Besides the careless summers of the college student, and home for every Christmas besides one hellish season spent in the throes of holiday hell, I’ve spent the last 8 years of my life outside of Western New York. Still I read the Buffalo News almost everyday, at least when the internet is cooperating. For national news I’m addicted to the Times so mainly I just scam the local sections, editorials, and sports page of our dear local paper. The News’ blogs on their website are also interesting from time to time, which brings me to my point; what’s the deal with these Sabres medallions? I couldn’t believe some of the comments I read about the supply shortage of these medallions- which are being offered in local stores for $2.99 as part of a promotional effort between The News and the Sabres. Buffalonians are some of the most unpretentious, flexible, and humble people anywhere but give us a hockey team with half a decent chance of winning a championship and we lose our senses.
Here are some examples of the editorial outrage behind the medallion shortage, followed, of course, by my comments:
“I feel so sorry for the poor person behind the counter. The news should make amends to all. The only paper in town should know the size of their community. What a shame. I just keep shaking my head with everything that goes on in my home town.”
I’m ashamed of a lot of things about Buffalo too: the new peace bridge hasn't been built yet, they want the taxpayers to pay to put a giant fish store in the old Aud, there’s that stupid skyway that hugs the water front, etc. I am not so sure, however, that I agree with you that a shortage of $2.99 plastic medallions with pictures of hockey players on them makes me ashamed of my hometown. Consequently, It’s a good thing you don’t live Moldova. Can you imagine that stores here routinely run out of flour, milk and eggs? You’d probably kill someone.
“Running this promotion during the upcoming Easter break was a mistake. I had hoped to collect all the medallions, but will be away for 2 weeks on a previously scheduled Easter trip. I guess this is a moot point now that there are none available!”
Why don’t you just cancel your vacation so you can buy all of them then? Oh wait, you’ve already thought of that and then realized it’s a “previously scheduled trip.” Damn, no going back on that one huh? You know, I’m not so sure that I believe that you believe that it’s a “moot point” you can’t buy the medallions.
“First of all, this program should have started in the beginning of the season and sold 1 medallion per week...not 1 per day. A family with 2-3 boys who want to collect these could not afford it. Not to mention the fact that you have to go to the store daily to buy them.”
Wait a second, you have to go to the store to buy these medallions? I smell a rat.
“Of the several different locations I visited, each store has given a different number available. Can a store manager or clerk decide to sell only a fraction of the alloted number to the general public and keep the rest for themselves or preferred people who are not waited in line at 6am. There should be some rule in regards to this, and someone that makes sure the rules are being followed.”
You mean the Buffalo News hasn’t already assigned a “medallion czar” to prevent the trafficking in medallions? I can’t believe that. Nobody is that stupid to put the fate of $2.99 plastic medallions with pictures of hockey players on them in the hands of grocery store clerks.
Wow. Call me a casual fan that the extent of my Sabres mania is signing onto dial-up every morning over my cup of instant coffee to check last night’s scores (I’m currently waiting for the damn page to load so I can see who won the devils game last night) but what the hell are you people complaining about? They’re not running out of Tim Horton’s Coffee over there are they?
Thursday, March 29, 2007
Picasso and Moldova
If you’re a fan of Piccaso perhaps you’re familiar with the allusions to African folk art that pervade many of his cubist works. Some background for those of you who actually have real jobs and don’t have time to read “Cubism;” Cubism originated during the fermenting years of the early 20th century as artists, to express their anxiety with an increasing impalpable world (Einstein was brooding on relativity, Freud was probing the unconscious), began to utilize the subjective and geometrically exaggerated forms of art works from what were considered primitive cultures. The point Picasso and the modernists wanted to make was that a mask painted by tribesman 4,000 years ago was just as expressive (and more genuine) of the human condition than the academic styles being taught in the Ecole des Beaux-Arts.
A pivotal attraction to Moldova for volunteers like me seems to be analogous to Picasso’s fascination with African art. I recently had a conversation with a Moldovan friend during which I heard myself telling her, after complaining about the way I was treated at the bank, how I find refuge in being able to readily identify the sources of my moods here. Remember Philadelphia when we first met and the answers we gave each other about why we were going to Moldova? “I just want to meet different people and laugh with them,” “I think it’d be a great experience to live in a village without running water,” and “I heard that Eastern European woman rock the casbah!” Last weekend I walked 30 minutes out of my way for one of the few vending machines in this country that dispenses coffee. Two years ago buying coffee from a vending machine wouldn’t exactly have been one of the notable events of my day.
Picasso’s attraction to primitive art, likewise, was based on its power to convey, in the framework of western art, how voluptuous and haughty western culture had become. In today’s politically correct culture, however, and its obsession with cultural relativism, Picasso can be accused of oversimplifying and romanticizing the “primitive” cultures he sought to invoke in his art.
I’ve certainly let my bias’ taint my experience here. For example, my penchant for downsizing all problems into their economics has allowed me to regulate the vexing problems of Moldova to a case of unfortunate geography because, after all, that’s the most culturally appropriate answer economics gives for why some countries are rich and some are poor. Why geography? Read, “Guns, Germs, and Steel.” The problem is I’ve let this bias swell to a general perfidy in international development-if this mess is indebted to Moldova’s geography spending thousands of tax payer dollars on, oh I don’t know, some 96 hour assiduously detailed business course for 17 year old girls who come just because the instructor is foreign, and has blue eyes, isn't really going to help the cause is it? I suppose, however, that it’s helping something.
This occurred to me after reading “Cubism:” What happens when you put this highly institutionalized and somewhat whacky cultural exchange, which occasionally refers to itself as international development, in the hands of the sloppy, barely out of college, and rather unpaticular American middle class? It’s as if Uncle Sam is giving us this whole poor country as our open canvass and, for the low price of two years, we can drip and splat everywhere our bureaucratic and results obsessed culture.
Can we avoid painting Moldova into a sloppy and farcical caricature of itself?
A pivotal attraction to Moldova for volunteers like me seems to be analogous to Picasso’s fascination with African art. I recently had a conversation with a Moldovan friend during which I heard myself telling her, after complaining about the way I was treated at the bank, how I find refuge in being able to readily identify the sources of my moods here. Remember Philadelphia when we first met and the answers we gave each other about why we were going to Moldova? “I just want to meet different people and laugh with them,” “I think it’d be a great experience to live in a village without running water,” and “I heard that Eastern European woman rock the casbah!” Last weekend I walked 30 minutes out of my way for one of the few vending machines in this country that dispenses coffee. Two years ago buying coffee from a vending machine wouldn’t exactly have been one of the notable events of my day.
Picasso’s attraction to primitive art, likewise, was based on its power to convey, in the framework of western art, how voluptuous and haughty western culture had become. In today’s politically correct culture, however, and its obsession with cultural relativism, Picasso can be accused of oversimplifying and romanticizing the “primitive” cultures he sought to invoke in his art.
I’ve certainly let my bias’ taint my experience here. For example, my penchant for downsizing all problems into their economics has allowed me to regulate the vexing problems of Moldova to a case of unfortunate geography because, after all, that’s the most culturally appropriate answer economics gives for why some countries are rich and some are poor. Why geography? Read, “Guns, Germs, and Steel.” The problem is I’ve let this bias swell to a general perfidy in international development-if this mess is indebted to Moldova’s geography spending thousands of tax payer dollars on, oh I don’t know, some 96 hour assiduously detailed business course for 17 year old girls who come just because the instructor is foreign, and has blue eyes, isn't really going to help the cause is it? I suppose, however, that it’s helping something.
This occurred to me after reading “Cubism:” What happens when you put this highly institutionalized and somewhat whacky cultural exchange, which occasionally refers to itself as international development, in the hands of the sloppy, barely out of college, and rather unpaticular American middle class? It’s as if Uncle Sam is giving us this whole poor country as our open canvass and, for the low price of two years, we can drip and splat everywhere our bureaucratic and results obsessed culture.
Can we avoid painting Moldova into a sloppy and farcical caricature of itself?
Tuesday, March 20, 2007
A free trip to China?
I was minding my own business at work yesterday when someone appeared out of nowhere, quickly sat down in the chair in front of my desk, and began to explain to me the intricacies of a business he has in a nearby village. After failing to slow him down on several occasions in order that I could figure out what the hell he was saying, I finally succeeded in asking him what exactly I could do for him. “I want you to go to China for me for 10 days, as a translator,” he answered matter of factly. “They speak English there.” I recalled that a few weeks ago my counterpart had me whisk off some e-mails to a wholesale supplier of construction materials in China. I wondered if there was a connection.
“Well what do you think?” the stranger asked. “I’ll pay for you. We’ll leave from Moscow.” For some reason I didn’t want to say no. I just looked around pensively. “Think about it,” he said, getting up to leave. "You have my contact information."
“Well what do you think?” the stranger asked. “I’ll pay for you. We’ll leave from Moscow.” For some reason I didn’t want to say no. I just looked around pensively. “Think about it,” he said, getting up to leave. "You have my contact information."
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