Americans should be celebrating rather than shuddering over the arrival of $4-a-gallon gasoline. We lived on cheap gas too long, failed to innovate and now face the consequences of competing for a finite resource amid fast-expanding global demand.Maybe expensive gas isn't so bad if it is the impetus that weans us off our dependence on oil and breaks up our infatuation with the Middle East. Chris Pummer gives an optimistic spin to rising gas prices...
Saturday, May 31, 2008
Hooray for $8/gal
Monday, May 19, 2008
Hollywood could make this movie!
Came across this on angryasianman.com: a movie idea so steeped in white supremacy that Hollywood might actually make it.
It reminds me of Paul Mooney's segment on Chappelle's Show where he reviews The Last Samurai. "I mean Hollywood is crazy, The Last Samurai starring... Tom Cruise? He's the last samurai? Give me a break, that movie was offensive, I mean Hollywood is crazy. First they had The Mexican with Brad Pitt and now they have The Last Samurai with Tom Cruise. Well I've written a film, maybe they'll produce my film. The Last N*gger On Earth starring Tom Hanks, how about that."
- - - -
BAO PHI'S IDEAS FOR RACIST HOLLYWOOD 5: IMMORTAL KICKBOXER
Tagline: When you know your fate, high kick. When you don't... high kick anyway.
THE PITCH: Spencer Whidmore is just your average middle-class white Blockbuster clerk with an affinity for anime, Johnny To films, and pad thai from that greasy spoon around the block. But when a mysterious stranger returns a damaged copy of Tony Jaa's Ong Bak late and forgets to pay the $1.50 re-stocking fee, Spencer chases him down the block, tugs on his shoulder and is knocked out when the stranger (cameo by Chuck Norris) mistakes him for a mugger and spin-kicks him in the head.
Spencer wakes up to find that he has magically been transported back in time to Thailand, where a cruel warlord named Jo Jafar is oppressing the good, hardworking, pious, humble, communal, defenseless Thai peasants in the kingdom. Spencer is shocked to learn that, at this point in time in Thailand's history, kickboxing has not yet been invented--but the Thai shamans and holy men whisper of a prophecy: a savior will come deliver the good people of Thailand from their oppressors and teach them the martial arts.
Conveniently, an emasculinated Asian male buddy named Toofo befriends Spencer for no reason--and as they are cornered in the jungle by Thai ruffians, in a flurry of martial arts mayhem Spencer discovers that HE is the storied hero that the Thai people have been waiting for, that he is the great teacher who brought Thai kickboxing to the Thai people: he is no longer Spencer Whidmore, he is the IMMORTAL KICKBOXER.
At first, Spencer revels in his new and wholly un-earned skill in kickboxing, showing off for the locals and enjoying his white saviour celebrity status. But then, when his emasculinated sidekick Toofo returns home to his village without Spencer and is killed in an ambush by thugs, Spencer throws his arms to the heavens over the body of his humble brown friend and screams "WHYYYYYYYYYYYYY!" He has paid a terrible price to learn that brown men must die so that great white men can learn responsibility.
ABOUT THE FILM: The producer of the film claims that there were no qualified Asian actors to be in this film, so they picked a random white guy with no experience for the role and asked Josh Whedon to write in the time traveling plot. When asked about whether or not people would be offended by the issue of appropriation, the producer replied, "well, my best friend is Thai and he took some kickboxing lessons, and he loved the idea and says race is not an issue, so I don't think anyone will have a problem with it."
It reminds me of Paul Mooney's segment on Chappelle's Show where he reviews The Last Samurai. "I mean Hollywood is crazy, The Last Samurai starring... Tom Cruise? He's the last samurai? Give me a break, that movie was offensive, I mean Hollywood is crazy. First they had The Mexican with Brad Pitt and now they have The Last Samurai with Tom Cruise. Well I've written a film, maybe they'll produce my film. The Last N*gger On Earth starring Tom Hanks, how about that."
- - - -
BAO PHI'S IDEAS FOR RACIST HOLLYWOOD 5: IMMORTAL KICKBOXER
Tagline: When you know your fate, high kick. When you don't... high kick anyway.
THE PITCH: Spencer Whidmore is just your average middle-class white Blockbuster clerk with an affinity for anime, Johnny To films, and pad thai from that greasy spoon around the block. But when a mysterious stranger returns a damaged copy of Tony Jaa's Ong Bak late and forgets to pay the $1.50 re-stocking fee, Spencer chases him down the block, tugs on his shoulder and is knocked out when the stranger (cameo by Chuck Norris) mistakes him for a mugger and spin-kicks him in the head.
Spencer wakes up to find that he has magically been transported back in time to Thailand, where a cruel warlord named Jo Jafar is oppressing the good, hardworking, pious, humble, communal, defenseless Thai peasants in the kingdom. Spencer is shocked to learn that, at this point in time in Thailand's history, kickboxing has not yet been invented--but the Thai shamans and holy men whisper of a prophecy: a savior will come deliver the good people of Thailand from their oppressors and teach them the martial arts.
Conveniently, an emasculinated Asian male buddy named Toofo befriends Spencer for no reason--and as they are cornered in the jungle by Thai ruffians, in a flurry of martial arts mayhem Spencer discovers that HE is the storied hero that the Thai people have been waiting for, that he is the great teacher who brought Thai kickboxing to the Thai people: he is no longer Spencer Whidmore, he is the IMMORTAL KICKBOXER.
At first, Spencer revels in his new and wholly un-earned skill in kickboxing, showing off for the locals and enjoying his white saviour celebrity status. But then, when his emasculinated sidekick Toofo returns home to his village without Spencer and is killed in an ambush by thugs, Spencer throws his arms to the heavens over the body of his humble brown friend and screams "WHYYYYYYYYYYYYY!" He has paid a terrible price to learn that brown men must die so that great white men can learn responsibility.
ABOUT THE FILM: The producer of the film claims that there were no qualified Asian actors to be in this film, so they picked a random white guy with no experience for the role and asked Josh Whedon to write in the time traveling plot. When asked about whether or not people would be offended by the issue of appropriation, the producer replied, "well, my best friend is Thai and he took some kickboxing lessons, and he loved the idea and says race is not an issue, so I don't think anyone will have a problem with it."
Tuesday, May 13, 2008
Need Energy
Besides education (and urban dance styles), another topic that always intrigues me is energy.
Fossil fuels - oil, coal, and natural gas to name a few - are not renewable, and it is possible that the time may have come where beyond which products based on oil may never drop again. They may go down a dollar here and there, but the overal trend may be that prices will go up, up, up and up, until there is no more.
This phenomenon, based on the current state of the world, is inevitable. Demand for oil grows everywhere as the American lifestyle spreads. Who knew fifteen years ago that kids in the heart of communist China would be collecting Air Jordans?
Along with the ability to be collecting Air Jordans would have to be an underlying economy competitive in the global market. The average Mauritanian, who right now is having trouble just getting enough to eat, has no capacity to be collecting designer shoes. But the economy of urban centers in China frees time leisure time and spending cash for those who have found success - for some, enough cash to have globally competitive purchasing power, enough to afford the same luxuries as Americans, the wealthiest people in the wealthiest nation on Earth.
The basis of these competitive nations is oil. The amount of productivity unleashed by burning oil to run our machines and our factories, our cars and trucks and airplanes... well, I don't have any figures for it, but as far as I've read, the sheer amount of energy we harvest from burning oil is unrivaled by any other source - nuclear, wind, hydroelectric, geothermal, or solar. At this point, there is nothing that can replace the amount of energy we would no longer be able to get once oil is gone.
In other words, our lifestyle HAS to change. The question is not if it will change, but when it will change, and how.
Fortunately for most everyone reading this, we are Americans or are gainfully employed in America. At the top of the food chain, whatever happens will likely affect us the least out of all the world's people, and whatever transitions there are will likely be the smoothest for us.
Countries like Mauritania are already feeling the effects of highly-priced oil in ways that are not little or what I imagine anyone there would consider smooth: the price of grains, which are rising with the price of oil, is reaching a breaking point where as a nation, Mauritania cannot import enough food at low enough prices to feed its own people.
Basic supply and demand explains it. If there are two ways to buy something, people will choose the cheaper option. Something a lot of people buy - fuel - comes in several options, one based on oil, the other based on grain. Until now, biofuels have been far more expensive than the equivalent amount of oil; however, oil prices have risen to the point that more and more people are willing to spend their money on biofuels instead. More money on biofuels means more grain used to produce biofuels; more grain to produce biofuels means less grain to eat. Less grain to eat means grain gets more expensive.
Mauritania produces only 30% of its own food - the rest must be imported. But its people are poor - when you can sell grain to Europe for $5 (not a real price), why would you choose to sell it to Mauritania for $4? Maybe because you have a good heart, and many grain producers do - but what if Maritanians could only buy for $3, or $1, or for only pennies?
What's the solution to all this? I don't know. What I do know is that people much smarter than me are working on it, and I hope they come through. I also have the added security of being American, where what Mauritanians are going through is so far removed from my sphere of consciousness that I don't have to think about it if I don't want to. But it would be good to make people aware; it would make me happy to see people understanding that this is a problem, and that we don't have a ready solution. Change must happen; hopefully we do change before it's too late.
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