On Lasantha Wickramatunga

This is a remarkable letter, published posthumously after the killing in broad daylight of Sri Lankan journalist Lasantha Wickramatunga. He had written this statement, entitled "And then they came for me" to be published only in case he was assassinated, and as is often the case in Sri Lanka, his words proved sadly prescient. The SL government has its hands dirty as it allowed and fostered such vitriol against a journalist who exposed corruption and nepotism as well as highlighted the human cost of military 'solutions' to terrorism.

Important questions all, which have been made outside the purview of 'acceptable' public debate because that would be 'unpatriotic' and aiding and abetting the enemy. Sound familiar?

Really, the entire letter is worth reading- for its balance, courage (especially in the section where he calls out Mahinda Rajapaksa even while reflecting on their friendship) and the sheer dramatic quality of it all. I'll highlight two sections that I liked because I like that Wickramatunga also places the onus of political participation and courage on civilians:

The free media serve as a mirror in which the public can see itself sans mascara and styling gel. From us you learn the state of your nation, and especially its management by the people you elected to give your children a better future. Sometimes the image you see in that mirror is not a pleasant one. But while you may grumble in the privacy of your armchair, the journalists who hold the mirror up to you do so publicly and at great risk to themselves. That is our calling, and we do not shirk it.

If you remember nothing else, remember this: The Leader is there for you, be you Sinhalese, Tamil, Muslim, low-caste, homosexual, dissident or disabled. Its staff will fight on, unbowed and unafraid, with the courage to which you have become accustomed. Do not take that commitment for granted. Let there be no doubt that whatever sacrifices we journalists make, they are not made for our own glory or enrichment: they are made for you. Whether you deserve their sacrifice is another matter. As for me, God knows I tried.

So while at a macro-level, Wickramatunga's death reminds us of the need to defend journalistic freedom and free speech and spotlights the government of Sri Lanka for its increasingly undemocratic actions; at a micro-level, it reminds us of our duty as civilians to be citizens. It also targets our complacency and cynicism about such vital questions as what living in secular liberal democracy means and the institutions on which that rests. What is our role as citizens? How can we uphold these values? In the outrage against the impunity that the SL government seems to give itself that has followed this killing, we have another opportunity to reflect on these questions. So, what can I take away from this? Well, the first thing that come to my mind was to be more critical and open to criticism about things and issues that I take for granted, care about and defend. Indeed, whenever I flinch internally when colleagues or students take what I think are uncomfortable, even radical stances on politics or issues, I will try to keep in mind the value of having such spaces and the importance of dissenting voices. And I will resist the urge to instinctively label those I disagree with as 'radical', 'ignorant' etc. Though sometimes the shoe just fits!

On another level, the story makes me sad as so much of the news coming out of Lanka does. I love Sri Lanka, have many Sri Lankan friends and count my time there as amongst the happiest in my life. I am always saddened by the violence that devastates this lovely country. Here's hoping that peace will return to Sri Lanka during my lifetime.

On Samuel Huntington (1927- 2008)

In my world there is no figure that people love to hate more than Samuel Huntington, who passed away earlier this week. Much of this is targeted at Huntington's last few works, most notably 'The Clash of Civilizations' and 'Who are We'. The common charges are that Huntington is a (perhaps 'the') neo-conservative, is a shoddy academic because he makes grand, sweeping arguments without the requisite research, that he is anti-Islam and anti-multi-ethnic societies and has that agenda for US foreign policy, that he is arrogant etc.

What this translates into in classes is an all too easy dismissal of Huntington even before one has the chance to talk about the work at hand. A snigger here, a snarky comment there and we're done with our 'discussion'. I have rarely seen a group of otherwise argumentative and opinionated people fall into such complete agreement than when it's time to bash Huntington. I predict that in the weeks after we all come back to school, there will be much of the same reaction.

While there are some substantial reasons for some of this derision, the quality of it has always troubled me. At the very real risk of alienating or annoying professors and peers, I and a few of my peers have tried to address this in class only to be met by a unified response of incredulity and half-joking accusations at being secretly conservative! And I don't even really agree with the man on his core hypotheses.

Don't get me wrong- Huntington was too influential, powerful and successful to need defending. His work was at its best powerful and insightful and at all times enormously provocative and designed to spark debate and dissent, which by all accounts he enjoyed. Secondly, I agree that some of the arguments about the flaws in his research are valid and his conclusions, while provocative, can be troubling for those who see themselves as fundamentally liberal. So this is not a blanket statement to rescue a scholar who needs no rescuing. Instead this post is to make two observations on Huntington's legacy:

First, I think (and this is not very social-sciency of me) that Huntington's role as a public intellectual far supersedes his role as an academic political scientist or a social scientist. To those of my interlocutors who point to the flaws in his 'research design' or 'case selection' and bemoan the lack of theoretical or literature review, I can only say that that was not Huntington's aim in his later work. His early work has all of that and those are still powerful and important works in political science. But the later work, for which he is most often criticized, was all about larger ideas. Surely we can agree as constructivists that there is a core place for and a power of large ideas in the world?The charge that Huntington cannot account for Case A or Case B ignores that he is often pointing his finger at, in a prescient way, large, complex and abstract forces and phenomena in society. The role of holding up those larger patterns, and even shaping the contours of the debate on huge issues such as identity, religion and violence or immigration is a pivotal one. And it is different from the important work of 'normal science', to twist that term.

Secondly, many criticize Huntington's influence on guiding the shaping of contemporary U.S. foreign policy, specially in the post 9/11 period. The argument is that Huntington's 'Clash of Civilizations' idea predisposed a certain (misguided) interpretation of those events and strengthened the idea that this was a religious struggle rather than one over concrete political conflicts. This is a huge and un-resolvable debate in many ways and I'm not sure that we can easily separate the domain of the religious from the political in any of the conflicts Huntington was talking about; but at a very minimum shouldn't his influence on U.S.policy mean that we should engage with his ideas in a much deeper sense? How can dismissing Huntington out of hand help us truly understand the making of U.S. (or indeed other) foreign policy? Huntington's passing alerts us to the enduring problem of the harmful mutual disengagement of scholars of international relations with practitioners of foreign policy. Both see the other as misguided and out of sync with reality and because each side thus has their pet intellectuals, the bridge is harder to divide.

Thirdly, and related to the points above, to truly understand the workings and deeper sociological roots of foreign policy anywhere requires us to give up the rote conventions of academia, to be wary of political correctness and to take more seriously the arguments of those we disagree with. We owe it to ourselves as members of academia as Kanti Bajpai reminds us in a fairly devastating piece he wrote on the Clash of Civilizations in 1998. To 'pirouette dismissively' from Huntington, Bajpai says, is lazy.

Thus, I, like many others, have my differences with Huntington but I respect his contributions to our discipline, will engage with his many insights and admire his always provocative, always challenging mind.

And, in true Huntingtonian spirit, I relish any and all arguments that this post might provoke!

ETA: Here's the NYT obit
on him

Arundhati Roy and the voices...redux

Read here an excellent rebuttal of Arundhati Roy's '9 is not 11' piece that I wrote about earlier. There have been other forceful denunciations of her writing about 11/26, by Salman Rushdie amongst others with good arguments made about Roy's willful disregard for geo-strategic realities etc. but this piece deserves its own post.

Abhinav Kumar, a serving IPS officer has written an open letter to Roy that brings into sharp relief for me many things that Roy's piece (and her other writing in general) lacks- balance, a willingness to think one's arguments through to their logical end, a avoidance of moral relativism and a sense of the bigger picture. And he writes pretty well too.

Kumar beings by acknowledging Roy's role as a voice that prickles our collective conscience, which I think is more generous that he needs to be but that's where the familiar sense of ambivalence ends. I think he nicely and much more succintly devastates Roy.

Kumar echoes one of my previous commentators (Jai) in the thought that Roy appears to be more interested in her own brand as the Indian voice of dissent than in formulating a genuine and original response to each issue that she wants to talk about. Thus, she has an Arundhati Roy agenda with its well establishes and predictable talking points (this is me, not Kumar). For Kumar, this means that Roy ignores the moral responsibility of a public intellectual. And he directs most of his essay at Roy's callous disregard for the human loss of the Bombay attacks and her petty at best tirade against the security forces. These parts struck a particularly sour note in her piece.

His comments on the stupidity of comparing Hindutva to radical Islam are more controversial and will not please everyone but on balance, I think he's right if you have a sense of perspective and are not excessively politically-correct.

If you're at all interested in this, you should really read the whole essay but I'll leave you with two points that impressed me particularly:

You seem to passionately believe in and defend the 'right' of the Kashmiris to ethnic, cultural, religious and geographical exclusivism. If this is correct than why should we vilify Raj Thackeray or any other chauvinist who seeks to preserve the purity (however defined) of his people (however defined) from outsiders (also however defined)?...I do hope you have taken the trouble to examine the fundamental assumptions underlying all such movements based on an assertion of a cultural identity. The creation of a hated outsider, in the case of Kashmir, the Indian; in the case of Raj Thackeray, the bhaiya of UP and Bihar; and in the case of the jihadists, anyone and everyone who does not subscribe to their virulent strain of Islam, including Muslims, is common to all these ideologies but you seem to pick and choose the bigotries you will demonize and the bigotries you will defend. Is it possible to freeze identity to a moment in time and on the basis of this demand recognition, retribution and rights for all time to come?

I wonder what Roy would say to that. Actually, I have a good idea of what she would say but indeed her defense would be hollow.

and this..

The liberties you have exercised in the past and continue to do today, however gratuitously and offensively, do not exist in a vacuum. I am not sure if any of these liberties would have a place in a Naxalite Utopia or a Jihadi Caliphate or even in a self-determined Kashmiri paradise that you eloquently espoused... In any case, the liberties that you have recently taken with the sensibilities of proud Indians too exist in a cultural, political and constitutional context, a context that is ultimately safeguarded by men such as Hemant Karkare and Major Unnikrishnan with disregard for their own life.

My anti-Arundhati voice to my pro-Arundhati voice: Take that!

Arundhati Roy and the voices in my head

It's hard to be neutral about Arundhati Roy.

I loved (in an unqualified way) 'The God of Small Things' (GOST). I was just out of high school when the book came out, to tremendous hype and I was determined to find it over-rated. Instead, the book blew me away - at this point it's almost a cliche to say how inventive the language is but I'll just say that it captured smells, sounds and textures in a way I have rarely seen since, though there are many bad imitations. The plot is beautifully paced, the narrative device felt utterly genuine and organic. I still feel tension and sadness as the book reaches its climax...and I still marvel at her small insights - this particular feeling of unease that I have always associated with her image of the fluttering moth in your chest since the book.

I don't think Roy could have topped GOST and so in a sense I'm glad she hasn't written more fiction.

Since GOST, Roy has become passionately committed to many causes, general and specific- the enviornment and anti-dam movement in India, taking on the neo-liberal order, anti-Indian nuclear tests, anti-Iraq war and American imperealism. Most of this is done via writing in a series of articles that have found wide circulation internationally, many of which are first found in Outlook India.

While I loved GOST, the articles - not so much. But still, I can't be ambivalent about them....

This is the internal dialogue I wrestle with when thinking about Arundhati Roy:

Pro-Arundhati voice: She really can write well- she just has a way with words.

Anti-Arundhati voice: 1. What's the point of writing well, if you're just ranting and raving. She has no sense of proportion or balance. Everything is really, really black and white for her. 2. So much of it is her marketability and persona- I get really annoyed by academics in the west who think she is the real voice of the 'Indian masses'. 3. Plus Ramachandra Guha says she's unoriginal and frequently gets things wrong (in much better words than I can muster) and I am inclined to trust his opinion.

Pro-Arundhati voice: But are you saying that because 1. she says some really uncomfortable, unflaterring things about India and 2. exposes deep rooted facets about your own privileged existence. At the end of the day, isn't she speaking truth to power? Isn't your vehemence born out of your own discomfort at being confronted by the ugly truths about the parts of of the neo-liberal world order that benefit you?

Anti-Arundhati Roy: Yes, she does make me uncomfortable for those reasons. In fact, I don't disagree with much of her agenda and where she's coming from. I want to be on her side but she's just annoyingly simplistic, quick to take umbrage and just a little smug. Not to mention a little rabid. She could make her argument so much more credibly and intelligently if she was just more balanced, nuanced and open to alternative perspectives. Also, she's intellectually lazy- by making the 'they're fascists/like Hitler' argument for anyone she doesn't agree with.

Pro-Arundhati: Why should she give more space and credence to already powerful players and voices? She has courage and she backs up her words with her deeds. You need voices like hers in the forums she has access to. We are kept honest by someone with her ability with language and her visibility to press our conscience and to give voice to people ...

Anti-Arundhati: I'll give her the courage part- but really, she is supported and lionized by the same systems and people she criticizes. I would just like to see her acknowledge that just once. I'd be more willing to listen to her if she would be willing to have a dialogue with people she disagrees with. You can't have a dialogue with Arundhati- she's an ideologue in the same way as G.W. and she is so convinced by her own stance that she is unwilling to question her own mistakes

And so it goes on....

Mostly, as I've read her work over the years (increasingly more incoherent and badly edited), the anti-Arundhati side of me has prevailed over the pro-Arundhati side...

So, after reading her latest article in Outlook entitled '9 is not 11', the debate has restarted and surprise...the pro-Arundhati voice is winning.

Yes, it needs an editing job and it lapses into her usual rant against America and also a somewhat inappropriate but understandable tirade against neo-liberalism when discussing (rightly) the excessive coverage of the Taj versus other, less glamorous targets. It's also way too rambly. But she does make some good points and in the language and style that she does like no one else.

Some interesting lines/points:
1. First, can we just agree that the '9 is not 11' title is vintage Roy- clever, simple, stark. On this desire to brand 11/26 'India's 9/11' she writes:

"We've forfeited the rights to our own tragedies. But November isn't September, 2008 isn't 2001, Pakistan isn't Afghanistan, and India isn't America. So perhaps we should reclaim our tragedy and pick through the debris with our own brains and our own broken hearts so that we can arrive at our own conclusions."

I agree. Calling 26/11 out 9/11 is easy and understandable but dangerous. Yes, the Bombay attacks were on an unprecedented scale symbolically but they were not a bolt from the blue in the same sense. It should not undermine the unacceptability of the series of attacks India has suffered. More importantly, we should be wary of equating responses to 11/26 with that of 9/11. The domestic and strategic context is different, India's identity is distinct and different and so we need to recognize and work with those differences.

2. A provocative but useful discussion on the politics of calling Muslim versus Hindu groups terrorists. This is a debate that is very much alive in India and she raises the important question - does discussing the context or root causes of terrorism amount to excusing it (Side A) or is it necessary to understand the deeper bases of violence (side B). She chooses side B. I've always struggled between Side A and Side B. I don't buy her reasoning getting to that point. or her simplistic and predictable linking of the Bombay attacks solely to domestic politics (though that no doubt fuels movements in Pakistan) but....she goes there and she juxtaposes the ugly side of 'context' with all that is 'magnificent' about the idea of the India. It is uncomfortable, perhaps too early to talk about but I think it is only by asking ourselves the questions about our own 'context' instead of just pointing the finger at Pakistan that we truly live up to all that we pride in ourselves as a secular, inclusive democracy.

Again, instead of constructing barriers to asking tough questions about our own legacy and place in the world, as happened in the US after 9/11, we would do well to have a discourse about these questions. Certainly in the non-inflammatory and less sensitive arenas that public intellectuals occupy.

3. Most of all I like the end:

The only way to contain – it would be naive to say end – terrorism is to look at the monster in the mirror. We're standing at a fork in the road. One sign says "Justice," the other "Civil War." There's no third sign and there's no going back. Choose.

Amen Sister. The choice is pretty clear to me.

Soon, no doubt you will write some crazy 50 page essay comparing Bill Gates to Pol Pot. And I'll feel vindicated in my irritation with you. But tonight, Arundhati, I'll give you half a thumbs up.

Muddy Waters: Starbucks Water Waste

Thanks to a friend for pointing me to this shocking news about Starbucks and their waste of water. According to reports from various countries, Starbucks has a standard policy of leaving a cold water tap on the entire day for reasons that I find wholly unconvincing- something about keeping taps clean and washing spoons.

According to the article, Starbucks lets 23 million litres of water literally go down the drain every day. 23 million litres. That is just mind boggling. There are all sorts of statistics in the articles about how many people that water would save but the number alone- 23 million litres - should leave us shaken.

Starbucks denial of their waste is strange- they don't deny that they do have this absurd policy, they just try to justify it. This lends itself to various 'wake up and smell the coffee' jokes but really, the argument is just ridiculous.

I'm not buying it - not the argument and from now on, not the coffee...
To quote my favorite politician of the moment "Thanks, but no thanks."

Do Norms Matter part 2: the N deal

Congress approved the US's nuclear deal with India today. Under the agreement, India will be able get material and technical support for its civilian nuclear program and in return will open up 14 of its nuclear sites to inspections.

This move is note worthy for several reasons:

First, it is a rare victory for the Bush administration's foreign policy, and particularly in a very bad week for the administration. I mean congress actually passed something Bush wanted- weird. Relations with India have been one of very few foreign policy successes of the Bush administration in general so we should take note of this moment.

Second, if you believe the hyperbole, this is a 'tectonic' moment in not only Indo-US relations but also in the development of the nuclear non-proliferation regime itself. Making an exception of India signals many things - it validates the idea that liberal democracies stick together (a variant on the 'democratic peace' thesis), it opens up the pressing question of demonstration effects on other undeclared nuclear states and it recognizes that there is a range of behaviors within the category of nuclear non-proliferation norm violators, eroding the salience and the legitimacy of the non-proliferation regime itself. The deal jolts the shaky foundations of the nuclear non-proliferation regime, while still showing that states want to abide by it. Third, despite the easy passage of the bill, there is much disagreement on the impact and moral salience of the bill. We are not done with this at all.

So, does this mean that nuclear non-proliferation norms have comprehensively failed? Sure looks like it- the US is actually rewarding 'bad' behavior like testing nuclear weapons, right? Not if you read Karthika Sasikumar's fascinating work on India and the non-proliferation order. According to Sasikumar, the 'norms worked' by forcing India to act in regime compliant ways, even as an outsider to the regime. By this interpretation, India should be seen as an exception that proves the efficacy of a set of still stringent rules. It will not be easy for other states to make the same case that India did and thus the standards of acceptable nuclear behavior remain high.

Of course, the counter-argument is the one that will get the most coverage in the next few weeks. This is the argument that the deal sets a dangerous precedent and will encourage other states, including 'rogue' states to also openly violate non-proliferation norms. Rebutting such behavior will be hard to justify, given the preferential treatment given to India.

My take on this: This is a toughie. On the one hand, I agree that India is a special case, given its record which stands out against the behavior of the usual suspects (A Q Khan anyone?). I also understand the benefits that the deal brings in both material and symbolic terms- not the least of which is the promise it holds for India's rapidly growing energy needs. Thirdly, the deal exposes the sham that the structure of the nuclear regime was which was built on the discriminatory premise of freezing into place the power hierarchies of the post second world war period. Out of the weakening architecture of the non-proliferation regime, comes an opportunity to rethink what non-proliferation means in todays day and age.

What I'm concerned about is the reaction from two quarters- the jingosm that I predict in India and the reaction of other undeclared states. I fear that the deal will dilute the already waning nuclear non-proliferation order.

Let me explain. No doubt there will be a lot of celebration in certain quarters in India - validating the enormous expense of developing nuclear weapons programs and the risk that comes with testing nuclear weapons with Pakistan as a neighbor. There are few things I find as disagreeable as Indian jingoism and we will see a lot of it in the days to come, specially from those that will tout India's growing relations with the US as validation of India's arrival as a great power.

Apart from the crude spectacle of excessive nationalism, we should be wary of such self-congratulation for other reasons. Even while acknowledging that India's nuclear record has been exemplary in terms of responsibility in upholding non-proliferation norms, we should worry about the resentment this will breed in the subcontinent. More importantly for me, the deal signals India's growing embrace of 'real politik'. India's great strength in the nuclear non-proliferation order was not its material capability but its ethical argument about the in built discrimination or 'apartheid' of the regime. We should not lose this moral ground by touting our 'power'.

Moving beyond India, the precedent this sets for other undeclared nuclear powers is troubling. Not because the US will be compelled to similarly reward other states (which it won't) but because this decision will erode the 'nuclear taboo' that has held strong for 50 years, despite the flaws of the non-proliferation regime. We should be alert to the demonstration effects the deal will have on other regimes and the arguments that will become 'thinkable'.

To put it mildly, the process of negotiating the deal has been turbulent - it nearly brought the current coalition government down in India when the CPIM bailed out in protest. It has been furiously opposed by left liberals in India and by Democrats in the U.S. This passage is probably not the end of the story - but it is a landmark day in the ongoing saga. It's too early to predict the long-term effects of the deal but that won't stop all of the talking heads ( including me!)

Bottom line: I don't know yet.

Edited 10/02/08 to add: According to the BBC, already Pakistan is arguing that Washington needs to extend a similar deal to Islamabad. Now this is just a bit rich. I'm no Pakistan basher (making fun of lecherous Presidents does not count) but with its rather dodgy chain of command, history of proliferation and you know, just that little matter of A Q Khan, I think this smells of a little boguosity...but, it just underlines the point about precedents set.

Do Norms Matter?

IR bloggers are taking an interest in the ongoing saga of the Somali pirates who have hijacked a Ukranian ship and are demanding millions of dollars (20 at last count) in return. The pirates (I can't get over how old-school the whole concept of pirates seems- blame Johnny Depp) gave an interview to the NYT.

In it they employ some arguments that should be of interest to all of us who argue that discourse is a good gauge of the salience of particular international norms. For instance,

We don’t consider ourselves sea bandits,” he said. “We consider sea bandits those who illegally fish in our seas and dump waste in our seas and carry weapons in our seas. We are simply patrolling our seas. Think of us like a coast guard.”

The Somali pirates are using arguments that appeal to our sense of justice in several ways - comparing themselves to legitimate law enforcers such as the coast guard and behaviors such as 'patrolling', appealing to our environmental concerns, and contesting language that is pejorative.

Yet, they are holding the Ukranian ship and its crew hostage and are demanding a ransom that is incommuserate with their stated reasons for wanting money.

“Killing is not in our plans,” he said. “We only want money so we can protect ourselves from hunger.”

When asked why the pirates needed $20 million to protect themselves from hunger, Mr. Sugule laughed and said, “Because we have a lot of men.”

So this begs the question, what use is it to know that actors acknowledge or (instrumentally) appeal to international norms? In the blogs I've read, the consensus seems to be that this is a case of insincere rhetoric, because it is belied by the actions of the pirates.

How, then, should we interpret the desire of the pirates to be seen as legitimate human beings? Should this guide the way the situation is handled? For instance, if the pirates said that they wanted the money to buy rum, eye patches and sail the high seas- would the ship have been stormed by now? If the pirates subscribed to a set of norms that were even less palatable, how would it effect responses?

These are the difficulties in thinking about how norms work in real life. It's a much bandied about term but it leaves us with little substance with which to think about how to formulate policy in crises.

I'm trying to grapple with these questions in my own work, so no real answers...just thinking aloud.

China and the Olympics

Inspired by this site, I'm going to try to make sense of my jumbled up thoughts about the Olympics in China. 

On the one hand, I bristle at the jingosim of the U.S. media when it comes to describing the Olympics and the Chinese handling of it. Story after story has focused on the scandals, the lack of democracy, the curbing of individual rights at every point etc. From the two old ladies being sent to labor camp for protesting the treatment of Chinese citizens to the enormous pressure placed on Chinese hurdler Liu Xiang and the way that slums and low income areas were hidden overnight in walls. On the other hand, all of this stuff should raise our hackles. Why should we excuse such behavior, just because this is a developing country. That's an Ayoobian argument that I find difficult to buy. 

Case in point for me was the story about the lip-syncing switch with the two little girls.  Yes, it was callous to have switched the girl with the voice with the girl with the angelic face. Yes, it was another indicator of the Chinese obsession with national image. But as my friend pointed out, do we really think it would have been any different in the US? I thought about it and I agree that it is not like the US is any more altruistic than China but I do think on balance, that such a switcheroo would not have taken place. Why? Not because of any more moral reason, though that is debateable too, but because such a thing would simply fire up too much of a media fire storm in the US. The media would have been all over it, the kids would have been hounded, the olympic committee would have been crucified by Tyra and Oprah and all the rest of them. They just could not have gotten away with it. 

And that's, on balance, a good thing. 

At the risk of often being over played and over-hyped, it is a good thing for governments, people in power etc. to not be able to ride roughshod over people with impunity, to not be able to get away with abuses of power without protest and shaming. Power will often prevail but our greatest triumphs as a global citizenry have come when we speak truth to it, to use a cliche. 

What is disturbing to me is the implicit agenda behind the sustained coverage of the Olympics in the U.S. where the media seems to delight in exposing such stories, all the while marveling in a distinctly envious tone about the spectacle and efficiency of the opening ceremony and the prowess of Chinese athletes. At each turn praise has been accompanied by qualifiers...

 Yes, China leads the gold medal tally but you know they send athletes away as little kids contrasting with Shawn Johnson who got to go to prom in a sparkly yellow dress. Yes, the opening ceremony was amazing, but they handpicked only the best looking people. Yes, the architecture in Beijing is stunningly innovative but ordinary citizens do not have a voice in this development. 

All true, no doubt, but amplified by decidedly mixed intentions. 

It's been a tough one- these Olympics. As a fellow third-world citizen, I sympathize with those who feel that singling out China smacks of jingoism and first world condescension coupled with just a tinge of panic. But as a citizen of the world with some basic respect for human rights and fairness, I cannot help but agree that these very episodes need to be highlighted, for things to change even a bit. 

Tough indeed. 

New Yorker

everyone is agog with the new New Yorker cover page.

 Jokes about the New Yorker's cartoons are a cliche...remember the Seinfeld episode when Elaine writes a New Yorker cartoon that no one understands, because it actually has a punch line? (Seinfeld- that's a whole another post). The cartoons are funny but never obvious - there's a particular New Yorker sensibility to them. I've always been a fan but this cover has given me pause. As a friend of mine asked, ' was this really necessary?'

Not only is the cartoon really not very funny but what's more amusing is the New Yorker's convoluted explanation for it. Their belief that the cover will expose the stereotypes about the Obama's is a combination of being too clever for their own good and  being so far removed from the pulse of average American pop discourse and culture that you're left shaking your head. In today's 5 second sound byte (I'm sure it's down from 8 seconds by now), TMZ,  SMS spelling saturated enviornment, all the cover does immediately is reinforce stereotypes. Few people have the time to mull over the deep complexities and hidden meanings of the cover's purported message. Of course, those are also not the people who are likely to relax with the New Yorker but who knows? 

This will die down soon- the latest in the mini-scandalous news stories that political news seems to revolve around but you have to wonder- can Obama catch a break from the left? It's the 'liberal media' (going all O' Reilly on you now) that has really been the thorn in his side so far. With friends like these....you know how it goes.