"Never again," again, again.

Here's my obligatory post on Darfur.

The predominate vibe among the disconcerted masses is one of helplessness.

So many people, young and old, are agitated from reading Nicholas Kristof's interviews with survivors. We're eager to do something - something besides "raising awareness" and showing documentaries on college campuses. I mean, no one ever stopped raping and burning because some college kids told 'em to.

It's easy to blame our government. George Bush chose Iraq over Darfur. But then it seems too easy. If it's really all about George Bush, then we'd have to admit that we're powerless citizens, and that is something we won't accept. So we send emails, write checks, post on blogs, and imagine a better world.

My brother and some of his Wesleyan peeps organized a ten-day protest at the Sudanese Embassy last January. Holding signs like "Beep to end the genocide," we succeeded to get a lot of cars to honk their horns. A year later, the genocide continues. But at least we managed to annoy the Sudanese officials.

No other thoughts (or whining) for the moment.

Type O is the New A+

When it comes to the chemical composition of blood, I seem to have lucked out. "In Japan," the New York Times reported today, "people with Type O are commonly referred to as warriors because they are said to be self-confident, outgoing, goal-oriented and passionate." "Oh" baby.

Of course, many Japanese also believe that brain dead people are alive.

21 Grams

I'm distracted by death again.

Last night, I saw the 2003 movie 21 Grams. It chronicles the relationship between a mathematician desperately in need of a heart transplant and a housewife whose husband and two little girls are killed when an evangelical ex-convict (himself the father of two little children) accidentally runs them over in his pick-up truck. The two little girls die on the scene, but the husband makes it to intensive care. He's declared brain dead, and his wife agrees to donate his organs. The mathematician gets the husband's heart, tracks down the wife, and of course, falls in love. The bulk of the movie focuses on their relationship. It's hard not to sympathize with her as she falls for a man who's very heartbeat must remind her the life she once had. Talk about irony.

The wife was the most complex character in the movie, and the actress (Naomi Watts) plays her well. She's grieving for her lost family and raging at the man who, albeit accidentally, killed them. You can tell that the particular mode of death haunts her. She returns to the scene of the accident; she seeks out people who saw it. People tend to treat accidents and random occurrences as if they meant something, and she's no exception. But the mode of death doesn't always mean something. Sure, it's true that some people die in ways that reflect the way they lived, like a soldier dying while rescuing a comrade. Others, though, die randomly, from a roadside bomb, from a car accident, or in an ER, like the wife's family. This kind of mismatch between the way one lives and the way one dies leaves a terrible sense of dissonance for grievers. It's why some people donate their loved one's organs after a meaningless death, so that they can make some sense of the disaster or remember the dead as leaving a legacy of life.

At the funeral, the wife's sister urges her to press charges against the ex-con, but the wife refuses, asserting that nothing, much less a criminal trial, will bring her family back. But her grief evolves, and she later plots to kill the ex-con, nearly succeeding. The symbols of her grief are ubiquitous (partly because she's constantly crying): She uses old photographs of her husband as bookmarks, replays his voice on the answering machine, and peeks into the girls' room but cannot enter it. Even as she falls in love with another man, she denies that she's moving on, perhaps worried that she'd be slighting her family by abetting her grief. Or by pardoning her guilt: Could she have said goodbye? Why didn't she buy the daughter the new blue shoelaces? In a moment of rage and tears, she screams, "She was wearing the fucking red shoelaces when she was killed!"

The majority of people say they want to die at home, surrounded by loved ones. But that rarely happens. Instead, most of us die as patients, amid tubes and machines, sometimes in shared wards, always on white bedsheets. At least in the movies, we have somber flashbacks and wailful bagpipes to celebrate the life now lost. That's a far cry from the distant pulse of the ER, whose sterility lures us toward the perfidious temptation to judge the worthiness of a life by the dignity of its exit.

Me, the Mosque, and I

A blast from the past.

In April 2006 at Brown, I went to a film screening of Me and the Mosque, followed by a Q&A with the director and producer, a funny and articulate woman named Zarqa Nawaz (pictured, in pink). In the film, Nawaz interviews Muslim women, clerics, and scholars in North America for their views on the recent addition of prayer partitions (or walls) between men and women at mosques. The issue is controversial, even among Brown's relatively liberal Muslim Student Association. An array of Muslim scholars in the film say that the Prophet had no beef with mixed sitting, and that the partition typifies a recent wave of fanatics who think that oppressing women is somehow an act of piety. That seems to be the film's central argument.

In the Q&A, I asked Nawaz how progressive Muslims will cope when this precedent argument fails. And it will fail: The Prophet never authorized women to lead men in prayer, nor did he bless gay unions, or heck, perform an abortion. We mock evangelical Christians for asking themselves WWJD, but really, the Muslims deserve the joke: What would the Prophet do? WWPD. (That's better than What would Muhammed do? WWMD. The last thing we need is to associate Muslims with Weapons of Mass Destruction.)

Nawaz said she'd seek other hermeneutic tools if WWPD fails. The crucial word was "if," because in the pious posturing of even (and perhaps especially) the most progressive Muslims, nobody portends that they have ideas that the Prophet himself did not have. He is, after all, a prophet, and prophets are supposed to know the future. It's almost comical to observe, given these interpretive methods, that people praise religion for fostering imagination and creativity. In any case, for anyone pressing to expand women's status in Islam, I think the WWPD argument is fatal - because for everything the Prophet did, there was something he didn't do, which according to this paradigm, is reason enough to prohibit it.

For all my dire predictions, though, I'm humbled (yes, I can be humble) by the wave of strong-headed hijabi-bearing young women on college campuses. They're an impressive, outgoing bunch, unabashedly feminist (or at least some claim to be) and yet believe in "the tradition." They're capable of poking fun at their predicament (the quality I appreciate most). Just check out the Facebook group, "Yes, I'm bald under my hijab," with its assembly of snippets: "Yes, I shower with this thing on." "Yes, I've worn hijab since birth." "Yes, I sleep in my hijab." "Well, what happens if you accidentally see my hair is that you immediately get hit by lightning." (I can personally attest that you don't get struck by lightning.)

The screening happened on a Friday night, my favorite time of the week. Friday nights have an air of eternity, so I feel little pressure to get back to the library. To top it off, the timing pretty much guarantees that I can avoid the Jews. (At this event, I was the only non-Muslim student present). It was a blast, and we ate tons of caramel-flavored popcorn. I stayed after the Q&A to meet Nawaz and ask her if she had interacted with the Orthodox Jewish feminists, who are similarly trying to carve out a place for feminism in a tradition that regulates everything from the way they dress to their potential for community leadership. Together with Brown's two Muslim chaplains (they're a pair), we spoke for nearly two hours.

In critiquing a religious tradition, nothing is as important as humor. So I am thrilled to see a new comedy-sitcom called "Little Mosque on the Prairie," the brainchild of none other than Zarqa Nawaz. The show, which will air on Canada's CBC starting January 9, was reviewed in the New York Times yesterday. Here's an excerpt from the article: When a Muslim girl flounces into her immigrant father’s presence with her navel showing, he recoils in horror, saying, “You look like a Protestant.” She counters, “Dad, you mean a prostitute?” He responds, “No, I meant a Protestant.”

In a post-9/11 world, laughing Muslims are desperately needed. So I give the show my blessing: May the Prophet be with you.
(Because if he's not, you're screwed.)

Mom, Dad, I want to be a computer when I grow up!

Just in, from the AP Wire:
World Chess Champion Loses to Computer

BONN, Germany (AP) -- World chess champion Vladimir Kramnik lost his final game in a match against computer program Deep Fritz on Tuesday, ceding a hard-fought Man vs. Machine series 4-2. ... The Russian takes home $500,000 (euro375,000) -- half of what he would have received if he had won against Deep Fritz, a commercially available chess program that runs on a powerful personal computer.

So how much money does the computer get?

Beethoven's Genetic Profile

It's a good thing that Beethoven didn't live in the era of genomic medicine. Nowadays, a genetic test performed from a blood sample or even from a cheek swab can detect whether a person is likely to develop diabetes, cancer, mental illness, or, say, deafness. So then there's the ethical question: Who should have access to this information? Siblings? Future lovers? Prospective employers, who would have to pay health insurance costs and accommodate sick leave?

Check out this hilarious conversation from Managed Care Magazine, excerpted below, between young Beethoven and the HR director of the Vienna Orchestra:

"Your audition impressed the selection committee. Composing would have been an excellent career for you."

"What do you mean, 'would have been,' Maestro?"

"You see, we have also reviewed your pre-employment health appraisal. ... I'm talking about your genetic profile. ... Our analysis shows that you will be significantly deaf before you are 30 years old. Obviously, this predisposition makes you quite unsuited to a career in music."

"Mein Gott!"

"We've decided to offer the position to Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. He's just 34 years old, with a sparkling genetic pedigree and doubtless a long, illustrious career ahead of him."

And here it is again, now in cartoon form:

Take that, Sapir-Whorf hypothesis!

A friend recently posted about "kicking the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis in the nuts." I'm inspired to take a shot myself.

The Sapir-Whorf hypothesis claims that our language determines the way we think. If it were true, it would sanction the most radical form of relativism. Relativism doesn't say (as is commonly thought) that everybody's version of reality is true. Relativism says that I can't even make such a judgment. It says that I can't condemn female genital mutilation in Africa because I am unable to understand the ideas that underlie it. This kind of cultural determinism supposes we are caught in a “web of beliefs” that's impossible to leave and impossible to enter.

The Sapir-Whorf hypothesis is appealing because it's partially true. It is, to some extent, correct to suggest that I can't identify something unless I have the vocabulary to express it. Now, you might think, "Hell no! If I'm hungry for SOMETHING, but can't quite figure out what, I'm still hungry!" And yes, that would be true. But it's also true that if I lack the capacity to distinguish between shame and embarrassment, or between anguish and exasperation, then I cannot, most likely, identify those feelings when they occur.

The Sapir-Whorf hypothesis gives language more influence than it deserves. It would imply that language could be appropriated for thought-control, that a person could be imprisoned in a linguistic framework, unable to think beyond it. Take Winston's struggle to step out of Newspeak, in George Orwell’s 1984:

Anything could be true. … “If I wished,” O’Brien had said, “I could float off this floor like a soap bubble.” Winston worked it out. “If he thinks he floats off the floor, and if I simultaneously think I see him do it, then the thing happens.” Suddenly, like a lump of submerged wreckage beneath the surface of the water, the thought burst into his mind: “It doesn’t really happen. We imagine it. It is hallucination.” He pushed the thought under immediately. The fallacy was obvious. It presupposed that somewhere or other, outside oneself, there was a “real” world where “real” things happened. But how could there be such a world? What knowledge have we of anything, save through our own minds? All happenings are in the mind. Whatever happens in the mind, truly happens (228-229).

Anything that calls attention to language is alluring. Language is so influential that it can, for example, reinforce sexism through words like “mankind” and “hot chick.” Or it can link "Islam" and "terrorism" in our minds by linking them in our rhetoric. But that doesn't make a claim as sweeping as the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis true. I walk a tipe-rope in acknowledging the pervasive influence of language while maintaining that we are not imprisoned by it.

So I reject the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis and its radical relativist conclusion. I can indeed make judgments about conceptual systems apart from my own. And I reject the notion that reality is nothing more than linguistically-mediated observations. Believing that a benevolent deity rules the world doesn't make it so. And calling women "hot chicks" doesn't actually make women "hot chicks" (though it does make sexism real). Finally, War is not actually Peace, even if Winston thinks it is. One friend said that by rejecting the post-modernist bent toward inventing reality, I'm adopting a "modernist" stance. It's true that I want to revive the idea that "reality" exists. But I prefer the term, "post-post-modernist."

World AIDS Day

I'm not sure what to write for World AIDS Day. It's one of those things for which there's both everything and nothing to say.

I suppose I'll start with statistics. Since 1981, more than 25 million people have died of AIDS. 40 million people worldwide are infected. 1.1 million Americans are HIV-positive, and 25% of them don’t know it. Another 40,000 become infected each year. In New York State alone, 7,600 people were diagnosed with HIV/AIDS in 2004 (the worst nationwide). The bulk comes from New York City, where approximately 1 in 70 has HIV. Obviously, some populations have sufferred from this epidemic more than others. When sorted by demographic, the HIV infection rates (from the NYC Department of Health) are especially alarming:

• 1 in 40 African Americans.
• 1 in 25 men living in Manhattan.
• 1 in 12 black men age 40-49 years.
• 1 in 10 men who have sex with men.
• 1 in 8 injection drug users.
• 1 in 5 black men age 40-49 in Manhattan.
• 1 in 4 men who have sex with men in Chelsea.

Meanwhile, the disease rages across sub-Saharan Africa, where 24.5 million people were living with HIV at the end of 2005 - 2.7 million more than at the year's start. In 2006, 2 million people there died from AIDS. Altogether, 12 million children have lost their parents. The map to the right (borrowed from Wikipedia) shows the national HIV infection rates in Africa. In the face of so much illness, nothing I say seems worth it. But something has to be said.

So I will quote from a recent WHO report on how the migration of health care workers from poor countries to rich countries impacts the AIDS epidemic. It finds, unsurprisingly, that: "Shortages are most severe in sub-Saharan Africa, which has 11% of the world's population and 24% of the global burden of disease but only 3% of the world's health workers." Meanwhile, the United States and other Western countries - the countries most pro-active in AIDS funding, ironically - attract (and even recruit) health care workers from, yep, you guessed it, sub-Saharan Africa.

Why? Here's why, I think: "Better you than me."

Does it stand up?

Evolution in a Petri Dish

Here's something on evolution that my brother sent me from The Onion. So, moving from animal life to human life (get it?):

Kansas Outlaws Practice of Evolution

TOPEKA, KS—In response to a Nov. 7 referendum, Kansas lawmakers passed emergency legislation outlawing evolution... The new law prohibits all living beings within state borders from any willful adaptation to changing environmental conditions.

[As one intelligent design proponent said,] "butterflies who mimic the wing patterns and colors of other butterflies for an adaptive advantage, well, their days of flaunting God's will are over." Human beings may be the species most deeply affected by the new legislation. Those whose cytochrome-c molecules vary less than 2 percent from those of chimpanzees will be in direct violation of the law.

Evolution is still with us. So, moving from human life to "transhuman life," check out the World Transhumanist Association, whose members want to use technology to "extend human capabilities." They want to start using reproductive technologies not only to help people reproduce, but to create smarter, stronger human beings. We already use treatments like IVF fairly regularly. In fact, in Denmark and the Netherlands, 1 in 25 babies is conceived in a dish. So we're evolving: We once had sex to reproduce. Now we have sex for fun, and use IVF to reproduce.

Enhancement technologies could be our new opposable thumb.

But is it a good thing? Certainly not in Kansas.

Pet owners are my pet peeve.

It seems that animal life is my theme for the moment. Here's another voice, that of Jonathan Safran Foer, on owning a pet:

In the course of our lives, we move from a warm and benevolent relationship with animals (learning responsibility through caring for our pets, stroking and confiding in them), to a cruel one (virtually all animals raised for meat in this country are factory farmed — they spend their lives in confinement, dosed with antibiotics and other drugs). How do you explain this? Is our kindness replaced with cruelty? I don’t think so. I think in part it’s because the older we get, the less exposure we have to animals. And nothing facilitates indifference or forgetfulness so much as distance. In this sense, dogs and cats have been very lucky: they are the only animals we are intimately exposed to daily.

Safran Foer is right about how distance - both physical and psychological - leads to indifference and forgetfulness. But he's off when he suggests that the inconveniences of caring for a dog "reinforce in me how much compromise is necessary to share space with other beings." I may be a burgeoning vegetarian, but I'm not exactly a pet lover, or a pet owner lover. In public parks, I am annoyed by dog owners who let their pets chase after me, sniff me, or slobber me. Some pet owners just can't seem to understand that not everyone loves their pets as much as they do. Talk about "shar[ing] space with other beings."

Pet owners like to assert that pets teach responsibility, especially to kids. Pets have to be fed and walked, their litter boxers have to be emptied. But even if it teaches responsibility, I'm not convinced that it teaches respect. Pets are subject to the whims of their "owners," who cuddle, cover, and carry them as they please. But isn't the "companionship" mutual? Ha! A pet isn't so much of a companion as a plaything. Imagine if I called you my "pet." Does anybody realize that that's an insult?! For kids, owning a pet is the first time they get to assert their dominance over another creature. And it's no wonder that so many pet owners are carnivores. So are their pets.

I've probably managed to insult lots of folks by now. And I haven't even been that clear. I'm not objecting to pets because I think that animal life is as precious as human life. What is it then, that bothers me about owning pets? Perhaps I'm irked because pet owners pretend to really respect animal life when it's much more of a hedonist affair, a cult of animal cuteness. Or maybe it's because pet owners invest so much in their pets, when resources could go elsewhere. But I try to stay away from such holier-than-thou reasoning. It stifles more than it stimulates. Plus, I think that pet owners are generally compassionate people. So what is it? Maybe it's because I just find the whole enterprise bizarre.

But I'm all for pet rocks.

Naw, they're not like us...

Another thought on vegetarianism: A professor at my bioethics center uses this cartoon to illustrate the rift between doctors and patients. It shows the rift between different species as well.

It's also funny.

People are animals, too.

I ate a lot of turkey over Thanksgiving. I wonder now if that turkey experienced any pain when it was killed. I wonder whether it left anything behind, perhaps a family, a lover, or say, a soulmate.

I went to the Bronx Zoo with my family this past weekend (see the photo), and somewhere near the bears, asked my grandpa for his take on vegetarianism. Eating animals, he said, was acceptable because that's what these animals were born and raised to be: meat. "But wait," I said, "what if I manufactured human beings for meat?"

"Right. Now that's an idea," he said, serious as he was sarcastic.

His reply makes some sense. It is, after all, why some people love their pets, even spending thousands on their pets' health care, but don't hesitate to roast a turkey. It's all about what the animal was created for, and how we view it vis-a-vis our own well-being.

If you're a vegetarian, kindly tell me why. I'm on the cusp. I denounce cruelty to animals, and what could be more cruel than killing them? By this reasoning, vegetarianism seems the way to go. But does that mean I should treat them as humans? Or spend thousands to cure them of cancer? Some people say that the problem isn't with eating animals at all, but rather with the mass production of meat. They say a can of beef is too far removed from the source of nourishment for us to appreciate the sacrifice. Generally, I agree, but I don't think that eating animals would be any less wrong if I were to slaughter the cow myself. It would moo and thrash its legs regardless.

For a breakdown of reasons, see Why You Should Consider Adopting a Vegetarian Diet. Here are their reasons: Eating meat (1) causes cruelty to the 27 billion animals killed in the U.S. each year. These animals suffer “neglect, mutilations, genetic manipulation, drug regimens," and of course, slaughter. It would be illegal to treat our pets the way we treat this food. In addition, a vegetarian can (2) avoid saturated fat and cholesterol, and thanks to vitamins, lose nothing. And why be evangelical about it? Because if more people were vegetarians, we could (3) maximize water usage (instead of sending half our water to animal agriculture), (4) solve world hunger by redirecting resources to crop production, and (5) reject the dangerous working conditions of slaughterhouse laborers.

But good reasons never convinced anybody. Progress, rather, comes from psychological turns. So, with thanks to my grandpa, I propose such a turn. The animal rights movement has long asserted that animals lead worthwhile lives. Hence the joke: "animals are people, too." But perhaps we should flip the saying to emphasize another form of similarity, lest we forget that in fact, "people are animals, too." Like animals, we lead fragmented and fragile lives, fighting off our predators and feasting on our prey. And if you're ever in doubt, head to the neighborhood McDonald's. Or, dare I say, to Iraq.

Animals are people, too.

From a conversation with a professor at my bioethics center:

"Doing anything tonight, Eli?"

"Nah, this place totally shuts down for Thanksgiving. Everyone's out of town. Well, I suppose I could go protest with the animal rights activists. They're always active this time of year." [Laughter.]

"A bunch of turkeys live by my house," said the professor. "You could run one over if you're not paying attention. They're pretty slow."

"So are newborns," I added.

Woops.

Happy birthday, friend.

Tani Goodman would have been 22 today.

But he died at 17, pronounced 'brain dead' on a Thursday, I remember. February 7, 2002. I was also 17. I grieved deeply for Tani.

I wonder if I would have reacted differently to his death if he had died in a car accident or in a war or in a way that reflected the way he lived, and not carelessly, running through an electric gate. What if (there have been many what ifs over the years) he had died by cardiac criteria, the way most people die? Instead, Tani was pronounced dead by neurological criteria, meaning his heart was still beating (albeit mechanically) when his death certificate was signed. Tani was ripped out of this world before his time, before his body.

I know there are many ways to die. Some “die with dignity” and others die without it. Some die calmly and quietly, acquiescing to the inevitable, to fate. Others hold out, stubborn and resilient, raging, with the “whoosh” of a mechanical ventilator, against the dying of the light. That's how Tani died. He did not pass away; he lost his life.

Death is a series of contradictions. It is supposedly the common fate of all humanity, but when grieving, we feel desparately alone, gathering in circles to stare at our feet. Death reminds us of our own ultimate demise, yet it's the product of life. Death, like the World Trade Center, is a void, but it consumes us like a billowing cloud of dust. Death is an indecency because it leaves us with shame, as if we could have done something to prevent it. Death, perhaps, is an indecency like our private parts, a great secret that everybody owns but nobody mentions. Death is a contradiction because it's an exit to nowhere. Death is nothing, no thing. "Death is" is impossible to say.

The garbage truck comes on Tuesdays and the weekends start on Fridays. Time passes. We move on. It's "what Tani would have wanted," we say in consolation. But we could never 'move on' if we lived only as the dead would have wanted. So, grief, too, is a contradiction. I like thinking of death as a series of contradictions. It excuses me for failing to understand. In that spirit, I'll add one more contradiction to the list, a mode of grieving that still gives me comfort: Wishing 'happy birthday' to somebody who no longer exists.

Back to the Future

As much as I try to avoid it, I always come back to the question: "what do I want to study?" I was planning to apply to graduate schools this fall, until I realized that heck, I'm clueless.

Bioethics brings together philosophers, doctors, lawyers, psychologists, professors of literature, and officials in public health. I love it for attracting new ideas from many disciplinary homes while leaving the disciplinary jargon behind. And the diversity is crucial. Without it, we'd be like an interfaith group where nobody had a religion. Plus, this give-and-go recognizes that we have much to learn from the world, not just much to teach it (which can't be said about many other disciplines). Of course, there is a downside: When your field's a moving target, there are too many articles about where it needs to go, i.e. "we should be arguing about x," without actually doing so. In any case, I'm still looking for my home base.

I am excited to spend a second year working for the bioethics department at medical school here (and just as important, they've invited me to stay!). I respect the eight faculty members, assist the hospital's ethics committee, and read the bioethics journals and blogs. Plus, I am honing my grant-writing skills (and god knows that I would never do that except as part of a job). In the spring, I'll take a (tuition-free) course in the medical school on "global health and justice," taught by one of the philosophers here. In fact, spending two years here seems increasingly attractive.

Plus, after the lonely summer, I now have a few friends. (!)

Saving the Planet, by Polluting It

I couldn't believe the AP/CNN headline:
"Scientists say pollution may be helpful."

Apparently, pollution shields the sun's rays, cooling the planet. In fact, some scientists think we should deliberately spew pollution into the atmosphere to expedite the process. "A massive dissemination of pollutants would be needed every year or two, as the sulfates precipitate from the atmosphere in acid rain." Sounds delightful.

The Nobel Prize-winning chemist Paul Crutzen suggested that "balloons bearing heavy guns be used to carry sulfates high aloft and fire them into the stratosphere" (AP wire). Many others, including Tom Wigley, a U.S. climatologist, agreed. In the October 20, 2006 edition of Science, Wigley proposed "the deliberate injection of sulfate aerosol precursors into the stratosphere." Doing so, he wrote, "could substantially offset future warming and provide additional time to reduce human dependence on fossil fuels."

The environmental situation is now so dire that we have to take steps backward to move the planet forward. Reducing our dependence on fossil fuels is all the more urgent - because in the meantime, we're cutting down the branches to save the trees.

Jay Leno lightened it up: "Today the oil companies said, 'That's what we've been trying to tell you!" And: "See, all this time we're criticizing President Bush, he was a man ahead of his time."

Cliches to Avoid Responsibility

I hear it all the time.

"Life's unfair - there's nothing to do about it."

"We Americans are already doing a lot."
"Corrupt officials will take your money anyway."

"It's so terrible that nothing I can do can change it."

"Somebody else will do it."

Not very convincing, especially when it comes to global health. I read this morning that women in Zimbabwe now have the world's lowest life expectancy: 34 years. Men live slightly longer: 37 years. That means that Zimbabweans my age have already passed middle age. They're nearly senior citizens. For me, as a white man in the U.S., I can expect at birth to live 75 years, more than twice their lifespan.

To say "life's unfair" and walk away is to condone this inequality. Imagine what the world would look like today if people had said that about polio or segregation or disability rights. And Americans are not already doing a lot - at least not through governmental channels. The US federal government contributes less than 1% of our gross national income to humanitarian foreign aid. Although the US gives a greater net amount than any other country, it gives a lesser percentage than twenty-one others, with the Europeans leading the way.

As for corruption, I agree that we shouldn't give our money to corrupt governments. But we don't have to. Many efficient organizations combat disease and poverty in developing countries. Doctors Without Borders comes to mind, and there are others.

Apologies for the ranting tone.

Embracing My Evil Inclination

What should I do with my evil inclination? It's why I post on public blogs and sign my name to articles I write. It's something that belongs alongside the narcissism of physical fitness and the egoism of love and other things we publicly disdain but secretly nurture.

My dad likes to quote Bereshit Rabbah 9:7, where Rav Nachman says: “Were it not for the evil inclination [yetzer ha'ra], a man would not build a house, find a wife, beget children, or engage in commerce.” Ecclesiastes 4:4 says that all work comes from “man's jealousy for his neighbor.” It is, says Berachot 17, the “yeast in the dough.”

Indeed, a rare instance where the Jewish tradition gets it right.

I asked my dad once why he never separated my sister and me when we fought years ago. He said that our fighting didn't really bother him. “It showed that you and Aviva had ambition.” And ambition, especially for an aspiring acadmic, may be the most valuable quality to have. And yet, beware the evil inclination. It can turn ambition to envy. But it doesn't have to be a Pandora's Box. So until I've built a few houses and found a wife, I'm not going to eschew it.

Alma Mater, We Hail Thee

I visited my ol' college last weekend for the first time since graduation. I hadn't realized that my memories of college life were as frozen as photographs (thanks to the facebook, perhaps). As I walked up the hill, I expected to see jubilant seniors rushing around in unzipped gowns, arms extended in a perpetual state of celebration. Clearly that was not the case. I felt an enormous sense of longing for school backpacks and bells, but my despondency disappeared fairly quickly. In fact, I am quite content never to be an undergrad again.

I wonder whether some friends will always be undergrads in my mind. Time stands still for relationships that don't actively continue. Ed G., for example, will remain a high school sophomore forever because that's what he was when I met him on the cross-country team. Even though we'd have lots to discuss - Ed's a brilliant guy - I can't imagine any conversation not about race times, shin splints, and overzealous coaches. Ed wore the same model of running shoes all three years I knew him, and I like to imagine he's still wearing them.

Ed, if you're reading this post, don't tell me about the shoes.

Justice and Peace in the Mideast

In an interview last weekend, I was asked, "what does justice require in Israel and Palestine?" I floundered for an answer.

Justice is a difficult question. Peace is easier: Long before the botched Barak-Arafat meeting at Camp David in 2000, it was more than obvious that peace would require ending the occupation, establishing full Palestinian sovereignty, and dissolving the settlements. For peace, the two countries would have to cooperate both economically (as the UN 1947 Partition Plan stipulated) and environmentally (given the limited water supply). But now that the Palestinian government bombards southern Israeli towns with Qassam rockets, and the Israeli government, including the racist Yisrael Beiteinu party, sponsors 'excursions' into Gaza that leaves scores of people dead without a hint of apology, peace is at least as distant as the Madrid Conference, now more than 15 years ago.

Many folks in the "pro-peace" camp oppose the occupation, but stop there. Others clamor for "a just peace" - a code word among activists to recognize the moral wrongs of the occupation. By this view (my own), political treaties and handshakes are nothing more than band-aids over a bleeding wound. To (ad)dress the wound, the brave will have to face difficult questions of responsibility, memory, and "root causes." Peace is political, justice historical - and ethical.

Consider a homeless family on the street. If they were evicted from their home because their landlord was racist, then finding a new place may give them peace but will do nothing for justice.

In April 2005, I attended a meeting of Jewish Americans and Muslim and Christian Palestinians in Bethlehem. We were asked to share one item or image from "home." A rabbinical student with a very spiritual-looking beard spoke eloquently about eating a pomegranate off a tree in Tzfat. "I knew in my heart that I was finally home," he said. Next to him, a young Palestinian man pulled out a pair of keys. "These are the keys to my house in En Kerem, where my family lived before the [1948] catastrophe. I saw it once. I plan to return."

Michael J. Fox on Stem Cells

A powerful ad in the Missouri Senate race.

Michael J. Fox endorses Democratic challenger Claire McCaskill over Republican incumbent Jim Talent, who, Fox says, "even wanted to criminalize the science that gives us a chance for hope."

Religion -> Sex -> Death?

A special edition of this month's Lancet on Sexual and Reproductive Health reports on the dire state of sexual health in the world:

[Every year,] more than 120 million couples have an unmet need for contraception, 80 million women have unintended pregnancies (45 million of which end in abortion), more than half a million women die from complications associated with pregnancy, childbirth, and the postpartum period, and 340 million people acquire new gonorrhoea, syphilis, chlamydia, or trichomonas infections. [Glasier et al. Sexual and reproductive health: A matter of life and death. The Lancet. Nov. 2006.]

These horrible numbers are partly the result of the U.S.'s "global gag rule" (called the "Mexico City Policy" in the Reagan years, named for the city in which it was announced), instated by George W. in his first week in office. Under the rule, foreign family-planning NGOs that perform abortions cannot receive US money. Those that do receive US money are barred from lobbying for abortion rights in their countries. Apparently, our government believes that freedom of speech applies only in America (and perhaps not even here). If it's any consolation, NGOs that receive US money may still perform abortions for the big three: rape, incest, and threat to the woman's life. Still, restricted access to abortion providers makes these cases difficult.

Religion plays a role - a negative one. At the UN General Assembly special session on children in May 2002, for example, some countries sought to redefine "reproductive health services" to exclude abortion and to deny couples' access to information about contraception. Which countries? Iran, Iraq, Libya, Sudan, the Vatican, and the USA. An odd and frightening alliance. It reminds me of a rare and historic meeting of Jewish, Christian, and Muslim leaders in Jerusalem last year... to protest the gay pride parade. You'd never see ideological opposites join forces to discuss poverty or war or the environment. But sex? For sure.

It doesn't take the Oracle at Delphi to see that last week's decision by Nicaragua's legislature (52-0!) to ban all abortions, including in cases of rape, incest, and threat-to-woman's life, had serious Catholic undertones. Yet Brazil, also a Catholic country, leads the world in promoting condoms. Exceptions aside, I suspect that religion bolsters conservative and patriarchal forces, encourages women to marry young (far younger than men), and puts the decision over how many children to bear in the hands (or other body part) of the husband.

Not to mention that God hates women. But that's for another time.

To blog or not to blog...

I wonder whether my life in suburbia is exciting enough to merit a blog. The big news here concerns the snowy weather, the mall expansion, and the travails of the local university's football team. I wonder if my standards will slide over time, or whether, like any good blogger, I'll fill this space with inchoate musings and witty chatter. I wonder whether I should disclose my love affairs and ideological battles, and whether my spicy secrets will lose their flavor if spread too thin.

But, but, in my post-college anomie, I am driven by a need to record and an urge to connect. And so, with grand ambitions, I christen this blog with a bag of tootsie-pops on this Halloween night.

Books

Updated: October 2023

Currently Chewing




Next Course

The Sellout, Paul Beatty 
Attorney for the Damned: Clarence Darrow in the Courtroom, Arthur Weinberg
Homegoing, Yaa Gyasi
Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
An American Marriage, Tayari Jones
Crossing to Safety, Wallace Stegner
Edgar and Lucy, Victor Lodato
Heroes of the Frontier, Dave Eggers
Gamboa Road Gang - Joaquin Beleño

Recently Digested     

A Little Life, Hanya Yanagihara
Moonwalking with Einstein, Joshua Foer
Love, Africa, Jeffrey Gettleman
News of the World, Paulette Jiles
Little Fires Everywhere, Celeste Ng
Ketogenic Diet Therapies for Epilepsy and Other Conditions, Eric Kossoff et al.
This Tender Land, William Kent Krueger
Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine, Gail Honeyman
Freedom, Jonathan Franzen
Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streets, David Simone
We Own This City: A True Story of Crime, Cops, and Corruption, Justin Fenton
The Lazarus Case: Life-and-Death Issues in Neonatal Intensive Care, John Lantos
The Clock Winder, Anne Tyler
Celestial Navigation, Anne Tyler
I Got a Monster. The Rise and Fall of America's Most Corrupt Police Squad. Baynard Woods and Brandon Soderberg
28 Summers, Elin Hilderbrand
Authentic Alaska: Voices of Its Native Writers 
Speaker for the Dead, Orson Scott Card
Ender's Game, Orson Scott Card
Alexander Hamilton, Ron Chernow
The Magicians, Lev Grossman
The Master of Petersberg, J.M. Coetzee
The Great Alone, Kristin Hannah
The Orphan Master's Son, Adam Johnson
The Underground Railroad, Colson Whitehead
Open Mic Night at Westminster Cemetery, Mary Amato
Tuck Everlasting, Natalie Babbitt
Behold the Dreamers, Imbolo Mbue
The President is Missing, Bill Clinton and James Patterson
Guitar Notes, Mary Amato
Twelve Years a Slave, Solomon Northup
Missoula: Rape and the Justice System in a College Town, Jon Krakauer
Justice Brennan: Liberal Champion, Seth Stern and Stephen Wermiel
Career of Evil, Robert Galbraith
The Fault in Our Stars, John Green
The Silkworm, Robert Galbraith
The Cookoo's Calling, Robert Galbraith
One Day, David Nicholls
Between the World and Me, Ta-Nehisi Coates
Reputations, Juan Gabriel Vásquez
Get Happy, Mary Amato
At Night We Walk in Circles, Daniel Alarcon
And We Are Not Saved: The Elusive Quest for Racial Justice, Derrick Bell
Half of a Yellow Sun, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
The Book of Memory, Petina Gappah
The Other Wes Moore, Wes Moore
Just Mercy, Bryan Stevensn
The Rosie Project, Graeme Simsion
On Beauty, Zadie Smith
10:04, Ben Lerner
Back When We Were Grownups, Anne Tyler
Circumstantial Evidence: Death, Life, and Justice in a Southern Town, Pete Earley
The Goldfinch, Donna Tartt
In Cold Blood, Truman Capote
Lysistrata, Aristophanes
The Lathe of Heaven, Ursula Le Guin
A Visit from the Goon Squad, Jennifer Egan
Limitations, Scott Turow
Defending Jacob, William Landay
One More Thing: Stories and Other Stories, B. J. Novak
Marry Me, Dan Rhodes
The Wandering Beggar, Solomon Simon
Persepolis, Marjane Satrapi
From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler, E.L. Konigsburg
My Beloved World, Sonia Sotomayor
The Challenge: Hamdan v. Rumsfeld and the Fight over Presidential Power, Jonathan Mahler
Case of a Lifetime: A Criminal Defense Lawyer's Story, Abbe Smith
Zeitoun, Dave Eggers
A Spot of Bother, Mark Haddon
Life of Pi, Yann Martel
Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? (And Other Concerns), Mindy Kaling
The Marriage Plot, Jeffrey Eugenides
Angel of Death Row, Andrea Lyon
The Hobbit,  J.R.R. Tolkien
Mark Twain Was Right: The 2001 Cincinnati Riots, Dan P. Moore
Indefensible: One Lawyer's Journey into the Inferno of American Justice, David Feige
Let's Get Free: A Hip-Hop Theory of Justice, Paul Butler
The Trial, Franz Kafka
The Power of One, Bryce Courtenay
Harry Potter 1-7, J.K. Rowling
Freakonomics, Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner
A Civil Action, Jonathan Harr
Unaccustomed Earth, Jhumpa Lahiri
The Girl who Played with Fire, Stieg Larsson
The Nine: Inside the Secret World of the Supreme Court, Jeffrey Toobin
The Old Man and the Sea, Earnest Hemmingway
The Namesake, Jhumpa Lahiri
Solar, Ian McEwan
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, Stieg Larsson
Gods Go Begging, Alfredo Véa
Eating Animals, Jonathan Safron Foer
Waiting, Ha Jin
The Road, Cormac McCarthy
The Criminalization of Mental Illness, Risdon Slate
Teacher Man, Frank McCourt
Lowboy, John Wray
Dead Man Walking: Teaching in a Maximum-Security Prison, W. Reason Campbell
An Unquiet Mind, Kay Redfield Jamison
A Time to Kill, John Grisham
Gideon's Trumpet, Anthony Lewis
A Beautiful Mind, Sylvia Nasar
House of God, Samuel Shem
The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, Junot Díaz
The English Patient, Michael Ondaatje
Gang Leader for a Day, Sudhir Venkatesh
The Soloist, Steve Lopez
The White Tiger, Aravind Adiga
Transmetropolitan, Warren Ellis & Darick Robertson
To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee
Courtroom 302: A Year Behind the Scenes in an American Criminal Courthouse, Steve Bogira
Crazy: A Father's Search Through America's Mental Health Madness, Pete Earley
The Street Lawyer, John Grisham
The Pelican Brief, John Grisham
Bitter Fruit, Achmat Dangor
My Traitor's Heart, Rian Malan
Things Fall Apart, Chinua Achebe
The Shadow of the Sun, Ryszard Kapuscinski
Cry, the Beloved Country, Alan Paton
Long Walk to Freedom, Nelson Mandela
Black Girl/White Girl, Joyce Carol Oates
Waiting for the Barbarians, J.M. Coetzee
A Thousand Splendid Suns, Khaled Hosseini
Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close, Jonathan Safran Foer
Naked, David Sedaris
My Detachment, Tracy Kidder
Dreams from My Father, Barack Obama
The Gangster We Are All Waiting For, lê thi diem thúy
When We Were Orphans, Kazuo Ishiguro
In Dubious Battle, John Steinbeck
You Shall Know Our Velocity!, Dave Eggers
A Lesson Before Dying, Ernest Gaines
The Bottom Billion: Why the Poorest Countries are Failing, Paul Collier
Saturday, Ian McEwan
Amsterdam, Ian McEwan
Love in the Time of Cholera, Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Cathedral, Raymond Carver
A Fine Balance, Rohinton Mistry
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, Mark Haddon
Newjack: Guarding Sing Sing, Ted Conover
Disgrace, J.M. Coetzee
The Risk Pool, Richard Russo
Pathologies of Power, Paul Farmer
One World: The Ethics of Globalization, Peter Singer
Mountains Beyond Mountains, Tracy Kidder
Elizabeth Costello, J.M. Coetzee
The World According to Garp, John Irving
A Man Without a Country, Kurt Vonnegut
The Bell Jar, Sylvia Plath
The Plague, Albert Camus
Anthem, Ayn Rand
My Brother, Jamaica Kincaid
The Fire Next Time, James Baldwin
A Separate Peace, John Knowles
The Reader, Bernard Schink
Good Benito, Alan Lightman

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