South East Asian Buddhists were not amused to see an image of the Buddha placed on the crotch and breast of a Victoria’s Secret bikini, and they are now most definitely displeased to see a poster of an actor sitting astride the Buddha’s head.  

Sri Lanka, a largely Buddhist nation, protested the now infamous Buddha bikini, and now Thailand, another predominantly Buddhist nation, is apoplectic with rage and deeply insulted by what it perceives to be the insensitivity of the poster for the new film Hollywood Buddha. In a film that ostensibly portrays a new spin on the “Hollywood hustle,” Philippe Caland, the film’s writer, producer, director, and lead actor all rolled into one, plays an unsuccessful filmmaker whose luck improves subsequent to his prayers to the Buddha. The poster in question depicts Caland sitting astride the head of a statue of the Buddha and gazing, perhaps contemplatively, off into the distance. The Thais, who believe that the head — not to mention the head of the Buddha — is almost sacred, find the image to be particularly abrasive.

Caland has obliged his insulted critics and has consented to withdraw the poster, but he may have already inflicted some lasting damage; hoping to curb cultural faux pas, the Thai government is now writing a book, directed at culturally insensitive foreigners, that outlines Thai etiquette. There are even unrealistic but furious calls that “malicious” foreigners be banned from entering the nation.    

Mimi Hanaoka

In the midst of a mid-life crisis, separated from her long-time partner, and becoming tiresome and freakish to the public eye, Barbie has finally been shoved out of her position as the best selling fashion doll in the United Kingdom — a welcome event for adolescent girls around the world.  

Barbie has been hobbling around with her improbable proportions — she’s a seven-footer with a voluptuous 38-inch chest, miniscule 18-inch waist, and curvaceous 40-inch hips — since 1959, and consumers have happily acquired over one billion Barbies in 150 countries. Despite the fact that such a blond behemoth would have to crawl on all fours to carry such an unlikely frame, she has been both a staple of the toy chest and accused of fostering devastating body-image problems for adolescent girls. It seems, that at the ripe age of 45, Barbie is crawling on all fours out of the spotlight.
  
Barbie’s successor, however, isn’t all that much better than Barbie; Bratz dolls have now replaced Barbie in the UK as the top selling fashion doll, and they are a set of strangely hydrocephalic, enormously-eyed dolls with the screechy slogan, “the girls with a passion for fashion!” One of the line of products is a duo of dolls called Bratz Secret Date, a package advertised with the promise that it is “a night you’re sure to never forget as you share a first date with the Bratz and Bratz Boyz as they laugh over a midnight smoothie, slow dance under a full moon, and find themselves getting closer than ever…”

Wholesome midnight smoothie or no, the acquisitive little Bratz characters will likely inspire ideals that are different, although not necessarily better, than Barbie’s bizarre wardrobe full of personalities. Even if the emphasis of the Bratz is as vacuous as Barbie’s, perhaps a Barbie-inspired era — complete with its consequent body-image trauma — is becoming outdated, unfashionable, and ultimately unpopular.  

Mimi Hanaoka

La dolce vita may be coming to an end. Despite claims that many European workers already work 40-hour work weeks, the myth which leads many Americans to seek a better life on the other side of the Atlantic may be more fiction than fact. And if it’s still fact, it may not be for much longer.

Headlines on Bloomberg.com, DW-World.de, The Economist, The Christian Science Monitor, and USA Today proclaim the demise of the idyllic minimalist work week as though it marked the end of an era.

Perhaps it does. According to a nifty little chart in an article in USA Today, just about any European country has a better vacation plan than most jobs provide here in the United States. No wonder in Germany there’s been controversy over the concessions labor union heads have made in order to keep companies from moving where labor costs are cheaper than they are in Germany.

But if, as reported by   Noelle Knox in USA Today, workers in the Czech Republic average an extra five hours per week and earn only 40 percent as much as the typical German laborer, what incentive do large companies have to stay?

The frenzy over the state of the European economy is alive and well. Is it greed or is the economy really underperforming? The entry of 10 new European Union members on May 1st has been blamed for “tipping the balance” of an already delicate European Union economy, leading to fears of deflation, a rise in unemployment, and a lower quality of life as a result. Knox alludes to the stereotype that Europeans “work to live” rather than “living to work.”

Apparently the American economy’s overtime norm doesn’t yield the gargantuan advantages in productivity we had expected it would. Knox notes that, according to the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development, seven of the most advanced European countries are “just as productive as … the USA” (the countries are France, Denmark, Germany, Ireland, Italy, the Netherlands, and Belgium).

She quotes OECD economist Paul Swaim as confirming the commonly held perception that Americans work about a third more than Europeans do:

“[W]e … found that average incomes in Europe were also about one-third lower, because output per hour was essentially the same … Obviously, the next question is: Who has it the best, on balance? Is it better to work less and live with less income?”

Now there’s a question worth answering.

A good, good, girlfriend of mine, Nickie, sent me an article over a year ago that talked about hustle.  Not the deceitful kind, but the get-up-and-do-something kind.  It so moved me that I emailed the author, Steven Ivory, and thanked the brother for such poignant words and let him know how they impacted me.  I told him about the book I have been putting off writing and that I just needed to get my hustle on.  Amazingly he wrote back and thanked me for appreciating his work and promptly told me to “get busy” writing that book.

A few days later I was thinking back on the days when I really was “getting my hustle on.”  When I was in high school, I thought I’d be a great writer or singer or actress or hold public office or something.  The point is, I thought I could do or be anything.  That’s just how my Mama raised me.  

After reading Steven’s article for the fifteenth time, I started thinking about the book I always wanted to write and a lot of the other things I had left undone.  I started thinking back to my high school days and the people I admired most.  There were many people in my life that possessed that same type of hustle I used to have.  One was a guy named Terry Powers Jr.  I had what I thought was an insatiable crush on him in high school.  He was cute, freckle-faced, and could bring a sister to her knees with his beautiful voice.  

As is common, we lost touch over the years and I often wondered what became of him.  I went to college for a few years, joined the military, married, had a child, divorced, re-married, left the military, and had another child.  Along the way, I finished my degrees and got a good government job.  I lived a typical suburban life, nice neighborhood, good schools, one kid in college, and the other in pre-school.  Life was good, but it didn’t require much hustle on my part.

So, I decided to try to find some of my high school friends.  I was already registered on one of those websites that reconnects you with former schoolmates, so that’s where I started my search.  I had gone to a couple of high schools so I started with the first one to see if I remembered anyone listed there.  I came across Terry’s name.  I sent him a quick note, hoping he’d even remember me.  A day later, he responded and his note sounded as if he was glad to hear from me.

After a series of emails and missed phone calls, Terry and I finally got a chance to talk.  I found out that Terry is still getting his hustle on; not only is he a singer, but he also has his own recording studio, he produces other artists, and he learned to play a few musical instruments along the way as well.  He is also in the process of forming a multimedia production company to produce films, computer-generated imagery and anything else you could imagine.  To top that off, he is the minister of music at his church.

When we talked, it was really Terry talking.  I was just listening and beaming with pride because he was just as excited about his dreams in 2003 as he was in 1977.  When I asked him how he ended up in L.A. (we were both raised in the D.C. area), he replied, “I had to go where the music was.”  It was just that simple.  One day in 1986, he and his best friend packed up a U-Haul and a dream and drove across country.  And the rest, as they say …  

I thought a lot about what it took for him to make a move like that and then it dawned on me; he didn’t have a choice.  For Terry, there was only one option, and it wasn’t failure.  I remember him saying he wanted to get in the music business when we were kids.  But kids say lots of things.  He’s traveled all over the world, networked with lots of influential people, and most of all he’s happy doing what he was meant to do.  I’m sure there were lots of sacrifices along the way, but he’s lived life and continues to do so with passion.  

For Steven, the brother I didn’t even know, it just amazed me that he would take the time to write me back to just say “thank you” and to give a sister he didn’t even know some much-needed encouragement.  For the sisters who think there are no more “good black men” out there, I just named two!

Somewhere along the way, between my mother’s faith in me and my fear of failure, I lost my “hustle.”  I somehow misplaced the drive, the fortitude, and the sheer hunger for doing what I know I was ordained to do.  Inexplicably, these brothers, one I never met and one I knew growing up, have helped me to “get my hustle back,” whether they know it or not.  Steven and Terry will probably never know how they have motivated me.   All I know is that I feel like I owe it to them, and Nickie too, and all the people over the years who noticed that I had a little “hustle” in me and tried to encourage me to use it, and especially my Mama (who’s up there showing the angels “how it’s done”).  More importantly, I owe it to myself to do what I was sent here to do.

I talked to my friend Terry again.  We actually spent an hour and a half on the phone and it felt like five minutes.  He told me of the many blessings he has received in his life in the last ten years or so, and what has motivated him to be so focused on achieving his goals in the music industry.  He was stricken with kidney failure when he was 34 years old that was brought on by high blood pressure that he didn’t even know he had.  He was on dialysis for well over a year and eventually had a kidney transplant.  The kidney he received was from a guy from Louisiana who had been in a car accident.  One of the kidneys was lacerated (the one they gave to Terry) and the other was given to another gentleman.  The lacerated kidney is working fine to this day.  Unfortunately, the other person didn’t fare as well.  In God’s infinite wisdom, he knew exactly what my friend needed.  

We finally saw each other at our class reunion and it was as if time had stood still in many ways.  I’m not sure what it was that made me feel so comfortable with him.  I guess it was the fact that we had similar backgrounds.  He was my homeboy and it felt good.  Terry was very attentive and protective.  It was comforting to know he was there.  It was like I didn’t know what I’d missed until I had it again.  He looked the same to me.  I guess I had a different way of looking at him since we had been in contact and he had shared so much about what he’d been through.  We spent a lot of time together that night and the next day having brunch.  I realized how much he had grown spiritually.  His life is focused on God and using his talents to serve Him.  He hadn’t lost his sense of humor or his compassion for those in need, he only added to those qualities by inviting God into his life.  I was awestruck and motivated by his commitment.  

I also had the opportunity to meet some of his family and he shared some of his family “stories” with me.  Even through the tragic parts in his life, Terry had a way of making every family member feel as though they were the most precious thing in the world to him and everyone wanted to be around him.

A month or so after my class reunion, my father passed away.  The hardest part for me has been the feeling that I’m disconnected somehow.  With both parents gone, there’s no bridge to my past, my history.  It’s been difficult to discern just what my father left behind in terms of a legacy.  Maybe part of it is me.  I know I don’t want my children to question or wonder if their mother did anything to make the world better.  I want them to know without a doubt that their mother contributed to the world in a positive way.

Yes, I’ve been busy — writing the book I was meant to write and drafting an outline for the next one.  A literary agent and independent publisher have expressed an interest in my work.  I know I have at least three people to thank for helping me get my hustle back: Nickie, Steven, and a sweet and tender soul of a man named Terry.  

In The Fray Contributor

According to a piece in Time magazine by Karen Tumulty entitled, “Jesus and the FDA,” the appointment of Dr. Hager to the FDA board has women’s reproductive health rights activists up in arms.

Journalist Kathryn Jean Lopez, in her article “Your kind not welcome,” isn’t impressed by the ‘hysteria’ being raised over the abortion issue; what really matters in this controversy is not that Dr. Hager “would rather have his patients pray and wait for Divine intervention than medically act to treat disease” and “recommends specific Scripture readings and prayers for such ailments as headaches and premenstrual syndrome;” nor that he published a book with his wife, As Jesus Cared for Women: Restoring Women Then and Now; not even that, as appointed chairman for the FDA Reproductive Health Drugs Advisory Committee, he would “lead its study of hormone-replacement therapy for menopausal women” when we’ve already seen him do his best to reverse the FDA’s approval of RU-486 based on his belief that “it has endangered the lives and health of women.”

Lopez feels the problem is not whether a doctor with strong religious views ought to be appointed to the FDA, but that the FDA “does not want to be scrutinized.”

“In recent years, the FDA has been criticized on a host of issues outside of abortion, and not just by pro-lifers. Dr. Stevens warns that this leak is ‘about an FDA that does not want to be scrutinized.’ The committee, for instance, that Hager’s name has been floated for has not met in two years and currently has no members. That’s no way for a government agency to operate, most especially one whose decisions so directly affect issues of life and death.”

Lopez goes even further out on her limb to suggest that Hager’s appointment would be beneficial for the Left, if only because his moral backbone provokes him to question the FDA “when necessary.”

“If Hager never makes it to Washington, it will be more than just another unfair loss to the Left in the name of hysterical abortion politics: a qualified doctor willing to question the FDA when necessary. But, worse still, if secular media and Left folk manage to create what Dr. Stevens calls a ‘false dichotomy’ between medicine and values, or values and policymaking, scuttled potential nominations will not be the worst result.”

So when is it necessary, if not where women’s reproductive health rights are concerned?

The Naral Pro-Choice America website offers an opportunity for women’s reproductive health rights activists to voice their opinions.

“We [Muslims] cannot clear our names unless we own up to the shameful fact that terrorism has become an Islamic enterprise …”  

Abdelrahman al-Rashid, managing editor of the extremely popular Arabic language satellite television channel al-Arabiyya, in his editorial published in Saturday’s al-Sharq al-Awsat. Al-Rashid wrote his editorial in response to last week’s bloody hostage crisis that occurred in the town of Beslan, which may be linked to separatist movements in Chechnya. While some radical Islamic clerics justify civilian deaths as a consequence of legitimate jihad, al-Rashid holds such Muslim clerics responsible for distorting the message of Islam and encouraging Islamist violence.

While many other critics of radical Islamist movements have voiced similar criticisms, al-Rashid’s condemnation is notable both because he is a leading Saudi journalist and because he directed his sharp criticism at Yousef al-Qaradawi, an influential but controversial Egyptian cleric. Al-Jazeera, another leading satellite channel in the Arabic-speaking world, frequently airs al-Qaradawi’s opinions.

Mimi Hanaoka

One of the increasingly evident differences between the liberals and the conservatives is, apparently, crudely simple: Democrats aren’t breeding fast enough while Republicans are happily procreating.  

High fertility appears to be an indicator of religious conviction and conservatism. According to Phillip Longman’s article in The Washington Post, a robust 47 percent of consistent churchgoers claim that they would ideally have a family with three or more children, while only 27 percent of their more secular counterparts want such large families. The religiously minded voters in these larger families tend to support the conservatives, and Longman, who is a senior fellow at the New America Institute (an independent, non-partisan, non-profit public policy institute) continues:

Of the top 10 most fertile states, all but one voted for Bush in 2000. Among the 17 states that still produce enough children to replace their populations, all but two — Iowa and Minnesota — voted for Bush in the last election. Conversely, the least fertile states — a list that includes Maine, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania and Connecticut — went overwhelmingly for Al Gore. Women living in Gore states on average have 12 percent fewer babies than women living in Bush states.

Longman’s work is interesting for its predictive value, but his conclusion seems a bit panicky; he suggests that with Republicans filling both cradles and ballot boxes, the Democrats have a dwindling future — in his words, “if ‘Metros’ don’t start having more children, America’s future is ‘Retro.’” Such analysis neglects to take into consideration the voting patterns of immigrants and the changing loyalties of certain voting blocks, such as American Muslims and Arab Americans. Furthermore, Longman’s data is indicative not only of the political inclinations of Republicans and Democrats but also of levels of voter participation; fertility levels of conservatives and liberals may have ramifications on future generations, but the more immediate and ultimately important factor is voter participation.

Mimi Hanaoka