Opinion: In today’s pages: Reading Barbie’s butt, development for dummies
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Writer Jennifer Tang tells us how Barbie’s butt can teach kids about economics:
In the 1960s, long before outsourcing became rampant in other industries, Mattel and other toy manufacturers opened factories in Asia, employing thousands of poor, single women. My mother was one of them.She didn’t think her employer was exploitative, though low wages were the main reason she wanted to emigrate to the United States....As it turned out, Barbie didn’t stay in Hong Kong either. In the 1980s, Barbie’s provenance changed -- most were ‘Made in the Philippines,’ with some in made in Malaysia or Thailand. What happened? Progress.
Writer Garret Keizer offers a developer’s guidebook for getting projects past local resistance. Richard Nemec notes that a recent Air Resources Board appointee holds stock in several companies she’ll have to deal with in her new post. Columnist Ronald Brownstein gives his post-Labor Day election round-up for the early campaign season.
The editorial board recommends seven bills become law before the state legislature retires for recess. It explains why Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa is both wrong and right in his refusal to support a state clean ports plan. And finally it welcomes Iran’s release of two Iranian-American prisoners but wonders what message the country is trying to send.
Readers react to the decline of blood banks and the attempts to reach out to Latino donors. Oakland’s Chris Morgan writes, ‘...let’s get moving on revising [donation] criteria so that we don’t have to rely on Midwesterners during the next earthquake.’