Cross-posted from The Global Sociology Blog.

We all hate Big Pharma, don’t we? We hold pharmaceutical corporations responsible for a lot of ills: the high cost of medications, which drives up the cost of health care, their political influence and their capacity to block meaningful health care reform in the US.

We also blame them for the lack of affordable medications in the countries of the Global South, their resistance to the production of generic medications, through the enforcement of patents, from outside of the Western world. Heck, we even suspect them to use people in the Global South as guinea pigs while developing medications for “interesting” medical conditions such as “restless leg syndrome” in our countries.

We hate them and they know it. As a result, the largest pharmaceutical companies have developed mechanisms to respond concretely to pressures to be more responsive to concerns regarding access to health care and medications in the poorest countries, beyond mere charity. At least, that’s what they tell us. Can we trust them?

We don’t have to because there is a group doing the checking for us: Access to Medicine is a Dutch NGO that developed an index that measures how strongly pharmaceutical companies make an effort to provide access to health care in poor countries. The index has 8 criteria with sub-categories, each weighted differently, by importance:

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You know it’s serious when they start banging on the kitchen pots. It’s the most unique of Latin American protest traditions, now dating back forty years. And the ¡cacerolazo! or pot banging was back on the streets of Argentina in nationwide protests against the government of the embattled President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner.

For her part, President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner is attempting to defuse the crisis that has lingered since March when her government slapped hefty export taxes on soybeans and other agricultural products. Those export taxes have led to a revolt by Argentina’s vast rural sector that has spread to other sectors of the Argentine economy. From the New York Times:

Argentina’s president, Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, sought on Tuesday to cool mounting criticism over her economic policies, saying she would ask the Argentine Congress to legitimize the export taxes that have prompted three months of revolt by farmers.

Members of her Peronist party control both houses of Congress, but her call for legislators to weigh in on the taxes was seen as a concession.

In a televised speech, however, Mrs. Kirchner also called for her supporters to rally on Wednesday. Coming a day after thousands of antigovernment protesters took to the streets across Argentina, that call was criticized by some in her party as likely to worsen tensions.

Argentina has been embroiled in political conflict since March, when taxes went up on farm exports, infuriating farmers, who saw their profits declining despite soaring prices for grain worldwide. They mounted a series of strikes that blocked major roads on which corn, wheat and soybeans are trucked to other South American countries. Neither side has backed down, and the conflict has become an entrenched political battle.

This is the last thing that Argentina and the global food markets need. Mrs. Kitchner should roll back the taxes.

I have seen political protests the world over and they are at their most festive in Argentina. They are serious in greivances but they also know how to have fun at least until the rock throwing starts.

From Argentine Television

An earlier post from 25 May 2008: Cristina Fernández de Kirchner Has A Problem.

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The Boston Celtics laid claim to their 17th NBA championship tonight by dismantling the Lakers, 131-92.

They won the best-of-seven series, 4-2. Congratulations to the Celtics and their fans.

Not a bad year if you’re Boston sports fans: the Red Sox and the Celtics win titles and the Patriots make the Super Bowl. What’s up with the Bruins?

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Some political humour:

Have you been swept up by Obamamania, or do you think he’s a false prophet? Perhaps you’re still struggling to make up your mind. Take this quiz and we’ll gauge your level of support for the Democratic presidential frontrunner.

Take the Obama Loyalty Quiz.

Here’s my score:

Your score is 2 on a scale of 1 to 10. You’d never vote for Barack Obama. You think he’s an inexperienced, incompetent neophyte who’s never accomplished anything notable — with the possible exception of making a celebrity out of his nutty, America-bashing pastor, Jeremiah Wright. He has made you want to bitterly cling to your guns and/or religion, praying he doesn’t become president, but preparing for the worst.

Frankly, I’m disappointed. I thought I would have scored lower.

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Source: Energy Bulletin.

Via the Miami Herald from São Paulo’s Estado do São Paulo:

U.S. presidential hopeful Sen. John McCain supports ending subsidies for U.S. ethanol production and would back Brazil’s inclusion on an expanded United Nations Security Council, a Brazilian newspaper reported Sunday.

In comments published by the Estado de Sao Paulo newspaper, McCain also said he would support Brazil’s addition to the Group of Eight industrialized nations and lauded the nation’s drive to find clean energy sources.

The United States has ”committed a series of errors in not adopting a sustainable energy policy,” McCain was quoted as saying. “One of those is the subsidies for ethanol from corn.”

McCain blamed the price supports for ”destroying the market” and “causing a serious problem with inflation.”

The Republican also blasted U.S. tariffs on Brazilian ethanol imports, saying that the Brazilian product made from sugar cane “is much more efficient than ethanol from corn.”

Critics of the U.S. subsidies say spurring the planting of corn for use in ethanol has added to a sharp spike in global food prices.

First of all, it’s refreshing to hear a US Presidential candidate actually talk about Latin American policy. Senator Obama can’t seem to broach a subject beyond Cuba and Chávez. But moreover, Senator McCain is right on both counts. Brazil is Latin America’s largest market, the world’s fifth-most populous country and the world’s tenth-largest economy. GDP growth will be sufficient to allow real incomes to rise this year, albeit at a more moderate pace than in 2005-07. GDP in 2008 will slow slightly below the 4.4% pace of the past few years. Development remains uneven no doubt but there is also no question that Brazil is seeing its middle class expand rapidly.

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Cross-posted from The Global Sociology Blog.

Via Context Crawler, Mary McNamara of the LA Times reviews Anthony Elliott’ s book, Making the Cut: How Cosmetic Surgery is Transforming our Lives. The book will be out in June. Elliott is Professor of Sociology at Flinders University in Australia. McNamara characterizes the book as such:

“If you think the plastic-surgery boom is just another sign that our culture is shallow, death-denying and youth-obsessed, think again. Because according to sociologist Anthony Elliott, a “mommy job” is not just shorthand for the breast augmentation/tummy tuck many women choose to have after giving birth, it’s a toxic side effect of globalization, rampant consumerism, the electronic economy and, perhaps, a worldwide epidemic of good old melancholia. His [Elliott's] purpose, and really at times it feels more like a quest, is to examine how cosmetic surgery is at once a driving force and a result of the new, international, techno-speedy, obsolescence-included economy — an almost perfect model of how capitalism not only meets consumer needs but creates them as well.”

Seems interesting. Of course, references to obsolescence economy will remind a lot of people of this fun little film called the Story of Stuff. In the film, Annie Leonard also discusses obsolescence as part of the economy. She distinguishes between “planned obsolescence” (how long is the stuff you buy supposed to work before it breaks down… and yes, production of stuff involves planning for breakdown and replacement) and “perceived obsolescence”, which relates to how advertising and marketing are conceived to make us perceive that what we use, wear, etc. is obsolete even though it works perfectly well. You do need a new flat panel monitor for your desktop or that great new super slim Mac laptop, don’t you?

Well, why not extend that reasoning to our bodies? They sure have planned obsolescence… that’s called aging. But there is also perceived obsolescence and this is where plastic surgery comes in. We can’t really fight planned obsolescence (well, not now, maybe, in the future, you know, Glenn Reynolds’ stuff… Hey I read a lot of scifi, bite me!).

But we can fight perceived obsolescence by getting under the knives, because, according to Elliott, one of the main values we have embraced in the West, but especially in the United States, is that of continuous reinvention. We have seen it in corporate management (“Who moved my cheese?”, “Good to great”? No link for that stuff though), and academic settings (continuous improvement!! Yay! through standardized testing… oh !@#$). As McNamara puts it,

“Elliott argues that people, at least the old definition of people, i.e. creatures whose bodies go through a predictable set of changes called “aging,” are increasingly perceived as not only a drag on the new capitalism, with its enjoyment of downsizing and corporate shake-ups (the former CEO with the bags under his eyes is probably tired, the woman with the pooching belly might have children who require her at home some of the time), but also a sign of woefully limited imagination.

Why be reactive when you can be proactive?

Elliott seems particularly disturbed by the young people who seem to view cosmetic surgery as an accessory, something to be purchased, used for a season and upgraded (the pages about surgical tourism are particularly hilarious, in a horrifying way).

“For better or worse,” Elliott writes, “globalization has given rise to the 24/7 society, in which continual self-actualization and dramatic self-reinvention have become all the rage.”"

That was an interesting review so far (most of the points above are mine though), but then, after that, McNamara shows how journalists can be intellectually lazy and annoying. The rest of the review is McNamara whining that the book is to hard to read! There are big words and some theory stuff, man. That stuff is hard… it’s a book about cosmetic surgery! It should be easy to read, kinda like these magazines you read in your doctor’s waiting room!

Pierre Bourdieu used to say that complex ideas have to be explained in their complexity and not watered / dumbed down. So, yes, Elliott is a sociologist, so, it’s very likely that there are formulations that are at a level of writing above People magazine. Tough luck, McNamara, didn’t they teach you some high level reading comprehension at the college where you got your journalism degree?

Good grief, and these are the people we rely on to inform us on all sorts of complex matters. No wonder they much prefer horse-race coverage for elections and “human interest” stories.

Anyway, I’ve ordered the book and will review it when I get it… that is, if it’s not too hard to read… geebus.

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Sacha Millstone is someone who lives her values. She is also a Clinton delegate from Colorado who plans to vote for Senator Hillary Clinton at the Democratic Convention in Denver and then quit the Democratic Party. Worried yet there Howard?

From the Denver Post:

Sacha Millstone is nobody’s sweetie.

The Democratic insider will stand up at August’s national convention and cast her vote for the candidate who suspended her bid on Saturday. And then Millstone will quit the party with which she is falling bitterly out of line.

“This isn’t sour grapes. This is about the best candidate losing the nomination because she’s a woman. It’s the most blatant example of sexism in our society. This is about the party breaking my trust, women’s trust. And that can’t be fixed,” she says.

Millstone hails the day in 2007 when Hillary Clinton announced she was smart enough, qualified enough and tough enough to be president.

“I had never heard those words come out of a woman’s mouth and neither had anyone else,” says the 49-year-old Boulder investment adviser who has spent 16 months volunteering on Clinton’s national finance committee.

She pounded the pavement for 20 days in Iowa. And she has raised more than $300,000 for the campaign.

The shattering of Millstone’s party loyalty came with what she deemed an all-out assault on Clinton “because she’s a woman.”

She winced when one biographer referred to Clinton’s “thick ankles.” She grumbled when NPR’s political analyst likened the senator to the scorned stalker in “Fatal Attraction.” And she grew incensed when talking-head Tucker Carlson said the mere sight of Clinton makes him “involuntarily cross my legs.”

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It is about time! As a long-suffering New York Mets fan, I am today relieved that the New York Mets organization relieved Willie Randolph of the manager’s duties. Jerry Manuel, a bench coach, takes over.

From the New York Times:

Manuel, a thinking man’s manager if there ever was one, may now have far less time to pursue one of his favorite pastimes. In replacing Willie Randoph as the Mets’ manager, Manuel is being promoted from bench coach and being counted on to revive a team that has sputtered to a 34-35 record, good for no more than third place in the National League East. The appointment will be on an interim basis — the Mets will conduct a full-scale managerial search following the season — but Manuel, who managed the Chicago White Sox from 1998 to 2003, will treat the next 93 games as if he plans to be around next year.

More on Jerry Manuel from the New York Times

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PUMA is an umbrella organization that has but one objective: preventing the election of Barack Obama to the Presidency. Among us there are different ways to achieve that goal. Some will vote for John McCain, others will turn to a third party and others not vote at all. However we get there, we will aim to ensure that Obama does not become the 44th President of the United States.

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Via Seattle’s The Stranger:

In Washington State, Clinton’s 28 pledged delegates to the Democratic National Convention in Denver are, according to one of the group’s leaders, still waiting for a clearer sign from on high. Absent some further instructions from Clinton, these delegates all plan to vote for her, not Obama, at the convention in late August.

“We’re waiting for our cues from her,” Paul Berendt, the former state Democratic Party chair and current leader of the Clinton pledged delegate group, told me.

What’s going on here? In part, it seems to be a tactical maneuver, an attempt by a group of dedicated Clinton delegates to withhold their convention votes from Obama, for now, in an effort to pressure Obama into picking Clinton as his vice presidential nominee. “We’re hardcore in our belief that Hillary should be on the ticket as the vice president,” Berendt told me. Another member of the group, Linda Mitchell, head of the National Women’s Political Caucus of Washington, said: “I need to wait and see what happens. Is Hillary the vice president?”

Another part of this, however, is lingering resentment among the Clinton delegates over what they feel was gross mistreatment of their candidate by the media and a lack of work by other Democrats to soothe their hurt feelings. Mitchell complained that the Clinton supporters felt “disrespected” and “invisible” at the Democrats’ state convention in Spokane the weekend of June 14. And Berendt told me, “Hillary Clinton was here and she stood for something… For people who are committed to her for reasons that were important, they don’t feel that’s been acknowledged. When that happens, I think you’ll see a beautiful renaissance of support in the Democratic Party for Barack Obama.”

Having Hillary Clinton as the Vice Presidential nominee will not bring me back to the fold. The issue is Obama. He’s unqualified to be President, simply put. No deal, sorry.

Dwight Pelz, the chair of the Washington State Democrats and an Obama-backing superdelegate, told me that he thinks the maneuvering of these Washington State Clinton delegates—who represent only about one-fourth of Washington’s 97 Democratic delegates—is “sound and fury which signifieth little.”

Apparently Dwight Pelz has never heard a PUMA roar. Frankly, our bite is worse than our roar.

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