Jim Grisanzio

In the Shadow of Power by Kike Arnal. The images of those in need are striking. Especially given their proximity to some of the most powerful people on the planet. Yet it doesn’t matter. If you don’t have cash you are invisible to power in Washington, DC. I’ve only been to the District of Columbia a few times, but I somehow missed what Arnal very clearly saw. Must have been all that marble and granite. It’s all very … bright. Anyway, here’s a darker bit from the introduction of Arnal’s book:

Washington, District of Columbia, is home to six universities, the Congress, the Supreme Court, the buildings of the executive branch starting with the White House, world-famous museums and theaters, sports arenas, spacious hotels and convention centers, embassies of foreign countries and swank offices filled with an ever-growing number of lobbyists, lawyers, government contractors, consultants and public relations firms. While the city is experiencing widespread gentrification, it maintains its dubious status as having the highest rate of low-income children in the United States (54%), the highest child poverty rate and the highest AIDS mortality rate in the country. The capital’s hospitals, medical schools and clinics have co-existed with the lowest life expectancy of any of the fifty states. Scores of countries have higher life expectancy levels than what prevails in the District of Columbia. – Ralph Nader

For an interesting conversation on the book, see Brian Lamb on C-SPAN talking to Arnal about the images in detail for an hour. Also, see Nader and Arnal discussing the book on Democracy Now. I tripped over this book while watching a recent Nader video where he directly challenges the politicians in Washington. Good clip.

Here are my images last night from Danny Choo’s Tokyo CGM Night at Digital Hollywood Ochanomizu. CGM Night Pool on Flickr | CGM Night tag on this blog

There are two Tokyo Linux User Group events in June — a technical meeting followed by a nomikai on Saturday June 11th, and then a separate nomikai on Friday June 25th. So, if you are into FOSS and want to meet some developers from the international community in Tokyo then come on by.

Rakuten switches to English for their internal corporate meetings. For Japan, this is a rare move. But they want to be a global enterprise and that means doing business operations in English across multiple languages and cultures. And they are hiring more foreigners as well. Again, rare for Japan. I heard about this story at BarCamp Tokyo the other day and to be honest I didn’t believe it. It just didn’t make any sense based on any of my experiences thus far in corporate Tokyo. But I guess it’s true. See The Japan Times and Asiajin. Good deal, Rakuten. Good luck.