Democratic Dorkiness

Politics: One of the reasons the democrats are losers in so many left leaning eyes is their bizarre grandstanding that is so GOPesque in style and substance. Why on earth do real democrats care that the Iraqi Prime Minister calls Israel an aggressor given that it is attacking indiscriminately en masse right now in a far disproportionate manner than it was attacked? Here's a passage from the CSM:

... US Democrats are calling for a boycott of the speech to Congress Wednesday by Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki after he recently denounced Israel's raids on Lebanon and Gaza. Last week Mr. Malaiki said it was time for "the world to take quick stands to stop the Israeli aggression." Maliki has also refrained from giving his opinion about Hizbullah.

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi of California said unless Maliki "disavows his critical comments of Israel and condemns terrorism, it is inappropriate to honor him with a joint meeting of Congress."

What on earth does this mean? Condemn terrorism? He does that everyday. Maliki has virtually the same opinion, if not one even more tame, than Kofi Annan. This is an obvious and calculated ploy to make Republicans look bad to their base.

While we're chatting about todays events -- I have some friends in the military who state it is very unlikely that a targetting mistake is made. An errant missile, that's possible, but selection of targets is checked, and re-checked, and checked again. I highly doubt the US didn't deliberately hit the Chinese embassy back during the Kosovo campaign, and I highly doubt the Israeli's didn't hit the UN on purpose. For what reason, I don't know. The Israeli's are hardly in love with the UN.

Al Gore's Movie: An Inconvenient Truth

Movie Review: We saw the new Al Gore movie last night. I admit, I am in a similar category to most folks I know - I believe global warming is happening, that it is bad, and that I can't really do too much about it. I highly recommend this movie, not only does Gore paint an undeniable reality, but it is truly shocking. And what is more shocking, is that society is not far more shocked given the looming disasters. I was really moved, and feel compelled to action, but have no idea what to do. Recycling and driving less just don't seem to cut it.

I'm also one of those people who assumed Gore was a wooden robot who inspired a bit too much to be president; I was, however, moved by Gore's passion and steadfast persistence on this issue despite becomed mocked as "Ozone Man" by our lovely leader of mass cranial prowess. Here's a classic quote from W on the campaign trail in 2000: "This guy is so far out in the environmental extreme, we'll be up to our neck in owls and outta work for every American."

The website referenced in the movie is: http://www.climatecrisis.net/.

Paradise Lost by Robert Fisk on Lebanon

Politics : An absolutely moving article about the destruction of Lebanon I encourage everyone to read by Robert Fisk called Paradise Lost in The Independent. Here's a rather large snippet:

For 30 years, I've watched this place die and then rise from the grave and then die again, its apartment blocks pitted with so many bullets they looked like Irish lace, its people massacring each other.

I lived here through 15 years of civil war that took 150,000 lives, and two Israeli invasions and years of Israeli bombardments that cost the lives of a further 20,000 of its people. I have seen them armless, legless, headless, knifed, bombed and splashed across the walls of houses. Yet they are a fine, educated, moral people whose generosity amazes every foreigner, whose gentleness puts any Westerner to shame, and whose suffering we almost always ignore.

They look like us, the people of Beirut. They have light-coloured skin and speak beautiful English and French. They travel the world. Their women are gorgeous and their food exquisite. But what are we saying of their fate today as the Israelis - in some of their cruellest attacks on this city and the surrounding countryside - tear them from their homes, bomb them on river bridges, cut them off from food and water and electricity? We say that they started this latest war, and we compare their appalling casualties - 240 in all of Lebanon by last night - with Israel's 24 dead, as if the figures are the same.

And then, most disgraceful of all, we leave the Lebanese to their fate like a diseased people and spend our time evacuating our precious foreigners while tut-tutting about Israel's "disproportionate" response to the capture of its soldiers by Hizbollah.

I walked through the deserted city centre of Beirut yesterday and it reminded more than ever of a film lot, a place of dreams too beautiful to last, a phoenix from the ashes of civil war whose plumage was so brightly coloured that it blinded its own people. This part of the city - once a Dresden of ruins - was rebuilt by Rafiq Hariri, the prime minister who was murdered scarcely a mile away on 14 February last year.

The wreckage of that bomb blast, an awful precursor to the present war in which his inheritance is being vandalised by the Israelis, still stands beside the Mediterranean, waiting for the last UN investigator to look for clues to the assassination - an investigator who has long ago abandoned this besieged city for the safety of Cyprus.

At the empty Etoile restaurant - best snails and cappuccino in Beirut, where Hariri once dined Jacques Chirac - I sat on the pavement and watched the parliamentary guard still patrolling the faade of the French-built emporium that houses what is left of Lebanon's democracy. So many of these streets were built by Parisians under the French mandate and they have been exquisitely restored, their mock Arabian doorways bejewelled with marble Roman columns dug from the ancient Via Maxima a few metres away.

Hariri loved this place and, taking Chirac for a beer one day, he caught sight of me sitting at a table. "Ah Robert, come over here," he roared and then turned to Chirac like a cat that was about to eat a canary. "I want to introduce you, Jacques, to the reporter who said I couldn't rebuild Beirut!"

And now it is being un-built. The Martyr Rafiq Hariri International Airport has been attacked three times by the Israelis, its glistening halls and shopping malls vibrating to the missiles that thunder into the runways and fuel depots. Hariri's wonderful transnational highway viaduct has been broken by Israeli bombers. Most of his motorway bridges have been destroyed. The Roman-style lighthouse has been smashed by a missile from an Apache helicopter. Only this small jewel of a restaurant in the centre of Beirut has been spared. So far.

Ameen's Show is Coming Up

Art, Life: Ameen's show is coming up for those who don't know. The reception will be Saturday, August 12, 6-10 P.M. at Gallery 6311. Her paintings are amazing and the show will consist of entirely new work. The images are primarily street scenes from our recent trip to Punjab. Mark it on your calendars!

Whistler Fun

Life: We just got back late Sunday night from a fun week up at Whistler. It was so nice to spend a week just lounging and mountain biking. I was thrilled to be able to take my new bike out for a week of bonding. Nayan had a blast too - usually he misses home, and mentions it a few times when we're away. Not once did he mention home, and when it was time for us to leave, he started crying. I also spent some days with Nayan in the mini bike park near the skate park. He had a blast. There's a bunch of dirt mound rollers that he would ride up and over and occassionally fall, and cry. I'd suggest perhaps they were too big, and he'd say between sobs, "but they're too fun, I can't stop..." On one occassion, I turned around and he was staring down a 10 foot wall that drops into a half pipe. I pointed at him and ordered him to get down. Next thing I know, he took the only slightly less crazy route, and wound up flying through the air and landing on his face in a pile of boulders. I realized my perspective as a father is so different on bike crashes - more fear, less laughing. Turned out he bounced up like a rubber band and while wailing that he never wants to ride his bike again, was able to ride home fine with no scars lasting more than a couple hours.

Werner Vogels in the ACM Queue on Amazon's Tech Platform

Tech: I ran across an interesting interview of Werner Vogels, CTO of Amazon, in the ACM Queue called A Conversation with werner Vogels. The interview covers a lot of terrain regarding Amazon's technology platform. One interesting aspect of development at Amazon, is that their developers actually operate their systems and are tightly intertwined with the end customers. Vogels states:

Giving developers operational responsibilities has greatly enhanced the quality of the services, both from a customer and a technology point of view. The traditional model is that you take your software to the wall that separates development and operations, and throw it over and then forget about it. Not at Amazon. You build it, you run it. This brings developers into contact with the day-to-day operation of their software. It also brings them into day-to-day contact with the customer. This customer feedback loop is essential for improving the quality of the service.

The idea is intriguing. The wall Vogel mentions is high, and expensive - layers of project management, ops teams, etc all abstract developers away from truly understanding what needs to be done to enhance the end consumer experience. One problem though: how do you get great developers if you tell them they need to be on a 24/7 pager.

Another interesting angle is the freedom Amazon gives their developers. Here's a snippet:

I think part of the chaotic nature—the emerging nature—of Amazon's platform is that there are many tools available, and we try not to impose too many constraints on our engineers. We provide incentives for some things, such as integration with the monitoring system and other infrastructure tools. But for the rest, we allow teams to function as independently as possible. Developers are like artists; they produce their best work if they have the freedom to do so, but they need good tools. As a result of this principle, we have many support tools that are of a self-help nature. The support environment around the service development should never get in the way of the development itself.

Artist Crave Validation

This a test post. Just want to upload a photo for use elsewhere.

Missing Chunks of the English Language

Politics, Search: Ran across this interesting list of words blocked by Google in China. Not sure why on earth most of these words were selected, but alas, here's a snippet of the terms courtesy of Google Blogoscoped:

abreast, abundant, acceptable, accusation, accuse, accused, adjacent, admirable, admiration, admire, admit, admitted, adorable, adult, affected, agree, airline, aisle, alive, allah, allegation, alligator, allow, ally, almost, alphabetical, ambitious, amir, amongst, amour, analogue, ancestry, ancient, anticipate, appeal, appear, appearance, applaud, appoint, appointed, appointment, appreciate, appropriate, approve, arabic, arithmetic, armored, ...

Al Qaeda Fomenting US / Iranian Tension

Politics: An interesting document was found on one of Zarkawi's computers. Some interesting points to keep in mind as we will innevitably hear more about the US / Iranian tension. Here are some snippets from the Christian Science Monitor in the article Picture of a weakened Iraqi Insurgency:

The Al Qaeda document gives a broad assessment, from apparent ordnance shortages to stoking a clash between the US and Iran. It also includes a lengthy list of potential "delegated wars" that would ease pressure on the resistance.

"The best of these wars to be ignited is the one between the Americans and Iran, because it will have many benefits in favor of the Sunni and the resistance," the document reads. Among those benefits are the "possibility of acquiring new weapons from the Iranian side, either after the fall of Iran or during the battles."

...

Its six suggested methods that read like a how-to guide for creating friction. They include sending out "threatening messages against American interests" and blaming Iran; "executing operations of kidnapping hostages" and blaming Iran; "advertising" that Iran has chemical and nuclear weapons "and is threatening the West."

Bomb attacks against the West would be blamed on Iran "by planting Iranian Shiite fingerprints and evidence"; declaring ties between Iran and "terrorist groups (as termed by the Americans)"; and "disseminating bogus messages" that Iran has weapons of mass destruction and "there are attempts by the Iranian intelligence to undertake terrorist operations in America."

Review of Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra's Rang De Basanti

Movie Review: People are often asking me for tips on great Bollywood films that don't have annoying singing and dancing - well Rang De Basanti has some singing and dancing, but its totally intertwined with the plot, and the film is beautiful and engaging. First, a bit of the what's it about. From Wikipedia (yes its strange that films now have Wikipedia write ups), but alas:

Struggling British filmmaker Sue (Alice Patten) comes to India after she reads the diary of her grandfather, who served in the British Force during India's struggle for Independence. She comes to India in order to make a short film about some of the heroes of the Indian Independence Movement, men such as Bhagat Singh and Chandrasekhar Azad. With the help of her friend Sonia (Soha Ali Khan), she sets out to find actors suitable for the roles. Sonia introduces Sue to some of her male friends [...]

Don't get too disappointed - for me, a typical clue that a Bollywood film is going to be terrible: when they start hauling out the whole east meets west theme (think Bride and Prejudice) - the Brit actually speaks Hindi with a not too annoying accent. The shooting is so well done - I especially loved the really grainy scenes shot in dumpy dhabas - all the friends inhaling food, laughing, and most typically Punjabi - picking on each other. There's also not a single motorcycle muscle flexing scene. Here's some more plot-y stuff from Wikipedia:

Sue convinces them to act in her film. Laxman Pandey (Atul Kulkarni), a political party activist, later joins the group though he is initially disliked by the other boys on account of his Hindutva beliefs and contempt of Aslam, who is a Muslim.

As the young men learn their lines and learn more about the history of the Independence movement, they realize that, unlike the men they are playing, they have lived completely for their own pleasures and have ignored India's pressing problems. They lack the spirit of patriotic self-sacrifice.

Strong film. I give it 3 1/2 out of 4 stars.

Google's Massive New Data Center

Tech, Search - Ran across an interesting article in the New York Times by John Markoff and Saul Hansell called: Hiding in Plain Site, Google Seeks More Power. Here's an excerpt:

On the banks of the windswept Columbia River, Google is working on a secret weapon in its quest to dominate the next generation of Internet computing. But it is hard to keep a secret when it is a computing center as big as two football fields, with twin cooling plants protruding four stories into the sky.

Review of Pixar's First Flop: Cars

Movie Review: Yesterday I took Nayan to go see Cars, the new Pixar film. I should start by saying I'm a huge Pixar fan - I love all their films, and in general, thought they were just out doing themselves with each new release - especially The Incredibles. But alas, maybe Steve Jobs is too busy w/ IPods, perhaps the clueless executives at Disney have gotten there grubby hands on this thing, or perhaps Pixar's talent has been pilfered by the Shrek-makers gang. In any event, this movie is terrible. The first, and foremost problem, is the whole car thing - I mean, every other Pixar movie had such an original story line, but a movie about an arrogant talking car that makes friends with nice cars w/ a bunch of stale jokes targetting the hinterland is certainly not on the same level as the premise behind The Incredibles, Toy Story, Nemo, etc. In addition, how many annoying cars driving around circles w/ CNN like coverage can a sane person take - even if it is spoofed a bit - its so subtle its not that funny. That reminds me, I have a friend who one day showed up in a 70s white camaro with flames swooshing down the sides, he was sporting long mutton chops, poofy hair, cowboy boots, and wearing a skin tight Cinderella tee shirt (not the childrens story character, but the bad hair 80s band). I shook my head, and said something to the effect, "Me thinks you're getting a little too close to the image you're spoofing." Not sure if that is totally related, but anyway, if you have kids, and have limited animation movie options, feel free to check this out, but don't get excited about it, and be forewarned: its on the level of a blah Disney picture more than past Pixars. I really hope this is temporary. 2 stars out of 4 from a company that traditionally gets 4s from me.

Slate's Transhumanist Communion

Politics, Misc: Slate is running a bizarre article by William Saletan called Among the Transhumanists. Here's a snippet:

On a projection screen at Stanford Law School, an auditorium full of nerds stared at a picture of a guy who'd done himself up like a cat—not with makeup, but with tattoos and surgery. The guy's whiskers were implanted. His nose had been converted to a cat nose. His teeth had been filed into the shape of cat teeth. His head has been flattened, and he was looking for a doctor to implant a tail. And that's just the tip of the freakberg.

Not sure what to make of this article, or for that matter, this collection of nut burgers. A colleague of mine was going on a few days ago about how humans will ultimately achieve immortality by being able to digitize their life experience, modelling their thought processes, and dumping it into a gigantic hard drive in, I guess, a hosted server farm in Renton with, I presume, a good emergency preparedness plan. Anyway, perhaps that conversation's why this article is showing up here on CB. Here's another snippet from Saletan's joyous communion with the transhumanists:

The sessions were ... interesting. A panel on religious views consisted of a transhumanist Zen Buddhist priest, an advocate of human enhancement as divine healing, and a pro-cryonics "Christian immortalist." Another panel addressed "the self-demand amputation community." You've heard of a woman trapped in a man's body? Imagine being a one-legged person trapped in a two-legged body, said the speakers. A third panel brought up the "cyborg dialectic": thesis, antithesis, synthesis, prothesis. I have no idea what a prothesis is. I assumed the cyborg dialectic would culminate in a prosthesis.

Spreadsheet Babble - The Media Loves Google and a Good War

Tech: Sometimes I wonder how a hot topic rises in the zeitgeist. Today, on Google news, and just about everywhere for that matter, is coverage about Google's new spreadsheet. I mean really, a lame spreadsheet that runs on the web is somehow huge news? This is 70s technology executed in a cumbersome and highly sluggish environment. I'll admit, I haven't actually seen it (still waiting for the Beta sign up to go through), and I'm sure the Google folks have executed it better than most if not all, but I know a fair amount about Ajax, browser barf, and the world of large delays and they don't make for a great combo in an app like a spreadsheet. Web email works, amongst other reasons, because people are accessing it from many machines, and the portability really matters. But spreadsheets? Who is standing at the Hong Kong airport Internet Cafe and crunching some last minute numbers? An executive with a portable drive who's laptop died? This just seems like a lot of trumped up media hype for something Google is just throwing out there and trying on for size. I can see some niche usage arising, but a direct threat to Excel?

The media seems obsessed w/ creating a new Google verse Microsoft CNN-inspired war zone. Yahoo seems a much more natural enemy of Google, why not cover that? But alas, its less newsworthy. Until Google is a real platform threat, and the two are duking it out over the desktop, which I'm sorry, but a cute little tool bar is not, I'm not buying into this mother-of-all-tech-wars thing. Serious competitors though? Certainly.

Review of John Battelle's The Search

Tech, Book Review: I just started reading a great book about the recent history of search by John Battelle. Battelle has interesting things to say; I follow his blog BattelleMedia quite regularly. Since I build search engines for a living, I find the topic pretty apropos, but I think the book should be of interest to anyone interested in how a search engine works, how they came to be, and more importantly, why they're such a big deal -- amongst other impacts: altering humanity and its social and economic interactions. Though the book is about much more than Google, Battelle does dig into a lot of nitty gritty about the rise of Google, and how Ad Sense and Ad Words was the fundamental/intimate connection to cash the business/ad world was seeking back during the late 90s Internet hay day. He also proposes a bit of a theory about how they ripped the idea off of Overture, since aquired by Yahoo. I'm not done yet, so I may have more to say on this topic soon, but I've read plenty to recommend it. I give it 2 3/4 stars out of 4 - mostly because that simplistic business writing style isn't engaging enough for a serious reader. I'd rate it higher if I was only considering it against similar business books.

Action Packed Sunday

Life: Well yesterday was quite an interesting day. My son and I packed up and went out on a long bike ride. My wife has recently discovered a gem of an idea, and I decided to give it a go -- I pull the Burley trailer behind me, with all of our "luggage" for the day - basketball, soccer ball, knights and castles legos, lunch, and most importantly bike lock. Then, when Nayan gets too tired to ride, I just lock up his bike, and pop him in the back of the trailer. He made it a surprisingly long way - we rode down to the Nordic Heritage Museum, played basketball, snacked up, then rode down to the start of the new Burt Gillman, rode that to the locks. We then meandered across the locks, visited a friend on the other side, after Nayan pushed his bike up a huge hill. Then he made it almost to Discovery Park. We had a lovely picnic lunch out where Ameen and I got married, at the Daybreak Star Cultural Center. Then he rode almost all the way home, where the real action started.

We get home, and a gigantic antenna is sticking out of the KIRO news van in front of our house. Here's a clip from the Seattle Times located HERE:

A three-hour police standoff ended Monday afternoon with the arrest of a 53-year-old Ballard man suspected of threatening his family. Police say the man possessed several weapons and that he and his wife had a previously unreported history of domestic violence.

Family members called police after they left the home in the 8000 block of 28th Avenue Northwest shortly after 2:15 p.m. with the man inside. Seattle police cordoned off the area in the Loyal Heights neighborhood and called in a SWAT team and negotiators.

Failing to get a response at the house, police thought the man might be hiding in his backyard. They tossed a percussion grenade into it and released a gas irritant. The man was flushed from a boat in the backyard and arrested, said Seattle police spokesman Rich Pruitt.

Nayan of course was thrilled with all the action in the neighborhood - helicopters circling over head, police barracades everywhere, etc. And like tried and true crime jaded Americans, our neighbors were all busy cracking jokes about the violent state of the nation. Alas, its a bit sad that few people are shocked over this sort of thing anymore. I'm sure if this happened in my friend's quaint neighborhood in violence deprived Oslo, people would be aghast.

Fun with Google Trends

Tech, Politics: I ran across this interesting new tool from Google labs called trends. It shows plots around the frequency of searches on Google correlated with the occurrence in the news. It also points the most popular origins of the queries, and key news events triggering the spikes, along with links to the news articles. Here are a few worth checking out:

Bush/Kerry - Note: Its pretty obvious who lost the election.
Cheney, Rumsfeld - Note: The largest spike was Cheney's famous display of hunting prowess.
Java - Note: The top 5 cities querying for the programming language are all in India.
Hurricanes - Note: The news loves to pump these up, and then afterward, discussion and concern quickly fade.
India, Pakistan - Note: It's pretty obvious which country is modernizing and getting its citizenry on the net.

Review of the Feast of Roses by Indu Sundaresan

Book Review: I just completed The Feast of Roses, by Indu Sundaresan, the sequel to The Twentieth Wife, which I reviewed HERE. I don't really see The Feast of Roses as a sequel -- the two books, in my view, were simply split up for marketing reasons. Nonetheless, I am really bummed to be done with this book. My evenings have been entertained for maybe 3 weeks now by Sundaresan's lovely and engaging story -- what am I going to read now? Here is a snippet from a great review by Wesley Burnett available HERE:

My outline of world history says only that Jahangir was given to drink, and that, as Empress, Mehrunnisa ran the show. It wasn't that easy, of course. Mehrunnisa, who repeatedly reflects that she wishes she were a man, forms a junta with her father, brother and the heir-apparent to the throne, Shah Jahan, and ruthlessly exploits Jahangir's love to seize ever increasing authority and power. In the process she violates most conventions of Mughal society. For starters, she leaves the zenana, the harem, to stand beside her husband at public audiences where she begins making official pronouncements. This offends Jahangir's advisors who are also his lifelong friends, male chauvinist pigs that they are.

Well, possibly they are, but as the story progresses, it becomes ever more difficult to sympathize with Mehrunnisa. She is the most powerful person in the world's most advanced civilization, but while she is wily as a fox, she isn't necessarily wise as an owl. She crushes opposition in the zenana where she ruins lives and alienates her few supporters. They get their revenge. A well-contrived accident terminates Mehrunnisa's pregnancy and her potential for mothering a dynasty. She exiles Jahangir's chief advisor to Kabul where he swears vengeance. She has to arrange a less than desirable marriage for her daughter who is unenthusiastic about producing males who will have to fight for the throne. Even her co-conspirators in the junta come to despise her.

Mehrunnisa's turn for the dark side was nicely portrayed by Sundaresan. The Twentieth Wife, she was a bit fluffy, and wide eyed - this was definitely not the case in The Feast. Her transformation and intoxication with power was engaging to observe, and forms a strong theme in the book. The sense of place and history was very well done. I highly recommend this series to any one, but particularly anyone interested in the Mughal period of rule in Indian history. I really hope Sundaresan keeps writing sequels until eventually reaching modern day India.

If only my history books were half this engaging. It gets quite boring seeing the fomulaic spattering of who conquered who, when and how fast in the dry discourse typical of historians. This historical fiction is so engaging, I may have to go find another one now. Please let me know if you have any suggestions. All in all I give Feast of Roses 3 1/2 out of 4 stars.

Don't Name Your Kid Omar

Politics: There's a rather frightening article in CSM called Death squads deepen division in Baghdad by Dan Murphy. Apparently the Mahdi Army's lovely rocket scientists in Baghdad have decided to kill everyone named Omar and Bakar. Here's a snippet:

Around midnight, seven cars roared down his [Abu Omar] street. One of the vehicles, a Toyota Landcruiser, burst through his front gate while men with rifles, grenades, and black masks poured into his yard, breaking the windows in his car and at the front of his house with their rifle butts, shouting "where's Omar, where's Omar,'' the name of his 18-year-old son.

Omar scrambled over a back fence and found safety in a neighbor's house, while his father was taken away for five hours of interrogation. "They told me that they were from the Mahdi Army and I thought these were my last moments on earth,'' he says. "But after a while they got a call, and decided to let me go. But they also told me they'd kill my son when they got him."

Abu Omar says the men told them they were killing all young men named Omar and Bakar - popular Sunni names borrowed from early Islamic caliphs hated by Shiites. They said they would be back for his son.

What is the world coming to? It seems we have indeed opened Pandora's box...

Oh No, Not That Frog Again.

Life, Review: Yesterday, Nayan and I rode our bikes down to the Sunset Hill Community club to see Frog Lake by the Thistle Theater folks. Here's a snippet from their website:

Enjoy the classic ballet Swan Lake transformed into a contemporary ballet, Frog Lake. Taddy, a young frog, is excited to be seeing her first ballet at her local pond. As the Conductor Frog enters the theater a hush falls, broken only by the sound of frog croaks and cricket chirps. On cue, fireflies flit to their respective footlights to illuminate the stage of the “Ballet de Pond”. Traditional choreography will be brought to life as the frogerinas dance to Tchaikovsky’s famous music.

I really wanted to like this, but I realized it had some fundamental problems. First, its a parody of a ballet. If you know anything about kids, it should be that they don't get irony or sarcasm, and certainly not parodies. So, you say, surely the intent is to entertain the adults, and that the puppets themselves are sufficient to keep the kids engaged. Well, if you know a bit more about kids, or atleast boys, its that the idea of "Silent" anything just doesn't work. Another problem could just be my testerone hang ups, but frankly, of all the fine arts, the one I like the least, is ballet. But atleast in real life, you can admire the physicality of the dance - but with puppet frogs very seriously leaping around in frog leotards? It could work if you embraced the stupidity, and cracked jokes about it - but alas, the "Silent" part killed that possibility. So, every time the main frog would come on stage, a cackle of 3 year olds would start shouting, "Oh no! Not that guuuuuy again." The theatre director, opens the show by admonishing the kids for yapping, and pleads for the mothers to assist. So, innevitably, the play was spent w/ mom's in a tizzy, trying to keep their bored kids engaged.

Just to keep up the bashing, I also, was utterly unimpressed with the set design - only a couple scene changes! The one thing that kept it from being a disaster, is that the puppets were fairly well done. This, from the Thistle Theater folks, who usually skimp on both set design and puppets. The Peter Rabbit puppets w/ the exception of the farmer, were something out of Wal-Mart, but alas, atleast he spoke.

Why, you might ask, am I harshing on the artistic merit of kids puppets? Well, this IS Seattle, where we not only have the good fortune of having puppet options, but most of the kids puppet theater is simply amazingly well done. The North West Puppet Theatre's renditions of both Babar and Madelaine were just beautiful and engaging - the kids and adults were enthralled; the set changes continuously and in a fairly complex manner. There's also this local couple that does a Spanglish version of a Mexican burrito guy that is by far the best puppet production I've seen with stunning hand painted (like by a real artist, and a good one at that) scenery, and the young couple are just amazing performers.

That Glazed Laptop Look

Politics, Life: CSM has an interesting article called Professors want their classes 'unwired' by Maia Ridberg. I've always thought this whole obsession of getting kids intertwined with their laptops is a bit manic. Here's a snippet:

When Don Herzog, a law professor at the University of Michigan, asked his students questions last year, he was greeted with five seconds of silence and blank stares.

He knew something was wrong and suspected he knew why. So he went to observe his colleagues' classes - and was shocked at what he found.

"At any given moment in a law school class, literally 85 to 90 percent of the students were online," Professor Herzog says. "And what were they doing online? They were reading The New York Times; they were shopping for clothes at Eddie Bauer; they were looking for an apartment to rent in San Francisco when their new job started.... And I was just stunned."

This seems obvious - computers, especially well wired machines, can be an incredible distraction; on occasion I will work from a cafe, or somewhere I am not wired, just so I can focus - I often go out of my way to unplug from IM apps, shut off my email notification, etc.

I held a meeting the other day, and a few folks hauled their laptops in. My team is extremely busy these days, and I strive to keep meetings very short so team members can get on with their work. The mere presense of these machines, while well meaning - to look up relevant information here and there, ended up distracting the two team members, and dragging the team meeting out.

Here's another entertaining quote from a student in Ridberg's article:

"Every single person I have ever seen bring a computer to class has also surfed the Web or been on IM," says Amy Kornell, an undergraduate at the University of California at Davis. "I saw one girl watch a whole episode of 'Gray's Anatomy.' But I would guess that solitaire is the most popular game."

Frogs on Granville

Life: We spent this weekend up in Vancouver visiting Ameen's family. Was a nice, relaxing trip. Saturday was intermittently blustery - we ran through some storms while passing through Bellingham, then it just sort of rained. Sunday, however, was sunny and bright -- a picture perfect spring day in the northwest.

Ameen spent about 15 years of her life studying, then printing/art making, on Granville Island in Vancouver. Whenever we're in Vancouver, Ameen gets an amazing itch to head to Granville. It's a lovely place, so of course I also now get this itch. For anyone visiting Vancouver, you can find out more at www.granvilleisland.com.

We got a chance to catch up with our good friend Peter who owns and runs New Leaf Editions, a fine printmaking studio on the island. Peter's a tad eccentric, and amongst other interesting Peter-isms, he has an exhaustive collection of frogs. Nayan was fascinated by the 40+ odd years of frog collecting Peter's been doing. His studio is full of frogs - coat hanger frogs, clock frogs that sing Irish drinking tunes, dancing frogs with red rubber tongues, and dead Japanese ones with a zipper instead of legs to hold coins, to name a few.

One of the joys of parenthood is seeing the fascination and enjoyment of the simple every day things we long since learned to tune out. Ananya, at the site of some rather standard ducks, was shreaking like a very happy banshee.

News Feeds and other Site Info

Tech: I recently installed Google Analytics, so I can get an idea of what you all do on this website, and how I might be able to improve it. As an aside, Google Analytics is an order of magnitude better than any site analysis tool I've used. The Google folks have perhaps the most elaborate and effective use of AJAX I've seen on the web. Among other things, I get to see which links people are using, how they enter the site, how often they simply bounce back out, where they come from, geographical maps, etc.

One of the things I learned is that many of you aren't using RSS feeds, but are periodically visiting the site (mostly by Googling for Chalo Bolo). That's not a bad thing, if I were a more diligent poster, but I suspect many of you get mildly annoyed to find out that I haven't posted in a while. So I recommend using a consolidated viewer like Bloglines; with a blog lines, or similar account, you can keep all the news, blogs, etc. that you read at one URL, then you can automatically see which of your sites have new content, summaries of the posts, etc. You can usually simply add the URL of your sites, and almost every site, including blogs and more popular sites like the NYT, Christian Science Monitor, etc. all support RSS feeds.

Another thing I learned, is that many of you are repeatedly following the Topic links off to the right of this post, which is great. For those of you who have not, I'll briefly explain. For each post I make, I tag the post w/ certain classifications, like: Life, Politics, Movie Reviews, etc. The links off to the right point to these posts. If all you're interested in are Movie Reviews, than you can simply follow that link and avoid the rest. And of course, if you're interested in all of it, you can ignore this advice all together!

FFVs and Lessons from Brazil

Politics: I ran across an interesting article titled Alternative Fuels - Lessons from Brazilia by Bill Siuru. In it, Siuru writes:

When oil prices dropped in the mid-1980s, coupled with the discovery of new offshore oil fields, gasoline became cheaper. This was further compounded by a drought and a poor sugar harvest disrupting the supply of alcohol. Then by 1989, sugar prices started to rise dramatically and producers exported sugar rather than turn it into fuel. By 1997, alcohol capable cars represented less than 1-percent of new vehicles sold in Brazil.

Brazil learned a lesson from these ups and downs. The result were flex-fuel vehicles (FFV) that could run on any fuel from pure gasoline to pure alcohol. All Brazilian gasoline is blended with at least 20- to 25-percent ethanol. Some 29,000 out of 31,000 fueling stations in Brazil also offer 100 percent ethanol for the older alcohol-only vehicles. Brazil currently has between 3-million and 4-million ethanol fueled vehicles.

Something that has negatively biased my view of ethanol in the US, was the claim that it was just a huge government subsidy with no real benefit - the prime argument as I recall, was that the energy to produce ethanol, was so great, that it just wasn't worth it in the end. Siuru sites some interesting numbers, that back this up:

Fermentation of Brazilian sugar cane produces much more ethanol as compared to corn. For each unit of energy expended to turn cane into ethanol, 8.3 times as much energy is created (1 to 8.3.) Compare that to corn which gets a maximum of 1.3 times the engery from a single unit (1 to 1.3.) Research is underway in Brazil to increase this to 1 to 10. Also, no fossil fuel is used in the process of converting sugar cane to ethanol. The residue from the stalks is used to generate the necessary electricity, and to fertilize the sugar cane fields.

So it sounds like corn is the culprit, not ethanol in general. This is an interesting read. I'm surprised Brazil isn't being sited more on models to follow, or atleast study more, given their relatively minimal use of gasoline.

Mullahs and Gas

Politics: Thomas Friedman was on NPR the other day; he made a statement to the effect that he's happy either way with what happens in Iran. If the mullahs bow to the west and drop their nuke quest, grand. If they continue to push the US, then Bush et. al. will have no choice but to push for strong sanctions and the Euros are more apt to listen. This will have the innevitable impact of shaking the oil markets further, pushing gas prices even higher.

In Friedman's view, and I tend to agree, the higher the price of gas, and the longer it stays high, the quicker this nation, and others, can get off oil. This outcome is beneficial, not only because of the benefits of reduced green house emissions, but also due to reduced dependence of the US on volatile oil supplies and price fluctuations. Reducing green house emmissions makes me and the penguins happy. Reducing US oil dependence makes conservatives happy because they believe this cash goes to fund terrorists, and it makes liberals happy because it reduces the hegemonistic instincts of US foreign policy.

In any event, one could easily plot the correlation of gas price spikes and the frequency in the news with which alternatives to oil are discussed. I, unlike the punditocracy, do not believe this situation is that difficult to resolve. I believe you need to do the following:

1. Develop efficient alternative fuel based solutions (i.e. bio-diesel, alchohol, etc.) One would think conservatives and liberals could agree on this - farm belts thrive with a massive new market. Liberals get reduced emissions, working open spaces (and hence less sprawl) and a happier planet.

2. Develop FFVs (Flexible Fuel Vehicles that run on gas or an alternative fuel). Again, this should be a political no brainer - gas is not eliminated over night, so if consumers can select gas or alchohol, they're happy to have the option to chase lower prices, or align their fuel and ethics.

3. Develop pluggable hybrids (hybrid FFVs that can be plugged into a socket at night). More supply diversification due to the variety of electricity options. A hybrid gets 60+MPG. With local only traffic, you could be getting 400+ MPG if you're fairly close to home and plugging in at night.

4. Keep pushing on the fuel cell front for the longer term horizon. Zero emissions should still be the goal.

and most importantly:

5. Keep the price of gas high

High gas prices keep everyone talking about gas alternatives; it encourages VCs to inject cash into start ups where the real innovation occurs, and vested interests can be toppled with disruptive technologies, or atleast forced to embrace them. High gas prices also encourages people to leave their giant SUVs and F350s.

Kids Punjabi and Hindi Info

Sikh, Life: In response to my post Raising Sikh Children in a World of Illusion, I was asked for more detail on books/videos etc. Here is my response:

Re: children's books - there are a number of cartoon like books; one for each of the Gurus - you can find them in Delhi in nearly any book shop in Connaught Place. Occassionally we find something in the Punjabi section on main street in Vancouver. There is a beautiful book on Guru Nanak published recently in India though I can't find it here; all the pages are hand painted by a famous Indian painter whose name I can't recall now. I'll try to look it up tonight.

Re: videos - there is a kids video on Hindi called Chalo Hindi Bolay that Nayan has watched hundreds of times; it's extremely well done. In Jallandar and Chandigarh you can also find select popular movies dubbed in Hindi. We have purchased titles like Stuart Little, The Harry Potter series, etc. I have been trying, though with no success, to find a source for all of the cartoon network cartoons which are dubbed in Hindi (the ones nearly every Indian child is heavily addicted to); I'd be thrilled if anyone could identify a place to purchase these. Sadly, there are no kid related videos in Punjabi, either here, or in India that we could find. In Punjab, most kids are fluent in Hindi, and Punjabi is not treated that seriously (it's considered sufficient if kids speak it -- no need to read and write it too well). Here, most people just don't seem to care enough to expose there children to Punjabi, or if they do, it is dealt with casually and not treated with the rigor, or the all encompassing environmental exposure required for children to be truly bilingual, let alone on a path toward understanding Gurmukhi.

Raising Sikh Children in a World of Illusion

sikh, life: I got carried away commenting on a blog I read (SinghsRus). I was responding to this:

Oh yeah!, one of the thoughts was to post something about Sikh parents as to how challenging the job of Sikh parents is to raise kids in a non-Sikh environment, teach them Sikhi and Punjabi. Sometimes I get amazed as to how are some of the parents are able to instill Sikh values in their children keeping in mind the social pressure of TV, media, non-Sikh cultural environment, peer pressures, their own insecurities etc.

Here's my comment after a bit more editing:

It is hard to raise a Sikh child in a world of mass maya. I think it is doable though. My wife and I, on the birth of our first child, decided this was very important. We eliminated the television from our house (after being scared silly by the synergistic marketing section of Fast Food Nation), and began learning Punjabi in earnest (we were both raised in the west and neither of us was fluent by any means).

Since our children were born, we have only spoken Punjabi with them in the house. To this day it feels very strange for me to speak english with my son. In addition we always translate the kids' books into Punjabi while reading them. This has proven quite a challenge for us given our limited language skills, and the ever increasing complexity of the texts as our eldest ages. In addition, we continue to buy many Sikh children books, and spend a lot of time reading them, discussing them, saying prayers with the kids, etc. We have also made a point of spending atleast 6 weeks every few years in Punjab. This was really important as prior to our trip, my son began refusing to speak in Punjabi -- after 6 weeks playing with his cousins, he realized it was not just his parents who speak this language. Now he complains his Paji's aren't here to tell him any Punjabi jokes. Spending time in Punjab also helped develop his view of Sikhism and bring historical events alive; he was thrilled to go to Anandhpursahib where the Guru of his books had fought and prayed.

I have also thought about making this task for parents like ourselves easier. When we started, most people in our community thought it was funny that two kids raised here could attempt to raise their kids speaking Punjabi when their own skills were so terrible. They often teased us -- saying even if we could manage to teach them, the kids would forget it all before their 5th birthday. While we have yet to reach our fifth birthday, the teasing just made us all the more determined. Now the "Aunties" and "Uncles" all get a kick out of speaking w/ our son and hearing his authentic kid-slang; the elder generation gets glassy eyed while waxing about teaching their grand kids, and some of the younger generation have also chosen to "keep it real."

Having age appropriate books, videos, etc. would help quite a bit. We have had to go to Jallundar and comb the bazaars just to find good books, movies, etc. I often think about a start up company catering to people like us; then I always shelve it since it isn't technically interesting enough (I'm a bit of a techy type).

review of the twentieth wife by indu sundaresan

book review: i just finished the twentieth wife by indu sunderesan, a local writer from bellevue. my sister-in-law met the author at a house party and recommended the book to my wife. what a page turner. i had a really tough time putting it down. one of the reasons i love historic novels is i get an in depth flavor for how life was in a different era - much more so than in a film. in this case, it was particularly interesting getting another view on the moghuls, a band of brutes not depicted so well by most sources, certainly not by the sikh sources of my youth.

sunderesan has a nice descriptive style that's not too simplistic, nor too over the top. my wife read this book for her book club, but due to the cover (i often violate the cardinal rule to not judge a book by its cover) - i dismissed it as chic lit. well it is chic lit, but sometimes i suppose that's ok.

here's a snippet of a high level summary of the book courtesy of diesel-ebooks.com:

An enchanting seventeenth-century epic of grand passion and adventure, this debut novel tells the captivating story of one of India's most legendary and controversial empresses -- a woman whose brilliance and determination trumped myriad obstacles, and whose love shaped the course of the Mughal empire. She came into the world in the year 1577, to the howling accompaniment of a ferocious winter storm. As the daughter of starving refugees fleeing violent persecution in Persia, her fateful birth in a roadside tent sparked a miraculous reversal of family fortune, culminating in her father's introduction to the court of Emperor Akbar. She is called Mehrunnisa, the Sun of Women. This is her story.

on a more literary and critical note, i'd say sunderesan, while capitivating, fails to write with much literary force. she fails to critically assess, and expose, the emporers in their utter brutality. she mentions a few things here and there, but these scenes could have been explored in more depth. my guess is she's walking a fine line - tough to empathize too much w/ this woman that is so in love w/ a guy that romances w/ 300+ wives - not to mention is a wake-n-bake opium snorting son eye-poking loser by any modern sense. also, the ali qul character, mehrunnisa's husband, is displayed as a simplistic brute - would have been nice to get much more background and depth, especially given that he performs significant acts.

anyway, while its no literary masterpiece, it's certainly a step up from the divince code w/ all the grip. also, if all i read were literary masterpieces, i'd probably sleep more than 8 hours a day. i give this book 3 stars overall out of 4.

happy baisakhi

sikh, poetry: just wanted to wish everyone a happy baisakhi. for those unware, you can read a bit about the history HERE courtesy of the BBC.

my cousin just emailed me a lovely quote that i thought i'd share here on CB.

Forgetting the truth there is no where to turn

Upon realization of love I witness the world as a friend

An indescribable singular thought meditates within my mind

Reflecting on love provides me with happiness;
no harm can come to me in such a state

What can I call good and what bad? I see the entire world as one

Love provides me with shelter, with support; it is the hand that protects me

All which realize this state are not attached to suffering

Peace provides the mind with happiness

Repeating the name of truth paints my mind, giving me compassion

As I pray, I realize that this body and soul do not belong to me

Nanak says the greatness of reality belongs to the indescribable;
for do not utter my name, “I” do not exist

Guru Arjan Dev

Guru Granth Sahib pg. 383

iran and the nook-you-lar option

politics: i read an interesting review by fred kaplan called are we really going to bomb iran in slate of seymour hersh's article in the new yorker about the whole nuclear bombing of iran plan. kaplan attempts to deconstruct what this is really about.

Is this for real? Is President Bush or anyone else in a position of power truly, seriously thinking about dropping nuclear bombs on a country that poses no direct threat to the United States, possesses no nuclear weapons of its own, and isn't likely to for at least a few years? Pre-emptive war—attacking a country to keep it from attacking us or an ally—is sometimes justifiable. Preventive war—attacking a country to keep it from developing a capability to attack an ally sometime in the future—almost never is. And preventive war waged with nuclear weapons is (not to put too fine a spin on it) crazy.

kaplan comes up with a few theories as to what this might really be about. here's a snippet of the madman theory:

In his first few years as president, Richard Nixon tried to force North Vietnam's leaders to the peace table by persuading them that he was a madman who would do anything to win the war. His first step, in October 1969, was to ratchet up the alert levels of U.S. strategic nuclear forces as a way of jarring the Soviet Union into pressuring the North Vietnamese to back down. A few years later, he stepped up the bombing of the North and put out the word that he might use nukes. In neither case did this ploy have any effect whatsoever.

what bothers me most about all of these theories kaplan rattles off is the expressed assumption that the rhetoric is driven by a logical rationale and coordinated policy. i too was performing a similar sort of analysis of the bush administration's pre-iraq war rhetoric; for a while, i was convinced the often conflicting messages coming out of the white house were really the output of a highly sophisticated psy ops campaign. then i started seeing too many inconsistancies in my ever complex evolving model of the "real plan." eventually i kept modifying my theory with beliefs like "well the left and right hands of government are just not in cahoots." this went on until i realized, and concluded that, perhaps government inneptness was the "real plan." this seems particularly plausable, especially after witnessing the debacle around the administrations hurricane katrina response. in other words, this administration is full of strong willed characters w/ opposing world views, a wishy washy man at the top, and innept characters within promoted for loyalty reasons rather than merit -- the results are often conflicting statements in the news, such as leaks about real consideration of nuclear bombing, and bush saying that's simply "wild speculation."

who knows, though, maybe i'm wrong now, and was right originally, and this is yet another sophisticated model. if i have to pick, i'd place my bets on kaplan's madman theory variation b:

If Iran is immune to such pressures, our European allies might not be. Many of them already regard Bush as a religious zealot and Cheney as a warmonger. If they believe that the White House might really resolve the dispute with Iran by dropping nuclear bombs, they might suddenly start pushing for sanctions—a move they've stopped short of, mainly to protect their own trade relations with Tehran—as a comparatively moderate way of pressuring Iran to stop enriching uranium. Whether or not this is Bush's intent, there's evidence in Hersh's piece that the escalation might have the same effect. The Europeans, Hersh writes, are "rattled" by "their growing perception that Bush and Cheney believe a bombing campaign will be needed." He quotes one European diplomat as saying, "We need to find ways to impose sufficient costs to bring the [Iranian] regime to its senses. … I think if there is unity in opposition and the price imposed"—in sanctions—"is sufficient, [the Iranians] may back down."

bizarre quote of the day

politics: this seems like a really odd thing to say in light of the massive suicide bombing today in iraq:

"Those who did this are trying to bend our people from continuing on their course," Maj. Gen. Muhammad Neima, the head of the operations room at the Interior Ministry, said as he stood in the wreckage. "But the people of this country have grown accustomed for a while now to being slaughtered, and we feel proud that we're sacrificing ourselves and are getting closer to God."

"The suicide bombers have turned themselves into gatekeepers to heaven," he added.

courtesy of THIS article at the NY Times. i'm still scratching my head.

open studio

life, art: we celebrated the opening of our painting studio this past saturday with a grand turnout. it was such a great evening w/ friends and family and music and wine, a cozy fire, and of course, lovely ambience in the new building. it was such a treat to poke my head into the loft and see a group of friends sprawled out and relaxed, chatting without a care in the world. i realized we were successful in creating a truly inspiring building. i often got asked during the party when we started, how long it took, etc. well i started drawing concept sketches in earnest in january of 2003. we broke ground in october of 2004, and while still not done, we were done enough to throw a party april of 2006. what i'm just now getting used to, is the idea of associating the fruits of this labor with something positive. it was such an utter pain and stress filled endeavor to build, that sadly, along the way, i plum forgot it would be a place to relax and enjoy. i recall seeing a documentary many years ago about the amish building a house for a newly wed family. it was so inspiring to see the community come together and helping in such a direct way. i started thinking recently about how many people have been involved in building this. from all the various contractors, architect, his assistant, my old college buddy who did a lot of the detailed deisgn and building, his guys that did the wood work and exteriors, friends of ours we bribed w/ ameen's savory meals, paintings, and anything else we could think of. its amazing how it all came together.

Rain raining rainy day

poetry: well it seems my most dedicated, and perhaps only, reader is in need of a blog post. so misseur metalhead, what can i say? how about a nice boring post. i just got done eating lunch. my company brings in lunch for us on the last friday of each month. so, i had a little focacia sandwhich, and now am gazing out the window observing a truly lovely, though abnormal, midday sun shining brightly over the boats on lake union. in fact, its so sunny, that i couldn't possibly write a poem about rain. but it seems i don't need to, since mr. metalhead has written a lovely one that i'd like to share here:

metalhead said...

Rain raining rainy day
in Seattle
surfing on the,
internet I click on,
my favourites- chalo
bolo. CB.
Let's talk: nous
parlons , we talk
talking talked
about the
plight of Palestinian
goat herders or painting
Painting paint
painted, I paint.
no new articles today,
my life is empty.
Periods of void stitched
together by articles
from C.B.
a squirrel runs by,
whither I wonder?
i paint
rain.
it rains
i paint rain
when we dont talk
we make war. let's
talk nous parlons
chalo bolo
Rain raining rainy day
in Seattle
chalo bolo

avoiding civil war

politics, life: i read an interesting article in slate titled four strategies for averting civil war by gary bass. in it, bass writes:

In the wake of Bosnia and Rwanda, the assumption is that ethnically divided countries can never function. But countless countries at risk of civil war have been able to avoid going over the cliff. The most famous example is South Africa. Under apartheid, the country was widely seen as a likely candidate for a massive and devastating all-out civil war, yet despite some substantial violence, it managed to transform into today's multiethnic democracy.

i think there's a lot of truth to this. i recall during the yugoslavian break up, the same type of analysis permeating the news. essentially it boiled down to: these people hate each other, have for hundreds of years, there's nothing that can be done to stop it. its often academics interviewed and quoted by the news that re-enforce this perhaps by their tendency to discuss a modern issue in the context of hundreds or thousands of years of sectarian/tribal/whatever strife. the impression is that this is unnavoidable. one of bass's most interesting points to me, is what he calls "no bowling alone." bass writes:

When ordinary people come together across ethnic lines to form unions, political parties, soccer leagues, or movie clubs, their social connections can help prevent civil strife.

The scariest rift in India is between Hindus and Muslims. That division ripped the country apart in 1947 and at worst could do so again. But Ashutosh Varshney, a University of Michigan expert on Indian politics, points out that Hindu-Muslim riots usually happen only in certain of India's cities and very rarely in the countryside. Why are some places, like Bombay and Ahmedabad, so much more volatile than others?

Varshney's answer, updating Tocqueville, is that intercommunal civic life in India has been a powerful force in preventing Hindu-Muslim violence. In Hyderabad, Varshney argues, Hindus and Muslims don't come together in social and economic life. In places like Calicut and Lucknow, by contrast, members of the two groups mix in groups like trade unions, business associations, and professional organizations of teachers and doctors.

this is a great point. would be wonderful if indian, and other sectarian challenged societies, went on sustained campaigns to create more opportunities for cross sections of their populace to interract.

i lived in chicago for a number of years during college. i recall a friend of mine who was of croatian descent. he'd talk about how much hatred there was between his community and the serbians (clearly he had absorbed some of it) - this was all during the croatian independence conflict. peers of his, born and raised in america, were hauling off to go fight in the conflict. he felt tremendous guilt for studying while his friends were defending their ancestral land.

here in the states, in one of the most segregated cities in the world, the serbian immigrant community neighborhood happens to live essentially across the street from the croatian. on the weekends the youth would take turns throwing garbage and things at the others' churches. anyway, we had a serbian in a bunch of our classes who was totally brilliant; my friend was an average engineering student - confronting this fact was a source of constant annoyance for him. the serbian was utterly disinterested in the conflict, another source of annoyance for him. my friend was forced to interact with this fellow, and other students of many nationalities. it was interesting seeing his views widen over our four years there. i am convinced, after this collegiate experience, he served as a voice of moderation and reason amongst his community.

two lives by vikram seth

book review: i just finished vikram seth's new book called two lives. he's such a lovely author. the book's about vikram seth, and his view of his uncle and aunt and their lives. the author was sent to live with his mamaji and his jewish german wife in england. he spends his college days with them, and grows quite attached. seth tracks their lives througout the rise of hitler during their years in berlin, and then through the war and post war years. much of hennie's family gets murdered by the nazi's, but she makes it to england. what i especially enjoyed was being welcomed into seth's challenge of how to recreate his aunt and uncles lives after his aunt had already passed on, and his uncle was very old. you could feel him struggling to write the book with whatever materials he had. all in all a nice read. i give it 3 stars out of 4.

religious insanity in afghanistan

politics: i find this case of the muslim converting to christianity situation to be totally abhorrent. from the Asia Times Online article titled Losing Faith in Afghanistan, Syed Shahzad writes:

Even as the Bush administration steps up pressure on Afghanistan over the plight of a Christian convert, thousands of youths are descending on Kabul to demand that he be hanged for renouncing Islam.

and goes on to write:

"Regardless of the court decision [whether or not he is hanged], there is unanimous agreement by all religious scholars from the north to the south, the east to the west of Afghanistan, that Abdul Rahman should be executed," Engineer Ahmad Shah Ahmad Zai told Asia Times Online on telephone from Kabul.

i find this so utterly ridiculous, that in the 21 century, humanity has not evolved much at all. as someone who's religion arose to defend the rights of those being forceably converted under threat of death, i would love to know why these types of laws are not denounced by sane minded clerics? or are they, and its just not news worthy? is this death for conversion really written into sharia law? and if so, why did the u.s., and its NATO allies, ever allow afghanistan to base its laws on such savage precedent? also, what disturbs me the most is the claim that the masses support this execution. why? why does it matter at all that people choose another faith? it seems to me, quite simple: the path to eternal bliss is the one that gets you there - the rest are details.

oddly, i think for the first time in quite a while, if ever, i'm in agreement w/ bush. for once i am comforted by the fact that he is a christian, and hence, intrinsically offended by this. nonetheless, i find it bothersome that all the world is asking for is that this one man be spared -- the law should be abolished, and the people educated on its utter insanity.

homeland security growing up

politics: an interesting study published in the NYT called Graduate School Applications from Foreigners Rise. Alan Finder writes:

The number of foreign students who applied to graduate programs in American universities during the current academic year increased by 11 percent from the year before, according to a survey to be released today. That growth reverses two years of decline that occurred in the aftermath of the Sept. 11 attacks.

The survey, by the Council of Graduate Schools, which represents more than 450 universities, found that despite the increase, the number of applications remained lower than in the years before 2003. The number of foreign students applying declined by 28 percent in 2003-4, a previous survey by the group showed, and by an additional 5 percent in the following academic year.

i'm encouraged by this. could the department of homeland security be getting a bit of a clue? after 9/11, some students found it difficult to return to the states after returning home from the holidays. i have friends who were so scared they wouldn't be allowed back in, that they forewent their annual holiday trips home. i know of others who chose to study in australia or europe due to the bad reputation the u.s. had developed.

foreign graduate students are a key part of the high tech backbone of the american economy. relatively few americans will get an MS or PhD in technical disciplines and hence, are a minority in advanced techology industries which ultimately form main stream tech industries. i tend to work in advanced r&d, and can testify that native born americans are a minority. in fact, i am one of 2 on a team of ten, and neither of us have native born parents. anyway, finder continues:

The council suggested that there were several reasons for the turnaround. After the attacks of 2001, foreign students, particularly those in scientific and technical fields, experienced trouble obtaining visas. But recent changes in government policy, though continuing to emphasize security, have made it considerably easier.

"There's no question that both Homeland Security and the Department of State do play a role in this turnaround," Debra W. Stewart, the council's president, said in a telephone interview yesterday.

desert reflection

here's a poem i wrote about four years ago recently after the birth of my first child. i remember i had just gotten an old manual typewriter and was working on a painting based on a photo from a trip i took a few years before to visit some friends in jordan. i was clanking away on the typewriter, something i do when i can't concentrate on painting.



painting in my studio,
rachid taha takes me
back, to
another day,
sunnier,
no rain, just a slow
dry heat.

earth tones fill my
pallette. yellow ochre
paints petra in june.

sitting at a table well
recessed from the black
tar street, bowls
of zatar and oil.

a town built by the
king -- waiting for the
tourists of tomorrow.

it's just some locals from
amman, and their
american friend posing
as a long lost cousin
from yemen to
save some dinars.

moving in

life: well we finally wrapped up the studio enough to move in. the last few days were stressful. our sheet rock/paint person butchered the job, and kept making it worse when he tried to fix it. we finally got fed up and did the work ourselves. i spent all day saturday moving in things. we set up the loft w/ a cozy futon and fuzzy wool rug, the kind that look like it was just lifted right off the sheep's back. i moved in all the easels and paint supplies, some furniture, etc. ameen and the baby were up in vancouver over the weekend, so nayan and i were "camping out." nayan has been obssessed with robin hood these days. he has a retro-ly done australian dvd that he loves to watch; he even, on occassion, speaks in his version of old english. nayan was adamant we camp for 5 days and 5 nights; he grabbed his "tents" and hauled them into the studio, along with a never ending supply of toys, and of course, swords. i fired up the woodstove, and we barely left all weekend. it was so magical to feel as if we'd spent a weekend up in the mountains when we were only in our familiar back yard. the loft is so cozy to sleep in. the lexan panels let in a lovely northern light, and at night, with the lights off, feel like you're staring at stars. i woke up to a seagull and crow snarling session. was a bit odd. i had no idea our back yard was frequented by sea gulls every morning. can't wait to start painting in there. this project has been going on so long and immersed in so much stress i almost forgot, that at the end, we'd get to enjoy it.

freedom

poetry: ananya, our 1 year old, is obssessed with yanking books from shelves. she is particularly fond of an old journal book of mine, which has a long thread wound around a button. i picked it up, and while putting it away, stumbled across some journal scribbling i had written a day after my first child was born. here it is:

"I've been watching you. First
the house, then a beautiful
wife, a chocolate pup,
some art on the walls."

The urban hipster, divorce
progeny, coffee drinkers
individualized. We, they --
don't see the simplicity of
family life -- the wonder
outside the club. Obsessed
with the freedom of wandering,
city to city, scene to scene, style
to style.

The roaming bores me, and
the union of family
liberates me.

I look at my new baby and see
eternity, simplicity, fragility,
and my bones.

Last night the sun came out,
blessed me with life, returned
my mother to me.

another breath

poetry: part of the same journal i mentioned in my last post. another little snippet that captured yesterday.

little poems,
for little pieces
of paper.

no anguish fills my
heart today, just
the bliss
of domesticity.

a wet day,
a visiting friend,
a trip to the dog park.

can a painter project?

art: spent a good part of saturday over at my masi's. was playing with my cousin's notepad pc, which has this great drawing interface. attached is one of the resulting sketches. this was originally a photograph i shot while in india a few months ago. from this pc software, i am able to import an image, and then draw on top of it. i thought the sketch came out well, but felt a little odd about the process. i ran across this article at clickwalla on souza. it mentioned his obsession w/ a camera obscura, which apparently allowed him to project images onto his canvases from where he could paint. i recall being a kid and getting this little light desk thing that let me put a picture in it, and a piece of paper, and i could trace over the image. i was fascinated. like most kids around 11 years of age, reproducing realism was my artist ideal. much later in my art years, i can safely say its not a big deal to sketch things, but often it is a pain blowing up an image from a photo onto canvas to form a starting point for a painting. i can see why souza wanted to skip the effort, and get on w/ the more exciting aspects of his paintings. ameen and i started chatting about this last night - bottom line, is it sleezy in some way to follow such a process? i would think this argument would be considered settled by marcelles du champ's toilet hanging show many years ago. certainly the art world claims it is, nonetheless, i think deep down, even the most ardent "art is what the artist says it is" mantra chanters, have a problem with it. it took ameen 20 minutes and some pondering to finally conclude, yeah, its fine, so long as the artist doesn't hide the process in any way. i, however, think its fine, but am still feeling unsettled. why am i unsettled? if someone can hang a urinal up and call it art -- if legions can shoot photos and call it art -- if legions can accept both as art, why is it such a big deal for me to shoot one's own photo, project it, and jump start the composition process? oddly, it doesn't even bother me to now know one of my favorite painters followed such a process.

A Day in the Life of Mateo

My friend, whos adopted name is now apparently 'mateo', is having a hoot down in mexico. Since my life is far less exciting these days, with his permission, I'm posting a recent email he sent me. this one is titled: Prepare yourself for verbal diarrhea!

Life continues in the land of the sun. At the moment I have a bit of a cold, I think I got a chill last night because it was suddenly cold and I had the fan right on me all night. Its wierd to have a cold in a super hot climate. However its very mild and the old digestive system is running like a champ.

Not much new to report. Today was an excellent day, I got up at around 9 and went over to my friend Jerry's house around the corner to see if he could help me fix my moto, which hasn't been running since I got here. Instead he had to install a window at another friends house, an odd job he was doing, so we went over there instead. There we bumped into my friend Alexis who had dropped by to pick up some tiles for his house that Tony had bought for him, so I offered to help load them into my truck and carry them up to his house. Then Tony shows up and we hang out a bit and talk about his indian neem tree in the back yard and he shows me a plot of land next to his with a great view of the beach for 8000 dollars. We discuss possibilities. I read the introduction to "Rebel Sell" which I find very interesting, the premise is that the dominant counter-culture paradigm today is the "Matrix" like concept that we are all being manipulated by "the establishment", and the accepted leftie way to fight it is, like Nemo in the Matrix film, to refuse to accept the established world as is and pursue personal pleasure, since the ultimate act of rebellion in a media orchestrated world is to identify and pursue goals that you yourself want rather than the goals society sells you, (the book suggests that this paradigm is flawed and efforts to subvert the establishment simple serve to strengthen it) I borrow the book, we go visit Alexis's observatory he is building out of cob with a homemade thatched rotating doom roof for the telescope, we take some grass cuttings to plant at Jerry's house, there is a nice variety of grass Alexis is growing that is very strong and requires little water, then I drop back by Jerrys house, he invites me in for some leftover minestrone (Jerry is an italian who is opening a restaurant here in 4 months), I have a chance to flirt a bit with Ciara the sexy italian who is camping on Jerry's land, we eat the minestrone, a little bread, buon apetito, saver the local plant life, have some coffee, plan to go camping in the desert with the witch doctors over Semana Santa which is Easter, plan also to go to the big waterfall by Huatulco to go swimming next week, I ask Jerry for the email of a mexican friend who went back to DF, he looks for a while in a big pile of little scraps of paper and finds lots of things he forgot about but not my friends number, I remember I was supposed to help Coenraad and James build a cob pizza oven down in Arroyo 3 for the community center but am glad I forgot becuase the work site is in full sun and its nicer to just sit at jerrys house, outside under the shade roof he built, and look at the beach stretching down below only 200 meters away. So much here is homemade, if you want something like furniture you make it yourself or you get a friend to make you something. It occurs to me that during the whole day I never had the slightest idea where I would be or what I would be doing 30 minutes ahead, and that this might just be the best definition of freedom that I could come up with. Then I went back to my house for a liittle nap, afterwards I talk to the mexicans staying in the room next door, they tell me they come from a town in the mountains where mineral water comes out of the tap. I tell them they should post a big Welcome to -- sign outside their village announcing that the place is so great they even shit in mineral water, they think that is so funny they about fall out of their chairs laughing. My spanish is really coming along, you can measure it in terms of comic timing. Then Christopher and I go play soccer with the local team, 5 on 5, lots of fun, after sunset I come home shower and get sucked into a stream of consciousness email that is interruped by Karrie and James who stop by before walking down the beach to try Guille's fruiti di mare pasta at the last palapa hut on the beach. I read out the first half of my email and Karrie gives me her email address and asks me to send it to her as well. We agree to meet at the local watering hole in an hour for a drink. That's convenient because Luigi is bound to be there after his two day trip to the mountains for a little fresh air, and we have to talk about the company we have decided to start together. Mexican law requires that a company have at least 2 founders. He wants to build small scall water collection and maintenance systems here to sell to locals to improve local water usage and quality, which fits in well with my ideas. However Coenraad has suggested an idea I might have to coopt, which is to open a cafe that rents guitars to travellers on an hourly, daily, or weekly basis, and provides 15 minute starter lessons for anyone who wants to learn a few chords while they are hanging out on the beach, and in the afternoons you host a bob marley jam session for anyone who wants to play extremely simple songs and feel like a rock star. I think its a pretty good idea.

Thats pretty much what my days are like around here, when I'm not building cob or looking for land. I thought I found something pretty good but my latest feeling is that I could probably hold off and wait for a really good deal and keep my money for future projects... There are lots of deals to be had and I am reallly not in a hurry...

Hope you are well! By the way, I met a really great artist here who runs a restaurant, quite gourmet, probably the best restaurant in town, from Mexico City DF, you'd like his place. Ameen, your pictures look great on my wall by the way.

Ciao! Hope you are riding some snow once in a while for me. I'm currently listening to Sowehto's Where its At by Charlie Hunter, you know the song? Its so good, my latest favorite, not counting Come up to my Room by Princess Superstar which my dad would dismiss as "lower chakra stuff". You should play it at work once in a while. By the way I'm being turned on to lots of good music here. When I come back for a visit I'll have another hard disk full of stuff I think.

Matt (currently Mateo)

europe vs. radical islam

politics: i stumbled across this interesting book review in slate called Europe vs. Radical Islam - Alarmist Americans have mostly bad advice for Europeans by Francis Fukuyama. here is a snippet:

... the deeper source of Europe's failure to integrate Muslim immigrants, as Bawer recognizes, is not trendy multiculturalist ideas embraced by the left, but precisely Buchanan's blood-and-soil understanding of identity—a mind-set that until five years ago prevented a German-speaking third-generation Turk from acquiring citizenship because he didn't have a German mother. According to Bawer, "Europeans … will allow immigrants into their country; they'll pay high taxes so that their government can dole out (forever, if necessary) rent support, child benefits. … But they won't really think of them as being Norwegian or Dutch. And they'll rebel mightily against the idea of immigrants living among them as respected, fully equal professionals." American identity, by contrast, has from the beginning been more creedal and political than based on religion or ethnicity. Newly naturalized Guatemalans or Koreans in America can proudly say they are Americans. Pat Buchanan may not like it, but that is precisely what rescues us from the trap the Europeans are in.

you can read the full review HERE.

nostalgia realized

life: for much of my childhood summers, i'd toss wood in and out of pickup trucks, haul it around in a wheel barrow, chop it up w/ an axe, and stack it till my arms were sore. in the winter i'd come home from a long day skiing at the mountain, stoke up the fire, and hang my wet gear up to dry before the next day of mountain fun. i'd laze hours away half asleep by the fire, occassionally waking to finish some homework, or just poke the fire around. of course none of this mattered to me at the time - mostly the chopping and hauling were simply a pain. well i've spent the majority of the past 15 years since i left home woodstove-less, with the exception of some time spent at camp cody in bellingham, and for some odd reason, have longed to get my own stove. so, today was just a thrill. we installed a classic norwegian jøtul stove into the studio. after futsing the past couple months in repeated failed attempts to get our fancy pants radiant floor heat system to work, it was lovely harnessing simple medieval technology -- throw wood in, light match, enjoy heat. well now winters in the northwest can once again feel fine - douglas firs swaying under heavy wind, endless dark, rainy nights, and now, the cozy fire to make it all right.

closer

movie review: just saw mike nichol's film "closer." well, it was moderately entertaining. i really have a hard time liking films where i fundamentally don't like any of the characters. all of these people were quite annoying. julia roberts plays this depressive photographer that only shoots "sad" people; she casually almost-leaves her men repeatedly. then there are these 2 brit guys that are significantly annoying in there own way. one is a sort of whining literary adulterer type - the other a raunch obssessed dermatologist adulterer type. the only mildly redeeming character is played by natalie portman - who is this needy stripper girl, who eventually finds her own way, i guess. also, there were some bizarre chronology jumping going on. despite all this, it was shot well, the characters were reasonably well developed, fairly artsy and while julia roberts is in it, it has nothing to do w/ typical hollywood, which for me, is good. i give it 2 1/2 stars.

civil war in iraq

since the day bush decided to invade iraq, i have been saying this will in all likelyhood result in 25 years of civil war, a war i believe will make lebanon's 25 years of strife seem relatively pastoral. i believe yesterdays bombing of Askariya, shiite islam's holiest shrine, is the turning point. i think the past year's activities have already proven iraq was in a civil war, but now it is undeniable to even the most ardent optimist. to the secular, it's difficult to illustrate just how terrible a crime this is. for believer's it is simple, and the emotional response can be sadly uncontrollable. with each passing hour, iraq is spinning toward a state from which it cannot return. already the revenge attacks have begun. many sunni mosques have been destroyed in retaliation. sunni imams have been killed assassination style. soon the sunni's will begin their revenge attacks for these revenge attacks. despite the near unanimous pleas of all leaders: secular, religious, iraqi, and non-iraqi, the cycle of revenge has begun. i think of the utter devastation caused in india driven by sectarian violence during partition, and my heart saddens. i can no longer see a reasonable outcome in iraq for many years to come.

rumbles in rumble valley

life: i had a truly epic day at the mountain sunday. went up to camp cody on saturday night. spent the evening cozzying up to the woodstove with some good friends, wine, and laughter. then timothy, daniel and i went up to mt baker for a just stunning day. waist high powder all over the mountain. first tracks most of the day. its tough to pick the best run. dropping gun tower back into rumble valley was just delicious -- uncut, 27-degree-utterly-abnormal-for-the-cascades-light powder. first run out on the elbow was a hoot as well. for lunch we did a little relaxing out in the sun w/ a nice large sapporo and some tasty sweet potato fries. here are some nice pictures from the day on baker's site. all in all, a once in a few years day like this makes me, for atleast a few moments, want to return to the days where snowboarding was all i thought about.