This week I was watching a TV program about Wal-Mart and its spectacular operations world wide. One part was about the stores they opening in China and there was one particular sentence by a young local Chinese “associate” (employee) that caught me and opened a whole new way of thinking about the possible change that might occur in US/Chinese relationship.

Each Wal-Mart store could be a center for the dissemination of better understanding by the Chinese about the USA. Though not intended each stores “associates ” would be U.S. diplomats.

In the USA Wal-Mart has been misnamed as the Chinese outlet. Look again at many hundreds of products in any of your favorite stores. Products are not only made in China, but in Malaysia, Thailand, Vietnam, Japan and a host of other Asian countries. The quality is fine. The reason they are made there is because the cost of production is so low that products can be shipped 12,000 miles to your backyard at a price you find irresistible.

Fingernail clippers or lawn mowers - it doesn’t make any difference. The workers in those Asian countries are producing and BUYING those products from American companies IN their own country. Every yen or yuan sold to them is profit for an American company. Wal-Mart is planning 2,000 stores in China by a company Sam Walton started in Arkansas - and they still have their headquarters there.

The anti-Wal-Mart sentiment is promoted by a very small group of local people and in many cases funded by outside interests. As a kid I can remember the opposition to the A&P food stores similar to what we are seeing against Wal-Mart today. They said it would cause the local grocery stores to close. They were right. Now answer this. Do you want to shut down your Albertson’s, Piggly Wiggly, Win-Dixie, A&P, etc. and go back to the corner grocery store? I don’t think so.

Who has benefited most from these huge changing marketing operations? YOU, the consumer.

What was that one sentence that young Chinese said to the head of Asian Wal-Mart? Approximately: “Working here gives you a better understanding of other people”. This is very profound as it indicates a new thought pattern about “other people”, namely the U.S.

Here is a way that might change the thinking of the Chinese about America. Imagine what 2,000 Wal-Mart stores could do for international understanding and world peace. Am I too bold in this extrapolation? Maybe, but it can give the USA a chance to reach down into the basic fabric of Chinese culture to the people.

Let the diplomats deal with the higher Chinese officials and hope that some of the change of heart of the “associates” will seep out to their customers and then upward to the leaders.

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Copyright 2005

When you think of your favorite hairstyle, does a certain celebrity come to mind? If you said “yes”, you’re one of millions of women and even men that find celebrity hair-styles the way to go. After all, they are the trendsetters. So, what’s their tips and secrets or is their locks just airbrushed perfect in those magazines? After much research, we’ve narrowed the list to 10 of the best tips and secrets available, both from celebrities and their stylists:

Celebrity hair styles Tip #1- For that over the top curl look, use a curling iron on parts of the hair and a waving iron on other parts. For the best straight look simply use a flattening iron, but apply a conditioning mist to the dry hair prior to using any heat; this eliminates frizz and static.

Celebrity hair styles Tip #2- To create highlights for curly hair; try putting in the color vertically; this helps define the curls. For straighter hair, paint the highlights on in a starburst fashion, across the entire surface of the hair. Keep highlights within two shades of your natural color.

Celebrity hair styles Tip #3- Use products specifically made for color treated hair when you have any type of highlights, lowlights or coloring on your hair. Always use a leave-in conditioner in the hair and use those that contain sunscreen.

Celebrity hair styles Tip #4- For frizz free curls and to combat those split ends, try sleeping on a satin pillow.

Celebrity hair styles Tip #5- If you suffer from dandruff, try using two ground-up aspirins in your shampoo once every week. Most dandruff shampoos can strip away color from color-treated hair; this great tip doesn’t do that at all.

Celebrity hair styles Tip #6- Avoid brushing your hair, instead use a wide-tooth-comb or your fingers.

Celebrity hair styles Tip #7- Use one tablespoon of baking soda mixed with two tablespoons of shampoo to clarify your hair; but only once a week. Otherwise, you may strip the hair completely of natural oils.

Celebrity hair styles Tip #8- Avoid blow dryers if possible, towel dry your hair until all the moisture is out. Then allow it to air dry the rest of the way.

Celebrity hair styles Tip #9- Apply a leave-in conditioner prior to going to sleep; then wash out in the morning.

Celebrity hair styles Tip #10- After washing, apply conditioner, then rinse well with warm water; then apply a cold water rinse from roots to ends. This will add shine to your hair.

J. Williams writes a free hairstyles tips and tricks newsletter. Sign up today!

A few months back, at the ITEA conference I saw this guy sitting next to me typing constantly into his wireless laptop. He was making notes on what the speakers had to say, was finding relevant links and then hitting the send key - instantly updating his Web site. No sooner the site was updated; he would get responses back from readers around the globe. He was a Blogger.

About Blogs

Several years ago, surfers started collecting information and interesting links they encountered in their travels through webspace. As the time passed they started creating logs of the information they collected and soon they started creating their own web logs. The web logs enabled them to update the information and links as often as possible. This was what the guy in the conference was doing. Improvements in Web design tools have certainly made uploading and updating easier for them.

Blogs are more permanent than posts to an online discussion list, more dynamic than older-style home pages. They are more personal than traditional journalism, and definitely more public than diaries. A blog is often a mixture of what is happening in a person’s life and what is happening on the Web, a kind of hybrid diary site. So, there are as many unique types of blogs as there are people.

These are a few common characteristics of a blog, but blog types may slightly vary. Some blogs provide succinct description of judiciously selected links. Some others contain commentary and links to the news of the day. Few are endless stream of blurts about the writers day. Few others are - political blogs, intellectual blogs, some are hilarious and some topic driven. They are all - Weblogs.

More than a list of links and less than a full-blown zine, weblogs may be hard to describe but easy to recognize. A blog can be recognized by its format: a webpage with new entries placed at the top, updated frequently. Often at the side of the page is a list of links pointing to similar sites. Some sites consist only of a weblog. Others include the weblog as a part of a larger site. Even though there are so many different blogs, there is one thing common about all the bloggers: most are noncommercial and are impassioned about their subjects.
Defining Blogs

A frequent, chronological publication of personal thoughts and Web links.

Blogs are alternatively called Web Logs or Weblogs. However, “blog” is used unanimously because it seems less likely to cause confusion, as “web log” can also mean a server’s log files.

Blogs & The Worldwide Web

Both personal sites and lists of links have existed since the web was born. Indeed, the ability to link one document to the other that existed on the global network drew early enthusiasts to the Web. They published pages and eagerly perused the pages published by others. That was the time when the accessibility to the pages from any computer with a modem and a browser was more important than the content of that page. For a while, webpages became an interesting addition to the cyberspace. Then the space got crowded. As a result the web grew at an exponential rate and search for the required information became difficult and simultaneously more time consuming.

Until, a few of these enthusiasts decided to put the links they collected daily onto a single webpage. These people placed their stuff descriptive text and link/s, for example: their travel records, on the web. The text enabled the reader to know why they should click the link and wait for the page to download. And so a particular type of website was born.

The New York Times article about a website named LemonYellow, published in July 1999, didnt say a word about weblogs, but affirmed the notion that webloggers were onto something.

Most of the early weblog editors designed or maintained websites for a living. Few of these editors just knew HTML - the simple coding language used to create webpages.

With Weblogs becoming popular, the personal websites became extensions of their day-to-day lives. Webloggers started rolling personal journals ongoing links-laden riffs on a favorite subject. Soon they linked to general interest articles to online games, and often to Web-related news.

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This brings to our consciousness, issues concerning the ever rising level of inequality prevalent in our times with its attendant fallout and imbalance within our global system.

This has had its roots within the basic units of human co-existence experienced at our different localities and as such has naturally extended beyond, to a multi-level of inter-relationships across national boundaries.
We have the two sides of the border with a far yawning gap or better still, should we call it the two sides of the socio-economic divide: which balance is daily nurtured towards the deprivation experienced amongst a group of people within a state and across poor countries of the world-the African continent being prominent in this instance.

The struggle for supremacy in all spheres has become so heated up in recent times. While one may acknowledge that this is as an innate attribute of Man to ensure self survival, are recent actions in this pursuit of self preservation not going beyond the balance?

The less inspirational ones are daily being stampeded to the dust and ultimate death by the more privileged in the race for a nebulous ‘reward’ dreamt up by the ‘conqueror’.

The fallout is the self-inflicted tension which yet persists. Even the delicate eco-balance is not spared either.

In simple words, the reality today is the nurturing of a system which is lopsided towards a situation of grinding poverty and disrespect for human dignity.

Therefore, it may be inferred that it is possible that the human race has not actually maximized the benefits of the essence of its existence on this planet.

Therefore, the natural flow of thought is to question the role of our decision makers to stem the tide of this imbalance.

Across all levels of decision making one may ask: what has engaged the minds of our policy makers where issues such as the equitable share of the common good (wealth), rule of law coupled with unbiased dispensation of justice and respect for the dignity of Man are concerned? These and many questions demand our attention.

What is Man’s mission?
What is the mission of the privileged?
What is the reaction of the oppressed?
How did these attitudes originate?
Has it been as a result of retaliation or provocation? etc

However, despite these multifarious conflicting tendencies, a symbiotic relationship of sorts still prevails. Or do we call it a forced relationship- predatory in nature?

For something in return, the have-nots still serve the privileged ones within and across the socio-economic divide. A similar experience is also noted across nations where raw materials and cheaper labour force are exchanged for finished goods and services.

Yet a state of mutual suspicion, fear and tension still exist. Why? And can we do better than this?

Today, to advocate for a utopia is neither practicable nor humanly possible but our lopsided socio-economic equilibrium (being the two sides of the same coin of the human entity) ought to be steered towards a harmonious status as much as we can and not a departure from it as it were.

The oppressed nations, the weak in the slums, in the favelas, in the ghettos we know are”the dust of the earth” but let the powerful reflect on the phenomenon of our common creation and extinction to deliberately do more by allowing some spill of the needed ‘little drops of water”(at the least) touch the quaking and dried lips of these less-inspired ones.. This is what they simply ask for! To ensure a recovery, sustenance of life and restore human dignity to our other self and not mere existence as it were.

In all, life goes on albeit the uncertainties and the mutual suspicion at both ends of the fulcrum of our interactions and existence. Let us see what happens..

Muyiwa Osifuye is an African (Nigeria) based photographer. This article accompanied my photographic work at the 5th Gwangju Arts Biennale in South Korea summer 2004. A few of my works can be seen at http://www.pictures-of-nigeria.com