As the first chords rang out and fans on crutches let out a rousing cheer alongside hundreds of other survivors and relatives of the dead, it was clear that Paris was looking for a moment of rock’n’roll catharsis.
Category: Society
El Chapo Speaks
Sean Penn :
I take no pride in keeping secrets that may be perceived as protecting criminals, nor do I have any gloating arrogance at posing for selfies with unknowing security men. But I’m in my rhythm. Everything I say to everyone must be true. As true as it is compartmentalized. The trust that El Chapo had extended to us was not to be fucked with. This will be the first interview El Chapo had ever granted outside an interrogation room, leaving me no precedent by which to measure the hazards. I’d seen plenty of video and graphic photography of those beheaded, exploded, dismembered or bullet-riddled innocents, activists, courageous journalists and cartel enemies alike. I was highly aware of committed DEA and other law-enforcement officers and soldiers, both Mexican and American, who had lost their lives executing the policies of the War on Drugs. The families decimated, and institutions corrupted.
• • •
Still, today, there are little boys in Sinaloa who draw play-money pesos, whose fathers and grandfathers before them harvested the only product they’d ever known to morph those play pesos into real dollars. They wonder at our outrage as we, our children, friends, neighbors, bosses, banks, brothers and sisters finance the whole damn thing. Without a paradigm shift, understanding the economics and illness of addiction, parents in Mexico and the U.S. will increasingly risk replacing that standard parting question to their teens off for a social evening – from “Where are you going tonight?” to “Where are you dying tonight?”
El Chapo? It won’t be long, I’m sure, before the Sinaloa cartel’s next shipment into the United States is the man himself.
The Passion Of Nicki Minaj
There’s nothing new about female artists struggling with issues of power and control, but we’re far today from the 1990s, when Queen Latifah proclaimed ‘‘every time I hear a brother call a girl a bitch or a ho/Trying to make a sister feel low/You know all that gots to go.’’ ‘‘Bitch,’’ in music, used to be an insult, a sneer, and it still can be. But female empowerment is a trend, and the word has been reclaimed — by Minaj, in many a track; by Rihanna, in ‘‘Bitch Better Have My Money’’; and triumphantly by Madonna, in her recent track ‘‘Bitch, I’m Madonna.’’ This is good for business and either good for women or not good for women at all.
In another era, Minaj’s sexuality, expressed semi-parodically — pretending she’s a Barbie doll; glorifying women dressed as prostitutes and set in red-light-district windows — might have given feminists pause. But in the 2010s, we have entered a different world in pop culture, one in which sexual repression is perceived as burdensome and perhaps even an inability to holistically integrate the body and self. Young people are identifying and exploring formerly unknown, or at least unlabeled, frontiers of sexuality and gender. And the fact that Minaj is in charge of her own objectification (describing her vagina with more words than I thought existed, and then amplifying its power by rhyming those words), as well as her own monetization (overt product placement in videos is a hallmark) has led most feminist voices to applaud her.
The Sad Fate Of America’s Whistleblowers
The American people accept the persecution of truth-tellers, because they have been brainwashed into believing that patriotism means defense of the government no matter what. As truth is so unfavorable to Washington, Americans believe that it must not be revealed, and if revealed, covered up, and those who reveal truth must be punished.
A country with such a population as this is a police state, not a free country.
Volkswagen and the Future of Honesty
The market is giving its own answer to the question “Is honesty for suckers?” Its response is: “No, honesty is for those who want to maximize value over the long term.” Of course, some corporations will get away with cheating. But the risk is always there that they will be caught. And often – especially for corporations whose brands’ reputation is a major asset – the risk just isn’t worth taking.
Honesty maximizes value over the long term, even if by “value” we mean only the monetary return to shareholders. It is even more obviously true if value includes the sense of satisfaction that all those involved take from their work. Several studies have shown that members of the generation that has come of age in the new millennium are more interested in having an impact on the world than in earning money for its own sake. This is the generation that has spawned “effective altruism,” which encourages giving money away, as long as it is done efficiently.
Abnormal Capitalist 