Charles, Azerbaijan, TV

Charles blogged and commented again. Welcome back!

I had to work today, and at work I met Johnny from Azerbaijan. His real name was (I'm going to butcher the spelling) Jongheera. Johnny came in with his mom Elleta (Ay-yeta), his aunt, and some other unidentified lady. I'm always excited to meet people from other countries, especially "oddball" ones that you don't hear about every day. One thing that struck me though is how they were very proud of their nationality. That's a terrible way to describe what I'm about to say, but I'm tired so deal with it. What I mean is that they were very aware that they were Azerbaijani, even though they have lived here for quite awhile. When I first asked Johnny (the translator, Elleta spoke a very small amount of English) where he was from, he said "the former Soviet Union." After a small conversation, he finally told me Azerbaijan. He had said former Soviet Union because "most Americans don't know Azerbaijan exists." Our conversation was interrupted by business as the women were picking out TVs (that sounded sexist, whatever). One of the main concerns of the women was where the TVs were actually assembled. Just a side note, all TVs are assembled in either Mexico, China, or Taiwan. They were displeased. They wanted a TV assembled in Japan or the US. A lot of people would find that racist, but it didn't bother me. It's not because I think that Mexicans or Chinese or Taiwanese (that's probably not right) are bad workers, but when you have countries with large income disparity you have rich people trying to cut corners to make more money on the backs of the poor workers. Read Upton Sinclair's The Jungle sometime and you'll get the idea. What really struck me about the interaction is that it was the first time that it had happened in awhile. It is not the first time that I've ever been asked where a TV was assembled, but I realized that we are such a consumer culture that we really just don't give a shit. Wherever makes it cheaper, build it there. I think that at least a lot of Americans would be bothered if their TV was built in Iran or North Korea, but we don't even care to ask. Our national pride is undercut by our self-interest (which is quite often the same thing that causes conflict with countries like North Korea, Afghanistan, or Iran; yeah, we did those [I'll elaborate on North Korea in the comments tomorrow]). I'm actually against hardcore hardline nationalism, but I think that a healthy dose would benefit us from time to time.

After that minor anti-capitalist rant, I've really been wrapped up in high def TV lately. My TV has hovered between channels 90 and 115 for over a week now. If you're unfamiliar with high definition channels, here is a quick summary: you have Mojo, which is unbelievably awesome for men, women would probably hate it; you have ESPN and ESPN2; you have 3 channels that have random programming just to show off HD but show quite a few movies; and then you have major networks. Consequently, I've been watching lots of random movies that I would never watch otherwise. I've seen The Guru, which is quite funny and different than really anything that I've seen in a long time. I've seen a movie that I saw a looong time ago that is hilarious called What Planet Are You From? I watched a sad movie in the wee hours of the morning called The Wanderers. It was made in 1979, and it's about the gangs from the late 50s early 60s era. I won't ruin it, but I will just say that it was quite sad.

I'm really just rambling at this point with no conceivable end in sight, so I'll just brick wall it. More tomorrow (later today). (The inner monologue would like to note that it has been overactive lately, and apologizes for all of the parentheticals).