Pirates as Businessmen

In the NPR podcast about the Somali pirate attacks in 2009 the Planet Money team talked about how pirates and the "unwilling customers" (the crew on the ships they board, the ship company itself, the government that the boarded ship belongs to etc) have "normal" business transactions when dealing with ransoms. Apparently in one instance after a CEO of a shipping company retrieved control of his boat back from the pirates the crew found a time sheet listing the hours a pirate had worked! I never imagined I would ever have anything in common with pirates when I pretended to be one for Halloween ten years ago, but hey I like getting paid for the work I do too. I'm just not willing to wield guns and abduct people to get some cash.

I found it fascinating that in the podcast the CEO of a Danish shipping company seemed to think of the months spent trying to get his crew and ship back as business as usual. He said the company never expected to not have to pay a ransom, the company even had special insurance for pirate negotiations. In a link provided by the podcast to a Freakonomics page about pirate economics, the author of The Invisible Hook talks about how the traditional brand of pirate as a sadistic, irrational person who likes to brutalize hostages just for the hell of it is quite inaccurate. The business men negotiating the ransom were and, according to the podcast, still are treated with respect and hostages are not tortured indiscriminately, for the most part. While pirates had to cultivate an image of "men on the edge" they didn't want a reputation for wanton brutality. This image was the result of an economic choice of what would best suit the needs of the criminal system.

Recently pirates abducted two US citizens on an oil vessel off the coast of Nigeria. The citizens were the captain and chief engineer of the vessel (higher ranking crew members have more value and thus will fetch a higher sum on the ransom "market", if you can even call it that). The UN reported that Somalia has fallen to a 7 year low, partly because of increased security of ships in that region. Sooo it looks like the piracy market has moved to the West coast of Africa where government restrictions on vessel security are much higher than in Somalia.  The organized crime operation of piracy, like other forms of organized crime such as drug cartels or cat burglar associations, is fluid and moving where there is the most opportunity for economic growth.

One pressing issue facing governments all over the world for the history of civilization is how to deal with illegitimate markets. Prostitution has been around since Biblical times. The United States saw a backlash of gangs and mobs during Prohibition who worked the bootlegging business of ferrying illegal alcohol from moonshine distilleries to city speakeasies in the 1920's. All of the taboo ventures in organized crime have at least three things in common. One they all make awesome movies. And, more importantly, they are all rarely understood as primarily economic ventures and the members of each venture are usually demonized. I'm not saying that piracy is moral or a legitimate way to make a living, especially when it puts others in danger. But for the people involved in the trade, like all other black markets, piracy may be the only way or at least may seem like the best way to make a living in a society that doesn't offer other options.

The latest US shutdown

Only recently did the US political machine require shutdowns of the federal government to allow Congress to discuss budgetary issues. The first two times the government was partially shutdown were during the Clinton administration in 1995 and 1996. The third time was from October 1st to October 17th, 2013 under Obama's administration. During both shutdown events workers were furloughed and the economy suffered slightly. And why? Both shutdown events occurred in highly polarized Congresses. According to a 2013 joint study by Duke University and UNC, the events of the 1995 Congress potentially have led to increasingly partisan politics in D.C. such that, although 1995 represented the most partisan Congress in 100 years, the politics are even more polarized now.

After my brother graduated from college he worked on Capitol Hill for Louisiana's Democratic Senator for a couple of years. During the latest shutdown, over 800,000 federal employees were deemed "non-essential" and furloughed from their jobs. The "non-essential" departments included the EPA, WIC services, FEMA, and national parks services, among others. When I read articles about the political squabbling of the shutdown I couldn't help but think about all of the people deemed "non-essential" who paid the price for big party officials in the House and Senate refusing to discuss budget and healthcare issues like adults. If any of them were like my brother when he worked in the Senate then they desperately needed those jobs and those paychecks to go about their daily lives. 

The worst part about this latest shutdown is that it seems to have gone on way longer than it should have. Neither side got what it wanted out of the shutdown and people who could have made the shutdown end more quickly refused to talk to eachother seriously about Republicans' and Democrats' goals and the possibility for a compromise.

Biker gangs and Alexian Lien

On September 29th a group of motorcyclists got into a violent confrontation with an SUV that is now being called the "Manhattan Brawl". The driver of the SUV, Alexian Lien, was sent to the hospital for stitches to his face after being beaten by some of the bikers in the group. And so far at least one of the bikers is paralyzed after being run over by Lien's car. Here's a video of the event:



An interesting way to look at the Manhattan Brawl is to see how different sides are analyzing the events. One article claims that the motorcyclists in the incident don't actually qualify as a "biker gang". Autoevolution.com claims that not enough leeway is being given to the motorcyclists due to their image as a gang. Other sites clearly portray Lien as the victim of a senseless attack from crazy people.

So I guess the real question is who deserves the most blame? Both sides ended up getting hurt somehow and both sides in some way initiated conflict. The SUV probably wouldn't have run over a man if the motorcyclists hadn't hogged the entire road and forced him to stall. The man who started beating on the SUV with his helmet probably wouldn't have done that if his friend didn't get run over. In the brawl clearly there were victims and perpetrators, but it seems like the lines of guilt are being drawn almost entirely on preconceived notions about one side's identity.

The Second Golden Age of TV and creativity explosions

Does anyone remember the writers' strike from late 2007 - 2008? All I remember was my mom saying something about not seeing the season finale of NCIS. But apparently it had a much larger impact on the entertainment industry than my thirteen-year-old self realized. According to the Economist the writers' strike threatened to shut down the Oscars and decreased the 2008 TV audience size by 21%. The writers, typically the most overlooked members of the entertainment industry, had the power to shut down production for three months.

How is that important now? Because in the second Golden Age of Television that started about 20 years ago (some people say the 1950's hold the original title) the writers are the main players. According to CNN, the huge number of channels and networks available has given writers elbow room to get their creative juices flowing. What used to be the norm of "gold-standard TV" existed only on subscription networks like HBO. Enter The Sopranos and Mad Men on AMC. Intense dramas with complex plots and intricate dialogue are now available on cable to a wider array of viewing audiences. Then the higher register of complexity enters comedies and even sitcoms. Television begins to address serious contemporary issues even in the form of traditionally "low-brow" comedy. (Thank you The Simpsons). Even a company that didn't have a widely accessible market ten years ago is creating quality TV shows! Netflix started creating shows this year and its first trial run already got an Emmy nomination. Even Amazon is starting to pilot TV shows. Remember when it was a book shipping company?

So in short, the writers are the creative gurus that made quality the norm and made this Golden Age of Television possible. And honestly, I think that's where the power should be. The increased opportunities and avenues for creativity allow entertainment and its consumers to become more conscious and self-aware of contemporary issues. I'm not going to lie, I am a TV addict. Avatar the Last Airbender changed my life when I was 10 by making me believe that everyone deserves a second chance. 24 changed how I thought of TV shows' inferiority to books because of the creative decisions involved in episode structure. The opening scene from The Newsroom made me realize the importance of speaking out when it's so much easier to be complacent. And Saturday Night Live and the Colbert Report introduced me to the glorious genre of satire. In this Golden Age of Television, good quality TV that makes people think and inspires conversation can be a valuable tool in sparking change.

(OK I might have taken it a bit too far in that last little testimonial, but I really love those shows. If nothing else, the second Golden Age of TV has made millions of people care about something in their daily lives.)

Instant Gratification Cuteness

I have no idea what to write about. Is there anything that you can say that sounds remotely intelligent when you think about dog and cat internet memes? The only thing that comes to mind is a critique about our societal obsession with the cuteness of pet memes. In the United States, and probably everywhere in the world that has an internet connection, internet users pore over cute images, vines, youtube videos, tumblr gifs, the list goes on and on. Just look at this website: http://procatinator.com/

We obviously have an obsession with the endless amount of cute at our fingertips. And who wouldn't? One of the things that would always cheer me up when I had a bad day was working at barns with horses or playing with my black lab. Now that I'm in college I can't really do that anymore so I've resorted to cute pet memes. Animals, especially domesticated pets, have a way of cheering people up. But do we act on our obsession with cute animal images outside of the digital world?

According to the Human Society of the United States "about 2.7 million healthy, adoptable cats and dogs—about one every 11 seconds—are put down in U.S. shelters each year. Often these animals are the offspring of cherished family pets". So even though an obsession with pets is pervasive in our culture online it doesn't really do anything to solve a pressing problem in reality.

I would argue that the reason why there is still a huge problem with animal abuse in the US, and again probably everywhere in the world, is because we have a higher appreciation for the digital plethora of pet material at our fingertips than for the actual animals themselves. Does anyone remember when Nintendo released the Nintendogs game for the DS? It seemed like the biggest scam to me. It was fun for about ten minutes when you were admiring how cute your computer-simulated dog looked and then when nothing new happened in the game you wondered why you even bought it in the first place. Having a pet dog, a living creature that needed love and attention, was so much more valuable and formative to an individual's personality than the Nintendo game. But caring for animals takes work. Depending on the animal they can be ridiculously needy and every single one of them poops in places where they shouldn't. It's so much easier to just gush over the instant cuteness (minus the messiness of a living thing) of pet memes on the Internet. Maybe the reason why animal euthanasia is so high in the US is because the abundance of pet memes on the internet has desensitized us to the true struggles many pets face in trying to get good homes. If we gorge ourselves on the cuteness of a simulated version of an animal then we have unrealistic expectations that the real thing will be just as cute and not gross at all. (After all, none of the Internet images of cute cats and dogs feature their poop). When people discover that it's far easier to be content with images of animals than with living creatures they may start to prefer the internet version to the real thing. The more this happens, the more animals get put down for lack of people caring about them.

For an interesting take on shelter pet photography policy please look at the post in the link:     
http://sleepmurder.tumblr.com/post/57815190794/on-the-importance-of-good-photos-of-shelter-pets