Flame, Glass and Ink are Poems, essays, and reading notes by Stefania Joori Suh

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  • The Moon Sail

    Monet_Sailboat_French_Impressionist_Shower_Curtain_300x300
    Sailboat by Claude Monet

    See, where does the wind blow,
    Westward, a ghost of queen sail slow –
    The soul of Yesterday on the sea deeper –
    Unguided, pursues her way alone ever.

  • Inside American’s Tomb for Illegal Wildlife Trade

    RE: July 16th, 2018 article of “On the Grounded in Commerce City, Colo. : Inside America’s tomb for illegal wildfire trade by David Kelly of the Los Angeles Times

    Imagine the vistas: a cornucopia of a mounted tiger fetus with its tiny ears, a grand giraffe head, a pair of shiny python skin-made thigh high boots, a black bear’s toes coupled with its gallbladders, and many more artifacts made out of animals that will never cease to blindside your vestige of humanity and overawe your tactile senses. If your mind tells you to think that the imagery is but a visceral affectation of a surreal painting of Salvador Dali, you just think yourself awake in the stupendousness of dreamlike morbidity. They are just a few illustrations of taxidermic animals confiscated in the course of international illegal trafficking of endangered animals exhibited in the National Wildlife Property Repository (the “Repository”) located in Commerce City, Colorado.

    My opinion on the report of the Repository as to its existence and nature is threefold: First, I can’t believe that there is such a horrendous and macabre exhibition of the animals killed and stuffed – and in the shoddiest way – open to the public, especially aimed at school students. Second, the grim underworld of a huge illegal trading market where a great demand of the coveted animal products is constantly met with a colossal supply of the dead animals is a stark reality even in this age of technological supernova. Third, it shudders me to think the wantonness of avarice and gluttony for which the sinners would find themselves in the third and fourth circles of Dante’s Inferno. What’s more, the fact that the Repository of such abhorrent kind is located not in the outpost of civilization where the artifacts of the sorts would be regarded as a cultural tradition but in Commerce City in Colorado chills me to the bone.

    It is reported that the purpose of the Repository is to educate the public on the gravitas of poaching and trafficking of endangered animals systematically perpetrated in global criminal syndicates of Chinese origin active in South Africa. However, I am concerned about the effects it intends to produce, however noble it may seem, which will likely work at cross-purposes, even counter-productively, pace its original intention to raise social awareness and ethical context of the issue. It might be all over but the shouting that rather than promoting awareness of destruction of the ecological system and its inevitable adverse impacts on mankind as well as the nature itself, the sight of the mutilated dead animal bodies and/or parts may be regarded as a freak show for those who have bizarre tastes of necrophilia and/or sadism emanating from the perceived sensual pleasures of watching animals torn apart from rib to rib, ear to ear, or head to toe in perpetual torture.

  • True it is.

    mucha_alphonse_1

    Doubt that the stars fall from the sky;
    Doubt that the young never age;
    Doubt the truth can tell a lie;
    But never doubt the heart that loves thee.

  • Onward: How Starbucks Fought for Its Life without Losing Its Soul by Howard Schultz

    Onward: How Starbucks Fought for Its Life without Losing Its SoulOnward: How Starbucks Fought for Its Life without Losing Its Soul by Howard Schultz

    My rating: 5 of 5 stars

    It was eight years after the founder of Starbucks Howard Schultz had resigned from the position of CEO when the company that he had sown with the wind and reaped in whirlwind was at stake amid the catalytic financial crisis in 2008. The perilous state of Starbucks called for its creator’s return to take the helm of a distressed ship on the verge of sinking into the abyss of obscurity with all its hopeful expectations, respectful achievements, not to speak of all of its shipmates from the management down to the store employees. Schultz could not let all of it happen. He accepted the calling in the capacity of CEO to save the ship and continued sailing onward, which forms the basis of this book.

    What might be considered as an autobiography of a business tycoon at first blush of the title of the book will lead the reader to an interesting peek-a-boo of a successful enterprise that is armed to the teeth with its unique philosophy of practicality and idealism rooted in operational rigor and accountability striving for a healthy balance of profit and social conscience to provide customers with prime quality coffee proprietary to the brand. Schultz’s ambition to perfect the art of making fine espresso as the company’s distinguishing attitudinal value of coffee-making from the competitors is akin to that of craftsmanship of a seasoned artisan of a medieval guild. For example, in the afternoon of one Tuesday in February 2008, Schultz closed all of the US stores to improve the making of espresso because pouring espresso was something of an art, and therefore required a barista to attend to the quality of the beverage even though it meant the huge loss of profits for closing the stores just for one day. To Schultz, taking the ordinary to elevate it to an art also relates to a business principle of putting the sincerest endeavors to the foundation and innovation of the company; it is a right way to win as he believes, “Coffee can’t lie,” which is also reminiscent of what Theodore Roosevelt commented on his favorite coffee as being “good to the last drop.”

    In addition, Schultz offers many more interesting tidbits of the company without disclosing its trade secrets in an informative way: That Starbucks is company-owned and not franchised is something new to learn. Unlike William Rosenberg, the founder of Dunkin’ Donuts, who was a fervent believer of a franchise, Schultz adamantly opposes the idea of franchising Starbucks because ceding ownership of stores to individuals will most likely to mar the enterprising spirit of the company and loosen the cohesiveness of esprit de corps, let alone the principles of providing a customer with the best quality beverage in a social yet personal environment between one’s house and job. Besides, the company’s provision of full health care benefits to all employees, ranging from the corporate heads to part-time attendants in stores points to the veracity of Schultz fostering of social conscience in the course of making profits, withal.

    Onward is a testament to the steadfast adherence to cardinal principles of playing a good clean competition in a business world without becoming a tainted soul. That is, achieving success in promoting its entrepreneurial profit growth and humanistic idealism is all over but the shouting. It might make the reader wonder if Schultz has heard the adage of Ralph Waldo Emerson during his lecture to the audience in the height of the Lyceum Movement: “Knowledge, plus moral character, promotes business success.” All in all, Schultz’s touchy-feely narrative surprisingly devoid of self-aggrandizement or ostentatious display of his lifetime achievement, relates a tale of a man whose ambitious but admirable philosophy of entrepreneurship rigorously kept against the insurmountable odds with  the heart of a man responsible for his legion of employees and their families appertains to the reader in one way or another. Upon reading the book, the reader will feel a bit privy to his/her regular Starbucks on a next visit in a nice sort of way.

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  • A Thousand Nights and a Day

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    The night has a thousand lights,
    And the day only one;
    The light of radiance vanishes
    With the escaping sun.

    The mind has a thousand reasons,
    And the heart only one;
    The light of the soul dies
    When my love is gone.

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  • Hostages to Franchisers; on No Poaching Clauses

    Re: July 10, 2018 article of “Fast-food hiring practices are probed” by Jeff Stein of The LA Times

    Working at a fast food store is often the only possible choice of laboring men and women out of steady, well-paying employment under unfavorable circumstances that push them to choose provisional jobs to eke out living, just as some of aristocratic and educated middle-class men used to work at the docks at a harbor in Victorian England. To add insult to the injury, be it ever known that any such worker who finds himself/herself in the labor limbo gives hostages to employment security in exchange of his/her sovereign principles, dreams, and wills.

    I was appalled by this article of modern-day version of indentured service term called “No-Poaching Clauses,” which restricts managers from hiring employees from another store in the chain. Such arbitrary employment practice oppresses not only the livelihood but also dignity of employees working at well-known fast food franchises in the U.S.

    By binding employees only to one store in the chain, an employer violates the quintessential elements of what makes us human: to quest for freedom of will, will to meaning, and meaning of life. Anyone striving for a new opportunity in life should do so to achieve individual values of life of which the acquisition of sustenance is indispensably requisite.

    Forget sectarian political tendencies and partisan ideologies that are nothing but airy doctrines and demagogic campaign leaflets that are not in touch with the reality. Although it is reassuring to learn that there are at least seemingly some conscientious politicians (thank God for exerting their statesmanship on the existential matters of citizens’ daily lives) who are investigating such proprietorial contractual clauses, there should be many more bipartisan politicians willing to join the force to voice out the injustice done by the employers of the franchises and stop the exploitation of their workers at once.

    Never forget  “The laborer is worthy of the reward.”