Comments on: Branded

By: dahuletam

dahuletam — Sat, 29 Aug 2009 15:57:02 +0000

What are costs for scoring state tests? Do schools bear them?

By: Henri Vieuxtemps

Henri Vieuxtemps — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 16:23:42 +0000

How come you guys have ex-offenders, don’t you execute anybody who spits on a sidewalk?

By: John Holbo

John Holbo — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 10:15:23 +0000

Singapore has an extensive media campaign that mostly involves images of ex-offenders (or actors playing them) with full-sleeve tats. The campaign urges you to ‘help unlock the second prison’ by being willing to hire ex-offenders. So there are ads where you see a muscular arm, full sleeve tattoos, wielding a knife. And then you see it belongs to a smiling fellow carving a melon to look like a flower. Or two tattooed arms are reaching out to clutch .. but it turns out it’s the guy’s cute kid he is about to swing up in the air. At the following link you can see an image of a full-tat figuring trying to take a post-it off his own back. The post-it reads: ‘ex-offender’. That one is on every other bus stop around town at the moment.

http://www.yellowribbon.org.sg/

By: Tangurena

Tangurena — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 04:12:29 +0000

Successful restaurant owners soon retire, while poor ones struggle on

When I lived in South Florida, one of the interesting folks I met was a guy who made a living starting restaurants, getting them established, and selling the businesses to other folks. Not everyone knows what to do to start a restaurant (what licenses does one need, where can one buy a commercial stove, or even what sort to get), or what sort of places would make a decent location, and not everyone knows how to retire. This guy was in his mid 70s and to him, the idea of retirement was like being buried alive.

By: engels

engels — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 00:51:00 +0000

Are you happier? Smarter? Richer? What’s the point?

Rational choice theory in a nutshell…

By: engels

engels — Tue, 25 Aug 2009 18:00:05 +0000

Are you happier? Smarter? Richer? What’s the point?

Words to live by.

By: Barry

Barry — Tue, 25 Aug 2009 17:21:57 +0000

Oskar Shapley : “Can I tatoo a big “PhD” on my chest?”

A ‘Ph.D.’ tattoo obviously goes on one’s big, bulging forehead :)

Substance McGravitas : “You ask the person who noticed if they want a drink.”

And if they want to come back to your apartment, to see all of your tattoos :)

By: Substance McGravitas

Substance McGravitas — Tue, 25 Aug 2009 16:56:46 +0000

So, you’re noticed. Now what?

You ask the person who noticed if they want a drink.

By: Danielle Day

Danielle Day — Tue, 25 Aug 2009 16:36:40 +0000

@ No. 65. Yes, George Schultz had a tiger tattoo. On his ass. Barry Goldwater was a member of an American Indian society and had their mark, three dots arranged in a triangle tattooed on the heel of his foot. (The location of his tattoo, as well as its color and configuration, is disputed— at least on the internet. My description is on good authority from an ex-State Department employee contemporary with his time in congress.)

By: belle le triste

belle le triste — Tue, 25 Aug 2009 16:35:26 +0000

The point is much the same as that of small museums: to spit in the eye of transience.

By: Danielle Day

Danielle Day — Tue, 25 Aug 2009 16:30:08 +0000

I volunteer at a small museum. One of the interns is a pretty nice guy. He is, however, covered with tattoos. After the latest (ugly) one, I asked why. He replied “I want to be noticed”. Well, pal, mission accomplished. I just don’t know what to do with that. So, you’re noticed. Now what? Are you happier? Smarter? Richer? What’s the point?

By: Oskar Shapley

Oskar Shapley — Mon, 24 Aug 2009 21:03:37 +0000

Can I tatoo a big “PhD” on my chest?

By: engels

engels — Mon, 24 Aug 2009 16:59:36 +0000

Anybody who has their university logo tattooed on any part of their body should be ostracised from civilised society in my opinion.

By: George W

George W — Mon, 24 Aug 2009 16:38:02 +0000

I work at a Bretton Woods institution (not particularly high on the food chain but not a delivery boy either), and I have extensive tattoos, which believe me are not visible in street clothes. My ink is (imho) beautiful, but it’s not for public consumption; I was well aware when I got them that they could be career-limiting.

Incidentally, it’s not the tattoo itself that poses the professional problem, it’s the decision to display it that causes colleagues to downgrade your judgment. George Shultz, for instance, was widely reputed to have a Princeton tiger, but in a place the sun don’t shine; if anything, he rather benefitted from the mystique.

Incidentally, I know nothing of the academic literature here, but the films Eastern Promises and Sin Nombre provide excellent cultural markers of the importance of tattoos in the underworld. The differences are as intriguing as the similarities; while the Salvatrucha guys ink their whole bodies (faces and all) as a kind of uniform, Russian gangsters use tattoos to record secret histories, visible only in privileged community or private interaction.

By: Laleh

Laleh — Sun, 23 Aug 2009 22:58:00 +0000

This whole conversation is so strange. Where do you people live? And those of you who teach at universities, who are your students?

I have three tattoos, one very visible (it is a ring around my middle finger on my right hand), I teach at a university, and never once has the tattoo been an object of astonishment or some such. I would wager that nearly half my students have visible tattoos.

When I did my fieldwork in a refugee camp in the Middle East, the tattoo (plus my supposedly Muslim background – I am an atheist) were fantastic ice-breakers with the women I interviewed. They all tut-tutted about “Islam not allowing tattoos” and then proceeded to give me rich and wonderful descriptions of Bedouin tattoos. There must be some sort of a parallel here.