September 2011
7 posts
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$50 million found and returned after tsunami →
One of the reasons I love Japan: “The equivalent of $50m in cash has been picked up in the disaster area and handed over to the police.” - from the article linked. How much was picked up and returned after Katrina?
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The Prison-Industrial Complex →
Correctional officials see danger in prison overcrowding. Others see opportunity. The nearly two million Americans behind bars—the majority of them nonviolent offenders—mean jobs for depressed regions and windfalls for profiteers. An article by Eric Schlosser.
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Slavery and Prisons in contemporary America
“You’re not allowed to bring into America anything that’s been made by forced labor or prisons. But in America, you can almost say…that they’ve reinvented the slave trade. They [prisoners in U.S. prisons] produce, for example, 100% of all military helmets, ammunition, belts, bullet proof vests, id tags etc., 93% of domestically produced paints, 36% of home...
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On bodyguards
”During the 1973 energy crisis driving was banned on certain weekends. King Olav could have driven legally but wanted to lead by example. So he dressed up in his skiing outfit, and boarded the railway carrying his skis on his shoulder. He was later asked how he dared to go out in public without bodyguards. He replied that “he had 4 million bodyguards” —the population of Norway...
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“Iki avoids explicitness, eloquence, and verboseness. Implicitness is another...”
– Yamamoto Yuji, An Aesthetics of Everyday Life: Modernism and a Japanese popular aesthetic ideal, “Iki”.