Discussion: anthropology of globalization

An article published on the University of Washington in St. Louis’s website announced that they and Pfizer will be working more closely to develop new drugs to put on the market. The article promises that the union of the two institutions, one a public university and the other a pharmaceutical power house, will be equal. Both Pfizer and the University will have an equal say on projects and research. The details of the collaboration were not revealed, so that lends me to speculate on whether this will bring about positive “social” change, as they both claim, or another situation in where a company takes advantage of a public institution to promote their sales and company name.

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There are a few big issues in both the Frontline(Persuaders, PBS.com) video and No Logo(Naomi Klein) that are very disturbing. The ease of success that private companies have infiltrated not only Universities, but high schools is offensive to our education traditions. People from all parts of the world come to America for education purposes. We have built a name for the quality of our higher education institution that the rest of the world envies, and the only effect that placing ads in the life of our students will have is to dumb down or education system. The only way companies should be allowed to advertise at Universities is through scholarship donations. Companies should have no control over research performed at Universities to protect the integrity of the particular research and the integrity of the University itself. Our country is becoming increasingly fascist, with corporations having more and more influence and control on public policy, and protecting our educational institutions from this corporatization should be a high priority

Exert from an interview with the Mars Volta on DIS.com.....

You must sympathise, to an extent, with writers presented with your albums when they’ve a very limited frame of reference to work a review from?

C: Well, if I was a journalist I’d be excited that I wasn’t going to be using the same adjectives, and that I’d be able to showcase some creative writing in trying to describe this to people. Many writers nowadays use obvious colours, or band references, to help people understand another band.

Depends on their audience, to an extent – some magazines only allow contributors a small amount of words per piece, too. Do you guys ever check the feedback to your albums? Do you think the albums bring out the best in writers who can flex their creative prose muscles?

C: Everything can be positive, even negative feedback. Part of our job is to elicit that sort of reaction.
O: It’s cool that our work does seem to inspire people, as even when reviews are negative they’re not just like, ‘This is bullshit’. We get four or five paragraphs outlining how we’re bullshit! They’re inspired to hate on our music, and get really witty and creative, and that’s kinda cool.
C: We opened for the Red Hot Chili Peppers one time, quite a while ago, and the whole front page of this magazine’s review section was all about how much this guy fucking HATED us.

Given the fairly freeform nature of your headline sets – which can stretch for two-and-a-half hours and take myriad tangents – how do you find playing second-fiddle to another, bigger act? It must be tough condensing your set, and tougher still when the crowd isn’t yours and simply doesn’t get it...

C: There was always that… and there were times when the audience was really into it, too. But then there were times… Let’s say Quebec – I’ve never seen more Canadians acting American in my life, sitting down, eating hot dogs.

Like they were at a basketball match? Thing is, some big gigs feel like that, like sporting events, such is the level of detachment…

C: I do see that, for sure. But I think there’s an element of us throwing the pit-bull into an unsuspecting crowd, which can be fun… although sometimes it isn’t fun, too. There were times where I’d just turn my back for an entire set, as I don’t feel I need to give anything if the people watching aren’t giving us anything. We’ve been asked to play these places for a reason, and sometimes playing to such crowds pose good challenges for us.

Quote of the Year

"If America's richest 1% are now so rich that even a 5 star hotel isn't good enough, it's time to bring back the guillotine. Yes what's being dubbed America's first 6 star hotel has just opened in Miami beach. How ritzy is it? Lets put it this way, J Lo can stay there but her husband can't. At this hotel when they ask if you want help with your bag they are talking about your scrotum.

But this is America and we can afford it, along with a 2 trillion dollar war and tax cuts, but there is one thing we can't afford, and that is health care for sick children.

So the question I'm asking is how did it all get so uneven. Warren Buffet asks the same question, he's the third richest man in the world, and a decent man. He points out that how ridiculous it is that he, the third richest man in the world, is taxed at 17.5%, while his secretary who makes 60,000 a year is taxed at 30%.

...now I know socialized medicine sounds like Stalin himself is going to come over your house and perform a forced sterilization, but really all it is is universal health care, which means everyone not just the rich will get to see a physician when their erection last more than 72 hours."

-Bill Maher