that negotiations were possible, surveys have consistently found that 50 to 60 percent of American Jews favor ending the occupation and dismantling settlements in return for peace.
So the question is, if so many American Jews oppose Sharon’s policies, and support Oslo, why are American politicians so afraid to […]
An anthropologist and documentary filmmaker, 
