The Al Qaeda are mosquitoes. The idea is not to mutate them into some other more palatable species. The idea is not to reform them. They are a few thousand in number. Isolate them. Penetrate their organizations. Use human intel. Engage in surgical military operations as necessary. Decapitate, isolate their leaderships wherever possible. Strengthen homeland security. Take precautions. Think a few steps ahead. Fight smart and hard, not blunt. Fight lean and mean, not loud and scattered.
But the best way to get rid of mosquitoes is to drain the swamp. The Bush gameplan has been to add floodwaters to the swamp and then indiscriminately shower the area with DDT, and keep doing both again and again. Insanity is doing the same thing again and again and expecting a different result. The DDT has claimed lives of plants that are above water, and many species in the water that we should not want to get rid of. And the mosquitoes keep multiplying, because they have more water to play with now, and they mutate, DDT stays the same.
But the Bush propaganda machine will tell you if you are anti-DDT, you must be pro-mosquito.
If Bush will have his way, America will have spent a trillion dollars in Iraq, and the fight will still not have concluded.
The Obama gameplan is to suggest there is no military solution in Iraq. The primary challenge is political. The solution is political. Iraq is a case study of how not to spread democracy in a country that is not democratic. For one, it is too costly.
The prescription is Nepal's April Revolution. That is the prescription for Burma, for Zimbabwe. The people are sufficient unto themselves. They can rise up, they will rise up. They will come in unceasing waves. But organizational work has to be done. Political parties have to form a coalition. There has to be leadership. There has to be a gameplan. The diaspora has to get organized. The international community has to take an active, informed interest.
In Iraq's case, you slowly withdraw troops, on a definite timetable, and you fill up the resultant military space with Iraqi military and all round political grunt work. All the factions in Iraq are going to have to learn to do business with each other the democratic way. Hold dialogue, cut deals, move the ball.
But the swamp does not begin and end in Iraq. There has to be a mass movement for democracy in every single Arab country. Such can be engineered. Such can be timetabled almost. It is not like calling a muse. It is like doing homework. If we do it right, autocracies in the Arab world can start falling one after the other like in Eastern Europe in the late 1980s.
Regime after regime in the Arab countries are offensive. In a democracy you know who to blame. You voted for someone, and if they don't deliver, you vote them out. But in dictatorships like the Arab countries are, the easy slogan becomes Death To America. The distant Satan is the source of all your ills.
Bush's way of spreading democracy has been racist, quite frankly. It has been about disrespecting the Arab masses. That is not how you want to present democracy.
Democracy has to be a grassroots rallying cry. And that can be fuelled, the process can be expedited with external help.
In The News
Analysis: Rove Under Scrutiny Again Washington Post Nepal govt postpones Constituent Assembly polls Hindu Rudy Giuliani rivals Mitt Romney in Cash for 2008 Presidential Race Point-Spreads.com Laden's CD with Invitation to Terrorism Appears in Bihar Patna Daily asks the Muslims to join the 'freedom fighters' in Kashmir to wage war against India .... The police are analyzing the content of the CD with the help of language experts in the hope of getting identifying Al Qaeda operatives in Bihar .... The CDs containing Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden's speeches urging Muslims to join the 'Jehad' (holy war) have surfaced in the rural pockets of Patna and adjoining Bhojpur districts in Bihar. India demands new IMF quota formula Earthtimes.org a new 'simple and transparent' International Monetary Fund (IMF) quota formula ... if GDP is computed entirely on the purchasing power parity (PPP) basis ..... 'No halfway house of blending GDP at market exchange rates with GDP on PPP would meet these twin objectives,' said Rakesh Mohan, deputy governor of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), representing Bangladesh, Bhutan, India and Sri Lanka. ..... The continued expansion in world GDP in 2006, with growth crossing the 5 percent mark, points to the emergence of a new phase - one that is more diversified with most regions posting higher growth than in the previous year ..... the new robust phase is driven by emerging market economies with China and India continuing to contribute substantially to the global growth momentum.' ..... The increasing integration of China and India into the global production stream has significantly altered the efficiency of the global production process ..... risks emanating from the behaviour of oil prices, adverse developments in the US housing market, persistence of global imbalances, large leveraged positions in financial markets and possible emergence of inflationary pressures. ...... policy makers should be ready to respond to emerging challenges promptly and effectively Obama Compares Rappers to Imus ABC News Obama Returns Lobbyists’ Donations New York Times The Clinton question: electability Concord Monitor CBS Poll: Giuliani, Clinton Pad Leads CBS News Giuliani's lead over McCain is now 23 points, 52 percent to 29 percent ..... Giuliani comes in at 47 percent, followed by McCain at 25 percent and Romney at 10 percent. ..... — multiple marriages (Giuliani has been married three times) and age (McCain is 70) — ..... GOP primary voters are most likely to think Giuliani will be the party's eventual nominee. ...... Democratic primary voters continue to favor Clinton and expect her to be the party's nominee. ...... Clinton leads Obama by 15 points and former North Carolina Sen. John Edwards by 18. Last month, Clinton's lead over Obama was 8 points. ..... Opinions about Obama have become slightly less positive among Democratic voters in recent weeks. ..... a majority believe the political stalemate between the White House and Congress over a war funding bill is having a negative impact on the morale of U.S. troops in Iraq. .... Americans overall continue to believe that the war is going badly, that the troop increase is not helping and that the prospects for success in Iraq are dim. ..... A record number cite the war as the country's most important problem. 'Patna should be within 5 hrs reach from rest of bihar' Business Standard We are spending Rs 150 crore on roads just in Patna ...... Our next priority for the capital is flyovers all over the city. ..... road building is going on all over Bihar. We aim to spend Rs 3,000 crore on building roads. This does not include the Prime Minister’s Gram Sadak Yojana. .... your colleague at the Centre, Rural Development Minister Raghuvansh Prasad Singh says he keeps giving you money for the National Rural Employment Guarantee Programme (NREGP) that Bihar is unable to spend .....defining minimum wages: we have revised it from Rs 67 earlier to Rs 77 now ..... We need land for roads, flyovers, bridges… So we have started a land bank: land over which there is no dispute. ...... Power plants take time to build. .... the national average per capita consumption of power is 600 units. Bihar consumes 74 units per capita. ...... The main thing is the visible, demonstrable punishment for corruption through fast track courts. Bihar criminal justice on a fast track Hindustan Times India tests nuclear capable missile ABC Online India is just doing what great powers doHamilton Spectator Russian police swoop on protest, arrest Kasparov New Straits Times Suicide bombs hit US center in Morocco Houston Chronicle China To Launch New Crackdown On Net Porn All Headline News The banker, his lover and her pay rise of $80000 Sydney Morning Herald startling pay rises given by the development lender to his Libyan-born girlfriend, Shaha Riza ...... a day after Mr Wolfowitz was booed in a meeting with World Bank staff who were demanding his resignation, US President George Bush stood firm behind an old colleague who was one of the architects of the war in Iraq. ....... on Mr Wolfowitz's personal direction, Ms Riza was given pay rises that took her annual package to nearly $US200,000 ($241,706) when she was reassigned from the World Bank's Middle East press office to the US State Department ...... This was a rise from $US132,660 and was tax-free because of her status as a diplomat. ...... an August 2005 memorandum in which Mr Wolfowitz ordered the bank's human resources division to award Ms Riza a series of extraordinary promotions and pay increases. Paulson seeks 'even keel' in trade relations with China Channel News Asia China to go on buying spree in US citiesFinancial Times Google's Biggest Acquisition: DoubleClick, for $3.1 Billion Playfuls.com a whopping $3.1 billion in cash ...... a provider of digital marketing technology and services ...... the display ad company ...... Acquisition-happy Google, which expects the purchase to close this year, had a stunning $11.2 billion in cash at the end of 2006. DoubleClick has also recently introduced a Nasdaq-like exchange for online ads ...... make Internet advertising better - less intrusive, more effective, and more useful. Together with DoubleClick, Google will make the Internet more efficient for end users, advertisers, and publishers ....... "This was a hotly contested asset," said analyst Jordan Rohan, to Bloomberg. "Clearly Google was willing to pay what it took to keep this away from Microsoft." ..... Headquartered in New York, and with 17 offices and development hubs and 15 data centers worldwide, the company employs more than 1200 people and delivers billions of digital communications every day. ... DoubleClick, which was founded in 1996, provides display ads on Web sites like MySpace, The Wall Street Journal and America Online as well as software to help those sites maximize ad revenue. Google out of the traps in pay service race ic Newcastle.co.uk Google's dominance of the search market has led it to revenues of US$7.1bn in 2006 - not to mention the evolution of its name into a synonym for internet searches. Google Earth edges into global politics Ithaca Journal Darfur Crisis Comes To Google EarthInformationWeek Museum, Google Zoom In on DarfurWashington Post Elie Wiesel conceived of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, he envisioned a "living memorial" that would not only chronicle the crimes of the past but also take on issues of contemporary genocide ........ "A memorial unresponsive to the future would violate the memory of the past" ....... the genocide unfolding in the Darfur region of western Sudan, where government-backed militias and nomadic tribesmen have burned huts and villages to drive sedentary farmers from their homes. ....... accompanying video footage, photographs and eyewitness testimony explain what happened in each case. ...... women accompanying attacking tribesmen while singing songs and lashing out with racist slurs. "The blood of the Blacks runs like water, we take their goods and we chase them from our area and our cattle will be on our land," he quoted the women as telling some of the farmers under attack. ........ the credibility gap that Holocaust survivors once faced: how to provide concrete evidence that the most unspeakable atrocities are actually occurring. ........ the story of Jan Karski, a young Pole who came to America in 1943 and attempted to describe to a skeptical Justice Felix Frankfurter, himself a Jew, what he had seen in the Warsaw ghetto and a Nazi death camp. ........ After asking technical questions, pacing back and forth and then quietly sitting down, the judge told the Pole, "I am unable to believe you." ........ a viewership of 200 million and growing ...... "No one can any longer say they don't know. This tool will bring a spotlight to a very dark corner of the earth, a torch that will indirectly help protect the victims," said John Prendergast, a senior adviser to the International Crisis Group. "It is David versus Goliath, and Google Earth just gave David a stone for his slingshot." Sprint plans WiMax network The Grand Rapids Press Some low-income households could pay $9.95 a month. .....The city hopes the service will be available this year, making it one of the first cities in the nation with WiMax service. ....... there's a reason fast-food restaurants often are built across the street from each other ...... Technology to put a WiMax receiver into a card that could be used with laptops still is being developed. ....... Sprint earlier announced it would introduce its WiMax service in Chicago and the Baltimore/Washington, D.C. area by the end of this year. ..... the network would spread to other cities, from Boston to Grand Rapids to Seattle. Taking wireless to the WiMaxChicago Tribune Chicago soon will become one of the first cities in the country to have access to the next generation of computer communication, in which people will keep connected to the Internet wherever they go. ....... envelop the region in a digital signal as powerful as the broadband service ...... a $3 billion national bet by Sprint ...... will provide competition to Internet connections offered by Comcast Corp. and AT&T Inc. ...... a mobile Internet will spawn totally different services, such as cheap radio tags for airport luggage that would assure an end to lost bags. Or billboards that change their messages to appeal to the age and gender of people walking by them. ....... "Low-cost chips and pervasive wireless will change everything" ........ Chicago, Washington and Baltimore, are the first cities to get Sprint's new high-speed wireless service, which will spread to other cities next year. Sprint said it will take three years to build the new network. By the end of 2008, Sprint hopes to have coverage available to 100 million Americans. Sprint has enlisted help from Motorola, Intel Corp., Nokia Corp., Samsung and other equipment vendors to create a wireless network that is open to innovation, much like today's wired Internet........... Nearly all new laptop computers come equipped with Wi-Fi chips at no extra charge. Intel and other chipmakers intend to do the same for WiMax, making it inexpensive and widespread. ...... Sprint's commitment to build the nation's first commercial WiMax network has really focused industry efforts to get WiMax products to market ..... They've talked about $40 to $50 a month ..... It will be about three times faster than so-called 3G data services available from cell phone carriers. ..... The goal of Motorola and other vendors, said Mitoraj, is "to make WiMax so inexpensive that it's a no-brainer for devicemakers to put the chipset into their products." ...... the really interesting devices equipped to use WiMax probably won't be available until 2009 .... about 200,000 cards enabling laptop computers to use WiMax may be shipped this year. ...... Sprint is leading the way in WiMax, he said, because it has a supply of radio spectrum sitting idle. ...... Sprint's decision has caused a buzz across the industry. Amitabh Bachchan pleads for privacy Apun Ka Choice“My son’s wedding is a very private solemn and precious moment for me and my family. Surely, we’re entitled to our privacy if and when we need it.” ..... none of the Khans have been invited and the reason cited by the Bachchans is the illness of Bachchan's mother Teji Bachchan. The Bachchans don’t wish to have a grand wedding out of respect to Teji Bachchan. .... rumours that Salim Khan who has written several successful scripts for Bachchan during his career earlier was invited, but Salim Khan too claims that this is untrue. ....... Salman too has not been invited obviously due to his past friction with Ash. ...... lovebirds Ash and Abhishek seem to be spending quality time together in London and are enjoying every bit of their rare time together. ...... The only ones who have so far received an invitation are Karan Johar , Sanjay Dutt , Ajay Devgan and Kajol and Sunil Shetty . Team accepts Imus's apology Boston Globe a national debate on race, gender, and power spurred by derogatory comments by radio host Don Imus ...... we are in the process of forgiving ...... "We still find his statements to be unacceptable, and this is an experience that we will never forget" ....... The team met with Imus for three hours on Thursday night at the governor's mansion in Princeton, shortly after Imus was fired from his radio show by CBS. ..... emotions ran high, with tears on both sides ...... Imus did not shed any, but his wife, Deirdre, did, according to the person at the meeting, and she hugged each of the players individually. ...... the team voted on whether or not to accept Imus's apology. ...... a culture that "has produced language that has denigrated women." ....... CBS fired him from the radio show that he has hosted for nearly 30 years. ....... was once named one of the 25 Most Influential People in America by Time magazine. ...... Governor Jon S. Corzine was critically injured in a car crash while heading to the governor's mansion in Princeton for the Thursday meeting. ...... comments Imus made April 4 when he called the Rutgers players -- eight of whom are black -- "nappy-headed hos." Study says CO2 emissions in US rose 18% during1990-2004 period Earthtimes.org G-7 Predicts Strong Global EconomyABC News Lilly again the Hub of US soccer team Boston Herald Rumor: Dell to Buy Palm, Enter Smartphone Market Mobile Magazine moving away from standalone PDAs and into smartphones that combine the functionality of a personal organizer with the calling features of a cell phone. ..... Before Dell can finish the deal, they'll have to fend off other potential buyers. Earlier this month, there was a rumor floating around that Nokia was interested in buying Palm too. Dell dumps handheld businessIT Week Dell appears to have quietly ended its presence in the Pocket PC market with the removal of its Axim x51 handheld from the company’s web site. .... the decline of the unconnected handheld market as customers switch to either smartphones or PDAs with cellular connections. ..... while the Dell handheld range could have incorporated cellular technology into existing handsets this would demand a fundamental shift in the company’s business model. Gene Variant Linked to Obesity, Diabetes Forbes Common gene causes obesity, says studyFinancial Times Human Bone Marrow Used to Create Early Stage Sperm Cells Forbes For the first time, scientists have used human bone marrow to create early stage sperm cells Women to self-createDaily Telegraph Command sent to wrong computer address led to loss of Mars probeLos Angeles Times Apple's Leopard delay may signal deeper problemsSan Jose Mercury News Apple's ambition may be starting to get ahead of the company's ability to achieve it. ...... The problem Apple is running into is that it's a relatively small company compared to tech giants such as Hewlett-Packard or IBM ...... Apple had about 18,000 full-time employees, compared to 156,000 for H-P ...... Apple is "broadening their product offering, and they have only so many engineering resources to go around." ...... the company is favoring an unproven product that will compete in a very challenging industry ....... they'll have to be more careful with spreading themselves too thin ....... Leopard, which promises a number of new features, including a new backup program called Time Machine and advanced 3-D animation features. ....... a reality check for investors and analysts who have been expecting big things from Apple. ...... many have been salivating at the thought that the iPhone or Apple TV may become as big a hit as the company's iPods. ....... the company has updated its iPod lineup regularly, adding new models and completely revamping older ones. Imus' Wife Hosts The Show For A Day KUTV Author Kurt Vonnegut Jr. DiesVoice of America 'So It Goes': Looking Back At Kurt Vonnegut's Big-Screen Impact MTV.com Astronaut will run in marathon from spaceCentral Maine Morning Sentinel the U.S. Navy commander will run the equivalent distance on a treadmill -- 210 miles above Earth, and tethered to her track by bungee cords so she doesn't float away. ...... "Boston Marathon in Iraq" ...... She is pioneering a new frontier in running and in sports with her run, which will truly be out of this world ....... three months with little gravity takes a toll on a human, and NASA requires all members of a station crew to exercise on the treadmill, a stationary bike and a resistance machine to maintain bone density and muscle mass ....... A "vibration isolation system" built by a NASA engineer will keep her from shaking the entire space station as she runs, but the machinery puts a strain on the runner's hips and shoulders. She also has to be ready to abort her mission. Movie Review: Perfect Stranger Seattle Post Intelligencer It's a shame when such good actors come together and make such an absolutely horrible and pointless movie. .... the cyber sex chats weren't necessary for the story and took up a lot of screen time Stern sues Anna Nicole Smith's mother's lawyerCNN
And Spitzer will be ready to be president. I think he is going to be a terrific president. He is going to add an additional d to democracy. He is going to give democracy backbone. He is going to prove at the national level that people actually matter to the political process, big time. Spitzer's commitment to the ordinary people is amazing, it is sophisticated, it is pragmatic, it is in your face.
Obama might, will bring in universal health care, but Spitzer will bring what not even Obama could, namely publicly financed campaigns nationwide. His strong suit is democracy itself. When Howard Dean says people power, his is a rally cry, and that has been sorely lacking, and has been much needed. But when Spitzer says people power, it is people power 2.o, it is much more concrete.
Imagine statehood for DC. Spitzer has the backbone to be able to deliver something like that. Imagine all of the US is considered one territory, and constituencies to the House and the Senate are divided based on equal population. Imgine that. I think Spitzer could make possible such a thing.
The states already have their legislatures. The federal folks should be thinking national. Federal constituencies need not respect state boundaries.
Direct elections for president.
Spitzer's rectification of the Wall Street has been very pro-market. His acts have been to weed out corruption and inefficiency so as to help the market better serve people.
Universal health care is pro-market. I can't imagine a full blown information age without it.
Similarly democracy has to be taken to the ideal of one person, one vote. The suggestion is mathematical. Of all politicians in America, Spitzer has the backbone to deliver Democracy 2.0. I can't think of anyone else even remotely close.
FDR was also New York Governor. He also had a majority in the state Senate like Spitzer is about to get, something that has not happened after FDR.
The word that most comes to my mind when I think of Spitzer is the word substance. The guy is sheer substance. Sheer substance. Sheer guts. And for all that you would think he can't ever break into a smile. The truth is he can be out and out hilarious. First time I got to see him in person, he brought the house down repeatedly cracking up about his wild acts on - upon - Wall Street.
And for someone who was in his early 20s when he came to the US, the symbolism of a Spitzer in the White House does not escape me at all. Hopefully the Middle East will have seen a final map and a total spread of democracy before that, but if not, I mean. Who gives a f____ what happened 2,000 years ago. Or 200 years ago. Or even 50 years ago. Think today, think the future, and make peace. Give Jerusalem to me. I will be the monkey to the two cats fighting over a piece of bread. And give the refugees to America. Put up tents in Arizona.
One little tidbit. I was inspired to write this blog entry after listening to the Madonna clip on my MySpace page again and again for hours, literally. Erotica. Madonna is a major statement. I consider her a political inspiration.
I have avoided having to take membership of organizations in Manhattan. Heck, I managed that even when I was in the thick of the democracy movement in Nepal and I was getting invitations left and right from top notch Nepali organizations. Why would I join when I can simply penetrate each of them with my mailing list, now close to 8,000 strong? When Bill Clinton was Governor in Arkansas, it was said if you knew 1500 people in Little Rock, you pretty much knew everyone that mattered. I was telling Ian Martin - the UN Secretary General's point person for Nepal - recently, "you and I are part of that 1500" for Nepal.
Rupert Murdoch: "You don't join clubs. You stay an outsider. Politeness makes you numb." Words come later, often out of other people's mouths. Like my first good friend at college, Beth, asked me, if you speak so many languages, what language do you actually think in? The question shocked me. I don't think in language. Words are too slow. You think, and then, if necessary, if absolutely necessary, when you h-a-v-e to communicate, you then translate the thought into some language. My thought processes are like Picasso paintings, visual, abstract. Mathematical, geometric. Pure thought is delight. That is why I like children so much. In my past life I was an elementary school teacher. At malls sometimes I have made parents uncomfy by this instant connect I manage with little kids. A gentle wave, a simple smile. It is like they show in some movies, extraterrestrials posing as humans on earth can recognize each other.
On the seashore of endless worlds children meet. The infinite sky is motionless overhead and the restless water is boisterous. On the seashore of endless worlds the children meet with shouts and dances.
They build their houses with sand and they play with empty shells. With withered leaves they weave their boats and smilingly float them on the vast deep. Children have their play on the seashore of worlds.
They know not how to swim, they know not how to cast nets. Pearl fishers dive for pearls, merchants sail in their ships, while children gather pebbles and scatter them again. they seek not for hidden treasures, they know not how to cast nets.
The sea surges up with laughter and pale gleams the smile of the sea beach. Death-dealing waves sing meaningless ballads to the children, even like a mother while rocking her baby's cradle. The sea plays with children, and pale gleams the smile of the sea beach.
On the seashore of endless worlds children meet. Tempest roams in the pathless sky, ships get wrecked in the trackless water, death is abroad and children play. On the seashore of endless worlds is the great meeting of children.
61
The sleep that flits on baby's eyes -- does anybody know from where it comes? Yes, there is a rumour that it has its dwelling where, in the fairy village among shadows of the forest dimly lit with glow-worms, there hang two timid buds of enchantment. From there it comes to kiss baby's eyes.
The smile that flickers on baby's lips when he sleeps -- does anybody know where it was born? Yes, there is a rumour that a young pale beam of a crescent moon touched the edge of a vanishing autumn cloud, and there the smile was first born in the dream of a dew-washed morning -- the smile that flickers on baby's lips when he sleeps.
The sweet, soft freshness that blooms on baby's limbs -- does anybody know where it was hidden so long? Yes, when the mother was a young girl it lay pervading her heart in tender and silent mystery of love -- the sweet, soft freshness that has bloomed on baby's limbs.
62
When I bring to you coloured toys, my child, I understand why there is such a play of colours on clouds, on water, and why flowers are painted in tints -- when I give coloured toys to you, my child.
When I sing to make you dance I truly know why there is music in leaves, and why waves send their chorus of voices to the heart of the listening earth -- when I sing to make you dance.
When I bring sweet things to your greedy hands I know why there is honey in the cup of the flowers and why fruits are secretly filled with sweet juice -- when I bring sweet things to your greedy hands.
When I kiss your face to make you smile, my darling, I surely understand what pleasure streams from the sky in morning light, and what delight that is that is which the summer breeze brings to my body -- when I kiss you to make you smile.
This city would have you believe the night sky does not hold stars or the moon, but it is curiously susceptible to the onset of summer, like I felt at the DL21C event last night where Charlie Rangel showed: "I refused to run for Congress when George Washington asked me to."
Summer is in the air.
I remember thinking, if DL21C were to host an event like this one every week, or every two weeks, I just might join this organization. You also save money. It is $50 for annual membership. Or you pay $5, or $7 or $10 for an event. It adds up. But so far my reluctance for membership has taken the better of me than my instict to keep the costs down: they have plastic chairs at the Wal-Mart headquarters in Arkansas. Sam Walton is bigger than Bill Gates, measured in absolute dollar terms.
So this guy Walton decides he is plenty in debt, and there is an urgent need to expand, and so might as well take the company public. So he shows up on Wall Street, just like that. The receptionist finds out he is from Arkansas. So she takes him to see this lone soul at that bank who is also from Arkansas.
Sam Walton was 42 when he launched Wal-Mart.
Come to think of it, I might have forgotten to pay yesterday. I spotted the celebrity Pakistani family - first time I met them was the second time I met Delilah (Eliot Spitzer, Aliza Fatima) - from the door and headed straight for them. Spitzer is on record he is going to show for the youngest daughter's graduation. I have been to the family's home in Queens, once. The father is pro-Musharraf, I am anti-Musharraf. I kind of like Benazir Bhutto.
Next I spotted this guy who I first talked to at a McCauskill event. "Here, I just touched a Senator." It worked. Magic touch. The guy has met Bobby Kennedy in person. He now works at the same company as Dave Pollak.
And there was this Ethiopian group. My Ethiopian friends at college used to say, "We are not African, we are Ethiopian, we are more beautiful." Ethiopia does not have democracy, neither does Zimbabwe. I was waxing eloquent about what we did in Nepal, and "you can do it too." It worked great on the first person, we exchanged contact info. It worked great on the second person. The third person had just about had it.
"You got rid of your king?"
"Yes."
"We did that when we were students."
My Obama inspired haircut makes me look young, I guess.
I am no longer obsessed about Nepal, and Obama is on autopilot. Allows me to focus on my tech startup like a laser beam. I was not meant to be a politician. I find corporate efficiency way more fascinating than legislative lethargy. Politics has been a deviation for being a Madhesi in Nepal and nonwhite in America. Politics is my sport. I don't follow baseball or basketball, I follow politics and World Cup Soccer. It also keeps me sharp with group dynamics, which I need for my tech and biz work.
Somebody approached the richest Nepali on earth - the guy is in his early 40s, I know him, I took him around town in my cheapo car that died a few months earlier, he lives in the former Soviet bloc, my car got rearended and we were in the Bronx and the police took 45 minutes to get there since it was the July 4 weekend, Fernando Ferrer country, good thing it was an entry ramp to an expressway, otherwise he is used to moving around in caravans of cars, bodyguards and all - saying, "I hear you are rich."
"I am not rich. I am very rich," he said.
Of all the famous people I know, I most admire the personal life of Amitabh Bachchan. You might say Amitabh who? He just so happens to be the most recognized face on the planet. He has this amazing amazing marriage. It is like Al Pacino and Meryl Streep hooked up. One blight is Jaya gave up her acting career upon marriage.
First time I met Delilah was at the Bush State Of The Union Watch Party 2006. Everybody was facing the TV, but someone magazine cover beautiful was walking towards me, someone who had the confidence of someone who is smart, and is ambitious, the confidence of someone who has known a lot of love growing up. She took a right and walked by. She was holding her own with some major league politician, much older, I joined into the Africa Fund conversation after the speech was over: I was so into the speech, one woman sitting at the other end of the bench stood up and my butt lifted the bench, and she had a kick out of breaking my trance: you are not supposed to like Bush speeches in this town.
She was holding her own with Spitzer the second time I saw her. Look straight into the eye, and say it. Sheer confidence confronting a Governor who is sheer substance.
As the Bush speech party winded down, by the time the event was over, she had given her boyfriend a big hug. It was a breakup that was not even discussed. I have video memory of it, like of all snippets. I have a lag time that Kentucky and Indiana gave to me, a defense mechanism I am working to get rid of. Screw Kentucky.
Since there has been this face time, screen time tag. And the onset of winter. If you don't write back, maybe you are not into me. So I don't approach in person. But then there is that look in person, the creative tension. And also you ask, am I being improper? Am I just seeing things? You care enough to not want to intrude into personal space if it be unwelcome.
I spotted Delilah yesterday. I am here in life: IC| Autobiography. I am so glad to have written the autobiography. To say, this is who I am, this is where I am coming from, this is where I am trying to go. Business cards don't work for me. Two minute intros don't work either.
Just when things are looking like they might take off, finally I might have found an institution I like, since I am going to create it, I have had fears in terms of personal life. At one end is the workaholic, at another a string of failed relationships like that of, say, Larry Ellison. Both are unhappy extremes.
They say, to be happy in life you need two things: love and work. Work I have found. Love comes in the form of one person.
At the November 6 Victory Party, she was there with her father, I think. She has made me feel like noone else has since I moved to the city. But when I am in her presence, I end up wanting to talk about 5,000 different things - painful past experiences, lofty dreams for the future, the sheer excitement of just being in the city, the insecurities: Third World guy, near broke, living in Brooklyn, wild career path likely to get wilder, will be dizzying also with success, older - and so I get jammed, I end up saying nothing. I just look, stare, look away. And the caution borne out of some bad experiences in America's "heartland." Is this a no no? Out of bounds? That last is the weirdest, and so I have minced no words in my autobiography. That cloud will have to go away from the mind.
Emails go into ether. Face time gets stuck. Am I just seeing things? It is a chicken egg situation, this face time screen time thing. I feel confused, and alive, and wanting to show up for the next DL21C event.
How does this work?
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Where dost thou stand behind them all, my lover, hiding thyself in the shadows? They push thee and pass thee by on the dusty road, taking thee for naught. I wait here weary hours spreading my offerings for thee, while passers-by come and take my flowers, one by one, and my basket is nearly empty.
The morning time is past, and the noon. In the shade of evening my eyes are drowsy with sleep. Men going home glance at me and smile and fill me with shame. I sit like a beggar maid, drawing my skirt over my face, and when they ask me, what it is I want, I drop my eyes and answer them not.
I am not a politician, I am an entrepreneur. The most misunderstood thing about me is that I am a politician. Not.
My freshman year at college, I was Mr. Instant Connect. I could just look at you, and I would have something very specific to say. I did not have to have met you before. Then I was pushed online. My social muscles atrophied. I am trying to get them back even as I work to invent my virtual corporation. A balance has to be struck.
My overriding dream has been a total spread of democracy. But the idea of an Africa Fund to invest in African companies feels like Me 2.0. That is what you have to get into after democracy. The wealth and jobs have to be created.
The movers and shakers of DL21C have something pretty solid going. You meet the celebs at their events. Pollak has easy ways of working the crowd, kind of like Denton.
I wrote to DL21C mover shaker Elizabeth Caputo, Indiana - there is a Jennifer Caputo, Chicago, at MYD - (Indiana and Harvard - that is a cocktail) congratulating for a "good event" weeks back. She wrote back.
"We are all your fans."
"You've got to be kidding me. I don't h-a-v-e fans. I am a nobody."
"We all read your blog."
So I gave her the McCauskill story. I do have a magic touch, don't I?
Bill Clinton has been busy. You really have to watch that guy, because he thinks he is the Isaac Newton of politics, and he suggests as much in his autobiography. There is this reference to the Clinton's Laws Of Politics. One of them is, elections are always about the future. And that particular law works in Obama's favor. It does not matter that Bill Clinton was an amazing president, that is in the past. 2008 is not going to be about how fabulous a president Bill Clinton was.
How does Bill Clinton get busy? The guy will plain pick up the phone, likely late at night.And he will call up some obscure reporter at some major media outlet, someone he has not talked in a long time. Hey, how you doing? Just thinking about you. How is your wife? How are your children? And so you know this is off the record. This is informal. And then he will dig in. You know, I don't understand why you media guys are not seeing this. Barack Obama and my wife have the exact same voting record on Iraq ever since Obama came over to the Senate. This is so unfair that you guys pillory my wife over Iraq. And then he will move on to talk about golf. The work is done. When that reporter next writes up his piece, what is on his mind has been put on his mind by none other than the magic boy from Arkansas, the one and only Bill Clinton. And there is not a trace of him doing it anywhere.
Bill Clinton has been very busy. Iraq is the biggest weapon Obama has on Hillary, and Bill Clinton is out to erase that. He wants to make Iraq null and void. Some time late last year, some hapless voter in Texas asked Billie Clinton about his wife's vote on the Iraq war. And Bill Clinton just glowered at him for a few seconds before he said with some emotion that he thought it was time to stop looking at the past and start looking at the future.
And the future looks identical. Obama wants to end the war, so does Hillary. Obama is promising universal health care, so is Hillary. And those are the two big ones.
How you run your campaign counts. Who raises more money matters. Who has a larger, more robut organization? Who has the larger brain trust? Who has the most endorsements?
Bill Clinton works like a demon, he always has. He works like a demon, and he makes it look all so easy and casual. And that is actually a double whammy, more effective than if it showed that he was sweating.
If Hillary is going to be the nominee, she is going to be president. It will be this or that Democrat in 2008. That much is a foregone conclusion. McCain and Rudy will tear each other apart, and we will have the last man standing for breakfast. And that makes me wonder if we should not treat Fox News as our real opponent for 2008. As in, let new media beat Fox.
If Hillary ends up president, I am not going to beat my chest. I think the world of her. I was as behind her before Obama showed up as I am behind Obama. My favorite story about Hillary is this. She shows up in some small Indian village as First Lady. And the local women surround her to tell her she has no idea what it means to them that she is there. Those women are right. Hillary has no idea.
I have met her a few times in person.
But I have thrown my weight behind Obama. It is exciting to play shadow boxing with the man himself, the one and only Bill Clinton.
It is perfectly legitimate for Hillary to have Bill Clinton for husband. It is fair game. And of course the guy will turn heaven and earth for his wife. That is fair enough. It is absolutely fair that Hillary will raise a lot of money. It is absolutely fair that Hillary has much establishment support.
I guess there are no short cuts.
Obama will have to get in and work hard. He is going to have to go head to head with Hillary on money, message and organization.
He has to jump into the fray. The Hillary camp has already found and targeted Obama's Iraq. Where is Obama's counterpunch? What would be Obama's counterpunch?
Obama's Iraq is that he is not a woman. If he is elected president, he is not going to be the first woman president. That is his weak point.
How do you counter that? You outwoman Hillary. You suggest having a woman for running mate would be great at this point in history. You suggest about half your cabinet will be female. You suggest Hillary has been mostly symbolic, she has not really done much for women as a leader with much power. You expand the policy debates on gender beyond the prochoice position to also talk about workplace issues like equal pay, and sexual harassment, and relationship issues like domestic violence and better policing on the same. It might be time to declare War On Domestic Violence. Talk of recruiting more women into the police force so as to better tackle domestic violence. That is how you outwoman Hillary. Tell the voters she has been meek on gender issues. She has not really stood up for women, has she? I mean she has, but she has been so miserly about it.
Obama has got to get on the offensive. He got hit on Iraq by none other than Bill Clinton himself very recently, and he did not even notice. It is like John Kerry's boat veterans' attacks. The attacks were false, but they worked because Kerry did not hit back.
You got to hit back. That is one of the basic laws of politics. You don't have to get down and dirty. Staying clean and hitting back are not mutually exclusive.
Those who stay above the fray lose. Politics is a contact sport. Who said that? Bill Clinton.
In The News
Blair fury as hostage letter seeks withdrawal from Iraq The Australian Defying Bush, Senate Passes Iraq Spending Measure New York Times Jesse Jackson Endorses Barack Obama CBS News Senator Clinton Picks Up NOW Endorsement All Headline News Spanish edition of Obama's 'Audacity of Hope' to come out in June WQAD Clinton aids Vilsack with campaign debt Herald News Daily Interim Govt Likely To Be Formed On Friday In Nepal All Headline News Protests by ethnic Madhesi in southern Nepal turned violent (Reuters) Swissinfo Bihar villager endures 27 years bonded labour for 40 kg riceReuters India Bush Loyalist Rose Quickly Washington Post Arab leaders urge Israel to take peace offer Reuters Israel rejects Arab peace planAljazeera.net Castro signals resumption of public role Houston Chronicle Battles rage as troops try to restore order in Mogadishu Independent NextWave Raises $355 Million To Fund Drive Into WiMax And Wi-Fi InformationWeek VTR Selects Motorola to Deploy 802.16e WiMAX Network WiMax.com Millions are caught in great credit card heist Times Online 'Evidence of misconduct' at Dell MSN Money Circumcision is backed for Africa Boston Globe WHO hails circumcision as vital in HIV fightNew Scientist (subscription) Dell Gives In to Linux Lovers TechNewsWorld Microsoft launches Deepfish, new Web browser for smart phonesSeattle Post Intelligencer U2's Bono awarded British knighthood Actress Archives The not-so-simple story of Barack Obama's youthChicago Tribune his mother, Ann, a brilliant but impulsive woman; his grandmother Madelyn, a deeply private and stoically pragmatic Midwesterner; his grandfather Stanley, a loving soul inclined toward tall tales and unrealistic dreams. .... Stanley Ann Dunham ..... Known as Ann throughout her adult life, she kept to herself. ..... He describes making friends easily, becoming fluent in Indonesian in just six months and melding quite easily into the very foreign fabric of Jakarta. ..... Obama and his mother joined her new husband, a kind man who later would become a detached heavy drinker and womanizer ...... "Barry," a chubby little boy very different from the gangly Obama people know today ...... All say he was teased more than any other kid in the neighborhood .... Teachers, former playmates and friends recall a boy who never fully grasped their language and who was very quiet as a result. ...... young Obama, a hopelessly upbeat boy who seemed oblivious to the fact that the older kids didn't want him tagging along ....... "His friends called him `Negro,'" Darmawan said. The term wasn't considered a slur at the time in Indonesia. ...... In an essay about what he wanted to be when he grew up, Obama "wrote he wanted to be president," Sinaga recalled. "He didn't say what country ...... As he had at the old school, Obama sat in a back corner. He sketched decidedly American cartoon characters during class. ....... Rik Smith, a black Punahou student two years older than Obama, remembers a Halloween when white students would dress as slaves, coming to school in tattered clothes with their faces painted black with shoe polish. "Like being black was a funny costume in and of itself," recalled Smith, now a doctor who specializes in geriatrics in California. ...... "Punahou was an amazing school," Smith said. "But it could be a lonely place. ...... "He was a very provocative thinker. He would bring up worldly topics far beyond his years. ....... mother, a woman said to have been born with a keen sense of wanderlust ...... Obama and his teammates brought Punahou the state championship in 1979, his senior year. ...... Adept at nailing long jump shots, Obama was called "Barry O'Bomber" by teammates. Alan Lum, who later would coach the basketball team at Punahou as well as teach elementary school there, recalled Obama as always being the first to confront coaches when he felt they were not fairly allotting playing time. ....... He also thanked the "Choom Gang," a reference to "chooming," Hawaiian slang for smoking marijuana. ..... Kakugawa, a convicted drug felon, said Saturday that he had never been the "prototypical angry black guy" that Obama portrays ......... While Obama rocketed to political prominence, his friend headed down the troubled road Obama had feared he was following. Since 1995, Kakugawa has spent more than 7 years in California prisons and months in Los Angeles County Jail on cocaine and auto theft charges.......... The night, Obama later wrote, made him furious as he realized that whites held a "fundamental power" over blacks. ....... Did you know that in Thomas Jefferson's day, and right up through the 1930s, anybody who had the price of tuition could go to Harvard?
Racism from FOX can be expected, that is racism from the right. But racism from the center and the left also has to be expected. That is where America as a country is today. Barack Obama promises to be Race 2.0. Racism still exists, but in a post-racism environment, race still matters. Identity never goes away, it is never supposed to go away. Racism can be outright, vicious, shameless. But it can also be sophisticated, it can also pass for progressive thinking, like the title of this article below. And you thought the word "negro" had been retired. We have been talking of African Americans for decades now.
The only thing Obama is running for is President Of The United States. He has a magic touch to retail politics, kind of like Bill Clinton, who fought his own Southern demons.
Obama has a past going back hundreds of years, and he proudly claims so. He talks of his grandfather being a "houseboy to the British .... so don't tell me I am not coming home when I am coming to Selma." Black people do not walk around wearing their blackness on their lips any more than white people go around wearing their whiteness. The white identity is a porridge. There are rich strands of ethnic identities within that white identity that have lead to civil wars within the past decade. So don't oversimplify.
Obama is not trying to fit in to the white imagination. Heck, he is not trying to fit in, period. He is who he is. And he is running for president.
Obama's biography talks of at least one white girlfriend who gave up saying she "can't be Black." In a country where 99.9% of the people marry within their own race, Obama's black to black marriage is hardly news. Is Clinton's? Marriage is private.
Obama is deeply devoted to his family. Beyond that is private.
This is LA Times. There is so much movie talk. Talk some reality. Talk up sociological studies. Talk up your own personal experiences. Movie review after movie review after movie review do not throw light on the candidacy of Obama. He is running for president, he is not in the race for an Oscar.
"That's where Obama comes in: as Poitier's "real" fake son." This statement is offensive beyond the blue. This is racist. Obviously this writer has no idea what the President Of The United States does on a day to day basis. The POTUS runs a country. The POTUS sits on top of a state machinery that is unprecedented in its power. Obama is running to get elected leader of the free world. He is not running to make white people feel good about themselves. The White House is not a movie set. This columnist is confusing between a movie screen and a TV screen.
Okay, so if you keep digging and digging into the column, you get to discover the guy is black, the writer is black. That does not change a thing. Blacks struggle with race just like whites do. And there is plenty of internalized racism going round the block.
The vast majorities of blacks are not ready for some black dude who seems to have cross-racial appeal. Black leaders are supposed to lead black people, not both black and white people. That has been the thinking. Well, I guess that thinking will have to make way for Barack Obama.
The truth is boring. The guy just wants the job. It is a job. The stock of the black people is not going to dramatically improve just because Barack Obama is president, although improve it will, because he is a progressive, a Democrat, someone who is talking of universal health care, and ending the war in Iraq. Black or white, he just wants your vote. A businessman, he would have asked for your dollar.
This column talks more of the struggles of this columnist, and perhaps many black men like him, than it does of Barack Obama the candidate, and that is just fine. When Bill Clinton ran for president, many fatherless people got to feel it is okay, it is not okay, but then it is okay that you don't have a father, you can still be president. It is okay to be black and struggling with your identity. It is fine. It is more than okay to talk about it, so talk. But the campaign is going to focus on health care and other issues.
Obama the 'Magic Negro'The Illinois senator lends himself to white America's idealized, less-than-real black man.By David Ehrenstein, L.A.-based DAVID EHRENSTEIN writes about Hollywood and politics.March 19, 2007AS EVERY CARBON-BASED life form on this planet surely knows, Barack Obama, the junior Democratic senator from Illinois, is running for president. Since making his announcement, there has been no end of commentary about him in all quarters — musing over his charisma and the prospect he offers of being the first African American to be elected to the White House.But it's clear that Obama also is running for an equally important unelected office, in the province of the popular imagination — the "Magic Negro."The Magic Negro is a figure of postmodern folk culture, coined by snarky 20th century sociologists, to explain a cultural figure who emerged in the wake of Brown vs. Board of Education. "He has no past, he simply appears one day to help the white protagonist," reads the description on Wikipedia http://en.-wikipedia.org/wiki/Magical_Negro .He's there to assuage white "guilt" (i.e., the minimal discomfort they feel) over the role of slavery and racial segregation in American history, while replacing stereotypes of a dangerous, highly sexualized black man with a benign figure for whom interracial sexual congress holds no interest.As might be expected, this figure is chiefly cinematic — embodied by such noted performers as Sidney Poitier, Morgan Freeman, Scatman Crothers, Michael Clarke Duncan, Will Smith and, most recently, Don Cheadle. And that's not to mention a certain basketball player whose very nickname is "Magic."Poitier really poured on the "magic" in "Lilies of the Field" (for which he won a best actor Oscar) and "To Sir, With Love" (which, along with "Guess Who's Coming to Dinner," made him a No. 1 box-office attraction). In these films, Poitier triumphs through yeoman service to his white benefactors. "Guess Who's Coming to Dinner" is particularly striking in this regard, as it posits miscegenation without evoking sex. (Talk about magic!)The same can't quite be said of Freeman in "Driving Miss Daisy," "Seven" and the seemingly endless series of films in which he plays ersatz paterfamilias to a white woman bedeviled by a serial killer. But at least he survives, unlike Crothers in "The Shining," in which psychic premonitions inspire him to rescue a white family he barely knows and get killed for his trouble. This heart-tug trope is parodied in Gus Van Sant's "Elephant." The film's sole black student at a Columbine-like high school arrives in the midst of a slaughter, helps a girl escape and is immediately gunned down. See what helping the white man gets you?And what does the white man get out of the bargain? That's a question asked by John Guare in "Six Degrees of Separation," his brilliant retelling of the true saga of David Hampton — a young, personable gay con man who in the 1980s passed himself off as the son of none other than the real Sidney Poitier. Though he started small, using the ruse to get into Studio 54, Hampton discovered that countless gullible, well-heeled New Yorkers, vulnerable to the Magic Negro myth, were only too eager to believe in his baroque fantasy. (One of the few who wasn't fooled was Andy Warhol, who was astonished his underlings believed Hampton's whoppers. Clearly Warhol had no need for the accouterment of interracial "goodwill.")But the same can't be said of most white Americans, whose desire for a noble, healing Negro hasn't faded. That's where Obama comes in: as Poitier's "real" fake son.The senator's famously stem-winding stump speeches have been drawing huge crowds to hear him talk of uniting rather than dividing. A praiseworthy goal. Consequently, even the mild criticisms thrown his way have been waved away, "magically." He used to smoke, but now he doesn't; he racked up a bunch of delinquent parking tickets, but he paid them all back with an apology. And hey, is looking good in a bathing suit a bad thing?The only mud that momentarily stuck was criticism (white and black alike) concerning Obama's alleged "inauthenticty," as compared to such sterling examples of "genuine" blackness as Al Sharpton and Snoop Dogg. Speaking as an African American whose last name has led to his racial "credentials" being challenged — often several times a day — I know how pesky this sort of thing can be.Obama's fame right now has little to do with his political record or what he's written in his two (count 'em) books, or even what he's actually said in those stem-winders. It's the way he's said it that counts the most. It's his manner, which, as presidential hopeful Sen. Joe Biden ham-fistedly reminded us, is "articulate."His tone is always genial, his voice warm and unthreatening, and he hasn't called his opponents names (despite being baited by the media).Like a comic-book superhero, Obama is there to help, out of the sheer goodness of a heart we need not know or understand. For as with all Magic Negroes, the less real he seems, the more desirable he becomes. If he were real, white America couldn't project all its fantasies of curative black benevolence on him.
In The News
Dell targets China with budget PC999 Today The computer, dubbed the EC280, will be priced between 2,599 yuan ($335) and 3,999 yuan .... "Today, there are one billion people online worldwide, and many of the world's second billion users are right here in China. ...... The EC280 model will have an Intel processor, up to 515 megabytes of memory, a 40 or 80 gigabyte hard drive and will run Windows XP Home Edition. ..... It has been designed by engineers at Dell's China Design Centre in Shanghai. ..... Dell, who has also launched a corporate blog in Chinese, said the low-cost model could be targeted at other emerging markets. Media giants to compete with YouTube Los Angeles Times, CA News Corp. and NBC Universal said today that they were creating an online video site stocked with TV shows and movies, plus clips that users can modify and share with friends. .... Google is expected to gobble up nearly a third of all online advertising revenue this year .... the most disruptive force your business has seen ever ...... "This is a game changer for Internet video," Chernin said. "We'll have access to just about the entire U.S. Internet audience at launch. And for the first time, consumers will get what they want -- professionally produced video delivered on the sites where they live." ..... YouTube, which Google bought in November for $1.65 billion, draws more viewers than the television networks' combined online audience ...... Google executives' disdain for the project is evident in their nickname for the consortium: Clown Co. .... "The biggest challenge will be to see how the parents of conglomerates work together in decision-making," said Bourkoff, the media analyst. "Is this going to be a great press release, or will it actually function as a business?" ...... fear that giving programming to Google and YouTube could weaken their leverage in subsequent negotiations
