the sins of snootiness and sanctimony

I don't quite know what to make of Kristof's newest, "Learning from the Sin of Sodom": http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/28/opinion/28kristof.html?em

First off, in regard to US international aid organizations, I knew World Vision was big, but I didn't know it was the biggest!! I guess it's really not that surprising, as who funnels more donations than churches?

Here's the part of the article that lends it its title:

Mr. Stearns argues that evangelicals were often so focused on sexual morality and a personal relationship with God that they ignored the needy. He writes laceratingly about “a Church that had the wealth to build great sanctuaries but lacked the will to build schools, hospitals, and clinics.”

In one striking passage, Mr. Stearns quotes the prophet Ezekiel as saying that the great sin of the people of Sodom wasn’t so much that they were promiscuous or gay as that they were “arrogant, overfed and unconcerned; they did not help the poor and needy.” (Ezekiel 16:49.)

Hmm. Imagine if sodomy laws could be used to punish the stingy, unconcerned rich!

And here's Kristof's piece-of-cake solution... it's more idealistic and preachy than anything, but I wonder if he has a point:

A root problem is a liberal snobbishness toward faith-based organizations. Those doing the sneering typically give away far less money than evangelicals. They’re also less likely to spend vacations volunteering at, say, a school or a clinic in Rwanda.

If secular liberals can give up some of their snootiness, and if evangelicals can retire some of their sanctimony, then we all might succeed together in making greater progress against common enemies of humanity, like illiteracy, human trafficking and maternal mortality.

amusement parks

ethnicity on display:

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/24/world/asia/24park.html

oh, geeez...

The Female Factor

Cool series: http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/world/series/the_female_factor/index.html

I <3 the Cambodian slideshow.

day laborers

Aren't some day laborers women?

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/02/nyregion/02laborers.html

leapfrogging

An interesting article on globalization and development, inspired by the Climate Talks:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/20/weekinreview/20anand.html?ref=world
"For India and China, a Climate Clash With Their Own Destiny"
by Anan Giridharadas

On geopolitical issues like climate change, India and China are encouraged to balance their internal duties as developing countries with their external responsibilities as emerging giants. They are told to short-circuit history, to avoid tactics for growth that the West now sees as errors, to assume obligations that rich lands took on only when they became much wealthier.

At times, they resist this pressure. At times, they warm to it, as seen in China’s efforts to reassure the world that its ambitious nuclear-power-plant program meets sophisticated safety standards. And when they sell high-end technology or bid for the Olympics, India and China want their phase of history to be ignored. Then they want simply to “leapfrog.”

This pressure to get with the global program — whether delivered in climate talks or through the subtler cultural pressure of satellite television — can bring strange results. The leapfrogging dream can tempt countries to engage in kitsch development, to mimic modern ways without building structures to support them.

If getting with the global program means sacrificing growth for greenness, it involves similarly wrenching tradeoffs in other spheres. In developing countries, a new globalized (and essentially Western) vision of the parent-child relationship is coming, in which the purpose of each generation is to go its own way, leave ancestors to their devices, find one’s own truth.

But the idea can feel borrowed. It comes from places whose structures support it: places with nursing homes, social security, handicapped bathrooms. It arrives in places without that support. So the young agonize about their obligations to the old and the old languish, trapped between an old world that has gone and a new one that hasn’t set in. India’s leaders try to cope by criminalizing neglect of one’s parents.

I think my apartment is a good example. It's nice, modern, and brand spanking new. But it's already falling apart! The plumbing system isn't built to handle a Western-style bathtub and toilet. Why didn't they just give me a squatty potty? I'm sure part of the reason is because they were concerned about presenting a modern image to their modern volunteer.

"Obama, you won it, now earn it"

Note: Mr. Obama, I <3 you, but you and your Norwegian prize make me sick.
Snippets from: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/11/world/europe/11prexy.html?_r=1&hp
"Accepting Peace Prize, Obama Evokes 'Just War'" by Jeff Zeleny

The Nobel chairman, Thorbjorn Jagland, opened the ceremony by explaining how the committee came to its decision two months ago. He said Mr. Obama’s leadership had been a “call to action for all of us.” As he invoked the story of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., the winner of the prize in 1964, he turned to Mr. Obama, saying, “Dr. King’s dream has come true.”


He said that others more deserved the award, noting his “accomplishments are slight,” but he accepted the prize by endorsing a strong view of American exceptionalism.


He added: “I do not bring with me today a definitive solution to the problems of war. What I do know is that meeting these challenges will require the same vision, hard work and persistence of those men and women who acted so boldly decades ago. And it will require us to think in new ways about the notions of just war and the imperatives of a just peace.”

In speaking to reporters about the criticism of his winning the award, he said the goal was not to win a popularity contest, but to “advance American interests, make ourselves a continuing force for good in the world — something that we have been for decades now.”

He added: “And If I’m successful in those tasks, then hopefully some of the criticism will subside, but that’s not really my concern. And if I’m not successful, then all the praise and the awards in the world won’t disguise that fact.”

bibliophile special

NYT Mag books special!

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/06/books/review/McDonald-t.html?ref=review by Jennifer McDonald
on Graeme Gibson's THE BEDSIDE BOOK OF BEASTS: A Wildlife Miscellany

As he did four years ago in “The Bedside Book of Birds,” Gibson, the Canadian novelist (and longtime partner in birding and berry-picking to Margaret Atwood), has compiled poetry and myth, fairy tale and folklore, sacred texts and travelogues in an enchantingly illustrated volume that will awaken something primal in any human who dips into its pages. But this is far from a merely pretty survey of the animal kingdom. It is a book of raw spirit, a polemic against cold industrialization buttressed by Darwin, Forster, Murakami and Neruda, Audubon, Rubens and Leonardo, among many others.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/06/books/review/Baszile-t.html?_r=1&ref=review by Jennifer Baszile
On Deborah Willis' POSING BEAUTY: African American Images From the 1890s to the Present

"If a single thread unifies the images in this amazing collection, it is the subjects’ agency in the conception and presentation of their own beauty, which is itself a radical departure from the more familiar objectification of African-Americans in the nation’s collective visual memory."

agro-imperialism

ahk, no time to finish reading this, so will hold it here before it disappears into cyber never-neverland. seems like a great article!

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/22/magazine/22land-t.html?pagewanted=2&_r=1&ref=magazine

20 Years of Collapse

By SLAVOJ ZIZEK

Published: November 9, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/09/opinion/09zizek.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1&hp

I wish I could read this excerpt to students whenever they ask me about what America thinks of China. Then instead of spinning something lame about how Americans are in awe of and perhaps even envious of China's economic growth, I could respond by saying, "Well, America is scared shitless, and for good reason:


A further twist is added by those countries in which Communists allowed the explosion of capitalism, while retaining political power: they seem to be more capitalist than the Western liberal capitalists themselves. In a crazy double reversal, capitalism won over Communism, but the price paid for this victory is that Communists are now beating capitalism in its own terrain.

This is why today’s China is so unsettling: capitalism has always seemed inextricably linked to democracy, and faced with the explosion of capitalism in the People’s Republic, many analysts still assume that political democracy will inevitably assert itself.

But what if this strain of authoritarian capitalism proves itself to be more efficient, more profitable, than our liberal capitalism? What if democracy is no longer the necessary and natural accompaniment of economic development, but its impediment?



I just wrote in Chad's little box what I was going to write here. I think Zizek nailed America's fear. It's true, impossible shit gets done here, and quickly too, thanks to big bad authoritarian capitalism. Consider Fengdu, for example. An entire city rebuilt because it's former self is now submerged as a result of the 3 Gorges Dam project. Nor will I ever forget the time Rach and I were escorted to our longdistance bus by Besty's army captain uncle. For the first time we were in Chengdu, I didn't have the urge to grumble about traffic. Betsy's uncle was like Moses, parting the Chengdu freeway. And for what? So we could catch a lousy bus!

If this isn't efficiency, I don't know what is.

But it seems like people here are always being told that their form of capitalism IS liberal, and that their form of government IS democratic. Aren't we in the west told the exact same things by the powers that be? So maybe capitalism is at the very least inextricably linked to the tale of democracy.

dress is always code

Gender Gap = Generation Gap?

Can a Boy Wear a Skirt to School?

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/08/fashion/08cross.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1&ref=fashion

Excerpts:

Dress code conflicts often reflect a generational divide, with students coming of age in a culture that is more accepting of ambiguity and difference than that of the adults who make the rules....

Dress is always code, particularly for teenagers eager to telegraph evolving identities. Each year, schools hope to quell disruption by prohibiting the latest styles that signify a gang affiliation, a sexual act or drug use.

But when officials want to discipline a student whose wardrobe expresses sexual orientation or gender variance, they must consider antidiscrimination policies, mental health factors, community standards and classroom distractions.....


When a principal asks a boy to leave his handbag at home, is the request an attempt to protect a student from harassment or harassment itself?...

“One day I heard a student say, ‘Man, there was a girl in the guy’s restroom, standing up using the urinal! What’s up with that?’ ” Mr. Grace recalled.

Bathrooms can be dangerous for transgender students. But the other student replied off-handedly, “That wasn’t a girl. That’s just Jack.”

aborted abortions

Abortion Was at Heart of Wrangling

By DAVID M. HERSZENHORN and JACKIE CALMES

Published: November 7, 2009

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/08/health/policy/08scene.html?hp

Excerpts:

To save the health care bill [Pelosi] had to give in to abortion opponents in her party and allow them to propose tight restrictions barring any insurance plan that is purchased with government subsidies from covering abortions...

“If enacted, this amendment will be the greatest restriction of a woman’s right to choose to pass in our careers,” said Representative Diana DeGette, Democrat of Colorado, one of the lawmakers who left Ms. Pelosi’s office mad.

Representative Rosa DeLauro, Democrat of Connecticut, said the bill’s original language barring the use of federal dollars to pay for abortions should have been sufficient for the opponents. “Abortion is a matter of conscience on both sides of the debate,” Ms. DeLauro said. “This amendment takes away that same freedom of conscience from America’s women. It prohibits them from access to an abortion even if they pay for it with their own money. It invades women’s personal decisions.”

.....The representatives of the nation’s bishops made clear they would fight the bill if there were not restrictions on abortion. In an extraordinary effort over the last 10 days, the bishops conference told priests across the country to talk about the legislation in church, mobilizing parishioners to contact Congress and to pray for the success of anti-abortion amendments.

underworld

Good news: chest pains are gone
Bad news: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/04/world/asia/04crimewave.html?_r=1

Chongqing = big bad city???

stratospheric stress

This is depressing:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/01/education/edlife/01public-t.html

Excerpts:

Universities have reached deep in their pockets to protect vulnerable students from tuition increases. Mark G. Yudof, president of the University of California, defends his university’s record in preserving financial aid, noting that families with incomes under $60,000 pay not one penny of their fees. “The real crunch,” he says, is helping families that make roughly $100,000. “The most at risk at this time really are going to be the middle class.”


Mr. Shulenburger sees the tuition increases as part of a larger movement toward privatization of the most desirable flagships. With state contributions largely flat or down over the last 15 years, and enrollments and costs up, many top flagships are turning to nonpublic sources for money and, in some cases, accepting larger numbers of out-of-state students, who often pay twice the tuition of residents.

At the same time, applications are pouring in from students shut out by the stratospheric cost of private colleges. That’s generally a good thing. Flagships are attracting more wealthy and better-prepared students. Yet as the counterargument goes, a flagship’s traditional mission is to educate its own, especially a state’s low- and middle-income students. The evolution under way is putting some flagships out of reach for the students who were typically enrolled even a decade ago. Each year, the quality of students as well as the budget model skews closer to that of elite private universities.

All this makes me scared to go back to school. What has this got to do with UH? Well, "stratospheric costs" seem to be contagious. And depth trickles down faster than wealth. And I worry about affording school after UH.

Nobody better touch the Regents Scholarship. I think that might be the last hope for the middle class, local young'uns. As for prospective grad students: we're screwed.

the hippie that never was

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/01/education/edlife/01rotc-t.html?pagewanted=2&_r=1&hp

I had no idea that the student protests in the 60s resulted in the banning of ROTC at elite universities. WOW! Hehe, I think I am infatuated with the antiwar movement. Students, young people, changed things - they mattered. They made the Vietnam War look like the tragic joke it was, they coaxed the government into lowering the voting age, they set their draft cards on fire and ended up burning down the entire drafting system.

Okay, so I admit that I romanticize this era of peace rallies, but still, it saddens me that the antiwar sentiment is no longer as "cool" as it was 50 years ago. Sure, the fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan is not very popular, but because people don't seem to care very much. This war is the kid in school who nobody notices. The Vietnam War, on the other hand, was unpopular because it pissed off - it moved - the public.

Why is our generation so damn apathetic? Are we that much more selfish than our parents were? Are we preoccupied by issues our parents never had?


I don't quite understand my antagonism toward ROTC, or with the military. Not just our military. Everytime I'd watch YZNU's freshmen doing their mandatory military drills, I'd get the chills. I just find synchronized marching creepy. The fact that all freshmen in this part of the country are disciplined in such an overt manner is frightening.

Also, now that the newly-winged Eric is an Air Force rock star, my feelings toward the military are even more nebulous. How can I admire him without acknowledging all of the grand opportunities the military has provided him with? The military makes possible life as he knows it.

You could chalk-up my antagonism to the military to my general suspicion of all sorts of powerful organizations/institutions/etc. And yet, look at me, a Peace Corps Volunteer, for heaven's sake. I work for the government, I help to author the fattest institution of them all. Often it feels like it's our job to do damage control, to make sure nationals in other countries don't hate us too much for the coups and wars we've supported, the labor and natural resources we've exploited, and the bombs we've dropped. So in many ways, my role as a "peace ambassador" supports the military - it mollifies the international antagonism toward American violence. And yet, there are ways to go beyond, and maybe even against, what is expected of me as a representative of the US - not that it is my mission to blemish America's name. It's really quite the opposite.

Death returned Michael Jackson's humanity?

"The Pop Spectacular That Almost Was"
by Manohla Dargis, New York Times
http://movies.nytimes.com/2009/10/29/movies/29this.html?8dpc

"Death returned Michael Jackson’s humanity, and in a curious, tentative way so too does “Michael Jackson’s This Is It,” a rushed and ragged monument to the man, his work and the commercial interests of those he left behind. At once a greatest-hits compendium and a suggestive glance at what might have been, the movie — which had its premiere Tuesday and opened Wednesday on a staggering 18,000 screens worldwide — has been so nakedly designed to serve so many different agendas that it seemed unlikely anything would be left for Mr. Jackson’s fans beyond the sheer spectacle of such colossal posthumous exploitation.

Yet something remains here, though it’s hard to know whether it’s the ghost or our love, perhaps both. "


What made MJ inhuman while he was alive? His awesome star power, his "freakishness"? Funny that he had to die in order to for us to be feel like we can relate to him. Suddenly, he is a person.

And yet, the movie, inspired by his death, "has been so nakedly designed to serve so many different agendas." Is that the essence of being human? Certainly that's how I sometimes feel.

"The Trials of the Academe"

NYT: "Think Again" by Stanley Fish
on Amy Gajda's "The Trials of the Academe"

"When I began teaching in 1962 at the University of California in Berkeley, I asked older colleagues about the decorums and rules of the classroom. In response, I was given the Myron Brightfield rule. Brightfield was then a very senior member of the department. His rule (and I paraphrase) was, When you close the door, there’s nothing they can do to you. Those were the days, and they had their injustices as well as their advantages. Now we have justice, or at least the demand for justice, all the time and it may, Gajda suggests, be killing us."




Strange how I feel so free while teaching in China. Stay away from the 3 T's, and when I close the door, ....
tis the Kacie Miura rule, a very junior member of the department.

obomba

Ah, don't get me wrong, Obama zhuxi is what I consider to be the closest thing to a living, breathing political hero, and it's not as if he asked for the peace prize. Perhaps in some revolting way, escalating the war is his way of achieving peace? The disgusting thing is that I ask this rhetorically.

The NYT's Peter Baker concludes his lyrical analysis of the irony of the Nobel-Afghanistan ordeal by posing these BIG 'ole questions:

With the Nobel medal staring down at him in the White House for the next three years or perhaps seven, will the designated peacemaker eventually figure out just what peace means in a land without it? Will he earn the prize he has already received?

Verses I thought were especially poignant in this tragic news song:

That was eight years ago last week and never on that night, as we watched the might of the world’s most powerful nation rain down on the primitive army of soldiers clad in rags and sandals, did it occur to us that America so many years later would still be trying to figure out how to win — or whether it even could. The journey from the rugged village of Topdara to the halls of the White House is a quintessential story about the limits of power and imagination.

The idea of clear lines and neat definitions does not apply in Afghanistan. Over the following few months, many of the themes of the last eight years would become clear. There were civilians killed by errant American bombs and intrigues among Afghans who ostensibly were our allies and common cause forged with a ruthless warlord who did just enough of the Americans’ bidding to stay on the payroll while waging his own private war for control of his local province.

And what is the Taliban, anyway? It was not just Mullah Muhammad Omar, the one-eyed master who forced women to wear burqas and banned music, dancing, alcohol and kites. It was the boys we met who fought for the Taliban because that was what everyone did. Or who did it for food and shelter. Or who were press-ganged into it without recourse to resist. The terms were binary — Taliban or not Taliban — in a country that was kaleidoscopic.