by Ashvin Pandurangi

Ashvin Pandurangi is a law student at George Mason University

“All things are subject to interpretation; whichever interpretation prevails at a given time is a function of power and not truth.” –Friedrich Nietzsche

I'd like to take this opportunity to comment on an oldie but a goodie from the Indian environmentalist, Vandan Shiva.

In her brief article for Odewire, "Two myths that keep the world poor", Shiva tears apart the logic of Harvard economist and neoliberal (-feudal), economic "shock therapy" advocate Jeffrey Sachs with all the force one would expect from the God of destruction.

It was in response to a book written by Sachs called The End of Poverty: Economic Possibilities of Our Time, which featured all the nonsensical arguments that “liberal progressives” like to spout off in magazines and on television these days.

They proffer the same kind of fundamental myth that Nietzsche identified crawling through the bowels of modern religions such as Christianity – if one toils hard enough on Earth, and accepts one’s designated roles in society, he/she will be rewarded in Heaven.

If that is God’s [Blankfein’s] given truth, then there is no need to radically alter the system or fight for justice/equality, right? Shiva first explains why global poverty is not a function of people being "left behind", as if they had been ten minutes late to the train station, but rather of people being held up for nearly all their wealth/resources at gunpoint.

Two myths that keep the world poor

But, there is a problem with Sachs’ how-to-end poverty prescriptions. He simply doesn’t understand where poverty comes from. He seems to view it as the original sin. “A few generations ago, almost everybody was poor,” he writes, then adding: “The Industrial Revolution led to new riches, but much of the world was left far behind.”

This is a totally false history of poverty. The poor are not those who have been “left behind”; they are the ones who have been robbed. The wealth accumulated by Europe and North America are largely based on riches taken from Asia, Africa and Latin America. Without the destruction of India’s rich textile industry, without the takeover of the spice trade, without the genocide of the native American tribes, without African slavery, the Industrial Revolution would not have resulted in new riches for Europe or North America. It was this violent takeover of Third World resources and markets that created wealth in the North and poverty in the South.

 

The Automatic Earth

 

Shiva introduces the inconvenient history that people like Sachs continue to ignore to this very day, as they demonize the millions of new people slipping into poverty every week and accuse them of not being productive, creative, innovative, responsible or hard-working enough. And perhaps there are elements of truth to it, but it is far from the whole story. That is exactly the dynamic we now see occurring between the EU politicians/bureaucrats, their media spin machines and the peripheral populations.

The Greeks are lazy, unproductive welfare queens, and they must be taught by Germany and their other Western neighbors how to start growing their economy again through a complete gutting of public safety nets, pensions and wage protections. This mentality is at the root of every policy being recommended and pursued by the EU, ECB and IMF. It is the reason why they not only have zero chance of working, but will inevitably make the situation worse for most people involved.

It is not a mentality that is just confined to the elite circles of academics and policymakers, though. Just tell the next person you meet that “economic growth” is not necessarily a solution to our systemic crises (assuming they are even aware of those), and is actually the problem in many ways, and see what kind of reaction you get. Shiva goes on to explain how this deeply-rooted mentality is based on two fundamental myths relating to "growth".

First, the destruction of nature and of people’s ability to look after themselves are blamed not on industrial growth and economic colonialism, but on poor people themselves. Poverty, it is stated, causes environmental destruction.

The disease is then offered as a cure: further economic growth is supposed to solve the very problems of poverty and ecological decline that it gave rise to in the first place. This is the message at the heart of Sachs’ analysis.

The second myth is an assumption that if you consume what you produce, you do not really produce, at least not economically speaking. If I grow my own food, and do not sell it, then it doesn’t contribute to GDP, and therefore does not contribute towards “growth”.

People are perceived as “poor” if they eat food they have grown rather than commercially distributed junk foods sold by global agri-business. They are seen as poor if they live in self-built housing made from ecologically well-adapted materials like bamboo and mud rather than in cinder block or cement houses. They are seen as poor if they wear garments manufactured from handmade natural fibres rather than synthetics.

Yet sustenance living, which the wealthy West perceives as poverty, does not necessarily mean a low quality of life. On the contrary, by their very nature economies based on sustenance ensure a high quality of life—when measured in terms of access to good food and water, opportunities for sustainable livelihoods, robust social and cultural identity, and a sense of meaning in people’s lives. Because these poor don’t share in the perceived benefits of economic growth, however, they are portrayed as those “left behind”.

Indeed, the disease is continuously being offered as the cure right now. On the surface and in the spin rooms, they call it more "growth", more credit availability, more "innovation", etc., but, make no mistake, it is really more wealth extraction, more monopolization/centralization of industry and resources, more unproductive debt burdens, more environmental destruction, more slavery and more genocide. Only those with narrow, goal-seeked or malicious perspectives will fail to see how all of those things are extremely inter-connected.

The "war on poverty", like the "war on drugs" or the "war on terror", is simply another means of keeping people in an habitual system of poverty, disease and war through perception management (propaganda), skewed incentives, economic/physical coercion and structures of inter-dependency. In fact, it has helped ruin the one thing that "poor people" have used to find peace within their materially modest and increasingly uncertain lives – traditional customs/lifestyles structured around a rich natural ecology and environment.

On the other hand, people are poor if they have to purchase their basic needs at high prices no matter how much income they make. Take the case of India. Because of cheap food and fibre being dumped by developed nations and lessened trade protections enacted by the government, farm prices in India are tumbling, which means that the country’s peasants are losing $26 billion U.S. each year.

Unable to survive under these new economic conditions, many peasants are now poverty-stricken and thousands commit suicide each year. Elsewhere in the world, drinking water is privatised so that corporations can now profit to the tune of $1 trillion U.S. a year by selling an essential resource to the poor that was once free.

And the $50 billion U.S. of “aid” trickling North to South is but a tenth of the $500 billion being sucked in the other direction due to interest payments and other unjust mechanisms in the global economy imposed by the World Bank and the IMF.

If we are serious about ending poverty, we have to be serious about ending the systems that create poverty by robbing the poor of their common wealth, livelihoods and incomes. Before we can make poverty history, we need to get the history of poverty right. It’s not about how much wealthy nations can give, so much as how much less they can take.

Privatization and centralization of wealth/resources through all mechanisms available, ranging from "free trade" negotiations to fraud/manipulation, incarceration and military hostility, have been and continue to be the global imperatives of the status quo bankers, politicians, corporate executives, academics and pundits. What’s most frustrating is the way these people act like they are simply trying to help lift world’s populations into some poverty-less utopia through the application of a well-established and legitimate science. That is the quintessence of power shaping prevailing interpretation, because nothing could be further from the truth.

The rhetoric from "respected economists" like Jeffrey Sachs has only escalated since Shiva wrote this article in 2007 and the onset of the global financial crisis, despite the latter being a direct and patently obvious effect of their mentality and their shocking policies. Whether we are talking about the governments of Obama, Cameron, Sarkozy, Merkel, etc., it doesn’t matter. They all fall under the spell of this false science and dangerous mentality in very important ways.

At this point in time, we can only hope that their myths and corresponding policies destroy themselves faster than they can impoverish and subjugate increasing portions of the global population to concentrated, private interests. And before they can take Planet Earth and officially decree it as the filthy landfill of our Solar System. Nietzsche may or may not have been right about Christianity, but his diagnosis was spot on for our modern mythical cults of trade/financial liberalization and never-ending economic growth.

Quotations from The Antichrist

Christianity "...turned every value into an disvalue, every truth into a lie... it created distress in order to eternalize itself."It has "...contempt for every good and honest instinct... and its Beyond is its will to negate every reality..." Nietzsche believed that Christianity is a conspiracy "...against health, beauty, whatever has turned out well, courage, intellect, goodness of the soul, against life itself.

I finished . I looked up at my friend sitting across from me. I was in school. It was 1st grade and I had just finished writing a story in my small, blue and white notebook. Back then, I had an affinity for writing short stories where animals could talk, and most of them died in every story, much like Kenny in Southpark.

Since writing those short stories, I’ve always loved writing.

It wasn’t until 2007 that I wanted to start making a living with my words, specifically through websites. It took me a few years to get the hang of it all, but it finally clicked. All it took was the willingness to keep moving forward, and have faith in the fact that I would learn what I needed to learn.

There are still many out there that want to try, but just don’t know how, or maybe you write fine, but would like to get even better, and even faster. That’s what this article will do, if you apply what you learn. Consider these:

1. Outline
   It’s easy to get lost in your writing. In order to maintain focus, I always try to outline my articles. Sometimes I outline in more detail, and sometimes I just jot down a few sub-headings that will guide me through it all.

   Once in a blue moon, I may write without having an outline, but that’s for shorter articles. I live and die by the outline, and it works beautifully for me.

Freewrite
Once you’ve got your outline in place, throw the editors hat on the shelf and just start writing. Don’t censor yourself; let it all come out. It doesn’t matter if what comes out is rubbish. Write, and write some more until you have more than you need.

Don’t worry about spelling, grammar, or flow.

Rewrite
Once you’ve got your lump of text in front of you, it’s time to rewrite what you’ve got. Now you take off your creative writing hat, and grab your editor’s hat. Rewrite your article once as best as you can, then sleep on it, and come back in 24 hours. This simple rule works wonders.

Observe
Now, for the insightful part; observe what you think about and what happens during the day. There are a lot of things that happen to you that you take for granted. Many of those things are nuggets of gold for your readers, because not everyone is you.

You may have the solution to a pesky problem many have, but it’s second nature to you that you don’t even think about it.

Read Books
I love reading books. Books are a great place for inspiration and new ideas. You see, books are carefully researched and written, which means you can borrow a lot of ideas, and you can improve your writing by leaps and bounds if you pay attention.

Kill Your Comfort Zone
We all want to be comfortable, safe, and secure, but the truth of the matter is that the more we go out of our comfort zone, the more ideas we have. The more you break through your fear, the more inspiring and interesting you become.

Break your patterns, do something new, and inspiration will hit you like a brick wall. You can’t miss it.

Be You
Last, but definitely not least, give yourself permission to be you, with quirks and all. The more you try to hold back, the harder it is to write, because you’re trying to be someone you’re not.

Think of it like this: the more you can be you, the more of the people you really want to hang out with you will attract.

What’s your take on this? Do you have any secrets to share on how to write faster, better, and more insightful articles?

Written on 1/30/2011 by Henri Junttila. Henri writes at Wake Up Cloud, where he shares his personal tips on how you can live the life you know you deserve. When you feel ready to take action, get his free course: Find Your Passion in 5 Days or Less. And if you liked this article, you will enjoy one of his top articles: 77 Great Quotes That Will Change Your Life.

Photo Credit: Ed Yourdon

To Speed Up The Creative Process, Slow Down

By Sam McNerney | Feb 14, 20120 comments -->

Synopsis

What's the key to creativity and problem solving? Relax.

It was Sunday in church, 1973, when Arthur Fry had his moment of insight. Fry, a member of the choir, was having trouble marking pages for the hymnals. Whenever he opened the book his makeshift bookmarks fell out or got caught in the seams. The problem was innocent enough, yet it persisted. What Fry really needed was an adhesive strong enough so his bookmarks stuck to the pages but weak enough so he wouldn’t damage the pages when he removed the bookmarks.

He recalled a seminar given by his colleague, Spencer Silver, a few years ago. Silver described a new adhesive he discovered during his talk and Fry had been wondering how it could be applied ever since. That’s when the answer came to him: why not use Silver’s adhesive for the bookmark?

He called his idea the Post-It note.

Fry, of course, isn’t the only person to experience a moment of insight. Henrí Poincaré is famous for thinking up Non-Euclidean geometry while boarding a bus. “At the moment when I put my foot on the step the idea came to me, without anything in my former thoughts seeming to have paved the way for it.... I did not verify the idea; I should not have had the time, as, upon taking my seat in the omnibus, I went on with the conversation already commenced, but I felt a perfect certainty.” Einstein, moreover, is known to have thought up Special Relativity after glimpsing at Bern's famous clock tower.

When we think about eureka moments Rodin’s The Thinker comes to mind, maybe Newton’s famous apple inspired insight (as the story goes). We associate insights with deep concentration and contemplation. But surprising new research is demonstrating another side to the story. This is what Fry’s story tells us, that breakthroughs occur when we are relaxed, when the mind is not focused but at ease. An insight obviously requires a lot hard work; it is often the peak of years of work. But on the way to discovery it’s important to let the mind wonder.

A recent experiment by Mareike Wieth and Rose Zacks demonstrated this nicely. They recruited 428 undergrads that identified themselves as either night owls or morning larks. Next Wieth and Zacks asked them to attempt 6 problem-solving tasks; half the problems were insights-based while the other half was analytical-based and they were given four minutes to solve them.

Here’s where things got interesting. Half of the students were tested between 8:30am and 9:30am while the other half were tested between 4 and 5:30pm. The researchers found that the undergrads were better at solving the insight problems when they tested during their least optimal time of function. This means that owls did better in the morning while larks did better in the afternoon. The BPS Research Digest explains the details:

When larks were tested in the evening and owls were tested in the morning, they achieved an average success rate of 56, 22 and 49 per cent, for the three insight tasks, compared with success rates of 51, 16, and 31 per cent achieved by students tested at their preferred time of day. By contrast, performance on the analytic tasks was unaffected by time of day.

Their findings are counter-intuitive but consistent with other recent research. Mark Jung-Beeman is a psychologist from the University of Northwestern who studies what happens in the brains when it has a moment of insight. A few years ago he teamed with John Kounios to try to understand the neuroscience behind problem solving. To do this they used EEG and fMRI to measure subjects while they completed Compound Remote Associate Problems (C.R.A.P problems, as the joke goes). Here' an example: What word fits with “pine,” crab,” and “sauce?” The correct answer is “apple” (pineapple, crabapple, and applesauce).

They found that participants went through several phases as they tackled the problems. First was the preparatory phase where the prefrontal cortex was hot with activity. Next was the search phase where many parts of the brain were active. After that subjects either gave up or solved the problems. Jung-Beeman and Kounis found that the successful ones showed a bust in gamma rhythm, which is generated when neurons bind to each other. They also found a spike of activity in the anterior superior temporal gyrus (aSTG) moments before the insight. The aSTG is a fairly mysterious brain region but it is has been linked to the processing of metaphors. This makes some sense. C.R.A.P problems are, after all, about linking seemingly unrelated ideas.

What does this mean? One New Yorker article explains that, “the insight process… is a delicate mental balancing act. At first, the brain lavishes the scarce resource of attention on a single problem. But, once the brain is sufficiently focused, the cortex needs to relax in order to seek out the more remote association in the right hemisphere, which will provide the insight.”

Research by Joy Bhattacharya of University London, Goldsmith confirmed this. Bhattacharya found that EEG data accurately predicted if a subject was going to solve a problem up to eight second in advance. What tipped the subjects off were alpha waves, which are electrical neural oscillations that appear when we are relaxed. They show up when you are about to fall asleep, when you’re getting out of bed, and when you’re taking a warm shower. "Sleeping on it" turns out to have some neurological merit.

The British Comedian John Cleese also confirms this research with an enlightening talk about his early day at Cambridge:

If I was trying to write a sketch at night and I got stuck… I would go to bed. And when I woke up in the morning and made myself a cup of coffee and went back to my desk and looked at the problem not only was the solution to this problem immediately apparent to me, but I couldn’t even remember what the problem had been the previous night.

In a Red-Bull driven society it’s believed that intense focus, determination and willingness to never give up are vital, but Cleese and this informing research remind us that a clenched state of mind is sometimes counter-productive. Indeed, caffeine might be our best friend when it comes to solving problems, but certainly not always.

The important role relaxation plays in problem solving, insights, aha-moments and the so-called creative process is receiving a lot of attention. In a recent article on Time.com the science writer Annie Murphy Paul described the study by Wieth and Zacks and reminded readers that, “by not giving yourself time to tune in to your meandering mind, you’re missing out on the surprising solutions it may offer.” Similarly, “when you have to be creative,” says University of Chicago psychologist Sian Beilock on PsychologyToday.com, “working at your non-optimal time of day is actually optimal.” (There is even new research suggesting that being sleepy and drunk is good for creativity!)

To be sure, empirical results from the science of insights are confirming, not discovering, what many have known for centuries. The Austrian born physicist Fritjof Capra has a wonderful quote that captures this point. In his book The Tao Of Physics he explains the following:

Rational knowledge and rational activities certainly constitute the major part of scientific research, but are not all there is to it.  The rational part of research would, in fact, be useless if it were not complemented by the intuition that gives scientists new insights and makes them creative.   These insights tend to come suddenly and, characteristically, not when sitting at a desk working out the equations, but when relaxing, in the bath, during a walk in the woods, on the beach, etc.  During these periods of relaxation after concentrated intellectual activity, the intuitive mind seems to take over and can produce the sudden clarifying insights which give so much joy and delight to scientific research.

So it was with Fry, who, on the fateful Sunday morning, was innocuously singing hymnals when he had his insight. He wasn’t thinking about Silver’s research; he probably wasn’t thinking about much at all. But that was the important part. It was the calming presences of his fellow choir members, the congregation and warming resonance of the hymns that allowed his neurons to relax and form brand new synapses. And with his new neural network he left church to change the world, one Post-It note at a time.

Tags: arthur fry, creativity, john cleese, larks, mark jung-beeman, post-it note, remote associates, spencer silver

Recommended for you

February 20, 2012 Creative Explosions, or Loïe in the Laboratory

February 19, 2012 Allow Your Ideas to Have Sex with Other Ideas to Create New Ideas

February 18, 2012 Solitary Writers Are More Collaborative Than You Think

February 18, 2012 Thinkering

Please enable JavaScript to view the comments powered by Disqus. blog comments powered by Disqus

Op-Ed: Accepting Less to Have More

by James Victore

Artwork by James Victore

We live a screen-dominated life. We work in front of screens, we're entertained by screens, there are screens in elevators and schools, and we carry screens in our pocket for the times between other screens. We are constantly and conveniently entertained, updated, and connected. Screens have become our closest companion, our friend, and our babysitter.

The problem is that these new media have made it easier for us to get sidetracked and distracted from the meaningful experiences of our lives. They become addictive and compulsive, and are, as embarrassing as it is to say, designed to be so. Pavlov-like, we check and recheck emails, keep up our online status and waste time with Solitaire and Angry Birds.

Heck, as I write this the cute couple at the next table are paying more attention to their phones than to each other. Do we really need to text while walking? Can you walk your dog and not bring your phone? We have become so obsessed with our tools that we feel lost without them.

These new media have made it easier for us to get sidetracked and distracted from the meaningful experiences of our lives.

There is no longer a time and a place for a phone call. The emails, chats, texts, games, pads, pods, and clouds have become a leash jerking us out of our quiet time. They demand our attention, but limit our focus, leaving us no time for reflection, contemplation, study, or the solitude necessary for deep thought and not just a temporary and shallow retreat.

Our brains are being rewired. There is no longer a difference between "urgent" and "important."  We're learning new habits and sadly forgetting the instincts we were born with. We hand off our iPhones to toddlers, so that we are relieved from the duty of parenting. Thus our kids never learn to handle boredom. We are led off the path and, worse, we gladly pay monthly for this servitude.

Don't get me wrong, I love the tools. Hurrah for the Future! Going backwards is not the answer. The answer is being conscious of the time spent on screens versus the time spent on ourselves. Can you create more time in your life? Time to plan and organize your life? Can you make more time to give to others? The answers are discipline, etiquette, and understanding the importance of time in our lives.

Every time I return from vacation I have to ask myself, "Do I work to live or live to work?" Why work? Do we work to make money or to have a life? Or, even better, to make a difference? Are you doing what you love? And why not? For the pursuit of money? Or too busy keeping up with the mortgage or 401K so that you may achieve happiness at some later date? Does your job define who you are, or limit who you are?

The answer is being conscious of the time spent on screens versus the time spent on ourselves.

Financial security is not guaranteed to anyone and real prosperity should be living easily and happily, whether you have dough or not. Beyond being able to provide for your own needs, anything else should be given away freely -- it will come back to you ten fold. Give back. Share or donate your things, your time, your energies. If you want wealth in your life, help others achieve it in theirs. I know this level of self-knowledge takes work to achieve. Most of us are too busy or too distracted to do the work.

Me? My own attempts to have more life in my life are simple. I keep a small, comfortable home. I have always had a live/work studio with low overhead that gives me flexibility to work on projects that I choose and allows access to my family and time off when I need it. My daily schedule allows time for the things I know that I need in my life like study and reflection and exercise. I try to work on projects I find meaningful and make things people won't throw away. The money is rarely enough, but whose is?

There is a lovely idea attributed to Aboriginal society that says, "The more you know, the less you need." Accepting less means less clutter and meaningless stuff in our lives. Less distractions, less debt, less greed and craving, less servitude to work.

Never settle. Never give in. But accept less.

--
This opinion piece comes from artist/designer James Victore, who has been ignoring the status quo and lighting fires under asses for 20+ years. You can learn more about him in this 99% interview, and follow him @jamesvictore.

 Le musée des arts et civilisations consacre une belle exposition aux armures des Samouraïs, ces guerriers qui tenaient une grande place dans la société japonaise avant l'ère Meiji.

Okegawado tosei gusoku. Armure datant de la fin de l'époque Mamoyama, fin 16e siècle. Ce type d'ornement était sans doute porté pendant les parades militaires.

C’est comme une révélation, un éblouissement qui saisit le visiteur en découvrant ces fiers guerriers juchés sur leurs chevaux. Est-ce cette toile sombre qui flotte derrière eux, ce halo de lumière qui leur confère cet air hiératique ? Ou peut-être ce rire sardonique gravé sur leurs masques ; ces cornes, ces plumes ou ces bois de cerf plantés dans leurs casques ; ces moustaches broussailleuses qui nous rappellent des hommes sous leurs armures ? Là, dressés sur un piédestal, ils paraissent vouloir sortir du cadre, rejouer leurs batailles d’antan pour foncer droit sur nous.

Aïkuchi (en haut). Poignard datant de l'époque Momoyama (1573-1603). Fer, or, laque, bois corne, bronze. Wakizashi (sabre). Fin de l'époque Muromachi, 16 e siècle. Acier, laque, shakudo, bois.

La galerie est du musée du quai Branly accueille jusqu’au 29 janvier 2012 les Samouraïs, ces maîtres de guerres japonais autour desquels gravite une mythologie qui semble inépuisable. Pour le plus grand plaisir des amateurs d’art nippon, Ann et Gabriel Barbier-Mueller ont réuni une collection exceptionnelle d’armures, de carapaçons ou encore de casques. Pas moins de 140 pièces sont présentées au public pour reconstituer une part du Japon ancien (avant l’ère Meiji) et montrer la place déterminante qu’y occupa le guerrier samouraï pendant près de neuf siècles.

Menpo (demi-masque) avec estompage en forme de pinces de crabe. Milieu de l'époque Edo, 18e siècle. Fer patiné, fourrure.

Les Samouraïs appartenaient à l’intelligentsia Japonaise, ce que montre relativement peu l’exposition. Car si ces guerriers de renom étaient passés maîtres dans l’art du combat (aussi bien avec des armes qu’à mains nues), ce furent aussi des artistes dans l’acception pleine du terme, s’adonnant à la littérature, à la poésie ou à la calligraphie.

Ce qui frappe au premier coup d’œil, c’est la beauté des accessoires exposés et l’on se demande bien quelle signification donner aux enduits sur les casques, aux différents cimiers inspirés de la mer ou de la nature. Plusieurs explications à cela. Au-delà de l’aspect purement esthétique, ces ornements signalaient le statut du guerrier et son degré d’implication au combat. Ces artifices permettaient aussi d’obtenir l’ascendant psychologique pour effrayer l’adversaire.

Kabuto (casque) et menpo (demi-masque). Première moitié de l'époque Edo. 17e-18e s. Fer patiné, or, laque, cuir, bois, fourrure.

Le musée du quai Branly a choisi de décomposer l’exposition en six parties. Mais l’on saute de l’une à l’autre avec un plaisir certain.

D’emblée, le début de l’exposition nous présente 18 pièces ayant appartenu aux Mori, une puissante famille de Daimyos (gouverneurs fédéraux) dont la lignée remonte au 12^e siècle. On décèle à travers ces quelques reliques la diversité des tenues et accessoires qui faisaient le quotidien du Samouraï. Du fameux hakama (pantalon d’armure) au jinbaori (manteau d’armure). On y trouve aussi le Bushido, le fameux code d’honneur des Samouraïs qui perdure encore aujourd’hui dans la société japonaise et qui comportait sept vertus fondamentales : gi (l’honnêteté), yu (le courage), jin (la bienveillance), rei (la droiture), makoto (la sincérité), meiyo (l’honneur), chugai (la loyauté).

Bamen (chanfrein de cheval). Fin de l'époque Edo, 19e siècle. Cuir, métal, laque.

Le visiteur peut ensuite voir les armures les plus anciennes (1185-1603) qui appartiennent à des périodes lointaines de l’histoire nippone : Kamakura (1185-1333), Nambokuchô (1333-1392), Muromachi (1392-1573) et Momoyama (1573-1603). On peut y constater la naissance et le développement qui amenèrent à la sophistication progressive des armures sous la période Edo (1603-1868). La guerre étant en net recul alors, cette période fut propice à l’éclosion de formes d’art plus diversifiées comme la peinture ou la calligraphie.

En fin d’exposition, on est intrigué par la qualité et l’efficacité remarquables des armes (tanto, katana) créées par ces maîtres de guerre. Et si les armes étaient des éléments indispensables à leur accoutrement, le cheval l’était tout autant, ce dont rend bien compte cette exposition. Les selles ou les masques sont de véritables joyaux que ne négligeaient pas ces redoutables cavaliers.

Florent Bouteiller

« Samouraï. Armure du guerrier. » Au musée du quai Branly. Jusqu’au 29 janvier 2012.
Tel : 01 56 61 70 00. 37, qui Branly. 75007 Paris. Tarif plein : 7 euros. Tarif Réduit : 5 euros.
Fermeture hebdomadaire le lundi.

Channel Advisor’s latest Facebook Commerce Index is out, a free listing and analysis of the top 25 US retailers on Facebook by fan count.  Victoria’s Secret, adidas Originals and Victoria’s Secret Pink are the most popular retailers on Facebook

Whilst the index is called Facebook Commerce, it’s not about commerce, it’s about fan-count (although some big retailers in the US with big Facebook fan-counts do seem to be missing – Zara (10,491,047) and H&M (8,642,968)).

Nevertheless, if you needed an excuse to go to the Victoria’s Secret pages, now you have not one, but two.

And, no there are no more “You Like This” Victoria’s Secret Facebook panties left. (We checked.)

Rank	Prev. Rank	Retailer	September Fans	September Increase	September % Increase
1	1	Victoria’s Secret	15,307,759	210,978	1%
2	2	adidas Originals	11,165,986	175,350	2%
3	3	Victoria’s Secret Pink	10,413,662	84,249	1%
4	4	Walmart	9,323,010	522,645	6%
5	5	Burberry	8,598,039	513,818	6%
6	6	Levi’s	7,464,384	181,213	2%
7	7	WWE	6,760,135	104,617	2%
8	8	Lacoste	6,526,625	123,563	2%
9	9	Hollister Co.	6,044,509	109,249	2%
10	10	Kohl’s	5,774,477	53,851	1%
11	11	Target	5,578,391	137,541	3%
12	12	Abercrombie & Fitch	5,450,902	91,143	2%
13	13	American Eagle Outfitters	5,425,455	76,510	1%
14	14	Gucci	5,375,022	116,216	2%
15	15	Aeropostale	5,221,075	72,332	1%
16	16	Forever 21	5,152,065	69,279	1%
17	17	Nike	5,132,174	151,724	3%
18	18	Best Buy	4,729,191	564,091	14%
19	19	Ralph Lauren	4,017,496	123,909	3%
20	20	NFL	3,948,754	136,364	4%
21	21	Hot Topic	3,540,718	57,209	2%
22	22	Dolce & Gabbana	3,319,258	60,959	2%
23	23	GameStop	2,842,519	85,181	3%
24	24	Old Navy	2,527,573	72,762	3%
25	25	Macy’s	2,514,069	182,338	8%

 

This article is part of a series called How to Write a Resume. To start this series from the beginning, read the introduction.

I’ve used a few bad words in my life. S$it, you probably have too. But when the wrong words appear on your resume, it sucks.

These sucky words are not of the four-letter variety. These words are common. They are accepted. They litter the average resume with buzzword badness. Hiring managers can identify sucky words in seconds, leaving your resume work worthless.

So how do you write a wicked resume without the suck? How do you turn the wrong words into right? To help you land the job interview, here’s how to spin the 6 sucky resume words into skills that sizzle.

1. Responsible For

My lips pucker and make sour sucking noises when I read “Responsible For” on a resume. Of course you’re responsible for something. But how many? How long? Who? What? When? Rather than waste the hiring manager’s time reading a vague list of responsibilities, be specific and use quantitative figures to back up your cited skills and accomplishments.

Employers want the numerical facts. Write percentages, dollar amounts, and numbers to best explain your accomplishments. Be specific to get the point across quickly. Prove you have the goods to get hired.

BAD

• Responsible for writing user guides on deadline.

GOOD

• Wrote six user guides for 15,000 users two weeks before deadline.

BAD

• Responsible for production costs.

GOOD

• Reduced production costs by 15 percent over three months.

The resume that avoids vague “responsibilities” and sticks to facts detailing figures, growth, reduced costs, number of people managed, budget size, sales, and revenue earned gets the job interview.

2. Experienced

Are you experienced? Sexy. Rather than cite Jimi Hendrix on your resume, pleeease just say what your experience entails. Saying you’re experienced at something and giving the facts on that experience are two very different approaches.

BAD

• Experience programming in PHP.

GOOD

• Programmed an online shopping cart for a Fortune 500 company in PHP.

Hiring managers want to know what experience, skills, and qualifications you offer. Do tell them without saying, “I am experienced.”

3. Excellent written communication skills

Yes, I realize this isn’t a single word but rather a phrase. This phrase must die. It’s on most resumes. Is it on yours?

BAD

• I have excellent written communication skills.

GOOD

• Wrote jargon-free online help documentation and reduced customer support calls by 50 percent.

If you’ve got writing skills, do say what you write and how you communicate. Are you writing email campaigns, marketing materials, or user documentation? Are you word smithing legal contracts, business plans, or proposing proposals? However you wrap your words, be sure to give the details.

4. Team Player

Are we playing baseball here? Unless you want to be benched with the other unemployed “team players” then get some hard facts behind your job pitch.

BAD

• Team player working well in large and small groups.

GOOD

• Worked with clients, software developers, technical writers, and interface designers to deliver financial reporting software three months before deadline.

If you want to hit a home run then do explicitly say what teams you play on and qualify the teams’ achievements.

5. Detail Oriented

What does detail oriented mean? Give the specifics to the details with which you are oriented. Please, orient your reader to the details.

BAD

• Detail oriented public relations professional.

GOOD

• Wrote custom press releases targeting 25 news agencies across Europe.

If you have the details, do share them with the hiring manager. Give the facts, the numbers, the time lines, the dollar figure, the quantitative data that sells your skills and disorients the competition.

6. Successful

Hopefully you only list the successes on your resume. So if everything is a success, then why write the s-word? Stick to showing your success by giving concrete examples of what you’ve done to be successful! Let your skills, qualifications, and achievements speak for you.

BAD

• Successfully sold the product.

GOOD

• Increased sales of organic chocolate by 32 percent.

When it comes to your successes, please don’t be shy. Boast your best, sing your praises, and sell your skills.

Final Words

There you have it. Six of the suckiest words (or phrases) commonly found on resumes today. By focusing on the facts, detailing the details, and qualifying your qualifications you may just land yourself the job interview.

There are soooo many sucky words found on resumes today. Got one to add? Do share the suck.