Today: Panama Papers; gray menace crime wave; Hillary’s emails: The real story; Asian Americans on race; April 1 march slide show

Eric J. Garcia, “Offshore Mitt.” Follow Eric J. Garcia at Garciaink@twitter or friend him on Facebook.

Panama Papers: “I like you just the way you are!”
The biggest data leak in history, the Panama Papers, is laying bare the way the super-rich hide their wealth, sheltering it from taxes and concealing financial crimes. As Kevin Drum in Mother Jones writes, “Everyone is now making vague noises about offshore tax havens and how they should be shut down, or regulated, or something. But the plain truth is that no one really wants to do it. Britain, obviously, could shut down the ones under their control pretty easily, but they never have. The United States could effectively shut them all down by refusing to allow offshore shell companies in designated tax havens access to US banks. But we haven’t done that either. Too many rich people like things just the way they are.”

Latino Art Now!
Latino Art Now! — Imaging Global Intersections, Apr 7-9 at UIC.  This monster conference with over 200 panelists is organized by the Inter University Program for Latino Research at UIC and the Smithsonian Latino Center.

Among the panelists are number of SAIC/AIC people, including F Newsmagazine’s editor from 1990 Pablo Helguera and the amazing political cartoonist/painter Eric J Garcia (El Machete)  (whose cartoons I feature on this blog). Eric also has an opening in a group show at Uri-Eichen gallery Friday night April 8.

“Distinguished artist speakers” include Tania Bruguera, Sherezade Garcia and Maria Gaspar (ass’t prof at SAIC). Among the other SAIC/AIC panelists are Jose Resendiz, José Agustín Andreu,Beatriz E. Ledesma, Ernesto Atkinson, Josh Ríos, Edra Soto, Prof. Daniel Quiles, and AIC prints curator Mark Pascale. One one of the conference host committees is the iconic Richard “Cheech” Marin, whose contribution to Latino Art deserves more credit. (A screenwriter with any sense of justice would have had him waste George Clooney in “From Dusk Till Dawn.”)

Another crime wave, coming soon to US?
“Japan’s hard-up retirees turn to crime for free board and lodging behind bars”  (Financial Times headline).  About 35% of Japan’s shoplifting offences are committed by over-60s – and in a country of a “meagre state pension” a report suggests many want to be jailed (BBC summary).
Is this a secret Republican dream? Is the flip side of privatizing Social Security an economic stimulus for the prison-industrial complex? In any case, it is a good example for sociologist Loic Wacquant, who has been arguing that the welfare state has become a penal state. If it’s true that Japan’s elderly think they’d be better off in prison, Japan’s prisons must be somewhat different from prisons in the US.

Hillary’s emails: The “real story”
The Times reports a strange comment, strange because it’s coming from a Hillary Clinton supporter. Bob Kerrey, former Senator from Nebraska: “The email story is not about emails. … It is about wanting to avoid the reach of citizens using FOIA” — the Freedom of Information Act — “to find out what their government is doing, and then not telling the truth about why she did it.” (Kerrey made that comment on Fox News in September.)

A conversation with Asians about Race
The Times just published video interviews with Asian Americans in its Conversations on Race series. They talk about their experience growing up, confronting stereotypes, making sense of America, differences between them and other Asian Americans, and, repeatedly, the “model minority” myth (“a way to pit Asian Americans against African Americans in particular,” says one woman). Good, insightful storytelling by telegenic young people, smart editing, and a good example for student journalists of how to do this kind of interview collage — in video, sound or text.

But notice that the Times interviews the young and telegenic, maybe leaving you thinking, well, they are pretty wonderful, maybe they should be a model, at least for me.” Not to pick; this is a well-made short, a thought-provoking conversation. The other episodes in the Times feature are equally worth watching:  THE CONVERSATION: A SERIES OF SHORT FILMS ABOUT RACE IN AMERICA  and also their  Conversations on Race, inviting reader comments on their experience of race in America, are a good example of interactive web journalism.

Que viva la gran marcha por la educación en Chicago!
Great photo slide show  from Univision, photos of the vast numbers of marchers, shots of some very cool people. One shot of some young artists who comment on Rahm and Rauner with their Star Wars-inspired images, showing how easy it is for artists to find a mass audience. (Hint to SAIC students — take your art into the streets.)