Essay 312

More miserable MultiCultClassics Minutes…

• A University of Chicago study showed Americans are becoming more miserable. The researchers discovered an increase in folks experiencing “negative life events” — like getting fired or divorced. Folks averaged 4.3 negative events in 2004 versus 3.8 in 1991. The research director claimed, “We’re somewhat more troubled.” No shit, Sherlock. Wonder if the sponsors who paid $300,000 for the study are feeling miserable right now.

• Not everyone feels miserable about getting fired. The Mattel executive credited with letting iconic Barbie fall to Bratz dolls is receiving a $5.43 million payoff to take a hike — plus a $1.5 million fee to work as a consultant for two years. He also keeps a number of perks, including limo services and a country club membership. And to further relieve any potential misery, he still owns stock options worth over $30 million.

• Related to the last point, let’s recognize that the Bratz dolls gaining popularity at Barbie’s expense are multicultural and really hip.

• Alabama may demand that drivers speak English. A state judge will soon decide if driver’s license tests should only be given in English (the state currently offers the test in 12 other languages). Although anyone who’s ever visited Alabama will attest that even the citizens who speak English don’t really speak English.

• Don’t tell officials in Alabama, but folks in South Carolina translated the Bible into Gullah — the rich language of slaves who worked for hundreds of years off the Carolina coast. “De Nyew Testament” is the 26-year project of descendants of slaves collaborating with traveling missionaries. The book opens with, “De Lawd me shephud. A hab ebryting wa A need.” Amen.

• Florida recorded a 21.5% increase in hate crimes from 2003 to 2004. Florida enacted hate-crime laws in 1989 following a series of vandalisms at Jewish temples. But even law officials question the effectiveness of the measures. “I don’t think [the laws are] used to prosecute people efficiently enough to change things,” one cop said. “You’re not going to change people from being idiots and bigots. There’s always going to be people who hate because they are different.”

• The retired auto worker who allegedly worked as a Nazi concentration camp guard is closer to being shipped out of the U.S. 85-year-old John Demjanjuk has been fighting the courts for about 30 years. Demjanjuk and his lawyer argue that he might face torture if returned to Ukraine. An official from a Jewish group insisted, “Justice in this case is long delayed…No one should confuse anything happening to John Demjanjuk as anything but justice. It’s not vengeance.”

• About 3,000 Holocaust survivors will get compensation from an Austrian fund — a $210 million fund established in 2001 to compensate folks who lost businesses, property, bank accounts and insurance policies thanks to the Third Reich. An additional 3,000 survivors are expected to receive compensation too. Hey, reparations systems can work after all.

• Austria has spent the last few weeks sanctimoniously blasting native son Arnold Schwarzenegger for his refusal to grant clemency to Stanley Tookie Williams. Now comes news of an Austrian art exhibit featuring images of President Bush and Jacques Chirac engaged in sex acts with Queen Elizabeth II. And the artists responsible enjoyed $1.2 million in government subsidies. The works, which were being broadcast on electronic billboards, have been officially pulled down like Schwarzenegger’s name on a soccer stadium.

• Women and men are now nearly equally using the Web. However, women and men tend to use the Internet differently. Women are into things like email, while men are big on downloading. Most likely, women are on the Web communicating and connecting. And men are collecting porn.