"Edge of Darkness" Shines

An intelligent thriller is as rare as a bluebird in winter. One that also tugs at the heartstrings is rarer still.

This is how I saw “Edge of Darkness,” a movie in which Mel Gibson returns after a seven-year hiatus from the screen.

As a detective with the Boston Police, Tom Craven’s world is shattered when gunmen cut down his 24-year-old daughter, Emma, right at his front door.

Gibson can be subtle when he needs to but he is at his best when taking matter into his own hands (Braveheart, The Patriot).

As Craven searches for his daughter’s killers, he runs into a mysterious R&D company that is under contract by the U.S. government to produce nuclear weapons. That’s where his daughter used to work as an intern. He meets with the company’s arrogant CEO to whom Emma was a minor cog in the wheel.

After that, things get pretty dicey.

Craven breaks the rules because the rules don’t get him anywhere. (Everything is “classified.”) Dead bodies show up all over the place but underneath the violence and the corporate and political cover-ups are serious contemporary issues that grip the viewer even more. The chief of the nuclear facility states matter-of-factly that the company will always be off the hook if a bomb were to ever explode, even accidentally, in America because he can prove that it is the act of a jihadist in possession of a dirty bomb.

This is underscored by another corrupt officer of the law when he tries to convince Craven to give up his search for his daughter’s killers because “nothing is what it is. Everything is what it is made up to be.” In other words, spin is king. Anyone watching FOX News will know exactly what he means.

Well, Craven will have nothing to do with such thinking. He is a man who believes that it is wrong to accept stuff from the bad guys and that it is cruel to hurt those who cannot protect themselves. With unrestrained fury, he goes after those for whom the vulnerable are no more than guinea-pigs for their diabolical experiments. On the way, and luckily for him, there is a metamorphosis. A killer suddenly becomes human when he wonders whether it is more painful to lose a child than never to have had one. He share’s Craven’s anguish at the loss of his daughter. He comes to the conclusion that the American people deserve better and … Well, you will have to see the movie to see how all the loose ends come satisfyingly together.

“Edge of Darkness” didn’t quite bring me to the edge of my seat – I found the dialog dragging at times – but it came close. With most movies dominated these days by hi-tech gimmicks and maudlin plots, this is high praise indeed.

Another Game-Changer from Apple?

If there is one company that stands at the summit of marketing, it is Apple. Not Microsoft, not Google, not IBM or HP or Amazon. It is Apple, led by Steve Jobs.

Consider the anticipation and the excitement building up for the Apple Tablet. The company has not disclosed a word about it, other than to announce a media event at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco on January 27, at 10 A.M. Pacific time. Yet the buzz has reached crescendo level. Go to any Website with even a cursory connection to technology or open the technology section of any newspaper or magazine and the leading story you will now see is speculation about this product. Google’s recently launched Nexus One phone didn’t garner even a fraction of the free press Apple is getting.

There is, of course, a reason for it. It’s what the visionary Jobs has accomplished by transforming the music and the phone businesses with the iPod and the iPhone. His magical understanding of what excites and resonates with customers is unparalleled. He has made Apple synonymous with cool products and that’s something that, like love or happiness, money cannot buy.

But returning to the tablet (perhaps to be called iSlate?): Will it be another iPod/iPhone type of gadget that customers will be lining up to buy in the wee hours of the morning? Will this particular computer be used mostly for reading, surfing, playing games and watching videos? But the iPhone and similar products already do that. Will it become everyone’s favorite e-reader, displacing Amazon’s Kindle and other e-readers that are beginning to flood the market? Will it be a general-purpose machine, a jack of all trade but also the master of perhaps a niche? Rumors abound but the last word will belong to Apple’s master impresario.

What intrigues me is Jobs’ attitude toward reading. In comments made last year, he said that the Amazon Kindle was dead on arrival because Americans have, for all practical purposes, stopped reading. “It doesn’t matter how good or bad the product (Kindle) is, the fact is that people don’t read anymore,” he said. “Forty percent of the people in the U.S. read one book or less last year. The whole conception is flawed at the top because people don’t read anymore.”

If that is the case, will Jobs be trying to get Americans to do more reading with his tablet, presumably one that is more powerful and intuitive and friendlier than Kindle? Or has he sensed yet another cultural shift that the Tablet will capitalize on, one that will fundamentally change our approach to books, booksellers, publishers, agents and payments, the entire ecosystem of ink on paper?

Undoubtedly, the tablet will offer audio and video and three-dimensional graphics on at least a 10-inch touch-screen. If it becomes integrated into our lives, how will it change how and what we read? How will it reshape the distribution and consumption of content? What will be the future of literature?

I do not share Jobs’ pessimism about the reading habits of Americans. To paraphrase Mark Twain, the death of reading has been greatly exaggerated. In fact, I believe that after people have had their fill with e-readers and tablets, they will return to the traditional form of reading in greater numbers than ever.

But tablets and e-readers will make books cheaper. Self-publishing will become the norm, and even if lack of rigorous editing initially brings down quality of published materials a notch or two, market demand will weed out the pretenders and eventually raise the level of quality to what we are used to expecting.

Tablets are likely to have another salutary effect: articles, stories and books are likely to become shorter and thinner. In a recent piece in The Atlantic, Michael Kinsey observes that “newspaper articles are too long. On the Internet, news articles get to the point. Newspaper writing, by contrast, is encrusted with conventions that don’t add to your understanding of the news.”

What is true of newspaper is also true of many books. If readers begin to vote with their thumbs and tablets, perhaps wordiness by authors will disappear. And if wordiness in print can become a thing of the past, can the verbosity of politicians, teachers and scholars, both secular and religious, be far behind?

Rain and Memories

For five days now it has been raining incessantly in California. Meteorologists have confirmed that we have received more rain than normal for this time of the year. Total seasonal rain in San Jose, where I live, has already surpassed 9 inches. This week alone 3.5 inches of rain has fallen and more is on the way. Streams, creeks and rivers are overflowing. This is good news after three successive years of drought in the Golden State.

Rain falling on roof is an ancient sound. I listen to its cadence in the middle of the night, insistent and hypnotic. It draws curtain upon curtain and wraps the entire earth, so it seems, in the deepest of darkness. I am between wakefulness and sleep and it is as close to a state of grace as I feel in a long, long time.

In this state, my thoughts and limbs spread outward until I become the earth and the rain falls on me. I feel the stirring of the as-yet-unborn wildflowers, lupines, poppies, clovers and honeysuckles, responding to the waters coming down from the heavens. I imagine the fields and the meadows filling with them. We speak in words but nature speaks in songs and somewhere in their confluence lie memories.

On Monday, the hills and the valleys of the Diablo Range around Santa Clara County displayed only a hint of green. By Thursday, plentiful rain had transformed them into the very essence of the color. Gray clouds pour gray rain on them and there is no letting up. Even from the road leading up to the highway, I can hear a stream, hidden by oaks and sycamores flowing restlessly toward the bay.

On Saturday, when the intensity of the rain lessens a bit, I head for the creek within walking distance of my home. All I need is my old but functioning umbrella. Along the way, I hear the trill of red-winged blackbirds in a field full of yellow mustard flowers.

At the bank of the creek, I locate the lichen-covered stone and stand by the water. Two calla lilies sway with the current, their white giving texture to the soft darkness that has descended from the sprawling oaks around. There are eddies here and there but the song of the rushing stream, from whisper to laughter, holds me spellbound. Raindrops create small ripples but the swift, foaming current quickly smothers them. There is a swing someone had hung from a sturdy branch some months ago and the wind moves it back and forth over the water. It is easy to imagine a child on it, only the child is invisible.

This spot, hidden from view, is redolent of childhood. Another day, far removed in time and place, slowly works its way into my mind. I was probably in the seventh or the eighth grade, in my ancestral village in the Old World, and it was raining like this, and I had the time of my life with friends jumping into a pond, dragging myself up over its muddy bank and jumping in again. We were hollering and throwing mud at one another, pushing each other over, attempting to climb the mango and the coconut trees for more spectacular dives. A kingfisher observed us from its perch on a bamboo pole in the middle of the pond, flew away and then returned. It did this again and again, and I knew it was having the time of its life as well.

“The strands are all there,” wrote Eudora Welty. “To the memory, nothing is ever really lost.” So true! I would only add this: More than any other element, it is rain that best brings the strands together.

Missing the Real Obama

I do not believe, as many Americans do, that Barack Obama has fizzled in his first year as president. But I do believe that he could have done better than what he has, given the support and the goodwill that propelled him to his historic victory in 2008.

Let’s first put the Massachusetts election in context. Republican Scott Brown’s victory over Democrat Martha Coakley for the late Ted Kennedy’s Senate seat does not signal a seismic shift in the political landscape of America. It simply means that Coakley, who ran the most inept and asinine campaign in recent memory, lost to the better and more knowledgeable candidate. Brown may derail the health care reform bill and tarnish Kennedy’s legacy but that will not imply that the Republican Party has suddenly become resurgent and is poised to sweep away the Democratic agenda. In fact, Brown’s victory might just be the wakeup call Democrats needed to stop their internal squabbles and get their bearing right.

But there is little doubt that the euphoria we experienced in the wake of Obama’s election as the first African-American president in U.S. history is rapidly vanishing. There are two main reasons for this: The President’s continuation of his predecessor’s policies in Iraq and Afghanistan, and his inability to turn the economy around.

We have just reached a dubious milestone: The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have topped $1 trillion in taxpayers’ money since 2001, and the President is expected to request another $33 billion to fund more troops in 2010.

To put this in context: 20% of all Americans are either jobless, underemployed or simply have given up looking for work. One out of every eight U.S. mortgages is in default or foreclosure, one out of every four homeowners is burdened with underwater mortgages, and one out of every eight Americans is on food stamps. Hunger and homelessness are on the rise and relief is nowhere in sight.

The stimulus package has not removed or reduced the stress on homeowners and job seekers. The economic “wizard” in Obama’s cabinet continue to spin the fantasy that the recession, at least in their formula-rich spreadsheets, is over. Meanwhile, at least six Americans are responding to each job opening, even if they are over-qualified for it.

Greg Mortenson, author of Three Cups of Tea and Stones for Schools, has built schools in the remotest areas of Pakistan and Afghanistan. In his many meetings with hardened Afghan warriors, Mortenson came away with one simple message: education is the best antidote to the Taliban. As journalist Trudy Rubin has reported, the title for Stones Into Schools came from a hardened former mujahedeen commander in the remote Badakshan province of Afghanistan who talked about how much his country needed rebuilding. He told Mortenson that there has been far too much dying in these hills. “Now we must turn these stones into schools.” Even warriors want peace, says Mortenson, a lesson he learned by sitting down repeatedly with shuras (representative gatherings) of elders. He says one of the biggest American problems after the 2001 invasion was the lack of such attention paid to what Afghans themselves wanted. We should have consulted with shuras, and listened to, and respected, elders, according to Mortenson.

Most Americans desperately want President Obama to succeed. One rising concern is that Obama has lost touch with his dedicated and passionate supporters. He has to renew his connection with the grassroots. Many Americans are beginning to view his presidency as imperial and catering to the wealthy. This perception has to change.

A constant in the calculus of American politics is that the presidency changes the President. Some it elevates, others, it drags down. Here’s hoping that, in spite of recent setbacks and falling poll numbers, Barak Obama will quickly find his stride and decisively place himself in the first group.

Haiti's Sorrow

Born in Bangladesh. Experienced devastating cyclones and floods. Saw bloated bodies floating on ponds, rivers and the Bay of Bengal. Cry of orphaned babies pierced the heart. Relief inadequate to the humanitarian disaster.

These random thoughts passed through my mind as images of death and destruction from Haiti filled the media. Hospitals, schools, shops, homes have collapsed from the 7.0 earthquake that struck the island nation on January 12, 2010.

Preliminary reports indicate that more than 100,000 Haitians may have perished. The infrastructure, hardy any to begin with, has been completely destroyed. Rescuing people trapped beneath the rubble seems impossible at the moment.

Fate has dealt Haiti, the poorest nation in the Western Hemisphere, a particularly cruel blow. As aid pours in from around the world, the means to distribute food, water and medicine to the approximately 3 million affected Haitians remain precarious.

Whatever we can do to bring relief to the living, we must. When tragedy strikes in any corner of the world, we become aware of our common humanity. For Americans, the Katrina debacle remains a vivid reminder that such lapses cannot repeat. Already the Obama administration has dispatched several hospital ship and planeloads of emergency supplies to the devastated nation.

In the next few days and nights, Haitian will try to come to grips with what has befallen them. But perhaps they can find some solace in that people from around the globe have opened their hearts and pocketbooks for them, to help them bury their dead with dignity and bring a semblance of normalcy to their lives again.

But after the world moves on to grapple with the next crisis, Haitians themselves must bear the responsibility for reconstructing their country. The history of Haiti is tragic. The French were brutal slave owners and grew wealthy beyond their dreams from sugarcane plantations. Americans occupied the country for almost two decades. Haitian dictators killed their own countrymen by the thousands. Against this backdrop, rebuilding Haiti becomes even more challenging. But unless Haitians step up to the task, they will always be dependent on the generosity of others and that can never be a long-term solution.

Thoreau said: "If I knew for a certainty that a man was coming to my house with the conscious design of doing me good, I should run for my life." Same should be true for nations. In the long run, local leadership that promotes self-reliance will be the only catalyst for fundamental national changes. In the disaster that has hit Haiti, there is obviously the need for as much aid as possible. But a few months from now, Haitians will have to think long and hard about their own responsibility and accountability.

The Joy of "The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society"

You know you have read an unforgettable book when you sigh at its completion, relive the dialogues and the wild and vivid characters in it, and hope desperately that the story will somehow continue.

Such was my reaction to Mary Ann Shaffer’s The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society.

Comprising only letters between the heroine Miss Juliet Dryhurst Ashton, her friends in England, and members of an improbable literary circle in the Channel Island of Guernsey near the French coast, the story seemed so real that I had to repeatedly remind myself it was a work of fiction.

Juliet is a headstrong girl who speaks her mind. Raised by an uncle after her parents are killed in a car accident, Juliet runs away from home, is “captured” and brought back, and finally sent away to an English boarding school.

As she matures, she discovers that books, and people associated with books, are her best friends. She writes a column for a newspaper during World War II, bringing humor to a grim subject, and attracts a huge number of fans. The columns are published as a book and Izzie Bickerstaff Goes to War becomes a bestseller. She achieves a measure of financial freedom, a writer’s dream. She writes funny and opinionated letters to her friends. She is content.

But maybe not. On 12^th January, 1946, out of the blue, she receives a letter from a Dawsey Adams of St. Martin’s, Guernsey. Somehow, a book that belonged to Juliet – Selected Essays of Elia by Charles Lamb – has found its way to him.

“Charles Lamb made me laugh during the German Occupation,” wrote Adams, and the ever-curious Juliet is hooked. “I wonder how the book got to Guernsey? Perhaps there is some secret sort of homing instinct in books that brings them to their perfect readers,” responded Juliet.

Meanwhile, a pushy and wealthy American begins pursuing Juliet with a single-mindedness that leaves our heroine out of breath. He showers her with expensive gifts and treats her to the best food in town, a luxury in war-ravaged London. She isn’t sure if she loves him or not but defends his loud ways to her friends.

But gradually the utterly guileless and lovable members of Guernsey’s literary society take her heart over. She makes up her mind to travel to the island against the aggressive pleadings of her American suitor.

And then one day, she does.

I will not spoil your reading pleasure by hinting at what happens next, other than to say only this: Juliet discovers what love is among people for whom every day is a gift, having lived through a brutal occupation. It is as poignant, haunting, witty and uplifting a story as you will ever read.

How this book got written in the first place is a story by itself. In 1976, Mary Ann Shaffer, (born in West Virginia in 1934), visited the island of Guernsey and learned of its wartime experiences during the German Occupation. Twenty years later, she began to write The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society. “All I wanted,” she said, “was to write a book that someone would like enough to publish.” Considering what followed, this has got to be one of the most striking understatements of our time.

Before publication, however, the editor requested some changes to the manuscript that required substantial rewriting. By then, in the summer of 2006, Mary Ann’s health had begun to fail. The responsibility fell to the other writer in the family, her niece Annie Barrows. Having grown up in the caring guidance and the story-telling gifts of her aunt, Annie put her heart to the task, reproducing her “aunt’s voice, her characters, the rhythm of her plot,” even though she thought it would be impossible to do.

Mary Ann passed away in February of 2008. Shortly after her death, The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society was published. It became an international bestseller and put Guernsey firmly on the literary map of the world.

I began this short review by writing that I longed for the story to continue after I had finished reading the book. I now know that the story indeed continues. After all, thousands have reviewed it, yet more readers discover this gem everyday and feel the need to share their joy with others. That’s how the story of The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society lives on, in the heart of its ever-widening circle of grateful readers.

Ellen Goodman Writes Her Final Column

First, it was Anna Quindlen. Her farewell column, “Stepping Aside,” appeared in the Newsweek issue of May 18, 2009. (Please see my May 12, 2009 blog entry).

And now it is Ellen Goodman. Her final piece, “Letting Go,” appeared on New Year’s Day in The Washington Post and other syndicated newspapers.

Who will replace them? As far as I can tell, no one.

I looked forward to Goodman’s columns because they made so much sense. Two things were special about her writing: She could see the universal in the commonplace and she could see connections between people, events and ideas that eluded most of us. That’s why her columns were so anticipated. Reading her made us pause and exclaim, “So, that’s how it is! I wonder why I never thought of it that way.”

What distinguishes memorable columnists from the merely good ones is their sheer professional longevity. Goodman began writing her columns in 1974, always with verve and wit and always on target. If this isn’t brilliance, I don’t know what is.

Readers can choose from hundreds of her pieces to prove her versatility, passion, insight and facility with words. I will pick only two to make my point.

When I read “Letting Go,” I immediately remembered the column that first indicated her unique voice. But that was so many years ago! All I could recall about it was the revealing role a bird played in the midst of a make-believe world. A quick Web search, with my vague recollections as keywords, brought it all back.

The article was published in March of 1979, and began this way: “The moment of truth came at 3 p.m. on our second day in the Magic Kingdom. There, in the middle of Fantasyland, a small brown bird got up and flew away.”

Goodman was visiting Disney World in Florida. The sight of a real bird put the entire Disney creation in context for her. And through her insight, our sights also opened up.

“In Disney World, they (the birds) may sing, they may bob their heads, kick their legs, move their beaks, blink their eyes and flap their wings. But they do not fly away.”

She was not complaining. She “loved the rides, loved the fantasy and the monorails.” But her point was this: “You don’t have to be a Save-the-Snail-Darter fan to see something weird about the idea of taking acres of natural land and carving out artificial streams and waterfalls – each with its own plastic inhabitants … Standing there, watching the flight of the brown bird, I thought of that 1960s song, ‘Pave paradise, put up a parking lot.’ The writer was way off. If we were to pave paradise, we’d put up a perfect imitation, plastic apple and all … We are much more fascinated with the man-made than with the natural. We are more impressed with what we have made than with what is just there … It’s a form of human narcissism, I suppose. We find teensy transistors more marvelous than seeds, Disney lands more extraordinary than natural ones. But it is the sort of pride that can be shaken by a small brown bird in a big plastic world.”

I can almost hear Henry David Thoreau, Aldo Leopold and Edward Abbey applauding.

The other column is more recent. It's reflection on a summer holiday Goodman spent in Casco Bay, Maine, in 2008. The island scene is typical. You and I would pass over it with probably no more than a glance. But from the ordinary, Goodman evokes the poignant sense of mortality, rebirth and the mystery of time. As well as any writer, but within a 750-word constraint, she could see “the world in a grain of sand, and heaven in a wildflower.”

“Along the dirt road there is a dilapidated stone wall. Blueberries and chokecherries, wildflowers and bushes have pushed their way around and under the remains, toppling what once marked the neat border of a seaside farm … Permanence and transience are on my summer mind … But if transience is on my mind, if the luxury of summer comes with its own penumbra of loss, it's largely because there is a dying in my family. My Aunt Lorna is facing death with the trademark honesty and character that have marked her life and her approach to an unforgiving illness … A few weeks ago, a new grandson arrived in the midst of her dying. She has already built a web of memories with her adored granddaughter. Now comes this little boy. A boy who will know her only through our stories. It was, she told me in one succinct word, bittersweet … So here I am this morning, out where the land has upended the human wall, casting stones aside. Enough berries have grown in its place to fill my bucket to the brim. And the day is bittersweet.”

I will miss Ellen Goodman’s columns, and I know you will too.

The Dickensian Decade

“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to heaven, we were all going direct the other way …”

Can we use the stirring words of Charles Dickens to describe the first decade of the twenty-first century, the “Oughty-Noughties” (2000-2009 or the 00s) as it has come to be called?

Answer: A qualified “Yes.”

The decade began with the bursting of the dot-com bubble in March of 2000. Eight months later, George W. Bush claimed the presidency of the United States after the “hanging chad” farce in Florida and a strange and unprecedented 5-4 decision by the U.S. Supreme Court.

On September 11, 2001, homicidal maniacs claiming Islam as guidance hijacked commercial airliners and crashed into what they perceived as American symbols of power, the World Trade Center in New York and the Pentagon in Washington, D.C. Close to 2,300 Americans and an estimated 500 foreign nationals from 91 nations perished in the attacks.

In response, the U.S. went after the Taliban in Afghanistan with almost universal support. The Taliban were swiftly routed but victory proved elusive as a quagmire set in, reminiscent of Vietnam. Eight years later, the war continues as a corrupt Karzai regime hangs on to power.

Support for American policy quickly dried up as President Bush used the pretext of weapons of mass destruction and a manufactured Al-Qaida connection to attack Saddam Hussein’s Iraq in March of 2003. The invasion, boasting technological “shock and awe,” seemed at first to be as easy as winning a video game but the occupation proved catastrophic. America’s moral authority came undone in waterboard torture pits and in the horror dungeons of Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo.

As of now, the Iraq war has alone caused almost 100,000 civilian deaths, euphemistically called “collateral damage.” Sectarian violence is a daily occurrence and the Iraqi government remains weak and dysfunctional. The toll the two wars have taken on the families of American soldiers killed and injured is incalculable.

In technology, the Internet gold rush that collapsed in 2000 regained some of its luster, as social networking became all the rage. MySpace (2003), Facebook (2004) and Twitter (2007) became household names. Web 2.0, the read/write Web, turned everyone (well, almost everyone) into a blogger and a “pundit.” How far the democratization of ideas and opinions go and what influence it has in speaking truth to power, however, remain to be seen. Apple revolutionized the music industry with its iPod products and leading universities of the world made many of their courses in various disciplines available online. Cloud computing went mainstream and software and hardware breakthroughs blurred the distinction between smartphones and PCs.

Amazon’s success with the Kindle, introduced in November of 2007, raised an intriguing question: Will eBooks replace physical books, and if so, when? “When” is difficult to say but it is clear that, where the technology is available, sale of eBooks is rising dramatically against the sale of ink-on-paper books. As Amazon Chief Jeff Bezos noted, however, the Gutenberg model has had a 500-year run, making the physical book probably the most successful technology ever.

Among many achievements in science, scientists mapped the human genome sequence and CERN’s Large Hadron Collider first sputtered and then came to life as two beams of protons collided head on at a combined energy of seven trillion electron volts, setting the stage for answering fundamental questions about our universe in the new decade.

In 2008, Barack Obama was elected the first African American president of the United States. Americans were drawn to his platform of change and hope. The world breathed a sigh of relief and the nation’s stature in the world went up almost overnight. But a global economic meltdown, brought on by Wall Street charlatans, Ponzy schemers, unscrupulous bankers and hedge-fund hucksters, threatened to undermine his presidency from day one.

Massive stimulus money pumped into the economy seems mostly to have rescued the industry titans and their acolytes, however. Financial future of the average American appears bleak at this point, with job losses and home foreclosures not seen since the Great Depression of the 1930s. The crisis has spread worldwide and it will clearly be a while before the Great Recession is actually over.

Still, the election of Barack Obama to the highest office of the land was like light breaking forth after an unending night of darkness. Sadly, the president has committed more troops to Afghanistan, although withdrawal from Iraq is expected to take place during the middle of 2010. The new year will test the young president’s mettle, his ability to deliver on the message of hope and change that carried him to victory.

Perhaps the most significant global issue of the decade was climate change and our response to it. Most of us, with the exception of rabid right-wingers and congenital contrarians, recognize the existential threat that global warming poses to the earth. Yet consensus on how to mitigate this threat has fallen prey to nationalism. For the biggest emitters of greenhouse gases – China, the United States, India, Russia, Japan – national economy trumps the survival of the planet.

Still, the Copenhagen Climate Summit in December of 2009 raised the expectations of common and indigenous people around the world to soaring heights, a reflection, perhaps, of the hope they invested in Barack Obama.

But while it roared in like a lion, the Summit went out like a lamb. There were no lasting binding agreements. A limited deal was reached in which both developed and developing nations agreed to “list national actions and commitments” on cutting carbon emissions. Wealthy nations also offered billions in aid to help countries like Bangladesh and the island nation of Kiribati, threatened with the worst effects of climate change. Significantly, leaders also gave their assent to a 2 degree Celsius cap on global warming.

The real success of the Climate Summit is in the impetus it has given to green technology and clean energy. Entrepreneurs are racing to produce energy-efficient devices and systems, ranging from innovative fuel-cells and green building materials such as ultra-insulated windows and glass to roof-top gardening, clean-coal technology and high-efficiency solar and wind systems.

It is also not without irony, and some measure of justice, that Al Gore, who lost the muddled 2000 presidential election to George Bush, won the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize for his contribution to raising global awareness of man-made climate change.

So there you have it, a decade dominated by terror, bad governance, war, unregulated greed and financial terrorism, but also a decade in which sanity replaced insanity toward the end, in which Muslims overwhelmingly rejected Al-Qaida’s message of nihilism and asserted their message of moderation (the Nidal Hasans and the Abdulmutallabs reflected systemic failures), in which awareness of the earth’s fragility entered our consciousness and spurred us to action, and in which we recognized, as never before, that our prosperity and well-being depended on the status and education of women throughout the world.

We may have begun this decade in the winter of despair but perhaps it is not too far fetched to suggest that a spring of hope beckons as we end it.

Happy New Decade!

Sherlock Holmes Gets an Athletic Makeover

I became a fan of Sherlock Holmes in the eighth grade when I read “The Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle.” I was hooked. Youthful passions pass, replaced by other passions that also fade, and then you grow up and suddenly there’s job, marriage, mortgage, kids and schools all over again. But Arthur Conan Doyle’s creation never relaxed its grip on me.

Sherlock Holmes was the epitome of deductive reasoning and bravery. Every few years I re-read all 56 short stories and 4 novellas and marvel at how Conan Doyle kept Holmes so fresh and contemporary, even though the setting was London of the 1880s.

Certainly the author’s skill with words was a factor, as this famous dialogue between a police inspector and Holmes shows in “Silver Blaze“:

"Is there any point to which you would wish to draw my attention?”

"To the curious incident of the dog in the night-time."

“The dog did nothing in the night-time.”

"That was the curious incident,” remarked Sherlock Holmes.

But it was the character of the super-sleuth that made the stories so enjoyable: single-minded focus, eccentric, brilliant, always one step ahead of the most cunning of criminals, and in no small measure, endearingly crazy. (Thinking about Holmes always brings another real-life character to mind: the late great physicist Richard Feynman, also a supreme magician of the intellect whose diversions included bongo playing and safecracking.)

Which was why I so looked forward to Guy Ritchie’s “Sherlock Holmes,” starring Robert Downey Jr. as Holmes and Jude Law as his sidekick, Dr. Watson. I wasn’t disappointed, although the special effects and relentless fight scenes were somewhat jarring.

One reason why Holmes endures is his malleability. He may be confined to 19th-century London, but his fight against evil transcends time. Downey gives Holmes an athletic makeover without diminishing his eccentricity. We know of his fondness for prize-fighting from the stories. Here, we get a slow-motion close-up of how tough and analytic Holmes can be in the ring. His mind is, as always, lightning fast, whether in anticipating his quarry’s next move or in putting people in their proper places. When inspector Lestrade of Scotland Yard informs Holmes that in another life he would have made a fine criminal, Holmes responds with, “In another life you would have made a fine police inspector.”

But the transformation of Watson is equally dramatic. No longer a slow-witted, awestruck companion, Watson is impatient with Holmes’ air of superiority and gives as well as he takes. When Holmes tries to pry open the door of a suspect’s home with some fancy tools, Watson just kicks it open. When Holmes goes too far with an experiment on his own body and implores for help, Watson takes his time and, at the last moment, rescues his friend. Their vigorous verbal jousting is a key to the film's appeal.

The story itself has shades of Dan Brown (The Da Vinci Code, Angels and Demons), with secret organizations plotting to take over the world. The villain, Blackwood (Mark Strong), has an uncanny resemblance to the late Jeremy Brett, whose 41 TV-films portraying Holmes over a decade brought the detective closer to the public than ever before.

The two “M”s are present as well: Mycroft Holmes and Professor James Moriarty. Mycroft is only spoken of, and we are left to wonder about this enigmatic sibling. According to Sherlock (The Greek Interpreter), his older brother is even more brilliant than him but his undoing is that he is a sloth. He has stamina only for intellectual calisthenics, none for action. In other words, Mycroft Holmes is the ideal consultant,

Without Moriarty, of course, Holmes cannot achieve greatness. Moriarty is his match, his ultimate nemesis. As the mysterious Irene Adler (Rachel McAdams) informs Holmes, “he is as intelligent as you are but infinitely more devious.” Naturally, Holmes begs to differ.

In the end, all the stuff about returning from beyond the grave, the sorcery and the supernatural happenings turn out to be hocus-pocus. Holmes’ explanations are, well, elementary. But he also discovers that the mastermind behind the diabolical plot is none other than Moriarty himself. Unless he takes him on, Holmes has barely scratched the surface.

Clearly, this movie is “To Be Continued.” Look for a sequel. My hope is that director Guy Ritchie will weave a part of Holmes’ life as a bee-keeper in Sussex Downs (1903-04) into his sequel(s), in which the great man once again jumps into the fray and takes on whoever wants to "remake the world." Can you imagine Holmes retiring? I cannot. "Come, Watson, come! The game is afoot. Not a word! Into your clothes and come!"

An Epic for Our Time

Literature is replete with characters who give us insight into the mindset of the Bernie Madoffs of the world. We learn what drives the Wall Street charlatans, the greedy bankers and the hedge-fund hucksters through their fictional counterparts.

A New York Times article by Patricia Cohen (December 2008) pointed out how Mr. Voysey, in Harley Granville-Barker’s 1905 play “The Voysey Inheritance,” was an uncanny literary predecessor of Mr. Madoff. “You must realize that money making is one thing, religion another, and family life a third,” Voysey tells his son Edward when he discovers that his father, a pillar of society, has been operating a pyramid scheme for decades with his clients’ money.

Same is true of the unscrupulous financier Augustus Melmotte in Anthony Trollope’s 1875 novel “The Way We Live Now” and the swindling banker Mr. Merdle in Charles Dickens’s “Little Dorrit.” In America, we have novels from the 1920s that revealed the deepening divide between the haves and the have-nots - Theodore Dreiser's "An American Tragedy," F. Scott Fitzgerald's "The Great Gatsby” - that reached its climax in the Great Depression that followed.

But one novel that seems to have escaped the attention of critics is Halldor Laxness’s “Independent People.” The Icelandic author won the Nobel Prize for literature in 1955 for his epic. It is a book at once exhilarating, heartbreaking, comic and poetic, in short, a book that makes us understand what great literature is, even if we cannot articulate it.

As you savor the adventures of the book’s protagonist, Bjartur of Summerhouses, admiring his fierce independence while repulsed by his insensitivity, what is also profoundly moving is Laxness’s description of the slow disintegration of the simple life when money managers of various shades infiltrate it. It is almost too painful to read, particularly when wrenching stories of lives wrecked by corrupt financiers continue to appear daily in the media.

“Those who were in debt were given opportunities of incurring greater debts, while upon those who owed nothing … the banks smiled with an incredibly seductive sweetness … In some houses were to be seen not one but as many as four china dogs … womenfolk were walking about wearing all sorts of tombac rings, and many persons had acquired overcoats and wellington boots, articles of apparel that had been previously contraband to working people."

Notice the words “seductive sweetness.” Has anyone come up with a pithier description of the subprime mortgage?

The catalyst for the destructive lifestyle change in Laxness’s novel is a man by the name of Ingolfur Arnarson. He is determined to transform every backwater village in Iceland into thriving centers of commerce. He promises the “penniless crofters” roads, shopping centers, big houses and, of course, easy debt. With his silver tongue and aura of wealth, people are mesmerized. Here is how Bjartur’s son Gvendur, who fantasizes about marrying Arnarson’s daughter, sees him: “His splendor beggared invention … his face with its compelling eyes shone like a sun over the decrepit peasants assembled before him, and as he began to speak, in a voice sonorous and unforced, his small, snowy-cuffed hands moved in a gesture so smooth and graceful that one did not need listen to his words, it was enough simply to watch his hands …”

Has anyone read a more telling description of hedge-fund honchos or executives of companies like Goldman Sachs?

In the end, the bottom falls out and the farmers, including Bjartur of Summerhouses, lose their house, their sheep and their land. The interest on their mortgages had become impossibly high. In the final poignant scene of the novel, Bjartur is reunited with his estranged daughter and they head off toward a ruined farmhouse that he had rebuilt. “No lamentations – never harbor your grief, never mourn what you have lost. He did not even turn around and give his old valley a parting glance when they reached the top of the ridge.”

Thus he salvages his freedom – at least a part of it - from the wreckage around him.

It is ironic that Iceland was the first nation to declare bankruptcy in October of 2008, victim of the global financial crisis. One wonders what Laxness, who died in 1998, would have made of it. A consequential writer, he could envision the nature of progress coming to his country, borne on the wings of “seductive sweetness.” Still, I think he would have been devastated to see his beloved Iceland, so rich in lore and tradition and inhabited by free spirits like Bjartur of Summerhouses, become the first country to fall financially in the new century.

Here at home, our government is churning out statistics to convince us that the worst of the Great Recession is behind us and that the recovery has already begun. Facts on the ground do not match the rosy forecasts and predictions. Thousands of jobs are being shed every month; currently there are more than six job seekers for every opening. Financial killings by a few literally led to the deaths of many.

American Muslims, particularly our young professionals, have a critical role to play in moving our country forward. To the extent that great literature, like Halldor Laxness’s “Independent People,” opens eyes, I see two parts to this.

First, we must give entrepreneurship a serious try. America is the land of entrepreneurs. It is the land not only of second acts, but of third, fourth and fifth. If we can create our own companies, difficult and risky as it is, and employ at least one American, we will have made significant contributions to the economy.

Second, it is time for us to start thinking on a larger scale. As we continue to feed the hungry and the homeless and provide medical help to the uninsured in places where we live, we also need to organize our philanthropic, apolitical work at a national level. We need to create an American-Muslim Peace Corps whose one and only mission would be to serve our fellow Americans, from inner-city ghettos to dying towns and from the Ozarks to Appalachia.

Students Make New Year's Resolutions

New Year’s resolutions are based as much on hope as resolve, which is why they are such fun. They make us smile, even when the smile is tempered by longing and a sense of time passing. That the resolutions are instantly shareable with friends in the age of social networking only enhance their pleasure.

What New Year’s resolutions animate college students?

For Natalie, it begins with a reflection on what she did and did not achieve in her last year’s resolutions. There were a few things she had no control over and few that she did and still they went wrong. She is determined not to repeat her mistakes. About one thing she is certain: in 2010, she plans to laugh, giggle and relax more with her friends.

Jennifer’s main resolution is to transfer to a university after passing the subject that has haunted her for several years: Math. She has tried tutors and spent countless hours trying to master its complexity but nothing seemed to work. For a while she was convinced she had a math blockage in her brain! But she knows there is no such thing. She has redoubled her efforts and is confident she will complete her math requirements and transfer to San Jose State University (SJSU) in 2010.

Glen’s resolutions consist of getting out of debt (don’t we all!), not to get declined from a state university because of budget cuts, and to continue to learn new things, not just for earning more but for the pleasure and joy of learning.

Gissel would like to choose a major in 2010, go to the gym and be a better person in every way. She would also like to move out of her parents’ house, get a job and become financially independent.

Karim has been carrying a story in his head for two years. He has only one resolution for 2010: “I will complete my novel, at least the first version of it. I have the structure, the plot, the characters. I will write at least one page a day.” He doesn’t care if his book is published or if it will sell. “I just have to write it.” He will find the time without the distractions of emails, Facebook or Twitter.

Ismael had a turbulent 2009 but in the end everything came through for him. On the verge of selling his beloved Ford Mustang to support himself, he got a job and so didn’t have to part with his car. In the New Year, he will not make any ridiculous goals that he cannot attain but complete small tasks one at a time. He will give thanks more often and appreciate everything he has. No matter how difficult the situation is, he reminds everyone never to give up hope.

Hannah is a dancer. Others may find her resolution silly but she is very serious about it. “I am a dancer and I vow this year not to take the lead but to follow my partner.”

Athena is set on losing some weight in 2010. She feels she is on the “chunky side” and losing 20 pounds would be “awesome.” She plans on joining a gym and using it three times a week. What will help is her PE class in 2010 that meets two nights a week. She is confident she will lose weight because of the support of her boyfriend. Her other goal is to transfer to SJSU in the Fall of 2010. Budget cuts and other restrictions may make admission difficult. Her alternative is California State University at Hayward but that’s too far to drive, so she is really hoping that she will be admitted to SJSU.

Liz is determined to graduate in 2010, for herself and to make her parents proud. But she also intends to enjoy life more. Life is not just studying and being serious. She has rarely partied or gone to a club but that will change in 2010. “I just want to enjoy every moment in life and be happy.”

Chris’s New Year’s resolution is to let things work out the way they will. “I put too much time and effort in trying to make things happen the way I feel they should, when in reality, all that effort is pretty much wasted.” By allowing things to work themselves out in their own time, Chris feels it will be a lot less work on his part and he will probably get better results. He over-exerted himself in 2009, working at various jobs while taking several classes. “It was a mistake not to make school a priority,” he says. Money is important but in 2010 he will focus more on acquiring knowledge and skills than on earning money. “Too much of life passes unnoticed because of too many interests. At least in my life I need to stop it before I lose myself.”

Procrastination has been a big problem for Ruth. She intends to overcome it in the New Year. She will pay her bills and complete her assignments on time. She will keep her appointments and plan her chores and not wait until the last moment to do them. She will also maintain her workout schedule. This year she let her health slip but she will not neglect it in 2010, because “nothing is more important than your health.”

Patrick’s resolutions remind us of life’s fragility and the inexorable march of time. He wants to stay healthy, become a better chess player, learn to play the piano and, most important of all, “develop a better relationship with my dad before it’s too late.”

Karen Armstrong and the Charter for Compassion

Karen Armstrong, authority on comparative religion and spirituality, was recently awarded a TED prize, given annually to the best thinkers and innovators of the world.

In her acceptance speech, Armstrong identified the critical difference between belief and faith. "Religion isn't about believing things. It's about behaving in a way that changes you, that gives you intimations of holiness and sacredness." Studying the world’s religions, she realized that belief, about which we make so much a fuss today, was a recent religious phenomenon that surfaced in the West around the 17th century.

The word ‘belief’ originally meant to love, to prize, to hold dear. It meant, “I commit myself. I engage myself.” From the 17th century onwards, however, the word narrowed its focus to mean merely an intellectual assent to a set of propositions: a credo. It lost its transformational power. Instead, ‘belief’ came merely to mean, ‘I accept certain creedal articles of faith.’ It lost its mooring.

What Armstrong found in her research was that religion was about behaving ethically and morally. Instead of flaunting your faith and engaging in religious chauvinism, do something positive. Behave in a committed way. Then, and only then, you begin to understand the truths of religion. Religious doctrines are meant to be summons to action; you only understand them when you put them into practice.

Compassion is at the core of religious practice. “In every single one of the world’s major faiths, compassion – the ability to feel with the other – is not only the test of any true religiosity, it is also what will bring us into the presence of what Jews, Christians and Muslims call God or the Divine.” Why? “Because in compassion, when we feel with the other, we dethrone ourselves from the center of our world and we put another person there. And once we get rid of ego, then we are ready to see the Divine.”

Armstrong hopes that the Golden Rule will become the central global religious doctrine for our times. The Golden Rule can be stated either positively or negatively, both equally meaningful. “Do to others what you would like others to do to you.” (Treat others as you would like others to treat you.) Or, “Do not do to others what you do not want others to do to you. (Do not treat others in a way that you would not want yourself to be treated).

Practicing the Golden Rule is difficult. Unfortunately many religious people prefer to be right, rather than to be compassionate. We also need to move beyond mere toleration and toward appreciation of the other.

Every TED winner is granted a wish. Armstrong wished for the creation and propagation of a Charter for Compassion, to be crafted by a group of inspirational thinkers from Judaism, Christianity and Islam and to be based on the Golden Rule. “We cannot confine our compassion to our own group or countrymen or co-religionists. We must have what one of the Chinese sages called ‘jian ai’: concern for everybody. Love your enemies. Honor the stranger. God created nations and tribes so that we may know one another.”

What Armstrong hopes for is to “a movement among people who want to join up and reclaim their faith which has been hijacked … We need to empower people to remember the compassionate ethos … Jews, Christians and Muslims, who so often are at loggerheads, have to work together to create a document which we hope will be signed by people from all the traditions of the world … I would like to see it in every college, every church, every mosque, every synagogue in the world, so that people can look at their tradition, reclaim it, and make religion a source of peace in the world.”

You can join and affirm the Charter’s principles here.

You can also read a fuller version of this article at bdnews24.

Creating a Life Around Your Passion

Kozhi Sidney Makai was born in Zambia but grew up in Texas. The youngest of nine children, he has made it his life’s mission to help people rise above their potential. A motivational speaker and an author of such books as How Can I Come Up? and Born Beating the Odds, Dr. Makai was the featured speaker recently at a local college. He had wit, style and substance and kept us in stitches with his mimicry of Texan mannerisms.

Success, according to Makai, is not about wealth or leisure but about having options. All of us have options. We just have to have the vision and the confidence to see them. Sometimes life makes decisions for us. The options are still there. We just have to seize the ones that can enrich our lives. Those who settle for limited options and feel defeated by adverse circumstances lead depressing, unfulfilled lives.

Conventional wisdom says that we are judged only by what we finish. Makai disagrees. Our lives are also defined by what we begin. Even if we cannot finish some of the projects, they can positively influence those that we do. One way we can rise above our potential is to question everything, particularly conventional wisdom. It is not that we will get answers to all our questions. The power lies in the act of questioning itself. A writer must ask questions to write well. “Why am I writing this? Why will anyone be interested in this? Why should my characters evolve this way and not that?” Too often we settle for What, When and Who but not Why. Yet critical thinking often springs only from the Why.

Life, as Makai sees it, is more wrestling and less dancing. Everyday we wrestle with choices. That’s the source of growth. Life is lived in the moments. A life fully engaged in the present is rich. Makai, who played professional basketball for five years abroad, often observes parents who show up at their children’s games. They are present physically but absent emotionally or spiritually, constantly chatting on their phones or texting on their BlackBerries. Children can see through that.

When we become complacent and comfortable, we stop growing. That’s why it is so important to be open to new possibilities and beginnings. “I changed my major five times. You may think it is easy to find what you are passionate about. It is not. You may have to change direction a few times before you find your life’s calling, even if you have a general idea of what you want to be.” Many of us want to be successful but are unwilling to pay the price - of responsibility, accountability, hard work, dedication, being true to ourselves. Makai’s advice is that if we are receptive to our own thoughts, passions and dreams, we will know when changing direction is for our good and gladly put in the extra effort to succeed.

One question that reveals how we feel about ourselves is: “How is that working for you?” We become self-conscious when asked such a question. It soon becomes clear, however, that many of us are dissatisfied with our lives. “But here’s the thing,” said Makai. “You don’t have to keep publishing the same story. If your story is messed-up, if it sucks, if it is wrong, you have the option to change it. You are in control. Mediocrity is something you impose on yourself. If you think life has been unfair to you, turn that into an advantage. Learn how to turn the inevitable setbacks of life into opportunities

We succeed when we create our lives around our passions and dreams. “No one is more qualified to be you than you. Be what you want to be, not what others want you to be.” As a thinker, writer or whatever you choose to be,” said Makai, “you carry a signature that is uniquely your. It’s like your fingerprint. There’s nothing else like it in the universe. Be a first-rate version of yourself than a second-rate version of someone else."