As a white American southerner, I am disturbed on many levels when the reprehensible slavery of Africans in America over a century ago is still frequently brought up for political purposes. The truth is that slavery still exists and is widespread today in Africa itself, where it is unfortunately almost totally ignored by Americans today, both white and black. At this very moment, there are black slaves digging up diamonds for next year’s Valentine’s Day bling in a brutal business called conflict diamonds. The political instability of Africa makes it a hotbed of seemingly endless civil wars which are extremely expensive to fight. Financing such evil adventures is easy when you’ve got a herd of slaves in your back pocket digging in the dirt for shiny rocks that Westerners will pay a fortune to buy and sell at ever more inflated prices.
This is the main reason I am not and will never be swayed by the argument that “even if we didn’t find WMDs that were threatening America in Iraq, toppling Saddam was a worthy effort because it helped so many brutalized innocent Iraqis.” Not to detract one iota from innocent Iraqis who were indeed well and truly brutalized, I say that if you want to see true brutalization of innocents, start reading about what’s going on in Africa right now. Who knows the truth is about the covert American input into this mess? I sure don’t.
Here’s how I see it: America sends in 100,000+ troops to storm a Middle Eastern country that’s literally dripping with oil, but when an African conflict shows up that’s easy for Americans to reach, President Bush parks only 2000 Marines offshore in a troop transport, lets only a few of them hit the beach, then immediately pulls them back out because those tough leatherneck Marines can’t take for a week what African babies have to live through every day of their lives. Then Sheriff Dubya lets the perp walk and we never hear about it again; guess it served its political purpose of distraction. There are so many things wrong with that picture I need a calculator to count them all.
Somebody should inform Dubya that conflict diamonds have financed $20 million of Al-Qaida operations, something Saddam never did. Then maybe we’d pour 100,000 American save-the-brutalized-innocents troops into Angola and Congo instead of Iraq. They still wouldn’t be in Afghanistan where they belong hunting Osama Bin Laden, but at least they’d be doing SOMETHING that at least HAMPERS Al-Qaida. Unlike now.
I would like synthetic diamonds to become cheap enough that I could actually have a pair of diamond eyeglass lenses ground. I would never have to worry about scratches again! Man, that would be great.
Of course, the biggest hurdles to cheap diamonds are probably political / social, not technological. But still, a rabbit can dream.
Not a good idea to make eye glasses out of diamonds, for same reasons that most glasses are made out of plastic – not glass.
It would be better to deposit some kind of coating (possibly diamond) on the lense.
Or better yet, reduce the cost of these till they become ‘disposable’. Get a scratch = throw away + get new ones.
I’d rather have durable glasses than disposable ones… Its just so much more convenient than having to get new glasses everytime you get a scratch
http://cfa-www.harvard.edu/press/pr0407.html
I was surprised ricky missed that one – good link!
…one, I just flat out missed it until after I posted the main article. Two, I didn’t want to give our female readers ideas that size matters…er, in diamonds.
Women and diamonds are a crazy, crazy combination. I told my wife that pretty soon I’d be able to get her a five carat diamond for $50 to replace her one carat diamond I paid a lot more than I like to think about. She said she would never wear a $50 diamond. Not even if it were chemically identical, physically flawless and uniquely colored. Go figure. I sure don’t understand.
Back in the days when I was waiting on tables in high school, I worked at a Holiday Inn that served a buffet. A man comes in with his family – wife and three very cute daughters. I walk over to the table and start handing out menus, asking if they’d prefer the buffet or ordering off the menu. The man picks up the couple of menus I’ve put down, hands them back to me, and says to me the wisest words of wisdom I’ve ever heard.
“We’ll take the buffet. Never offer women too many choices.”
In diamonds, it’s not really size– and not totally quality, either. If its pricetag indicates a measure of SACRIFICE on your part– the more sacrifice, the better, unless you have to 2nd mortgage your house– THAT’s what makes the offering special.
$50 for a diamond? Of COURSE a synthetic diamond not on the market by slave labor is the politically correct way to go. But if a man is going to spend only $50 on a gift for me, I’d rather it be a good bottle of wine or a beautiful bouquet of real flowers (and don’t forget: Godiva chocolates are always an option
:-) ). The women I know love the idea of your willingness to let go of the $$ for a gift that’s a total luxury and a financial sacrifice.
Given a broader CHOICE, we’d probably want a perfect, 5 karat, chemically-produced diamond that costs a bundle.
Given your choice, RJ, I’d have to vote with Nancy :-).