Who cares about what I say or write, when I am a nobody, right?

I have on many occasions referred to a graduate school professor, Martin Krieger, who made a btw-kind of a remark during class discussions, which was profound to me then as it is even today.  Krieger said "it is not what you say, but who you are when you say it."

I am a nobody. So, what I say doesn't register a blip in the radar.

Of course, there are a few friends who read what I write, and pay attention to what I say.  But, otherwise, it is all a waste.  Yet, I say what I have to say and write have to write.  Stupid is as stupid does! ;)

In an email, my debater-friend asked me "Aren’t you going to write 432 posts on Fareed Zakaria’s book – In defence of liberal education ????"  Yes, Fareed Zakaria.  You know, the one who I referred to once as Omar Sharif on intellectual steroids.

But, I had no plans to--I have written enough and nothing has ever happened anyway.

And then I read Nicholas Kristof's column today, for which Zakaria's book is the trigger.  In that Kristof writes, while arguing in favor of liberal education,

John Adams had it right when he wrote to his wife, Abigail, in 1780: “I must study Politicks and War that my sons may have liberty to study Mathematicks and Philosophy. My sons ought to study Mathematicks and Philosophy, Geography, natural History and Naval Architecture, navigation, Commerce and Agriculture, in order to give their Children a right to study Painting, Poetry, Musick, Architecture, Statuary, Tapestry and Porcelaine.”

That was a column that was published today, April 16th. In 2015.

I will now quote from my op-ed, which was published on March 8, 2014:

This tenuous existence of pursuits that are not about vocations per se is such a vivid contrast to the future that John Adams imagined in one his many letters to his beloved Abigail. Adams wrote, “I must study politics and war, so that my sons may have the liberty to study mathematics and philosophy, geography, natural history, and naval architecture, navigation, commerce, and agriculture, in order to give their children a right to study painting, poetry, music, architecture, statuary, tapestry and porcelain.

Other than the fact that I used a version in which the text had been updated to use contemporary grammar, we are saying the same things, using the same logic, and using the same quote.

My op-ed was titled (by the newspaper's editor, which is always the case)

Balancing living a life with making a living in higher education

Kristof's is "Starving for Wisdom."

But then I am a nobody.  Such is life.  Which is something that I learnt way back in graduate school, decades ago.  Thanks to Krieger.

However, I did say something that Kristof did not.  In that op-ed, I noted:

Of course, the higher education industry itself is also at fault. Over the decades (especially during the “false” enrollment gains that resulted from people unable to find jobs in a recessionary environment), campuses spent multiple millions on fancy buildings, and even more millions on sports, as if building monuments and entertaining the population were the mission in higher education. If only they had instead strengthened the implementation of education that would help students learn how to make a living and how to live.

But, is anybody listening? I suppose my friend in the other part of the world will be happy to know that the first of the 432 is done ;)

Beware of pundits. Especially in the New York Times op-ed pages.

Once upon a time, before the dawn of everything-is-on-the-web era, for a while I was a subscriber to the New York Times.  The Times, the Wall Street Journal, and the local paper--the Bakersfield Californian. Sometimes the Los Angeles Times too!  All at the same time.  It was always quite a haul of paper to the local recycling collection bins.

Then, not only did the web happen, everything was for free too.  It was down to the local paper alone.  

Given the three hour time zone difference, it was also fun to read the following day's east coast papers as pre-bedtime reading, and blog about them.  I was, of course, keen on the op-eds and columns there, with the exception of the crazy William Kristol experiment that the Times did.  Come to think of it, those Kristol months was also perhaps the beginning of the end of my daily habit of reading the Times.

The Times erecting a paywall, therefore, didn't bother me one bit.  By then I had pretty much stopped reading that paper, and there was nothing I was missing anyway.  Every once in a while, our local paper reprints a Times column by Thomas Friedman or Nicholas Kristof or Paul Krugman and I am all the more relieved that I am staying away from the paper.

The rare occasion that I read a Friedman piece, I am amazed that he gets to say such remarkably stupid things on an international stage and get paid gazillions for it.  I suppose there is a sucker born every minute.  Over the years, the guy has become nothing but a master manipulator of metaphors and cliches.  I guess punditry means that the more one is incorrect and inane, the more airtime and money they get!

A couple of days ago, I came across a Kristof column urging the US to actively intervene in Syria, with our military might.  It didn't surprise me that he too has gone off the deep end of punditry!

The Onion, which is in many ways America's Finest News Source, described the New York Times quite well:

New York Times, daily newsletter of the American Association of Retired Persons (AARP). Founded in 1851, the New York Times newsletter is an indispensable source of information for AARP members, with articles tailored specifically for persons 55 and older, as well as news and views from columnists such as Frank Rich, Thomas Friedman, and Maureen Dowd, who provide an elder perspective on issues of the day. 

Of course, it is not merely the political pundits whose celebrity status increases with yet another incorrect pronouncement.  Ronald Bailey quotes the late Julian Simon:

“How often does a prophet have to be wrong before we no longer believe that he or she is a true prophet?”

That was in the context of the famous debate between Simon, the optimist, and Paul Ehrlich, the doomsday prophet whose predictions about famines, deaths, shortages, and price hikes never came to pass. Not only did all those predicted horrors fail to happen, our collective prosperity continues to increase, with more food than ever and all kinds of fancy goods being manufactured with resources that never seem to be in shortage at all.

Yet, society seems to favor the wrong pundits, more often than not.  Even when time and again the huge errors of the pundits are difficult to ignore.  My guess is that it is all ideological and preferential.  The liberal left, for instance, continue to echo the views of a Ehrlich or a Kristof because these pundits are theirs, while the conservative right celebrates the punditry of a Kristol because he is theirs.  All are nothing but the variations of the old political bottom-line of "he may be a sonofabitch, but he is our sonofabitch."

Oh well.

I know, I know--I am preaching to the choir.  You, the reader, know better.  Which is why you read this pundit's daily rants--after all, he comes from the land that gave the English language the word "pundit" ;)

Why are Kristof and Friedman afraid of our messy democracy?

Of course, I yell and scream about how messed up the American democracy is.  But then I am not stupid enough to suggest that these democratic processes--the checks and balances, in particular--that we have are the worst form of democracy.

Yet, that is what both Nicholas Kristof and Thomas Friedman do.  Friedman I can understand--over the last few years the guy has been wandering off on his own and sometimes I even wonder why the NY Times has him on the payroll.  Well, he is better than Maureen Dowd :)

But, et tu, Kristof? WTF!

In his column today, Kristof writes:

In my travels lately, I’ve been trying to explain to Libyans, Egyptians, Bahrainis, Chinese and others the benefits of a democratic system. But if Congressional Republicans actually shut down the government this weekend, they will be making a powerful argument for autocracy. Chinese television will be all over the story.

Hello?  This is one fantastic example of democracy in action.  I disagree with the stupidity of both the GOP and the Dems, but this is what representative democracy means.  In fact, I wish they had argued like this every time any President felt that penile urge to bomb the shit out of some country or the other. 

The more I think about it, Kristof can do us all a great service by showcasing this political show(down) as a classic example of representative democracy. 

The only consolation is that Kristof at least did not lead towards a conclusion that Friedman wrote a few months ago:

There is only one thing worse than one-party autocracy, and that is one-party democracy, which is what we have in America today.

Really, Mr. Friedman?  I can think a lot more worse things before I get anywhere near the messy system we have in place.  And that was not even the worst line; he added:

One-party autocracy certainly has its drawbacks. But when it is led by a reasonably enlightened group of people, as China is today, it can also have great advantages. That one party can just impose the politically difficult but critically important policies needed to move a society forward in the 21st century.

Look away and puke, dear reader.  Don't mess up your keyboard!

The poor have a right to .... garbage :(

A few days ago, the Register Guard published my opinion piece on the Third World India, which is not drawing the same level of attention as does the First World India.  The following news item from The Hindu makes the intersection of these two Indias quite surreal:

Ms. Bhadakwad had come 18,000 kilometres to the annual U.N. climate conference in Cancun on behalf of 6,000 organised landfill recyclers in her hometown Pune, to demand access to the waste now trucked instead to a new incinerator. Without their dump, they’re trying to survive by going door to door for trash in a community 20 kilometres away.

“We have a right to the waste that can be recycled,” Ms. Bhadakwad told a reporter. “We want to continue making a living without interference from such big private companies.”

Their environmentalist allies say some 50 million people worldwide depend on collecting waste materials for a meagre livelihood. And these advocates and poor recyclers have an environmental argument to make – incinerators not only produce toxic pollution, but “by burning waste they increase carbon dioxide emissions,” the biggest global warming gas, said Mariel Vilella, a campaigner with the international group GAIA, the Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives.

By collecting and recycling plastic bags and bottles, glass, aluminium and other material, those 50 million rag-pickers “represent a huge opportunity to reduce greenhouse gas emissions,” Vilella told reporters

Reminded me of the following video, from Nicholas Kristof, that I sometimes use in my classes:

Is Nicholas Kristof a Libertarian Democrat?

I have blogging for a while on various issues that place me in a narrow slice of the political spectrum: Libertarian Democrat.

It is an absolutely fascinating political point of view that, unfortunately, does not get enough recognition. 
Here is a recent example of a libertarian-Democrat position--Nicholas Kristoff, who is well known for his coverage of all things painful that we would rather be in denial about, says it is time to legalize pot (I wonder if Kristof would label himself a libertarian Democrat):

on Tuesday, California voters will choose to go further and broadly legalize marijuana. I hope so. Our nearly century-long experiment in banning marijuana has failed as abysmally as Prohibition did, and California may now be pioneering a saner approach.

Unfortunately, it does not look like Californians will begin the end to this insane war on drugs.

Americans do the right thing--after trying Republicans and everything else

Every once in a rare while Maureen Dowd writes something that is worth quoting; in her latest column, Dowd writes about President Obama:

In 2008, the message was him. The promise was him. And that’s why 2010 is a referendum on him. 

That is a neat way to summarize the dynamics of this election.  Which is also why it is bloody dangerous to have personality-driven politics and leaders.  Bill Clinton's re-election was not about Clinton the person at all--not with all that baggage he carried around.  But, during the campaign season, the stock that Obama sold was himself, and now as President he has a tougher problem making a repeat sale.

Meanwhile, Nicholas Kristof, who seems to have taken time off from the gruesome stories that otherwise he forces us to recognize, wants us to give Obama a break:

go ahead and hold Mr. Obama’s feet to the fire. He deserves to be held accountable. But let’s not allow economic malaise to cloud our judgment and magnify America’s problems in ways that become self-fulfilling.

I am not so sure about this argument. 

The problem is that the alternative, in terms of Republican leadership, is an even more pathetic joke.  If the GOP takes over the house, Kevin McCarthy will become number 3?  I remember him from my days in Bakersfield, and a few days ago I watched him on C-Span and the guy is as lacking as ever.  At least Bill Thomas, whose retirement paved the way for McCarthy, was a really sharp guy and, unfortunately, even more ruthless!

So, to some extent, I am with Paul Krugman who is worried about a Republican Congress:

This is going to be terrible. In fact, future historians will probably look back at the 2010 election as a catastrophe for America, one that condemned the nation to years of political chaos and economic weakness.

However, I wish, for the nth time, that Krugman would be less shrill and less hyperbolic, and engaged more like the economist he is; did he really have to write "Be afraid. Be very afraid" ...?


David Brooks lays out what Obama's problem is going to be if (when?) Republicans take over the House (and Senate?):

[If] Obama is to rebound, he is going to have to suppress his natural competitive instincts. If he gets caught up in the Beltway fight club, the Republicans will emerge as the party of limited government and he’ll emerge as the spokesman for big government — surely a losing proposition.

Thomas "master manipulator of metaphors" Friedman, too, has something sensible, for a change, when he writes on why this election matters, as he looks at it from India while talking with some of his favorites (does Friedman talk to the 400 million poor there, I wonder!):

It looks, said Srivastava, as if “what is happening in America is a loss of self-confidence. We don’t want America to lose self-confidence. Who else is there to take over America’s moral leadership? American’s leadership was never because you had more arms. It was because of ideas, imagination, and meritocracy.” If America turns away from its core values, he added, “there is nobody else to take that leadership. Do we want China as the world’s moral leader? No. We desperately want America to succeed.”
This isn’t just so American values triumph. With a rising China on one side and a crumbling Pakistan on the other, India’s newfound friendship with America has taken on strategic importance. “It is very worrying to live in a world that no longer has the balance of power we’ve had for 60 years,” said Shekhar Gupta, editor of The Indian Express newspaper. “That is why everyone is concerned about America.”

Well, we--in the US and in the entire world--will find out real soon.

My long term bets are always on the good ol' US of A.  As Winston Churchill said, “You can always count on Americans to do the right thing - after they've tried everything else.”  And with a Republican victory in the midterms, we would have exhausted everything, and we will start doing the right thing.

Quote of the day on global poverty

[Schools] have a better record of fighting terrorism than missiles do and that wobbly governments can be buttressed not just with helicopter gunships but also with school lunch programs (at 25 cents per kid per day).

International security is where the money is, but fighting poverty is where the success is.

That is from Nicholas Kristof's column in the NY Times today, in the context of the UN's Millennium Development Goals.  The last few columns from Kristof have been of a flavor that is markedly different from many of previous ones.  I like this version of Kristof much better--and way less depressing!

Sometimes, I wonder if the UN is being slowly replaced by other efforts--the politics, and the bureaucracy, at the UN means that things can happen only very slowly, if they happen. Thus, now, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation appears to be a better catalyst for global health issues than the WHO.  The Clinton Global Initiative seems to deliver a lot on various fronts ...

"Message to Muslims: I’m Sorry"

Nicholas Kristof has a beauty on the issue of the virulent anti-Muslim hysteria in the US, and writes way more powerfully than I ever could:

I’ve seen some of the worst of Islam: theocratic mullahs oppressing people in Iran; girls kept out of school in Afghanistan in the name of religion; girls subjected to genital mutilation in Africa in the name of Islam; warlords in Yemen and Sudan who wield AK-47s and claim to be doing God’s bidding.

But I’ve also seen the exact opposite: Muslim aid workers in Afghanistan who risk their lives to educate girls; a Pakistani imam who shelters rape victims; Muslim leaders who campaign against female genital mutilation and note that it is not really an Islamic practice; Pakistani Muslims who stand up for oppressed Christians and Hindus; and above all, the innumerable Muslim aid workers in Congo, Darfur, Bangladesh and so many other parts of the world who are inspired by the Koran to risk their lives to help others. Those Muslims have helped keep me alive, and they set a standard of compassion, peacefulness and altruism that we should all emulate.

I’m sickened when I hear such gentle souls lumped in with Qaeda terrorists, and when I hear the faith they hold sacred excoriated and mocked. To them and to others smeared, I apologize.

I too.

Kristof is on target on "Is this America?"

Usually, Nicholas Kristof's columns just depress me because of his "in your face" reports on godawful things around the world. So much so that whenever I see the word "fistula" I can only think of Kristof!

His latest column, however, is about the American scene. About the obscene and loud blatantly anti-Muslim rhetoric.  Kristof opens with a reference to a blog post in The New Rpublic:

Written by Martin Peretz, the magazine’s editor in chief, it asserted: “Frankly, Muslim life is cheap, most notably to Muslims.”
Mr. Peretz added: “I wonder whether I need honor these people and pretend that they are worthy of the privileges of the First Amendment, which I have in my gut the sense that they will abuse.”
Thus a prominent American commentator, in a magazine long associated with tolerance, ponders whether Muslims should be afforded constitutional freedoms. Is it possible to imagine the same kind of casual slur tossed off about blacks or Jews? How do America’s nearly seven million American Muslims feel when their faith is denounced as barbaric?

I read that last night, but blogged only about the other op-ed I read there--because I was that pissed with Friedman's column!

In a way, it proved to be for the better, because there is at least one leading commentator who has weighed in as well--James Fallows notes in his blog that:

I can't at the moment think of another mainstream publication whose editor-in-chief has expressed similar sentiments -- whether about Muslims or blacks or Jews or women or any other class -- and not had to apologize or step down. Or a national political figure: compare this with Trent Lott's objectively milder statement about Strom Thurmond, which cost him his job in the Senate leadership. Peretz can of course say whatever he wants. It's a free country, and he is entitled to the "privileges" of the First Amendment, much as I might think he is abusing them here. But Nicholas Kristof has set an example of people stepping up to say: That's him, not us. This representative of "us" is entitled to say what he chooses, but we think he's wrong, and on this he does not speak for us. 

I am glad that Kristof and Fallows are using their megaphones well, particularly on this issue of a virulent anti-Muslim sentiment ... As Kristof writes, "sweeping denunciations of any religious group constitute dangerous bigotry."  

I was once a faithful reader of TNR--but that was back when Michael Kinsley was there.  To some extent, I guess I have been following Kinsley a lot, even without realizing it!  Oh well ... I am not a TNR subscriber anyway.  And this hateful blog post by its editor, and its warmongering articles mean that I might not even care to scan through the magazine in the library.

If I were younger ...

Only because I can compete for this opportunity :)

Conflict minerals

We may be able to undercut some of the world’s most brutal militias simply by making it clear to electronics manufacturers that we don’t want our beloved gadgets to enrich sadistic gunmen. No phone or tablet computer can be considered “cool” if it may be helping perpetuate one of the most brutal wars on the planet.

More from Nicholas Kristof here ... and the YouTube video he refers to:

Stereotyping people based on their favorite NY Times writer

This (ht) is funny; how come some people are so creative?

Maureen Dowd
Women who remember fondly the first time they got their period.
Thomas Friedman
Men who refer to young women as "young lady."
Nicholas D. Kristof
People who are terrified others will find out that they don't actually read the NYTimes.
David Pogue
Your friend who sneers whenever they hear the phrase "social media expert" yet call themselves that.
Guy Trebay
Your friend's friend who always forgets to pay their part of the bill.
Frank Rich
People who spit when they talk.
Andrew Pollack
That guy your spouse knows who paid to have his whole genealogy mapped out.
Paul Krugman
People who realize that he's better looking than George Clooney.
David Brooks
People who recognize a fellow D&D player when they see ‘em.
Gail Collins
Your aunt in Boston.

[Lauren Leto's got a WordPress blog, because Tumblr's for pansies. Truth. She's based out of Detroit, counting fat stacks of cash from her book, Texts From Last Night, which you probably contributed to inadvertently. She also wrote an awesome blog post about who your favorite author is that she'll probably also get a book deal for. I say: If you're in a bar with people from Detroit, make sure they're on your side.]

The author of this post can be contacted at tips@gawker.com

The worst humanitarian crisis since WW II: Congo

Kristof profiles Lisa Shannon, an Oregonian, who is volunteering her time and money in Congo. He has a video clip here.
Click here to donate money

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Quote of the day

"Work somewhere in a soup kitchen or something if you can’t take the pressure."

I suppose this is a rephrasing of "if you can't stand the heat ...." Anyway, that is California's governor quoted in Maureen Dowd's column.  I cannot understand though why that is a column--it is more like Dowd reporting on a meeting/interview.  Where is the analysis/insight?  I say this not because I am not a fan of Dowd.  Well, of course, I am not a fan of Dowd; but, that is beside the point.

Speaking of NY Times columns, Frank Rich, as always, has a good commentary and with hyperlinks.  Nicholas Kristoff has taken a break from detailing something on the freaky side of unfortunate aspects of lives somewhere, and has a neat column on an offbeat and upbeat experience. The good thing about Thomas Friedman's column is that he does not lead with how he had yet another insightful conversation at lunch with somebody.  The bad news is that his penchant for manipulating metaphors is right at the title for the column! 

So, what is the alternative to sweatshops?

It was in my second year as a grad student at USC that I first interacted with Professor Harry Richardson--I was enrolled in his class.  A fellow student complained about the labor conditions in the maquiladoras.  Harry, who later was my dissertation adviser, asked what the alternatives were if those factories were ordered closed because of conditions that are not ok by our standards.  I can even now picture the class in my mind, and the student who brought up the point had no answer--she seemed kind of stunned that somebody could ask such a question.  Kristof's column on sweatshops essentially is a restatement of Harry's remarks.

Maybe I remember it so well because I think that was the year I know I started losing belief in ultra-left policy alternatives--like many, I too quite seriously sympathized with leftist idea(l)s when I was in India.  Graduate school was the time I read and discussed a whole range of political/economic/philosophical ideas, starting with my roommate, Avu, who was in the doctoral program in the business school.  The facts didn't quite match up with the rhetoric of the left.  Slowly I started drifting towards the middle.

The political journey hasn't ended yet, and for all I know I might hit the reverse gear too.  As of now, and thanks to Camille Paglia, I now have a label to describe myself--a Libertarian Democrat!  (Can't remember where I read it a few years ago, and I can't seem to track it down.  She said that before Kos used that phrase.)

How to solve a problem like Pakistan? :-(

I have blogged a lot about Pakistan, and also authored op-ed pieces in the Register Guard expressing my worries about that country. When candidate Obama went all out hawkish and stated that he will unilaterally go into Pakistan, I was sure that was the worst thing to do. Well, Nicholas Kristof has a much better suggestion for Obama--"Mr. Obama should make his first presidential trip to Pakistan — and stop at a DIL school to remind Pakistan’s army and elites that their greatest enemy isn’t India but illiteracy. "

But, that bottomline is deceptive--Kristof is rightly worried about how much the nuclear armed pakistan is close to failing as a state. It is a mandatory reading for anybody remotely interested in the welfare of the planet. No, I am not exaggerating: Pakistan's collapse can unleash demons that can be beyond our wildest imaginations. Kristof notes:

I’ve never found Pakistanis so gloomy. Some worry that militants, nurtured by illiteracy and a failed education system, will overrun the country or that the nation will break apart. I’m not quite that pessimistic, but it’s very likely that the next major terror attack in the West is being planned by extremists here in Pakistan.

Later on, Kristof comments on two ministers in the current government:

One new cabinet member, Israr Ullah Zehri, defended the torture-murder of five women and girls who were buried alive (three girls wanted to choose their own husbands, and two women tried to protect them). “These are centuries-old traditions, and I will continue to defend them,” Mr. Zehri said of the practice of burying independent-minded girls alive.
Then there is Pakistan’s new education minister, Mir Hazar Khan Bijarani. Last year, the Supreme Court ordered him arrested for allegedly heading a local council that decided to solve a feud by taking five little girls and marrying them to men in an enemy clan. The girls were between the ages of 2 and 5, according to Samar Minallah, a Pakistani anthropologist who investigated the case (Mr. Bijarani has denied involvement).

Be afraid. Be very afraid.

How about this game-changing endorsement?

Apparently, there is more than enough people who endorse presidential candidates! How about this one?

“Al Qaeda will have to support McCain in the coming election,” read a commentary on a password-protected Islamist Web site that is closely linked to Al Qaeda and often disseminates the group’s propaganda.

Oregon native, and NY Times columnist, Nicholas Kristof brings this to our attention. He adds:

the endorsement of Mr. McCain by a Qaeda-affiliated Web site isn’t a surprise to security specialists. Richard Clarke, the former White House counterterrorism director, and Joseph Nye, the former chairman of the National Intelligence Council, have both suggested that Al Qaeda prefers Mr. McCain and might even try to use terror attacks in the coming days to tip the election to him.
“From their perspective, a continuation of Bush policies is best for recruiting,” said Professor Nye, adding that Mr. McCain is far more likely to continue those policies.

Save the jerks!

In short, the businessmen involved were jerks. And, whether in Japan or the U.S., it’s challenging for politicians to frame a bailout with the slogan: Save the jerks! ....
the priority is to get credit flowing again in the arteries of commerce, even if that means saving the jerks. Otherwise, we risk becoming Japan.

I like how succinctly the NY Times columnist, and Oregon native, Nicholas Kristof, describes the situation we are in.

Perhaps we should have an all-Oregon debate on this issue: Nicholas Kristof versus Peter DeFazio. Am awfully glad and proud to be an Oregonian; we need more of these two--particularly in the deep South :-)