Footsteps

"Down by the Riverside motel,
It's 10 below and falling
By a 99 cent store she closed her eyes
And started swaying
But it's so hard to dance that way
When it's cold and there's no music
Well your old hometown is so far away
But, inside your head there's a record
That's playing, a song called

Hold on, hold on
You really got to hold on
Take my hand, I'm standing right here
And just hold on."

Tom Waits, Hold On, Mule Variations

Last night, I watched the last episode of Ken Burns' 9-episode series on the American civil war. It was great. This is the Ashokan farewell song which is played at the beginning of each episode.

Quotes from Abraham Lincoln:
"My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or to destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone I would also do that. What I do about slavery, and the colored race, I do because I believe it helps to save the Union; and what I forbear, I forbear because I do not believe it would help to save the Union. I shall do less whenever I shall believe what I am doing hurts the cause, and I shall do more whenever I shall believe doing more will help the cause."
-- August 22, 1862 - Letter to Horace Greeley

"Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure."
-- November 19, 1863 - Gettysburg Address

I am coming back from watching Michael Moore's movie, Bowling for Columbine and I liked it very much. I don't know if I should make this comparison but at many moments, Moore's movie reminded me of Kiarostami's best documentaries (Homework and Close-up) in which we always wonder whether we should laugh or feel pity for strange or stupid things that happen around us .

Some Quotes from Thomas L. Friedman's The Lexus and the Olive Tree and my comments about them:

"... The factory belonged to a Sri Lankan firm, named Slimline, that manufactured clothes for Victoria Secret and Marks and Spencer...In terms of conditions, this factory was world-class. Wages aside, I would let my own daughters work there....I asked the plan owner, Mahesh Amalean, why the fancy factory? Why not a sweatshop? Wouldn't that be more lucrative for him? No, he explained...The only way to build long-term relationships with the big, global, brand-name retailers is to produce higher- and higher-quality products under better and better working conditions. This is not because Victoria's Secret has suddenly become socially conscious, but because American consumers and college students have become more socially conscious as a result of some very high-profile antisweat-shop campaigns. And these consumers are now telling stores that they do not want to be wearing goods made under sweatshop conditions. In other words, one of the big reasons working conditions have improved in Sri Lankan textile factories is not because Sri Lanka put up walls against globalization, but because in today's global economy Sri Lankan manufacturers must tie themselves to big Western retailers to survive, and the more they do that the more their factory standards have to meet the workplace norms being demanded by Western consumers."
Thomas L. Friedman, The Lexus and the Olive Tree, 1st Anchor Book Edition, pp177-178

Very untrue. I don't think the consumers of Victoria's Secret ever ask about the working conditions of labor behind the products. Simply, the daily routine of life of many people in North America does not allow them to be consciously aware of the existence of another country such as Seri-Lanka, let alone the labor behind the products in those countries. And yet if there are few who know, the credit for their awareness does not go to Friedman but to people like Ralph Nader, Noam Chomsky and many others who have raised their concerns.

" There are essentially three ways that businesses can raise money: by borrowing from a bank, by selling shares on a stock market and by issuing bonds on a bond market. It is very important for a country to have all three options, so if your banks get into trouble entrepreneurs can turn to the bond and stock markets. An if the bond market tanks, they can turn to the stock market and banks. This so-called 'three-legged' approach disperses risks more widely and enhances any financial system's ability to cope with shocks. All too often, though, developing countries just have one or at best two legs of this three-legged stool, and that makes their financial systems less than stable."
Thomas L. Friedman, The Lexus and the Olive Tree, 1st Anchor Book Edition, pp184-185

Very true.

"... The closing session met in a steamy mud hole amphitheatre and was presided over by Zapatista leader "Subcommander Marcos"-a Mexican combination of Robin Hood and Ralph Nader...."
Thomas L. Friedman, The Lexus and the Olive Tree, 1st Anchor Book Edition, p 190

I should confess I laughed when I read these lines. Robin Hood and Ralph Nader, funny.

A man will grow only with consistency and persistency in his actions. It could be prayers, it could be building muscles, it could be working in his workshop, it could be writing, it could be anything. It doesn't matter what the action is. What only matters is continuity because at the end he knows he is capable.

This will be my diary on the web. I will try to keep two editions of it, one in Persian and another one in English as I somehow live in both worlds and none.