Indian PM Manmohan Singh has been busy globetrotting this week.
On Monday he was in France, where he met with Jacques Chirac and discussed the transfer of civilian nuclear technology, and Singh and Chirac issued a joint statement. Singh missed out on meeting with the Indian expatriate community there, for lack of time apparently.
No word on whether the Hijab-turban ban was discussed.
In New York, Singh has met with American CEOs, George Bush, and Pervez Musharraf.
Singh has promised to bring down tariffs, to encourage Foreign Direct Investment in the sphere of infrastructure.
The Deccan Herald has reported that Bush was trying to pressure Singh to accept the U.S. line on Iran's nuclear program, but I find the whole premise of the article a bit shaky. Why would Bush care about India on this front, when it is not on the Security Council?
The dinner with Musharraf was probably the most important thing Singh has done this week. From Express India, it seems like the meeting went quite well, though beyond the predictable joint statement (not to "allow terrorism to impede the peace process"), I'm not sure what's really come out of it. Still, all these top-level meetings (three this year alone) have to be good signs for long-term India-Pakistan peace (assuming that 'Mush' stays in power, that is).
In this self-consciously tabloid account of the meeting from the Hindustan Times, there is the suspicion that something is being talked about that isn't getting made public yet. Meanwhile, the Times of India has a highly idiosyncratic account of the meeting as a "deadlock wrapped in a logjam." It is, as most Times of India articles tend to be, pure speculation, and anyway, unlikely: if these guys really can't work with each other, why meet every three months?
(Still, I'm waiting for the big announcement. Aren't you? Hm, maybe the TOI has a point.)
Finally, Manmohan Singh also spoke in support of the newly-created United Nations Democracy Fund, which is going to non-coercively help countries around the world build democratic institutions. Seems nice, though I must say this new fund smells a little like the Bush Administration's usual "democracy talk."
A busy week, isn't it? And I haven't even talked about everything else associated with the UN General Assembly, a huge, event of global significance that has (perhaps unsurprisingly) received little media coverage here in the U.S. this week. The big news at the UN seems to be the organization's failure to push through necessary reforms. Ouch.
Funny Professors
There's a piece in the Chronicle of Higher Ed about eccentric professors. From the first paragraph it seems like it's going to be a lot of fun:Ask anybody what adjective goes best with the word "professor," and the answer will almost certainly be "absent-minded," or possibly "nutty." Popular culture is full of addlebrained academics, whether they be villainous madmen like Professor Morbius in Forbidden Planet or Sherlock Holmes's archenemy Professor Moriarty; crazy cranks like Professor Emmett Brown in Back to the Future, or well-meaning but harebrained eccentrics like Professor Brainard in The Absent-Minded Professor, Professor Branestawm in Norman Hunter's children's television series, Professor Pat Pending in the Hanna Barbera cartoon Wacky Races, or Professor Dumbledore of Harry Potter fame.
She forgot Flubber, and the two Eddie Murphy Nutty Professor movies.
Unfortunately, the fun doesn't last. The article is really a kind of meditation on the status of mental illness in academia, with special attention to issues like Asperger's Syndrome and the prevalence of anti-social behaviors amongst academics.
It's well worth reading and discussing of course. But I wanted to focus on the fun part this morning: the stereotype of the nutty professor. I'm really bored with the old hollywood cliché of the earnest, bearded prof (i.e., Robin Williams in that unbearable piece of faux-Indie sap, Good Will Hunting). I think we professors really ought to market our comedic powers more aggressively. I've often wondered why, on sites like "Rate Your Professor," there is no question about whether the professor is funny. Funny is important! Humor is almost as good as knowing what you're talking about (in some cases, it can even be a helpful substitute).
Hollywood (and Bollywood) can help us win this fight. One of the best funny professors ever on TV was "The Professor," from Gilligan's Island. (Incidentally, I was shocked to discover just now from IMDB that Gilligan's Island was only on the air between 1964 and 1967. Watching this show as a kid in the 1970s-80s, I suppose I thought I was watching its original run.)
The Professor on Gilligan's Island is the endless comedic foil in the show -- its laughably tweedy heart and soul. And he's the source of such comedic gems as:
Professor Roy Hinkley: Well, that glue is permanent! There's nothing on the island to dissolve it. Why do you know what it would take? It would take a polyester derivative of an organic hydroxide molecule.
Thurston Howell III: Watch your language! You're in the presence of a lady!
Ouch. Ok, maybe not that funny after all. Still, I've often wondered if I should start wearing tweed sportscoats to class, just to weird my students out (and keep them awake). I might also start carrying an old-fashioned tobacco pipe (which will remain unlit of course).
What about funny female professors? I can't think of any from TV or the movies (I know plenty in real life). For that matter, there aren't even that many women-as-professor roles back there. One recent film that comes to mind is the rather steamy crime drama In The Cut, where Meg Ryan plays an English professor. Not a great film, and definitely not funny.
The diabolical Dr. No from the old James Bond movie of the same title, and Star Trek's Dr. Spock also play "professors" in their respective contexts, though they aren't necessarily intentionally comedic. Still, Star Trek often worked Spock for laughs (think of the friction between Spock and Scotty), and Dr. No is funny because it seems so campy and absurd now (one can only watch it through the lens of Austin Powers).
Bollywood has its own professors -- IMDB turns up old films like Khiladi or, even further back, Kora Kagaz. I admit I haven't seen either of them. More recently, perhaps, one thinks of the faculty of the medical school in Munnabhai M.B.B.S..
Can anyone think of other amusing "professor" characters, from either the Bollywood or Hollywood canons? (Or, if you must, from literature)
Mostly Literary Links (also headache science and desi melodrama)
It's fall, and the new books are ripe on the tree, ready for harvesting.
--Vikram Seth's new novel Two Lives is coming out soon, and there is a roundup of reviews at Kitabkhana. It looks like a big, sprawling "20th century" novel (though not as big as A Suitable Boy). A few plot details here:
--Laila Lalami (aka Moorish Girl) has a review of Abdulrazak Gurnah's Desertion in the Nation. I've had this book on the shelf for two months; now (ok not quite now, but soon) I'm actually going to read it. (Via The Reading Experience)
Oh, and the novel is set in colonial Africa, but it has a desi component, if that matters to you. Here is part of the plot, summarized by Lailami:
--After trouncing Rushdie's Shalimar last week, New York Times reviewer Michiko Kakutani praises Zadie Smith's new novel On Beauty with relish.
--Sunil Laxman is starting a series of short, crisp posts on science. The first installment is up, and it's quite interesting: mostly on genetics, but also a couple of interesting bits on smoking and the neuroscience of pain relief.
--It was only a matter of time before the Indian media eventually discovered a desi melodrama in the wreckage of Hurricane Katrina. A copy of the Sikh scriptures, the Guru Granth Sahib, was rescued from a submerged Gurdwara in East New Orleans.
--Vikram Seth's new novel Two Lives is coming out soon, and there is a roundup of reviews at Kitabkhana. It looks like a big, sprawling "20th century" novel (though not as big as A Suitable Boy). A few plot details here:
Two Lives begins with an autobiographical section, explaining how he came to know his uncle, Shanti, a small, one-armed Indian dentist living in Hendon, northwest London, and his aunt Henny Caro, a tall and elegant German-Jewish refugee. Seth lived with this improbable couple from 1969 when he came to study in England. He knew little of their lives until after Henny’s sudden death 20 years later.
In the hands of a lesser writer, the family story would have been little more than interesting. Seth, with his beautifully simple prose, creates a truly unforgettable double portrait. He zooms in on tiny details, then broadens his focus to include Nazi Germany, India and Israel, with all the great events of the 20th century
--Laila Lalami (aka Moorish Girl) has a review of Abdulrazak Gurnah's Desertion in the Nation. I've had this book on the shelf for two months; now (ok not quite now, but soon) I'm actually going to read it. (Via The Reading Experience)
Oh, and the novel is set in colonial Africa, but it has a desi component, if that matters to you. Here is part of the plot, summarized by Lailami:
Desertion opens in 1899, when Hassanali, a middle-aged shopkeeper of mixed Indian and African descent, leaves his house to open the local mosque for the dawn prayer and stumbles on a fallen European, a man so exhausted that he only manages to groan when asked to identify himself. The stranger turns out to be Martin Pearce, an Arabic-speaking British historian who took part in a hunting trip but found the slaughter of animals so unbearable that he left off with his Somali guides, who later abandoned him in the wilderness. He's thirsty, hungry and barely conscious when Hassanali takes him home to his wife and sister to care for him. Before Pearce is restored to full health, however, in comes a British government official, Frederick Turner, to whisk him away lest the natives do him any harm. Later, when Pearce finds out about the mistreatment of his native hosts, he goes back and apologizes, and it is then that he meets Hassanali's older sister, the formidable Rehana, with whom he falls in love.
--After trouncing Rushdie's Shalimar last week, New York Times reviewer Michiko Kakutani praises Zadie Smith's new novel On Beauty with relish.
--Sunil Laxman is starting a series of short, crisp posts on science. The first installment is up, and it's quite interesting: mostly on genetics, but also a couple of interesting bits on smoking and the neuroscience of pain relief.
--It was only a matter of time before the Indian media eventually discovered a desi melodrama in the wreckage of Hurricane Katrina. A copy of the Sikh scriptures, the Guru Granth Sahib, was rescued from a submerged Gurdwara in East New Orleans.
A Sikh Film Festival in Long Island
There's going to be a film festival at Hofstra University in a couple of weeks, on Sikh cinema, the Spinning Wheel Film Festival. Interesting -- I didn't know there was such a thing as Sikh cinema! Here are some of the films they're screening:
The last film on the list above, Khamosh Pani (Silent Water) is a recent partition film. Also, I'd heard tell of this religious/devotional film Sahibzadey, which is done entirely in CGI (computer animation). The rest of the titles are new to me, though I did know about T. Sher Singh, a widely respected journalist in Ontario (Guelph, to be exact).
There do appear to be some propagandistic films in the mix on the full program, but also some films that might appeal to a general audience (especially Kaya Taran and Khamosh Pani). It's also worth noting that the choice of films and filmmakers is secular (non-Sikhs have made several of the films), and pretty closely controlled (no cheesy Bollywood flicks).
Legend of Malerkotla: A Tale from the Punjab
Directed by Iqbal Malhotra
Sewa: From Paris to Tapovan (scroll down)
Reema Anand
Ranjit Singh
Directed by T.Sher Singh
Sahibzadey
Directed by Sukhwinder Singh
Kaya Taran
Directed by Shashi Kumar
Khamosh Pani
Directed by Sabiha Sumar
The last film on the list above, Khamosh Pani (Silent Water) is a recent partition film. Also, I'd heard tell of this religious/devotional film Sahibzadey, which is done entirely in CGI (computer animation). The rest of the titles are new to me, though I did know about T. Sher Singh, a widely respected journalist in Ontario (Guelph, to be exact).
There do appear to be some propagandistic films in the mix on the full program, but also some films that might appeal to a general audience (especially Kaya Taran and Khamosh Pani). It's also worth noting that the choice of films and filmmakers is secular (non-Sikhs have made several of the films), and pretty closely controlled (no cheesy Bollywood flicks).
Literary Magazines, Blogs, and the Value of Rumination
Both Henry Farrell at Crooked Timber and John Holbo at the Valve have posts on the long A.O. Scott article in the Sunday New York Times Magazine on the new generation of U.S. literary magazines.
In one sense at least, the popularity of The Believer and the newer n+1 flies in the face of all the recent hype about the Internet and literary blogging. These are magazines with relatively modest websites, and which put only a small fraction of their content online. And they are succeeding:
A.O. Scott is dead-on here, in his estimation of what causes otherwise normal, healthy people to start blogs, as well as in his description of what literary/intellectual blogs do and how they work.
And the idea of the print-only, elitist (by definition) Little Magazine is undoubtedly a powerful counter-point to the all-over-the-place instablogging of everything by everyone that has erupted in the past two years. The point about slowness and the rejection of topicality in particular is a good one:
Another word for this is "long tail": the vast repository of cultural references, obscure ideas, and lost artifacts out there in the world. There ought to be a space for thinking and writing about such things at length, and the issues of The Believer I've seen do just that.
That said, some blogs also reject the impetus to topicality (not so much this blog, lately). Having lots of readers can be addictive, and one usually gets them through timeliness and topicality (among other things). But the nice thing about not having a boss, an editor, or any financial motive whatsoever is that you can just ignore it entirely if you wish to. You don't have to blog about Hurricane Katrina if you don't feel you have anything interesting to say about it.
Incidentally, Marco Roth, one of the editors of n+1 steps into the comments at The Valve, and suggests that the print magazine vs. blog divide need not be completely hard and fast. But his idea of what blogs might be good for is much narrower than the gospel many blogging idealists espouse.
In one sense at least, the popularity of The Believer and the newer n+1 flies in the face of all the recent hype about the Internet and literary blogging. These are magazines with relatively modest websites, and which put only a small fraction of their content online. And they are succeeding:
At a time when older forms of media are supposedly being swallowed up by newer ones, the impulse to start the kind of magazine Partisan Review was in the late 1930's or The Paris Review was in the 50's might look contrarian, even reactionary. If you are an overeducated (or at least a semi-overeducated) youngish person with a sleep disorder and a surfeit of opinions, the thing to do, after all, is to start a blog. There are no printing costs, no mailing lists, and the medium offers instant membership in a welcoming herd of independent minds who will put you in their links columns if you put them in yours. Blogs embody and perpetuate a discourse based on speed, topicality, cleverness and contention -- all qualities very much ascendant in American media culture these days. To start a little magazine, then -- to commit yourself to making an immutable, finite set of perfect-bound pages that will appear, typos and all, every month or two, or six, or whenever, even if you are also, and of necessity, maintaining an affiliated Web site, to say nothing of holding down a day job or sweating over a dissertation - is, at least in part, to lodge a protest against the tyranny of timeliness. It is to opt for slowness, for rumination, for patience and for length. It is to defend the possibility of seriousness against the glibness and superficiality of the age - and also, of course, against other magazines.
A.O. Scott is dead-on here, in his estimation of what causes otherwise normal, healthy people to start blogs, as well as in his description of what literary/intellectual blogs do and how they work.
And the idea of the print-only, elitist (by definition) Little Magazine is undoubtedly a powerful counter-point to the all-over-the-place instablogging of everything by everyone that has erupted in the past two years. The point about slowness and the rejection of topicality in particular is a good one:
"The vast majority of magazines in the United States tell you exactly the same thing at the same time," Vendela Vida said not long ago by telephone from San Francisco, where she lives and where The Believer is published (though two of its editors, Park and Julavits, live most of the time in New York). "We'd all apparently entered into this agreement that every month we'd be interested in the same thing" - the upcoming movies, novels, recordings and television shows.
But, of course, in spite of an elaborate machinery devoted to synchronizing and standardizing cultural consumption - of which magazines are an important part - most people's habits remain blessedly out of synch. We buy battered paperbacks at yard sales, stumble across movies on cable late at night and hear strange music on our friends' mix tapes (an experience apotheosized by Rick Moody's article about a Christian indie-rock group, the Danielson Famile, in the recent music issue). Part of The Believer's mission is to capture this aesthetic of mixing and matching, swapping and rediscovering. The message of a given issue seems to be, Hey, look at all this neat stuff - or, as Julavits puts it, "Isn't this amazing?" Philosophers and musicians, the M.L.A., the W.N.B.A., the U.L.A. (that's Underground Literary Alliance), Tintin and a strange 19th-century Southern novel called "The Story of Don Miff" all receive generous, thoughtful scrutiny, for their own sakes and for their interconnections.
"There has to be an element that reflects how we live and how we read," Vida told me. "We don't just run out and buy the new novel or start thinking about Darwinism just because George Bush happened to say something about it." And so The Believer's content is often as pointedly untimely as its approach is digressive.
Another word for this is "long tail": the vast repository of cultural references, obscure ideas, and lost artifacts out there in the world. There ought to be a space for thinking and writing about such things at length, and the issues of The Believer I've seen do just that.
That said, some blogs also reject the impetus to topicality (not so much this blog, lately). Having lots of readers can be addictive, and one usually gets them through timeliness and topicality (among other things). But the nice thing about not having a boss, an editor, or any financial motive whatsoever is that you can just ignore it entirely if you wish to. You don't have to blog about Hurricane Katrina if you don't feel you have anything interesting to say about it.
Incidentally, Marco Roth, one of the editors of n+1 steps into the comments at The Valve, and suggests that the print magazine vs. blog divide need not be completely hard and fast. But his idea of what blogs might be good for is much narrower than the gospel many blogging idealists espouse.
No Canadian Sharia, After All
It's funny how quickly things turn around. The Toronto Globe and Mail reports that the Ontario government has ruled out Sharia-based family law courts for Muslims in Ontario. (Thanks, Jay)
The decision raises a 'fairness' issue, of course, and the McGuinty government's response is to do away with the family law courts for other religions as well. That change hasn't taken place yet, though it is expected to occur this fall.
No complaints here.
(See my post from Fridy)
The decision raises a 'fairness' issue, of course, and the McGuinty government's response is to do away with the family law courts for other religions as well. That change hasn't taken place yet, though it is expected to occur this fall.
No complaints here.
(See my post from Fridy)
Some Indian News Links: Tennis Fatwas, Kashmir, etc.
Let's start with the fun stuff, shall we?
Salaam Namaste is reviewed in the New York Times. Anita Gates compares Preity Zinta to Katie Holmes, which seems quite apt (they even look sort of similar). The movie is probably just the usual timepass, albeit with a couple of catchy tunes to its credit.
I'll still go see it; I am a sucker for this stuff.
Some positive news in Kashmir, with talks between PM Manmohan Singh and the All Parties Hurriyat Conference of Kashmir. The All Parties Conference has representatives from moderate as well as extremist Kashimiri separatist groups. But it might be wise to be cautious: the agreement they've made (some troops withdrawn if the explosions stop) is very small and tentative. And BBC has a piece questioning how representative the All Parties Conference really is. It also points to how Kashmiri politics is in a sense hopelessly vexed.
It looks like PM Manmohan Singh and General Musharraf are going to be meeting in New York next week (over dinner!), so perhaps there will be some bilateral Kashmir moves in the next couple of weeks.
Something really disturbing: a disease called Japanese Encephalitis has been ravaging the state of Uttar Pradesh (U.P.). It is fatal, and disproportionately affects children (500 or 600 have already died; as many as 1500 are currently infected). The state government knew this was coming, and had the means to immunize its children as well as spray aggressively for mosquitoes (mosquitoes and pigs spread the virus to humans). But they didn't follow up on it, and now they have a growing epidemic on their hands. This is especially maddening, because it was wholly preventable.
Go Sania. Indian tennis star Sania Mirza did quite well in the U.S. Open last week, making it through to the fourth round, where she lost to Maria Sharapova. But now the Mullahs have got after her. One cleric had this to say on a private TV news channel:
Well, it's a (mostly) free country; everyone's entitled to express hisopinion Fatwa.
And I think Sania Mirza is playing this exactly right: no comment. Don't inflame it by arguing with the guy. When the entire Indian sucbontinent is behind you (including Pakistan and Bangladesh, I suspect), you don't need to worry about these ranting guardians of propriety.
Sania Mirza: perhaps her serve still needs work, but her PR instincts are dead-on.
Salaam Namaste is reviewed in the New York Times. Anita Gates compares Preity Zinta to Katie Holmes, which seems quite apt (they even look sort of similar). The movie is probably just the usual timepass, albeit with a couple of catchy tunes to its credit.
I'll still go see it; I am a sucker for this stuff.
Some positive news in Kashmir, with talks between PM Manmohan Singh and the All Parties Hurriyat Conference of Kashmir. The All Parties Conference has representatives from moderate as well as extremist Kashimiri separatist groups. But it might be wise to be cautious: the agreement they've made (some troops withdrawn if the explosions stop) is very small and tentative. And BBC has a piece questioning how representative the All Parties Conference really is. It also points to how Kashmiri politics is in a sense hopelessly vexed.
It looks like PM Manmohan Singh and General Musharraf are going to be meeting in New York next week (over dinner!), so perhaps there will be some bilateral Kashmir moves in the next couple of weeks.
Something really disturbing: a disease called Japanese Encephalitis has been ravaging the state of Uttar Pradesh (U.P.). It is fatal, and disproportionately affects children (500 or 600 have already died; as many as 1500 are currently infected). The state government knew this was coming, and had the means to immunize its children as well as spray aggressively for mosquitoes (mosquitoes and pigs spread the virus to humans). But they didn't follow up on it, and now they have a growing epidemic on their hands. This is especially maddening, because it was wholly preventable.
Go Sania. Indian tennis star Sania Mirza did quite well in the U.S. Open last week, making it through to the fourth round, where she lost to Maria Sharapova. But now the Mullahs have got after her. One cleric had this to say on a private TV news channel:
A religious scholar reportedly issued a ‘fatwa’ about her dress code saying that Islam does not permit a woman to wear skirts, shorts and sleeveless tops.
“Veil can be dropped on certain occasions but not the way the girl is going about and playing in all those countries,” the scholar told a private news channel on Wednesday.
Well, it's a (mostly) free country; everyone's entitled to express his
And I think Sania Mirza is playing this exactly right: no comment. Don't inflame it by arguing with the guy. When the entire Indian sucbontinent is behind you (including Pakistan and Bangladesh, I suspect), you don't need to worry about these ranting guardians of propriety.
Sania Mirza: perhaps her serve still needs work, but her PR instincts are dead-on.
Randy Newman's "Louisiana"
Wow, what a beautiful song (I was watching the "Shelter From the Storm" telethon this evening on TV). Like the Robert Frost poem I quoted a few days ago, it's apparently about the 1927 flood.
The full lyrics are here, but perhaps the lines that seem most poignant today are these:
Now, I don't know about that last line, but the bit about the President and his man with the note-pad seem dead-on.
The full lyrics are here, but perhaps the lines that seem most poignant today are these:
What has happened down here is the wind have changed
Clouds roll in from the north and it started to rain
Rained real hard and rained for a real long time
Six feet of water in the streets of Evangeline
President Coolidge came down in a railroad train
With a little fat man with a note-pad in his hand
The President say, "Little fat man isn't it a shame what the river has
done
To this poor cracker's land."
Now, I don't know about that last line, but the bit about the President and his man with the note-pad seem dead-on.
India/Katrina. Why, Bruce Sterling? Why?
Uma has a post reflecting on the sarcasm on Bruce Sterling's Wired blog (and echoed on Boing Boing) following India's donation of $5 million to the American Red Cross.
The sarcasm is relatively mild, as far as that goes. Many people in the U.S. are incredulous at just how badly the relief operations have been going, and it's commonplace for people to say things to the effect of "it's like living in a third world country." And for some reason they assume that no one in a 'third world country' is listening when they say it, and that it won't sound profoundly insulting when they/we do in fact hear it. I wish Americans -- especially American journalists -- would learn to be a little more sensitive in how they use language (I know, too much to ask in this era of O'Reilly). But it's increasingly an almost unconscious tick: no matter how many times we're reminded that the U.S. isn't immune to 'third world' problems like poverty (12.75% this year, folks) and corruption (hello, the ex-Governor of Connecticut is in jail?), American narcissism seems to be indefatigable.
I read both Bruce Sterling and Xeni Jardin as echoing that line. It's a species of that same narcissism, but it's basically a nasty little American commonplace.
Uma also links to Club 810, a blog that was new to me, where there is a thoughtful reply and an interesting comments thread.
To me, the sarcasm in Bruce Sterling's post is irksome, but it's nothing compared to the racist Rudyard Kipling poem ("Gunga Din") Sterling quotes at the end of his post. 500,000 people are homeless in the south, hundreds dead, and bloggers (who also happen to be respected and successful sci-fi writers) are quoting Kipling poems about subservient coolies? ("Tho' I've belted you an' flayed you,/ By the livin' Gawd that made you,/ You're a better man than I am, Gunga Din!") Please. It's a little like whistling Dixie while driving buses full of evacuees to the Astrodome. Extremely, wretchedly bad taste.
Bruce Sterling, if you're reading this, drop the Gunga Din B.S. please.
The sarcasm is relatively mild, as far as that goes. Many people in the U.S. are incredulous at just how badly the relief operations have been going, and it's commonplace for people to say things to the effect of "it's like living in a third world country." And for some reason they assume that no one in a 'third world country' is listening when they say it, and that it won't sound profoundly insulting when they/we do in fact hear it. I wish Americans -- especially American journalists -- would learn to be a little more sensitive in how they use language (I know, too much to ask in this era of O'Reilly). But it's increasingly an almost unconscious tick: no matter how many times we're reminded that the U.S. isn't immune to 'third world' problems like poverty (12.75% this year, folks) and corruption (hello, the ex-Governor of Connecticut is in jail?), American narcissism seems to be indefatigable.
I read both Bruce Sterling and Xeni Jardin as echoing that line. It's a species of that same narcissism, but it's basically a nasty little American commonplace.
Uma also links to Club 810, a blog that was new to me, where there is a thoughtful reply and an interesting comments thread.
To me, the sarcasm in Bruce Sterling's post is irksome, but it's nothing compared to the racist Rudyard Kipling poem ("Gunga Din") Sterling quotes at the end of his post. 500,000 people are homeless in the south, hundreds dead, and bloggers (who also happen to be respected and successful sci-fi writers) are quoting Kipling poems about subservient coolies? ("Tho' I've belted you an' flayed you,/ By the livin' Gawd that made you,/ You're a better man than I am, Gunga Din!") Please. It's a little like whistling Dixie while driving buses full of evacuees to the Astrodome. Extremely, wretchedly bad taste.
Bruce Sterling, if you're reading this, drop the Gunga Din B.S. please.
N'Orleans Idioms
Alas, too busy to do anything terribly original today. But here is an excerpt from a Slate piece on New Orleans idioms that fits my recent posts on dialects and slangs:
[I]n the 1760s, the Acadians, or Cajuns, arrived from Canada speaking a variety of French quite unlike Parisian French. In 1803, English-speaking settlers began to arrive in significant numbers, and throughout the 19th century the city saw heavy immigration from Germany, Ireland, and Italy. As the major port city in the South, New Orleans was also a gateway for the slave states, which brought in speakers of a variety of African languages. The slave trade also brought New Orleanians into contact with speakers of Plantation Southern English from the East Coast. And Midland English reached the city through river traffic headed down the Ohio and into the Mississippi River.
The language of New Orleans reflects this hodgepodge. There is substantial borrowing from French in banquette for "sidewalk" (now old-fashioned) and gallery for "porch," not to mention a large number of food terms including beignet, étouffée, jambalaya, praline, and filé. French-derived idioms include make the groceries for "to buy groceries; to shop for food" and make ménage for "to clean the house," both from the French faire; for, meaning "at (a specified time)" ("the parade's for 7:00"), is from French pour. A lagniappe, "a small gratuity or gift; an extra" is from Louisiana French but borrowed from Spanish, which itself took it from Quechua, an Indian language of South America. Similarly, bayou is from French but ultimately from Choctaw, and pirogue, a dug-out canoe or open boat used in the bayous, went from the Caribbean-Indian language Carib to Spanish to French to English. Gumbo is from French but ultimately from a West African language. New Orleanians also use many Northernisms, including chiggers for the biting mites that nearby Southerners usually call red bugs, and wishbone for the chicken part more usually known as the pully-bone in the South.
Bill Clinton Goes To Lucknow Only
(A little gossip post.)
You thought Bill Clinton was doing his Hurricane relief thing? Well, he is,except yesterday he popped up at a "Global Industrial Meet" event organized by the state government of Uttar Pradesh, in north-central India. It's one of those 'spend tons of money so that someone will spend money on you' types of affairs. And while it's not a totally frivolous affair, it certainly isn't anything like charity. (Bill Clinton is clearly not trying to be Jimmy Carter.)
How much did the Mulayam Singh Yadav government spend to get Clinton? I wonder.
You thought Bill Clinton was doing his Hurricane relief thing? Well, he is,except yesterday he popped up at a "Global Industrial Meet" event organized by the state government of Uttar Pradesh, in north-central India. It's one of those 'spend tons of money so that someone will spend money on you' types of affairs. And while it's not a totally frivolous affair, it certainly isn't anything like charity. (Bill Clinton is clearly not trying to be Jimmy Carter.)
How much did the Mulayam Singh Yadav government spend to get Clinton? I wonder.
Mandatory Evacuations: Pros and Cons
One more Katrina question:
Should the government really be in the business of forcing people out of their homes at gunpoint?
There are lots of good reasons that I've heard. Here are the 'pros':
1) If people stay back, they will likely get in the way of FEMA and National Guard clean-up activities.
2) If people stay back, they are likely to need help again in the future. The government can say "we won't help you," but in the end, they will still have to help them. And that wastes valuable resources, and potentially risks lives.
Some might even say that, given what's probably in the water, it's suicidal to stay. I doubt that would be true across the board; some parts of New Orleans aren't in such bad shape.
3) Implementing a mandatory evacuation now is important psychologically for all the people who've already left. Many of those people in the next few days and weeks will be thinking of returning to start rebuilding, and if they know that they really won't be allowed to do it, they'll stay away.
And there could be more reasons (feel free to add them below). But there are also reasons to worry:
1) It might be more trouble than it's worth. Some of these die-hard survivalist libertarian characters are sitting on their porches with automatic weapons. If the police try and force them to do anything, they might well shoot. We could be talking about a "Waco" type scenario here, which could quickly make a bad situation worse.
2) It might be unconstitutional. Do we really want lawsuits out of this? (I don't know about whether this is really true or not. If anyone has enough legal knowledge to explain the ramifications of enforced mandatory evacuations for me, I would welcome it. Under what principle can the government force them from their homes?)
Moreover, if it turns out that the people who are afraid of having their homes get looted actually get looted after evacuation, they are likely to sue.
3) Some of these people could genuinely turn out to be helpful in recovery and rebuilding.
4) Authorities should allow a few people to stay, and also allow a few people to return to the dry parts of town just to keep the city alive. If some people come back and start doing business on their own sooner rather than later, it will be a lot easier to start rebuilding New Orleans. If everyone is out for a solid, say, three months, restarting the city's economic life might be more difficult.
All in all, I think Ray Nagin is right to require the police and the National Guard to enforce the mandatory evacuation order. But I think there are signficant potential downsides to doing it that people haven't really considered yet. Is there an alternate or compromise solution? I can't think of any.
Should the government really be in the business of forcing people out of their homes at gunpoint?
There are lots of good reasons that I've heard. Here are the 'pros':
1) If people stay back, they will likely get in the way of FEMA and National Guard clean-up activities.
2) If people stay back, they are likely to need help again in the future. The government can say "we won't help you," but in the end, they will still have to help them. And that wastes valuable resources, and potentially risks lives.
Some might even say that, given what's probably in the water, it's suicidal to stay. I doubt that would be true across the board; some parts of New Orleans aren't in such bad shape.
3) Implementing a mandatory evacuation now is important psychologically for all the people who've already left. Many of those people in the next few days and weeks will be thinking of returning to start rebuilding, and if they know that they really won't be allowed to do it, they'll stay away.
And there could be more reasons (feel free to add them below). But there are also reasons to worry:
1) It might be more trouble than it's worth. Some of these die-hard survivalist libertarian characters are sitting on their porches with automatic weapons. If the police try and force them to do anything, they might well shoot. We could be talking about a "Waco" type scenario here, which could quickly make a bad situation worse.
2) It might be unconstitutional. Do we really want lawsuits out of this? (I don't know about whether this is really true or not. If anyone has enough legal knowledge to explain the ramifications of enforced mandatory evacuations for me, I would welcome it. Under what principle can the government force them from their homes?)
Moreover, if it turns out that the people who are afraid of having their homes get looted actually get looted after evacuation, they are likely to sue.
3) Some of these people could genuinely turn out to be helpful in recovery and rebuilding.
4) Authorities should allow a few people to stay, and also allow a few people to return to the dry parts of town just to keep the city alive. If some people come back and start doing business on their own sooner rather than later, it will be a lot easier to start rebuilding New Orleans. If everyone is out for a solid, say, three months, restarting the city's economic life might be more difficult.
All in all, I think Ray Nagin is right to require the police and the National Guard to enforce the mandatory evacuation order. But I think there are signficant potential downsides to doing it that people haven't really considered yet. Is there an alternate or compromise solution? I can't think of any.
Irish English? Two Literary Examples
A book I've been reading and thinking about in pieces is The Story of English. by Robert McCrum. I recently blogged skeptically (skeptiblogged?) about the 'Indian English' chapter, and now I'm finding myself equally skeptical about the Irish English chapter.
The difference here is that I know a lot less about the way English is spoken in Ireland than I do about how it is in India and with Indian expatriates. (So take everything following with a perhaps larger than usual grain of salt.) It seems to me that McCrum's claim that there is a distinctively Irish dialect of English (that is, something quite different than a mere accent) seems quite weak in this chapter. I tend to speculate that the closeness of Irish English to 'standard' English is a necessary consequence of the nearly complete disappearance of the Irish language (Irish Gaelic) as a naturally spoken tongue in Ireland. Many people in Ireland know some Irish because it is widely taught in the schools, but almost no one is a monoglot Irish speaker. There is less to bounce off of, and not much reason (geographically or politically) for the kind of linguistic isolation that produces real dialects -- like Jamaican patois.
One doesn't learn much about "Irish English" as a linguistic phenomenon from reading this chapter of A Story of English, but it is a nice survey of the linguistic theme in the writing of some important Irish writers. McCrum quotes the poet Seamus Heaney describing the Irish language as "mythically alive," which is kind of sad, in one way of thinking about it. On the other hand, the "myth" of Irish is an animating feature in the work of many Irish writers (even if, as in Joyce, it only appears as a thing to be scoffed at).
McCrum et al. mention my favorite literary example -- the Mrs. Malaprop character in R.B. Sheridan's play The Rivals (available online in pieces at Bibliomania). Mrs. Malaprop is the bumbling character whose name eventually gave us the standard English word "malapropism," and McCrum reads her as a kind of index for the learner's mistakes many Irishmen in the 18th century might have made as they attempted to master English (and, steadily, to forget their mother tongue).
It seems plausible, though it's important to keep in mind that Mrs. Malaprop's mistakes are all bookish mistakes rather than 'learner' mistakes. They aren't examples of Irishism so much as undisciplined Latinism -- a 'vocabulary' run amok:
There's a little intricate linguistic jugalbandi (warning: amusing link) for you.
The other classic example is J.M. Synge's Playboy of the Western World (available online at Project Gutenberg), which really does have a number of Irishisms in it:
Synge (pronounced like "Singh") is pretty clear in his preface to the play that he's trying to capture the voices of late nineteenth century Irish peasants in the western part of the island, where the Gaelic language and Gaelic patterns of speech lingered on through the 19th century. As a result, it's impossible to imagine the voices of this play performed in anything other than a thick Irish brogue. But then, I've never seen this play performed anywhere. (Has anyone seen it done?)
* * *
I'm also teaching Joyce again, in parallel with this. (Perhaps a post on Joyce's Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man might be forthcoming.)
The difference here is that I know a lot less about the way English is spoken in Ireland than I do about how it is in India and with Indian expatriates. (So take everything following with a perhaps larger than usual grain of salt.) It seems to me that McCrum's claim that there is a distinctively Irish dialect of English (that is, something quite different than a mere accent) seems quite weak in this chapter. I tend to speculate that the closeness of Irish English to 'standard' English is a necessary consequence of the nearly complete disappearance of the Irish language (Irish Gaelic) as a naturally spoken tongue in Ireland. Many people in Ireland know some Irish because it is widely taught in the schools, but almost no one is a monoglot Irish speaker. There is less to bounce off of, and not much reason (geographically or politically) for the kind of linguistic isolation that produces real dialects -- like Jamaican patois.
One doesn't learn much about "Irish English" as a linguistic phenomenon from reading this chapter of A Story of English, but it is a nice survey of the linguistic theme in the writing of some important Irish writers. McCrum quotes the poet Seamus Heaney describing the Irish language as "mythically alive," which is kind of sad, in one way of thinking about it. On the other hand, the "myth" of Irish is an animating feature in the work of many Irish writers (even if, as in Joyce, it only appears as a thing to be scoffed at).
McCrum et al. mention my favorite literary example -- the Mrs. Malaprop character in R.B. Sheridan's play The Rivals (available online in pieces at Bibliomania). Mrs. Malaprop is the bumbling character whose name eventually gave us the standard English word "malapropism," and McCrum reads her as a kind of index for the learner's mistakes many Irishmen in the 18th century might have made as they attempted to master English (and, steadily, to forget their mother tongue).
It seems plausible, though it's important to keep in mind that Mrs. Malaprop's mistakes are all bookish mistakes rather than 'learner' mistakes. They aren't examples of Irishism so much as undisciplined Latinism -- a 'vocabulary' run amok:
Lydia. What crime, madam, have I committed, to be treated thus?
Mrs. Malaprop. Now don’t attempt to extirpate yourself from the matter; you know I have proof controvertible of it.—But tell me, will you promise to do as you’re bid? Will you take a husband of your friends’ choosing?
Lyd. Madam, I must tell you plainly, that had I no preferment for any one else, the choice you have made would be my aversion.
Mrs. Mal. What business have you, miss, with preference and aversion? They don’t become a young woman; and you ought to know, that as both always wear off, ’tis safest in matrimony to begin with a little aversion. I am sure I hated your poor dear uncle before marriage as if he’d been a blackamoor—and yet, miss, you are sensible what a wife I made!—and when it pleased Heaven to release me from him, ’tis unknown what tears I shed!— But suppose we were going to give you another choice, will you promise us to give up this Beverley?
Lyd. Could I belie my thoughts so far as to give that promise, my actions would certainly as far belie my words.
Mrs. Mal. Take yourself to your room.—You are fit company for nothing but your own ill-humours.
Lyd. Willingly, ma’am—I cannot change for the worse.
[Exit.
Mrs. Mal. There’s a little intricate hussy for you!
There's a little intricate linguistic jugalbandi (warning: amusing link) for you.
The other classic example is J.M. Synge's Playboy of the Western World (available online at Project Gutenberg), which really does have a number of Irishisms in it:
PEGEEN -- [impatiently.] He is surely, and leaving me lonesome on the scruff of the hill. (She gets up and puts envelope on dresser, then winds clock.) Isn't it long the nights are now, Shawn Keogh, to be leaving a poor girl with her own self counting the hours to the dawn of day?
SHAWN -- [with awkward humour.] -- If it is, when we're wedded in a short while you'll have no call to complain, for I've little will to be walking off to wakes or weddings in the darkness of the night.
PEGEEN -- [with rather scornful good humour.] -- You're making mighty certain, Shaneen, that I'll wed you now.
SHAWN. Aren't we after making a good bargain, the way we're only waiting these days on Father Reilly's dispensation from the bishops, or the Court of Rome.
PEGEEN -- [looking at him teasingly, washing up at dresser.] -- It's a wonder, Shaneen, the Holy Father'd be taking notice of the likes of you; for if I was him I wouldn't bother with this place where you'll meet none but Red Linahan, has a squint in his eye, and Patcheen is lame in his heel, or the mad Mulrannies were driven from California and they lost in their wits. We're a queer lot these times to go troubling the Holy Father on his sacred seat.
Synge (pronounced like "Singh") is pretty clear in his preface to the play that he's trying to capture the voices of late nineteenth century Irish peasants in the western part of the island, where the Gaelic language and Gaelic patterns of speech lingered on through the 19th century. As a result, it's impossible to imagine the voices of this play performed in anything other than a thick Irish brogue. But then, I've never seen this play performed anywhere. (Has anyone seen it done?)
* * *
I'm also teaching Joyce again, in parallel with this. (Perhaps a post on Joyce's Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man might be forthcoming.)
New biography of Edmund Wilson
A&L Daily links to Jonathan Yardley's review of a new biography of the literary critic Edmund Wilson by Lewis M. Dabney.
After listing Wilson's personal problems (including his many bad marriages, to his alcoholism, to his generally spiky temperament), Yardley describes the tone of the biography:
Yardley's a bit frustrated with Dabney's tendency to dwell on some of the darker aspects of Wilson's personal life, especially since Dabney is clearly not enthralled by what he sees:
Then again, that is the nature of the genre these days: everyone expects something salacious, even if it's tedious. So it's not necessarily the publisher's fault (people seem to like their toast burnt). A Rigorous Account of the Arguable Contemporary Relevance of Edmund Wilson's Ideas About Literature is not going to sell many copies. (Then again, maybe we should do something about the title...)
I wrote a bit more about Wilson here.
[Cross-posted at The Valve]
After listing Wilson's personal problems (including his many bad marriages, to his alcoholism, to his generally spiky temperament), Yardley describes the tone of the biography:
All of which is to say that [Wilson] presents formidable difficulties for a biographer. On the one hand there is his immense life's work, to be sorted out, evaluated and interpreted. On the other hand there is his frequently sordid private life, also to be sorted out, evaluated and interpreted. Lewis M. Dabney, a professor of English at the University of Wyoming who has dedicated much of the past four decades to tending Wilson's flame, approaches both tasks methodically and dutifully, though one senses from time to time that he really does wish Wilson had been a nicer fellow.
Yardley's a bit frustrated with Dabney's tendency to dwell on some of the darker aspects of Wilson's personal life, especially since Dabney is clearly not enthralled by what he sees:
He tells [Wilson's story] conscientiously and, as mentioned above, dutifully, but the net effect of Edmund Wilson: A Life in Literature is to leave one wondering why, precisely, books such as this are written. To be sure, one must marvel that Wilson could have done such an incredible amount of major work when so much of the time he was drunk, but that is merely another footnote to the long story of writers and booze. Our curiosity about the innermost sources of any writer's work is understandable and legitimate, but page after page of drunken bouts and sexual conquests really tell us little except that this is a man we care to meet only in the words he wrote. As the fourth of his wives once said, "When I read his work I forgive him all his sins." Wise words indeed, to which must be added: If the sins have been forgiven, why bother to chronicle them?
Then again, that is the nature of the genre these days: everyone expects something salacious, even if it's tedious. So it's not necessarily the publisher's fault (people seem to like their toast burnt). A Rigorous Account of the Arguable Contemporary Relevance of Edmund Wilson's Ideas About Literature is not going to sell many copies. (Then again, maybe we should do something about the title...)
I wrote a bit more about Wilson here.
[Cross-posted at The Valve]
Nice Zinger from Congressman Chuck Rangel
Yes, I'm still preoccupied by the outrageous situation in New Orleans.
Here's one from Congressman Charles Rangel, quoted in the New York Times:
Here's one from Congressman Charles Rangel, quoted in the New York Times:
"Most cities have a hidden or not always talked about poor population, black and white, and most of the time we look past them," Dr. Crew said. "This is a moment in time when we can't look past them. Their plight is coming to the forefront now. They were the ones less able to hop in a car and less able to drive off."
That disparity has been criticized as a "disgrace" by Charles B. Rangel, the senior Democratic congressman from New York City, who said it was made all the worse by the failure of government officials to have planned.
"I assume the president's going to say he got bad intelligence," Mr. Rangel said, adding that the danger to the levees was clear.
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