The Ikea Syndrome

It all started with a good idea. Why pay for someone to build you a wardrobe when you can go get it at a warehouse, build it yourself and save some euros in the process? So there we were, screwing and hammering around, blissfully happy to be building our first furniture items with our own hands, almost as proud as a kid playing Lego.

It was a good concept that could be exported to other areas, right?

You wish.

I've spent all summer trapped in a sort of Ikea-ish nightmare. It's been a WTF moment after another. It all started with the hard head scratching of buying a Ryanair ticket, which is Byzantine to say the least ( how much do they weight? do I want insurance? am I paying with a credit card? will I carry oversize luggage? a bicycle? where do I leave? how many bags do I want to check in? why do I need to give all those details at least six hours before I go to the airport? what do they need the issue date of my passport for?). Another much better one was flying to Nice and finding out that I have to print the stickers for my suitcase myself on an automated machine, this time for Iberia --which is not, repeat, not, a low cost airline.Seriously far from it.

But the Best of Them All has been being sent to this sorry excuse of a student residence in Nice where not only they expected moi to clean the room before I leave it to the next unsuspecting student, but ALSO, and this is where it gets bizarre, the pillow (not, mind you, the pillow cover, but the pillow itself), AND the mattress cover (paying, bien sûr, for the laundry costs myself). And all of this, by the way, before 9.30 AM. Oh, and incidentally, the lady was not pleased with my cleaning so she decided to charge me 48 Euros for the cleaning I had already done, anyway.


And all of this while treating me as one of her employees (and believe me I feel terrible for her employees), and, on top of it, arguing that she was doing it to KEEP THE COSTS OF THE RESIDENCE DOWN!!!!!! (lie: there are cheaper residences in Nice, who actually hire professionals to do the cleaning). Humorously enough, she also mentioned that the only people that complained about this ingenious arrangement where Spanish, which also put her in the category of a racist biotch in my book, but never mind.


(Aside rant: The name of this lovely place is France Riviera (on Nice, Rue de France) and I would reccomend it with all my heart if you enjoy sleeping on a sofa bed with a mattress so old that is split in half, and sharing your neighborhood with the créme of Nice's prostitutes at night. And being yelled at for various things, e.g. making too much noise with your flipflops on the stairs, talking too loud or effing turning your lights on in your own room: "il faut économiser", she said, to the poor suffering soul).

But bear with me. The gist of this is, she made a huge effort to explain to me that she was treating me more condescendingly than any boss I've ever had (and heck I've been a waitress!), to KEEP THE COSTS OF THE RESIDENCE DOWN.
This philosophy, as you might have gathered from above, is spreading with the whole crisis spirit. With the excuse of making things cheaper, companies of all sorts are actually turning their customers into employees. You might have noticed how some supermarkets already have this nifty machines that allow you to work as a cashier for them (well, they give you a discount... oh, wait, no, they do not), or how hard it is to find someone to put gasoline on your car lately. I wouldn't be surprised if soon enough we'll find ourselves carrying our luggage to the plane or paying to use the capuccino machines at your corner coffee house.


The problem is, first, I can never be as good at doing all these things as a professional. Second, someone has probably lost his or her job because suddenly every customer is giving 10 minutes or their time to that company, and usually, and
that's the terrifying part, for free. Now think about all the money that those companies are saving on salaries, and all the time of your life you are giving them. Terrifying, huh? Well, I suggest we demand our employee discounts next time these guys ask us to do their work for them. Otherwise, my humble suggestion is 1) boycott 2) complaint and 3) do the 50s husband thing, i.e. mess it all up so badly that they give up on us, because we're too stupid.


(Related to my frustration are the article IKEA is as bad as Wal-Mart at Salon.com, and the book that inspires the article, Cheap, the High Cost of Discount Culture. They're more about why cheap is not necessarily better, and surely explain all this much more eloquently than I do)

Brains, not bombs.

This week there has been two terrorist attacks in Spain, from the "separatist" group, ETA. They want an independent Basque country, and instead of using their BRAINS to try to convince the Spaniards that their motives are worthwile , they've used BOMBS. The first attack, in Burgos (bit far away from the Basque country, by the way), has left hundreds of people homeless, as they targeted a building where the civil guards (a sort of police) live with their families, destroying the front of the building completely. The second one killed two young men (also civil guards) in Majorca, even further away from the Basque country. Their only crime was, apparently, to be protecting the thousands of people that live in Majorca or come there to spend two weeks in the sun.


I'm not going to enter the discussion of whether the Basque country should be independent or not. But for the first time in the Spanish democracy, they have a non-nationalist government, democratically elected, and, if nothing else, that is a good thermometer of how a good part of
Basques feel about nationalism. Most nationalists definitely do not support ETA either. As for me, I'm not Basque, but I'm from Madrid. However, I've had my fair share of attacks here (including the death of a professor from my university). I'm really tired of this. This blog is part of a virtual demonstration against ETA and its methods.


Ps. I'm moderating comments for this one, I don't want to get flooded with political comments from either the nationalist or the non-nationalist side, as I won't be able to monitor this in the next few weeks and I won't allow any insults to be posted here. The way I see it, you are perfectly entitled to your opinion, whatever it is, until you use violence to make your case.

Unreality TV

I love Susan Boyle. I love her in the way I love Ugly Betty in all her international versions, and, clearly, Hugo. Oh, and Spiderman. It's always nice to have the underdog suddenly getting karmic revenge and becoming the hero, for a day, for a minute or for three increasingly bad movies. The problem is, Susan is pretty real. She's a flesh and blood woman with a splendid voice, and since I heard her audition video for the first time something seemed slightly manufactured over there. I mean, how flabbergasted could the jury be when the camera has been following her around?
Well, apparently they had very good reason to follow her around, as there had been talent scouts looking for her for the program (they explain it better at Susan Boyle and Paul Potts: Not Quite Out of Nowhere - TIME). Well, good for her, and good for the program, but I just wish they had been just this bit honest about it and save us the "oh dear so surprised really" speeches, because, people, Cinderella stories depend on fairy godmothers and hard work.

Now, this was Susan in 1999. She deserved it big time, already, ten years ago:

Too often on television we are sent these messages that your life can change suddenly, and for the better, and we don't hear the stories of tough luck, frustration, dusting off and starting again. That's the fun fact of reality TV --it seems so indistinguishable from reality itself that unless we keep a cynical eye open at all times we overlook the constructions, the editings, the half lies and the make up. Or did you think that dress suddenly happened on poor Susan? Two scenarios: someone told her to wear it, or nobody told her not to wear it. In any case, my guess is people in the public would have laughed a lot less if she had come in different clothes. And yep, that's what I call manufacturing.

Serendipically, today I've also encountered the news that Elle Magazine, French edition, has decided to run an issue on stars without make-up, or photoshop , i.e. to Susan Boyle them a little.

...but just a little. Real beauté comes

with an electric fan and tweezers.

And damn good genes.

This is something that happens quite regularly on glossy magazines, like, once in approximately every five years. The lesson seems to be something like "hey, you can be beautiful without make up, but not so much, so, hey, feel good about yourself, but duh, you better get some products, it's totally worth it. Oh, and did you notice how pro-women issues we are?." Well, thanks. No, really. These issues have to appear every five years or so, so that the new generations stop and think for a second about something schools don't usually make them think about, i.e. reality in the media is ma-nu-fac-tu-red. Make up and hairdressers are nice, photoshop and surgery, ok, not so much, but in any case I do hope that Susan gets some in the near future because, damnit, she deserves it (certainly that's what google seems to be implying by having "makeover" featuring so prominently when you search her name in it). But please don't come and tell me later she woke up one morning and her hair was suddenly longer and straighter please.

And the best of luck, really, on the media jungle she's just gotten into.

I cannot believe I haven't posted in a month.

... sigh. It's been a busy month, though... the problem is, the longer you stay away from something, the harder it gets to come back. Posting something dumb sort of doesn't do the trick. But since it's been a Very Eventful and Happy Week in global terms, I guess I can post an Onion video that made me smile a few days ago...



Obama Undertakes Presidential Internship To Ease Concerns About His Lack Of Experience


That was lovely. Especially him "sitting" right next to Ibarretxe, the leader of the Basque nationalists... priceless... I honestly hope he brings dignity and respect back to the White House. And, since he's been to Harvard, we can be pretty sure this one knows at least how to spell those words.

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The T-shirt-o-meter!

I found this chart just hilarious. Cafe Press, the internet custom T-Shirt store, have decided to keep track on how their political items are selling, and well, the results are just fascinating... the only problem is that they have no way of telling apart the "for" and the "against" buttons and t-shirts, so one cannot now if what's selling is this...









or this...
Nevertheless, it's certainly the kind of thing the anthropologically curious can enjoy...


Ps. Oh that Sarah Palin... she sure is media-friendly...

I told you, the woman has a common face... this time it's the Gallery of the Absurd

Whis is beginning to look like a monograph!!! XD

Gallery of the Absurd: John McCain & Sarah Palin: Rocky and Bullwinkle

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Yes, Palin wears Tina Fey glasses

Well, I told you so... Palin looks like Tina Fey. So I guess it was only a matter of time we got this... definitely portraits those two well...

"Can you believe it, Hillary?".................."I CANNOT!!!!!"

GASP!!! Tigh IS running for president!!!

*Waaarning!* -- follow the first link at your own risk... there's a major spoiler of Galactica's season 3/4 there. And you definitely don't want that spoiler. Really. You don't. So if you haven't seen the 3rd season finale , just don't it. Don't. Seriously.


Tigh selects Roslin , via Vayatele




Although, me myself thought first of my beloved Tina Fey when I saw Palin... sigh... and the people at Time Magazine thought she resembled "a classier, older, made-better-life-choices Britney Spears." I guess she has a common face. Or maybe it's the glasses. Which, I guess, will end up having me hearing I look like her. Too....

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How do you solve student violence?

... you go OK Corral on them!!!

"When the federal government started making schools gun-free zones, that's when all of these shootings started," he wrote on the Fort Worth Star-Telegram's web site.

Mr Thweatt [the superintendent] said he believed the school's proximity to a large, busy motorway could make it a target.

BBC NEWS | World | Americas | Guns for Texas school's teachers


Well at least the teachers are taking crisis management training!

Now, seriously. A few things worry me about this article:

1) parents apparently did NOT object (?)
2) being close to a motorway makes it a target (last time I checked, most of the school shootings were done by students, not truckers, but hey...)
3) I'm getting flashes of that Boston Public pilot when the man fires a gun to make the kids go silent... pity I can't find the video on youtube anymore because it was priceless...

Bottom line is, you don't really want teachers with guns. I have some friends that have joked about giving us tasers ;) but jokes apart, teaching is stressful enough without having firearms involved. Jn just 5 seconds, I get a few scenarios based on the fact that so far neither students nor teachers have become flawless cyborgs:

a) teacher gets really really pissed, fires at ceiling (see Boston Public above)
b) teacher argues with spouse, comes pissed, gets even more pissed at trucker at the motorway (see upper above), gets to class gets totally pissed, student becomes rowdy, teacher yells, student becomes abusive, teacher loses it, student gets shot.
c) student argues with parent, gets pissed, argues with teacher, teacher yells, student steals gun from teacher, uses gun.
d) teacher accidentally fires gun
e) student accidentally fires gun
f) bullets accidentally end up at chemistry lab. Hilarity ensues. Explosion follows.

I'm sure TV watchers worldwide could go on thinking scenarios around this. I'm just very surprised that Superintendent Thweatt didn't seem to be able to.


Now, how about some "Let's work around why we love violence so much we can't think outside the barrel" workshops???

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Case in point...

Meanwhile, a big Republican defeat in November is quite likely to result in a very nasty isolationist turn inside the opposition party. The neoconservatives - those bad guys who believe that the US should spend blood and treasure trying to bring democracy to the great unwashed - will be discredited. President Obama could find himself under pressure from both parties in Congress to put US interests first.

Europe will miss George Bush when he's not around | Gerard Baker - Times Online

Most of all on the big issues — Iran, climate change, trade - he says that there has been convergence between the US and European governments in the past four years. He seems frustrated that America is not given more credit for its good works, dismissing polls that show he in particular — and the US in general — are viewed in Europe as “a force for evil”.He says: “I don't buy into that theory. America is a force for good. America is a force for liberty. America is a force to fight disease. We've got the largest HIV/Aids initiative in the history of the world. We've got a malaria initiative that's saving babies.”

President George Bush starts talking language of a dove - Times Online


Oh, that a British journalist thinks we all are ungrateful idiots and will regret not having a boss/daddy/Superman in charge. Oh well, Kipling does live on...

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You may think we got over Victorian times. Think again

Studying, studying, studying... I stumbled upon Wikipedia's transcript of Rudyard Kipling's The White Man's Burden, which I've always found a gem of obtuseness. What I did not expect is that there were, soon enough, anti-imperialist replies to the poem. So much for "he received the Nobel Prize because at the time people didn't know better". Apparently, some people did know better, just not the Nobel prize committee. What annoys me the most, is how damn familiar this whole frame of thinking is, even today, just substitute the "ports" and "roads" with, er, "democracy"...

The White Man's Burden (1899)

Take up the White Man's burden--
Send forth the best ye breed--
Go bind your sons to exile
To serve your captives' need;
To wait in heavy harness,
On fluttered folk and wild--
Your new-caught, sullen peoples,
Half-devil and half-child.

Take up the White Man's burden--
In patience to abide,
To veil the threat of terror
And check the show of pride;
By open speech and simple,
An hundred times made plain
To seek another's profit,
And work another's gain.

Take up the White Man's burden--
The savage wars of peace--
Fill full the mouth of Famine
And bid the sickness cease;
And when your goal is nearest
The end for others sought,
Watch sloth and heathen Folly
Bring all your hopes to naught.

Take up the White Man's burden--
No tawdry rule of kings,
But toil of serf and sweeper--
The tale of common things.
The ports ye shall not enter,
The roads ye shall not tread,
Go make them with your living,
And mark them with your dead.

Take up the White Man's burden--
And reap his old reward:
The blame of those ye better,
The hate of those ye guard--
The cry of hosts ye humour
(Ah, slowly!) toward the light
"Why brought he us from bondage,
Our loved Egyptian night?"

Take up the White Man's burden--
Ye dare not stoop to less--
Nor call too loud on Freedom
To cloak your weariness;
By all ye cry or whisper,
By all ye leave or do,
The silent, sullen peoples
Shall weigh your gods and you.

Take up the White Man's burden--
Have done with childish days--
The lightly proferred laurel,
The easy, ungrudged praise.
Comes now, to search your manhood
Through all the thankless years
Cold, edged with dear-bought wisdom,
The judgment of your peers.

The White Man's Burden - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

(With apologies to Rudyard KiplingTake up the White Man’s burden.)

Send forth your sturdy kin,
And load them down with Bibles
And cannon-balls and gin.
Throw in a few diseases
To spread the tropic climes,
For there the healthy niggers
Are quite behind the times.
And don’t forget the factories.
On those benighted shores
They have no cheerful iron mills,
Nor eke department stores.
They never work twelve hours a day
And live in strange content,
Altho they never have to pay
A single sou of rent.
Take up the White Man’s burden,
And teach the Philippines
What interest and taxes are
And what a mortgage means.
Give them electrocution chairs,
And prisons, too, galore,
And if they seem inclined to kick,
Then spill their heathen gore.
They need our labor question, too,
And politics and fraud—
We’ve made a pretty mess at home,
Let’s make a mess abroad.
And let us ever humbly pray
The Lord of Hosts may deign
To stir our feeble memories
Lest we forget—the Maine.
Take up the White’s Man’s burden.
To you who thus succeedIn civilizing savage hordes,
They owe a debt, indeed;
Concessions, pensions, salaries,
And privilege and right—
With outstretched hands you raised to bless
Grab everything in sight.
Take up the White Man’s burden
And if you write in verse,
Flatter your nation’s vices
And strive to make them worse.
Then learn that if with pious words
You ornament each phrase,
In a world of canting hypocrites
This kind of business pays.

Source: Ernest Crosby, “The Real White Man’s Burden,” Swords and Ploughshares (New York: Funk and Wagnalls Company, 1902), 32–35.

Crosby on Kipling: A Parody of "The White Man's Burden"

The Brown Man's Burden,
By Henry Labouchère

Truth (London); reprinted in Literary Digest 18 (Feb. 25, 1899).

Pile on the brown man's burden

To gratify your greed;

Go, clear away the "niggers"

Who progress would impede;

Be very stern, for truly

'Tis useless to be mild

With new-caught, sullen peoples,

Half devil and half child.

 

Pile on the brown man's burden;

And, if ye rouse his hate,

Meet his old-fashioned reasons

With Maxims up to date.

With shells and dumdum bullets

A hundred times made plain

The brown man's loss must ever

Imply the white man's gain.

 

Pile on the brown man's burden,

compel him to be free;

Let all your manifestoes

Reek with philanthropy.

And if with heathen folly

He dares your will dispute,

Then, in the name of freedom,

Don't hesitate to shoot.

 

Pile on the brown man's burden,

And if his cry be sore,

That surely need not irk you--

Ye've driven slaves before.

Seize on his ports and pastures,

The fields his people tread;

Go make from them your living,

And mark them with his dead.

 

Pile on the brown man's burden,

And through the world proclaim

That ye are Freedom's agent--

There's no more paying game!

And, should your own past history

Straight in your teeth be thrown,

Retort that independence

Is good for whites alone.

The Brown Man's Burden, by Henry Labouchere


Ps. Heart of Darkness was written exactly on the same year than Kipling's poem.

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In 10 seconds, guess which one of these two pictures belong in fiction

... curious how, sometimes, life goes much faster than movie scripts... take that, Sarah Jessica Parker!!

ps. that is the UGLIEST wedding dress in world's history.
ps2. yes, I guess I'll watch the movie, sometime.

Spanish defense minister begins maternity leave - International Herald Tribune


Spain's Pregnant Defense Minister - TIME


Handicapping Sex and the City - TIME

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It's the chromosomes, stupid!

... If I had to go for Hillary just because she's a woman, I guess I should have gone for Maggie Tatcher in the 80s as well.... Ok so I am not American so I don't get to vote in these elections, and I am not British and I was a baby when Thatcher got elected, but you get my point. I think...

(...) [Ellen] Malcolm even wrote an op-ed declaring that Clinton herself had a "responsibility" to stay in the race. She owed it to all women to prove that she wasn't a quitter. The sentiment echoed Clinton's own comments on the stump, her declaration that "I am not a quitter. I do not give up."These rousing displays of fortitude , however, don't necessarily suggest a positive message for women. Clinton's vow, in particular, moved Slate writer Dahlia Lithwick to ask what it means if feminism is "the inability to concede error or defeat — even in light of irrefutable, empirical evidence and in the face of spiraling support and tanking morale."

The Feminist Divide Over Obama - TIME

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On Israeli writing

This article confirms both my belief that Israel is an utopian project and my belief that all utopias are dystopias about to explode. It gives a great overview of Israeli writing and how there *is* an undercurrent in Israeli society that is critical of the state's foundational imaginary. Definitely worth checking out.


Chroniclers of pain | Review | guardian.co.uk Books
All nations, as Ernest Renan famously stated, rely on forgetting or historical error (which is why, he adds, progress in historical knowledge can threaten national identity). They rely on stories that have to be forged out of a retreating past, reworking memory as they go. In the case of Israel, we could say that forgetting became a matter of survival and denial a way of life.

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make-a-society

A friend of a friend is on her way to becoming an artist and had one of her first exhibitions yesterday. It was quite an interesting little thing that mixed consummerism and dictatorships. One of the things that struck me at the exhibition is this website, that allows you to play nation-builder for a while, deciding how much freedom, services, etc. your citizens will have. The results may surprise you :)

DISTRIBUTIVE JUSTICE

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The kids are (not) allright

All over the world, teenagers give their parents headaches. Why are the migraines induced by British kids felt across a whole society? Part of the reason may be that parents aren't always around to help socialize their children — or even just to show them affection. Compared to other cultures, British kids are less integrated into the adult world and spend more time with peers. Add to the mix a class structure that impedes social mobility and an education system that rewards the advantaged, and some children are bound to be left in the cold [...]

A study in 2000 by the OECD found that British parents spend less time with their children compared to other nationalities, leaving them more open to influence from their peers and a commercially driven, celebrity-obsessed media.

Britain's Mean Streets - TIME

This is becoming more and more common over here with Spanish kids as well. And the reason is, again the same. Kids simply DO NOT spend time with their parents, mostly because both their father and their mother spend a ridiculous amount of time working. In Spain, it is common to start work at 9 and not come back until 8 or 9 pm. The idea of "conciliation" (of work and family life) is a pretty new and often considered "softy-liberal-utopian bs".

The article also talks about guess-what... yes. Ratios. Again. But neeever mind... you won't hear any politician talking about that, at least not in my country. Go figure. Maybe we'll have to wait until kids start bringing guns to school here as well.

So, continue blaming the TV, the videogames and the teachers. Because they're the ones that are raising the kids.

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Operation Chaos!

Hark! Rush Limbaugh is asking his Republican listeners to go out and register as Democrats and vote for Hillary Clinton -- which he has dubbed Operation Chaos. Once more, American politics prove Fact is stranger than Fiction...

"I want our party to win. I want the Democrats to lose," Limbaugh said. "They're in the midst of tearing themselves apart right now. It is fascinating to watch. And it's all going to stop if Hillary loses."

Can GOP Voters Spoil the Dem Race? - TIME

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This is so F·"% ridiculous I can't even begin to curse.

Embedded Video

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"Even socialist dictators have an interest in gorgeous supermodels"

Naomi Campbell interviews Hugo Chavez for GQ | Media | Guardian Unlimited

... but the supermodels prefer them on the right... or at least, some do...

Sarkozy and the Supermodel - TIME

Report: Sarkozy to Marry Supermodel - TIME

Alternative titles:
Truth is always stranger than fiction...
Eeeverybody say "NA-PO-LE-OOOOOON"

This looks like a bad movie

[I don't even know what I feel about this. Carla Bruni is a very talented, beautiful woman and has proven this in spite of dating SuperSarko -- who is someone I can't really make my mind about --sometimes he looks clever, sometimes he acts like a complete ass. Same goes to cellphone-throwing Naomi. It's refreshing to see her doing good stuff like caring for poor kids and interviewing politicians. Then again, Shut-up Chavez aka "El Rey"... is he an Evil Tyrant or simply a loudmouth pain in the butt of capital? Who knows? Who cares?

I just couldn't resist the synchronicity]

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Maybe I have no reason to be happy about this, but, heck I AM. I totally am.

He reminds me of Kennedy, a little. Maybe he's all about the image he projects, but surely the US need a serious image change, and he's the kind of rare politician that seems to speak his mind and not go into tired-old-slogan city. So I don't know, I'm hopeful.

Obama's Historic Victory - TIME
[...]That day has now come, at the highest level of American politics. A black man with a dangerous-sounding foreign name trounced his opponents in the nearly all-white state of Iowa. And he did so because, after spending months getting to know him, the people of Iowa stopped seeing his color and began to admire his character. In an election where the word "change" became an almost meaningless talisman, Iowa's triumph over race is a message to the world about the real nature of America — and a ratification of Obama's belief that this will be an election year where everything is on the table, where all the conventional wisdom can be tossed aside, where anything, including decency, is possible.[...]

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