The Point

Tuesday, September 11, 2007

Poverty, polls, and gunpoints

Last year, I wrote about Rigoberta Menchú Tum, the Guatemalan Nobel Peace Prize-winning social activist and her self-titled memoirs. This month, she faced a spectacular defeat in her foray into the Guatemalan presidential polls. There's some hubbub that her sixth-place standing, at somewhere between 2 and 3% of the vote, reflects her inability to sway male voters and those among other indigenous tribes, and seemingly contradictory suspicions about her perceived wealth and a reluctance to share it amid others, mistrusting her inability to fund strategies like radio and television ads, that a "poor campaign would translate into poor governance." A New York Times story today showed her at a funeral for two party members shot last week; violence was apparently among the chief election issues in the country.

I try to imagine living on less than $2 US a day, what over half of Guatemala's population earn. I'm trying to conceive of the choices I'd be making every day between water (if there was any to acquire), food (hoping biofuel production doesn't push up the price of corn), school for more kids than I could keep under one roof. I don't understand how Oprah Winfrey can stand behind that absurd The Secret DVD set and say the events in our lives are determined entirely and absolutely by our attitude towards the world.

Two things come to my mind when I read that article: First, that scene in Maria, Full of Grace where she's cutting roses in that factory in the dewy morning. The second is a conversation I had last night about whether we'll ever put concerns about the true costs of industrial manufacturing abroad above our need for products to be available as cheap, quick and convenient as possible. I genuinely don't know.

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posted by Christopher at 4:53 a.m. | link | 0 comments

Wednesday, September 05, 2007

These are quandries

I have something of a conundrum, dear reader.

I started this blog as a way to introduce books I liked to some of my friends who didn't read the news very much. Since I started writing it last May, it's changed quite a bit. Don't get me wrong, I'm not averse to this particular rule of the universe. But the amount I was reading last year has dropped off quite a bit since then, and I've been focussing on writing for other media. At the moment I'm reading 活着 (Huozhe), the original version of the novel by Yu Hua that's been translated into English as To Live. I've heard the Zhang Yimou movie adaptation is amazing, but I'm holding off until I'm done the book. This is the first book I've ever tried reading in Chinese, and it's... a slow process, to say the least.

So! This is the part where I tell you, faithful and much-appreciated reader, that The Point isn't going away, but going to be updated less frequently this season than it was last year. I don't like posting content for the sake of posting something new. Short version? Ahead: More books, more thoughts, and unfortunately, more of a wait.

Kanye gives us wicked hooks. I, hopefully, will be giving you more delicious books... to read, instead of the subpar schlock I've churned out lately.

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posted by Christopher at 2:01 a.m. | link | 0 comments
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