Mixed Bag Monday

Here's a compiled collection of stories that peaked my interest over the last week, with a little of my own comments on the significance of the stories.

By Staff Sgt. Teddy Wade, via Wikimedia Commons

Jessica Sanchez sings during the National Memorial Day concert in Washington D.C., 2012.

Jessica Sanchez Performs on American Idol Season Finale - Exposure is important for the Fil-Am community in the US, especially when it has been so easy for Fil-Am narratives to be written out of history and current events. Hardly anyone knows about the other half of the labor strikes of the UFW were Filipinos. While I may not agree with all of Jessica’s mannerisms, I believe any positive exposure that makes people go “Wow, where did this person come from?” And maybe ask a few questions about the person’s background, especially if they are Fil-Am, helps introduce a different perspective to people who otherwise may not know about the Fil-Am communities across the country. This, coupled with the growing exposure on television, help recover and incorporate the Fil-Am experience into the American experience.

By yeowatzup from Katlenburg-Lindau, Germany (Sunset, Bohol) via Wikimedia Commons

Sunset in Bohol

State of calamity declared in Bohol Due to Drought/ El Nino - The drought here in California has been quite disruptive to nearly all areas of life, from agriculture to commerce and the daily habits of its residents. While it seems like the new norm is water conservation (it’s not a bad thing!), I think it is important for people in the US to remember that global climate change is not limited to one or two nations, but is truly a GLOBAL condition that needs to be examined by all governments, collectively. At times, when agriculture sustains people with very tight margins for failure, it is all the more important for everyone to do what they can. While the California Drought may not have the same effect as it does for the people in PI, where “more than 40,000 farmers in 27 towns in Bohol, known as the rice bowl of Central Visayas, are facing hunger and loss of income,” its effects are seen in the reservoirs and lakes across the state.

Watch Policeman Teach A Homeless Girl To Play Hopscotch to Pass the Time - Sometimes it is too easy to see the negative in life, especially when those who are sworn to protect and serve display pockets of deplorable behavior, and outright murder, on specific ethnic populations. This is a short video about a non-violent experience with a police officer. These kinds of scenes are played out across the country all the time, but are rarely reported in mainstream media. This needs to change, and I watch videos like this and remember that, while not EVERYONE acts as they should, the police officers are, in general, positive presences that do the best they can seeing the roughest parts of our society everyday.

CC BY-SA 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=865798

Chicken Adobo with Rice and Beans

Edible Cutlery - Conservation and light consumption has always been an important part of my outlook on life. This novel kind of solution to overconsumption and unthinking waste displays the ingenuity and value in finding plausible solutions for a growing global population. Particularly in places like the US, Japan and India, where utensils are used and disposed of heavily, these kinds of potential answers helps to reduce the burden on the environment and on production of these disposable products.

By Alexander Klimov at de.wikipedia (Own work) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

The Guy Fawkes Mask has become a common representation of the Anonymous group

Voter Data Breach - I sometimes forget that everything placed on the Internet, or transported through the Internet, has the potential for being stolen or accessed by unwanted parties. In this case, the hacker cooperative Anonymous broke into the Philippine Commission on Elections website and reported on just how easy it was to access sensitive information. It appeared that some voter information was saved in a simple text file. “The breach contains the records of 1.3m overseas Philippines voters, including their passport details; it also includes 15.8m fingerprints,” according to the article. On a wider scale, this points to the fact that whenever information is given freely to another entity, be it a private company or a public office, it has the potential to be stolen. We all have to be careful with the data we share, and demand stronger protections from businesses and organizations that legitimately access and use our information in conducting their affairs.

Gun Battle Against Extremists - The global community must realize that the threat of extremism is not isolated to countries in “the West.” The threat of extremist behavior is not an East-West dichotomy, but a global phenomenon that points to the problems of HUMAN civilization. Here, in the volatile southern region of Mindanao, Philippines, Western Mindanao Command soldiers clashed with Aby Sayyaf Group extremist soldiers, the results being 18 dead government troops and 5 casualties on Abu Sayyaf forces. While it has been popular among politicians in the US to claim that extremists like these are conducting a religious holy war against Christianity and “the West” because they hate our culture and our freedoms, I would argue it is far more a symptom of the great global disparity in access to economic and basic, fundamental needs, but also the ongoing negative impact of the United States’ involvement in other countries. These extremist activities are far more inspired by the political and economic interests of the leadership, who layer their rhetoric with religious absolution for the consumption of the undereducated soldiers who ACTUALLY fight their battles. I believe education and understanding would go a long way in lessening the appeal of extremism for many underrepresented populations. If the religious extremist groups are the only ones who seemingly offer their family a roof and regular meals, how could a soldier refuse?

Film Review: Not One Less, directed by Zhang Yimou

By chensiyuan (chensiyuan) [GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html) via Wikimedia Commons

Not One Less. Directed by Zhang Yimou, Columbia Tristar, 1999.

Zhang Yimou creates a film showcasing the society Communist China  developed during its career in power. In Not One Less, we are introduced to 13-year-old Wei Minzhi, who must substitute teach in a poor village when Teacher Gao is called to care for his mother. What follows is the challenges she faces, both in teaching students not much younger than her, and the journey she must make to find a student who has gone to the city in search of work.

Many commentaries are critical of its position in Chinese film, claiming it was made as a propaganda piece for the Communist government. What seems to be amiss here is the evidence against such claims, namely Zhang Yimou's many other films. Many, including To Live, contain many symbolic criticisms aimed at the Communist government, either during the Maoist Period or the Reform Period. Furthermore, a number of interviews with Zhang make several of his opinions of government policy known to the reader. It seems a mistake to think a film's meaning can be discerned from a superficial viewing.

Education plays an important role in the film, emphasizing the plight of the countryside's children, as well as acting as a criticism of the PRC's handling of rural reform. The film's focus on chalk shortages (representative of the wider lack of educational resources) as well as the fact that Teacher Gao has not been paid a salary for six months of working reflect the shortcomings of the government's reform plans. The cause of this, Xaoling's article claims, is the government policy where individual villages are responsible for funding the nine years of compulsory education for the area's children. In areas where money is already very scarce, there is little which can be done to raise funding for the schools. Symbols of this failed reform include the sign stating “Education is the Foundation for the Country's Prosperity,” which is plastered on a broken down wall, as well as the nature of the schoolhouse, which has no clock, and must rely on limited resources to survive.

Zhang represents the plight of the children by explaining the song Wei sings to Teacher Gao, then to her students. Though she forgets the official lyrics, her substituted lyrics hold important commentaries on the nature of the State's relationship to its children. Xiaoling comments that the official lyrics represent the State as the sunshine to the nation's “flowers”, or children. Wei Minzhi can never remember the correct words, which Xiaoling believes to represent Zhang's belief that the children would not see themselves as being cultivated by the State when it seems to have abandoned them to their fate.

The “happy ending” of the film shows the TV crew and cargo trucks driving out to the village, carrying loads of donations made by the city dwellers. As Xiaoling says, many viewers may say it's too Hollywood to be taken seriously. On the contrary, this reading doesn't reflect the true ramifications of such donations. What do the students do after the funding and donations run out? Will the city people still remember them, or will they believe they've done their good deed for the year? Upon closer inspection, the film actually is giving a critical commentary on the government, as well as the prosperous people's lack of awareness of the countryside conditions. In some ways it's like applying a bandage to a shotgun wound, treating the symptoms without addressing the main cause. We are left with a few statistics, claiming the reforms and charity have allowed 15% of students to return to school in the countryside. Xiaoling reflects on this, wondering what will happen to the other 85% of the students who won't return. Zhang wants the people to know that there is still much work to be done, most importantly in the way government reforms are carried out in the villages and the countryside.

National responses to the film are surprisingly mixed. What is most troubling is the rather superficial review given by a representative of Beijing Normal University, who claims the film “lacks a strong plot” and laments at how the ending's “happy laughter conceals harsh reality.” These comments reflect the divide between urban dwellers and the plight of the countryside. Furthermore, it represents the lack of understanding, in that the reader claims the superficiality of the ending, which seems to be Zhang's exact point. Other comments, however, reflect the awareness of the situation in the countryside, as represented in Zhang's film, however it also shows the lack of action of the readers. Thought many make the effort to write commentaries on the film, one reviewer tells how they should have written a report after seeing the poverty in the village. The instances of “should have” or “will next time” likely expands beyond one commentator's words. It is the hope that this film will open the audiences eyes to not only the plight of the poor, but also the need for critical government review.

Works cited: 

Xiaoling Zhang, “A Film Director's Criticism of Reform China: A Close Reading of Zhang Yimou's 'Not One Less',” China Information XV.2 (2001):

World War II, Anti-Communism, Women's Liberation Movement

By CIA [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

Two prominent circumstances greatly affect the politics of America during the latter half of the 20th Century. Taken together, it can be argued that US Cold War policy, Anti-Communist sentiments in the West, and the movement for women’s liberation resurrecting during World War II had direct influences over modern world circumstances as divergent as modern feminist movements, the presence of the Chinese Communist Party, and the Japanese State as a victim of nuclear weapons.

First we look at the Anti-Communist sentiments arising during the Second World War. Towards the end of the war, the United States and the Soviet Union were both working on, or completing work on, the development of the first nuclear weaponry. The United States, in part as a demonstration of international military might aimed at the Soviet Union, used the nuclear weapons “Fat Man” and “Little Boy” on the two cities of Nagasaki and Hiroshima in 1945.

Scholars still debate the military, political, and social implications of the decision to use the bombs, from the argument that they saved both Japanese and Allied lives by avoiding a direct land invasion, while others claim the war would have ended naturally as dissidents within the Japanese leadership were already wavering on the war effort.

In hindsight, however, it is clear that the decision to use the bombs was, in part, influenced by the perception that there would be a continued conflict, whether cold or hot, between the two political systems of Democracy and Communism.

Second, we can also look at the diplomatic efforts of George Marshall to develop a unified government in China after World War II, and avoid a civil war between the Nationalist government of Chiang Kai Shek and the Communist leadership of Mao Zedong. When this mission ultimately failure, and civil war occurred when neither side willingly negotiated a suitable agreement, American politics trended towards a US Cold War policy of containment via international cooperation with Western Europe and East Asian allies. While the United States desired a more Nationalist China, they were aware of the Kuomintang’s shortcomings, and held no negotiating power over the Communists. Additionally, with the US Cold War policy of containment came the rise of the National Security State and Total Mobilization, where drills like “Duck and Cover” were commonly practiced by students and office workers. The development of the National Security State after WWII gave rise to many modern Federal departments we take for granted, namely the Department of Defense, the National Security Agency, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the Central Intelligence Agency.

The rise and fall of the Cold War, and Anti-Communist movements spearheaded by the United States, greatly affected the modern makeup of the US Federal Government, the Chinese Communist government, and the status of Japan as a victim of nuclear weapons.

A second movement which greatly affected the politics of America was the continuation of the women's’ liberation movement, with beginnings largely in the 19th century, and arising as a sort of second wave in the 1970s, which still continues today.

During the War, with men being drafted into battle in Western Europe and the Pacific theaters, manufacture of military goods, consumer goods (what little didn’t go to the miltary), and work within factories fell to the large female population left. This gave rise of women as workers, personified in the ideal “Rosie the Riveter” image. The employment women gained during the war largely dissipated after the end of conflict, with returning veterans replacing the working women, and the manufacture of munitions and war-time production greatly reduced. Alongside this small taste of economic ability gained during the war, societal norms had to reconcile the tyranny of Nazism, it’s holistic influence among the population and their lives, and address domestic relations between and among the powers and the women and the segregated ethnic groups kept under their heel. The seeds of change were there, but would largely remain on the back burner until the 1960's and 70's, when the Civil Rights Movement, coupled with the counter-culture movement and a shedding of the 1950s norms of the nuclear family gave rise to a stronger motion for equality.

The circumstances of women as economically independent, or at least less dependent upon a man for sustenance during WW II, and the movement towards equality among the various ethnic groups AND gender groups during the 1960s and 1970s, still have repercussions today, where salary gaps are generally narrowing and sports develop leagues to accommodate women and men. The changing politics, commanding equality of ethnicity and gender in the workplace, can trace their development to the circumstances of women’s liberation.

Anti-Communist movements and the women’s liberation movement greatly affected the shaping of modern American politics in the 20th century. As the United States looks out towards the world, and the conflicts brewing in the Middle East, it will be interesting to see how the American movement towards liberation of gender will affect the development of politics in that region of the world.

Recommended Films: Grave of the Fireflies (UR), Isao Takahata; Breakfast at Tiffany's (NR), Blake Edwards; Barbarella, Roger Vadim (PG)

Progress in Political and Social Equality, 1960-1975

"AfricanAmericans," FEastman. Licensed under Public domain via Wikimedia Commons

The US Postwar period of the 1950s through the 1970s marks a significant paradigm shift towards inclusion, at the cost of continued segregation and exclusion of African Americans and women from social status. The statement “Between 1960 and 1975, there was great progress in the struggle for political and social equality,” is essentially sound, given the circumstances, with the understanding that the path towards human equality remains a constant issue.

A number of incidents and circumstances between the Civil Rights Movement and the continued fight for women’s liberation share common cause towards equality during this period. Influenced by Martin Luther King Jr.’s influence and the aftermath of the Montgomery Bus Boycotts of the later 1950's, issues of human rights and calls for equality took a higher priority among the general social discussion.

The 1950's also saw, on a more international scale, the shift away from traditional patriarchal social norms towards a more inclusive slant, as nations began to rebuild after World War II. Emphasis on public education, and the desire to utilize all able human capital within the nation state, began to address common issues of unequal opportunity in places like Europe, the US, and Japan.

The 1960's, which contains the bulk of what we refer to as the Civil Rights Movement, further pushed the shift away from a “separate but equal” understanding in the South, with parallels to the 1950's “nuclear ideal” of women as domestic homemakers, excluded from opportunity in the larger social context.

The rise of the Vietnam War in the 1970's, coupled with the continued counter-culture movement against established cultural norms, as well as the climax of total desegregation within the Civil Rights Movement’s efforts in 1969, further influenced the liberation and shedding of many social norms aimed at women. Additionally, the US government under Jimmy Carter moved towards emphasizing human rights as a federal policy, thus addressing lingering issues of inequality among women and African Americans.

Honestly, the work is still continuing in the call for honest reevaluation in equality among people. With the United States being such a pluralistic society, with many ethnic identities and cultural interactions, the issue of what is “fair” and “equitable” will likely shift with current circumstances. Issues of unequal pay still plague women in the workplace, while minorities are still largely over-represented among the population in crime statistics and underrepresented among education statistics. Unfair targeting of specific ethnic groups represents the ongoing battle between crime prevention and invasion of fundamental civil rights. Finding concrete answers to these lingering issues will continue to challenge the people as we move into the next generations.

Recommended Films: American History X, Tony Kaye; Malcolm X, Spike Lee;

Work for Free, and Reap the Rewards

Liberal arts degrees, or at least liberal arts as a minor, are not completely worthless in the marketplace.

One of the best skills people who study a liberal art, specifically English, Philosophy, or History, among others, is the ability to research and write clearly, for a specific audience, supported by concrete details and evidence. These also help contribute to critical thinking and analysis skills that are required in fields as divergent as science, business, and law.

While the job market is indeed more challenging, or less linear, among certain liberal art fields than it may be in, say, accounting, or computer science, it is no less viable than any other field. The truth is there is work out there for anyone who is seeking employment.

What is necessary for these specialists, however, is creativity in the search. It isn't enough to follow and believe that a seamless transition from education to corporate employee is immediate, or easily obtained. For the liberal artists, and to a lesser degree any field where a leg up on the competition is wanted, it is necessary to utilize multiple approaches to doing the key point of any job application: real world experience.

Most job postings want the "ideal candidate" to have 3-5 years of experience in the field of work, and a laundry list of skills and abilities. How recent graduates can acquire 3-5 years of experience, specifically if they didn't have the foresight to do so while in school, is on the surface unappealing. This task is the "work for free" mentality.

Internships, volunteer work, underpay, or otherwise minimal compensation for work within your specialization is what is necessary to achieve success when starting out. Whether it is writing articles for a few dollars, or processing artifacts within a non-profit museum, or volunteering time at a local shelter or office, these experiences show future employers that you are serious about your work, and are not merely doing it for monetary gain (although it may be a future goal).

It places you within a proper mindset to build a more solid appreciation for the work. When a person is working for low or no pay, they are able to gauge how important the work itself, the field, or the topics are to the individual based on intrinsic merits, and not extrinsic rewards like money or status. It makes sense that finding internal rewards first may make the employee more productive and thus will contribute to increased pay.

Do the work for free, or low pay, to begin with, and reap the rewards of a better, more suitable career in your chosen field.

Study of History, Online?

One of the intriguing movements within education is the rise of accessible, quality learning resources offered entirely online. Websites like Khan Academy and Coursera provide courses taught by knowledgeable staff and college professors in a wide variety of subjects. These are offered, currently, at no cost to the consumer.

Additionally, junior colleges, universities, and vocational schools are taking advantage of the resources and utilizing distance education to encourage more students to take their offerings.

This is an exciting trend, in part because anyone with a reliable internet connection can now access information on nearly any topic they are interested in, at a cost much more reasonable than a traditional onsite course. More access means more students means more opportunity to succeed in learning the subject material. Another potential benefit is a decreased expenditure for providing the course, since facilities maintenance and other costly overhead is minimized by having much of the content on the web.

Challenges also arise, as with any new emerging technology. The ability to instantly connect with, and adapt the material to the needs of, the students,and establishing the actual needs of the students, becomes increasingly challenging with online coursework, as lecture materials and communication is often done asynchronously. Live feedback is more difficult than onsite courses.

Additionally, the level of comprehension, measurements of comprehension, and motivation is more in the hands of the student, since the professor or teacher is not seeing the students face-to-face each day. Unless the teacher is successful in conveying the material in a meaningful, successful manner, and the student is, or becomes, interested in the course or its completion, unique challenges arise, regardless of the content.

We, then, are led to understanding that there are pros and cons for online education. Is it useful for the student of history? I argue that it has potential for benefit.

History is the exploration of past events, their causes, effects, and reasons why. Additionally, it is tied into modern times and woven into a unique narrative that marries past and present. Finally, history is learning the facts and figures of the past...the dates and events themselves. I believe online education, when utilized effectively, can provide a vehicle for teaching the important aspects of the past to students, specifically for created a foundation in historical events to dispel ignorance of context.

Online resources, a variety of media, readily accessible, can be utilized to drive points home with imagery and content that goes beyond lectures and reading, which is a) most often utilized in onsite courses and b) has been shown to maintain a rather small percentage of students who retain the material. Conversely, a picture can invoke emotional responses, a film can be memorable long past its ending credits, specifically because it utilizes more of the senses, and connects on a human level. This same response can be utilized in history teaching to convey the emotional past.

Though it is not without it's unique challenges, the learning of history can greatly benefit from utilizing all resources available to engage the student in the material, and online education would be a welcome tool to use in the public dissemination of our unique historical heritage.