HOWARD ZINN

Now that the three topics of my blog are balanced, I can chose my favourite to write the next post. Now I’m going to tell you about Howard Zinn, another social critic that I really like. 

“Howard Zinn (born August 24, 1922) is an American political scientist, historian, social critic, socialist, activist and professor.

Zinn has been active in the movements for Civil Rights, Civil Liberties and the anti-war movements in the United States. He has written extensively on all three subjects. The author of some 20 books, Zinn is Professor Emeritus in the Political Science Department at Boston University.”

I really like him because, like Noam Chomsky, he writes what most people don’t write and he always questions things we all take for granted.

If we all read truthful writings like Chomsky and Zinn, and don’t conceive them as “radicals”, whatever that means, we all would have a more informed, conscious and better opinion.

Check him out:

Howard Zinn’s website

Howard Zinn’s Wikipedia article

howard zinn

OFFICIALLY PIMPED HERO

I don’t think that anyone heard about a terrible catastrophe that ocurred in a northern state of Mexico last month, in which a fire burned down a building that was full with little children that were on daycare. More than 40 children died, but 70 more were saved by the exceptional courage of one young man; Francisco Manuel López, who, with his pickup truck, smashed a wall and managed to save the lives of many children.

To honor him, the MTV’s show “Pimp My Ride” offered him to “pimp his ride”. Today, the biggest newspaper in Mexico informed that the truck is already on its way back to Mexico to be delivered to the brave man. The truck was named: “Angel”, a bit corny but a great gift to a man who did a great thing.

Here are the pictures of the truck before and after:

To view the complete story on the incident click here.

MONTERREY; MY HOMETOWN

I was born in Mexico City, but at the age of two months, my parents moved to my mom’s hometown, which is Monterrey and became the place where I grew up.

Most people here in Europe have never heard of Monterrey, even though it is a very important city in Latin America, so I thought it was a good idea to introduce you to it.

WOMEN DRIVERS

Time for funny stuff again. I am not sexist at all, but after being inside a car with my mom, sister, girlfriend or whatever, and then watching these videos, nobody can deny that men and women are different. And we are different in the way that men are more prone to drive well, and women, well..  just watch.

Level 1 – A very funny list

Poll – PLEASE VOTE!

Hello, people. In order to have some feedback about this blog's viewers, I leave you guys this poll.
Please vote and if you have a specific suggestion, leave a comment on this post.
Thanks!

THE STORY OF STUFF

To keep the topic on the same track, I thought it would be interesting to post this video called “The Story of Stuff”. This is not a very political video in the way that the past videos have been. It appeals more to the everyday life and gives us an easy and entertaining explanation about our behaviour as consumers.

Please tell me what you think about it.

Story of Stuff Official Website

PARTICIPATORY ECONOMICS

“Most everybody I see know the truth but they just don’t know that they know it.” – Woody Guthrie

The British Victorian liberal thinker John Stuart Mill tells us that we “are not charmed with the ideal of life held out by those who think that the normal state of human beings is that of struggling to get on; that the trampling, crushing, elbowing, and treadling on each other’s heels which form the existing type of social life are the most desirable lot of human beings”.

The American social critic Noam Chomsky says he “would like to believe that people have an instinct for freedom, that they really want to control their own affairs. They don’t wan to be pushed around, ordered, apressed, etc., and they want a chance to do things that make sense like constructive work in a way they can control, or maybe control together with others”.

As an unstatisfied citizen with the way current things are, I believe it is very important to consider new alternatives. In this case, I will explain a new alternative to the actual economic/social system, which is capitalism.

“Participatory economics, often abbreviated parecon, is a proposed economic system that uses participatory decision making as an economic mechanism to guide the production, consumption and allocation of resources in a given society. Proposed as an alternative to contemporary capitalist market economies and also an alternative to centrally planned socialism or coordinatorism, it is described as “an anarchistic economic vision”,[1] and it could be considered a form of socialism as under parecon, the means of production are owned by the workers. It emerged from the work of activist and political theorist Michael Albert and of radical economist Robin Hahnel, beginning in the 1980s and 1990s.

The Corporation

This is “the best Canadian documentary to date” (The Corporation). I thought it would be a good idea to show you guys this documentary because most of you study Business or Economics. I study Political Science and International Relations and I saw this documentary in one of my classes. It is a non-biased, eye-opening film and shows the ugly side of the business world nowadays, a world in which we all participate in one or other form. In my opinion, everyone should watch the full documentary, but for students, and most of all, business students, watching it should be a must.

This is the trailer of the film. I will leave you guys the link to watch the full version.

>>>WATCH FULL VERSION<<<

If any of you do watch the full version, please leave me a comment telling me what you thought about it.

Source:

The Corporation Film. Retrieved on May 29th from http://www.thecorporation.com/

Noam Chomsky

“Chomsky is a global phenomenon . . . perhaps the most widely read voice on
foreign policy on the planet.”—The New York Times Book Review

I was thinking about what should I post next. Enough funny stuff for the moment, and I wasn’t feeling like writing about Mexico, so I asked myself, “who do you admire?”, and Noam Chomsky popped into my mind immediately.

Noam Chomsky “is an American linguist, philosopher, cognitive scientist, political activist, author, and lecturer. He is an Institute Professor and professor emeritus of linguistics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Chomsky is well known in the academic and scientific community as one of the fathers of modern linguistics. Since the 1960s, he has become known more widely as a political dissident, an anarchist, and a libertarian socialist intellectual.” (Wikipedia.org)

I am not really much into linguistics so I am more familiarized with his political writings. As an introduction to him, I will make a list of his most known works in the fields of politics and I will also share with you a video.

Another funny act

After the last post I thought I should change the topic, but I have to show you this funny guy.To give you a quick background, his name is Jon La Joie. He is from Montreal, Canada, and he does funny videos of all sorts. He started posting videos on his You Tube profile, and after a couple of years, he gained enough success that right now he is touring North America and Europe, where he performs his songs as well as his stand up comedy show. If you liked Flight of The Conchords, probably you will like Jon La Joie too. Here I leave you his best videos and the link to his You Tube profile. Enjoy!

A funny mock-up of rappers. a classic.

A different commercial

About the legendary video

Jon La Joie’s YouTube profile