Gross

Yesterday, I had to visit a Halloween store to find the all important Ninja Ice Wolf costume. Yes, it is part of the culture of violence in America. Yes, it is far more materialistic than the happy hobo, zombie, or greaser costumes we used to cobble together as a kid. I've decided to lower the bar of my moral outrage and let my principles float. While there, I scoured the shelves looking for festive articles from a customs classification perspective. As far as I am concerned everything in that store is a festive article.

Two things struck me as a I wandered among the decapitated ghouls, gravestones, and ghosts: Halloween is far more extreme than when I made the rounds of my neighborhood with my friends and a pillowcase for candy. The gore factor is very much ratcheted up. I guess this is the trickle-down of Hollywood special effects and makeup technology. But it is not just the realism, it is also the context. Look at this picture I took with my cell phone; it depicts a plastic human brain and a plastic severed hand packaged like meat at a butcher shop. There were hearts available as well. The nutrition label says that they are from the Cannibal Meat Market. I gather these are festive holiday decorations.

I'm not saying this is the end of western civilization. Nor am I calling for industrial self restraint or regulation. I really don't care that much. I just think it is an interesting example of how taste changes and how what once would have been considered way over the line is now available for retail consumption. Same goes for what can best be described as the fetishization of Halloween.
The second thing is that I wonder what must the Chinese factory workers must think of us? I have no idea how widespread the American version of Halloween is these days. Have the commercial haunted house and CD of eerie noises been globalized? Surely, the workers putting these body parts on Styrofoam trays must think the U.S. is a bizarre and blood-thirsty culture. To the limited extent I care, I can only hope their image of the U.S. at Halloween is tempered by reruns of this.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Ruling of the Week 2015.8: Old Jersey and Pitcairn Island

Image
For today's ROTW, I set out looking for a ruling dealing with some far off and preferably warm location. Turns out that, with the exception of coastwise transit issues, there are no Customs and Border Protection rulings involving Pitcairn Island or any of several Pacific Ocean microstates including Tuvalu , Niue , and Kiribati . Pitcairn Island What I did find is an interesting question about the country of origin marking for products of the Bailiwick of Jersey Island, Channel Islands. The ruling is HQ 561938 (Mar. 18, 2002). For those of you who may not know, Jersey is an island off the coast of Normandy, France. It is an independent international actor and not part of the U.K. although the U.K. is responsible for its defense and external relations. Also, the Queen is the Head of State in her capacity as "the Crown in Right of Jersey." It is, according to the U.S. Department of State, a " Crown Dependency " along with the Isle of Man and the Bailiwick o...
Read more

CAFC Decision in Double Invoicing Case

The Federal Circuit has issued a decision on the merits in United States v. Inn Foods, Inc.  There had been a previous decision on jurisdiction, which was followed by a trial at the Court of International Trade and then this appeal on the substance. The initial issue is whether Inn Foods' invoicing practice amounts to fraud.  Inn Foods had been receiving an invoice from growers in Mexico that had a relatively low sales prices on it.  Subsequent to entry, Inn Foods created a second invoice at something more similar to market value, retaining the original invoice number, and paid at that higher amount.   Superficially, this looks like a standard-issue double-invoicing scheme.  But, in the age of reconciliation, is it really more like a provisional pricing mechanism?  It might have been possible to make that argument had Inn Foods adjusted its entries accordingly.  It didn't and the loss of revenue was approximately $624,000.  Based on testimony and evidence indicating both knowl...
Read more

Ninestar and UFLPA Exhaustion

Image
Exhaustion is a key doctrine in administrative law. When applicable, it requires that a party unhappy with an agency’s determination complete the administrative appeal process before turning to the courts for judicial review. Requiring exhaustion typically promotes judicial efficiency by ensuring that disputes are resolved at the agency and, if they are not, that there is a complete record of the agency process. Exhaustion also ensures that the judiciary respects the executive agencies and their expertise.  There are, on the other hand, times when the courts will find that exhaustion is not necessary or appropriate. Such is the case in  Ninestar Corporation et al. v. United States  et al., a decision of the U.S. Court of International Trade.  Ninestar is also interesting because it is one of the first cases in the CIT involving the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act, known as UFLPA. In my hiatus from active blogging, I missed the rise of UFLPA as a major compliance t...
Read more