The Alibi Kid

Recently, my kid thought it would be fun to drag his sippy-cup along the living room wall.

His mother asked him to stop as the wall was newly painted.

The kid then responded: "I'm just a little kid, I don't understand bad things."

I then asked if having his fire truck, dump truck, combine harvestor taken away might help him understand "bad" things?

The kid answered in the affirmative.

Sometimes parenting just works like that. (Other times it involves threatening to stuff food up the toddler's nose -- but that's just a threat, not actually acted upon).

Postscript: The kid got the idea at daycare after a one-year old took away a toy, and it was explained to him that the other kid was too young and did not understand what he had done. My kid thought this alibi was pretty good, and appropriated it.

And so it goes.

It reminds me of W.H. Auden, who said "Children are warriors without a job."

Globalization Ghost Town (The Take 2005)

I recently took out the above film out of the library and was struck by the events portrayed.

I'm not particularly political person (though I lean left) but this documentary by Avi Lewis/Naomi Klein impressed me to pay more attention to how global economics plays out outside of the first world.

The documentary shows the effects of a right-wing government (Carlos Menem) and his attempt to make Argentina a "model" for IMF policies from 1989-1999. Argentina is significant as it had one of the largest middle-classes in Latin America before these policies were instituted.

The film shows how Menem's policies radically effected the economy so much that capital took flight such that hundreds of factorys closed. The factories were then taken over by the workers (who argued that they were funded by public money to a large extent too).

The workers set up cooperatives among the factories to help each other, and then the owners returned after a year and called the expropriation "theft."

The matter was taken to the courts, where the workers lost, but they eventually one in parliament, which considered the expropriation just.

The whole documentary raises interesting questions about politics and economics and the IMF's role in the third world. Who is the IMF acting for? What safe-guards are there in preventing similar globalized ghost-towns in future?

For more information, please see: http://www.thetake.org/