Seems the other end of the spectrum (see below) might be just across the sea. While China struggles to convince it’s citizens not to eat dogs, the Japanese are busy dancing — yes, dancing — with theirs.
From one end of the spectrum to the other: in China dogs don’t get psychotropic medication and behaviorist visits, they get eaten. “Fragrant meat,” as it is known there, is consumed by some for its purported medicinal value. But in the wake of the upcoming Beijing Olympics, the Beijing Catering Trade Association has banned dog meat from all 112 official Olympic restaurants in fear of offending foreign visitors. It’s all part of a larger initiative to encourage the Chinese to “respect the habits of many countries and nationalities,” including smiling more and not spitting in the streets. A dog meat ban also occurred during the 1988 Seoul Olympics.
The first I heard of dogs visiting behaviorists or taking anti-depressants was, stereotypically, in California. Some friends of friends had an otherwise wonderful pup whom they’d adopted from a shelter, who, when left alone would proceed to take out his loneliness on the furnishings. He not only peed on couches, but also, desperate to join his ‘mom and dad’ shredded the paint and first several layers of wood off a door with his teeth and/or toe nails. The owners (ahem, ‘guardians’ in San Francisco), after consulting a behaviorist, tried giving their dog treats before they left the house. The thought was that he would associate a dramatic exit with reward. When this didn’t work, they tried sneaking out without him spotting or hearing them. After coming home to an ever more shredded door, and later, a mangled dog cage, they decided it was time to try doggie Prozac.
Separation anxiety is the most commonly diagnosed mental ailment among American pets, but obsessive-compulsive disorder and even schizophrenia have been recorded. And, with growing diagnoses, major pharmaceutical companies such as Eli Lilly and Pfizer have launched “companion animal lines” that allow them to, potentially, reach the same clients through even more avenues. Americans spent approximately $15 million last year on pet behavior modifying remedies.
The New York Times Magazine has a long but intriguing piece on Pill-Popping Pets — Dogs, Cats, and Mood-Altering Drugs. Meet Max the OCD tail-biter, Booboo the schizo kitty, and Zoey the aggressive food-fighter, and wonder whether, yikes, separation anxiety isn’t just the tip of the iceberg, and whoa, what brought this on?
One thought had haunted me as I listened to the Bridges’ story: If I were locked inside the bathroom all day, I’d swallow the shampoo, too. Although most animal-behavior problems are believed to have genetic roots, their expressions are typically triggered by the unnatural lives that people force their pets to lead. “A dog that lived on a farm and ran around chasing rabbits all day would be more prone to being stable than a dog living in an apartment in Manhattan,” Dodman says. Undomesticated canids, neither confined nor excessively attached to people, don’t suffer from separation anxiety. Some captive horses endlessly circle their stalls or corrals — a compulsive behavior similar to Max’s tail chasing — but such purposeless repetitions have never been observed in the wild.
Jason P. Howe was trying to earn his photojournalism chops documenting both sides of the brutal Colombian civil war. Along the way, he fell love with a woman, whom he would later find out was an AUC paramilitary assassin. This is his retelling of his entanglement in a conflict that has killed over 200,000 in the last 40 years, and that has often forced regular people into morally precarious and extraordinary situations.
To dismiss all this brutality as a simple war over drugs does the Colombian people a gross injustice. Its roots are buried in the economic and social imbalance that permeates the country, a huge working class living in poverty, lining the pockets of a tiny, wealthy upper class who own more than 90 per cent of the land, industry and business. My goal, therefore, was to meet and photograph members of each of the groups involved, and to attempt explain Latin America’s 40-year conflict.
Initially, Jason met Marylin on a bus and ended up staying with her family for a few weeks. During close to a year of on and off courtship, Marylin joined the AUC and began to progress through the organization.
She then hit me with a confession that would both thrill and confuse me. She explained that in the months that I had been away in Iraq her role within the AUC had changed; she had joined the urban militia and become an assassin. Her job was now to eliminate informers and traitors. So far, she told me, she had killed at least 10 people in the area. I lit a cigarette and inhaled deeply, Marylin looked at me through the smoke as I exhaled, waiting to see how I would respond to what she had just told me.
Strangely, her confession did not have the impact one would expect; I did not recoil in horror. The months I had spent in Colombia and in Iraq surrounded by violence had altered my perspective. I don’t think that I had become immune to death or suffering but I had certainly become less easily shocked. The difference between victim and victor, rebel and refugee, often felt like only a matter of perspective.
Harper’s has a really fascinating article on ‘culture-bound syndromes’ (mental illnesses specific to a culture) in which Frank Bures travels to Nigeria to explore the epidemic of magical genital theft, which is believed to have started in the mid 1970s, and is still occurring in Nigeria to this day. The phenomenon usually consists of a man or woman publicly accusing another person of making their genitals shrink or disappear completely. Often the accused thief is caught and killed. If the accuser seeks medical attention and is informed that their genitals are intact, they often act shocked, believing their genitals have magically reappeared.
An epidemic of penis theft swept Nigeria between 1975 and 1977. Then there seemed to be a lull until 1990, when the stealing resurged. “Men could be seen in the streets of Lagos holding on to their genitalia either openly or discreetly with their hand in their pockets,” Ilechukwu wrote. “Women were also seen holding on to their breasts directly or discreetly, by crossing the hands across the chest. . . . Vigilance and anticipatory aggression were thought to be good prophylaxes. This led to further breakdown of law and order.” In a typical incident, someone would suddenly yell: Thief! My genitals are gone! Then a culprit would be identified, apprehended, and, often, killed.
During the past decade and a half, the thievery seems not to have abated. In April 2001, mobs in Nigeria lynched at least twelve suspected penis thieves. In November of that same year, there were at least five similar deaths in neighboring Benin. One survey counted fifty-six “separate cases of genital shrinking, disappearance, and snatching” in West Africa between 1997 and 2003, with at least thirty-six suspected penis thieves killed at the hands of angry mobs during that period. These incidents have been reported in local newspapers but are little known outside the region.
Cool Things in Random Places has a really amazing gallery of rice field art in Japan. Apparently, they plant different types of rice for different colors, and the art only lasts until the rice is harvested.
Fiji Water recently unseated Evian as the most imported bottled water in America, but its claim to the throne may be short-lived. The Fijian government recently decided to levy an approximately 13 U.S. cent tax on every liter of water sold both domestically and internationally. Interim Finance Minister Mahendra Chaudhry stated the the initiative was passed to stimulate conservation of a national resource, and also allow ordinary Fijians to benefit from sales of their mineral water.
All ten Fijian bottled water companies, including leader Fiji Water, temporarily ceased production and exports. The companies say that the tax will be a death blow to the bottled water industry, and may result in the laying off of hundreds of employees.
A plan to translate the Bible into Jamaican patois has resulted in a fierce clash of language and religious ideologies among Jamaican citizens and expats. Some Christians say that the translation will make what they believe to be God’s word more accessible to the average Jamaican. (This is hardly a revolutionary idea, as the Bible has been translated into hundreds of languages and dialects worldwide.) Nationalists likewise note the importance of making speakers of minority dialects feel empowered.
However, some religious and linguistic purists believe that the translation could “dilute the sanctity of the Scripture” or give license to what they consider to be improper speech. The translation project is part of a larger debate about the place of Jamaican patois in a country that seeks to both preserve its culture as well as be perceived as part of the modern English speaking world.
Patois is how many Jamaicans refer to the creole that emerged when Britain seized the island in 1655 and brought slaves from Western Africa. It historically has been viewed as broken English and was considered a “low-status” language long after Jamaica gained independence in 1962, said Hubert Devonish, a linguistics professor at the Kingston campus of the University of the West Indies.
Almost all Jamaicans know patois, but only recently have the middle and upper classes been speaking it in public, Devonish said.
“Jamaicans have become more and more comfortable with their national identity,” he said. “There’s been a general acceptance of the language bit by bit. It’s a process, and the Bible translation is another step.”
I’ve always suspected the Eastern Europeans were onto something. Among eleven super foods (that Americans apparently aren’t eating with much frequency) listed in a recent New York Times blog are:
Beets!
Cabbage
Dried Plums ie. Prunes (I just had some with my ice cream — quite tasty)
Sardines
Pumpkin & Pumpkin Seeds
Blueberries (supposedly very good for your eyesight)
So maybe this is how those Ukrainian girls keep their figures…
Nat Geo has noted that the high cost of certain food is changing eating habits around the world. For example, due to the rising cost of olive oil, mozzarella, and flour, pasta is beginning to overtake pizza consumption among Italians.
In fact, the number of Italians who say their favorite food is pizza has dropped from 14.1 percent to 8.7 percent in the past two years, according to a survey from GPF Research Institute, a private opinion poll company.
Olive oil and mozzarella, both vital components of traditional Neapolitan pies, cost more as well. Olive oil prices have risen 10.9 percent and mozzarella prices 14.3 percent since April 2007.
“That’s mainly due to recent fluctuations in [the] oil market. We need it to warm greenhouses and cattle sheds, to fuel machines, to transport products, and we have to import all of it,” said Sergio Marini, president of Coldiretti, the Italian farmers union. “Italian agriculture is deeply affected by international oil prices.”
The article is part of an ongoing 10-part series exploring the global food crisis.
1 man + 1 wonderfully stupid dance + 42 countries = awesome.
Matt is a 31-year-old deadbeat from Connecticut who used to think that all he ever wanted to do in life was make and play videogames. Matt achieved this goal pretty early and enjoyed it for a while, but eventually realized there might be other stuff he was missing out on. In February of 2003, he quit his job in Brisbane, Australia and used the money he’d saved to wander around Asia until it ran out. He made this site so he could keep his family and friends updated about where he is.
A few months into his trip, a travel buddy gave Matt an idea. They were standing around taking pictures in Hanoi, and his friend said “Hey, why don’t you stand over there and do that dance. I’ll record it.” He was referring to a particular dance Matt does. It’s actually the only dance Matt does. He does it badly. Anyway, this turned out to be a very good idea.
From BBC comes a troublesome piece on pediatric AIDS victims in Central Asia. At least 250 babies and small children in Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan have contracted HIV through blood transfusions and contact with contaminated medical equipment. These are the documented cases; citizens and health officials suspect that the outbreaks seen in Shymkent, Kazakhstan, and Osh, Kyrgyszstan, may be indicative of a larger epidemic at least partially driven by the former Soviet nations’ outdated and corrupt health care systems.
Court documents show that in Kazakhstan, most of the infected children contracted HIV through unnecessary blood transfusions prescribed by doctors seeking supplements to their salaries. The contaminated blood itself may have come from intravenous drug users who give blood for money; Kazakhstan has since implemented stricter donor screening processes.
Gabit Islmailov of the World Health Organization has suggested that the international community previously focused on preventing HIV transmission between everyday people, but didn’t do enough to reform the ailing health systems that treat them. “I think trying to address the problem of HIV/AIDS without investing in health systems is inefficient use of resources,” he said.
This is not to say that less attention should be paid to ways HIV can be contracted outside the hospital. The article notes that at least seventeen mothers in Kyrgyzstan tested HIV positive after nursing their babies – one mother explains that no one warned her not to breastfeed her sick child. This inadequate understanding of HIV transmission is also reflected in the stigma experienced by the affected families. One grandmother, speaking about her affected grandson, says, “I’m heartbroken. None of our relatives want to know us. They told me to abandon him, to put him in an orphanage. But it’s not his fault, it’s the state’s fault and the doctors’ fault.”
There’s an intriguing article in yesterday’s New York Times regarding the fascinating but fading custom of gender swapping in northern Albania. Perhaps “swapping” isn’t quite the right term, though, as the exchange is unidirectional: for generations, Albanian women, by vowing to remain virgins, have been able to take on male roles. Not only do they do male work, but they are identified by their families and communities as men.
Traditionally, these women have taken on male roles following the deaths of other male relatives. The Times gives the example of 88 year old Pashe Keqi, who became a ‘man’ following the death of her father in a blood feud and the disappearance or slaying of her brothers, who were involved in political causes. By becoming ‘Uncle Pashe,’ she was able to provide for her mother and sisters, both financially and in terms of protection. With the gender shift come privileges as well as responsibilities. The sworn virgin can be considered the male head of family, own land, and carry weapons. However, she also bears the burden of, for example, avenging the deaths of male relatives.
Today, only about 40 men like Keqi remain. Keqi herself notes that in a modernizing Albania, women have many more freedoms than she did when she took her oath of virginity at 20.
“Back then, it was better to be a man because before a woman and an animal were considered the same thing,” said Ms. Keqi, who has a bellowing baritone voice, sits with her legs open wide like a man and relishes downing shots of raki. “Now, Albanian women have equal rights with men, and are even more powerful. I think today it would be fun to be a woman.”
I finally got around to checking out Yoani Sánchez’s Havana-based blog, Generation Y. For those of you who missed it, the Cuban blogger, who is heavily critical of the Castro regime, was denied permission last month to travel to Spain to receive the prestigious Ortega y Gasset journalism award. She was also named one of Time magazine’s 100 most influential people of 2008.
Sánchez hasn’t blogged since March, but her archives still make great reading. As a student of post-Soviet society (and currently a resident of Ukraine), her most recent post, about apologies – or lack thereof – both from the government and among normal citizens, particularly resonated with me. I’ve copied part of her entry below; you can read it in its entirety here:
How many times have we been badly waited on, insulted or ignored by a waiter who is incapable of articulate words as, “I’m very sorry, Sir.” A phrase like that is not the key to the problem, but at least it leaves you with the sensation that there no premeditation went in such a bad service. The record of pending apologies, however, goes to the bureaucrats and politicians. They’ve been our teachers in this “intensive course for not regretting anything.”
We are exceptional students of a government who, in the almost fifty years of “dancing alone” in the stage of our politics, has never given an apology for anything. We’ve been waiting in vain for the necessary mea culpa for the revolutionary crackdown in 1968, for the atrocity of the repudiation meetings, for the dependence on the Soviet Union, and for the successive and disastrous economic plans that ended up in this productive asphyxiation. Anyway, the list is so long and so dramatic that, instead of an apology, it demands a prolonged act of “public flagellation.”
Oh, well. I already know politicians never apologize. That’s why we, small copies of them, who imitate them, repeating their slogans and poses, also emulate them in not apologizing.
The U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in April that the Customs and Border Protection Agency can search the laptops of citizens returning from abroad. Not surprisingly, this ruling has been heavily critiqued. At a hearing of a Senate Judiciary subcommittee earlier this week, Farhana Khera of Muslim Advocates testified that Muslim Americans have reported having electronic storage devices seized without apparent cause. Business leaders have likewise criticized the ruling, noting that people who rely on computers, PDAs, Blackberrys, and the like to do their jobs could, if their possessions were confiscated, be prevented from doing their work or potentially lose valuable private data.
A written statement from Jayson Ahern, the deputy commission of the Department of Homeland Security, stated that the agency was not infringing upon the right to privacy, and acting on its “[responsibility to enforce] over 600 laws at the border, including those that relate to narcotics, intellectual property, child pornography and other contraband, and terrorism.”
