Everyone has these TOP TEN!!! lists, so I have one for you. Actually, I have a top five list with a bonus top ten list. So, without further ado...
TOP FIVE YURISTUFFS OF 2006!
5. TV show - South of Nowhere season 2
This is actually the only non-anime TV show I watch. I watch it free off of The N every week that it airs. The season finale was on Friday, and the series ended with quite a bang (literally). Finally in this season Spencer comes out to her family, has a huge fight with her family, and gets it mostly resolved. Finally in this season Spencer and Ashley actually kiss more than once. And not-so finally in this season the straight couples get more romantic screentime. Spencer and Ashley talk and smile. The other couples make out. So not fair.
4. Anime - Strawberry Panic!
Parody or not, disappointing or not, this is the very first anime I've ever seen with an entirely female cast. Not just female main cast, but female cast period. It's actually quite nice. And the love polygons were complex and that was enough plot because of that. Even though Amane's a guy to me and it took forever for Shizuma to actually kiss Nagisa once, and then the same amount to kiss her again, the series was a fun watch. And, you know, I think it'll open some interesting doors for yuri anime to come - actual real portrayal of lesbian couples in anime and not beating around the bush (like Marimite).
3. Anime - Kannazuki no Miko
Even though this anime is pathetic, full of mechas and pointless fighting, and laughable, it still has a strong beginning and ending that are full of yuri. In fact, the entire series is yuri. When I watched it, I almost felt the need to skip episodes, but the little things here and there - Chikane's wistful glances, Himeko's subconsious need to be with Chikane - really make the series try and redeem itself. It was licensed this year and just 3 DVDs for the 12 episodes, which is standard, I guess.
2. Movie - V for Vendetta
I love things that make me think. That's probably why The Matrix is my favourite movie, 1984 is my favourite book, and Madlax is my favourite anime. But my star of "things that make me think" this year is V for Vendetta. And not only does it have the most amazing plot and portrayal and (Natalie Porman is HOT and) stuff like that, it has a great middle section with Valerie's letter. The letter is easily one of the most important parts of the film, because while a lot is said by V about the government, Valerie's letter shows it in a timeline by someone who was just an average citizen.
1. Anime - Mai HiME/Mai Otome
Mai HiME was licensed and the DVDs released this year, and Mai Otome finished airing. Both shows have quite a bit of yuri in it - obvious yuri, too - as well as a halfway decent serious portrayal of the overall plot. Mai HiME is clearly the superior series (was I the only person that liked the ending?) while Mai Otome is goofy, funny, but it tries so hard to be serious. For just Shizuru and Natsuki, this is the best yuristuff of 2006. However, when you add in the possibilities for Mai x Mikoto, Aoi x Chie, Haruka x Yukino, Midori x Youko, Arika x Mashiro, Nina x Erstin, and don't forget Tomoe, this series truly shines.
BONUS!
LINDSAY'S TOP TEN ANIME OF ALL TIME
(Note - I just started watching anime 10 months ago, but whatever)
10. Mai Otome
The sequel to Mai Hime had enough Shizuru x Natsuki to hold me over. If anyone just wants to watch a good yuri moment, about halfway through episode nine there's a really good beach scene. But the series isn't too bad overall. It has a plot, that plot ends up tying back to Mai HiME, and it makes about as much since as its prequel. Which doesn't mean much.
9. Yami to Boushi to Hon no Tabibito
I watched this series in between Uta-Kata (which I quit after 4 episodes - manga was good though) and Bakuretsu Tenshi (which is on this list a bit later), so I had trouble focusing on it. Not a good thing, as you may know if you've seen the series. For being based on an H-game, this is an extremely complicated story that goes back and forth more times than I can count. Parts made no sense to me and others did. The whole in-love-with-my-adopted-sister thing may throw some people off, but adoption is not blood relation, so it didn't bother me... too much. If you want to know where the art for Kannazuki no Miko came from and don't mind being confused, download this unlicensed series!
8. Bakuretsu Tenshi
What is it about girls with guns that make me so excited? I can't figure it out. But I do very much so think girls with guns are very HOT. But the problem is I can't make myself like Jo from this series. That's bad because she's the main character. It's not the white hair, because I like the girl she was fighting against in the last couple of episodes with white hair. It's not the artist's style because Meg and Sei are both sexy as hell to me, so... what is it? Who knows. But, the anime overall is hot, it's got a fun plot, and the ending made me sad. Where's the yuri, you might ask? In the last episode between Meg and Jo. Yes, you have to wait. But, yes, it's worth it.
7. Read or Die
This is so far down on my list because of two reasons. First, I haven't watched it in awhile. Second, there's nothing really concrete in this series. I did prefer the OAV and the Nancy/Yomiko pairing, so that made me sad during the anime when Nancy 2 was so childish (but then again she did lose her memory and stuff, so...). I don't know. Great plot, another 1984-ish story, but I'm not too sure about what else. Definite recommendation, though.
6. Strawberry Panic!
See my notes above
5. Revolutionary Girl Utena
This was my very first anime series ever, at a time when I had just gotten over a two-year time of being in love with a good friend, so Juri really spoke to me. I think I've watched those four episodes - 7, 17, 28, 29 - more times than I can count and I still rewatch them. A lot of people talk about Utena x Anthy, but I don't really see that because I'm so distracted by the possibility of Juri x Shiori. Juri's obviously in love with Shiori, and Shiori learns of it, so what exists then? Unfortunately, closure never comes. Disappointing.
4. Kannazuki no Miko
See my notes above
3. Haibane Renmei
Okay, so the yuri's thin. So what? Beautiful series, with a (mostly) hole-free plot. Few complaints with this one. The depth of emotion in this short series is breathtaking. I can't say enough about the emotion in this series and can't seem to say anything about the plot. Watch it!
2. Mai HiME
See my notes above
1. Madlax
Now, I know you're all thinking, "Madlax? What the hell? That series is nothing compared to Noir!" Oh, my friends, I beg to differ. Noir, while it probably would've been 11 on this list, was dark, bloody (if you knew where to look), repetitive, and boring in the art department. Madlax made everything in Noir ten times better, gave it a new fictional setting, 1984ed the plot, and let it run. And the end result was absolutely amazing. The first (and only) piece of anime I've gone out of my way to purchase a volume of. Amazing.
25 December 2006
19 December 2006
Haibane Renmei is a MUST WATCH!
So, looking at the wikipedia article, one might think that "oh, little kids with wings and halos - so cheesy!" but Haibane Renmei really isn't that cheesy at all. In fact, it's kinda dark after a bit.
I don't want to spoil a bit of it - just say watch it! As far as I know, it's not liscensed (according to the wiki and to animesuki), so go find the torrent somewhere. It's only 13 episodes and will take a day or two on DSL or cable, so it's completely worth the time spent. I watched all 13 episodes in 24 hours even with attending school and work - that good!
If you like really deep anime (think Madlax without a war) then this is the anime for you! And even those people that don't like yuri will enjoy it, but be prepared for some really deep friendships.
:-)
I don't want to spoil a bit of it - just say watch it! As far as I know, it's not liscensed (according to the wiki and to animesuki), so go find the torrent somewhere. It's only 13 episodes and will take a day or two on DSL or cable, so it's completely worth the time spent. I watched all 13 episodes in 24 hours even with attending school and work - that good!
If you like really deep anime (think Madlax without a war) then this is the anime for you! And even those people that don't like yuri will enjoy it, but be prepared for some really deep friendships.
:-)
02 December 2006
Wal-Mart: The evil retailer
(Beware - this rant is 4 pages long in MS Word)
So, I know, everyone shops at Wal-Mart. They’ve got the lowest prices in town and the most convenience a store could have. But just how good is this big retailer? Not very.
So, let’s just look at things the way they look on first glace. Low prices. The economic firm Global Insight, in a study commissioned by Wal-Mart in 2005, states that consumers save $263 billion total, or $895 per person or $2329 per household. These numbers are huge. So what do we have to say about this?
It’s false. It’s VERY false. Many highly respected economists debate this number, including people such as Arindrajit Dube, Jared Bernstein, and L Scott Bivens. In a June 2006 paper, the latter two write, “A study by the consulting firm Global Insight, which concludes that Wal-Mart’s expansion has saved US consumers $263 billion, is deeply flawed. The statistical analysis generating this widely quoted figure fails the most rudimentary sensitivity checks used in good economic analysis, rendering its conclusions unreliable.”
While Wal-Mart may have insisted on many ways to prevent criticisms like this, they have failed. So, we look at the next largest estimate. A 2002 study by the New England Consulting Group saves consumers a total of $100 billion in a year. That is less than half. And there are further estimates that dwindle all the way down to $16 billion. So how much does Wal-Mart save consumers? It’s hard to tell.
Let’s look at Wal-Mart’s other “good points”
Wal-Mart creates jobs. According to Jason Furman, in “Wal-Mart: A Progressive Success Story” on November 28, 2005, “The one study that was published in a peer-reviewed economics journal found that ‘Wal-mart entry [in a county] increases retail employment by 100 jobs in the year of entry. Half of this gain disappears over the next five years as other retail establishments exit and contract, leaving a long-run statistically significant net gain of 50 jobs’.” Emek Basker in, “The Causes and Consequences of Wal-Mart’s Growth” on November 2006, adds on to this statistic, “The number of wholesale jobs declines by about 30 in the long run, reflecting the fact that Wal-mart is vertically integrated.”
So, looks impressive. But let’s take a look at the real picture here. Kenneth E Stone found in 1997 that during the 10 years after Wal-Mart opens, towns lose about 47% of their retail trade. A more recent study, by David Neumark, Junfu Zhang, and Stephen Ciccarella in October 2006, find “each Wal-Mart worker takes the place of 1.4 retail workers.”
Yet, it just looks like the statistics compete. However, the studies supporting Wal-Mart stop after five year. Kenneth Stone’s study continued through ten years. And then you have to look at Wal-Mart’s high turnover rate. According to “Wal-Mart How Big Can it Grow” from The Economist on April 15, 2004, Wal-Mart has to hire 600,000 people every year because of turnover. This is not job creation, this is job replacement. This cannot be taken into effect.
So what about community benefit? According to an article written by the National Committee for Responsive Philantrhopy, “The Waltons and Wal-mart: Self-Interested Philanthropy” on October 4, 2005, Wal-Mart gives the most among corporations, and increased this giving by 70% from 2002 to 2004, ending at $170 million.
While this may seem impressive, according to a documentary by PBS, “Store Wars: When Wal-Mart Comes to Town”, this is only .4% of their profits. Forbes reports in their “Most Charitable Companies” on November 14, 2005, that Target gives 2.1%, Coca-Cola gives 1.2% Best Buy gives 1.1%, etc. All these companies give so much more.
Another argument is about envirnonmental issues. Wal-Mart has put plans into place about reducing environmental harms, including a $500 million plan according to DNS Retailing Today (which is mostly PR), however, this is a plan. They tried, for example, an eco-friendly store with solar panel lights, etc, and found it unprofitable. They want to increase their profit, that’s all. And other companies may be doing more, so why give Wal-Mart credit for what it doesn’t do?
Now, let’s move to the negative impact Wal-Mart has on this country.
According to various studies by Arindrajit Dube and Steve Wertheim, Wal-Mart’s wages are extremely low. One of their statistis is the average wage for Wal-Mart is $9.68, which is 15% below other large retailers and 30% below unionized grocery workers. Seeing as the dollar amount is from Wal-Mart, it is the average of employees who have worked full-time for a year or more. That includes the high management and CEO positions. This is $4000 below the Federal Poverty line for a family of four, according to 2005 US Census Bureau data.
While those for Wal-Mart argue another statistic in Dube and Wertheim’s study – Wal-Mart’s median wage of $9 is above the median wage of large retailers, $8.34 – note that this estimate is much lower than the average. This puts workers further below the poverty line.
As why the median wage seems to be competitive, there’s a reason for that also: Wal-Mart drives other retailers’ wages down. A study in 2005 by David Newmark, Junfu Zhang, and Stephen Ciccarella, note that there’s 3.5% lower wage earnings when there’s a Wal-Mart around. Arindrajit Dube, Barry Eidlin, and Bill Lester note in “Impact of Wal-Mart Growh on Earnings throughout the Retail Sector in Urban and Rural Counties” on October 2005, that “the total earnings of retail workers nationwide was reduced by $4.7 billion due to Wal-Mart’s presence.”
Now let’s move to another aspect of workers, the benefits they receive. Even in Wal-mart’s own Supplemental Benefits Documentation FY06, the store notes that Wal-Mart pays twice as much out of pocket for healthcare, and that almost half of Wal-Mart workers’ children are on Medicaid programs. Because Wal-Mart wants to cut costs, they propose more efficient ways of providing health care: “A healthier workforce will lead to lower health insurance costs, lower absenteeism through fewer sick days, and higher productivity.” They wish to do this by designing “all jobs to include some physical activity” and offering “benefits that appeal to healthy Associates”.
Don’t let Pro-Wal-Mart people fool you with another “comparable” statistic. Wal-Mart itself is citing these problems and “fixes”.
The last problem with the worker specifically is that the corporation is anti-Union. They have “A Manager’s Toolbox for Remaining Union-Free” which discusses different union policies. According to Christopher Hayes in Symbol of the System on November 6, 2005, “Managers are trained to call a special hotline at the first sign of suspicious behavior, including ‘employees talking in hushed tones to each other’. After the call, the company’s notorious labor relations division headquartered in Bentonville, Arkansas, will swing into gear, often dispatching a company jet to the afflicted store, bearing members of its crack team of union busters. Management will convene mandatory meetings with each associate and screen anti-union videos.”
Well, say Wal-Mart supporters, unions are dying out. Only 13% of employees are in unions now, and half are government employees, according to “The Limits of Solidarity” from The Economist on September 21, 2006. This is a decrease from over 20% in the 1980s. And there’d be legal trouble if this was a big deal.
Well, it is a big deal According to a USA Today article by Stephanie Armour in 2003, the National Labor Relations Board has filed 28 complaints against Wal-Mart from 2001 to date of publishing. One of these is about meat cutters in Texas that wanted to organize. Wal-Mart then switched to prepackaged meats because of it.
Even if Wal-Mart’s wages and benefits were at or above par, this anti-Union defeats the purpose. How can they be able to continue earning these without the Union guarantee? One of my first points in this section was that workers get 30% less than unionized workers.
Another argument is about poverty. Wal-Mart supporters will bring up a statistic cited by Jason Furman in “Wal-Mart: A Progressive Success Story” on November 28, 2005, that benefits give a 6.5% increase to income for the bottom quintile. However, this statistic is not only about Wal-Mart, but all big-box grocery stores.
A study by Stephan J Goetz and Hema Swaminathan on October 18, 2004 titled “Wal-mart and County-Wide Poverty” states that “The marginal effect of another Wal-Mart store on the average poverty rate was .204, while that of existing stores was .099 percentage points”, meaning that new Wal-mart stores double the rate of increasing poverty (it’d be negative percents if it was decreasing). This is huge, because it attributes only to Wal-Mart.
Not only these huge disadvantages to workers and to poverty-stricken families, but there are others to all Americans, whether they shop at Wal-Mart or not – tax burden. According to a US House of Representatives report headed by Congressman George Miller on February 16, 2004 (specifically the Democratic staff of the Committee on Education and the Workforce), each Wal-Mart store causes a tax burden of $420,750. Each employee, $2,103. This causes $3 billion in taxes that Americans must pay for their public health plans. Soon we will pay more, as according to an EPI study by Jared Bernstein and L Josh Bivens in June 2006, the president has cut $5 billion over five years for Medicaid and another $5 billion for other programs. There will be a $27 billion in cuts for Medicaid over the next 10 years. That will only increase our tax burden.
Everyone pays taxes. Not everyone shops at Wal-Mart
There have been hundreds of labor violations, including locking workers in the store overnight, having them work overtime with no pay, having students work during school, deleting breaks, cited by many studies, including the one by the US House of Representatives mentioned in the last paragraph.
Wal-Mart is not a good company for anyone by any means.
So, I know, everyone shops at Wal-Mart. They’ve got the lowest prices in town and the most convenience a store could have. But just how good is this big retailer? Not very.
So, let’s just look at things the way they look on first glace. Low prices. The economic firm Global Insight, in a study commissioned by Wal-Mart in 2005, states that consumers save $263 billion total, or $895 per person or $2329 per household. These numbers are huge. So what do we have to say about this?
It’s false. It’s VERY false. Many highly respected economists debate this number, including people such as Arindrajit Dube, Jared Bernstein, and L Scott Bivens. In a June 2006 paper, the latter two write, “A study by the consulting firm Global Insight, which concludes that Wal-Mart’s expansion has saved US consumers $263 billion, is deeply flawed. The statistical analysis generating this widely quoted figure fails the most rudimentary sensitivity checks used in good economic analysis, rendering its conclusions unreliable.”
While Wal-Mart may have insisted on many ways to prevent criticisms like this, they have failed. So, we look at the next largest estimate. A 2002 study by the New England Consulting Group saves consumers a total of $100 billion in a year. That is less than half. And there are further estimates that dwindle all the way down to $16 billion. So how much does Wal-Mart save consumers? It’s hard to tell.
Let’s look at Wal-Mart’s other “good points”
Wal-Mart creates jobs. According to Jason Furman, in “Wal-Mart: A Progressive Success Story” on November 28, 2005, “The one study that was published in a peer-reviewed economics journal found that ‘Wal-mart entry [in a county] increases retail employment by 100 jobs in the year of entry. Half of this gain disappears over the next five years as other retail establishments exit and contract, leaving a long-run statistically significant net gain of 50 jobs’.” Emek Basker in, “The Causes and Consequences of Wal-Mart’s Growth” on November 2006, adds on to this statistic, “The number of wholesale jobs declines by about 30 in the long run, reflecting the fact that Wal-mart is vertically integrated.”
So, looks impressive. But let’s take a look at the real picture here. Kenneth E Stone found in 1997 that during the 10 years after Wal-Mart opens, towns lose about 47% of their retail trade. A more recent study, by David Neumark, Junfu Zhang, and Stephen Ciccarella in October 2006, find “each Wal-Mart worker takes the place of 1.4 retail workers.”
Yet, it just looks like the statistics compete. However, the studies supporting Wal-Mart stop after five year. Kenneth Stone’s study continued through ten years. And then you have to look at Wal-Mart’s high turnover rate. According to “Wal-Mart How Big Can it Grow” from The Economist on April 15, 2004, Wal-Mart has to hire 600,000 people every year because of turnover. This is not job creation, this is job replacement. This cannot be taken into effect.
So what about community benefit? According to an article written by the National Committee for Responsive Philantrhopy, “The Waltons and Wal-mart: Self-Interested Philanthropy” on October 4, 2005, Wal-Mart gives the most among corporations, and increased this giving by 70% from 2002 to 2004, ending at $170 million.
While this may seem impressive, according to a documentary by PBS, “Store Wars: When Wal-Mart Comes to Town”, this is only .4% of their profits. Forbes reports in their “Most Charitable Companies” on November 14, 2005, that Target gives 2.1%, Coca-Cola gives 1.2% Best Buy gives 1.1%, etc. All these companies give so much more.
Another argument is about envirnonmental issues. Wal-Mart has put plans into place about reducing environmental harms, including a $500 million plan according to DNS Retailing Today (which is mostly PR), however, this is a plan. They tried, for example, an eco-friendly store with solar panel lights, etc, and found it unprofitable. They want to increase their profit, that’s all. And other companies may be doing more, so why give Wal-Mart credit for what it doesn’t do?
Now, let’s move to the negative impact Wal-Mart has on this country.
According to various studies by Arindrajit Dube and Steve Wertheim, Wal-Mart’s wages are extremely low. One of their statistis is the average wage for Wal-Mart is $9.68, which is 15% below other large retailers and 30% below unionized grocery workers. Seeing as the dollar amount is from Wal-Mart, it is the average of employees who have worked full-time for a year or more. That includes the high management and CEO positions. This is $4000 below the Federal Poverty line for a family of four, according to 2005 US Census Bureau data.
While those for Wal-Mart argue another statistic in Dube and Wertheim’s study – Wal-Mart’s median wage of $9 is above the median wage of large retailers, $8.34 – note that this estimate is much lower than the average. This puts workers further below the poverty line.
As why the median wage seems to be competitive, there’s a reason for that also: Wal-Mart drives other retailers’ wages down. A study in 2005 by David Newmark, Junfu Zhang, and Stephen Ciccarella, note that there’s 3.5% lower wage earnings when there’s a Wal-Mart around. Arindrajit Dube, Barry Eidlin, and Bill Lester note in “Impact of Wal-Mart Growh on Earnings throughout the Retail Sector in Urban and Rural Counties” on October 2005, that “the total earnings of retail workers nationwide was reduced by $4.7 billion due to Wal-Mart’s presence.”
Now let’s move to another aspect of workers, the benefits they receive. Even in Wal-mart’s own Supplemental Benefits Documentation FY06, the store notes that Wal-Mart pays twice as much out of pocket for healthcare, and that almost half of Wal-Mart workers’ children are on Medicaid programs. Because Wal-Mart wants to cut costs, they propose more efficient ways of providing health care: “A healthier workforce will lead to lower health insurance costs, lower absenteeism through fewer sick days, and higher productivity.” They wish to do this by designing “all jobs to include some physical activity” and offering “benefits that appeal to healthy Associates”.
Don’t let Pro-Wal-Mart people fool you with another “comparable” statistic. Wal-Mart itself is citing these problems and “fixes”.
The last problem with the worker specifically is that the corporation is anti-Union. They have “A Manager’s Toolbox for Remaining Union-Free” which discusses different union policies. According to Christopher Hayes in Symbol of the System on November 6, 2005, “Managers are trained to call a special hotline at the first sign of suspicious behavior, including ‘employees talking in hushed tones to each other’. After the call, the company’s notorious labor relations division headquartered in Bentonville, Arkansas, will swing into gear, often dispatching a company jet to the afflicted store, bearing members of its crack team of union busters. Management will convene mandatory meetings with each associate and screen anti-union videos.”
Well, say Wal-Mart supporters, unions are dying out. Only 13% of employees are in unions now, and half are government employees, according to “The Limits of Solidarity” from The Economist on September 21, 2006. This is a decrease from over 20% in the 1980s. And there’d be legal trouble if this was a big deal.
Well, it is a big deal According to a USA Today article by Stephanie Armour in 2003, the National Labor Relations Board has filed 28 complaints against Wal-Mart from 2001 to date of publishing. One of these is about meat cutters in Texas that wanted to organize. Wal-Mart then switched to prepackaged meats because of it.
Even if Wal-Mart’s wages and benefits were at or above par, this anti-Union defeats the purpose. How can they be able to continue earning these without the Union guarantee? One of my first points in this section was that workers get 30% less than unionized workers.
Another argument is about poverty. Wal-Mart supporters will bring up a statistic cited by Jason Furman in “Wal-Mart: A Progressive Success Story” on November 28, 2005, that benefits give a 6.5% increase to income for the bottom quintile. However, this statistic is not only about Wal-Mart, but all big-box grocery stores.
A study by Stephan J Goetz and Hema Swaminathan on October 18, 2004 titled “Wal-mart and County-Wide Poverty” states that “The marginal effect of another Wal-Mart store on the average poverty rate was .204, while that of existing stores was .099 percentage points”, meaning that new Wal-mart stores double the rate of increasing poverty (it’d be negative percents if it was decreasing). This is huge, because it attributes only to Wal-Mart.
Not only these huge disadvantages to workers and to poverty-stricken families, but there are others to all Americans, whether they shop at Wal-Mart or not – tax burden. According to a US House of Representatives report headed by Congressman George Miller on February 16, 2004 (specifically the Democratic staff of the Committee on Education and the Workforce), each Wal-Mart store causes a tax burden of $420,750. Each employee, $2,103. This causes $3 billion in taxes that Americans must pay for their public health plans. Soon we will pay more, as according to an EPI study by Jared Bernstein and L Josh Bivens in June 2006, the president has cut $5 billion over five years for Medicaid and another $5 billion for other programs. There will be a $27 billion in cuts for Medicaid over the next 10 years. That will only increase our tax burden.
Everyone pays taxes. Not everyone shops at Wal-Mart
There have been hundreds of labor violations, including locking workers in the store overnight, having them work overtime with no pay, having students work during school, deleting breaks, cited by many studies, including the one by the US House of Representatives mentioned in the last paragraph.
Wal-Mart is not a good company for anyone by any means.
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