Garfield - Garfield + Garfield

I've linked to Garfield Minus Garfield a couple of times so thought this was interesting:

NEW YORK, NY – July 30, 2008 – Paws, Inc. and Ballantine Books, a division of the Random House Publishing Group, announced last week at Comic-Con International that Ballantine will publish a book inspired by the popular webcomic Garfield Minus Garfield...

The full-color book format will give readers the experience of having both the original and doctored Garfield strips together on the same page for comparison. Dublin, Ireland-based Garfield Minus Garfield creator Dan Walsh will provide the foreword to the book.

Garfield creator Jim Davis was intrigued by—and pleased with—the concept. “I think it’s an inspired thing to do,” Davis said. “I want to thank Dan for enabling me to see another side of Garfield.”

Good for you Jim Davis.  Regardless of what you think about the original Garfield strips you've got to admire a guy who can not only see value in someone taking his original work, manipulating it and creating something else of worth but then going one step farther and endorsing it alongside your own.  Tip of the hat to you sir.

(via)

Waste of Time

If I worked in an office I would explain away this post by yelling "Hump Day!", but I don't, so here you go:  20 Ways to Die Trying to Dunk a Basketball.

Economic Indicators: The Machete Index

More from Bananas, over lunch:

United Front measured its annual prosperity in standard ways:  stems exported, bunches sold, prices on the stock market board.  What might be termed its 'machete index' was more informal though a useful rule of thumb.  In the realm of big knives, United Fruit was the largest machete buyer in the world.  Each of its plantation labourers, mozos, 'peasants,' had to have one purchased from the company store.  United Fruit itself bought them from the Collins Company of Collinsville, Connecticut, the 'world's greatest machete maker.'  English and German models were cheaper but United Fruit was a down-home New England firm.  Collin's three salesmen sweated their way around the region with their heavy samples cases, jumping on and off riverboats and labouring along plantation trails.  In a good year, they sold United Fruit 36,000 machetes.  Yet in 1931 during the Depression, the company bought only 24,000, a reduction in demand of a third.

Not as popular these days as the Big Mac index but much more retro.

Fast Food Moratorium

It will be interesting to see if Los Angeles's moratorium on new fast food restaurants in South L.A. starts a trend similar to that of the trans-fat ban.  

I'm in favor of the intent behind the ban but I'm more inclined to side with the skeptics on what the outcomes will actually be.  The problems seem more systemic than a simple scarcity of healthy restaurants.  If there truly was a market demand for healthier eating options I'm inclined to think that they would be there, what better incentive is there than open your doors and make a lot of money.  This is from my Bananas reading last night:

. . . . Articles appeared in the press saying how consumers preferred it but consumers took what they got.  Long before their time, Keith and Preston had an instinctive grasp of the forces involved.  The world of business and economics believed, and for many years yet would continue to do so, that consumer demand somehow just arose.  But, wrote Samuel Crowther admiringly, looking back nearly twenty years later on these early days of United Fruit in his book The Romance and Rise of the American Tropics, what was being discovered was that 'demand is a thing which must be created.'

Do fast food restaurants force healthier restaurants out or do they emerge once the healthier options leave?  And what is a healthier restaurant?  The ban defines 'fast food restaurant' as follows: 

any establishment which dispenses food for consumption on or off the premises, and which has the following characteristics: a limited menu, items prepared in advance or prepared or heated quickly, no table orders and food served in disposable wrapping or containers.

But an absence of those characteristics and the presence of waiters certainly doesn't mean eating there is going to improve your health.  I'd be more interested in seeing some initiatives that encouraged people to eat at home, that created real incentives for grocery stores that sold "real" food to move back in, that worked with schools, churches and civic organizations to create a demand for healthier life styles.  And I would throw in some community gardens to boot.  

"AIDS in America is a black disease"

More info on the state of AIDS in America.  I posted earlier on how new infections have shifted to the rural south and now this report from the Black AIDS Institute fleshes out more carefully how new infections are affecting the African-American population.  From CNN:

The AIDS epidemic among African-Americans in some parts of the United States is as severe as in parts of Africa, according to a report out Tuesday.

"Left Behind - Black America: A Neglected Priority in the Global AIDS" is intended to raise awareness and remind the public that the "AIDS epidemic is not over in America, especially not in Black America," says the report, published by the Black AIDS Institute, an HIV/AIDS think tank focused exclusively on African-Americans.

"AIDS in America today is a black disease," says Phill Wilson, founder and CEO of the institute and himself HIV-positive for 20 years. "2006 CDC data tell us that about half of the just over 1 million Americans living with HIV or AIDS are black."

Although black people represent only about one in eight Americans, one in every two people living with HIV in the United States is black, the report notes.

. . . . .

According to this report, if black Americans made up their own country, it would rank above Ethiopia (420,000 to 1,300,000) and below Ivory Coast (750,000) in HIV population. Both Ethiopia and the Ivory Coast are among the 15 nations receiving funds from the President's Emergency Plan For Aids Relief. The United States has given about $15 billion to PEPFAR nations in the past five years. 

The Black AIDS Institute says it's not criticizing the federal government for helping poorer countries cope with the AIDS epidemic. Rather, it's saying the "AIDS epidemic [in the U.S.] is not getting the kind attention that it merits."

"We understand the needs of black folk in Johannesburg (South Africa)," Wilson says. "Why can't we understand the needs of them in Jackson, Mississippi? We understand the needs in Nigeria or Botswana, why not understand the needs of Los Angeles or Oakland?"

For some reason I haven't been able to find a copy of the actual report online yet, let me know if you do.

Zimbabwe, the Olympics and Unintended Consequences

Somehow I missed this aspect of the run up to the ongoing talks between Zimbabwe's Morgan Tsvangirai and Mugabe:   

One government insider said: "The signing of the memorandum of understanding between Mugabe and Tsvangirai may appear to be a triumph for South African diplomacy under Mr Mbeki, but the power behind the curtain is China.

"China exerted diplomatic pressure on Harare for the protection of their own interests in this country, given the threat and risks of their economic investments under a new government. This explains the sudden change of heart by Mugabe. This is all choreographed."

The Chinese ambassador to Zimbabwe is understood to have told Zimbabwean foreign affairs officials in Harare that his government expects Mr Mugabe's administration to "behave" and help dampen international outrage over the recent elections.

One diplomatic source said: "Mugabe was told in clear terms by his Chinese friends that he has to behave and act in a way that will silence the international community.

China does not want a situation in which the Olympics will be snubbed.

There has been plenty written on China's involvement in Africa of late so I won't belabor that point but I will point again to this list of Top 10 Misconceptions About Chinese Investment in Africa.  Here is #4:

China will always help African leaders, including those with poor human rights records. China immediately distanced itself when the International Criminal Court indicted Slobodan Milosevic of crimes against humanity despite its previous promises of supporting the Serbian leader at all costs. In Africa, the Chinese government has already broken its promise of non-interference in the cases of Angola and Sudan when it “encouraged” leaders to change their policies with an eye towards fulfilling international trade agreements and ceasing the targeting of civilians. Moreover, China did not use its veto power to stop the ICC from investigating the crimes in Darfur.

Aside: As usual Chris Blattman is asking very smart questions that no one else is asking, this time in regards to the sustainability of hit and run power sharing agreements.