by Robert Moorehead

I don’t know whether to be impressed or depressed. A cardboard manufacturing company has come up with a way to keep tsunami refugees warm when they sleep in their temporary homes: bed frames made of cardboard boxes. Instead of laying their futons on the cold floor, refugees can now lay them on a bed made of overturned boxes. With their bodies off the cold floor, the refugees can stay warmer when they sleep.

Is this a case of private sector ingenuity? Of concerned citizens filling a gap left by government incompetence? Of people pulling together to help each other in a time of crisis? Of a manufacturer looking to sell more boxes? Instead of a cardboard manufacturer stepping up to the plate, why aren’t Nitori and Ikea donating a bunch of beds?

On the one hand, this is a low tech, environmentally friendly solution. It uses items that are readily available, and costs very little. On the other hand, be careful you don’t spill any liquids on your bed, or it will disintegrate. And sexual intimacy with your partner on a bed made of cardboard? Now that’s romantic. More importantly, why are the temporary houses so cold in the first place? They also leak when it rains. How long will refugees have to endure such a standard of living? And in a land of plenty, why are refugees forced to to emulate the homeless when trying to stay warm?

What’s next? Newspapers make good blankets, so when you’re sleeping on your boxes, cover yourself with newspapers you find in the trash. Is this glass half-empty or half-full?

Source:
“Cardboard Beds to Keep Quake Victims Warm, Comfortable in Winter.” Mainichi Daily News, Oct. 27, 2011.  http://mdn.mainichi.jp/mdnnews/national/news/20111026p2a00m0na020000c.html

by Robert Moorehead

The Arab Spring turns westward to the United States, and now across the Pacific to Japan, as protestors are occupying public spaces to demand a more just distribution of wealth. In the United States, protestors have decried the dramatic concentration of wealth in the top one percent of the country’s population. While the US holds much of the world’s wealth, recent decades have seen this wealth concentrated in the hands of a select few, while much of the country struggles with long-term unemployment, a housing crisis, and growing poverty. While the nation’s political debate has focused on whether millionaires and billionaires should receive new tax breaks, and how large those tax breaks should be, protestors have occupied a park near Wall Street, demanding a new social contract that focuses on the needs of the many, rather than acquiescing to the luxuries of the few. Protests have also spread across the United States, and to Tokyo, where protestors have added demands for a safer energy supply.

Mass media in the United States have largely ignored the protests, despite the arrests of hundreds of demonstrators. However, Twitter, Facebook, and other social networking sites have filled the void. Gil Scott-Heron told us 41 years ago to not sit back and wait for the revolution to come to us via corporate-run mass media. Instead, “the revolution will not be televised.”

“You will not be able to stay home, brother.
You will not be able to plug in, turn on and cop out …
Because the revolution will not be televised.”

But will it be Tweeted? Will it be live-streamed over the Internet? Can social networking sites sidestep the mass media and “televise” the revolution, even if mass media ignore it?

Are you the 99%? Or the 1%?