By Aaron Darc
Archive for May, 2010
ROTTEN APPLE
May 28th
The iPad is here. But the question on everybody’s lips – “Is it any good?” – is maybe a little understated. Ask yourself this… is it worth dying for? Because people are. Let’s take a stroll into the dubious world of Apple – because it is ultimately our own.
“It’s Magical™”
(Steve Jobs)
This week, Li Hai, a 19 year old Chinese factory worker, began another 15 hour shift, as he had done every single morning this year, meeting the frenzied demands of Apple’s hungry cult of technology. It had been a “good” year for his company, Foxconn, after scoring the contract to be the main producer of the latest Must Have™: the “revolutionary” and (let’s not forget) “magical” iPad. You could easily presume that these magical devices form in rose petal cocoons upon golden clouds in a cybersky, their freshly glossed screens glistening in the sunlight, waiting to revolutionise the life of yet another middle-class Westerner. But, in fact, it is the hundreds of thousands of Chinese factory workers, like young Li, who deliver us our 21st century Salvation™. Li’s factory, in the province of Hunan, is home to 300,000 such workers. They slave tirelessly through 7 day working weeks – forbidden from talking or listening to music, most not even given a stool, and under military-style supervisors armed with iron bats – and all to earn less than what most us make checking facebook in between lunchtime and clock-off (building an iPad earns you around 50 cents per hour). They are not given a magical device for themselves, nor could they dream of affording their own. They are the faceless, hidden cogs of the Apple Machine™. And they are dying.
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IS KEVIN RUDD INSANE?
May 15th
Hard to say. But his new approach to mental health care will make it very hard for those who are. Unless you’re cashed up, of course. Let’s look at the social implications of the 2010 budget mental health services slash…
For a long while, I detested the political cliche ideology of choosing between two devils. I saw it as a functional excuse for disengagement, and the catchcry of a people who had no capacity to relate politics to individual power in a collectivist society. But, alas, today I have now officially given in. What an election this is shaping up to be, huh? In the right – far right – corner, we have the evangelical supermoron who makes Howard look progressive. Seemingly a little less in the right corner – but closer than you’d probably hoped, three years ago – we have Kevin Rudd. Rudd The Dud, etc. And he is. And I’m trapped, really, because even though I’ll give my votes to the Greens, we’ll end up with one of these men. I’m forced to hope it’s Rudd. But that pains me, when I consider what he has done to an area very dear to me – mental health. I’ve strayed away from this passion of mine – and, at one time, both a study and career – but find myself returning of late. Crusader Aaron™ is stirring again. I’m back, kiddies. And, this time, we’re going to wander a little away from the pop culture at the core of most of our journeys in recent years on this site, and take things on in a slightly more direct fashion. We’ll still look at how culture embodies the things we talk about – reflects them, projects them, whatever the case may be. But there is something very wrong with this world. Something is going very wrong with us. And I’m going to use this space to have a few discussions about this, because, well, somebody needs to. Or more need to, at very least. We’re not coping. And Kevin Rudd’s budget has not only failed to address this, but, quite horrifyingly, chosen to exploit and ride one of the biggest problems of this issue – that it does not have a voice. Thanks to this budget, it will also have no money. More >