Yale bans a book--on the Danish cartoons issue

Cartoons published in an obscure newspaper in Denmark shook the world. And burnt the world. Why? Because the cartoons were about Islam and its founder. People who value the freedom to express views were aghast, and newspapers (a few brave ones) republished the cartoons in order to stress their freedom and in support of the Danes.

Almost four years have gone by since then. Naturally one would expect academics to crank out books on this issue; academic books that nobody will read, which is the case with most "university press" publications.

Well, not so fast! The NY Times reports that Yale University Press has banned those cartoons from a forthcoming book:

Yale University and Yale University Press consulted two dozen authorities, including diplomats and experts on Islam and counterterrorism, and the recommendation was unanimous: The book, “The Cartoons That Shook the World,” should not include the 12 Danish drawings that originally appeared in September 2005. What’s more, they suggested that the Yale press also refrain from publishing any other illustrations of the prophet that were to be included, specifically, a drawing for a children’s book; an Ottoman print; and a sketch by the 19th-century artist Gustave Doré of Muhammad being tormented in Hell, an episode from Dante’s “Inferno” that has been depicted by Botticelli, Blake, Rodin and Dalí.

Lest you think that the Danish cartoon controversy was an exception that has not been repeated since, think again.

Why we loathe flying, sometimes .....

The NY Times:

The department has sent Continental Airlines a letter asking for details on Continental Express Flight 2816, which left Houston at 9:23 p.m. Friday but didn't arrive at its destination in Minneapolis until after 11 a.m. Saturday.

In between, the small airliner spent nearly seven hours sitting on the tarmac in Rochester, where it had been diverted because of thunderstorms, before passengers were allowed to go inside an airport terminal. Two and a half hours after disembarking, passengers reboarded the same plane and were flown to Minneapolis.

''Reasonable people are outraged at the idea of being stuck on a small plane for seven hours,'' LaHood wrote in a column posted online. ''Flyers and those who are considering flying want to know that should a delay occur, they will be treated respectfully.''

Well, this is not the first time something like this has happened. A few months ago, in January, a planeload of passengers from Mexico, on their way to Seattle, suffered equally--or more:

Dozens of angry passengers were cooped up for 16 hours in an AeroMexico plane, after their flight was diverted from Seattle to Portland International Airport.

Flight 670 arrived at PDX about 7:40 p.m. on Tuesday and then sat at a gate for more than four hours after being turned away from Sea-Tac Airport because of heavy fog, said Kama Simonds, spokeswoman for the Port of Portland, which runs PDX.

Yes, fog at SeaTac is understandable. But, after the plane and passengers staying put for hours in the plane, guess what happened?

paramedics who boarded to assist two ailing passengers — one with a heart problem — found a cabinful of hungry people.

"There was no food left," she said.

The paramedics went to a local McDonald's and bought enough Big Mac meals for everyone onboard.

So, whatever happened to the passengers?

passengers weren't allowed off the plane in Portland, officials said, because no customs agents were available to process the passengers.

Eventually, the plane went back to Mexico, and then it returned to the United States to complete the flight to Seattle.

I might have taken the option of getting arrested, because of the little bit of claustrophobia that I have!

Afghanistan. What, me worry?

Deficit? What, me worry?

Have Pakistani Nuclear Facilities Already Been Attacked?

In a little-noticed article published last month in a West Point counterterrorism journal, a British academic pointed out that while the world waits for the kind of global public announcement of doomsday that would come from a Bond villain, Islamist militants in Pakistan have quietly launched at least three attacks in the past two years on military bases that may contain nuclear weapons.

That very comforting (yes, sarcasm here) paragraph is from The Lede at NY Times.
Now, this is a day after I read quite a few way too uncomfortable discussions in the new "AfPak Channel" in Foreign Policy.

Thanks! Now I can worry that much more about Pakistan.

It is no longer the young and the restless in India

I am struck by the profound demographic shift in India—very few children, who seem to be outnumbered by senior citizens.

In the India that I grew up, I recall hearing about only person, among all the extended family and friends, who was more than ninety years old. She was 99 when she died, and I was sad she did not live a couple of more months to reach that magical 100.

I was, otherwise, more used to stories of men and women dying in their fifties. When my grandmother died at 67 years of age, well, that was considered then a long and rich life. Now, my father’s uncle is going strong at 94, with quite a few others in their nineties and late eighties. Against such a background, my mother feels too young to complain about aching back; after all, she is only 70!

Meanwhile, in the India of yesteryears, I was almost always tripping over infants and toddlers. What a contrast now— there are very few children around even in the bustling railway stations, where children crying and their mothers yelling at them used to be a constant background noise.

What happened?

Everything in India, including its population structure, is transforming rapidly. The life span, particularly in urban India, has remarkably lengthened thanks to better nourishment and healthcare. At the same time, parents are having fewer children, especially in the southern states in India. So much so that well into the extended family only one cousin has more than two children—he has three. Most of the rest have only one child, and a few are yet to have any, even after a few years of being married. In some cases, even the only child is an adopted one.

Smaller family sizes are not merely anecdotal; the total fertility rate—the average number of children per woman in her childbearing years—in the peninsular India is less than the roughly 2.1 per woman needed to replace the population. In Tamil Nadu, which is where my parents live, the fertility rate is about 1.8. The other southern states of Kerala and Andhra Pradesh also have similar low fertility rates.

I suspect that the fertility rate in the metropolitan areas of these states is considerably lower than 1.8. Such low fertility rates translates to fewer babies, which is why I feel like I have experienced a lot more crying babies in the airports in America, where the fertility rate is 2.1.

The fascinating aspect to this story of decrease in fertility rates is that it has happened without strict government mandates. While public health messages do advocate for smaller family sizes, there is no strict government-imposed one-child policy, a la China.

Such an effect is what development economists have argued for a long time—that economic development is the best contraceptive! As people climb the economic ladders into middle class conditions, they voluntarily decide to have fewer children.

It is also interesting to note that the states with the highest fertility rates, like Bihar, are also the ones that are economic laggards, which then adds more evidence to the idea that economic growth plays an important role in an overall decrease in population growth rates.

Not wanting to wait for economic growth to happen, one federal minister in India recently suggested providing free television to the poor because apparently procreation will otherwise be their only free recreation. I wonder, though, about what will ensue if the television audience watches advertisements for Viagra and the like!

Thus, with low birthrates and simultaneous increases in life spans, it is not any surprise that increasingly people are as concerned, if not more, about taking care of the old as much as they worry about their children’s futures. My parents’ 72-year old neighbor rang the doorbell at 5:15 in the morning to inform us that her mother died, and that she was heading out of town for the funeral and related rites. The deceased was 94, and she leaves behind many in the immediate family including her 100-year old husband to whom she was married for almost 80 years.

Here is to wishing India a lot more of such fantastic demographic and economic transformations.

Hillary Clinton’s trip reveals India’s warm regard for U.S.

Hillary Clinton’s first official visit to India as America’s secretary of state was hugely successful, especially from a public relations perspective.

My visit to Mumbai happened to overlap with Clinton’s, and this Indian-American felt quite excited with the fantastic appreciation for his adopted homeland, its president and the visiting secretary.

The hotel where Clinton stayed, the Taj Mahal Palace & Tower, was one of the targets of the terror attacks last November. Therefore, as one can imagine, security personnel seemed to be everywhere and prevented tourists, including me, from visiting one of Mumbai’s famous landmarks — the Gateway of India, which is adjacent to the Taj Mahal.

Yet people seemed to be genuinely happy that Clinton had opted to stay at the Taj to honor those who lost their lives that fateful November, and as a mark of defiance against terrorism.

The press and the public seemed to treat her as a celebrity as much as they recognized her as America’s chief diplomat. Clinton impressed Indians not merely with her tactfulness, but even her handling of spicy Indian foods.

One newspaper reported that, “She likes hot and spicy food. Back home she travels with a bottle of hot sauce to pep up her food wherever she goes; she believes it keeps her healthy.”

I thought the talk about Clinton’s penchant for spicy foods was nothing but polite, diplomatic speak until I read, after her departure, about how Clinton added her own touch by doing something absolutely out of the ordinary.

According to one magazine, “Hillary was given a chili and to her credit she bravely chomped her way through it, and didn’t even wash it down with water.”

Eating a chili without hastily toning it down with sweets or even water earned Clinton all kinds of admiring metaphors; one, for instance, called her a “woman of steel.” (A note: “chili” is not the spicy stew that is consumed at Super Bowl parties all across America, but refers to the green and red peppers.)

America and the current administration are certainly viewed positively. After years of neglecting India and favoring Pakistan, in response to the geopolitical realpolitik of the Cold War years, there has been a distinct favorable tilt in the Indo-American relationships. President George W. Bush largely continued to build on the new foundations that President Bill Clinton had laid, and so far it appears that the Obama administration is keen on further expanding and deepening this relationship between the world’s largest democracies.

There is also a little bit of insecurity in the Indian push for better relations with America, stemming from an underlying concern that America might lean more and more toward China because of the multibillion dollar Sino-American economic ties, which might then make India’s interests less important to America. In addition to the Chinese angle, there is the ever-present worry that America might at any time ditch India in favor of Pakistan.

Of course, Hillary Clinton having a successful India trip was viewed with suspicion across its borders, particularly in Pakistan. Her forceful remarks that “we hope Pakistan will make progress against what is a syndicate of terrorism” were not received well in Pakistan. “A syndicate of terrorism” is a wonderful phrase, indeed, to describe the many outfits operating out of Pakistan, including al-Qaeda and the Taliban.

I sense here in India an immense and almost unconditional support for America. It is, therefore, no surprise that there is a lot of excitement about the possibility of President Obama visiting India, even though it was triggered by what appears to be a polite response from the White House press secretary, who remarked, “I know the president at some point will travel to India.”

Maybe prior to a trip to India, whenever that happens, the athletic Obama should practice playing cricket over a couple of weeks. When in India, Obama could then don the appropriate game gear and play for a few minutes with a bunch of youngsters.

That “cricket diplomacy” might seal forever the admiration for the United States in this cricket-crazy country.

For The Register-Guard
Appeared in print: Sunday, Aug 9, 2009