tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-191230592011-10-26T10:42:26.069-05:00Thoughts about philosophy, food and life from a small town in Texas.Robinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11530793550821854072noreply@blogger.comBlogger521100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19123059.post-50690293692527067652009-05-25T07:56:00.002-05:002009-05-25T08:00:54.807-05:00Judy and I arrived in Chicago at 5 a.m. CDT, a full half hour early. New Delhi to Chicago is, apparently, the longest flight American Airlines operates. It is a long one at 15 1/2 hours.<br /><br />My advice to you if you head for India is to book roundtrip from Chicago to Delhi. If you are flying on a Boeing 777, select seats A, B, H or J in row 40. You get extra leg room.<br /><br />We'll be home this afternoon, but I have so much more to say and show about this trip, that I can't imagine ever running out of stories to tell. Photos will be coming. Keep reading.<br /><br /><table width="100" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0"><tr><td><img border="0" src="http://www.tech-counter.com/cgi-bin/gd-count.cgi?page=http://www.womanhollerin.blogspot.com&style=wide_latin&nbdigits=10&reloads=1"></td></tr><tr><td><div align="center"><font size="2" face="arial, helvetica, sans-serif"><a href="http://www.gymsource.com">Gym Source</a></font></div></td></tr></table><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/19123059-5069029369252706765?l=womanhollerin.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Robinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11530793550821854072noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19123059.post-2225835232715684662009-05-25T07:54:00.002-05:002009-05-25T07:56:16.352-05:00In Delhi we met a force of consumerism that we could not resist: <a href="http://fabindia.com/">FabIndia</a>. We went to three different FabIndia locations and bought things in each. Even Carol shopped. Judy and I have done our “school shopping” for fall, but we probably won’t be able to wait to wear our new outfits.<br /><br />Pristine white shelves line the walls of the clothing section; some shops have free-standing shelving cubbies as well. Every cubbie is overflowing with colorful cotton and silk fabric in more colors than you can imagine. I found the place completely overwhelming at first. Carol told me to “just pick out one thing” and that would get me started. It did.<br /><br />Shoppers decide whether they want long sleeves, short or sleeveless. They choose long, short or mini kurtas. Patterns, solids, square necks, v-necks, embroidery, silk, cotton…. For women, pants, salwar, churidar are all arranged by size (small, medium, large, extra-large) and fabric. <br /><br />I had been wondering how Indian women manage to get their feet through the narrow lower part of the churidar pantleg, so I tried on a pair. No dice. Churidars are not for wide, Northern European feet. Judy, however, said that putting the pants on was easy if she treated them like socks. She looks just as sexy as the Indian women with the ankly-hugging churidar on.<br /><br />I stuck to the looser fitting salwar. I’m going to try making churidar from a stretchy fabric when I get home.<br /><br />After choosing the top and pants, the female shopper moves on to select the dupatta, a filmy length of cotton or silk. Some salwar kameez come with a matching dupatta, and matching is possible at FabIndia, but we had a lot of fun mixing textures and patterns to complement our outfits.<br /><br />During our first visit to FabIndia the power went out four or five times and a generator kicked in. Apparently, all major businesses in Delhi have backup generators, If they didn’t, it would get really hot in the second-floor shops and so dark that no one would be able to shop. Paying by credit card would be a problem, too. India business people know what they have to do to provide great service.<br /><br />Although I was a bit overwhelmed at first, I managed to find my bearings in the store and buy about 10 kurtas, a few pairs of pants, a length of saree silk and some ayurvedic supplements during four separate visits to FabIndia shops. Judy didn’t warm up as fast as I did,. She pulled together one outfit on the first visit but really kicked into gear at the Khan Market store where Carol and I helped her mix and match quite a few outfits.<br /><br />FabIndia has more going for it that colorful, high-quality goods. The company buys all of its good from rural craftspeople. This trade provides jobs for rural people and supports the continuation of traditional crafts. <br /><br />Even better, you can buy from <a href="http://fabindia.com/">FabIndia</a> online.<br /><br /><br /><br /><table width="100" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0"><tr><td><img border="0" src="http://www.tech-counter.com/cgi-bin/gd-count.cgi?page=http://www.womanhollerin.blogspot.com&style=wide_latin&nbdigits=10&reloads=1"></td></tr><tr><td><div align="center"><font size="2" face="arial, helvetica, sans-serif"><a href="http://www.gymsource.com">Gym Source</a></font></div></td></tr></table><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/19123059-222583523271568466?l=womanhollerin.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Robinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11530793550821854072noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19123059.post-3171235494417080002009-05-19T00:17:00.002-05:002009-05-19T00:21:34.037-05:00Summer has come to Ladakh and we are back in Leh. We sat outside at the Hotel Olmasila at tea time after a hot shower to wash off the dust of the road (and the soot of the 500-year-old Ladakhi house we climbed around in) and ate more mangos than I care to count. <br /><br />Today we are going shopping.<br /><br />Of course, the best laid consumerist plans have already been interrupted by the sound of live chanting. We were drawn to the temple where the majority of the lamas in Ladakh have gathered to celebrate the spring puja. Inside the prayer hall, lamas are chanting. Young monks are crowded in under the portico outside the temple building. People of the community, and more lamas, have gathered on the steps outside the temple. Loudspeakers amplify the chanting for the growing crowd of people outside. We listened and observed the crowd.<br /><br /><table width="100" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0"><tr><td><img border="0" src="http://www.tech-counter.com/cgi-bin/gd-count.cgi?page=http://www.womanhollerin.blogspot.com&style=wide_latin&nbdigits=10&reloads=1"></td></tr><tr><td><div align="center"><font size="2" face="arial, helvetica, sans-serif"><a href="http://www.gymsource.com">Gym Source</a></font></div></td></tr></table><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/19123059-317123549441708000?l=womanhollerin.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Robinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11530793550821854072noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19123059.post-71984564501461355982009-05-19T00:16:00.002-05:002009-05-19T00:16:55.289-05:00We traveled along the Indus River from Leh to the turn off onto the Alchi road and again, Monday, from the Alchi road to the fork in the highway that took us to Lamayuru. We had seen the river in the distance from Leh, but we picked up its route near one of the multitude of military bases that we passed on our journey on the Leh – Srinagar highway, and followed high above the water on the well developed roadway.<br /><br />We stopped to look at the confluence of the Indus and the Zanskar Rivers not far outside of Leh. We also saw a heard of cattle, including an enormous yak, in the distance on the opposite side of the river. At this point, the banks of the river are wide and fertile, but it passes through narrow gorges, flowing within massive cliffs as well.<br /><br />Judy wanted to put her hand in the water of the Indus, but near Leh the river is fenced, and the approach is a wetland, as well, making touching the water practically impossible. Travelers on the Leh – Srinagar road are well above the surface of the water, with no realistic way to descend. <br /><br />Carol and Martin, however, are geniuses in figuring out how to get to seemingly inaccessible places.<br /><br />After our first visit to the Alchi monastery, we set about circumambulating the complex. Circumambulation of sacred places is an important part of Buddhist practice. We set out in a clockwise direction on the well developed path around the monastery, which follows the bank of the Indus for a stretch. Here, we could see snow-capped mountains and the river (and the power plant construction site), so we decided to shoot the video clips that the person heading up the social media project at TLU had requested. What could be better than both mountains and the river that fed some of the first human civilizations? While Martin, Judy and I worked on the video clips, Carol was looking around and found a trail that led down toward the river bank. <br /><br />After we took photos with a Ladakhi lady in traditional dress who asked to be photographed (and gave her 20 rupees for her work), we followed Carol down the slope. We ended up in a field of rocks just above the shore. With Martin’s help we found a congenial place to clamber down to the water. We have now both touched the Indus and have in at least a small way become part of one of the world’s greatest rivers. (We have photos of this, but as I may have mentioned in an earlier post, I have insurmountable obstacles to uploading photos until I get home.)<br /><br />I’m not much of a rock climber, so this jaunt was a challenge for me, but it wasn’t too hard and was definitely worth it.<br /><br /><table width="100" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0"><tr><td><img border="0" src="http://www.tech-counter.com/cgi-bin/gd-count.cgi?page=http://www.womanhollerin.blogspot.com&style=wide_latin&nbdigits=10&reloads=1"></td></tr><tr><td><div align="center"><font size="2" face="arial, helvetica, sans-serif"><a href="http://www.gymsource.com">Gym Source</a></font></div></td></tr></table><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/19123059-7198456450146135598?l=womanhollerin.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Robinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11530793550821854072noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19123059.post-37457848909708115912009-05-19T00:14:00.001-05:002009-05-19T00:15:41.593-05:00Electricity comes to Alchi (10,340 feet) from 8 – 11 p.m. from the generator in the neighboring village of Saspol, which is about a mile away. Supper is served at the Alchi Resort when the power comes on. The supply of electricity can be uneven, with periods of low power when the lights stay on but dim. The power went off completely for what seemed like several minutes while we were drinking tea after the first of the amazing meals prepared especially for us by the warm and friendly owners and staff of the hotel.<br /><br />We sat in darkness so deep that I could see nothing at all. I haven’t experienced cocooning darkness in years and was kind of disappointed when Carol and Martin flipped on their LED flashlights. I would not have wanted to attempt walking back to our cottage without the light, but I enjoyed it for the few seconds it lasted.<br /><br />The relative lack of electricity in Alchi doesn’t diminish the experience of this magical place for the traveler in any way. I don’t know much about what the local people think about it, but some of them do have generators. The proprietor of the Alchi Resort also spoke expectantly about the electricity that will be coming from a hydropower plant that is visible from Alchi. <br /><br />This plant will use the water of the Indus River to generate electricity. I don’t know when it is scheduled to come online, but work was steady on it while we were in Alchi. Generation of electric power raises some of the starkest questions about the effect of development on the natural world, and this project is no exception.<br /><br />A little bit more inconvenient for travelers is the lack of phone service from the village. Clearly, the phone generally works because the gift shop has signs proclaiming that shoppers can pay with any credit or debit card. Judy asked if she could use her card, but she could not because the phone service was out. This was not a big deal because we used an ATM in Delhi before we left for Ladakh, and we have plenty of cash. The phone problem affected reconfirmation of our ride back to Leh, however. On Sunday Martin found someone with a cell phone that was working to call the hotel in Leh to touch base that the driver would be coming Monday morning. (He was, and he did arrive before 7 a.m.)<br /><br />All this about Alchi’s connection to the conveniences of contemporary life really misses the point of the visit to the village, however, which is the monastery and the other temples and chortens around the area. We started both of our full days in Alchi with early visits to the monastery to beat the tourists coming from Leh (about a three-hour drive). <br /><br />The first day we stayed in the temples until lunchtime (with a brief interruption from one other Western tourist who wanted to zip through). The second day, the lama who is in charge of dealing with the keys to the temples (and the tourists) was just coming out of the first temple with a group of Indian tourists. When he saw us, he panicked a bit because he had not yet had breakfast, or even tea. He looked desperate, and we agreed to come back in about half an hour. (In the meantime, we got started on a wonderful walk around Alchi and ended up coming back to the monastery well after lunch. The lama was in a better mood then and even asked what had become of us in the morning.)<br /><br />The monastery was founded and built in the 12th century. The painting in the temples and prayer rooms is in the Kashmiri style and is so amazing that it is difficult to find words to describe the experience of being in these sacred spaces. The walls are like carpets with thousands of repeated images of buddhas and boddhisatvas along with some portraits of historical figures, including secular figures making pilgrimage to worship the Buddha. <br /><br />By design, the only light source in the temples is a skylight. The lamas have brought a little bit of artificial light to the rooms, but they are quite dark and to look closely at the paintings, one needs a flashlight. This increases the feeling of focus on particular images, which adds a meditative feel to our visits. Although the paintings, statues and other objects in the sacred rooms are beautiful, their value is in their role in sacred practice. Aesthetic considerations are secondary, and photography is not allowed.<br /><br />The statues of buddhas and boddhisatvas burst out of the buildings that attempt to contain them to remind us that they cannot be contained. The paintings are both overwhelming in size and detail so they simultaneously create the desire to step away in awe and the urge to move toward the paintings to become immersed in the details. <br /><br />This is the true power of Alchi.<br /><br /><br /><table width="100" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0"><tr><td><img border="0" src="http://www.tech-counter.com/cgi-bin/gd-count.cgi?page=http://www.womanhollerin.blogspot.com&style=wide_latin&nbdigits=10&reloads=1"></td></tr><tr><td><div align="center"><font size="2" face="arial, helvetica, sans-serif"><a href="http://www.gymsource.com">Gym Source</a></font></div></td></tr></table><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/19123059-3745784890970811591?l=womanhollerin.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Robinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11530793550821854072noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19123059.post-65884217535615412342009-05-14T04:50:00.002-05:002009-05-14T04:53:46.110-05:00I am writing in an Internet cafe on one of the main streets in Leh (after an incredible Tibetan vegetarian lunch of feast proportion). Leh is a big city and one can find Internet cafes on many streets. Tomorrow we are leaving for Alchi, which is not so big and, I'm told, has no Internet access at all. If you are checking the blog and find no updates for the next three or four days, don't be alarmed. We are just out of the Web.<br /><br /><table width="100" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0"><tr><td><img border="0" src="http://www.tech-counter.com/cgi-bin/gd-count.cgi?page=http://www.womanhollerin.blogspot.com&style=wide_latin&nbdigits=10&reloads=1"></td></tr><tr><td><div align="center"><font size="2" face="arial, helvetica, sans-serif"><a href="http://www.gymsource.com">Gym Source</a></font></div></td></tr></table><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/19123059-6588421753561541234?l=womanhollerin.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Robinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11530793550821854072noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19123059.post-54503493476799628742009-05-14T04:48:00.000-05:002009-05-14T04:49:59.866-05:00Ladakh is a cold region. Seven months of the year the area is unreachable by ground and iffy by air. May is just the beginning of spring. Apricot and apple trees are blooming, irises are flowering along some of the fields. Grain seeds are sprouting in some of the fields but most haven’t yet been planted, it seems. The poplars and willows, the only trees that grow here, are the lovely yellowy green of new leaves. Most of the older willow trunks are standing naked of branches with tiny green shoots popping out. <br /><br />The willow is a generous tree. Every year the people cut it back dramatically for firewood. Wood and dung are primary sources of fuel around here, and we see pats of dung drying on the sides of hills as we walk or ride along the roads.<br /><br />Now, back to the shower and more importantly the heater (monasteries will wait; they have been here for hundreds of years); you will see the connection. With wood as a primary source of energy, heating all the homes and businesses would lead to deforestation. And then, where would people get energy if they had cut down all the trees? <br /><br />Heat is not standard in the rooms of our hotel, and I would guess in others in the city as well. This was not a problem when the city was completely inaccessible in the winter, but with air access, tourists have started to come here in the winter months. The proprietor of Hotel Omasila bought some gas heaters and offered them to guests for the first time this winter.<br /><br />On out first night, before we got the heater, we slept in long underwear under pajamas, and our knitted hats. The twin beds are pushed together (I can see why) and we had two really incredible blankets to share. Judy got so warm that she threw off her hat and part of her blankets (not me). Neither of us wanted to get out of the bed to open the windows that let the warming sun in, but finally we did. <br /><br />Our room is wonderfully warm and beautiful in the daytime. The propane heater has made it possible to sit without a coat on and be comfortable at any time of day although we had a moment of uncertainty when we couldn’t figure out how to turn the heater back on at 6 a.m. I went down to the desk to ask for help (and to find about a dozen people up and engaged in their daily activities). I caused a little stir by slipping, but not falling, on the steep staircase in front of all the extremely kind Ladakhis, and then they sent a young man to our room to light the heater. He showed us how to turn it on and reiterated how to turn it off, which seems to be far more important no matter one’s perspective. <br /><br />Thank you Carol for suggesting the heater. Thank you Hotel Omasila for having it.<br /><br /><br /><table width="100" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0"><tr><td><img border="0" src="http://www.tech-counter.com/cgi-bin/gd-count.cgi?page=http://www.womanhollerin.blogspot.com&style=wide_latin&nbdigits=10&reloads=1"></td></tr><tr><td><div align="center"><font size="2" face="arial, helvetica, sans-serif"><a href="http://www.gymsource.com">Gym Source</a></font></div></td></tr></table><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/19123059-5450349347679962874?l=womanhollerin.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Robinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11530793550821854072noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19123059.post-39807918705408510842009-05-14T04:45:00.001-05:002009-05-14T04:47:59.289-05:00Light returns to Ladakh by about 4:30 in the morning. The moon hung over the mountains in the distance, and I could see every detail of the terrace outside our room in Hotel Omasila as well. It would have been a great time to shoot a dramatic nighttime landscape photographs, but I decided to hold the image in my memory instead.<br /><br />By about 5 o’clock the hotel was alive with the sounds of people chanting according to a variety of traditions. I could particularly make out a male voice chanting deep, earthy oms and a female voice chanting in a tradition that requires more words. I joined in with my own silent meditation. Who knows how many others in the hotel and the city of Leh were also engaging in meditation in their separate rooms but all together, nevertheless.<br /><br />Judy woke up naturally, too, and asked me if my clock was right that it wasn’t even 6 o’clock yet.<br /><br />Yesterday was Ladakh’s day to vote in India’s parliamentary election. The election has been in progress for a month, and now voting is complete. All businesses and schools were closed, and someone told us that no one was permitted to drive until afternoon, “if it was peaceful.” <br /><br />We walked to a polling place in Leh, a small primary school, to see how things were going in local voting. Small groups of women (mostly) were also heading in that direction on foot. The only vehicles we saw at that time were military, not unusual for two reasons: first, a big army base is up the street from the school (home of the Fire and Fury Officers’ Mess, according to a sign with an arrow pointing onto the base), and second, this area is sandwiched between Pakistan and China and the borders have not always been quiet here.<br /><br />Polling station no. 063 Changspa expected 571 voters, 275 +2 males and 296 females, according to a handwritten, official notice (feel free to check the adding). Voters take their laminated voter cards – a friendly Ladakhi woman showed us hers – to a table in a field across the lane from the school where the election agent checks the voter list and gives voters a small piece of paper to take into the school where they will cast their ballots. <br /><br />Five candidates were running for the seat for this area, two from major parties and three independents. The ballot presents the name of the candidate and a symbol for each one because literacy in this region, and India in general, is not universal.<br /><br />We asked a young woman to explain what was going on and about how people feel about participating in the election. She said that most people will come to vote. Judging from the mood of the crowd, people were happy to participate, or happy that they had a holiday? In any case, people in Ladakh voted peacefully and cars began to appear on the streets again as the afternoon progressed. After about 5 or 6 p.m. some businesses reopened, too.<br /><br />In the afternoon we hired a car and drove to two of the many monasteries, or gompas in Tibetan, Shay and Thiksay, both built in the 16th century. <br /><br />More on the monasteries later because Judy has just come out of the shower, and we have hot water only in the morning. If I hop into the bathroom quickly, it will still be warm (not an opportunist, am I?). We got a gas heater last night and are impressed with its power, but it doesn’t reach to the bathroom.<br /><br /><br /><table width="100" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0"><tr><td><img border="0" src="http://www.tech-counter.com/cgi-bin/gd-count.cgi?page=http://www.womanhollerin.blogspot.com&style=wide_latin&nbdigits=10&reloads=1"></td></tr><tr><td><div align="center"><font size="2" face="arial, helvetica, sans-serif"><a href="http://www.gymsource.com">Gym Source</a></font></div></td></tr></table><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/19123059-3980791870540851084?l=womanhollerin.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Robinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11530793550821854072noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19123059.post-35546725605719197542009-05-11T18:46:00.001-05:002009-05-11T18:48:43.493-05:00It’s 6 a.m. at the Indira Gandhi Airport in New Delhi. We are drinking coffee from Costa Coffee after going through security for our flight to Leh on Kingfisher airlines (owned by the same guy who owns Kingfisher beer). At security women are checked by a female officer in a curtained booth. Men are checked in front of everyone, just like at home. (Indian women must be very surprised at how they are treated in the United States.)<br /><br />Judy says she would comment, but it is too early to think.<br /><br />We spent the evening at Hindu temples yesterday. One temple is devoted Hanuman (the monkey god who is associated with courage) and Shiva (the god of creation and destruction), the other to Shiva alone. We received a blessing from the priest devoted to Hanuman that included sacred oil on the forhead, a flower and a sweet. Several children received blessings ahead of us. The priest placed a necklace of marigolds around the neck of one little girl. Men played music in the section of the building devoted to Shiva. (And other things were going on that I will go into later because I have only a few minutes left before our flight boards).<br /><br />The second Shiva temple was built by South Indians. There, we saw the evening puja.<br /><br />On the way to Leh, we are going to be sitting in window seats on the left side of the plane in hopes of catching a glimpse of K2.<br /><br /><br /><br /><table width="100" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0"><tr><td><img border="0" src="http://www.tech-counter.com/cgi-bin/gd-count.cgi?page=http://www.womanhollerin.blogspot.com&style=wide_latin&nbdigits=10&reloads=1"></td></tr><tr><td><div align="center"><font size="2" face="arial, helvetica, sans-serif"><a href="http://www.gymsource.com">Gym Source</a></font></div></td></tr></table><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/19123059-3554672560571919754?l=womanhollerin.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Robinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11530793550821854072noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19123059.post-86607014286405301842009-05-11T11:20:00.001-05:002009-05-11T11:42:13.080-05:00We are in our room at the Hotel Palace Heights to escape the midday heat after a morning spent touring the Qutb Minar and the area around the Parliament and President’s residence. We will go back out at 6 p.m. for a visit to Hindu temples, dinner and the ATM.<br /><br />Qutb Minar is a World Heritage site, the first mosque built in India. It’s also one of few mosques that combine India and Islamic styles of ornamentation. The Muslims were, basically, a conquering army and came without a staff of craftsmen. They hired local craftsmen who were Hindus and used to ornamenting everything with living signs of life. Thus, the phrases from the Koran are entwined with vines and punctuated with flowers. (I have a lovely photo of Cheshire Kitten’s book perched on a column in the courtyard. I couldn’t resist.)<br /><br />The minaret itself was never used to call anyone to prayer. It is too tall to make climbing up and down five times a day practical. Instead, the tower stands as a symbol of the power of the conqueror. The British played around a little with it in their day, in particular, they constructed gardens around the buildings. Everything is in flower here at the moment, so we saw orange and yellow flowering trees. Above us flew one of India’s most common hawks, enormous, green parakeets and common mynahs. The mynahs sound just like Texas’s grackles.)<br /><br />Tourists from all over India were looking at Qutb’s Minar along with us. May is the time of school holidays because it is the hottest time of year here. A man from Gujurat posed us along with his family for photos. His little girl was wearing the brightest orange flouncy skirt. The man said he works for an American company, which I suppose made us particularly interesting to him. We were also the object of many long looks from a group of tourists from the Western coastal state where the main industry is ship demolition and resale of parts. It seems fitting that we become part of the spectacle as objects of interest. <br /><br />Judy and I are both consumed by sari envy. The women’s clothes are bright and beautiful, whether saris or kameezes with a variety of pants styles. My favorites are orange and gold and the red one with blue six-pointed stars.<br /><br />I would post pictures, but the wireless network is weak and barely able to carry data long enough to upload a text post, so the images will have to wait until later. I’m hoping for Internet access in Leh too, but I’m not sure of it. <br /><br />Judy just saw a fist fight out our hotel window. We think it was a group of taxi drivers, definitely the combatants were both white-haired men. The man who was trying to make peace was considerably younger. <br /><br />The taxis are little green and yellow vehicles powered by compressed natural gas. Buses use the same fuel. We are wondering how much more haze Delhi would have if it didn’t use this cleaner-burning fuel.<br /><br />India is in the midst of an election. Voting takes place in different areas on different days and the results will come in while we are in Ladakh. Our guide Martin is happy that we will be in a remote area when people in Delhi find out about the results. He expects that we still won’t know what the government will look like because more than a handful of parties are running candidates and it’s likely that some of the victorious parties will have to form a coalition. We are watching “Election Alerts” on CNN-IBN as voting comes to a close in Bihar (I think). The election coverage is headlined “A Billion Votes,” but it seems to me that some of the billion Indians are children. The politicians all have harsh words for each other, or CNN-IBN is just picking the harsh parts. After they have all slammed each other it must be hard to come together in coalition.<br /><br />Tomorrow we have to leave at 3:45 to get to the airport for our flight to Leh. It’s pretty early, but when one isn’t used to one’s current time zone, how much does that matter?<br /><br /><br /><table width="100" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0"><tr><td><img border="0" src="http://www.tech-counter.com/cgi-bin/gd-count.cgi?page=http://www.womanhollerin.blogspot.com&style=wide_latin&nbdigits=10&reloads=1"></td></tr><tr><td><div align="center"><font size="2" face="arial, helvetica, sans-serif"><a href="http://www.gymsource.com">Gym Source</a></font></div></td></tr></table><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/19123059-8660701428640530184?l=womanhollerin.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Robinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11530793550821854072noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19123059.post-19338171785062477052009-05-10T12:14:00.000-05:002009-05-10T12:17:49.762-05:00I had harder time getting to Champaign, Ill., three years ago than I had getting to New Delhi. After an easy drive to the airport in San Antonio (thank you, Tobin!) we had an easy flight to Chicago, a snack in O’Hare and the easiest 14-hour air trip I can imagine from Chicago to Delhi. No one questioned Judy about the extra box she took on board and even the babies sitting near us were quiet. I noted especially that unlike flights between Russia and the United States, no one got drunk. Not one person. <br /><br />And the flight arrived early.<br /><br />The first people we saw were a unit of Indian soldiers who sent us in the right direction toward baggage claim. We had to fill out a health form attesting that we were not feeling symptoms of the flu, and the rest of the passport and customs check was easy, too. In the passport line, a blond woman dressed in black turned to us and said, “I recognize the smell of India. I love it.” (I think it smells like burning trash. In any case, the smell doesn’t seem unique to India.)<br /><br />Our pre-arranged taxi met us at the airport. We had a smooth ride through the crowded evening highways of New Delhi to Connaught Place. We say a young woman in a golden sari riding behind her boyfriend (I suppose he could have been her husband or brother) on a motorcycle and a caravan of bicycles carrying several wooden chairs each. With this much traffic at 9 p.m., I can imagine how many cars we’ll see tomorrow.<br /><br />We saw a lot of places with guardhouses and razor wire. The U.S. embassy is among that crowd.<br /><br />Our hotel is on a pretty quiet street with a lot of restaurants and shops. This area has quite a few Western chain food places. We passed Wimpy not long before arriving. The reception man took us to our room and in explaining the amenities, he pointed out that we have a view. Of Papa John’s across the street.<br /><br />We’ve had a call from our guide already. We’ll be meeting at 8 a.m. to get started early before the heat gets too thick.<br /><br />Judy and I both are still not really believing we are here in India and that it was so easy, so far. The hotel sent us a glass of apple juice on the house as a welcome. We are settling in.<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><table width="100" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0"><tbody><tr><td><img border="0" src="http://www.tech-counter.com/cgi-bin/gd-count.cgi?page=http://www.womanhollerin.blogspot.com&amp;style=wide_latin&amp;nbdigits=10&amp;reloads=1" /></td></tr><tr><td><div align="center"><span style="font-family:arial, helvetica, sans-serif;font-size:85%;"><a href="http://www.gymsource.com/">Gym Source</a></span></div></td></tr></tbody></table><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/19123059-1933817178506247705?l=womanhollerin.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Robinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11530793550821854072noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19123059.post-5069717437243311592009-02-26T23:49:00.008-06:002009-02-27T00:19:55.101-06:00I am listening to Bruce Springsteen, <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;">The Essential Springsteen</span>, "American Skin (41 Shots)," to be exact. Reminded by the song of Amadou Diallo, I looked on the Web for <a href="http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/d/amadou_diallo/index.html?scp=1-spot&amp;sq=amadou%20diallo&amp;st=cse">articles</a> about this case in which police in New York shot an African immigrant 41 times in 1999. <div><br /></div><div>They fired on him, apparently, because he was walking in New York and carrying his wallet and a pager.<div><div><br /></div><div>The case was highly publicized, and people were outraged. Yet, in 2000 the patrol officers, who acknowledged taking each of the 41 shots, were acquitted by a jury in Albany, N.Y., where the trial had been moved to protect the officers constitutional right to a fair trial.</div><div><br /></div><div>The acquittal raised another round of outrage, including Springsteen's elegaic "41 Shots."</div><div><br /></div><div>The Boss's musical commentary on the killing of Diallo provoked the Patrolmen's Benevolent Association of New York City to boycott a Springsteen concert in the City in 2000. Kenneth A. Paulson of the Freedom Forum linked the song and the boycott to another constitutional right, that of free speech, in an <a href="http://www.freedomforum.org/templates/document.asp?documentID=2985">article</a> published shortly after the concert.  The police boycott -- meaning they refused to work security at the concert while they were off duty -- constituted punishment of the speech the officers found offensive, according to Paulson. </div><div><br /></div><div>Ultimately, the police chief at the time stood up for free speech and urged the officers to provide their expertise in crowd control at Springsteen's concert and those of others who held positions the PBA did not share. If the officers had refused to work the concert while on duty, the boycotters would have been taking an action on behalf of the government, thus actually violating the constitution.</div><div><br /></div><div>"Everyone's best interests are served when police officers find a way to protest unpalatable speech without punishing it," Paulson wrote.</div><div><br /></div><div>Ironically, in this first Black History Month in the era of Barack Obama, most of us seem to have forgotten about the 10th anniversary of the needless death of Amadou Diallo. Diallo died Feb. 5, 1999, when four police officers shot him 41 times. No matter how hopeful or preoccupied we are feeling today, or this month, we should remember him and mourn.</div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /><div><br /><table width="100" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0"><tbody><tr><td><img border="0" src="http://www.tech-counter.com/cgi-bin/gd-count.cgi?page=http://www.womanhollerin.blogspot.com&amp;style=wide_latin&amp;nbdigits=10&amp;reloads=1" /></td></tr><tr><td><div align="center"><span style="font-family:arial, helvetica, sans-serif;font-size:85%;"><a href="http://www.gymsource.com/">Gym Source</a></span></div></td></tr></tbody></table></div></div></div></div><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/19123059-506971743724331159?l=womanhollerin.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Robinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11530793550821854072noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19123059.post-44867632558770322792008-01-22T22:29:00.001-06:002008-02-06T21:53:17.875-06:00In contrast to the amazing sculptures in the Siem Reap airport, the reliefs of the Angkor temples, the wood carving, and other arts and crafts we saw in Siem Reap, Ellie and I were not impressed with the paintings we saw in Cambodia.<br /><br />I'd have to say most of the paintings I saw looked a bit like the velvet Elvis paintings one sees at street corners in U.S. cities. <br><a href="http://bp2.blogger.com/_3j-6dWAaiFs/R5bL1rKAahI/AAAAAAAAAEc/q7EKwk1n3vo/s1600-h/dog-badart-crp-shrp.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5158534546177681938" style="WIDTH: 198px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 130px" height="186" alt="" src="http://bp2.blogger.com/_3j-6dWAaiFs/R5bL1rKAahI/AAAAAAAAAEc/q7EKwk1n3vo/s320/dog-badart-crp-shrp.jpg" width="246" border="0" /></a><br />Admittedly, I didn't go in any galleries and most of these paintings were for sale at stalls outside the temples and along the highways... But, they were hanging alongside batik, weaving, wood carvings, ceramics, rubbings of the temple reliefs and other folk art that made me wish I had a container to ship things home in rather than my medium-sized suitcase that had to weigh in under 50 pounds.<br /><br />We wondered if the Cambodian painters had been misled by tourists who lacked taste. But then I thought about the Khmer Rouge. Pol Pot and his colleagues did their best to rid Cambodia of fine artists during the <a href="http://www.dithpran.org/">genocide</a> in the 1970s. It stands to reason that skill in painting would have been lost to at least a generation because of the death of those who would have been teachers.<br /><br />Nevertheless, one painting stood out. <br /><br />I saw it in a floating market on Lake Tonle Sap next to the charts showing the array of fish and bird species that inhabit the lake, not far from the fish farm and the tables where tourists drink fresh coconut milk before they get back on the boats that will take them back to shore. There hangs a painting in which a B-52 (I checked the silhouette against photos of U.S. war planes) flies over the lake while people go about their daily activities. <a href="http://bp1.blogger.com/_3j-6dWAaiFs/R5bL1bKAafI/AAAAAAAAAEM/oQeK1LbN9GY/s1600-h/B52-tonle-sap-full.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5158534541882714610" style="CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="http://bp1.blogger.com/_3j-6dWAaiFs/R5bL1bKAafI/AAAAAAAAAEM/oQeK1LbN9GY/s320/B52-tonle-sap-full.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><br />I knew the United States dropped bombs on Cambodia when it wasn't supposed to, but I didn't know why. I am reading Kenton Clymer's <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Troubled-Relations-United-States-Cambodia/dp/0875806155/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&amp;s=books&amp;qid=1201063348&amp;sr=8-1"><em>Troubled Relations: The United States and Cambodia since 1870</em></a> to try to understand why the United States bombed Cambodia during the Vietnam war, or the American War as it is called in Vietnam and Cambodia.<br /><br />I will let you know if I understand any better after reading an expert.<br /><br />Cambodia has had a few years of peace, now. I hope that the peace continues without any foreign bombers or home-grown horror. I hope this man, and other artists like him, will have the luxury of painting in oils.<br /><br /><a href="http://bp2.blogger.com/_3j-6dWAaiFs/R5bL1rKAagI/AAAAAAAAAEU/bDEqQ35Czt4/s1600-h/drawing-bayon2.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5158534546177681922" style="CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="http://bp2.blogger.com/_3j-6dWAaiFs/R5bL1rKAagI/AAAAAAAAAEU/bDEqQ35Czt4/s320/drawing-bayon2.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><table cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" width="100" border="0"><tbody><tr><td><img src="http://www.tech-counter.com/cgi-bin/gd-count.cgi?page=http://www.womanhollerin.blogspot.com&amp;style=wide_latin&amp;nbdigits=10&amp;reloads=1" border="0" /></td></tr><tr><td><div align="center"><span style="font-family:arial, helvetica, sans-serif;font-size:85%;"><a href="http://www.gymsource.com/">Gym Source</a></span></div></td></tr></tbody></table><em></em><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/19123059-4486763255877032279?l=womanhollerin.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Robinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11530793550821854072noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19123059.post-70536608813684347442008-01-21T14:45:00.000-06:002008-01-21T15:32:28.881-06:00I bought a painting for myself for my birthday (today). <br /><br />Ellie and I ducked into the Empty Wall Gallery to find some peace from the traffic on Luong Van Can Street in Hanoi a couple of days before Christmas. While millions of motorbike riders made their way home, and street-food vendors peddled their dumplings and tapioca drinks, we enjoyed a lovely meeting with Hai Yen and her paintings.<br /><br />I noticed an oil painting of a huge Buddha face with three small monks beneath it and some others featuring flowers I had seen all over Vietnam. Some wonderful lacquer paintings attracted Ellie's attention. We talked about the prices of paintings and where the artists' work is hanging around the city. Then Hai Yen pointed the way upstairs, where we discovered more paintings in the style of the Buddha face.<br /><br />Ellie and Hai Yen moved the paintings around into groupings, and we sat comfortably considering which ones Ellie might buy. <br /><br />Ellie has a large art collection that reflects her postings in Ukraine, Armenia, Central Asia and Pakistan, her travels and her long association with Poland; she is used to assessing art. I have decided rather late in life that I deserve art, so I hung back from the negotiations about the paintings. <br /><br />In the end, Ellie bought a lacquer painting, and I bought some abstract lacquer pendants and bracelets. We left Empty Wall with warm memories of the gallery as a refuge from Hanoi's bustle and of Hai Yen as a knowledgeable guide to Hanoi's art scene. I asked the name of the artist of the work that caught our attention. Ellie told Hai Yen that she would come back after our cruise on Halong Bay if she decided to buy one of the paintings. Hai Yen reminded her that a collector in Singapore had expressed interest in the painting that she had paid the most attention to. We left the gallery to pack for the cruise.<br /><br />On Christmas day I asked Ellie if she was planning to go back to Empty Wall for the painting. She said the work wasn't haunting her. "But it's haunting you," she added.<br /><br />After the long drive back to Hanoi from Cat Ba Harbor and a moment of negotiation about the beds in our hotel room, we headed back to Empty Wall. I decided that I would buy the painting of three monks moving away from the viewer into a golden mist if the gallery was open.<br /><br />We found the spot on Luong Van Can Street, but had trouble finding the gallery because it turned out to be closed. We moved on to shopping for plates, chopsticks and clothes. I felt better about the extra silk outfits because I was saving some money by not buying the painting.<br /><br />We went on to Cambodia (where we didn't see any paintings that appealed to us) and then home. <br /><br />But the monks stuck with me.<br /><br />I e-mailed Empty Wall about 10 days after I got home to Seguin, and Hai Yen sent several photos of work by Luong Trung, including "The Path of Monks." "My monks," as I had begun to think of them. Some of Trung's paintings had sold, but my monks were still available.<br /><br />I sent the fee for the painting and shipping by Western Union to Hanoi. Hai Yen sent the painting by Fedex to Seguin. (This is a good side of globalization.)<br /><br />The painting arrived in three days after passing through Subic Bay in the Phillipines and Anchorage, Alaska. (Package tracking is a good side of the Web.)<br /><br /><a href="http://bp3.blogger.com/_3j-6dWAaiFs/R5UK1s6W3PI/AAAAAAAAAEE/HkUMdeOGqCM/s1600-h/L%5B1%5D.Trung50.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="http://bp3.blogger.com/_3j-6dWAaiFs/R5UK1s6W3PI/AAAAAAAAAEE/HkUMdeOGqCM/s320/L%5B1%5D.Trung50.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5158040865928043762" /></a><br /><br />Mr. Luong Trung is a young artist, born in 1981. He has an impressive cultural education in Hanoi's fine art and cinematography universities. He has exhibited widely, including participation in the National Fine Art Exhibition of Vietnam in 2005. U.S. and Australian collectors, like Ellie and me, are taking note of his style and his works are turning up in more and more collections.<br /><br />Ask me about Empty Wall. I can tell you how to contact Hai Yen to learn more about the artists she represents.<br /><br /><table cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" width="100" border="0"><tbody><tr><td><img src="http://www.tech-counter.com/cgi-bin/gd-count.cgi?page=http://www.womanhollerin.blogspot.com&amp;style=wide_latin&amp;nbdigits=10&amp;reloads=1" border="0" /></td></tr><tr><td><div align="center"><span style="font-family:arial, helvetica, sans-serif;font-size:85%;"><a href="http://www.gymsource.com/">Gym Source</a></span></div></td></tr></tbody></table><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/19123059-7053660881368434744?l=womanhollerin.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Robinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11530793550821854072noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19123059.post-73841879123951510102008-01-17T06:13:00.000-06:002008-01-18T22:12:41.553-06:00<a href="http://bp0.blogger.com/_3j-6dWAaiFs/R49HBc6W3KI/AAAAAAAAADc/rvxkA5Fn5cQ/s1600-h/ha-children.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5156418188628909218" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://bp0.blogger.com/_3j-6dWAaiFs/R49HBc6W3KI/AAAAAAAAADc/rvxkA5Fn5cQ/s200/ha-children.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><br />This is Ha. She is a trained accountant who left work with a beer importer to become a tour guide because she wanted to interact with people. She is a master at her job.<br /><br />The day we flew from Saigon (hardly anyone calls it Ho Chi Minh city) to Danang, Vietnam Airlines had cancelled a string of flights, including our 4 o'clock, to fill up the 5:30 plane. We were late and didn't have her phone number, but she was at the airport to meet us carrying a sign with our names on it, a smile on her face, a motorcycle helmet in her hand and a driver (of a car) ready to take us to Hoi An.<br /><br />Ha put together a wonderful plan to introduce us to the history and culture of the central coastal region of Vietnam, including Hoi An, Danang and <a href="http://wikitravel.org/en/Hue">Hue</a> (the capital of the country before the troubles began in the 20th century and the location of one of the most bitter battles of the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tet_Offensive">Tet Offensive </a>in 1968). We visited pagodas, temples, tombs and the Imperial Citadel. We traveled by boat on the Perfume River. We heard two performances of traditional Vietnamese music (one onboard a riverboat). We dined in a wide variety of restaurants and had a thorough introduction to the cuisine of this region.<br /><br />But most importantly, Ha showed us her full humanity. She told us about her family: her husband, child, child on the way, and her parents (whom she visited while we were in Hue).<br /><br />In the photo she is holding a photograph of a group of children. These children receive scholarships that enable them to attend school because of Ha's work with a Vietnamese man who lives in California. Ha helps make the <a href="http://picasaweb.google.com/helpthevietkids/LPhTHCBNgMiNBC?authkey=7AXJ4NrpckU">connection</a> between capable, poor children and the benfactor.<br /><br />I was surprised to learn from Ha that all children in Vietnam are required to pay school attendance fees each year. If a family can't afford the fees, no matter how capable the children are, they can't attend school.<br /><br /><a href="http://bp0.blogger.com/_3j-6dWAaiFs/R49Qgc6W3NI/AAAAAAAAAD0/wC-DyOUg4X0/s1600-h/kids-hue.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5156428616809503954" style="FLOAT: right; MARGIN: 5px 5px 10px 10px; CURSOR: hand" alt="children of Hue" src="http://bp0.blogger.com/_3j-6dWAaiFs/R49Qgc6W3NI/AAAAAAAAAD0/wC-DyOUg4X0/s200/kids-hue.jpg" border="0" /></a><br />Both Ha and her collaborator in California grew up in Hue, so they feel a special connection to the children of this city. Poor children of Hue, and other cities in Vietnam, are often working, rather than playing like the kids in this picture. According to the people I met while I was there, Vietnam has no minimum age for going to work. Children are selling things to tourists, working in shops and restaurants, begging.<br /><br />Ha meets children as she is guiding tourists around and asks them how they are doing in school. If they are receiving recognition for their work, Duy (from California) finds the money to help them continue to attend school.<br /><br />When we floated on the Perfume River, we passed areas where quite a few of the children who receive scholarship assistance live. Their families live on boats or in houses very close to the shore.<br /><br /><a href="http://bp2.blogger.com/_3j-6dWAaiFs/R49SF86W3OI/AAAAAAAAAD8/0RBwhnLnzoU/s1600-h/boats-hue.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5156430360566226146" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://bp2.blogger.com/_3j-6dWAaiFs/R49SF86W3OI/AAAAAAAAAD8/0RBwhnLnzoU/s200/boats-hue.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><br />I hope to stay in contact with Ha and to continue to help support this effort to keep the kids in school.<br /><br />What sort of Communism is it when children don't receive a free education? I think it is heartless and foolhardy for any government to ignore the needs of the people to learn.<br /><br /><table cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" width="100" border="0"><tbody><tr><td><img src="http://www.tech-counter.com/cgi-bin/gd-count.cgi?page=http://www.womanhollerin.blogspot.com&amp;style=wide_latin&amp;nbdigits=10&amp;reloads=1" border="0" /></td></tr><tr><td><div align="center"><span style="font-family:arial, helvetica, sans-serif;font-size:85%;"><a href="http://www.gymsource.com/">Gym Source</a></span></div></td></tr></tbody></table><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/19123059-7384187912395151010?l=womanhollerin.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Robinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11530793550821854072noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19123059.post-28729176244013467982008-01-11T16:12:00.000-06:002008-01-11T17:48:54.162-06:00Forget for a moment that Cambodia has been continuously populated since the building of the city of Angkor Thom and the various temples that comprise the Angkor complex in the 10th century. <a href="http://bp3.blogger.com/_3j-6dWAaiFs/R4f3JM6W3FI/AAAAAAAAACw/XsbgfR3UEKw/s1600-h/angkor-wat-distant.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5154360036005698642" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 5px 5px 10px 10px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="http://bp3.blogger.com/_3j-6dWAaiFs/R4f3JM6W3FI/AAAAAAAAACw/XsbgfR3UEKw/s200/angkor-wat-distant.jpg" border="0" /></a><br />Now, imagine yourself a French naturalist searching for species of plants and animals as yet unknown to Europeans in the 19th century. Your Cambodian guides are slicing through the jungle underbrush on a hill. You look up and see an incredible sight: a huge stone building rising from the treetops in the distance.<br><br><br />Never mind that Cambodian monks have been tending the temple of Angkor Wat throughout the centuries and keeping the vines and trees of the tropical forest from taking over the premises, the colonial world labels the discovery YOURS.<br /><br />Today's world traveler need not be anywhere near as intrepid as those first French explorers who found Cambodia's secret. My friend Ellie and I, for example, spent five wonderful days in Siem Reap exploring the temples of Angkor Wat and the Bayon and the city of Angkor Thom.<a href="http://bp0.blogger.com/_3j-6dWAaiFs/R4f3Jc6W3GI/AAAAAAAAAC4/nKQ2Vm4KinE/s1600-h/ellie-robin-angkorwat.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5154360040300665954" style="FLOAT: right; MARGIN: 5px 5px 10px 10px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="http://bp0.blogger.com/_3j-6dWAaiFs/R4f3Jc6W3GI/AAAAAAAAAC4/nKQ2Vm4KinE/s200/ellie-robin-angkorwat.jpg" border="0" /></a> <br />Instead of a jungle emergence, we crossed a causway to Angkor Wat like the thousands of other tourists who visit the site each year. No need for machetes.<br />No one will mistakenly think that we discovered these temples, but we are certainly educating a lot of people about them.<br /><br />Our visit to Angkor came at the end of an amazing trip in Vietnam, but after seeing these temples, I felt like I'd seen Halong Bay, Hoi An and the squid boats of Danang in a long-ago lifetime. <br /><br /><a href="http://bp0.blogger.com/_3j-6dWAaiFs/R4f3Jc6W3HI/AAAAAAAAADA/tBshqdVQgA8/s1600-h/bas-relief-angkorwat.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5154360040300665970" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 5px 5px 10px 10px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="http://bp0.blogger.com/_3j-6dWAaiFs/R4f3Jc6W3HI/AAAAAAAAADA/tBshqdVQgA8/s200/bas-relief-angkorwat.jpg" border="0" /></a><br />I can't do justice to the experience in one post, so as I reflect on my mind-blowing adventure, I predict that I'll be coming back again and again to the bas reliefs of Angkor Wat and the Bayon. Both temples have facilitated reverence for Hindu gods and the Buddha, according to the current king's beliefs. The reliefs combine secular and sacred history, beginning with the creation of the world and its animal and human species out of the churning milk sea through the battles among the Khmer and their neighbors in the ancient world. <br /><br />Thank you to the monks who cared for the temples. Thank you to those who continue to worship in and around Angkor. Thank you to the monks who, like me, were touring the temples to learn. I apologize for invading your privacy at the sites, but the saffron robes are irresistible. I hope you will view the photos as part of my homage to the spirits who built, maintain and populate the temples.<a href="http://bp1.blogger.com/_3j-6dWAaiFs/R4f2ts6W3EI/AAAAAAAAACo/8l3XXRpA2aM/s1600-h/monks-angkor.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5154359563559296066" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://bp1.blogger.com/_3j-6dWAaiFs/R4f2ts6W3EI/AAAAAAAAACo/8l3XXRpA2aM/s200/monks-angkor.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><table cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" width="100" border="0"><br /><br /><tbody><br /><br /><tr><br /><br /><td><img src="http://www.tech-counter.com/cgi-bin/gd-count.cgi?page=http://www.womanhollerin.blogspot.com&amp;style=wide_latin&amp;nbdigits=10&amp;reloads=1" border="0" /></td></tr><br /><br /><tr><br /><br /><td><br /><br /><div align="center"><span style="font-family:arial, helvetica, sans-serif;font-size:85%;"><a href="http://www.gymsource.com/">Gym Source</a></span></div></td></tr></tbody></table><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/19123059-2872917624401346798?l=womanhollerin.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Robinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11530793550821854072noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19123059.post-35226776517625436592008-01-11T16:03:00.000-06:002008-01-12T08:11:37.006-06:00Hello, folks!<br /><br />After a packed semester, I am back. At Christmas time I took an amazing odyssey through Vietnam and Cambodia. This trip took me and my friend Ellie from one end of Vietnam to the other and to central Cambodia, through a space and time continuum that started in the ancient world and bounced through the Cold War and into the 21st century. My next posts will highlight photos and reflections fromt the trip, in no particular order.<br /><br />Meanwhile, Karma has BIG ideas and still fits in small places. She has a great fondness for this little basket and her lavender scarf.<br /><a href="http://bp2.blogger.com/_3j-6dWAaiFs/R4fo486W3DI/AAAAAAAAACg/rW_cunyHXmg/s1600-h/karma-box.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5154344363670035506" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://bp2.blogger.com/_3j-6dWAaiFs/R4fo486W3DI/AAAAAAAAACg/rW_cunyHXmg/s200/karma-box.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><table cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" width="100" border="0"><tbody><tr><td><img src="http://www.tech-counter.com/cgi-bin/gd-count.cgi?page=http://www.womanhollerin.blogspot.com&amp;style=wide_latin&amp;nbdigits=10&amp;reloads=1" border="0" /></td></tr><tr><td><div align="center"><span style="font-family:arial, helvetica, sans-serif;font-size:85%;"><a href="http://www.gymsource.com/">Gym Source</a></span></div></td></tr></tbody></table><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/19123059-3522677651762543659?l=womanhollerin.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Robinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11530793550821854072noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19123059.post-34238104322888898332007-08-27T22:33:00.000-05:002007-08-27T23:10:10.566-05:00<p><a href="http://bp0.blogger.com/_3j-6dWAaiFs/RtOaiQm-grI/AAAAAAAAACY/FPDMznbxf8k/s1600-h/karma5.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5103592716105581234" style="FLOAT: right; MARGIN: 0px 0px 10px 10px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="http://bp0.blogger.com/_3j-6dWAaiFs/RtOaiQm-grI/AAAAAAAAACY/FPDMznbxf8k/s320/karma5.jpg" border="0" /></a>Karma's arrival was the last major event of the summer. One day we woke up with a bunch of middle aged and aging cats, and then there was a hungry, howling kitten.<p>We think the male cat we feed outside brought her to us because she looks like a tiny version of him. </p><br>She went from waif to diva almost overnight.</p><br /><br /><a href="http://bp1.blogger.com/_3j-6dWAaiFs/RtOahgm-gqI/AAAAAAAAACQ/cyQPPveB0Cw/s1600-h/karma4.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5103592703220679330" style="FLOAT: right; MARGIN: 0px 0px 10px 10px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="http://bp1.blogger.com/_3j-6dWAaiFs/RtOahgm-gqI/AAAAAAAAACQ/cyQPPveB0Cw/s320/karma4.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><a href="http://bp0.blogger.com/_3j-6dWAaiFs/RtOahQm-gpI/AAAAAAAAACI/qV4W8qgcmmc/s1600-h/karma3.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5103592698925712018" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 0px 10px 10px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="http://bp0.blogger.com/_3j-6dWAaiFs/RtOahQm-gpI/AAAAAAAAACI/qV4W8qgcmmc/s320/karma3.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><p>The big cats are still trying to figure out what happened to their quiet world. <br><br><br><br><br><br><br /><p>I tell them they were once orphans, and someone took them in.</p><p></p><p></p><br /><br /><p></p><a href="http://bp3.blogger.com/_3j-6dWAaiFs/RtOahAm-goI/AAAAAAAAACA/i6lphM6Iyl8/s1600-h/karma2.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5103592694630744706" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 0px 10px 10px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="http://bp3.blogger.com/_3j-6dWAaiFs/RtOahAm-goI/AAAAAAAAACA/i6lphM6Iyl8/s320/karma2.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><br><br /><p>They are not sure.</p> <br /><br />Karma has stolen all of their toys.<br /><a href="http://bp3.blogger.com/_3j-6dWAaiFs/RtOYsAm-gnI/AAAAAAAAAB4/FrltJH3zR3c/s1600-h/karma1.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5103590684586050162" style="FLOAT: right; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="http://bp3.blogger.com/_3j-6dWAaiFs/RtOYsAm-gnI/AAAAAAAAAB4/FrltJH3zR3c/s320/karma1.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><p><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/19123059-3423810432288889833?l=womanhollerin.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Robinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11530793550821854072noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19123059.post-72843980450629727562007-04-22T13:12:00.000-05:002007-04-22T14:25:04.746-05:00<a href="http://bp0.blogger.com/_3j-6dWAaiFs/RiumXgZ1pzI/AAAAAAAAAAs/ct6suiUKUdg/s1600-h/casa-presno.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5056317929419024178" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="http://bp0.blogger.com/_3j-6dWAaiFs/RiumXgZ1pzI/AAAAAAAAAAs/ct6suiUKUdg/s320/casa-presno.jpg" border="0" /></a><br />This morning I gave my paper in this building, La Casa Presno, the location of some of the social science departments of BUAP. The conference room opens to the left of this central courtyard. Climbing the stairs took me into a world of gold leaf and potted plants that I don't usually associate with the social sciences.<a href="http://bp1.blogger.com/_3j-6dWAaiFs/RiumXwZ1p0I/AAAAAAAAAA0/mlfFpHBdKpI/s1600-h/casa-presno-upstairs.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5056317933713991490" style="FLOAT: right; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="http://bp1.blogger.com/_3j-6dWAaiFs/RiumXwZ1p0I/AAAAAAAAAA0/mlfFpHBdKpI/s320/casa-presno-upstairs.jpg" border="0" /></a><br />The historical center of Puebla is full of buildings that have been renovated from private mansions into official, commercial or educational spaces. I have enjoyed the openness of the conference. Usually, the scholarly conferences I attend are held in convention centers or hotels: this one took place all over the city. In between sessions of the conference, we got to go outside, breathe fresh air and participate in street life.<br /><p><br /><a href="http://bp1.blogger.com/_3j-6dWAaiFs/RiumXwZ1p1I/AAAAAAAAAA8/eyh8MCGGUAA/s1600-h/passing-ice.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5056317933713991506" style="FLOAT: right; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="http://bp1.blogger.com/_3j-6dWAaiFs/RiumXwZ1p1I/AAAAAAAAAA8/eyh8MCGGUAA/s320/passing-ice.jpg" border="0" /></a>I'm glad I made use of my first days in the city for photo wanderings. This ice stand is right outside a cathedral, and when I asked if I could take photos, the saleswoman told me when the cathedral opened. She was very surprised that I wanted to photograph her selling ice. Of course, I'm not so good at explaining what I'm doing, but she said it was ok. <p><br /><a href="http://bp2.blogger.com/_3j-6dWAaiFs/RiulxAZ1pyI/AAAAAAAAAAk/nzCYlT37KbM/s1600-h/my-street.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5056317267994060578" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="http://bp2.blogger.com/_3j-6dWAaiFs/RiulxAZ1pyI/AAAAAAAAAAk/nzCYlT37KbM/s320/my-street.jpg" border="0" /></a>This is the building on the corner next to my hotel, where I am now resting on my last afternoon in Puebla because I am sick. I have such a delicate digestive system. Sigh. The little "H" on the right marks my hotel.<br /><br />I guess I'll have to cross Puebla off the potential-places-to-retire list after all.<br /><br />Everyone has been very nice to me in Mexico, from the airline counters in San Antonio to the waitcaptain at the banquet who took the time to listen to me explain in baby Spanish that I didn't feel well, and could I please have some yogurt (most expensive yogurt I've ever eaten, I imagine), to the bellmen who thought I really liked my room in the hotel and wanted to stay in it even though they were preparing to fumigate that floor with pesticide. They went out of their way to get permission to let me stay there in spite of my willingness to move to a room that would <em>not</em> be fumigated.<br /><p>I still haven't mentioned anything about the content of the conference. I know readers will be really interested if they get this far and keep clicking... <p>I was one of 15 participants in a seminar on the theme, "This is not your home." The topics ranged from my consideration of Anna Politkovskaia's reporting on the Chechen war to the reconstruction of Berlin, building at the site of the 9/11 attacks, South African fiction that interrogates the notions of reconciliation and truth, fiction about the German invasion and occuaption of France during WWII, the apartheid wall in Israel/Palestine, poetry about the Israeli invasions of Lebanon, illegal immigration into Western Europe from the East, German fiction about Mau Mau (revolution in Kenya), a novel about the genocide in Rwanda, Orhan Pamuk's novel <em>Snow</em> and a Palestinian novel of resistance.<br /><br />I found all the papers fascinating and have a lot of literature and scholarship to add to my summer reading list. You'd think with intellectual interests such as these, I would have a stronger stomach.<br /><br /><br /><table cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" width="100" border="0"><tbody><tr><td><img src="http://www.tech-counter.com/cgi-bin/gd-count.cgi?page=http://www.womanhollerin.blogspot.com&style=wide_latin&amp;nbdigits=10&amp;reloads=1" border="0" /></td></tr><tr><td><div align="center"><span style="font-family:arial, helvetica, sans-serif;font-size:85%;"><a href="http://www.gymsource.com">Gym Source</a></span></div></td></tr></tbody></table></p><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/19123059-7284398045062972756?l=womanhollerin.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Robinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11530793550821854072noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19123059.post-14657074021264244752007-04-19T21:24:00.000-05:002007-04-19T22:30:59.636-05:00I haven't written anything since the ice storm, because I've had a storm of things to do! By the time I get done with everything in the week, then I just want to sleep instead of writing.<br /><br />I am currently at a conference in Puebla, Mexico. <a href="http://bp2.blogger.com/_3j-6dWAaiFs/RigoywZ1pvI/AAAAAAAAAAM/m1fHJF-GXeY/s1600-h/toward5demayo.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5055335434175227634" style="FLOAT: right; MARGIN: 0px 0px 10px 10px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="http://bp2.blogger.com/_3j-6dWAaiFs/RigoywZ1pvI/AAAAAAAAAAM/m1fHJF-GXeY/s320/toward5demayo.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><br />In 1988 I visited Puebla on a day tour from Mexico City. We got the tour as compensation for some bad experiences with the tour company. That is, the guide on a private tour we took thought that neither of us could speak Spanish and was saying mean things about Americans. I astounded him when I asked questions about something he had been telling our driver in Spanish. I'll never forget the look of horror on his face!<br /><br />From the previous visit to Puebla, I remember the convent where the nuns hid for years to avoid having to leave the convent for political reasons and mole Poblano.<br /><br />I have already had some wonderful mole poblano. The waiter told us that the mole at La Fonda de Santa Clara has 24 spices, chocolate, three kinds of chiles (ancho, chipotle, and one that started with a p), shredded tortilla, sesame seeds and peanuts. He thought he might have missed some ingredients....<br /><br />Today I found a <em>vegetarian</em> restuarant and decided I could retire here. If I do, I'll have to pull together some sentences that make sense in Spanish. So far, I'm getting by on nonsense that combines Spanish, Russian and French (thank God I forgot almost all the Farsi I learned last year, or I'd really be in trouble!) and big smiles. Mexican people are gracious; they figure out what I mean.<br /><br />The reception for the conference took place in a courtyard of the BUAP (Puebla's university), which is located in a 17th-century building where an important philosopher who was also a friend of Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz studied. It was something on the order of a high school then.<br /><br /><p><br /><a href="http://bp3.blogger.com/_3j-6dWAaiFs/RigpkAZ1pwI/AAAAAAAAAAU/Sm_XY7sqFgQ/s1600-h/mirrors2.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5055336280283784962" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="http://bp3.blogger.com/_3j-6dWAaiFs/RigpkAZ1pwI/AAAAAAAAAAU/Sm_XY7sqFgQ/s320/mirrors2.jpg" border="0" /></a> I walked all over the historic district. Mexican cities are colorful, and Puebla is no exception. This is one of my favorite images so far. I am glad to be taking photos. Now, all I have to do is find the time to get my printer fixed and I'll be able to inspire myself by hanging the photos all over my studio walls. I don't have as many good feelings about pixels as I do about paper.</p><p> </p><br /><a href="http://bp3.blogger.com/_3j-6dWAaiFs/RigzkAZ1pxI/AAAAAAAAAAc/hzXFc3hmeDk/s1600-h/passing-ice.jpg"><img style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="http://bp3.blogger.com/_3j-6dWAaiFs/RigzkAZ1pxI/AAAAAAAAAAc/hzXFc3hmeDk/s320/passing-ice.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5055347275400062738" /></a><br />I sat at a cafe on the central square, or zocalo, to work on my paper for the conference. One of those moments when I think, "This is how life should be." I managed to cut about five pages. Some of my favorite ideas landed on the cobblestones because I don't have much time to present the paper, which is about Anna Politkovskaia's reporting on Chechnya. When I publish this work, I am moving away from writing about war to something else. <br /><br />I don't know what yet, but it will be geared to inspire us to acts of friendship and hospitality.<br /><br /><br /><br /><table cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" width="100" border="0"><br /><tbody><br /><tr><br /><td><img src="http://www.tech-counter.com/cgi-bin/gd-count.cgi?page=http://www.womanhollerin.blogspot.com&style=wide_latin&amp;nbdigits=10&amp;reloads=1" border="0" /></td></tr><br /><tr><br /><td><br /><div align="center"><span style="font-family:arial, helvetica, sans-serif;font-size:85%;"><a href="http://www.gymsource.com">Gym Source</a></span></div></td></tr></tbody></table><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/19123059-1465707402126424475?l=womanhollerin.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Robinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11530793550821854072noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19123059.post-1169185139427300672007-01-18T23:25:00.000-06:002007-01-18T23:39:23.176-06:00<a href="http://photos1.blogger.com/x/blogger/7417/1886/1600/850123/icy-flower.jpg"><img style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/x/blogger/7417/1886/320/426188/icy-flower.jpg" border="0" /></a><br />These are some of the prettier moments of the ice storm, or "arctic blast" as the TV meteorologists were calling it. You can tell how mild winter had been before this week by the flowers and berries that were thriving and then suddenly found themselves encased in ice.<br /><br /><a href="http://photos1.blogger.com/x/blogger/7417/1886/1600/100923/icy-plant.jpg"><img style="FLOAT: right; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/x/blogger/7417/1886/320/838247/icy-plant.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />Although it never snowed, the plants took on the crystalline shapes of snowflakes.<a href="http://photos1.blogger.com/x/blogger/7417/1886/1600/375945/leaves.jpg"><img style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/x/blogger/7417/1886/320/310331/leaves.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><br />I shot these at about 4 p.m. when the temperature was 34 degrees F and the ice had tried to melt a little.<br /><br /><br />The leaves were not holding up as well as their icy counterparts.<br /><br /><br /><a href="http://photos1.blogger.com/x/blogger/7417/1886/1600/365125/ice-leaf.jpg"><img style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/x/blogger/7417/1886/320/429477/ice-leaf.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><a href="http://photos1.blogger.com/x/blogger/7417/1886/1600/391744/frozen-holly.jpg"><img style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/x/blogger/7417/1886/320/288015/frozen-holly.jpg" border="0" /></a><br />However, holly berries and flowers encased in ice look sweet.<br /><br /><a href="http://photos1.blogger.com/x/blogger/7417/1886/1600/263624/frozen-flower.jpg"><img style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/x/blogger/7417/1886/320/786554/frozen-flower.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><br /><table cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" width="100" border="0"><tbody><tr><td><img src="http://www.tech-counter.com/cgi-bin/gd-count.cgi?page=http://www.womanhollerin.blogspot.com&style=wide_latin&amp;nbdigits=10&amp;reloads=1" border="0" /></td></tr><tr><td><div align="center"><span style="font-family:arial, helvetica, sans-serif;font-size:85%;"><a href="http://www.gymsource.com">Gym Source</a></span></div></td></tr></tbody></table><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/19123059-116918513942730067?l=womanhollerin.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Robinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11530793550821854072noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19123059.post-1169097779354761992007-01-17T23:09:00.000-06:002007-01-17T23:29:59.676-06:00If you wanted to drive somewhere today in Texas, you would have faced this:<br /><br /><br /><p><a href="http://photos1.blogger.com/x/blogger/7417/1886/1600/451245/icy-car.jpg"><img style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/x/blogger/7417/1886/320/889460/icy-car.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><br />I chose to stay inside after a brief tour around the yard to shoot these photos. </p><p><br />My furnace (recently fixed so it heats the house up into the high 60s F) is working overtime to deal with the ice that covers everything. The house isn't very tightly built, so the ice on the roof melts and re-freezes as it runs off. Inside, the kitty cats have a heating pad under a blanket, and I have sweaters and wool socks.<br /><br />The bushes are beautiful; green leaves encased in ice.<br /><br /><a href="http://photos1.blogger.com/x/blogger/7417/1886/1600/31431/icy-branch.jpg"><img style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/x/blogger/7417/1886/320/430445/icy-branch.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><a href="http://photos1.blogger.com/x/blogger/7417/1886/1600/66491/icy-bush.jpg"><img style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/x/blogger/7417/1886/320/945901/icy-bush.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><a href="http://photos1.blogger.com/x/blogger/7417/1886/1600/617625/icy-house.jpg"><img style="FLOAT: right; MARGIN: 0px 0px 10px 10px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/x/blogger/7417/1886/320/392667/icy-house.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><br />At 3 p.m. my neighbor called to tell me she had wonderful icy plants in her yard. I'll upload some photos tomorrow. Until then, I want to give the <a href="http://seguindailyphoto.blogspot.com/">Seguin Photo Blog </a>a chance to catch up.<br /><br />I loved the ice days.<br /><br /></p><table cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" width="100" border="0"><tbody><tr><td><img src="http://www.tech-counter.com/cgi-bin/gd-count.cgi?page=http://www.womanhollerin.blogspot.com&style=wide_latin&amp;nbdigits=10&amp;reloads=1" border="0" /></td></tr><tr><td><div align="center"><span style="font-family:arial, helvetica, sans-serif;font-size:85%;"><a href="http://www.gymsource.com">Gym Source</a></span></div></td></tr></tbody></table><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/19123059-116909777935476199?l=womanhollerin.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Robinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11530793550821854072noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19123059.post-1168796446535520942007-01-14T11:31:00.000-06:002007-01-14T12:06:39.713-06:00Two articles in today’s <a href="http://www.mysanantonio.com/">San Antonio Express News </a>helped explain my state of mind lately, and offer insight into why Woman hollerin stays silent sometimes. <br /><br />First, a <a href="http://www.macon.com/mld/macon/living/16437861.htm">wire service feature </a>asks readers why we care about the ups and downs of the lives of three young women who were born under stars (ill-fated or otherwise). <a href="http://www.postchronicle.com/news/original/article_21258729.shtml">Britney Spears </a>doesn’t wear underwear. <a href="http://www.postchronicle.com/news/original/article_21258620.shtml">Lindsay Lohan </a>drinks too much. <a href="http://www.ecanadanow.com/entertainment/2007/01/09/nicole-richie-thinks-she-cursed/">Nicole Richie</a> is cursed. Why do we care about the minutiae of these women’s lives? <br /><br />Second, a <a href="http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9A01E0DF1430F936A35752C0A9619C8B63">review of My Name is Iran: A Memoir</a>. Michiko Kakutani, who writes for the New York Times, thought the book missed the opportunity to share thoughts about Iran the country by focusing on the formation of the identity of Iran the woman. “The problem is she never convinces the reader that her personal journey is more interesting than the plight of Iran, and in focusing too insistently on her own search for an identity, she seems to have squandered a splendid opportunity to give us a window on a conundrum of a country that she has known intimately through several tumultuous decades of change.”<br /><br />I haven’t read the book yet, but <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michiko_Kakutani ">Kakutani</a> has a reputation for harsh criticism, so perhaps the work is more compelling than she thinks. Why would we expect the small life of one woman to interest North American readers more than the history of a country we find either exotically appealing or threatening? Why should any single life or single person’s thoughts compel such interest?<br /><br />Maybe Ardalan should have written the book Kakatuni wanted to read, she placed her focus where I would expect in this moment in U.S. cultural history. Rather than rejoice in the promotion of the individual, I falter in presenting my work to the public because of my answer to this question. I don’t think that I am all that important. <br /><br />While this is, perhaps, the indicator of a healthy soul, the attitude doesn’t lend itself to winning public office or building an impressive body of work as a writer or photographer. Of course, my attitude doesn’t impede the building of a body of work or involvement in efforts to build healthy community. I just don’t stick with self promotion. If you don’t like what I write or do, fine. I will not impose on you. I am a counterforce to people like Kakutani, but hardly anyone knows. This is the conundrum. How does one promote the idea that exploration of individual identity is less important than knowledge of events that connect individuals to humanity and the universe in the individualistic United States? <br /><br />The question of my identity may be interesting to me, but if I don’t make the connection to something larger than myself, there’s no reason for anyone to care. I’ve had wonderful opportunities to learn about the world beyond me and have devoted my professional energies to encourage students to explore the world around them. We all need to explore ourselves, but if we don’t place ourselves, our own families, our own communities, in the context of the world beyond our sight and feelings, we are stunted.<br /><br />I may not be as compelling as a social movement, but when people like me don't speak, the self-absorbed attention seekers can monopolize the floor. <br /><br /><table width="100" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0"><tr><td><img border="0" src="http://www.tech-counter.com/cgi-bin/gd-count.cgi?page=http://www.womanhollerin.blogspot.com&style=wide_latin&nbdigits=10&reloads=1"></td></tr><tr><td><div align="center"><font size="2" face="arial, helvetica, sans-serif"><a href="http://www.gymsource.com">Gym Source</a></font></div></td></tr></table><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/19123059-116879644653552094?l=womanhollerin.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Robinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11530793550821854072noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19123059.post-1164560769443066792006-11-26T11:03:00.000-06:002007-01-17T23:25:42.696-06:00Café au lait feels like Paris even in Seguin. My final gift to myself before reorienting my mind toward the final days of the semester: the pungent aroma, the sound of steaming milk, the darkest liquid, the Russian porcelain cup, a spoonful of demerara sugar, starbursts of white blending into my favorite warm tan, and finally, my tongue.<br /><br />Then there’s the newspaper with the article about caffeine abuse.<br /><br />Emergency physicians, it turns out, don’t ask us if we’ve ingested caffeine before running stress tests or admitting young people complaining of heart palpitations or chest pains into the hospital. <a href="http://www.acep.org/webportal/Newsroom/NR/general/2006/101606b.htm ">Recent research </a>found, however, that young people were abusing caffeine in about two thirds of the cases researchers at Northwestern University investigated.<br /><br />These researchers, who presented their results at a convention of emergency physicians in October, were talking about caffeine supplements. Pills. They weren’t asking about the caffeine we drink as food but about the caffeine we take as an over-the-counter stimulant. A drug. <br /><br />The Cox News Service, however, made the connection and presented the caffeine content of some of our favorite beverages.<br /><br />My café au lait had between 104 and 192 milligrams of caffeine, according to Cox. If I had bought it at Starbucks instead, it would probably have contained 200 milligrams. Even if I drank more Coca-Cola, I would have consumed only 34 milligrams. Iced tea might have contributed as few as nine milligrams. Even Red Bull or Rockstar energy drinks would have had fewer milligrams of caffeine (only 80).<br /><br />One <a href="http://www.novartis.com/consumerhealth/OTC/NoDoz.shtml">No Doz </a>tablet contains 200 milligrams. <br /><br />The doctors who commented on the research presentation at the American College of Emergency Physicians said that caffeine abuse is rarely recognized because we consider the stimulant safe because it is a food, not a drug. <br /><br /><a href="http://www.acep.org/webportal/Newsroom/NR/general/2006/101606b.htm ">Dr. Danielle McCarthy</a>, one of the study’s authors said:<br /><br /><blockquote>"We want people ingesting caffeine pills and supplements to know that caffeine is a drug, and overuse is potentially harmful, especially when mixed with other pharmaceuticals for euphoria. There is a trend in the pro-drug culture towards promoting legal alternatives to illegal drugs, and it can be very harmful."</blockquote><br />The article reminded me of some of the few times I have feared for my safety in public or on the road. I had just arrived at a coffee shop in Chapel Hill, N.C., which has a thriving coffee culture, and parked my 11-year-old Geo Metro (aqua with a pink racing stripe) next to a black SUV. <br /><br />When I opened the car door, it touched the running board on the SUV. The vehicle’s owner leaped out of the driver’s seat, cell phone still in hand, and stalked toward me, shouting. I have seen eyes like his before when people had too much coke or when they were about to beat someone to a pulp. Submission seemed the best strategy for avoiding violence. I called him “sir,” apologized for touching his car and listened quietly while he heaped verbal abuse on me and my car. (If I’d had a better one, I would have cared.)<br /><br />His paint job intact (not even a chip of aqua on the black), his words and mine carried over the airwaves to whomever he was talking to, I apologized again and dared to walk toward the coffee shop.<br /><br />He must have had quite a few milligrams of caffeine to have felt the touch of my happy little car’s door as a threat.<br /><br />Several times in Austin, home to 40 <a href="http://www.starbucks.com/retail/locator/default.aspx ">Starbucks</a> and numerous other chain and local coffee purveyors, drivers have directed their rage against me on the city streets. Red faces and yelling, even on an early Sunday morning a block or so off Congress Avenue (near a Starbucks location, incidentally) when I waited for the birds to fly out of the lane instead of moving forward immediately. That one included leaning out the driver’s side window shouting and shaking a fist.<br /><br />Seguin hasn’t developed a coffee culture. Usually, I think that’s a problem because I want to sit among other coffee-drinking book readers. Maybe I need to rethink that. We have one friendly coffee place/ chiropractor’s office (I like the combination of stimulation and relaxation), <a href="http://www.chirojava.com/ ">ChiroJava</a>. We can get adjusted after a caffeine binge, or keep our drinking in our homes and off the streets. <br /><br /><br /><br /><table width="100" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0"><tr><td><img border="0" src="http://www.tech-counter.com/cgi-bin/gd-count.cgi?page=http://www.womanhollerin.blogspot.com&style=wide_latin&nbdigits=10&reloads=1"></td></tr><tr><td><div align="center"><font size="2" face="arial, helvetica, sans-serif"><a href="http://www.gymsource.com">Gym Source</a></font></div></td></tr></table><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/19123059-116456076944306679?l=womanhollerin.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Robinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11530793550821854072noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19123059.post-1164407388078563462006-11-24T16:27:00.000-06:002006-11-24T16:38:35.106-06:00A couple of weeks ago I e-mailed my friend Sue to tell her about my achievements and challenges of the fall semester. Really, I wanted to hear a reassuring voice tell me that my feelings of ill health and inability to keep up don’t mean I am not ok. <br /><br />Part of getting back to equilibrium was in the very listing of all the things I’m doing and am supposed to be doing, want to be doing, am putting off doing, wouldn’t be doing at all if someone else didn’t tell me I had to, think I should be doing. <br /><br />Instead of writing back to tell me how impressed she was about all I am able to accomplish in spite of not feeling well, she seemed even more concerned about how much I do than she was about the health issue I had told her about. She wrote back suggestions about what to look for in a doctor (she’s had her own bout with serious illness recently) and added the following:<br /><br /><blockquote>I wish I knew some magic for what ails you (and all of us). It's some kind of weird late-modern high-urban hyper-productive neurosis, where life lacks significant seasonal variation and down-time, and we have somehow internalized all kinds of nonsense about what the hell we are doing here.<br /><br /> I think that's what Foucault was talking about, but since I gave up super-productivity before he came along, I haven't read enough to be sure.<br /><br />All I have learned about how to live in the 1.5 million years I have been on this earth is that what makes a good thing good is the empty space around it.<br /><br />Here's to empty space (I talk a much better game than I play).</blockquote><br />I have thought of these few short paragraphs (with lots of white space around them) every day since I received them.<br /><br />For those who haven’t read much of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michel_Foucault ">Michel Foucault’s </a>work, here ‘s the gist of what Sue calls to mind by invoking this French philosopher to comment on my predicament. Foucault focused his writing largely on the workings of power in human society. One of his books that I read closely traces the evolution of punishment from medieval and early modern Europe when punishment was heavy handed and publicly theatrical through the development of the modern idea that places punishment in the hands of specialists who conduct punishment (sometimes known as rehabilitation or therapy) inside the walls of institutions. On the outside of the walls, citizens of modern societies have learned to police their own behavior. In doing this, we have taken for ourselves the function public and awful punishment served in society in earlier times. The locus of social control is within each of us, implanted by social processes that involve broader and deeper observation of our lives on the part of social institutions. <br /><br />For me, this means that I don’t have to be made to work because I believe that I am not ok unless I am constantly engaged in productive activity. I have internalized the idea that my life is not worthwhile unless I serve the machine of society. <br /><br />Before I ever read Foucault, actually before he had written some of his most influential work, when I was living in Tallahassee, Fla., I was conscious that I felt ok only when I went to Governor’s Square Mall, bought things and ate at the Chinese fast-food Chinese place there. Call me precocious. Prescient, even. <br /><br />I had internalized the need to act as a cog in the capitalist economy that was rarely satisfied during my student years. But I took the deep relief I felt when I went to the mall as a red flag. I read critiques of capitalism and developed a fair amount of independence in the face of its voracious appetite. Now, malls provoke in me discomfort at the excesses of 21st-century consumption rather than inner peace. <br />While many of my fellow Americans have embarked on the mindless shopping that has become Christmas, I am at home creating empty space around my productivity, and in my closet. <br /><br />Reverse shopping.<br /><br />I have packed up six shopping bags to take to the local thrift store. I even tried to deliver them this afternoon, but the thrift shop is closed today. Reverse shopping seems like evidence that I did a pretty good job expunging the internalized need to participate unthinkingly in the mechanisms of economic power that control us.<br /><br />As part of the closet cleaning, I also un-piled my bedroom chair. Three months of clothes and papers had gathered there in the corner of my bedroom while I pushed and pulled myself from class to interviews to conferences to election work to meetings to... <br /><br />I sat in the chair all morning, grading papers, surrounded by relatively uncluttered space. Here’s hoping I’ll be able to reorient my relationship to productivity as well, before my own drive for super productivity knocks me off. <br /><br /><table width="100" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0"><tr><td><img border="0" src="http://www.tech-counter.com/cgi-bin/gd-count.cgi?page=http://www.womanhollerin.blogspot.com&style=wide_latin&nbdigits=10&reloads=1"></td></tr><tr><td><div align="center"><font size="2" face="arial, helvetica, sans-serif"><a href="http://www.gymsource.com">Gym Source</a></font></div></td></tr></table><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/19123059-116440738807856346?l=womanhollerin.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Robinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11530793550821854072noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19123059.post-1163298689929044672006-11-11T20:06:00.000-06:002006-11-11T21:11:55.023-06:00In the last few months I have learned that I am better at working on elections than at writing about them. I’m not so good at campaigning, either, but I am actively facilitating the democratic process. <br /><br />(I also applied for tenure and wrote several articles for the San Antonio Express News in the weeks Womanhollerin was more-or-less silent. You can find the article citations in <a href="http://nl.newsbank.com/nl-search/we/Archives?p_product=SAEC&p_theme=saec&p_action=search&p_maxdocs=200&p_text_search-0=bisha&p_field_label-0=Section&s_dispstring=bisha%20AND%20section(all)%20AND%20date(last%206%20months)&p_field_date-0=YMD_date&p_params_date-0=date:B,E&p_text_date-0=-6qzM&xcal_numdocs=20&p_perpage=10&p_sort=YMD_date:D&xcal_useweights=no">SAEN's online archive</a>, but the actual articles come at a price. Sorry.)<br /><br />Voters elected Democratic candidates all over the country. Even in Texas the Democrats made a good showing. Chris Bell came close to winning the governor's race, and I don't see how Gov. Rick Perry can avoid considering a variety of viewpoints when not even half of Texan voters touched his spot on the screen. I like to think that wise counsel will filter up to the president now that he has to deal with Democratic majorities in both houses of Congress. It's just not good for anyone to stew in his own juices for as long as President Bush has.<br /><br />My 13 ½ hours at the public library in Seguin working as an election clerk for the general election Nov. 7 kept me busier than the hours I spent at the primaries in the spring. The day was long but rewarding. We figured out that the turnout was about 40 percent for the precincts we served, including early voters but not absentees. People, including me, get really excited about this great turnout. As soon as the initial excitement about large numbers of voters washes from the tip of my toes to the top of my head, I remember that this is still fewer than half of those who were eligible in the precincts. How many people didn’t even bother to register???<br /><br />I think that we need to make voting fun – maybe hold block parties on Election Day. We could set some picnic tables up under the trees in front of the library, and grill some hot dogs. At our polling place, we have a lot of fun while we work, maybe our enthusiasm for the democratic process would catch in other people if they hung out with us for a little while.<br /><br />One of the Democratic Club members here in Guadalupe County thinks that voters should get an income tax credit for exercising their right to the ballot. His idea may resonate with more voters than mine does.<br /><br />I think it might help if the balloting didn’t take place on Tuesday. I’m lucky that I have a flexible job that allows me to shuffle my on-campus responsibilities to put in my hours at the polls. How many people who have not retired can do this? If we voted on the weekend, we could give the election more of a party atmosphere. My French friends tell me that everyone in the village congregates for the voting and they socialize after the polls are closed. I think that would make voting fun and strengthen our community ties.<br /><br />I like working in my own precinct because I get to see my neighbors. Luckily, this time we didn’t have much time to chat because we had a steady line of voters all day. I did overhear several conversations between people who had been meaning to contact each other and putting it off. They caught up with each other after they voted. Two women who live in the same block actually met for the first time because they signed in to vote one after another and one of the pollworkers commented on the nearness of their addresses.<br /><br />I’m about to embark on a project to get even more conversation going among residents of our community who might not speak to each other often (if at all). The Guadalupe County Community Symposium took an interest in an idea I’ve held in the back of my mind since I moved here in 2002: a community conversation about who we all are. We’re going to use a model created by the <a href="http://www.studycircles.org/en/index.aspx">Study Circles Foundation</a> that I studied in a public conflict resolution course at UNC and tried with my neighborhood association in Durham, N.C., a few months before I moved away. <br /><br />More to come about the Study Circle idea and reinvigorating American democracy and community. Regenerating excitement in democratic processes is the best way I know to honor the veterans who have fallen to defend them. <br /><br /><table width="100" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0"><tr><td><img border="0" src="http://www.tech-counter.com/cgi-bin/gd-count.cgi?page=http://www.womanhollerin.blogspot.com&style=wide_latin&nbdigits=10&reloads=1"></td></tr><tr><td><div align="center"><font size="2" face="arial, helvetica, sans-serif"><a href="http://www.gymsource.com">Gym Source</a></font></div></td></tr></table><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/19123059-116329868992904467?l=womanhollerin.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Robinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11530793550821854072noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19123059.post-1160357987458379122006-10-08T20:15:00.000-05:002006-11-11T20:05:43.810-06:00<div align="center"><a href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/7417/1886/1600/politkovskaia.jpg"><img style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/7417/1886/320/politkovskaia.jpg" border="0" /></a><br />"I want to be able to live the life of a human being, where every individual is respected, in my lifetime." </div><div align="center">Anna Politkovskaya<br />A brave woman who gave voice to the disenfranchised<br />Murdered Oct. 7, 2006<br />Moscow </div><div align="center"></div><div align="left"><a href="http://politkovskaya.novayagazeta.ru/">Novaya Gazeta</a>, the Moscow newspaper that sent Politkovskaya to cover the effects of war on the civilian population of Chechnya, has offered a reward of 25,000,000 rubles for information leading to the arrest of those who killed her. To learn about the work that earned Politkovskaya enemies among those who do not wish to share power or hear criticism, read this article published in <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/g2/story/0,3604,1327848,00.html">The Guardian</a>, Oct. 15, 2004 </div><div align="center"></div><div align="center"><br /><br /><table cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" width="100" border="0"><tbody><tr><td><img src="http://www.tech-counter.com/cgi-bin/gd-count.cgi?page=http://www.womanhollerin.blogspot.com&style=wide_latin&amp;nbdigits=10&amp;reloads=1" border="0" /></td></tr><tr><td><div align="center"><span style="font-family:arial, helvetica, sans-serif;font-size:85%;"><a href="http://www.gymsource.com">Gym Source</a></span></div></td></tr></tbody></table></div><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/19123059-116035798745837912?l=womanhollerin.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Robinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11530793550821854072noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19123059.post-1154897821792588732006-08-06T15:51:00.000-05:002006-08-06T19:22:26.440-05:00While I have taken some down time this summer to recover from the fast pace of university life, the Texas Democrats have been on the road, working to convince voters that it’s high time for change in this state. They even came to campus.<br /><br />All the Democratic candidates for statewide offices rallied with the Texas Lutheran University Young Democrats in Seguin Saturday. The local Democratic organizations put on a great party with hotdogs, chips, sodas, homemade cakes and cookies, much music, a little back slapping and a lot of rousing speeches.<br /><br />The group of men and women who raised their hands together on the stage at the end of the evening includes veterans, parents, businessmen and professionals. A few of them have devoted their lives to public service, but a significant number of them are entering politics for the first time because they fear for the future of Texas. They are united in the desire to move away from a state government controlled by Republican technocrats to fulfill the vision of a government of citizens in service to the public. <br /><br />The candidates told the gathered crowd about their motivations for running for office and the experiences they’ve had on the campaign trail this summer. They urged everyone to pay attention to government and to participate. And, of course, they addressed the problems they see in their opponents’ policies and proposals. Not surprisingly, Rick Perry’s hair was about the only feature of his that anyone praised. <br /><br />Very surprisingly, however, it turns out that the Republican Party faithful (or Re-pubs, as many of the candidates call them) aren’t really sure who their party has put forward for office. <a href="http://www.valindahathcox.com/ ">Valinda Hathcox </a>had to tell some Republican folks she ran into recently that their candidate for Commissioner of the <a href="http://www.glo.state.tx.us/">General Land Office </a>(the current commissioner) isn’t a woman. <br /><br />It scares me to think that people pay so little attention to the commissioners that even their supporters don’t know who they are. Some of the commissioners have a lot more power to effect policy than the governor of Texas does, as I understood the book I read on Texas government when I moved here four years ago. (Someone, please, correct me if I’m wrong.)<br /><br />Even after reading up a little and looking at the incumbent’s Web site , I’m still a little fuzzy on the role of the <a href="http://www.ltgov.state.tx.us/Duties/">lieutenant governor</a>. It must be hard for a candidate to come up with a concrete set of ideas to push when a substantial part of the job will be redefined by a new state senate. <br /><br />The media concentrate on the race for governor, which I admit is colorful, and don’t pay much attention to the other races (or the various offices: do you know who the <a href="http://www.agr.state.tx.us/agr/index/0,1911,1848_0_0_0,00.html ">Commissioner of Agriculture</a> is, for example? Do you know what the <a href="http://www.rrc.state.tx.us/about/index.html">Rail Road Commission </a>does? ), but according to the same Texas government textbook, the structure of state government purposely limits the power of the <a href="http://www.governor.state.tx.us/about/duties ">governor </a>and places a great deal of emphasis on the offices of the commissioners. <br /><br />Although back in March the Democrats and Republicans working at the poll in Seguin joked that we might all end up voting for Kinky, I have to agree with <a href="http://www.chrisbell.com/">Chris Bell</a>, Democratic candidate for governor, that it’s not really worth the effort to take Friedman seriously. Is a vote for Kinky a vote against the current system, as some people have said, or is it Rick Perry’s ticket to re-election? If the opposition vote is divided between Bell and Friedman, Perry will need fewer votes to keep himself in office.<br /><br />We might have a fun time with Kinky on the campaign trail, but what would happen during the next four years? We’d still have a lieutenant governor from one of the two major parties and likewise with state legislators. Maybe things would get really interesting with a split legislature, a good-hearted but inexperienced lieutenant governor… and Kinky at the helm.<br /><br />“Just as we don’t need a joke for a governor,” Bell said, “We don’t need a governor just for jokes.”<br /><br />For those who are wondering why I didn’t include Strayhorn in the opposition, I just can’t see her as an outsider. “Carol Strayhorn has been there to put lipstick on the pig time and time again,” Bell said. I have to agree with Bell’s summation of Strayhorn’s attempt to establish her independence, “I can call my horse a dog, but at the end of the day, it’s still a horse.” <br /><br />I’ll back Bell’s horse. And I’ll urge anyone who is considering jumping on another one to hear Bell in person before they do. He delivers a much more fiery speech than you would expect. He has a firm handshake, and he has real ideas.<br /><br />“I know it’s not enough to win this race by being right about Rick Perry being wrong,” Bell said.<br /><br />Two of his platform planks caught my attention: health and education. In particular, medical care for children and teacher salaries. Bell is for both, unlike the incumbents.<br /><br />Bell denounced the policy of scrubbing the budget that has resulted in a crisis for children’s health and education in this state. <br /><br />“The bristles of the scrub brush come down most of the time on the backs of those who can least afford it,” Bell said. Unlike the Re-pubs, whose philosophy of government has seen to it that Texas can’t (won’t?) provide medical care or textbooks to millions of its children, Bell will make children and educators a priority. He plans, for instance, to tie legislative pensions to the level of teacher salaries, for example. <br /><br />And Bell thinks government should get out of the way of stem-cell research. <br /><br />“Jesus didn’t consult the Pharisees before he healed the lepers,” he said. He won’t waver on this in the face of opposition because he has lost people he loved to diseases that could be treated with stem-cell therapies.<br /><br />Bell said, “We’re going to have to be willing to change ourselves, to change the Democratic Party. We have to learn to win again.”<br /><br />If you didn’t go to the rally, you should have. Tony Bazan and the <a href="http://www.guadalupedemocrats.org/">Guadalupe County Democrats</a> put on a great party. They even served veggie dogs, and if that doesn’t herald a new era in Texas, I don’t know what would.<br /><br /><br />To loyal readers who may be wondering: <a href="http://www.vanosfortexasag.com/">David Van Os</a> didn’t have time to sit a spell on my porch (he’s visited about half of the counties, but he still has a long way to go to walk all the way across Texas), but he did shake my hand twice and give a really great speech. <br /><br /><br /><table width="100" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0"><tr><td><img border="0" src="http://www.tech-counter.com/cgi-bin/gd-count.cgi?page=http://www.womanhollerin.blogspot.com&style=wide_latin&nbdigits=10&reloads=1"></td></tr><tr><td><div align="center"><font size="2" face="arial, helvetica, sans-serif"><a href="http://www.gymsource.com">Gym Source</a></font></div></td></tr></table><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/19123059-115489782179258873?l=womanhollerin.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Robinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11530793550821854072noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19123059.post-1151249817188596502006-06-25T10:34:00.000-05:002006-06-25T10:37:15.090-05:00Twenty years ago reactor number four at the Chernobyl Atomic Power Station issued the Soviet Union’s death rattle. After the strained union of republics collapsed, Ukraine inherited the power station, officially deemed the world’s most unsafe reactor, and the Soviet Union’s problem.<br /><br />Two agencies, the Chernobyl Forum (associated with the United Nations) and Greenpeace (a non-governmental environmental organization) recently released reports on the long-term consequences of Chernobyl’s radioactive emission that began at 01:23, April 26, 1986, and worsened until the first responders, know as liquidators, finally plugged the hole in the reactor May 10. The radioactive cloud passed over Ukraine, Belarus, Russia, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Finland, Sweden, and left its traces as far away as the Lake District and Scotland in the northern reaches of the United Kingdom.<br /><br />The Greenpeace report paints the effects of the world’s worst industrial accident in stark terms, assigning responsibility for thousands of excess deaths (a term demographers use to distinguish between people who would have died anyway and those whose lives might have lasted longer if some catastrophic event had never happened) to the radioactive material expelled from the reactor and the contamination that remains in the soil in large areas of Ukraine and Belarus. Greenpeace estimates 200,000 excess deaths resulting from the accident in the period from 1990-2004 alone. The report estimates that 60,000 extra people will develop thyroid cancer, a cancer that was virtually unknown in this area before the accident at Chernobyl.<br /><br />The Chernobyl Forum, however, recently reported that the effects of the accident really weren’t as bad as the alarmists say. According to the keynote address at a conference on the issue, this report states that the reactor catastrophe is responsible for no more than 4,000 excess deaths, and only nine of these resulted from thyroid cancer. In its defense of nuclear power, this commission instead blames the dislocation, disease and death that Greenpeace ascribes to the nuclear accident on poverty and stress resulting from the collapse of the Soviet Union. Furthermore, the report implicates agencies and organizations that have tried to help Chernobyl’s victims for inculcating a feeling of dependency in the people who are forced to live with the contamination, particularly in Ukraine and Belarus.<br /><br />The discrepancy in these interpretations was the subject of the keynote address at the symposium, “Chernobyl, Twenty Years Later: Health, Environment, and the Sociology of a Disaster Zone,” hosted by the Russian, East European and Eurasian Center of the University of Illinois Saturday. David Marples, a history professor at the University of Alberta, Canada, has devoted his professional life to the study of Chernobyl. He first published on nuclear power in the Soviet Union in 1987 and has traveled to the reactor and the surrounding regions many times. Marples said he has few friends among supporters of the Chernobyl Forum report, and that most reputable scientists have disavowed its assessment of the situation.<br /><br />As a colleague who was not able to attend the symposium asked, “What about the thousands of children with thyroid cancer and the birth defects?”<br /><br />Indeed, what about them. Anyone who has followed the aftermath of the Chernobyl accident knows about cesium 137 contamination and the effects of iodine 131 on thousands of children in Ukraine and Belarus. <br /><br />If you are not familiar with the effects of these, and other, radioactive compounds that inhabit the dust of the streets in Pripyat, Chernobyl, Gomel, and other villages and cities of the affected region, find an opportunity to see “Chernobyl Heart,” a short (39 minutes, 2003) documentary about the health of children born just before and after the accident. Children who look perfectly healthy set off alarms in regular radiation checks they undergo at school. Children are born with two holes in their heart (a condition linked to the accident). The image of a little girl who was born with her brain outside her skull in a separate sack haunts me, as do the views of the homes for abandoned babies and the mental hospitals where the children born with any genetic defects end up living for their entire lives. <br /><br />I have trouble seeing the people who come from around the world to try to bring some joy to these children or to restore them to health as part of the problem (a la the Chernobyl Forum report). <br /><br />That officials of the government of the Soviet Union and its successor states have mishandled this accident and the people, animals and land affected by it is, however, not a stretch to accept. <br /><br />For example, Marples pointed to the officials of Belarus as a particularly problematic lot. In Belarus President Lukashenko’s government has declared the Chernobyl problem is officially over. The government does not want to deal with people who do not agree with this position and arrests even those who are conducting scientific research on the consequences of the accident. One scholar, Marples said, was arrested because, “He was very critical of the distribution of radioactive vegetables after the accident.”<br /><br />Marples found disturbing evidence of widespread distribution of contaminated food in his research in official government documents on the accident. “Food was exported,” he said. “And it was a deliberate policy.”<br /><br />Marples said one official wrote, “If you mix the contaminated food with clean food, everybody’s going to get a little, but nobody’s going to get a lot.”<br /><br />Lucky for everyone, this has never been a major food-exporting region.<br /><br />Nevertheless, the Soviet government did not serve its people or the world well by trying to hide the problem. When I went to Leningrad (which the radioactive cloud had traversed as it moved with the winds) two weeks after the accident came to light, the local people had not been advised to avoid dairy products. When people in our group suggested to mothers that they shouldn’t let their children eat ice cream just now, they were accused of spreading Western, anti-Soviet propaganda. <br /><br />Several years later, after the Soviet propaganda machine began to collapse, an environmental organization scoured the city with Geiger counters and compiled a map of its contaminated zones. I have a copy of this map stashed in a box of papers I collected in numerous trips to the Soviet Union and Russia.<br /><br />How, then, should we understand the discrepancy in the conclusions of the two reports? Marples said simply, “The main agencies investigating Chernobyl have their own agendas.” <br /><br /><table width="100" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0"><tr><td><img border="0" src="http://www.tech-counter.com/cgi-bin/gd-count.cgi?page=http://www.womanhollerin.blogspot.com&style=wide_latin&nbdigits=10&reloads=1"></td></tr><tr><td><div align="center"><font size="2" face="arial, helvetica, sans-serif"><a href="http://www.gymsource.com">Gym Source</a></font></div></td></tr></table><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/19123059-115124981718859650?l=womanhollerin.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Robinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11530793550821854072noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19123059.post-1149547531847673912006-06-05T17:41:00.000-05:002006-06-05T17:52:38.986-05:00Twenty years ago my husband anonymously sent the <a href="http://msnbc.msn.com/id/12940202/site/newsweek/">news that white, college-educated, single women of 35</a> were more likely to be attacked by a terrorist than to get married to one of my grad-school friends who was white, college-educated, single and 25. <br /><br />He thought this was funny.<br /><br />I reported to him her distress about the anonymous harassment that had come by campus mail. He ‘fessed up and apologized. <br /><br />She explained to him that being condemned to a lonely life by a person who was afraid to reveal his identity was far from humorous. He never truly understood her fear, but he realized that he had hurt her deeply and did all that he could to make amends. Some years later, he even helped her learn to drive, riding with her for hours after she bought her first car. (She was the daughter of a big city who maintained a drivers’ license but hadn’t used the privilege much.)<br /><br />Last week, <a href="http://msnbc.msn.com/id/13007828/site/newsweek/">Newsweek magazine recanted the prediction</a>. Demographic research now shows that the vast majority of women born in the early 1960s will, in fact, marry, just not in the same patterns as our foremothers and aunts. One study suggests that 97 percent of us will marry, as will most people of any generation currently living in the United States who really want to.<br /><br />The new research also shows that educated, professional women aren’t forced to choose between professional and personal success. Jessica Yellin used her interview with Liz Tuccillo, one of the authors of He’s Just Not That Into You, for a New York Times Week in Review piece (Single, Female an Desperate No More) to reveal just how deeply some professional women believed that society would be unwilling to provide its traditional comforts to them. According to the Times reporter, Tuccillo took a few moments to absorb the new findings before saying, “I had no idea how much that old statistic was living in me until you gave me the new one.”<br /><br />Although my husband died some years ago, the “wisdom” he passed on to my grad-school friend outlived him in my unconscious. Of course, having married once already, I am already part of the 97 percent of my age cohort who will make it down the aisle. <br /><br />Having married for the first time at 24, I actually was one of the earliest in my age group to tie the knot (in spite of my grandmother, aunts and cousins who thought I was a late bloomer because I finished college before taking a mate). Although the latest Newsweek articles don’t deal with marriages that end in widowhood, the current studies do find that early marriages end in divorce more often than the marriages people enter into later in life.<br /><br />Before I took up life in small-town Texas, I didn’t think much about my prospects for (re)marriage. In fact, I believed that I had educated myself out of love and didn’t much worry about it. I was leading a rewarding life and besides, experience had taught me that banking on independence was a smarter move than banking on a man. I got a rash the day I married, and look how it all turned out anyway. <br /><br />In cities, no one asked me why I wasn’t married, but in Seguin, I found myself answering that question frequently and hearing well meaning people say it was great to have me around and now we just had to find me a great guy. One of my colleagues told me that my acceptance of the idea that educated women were unlikely to find mates amounted to making myself into a victim. <br /><br />I couldn’t understand why it bothered him so much that I was comfortable being single. I guess he couldn’t believe that I was, truly, comfortable being single (he had contributed a number of marriages to the statistical profile of Baby Boomers). <br /><br />The single life appeals to me much more than the frantic search for a partner that I have watched in some single people I know. Dancing, writing, taking pictures, traveling and any of the other things I do with my time interest me far more than joining in the panic that leads some people to use the Internet to dig up a new prospect every week. <br /><br />Maybe the women who have devoted their lives to the search will be able to relax in light of the new studies that show Americans have become far more flexible in their marital behavior. Older women marry younger men. Men marry women who are as accomplished as they are or even more. <br /><br />Given all that I think about myself and the circumstances of my own life, I’m amazed how different the world feels to me now that I know Newsweek was wrong.<br /><br /><table width="100" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0"><tr><td><img border="0" src="http://www.tech-counter.com/cgi-bin/gd-count.cgi?page=http://www.womanhollerin.blogspot.com&style=wide_latin&nbdigits=10&reloads=1"></td></tr><tr><td><div align="center"><font size="2" face="arial, helvetica, sans-serif"><a href="http://www.gymsource.com">Gym Source</a></font></div></td></tr></table><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/19123059-114954753184767391?l=womanhollerin.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Robinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11530793550821854072noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19123059.post-1148835560990315592006-05-28T11:48:00.000-05:002006-05-28T12:54:03.323-05:00Nobel Peace Prize winner Shirin Ebadi has a keen eye for codified injustice, whether it is embedded in the law of her native Iran or in that of another country, like the United States. If she wasn’t willing to work to rectify injustice wherever she found it, the memoirs of one of the most influential and inspiring people of our time, <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1400064708/sr=8-1/qid=1148838027/ref=pd_bbs_1/002-0300100-3232873?%5Fencoding=UTF8">Iran Awakening: A Memoir of Revolution and Hope</a>, would never have been published. Anywhere.<br /><br />Ebadi could not publish her work in the Islamic Republic of Iran because of official censorship in that country. Because of arcane rules of the U.S. economic embargo against Iran (these also apply to a few other countries), any U.S. citizen who assisted her in readying her manuscript for publication or in advertising it for sale here would have been committing a crime.<br /><br />Unwilling to apply for a special exemption to the rule, Ebadi filed a <a href="http://www.fepproject.org/press/ebadi.html">lawsuit</a> in federal court to challenge the provision that limits Americans’ access to information about countries the government seeks to isolate from the international community. The U.S. Treasury Department eased the restriction before the court could declare it unconstitutional.<br /><br />The effect of embargo on Americans’ access to information from countries such as Iran makes it even harder for us to find voices such as Ebadi’s that differ from the strident arguments put forth by fundamentalist governments and organizations (whether the fundamentalism is political or religious). <br /><br />Ebadi and other Iranian intellectuals take their responsibility to expose the rest of the world to the complexities of life and thought in Iran seriously. Because diplomats serve the regime which rarely reflects the “true opinions of the people. The responsibility falls, then, on unofficial ambassadors to relate Iranians’ perceptions and hopes to the world (127).”<br /><br />Ebadi believes the Nobel Peace Prize rewarded her for a life devoted to service based on “the belief in a positive interpretation of Islam, and the power of that belief to aid Iranians who aspire to peacefully transform their country (204).” <br /><br />Ebadi’s case is particularly important to those who want to understand revolution and its aftermath in Iran. Unlike many Iranian intellectuals and activists who came of age in the 1970s, Ebadi supported <a href="http://www.iranchamber.com/history/rkhomeini/ayatollah_khomeini.php">Ayatolloh Ruhollah Khomeini’s </a>revolutionary faction and aims during the struggle against <a href="http://www.iranchamber.com/history/mohammad_rezashah/mohammad_rezashah.php">Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi</a>. While most readers will probably not be surprised that a well educated, ethical judge would have opposed Iran’s old regime, it is surprising that a woman who occupied a responsible position in the judiciary would have supported Khomeini rather than another opposition leader. <br /><br />It only took a month of Khomeini’s rule to show Ebadi just how misguided she had been in thinking, for example, that the restrictions on women wouldn’t apply to women like her who had played an active role in bringing the cleric to power. The chapters of the book devoted to her transformation from true believer to opposition leader are particularly interesting.<br /><br />Through stories about her personal experiences and the cases she has handled after being removed from her position as judge, Ebadi shows that the absurdities (according to her own judgment) that are embodied in laws on women’s personal status, which have been justified by Islamic law in Iran and other countries, are not based on the only possible interpretation of these codes. <br /><br />For example, Ebadi drafted new legislation on divorce that, if adopted, would have allowed women to divorce husbands without ther permission and for incompatibility (an option currently available only to men in Iran) as well as insanity or infertility. The law, although based on extensive research in texts that are the basis of the education of Shi’ite clerics, was not enacted, and when Ebadi was called to a meeting with a committee of parliamentarians to discuss the proposal, conservative members threw her out of the meeting. <br /><br />While most of Ebadi’s examples focus attention on restrictions on women’s dress and behavior, it is important to note that such restrictions also apply to men. For example, the Afghan <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/144382.stm">Taliban</a> required men to wear beards that not all men are physically capable of growing (dramatically illustrated in <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0283431/">Kandahar</a>, Iranian filmmaker Mohsen Makhmalbaf’s heavy handed film about Taliban rule in Afghanistan). The killing of three <a href="http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/T/TEN_IRAQ_TENNIS_KILLINGS?SITE=TXDER&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT">Iraqi tennis players </a>clad in shorts this week followed shortly upon the posting of warnings that Islam forbids the wearing of shorts in the Baghdad neighborhood they were passing through.<br /><br />Ebadi has had an eventful life and she is a generous storyteller. She relates her family and friends’ experiences of repression, war, emigration, reform and opposition including personal details like the difficulty she had remembering to take her headscarf with her when she left the house in the morning, the reason she doesn’t stay in touch with friends who no longer live in Iran and her worries that her daughters would be enamored by the excitement of mass protest. <br /><br />She also knows, or has defended, most of the opposition activists the world community has heard of. She counted as friends many of the intellectuals who were almost killed in a <a href="http://www.rsf.org/rsf/uk/html/mo/cplp01/cp01/180601.html">pre-arranged bus accident </a>while traveling to a conference in Armenia in august 1996. She has represented, for little or no payment, the families of <a href="http://www.payvand.com/news/03/jul/1046.html">Ezzat Ebrahimnezhad</a>, whose bloodied shirt was immortalized in a <a href="http://www.geocities.com/bateby/">photo</a> of <a href="http://web.amnesty.org/web/content.nsf/pages/gbr_iran">Ahmad Batebi </a>that became the iconic image of student protests in 1999, and Iranian-Canadian photographer <a href="http://www.cbc.ca/news/background/kazemi/">Zahra Kazemi</a>, who was killed in prison after refusing to hand over film of people waiting for news of their relatives outside Evin Prison in 2003. When she was awaiting her own arrest during her work on Ebrahimnezhad’s case, she drew strength from <a href="http://www.pen.org/page.php/prmID/423">Akbar Ganji’s </a>statement that serving some time in prison was necessary, “In Iran, he’d warned, unless you are punished before the public, everyone will assume that you collaborate with the regime (174).”<br /><br />The fates of those who oppose the present regime in Iran are intimately tied to Western foreign policy, but not in the way most Americans might assume, Ebadi cautions. Rather than helping the opposition, Western statements of solidarity with opposition movements often result in even more brutal destruction of the people involved. <br /><br />As Ebadi put it, Western insistence that military force could be employed to bring down the current rulers of the Islamic Republic of Iran <blockquote>“endangers nearly all of the efforts democracy-minded Iranians have made in these recent years. The threat of military force gives the system a pretext to crack down on its legitimate opposition and undermines the nascent civil society that is slowly taking shape here. It makes Iranians overlook their resentment of the regime and move behind their unpopular leaders out of defensive nationalism. I can think of no scenario more alarming, no internal shift more dangerous than that engendered by the West imagining that it can bring democracy to Iran through either military might of the fomentation of violent rebellion (214-215).”</blockquote><br />Read Shirin Ebadi’s book. Her memoir humanizes Iranians’ social and political dilemmas and in the process, reveals complexities of the situation that should cause readers to question Western leaders’ recent fearmongering, both within their own borders and in the international arena.<br /><br /><table width="100" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0"><tr><td><img border="0" src="http://www.tech-counter.com/cgi-bin/gd-count.cgi?page=http://www.womanhollerin.blogspot.com&style=wide_latin&nbdigits=10&reloads=1"></td></tr><tr><td><div align="center"><font size="2" face="arial, helvetica, sans-serif"><a href="http://www.gymsource.com">Gym Source</a></font></div></td></tr></table><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/19123059-114883556099031559?l=womanhollerin.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Robinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11530793550821854072noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19123059.post-1148784162768182802006-05-27T21:40:00.000-05:002006-05-27T22:32:01.476-05:00One of the Guadalupe County Democratic Club members pointed out in an e-mail to me that most of us probably don't know who the Democratic candidates are for the statewide races. I realized that I didn't, and have set out to find out who the candidates are, not just their names but their ideas for how to revive what I think is a healthy competition between parties (maybe it would be better, even, to have competition among <em>several</em> parties) for seats in state government. I'm not far along in this project, but I did find the list of Democratic candidates for all Texas offices.<br /><br />Here's the short list (leaving out district candidates, which you will find in profusion at the <a href="http://www.txdemocrats.org/demnominees/index.php">Democratic Party's Web site</a>):<br /><br /><a href="http://www.radnofsky.com">Barbara Ann Radnofsky </a>for senator<br /><a href="http://www.chrisbell.com">Chris Bell</a> for governor<br /><a href="http://www.onetexasforall.com">Maria Luisa Alvarado</a> for <a href="http://www.capitol.state.tx.us/txconst/sections/cn000400-001600.html">lieutenant governor</a><br /><a href="http://www.vanosfortexasag.com">David Van Os</a> for <a href="http://www.capitol.state.tx.us/txconst/sections/cn000400-002200.html">attorney general</a><br />Fred Head for comptroller of public accounts<br /><a href="http://www.hankgilbert.com ">Hank Gilbert</a> for agriculture commissioner<br /><a href="http://www.valindahathcox.com">VaLinda Hathcox</a> for land commissioner<br />Dale Henry for railroad commissioner<br />William E. "Bill" Moody for justice, <a href="http://www.capitol.state.tx.us/txconst/sections/cn000500-000300.html">Texas Supreme Court</a>, Pl. 2<br />J.R. Molina for presiding judge, <a href="http://www.capitol.state.tx.us/txconst/sections/cn000500-000500.html">Court of Criminal Appeals</a><br /><br />When I started looking at the candidates' own Web sites, I discovered David Van Os has a blog about his grand Texas tour. He calls the meeting <a href="http://dvowhistlestop.blogspot.com/2006/05/dvo-whistlestop-report-4-gonzales.html">Whistlestops</a>. This link will take you to his report of the stop in Seguin.<br /><br />I'm guessing that some of you moved to Texas as adults and missed the usual public school courses in government that would help you understand what all of these public servants actually do in their various offices. I looked at the Texas Constitution (the links to offices in the list of candidates; candidate links take you to their campaign Web sites) to find the basic descriptions of duties. I found some of them easily but not others. <br /><br />For example, the <a href="http://www.rrc.state.tx.us/">Railroad Commission </a>is really important, and not just for railroads, but my quick view of the Constitution didn't tell me much about the office of railroad commissioner. The duties of the governor are spread out in a number of articles. <br /><br /><br />Texas Politics, a UT site, offers a lot of assistance to those who want to know what happens to our tax dollars <a href="http://texaspolitics.laits.utexas.edu/html/exec/0904.html">Comptroller of Public Accounts </a> or who are perplexed by 19th-century-sounding offices like the <a href="http://texaspolitics.laits.utexas.edu/html/exec/0905.html">General Land Office</a>. Only the state of California has more agricultural production than Texas, so the <a href="http://texaspolitics.laits.utexas.edu/html/exec/0906.html">Commissioner of Agriculture </a>also has a lot of responsibility.<br /><br />To make sense of the governor's job, go to the beginning of the constitution; you'll pass go after reading much of <a href="http://www.capitol.state.tx.us/txconst/articles/cn000400.html">Article Four</a> on the Executive Department. Texas Politics sums up the <a href="http://texaspolitics.laits.utexas.edu/html/exec/0400.html">powers of the office </a>for those who don't want to sift through sections of the constitution. Actually, the Texas Politics site offers much toward understanding how the government functions in general, including the legislative branch (which I have purposely ignored in this summary).<br /><br />I'm planning to contact the candidates before writing anything about their campaign planks. More to come.<br /><br /><table width="100" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0"><tr><td><img border="0" src="http://www.tech-counter.com/cgi-bin/gd-count.cgi?page=http://www.womanhollerin.blogspot.com&style=wide_latin&nbdigits=10&reloads=1"></td></tr><tr><td><div align="center"><font size="2" face="arial, helvetica, sans-serif"><a href="http://www.gymsource.com">Gym Source</a></font></div></td></tr></table><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/19123059-114878416276818280?l=womanhollerin.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Robinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11530793550821854072noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19123059.post-1148526512254717932006-05-24T22:06:00.000-05:002006-05-27T22:42:59.510-05:00A truck driver nearly ran <a href="http://www.vanosfortexasag.com">David Van Os </a>off the road on the highway from Gonzalez to Seguin Wednesday. A figurative Mack truck hit him and his companions on the stump circuit when they finally arrived in Central Park after delays due to road construction.<br /><br />Six local progressive voters and one reporter greeted Van Os and his wife Rachel, <a href="http://www.onetexasforall.com">Maria Luisa Alvarado</a>, <a href="http://www.valindahathcox.com">VaLinda Hathcox </a>and her mother as warmly as the sun that had been beating down on us while we waited, but then the meeting got even hotter.<br /><br />First, we learned that Guadalupe County Judge Donald Schraub had denied Van Os, who is running for attorney general, permission to speak on the steps of the court house, thus thwarting the candidates’ strategy to speak to passersby as well as Democratic supporters. <br /><br />Van Os, who arrived in an SUV decorated with political stickers and wearing a white cowboy hat, plans to visit all 254 counties in the state to deliver his pitch to the people of Texas to take back the democratic process by catching them going about their daily business. <br /><br />Van Os and Alvarado, the Democratic candidate for lieutenant governor, are just as critical of beltway Democrats as they are of Republicans, maybe even a tad more critical. Both said that the Democrats’ use of political consultants and polling has taken the focus off meeting the real people of the state. Van Os also criticized the move toward the center that the Democratic Party has taken in the last few years, saying that big business has a party and a half in its corner these days. “This bigness is always going to have a party,” Van Os said, “but the people need a party too.”<br /><br />This is the message Van Os and Alvarado delivered in a nut shell. Hathcox, however, gave the handful of voters who had gathered in Central Park something to think about. Hathcox talked about concrete problems she has noted, and researched, in the current workings of the General Land Office. She explained how she would tackle concerns that the proceeds of the use of public lands (for oil drilling, for example) aren’t getting into the permanent school fund as they are supposed to. She talked about her plans to reform gaming in Texas and to direct the proceeds to schools, as was the original plan when the lottery was instituted.<br /><br />Hathcox demonstrated that she knew the history of the department she hopes to lead. She also has experience working in the General Land Office. Most importantly, she showed that she has the initiative and ability to learn as much as she can about current problems in this area. She earned the support of anyone who decided to vote for her this afternoon through competence and willingness to take the voters seriously.<br /><br />Van Os and Alvarado need to take their cue from Hathcox, and take their own advice.<br /><br />“The beltway Democratic Party has been turning its back on the grassroots party again and again and again,” Van Os said, insisting that he is part of the grassroots party. He criticized Democrats for having a defeatist attitude and for writing off the “red” parts of the country and state as unwinnable. <br /><br />He said that Texas is a “huge domino” in the struggle to restore representative democracy to vigor in the United States. “Texas has to start the return of popular democracy. This evil [the current focus on big business and rollback of civil liberties] started here and it can only be dug up by the roots in Texas,” Van Os said.<br /><br />Most of those in attendance expressed sympathy for this agenda, but wanted something more concrete from Van Os about how he would get the domino effect going. <br /><br />Some of the group expressed downright anger at the party for leaving the grassroots hanging out to dry in small towns like Seguin. While the candidates wanted to talk about ending defeatism and getting people out to vote, Sylvia Manning and Art and Mitzi Preisinger, all of Seguin, were not content to stop there. These active progressives wanted to talk policy in a concrete manner, but the candidates stuck to their motivational speaking and to establishing that they are of the people rather than of the wealthy elite who now hold power in Texas, the nation and the Democratic National Committee.<br /><br />As a critique of candidates who rely on pollsters, campaign consultants and large media markets, Van Os said, “Political communication from a person like me that has put himself up for public service shouldn’t be about profiling but about spilling my guts.” <br /><br />This small group of Guadalupe-County voters waited in the hot sun to see those innards in the form of concrete plans for policies Van Os would institute if the voters elect him attorney general in November. But as Mitzi Preisinger pointed out before leaving, only Hathcox really did cough up.<br /><br />Alvarado said she would be consider herself a success if the voter turnout in November is higher than it was in the spring primaries. While that might not be too hard to achieve given the abysmally low turnout in March and April, voters aren’t getting much from these candidates that would make them want to race to the polls.<br /><br />Van Os faulted Republicans for thinking that country people aren’t smart enough to figure out that something’s gone wrong in American government, but his rhetoric suggested that he doesn’t trust us to follow the complexities of the post he is seeking. If he wants to get the vote of the smart folks in the small towns he will be visiting on his odyssey through Texas, he’s going to have to treat voters at least as well as the Republican candidates do. <br /><br />I hope I’ll see him on my doorstep one day, ready to talk specifics like Valinda Hathcox did today. I’ve had a number of house calls from Republican candidates, but if Van Os turns up, he’ll be the first Democrat to grace my porch.<br /><br /><table width="100" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0"><tr><td><img border="0" src="http://www.tech-counter.com/cgi-bin/gd-count.cgi?page=http://www.womanhollerin.blogspot.com&style=wide_latin&nbdigits=10&reloads=1"></td></tr><tr><td><div align="center"><font size="2" face="arial, helvetica, sans-serif"><a href="http://www.gymsource.com">Gym Source</a></font></div></td></tr></table><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/19123059-114852651225471793?l=womanhollerin.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Robinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11530793550821854072noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19123059.post-1148266838818333822006-05-21T21:52:00.000-05:002006-05-21T22:27:29.183-05:00When I saw the first wriggle in the sesame seeds, I reached for the garbage can with one hand and the cupboard door with the other. <br /><br />All the grains, lovely organic grains from my favorite grocery store in San Antonio, dried fruit, herbs and spices off the shelves were destined for the garbage can because I know from sad experience that insects don’t have as refined taste as I do. When I see them in one bag, they’re bound to be in others as well.<br /><br />Just as I was about to drop every Zip-loc bag from the cupboard into the trash can, I remembered Ada. <br /><br />One day, after I had lived with her family for three months in Kazan and returned to Russia for another extended visit, Ada let me help her with the real work in the kitchen. One bag after another, we spread on the kitchen table the rice, flour and other grain products that the young man of the house had just brought in from the market. I thought Ada was just suspicious of these particular commodities, but she said no. “We have to check every bag for 'someone,'” she said with a sad look on her face.<br /><br />With bags of barley, sesame seeds, and even Valhrona cocoa powder, hanging over the open maw of the kitchen garbage can, I felt as spoiled today as I did when Ada’s expression told me how privileged I was that I did not even think to check my grains for bugs when I was stocking my own kitchen.<br /><br />I tore off a big piece of parchment paper, spread it on the dining room table and dumped the barley on it. Grains formed patterns of light and dark, straight lines and arcs, but nothing moved. Parchment paper was too plush for the larvae; I needed a less inviting surface to disengage them from their comfy couches, so I climbed up to reach the baking sheets in the highest cupboard near my 1915-era high, high, high kitchen ceiling.<br /><br />I started to sift. Shaking the baking sheets pissed the larvae off, and they began to squirm visibly. I am still sifting to save the organic produce that was spawning insects in the relentless heat of Texas spring. So far, not so many larvae or newly emerged flies after all, although I did have to toss the currants.<br /><br />Lots of Americans think their environment is more sanitary than the rest of the world, but that’s a misguided illusion. Even the food of the wealthy appeals to insects. Why wouldn’t it?<br /><br />These insect eggs came in the grains I buy at the swanky supermarket in San Antonio, not at the Seguin store that screams on its plate glass window that it accepts WIC coupons or the unregulated Russian farm market. <br /><br />Our food is just as much a part of the food chain as food is anywhere else. Yes, we have USDA regulations and quality control mechanisms, but they are not impregnable, nor could we expect them to be. Texas summer heat is bound to encourage the eggs that slipped through the cracks to hatch in their cushy, barley bed. <br /><br />Careful cooks all over the world sift their grains, and I will be sifting with them from time to time. My ingredients are ultimately my responsibility. Good laws are only the beginning. Responsible stewardship is everyone’s responsibility.<br /><br />If Ada hadn’t slipped up in her effort to show me only the world as she assumed I knew it, I would have thrown away more food today than a family of refugees in Darfur gets to eat in a week. And it would have been 98 percent waste of perfectly sound food. <br /><br />What do people eat who are squeamish about food insect feet have trod? <br /><br /><br /><table width="100" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0"><tr><td><img border="0" src="http://www.tech-counter.com/cgi-bin/gd-count.cgi?page=http://www.womanhollerin.blogspot.com&style=wide_latin&nbdigits=10&reloads=1"></td></tr><tr><td><div align="center"><font size="2" face="arial, helvetica, sans-serif"><a href="http://www.gymsource.com">Gym Source</a></font></div></td></tr></table><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/19123059-114826683881833382?l=womanhollerin.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Robinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11530793550821854072noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19123059.post-1145826773773119062006-04-23T16:09:00.001-05:002006-04-24T22:38:45.893-05:00The study of foreign languages is a hot button of distress at my university. Students can meet the university minimum by studying a language in high school for three years. They can also go abroad for a semester, even to countries where English is spoken, and meet this requirement. This is actually more stringent that our previous program, which allowed students to study other cultures but avoid concentrated study of another language entirely. <br /><br />Even so, many students panic at the prospect of taking a foreign language. Some students grudgingly give a language course a shot. Others spend the energy they could have used to develop mastery on schemes to get out of the requirement entirely.<br /><br />My department requires students to demonstrate some proficiency in a language: they must get through the second year. Anyone who has studied another language knows that even at this level, not too many of us are very fluent. We can say we “know” the language in the sense that <a href="http://www.mysanantonio.com/opinion/columnists/trfehrenbach/stories/MYSA042306.3H.fehrenbach.1bc0f4c7.html">T.R. Fehrenbach</a> means in his column in the San Antonio Express-News today. Fehrenbach says, “Americans study other languages but rarely learn to speak them,” which he sees as one of our positive attributes as a nation. <br /><br />In Fehrenbach’s United States, we all stick to English and American customs and get along fine. <br /><br />Fehrenbach sees this as the American genius: the old country disappears in us, including its language, within one or two generations of arrival in the United States. He contrasts the successful loss of competing languages in the United States to the problems caused in Canada by the stubborn resistance of the Quebecois to letting go of French. He even compares the United States to unruly Belgium, which doesn’t have one language to define its identity. He places multi-lingual Switzerland and India in the same category with the United States, however. The Swiss have several official languages, but “only Swiss federal politicians bother to learn, say, both French and Schwyzerduutch plus Italian,” and the Indians still use English, which allows them to develop a national identity.<br /><br />He tells the story of his Chinese American comrade at arms who was called upon to explain Chinese customs to his fellow G.I.s in Korea. A third-generation American, he knew less about China and its customs than he did about his native West Texas, and he spoke with a West-Texas accent. The only thing he claims to have learned from his friend was the reason Chinese restaurants in the United States served rolls and crackers. <br /><br />If the United States is so successful because immigrants come here, pick up the local language and adopt the local customs, why did this West –Texan grow up working in his family’s Chinese restaurant? Why is going out for Chinese on Christmas Day such a defining cultural experience that Bob Clark could use it to such great effect in his quintessential American coming-of-age tale <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0085334/"> A Christmas Story</a>?<br /><br />Seguin has three Chinese restaurants. One of them is even open on Sunday, when the Christian-church-going crowd might want to eat out. Why? Because our version of Chinese cuisine has become part of the fabric of American life. If the Chinese people had been willing to let go of their food traditions when they arrived on North-American shores, we would all be poorer for it.<br /><br />American food culture is probably the area in which immigrant cultures have been most assimilated into the life of the United States. Chinese and Italian restaurants are so ubiquitous that we don’t see them as foreign anymore. The cuisine of Louisiana has French and Acadian influences. Humus, from the Middle East, has found its way onto the standard appetizer menu in the United States. <br /><br />And Mexican food. We made tacos in my home in Michigan in the 1970s. We bought packets that came with shells (the tortillas, gasp!) and spices for the meat. I even tried to make corn tortillas myself, way back then. <br /><br />We use many foreign terms for foods. Spaghetti. Lasagna. Samosa. Humus. Croissant. Bouillabaisse. Étouffée. Margarita. Taco. Burrito.<br /><br /> We have also retained food words from the languages indigenous to North America also made their way into our particular version of English. For example, American English borrowed <a href="http://www.indians.org/welker/americas.htm">squash</a> from the Narragansett language and <a href="http://groups.msn.com/FoodiesCorner/chocolateorigins.msnw"> chocolate</a> from the Maya . <a href="http://www.word-detective.com/021804.html"> Tomato</a> came from Nahuatl. <br /><br />These words have become so familiar that we no longer think of them as foreign. <br /><br />I must say that Fehrenbach is right about one thing. It is much easier to study a foreign language than it is to actually speak it. I have studied Spanish, French, Arabic, Persian and Russian. Of these, I speak only Russian well. I understand a lot and can buy things in Spanish and French. In Arabic, I can tell you my name is Robin and that I’m going by car. I can tell you Tehran is expensive in Persian, but not much else. But knowing these languages makes North America richer for me. Perhaps if English-speaking U.S. citizens weren’t so scared of the confusion they feel when learning foreign languages, we wouldn’t be so upset by the people who want to keep speaking them after they arrive here.<br /><br />We love the foods and the words that represent them, why not learn the verbs that describe the process of cooking? Why not learn to thank the server in the language associated with the cuisine? We embraced the foods, and they became part of our culture. If we embrace the languages, they won’t stay foreign for long, and neither will the people who speak them.<br /><br />Now, I think I’ll get some Chinese.<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><table width="100" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0"><tr><td><img border="0" src="http://www.tech-counter.com/cgi-bin/gd-count.cgi?page=http://www.womanhollerin.blogspot.com&style=wide_latin&nbdigits=10&reloads=1"></td></tr><tr><td><div align="center"><font size="2" face="arial, helvetica, sans-serif"><a href="http://www.gymsource.com">Gym Source</a></font></div></td></tr></table><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/19123059-114582677377311906?l=womanhollerin.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Robinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11530793550821854072noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19123059.post-1145250538811874332006-04-17T00:07:00.000-05:002006-04-17T00:13:43.596-05:00I mentioned firsts in my last post, but I’ve actually worked on both my first and my second elections already. I hope the November election draws more people, because it’s embarrassing to have three or six people pounce on every voter. That’s three if the voter made it to the right polling place and can walk right in and vote and six if the citizen has come to the wrong place and needs help finding the right one. Help for the lost voter is as close as a PalmPilot in the hands of the presiding judge, but all the workers are there because we like to be helpful. We are probably a little overwhelming for the lost voters.<br /><br />Turnout in the March primary statewide was low – under 10 percent – so I guess we did ok with about 40 voting in person and 40 voting early in the Democratic Party primary from two city precincts. Of course, the Republican judges and clerks were busier.<br /><br />The runoff for Democratic candidates for lieutenant governor and senator compelled far fewer people to visit the polling place at the public library Tuesday. Although the Republicans had a hotly contested race against the incumbent county administrative judge, even the their pollworkers found themselves with a lot of time to stare out the window. <br /><br />The down time between voters was probably the best opportunity for dialogue between the mainstream parties that I’ve witnessed since I moved to Guadalupe County. Five or six of us, half working for the Republicans and half for the Democrats, are cooped up in a room together from 7 a.m. till 7 p.m. Everyone believes that everyone else cares about the democratic process, or we wouldn’t be getting up way too early and sitting here for way too long. It would be hard to write the other guys off as uncaring fools or to avoid looking them in the eye, like people did to us when we worked at the Democratic Party booth at the county fair. <br /><br />Here at the polls we talked. We disagreed. We shared cookies from Amy’s and Cathy’s. We learned from each other. We laughed. We even agreed that it might happen that all of us were working there at the public library for the Republicans and the Democrats, but we could end up voting for <a href="http://www.kinkyfriedman.com">Kinky Friedman</a>. We laughed again … really loud.<br /><br />All of us shut up when the voters trickled in, so we wouldn’t influence their decisions. After a couple of awkward moments at our table during the primary, we made sure to mention that we were accepting ballots in the Democratic primary. We had a lovely, large sign that the county election office asked us to remove from the street. It said, “Texas Democrats Vote here,” and people were calling the office asking where the Republicans were supposed to vote. Even when we put our sign up at the end of our table, Republicans still weren’t always sure where to go.<br /><br />For the run-off last week we put the “Vote here” sign out with the arrow pointing into the street rather than at the library. That would have confused people, I imagine, but a civic-minded voter asked if he could turn it around for us. So, the 95 percent of registered voters who chose not to participate in the run-off can’t claim misdirection as their excuse. The sign was pointing at the polling place for almost the entire day. <br /><br />We pollworkers spent a lot of our down time brainstorming ways to get out the vote. I’ve heard several great ideas. Of course, one was to make the campaigns, and government itself, seem relevant to the voters. In lieu of that, one of my friends thinks people should have voting parties that reward voters with good food for making the effort to get to the polls. My precinct captain has a resolution going to the state convention to institute a Federal income tax credit for voters. That sounds really good today (as long as doesn’t take a lot more paperwork!).<br /><br />The Kinky Petition at <a href="http://www.chirojava.com/index.htm">ChiroJava,</a> already had more than 150 signatures when I asked on Thursday, but Friedman needs 45,540 by May 11 to get on the ballot. If you’re one of the registered voters who didn’t vote in the primary, you can still do your civic duty by signing the petition. Who would have thought that not voting might be more virtuous than voting? I’m sure that’s what you all had in mind when you made the decision not to vote in March. <br /><br />Right?<br /><br /><table width="100" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0"><tr><td><img border="0" src="http://www.tech-counter.com/cgi-bin/gd-count.cgi?page=http://www.womanhollerin.blogspot.com&style=wide_latin&nbdigits=10&reloads=1"></td></tr><tr><td><div align="center"><font size="2" face="arial, helvetica, sans-serif"><a href="http://www.gymsource.com">Gym Source</a></font></div></td></tr></table><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/19123059-114525053881187433?l=womanhollerin.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Robinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11530793550821854072noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19123059.post-1145200292382864572006-04-16T10:04:00.000-05:002006-04-16T10:37:25.223-05:00Last time I wrote I was thinking about my history with Washington, D.C., but I’ve also had a number of “firsts” in the past few weeks: I served as a pollworker in primary elections, attended a wedding at a Sikh temple and saw $606 disappear unbidden from my checking account. <br /><br />First, the $606. It went to Delft Liquors in <a href="http://www.aboutcapetown.com/?aref=ago0506610">Cape Town, South Africa</a>. Oddly, I remember seeing signs for Cape Town, Texas, (although I can't find the town in my Web search this morning) on my way to Houston for my friend’s wedding not long before I stopped at McDonalds to buy coffee to keep myself from falling asleep at the wheel. This shows just how desperate I was to stay awake: I used my ATM Visa card to buy McDonald’s coffee. <br /><br />That $2.00 (!) purchase was the last one I made on my card before March 31 when I logged on to my online banking and saw a string of charges for 80 cents. I followed the string until it led to some $5 debits, several $79 charges and another for a whopping $287 (the small ones were bank fees). All at the liquor store. <br /><br />People responded in interesting ways when I told them someone else had spent my money at a liquor store in Cape Town. <br /><br />My advisees, who were coming in to plan their schedules for the next semester, said sympathetic and outraged things, shared their own identity theft experiences, wished me all the best in getting my money back and hurried away with my hastily scrawled signature on their registration cards.<br /><br />The receptionist and fraud operator at the bank listened well and said sympathetic things. I’d like to thank them and the bank that let’s them take the side of the little guy (mine) at least in this kind of case. After talking with the people at the bank, my hands stopped trembling. I realized that they were not going to make me prove, somehow, that I hadn’t actually gone to Cape Town and bought all that booze. They immediately credited my account with the amount of money the miscreant spent and launched an investigation. Later, the people at the Seguin branch who gave me a temporary card to access my temporarily credited account were equally sympathetic. They didn’t even frown at me for running in five minutes before closing. Everyone should do business with this bank. If I wasn’t afraid of losing more bits of my identity, I’d reveal which one…<br /><br />The dean of our business department responded with stories about his father’s run-in with identity thieves and his own efforts to get that bank to look for the criminals instead of just writing off the big chunk of change charged at Best Buy and the $700 spent at the supermarket. How many carts would it take to total that much? Why didn’t this raise the cashier’s suspicions? The dean knew both purchases had been captured on surveillance video, and he wanted the bank to minimize the losses we all end up paying for by catching the criminals.<br /><br />If the bank found the person who used my number, would that person have the money to pay restitution? How long would I have to wait before the case wound its way through the courts? I agree with the goal of keeping fees and costs of banking low, but I have to say that I’m glad I didn’t face suspicious questioning, appearances in court and a long wait to get my money back. <br /><br />When I told Reza, he said, “Really? At least they bought something useful.” But they didn’t invite me to the party, I answered.<br /><br />As I told the story to colleagues and students throughout the day, I relaxed and started to laugh about it. Although I’m still wondering who gave my number to a friend or whether H-E-B or McDonalds has a leak in its network, it’s hard to stay upset when you’re not losing any money in the long run. I’ve lost things that hurt much worse than this. <br /><br />Scott said I was taking it all with remarkably good humor and offered to share a bottle of wine to cheer me up. California Cabernet, Texas sunset, tiny frogs croaking in their deep voices, martins alighting on their houses and bats flying out of theirs. I almost forgot the moment I noticed the first 80-cent transaction.<br /><br />The next time someone in Cape Town spends $606 at the liquor store, I hope he’s buying me a bottle of fine wine from the Rhone region (I like a fruity, spicey <a href="http://www.winepros.org/wine101/grape_profiles/grenache.htm">Grenache </a>base), a wheel of brie, truffles and a couple of crystal glasses. <br /><br />With his own Visa card.<br /><br /><br /><table width="100" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0"><tr><td><img border="0" src="http://www.tech-counter.com/cgi-bin/gd-count.cgi?page=http://www.womanhollerin.blogspot.com&style=wide_latin&nbdigits=10&reloads=1"></td></tr><tr><td><div align="center"><font size="2" face="arial, helvetica, sans-serif"><a href="http://www.gymsource.com">Gym Source</a></font></div></td></tr></table><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/19123059-114520029238286457?l=womanhollerin.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Robinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11530793550821854072noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19123059.post-1144634204788675922006-04-09T20:39:00.000-05:002006-04-16T10:39:03.860-05:00Just being in Washington, D.C. last weekend made me feel important. If importance was a limited quantity in a place, you would think that Washington had used up its quota on all the politicians and activists who live there permanently, but I guess they had a little left over to share.<br /><br />Although I'm about as much of an outsider as one could possibly be, I knew my way around. The last time two times I went to Washington, I was looking for work and wearing heels that were far too high for schlepping from interview to interview. This time I was wearing pink, backless sneakers as I made my way to the corner of 18th and K. Last time, I was in agony and it was icy. This time, I was in control and the one who would be asking the questions.<br /><br />I conducted the first information interview for a new research project. That I had the oportunity, and a great excuse, to get away from campus for several days a month before spring graduation stands as great on its own merits. That I am excited about research and could roll it in with an official trip for the university made me almost happier than I could bear.<br /><br />My visit to the program at American University is probably the closest I'll ever come to the pharmaceutical-company-wining-and-dining experience. The wine was good, the meals superb, the desserts exquisite and the accomodations in the Hyatt Regency Bethesda luxurious. Even the weather cooperated, and I was hot. All of my clothes were wrong (Think Texas at 90 degrees already and Washington temperatures in the low 80s and 40s at night. I thought I would be cold.) Who would have expected a used-clothing store across the street from the Bethesda Hyatt?<br /><br />Maybe while I was in Washington, I numbered among those a presenter at the conference I attended called, "people who think they are important." I know she meant the people who demand a member of congress's time (she's a former scheduler for two members) and treat the staff with disdain. But maybe there's another interpretation of the phrase.<br /><br />When I walk confidently on the streets of the U.S. capital, know my way around the metro and get to eat in the restaurant where I first tried Ethiopian food almost a decade ago, I think I'm important. Somehow, I managed to travel to Washington enough times to have a history with the city. I've had the opportunity to serve and learn enough about international development programs to have become passionately interested in testing the assumptions that underly their strategies. People agreed to answer <em>my</em> questions this time.<br /><br />This is not the sort of important that tries to push people around. Instead, it is the confidence to hold my head high. It is the confidence that I have something to offer, even in Washington.<br /><br />And it was awfully fun to fly in right before class on Monday with just enough time to pick up lunch at La Madeleine (a chain that has a store in my Bethesda neighborhood, too) and eat French country potato soup at my desk before class. <br /><br />And before the big pile of grading fell on me.<br /><br /><table width="100" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0"><tr><td><img border="0" src="http://www.tech-counter.com/cgi-bin/gd-count.cgi?page=http://www.womanhollerin.blogspot.com&style=wide_latin&nbdigits=10&reloads=1"></td></tr><tr><td><div align="center"><font size="2" face="arial, helvetica, sans-serif"><a href="http://www.gymsource.com">Gym Source</a></font></div></td></tr></table><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/19123059-114463420478867592?l=womanhollerin.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Robinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11530793550821854072noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19123059.post-1142707375130198802006-03-18T12:42:00.000-06:002006-04-10T20:40:59.006-05:00In recent weeks activity in the offline world has taken so much of my energy that I haven’t had any left over for reflection and writing. I hope that I now have the space in my life for analysis because I’ve been missing it. Writing about current and past events helps me to pull the various directions my thought energy goes into a bouquet of insights. Without the opportunity to make the bouquet, I start to wonder why I studied Russia and the Soviet Union for so long, why I learned enough French to get by, how I ended up in south Texas, what has possessed me to want to learn Persian and investigate development initiatives in the Caucasus republics, or why I've done or plan to do any number of other things. <br /><br />A colleague asked me (for the first time in the almost four years we have worked together) what research interests I pursue. As her eyes glazed over after the first sentence, I faced a dilemma I often experience: do I shut up or insist that a person who shows signs of conversational discomfort hear me out? I chose to tell her that I’m interested in investigating the effects of international development assistance programs that provide Internet connectivity and computers to the people of the former Soviet republics in the Caucasus Mountains. Since the other person standing in the conversation group with us displayed signs of interest, and even enthusiasm, I went on to say that this assistance is offered in the context of support of democratization. I want to investigate the patterns of use to attempt to discover what the democratization looks like, or if the technology is actually contributing to democratization.<br /><br />I don’t know whether it’s the geographical remoteness, fear of the languages involved in the sort of thinking I like to do, the political implications of the word “soviet,” or something else that makes some people’s eyes glaze over when I talk about the subjects that interest me. Over the years, I have learned to approach that question with trepidation and have been so relieved to become a reporter. Reporters ask other people to talk about themselves. Interviewees don’t feel compelled to reciprocate interest. I don’t see the eyes glaze over like I would if I was doing the talking.<br /><br />Today, I am collecting articles that apply the ideas of Mikhail Bakhtin to non-literary texts. I found articles that use his theories about language and dialogue to analyze political interviews on television, legal discourse, and second-language learning. I’m hoping that in reading Bakhtin’s theories of dialogue and the necessity of the Other to understanding the Self I will find not only new ways to understand the communication of people who blog in English when their first language is Azeri, Armenian or Persian, but also new avenues to try to understand myself. Why are Others so necessary to me when my fellow Americans seem so oblivious to anything that is Not-me or Not-us?<br /><br />A Jungian psychologist I know said Jung would say that we understand our Selves through exploration of the Other. <br /><br />So far as I understand Bakhtin, he argued that we couldn’t constitute our Selves without Others. From our very acquisition of language, we are incorporating elements of the Other by imitation of others’ speech. How are people who glaze over at the very mention of other cultures and languages understanding themselves? Or are they, perhaps, so overwhelmed by the variations within U.S. culture that they shut down at the thought of the vastness of the world beyond our borders?<br /><br />It's easier for me to understand people who don't come from the same background, ethnic group, social class or country than it is those whom I think I should consider my "own" people. Generally, when I'm encountering people who don't share my background, they <em>do</em> share my curiousity about Not-me things. Otherwise, how would we have encountered each other?<div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/19123059-114270737513019880?l=womanhollerin.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Robinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11530793550821854072noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19123059.post-1140981005895046852006-02-26T13:01:00.000-06:002006-02-26T16:02:34.836-06:00I just read that the <a href="http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20060225/wl_mideast_afp/iranjusticeexecute_060225100830">22nd Iranian of the year has been executed in that country</a>. I live in Texas, a state that executes a lot of convicted criminals compared to other states in the United States, so I was curious to compare the pace of executions in Texas and Iran. <br /><br />The fourth person of the year was executed in Texas Feb. 15. He was the eighth American to face the death penalty so far this year, according to the <a href="http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/article.php?did=1666"> Death Penalty Information Center</a>. <br /><br />At least Texas has had fewer executions than Iran this year. Last year too, apparently. Iran executed 81 people and Texas executed only 19 in 2005. <br /><br />But if we look at the rate of executions compared to population, is it lower in Texas than in Iran? <br /><br />Iran’s population is 68 million according to a 2005 estimate by the <a href="http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/rankorder/2119rank.html"> CIA</a>, making that country the 20th in size in the world. (If Texas were a country, it would rank 51st between Thailand and Romania.)<br /><br />The population of Texas is about 22.5 million by <a href="http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/states/48000.html"> U.S. Census Department </a>estimates for 2004. This is about one third that of Iran’s. <br /><br />Texas had executed about one fifth as many people as Iran by the end of February 2006, so I guess the state is still not matching Iran’s rate. <br /><br />As for last year, however, Iran and Texas executed about the same percentage of their populations. (The percentages are so small that it's hard to write about them, but as far as I can tell, they are barely different.)<br /><br />I don’t have easy access to data on the ethnic breakdown of Iranian society or the backgrounds of those who have been executed there, but I do have such information about Texas, and it reveals inequalities among the races in the application of the death penalty in the state.<br /><br />Of the 359 people who have been executed in Texas since the death penalty was reinstituted in 1982, 51 percent were white, 34 percent black and 15 percent Hispanic, according to records of the <a href="http://www.tdcj.state.tx.us/stat/executedoffenders.htm"> Texas Department of Criminal Justice</a>. <br /><br />The balance of the population of Texas doesn’t stack up to match the balance of offenders who have been executed. The population of Texas is 71 percent white and 11.5 percent black according to <a href="http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/states/48000.html"> Texas Quick Facts from the U.S. Census</a>. Making the comparison between number of Hispanic people in the population and number executed is hard. The census asks people about their ethnic origin, but doesn’t consider Hispanic a racial category. So, of the various races reported on the census, 32 percent of the people report Hispanic origins.<br /><br />There is also solid research that indicates the race of the victim plays a large role in whether the offender will be sentenced to death nationwide in the United States. Looking at all crimes that resulted in the execution of the defendant in the United States since 1976, 80 percent of the victims were white, according to the <a href="http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/article.php?scid=5&did=184"> Death Penalty Information Center</a>.<br /><br />About 42 percent of those awaiting execution in the prisons of the United States are black, according to an <a href="http://www.naacpldf.org/content/pdf/pubs/drusa/DRUSA_Fall_2005.pdf"> NAACP report</a> issued in 2005.<br /><br />Activists who oppose capital punishment use this information to argue that the death penalty is imposed unfairly and should be abolished. I agree with them. I oppose the killing that the state carries out in my (and your) name. But we could abolish the death penalty and not deal with the underlying problem of racial inequality these data reveal. <br /><br />Why doesn’t the United States government give as much attention to dealing with the inequalities within our borders as it does mandating that other countries deal with theirs?<div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/19123059-114098100589504685?l=womanhollerin.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Robinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11530793550821854072noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19123059.post-1138894083692957052006-02-02T09:12:00.000-06:002006-02-02T19:35:31.890-06:00SAN ANTONIO – People in the West must stop equating the mistakes of individuals with Islam, Iranian activist <a href="http://www.shirinebadi.ir/">Shirin Ebadi</a> who won the <a href="http://nobelprize.org/peace/laureates/2003/ebadi-bio.html">Nobel Peace Prize</a> in 2003 told an audience of about 1000 people in the Laurie Auditorium at Trinity University Wednesday.<br /><br />Today, a lot of governments have been hiding behind an incorrect interpretation of Islam to justify mistaken actions that violate human rights, Ebadi said, but this is not the only interpretation of Islam that has currency in the Middle East. She spoke about what she called non-governmental or dynamic Islam, that of intellectuals and any Muslims who respect democracy. <br /><br />“The original Islam is based on democracy and everybody’s participation in this process,” Ebadi said through an interpreter. <br /><br />“This Islam,” Ebadi said, “is under attack from two fronts, one is those who are trying to justify their crimes and the other who tries to justify their wars.”<br /><br />Attacking from the one side are interpreters of Islam who present killing and terrorism as a fundamental element of the religion. From the other, are those in the West who associate discriminatory and violent practices with Islam, claiming that Islamic civilization is just different from Western civilization. In addition to the political leaders who make policy, Ebadi put intellectuals who advocate the theory of the <a href="http://www.alamut.com/subj/economics/misc/clash.html">“clash of civilizations” </a>clearly in this camp.<br /><br />Ebadi said that people throughout history have used peaceful philosophies and religions, like Islam, Christianity and Marxism, to justify violations of human rights. She said that no one blames Christianity for the mistakes made in Bosnia or Judaism for Israeli breaches of international law and U.N. regulations.<br /><br />She stressed the need to find common ground among cultures and religions rather than seeking to exacerbate the differences. <br /><br />“Democracy and human rights is the common need of all cultures and human societies,” said Ebadi. “Let’s talk about the common ground, not what divides us. Don’t justify war. No one is going to be happy because of war.”<br /><br />“Human rights cannot be dropped on people with cluster bombs,” Ebadi said.<br /><br />For Ebadi, human rights must be the framework for any government. The rules of human rights essentially protect people’s right to speak freely and live without fear of poverty, violence and dictatorship. <br /><br />“If you compare it to Syria and Iraq under Saddam Hussein,” Ebadi said, “sure Iran is a better country, but it doesn’t have a developed democracy.”<br /><br />Ebadi pointed to <a href="http://www.iranfocus.com/modules/news/article.php?storyid=1424">women’s rights</a> and the rights of minorities as particular <a href= "http://www.hrw.org/doc?t=mideast&c=iran">areas of concern in Iran</a>. She finds no justification in Islam for discrimination against women and said that regimes that do discriminate are hiding behind Islam for their own purposes, as are the outside observers who maintain that such discrimination is in accord with Islam.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.peacewomen.org/news/Iran/news.html">Iranian women</a> are more educated than Iranian men, a statement the audience applauded, but still the government maintains many discriminatory rules and regulations, she said. On the one hand, 13 women hold seats in the Iranian parliament and one is a vice president. On the other, women are barred from running for president, it takes testimony from two women to equal that of one man in court and a woman must have written permission from her father or husband to travel.<br /><br />“Just imagine if the vice president wants to make a trip overseas to visit the U.N. she has to beg her husband for written permission,” Ebadi said. “Just imagine if there is no agreement between the man and the woman in the night. Iran’s seat at the U.N. remains empty.”<br /><br />Ebadi does not see the close association of church and state as a problem for the development of democracy. Separation of church and state is not necessary for governmental legitimacy, she said. “Only democracy and human rights combined have legitimacy, Ebadi said. “When they are combined there is no need for separation of church and state.”<br /><br />“If there is a society in which the people are really yearning to unite church and state,” she said, “what are you going to do with them? Are you going to impose your will on them?” she asked the audience.<br /><br />While some countries may not have as developed democracies as others, Ebadi said that human rights must never be used as a justification for attacking a country. <br /><br /> “Democracy is not a gift,” Ebadi said. It can’t be exported from one country to another. Instead, democracy develops when people are yearning for it.<div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/19123059-113889408369295705?l=womanhollerin.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Robinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11530793550821854072noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19123059.post-1137959960328636112006-01-22T13:51:00.000-06:002006-01-22T14:40:56.826-06:00I find the coverage of the conflict over Iran’s nuclear program alarming. I’m less alarmed about the research Iran is pursuing than about the news coverage in the United States that presents the issue in a narrow, one-sided manner that suggests a military solution is the only solution to the problem Iran poses.<br /><br />Leaving aside the actual diplomatic issues, the headlines and shabbily sourced stories suggest that armed, and probably nuclear, conflict with Iran is inevitable and will happen soon. I would have to do more serious analysis of the stories that have been appearing every day on this matter for the last few weeks to confirm my impressions of the coverage, but I wonder why the news media have abandoned the practice of citing sources for the information included in stories? <br /><br />For me to consider these reports anything more than calls to arms (or in much rarer instances, anti-war statements), I would want to see where the reporters got the facts. And I would want to see facts rather than speculation before I would accept that Iran actually poses such a problem at all.<br /><br />I tell my news writing students that they should report what they know and can verify. I tell them to report all the sides to a dispute. The professionals are not backing me up on this advice in the matter of Iran’s nuclear program.<br /><br />For example, the San Antonio Express News ran three articles dealing with Iran Sunday morning, two in the world news section and one an op-ed piece by John Hagee, the pastor of the Cornerstone Church in San Antonio. <br /><br />Only one of the articles, an <a href="http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/I/IRAN_NUCLEAR?SITE=CARED&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT">Associated Press</a> story citing the defense ministers of Israel and Germany, the president of France and the spokesman for Iran’s foreign ministry (most of the quotes taken from other published reports), has a basis in authoritative sources. <br /><br />Perhaps Hagee can be forgiven for not following sound journalistic practices, but the Hearst news service cannot. And neither can the editor who chose to run the Hagee piece with the headline “Iran-Israel showdown looms.”<br /><br />In a story for the Hearst new service, Eric Rosenberg attributes the information in the article to military experts but identifies only U.S. Senator John McCain (in the eighth paragraph of a 17-paragraph story) and David Albright, president of the Institute for Science and International Security (in the 12th paragraph).<br /><br />He cites no identifiable sources for information on nuclear facilities in Iran. His unidentified sources believe or speculate far too often for me to consider this worthy reporting. Some of the information purportedly comes from the CIA “whose credibility,” Rosenberg writes, “was sorely undermined after its claim that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction proved false.” This august agency “believes Iran is lying.”<br /><br />On the basis of such well documented reports, people like Pastor Hagee conclude that biblical prophecies are about to be fulfilled in the Middle East.<br /><br />I am sure that Pastor Hagee is more familiar with such prophesies than I am, but I wish he would have given readers the opportunity to assess the validity of his interpretation of recent events by citing the sources of his information. Hagee quotes the Iranian president, citing no source. He quotes the British prime minister, citing no source. He refers to policies of the United Nations, Israel and the United States, citing no source. <br /><br />Readers are supposed to be convinced because Hagee is convinced while little more than rhetorical devices support his claims that Israel is completely isolated in the world, especially in the United Nations. According to Hagee, the U.N. lets Muslims get away with just about anything while calling Israel to task for “every action.” <br /><br />Hagee’s rhetorical devices include reviving the memory of the Cold War proxy wars by pointing out that the United States supports Israel while Russia supports Iran. <br /><br />After touching American isolationist fears of the United Nations, Hagee then blames the International Atomic Energy Agency for declining to refer the conflict to the U.N. Security Council. Odd. Given his previous statement that “[t]he United Nations is no friend of Israel,” why would Security Council action be expected to help the situation (that is, help Israel feel more secure)? This feels more like an attempt to make the IAEA a scapegoat to let whichever country Hagee thinks will act against Iran first off the hook for its actions.<br /><br />What is the role of the media in this conflict? Whose interest does it serve to have poorly documented news reports propping up predictions of impending attacks on Iran (or Israel, for that matter)? <br /><br />Why are reporters willing to rely, again, on the CIA to tell them who is lying? <br /><br />By accepting this questionable speculation, the reporters make it even harder for general readers to remember that this dispute, like all disputes, has more than one side. They don’t have to pay attention to any Iranian side because the CIA believes Iranians lie. <br /><br />This dangerous assumption leads reporters to ignore all Iranians and anyone who presents an alternative interpretation of the history of this question. A careful review of the relevant treaties and the recent negotiations between Europe and Iran would be more challenging to carry out than reporting sound bites that have been heard already around the world or citing experts who remain in the shadows of anonymity. <br /><br />There are plenty of people, Iranians included, who are not members of the Bush administration or supporters of the Islamic Republic, who have expertise and opinions on this matter. Why not quote them, for example?<br /><br />Reports of threats of attack are serious business and can cause consequences. Reporters should report what they and their sources know, not what they believe. Readers should remember that the lead-in to war in Iraq involved a lot of careless, or at best naïve, reporting. We should hold reporters to higher standards.<br /><br />We should identify reporters’ sources before we accept their interpretations. We should insist that the sources have names. We should demand that reporters draw on sources that represent all the sides in a dispute. <br /><br />Without documentation, the public has only faith that the reports are accurate, and that’s not enough for me.<div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/19123059-113795996032863611?l=womanhollerin.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Robinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11530793550821854072noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19123059.post-1137466376645627792006-01-16T20:27:00.000-06:002006-01-16T21:21:47.513-06:00<a href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/7417/1886/1600/marchers.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/7417/1886/400/marchers.jpg" border="0" alt="" /></a><br />Seguin is not a place that I would expect to have a long commitment to the celebration of the Martin Luther King, Jr., holiday, but hundreds of people turn out every year to march a couple of miles from the downtown square to the TLU campus. The march is the culmination of four days of events, including an inspiring MLK concert that TLU has hosted for the past nine years. (The organizing committee promises a big blow out for next year’s 10th musical celebration of the birth of Martin Luther King, Jr., who was born a mere 77 years ago on Jan. 15, 1929.) <br /><br /><a href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/7417/1886/1600/speaker.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:10 10 10px 10px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/7417/1886/200/speaker.jpg" border="5" alt="" /></a><br />This year’s pre-march speaker,Tina Lee, principal of Lifegate Christian School in Seguin, reminded those in the audience not to give up when life seems hard. She used a parable about a deaf frog to illustrate the importance of ignoring the negative messages we hear as we work toward our goals. <br /><br />She told her own amazing story of overcoming financial obstacles, health problems and racism to earn several degrees, honors and good jobs. I was most struck by the story of her entrance into college. She had been accepted and offered a scholarship to a nearby university, but when she appeared to meet with university officials, the officials revoked the offer. She knew why and faced the issue head on. <br /><br />Her birth certificate said she was white, but the official saw a black woman sitting in his office.<br /><br />She did not go away meekly. Instead, she pointed out that her race was the only thing that had “changed” since she walked on the campus. Her credentials had indicated her potential for success, she said, and asked the official to give her a change to prove that she would thrive in the university.<br /><br /><a href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/7417/1886/1600/laura.jpg"><img style="float:right; margin:10 10 10px 10px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/7417/1886/200/laura.jpg" border="0" alt="" /></a><br />Today, she is nearing completion of a doctorate.<br /><br /><a href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/7417/1886/1600/t-shirt.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:10 10 10px 10px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/7417/1886/200/t-shirt.jpg" border="0" alt="" /></a><br />I am inspired by her achievement, by the songs of four talented young sopranos at the concert Sunday night, by the Seguin Community Choir’s rousing gospel songs (especially “Oh Freedom”), by the smart and funny comments of Nikki Bittings between songs and readings, by the words of Rev. Frankie Rivers and Rev. W.C. McIntyre, by Dr. King’s example. This could be a long list.<br /><br /><a href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/7417/1886/1600/tlu_marchers2.jpg"><img style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/7417/1886/200/tlu_marchers2.jpg" border="0" alt="" /></a><br />I love to celebrate Dr. King’s legacy, but at the same time, I can’t help but remember how far we are from seeing his philosophy bear full fruit. At the concert and during the speech this afternoon, I nodded my head in agreement, clapped and let out a loud “uh huh” one or two times. I did the same while reading a column by <a href="http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/living/columnists/leonard_pitts/13614795.htm">Leonard Pitts</a> reminding us that King’s goals did not only apply to racial equality but also sought to remove the barriers of class and unfair economic advantage. <br /><br />Pitts,who is teaching in Appalachia for a few months, reported that he was struck by the similarities in the lives of poor white people to the dysfunctions he is more accustomed to seeing in poor black communities. <br /><br />I was also nodding and saying “amen” (that's the influence of living for four years in Durham, N.C., where the population is more than half African American and teaching at North Carolina Central University, the successor to the first liberal arts university in America for African American students, not any particular personal religiosity)in agreement with authors and callers on several NPR talk programs devoted to <a href="http://www.wamu.org/programs/dr/06/01/16.php">MLK and LBJ</a> (for the non-Texan young folks, that’s Lyndon Baines Johnson) as they discussed the legacy of the civil rights movement. Among the topics that came up were <a href="http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5159487">King's biography</a>, including FBI surveillance of King, Johnson’s roots in the hardscrabble Hill Country (before it was the in place to cultivate grapes or take refuge from California real estate prices), the divergent views the two men held on war in Vietnam and Johnson’s foreknowledge that his push to pass civil rights legislation would destroy the Democratic Party in the South.<br /><br />Both of these men knew that social justice was necessary but lacking in the United States. They had ideas about how to create a more just society and they weren’t afraid to try them. <br /><br />If only we could all be brave enough to march toward justice undaunted by fear of what we might encounter on the way there.<a href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/7417/1886/1600/2004shirtback.0.jpg"><img style="float:right; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/7417/1886/400/2004shirtback.jpg" border="0" alt="" /></a><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/19123059-113746637664562779?l=womanhollerin.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Robinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11530793550821854072noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19123059.post-1137295930772316642006-01-14T21:15:00.000-06:002006-01-14T22:19:00.843-06:00After I wrote the last post, I started reading <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1933368055/qid=1137296793/sr=8-1/ref=pd_bbs_1/002-1187164-6668021?n=507846&s=books&v=glance"><em>We are Iran: The Persian Blogs</a></em>, a book celebrating and chronicling the use of Weblogs to circumvent restrictions on self-expression in Iran.<br /><br />The number of blogs in Farsi (or Persian) is far out of proportion to the number of Farsi speakers in the world, especially in comparison to other languages like French. According to Iranian blogger <a href="http://myotherfellow.blogspot.com/2005/12/mullahs-versus-bloggers.html">My Other Fellow</a>, more people are writing blogs in Farsi than in any language except English. OK, the Iranian blogs are tied with those in French for second. But when you think that Farsi has a lot fewer speakers than French, this is really remarkable and amounts to about 23 million Farsi blogs.<br /><br />This movement, and Iranian bloggers have consciously and intentionally established a cyber movement, provokes the ire of leaders of the Islamic Republic regularly. Bloggers are arrested. Blog hosting sites are blocked or shut down. <em>We are Iran </em>presents translations of posts from a wide range of blogs, both political and personal. The leaders of the Persian blogging movement are acutely aware that the personal is political (like feminists have been saying) in the context of their country’s recent history and they celebrate all efforts at self-expression.<br /><br />As I continue to read the book I know I’ll have more thoughts about this movement and the use of new communication technologies to bring about social change, but for now, I’m thinking about Chapter two, “Revolution, War and Dissent.” This chapter reminded me (as if I had forgotten) of the checkered history of the United States in supporting democracy in the world, which seems particularly relevant to the questions I posed in the last post about who’s in charge of promoting the value of democracy here in the United States.<br /><br />Of course, it was not news to me that the face of democracy the United States turns toward the world has egg on it. In the case of Iran, the CIA sponsored a <a href="http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB28/index.html">coup d’etat</a> that removed Iran’s democratically elected government in 1953 to allow the return of the Pahlavi family to dynastic rule in the country.<br /><br />Around the same time, and after years of either surreptitiously or openly controlling the governments of Caribbean nations, the United States removed an elected government in <a href="http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB4/">Guatemala</a>.<br /><br />In the mid-1950s the U.S. government led <a href="http://www.historicaltextarchive.com/books.php?op=viewbook&bookid=13">Hungarians</a> to believe that it would support their efforts to break free of Soviet occupation, and then didn’t.<br /><br />Twenty years later, the United States helped bring Gen. Augusto Pinochet to power in <a href="http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB8/nsaebb8i.htm">Chile</a> to replace a popularly elected, but socialist, president Salvador Allende.<br /><br />In the 1970s and 1980s the United States first made and then brought down <a href="http://encarta.msn.com/encyclopedia_761561240/Noriega_Moreno_Manuel_Antonio.html">Manuel Noriega</a> in Panama. (I arrived at the consulate in Leningrad one day in December 1989 to find the Marine guards dressed in camouflage. They were on alert because U.S. forces had invaded Panama.)<br /><br />Not to mention supporting Saddam Hussein when it was convenient and denouncing his human rights record and invading Iraq when it was not.<br /><br />The list is too long to include all U.S. actions based on <em>realpolitik</em> rather than democratic ideals<br /><br />How do we make sense of the government programs to promote democracy abroad, both the peaceful and the military, when the United States has such a checkered history of supporting local self-determination, including democratically elected, democratically inclined leadership, around the world?<br /><br />How do U.S. political leaders decide when it’s more expedient to have a friendly dictator in place and when it would really be better to support democratic processes? Am I some kind of naïve dupe to volunteer my efforts in Armenia (or anywhere else)?<br /><br />I fielded a lot of questions from Armenians who couldn’t believe that people would do anything if they didn’t personally benefit. For the sake of full disclosure, I received a grant of $1200 from my employer to help pay for airfare to Armenia via Paris (about $1600) and my friend Ellie put me up for three weeks at her home. YCAP gave me lunch, transportation and the services of an interpreter. I went in the hole to talk to young people in Armenia about the ideal role of the media in democracy and to suggest how they could participate in mass communication in a democratic way.<br /><br />I understand why they wondered what my motives were for doing this. Armenia receives a disproportionate share of the <a href="http://www.blogrel.com/2005/08/18/us-fy-2005-assistance-to-armenia/">U.S. foreign assistance</a> budget. The Armenian community in the United States is large and influential, but if Armenia were located farther from Iran, Iraq and the Middle Eastern oil fields in general, I imagine it wouldn’t seem so important to build a big embassy in Yerevan or make such an effort to cultivate this small, land-locked, oil-less country. Armenians correctly suspect that U.S. assistance comes with expectations attached.<br /><br />In this world of <em>realpolitik</em>, however, a lot of people maintain their ideals and believe that the world will simply be a better place if Armenians (and the rest of us) can build healthy, participative democratic governments. I am the face of democracy. Ellie is the face of democracy. Perhaps you are the face of democracy too.<br /><br />Those of us who continue to cultivate democracy, however we do that, can’t always rely on the official institutions of the United States to support us or be our mouthpiece, but we have to keep at it. Ultimately, it is up to us individually to conduct civic education by our own example. It is up to us to remember that without attentive citizens, there is no democracy.<br /><br />It is up to us to learn about and remember <a href="http://www.moreorless.au.com/heroes/mossadegh.html">Mossadegh</a> and to be willing to stand up for democratic movements and constitutions around the world, including here at home. Especially here at home. We need to be brave like Iranian bloggers. And we need to make decisions about when to speak and when our interests may actually be served by silence. (More on this last topic is to come in later posts.)<div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/19123059-113729593077231664?l=womanhollerin.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Robinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11530793550821854072noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19123059.post-1137077258126756992006-01-12T11:00:00.000-06:002006-01-12T18:45:31.586-06:00Reza met Bill Bradley Sunday.<br /><br />You remember him, right? Tall guy, former pro basketball player, former senator, ran for president in 2000.<br /><br />It seems that Reza was the only person in Austin who could pick this larger than life guy out in a crowd, and he called to tell me about it. “I’ve got a story for your blog,” he started the conversation.<br /><br /><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Bradley">Bill Bradley</a> (who is well over six feet tall) and Reza (who’s a little shorter) both went out for a walk at Town Lake Sunday afternoon. Reza was enjoying his own anonymity when he spotted this guy who looked like Bill Bradley. He couldn’t believe that Bradley could take a walk without anybody recognizing him in a crowded public park in Austin, the most politically aware place in Texas and a blue area on the election map, so he decided to follow the tall man.<br /><br />Once he had ascertained that this man really was Bill Bradley, Reza spoke to him. He even has a photo that his friend took of the meeting. I’ve seen it. I recognize Bill Bradley. <a href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/7417/1886/1600/RezaandBradley2006.0.jpg"><img style="FLOAT: right; MARGIN: 0px 0px 10px 10px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/7417/1886/200/RezaandBradley2006.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><br />Reza was glad he met someone who has made a mark in American civic life, but he’s disappointed in Austin. “If people in Austin don’t recognize a guy like that,” he said with a note of despair in his voice as it trailed off.<br /><br />I tried to comfort him by asking whether people would know Bill Clinton if he turned up at Town Lake. Reza was indignant. “People would know Clinton,” he said.<br /><br />Then I tried saying that I probably wouldn’t recognize Bill Frist if I ran into him in a park, but Reza would not be consoled. “Frist is ordinary looking. He could be anybody,” he said.<br /><br />Anyway, I lied. I’d probably recognize him. I once identified Felipe Gonzalez, who was prime minister of Spain and about the same height as everybody else, when I saw him at a hotel in Leningrad. I can make out powerful men in crowds.<br /><br />And so I ask: why don’t we remember the faces of the people who lead the U.S. government? Or maybe I should ask: what are we doing that is so much more important than learning about the people who lead the U.S. government? Or even: why do so many of us just not care?<br /><br />Ironically, the U.S. government spends a lot of effort promoting the value of democracy and the importance of effective participation in civic life to people who don’t live here. When I was in Armenia, I worked on a project that supports young people’s involvement in the civic life of small towns and villages. This is just one of many programs that are at least partially paid for by our tax dollars. Similar programs are carried out under the auspices of the <a href="http://www.usaid.gov">United States Agency for International Development</a> around the world.<br /><br />When I told a visitor to Seguin about my summer adventure in Armenia, she said, “Couldn’t you do that here?” I think I do, but in the university classroom.<br /><br />Where does civic education take place here in the United States? Who teaches us to value democracy? I think public schools are supposed to inculcate civic values, along with all the other tasks they have on their plate. Maybe the Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts?<br /><br />Some kids are, I’m sure, learning to be politically active in their churches, but most of them probably wouldn’t be too excited about Bill Bradley even if they did recognize him.<br /><br />I met a 20-something man from Maracaibo, Venezuela, this weekend. Although I don’t know if he has a clue about candidates for president of the United States, when I asked Pablo what he thought of Hugo Chavez, he answered, “I don’t hate him.”<br /><br />He then paused before adding, “He was democratically elected. That’s the most important thing. He’s not as bad as they say here.”<br /><br />I, rudely perhaps, asked a similar question about the recent elections in Bolivia, and Pablo answered, “He was elected democratically. If that’s who they want, they should have him.”<br /><br />Whatever Pablo’s positions on the issues that face the republics of his region of South America, he’s sure that democracy is necessary.<br /><br />Do we have such a sound faith in democracy? How would Americans answer similar questions about George W. Bush?<br /><br />We could say he was democratically elected… this time.<div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/19123059-113707725812675699?l=womanhollerin.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Robinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11530793550821854072noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19123059.post-1136060695956698052005-12-31T14:24:00.000-06:002006-01-03T09:45:52.386-06:00President Bush seems to be making my life a little easier these days. As more and more Americans find less and less to like about the president’s performance, people around here who found the political climate too cold to go out are opening up their doors.<br /><br />When I first moved here in the summer of 2002, the town made it clear to me that it was not interested in hearing any progressive ideas I might have, and it took for granted that I had them. I met people who started conversations by telling me that their most prized possession was a photograph with “Daddy” Bush and understood that this was a polite Texan way of telling me that I should keep my northern liberal views to myself if I wanted to get along in this town.<br /><br />It took me a year or so before I really understood that hardly anyone, liberal or conservative, Anglo, Latino or Black, male or female, thought I should be expressing political opinions. With the president’s approval rating at around 80 percent in the aftermath of Sept. 11, orthodoxy was in force.<br /><br />In March 2003, before the invasion of Iraq, I attended a peace rally organized by the county chair of the Democratic Party, Barbara Effenberger. My students (who hadn’t sent anyone to cover this event that one of my colleagues called “the most exciting thing to happen here in 30 years”) published my report of the rally that included reference to “chatter” from Republicans who had gathered across the street from the non-partisan rally to support the planned attack.<br /><br />I received a three-page letter denouncing me and my views that arrived at the student publications office in a manila envelope bearing an attorney’s return address.<br /><br />I decided I would shut up and wait until this was all over. I don’t know exactly what I thought “this” was or what force I thought would revive a tone of civility and open-minded exchange of ideas if I clammed up.<br /><br />With the president’s approval rating still high and no hope that a Democratic candidate could win in our county, my friend and colleague Reza Abbasian convinced me, nevertheless, to attend a meeting of the local Democratic Club a few months before the 2004 presidential election. There, I met the 20 or so people who were hanging on, keeping an alternative vision alive in the corners of our county. The folks who came from the western end of the county, near San Antonio, struck me as much bolder than our local folks from the county seat. But they had an advantage: San Antonio votes Democratic. Here in Seguin, these committed Democrats had been living for a long time with the pressure I had been feeling for only a couple of years.<br /><br />Apparently, most of them had learned to silence themselves, just as I had done. One brave soul, Jack Linden, kept up a regular column expressing liberal views in the local newspaper through the coldest times. But as he pointed out to the rest of us in an e-mail discussion, no one wrote letters to back him up. He was right to feel alone on the glacier.<br /><br />About a year after the letter from the attorney came, I decided that waiting out the ice age wasn’t going to work. But by this time I was exhausted from defending the basic premises on which my thinking is founded. I tried to avoid the conversations that required me to justify women’s capacity to lead (or learn, or ...) or to provide a rationale for my interest in traveling to France, let alone to explain that women in Iraq could get an education and participate in professions and political life (such as it was) before the U.S. Armed Forces arrived.<br /><br />What’s the point of going over this territory in a town where Reza (who had invited me to the Democratic Club) told me it was too dangerous to wear my “Vote Kerry” shirt when I rode my bicycle across town? Besides, by that point, I was reacting, not responding to the people who didn’t share at least some of my core values. My voice would go up a couple of octaves and I didn’t make sense.<br /><br />But President Bush’s approval rating had begun to drop. According to <a href="http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2005/12/28/opinion/polls/main1168408.shtml">CBS News </a>polls, only 49 percent of Americans thought the president was doing a good job at the beginning of the year.<br /><br />As I thought about how to re-engage in political expression, I watched carefully the people who were doing it. How did people like Barbara Effenberger, Jack Linden and Reza keep talking in this climate? What could I learn from them? What could I contribute to bringing about a thaw? I have never had a problem exchanging vastly different views with people from other countries, why was I having such trouble getting to the point of exchange with people from my own?<br /><br />Maybe that’s one of the things that makes it possible for Reza to engage in conversation on important issues with people he fundamentally disagrees with: he was born in Iran and came to Texas as a young adult. Although he understands us well after years of study, teaching and living in Texas, he can still shake his head and wonder why we Americans are flying off in wrong-headed directions.<br /><br />I haven’t asked him if that helps, that’s just my thought, but I have observed him in conversation with some of the most conservative Republicans I know. (I get along with them, mostly, by avoiding political subjects or only expressing the parts of my thoughts that aren’t too out of sync with theirs.) Reza, however, goes right to the heart of the issues and defends his points of view. Yet, I hear a lot of laughter during these conversations. The men he’s talking to will tell me that they’ve had years and years of similar arguments. But they still get along and they still tell each other what they think.<br /><br />Even with a current presidential dis-approval rating of 53 percent (40 percent think Bush is doing a good job), again according to CBS News, I’m still a bit afraid to engage in deep political discussions with my Republican neighbors, <a href="http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2004/pages/results/president">72 percent</a> of whom cast a vote to reelect Bush in November 2004.<br /><br />I am, however, willing to insist that they acknowledge my humanity. I worked a shift at the Democratic booth at the county fair this fall (October approval rating 35 percent). Adults who walked past the booth looked away. When I could catch their eye, I said hello and smiled. Texan politeness forced them to smile back.<br /><br />I’m also teaching a belly dance class here. I’m not sure if it has dawned on people that belly dance came from the Middle East, but my class was covered on the front page of <a href="http://www.seguingazette.com">a local newspaper</a> and by the San Antonio Fox News channel. Lots of women have tried it out and about 10 keep coming regularly. We’re collecting money to donate to the Maternity Fund of Armenia to support the health care of pregnant women, and lots of people came to see the photo exhibit.<br /><br />I’m glad I stopped waiting for the thaw. Smiling, dancing, being human. I can do that. Maybe later I’ll start talking politics again without squeaking.<br /><br />For now, kudos to Barbara, Jack, Reza, and the others who never shut up.<br /><br />And thanks, Mr. President, for making it possible for someone else to get a word in edgewise. Remember, <a href="http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2004/pages/results/president">51 percent</a> is not that much more than half of the electorate.<br /><br />NOTE: Several people told me the comment process was confusing. I’ve changed the settings so that anyone can post a comment. Just click on comment and select the radio button “other” if you’re not a registered blogspot user.<br /><br />I hope people will comment on successful strategies they use for talking about profound disagreements. We’ll need those skills to foster a climate of real communication as the veneer of political orthodoxy cracks.<div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/19123059-113606069595669805?l=womanhollerin.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Robinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11530793550821854072noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19123059.post-1135095504139326992005-12-20T10:06:00.000-06:002005-12-20T13:39:03.293-06:00Although he didn't address post to the blog, a reader from my town in Texas has responded passionately to what I wrote about Tom Brokaw's connection with the public outside of the political centers. I want for the sake of starting a broader conversation, that readers of this blog should have a chance to consider his ideas too. The reader had seen "To War and Back" and thought I was too hard on Tom Brokaw. "If someone wants to attack evil, insensitivity or stupidity I think Tom Brokaw is a poor target," he wrote to me.<br /><br />He said he felt a much stronger connection to the soldiers after watching Brokaw's special Sunday and continued<br /><br /><br /><blockquote>There should be more shows like this. Flag draped caskets should be on the news. The President should have to shake every survivors hand, if they have one. We all should, lest we elect or fail to stop the election of arrogant, insensitive, impudent elitists. If someone wants to attack evil, insensitivity or stupidity maybe there are some good targets..............</blockquote>My private response to the reader was to explain that I don't want to have the last word on any subject I raise on this blog. My intention in sharing my thoughts is to start a conversation. I also did not intend to suggest that Mr. Brokaw, or anyone else for that matter, is evil. In fact, I wrote that I was sure Mr. Brokaw's program would be good. I'm sorry that this reader, and I suppose many other people, equate disagreement with attack. Attack doesn't foster communication, which is my goal.<br /><br />I agree with the reader that the present administration wants to keep us, all of us, in the dark about what really happens in Iraq, to soldiers or anyone else. The tone of the president's voice as he chastises members of Congress and Senators for their objection to his desire to avoid Constitutional checks and balances scares me, especially since I have just read a book about what happens when governments aren't concerned with protecting anyone's civil liberties.<br />Khaled Hosseini's vivid description of the stoning to death of adulterers in a stadium full of cheering spectators and of the machine-gun-armed Taliban patrols that shot un-bearded men made me fear, as I often do, where our nation may be heading.<br /><br />Certainly, the moving image has a lot of power. I too wish that the television news would present images of the returning caskets. I wish viewers would have the opportunity to see the bodies of people who have been killed by bombs or in battles, not just burned cars or tanks, on U.S. news programs. Media bosses play a large part in making sure that viewers don't see the gory reality of battle. I studied with a woman who had worked as a producer at CNN during the first Gulf War. She said that the footage she was instructed to leave out of reports presented a completly different interpretation of that war.<br /><br />Executive directives also tie broadcast reporters' and photojournalists' hands. I wish that the news media would defy those directives and show the public a version of events that is closer to what they are seeing in the field, but I understand what the personal consequences would be for any reporter who climbed out on that limb.<br /><br />Although we don't have the strong visual images that would make it easier for the public to comprehend the human toll of war, we do have reports that describe the carnage in words. Why complain that more realistic portraits of war are unavailable when they aren't? Although many people don't look beyond television for information, I wouldn't want to consider it the <i>only</i> source of news.<br /><br />Which brings me around again to my students. They are interested in the fate of their peers. They tell me when they see a photo of a soldier's casket that has someone slipped through to a Web site. They know what's happening to their friends. They are deeply frightened of the dangers the war presents to American bodies.<br /><br />They are so afraid that when a professor tries to raise the subject, they either clam up completely or spout slogans condemning Muslims or Arabs as terrorists. These slogans stop communication and often have the result that legitimate critique of U.S. policies doesn't get aired. They know that their friends are in harm's way, but they don't know why. I want to talk about that.<div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/19123059-113509550413932699?l=womanhollerin.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Robinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11530793550821854072noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19123059.post-1135013947104244932005-12-19T11:34:00.000-06:002005-12-19T11:59:33.843-06:00Should I have known about the <a href="http://www.questia.com/library/history/asian-history/south-asia/taliban.jsp?CRID=taliban&OFFID=se1&amp;amp;amp;KEY=taliban&LID=14578604">Taliban</a> in 1990?<br /><br /><a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1594480001/002-1187164-6668021?v=glance&amp;n=283155"><i>The Kite Runner</i> </a>by <a href="http://www.khaledhosseini.com/">Khaled Hosseini </a>(2003) and history tell me that I couldn’t have known yet, but in my weaker moments (or perhaps they are my moments of grandiosity) I don't agree. The Taliban movement emerged as a force in the Afghan civil war in 1994 and triumphed in 1996. I couldn't have known.<br /><br />At the time I am remembering, Afghanistan had collapsed into civil war when the tormented and tattered Soviet occupation force finally abandoned the country in 1989. Suhaila had put her eggs in the Russians’ basket in 1985. She was in her last year of a five-year degree program at Leningrad State University when my neighbor in the dorm on Vasilevskii Island started telling me about her.<br /><br />I liked Sveta, my neighbor. She had a well-equipped dorm room and liked to have parties.<br /><br />Sveta took me with her to a university Communist Party meeting, something I would not have seen if she hadn’t taken me, a graduate student participating in a bi-lateral exchange of scholars, under her wing. Of course, in fall 1989 the CP was not the monolith it had been and by the time spring rolled around in 1990 it was pretty dilapidated.<br /><br />Sveta had started remaking herself for survival in the new times by then. She understood English well and, while timid, her speech was clear and comprehensible. She was moving away from her preoccupation with politics to study management. Sveta would have been on the cutting edge wherever it led.<br /><br />One of her boyfriends was American. She wanted to visit him, she said, but getting permission to travel was complicated and required an official, notarized invitation to visit from a citizen of the country. This would have taken a long time to get from the United States (where the boyfriend was), so I agreed to go to the U.S. Consulate and get one of the form-letter invitations notarized for her. The language of the invitation said that the host agreed to bear complete responsibility for the guest.<br /><br />Even with the invitation, it wasn’t clear that she would get an exit visa from the Soviet Union or a tourist visa from the United States, which was wary of young Soviets who lacked established careers or families at home. They were a risk to over-stay their visas. I liked Sveta and hoped that she would visit me at home so I could share the goodness of my life with her as she had shared the best of hers with me.<br /><br />I knew Sveta had an Afghan friend, but after the invitation, I heard more and more about Suhaila. I met her briefly. At Sveta’s next party, she served Suhaila’s dumplings and Afghan cakes. Suhaila hung back demurely by the food, her long dark hair gleaming in the light from the table lamp. She didn’t sing when the Russians got out their guitars, but I did. I knew both the ‘80s American pop tunes the young men favored and the Russian folk songs.<br /><br />Suhaila did not ask, but she knew she was a supplicant.<br /><br />I didn’t recognize the request until later. When Sveta asked me to issue an official invitation to Suhaila to come to the United States, I figured out that Suhaila had been auditioning for my assistance. When I refused, Sveta looked at me with disdain and asked how I could let Suhaila go back <i>there</i> with her Soviet education. There was civil war in Afghanistan.<br /><br />I hear Sveta’s words and see Suhaila’s shy smile when I watch news reports from Afghanistan. Did I condemn university-educated Suhaila to wear the baby blue burqa?<br /><br />I knew about the civil war. I also knew that the United States rarely issued visas to young, single people who applied for visas in countries other than their nation of citizenship. If I had provided the official invitation, then the consular officials would have nixed her visa application. If the plan was hopeless anyway, why not comply? No great principle involved in refusing, no risk to me if she could never turn up on my doorstep.<br /><br />This would have been just as easy as signing the electronic petition condemning the Taliban’s treatment of women that circulated out of control in the late 1990s. And perhaps modestly more likely to save someone.<br /><br />I am no one’s hero.<br /><br />I can only hope that Sveta found Suhaila a hero, someone who would really be able to save her. Maybe someone to marry her and help her stay in the Soviet Union, that alternative, although difficult in its own way, would have been better than civil war and the Taliban.<br /><br /><i>The Kite Runner</i> features a few larger than life characters that not only sparked these memories of my own distant encounter with the Afghan civil war but got me thinking about character and heroism in general.<br /><br />At first, I wished I could be like Baba (a term of endearment for the narrator’s wealthy and powerful father) and make good people’s problems go away. I judged the other characters by his standard, and neither they nor I measured up. Baba seemed like the hero I could never be, even if it were in my power to grant people their heart’s desires. Baba gave people money to pay their debts, he built an orphanage and put his own life on the line for others. It was only after Baba almost took a Soviet soldier’s bullet rather than let him rape a young Afghan mother as he and Amir fled Kabul (115) that life began to fray his magic carpet of heroism.<br /><br />After this incident with the Soviet soldier, Baba’s view of Russians was forever tarnished. He saw them as people without honor. He even refused treatment from a doctor whose people came to America from Russia (155). He, and the other men of his class and Pashtun ethnicity, held Afghan honor in the highest esteem.<br /><br />Honor is was a necessary component of his heroic life, and even after he could no longer make dreams come true, his ideas of honor motivated his choices.<br /><br />Amir, the narrator of <i>The Kite Runner</i>, discovered the hard way that Americans hate to know too much about how the story turns out, so I will say only that Baba turns out to be a flawed hero. Amir tries to use his flaws to avoid responsibility, but even he comes around in the end, but Baba’s flaws are the other component necessary to his heroics.<br /><br />I take away from my thoughts on <i>The Kite Runner</i>, Afghanistan and heroism the conviction that we can use our personal histories, no matter how we may have given in to our flawed natures, to bring out the best in us.<br /><br />More importantly, no one needs a hero. Heroes save us but leave us feeling smaller than we are. Needier.<br /><br />Instead, we need compassionate leaders who can help us discover how to use our own resources – internal or external – to resolve our problems and bring our dreams into reality.<br /><br />We need visionary leaders who can help us see our way to a better world where no Suhaila will think she has to make dumplings to woo a savior.<br /><br />We need strong leaders who will not allow social movements to provide opportunity for sociopaths to terrorize good people (282-83).<br /><br />We need to be those leaders.<br /><br />We need a definition of honor that isn’t particular to one gender or one nation. Exclusive honor is a device to help us project our flaws onto Others, and I think this novel argues convincingly that we need our flaws in order to become all that we can be.<br /><br />Let’s define honor in a way that won’t let us execute people because they are Hazara (or Croatian, or Apache, or American or you fill in the blank). Let’s define honor in a way that encourages all people to develop their potential to the fullest and to lead when they should and follow wisely.<div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/19123059-113501394710424493?l=womanhollerin.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Robinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11530793550821854072noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19123059.post-1134658656652919852005-12-15T08:53:00.000-06:002005-12-15T13:31:13.390-06:00While watching <a href="http://www.comedycentral.com/shows/the_daily_show/index.jhtml">The Daily Show </a>last night, I had another one of those moments when I am reminded how out of touch I am with the out-of-touch elite.<br /><br />Although I have great respect for Comedy Central’s news team for being the only network to call the 2000 election correctly, I have to admit that I have been watching The Daily Show regularly for only a week. I’m usually still at work, still working at home or too swamped to watch TV. This fall I’ve been making time for <a href="http://www.worldlinktv.org/mosaic/index.php3">Mosaic</a>, a compilation of news stories from the Middle East that appears on <a href="http://www.worldlinktv.org/">Link TV</a> (one of the reasons I still pay for the satellite TV although I watch very little of it). I know I am something of a freak in my own society for wanting to know what is going on in the wider world from the perspective of the people who live in the wider world and not just through the filter of American parachute journalists who show up as crisis is unfolding. But that’s another story.<br /><br />Back to last night. Jon Stewart interviewed Tom Brokaw about his latest news special, <a href=http://www.thefutoncritic.com/cgi/listings.cgi?id=20051205nbc20>Tom Brokaw Reports: To War and Back</a>. Tom said that the country really needs this piece because we have no connection with the military. The program, which runs on NBC Sunday, Dec. 18, focuses on the lives of the soldiers of a National Guard unit. Brokaw said he chose this approach because the only people in the United States who have a connection with the soldiers are their families.<br /><br />Doesn’t Brokaw read the newspaper? In Texas (and the same is probably true of any other state) we have great coverage of National Guard units that have been in Iraq by journalists for the big-city dailies who spend months in the field with the soldiers. We even have original coverage of military news in our local papers: profiles of soldiers who are leaving for Iraq, follow-up stories when they come home (if they come home). Maybe Brokaw is thinking that no one reads the paper anymore and discounting the work of these non-elite reporters.<br /><br />Our student newspaper has run profiles of soldiers who are home on leave from the war. Campus readers are eager to know what life is like for their peers in combat. They are much less likely to know, or care, about the politics that took their friends to the Middle East.<br /><br />Doesn’t he have any friends or acquaintances? Or maybe he only knows people who didn’t choose military service because they didn’t need the education benefit or the training options … or the job. Our university has students who could be called to leave for the theater of war any day. They attend class in uniform sometimes, so we can’t miss them. Other students are anxious for the fates of their friends and relatives who are fighting in Afghanistan or Iraq, or they are waiting for the orders that will send their loved ones into harm’s way.<br /><br />A student in my photography class did her final project on the deployment of her uncle’s unit to Iraq in the spring of 2003. Yes, the photos depicted soldiers and their families saying goodbye, but non-relatives made up the audience for her fine, sensitive work.<br /><br />For the last few weeks, my mom’s Tai Chi class has been rooting for and praying for the son of one of the class members whose time was ticking down in Iraq. We all knew where he should be during his last days in the field and his travel out of Iraq to Kuwait and back to Killeen. We started breathing again when we knew he had been reunited with his mother. We have never met this man. I have never met his mother.<br /><br />I could go on and on with this list, but I won’t. Maybe readers will add some of their connections to the military in comments. I hope so. I’ll e-mail Tom if I can find his address (it seems that he doesn't have a Web site) and let him know we are out here rooting for the men, women and dogs who have been sent into harm’s way. We root for them whether we know them or believe in their mission or not.<br /><br />I’m sure To War and Back will be a great program and the network was smart not to run it against Desperate Housewives, so a lot of people will watch it. But I wish Mr. Brokaw would look beyond New York and Washington into the rest of the country to find out what we are doing and thinking before he decides what we’re doing and thinking.<div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/19123059-113465865665291985?l=womanhollerin.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Robinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11530793550821854072noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19123059.post-1134424006970822552005-12-12T15:40:00.000-06:002005-12-12T16:14:17.063-06:00<a href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/7417/1886/1600/my_hwy_web.0.jpg"><img style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/7417/1886/200/my_hwy_web.jpg" border="0" /></a> I suppose it was wildly ambitious of me to think that I could finish a semester, put up a photo exhibit (the next post will give you a preview, or make a view possible if you don't live near Seguin, Texas), visit relatives for Thanksgiving and launch a blog all at the same time. Lest those of you who liked my first post give up on Woman Hollerin, I will add a couple of new thoughts.<br /><br />Now that I have had time to breathe since classes ended, I want to start with a few words about the title of this blog. The name comes from a creek not far from San Antonio. I pass it when I head into the city on the weekends or, rarely, during the week for French or Thai meals. I like the notion that a woman spoke loud enough a long time ago that it made a lasting impression. I almost backed off on the name when I started looking into its origins because the first story I found about it was a legend that the eponymous woman of the creek had drowned her children in it, thus condemning her spirit to haunt the area looking for them. This legend says she will call for them forever near the headwaters of the creek.<br /><br />I didn't want to equate women who write about political subjects with <a href="http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory?id=1307178">Andrea Yates</a>, so I started brainstorming other titles. But then I asked a colleague who specializes in local history why the woman was remembered for hollering. His investigations of the facts behind the ghost story revealed a woman whose children were taken in an Indian raid. Yes, the ghost returns to the headwaters to call for her children, but I don't mind being associated with someone who has lost something dear to her. I, too, am searching for what is at the very least in danger of being lost (if not stolen): a voice.<br /><br />Since I'm writing about ghosts anyway, this is probably a good time to write about a dream I had recently. Not a hallucination, but an articulate statement of a lucid bit of analysis (my second thought today).<br /><br />In my dream I was sitting with a group of senior colleagues and emeritus professors from my university. These were men and women of various ideological persuasions and they were talking about the reasons young people fail to fulfill their civic responsibilities. I tried to present my thoughts on the issue, but they didn't hear me and followed a line of analysis that blamed young people for indulging in irresponsibility or simply not caring. In short, all the things I've heard before that don't help me to figure out why only about 20 percent of the age group I teach vote. I finally hollered, "They don't participate because they believe the system is broken. For them, it's not a matter of good or bad people running things. For them, the system itself lets bad things happen, no matter who's in charge."<br /><br />When I woke up, I had much food for thought. If this is true, the posturing that they just don't care begins to make sense as a defense. I certainly don't like to admit that I care about people or institutions that hurt me. Generally, I'd rather move on to a place where I can start fresh and rely only on myself. But how far can one go before one runs out of open space? And besides, I've discovered that I enjoy hanging around with the same group of people, even if we can't seem to get much of anything right.<br /><br />I hope we can keep communicating and keep trying. It's the trying that really matters.<div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/19123059-113442400697082255?l=womanhollerin.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Robinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11530793550821854072noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19123059.post-1134413783011112762005-12-12T12:44:00.000-06:002005-12-12T16:16:38.226-06:00Merci, Hayastan: Photographs of Armenia<br /><span style="font-family:lucida grande;"><br /></span><a href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/7417/1886/1600/tatoo_girl_square.0.jpg"><img style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/7417/1886/200/tatoo_girl_square.0.jpg" border="0" /></a>Armenians call their country Hayastan and themselves the Hay. Like the Persians beside whom they dwell in the southern reaches of the Caucasus Mountains, the Armenians allowed a few French words, like merci, to slip into their vernacular. One Armenian woman explained the adoption to me by saying that the Armenian sh'norhakal em is just too long to say very often.<br /><br /><a href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/7417/1886/1600/pomegranate-square.jpg"><img style="FLOAT: right; MARGIN: 0px 0px 10px 10px; WIDTH: 172px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 133px" height="133" alt="" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/7417/1886/200/pomegranate-square.jpg" width="168" border="0" /></a>This collection of photos is my way of saying thank you to Armenia for wonderful hospitality, for enchanting me with natural beauty and for intriguing me with the dilemma of development in a landlocked spot sandwiched between powerful neighbors Russia and Iran.<br /><br />Eleven large images make up the core of the collection.<br /><br /><a href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/7417/1886/1600/noravank_grafitti.0.jpg"><img style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/7417/1886/200/noravank_grafitti.jpg" border="0" /></a>The Armenia has a long Christian history. The ancient Armenian nation was the first to declare Christainity its official religion. A tradition of Christian faith is one of the bonds Armenia shares with Russia. Both interior and exterior walls of the Noravank Monastery are crowded with the carvings of Christian pilgrims in the Middle Ages.<br /><a href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/7417/1886/1600/mosque_entrance.jpg"><img style="FLOAT: right; MARGIN: 0px 0px 10px 10px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/7417/1886/200/mosque_entrance.jpg" border="0" /></a><br />Through the centuries Russians, Turks and Persians have traded the territory that now belongs to the Republic of Armenia. As late as the 1820s the Persian Empire held this land. Now, the only mosque remaining in the capital has been restored by an Iranian foundation. While the front entrance of the Blue Mosque is obscured from Mashtots Avenue by a wall, the back door opens directly onto a side street.<br /><br /><a href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/7417/1886/1600/anahit.jpg"><img style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/7417/1886/320/anahit.jpg" border="0" /></a>Armenians have rediscovered Christian faith in the post-Communist era. Here, Anahit balances on the wall of Geghard Monastery, which was carved in the mountainside in the 13th century and takes its name from the spear that pierced the side of Jesus as he died on the cross. This artifact is now housed in a museum in the cathedral complex at Etchmiadzin. <a href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/7417/1886/1600/communion3.2.jpg"><img style="FLOAT: right; MARGIN: 0px 0px 10px 10px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/7417/1886/200/communion3.1.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><br /><br />While the Catholicos of the Armenian Apostolic Church was in Detroit, other priests took over his responsibilities in Etchmiadzin, the spiritual center of Armenian Christianity.<br /><br /><br /><br /><a href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/7417/1886/1600/khatchkar_lady.3.jpg"><img style="FLOAT: right; MARGIN: 0px 0px 10px 10px; CURSOR: hand" height="176" alt="" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/7417/1886/200/khatchkar_lady.2.jpg" width="206" border="0" /></a><br />Ancient Armenians began the custom of placing large carvings, khatchkars, to memorialize events and people. These khatchkars mark graves in the village of Noratus on Lake Sevan. The population of this village has shrunk because there is no work here for younger people. This woman and several other elderly women tend sheep and chickens. They love coffee and opportunities to joke with visitors from Yerevan. <a align="right"></a><br /><br /><br /><p align="center"><a href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/7417/1886/1600/alphabet_strip.jpg"><img style="MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/7417/1886/320/alphabet_strip.jpg" border="0" /></a></p><div align="left"></div>The unique alphabet also bonds Armenians. The monument built this year to commemorate the anniversary of the revelation of the Armenian alphabet to Saint Mesrop Mashtots 1600 years ago is placed at 1600 meters in front of Mt. Aragots, the highest peak in Armenia.<br /><br />While religion and history are ever present in Armenia, daily life includes work, food and sport as it would in any country. Nevertheless, all of life has the flavor of the Caucasus and the confluence of cultures.<br /><a href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/7417/1886/1600/corn_man.jpg"><img style="FLOAT: right; MARGIN: 0px 0px 10px 10px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/7417/1886/200/corn_man.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><br />People of every region of Armenia sell produce along the highways. These local delicacies include herbs, honey and a variety of vegetables. This man was selling boiled corn on the highway that leads from Yerevan to Dilijan in the Tavush Marz.<br /><br /><br /><br /><a href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/7417/1886/1600/wool2.0.jpg"><img style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 0px 10px 10px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/7417/1886/200/wool2.0.jpg" border="0" /></a>These women clean wool at their home on the road from Goshavank. They gave me strawberries because I wanted to take their picture.<br />Cleaning wool is difficult work.<br /><br /><br /><br /><a href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/7417/1886/1600/surenavan_kids.0.jpg"><img style="FLOAT: right; MARGIN: 0px 0px 10px 10px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/7417/1886/200/surenavan_kids.0.jpg" border="0" /></a><br />These children had just finished playing a soccer match in Surenavan. In this village near the Turkish border, the 2,000 human inhabitants coexist with dozens of storks.<br /><br /><br /><a href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/7417/1886/1600/yerevan-market.0.jpg"></a><a href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/7417/1886/1600/yerevan-market.0.jpg"></a><a href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/7417/1886/1600/yerevan-market.1.jpg"><img style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/7417/1886/200/yerevan-market.1.jpg" border="0" /></a>Dried fruit and nuts steal the show at the farmers’ market. This kind vendor helped me clean up after a hot, marinated fig spit all over my shirt.<br /><br /><a href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/7417/1886/1600/waiting_bus.0.jpg"><img style="FLOAT: right; MARGIN: 0px 0px 10px 10px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/7417/1886/200/waiting_bus.0.jpg" border="0" /></a><br />These men wait at the bus stop in front of the Blue Mosque. They could get cash from the ATM and buy kvas from the yellow tank next to the shelter.<div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/19123059-113441378301111276?l=womanhollerin.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Robinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11530793550821854072noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19123059.post-1132515310361996062005-11-20T13:29:00.001-06:002006-03-18T23:13:55.953-06:00I decided once and for all that I had to start blogging at Maureen Dowd’s lecture in Austin Wednesday. The crowd of more than 1400 red-state liberals waited for about an hour while the hosts of the event added a live feed to a second auditorium in the LBJ Center at the University of Texas. They thought Austin could muster only about 500 Dowd fans and were surprised that so many of us braved the cold (for Texans!) to attend.<br /><br />I wonder what would have happened if the event had been publicized well. Hardly any of the small circle of politically active liberals in the town I live in (only 50 miles from Austin) had heard Dowd was coming. I, however, know a UT journalism alum who told me. She also told me to go early because the LBJ Auditorium would fill up fast.<br /><br />Two things about the lecture pushed me to get over the last barrier to blogging (should I spend my time writing for a non-peer-reviewed medium?). First, I felt that I am no longer the same as the more urban Maureen Dowd attenders. I am no longer accustomed to fraternizing with ordinary people who care passionately about analysis of current events. Most of the people I deal with every day don’t know who Tom DeLay or Bob Woodward are. People in my town and students on my campus rarely pose questions of speakers, let alone asking eloquently phrased questions that challenge a featured dignitary. Even when Robert Kennedy spoke for a group of our town’s business people, not a particularly environmentalist group, people applauded politely before the mayor tried to smooth things over by praising the great contribution of the steel company and the power plant to our local economy. For some reason, he left out the chicken processing plant that was involved in a dispute with the county over the horrible smell it emits when “rendering” unusable parts. This audience, however, asked Dowd hard questions about journalists and journalism.<br /><br />This brings me to the second thing that pushed me to sit down and register with blogger.com: although Molly Ivins and other audience members challenged Dowd to comment on the role uncritical journalists have played in taking the country into some of our present debacles, everyone shared fundamental assumptions and values that I can no longer take for granted. Believe me, I wish that I could explain journalists’ continuing value as Dowd did Wednesday: as long as some people have power, journalists will be necessary to keep an eye on them so that they don’t give in to the temptation to abuse it.<br /><br />I wanted to step up to the microphone and ask her if she could get closer to the bottom of the question she had been asked to speak about, “Are journalists necessary?” I didn’t ask because I was enjoying listening to the exchange of ideas that only those who share Dowd’s values can have. I was hoping that these people’s ideas could inspire me to new strategies for communicating with the majority of the people whom I live among.<br /><br />How does one explain the value of a journalist to someone who doesn’t believe that the actions of the powerful affect her in any way? Of what value are journalists to those who would just as soon not be bothered by arcane questions of political philosophy, like defining the citizen’s role in representative democracy? What should we say to those who think journalists would have served the nation better by using their resources to help a few people flee the floods in Louisiana and Mississippi than they did by exposing inefficiency and neglect on the part of government officials to a global audience? What do we say to those who find any criticism of elected leaders unpatriotic?<br /><br />My feelings of isolation in a crowd of people who are like me and share my values and frustration at the questions Dowd left unanswered (because people like us don’t have to be convinced of the value of the system the founders of the American republic put in place to safeguard democracy) led me to the conclusion that we need to include experiences of those who share these values but do not live in the rarified world intellectuals and political activists (liberal or conservative) prefer to inhabit.<br /><br />I have grown tired of justifying my values to those who don’t share them. I, too, would prefer to discuss the content of current events rather than whether it’s worth expending the energy to learn about policy initiatives or candidates’ platforms. I would rather talk to the people who attend Maureen Dowd lectures, but they are not here. And they don’t have any idea how to engage the people who are. I wonder how political operatives from Washington can help us reinvigorate progressive ideas in our kind of towns when the only town they ever see is populated by the sort of people who read the newspaper and understand why Bill Maher is funny.<br /><br />After almost four years in this small town in Texas, I still can’t believe I live somewhere with a phone book this small and nowhere to buy the Sunday New York Times. I’m still surprised that people like this place as enthusiastically as they do when my friends around the country wonder how I can stand to live here. I have concluded that we, the people who attend Maureen Dowd lectures, need to stop trying to deny that most of the country isn’t like my town. We need to figure out how to engage in discussion that will bridge the gap between average, small-town folks and those of us who value ideas and thoughtful political participation. I hope that my stories and analysis of my experience living somewhere in the vast U.S. territory that is not a university town or a political center will provoke thought among those who still live where I used to. Maybe all of us will be changed a little bit, for the better, by finding new terms for the conversation.<br /><br /><table width="100" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0"><tr><td><img border="0" src="http://www.tech-counter.com/cgi-bin/gd-count.cgi?page=http://www.womanhollerin.blogspot.com&style=wide_latin&nbdigits=10&reloads=1"></td></tr><tr><td><div align="center"><font size="2" face="arial, helvetica, sans-serif"><a href="http://www.gymsource.com">Gym Source</a></font></div></td></tr></table><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/19123059-113251531036199606?l=womanhollerin.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Robinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11530793550821854072noreply@blogger.com2