Rabindranath Tagore: Poet, Activist and Educator
When he won the Nobel Prize for literature in 1913, the great Indian poet Rabindranath Tagore (1861-1941) was virtually unknown in the West.
His Gitanjali (“Song Offerings”), a collection of poems championed by William Butler Yeats, secured for him the highest prize in literature over contenders like Thomas Hardy and Anatole France. Tagore went on to create a body of work greater in scope and power than Gitanjali. His true genius bloomed after the Nobel Prize, a fact unique in the history of literature.
A significant amount of Tagore’s work is infused with a vision of the greatness he saw possible in his native land, a confluence of civilizations due to Hindus, Muslims, Buddhists, Sikhs, Jains, Parsis, Christians, Moguls, Dravidians, and Aryans. India, as he saw it, was greater than the sum of its parts. Through poems and plays, speeches and songs, he strove for this possibility to the end of his day.
Britain in Tagore’s time ruled India with an iron hand. But the rulers were becoming nervous. A young activist named Mohandas Gandhi had returned from South Africa in 1915 to lead the nationalist movement, becoming a proponent of Satyagraha (literally, “eagerness for truth” but more commonly interpreted as passive or non-violent resistance) to British rule. Although Tagore and Gandhi differed on ways to achieve independence, both believed in regenerating their people through the curbing of communal instincts. The challenge of this possibility continues to this day.
Politics did not interest Tagore but that did not keep him from boldly opposing British tyranny. When government troops led by English officers opened fire on a political gathering in Amritsar in 1919, killing 379 Indians and wounding scores of others, Tagore renounced the knighthood that England had bestowed on him four years earlier. As a poet, he felt it was the strongest statement he could make to draw world attention to the crime.
It cost him friendship and popularity in the literary circles of Europe and even in America, but he considered this act one of the high points of his life. It was also during this time that he composed some of his most powerful poems against oppression and injustice. When Gandhi was imprisoned without trial in 1932, he condemned it. In a letter to England’s Prime Minister Ramsay MacDonald, he warned that the British were closing the door on peaceful negotiations with Indian leaders.
Tagore was self-taught. Attempts by his parents to educate him in schools had failed. Young Rabindranath found conventional classrooms suffocating. In 1901, he founded an experimental school at Shantiniketan (“Abode of Peace”) near Calcutta, free from traditional restrictions. Classes were held in open air and joy in learning was given the highest importance.
By 1921, the school had evolved into Vishwa-Bharati University (World University) where students from all over India came to study. It is a testimony to Tagore’s ideal that funding for the University came from both Hindus and Muslims.
Tagore did not live long enough to see the end of the British Raj and the partition of the sub-continent along religious lines in 1947. He died six years earlier, still nurturing a harmonious vision of India, as riots were flaring.
In “The Religion of Men,” a set of lectures delivered at Oxford in 1930, Tagore said: “Freedom in the mere sense of independence has no content, and therefore no meaning. Perfect freedom lies in a harmony of relationship.” In an earlier poem, he had written of the perfect union of knowledge and freedom that he came to embody in his own supremely creative and protean life:
Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high;
Where knowledge is free;
Where the world has not been broken up into fragments by
narrow domestic walls;
Where words come out from the depth of truth;
Where tireless striving stretches its arm toward perfection;
Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way into the
dreary desert of dead habit;
Where the mind is led forward by thee into ever-widening
thought and action;
Into that heaven of freedom, my father, let my country awake.
Sunday, November 16, 2008
Friday, November 14, 2008
Sense in the Time of Hardship
As economic misery mounts for the average American, pundits are busy pointing fingers. You can almost hear them coo: “I told you so!” Yet the same pundits told us before the bubble broke that we were in the era of limitless prosperity, that only the sky was the limit for hedge funds and stocks. The laissez faire market stretched to its extreme has gone bust. Bankers don’t regulate banks any more than inmates regulate asylums. (Coming to think of it, that’s what has been going on in these institutions of higher capitalism!) Ascribing altruism to Wall Street executives makes as much sense as asking a tyrant to punish himself for his crimes.
With the onset of the credit crunch and the scaling down of various forms of want, I have noticed a rather funny reaction among my fellow Muslims. It is a variation of “I told you so,” only more arrogant. If only people were not as greedy or selfish or unjust, this would not have happened, they say, conveniently forgetting that on average, Muslims are as guilty of unchecked materialism as anyone else. All scriptures advise believers not to live beyond their means, not to consume recklessly, not to engage in usurious transactions. But, of course, belief is easy and action difficult.
We need to change our habits and attitudes. Looking back, I see how much “stuff” I bought over the years that I had no use for. My overfilled garage bears testimony to my expensive foolishness. I had to have these things because … well, it was cool to have them. It satisfied a primal hunger for possessions that I felt helpless to resist until economic reality set in. Now the latest in digital cameras and smart phones and smarter toasters leave me looking the other way, in disgust or indifference.
I doubt that we will ever return to the “less is more” trend of the ‘60s and ‘70s but at least we are beginning to reflect on what is important and what is not, what is "need" and what is "want." We knew all along that as the newness of a gadget or a tool or a car or a house wears off, it loses its grip on our psyche and on our sense of happiness. But it made no difference to our desire to acquire, relentlessly and indiscriminately. Tough adjustment, however, has revealed the stark emptiness of toys, gilded or plain, and we are the better for it. If only this sense lasts even if the “good times” were to return!
As economic misery mounts for the average American, pundits are busy pointing fingers. You can almost hear them coo: “I told you so!” Yet the same pundits told us before the bubble broke that we were in the era of limitless prosperity, that only the sky was the limit for hedge funds and stocks. The laissez faire market stretched to its extreme has gone bust. Bankers don’t regulate banks any more than inmates regulate asylums. (Coming to think of it, that’s what has been going on in these institutions of higher capitalism!) Ascribing altruism to Wall Street executives makes as much sense as asking a tyrant to punish himself for his crimes.
With the onset of the credit crunch and the scaling down of various forms of want, I have noticed a rather funny reaction among my fellow Muslims. It is a variation of “I told you so,” only more arrogant. If only people were not as greedy or selfish or unjust, this would not have happened, they say, conveniently forgetting that on average, Muslims are as guilty of unchecked materialism as anyone else. All scriptures advise believers not to live beyond their means, not to consume recklessly, not to engage in usurious transactions. But, of course, belief is easy and action difficult.
We need to change our habits and attitudes. Looking back, I see how much “stuff” I bought over the years that I had no use for. My overfilled garage bears testimony to my expensive foolishness. I had to have these things because … well, it was cool to have them. It satisfied a primal hunger for possessions that I felt helpless to resist until economic reality set in. Now the latest in digital cameras and smart phones and smarter toasters leave me looking the other way, in disgust or indifference.
I doubt that we will ever return to the “less is more” trend of the ‘60s and ‘70s but at least we are beginning to reflect on what is important and what is not, what is "need" and what is "want." We knew all along that as the newness of a gadget or a tool or a car or a house wears off, it loses its grip on our psyche and on our sense of happiness. But it made no difference to our desire to acquire, relentlessly and indiscriminately. Tough adjustment, however, has revealed the stark emptiness of toys, gilded or plain, and we are the better for it. If only this sense lasts even if the “good times” were to return!
Wednesday, November 05, 2008
Crossing the Race Rubicon
The improbable candidate achieved the unimaginable and overnight, the world became a better place.
Four years ago, the president-elect said at the Democratic National Convention, “I stand here knowing that my story is part of the larger American story, that I owe a debt to all of those who came before me, and that, in no other country on earth, is my story even possible.”
Last night, it all came together for Barack ("blessing" in Swahili) Hussein Obama in a way that even he could not have dreamed in 2004.
Obama stirred hope in the hearts of people, not just in America but around the globe, but let us not forget that he matched his hope with hard work, undaunted by setbacks and by those who said, “No you can’t.”
“Yes we can” is now a part of the American vocabulary.
By electing an African-American as the 44th president of the United States, America has finally crossed the race Rubicon.
Martin Luther King’s dream that we should be judged not by the color of our skins but by the content of our character is now a reality, even if tempered by memories of hidden wounds too painful for some to forget.
African-Americans voted overwhelmingly for Obama but he could not have been elected president if whites did not vote for him in such unprecedented numbers also, from idealistic students and blue collar workers to liberal intellectuals and Hollywood moguls. Consider this stark fact: North Dakota, Utah, Montana, Vermont, Nebraska and New Mexico went for Obama although there isn't much of an African-American presence in those six states. The biggest shocker of all: Obama won North Carolina and Indiana, two of the reddest states in America. Until now.
America has become colorblind.
While this holds profound lessons for all, it is particularly meaningful for European nations where immigrants are often treated as second-class citizens even after decades of invaluable contributions to their respective societies. Perhaps Obama’s victory will convince France, England, Germany, Denmark, Sweden, Holland, Spain and other countries to also become colorblind and inclusive. There really is no other way.
Until now, when the world looked up to America, it was because of its science and technology and medicine. But now the world will also look at America with awe and wonder because of its socially enlightened citizenry. Who could have ever imagined that?
Reversing the “either you are with us or against us” threat that defined George Bush’s belligerent foreign policy is a priority for Barack Obama. He has promised to meet unconditionally with any world leader to discuss and negotiate peace. The international temperature seems to have already cooled by a few degrees, and even though securing agreements with nations alienated by American arrogance may take time, the prospects are promising, given the spontanaeous outpouring of global goodwill for the president-elect.
The danger posed by global warming is another priority. Throughout his campaign, Obama spoke passionately about the earth’s dwindling resources, its relentless exploitation by all but Western countries in particular, the urgency of clean energy sources, reducing greenhouse gas emissions and carbon footprint, and legislating sane policies based on scientific evidences to protect us and our children from rising seas and diminishing landmass.
But the sheer wonder of an African-American making the White House his home for at least the next four years is so astonishing that it blocks out other thoughts.
It was on New Year’s Day in 1863 that Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation. A hundred years later, in 1963, Martin Luther King informed Americans and the world that he had a dream. A year later, Lyndon Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act, outlawing racial segregation in schools, public places, and employment. Johnson followed it up with the National Voting Rights Act in 1965 to empower African-Americans to cast ballots without fear.
But the laws were only theories and it took many more years before they became reality for those they were meant to protect. A movie currently playing in theatres –The Secret Life of Bees – based on the best-selling novel of the same title by Sue Monk Kidd – gives viewers an idea of how many lives were lost and shattered before African-Americans could actually vote.
While many commentators have reflected on these historic milestones in the wake of Obama’s victory, one name has gone unmentioned. It is that of Muhammad Ali. Obama inspired us with the audacity of hope but in the ‘60s, Ali lifted our spirits with his raw audacity alone. From “I have seen the light and I am crowing” to “I ain’t got no quarrel with them Viet Cong,” Ali spoke truth to power, opening raw wounds in the psyche of America that provoked anger and revulsion but in the end proved cathartic for the nation. The change that he brought about through his audacity and moral courage surely played a role in the election that transfixed us on November 4th and transformed the world.
P.S. Toni Morrison, the last American to win the Nobel Prize in literature in 1993, gave an interview to The Wall Street Journal on 11/7/2008. The relevant excerpt follows:
Q. What do you think Mr. Obama's win says about American conception of race?
A. We're still a very active, volcanic country which is part of its excitement - the reinvention of ourselves and the constant search for what democracy means. I'm keenly aware of this peculiarity for this country. You couldn't imagine a win like this in Europe, because they're more static in how they run things. I can't imagine a Senegalese man in Paris running France - but now maybe.
Q. It's interesting that very little of the public discourse about Mr. Obama deals with his mixed-race status.
A. The other part of his race and his cultural experience was swept under the rug. That was deliberate so he could be the quintessential American even though the country was built on diversity. They had to tiptoe around that, but I think that nuanced discussion will happen. I kept saying that this is not an African-America but it's this specific man. This man. I can think of a lot of African-American that I would not vote for.
The improbable candidate achieved the unimaginable and overnight, the world became a better place.
Four years ago, the president-elect said at the Democratic National Convention, “I stand here knowing that my story is part of the larger American story, that I owe a debt to all of those who came before me, and that, in no other country on earth, is my story even possible.”
Last night, it all came together for Barack ("blessing" in Swahili) Hussein Obama in a way that even he could not have dreamed in 2004.
Obama stirred hope in the hearts of people, not just in America but around the globe, but let us not forget that he matched his hope with hard work, undaunted by setbacks and by those who said, “No you can’t.”
“Yes we can” is now a part of the American vocabulary.
By electing an African-American as the 44th president of the United States, America has finally crossed the race Rubicon.
Martin Luther King’s dream that we should be judged not by the color of our skins but by the content of our character is now a reality, even if tempered by memories of hidden wounds too painful for some to forget.
African-Americans voted overwhelmingly for Obama but he could not have been elected president if whites did not vote for him in such unprecedented numbers also, from idealistic students and blue collar workers to liberal intellectuals and Hollywood moguls. Consider this stark fact: North Dakota, Utah, Montana, Vermont, Nebraska and New Mexico went for Obama although there isn't much of an African-American presence in those six states. The biggest shocker of all: Obama won North Carolina and Indiana, two of the reddest states in America. Until now.
America has become colorblind.
While this holds profound lessons for all, it is particularly meaningful for European nations where immigrants are often treated as second-class citizens even after decades of invaluable contributions to their respective societies. Perhaps Obama’s victory will convince France, England, Germany, Denmark, Sweden, Holland, Spain and other countries to also become colorblind and inclusive. There really is no other way.
Until now, when the world looked up to America, it was because of its science and technology and medicine. But now the world will also look at America with awe and wonder because of its socially enlightened citizenry. Who could have ever imagined that?
Reversing the “either you are with us or against us” threat that defined George Bush’s belligerent foreign policy is a priority for Barack Obama. He has promised to meet unconditionally with any world leader to discuss and negotiate peace. The international temperature seems to have already cooled by a few degrees, and even though securing agreements with nations alienated by American arrogance may take time, the prospects are promising, given the spontanaeous outpouring of global goodwill for the president-elect.
The danger posed by global warming is another priority. Throughout his campaign, Obama spoke passionately about the earth’s dwindling resources, its relentless exploitation by all but Western countries in particular, the urgency of clean energy sources, reducing greenhouse gas emissions and carbon footprint, and legislating sane policies based on scientific evidences to protect us and our children from rising seas and diminishing landmass.
But the sheer wonder of an African-American making the White House his home for at least the next four years is so astonishing that it blocks out other thoughts.
It was on New Year’s Day in 1863 that Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation. A hundred years later, in 1963, Martin Luther King informed Americans and the world that he had a dream. A year later, Lyndon Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act, outlawing racial segregation in schools, public places, and employment. Johnson followed it up with the National Voting Rights Act in 1965 to empower African-Americans to cast ballots without fear.
But the laws were only theories and it took many more years before they became reality for those they were meant to protect. A movie currently playing in theatres –The Secret Life of Bees – based on the best-selling novel of the same title by Sue Monk Kidd – gives viewers an idea of how many lives were lost and shattered before African-Americans could actually vote.
While many commentators have reflected on these historic milestones in the wake of Obama’s victory, one name has gone unmentioned. It is that of Muhammad Ali. Obama inspired us with the audacity of hope but in the ‘60s, Ali lifted our spirits with his raw audacity alone. From “I have seen the light and I am crowing” to “I ain’t got no quarrel with them Viet Cong,” Ali spoke truth to power, opening raw wounds in the psyche of America that provoked anger and revulsion but in the end proved cathartic for the nation. The change that he brought about through his audacity and moral courage surely played a role in the election that transfixed us on November 4th and transformed the world.
P.S. Toni Morrison, the last American to win the Nobel Prize in literature in 1993, gave an interview to The Wall Street Journal on 11/7/2008. The relevant excerpt follows:
Q. What do you think Mr. Obama's win says about American conception of race?
A. We're still a very active, volcanic country which is part of its excitement - the reinvention of ourselves and the constant search for what democracy means. I'm keenly aware of this peculiarity for this country. You couldn't imagine a win like this in Europe, because they're more static in how they run things. I can't imagine a Senegalese man in Paris running France - but now maybe.
Q. It's interesting that very little of the public discourse about Mr. Obama deals with his mixed-race status.
A. The other part of his race and his cultural experience was swept under the rug. That was deliberate so he could be the quintessential American even though the country was built on diversity. They had to tiptoe around that, but I think that nuanced discussion will happen. I kept saying that this is not an African-America but it's this specific man. This man. I can think of a lot of African-American that I would not vote for.
Friday, October 31, 2008
“A Rendezvous with Destiny”
In Abraham Lincoln’s time in the 1860s, it was the question of Union and Disunion, of slavery and freedom. In Franklin Roosevelt’s time in the 1930s, it was the Great Depression with its unending bread lines, and recovery through the New Deal.
During George Bush’s eight years of presidency, described by the late author David Foster Wallace as “an unmitigated horror show of rapacity, hubris, incompetence, mendacity, corruption, cynicism and contempt for the electorate,” history repeated itself. An unspoken civil war now exists between the haves and the have-nots, subtler but no less lethal for the Union. In Northern California where I live, I see more and more people – white and black - standing by the roadside and in front of grocery stores, holding up signs that read: “Hungry. Please help.”
In their time, Americans chose Lincoln and Roosevelt to save the country. Who will they choose on November 4th this year? Lincoln speaks to us across the century and a half that separate his time from ours: “With malice toward none; with charity for all; with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in; to bind up the nation's wounds …” Roosevelt’s words also resonate across the years: “Only thing we have to fear is fear itself.”
One candidate has articulated these ideals in his campaign, convincing a vast number of voters that he can bind the nation’s wounds, reverse the economic meltdown and bring the old America back, the America that the world used to look up to, a strong and prosperous nation that put its power in the service of justice and peace at home and abroad.
That candidate is Barack Obama, the senator from Illinois, land of Lincoln.
Born in Hawaii of a black man from Kenya and a white woman from Kansas, this cosmopolitan, contemplative man has gained the confidence of Americans across party lines. He has called us to a higher purpose, in which liberty and equality are not enemies but symbiotically related, and we have responded. His steady resolve, inclusive worldview, common sense and sound judgment, combined with his grace and eloquence, has so energized Americans that this election may see the highest voter turnout in U.S. history.
If one were to summarize the reasons for Obama’s astonishing rise, it would be that he engaged in the politics of hope while McCain engaged in the politics of fear.
Particularly for young Americans, this hope over fear has fired their imagination even more than what John Kennedy, the architect of the New Frontier, was able to accomplish in 1960. Obama defined his message of hope in his keynote speech at the Democratic National Convention in 2004: “Hope in the face of difficulty, hope in the face of uncertainty, the audacity of hope … that is God's greatest gift to us, the bedrock of this nation, a belief in things not seen, a belief that there are better days ahead.”
An upset can still occur on November 4th. That is why Obama has appealed to his supporters not to become complacent even for a minute and to make sure that they all vote on Election Day.
McCain and Palin launched unethical, unfounded attacks against Obama by questioning his patriotism, dropping innuendos about his middle name, calling him a “socialist redistributionist” (whatever that means) and accusing him of consorting with terrorists. Americans are fed up with these negative and fear-mongering tactics. They see McCain as an extension of Bush's failed policies, and recognize that an intelligent, intellectually curious and visionary African-American, “a transformational candidate” in the words of Colin Powell, can guide the nation toward a new and humane direction as Lincoln and Roosevelt did during their times.
What about the rest of the world? Gallup Polls recently conducted in 70 countries representing nearly half the world’s population reveal that 3 out of 4 favor Obama over McCain in the U.S. presidential election.
Can Barack Hussein Obama rise to the post-election challenges if elected? Can he meet the post-election expectations? Talking heads are already raising these questions, and certainly the challenges and expectations will be exceptionally difficult to face and fulfill, but in these final hours, Americans are animated by only one hope, that after almost eight years of unrelenting national darkness, they will awake to a fresh and promising dawn on November 5th.
In 1936, Franklin Roosevelt said: “This generation of Americans has a rendezvous with destiny.” Seventy-two years later, so do we, so do we.
In Abraham Lincoln’s time in the 1860s, it was the question of Union and Disunion, of slavery and freedom. In Franklin Roosevelt’s time in the 1930s, it was the Great Depression with its unending bread lines, and recovery through the New Deal.
During George Bush’s eight years of presidency, described by the late author David Foster Wallace as “an unmitigated horror show of rapacity, hubris, incompetence, mendacity, corruption, cynicism and contempt for the electorate,” history repeated itself. An unspoken civil war now exists between the haves and the have-nots, subtler but no less lethal for the Union. In Northern California where I live, I see more and more people – white and black - standing by the roadside and in front of grocery stores, holding up signs that read: “Hungry. Please help.”
In their time, Americans chose Lincoln and Roosevelt to save the country. Who will they choose on November 4th this year? Lincoln speaks to us across the century and a half that separate his time from ours: “With malice toward none; with charity for all; with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in; to bind up the nation's wounds …” Roosevelt’s words also resonate across the years: “Only thing we have to fear is fear itself.”
One candidate has articulated these ideals in his campaign, convincing a vast number of voters that he can bind the nation’s wounds, reverse the economic meltdown and bring the old America back, the America that the world used to look up to, a strong and prosperous nation that put its power in the service of justice and peace at home and abroad.
That candidate is Barack Obama, the senator from Illinois, land of Lincoln.
Born in Hawaii of a black man from Kenya and a white woman from Kansas, this cosmopolitan, contemplative man has gained the confidence of Americans across party lines. He has called us to a higher purpose, in which liberty and equality are not enemies but symbiotically related, and we have responded. His steady resolve, inclusive worldview, common sense and sound judgment, combined with his grace and eloquence, has so energized Americans that this election may see the highest voter turnout in U.S. history.
If one were to summarize the reasons for Obama’s astonishing rise, it would be that he engaged in the politics of hope while McCain engaged in the politics of fear.
Particularly for young Americans, this hope over fear has fired their imagination even more than what John Kennedy, the architect of the New Frontier, was able to accomplish in 1960. Obama defined his message of hope in his keynote speech at the Democratic National Convention in 2004: “Hope in the face of difficulty, hope in the face of uncertainty, the audacity of hope … that is God's greatest gift to us, the bedrock of this nation, a belief in things not seen, a belief that there are better days ahead.”
An upset can still occur on November 4th. That is why Obama has appealed to his supporters not to become complacent even for a minute and to make sure that they all vote on Election Day.
McCain and Palin launched unethical, unfounded attacks against Obama by questioning his patriotism, dropping innuendos about his middle name, calling him a “socialist redistributionist” (whatever that means) and accusing him of consorting with terrorists. Americans are fed up with these negative and fear-mongering tactics. They see McCain as an extension of Bush's failed policies, and recognize that an intelligent, intellectually curious and visionary African-American, “a transformational candidate” in the words of Colin Powell, can guide the nation toward a new and humane direction as Lincoln and Roosevelt did during their times.
What about the rest of the world? Gallup Polls recently conducted in 70 countries representing nearly half the world’s population reveal that 3 out of 4 favor Obama over McCain in the U.S. presidential election.
Can Barack Hussein Obama rise to the post-election challenges if elected? Can he meet the post-election expectations? Talking heads are already raising these questions, and certainly the challenges and expectations will be exceptionally difficult to face and fulfill, but in these final hours, Americans are animated by only one hope, that after almost eight years of unrelenting national darkness, they will awake to a fresh and promising dawn on November 5th.
In 1936, Franklin Roosevelt said: “This generation of Americans has a rendezvous with destiny.” Seventy-two years later, so do we, so do we.
Wednesday, October 29, 2008
Nobel Scientists for Obama
Science took a severe beating from George Bush and his administration. Funding for cutting-edge research dried up in physics, chemistry, biology and medicine. Where once the U.S. dominated, from high-energy physics to medical research, the scientific frontier has slowly moved to Europe. That’s where most of the exciting work in science is done these days. The Large Hadron Collider (LHC), the world’s most powerful particle accelerator at the Swiss-France border, is only one example.
In an open letter to the American people, 76 American Nobel Prize-winning scientists (including the three chemisty and physics laureates this year) endorsed Barack Obama for president. (Martin Chalfie, the chemistry winner, has even recorded a video of his endorsement). They are the Who’s Who of American science. Their passionate support for Obama and disdain for Bush, and by extension of McCain and Palin, should be a wake-up call for Americans struggling to understand why we as a nation have fallen behind other countries in basic scientific research. Only the other day, the clueless Sarah Palin mocked fruit fly research as a waste of taxpayers’ money. Christopher Hitchens’ devastating deconstruction of Palin’s ignorance and the importance of fruit fly research that led to a Nobel Prize for Thomas Hunt Morgan in 1933 makes for fascinating reading.
P.S. 11/1/08 - Here is another response to Palin's "scientific" observations on the fruit fly by a scientist.
Science took a severe beating from George Bush and his administration. Funding for cutting-edge research dried up in physics, chemistry, biology and medicine. Where once the U.S. dominated, from high-energy physics to medical research, the scientific frontier has slowly moved to Europe. That’s where most of the exciting work in science is done these days. The Large Hadron Collider (LHC), the world’s most powerful particle accelerator at the Swiss-France border, is only one example.
In an open letter to the American people, 76 American Nobel Prize-winning scientists (including the three chemisty and physics laureates this year) endorsed Barack Obama for president. (Martin Chalfie, the chemistry winner, has even recorded a video of his endorsement). They are the Who’s Who of American science. Their passionate support for Obama and disdain for Bush, and by extension of McCain and Palin, should be a wake-up call for Americans struggling to understand why we as a nation have fallen behind other countries in basic scientific research. Only the other day, the clueless Sarah Palin mocked fruit fly research as a waste of taxpayers’ money. Christopher Hitchens’ devastating deconstruction of Palin’s ignorance and the importance of fruit fly research that led to a Nobel Prize for Thomas Hunt Morgan in 1933 makes for fascinating reading.
P.S. 11/1/08 - Here is another response to Palin's "scientific" observations on the fruit fly by a scientist.
Friday, October 24, 2008
Beyond Hypocrisy
Just when you think you have seen, read and heard it all, comes disclosure that Sarah Palin’s stylist was paid $22,800 for the first two weeks of October alone by the Republican National Committee, while her traveling hair stylist was paid $10,000 for “communications consulting” in the same period. This is after revelation that the RNC spent $150,000 for Palin’s wardrobe, dressing her up with the latest in fashion from such upscale stores as Saks and Neiman Marcus. Is there anything wrong in making the VP candidate look her best? One may cry sexism here but the real issue is not whether Palin should be transformed into a knockout to improve GOP’s chance to win the election; no, it is more the case of whether the Wasilla mom can claim with a straight face that she represents Joe six-pack and wall-mart shoppers struggling to make ends meet. She cannot but the Republican Party has decided that Palin, not McCain, is their last, best hope to win the election and so why not let the mendacity and the crocodile tears flow from one made easy on the eye with the best makeup and clothes money can buy? Alas, it will not work, for while Republican operatives believe that you can judge a book by its cover, American voters know better.
An intriguing opinion piece in the Washington Post today by Kathleen Parker may explain the attention lavished on Sarah Palin by the Republican National Committee. John McCain may have something to do with it.
More on mendacity: Ashley Todd, the young white McCain staffer in Pittsburgh who claimed she was assaulted by a 6-foot-4-inch black Obama supporter and who carved the letter "B" (backwards) on her face ... well, it was a pathetic hoax involving self-mutilation. Todd was reading from a script that predates the civil war. She was also unknowingly invoking literature. Remember Atticus Finch defending a black man falsely accused of rape in "To Kill a Mockingbird?" As soon as the story broke, McCain and Palin called Todd to express their sympathies. Drudge Report carried a screaming banner on its home page. Right-wing outlets like the New York Post could hardly contain their glee at the obvious symbolism of the story: "How dare a black man, given his race's violent past and present, aspire to the highest office in the land?" To their credit, Pittsburgh police didn't fall for this ancient race-baiting and Todd's story soon fell apart under scrutiny. My guess is that quite a few undecided white voters across the nation will now vote for Obama because of this incident.
Just when you think you have seen, read and heard it all, comes disclosure that Sarah Palin’s stylist was paid $22,800 for the first two weeks of October alone by the Republican National Committee, while her traveling hair stylist was paid $10,000 for “communications consulting” in the same period. This is after revelation that the RNC spent $150,000 for Palin’s wardrobe, dressing her up with the latest in fashion from such upscale stores as Saks and Neiman Marcus. Is there anything wrong in making the VP candidate look her best? One may cry sexism here but the real issue is not whether Palin should be transformed into a knockout to improve GOP’s chance to win the election; no, it is more the case of whether the Wasilla mom can claim with a straight face that she represents Joe six-pack and wall-mart shoppers struggling to make ends meet. She cannot but the Republican Party has decided that Palin, not McCain, is their last, best hope to win the election and so why not let the mendacity and the crocodile tears flow from one made easy on the eye with the best makeup and clothes money can buy? Alas, it will not work, for while Republican operatives believe that you can judge a book by its cover, American voters know better.
An intriguing opinion piece in the Washington Post today by Kathleen Parker may explain the attention lavished on Sarah Palin by the Republican National Committee. John McCain may have something to do with it.
More on mendacity: Ashley Todd, the young white McCain staffer in Pittsburgh who claimed she was assaulted by a 6-foot-4-inch black Obama supporter and who carved the letter "B" (backwards) on her face ... well, it was a pathetic hoax involving self-mutilation. Todd was reading from a script that predates the civil war. She was also unknowingly invoking literature. Remember Atticus Finch defending a black man falsely accused of rape in "To Kill a Mockingbird?" As soon as the story broke, McCain and Palin called Todd to express their sympathies. Drudge Report carried a screaming banner on its home page. Right-wing outlets like the New York Post could hardly contain their glee at the obvious symbolism of the story: "How dare a black man, given his race's violent past and present, aspire to the highest office in the land?" To their credit, Pittsburgh police didn't fall for this ancient race-baiting and Todd's story soon fell apart under scrutiny. My guess is that quite a few undecided white voters across the nation will now vote for Obama because of this incident.
Saturday, October 18, 2008
The Irresistible Lure of the Blog
The desire to express one's uninhibited, passionate opinion to a world-wide audience through writing may have been enabled by the Internet but the instinct is ancient. The power of now, which may serve as a definition of blog, is impossible to deny once you have taken the bait. In a perceptive essay in the Atlantic, Andrew Sullivan traces his discovery of the medium and explains how its intoxicating immediacy made an enormous impact on him. I read the essay for a personal reason. I wanted to find out what a blogger has to do to attract readers. Whatever Sullivan blogs, it instantly draws comments from four corners of the country, if not the globe. The same is true of other established media personalities. But for the vast majority of bloggers, we toil in obscurity. We seem to make waves on a part of the blog ocean where no ship, no boat, not even a dinghy ventures forth. Sullivan received invaluable advice from Matt Drudge of the Drudge Report when he was starting out. The master informed him in 2001 that "the key to understanding a blog is to realize that it's a broadcast, not a publication. If it stops moving, it dies. If it stops paddling, it sinks."
Excellent advice but how to capture those initial eyeballs with a zillion blogs vying for attention? A growing network of friends in Facebook and Myspace will not hurt. Maybe languishing bloggers can form their own network and take on the big guns and suddenly we become equal, relishing brutal comments from outraged readers. We do not blog for money, although that would be nice, but only ask that you read our stuff and let us have it. Keep moving and paddling and suddenly one day ... well, a core group of discerning readers will do, at least for starters.
The desire to express one's uninhibited, passionate opinion to a world-wide audience through writing may have been enabled by the Internet but the instinct is ancient. The power of now, which may serve as a definition of blog, is impossible to deny once you have taken the bait. In a perceptive essay in the Atlantic, Andrew Sullivan traces his discovery of the medium and explains how its intoxicating immediacy made an enormous impact on him. I read the essay for a personal reason. I wanted to find out what a blogger has to do to attract readers. Whatever Sullivan blogs, it instantly draws comments from four corners of the country, if not the globe. The same is true of other established media personalities. But for the vast majority of bloggers, we toil in obscurity. We seem to make waves on a part of the blog ocean where no ship, no boat, not even a dinghy ventures forth. Sullivan received invaluable advice from Matt Drudge of the Drudge Report when he was starting out. The master informed him in 2001 that "the key to understanding a blog is to realize that it's a broadcast, not a publication. If it stops moving, it dies. If it stops paddling, it sinks."
Excellent advice but how to capture those initial eyeballs with a zillion blogs vying for attention? A growing network of friends in Facebook and Myspace will not hurt. Maybe languishing bloggers can form their own network and take on the big guns and suddenly we become equal, relishing brutal comments from outraged readers. We do not blog for money, although that would be nice, but only ask that you read our stuff and let us have it. Keep moving and paddling and suddenly one day ... well, a core group of discerning readers will do, at least for starters.
Monday, October 13, 2008
My Name as an Albatross
In the more than two decades that I have been working at various high-tech companies in Silicon Valley, I have never encountered any prejudice at the workplace because of my race or religion. But lately a thought has been steadily creeping into my mind: If I were to run for public office even, say, at the local school board level, would my name become an albatross around my neck?
I have been thinking about this since John McCain and Sarah Palin began encouraging the use of Barack Obama’s middle name – Hussein – in their rallies to suggest that he was the Other, and therefore is “not a man who sees America the way you and I see America.” I find attempts by them to associate Obama with terrorists and America-haters a smokescreen for the real accusation: Obama carries a Muslim middle name and that is reason enough to bar him from contesting for the highest office in the land.
This is the mindset that says: American Muslims can rise in their profession and shine in their fields, but if they to aspire to high public offices, they must be prevented by any means necessary since they pose a threat of one kind or another to America.
You can count on your fingers the number of Muslims holding high public offices in America. One of the most notable is Keith Ellison, a converted Muslim Congressman from Minnesota, who is known not for the legislation that he helps frame and pass but that he is a Muslim who took the oath of office holding a Quran that belonged to Thomas Jefferson.
I find the desperate tactics of John McCain in the last days of the 2008 presidential election particularly disappointing. In his book “Character is Destiny,” McCain wrote that “It is your character, and your character alone, that will make your life happy or unhappy. That is all that really passes for destiny.” He gives us glimpses into the lives of Gandhi, Lincoln, Mandela, Joan of Arc, Leonardo da Vinci and many others from the past and the present to teach us what constitutes character: qualities like honor, purpose, understanding, forgiveness and love.
As the harsh and ugly rhetoric of McCain and Palin show, however, occupying the Oval Office trumps the “Character is Destiny” stuff. When the presidency of the United States is at stake, winning at any cost, including encouraging your supporters to call your opponent a “traitor,” a “terrorist,” a “liar,” even approving with silence the threat by some in the crowd to “kill him,” is fair game. This is hypocrisy.
Barack Obama is a more practicing Christian than John McCain is but that does not prevent millions of Americans into believing that he is a Muslim, not just because of the fake stories circulating on the Web but because that's what they want to believe. The implication is that being a Muslim is somehow un-American, a real show-stopper to running for the presidency. It's a reincarnation of McCarthyism in the 21st century. Does it say anywhere in the U.S. Constitution that even if you are born in America, you cannot run for the presidency if you happen to be a Muslim?
Still, I am thankful that Obama’s candidacy has forced this issue on the conscience of Americans. I am optimistic that we will come to grips with it in a way consistent with the vision of the founding fathers. Many Americans forget that the Civil Rights Act (1964) and the Voting Rights Act (1965), giving full citizenship powers to African-Americans, passed less than fifty years ago. (It is also worth noting that the hero of the Republican Party, Ronald Reagan, opposed both these Acts). While racism still persists in subtler forms in America today, African-Americans are not fighting for a seat at the table but are focused on reducing the achievement gap with whites. The goal is loftier because the majority of Americans made the difficult sacrifices in the past to banish our baser social and political institutions.
So I am hopeful that whether it is Ashoka or Ahmed or Aparna or Almaraz or Ming or Nguyen who may be contesting the presidential election, a time will soon come when race, religion or name will matter as much to the voters as the brand of toothpaste that the candidate uses. I may be reluctant to contest in any election now but my children may not think twice about running for public offices if they choose to when that time comes. When that happens, we Americans will learn to appreciate the wisdom of one of our greatest poets, Walt Whitman, who said in his “Poem of Salutation” in the timeless “Leaves of Grass” (1856): "I hear the Arab muezzin calling from the top of the mosque, . . . / I hear the Christian priests at the altars of their churches, / I hear the Hebrew reading his records and psalms, . . . / I hear the Hindu teaching his favorite pupil."
P.S. (10/19/08) - This morning Gen. Colin Powell, a Republican, forcefully endorsed Barack Obama as president of the United States. His endorsement included these words: "I'm also troubled by, not what Sen. McCain says, but what members of the party say, and it is permitted to be said such things as: "Well, you know that Mr. Obama is a Muslim." Well, the correct answer is: he is not a Muslim. He's a Christian. He's always been a Christian. But the really right answer is: What if he is? Is there something wrong with being a Muslim in this country? The answer is: No, that's not America. Is there something wrong with some 7-year-old Muslim-American kid believing he or she can be president? Yet I have heard senior members of my own party drop the suggestion: he's (Obama) a Muslim, and he might be associated with terrorists. This is not the way we should be doing it in America."
Gen. Powell also cited the death of a 20-year-old Muslim soldier named Kareem Rashad Sultan Khan of Manahawkin, N.J., who was killed in Iraq on Aug. 6, 2007, who was awarded a Purple Heart and Bronze Star, and who was buried in Arlington National cemetery. “He was 14 years old at the time of 9/11, and he waited until he could go serve his country, and he gave his life,” Gen. Powell said. “Now, we have got to stop polarizing ourselves in this way.” He was moved to comment on Sultan Khan after seeing a picture of the young soldier's mother pressing her head against her fallen son's gravestone at Arlington.
The larger implications of Powell's endorsement can also be read in this excellent review.
In the more than two decades that I have been working at various high-tech companies in Silicon Valley, I have never encountered any prejudice at the workplace because of my race or religion. But lately a thought has been steadily creeping into my mind: If I were to run for public office even, say, at the local school board level, would my name become an albatross around my neck?
I have been thinking about this since John McCain and Sarah Palin began encouraging the use of Barack Obama’s middle name – Hussein – in their rallies to suggest that he was the Other, and therefore is “not a man who sees America the way you and I see America.” I find attempts by them to associate Obama with terrorists and America-haters a smokescreen for the real accusation: Obama carries a Muslim middle name and that is reason enough to bar him from contesting for the highest office in the land.
This is the mindset that says: American Muslims can rise in their profession and shine in their fields, but if they to aspire to high public offices, they must be prevented by any means necessary since they pose a threat of one kind or another to America.
You can count on your fingers the number of Muslims holding high public offices in America. One of the most notable is Keith Ellison, a converted Muslim Congressman from Minnesota, who is known not for the legislation that he helps frame and pass but that he is a Muslim who took the oath of office holding a Quran that belonged to Thomas Jefferson.
I find the desperate tactics of John McCain in the last days of the 2008 presidential election particularly disappointing. In his book “Character is Destiny,” McCain wrote that “It is your character, and your character alone, that will make your life happy or unhappy. That is all that really passes for destiny.” He gives us glimpses into the lives of Gandhi, Lincoln, Mandela, Joan of Arc, Leonardo da Vinci and many others from the past and the present to teach us what constitutes character: qualities like honor, purpose, understanding, forgiveness and love.
As the harsh and ugly rhetoric of McCain and Palin show, however, occupying the Oval Office trumps the “Character is Destiny” stuff. When the presidency of the United States is at stake, winning at any cost, including encouraging your supporters to call your opponent a “traitor,” a “terrorist,” a “liar,” even approving with silence the threat by some in the crowd to “kill him,” is fair game. This is hypocrisy.
Barack Obama is a more practicing Christian than John McCain is but that does not prevent millions of Americans into believing that he is a Muslim, not just because of the fake stories circulating on the Web but because that's what they want to believe. The implication is that being a Muslim is somehow un-American, a real show-stopper to running for the presidency. It's a reincarnation of McCarthyism in the 21st century. Does it say anywhere in the U.S. Constitution that even if you are born in America, you cannot run for the presidency if you happen to be a Muslim?
Still, I am thankful that Obama’s candidacy has forced this issue on the conscience of Americans. I am optimistic that we will come to grips with it in a way consistent with the vision of the founding fathers. Many Americans forget that the Civil Rights Act (1964) and the Voting Rights Act (1965), giving full citizenship powers to African-Americans, passed less than fifty years ago. (It is also worth noting that the hero of the Republican Party, Ronald Reagan, opposed both these Acts). While racism still persists in subtler forms in America today, African-Americans are not fighting for a seat at the table but are focused on reducing the achievement gap with whites. The goal is loftier because the majority of Americans made the difficult sacrifices in the past to banish our baser social and political institutions.
So I am hopeful that whether it is Ashoka or Ahmed or Aparna or Almaraz or Ming or Nguyen who may be contesting the presidential election, a time will soon come when race, religion or name will matter as much to the voters as the brand of toothpaste that the candidate uses. I may be reluctant to contest in any election now but my children may not think twice about running for public offices if they choose to when that time comes. When that happens, we Americans will learn to appreciate the wisdom of one of our greatest poets, Walt Whitman, who said in his “Poem of Salutation” in the timeless “Leaves of Grass” (1856): "I hear the Arab muezzin calling from the top of the mosque, . . . / I hear the Christian priests at the altars of their churches, / I hear the Hebrew reading his records and psalms, . . . / I hear the Hindu teaching his favorite pupil."
P.S. (10/19/08) - This morning Gen. Colin Powell, a Republican, forcefully endorsed Barack Obama as president of the United States. His endorsement included these words: "I'm also troubled by, not what Sen. McCain says, but what members of the party say, and it is permitted to be said such things as: "Well, you know that Mr. Obama is a Muslim." Well, the correct answer is: he is not a Muslim. He's a Christian. He's always been a Christian. But the really right answer is: What if he is? Is there something wrong with being a Muslim in this country? The answer is: No, that's not America. Is there something wrong with some 7-year-old Muslim-American kid believing he or she can be president? Yet I have heard senior members of my own party drop the suggestion: he's (Obama) a Muslim, and he might be associated with terrorists. This is not the way we should be doing it in America."
Gen. Powell also cited the death of a 20-year-old Muslim soldier named Kareem Rashad Sultan Khan of Manahawkin, N.J., who was killed in Iraq on Aug. 6, 2007, who was awarded a Purple Heart and Bronze Star, and who was buried in Arlington National cemetery. “He was 14 years old at the time of 9/11, and he waited until he could go serve his country, and he gave his life,” Gen. Powell said. “Now, we have got to stop polarizing ourselves in this way.” He was moved to comment on Sultan Khan after seeing a picture of the young soldier's mother pressing her head against her fallen son's gravestone at Arlington.
The larger implications of Powell's endorsement can also be read in this excellent review.
Thursday, October 09, 2008
American Literature is Second-Rate, Says Swedish Nobel Judge
The 2008 Nobel Prize in literature has just been announced and – surprise! - an American did not win it. The prize went to Frenchman Jean-Marie Gustave Le Clézio for his “new departures, poetic adventure and sensual ecstasy, explorer of a humanity beyond and below the reigning civilization.”
What has provoked strong reaction on both sides of the Pacific and the Atlantic is the comment last week by Horace Engdahl, permanent secretary of the Swedish Academy that awards the Nobel Prize for Literature. "Of course there is powerful literature in all big cultures,” said Engdahl, “but you can't get away from the fact that Europe still is the center of the literary world ... not the United States.” He asserted that American writers are "too sensitive to trends in their own mass culture," which drags down their quality. Any other shortcomings? "The U.S. is too isolated, too insular. They don't translate enough and don't really participate in the big dialogue of literature," said the honorable judge. "That ignorance is restraining."
In a news conference in Stockholm after the announcement today, Mr. Engdahl described the new Nobel Laureate as a cosmopolitan author, “a traveler, a citizen of the world, a nomad.” No American writer shared these qualities, you could almost hear the secretary as saying.
Unlike physics, chemistry, economics, and physiology or medicine in which they dominate, the literature prize has proved elusive for Americans. The last American to win the prize was Toni Morrison in 1993. Before her, the list comprises Sinclair Lewis (1930), Eugene O'Neill (1936), Pearl Buck (1938), William Faulkner (1949), Ernest Hemingway (1954), John Steinbeck (1962), Saul bellow (1976) and Isaac Bashevis Singer (1978). That’s it, a total of 9 out of 107 since the awards began in 1901.
So is there anything to Mr. Engdahl's observations? Are American writers, in fact, provincial, as the Swede said in so many words? The notion is laughable. The great American writers have been great precisely because they were universal in their outlook, and also because they not only resisted the trends in their own mass culture but showed us how to turn away from its toxic elements through the power of their imagination. While names like Philip Roth, John Updike, Joyce Carol Oates and a few others come up every year around this time as possible recipients of the prize, no American, in my opinion, is more deserving of the Nobel than Wendell Berry.
In weaving magical, redemptive and engrossing tales around the fictitious town of Port Williams in Kentucky, Berry has shown how literature can not only take us beyond ourselves but also restore sanity in an increasingly insane world. Whether you are basking in the warm glow of the Coulter clan or remembering with Andy Catlett or rediscovering the true meaning of fidelity or crying with Jaybar Crow in his heartbreaking loss (more poignant, again, in my opinion, than Henry's in Hemingway’s “A Farewell to Arms”), Berry’s voice is unique and unforgettable. His work reminds us why we need and read literature in the first place. But how likely is it that Wendell Berry will win the literature prize? About as likely as Sweden asking Finland to take over the responsibility of deciding who gets the award and who does not.
Fact is, the Nobel Prize in literature has often been driven by politics than by the recognition of genuine talent. In physics, chemistry, economics and physiology or medicine, the charge could be made that some worthy recipients have been ignored but it is also undeniable that all recipients have been worthy winners. You cannot fake your contributions in these fields or cater to some ideological imperatives of the day to win. You have to make contributions that your peers recognize as fundamental and trailblazing. Not so in literature. Other than some of their countrymen and perhaps some ideologically-persuaded fans, who really has read the novels of Dario Fo (1997), Gao Xingjian (2000) or Elfriede Jelinek (2004), to name only three in a long list?
The literature prize has acquired a bad reputation for its dubious awards and, to reuse Mr. Engdahl's words in this context, its isolated and insular criteria. It is time the Swedish Nobel Academy reviews its record and bring the same credibility to the literature prize that it brings year after year to physics, chemistry, economics and physiology or medicine.
P.S. In a recent interview, John Updike was asked about Horace Engdahl's comment that the U.S. was too insular to produce great writers. Updike's response: "I thought there was something in what he said. This is a non-European country. We're a cultural island and our canon, our masterpieces, are unlike the European masterpieces. "Moby Dick" and "Huckleberry Finn" are the two great 19th-century American novels, and they're about marginal characters drifting around. We're fascinated by heading west, there is a Puritan religiosity that haunts us. European novels want to show you society as it exists or existed, whereas American novels would rather get away and dwell on the inner life of the character, which is another way of being insular. I thought it was interesting that he said we weren't up on things, that there is an accumulation of knowledge about how to create art. I don't think that is true. I don't think European clubbiness helps their art. There has been a falling off of American winners of the Nobel. There was a spate after the Second World War that reflected the importance of the U.S. in the global picture. Now we don't project quite that magnetic image."
Saturday, September 27, 2008
Obama Needs to Step it Up
Americans are looking for passion, not cool. They are currently more concerned with where the next month's mortgage payment will be coming from than with the global implications of a distant war. To be unflappable maybe a virtue but when you are taking on a war veteran in front of a national audience, you better rid yourself of timidity and start using words that are bold and a vision that is clear. In the debate last night at the Ole Miss, Obama did neither and that was disappointing.
Watching the lackluster give-and-take, I found the images morphing into this exchange:
Sen. McCain: Sen. Obama does not understand ...
Sen. Obama: Sen. McCain is absolutely right ...
What's this with McCain being right, no less "absolutely," in a debate where so much hangs in the balance? It looks like Obama is determined to win the congeniality contest that McCain vows not to.
The best that can be said about this debate is that two more remain in which the senator from Illinois can learn from his mistakes and become more sharp and incisive. He has to be far more convincing in projecting a presidential image, in not straining to prove that he can be magnanimous (he will get plenty of chance for that later) and in decisively proving to Americans that McCain is nothing more than an extension of Bush and his failed policies. One more thing: Please avoid the Kenyan narrative. Plenty of ink has been spilled on the topic. You are not going to persuade swing voters with that. In fact, you might just turn them off.
Come out swinging, Barack! Show some more passion!
P.S. (2 weeks later) Looks like "cool" in the face of provocations goes a long way. Obama's cool has been a huge plus for him. Now I understand what Hemingway meant when he defined courage as "grace under pressure."
Americans are looking for passion, not cool. They are currently more concerned with where the next month's mortgage payment will be coming from than with the global implications of a distant war. To be unflappable maybe a virtue but when you are taking on a war veteran in front of a national audience, you better rid yourself of timidity and start using words that are bold and a vision that is clear. In the debate last night at the Ole Miss, Obama did neither and that was disappointing.
Watching the lackluster give-and-take, I found the images morphing into this exchange:
Sen. McCain: Sen. Obama does not understand ...
Sen. Obama: Sen. McCain is absolutely right ...
What's this with McCain being right, no less "absolutely," in a debate where so much hangs in the balance? It looks like Obama is determined to win the congeniality contest that McCain vows not to.
The best that can be said about this debate is that two more remain in which the senator from Illinois can learn from his mistakes and become more sharp and incisive. He has to be far more convincing in projecting a presidential image, in not straining to prove that he can be magnanimous (he will get plenty of chance for that later) and in decisively proving to Americans that McCain is nothing more than an extension of Bush and his failed policies. One more thing: Please avoid the Kenyan narrative. Plenty of ink has been spilled on the topic. You are not going to persuade swing voters with that. In fact, you might just turn them off.
Come out swinging, Barack! Show some more passion!
P.S. (2 weeks later) Looks like "cool" in the face of provocations goes a long way. Obama's cool has been a huge plus for him. Now I understand what Hemingway meant when he defined courage as "grace under pressure."
Tuesday, September 16, 2008
Two Brilliant Opinion Pieces
Read two brilliant opinion pieces over the weekend. The first was by Randall Kennedy, a professor of law at Harvard University, who speculated on the possibility of Barack Obama losing to John McCain in the November election. “If that happens,” wonders Kennedy, “then what? How will I feel? How will other black Americans feel? How should people like me feel?”
The writer plumbs his soul to answer these questions, having fled the Jim Crow South of the ‘60s with his parents to escape racial abuses. The answers are poignant but also uplifting. Kennedy finds in Obama a potential president who could do wonders for the United States both at home and abroad. But his hope is tempered by reality. What is that reality? Race, which continues to plays a significant role in 21st century America, “not the hateful, snarling open bigotry that terrorized my parents in their youth, but rather a vague, sophisticated, low-key prejudice that is chameleonlike in its ability to adapt to new surroundings and to hide even from those firmly in its grip.” If Obama were to lose, “I’ll conclude that a fabulous opportunity has been lost. I’ll believe that American voters have made a huge mistake.” Kennedy speaks for many Americans across the racial divide. They yearn for a new dawn after the perpetual darkness of the Bush administration but if the republicans return, then after the initial heartbreak and anger, “I will find solace and encouragement in contemplating this … a major political party nominated a black man for the highest office in the land … he (Obama) will have bequeathed to all America something that should bring comfort and pride to even the most disappointed of his followers. He has reached the edge of the pinnacle. And shown that we can stand atop it.”
The other piece was by Paul Theroux, the renowned travel writer. What has really “electrified” republicans about Sarah Palin is not the quality of her Alaskan governorship (non-existent) but her image as a fearless hunter of … moose. The big bad moose has made Palin big too, at least in the minds of diehard republicans grasping at anything to excite their flagging spirit. Theroux puts all this in perspective: “It is as though, because of the animal’s enormous size and imposing antlers, bringing one down is a heroic feat of marksmanship. Nothing could be further from the truth.” This is where Henry David Thoreau steps in. Thoreau (1817-1862) observed the moose closely in Maine. Killing these myopic creatures was more “like going out by night to some woodside pasture and shooting your neighbor’s horses.” He found these gentle creatures to be like “great frightened rabbits.” Felling them, he felt, was no less than a tragedy.
Thoreau was a subversive fellow, intolerant of pretensions and hypocrisy and “business as usual.” (It is “business as usual” that is at the root of the current Wall Street meltdown). Theroux writes a telling sentence: “American politicians seldom take notice of American writers, especially the boldest one, such as Thoreau, whose every word is at odds with their groveling and grandstanding and their sanctimonious cant.” This is as incisive a summary of the majority of our politicians as you will ever read. Theroux points out that in Thoreau’s mind, the moose and the pine tree were linked. “Every creature is better alive than dead, men and moose and pine trees, and he who understands it aright will rather preserve life than destroy it.” Sarah Palin notwithstanding, can a majority of Americans take Thoreau’s message to heart and vote with their conscience in November?
Read two brilliant opinion pieces over the weekend. The first was by Randall Kennedy, a professor of law at Harvard University, who speculated on the possibility of Barack Obama losing to John McCain in the November election. “If that happens,” wonders Kennedy, “then what? How will I feel? How will other black Americans feel? How should people like me feel?”
The writer plumbs his soul to answer these questions, having fled the Jim Crow South of the ‘60s with his parents to escape racial abuses. The answers are poignant but also uplifting. Kennedy finds in Obama a potential president who could do wonders for the United States both at home and abroad. But his hope is tempered by reality. What is that reality? Race, which continues to plays a significant role in 21st century America, “not the hateful, snarling open bigotry that terrorized my parents in their youth, but rather a vague, sophisticated, low-key prejudice that is chameleonlike in its ability to adapt to new surroundings and to hide even from those firmly in its grip.” If Obama were to lose, “I’ll conclude that a fabulous opportunity has been lost. I’ll believe that American voters have made a huge mistake.” Kennedy speaks for many Americans across the racial divide. They yearn for a new dawn after the perpetual darkness of the Bush administration but if the republicans return, then after the initial heartbreak and anger, “I will find solace and encouragement in contemplating this … a major political party nominated a black man for the highest office in the land … he (Obama) will have bequeathed to all America something that should bring comfort and pride to even the most disappointed of his followers. He has reached the edge of the pinnacle. And shown that we can stand atop it.”
The other piece was by Paul Theroux, the renowned travel writer. What has really “electrified” republicans about Sarah Palin is not the quality of her Alaskan governorship (non-existent) but her image as a fearless hunter of … moose. The big bad moose has made Palin big too, at least in the minds of diehard republicans grasping at anything to excite their flagging spirit. Theroux puts all this in perspective: “It is as though, because of the animal’s enormous size and imposing antlers, bringing one down is a heroic feat of marksmanship. Nothing could be further from the truth.” This is where Henry David Thoreau steps in. Thoreau (1817-1862) observed the moose closely in Maine. Killing these myopic creatures was more “like going out by night to some woodside pasture and shooting your neighbor’s horses.” He found these gentle creatures to be like “great frightened rabbits.” Felling them, he felt, was no less than a tragedy.
Thoreau was a subversive fellow, intolerant of pretensions and hypocrisy and “business as usual.” (It is “business as usual” that is at the root of the current Wall Street meltdown). Theroux writes a telling sentence: “American politicians seldom take notice of American writers, especially the boldest one, such as Thoreau, whose every word is at odds with their groveling and grandstanding and their sanctimonious cant.” This is as incisive a summary of the majority of our politicians as you will ever read. Theroux points out that in Thoreau’s mind, the moose and the pine tree were linked. “Every creature is better alive than dead, men and moose and pine trees, and he who understands it aright will rather preserve life than destroy it.” Sarah Palin notwithstanding, can a majority of Americans take Thoreau’s message to heart and vote with their conscience in November?
Friday, September 12, 2008
Unveiling Nature's Deepest Secrets
Man must understand his universe in order to understand his destiny," said Neil Armstrong, the first man to walk on the moon.
Mankind took a significant step toward understanding the universe this week. The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) that began its first tentative operation on September 10 at CERN is our most ambitious (and most expensive) effort yet to understand how the universe came into being and why nature is the way it is.
The origin of the universe is echoed in the smallest of particles and the fiery fragments they create when colliding at or near the speed of light. In late fall of 2008 or early spring of 2009, when the LHC is fully operational, protons will be slamming into protons at 99.999999 percent of the speed of light, and scientists and interested laymen alike will hold their collective breath for what ensues.
Whereas in nuclear fission or fusion, mass is converted into energy according to Einstein’s famous formula, E = mc2, at the LHC energy is expected to be transformed into mass (m = E/c2), creating particles that will test the most successful particle physics theory called the standard model. At the heart of the standard model, formulated in the 1970s, is Higgs boson, a particle that has never been detected, but without which this theory remains just that, a theory.
Some scientists, including English physicist Peter Higgs who came up with the idea of the particle that is meant to account for an object’s mass, worry that the LHC may not be able to detect the Higgs boson. That can very well mean, of course, that there is no Higgs boson to begin with, and you cannot detect something that doesn’t exist. Would that mean that for 40 years scientists have been chasing a red herring?
I think that is the wrong way to look at it. If the LHC confirms the existence of Higgs boson, wonderful! If it doesn’t, that’s wonderful too! Why? Because while the complex intellectual edifice called the standard model may come down like a house of cards, it will most likely open the door to a yet deeper theory whose beauty and predictive power will surpass the standard model. Nature gives up her secrets only under torture, it would seem, but when she does, we can only marvel at the fact that her imagination always proves richer than ours.
The LHC experiment is also expected to shed light on the validity of string theory. According to its detractors, it's a vast wasteland where bright young physicists have gone to seed for almost four decades. For now, though, string theory is the leading candidate to unite the four fundamental forces of nature - gravitational, electromagnetic, weak and nuclear. Can it prove to be the fabled "Unified Theory" that eluded Einstein? Can the LHC discover "sparticles," the supersymmetric particles predicted by the theory and represented by higher vibrations of strings, the visible universe being the manifestation of only the lowest vibrations? It is not to a scientist that we turn to but to a poet - Tennyson - for insight into the elusive nature of truth: "I am a part of all that I have met; Yet all experience is an arch wherethro' Gleams that untravell'd world whose margin fades For ever and forever when I move."
Be that as it may, the success of the LHC is assured one way or the other. Even if most of us cannot follow the enormously complicated calculations and interpretations that will occupy LHC scientists for years to come, we can still rejoice when nature reveals her mysteries. Scientists toil for decades to clear dense undergrowths that stretch into forever and suddenly a vista of breathtaking beauty opens and we look at each other "with a wild surmise - Silent, upon a peak in Darien."
The silly talk of tiny black holes that may be created at the LHC that can gobble up the earth (Switzerland first, France second ...) has brought rebukes from reputed scientists but I find such fears humanizing. An $8 billion dollar experiment designed by thousands of scientists working for 14 years that has not some scare built into it isn't worth its name.
The micro black holes are expected to disintegrate far too quickly to do any damage, as predicted by Stephen Hawking's theory, but let's say that something utterly unimaginable and unexpected happens and the black holes begin to act on their voracious appetite.
What then? Well, can anyone imagine a more honorable way to exit the earth than in our quest to understand our destiny?
You can also read this blog here.
Man must understand his universe in order to understand his destiny," said Neil Armstrong, the first man to walk on the moon.
Mankind took a significant step toward understanding the universe this week. The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) that began its first tentative operation on September 10 at CERN is our most ambitious (and most expensive) effort yet to understand how the universe came into being and why nature is the way it is.
The origin of the universe is echoed in the smallest of particles and the fiery fragments they create when colliding at or near the speed of light. In late fall of 2008 or early spring of 2009, when the LHC is fully operational, protons will be slamming into protons at 99.999999 percent of the speed of light, and scientists and interested laymen alike will hold their collective breath for what ensues.
Whereas in nuclear fission or fusion, mass is converted into energy according to Einstein’s famous formula, E = mc2, at the LHC energy is expected to be transformed into mass (m = E/c2), creating particles that will test the most successful particle physics theory called the standard model. At the heart of the standard model, formulated in the 1970s, is Higgs boson, a particle that has never been detected, but without which this theory remains just that, a theory.
Some scientists, including English physicist Peter Higgs who came up with the idea of the particle that is meant to account for an object’s mass, worry that the LHC may not be able to detect the Higgs boson. That can very well mean, of course, that there is no Higgs boson to begin with, and you cannot detect something that doesn’t exist. Would that mean that for 40 years scientists have been chasing a red herring?
I think that is the wrong way to look at it. If the LHC confirms the existence of Higgs boson, wonderful! If it doesn’t, that’s wonderful too! Why? Because while the complex intellectual edifice called the standard model may come down like a house of cards, it will most likely open the door to a yet deeper theory whose beauty and predictive power will surpass the standard model. Nature gives up her secrets only under torture, it would seem, but when she does, we can only marvel at the fact that her imagination always proves richer than ours.
The LHC experiment is also expected to shed light on the validity of string theory. According to its detractors, it's a vast wasteland where bright young physicists have gone to seed for almost four decades. For now, though, string theory is the leading candidate to unite the four fundamental forces of nature - gravitational, electromagnetic, weak and nuclear. Can it prove to be the fabled "Unified Theory" that eluded Einstein? Can the LHC discover "sparticles," the supersymmetric particles predicted by the theory and represented by higher vibrations of strings, the visible universe being the manifestation of only the lowest vibrations? It is not to a scientist that we turn to but to a poet - Tennyson - for insight into the elusive nature of truth: "I am a part of all that I have met; Yet all experience is an arch wherethro' Gleams that untravell'd world whose margin fades For ever and forever when I move."
Be that as it may, the success of the LHC is assured one way or the other. Even if most of us cannot follow the enormously complicated calculations and interpretations that will occupy LHC scientists for years to come, we can still rejoice when nature reveals her mysteries. Scientists toil for decades to clear dense undergrowths that stretch into forever and suddenly a vista of breathtaking beauty opens and we look at each other "with a wild surmise - Silent, upon a peak in Darien."
The silly talk of tiny black holes that may be created at the LHC that can gobble up the earth (Switzerland first, France second ...) has brought rebukes from reputed scientists but I find such fears humanizing. An $8 billion dollar experiment designed by thousands of scientists working for 14 years that has not some scare built into it isn't worth its name.
The micro black holes are expected to disintegrate far too quickly to do any damage, as predicted by Stephen Hawking's theory, but let's say that something utterly unimaginable and unexpected happens and the black holes begin to act on their voracious appetite.
What then? Well, can anyone imagine a more honorable way to exit the earth than in our quest to understand our destiny?
You can also read this blog here.
Sunday, September 07, 2008
Falling off the "Bridge to Nowhere"
Concerned Americans are worried that John McCain's V.P. choice, Sarah Palin, may snare enough women voters, particularly from among Hillary Clinton supporters, to deliver the White House to the Republican Party in the November election. While the possibility exists, it is remote and likely to get remoter as Election Day approaches.
To suggest that women will vote for Palin because she is a woman is an insult to all women. Gender issues may make headlines but is never the deciding factor in any election. "McCain must think we are idiots," was a refrain heard from Clinton camp around the country.
With soaring prices of essentials and lack of affordable healthcare for millions of Americans, suggesting that voters will line up for Palin because she "electrified" a partisan crowd with a prepared speech is condescension at its worst.
Critics and commentators invariably underestimate the sturdy commonsense and the fundamental fairness of ordinary Americans. The average American can distinguish between style and substance with a clarity he or she is rarely given credit for. Palin's speech did not sway voters whose elemental concerns - food, housing, job, healthcare - the governor of Alaska found too lowbrow to mention in her speech. Her mocking, sarcastic remarks on Barack Obama may have drawn laughs at the convention laugh but outside, it angered and alienated many Americans.
Right-wing outlets like The Wall Street Journal and Fox News would have us believe that a single speech written for her by Republican operatives has magically transformed Sister Sarah into a combination of Margaret Thatcher, Joan of Arc and Laura Ingalls. This is laughable. Americans are not only not falling for it, they are finding it breathtakingly arrogant and offensive.
McCain's choice of Sarah Palin ("a bridge to nowhere", in the words of columnist Ellen Goodman) was a cynical and ruthless attempt to grab women voters. The ploy has failed even if the polls show a temporary surge for McCain-Palin. There will be a new dawn in America on November 5 and Democrats will be cheering.
Concerned Americans are worried that John McCain's V.P. choice, Sarah Palin, may snare enough women voters, particularly from among Hillary Clinton supporters, to deliver the White House to the Republican Party in the November election. While the possibility exists, it is remote and likely to get remoter as Election Day approaches.
To suggest that women will vote for Palin because she is a woman is an insult to all women. Gender issues may make headlines but is never the deciding factor in any election. "McCain must think we are idiots," was a refrain heard from Clinton camp around the country.
With soaring prices of essentials and lack of affordable healthcare for millions of Americans, suggesting that voters will line up for Palin because she "electrified" a partisan crowd with a prepared speech is condescension at its worst.
Critics and commentators invariably underestimate the sturdy commonsense and the fundamental fairness of ordinary Americans. The average American can distinguish between style and substance with a clarity he or she is rarely given credit for. Palin's speech did not sway voters whose elemental concerns - food, housing, job, healthcare - the governor of Alaska found too lowbrow to mention in her speech. Her mocking, sarcastic remarks on Barack Obama may have drawn laughs at the convention laugh but outside, it angered and alienated many Americans.
Right-wing outlets like The Wall Street Journal and Fox News would have us believe that a single speech written for her by Republican operatives has magically transformed Sister Sarah into a combination of Margaret Thatcher, Joan of Arc and Laura Ingalls. This is laughable. Americans are not only not falling for it, they are finding it breathtakingly arrogant and offensive.
McCain's choice of Sarah Palin ("a bridge to nowhere", in the words of columnist Ellen Goodman) was a cynical and ruthless attempt to grab women voters. The ploy has failed even if the polls show a temporary surge for McCain-Palin. There will be a new dawn in America on November 5 and Democrats will be cheering.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)