The Iraq Study group released its report to much fanfare a few days ago. I think it has been a non-starter on two levels.
The Chimp seems to have decided not to take the fig leaf that the report offers.
He is still resisting a call to accept the mistakes and to fundamentally change course. Does a way forward (the new catch phrase) that does not include a change of direction bring us to a new place? I think not.
As for those of us who know what a catastrophe the whole Iraq misadventure is. the report feels like a mere slap on the wrist when what is called for is a major shakedown of the miscreants.
I felt quite disheartened - or rather, let down - when it became clear that the way forward was going to be more of the same old .
I website. That helped me to finally label my tired misgivings for what they were: a quiet outrage. Administration that things are going badly in Iraq.
What is worse is considered partisan - read, not neo-con Republicans . But the ultimate bipartisan at all. Even the people who are supposed to be non-Republican Consider justice O'Connor.
I was unable to find the link to an article that appeared in the NYT a few months after the ill-fated 2000 election. But, the point of the article was that O'Connor cast the deciding vote that installed Chimp as President.
Another questionable character is Democrat Lee Hamilton.
He has been in bed with the Reagan-Bush crooks since 1980. Check out the following links: I don't know much about the other non-Repub members of the group. But people like Vernon Jordan (he became prominent during the Clinton-Lewisnky days) are behind-the-scenes operatives who work primarily for the moneyed wing of the Democratic party.
All these people are like the man who has a Dem wife, and a Repub mistress. The U.S.
has lost ALL moral authority and clarity. There may be an insurgency in Iraq; but there is one here as well. The difference is that the Iraqi insurgency is not officially in power.
Ours is in power An article in the Sunday NYT talked about how there is no overarching Iraq as a nation, that Sunni and Shia identities supercede the larger national identity. The tendency of many Repubs to stick together and cover for their own (McCain is a perfect example of this, as is Colin Powell), makes them just like the insurgents.
I bought myelf an ipod a couple of weeks ago.
I use it to listen to a rich variety of free podcasts.
One weekend when I was out walking I returned a friend's phone call using my cellphone. I was pleasantly surprised to find that I was so engrossed in talking that the 40 minute walk seemed to simply fly by.
Since having a walking partner is not an option, it occurred to me that having something fresh and interesting to listen to would allow me to simulate the experience of conversing with a friend and make walking less of a drag.
I am pleased to report that the ipod has been quite a success. I listen to it not only on my weekend walks, but just before going to bed and even while cooking!
- American Public Media: Word for Word, Weekend America and Marketplace All three books are out of print. I could not recall the names of the first two books, but remembered that they were written by Pearl Buck and their general themes (one is about a Japanese American teenager whose father moves her back to Japan after WWII, and the other is about an American family that settled in Pune, India). Thanks to the Internet, I was able to find the books a well as buy them!
I remembered the title of the third book clearly, but had misremembered the author's name. Fortunately I was able to find that book as well. The book is set in 1960s London, where WWII still casts a shadow, and the backdrop is the visit of the main character's wealthy Australian in-laws.
A couple of years ago I bought an old copy of An intelligent woman's guide to capitalism and socialism by G.B. Shaw.
I had origninally acquired it from a table of retired books at my college, but had since misplaced the book over the course of several moves.
Even though the books read quite differently now than they did then, they serve as windows into the times when they were written and provide a hazy peek at the person I was when I first read them.
Another blast from the past was buying and watching the old Hindi movie Piya Ka Ghar.
Its realistic portrayal of middle class life is priceless. It is a rare breed - an un-Bollywood Bollywood movie.
I was sorry to read of the death of novelist Bebe Moore Campbell.
I read her novel Brothers and Sisters over ten years ago and I credit it with giving me a fuller understanding of the lives of contemporary African Americans. The novel is set in LA after the 1992 riots and it portrays the lives of middle class African-Americans and the non-blacks with whom to interact with great authenticity.
Most of us know more about slavery, the Civil War and the Civil Rights era.
We take it as a given that those were horrendous times for people of color. But, not many of us pause to think of how the lives of African Americans have changed and what challenges they continue to face. Nor do we give much thought to the may ways in which race colors most interactions, especially when it comes to African-Americans.
I was a changed person after reading Brothers and Sisters . Race has become such a charged topic that people just don't talk about it - especially in the contemporary setting. I respect Bebe Moore Campbell for her ability to create 3-dimensional characters (of all races) and for her courage in tackling such a difficult topic.
Over the years I continued to look for her books as they were released and while I enjoyed them all, Brothers and Sisters remains the star for me. In fact, my interest in the African-American narrative expanded and I sampled other AA authors as well. I wrote about the many AA-themed books I have read over the years, .
My book group consisted of three other women. We met once each month over a span of about two years. We read a wide range of novels.
The ones I recall vividly are Confessions of Nat Turner (I loved it, if the word loved can be applied to a book that causes a wrenching fundamental rethinking) and In the Fall (human depravity has no low - I can't say I liked the book even though it was probably well-written) and the latest Phil Roth book (I liked only the first half). We also read books with Vietnamese, Thai, Indian, and of course, American settings.
We enjoyed discussing the books and along the way got to know each other quite well.
We were in roughly the same age group and shared roughly the same politics. Each month we would pick a restaurant that matched the theme of the book of the month.
So, when I suggested Brothers and Sisters , I had no reason to think that it would bomb, certainly not as badly as it did.
My friends thought the book was shallow and that the characters were not well-drawn. They felt no empathy for the plight of the characters trying to pull themselves out of poverty and trying desperately to hold on to their first tentative steps towards a middle class life. They saw no redeeming value to the book at all.
To say that I was shocked would be an understatement. Worse, I felt that I was seeing the unacknowledged prejudices behind the liberal masks. Clearly, while it is easy for people to agree about the most egegious aspects of past racism, there is a reluctance (or inability) to countenance the legacy of that past that casts a shadow on the present.
Could it be that to acknowledge the problem is to accept a measure of responsibility for the status quo?
After this meeting, despite my efforts, the book group held no charm for me. I left it within a few months.
About a week before this book group meeting, a cable TV installer - a young African-American woman - came to my house. We got talking and she told me about her dream of starting her own electrical contractor business. Talk about shattered family structures: she lived with her half-sister (same father, different mothers, marriage/divorce non-existent).
While this young woman had a technical institute degree, her half-sister had not completed high school. Even attending technical school would be a stretch for her. So she kept house for her half-sister.
Both were unmarried - the one way, they felt, that they might live a middle class life.
I felt moved by her story. I wanted to help her, to encourage her to pursue her dream.
Given privacy concerns, and my own limitations I felt that I could not suggest continued contact. But I did not want to let her go with nothing.
I gave her two books.
One was Brothers and Sisters and the other was Defying Gravity (a collection of accounts about late-blooming women).
sure about the right way of looking at it. I welcome comments and insights from readers as I am quite confused.
Last night we went to an Indian restaurant. In the front lobby of the restaurant were two fairly large (about 3.5 feet tall) statues.
One was Even though I have seen such displays before, the placement of the Ganesh statue bothered me this time. I am not a religious person. So my discomfort is not because of any kind of dogma.
Rather, it is that the object is being used in ways in which it is not intended to be used. Here are my specific concerns:
In that spirit, it seems disrespectful to place the statue in a place - is being repurposed as a mere greeter. That seems wrong as well.
When I expressed my concerns to my husband, he felt that I was being too sensitive. He said the strength of the Hindu religion is that there are no edicts from on high. It is all up to each individual.
I do, of course, agree with that and even value that aspect of Hinduism However, I also feel the need for some sort of scholarship or expert opinion to guide me. Also, there is a need for such standard operating procedures to guide others like the restaurant owners (who are Last week I attended a special mass at a local Catholic church. This was contrast with how the Catholic faith was presented to us.
priests left me cold. The preoccupation with the crucifix and with Jesus' body and blood bordered on cultish.
But, what impressed me was the priest's knowledge about the religion's many icons and the reverence with which he treated them.
Also, it was clear that his scholarship is supported by a body of historical research.
A part of me wishes that Hinduism too had similar scholarly underpinnings.
I am currently developing a web site for a large corporate client.
They have spent a lot of time making sure that the brand is presented just right. This means they have firm guidelines about the placement of logos, their sizes and colors, and even which variations/repurposing/combinations of logos are accepatble and which are strictly prohibited.
One one hand I feel that this level of attention to aspects that most users will barely notice, and that have no bearing on the success/effectiveness of the web site, is a triumph of style over substance, that this is an example of wasting resources on trivial pursuits.
On the other hand, it tells me how seriously they take their brand and how zealously they guard the brand even at the intangible, perceptive level.
While its laissez-faire nature has not - yet - hurt the public perception of Hinduism, especially here in the U.S.
, I cannot help wondering if the faith would not benefit from some best practices guidelines put out by those who possess some scholarship in the subject.
It is true that within India, it is quite common to see religious icons used quite casually. Sidewalk artists even draw pictures of gods right in the middle of pedestrian thoroughfares.
I think the difference is that the casual attitude is okay, to a certain extent, in the religion's native milieu. There is a need for greater awareness of how one portrays one's religion/culture when NOT in one's native milieu.
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