Accidental Blogger

A Colbert Report Writer's Dream (Anna)

After a primary season in which comedians complained about the difficulty of mining Obama's candidacy for material, writers at The Colbert Report, at least, must be excited about the obvious contribution to their running joke presented by McCain's choice of VP. Watch out polar bears, she's a-comin'!

McCain's VP pick: Sarah Palin (Joe)

Wow.  Talk about a selection that could be really, really big.  Inspired, one might even say.

Senator John McCain chose Gov. Sarah Palin of Alaska as his running mate on Friday, shaking up the political world with a surprise pick at a time when his campaign has been trying to attract women, especially disaffected supporters of Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton.

I don't have much commentary right now.  But in case you read Accidental Blogger when you get up in the morning before CNN or the online newspaper of your choice, you definitely need to know this.

Obama's "Unconventional" Speech

Did you hear it?  Did you hear Barack Obama's acceptance speech earlier tonight in Denver? I hope you did. It was as close to flawless as a political message can get. Joe Biden, John Kerry and Al Gore had set the ball rolling with good speeches reminding the country what is at stake in this election ... and Obama hit it out of the Mile High Stadium. I don't remember hearing anything like this in an organized political forum.  Obama didn't flinch or hesitate. He soared and dipped like a musician who is confident of hitting all the right notes. He was like a street fighter reciting fine poetry - fabulous words and sharp elbows. He answered his critics who have called him a celebrity, unpatriotic, risky and given to empty rhetoric.  Best of all, Obama squarely took on John McCain and fearlessly enumerated his ideological flaws and political missteps. Obama's speech had enough policy meat in it to cook McCain's goose (I hope). I am sure McCain couldn't be very happy - I bet he knows it will be an awfully tough act to follow.  Perhaps this time he wishes he had been in a cone of silence instead of listening.

I have recovered somewhat from my dispirited lethargy about the election. In fact I feel much better - almost as good as I had felt after Iowa.

The Onion on Accidental Blogger

The Associated Press reports that the US Border Patrol is having a tough time retaining recruits to work along the border with Mexico. Apparently the agency loses 30% of its recruits (costing $14,000 per head in training) within the first 18 months of their joining the force. The job is tough as the opening line of the article suggests.

IMPERIAL BEACH, CALIF. — Law enforcement officers wanted: must work graveyard shifts alone in remote towns along the Mexican border, put in long hours and perform well in triple-digit temperatures.

That message is never touted in U.S. Border Patrol recruitment brochures, but the sobering reality of working on the border has created an environment in which about 30 percent of agents leave their jobs in less than 18 months.

"This has complications up and down the line," said Richard Stana, director of homeland security issues at the Government Accountability Office. "You're constantly in a recruiting mode."

The Border Patrol's struggle to keep new hires has become more evident as the agency comes close to meeting President Bush's target of 18,000 agents by the end of the year, up from 12,000 two years ago and double the number from eight years ago.

The GAO estimates that taxpayers pay $14,700 for each trainee at the Border Patrol Academy in Artesia, N.M. That 2006 figure doesn't take into account the many additional hours that senior agents spend training hires during a two-year probationary period. Money aside, a revolving door means a large percentage of the force will always be inexperienced.

"You've got to fill the slots, but you want quality people who are not going to leave," said Jeremy Wilson, associate director of RAND Corp.'s Center for Quality Policing.

About 20 percent of Border Patrol employees fail to graduate from the academy, which lasts up to 95 days for trainees who need to learn Spanish. More leave after returning to their stations.

This got me thinking.

Many Americans are conflicted about immigration, especially undocumented foreigners who enter the United States. The Republican Party is especially divided.  The populist right wingers and xenophobes like Pat Buchanan, Sean Hannity, Michael Savage and Lou Dobbs never tire of reminding us about the dangers that immigrants in general and undocumented immigrants in particular pose to our security and way of life. But Country Club Republicans, who want their rich friends to have access to cheap labor wish to put in place laws that will allow immigrants to come into the country if not as "illegals" then as "guest workers" without any prospect of ever becoming citizens. Sen John McCain, who favors cheap labor from the south of the border allowed into the US for ranching, farming, meat packing and construction jobs has said that there are some jobs that Americans, including those earning minimum wage, won't do under any circumstances, even for good money (like picking lettuce in Yuma, AZ at $50 / hour ).

So, why not hire "illegal aliens" to work on border patrol?

• They will do work which "Americans don't want to do" for much lower wages as businesses remind us often.
• They speak Spanish and can probably conduct more effective interrogations of the interlopers with little language and job training.
• They know the best places to enter the US and to hide from law enforcement.
• And most important, "illegal aliens" will stay near the border and not compete for jobs with "real Americans" in cities and towns. (is the border fence being built using "illegal" Mexican labor?  I wouldn't be at all surprised if it is).

This definitely seems like a better option than wasting money on recruiting Americans for jobs they are too bored to do, resulting in unacceptably high rate of attrition.  It is also far safer than having well armed Minute Men with a grudge prowling near the borders.

Note: The title of this post was my co-blogger Dean's idea.

Itching to play Russian Roulette

Sen John McCain's wife Cindy McCain traveled to Georgia this week on a humanitarian mission.  McCain has taken a tough pro-Georgia position against Russia since the recent eruption of hostilities between the two countries. A few posts down, in answer to Joe's question about the Russia - Georgia conflict, I expressed my suspicion regarding the possible role of the US and also my incredulity that anyone in our government would be foolish enough to try and re-ignite the Cold War. Some others too harbor the same fears and suspicions.  It is possible that the neo-cons in the US political establishment are feeling a bit frustrated at their impotence in containing a shadowy menace like global terrorism and in failing to capture an elusive enemy like Osama Bin Laden. Neo-cons like the world to be defined in black and white and as good and evil. It is simpler to do the math and wage wars by such calculus. Given that the current enemy is an amorphous entity, they are pining for a time when the adversary used to have a name and address. (Which is why we invaded Iraq even though it had nothing to do with the attack on 9/11) Who better to play war games with than the current mandarins of the erstwhile Evil Empire with whom we have competed for decades in arms race and one-upmanship and who know all the rules of engagement? In the grips of that nostalgic euphoria, it is entirely possible that the warmongers in the Bush administration and their right wing cheerleaders are willing to be reckless in an area where we should be desperately seeking peace and diplomatic co-operation. Rosa Brooks, LA Times columnist and professor of law at Georgetown University, agrees with me that the Georgia-Russia flare up could be a prelude to resurrecting old enmities.

So you haven't liked the last couple of decades? Been longing for a simpler time, before text-messaging, Hannah Montana, the Global War on Terror and other total bummers?
No problem. For you, we'll make it 1981 again.

Rick Springfield, whose single "Jessie's Girl" was Billboard's No. 1 hit in August 1981, is back on the charts this week. And just for you, we've also brought back 1981 producer price index levels. According to data released Tuesday by the Labor Department, the cost of goods bought by U.S. business leaped this year by almost 10%, an Olympic-worthy high-jump of the sort last seen in ... you guessed it, 1981! July's overall inflation rate -- 5.6% -- didn't quite make it to 1981's impressive 10.35% average, but it's the highest average rate since 1982.

And that's not all. As an extra treat (and with a little assistance from Russia and the Republic of Georgia), we're bringing back the Cold War.

In 1981, Ronald Reagan began his first term as president and lost no time warming up the shivering Cold War. Remember the "evil empire," the debate about a "Star Wars" missile defense and how thrilling it was to be in a perpetual nuclear standoff with the Soviets?

Wouldn't it be great to go "back to the future," as in the 1980s hit movie? The Cold War was, as Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates mused in 2007, "a less complex time" for which he was "almost nostalgic." Historian Niall Ferguson shared the sentiment: "I miss the Cold War," he wrote in 2006 in the London Daily Telegraph. "Soviet wickedness made politics so much simpler."

Among neocons and assorted righties, Cold War nostalgia has been widespread lately. And no wonder: Just compare the Cold War with the Global War on Terror. "Cold War" had a real ring to it. But "Global War on Terror"? Clumsy, and what a crummy acronym -- GWOT.

There is an old saying, "Any fool can start a war or a love affair. It takes considerable wisdom to wrap up either one neatly."  I hope that the newly enthused neo-cons are aware that the cost of provocation can sometimes run beyond the initial budget. That reminder comes in a letter to the editor in today's Houston Chronicle.

Don't risk Polish missile crisis

I was one of the National Guardsmen stationed in Hunt Armory in Pittsburgh, Pa., on Oct. 28 and 29, 1962, when the Russian supply ships were heading to Cuba during the Cuban Missile Crisis. Trucks were readied to take us to the airport, and planes were warmed up on the tarmac to fly us into Cuba if the ships did not turn around. Diplomacy between Nikita Khrushchev and John F. Kennedy won. We were dismissed when the ships reversed course. We were told that Khrushchev had agreed to remove missile sites from Cuba and that the United States proved itself the stronger power.

It was a well-kept secret that Kennedy had agreed at the same time to remove American missile sites from Turkey. Years later at a party in Houston, I met a Russian who had been called up at the same time as I. He stated that it was a good thing that Kennedy promised the United States would never invade Cuba again.

President Bush did not pay attention to lessons on military strategy or diplomacy when he served in the Texas National Guard. Unless we want a Polish missile crisis, we had best not install so-called anti-ballistic missile batteries in Poland, when anyone knows that, to be effective, you must also install artillery batteries and missile launchers with a strong complement of troops to protect them in the event of attack.

IRVING N. ROTHMAN
Houston

Hari Puttar - A Comedy of Terrors

Indeed! The empire of the Harry Potter franchise has long arms. Trade mark H.P. is guarded like the Fort Knox (is Fort Knox still being guarded?). Any infringement, real or perceived, on the pricey trademark is cause for legal action. A Mumbai based film company is now feeling the wrath of the magical money making machine of J. K. Rowling / Warner Bros. for supposedly playing fast and loose with the Harry Potter name. Can Warner really prove theft of intellectual property in this case? Hari is indeed a common Indian name and puttar does mean "son" in Punjabi.  If the story line of the film does not mimic any of Rowling's own literary creations, what is the problem? A lot of hogwash from Hogwarts in my opinion.   (story via WSJ Law Blog; link: Dean)

NEW DELHI, India (Hollywood Reporter) – Warner Bros. has filed a lawsuit against Mumbai-based producer/distributor Mirchi Movies related to the title of its upcoming film "Hari Puttar -- A Comedy of Terrors," which Warners feels is a tad too similar to its franchise about a certain young wizard.

The case is being heard in the Bombay High Court and comes up for hearing Monday (August 25). "Hari Puttar," a comedy that centers on a 10-year-old Indian boy whose family moves to England, is slated for a September 12 release.

"We have recently commenced proceedings against parties involved in the production and distribution of a movie entitled 'Hari Puttar,"' London-based Warners spokeswoman Deborah Lincoln said. "Warner Bros. values and protects intellectual property rights. However, it is our policy not to discuss publicly the details of any ongoing litigation."

The Hari Puttar name began making the rounds here as a comic gag when the first "Harry Potter" film was released. Hari is a popular Indian name, and "puttar" means "son" in the Punjabi language.

"Since the case is sub-judice, we can't comment as of now," Mirchi Movies CEO Munish Purii said. "However, we registered the 'Hari Puttar' title in 2005, and it's unfortunate that Warner has chosen to file a case so close to our film's release. In my opinion, I don't think our title has any similarity or links with 'Harry Potter."'

Legalized Depravity

During the much publicized Q & A session (religious litmus test, really) with Pastor Rick Warren of the Saddleback Church on August 16, 2008, presidential candidates Barack Obama and John McCain reflected on wide ranging issues such as morality, personal tribulations and their vision for America. (McCain who went second, by the way, was not in the cone of silence as was expected of a gentlemanly participant. He therefore may have heard Warren's questions and Obama's responses prior to his own turn at the table.)

During the interview, (watch the video here or read the transcript here) Warren asked both candidates the following question:

Does evil exist and if it does, do we ignore it, do we negotiate with it, do we contain it or do we defeat it?

Obama gave the following nuanced answer:

Evil does exist. I mean, we see evil all the time. We see evil in Darfur. We see evil sadly on the streets of our cities. We see evil in parents who have viciously abused their children and I think it has to be confronted. It has to be confronted squarely and one of the things that I strongly believe is that, you know, we are not going to, as individuals, be able to erase evil from the world. That is God's task. But we can be soldiers in that process and we can confront it when we see it. Now, the one thing that I think is very important is for us to have some humility in how we approach the issue of confronting evil. But you know a lot of evil has been perpetrated based on the claim that we were trying to confront evil.

Here is McCain's response to the same question:

Defeat it. .. If I'm president of the United States, my friends, if I have to follow him to the gates of hell, I will get Osama Bin Laden and bring him to justice. I will do that and I know how to do that. I will get that done. No one should be allowed to take thousands fo American --- innocent American lives. Of course evil must be defeated. My friends, we are facing the the transcendent challenge of the 21st century, radical Islamic extremists. Not long ago in Baghdad, Al Qaeda took two young women who were mentally disabled and put suicide vests on them, sent them into a marketplace and by remote control, detonated those suicide vests. If that isn't evil, you have to tell me what is and we're going to defeat this evil, and the central battle ground according to David Petraeus is in Baghdad, Mosul and Iraq. And we are winning and we are succeeding and our troops will come home with honor and victory and not in defeat and that's what's happening. We have - and we face this threat throughout the world. It's not just in Iraq. It's not just in Afghanistan. Our intelligence people tell us Al Qaeda continues to try to establish cells here in the United States of America. My friends, we must face this challenge. We can face this challenge and we must totally defeat it and we're in a long struggle. But when I'm around the young men and women who are serving this nation in uniform, I have no doubt .. none.

How's that for a contrast in world views? I always worry when McCain begins a sentence with the words "My friends." They are usually followed by a statement that is either false or dangerous. While Obama recognizes evil outside the borders of the United States, he also acknowledges that our nation is not guilt - free. McCain on the other hand sees evil only outside the US - inside Iraq in particular. He makes no mention of our overcrowded prison system, social inequities, illegal torture of enemy combatants. He expresses no worry about sexism, racism, homophobia within our own society. McCain the Valiant is focused on only one evil - Al Qaeda. And he is going to fight it in Iraq, the unnecessary immoral war he is determined to "win."

Our upcoming presidential election ought to be about more than just the economy and jobs. It should also be about how we see ourselves as citizens of the world. Obama, despite his youth and inexperience, recognizes that vital aspect of leadership. McCain, on the other hand, appears to believe that following in the errant and belligerent footsteps of Bush-Cheney is the only way to lead America and "defeat" evil.

The recent Olympics opened up the doors for the world to focus on China's human rights abuses. China heard (and rightly so) from its many critics, George W. Bush among them. The quality of the leadership of a nation determines to a large extent its moral character. When the men and women in the corridors of power throw moral consideration and honest self examination into the dust heap of political expediency, we go down the rabbit hole of oppression and criminality. The morally bankrupt tenure of Bush-Cheney has surely dragged our law enforcement and bureaucracy down this slippery slope. Cheered on by "patriotic" pols and right wing blow-hards intent on fighting evil outside our borders, some of those trusted with keeping our nation "safe" may have lost their compassion, decency and even their common sense. Human rights abuses are the inevitable outcome of a cold hearted interpretation of law and order. How precious is our physical safety and how much coarsening of our national character is justified in safeguarding it? According to the following story, some intrepid warriors in the Department of Homeland Security may believe that no amount of depravity is too much to keep America safe from "evil" foreigners.

Joe Biden, The Running Mate

I don't know about anyone else but the upcoming presidential election has been looking more and more lackluster to me. Even my good Dem friends and numerous uplifting e-mail messages from the Obama campaign (asking for money) are not lifting my Democratic spirits. Of course, I consider the potential presidency of Sen John McCain an unmitigated disaster. But Obama's bruised candidacy has also left me a little jaded and deflated.  (That explains the paucity of political posts of late)  In any case, the presidential campaign is now entering the next stage with the announcement of Obama's running mate today and McCain's to come next week, followed by back to back party conventions.

Sen Obama has put Sen Joe Biden of Delaware on his ticket. Biden is widely believed to fill in the  two (perceived) gaping holes in Obama's political resume - foreign policy and experience. Biden definitely has considerable heft in both those areas. One of the youngest members to be elected to the US Senate, Biden has been a senator since 1972. As a long standing member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and the Senate Judiciary Committee, Biden ought to have a good grip on how law and order work at home and abroad. I suppose Obama chose Biden partly to neutralize McCain's condescending charges of empty-suit inexperience aimed at Obama. Also, with his working class Catholic background and the personal tragedies he has endured, Biden may bring the required street creds to the ticket to soothe over the nerves of the now famous blue collar workers in the Appalachian regions of PA, W.VA, western NY and Ohio who are still leery of Obama's authenticity as an American and who voted in droves for Hillary in the primaries.

Blessed with excellent speaking skills, one area where Obama doesn't need help from Biden is soaring oratory. A good debator and interlocutor, Biden though sometimes likes to talk ... and talk and talk. Some suspect that he may suffer from a touch of logorrhoea .. or wind-baggery in common parlance. In fact he talks so much that sometimes he says things that are not always politic. We once discussed Biden's careless running off at the mouth on A.B. and had some fun at his expense in the comments section. Wrote Dean:

The stream of comments emerging from the NYT’s story and blog post about Sen. Joseph Biden’s “Oops!,” his bathetically racist remarks about Sen. Barack Obama, includes just a few tributary themes. Some commentators wish the media would “get over it” and report real news, others note Biden’s chronic “foot in mouth” condition, others figure he doesn’t stand a chance in a presidential race, anyway, and there are even those who don’t understand how his “obviously positive comment” could be taken otherwise. The bland commonality of such opinions reflects one of the boring, if also inevitable, aspects of democracy conducted in the public sphere. Yes, we get the “foot in mouth” joke and its variants, and the irony of readers who take the time to complain that the story is nothing but a waste of time is glaring.

It will be interesting to watch Senator Biden use some choice words about Bush-Cheney and McCain-Running Mate. But let us also hope that his rhetorical flourish doesn't inadvertently embarrass his "“first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy” presidential running mate, at least not until November 4, 2008.

Champion of the Working Class

John McCain's campaign has gleefully painted Barack Obama as an elitist in the same vacuous mode as Paris Hilton and Britney Spears. Is McCain then the "man on the ground" who knows all about the travails and tribulations of the American working class? Depends on how one defines "working class."

• Do working class folks know how many homes they own?
• Does one have to make at least $5 million to qualify as rich (that is, not working class) in a nation where less than 2% of households earned an annual income of $250,000 or more as recently as in 2006?
• Will the working class which includes those earning minimum wage, pick lettuce in Yuma, Arizona for $50 an hour? McCain doesn't think so. (Basic minimum wage in Arizona in 2008 is $6.90)

SEN. JOHN MCCAIN (R), ARIZONA: Now, my friends, I'll offer anybody here $50 an hour if you'll go pick lettuce in Yuma this season and pick for the whole season. So -- OK? Sign up. OK.

You sign up. You sign up, and you'll be there for the whole season, the whole season. OK? Not just one day. Because you can't do it, my friend.

• Does the working class comprise a bunch of whiners and the bad news about the US economy is all in their imagination?

Meanwhile, here is how the Democratic Party plans to deal with disgruntled members of the working class lest they decide to rain on their parade.

Back to School in Texas

Apropos of my recent post on the reckless decision by a Texas school district, see the the following editorial cartoon by Nick Anderson in today's Houston Chronicle.

Nandalal Bose: An Indian Modern Master

An exhibition at the Philadelphia Museum of Art showcases the works of Nandalal Bose, an Indian painter who was at the forefront of the Indian modern art movement. A life long student of art, Bose's education was influenced by the Tagore family of Bengal, artist Abanindranath Tagore in particular. Bose drew the inspiration for his subject matter from Indian history, mythology and the landscape of Bengal. His style was also shaped to a large extent by Japanese paintings and pen & ink drawings, Mughal miniatures and and later the Buddhist paintings of the Ajanta caves. He went on to become the head of Kala Bhavan, the art school, a part of the once famous Vishwa Bharati University at Santiniketan, founded by Rabindranath Tagore. The winner of numerous awards and honors, a significant collection of Bose's works is housed at the National Gallery of Modern Art in New Delhi. A brief history of his life, work and the history of the Indian modern art movement in the New York Times.

Word is that contemporary Indian art is the next sensation on the international market. So now’s the time to learn something about where it came from, which the nuanced, storytelling show called “Rhythms of India: The Art of Nandalal Bose (1882-1966)” at the Philadelphia Museum of Art helps us to do.

Along with detailed information about one artist’s life and times, the show delivers a significant piece of news, or what is still probably news to many people: that modernism wasn’t a purely Western product sent out like so many CARE packages to a hungry and waiting world. It was a phenomenon that unfolded everywhere, in different forms, at different speeds, for different reasons, under different pressures, but always under pressure. As cool and above-it-all as modern may sound, it was a response to emergency.

In India the emergency was a bruising colonialism that had become as intolerable to artists as to everyone else. From the official British perspective, India had no living art. Its indigenous traditions were dead, the stuff of museums, and ethnological ones at that. Western classicism was the only classicism; European oil painting was the only worthy medium. Indian artists had to learn it if they wanted careers, but even then their options were limited.

Naturally some people, British and Indian alike, saw things another way. Ernest Binfield Havell, a British teacher and art historian, did. He recognized Indian art as the grand, ancient, still-vibrant phenomenon it was. And as director of the Government School of Art in Calcutta, he encouraged Indian students to bring their own past, transformed, into the present.

This mission really took fire, however, in a social circle gathered around the Tagore family in Calcutta. One of its members, the artist Abanindranath Tagore, taught at the Government School and developed a type of painting based on Indian rather than Western models. His uncle, the writer Rabindranath Tagore, opened an experimental university at Santiniketan in West Bengal. Devoted to the study, preservation and regeneration of native culture, it would be a modernist seedbed.

Into this venturesome environment came a young painter named Nandalal Bose, first as one of Abanindranath’s prize students, later as a teacher and director of art at Rabindranath’s school. From the start Bose understood the concepts behind the school: the idea that an aesthetic was also an ethos, that art’s role was more than life-enhancing, it was world-shaping.

For a slide show of some of Bose's paintings on display at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, see here.  More about the artist here.

Russia, Georgia, and American Impotence (Joe)

I haven't read that much on the Russia-Georgia conflict.  The Russian invasion of Georgia.  Whatever you want to call it.  So as far as what actually happened, it's not entirely clear to me.  But anyhow, one of the most interesting (and worrying) aspects of the conflict is the role of the United States.  Take the counterfactual that the U.S. had not invaded and occupied the Middle East (or at least Iraq, the focal point of our resource-allocation).  It may not be clear exactly what would have happened, but isn't it safe to say that things would have gone differently?

We're overcommitted and everybody knows it.  So we tell Russia that we don't like what they're doing, and they know that we're not going to do anything militarily.  Meanwhile, Russia's pretty tight with China, so that at least cuts into our economic leverage.  Let's say they force a regime change in Georgia.  Georgia stops trying to join NATO.  Other states (similarly situated to pre-conflict Georgia) understand this to mean that the U.S. won't be protecting them even though Russia's a bit unhinged. 

At the same time, this doesn't speak only to Russia.  No one doubts that we're ready to "bomb bomb bomb Iran," but if anything pops up anywhere else in the world?  We'll stand by and watch, and lack leverage in diplomatic efforts. 

Isn't this at least a plausible lesson to glean from current events?  (And then if I'm right about that, isn't it a talking point that Democrats should be using to hammer away at George Bush's War and John McCain's Permanent Occupation?)

Great Music You May Have Missed (Andrew)

The music of Miles Davis' electric period, which began in roughly 1969 and continued on to his death in 1991, used to be criticized as crude and unfocused in comparison with his earlier masterworks like Sketches of Spain, Kind of Blue, and the albums of his two great quintets.  Bitches Brew and In a Silent Way, with their moody, chaotic, sprawling tracks and huge bands of multiple pianists, guitar players, and saxophonists were criticized as indulgent, dull, and uninspired.

This older assessment, by critics like Stanley Crouch and Jack Chambers, has become a minority viewpoint, to say the least.  Among many other musicians, trumpeters like Dave Douglas, Roy Hargrove, and Nicholas Payton clearly show the influence of "electric Miles" in their sound.  Critics have published books that treat this music as seriously as any other part of Davis' career.  And record companies, desperate to sell anything in their vaults, particularly to a jazz audience actually inclined to pay for meticulously-created re-issues, has released lavish, expanded box sets versions of early 70s LPS like Bitches Brew, In a Silent Way, On the Corner, and A Tribute to Jack Johnson.

The one I'd humbly like to bring to your attention is a 5-disc live album called The Cellar Door Sessions, recorded in 1970.  What's wonderful about this music is its embrace of the funk.  Whereas Bitches Brew tends to emphasize texture and a kind of haunted, ambient quality, The Cellar Door Sessions is held together by a 20-year-old Motown bass prodigy named Michael Henderson.  Since each of these tracks is sprawling and free-form, Henderson's endlessly energetic grooves keep the whole affair moving and full of surprises  And the individual soloists are ferocious!  Who knew Keith Jarrett could rock an electric piano so hard?  Saxophonist Gary Bartz repeatedly builds himself into an explosive lather.  And on the last disc, fusion guitar god John McLaughlin joins the group to add yet another voice. 

Unlike some of the other reviewers of this set, I find Davis' trumpet a bit overshadowed by his young-turk superstars.  But as perhaps the greatest talent scout in jazz history, only he could have the wherewithal and audacity to put together a band playing this splendid combination of rock, jazz, and unvarnished funkiness.  Long live the electric Miles revival!

P.S. If you'd like to listen for yourself without investing the $65-100 for the set, check out this Kevin Whitehead review on NPR.  I'm not crazy about the selections Whitehead chose to play, as they don't highlight the great soloing as much I'd like, but it does give you a flavor.

Beloit College Mindset List for the Class of 2012

I first brought up the Beloit College Mindset List, published annually around the start of each school year, in the context of Pluto losing its planetary status. To keep up that blogging tradition at A.B. From this year's list of sixty, I am posting a dozen cultural mindset items that an eighteen year old today is likely to have grown up with. Think back to 1990 and come up with some of your own to add to the list. The experience of an 18 year old will of course vary according to where s/he was born.

Students entering college for the first time this fall were generally born in 1990.

For these students, Sammy Davis Jr., Jim Henson, Ryan White, Stevie Ray Vaughan and Freddy Krueger have always been dead.

• Since they were in diapers, karaoke machines have been annoying people at parties.
• GPS satellite navigation systems have always been available.
• Coke and Pepsi have always used recycled plastic bottles.
• Electronic filing of tax returns has always been an option.
• WWW has never stood for World Wide Wrestling.
• Films have never been X rated, only NC-17.
• Clarence Thomas has always sat on the Supreme Court.
• IBM has never made typewriters.
• The Tonight Show has always been hosted by Jay Leno and started at 11:35 EST.
• Caller ID has always been available on phones.
• Muscovites have always been able to buy Big Macs.
• Off-shore oil drilling in the United States has always been prohibited.

Targeting Texas Schools

Conservative school administrators and state legislators in Texas have gained plenty of notoriety for attempting (without success) to ban the teaching of evolution, using laughable misinformation and spurious threats.  Some school districts have repeatedly tried to introduce Christian prayer in public schools.  Having failed to drag God into the class room, at least one Texas school district has succeeded in admitting into their educational milieu the second most favorite object of admiration of right wingers - guns.

There's one item Houston-area school officials say teachers can leave at home when classes resume later this month: Their handguns. Houston school districts said there's no way they'll follow the lead of a tiny North Texas school system that may be the first in the nation to let employees pack heat at their lone 110-student K-12 campus.

Harrold Superintendent David Thweatt said his school board unanimously passed the policy last October to protect employees and students in the case of an armed intruder or hostage situation. He wouldn't say how many teachers went through the authorization process, which includes receiving a Texas concealed handgun license and undergoing crisis management training.

Thweatt said that despite the outrage from his public school peers, Harrold stands by its decision. The first few months of the new policy have gone smoothly, he said.

"We think we have acted cautiously and wisely," said Thweatt. "Others should be free to govern their school districts as they see fit."

Thweatt said the small community is a 30-minute drive from the sheriff's office, leaving students and teachers without protection. He said the district's lone campus is situated just 500 feet from heavily trafficked U.S. 287, which could make it a target.

Texas' penal code prohibits firearms at schools "unless pursuant to the written regulations or written authorization of the institution."

It comes hardly as a surprise that this absurd and dangerous decision by the school board has the enthusiastic support of our ignorant governor, Rick Good Hair Perry.

Anti-Motivational Art

Came across some funny anti-motivational posters (via Shunya's Notes).  Also discovered that the website lets you create your own parody posters. I designed a few using some photos in my computer archive. Click for enlargement and let me know what your message would be for these photos.

                            

The Purity of Pursuit

Here is one topic on which most people have a strong opinion. My own take on the matter is a bit mixed and the older and more cynical I grow, I seem to be leaning away from what I once fervently believed as a youthful sports fan. I have had some heated debates with others who hold a position on this matter more purist than mine. Now that the 2008 Olympics are in full swing, and we are  dreaming of "Citius, Altius, Fortius" the issue is once again on many minds.

The world of sports may be the last bastion of perceived purity where we expect to see miracles of human ability, unaided by external tools or stimuli.  While we tolerate smoke and mirrors in most other pursuits, we don't like our modern gladiators to "cheat." I mean, we live in a world of widespread  physical and psychological enhancements and tinkering. Ordinary folks as well as beautiful celebrities are often surgically altered for the sake of vanity and show biz; capitalists and so-called worshipers of the free market such as big corporations and hedge funders fix and manipulate markets to line their own pockets and rob ordinary working folks of jobs and pension funds; nations go to war under false pretenses and citizens support the aggression for the sake of patriotism; concert musicians take beta-blockers so their hands won't waver during performances due to irregular heart beats; in-vitro fertilization and rented wombs produce "genetic" descendants for infertile couples.  Medical interventions are available for numerous human appetites and disorders.

We have come a long way from the hypocrisy of "amateur" sports when talented but often poor young men and women were supposed to push the limits of physical achievement in the sporting arena and play by the rules set by aristocratic men of leisure. That silly notion of "purity" robbed many atheletes of a dignified life after they were past their physical prime. For example, all round outstanding sportsman Jim Thorpe was stripped of his Olympic medals and lived in abject poverty for not being "amateur" enough.  Jesse Owens, the winner of four gold medals in the 1936 Berlin Olympics spent his later years racing circus horses because he couldn't get paid as a sportsman. Two times Grand Slam winner Rod Laver languished outside the glamorous "amateur" tennis circuit until the advent of the Open Era when  "professionals" were at last permitted to compete in the major championships. We have forever abandoned the obsession with "unpaid" athletes. The world of sports is now one of the most lucrative for those who excel. But we still cling to the fond belief of "naturalness" in athletic endeavor and any suspicion of performance enhancement by artificial means throws a shadow over sporting achievements. So what exactly is "natural" in sports when we constantly seek massive technical and technological advances that mostly favor athletes from wealthier nations ?  While mechanical enhancement through space age equipment and gear is kosher, the one area where we cannot bring ourselves to accept outside tinkering, is the body of the athlete. Use of chemical agents to enhance performance is cause for heavy fines and dismissal in most sports, especially in the Olympics. Is it time to shed this last taboo which is often skirted by athletes who know which drugs to use and how to evade detection? If atheltes are fully informed about the ill effects of performance enhancing drugs and decide to use them despite the risk, should we penalize them? What is wrong with "doping" in sports? In a provocative article in the New York Times, columnist John Tierney says, "Let the games be doped." What do you think?

Once upon a time, the lords of the Olympic Games believed that the only true champion was an amateur, a gentleman hobbyist untainted by commerce. Today they enforce a different ideal. The winners of the gold medals are supposed to be natural athletes, untainted by technology. After enough “scandals,” the amateur myth eventually died of its own absurdity. The natural myth is still alive in Beijing, but it’s becoming so far-fetched — and potentially dangerous — that some scientists and ethicists would like to abandon it, too.

What if we let athletes do whatever they wanted to excel?

Before you dismiss this notion, consider what we’re stuck with today. The system is ostensibly designed to create a level playing field, protect athletes’ health and set an example for children, but it fails on all counts.

The journal Nature, in an editorial in the current issue, complains that “antidoping authorities have fostered a sporting culture of suspicion, secrecy and fear” by relying on unscientifically calibrated tests, like the unreliable test for synthetic testosterone that cost Floyd Landis his 2006 Tour de France victory. Even if the authorities manage to correct their tests, they can’t possibly keep up with the accelerating advances in biology. Some athletes are already considering new drugs like Aicar and GW1516, which made news recently when researchers at the Salk Institute used them to quickly turn couch-potato mice into treadmill champions with new, strong muscles.

“There’s a possibility that athletes in this Olympics will be using these drugs,” said Ronald Evans, the leader of the team at Salk, who has been fending off inquiries from athletes about these drugs. He has advised the antidoping authorities on how to detect these drugs, but whether they’ll be able do it competently this Olympics is far from clear.

If athletes didn’t have to cheat to win, they and society would be better off, says Bengt Kayser, the director of a sports medicine institute at the University of Geneva. In a 2005 article in The Lancet, he and two bioethicists argued that legalizing doping would “encourage more sensible, informed use of drugs in amateur sport, leading to an overall decline in the rate of health problems associated with doping.”

A Gold Medal in Fakery (Sujatha)

Viewers were outraged enough to register some annoyance at the revelation that the fantastic fireworks for the Olympics Opening ceremony were pre-recorded and added in. But Chinese officials have taken the fakery to new levels, with their using a lip-synching 'pretty model'  Lin Miaoke aged 9 (in the red dress)  to move her lips to the pre-recorded voice of 7 year old Yang Peiyi. According to the show's musical designer Chen Qigang:

"We have a responsibility to face the audience of the whole country, and   to be open with this explanation," he said. "We should all   understand it like this: it is a question of the national interest. It is a   question of the image of our national music, our national culture.

"Especially at the entrance of our national flag, this is an extremely   important, an extremely serious matter.

"So we made the choice. I think it is fair to both Lin Miaoke and Yang   Peiyi - after all, we have a perfect voice, a perfect image and a perfect   show, in our team's view, all together."

Never mind that the real singer was as cute a little kid as any. Her just-growing-in milk teeth were enough to disqualify her from being on stage singing the anthem. Is this a cultural issue that shows Chinese to be obsessed with image over substance, or is there something else to Chen 'feeling forced' to set the record straight?  I wonder if there was political pressure to use the lip-synching kid and the only way in which he could assuage his guilty conscience at having to do so was to give praise where it was due for the singing performance.

Water management in Dholavira - 5000 years ago

Namit Arora at Shunya's Notes describes his journey through Dholavira, the remains of a 5000 years old metropolis in the Rann of Kutch, an environmentally inhospitable region in western India. Excavation has uncovered a sophisticated urban development whose inhabitants, it is clear, were very much obsessed with channeling and preserving fresh water within their city. That precious commodity of human survival and civilization is in short supply in the desert region of the Rann of Kutch. Namit found an ancient bangle among the ruins. Did he keep it? He doesn't say. 

The road to Dholavira goes through a dazzling white landscape of salty mudflats. It is close to noon in early April and the mercury is already past 100F. The desert monotones are interrupted only by the striking attire worn by the women of the nomadic and semi-nomadic pastoral tribes that still inhabit this land: Ahir, Rabari, Jat, Meghwal, and others. When I ask the driver of my hired car to stop for a photo, they receive me with curious stares, hoots, and giggles.

This is the Rann of Kutch, an area about the size of Kuwait, almost entirely within Gujarat and along the border with Pakistan. Once an extension of the Arabian Sea, the Rann ("salt marsh") has been closed off by centuries of silting. During the monsoons, parts of the Rann fill up with seasonal brackish water, enough for many locals to even harvest shrimp in it. Some abandon their boats on the drying mudflats, presenting a surreal scene for the dry season visitor. Heat mirages abound. Settlement is limited to a few "island" plateaus, one of which, Khadir, hosts the remains of the ancient city of Dholavira, discovered in 1967 and excavated only since 1989.

Entering Khadir, we pass a village and find the only tourist bungalow in town. It hasn't seen a visitor in three days; I check in and head over to the ruins. I've planned this for months; even the hottest hour of the day cannot temper my excitement for the ruins of this 5,000 year-old metropolis of the Indus Valley Civilization. While hundreds of sites have been identified in Gujarat alone, this is among the five biggest known to us in the entire subcontinent, alongside Harappa, Mohanjo-daro, and Ganeriwala in Pakistan, and Rakhigarhi in India.

Ethan Leib: Freakonomist

Fellow blogger and law professor Ethan Leib, whose views on friendship and the law were discussed here at some length a while ago has a gig as a columnist on NYT's Freakonomics blog. Ethan's first post is up and it is about the legal aspects of friendship, natürlich.  At least two more articles authored by Ethan will appear in the coming week. One of them will further expand on his thoughts on friends-in-law and the other will be about juries. Do visit Freakonomics and check out what Ethan has to say.

A Summer Break in Brixen

My short vacation last week took me to the beautiful little town of Brixen in the south Tyrolean region of northern Italy.  Here are some photos inside and outside the historic Elephant Hotel where I stayed, the hotel's gardens and of the main cathedral in the town square. Although we didn't meet, I learnt that the Pope was vacationing in Brixen at the time we were there. The souvenir shops were resplendent with commemorative papal merchandise. 

(click on thumbnails for enlargement)

 

For more on the history and politics of the area and other photos, please see Abbas Raza's post on 3 Quarks Daily.

The Girl From Foreign

The reviews on Amazon and in the Washington Post of The Girl from Foreign, Sadia Shepard's journey into the past to resurrect her Jewish Indian grandmother's lost identity, has left me curious enough to put the book in my Amazon shopping cart. I plan to check it out in the near future. The story is common enough - a member of an obscure and tiny religious minority community getting absorbed into a larger religious group on account of marriage and in the midst of great political upheaval losing touch with the home on whose shores she believed her shipwrecked ancestors had landed two thousand years ago. Shepard's book recounts a family story which is a patchwork of all three Abrahamic faiths and hopscotches across three nations in search of roots.

From the Washington Post:

Besides being a personal memoir and a portrait of a family that includes the world's three major monotheistic religions, "The Girl From Foreign" is a meditation on how our individual memories inevitably slip away, either into oblivion or into that dull collective consciousness we call history.

The main, organizing event here occurred in 1947, when India at once gained its independence from Britain and split into two countries -- Hindus remaining primarily in the main body of the subcontinent; Muslims peeling off to the west and east, to form Pakistan. (Decades later, East Pakistan became Bangladesh.) The average American, if there is such a thing, might remember 1947 as part of the beginning of the Cold War. But Indians have the nerve to be fascinated by the events that occurred in their own country that year, the public history that overlaps, vividly, with their personal memories.

Little Sadia Shepard and her younger brother, Cassim, grew up first in Denver, then Chestnut Hill, Mass., in what she considered to be a wonderful and normal life with three terrific adults: her American dad, a tall, rangy, white Protestant; her beautiful Muslim mother, who was born and raised in an affluent home in Karachi, the first capital of Pakistan; and her sweet maternal grandmother, who raised the kids and kept the house while the adult couple ran an architectural firm. This grandma has a set of slightly dissonant memories: "A very long time ago," she tells young Sadia, "your ancestors left Israel in a ship . . . and they were shipwrecked, in India. They were Jews, but they settled in India. In the shipwreck they lost their Torahs, and they forgot their religion." Sadia's nana had spent her early adult years as a Muslim wife in a beautiful beach house in Bombay. But she was neither Hindu nor Muslim. Her prayers, years later, are Muslim, but in her childhood she was a Jew.

For those who are curious about the history of Judaism in India, please see my review of Who Are the Jews of India? by Nathan Katz.

"Real men don't think things through" (Joe)

Krugman on the Republicans.  But I don't know, that doesn't sound like the John McCain I know, who is not rooting for the end of the world to mobilize his base of poison-breathing flesh zombies; not someone anyone would want to torture to stop a ticking bomb; not a leading warmonger who likes to joke about bombing Iran; not someone who likes to joke about finding other good ways to murder Iranians, such as with American cigarettes; and definitely not someone reasonable people should fear.  I forgot where I was going with this, but I'm pretty sure it has something to do with how Republicans are just like great white sharks -- you just have to punch them in the nose without stopping to think about it.

An Indianized Bible: Sari Mary and Turban Joseph (Sujatha)

Some weeks ago, this report highlighted the Vatican's giving the green light to a new Indianized Bible which depicts Mary and Joseph as poor Indian villagers (Click on the photo for a larger view):

Barefoot and wearing a sari, with a bindi on her forehead and a naked baby on her shoulder, the woman in the picture is unmistakably Indian. So is the man behind her, clad in a loincloth and turban.

They could be any poor family in an Indian village, or at one of the country's teeming railway stations. This, however, is no ordinary family.

The image is one of the Virgin Mary with Joseph and the baby Jesus in the first “Indianised” version of the Bible, published by the Roman Catholic Church last month.

The New Community Bible is part of an attempt by the Vatican to attract more converts in the world's second-most populous country as congregations decline in Europe and North America.

Not only do Mary, Joseph and others adopt Indian clothing and contexts, but this bible goes further in syncretization.

The Bible uses passages from Hindu scriptures, such as the Ramayana and the Mahabharata, and Sanskrit words such as Moksha – meaning salvation – in its notes, so newcomers do not feel alienated by new concepts and vocabulary.

...

“The scholars felt that any serious and contextualised and inculturated commentary on the sacred text, made specially for India, could not ignore the rich cultural and religious heritage of the land,” said Fr Tony Charanghat, a spokesman for the archbishop of Mumbai.
For example, alongside the well-known passage in Matthew where Jesus tells disciples to “turn the other cheek”, the accompanying notes compare this to Gandhi’s creed of ahimsa, or non-violence.
Beneath another passage about miracles, the notes explain the difference between Jesus’s teachings and the Vedanta – a Sanskrit term for enlightenment.
“His miracles are eruptions of charismatic power not the result of yogic techniques,” the commentary says.

The oddity of this New Community Bible is not the Indianization of the context, but the fact that it is rewritten in English, rather than the major languages of India. Who might the target audience be? Why would an English speaking and reading (presumably middle class or higher) Hindu/Muslim/Jain/Sikh/Buddhist be convinced by this to convert to the 'one true faith'?

Adopting the context and imagery from different cultures is hardly unique. It has been done over the ages, even during the spread of Buddhism over much of Asia. This series of images (Click on the image for a larger view) shows the distinctive change in appearance of depictions of Buddha as the faith travelled along from Asia Minor to the Far East. It has always been to the advantage of proselytizing groups to depict their deity in terms which would appeal to the largest group, which makes this Sari Mary and Turban Joseph not that radical or new.

I suspect that the New Community Bible is targeted less at attracting converts and more at retaining current Indian Catholics, tempted as they may be by the lures of Hinduism and/or its practices, which strike a more resonant chord to them culturally than the rituals of the Roman Catholic liturgy. This Indian-American Catholic blogger concurs:

"so, it seems, this endeavor is really addressed to Indian Catholics, as part of the ongoing attempt to shuck the colonial baggage of being understood to be foreigners or European lackeys."

I have it on good authority that in order to discourage the tendency of Indian Christians to go to temples with their young children on Vijayadasami day (considered auspicious for 'Vidyaarambham' or initiation of learning), even churches have started their own special 'Vidyaarambham' services in the Indian state of Kerala. Now that is co-opting other religious practices indeed, despite the tendency of outside authorities like the Vatican to frown on these as straying from accepted liturgical practice.

There's no doubt that the commissioning  and promotion of the New Community Bible is a significant concession for the Vatican, even as the current pope has promoted the return to older practices such as masses in Latin rather than the local language, in an effort to prevent the dilution of the faith and the loss of the faithful.

Prophetic Names

In older agrarian and trade based societies, names often reflected people's vocations or otherwise described their position in a place or tribe. Some South Indian and Scandinavian names derive from the father's first name rather than the family name (a similar system existed among older Jewish cultures). Names like Smith, Miller, Fletcher, Bauer, Baker etc. point to the type of work the name holders did. Hindu caste names routinely revealed a person's profession, business and social hierarchy. Jewish priestly names like Cohen, Katz and Levi once played a similar role. But with the diminishing role of temple priests in Judaism, these names mostly hark back to their historic significance.

Old cultural / vocational barriers having mostly broken down, our names are no longer a reliable indicator of the type of life we lead. But we cannot fully shake off the notion of a name revealing something about a person's character or expertise. Which is why there is a whole genre of off-color jokes which rely on the sophomoric play on imaginary names and the professional / artistic pursuits of their owners. (The Case of the Open Kimono written by Seymour Hare, The Yellow River sung by I.P. Daley, Dr. A. Cula - phlebotomist/ hematologist etc. I used to know a lengthy series of these in high school) Then there are names that  people acquire by the dint of their real life accomplishments or character. Nicknames such as Honest Abe, Mahatma Gandhi, Hammerin' Hank, Joltin' Joe, The Brown Bomber etc. reflect how others saw those public figures of renown. These names are of course afterthoughts - names describing lives. But what about real names that live up to their promise - lives imitating names, as in those silly jokes I mentioned? In a comment I left on Dean's post about Norman Mailer, where I linked to the video of a brawl between the author and film director Rip Torn, I noted that the latter's name sadly coincided with his condition after Mailer bit off part of his ear during the violent encounter.

How many people can you think of whose first or last names later matched up with their achievements or circumstances? I haven't given enough thought to the matter and can come up with just a few that qualify, even though they require a bit of linguistic stretch and imagination.

Richard Smalley:  Nobel prize winner in chemistry and pioneer of nanotechnology.

Alois Alzheimer: Neuropathologist whose work on dementia lead to the recognition of Alzheimer's Disease. Here the connection in my mind is between Altsheim (loosely translated as old [folks] home in German) and the name of the doctor.

Alfred Nobel:  His fortune went toward honoring noble human endeavors. So one could say that made Nobel a noble man.

Given the encyclopedic knowledge of my co-bloggers and our readers, I am hoping to hear a few more.

(The mention of Alzheimer's brought to mind a touching story in the news about Justice Sandra Day O'Connor and her husband of more than five decades)

Update:  This post first appeared in November, 2007.  I am bringing it to the front as a filler post during my absence.