Sunday, July 22, 2007

Essay 4210


Inking the news in a MultiCultClassics Monologue..

• A tattoo artist from Long Island, New York (pictured above), is suing Converse for allegedly ripping off his design for a $60 pair of sneakers. “As soon as an artist puts paintbrush to canvas, or in this case, needle to skin, the artwork is fixed in a tangible medium” and deemed protected by copyright, said the artist’s lawyer. Maybe tattoos should include a © within every design.

• Do all Asian American students at UC schools look the same? A group of Pacific Islander and Asian students from UCLA is urging the school to expand its demographic identification system to spotlight low numbers in some of those communities. “Pacific Islanders are just pushed under this umbrella of Asian and are never really seen,” said a Samoan American junior at UCLA. “Our small numbers are never recognized.” The school officials admit there is room for change. “We’re a university, so we always think more information is better,” said the director of policy and external affairs in UC student affairs. “The question is the cost.” In other words, change is cool if it only requires spare change.

• The federal minimum wage will rise from $5.15 per hour to $5.85 this week. Which means Mickey D’s employees will receive and additional 70 cents per hour to provide the same unfriendly and incompetent service.

• India elected its first female president on Saturday, which is extraordinary for a country with widespread and deep-rooted gender discrimination. Until now, it seemed like the only respected females in India were cows. Congratulations to Pratibha Patil—a lawyer, congresswoman and former governor of the northern state of Rajasthan—on her breakthrough victory.

2 comments:

Alan Wolk said...

What, and Indira Gandhi was chopped liver? Pakistan and Bangladesh, which were both part of British India, have also had female leaders. It's just us Americans who have a problem with it.

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