Myanmar’s opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi listens to a journalist’s question during the conference hall of the Hungarian foreign ministry in Budapest during her international press conference on September 13, 2013. The Nobel Peace prize-winning guest is on her second station of her visit for three eastern European countries, Poland, Hungary and Czech Republic. By Attila Kisbenedek/AFP/Getty Images.
History professor Stephen Mihm traces the aristocratic origins of tipping in America:
Strange as it may seem, tipping wasn’t customary in the U.S. before the Civil War. According to Kerry Segrave, author of a book on the custom’s curious history, tipping originated within the elaborate play of manners of the European aristocracy. To tip someone was as much about establishing a hierarchy between superior and inferior as it was about compensating a waiter, valet or servant. Giving a tip was a power play, and accepting one was a sign of servility. Such affectations didn’t sit well with Americans.
Nonetheless, sometime in the Gilded Age tipping came to America. At the time, critics blamed wily European waiters who had immigrated; others simply pointed to the influx of immigrants — people whom one letter writer to the Times described as “the scum and carrion of Europe’s southern borders, where begging is an art.” Sneaky foreigners had lured the good-natured, big-hearted American people into tipping — or so the story went.
In reality, the culprits were wealthy Americans, who traveled to Europe in the late 19th century. They aped the aristocrats they met, and sometimes went farther by out-tipping Europeans, prompting complaints that the American nouveaux riches were spoiling the servants. When these travelers came home, they showed off their newfound sophistication by leaving generous tips for waiters, porters and others. The practice spread down the culinary food chain, as middle-class Americans imitated their social superiors.
Tod Newcombe sees power shifting from national and state governments toward cities:
As Bruce Katz points out in his new book, The Metropolitan Revolution, several key factors have opened the door to cities. For one, he writes, the Great Recession has disrupted national economies while partisan gridlock has stymied national politics. At the same time, states that are heavily dependent on federal grants to run programs are struggling with decisions of what to keep and what not too. But, he writes, “cities and metros … are responding with pragmatism, energy and ambition to get things done.” …
Mayors are behind a growing political movement that is setting national policy at the local level. Urban experts and scholars are taking note that cities have become an “important breeding ground for new ideas,” because they are far more nimble than states or federal the government.
And less bogged down by partisanship:
Republican and Democratic mayors in metropolitan areas tend to cooperate more than their counterparts at the national level, says Scott Smith, the Republican mayor of Mesa, Ariz., and president of the US Conference of Mayors. Why? “Because they have to solve problems. In Washington they don’t sense this need,” Smith told National Journal. “I still have to pick up the garbage on Thursday. When someone dials 911, I have to make sure the police show up.” Smith adds: “There is no such thing as national economies anymore. That’s why you see the big business deals done not so much between commerce secretaries any more as between mayors, like the mayor of Shanghai and the mayor of Los Angeles.”
(Photo: New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg stands with his likely successor, Bill de Blasio, during the 9/11 Memorial ceremonies on September 11, 2013. By Adrees Latif-Pool/Getty Images)
That’s what the Phoneblok hopes to be:
Ben Richmond is intrigued:
One reason iPhones are rendered steadily and predictably obsolete just months after it debuts heralded as world-changing—is tied intimately to what many like about the iPhone: the attractive and smooth design. Apple’s seamless aesthetic doesn’t leave room for you to customize or upgrade the hardware and once the hardware is worn out, dropped into water or at its limit. When one part goes or is faulty or just doesn’t do what you want it to, the whole phone has to go. How many iPhones have been replaced just for want of an uncracked screen?
Apple is easy to point to, because it’s popular, and if you believe the lawsuits, where Apple goes, so do consumer electronics. But in at least one respect it’s far from unique. As last year’s Apples go to the dump, so too do other electronics. In 2010 the United States generated an estimated 3 million tons of e-waste, and only about a quarter of that is thought to be recycled. The rest is going to the dump or incinerators. Cell phones, while small, are a special problem because they are replaced on average every 12 months.
Brian Heater thinks that “this seems like one of those ideas that’s just too good to be true.” K. T. Bradford points out that Phonebloks isn’t close to coming to market:
Right now, Phonebloks is still in the concept stage. So concept-y that the inventor isn’t even asking for money yet, just attention. He’s gathering people for a crowdspeaking campaign (like a small version of Kony 2012) that will send out a huge burst of social media noise about the phone all at once to prove there is great interest. The thunderclap is scheduled to happen on October 29. The website and YouTube video aren’t too clear on the next steps. Will they try a Kickstarter campaign? Raise venture capitalist money? Bring the idea to an existing manufacturer? Maybe all of the above.
Todd Wasserman wonders how this phone would change the smartphone industry :
While the idea of cutting down on cell phone waste is appealing, such a design would greatly limit design possibilities. The industry also thrives on an upgrade cycle which this design would negate.
Yglesias, a long-time booster of Chipotle, is impressed with the innovative ad:
The video itself is a promotion not for Chipotle per se but for an iOS game that’s available for free on the app store. This is all part of a larger marketing strategy that depends in part on the idea of essentially never doing television ads. Both the theme of this video—Chipotle’s message that it represents a superior alternative to conventional factory farming—and the lack of television advertising are designed to position the chain as a highbrow and upscale alternative to other quick service restaurants. Then when a video does come out, it’s high-quality high-impact stuff that really gets attention and is designed to be memorable. And if you ask me, it’s working.
Edwidge Danticat, a writer from Haiti, explores it:
In the epigraph to Drown, Junot Diaz uses a quote from a Cuban poet, Gustavo Pérez Firmat—“The fact that I am writing to you in English already falsifies what I wanted to tell you.” This is the dilemma of the immigrant writer. If I’d lived in Haiti my whole life, I’d be writing these things in Creole. But these stories I am writing now are coming through me as a person who, though I travel to Haiti often, has lived in the U.S. for more than three decades now.
Often when you’re an immigrant writing in English, people think it’s primarily a commercial choice. But for many of us, it’s a choice that rises out of the circumstances of our lives. These are the tools I have at my disposal, based on my experiences. It’s a constant debate, not just in my community but in other communities as well. Where do you belong? You’re kind of one of us, but you now write in a different language. You’re told you don’t belong to American literature or you’re told you don’t belong to Haitian literature. Maybe there’s a place on the hyphen, as Julia Alvarez so brilliantly wrote in one of her essays. That middle generation, the people whose parents brought them to other countries as small children, or even people who were born to immigrant parents, maybe they can have their own literature too.
For more, check out Danticat’s book on the topic, Create Dangerously: The Immigrant Artist at Work.
Taking the bad out of Breaking Bad:
Morton Abramowitz insists that when it comes to the massive number of Syria refugees, there “is room and need for a greater effort by the U.S. and its friends and allies”:
[T]he West must demonstrate its willingness to bear part of the burden. So far this fiscal year, the U.S. has admitted just 33 Syrian refugees. The new fiscal year will permit President Barack Obama to provide for a significant number of Syrian refugees within the 70,000 total allotted to the U.S. refugee program. In turn, the U.S. willingness to accept more refugees can also help accelerate resettlement efforts by other Western countries. Under normal U.S. procedures, resettlement could take a few years. So as the U.S. has done with Indochinese and other refugee groups, it must expedite processing. …
The refugee burden, not surprisingly, has fallen mostly on four bordering countries: Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon and Turkey. Turkey is managing well and is more capable than its neighbors of taking in more refugees, although an increase would stoke sectarian differences and political tensions. The opening for those allowed by the government to cross the border, however, continues to narrow. The biggest burden falls on a very weak Lebanese state, where the Syrian war has already provoked considerable internal violence. If Damascus were to fall, refugees would inundate Lebanon.
Earlier Dish on the Syrian refugee crisis here.
Seattle, Washington, 12.12 pm
Before destroying Syria’s chemical weapons, Assad wants the US to agree to stop arming Syria’s rebels. Larison wishes the administration would take the deal but suspects it won’t:
It costs the U.S. nothing to agree to these terms, but these terms will likely be viewed as unacceptable in Washington. The administration will want to treat its support for the opposition as separate, and it will always want to reserve the option to attack. That isn’t because either position makes any sense for the U.S., but because the administration has trapped itself into commitments that it won’t easily repudiate. The Syrian government may not truly be willing to give up its chemical weapons, but it is doubtful that the U.S. would be willing to accept the exchange that might be required to make the deal work.
The Dish 