Obama and Persepolis
Ever thought you’d hear those two words together?
I was, through the magic of wireless connectivity, trolling through mobile.nytimes.com on my trusty cellphone at Starbucks this evening. I was wasting time while I ate an overpriced Starbucks cheese-and-fruit plate ($5.95 plus tax). I recently had my wisdom teeth removed and have been taking antibiotics with food for the last one and a half weeks. I came across two articles, vastly different – and fascinating for that exact reason.
First, Obama recently announced a salary cap for top corporate executives: 500k. Sounds reasonable, right? The guy’s just trying to make good on his promise. The NY times then did a quick calculation of the expenses of living as a top exec in Upper Manhattan. The total cost (average): 790k, give or take a few thousand. Apparently, the cost of living is completely different for the upper and lower classes – I just didn’t know it was that huge a gap!
Then, a lovely article by Susan Sajadi popped up, with obvious references to Persepolis. Persepolis was named one of the best comic/novels of 2003 by TIME magazine. I studied it in English class and because of that, will always remember the date of the beginning of the the Iranian Revolution. It was enjoyable, just like this article. I appreciated the dichotomy presented of her mother and the nuances of being Iranian-American. Definitely worth a read (both the comic and the article).
So in the same sitting, there was both economics and history. Leave it to New York Times to have such thought-provoking articles in its Fashion & Style section. I even copied a quote from the latter article on to my phone. The reminder of other lives unlike mine (both the executive and the Iranian mother), helps me feel better about spending too much on Starbucks and swallowing that bitter pill.
I think we all need this type of mental food for thought.
