The BIG Debates, Part Dos

Over at FFb, they've picked one of those topics for debate that you aren't supposed to ever pick because the debate will be so heated and potentially so divisive, –US foreign policy over Israel/Palestine. Tmcd is getting piled on again, and I won't enter the debate becuase he and I have previously held enormously-long email debates on this topic. Each of us did little to convince the other.

Thus, let's make it a BIG debate week, shall we? I'll pull out another one of those taboo topics that everyone has a deep-rooted position on, one that could be scandalously controversial. Is it Abortion? Nope.

It is:

Angel vs. Spike

Who was/is the best boyfriend for Buffy and why? And yes, if you wish to argue (insanely) for Riley, that's fair game too....But remember, play nice: no ad hominem arguments and no personal attacks!




Future posts: 'Changing the Narrative' and 'Foregiveness'.

2004 Again?

TenaciousMcD and Frances (in the comments) are making some distressing points – distressing because they are all true – about Hillary's recent hat-tossing.

I don't understand why the following is not obvious to everyone.

The Republicans have a playbook for how to defeat Democrats in the general presidential election. Their plan is already known to everyone; it is use that playbook. And it involves attaching the following labels (sometimes literally, sometimes through metaphor) to the Democratic candidate:

• Liberal
• Elite
• Weak
• Effeminate
• Ambivalent
• Indecisive
• Northeastern

In the case of the particular issue of the Iraq war, you can add somethign like 'he/she supported the war to begin with and doesn't have a better plan now than our candidate'.

So, if you're the Democrats, why not forget anything you know about who is out there running, and ask yourself who you don't want to nominate. Let's see, wouldn't that include:

• Anyone from the northeast
• Anyone who easily appears weak or effeminate
• Anyone who has a public record of national voting that can be used against them for the 'flip-flopping' charge
• Anyone who was hawkish on the war early on

For me this leads to simple conclusions.
In 2004 it meant: do not nominate Kerry.
In 2008 it means: do not nominate Clinton.

Kerry was a Massachusetts Senator who spoke French. It was almost too easy for the Republicans to work their magic on Kerry.

Hilary is a New York Senator; oh, and she's a woman. Oh, and she supported the war. I don't see any way on earth she has the best chance of winning. This doesn't mean she can't win, but she would do so despite being a terrible choice. After all, Kerry was a terrible choice and he almost won.

For me it's not about deep-rooted sexism in the American populace, but about the construction of democratic and repulican discourses. The US can easily elect a woman president, and I think they will, just as soon as the Republicans nominate her. A Republican female candidate will be a strong, decisive, plain-talking leader. Why? Because she is a Republican, and therefore by definition is all those things.

So let me add my voice to that of Tmcd and Frances: please don't nominate Hillary.

The next question is obvious, and I'd like to hear more from the FFb folks: who should the Democrats nominate? I think Edwards breaks up the Rebublican game plan fairly well. And, contrary to early FFb posts, to me Obama seems fiercely intelligent and very charismatic. Given the circumstances, that may be about the most we can ask from a presidential candidate these days. Of course, there are a long list of negatives for both of these guys, but I'm trying to end on a positive note.

Shilpa Shetty

It's celebrity Big Brother time in the UK, and for those not following closely the massive international political event this particular series has become, check out the extended, front-page coverage in the Times of India. Seems Gordon Brown's visit to India has been refocused from business discussions to defending Britain's attitudes towards 'Others' writ large.

ITV | Independent

I watched the contestants enter the house, and I was excited that Shilpa Shetty, famous Bollywood actress, was in the BB house, as I imagined it would be intriguing to see the interactions between several UK celebrities who are celebrities because of their celebrity and a real-live millions-of-fans movie actress who was largely unknown to the others in the house. Not that there aren't others that have received fame and accolades because of their talent (musicians, actors, film directors) or beauty (beauty contestant winner) or writing (newspaper columnist). But the conflict on BB is between a former BB winner (and her family--famous because of Big Brother) in the house and Shilpa.

No one can pronounce her name. How hard is it? Is it harder than Imogen, the name of a Welsh woman in the earlier, regular Big Brother this past summer? Shill-pa. Two syllables, not difficult, all sounds used in the English language. Try pronouncing Worchester 'correctly' when you've grown up in America. So far some of the other members of the house have 'commented' on the food she eats, asked her if she lives in a shack back in India (um, not unless by 'shack' you mean 'full-floor luxury high-rise apartment in Mumbai', one of the most expensive cities on earth), refused to eat food cooked by her because 'you never know' where her hands have been (and Brits/westerners are so fastidious about washing our hands after we use the toilet).

So now I have to watch BB to see where this is going. Racism, certainly. Xenophobia, yes. Ignorance about the world, sure. Class-tension: absolutely. That's, I think, the crux of this. The group bullying her the most were characterised as 'chavs' by one tabloid I read yesterday on the train. This is about Shilpa, a wealthy Mumbaikar, not acting like the assumed lower-class category she is placed in in Britain by dint of her skin tone. And so those in the house who represent that lower class are threatened by this. Everyone is equal, sure. But everyone should be in their proper places as well. Shilpa isn't.

The racism/xenophobia angles are the ones getting the attention right now, and probably rightly so. But this is a bigger problem even than that large problem. It certainly reveals the harrassment that British-Asians must go through on a daily basis in Britain, and that revelation is, one hopes, a good thing for the country to see. But I do hope (in vain most likely) that this moves beyond labelling one family 'racist' and moving on. It's systemic, it's about more than just race (immigration, legacy of colonialism, asymmetries of economic globalisation, gender (oh yes), celebrity, class, wealth, and on and on).

I'm also interested in the overlapping and intersecting between the so-called diaspora South Asian community and the in-south-asia community. This is not the first incident or moment when the truth of the overlap between these seemingly different groups has been made obvious. But it is interesting. Shilpa isn't British Asian. She's Indian. Or is she? What's the difference? Is she, like many South Asians around the world and in South Asia, a transnational being? I think so--and I think she represents the norm more and more, particularly for those of a certain economic class in India. (less so in Pakistan and Bangladesh, but still evident there too)

So the story will unfold. And it's not trivial. It's big, it's politics, and it's very much reality.

Why I love my commute

Turns out much of south Wales is shut down, and they recorded 76mph winds about 200 yards from our house. Luckily, we sit down in a bit of a hollow and are very much protected from the wind. But even better is the commute: so far there are no reports of anyone being blown over on foot.

Sick of me yet?

Frances links to what she very nicely describes as an example of real reporting. Frances praises the article as an effort 'to evaluate the truth of the administration's claims'. I couldn't agree more with the praise, but I think I might describe it a bit differently. And, I'd do so in a way that Paul would find amusing (note: Paul is the first of the TG comments, but his particular comment is quoted by the second TG comment - yes folks, they are different people, but they are a bit difficult to tell apart), by turning again to discourse.

To get to the point: it's a great article not only because it critically evaluates the claims the administration makes (rather than merely doing the ridiculous 'he said, she said' bullshit), but also because it steps back from the individual comments of members of the administration to see what kind of discourse they are trying to form, what kind of narrative they are very self-consciously seeking to construct. When reporters merely focus in on the specific fact (and then say it's affirmed on one side and denied on the other) they actually contribute to the administration's attempt to get the narrative out there - and they do so no matter the truth or falsity of the particular statement. It's the broader discourse that matters most.

Take WMD, for example. In the run-up to the Iraq war, each time a reporter would focus on WMD as the reason for going to war, they would actually reify the causal logic (i.e. must invade Iraq because they have WMD), even if they 'objectively' also reported on the 'opposing view' that there were no WMD. Put otherwise, all of this press about WMD (no matter its content) meant that the frame, the discourse, was always going to be WMD - and not 'a war for oil', not the 'neocon vision of the middle east', not 'the liberation of oppressed people's, not 'the march of democracy', not any other discourse.

But the article Frances links to steps back a bit from the particular claim about the importance of bombing the Samarra shrine. This lets it evaluate the truth of that claim, yes, but it also lets it show how the claim itself is a part of a broader discourse that the administration is trying to construct. In this discourse 2006 was a turning point (downward) but only because of a few anomalies, and we can correct those anomalies with a 'surge' (or whatever the hell we're supposed to call it).

My specific point: the more the Bushies can get this discourse out there, the less they'll have to deal with alternative discourses, e.g. those in which 2006 was not an anomaly but part and parcel of an utter failure of vision, coupled with complete incompetence of execution.

My general point: the Bush administration has consistently proved itself ingenius in using its ability to control the message it puts out (e.g. with press secretaries who never say anything, by flooding the Sunday talk shows, but insisting on 'talking points' up and down the party ranks and throughout much of the 'press') in order to help it consciously construct its discourses. Hence, the MSM has been a (silent or not) accomplice in this process, because they never step back and connect the dots. Hence, also, the genius of Jon Stewart, who does just this sort of dot-connecting on a regular basis (and also compares previous discourses with the current one 'greeted as liberators', 'can't imagine the occupation would cost more than the liberation', etc. in order to expose them) simply by showing lots of clips.

He's Coming to America

I wonder if this is front page news over in the States, the way that it is here? I bet not.

David Beckham has signed a contract with the LA Galaxy (of MLS fame), making him the highest-paid footballer in the world, and the highest-paid sports figure in the US. I also wonder how the story will be covered elsewhere. Here, the framing for the piece is straightforward. For example:

the move signals the end of his career as a footballer of significance

This will be the repeated them: Beckham is done, his career is over - no chance to make it back onto the England squad, no chance to have any real impact. Of course, it's easy to tell the story this way, because it fits with the narrative already in place. Nothing is more popular in Britain than bashing on Beckham, both in terms of his celebrity status but also in terms of his presumed lack of ability on the pitch. I'm still very ignorant about football, but I actually thought Beckham was the most valuable player for England during the World Cup. I don't think he was England's best player, but his set-up abilities seemed to provide something to the team that no one eslse had - and he clearly had an impact on the games.

I can't help but be reminded of the stories when Wayne Gretzsky left the home of hockey in Canada to go to LA. The analogy has its limits since Gretzsky was still playing NHL hockey, and no football fan in Europe is going to consider the MLS a 'real league'. Still, Gretzsky surprised people (his hat trick in game 7 of the seminfinals, against Toronto ('93 I thnk), might have been his best single-game performance), and I wonder if Beckham might not do so as well.

Puzzling

Greg links to another one of those tests that tries to place you on their version of the political map.

I find these questionairres puzzling because they rely so heavily upon completely charged, partial, and partisan statements. More importantly, these statements are taken from broader sets of political, ideological, and social discourses, and, so far as I can tell, the question is often trying hardest to see whether you recognise and are comfortable with that discourse. That is, they aren't actually asking you to reject or accept putative statements of fact or truth - even though this is the form the actual questions take. Instead, they are checking to see whether the statement resonates with you.

But the difference between these two modes of discourse (truth and resonance) creates some dilemmas. Thus, what to make of this question?

A significant advantage of a one-party state is that it avoids all the arguments that delay progress in a democratic political system.

You see, I count myself as something of a radical democrat; in almost every case, I'll favour democracy. But faced with answering whether the above statement is true or not, what do I do? Because,...well, yes, 'I agree' (I even strongly agree) that the above statement is true: a one party state does get things done. I'm not a big fan o the things it 'gets done', but it certainly gets them done.

If the question were: do you favour the liberty afforded by radical, particapatory democracy over the efficient decision-making of more authoritarian forms of government, then I can easily answer in a way that probably tells them what they want to know. But they don't want to ask questions like that.

Now, what does this tell us about the current state of society, politics, etc.? I haven't figured that one out yet. But the fact that they aren't really asking you direction questions but instead trying to tap into discourses in this way....I think that might be significant.

Me and CNN, Again.

I see no way to justify my morbid fascination with cnn.com and its continually declining 'standards' for both reporting and the use of the English language. I can explain it as my one remaining effort to keep in touch with what's being presented as 'news' by the MSM in the US (these days I only read BBC, The Guardian, and FFB, of course).

This morning I noticed cnn.com's new 'feature'. It's called 'Story Highlights' and consists of 3 or 4 bullet points in a box at the top of each story. The idea seems to be that CNN's lengthy, in-depth, and highly sophisticated articles are just too much for the average reader to be able to handle, so we need the bullet points to help us out - or, more likely, to substitute for actually reading the article.

But here's the thing: the articles are ridiculously short to begin with! Check this one out, for example: the story of two planes almost colliding in Denver. The entire article is 182 words long. Even reading very verly slowly, it still takes well under a minute to read the whole article.

By the way, as a side note that's probably much more substantive than my above rant: both the Guardian and CNN's international edition have 'Bush reshuffles Generals in Iraq' as a headline this morning. But if you switch to the CNN US edition, you can't find such a headline; nor was there anything like that on the NY Times website. Weird? Definitely. Significant and meaningful? You tell me.

OK, fine. We're using the silver!

The story of our nomadism continues, though I hope this somewhat traumatic chapter will be the final one (with no need for any sort of epilogue).

As you'll recall from chapter 6, almost immediately after storing almost all our worldy possessions inside a tin box in the desert of California, said 'storage unit' was broken into (we still think it might have been an inside job). Given that we were thousands of miles away in the valleys of central Pennsylvani, we had to assess the damage with only the aid of a blurry polaroid taken of the front of the unit. We surmised that the thieves had taken almost all the valuable items: all our tools; all our speakers, television and audio/video equipment; all our CDs; my golf clubs; and a few other big ticket items. We filed an insurance claim based on these presumptions and were very pleased when they wrote us a check (for a quite distinct outcome, see chapter 3 in which the movers destroy most of our stuff and fail to issue a fair reimbursement). And then, we tried to put the disturbance of the break-in behind us.

Zip forward more than 2 and 1/2 years to this Tuesday, when our remaining belongings from storage - after numerous items had been sold or given away, thanks to coordination by Steve and Kim on the ground in CA - arrived at our house. Our books, key pieces of furniture, our beloved rugs, all here safe and sound! However, only two of the expected 4 kitchen boxes showed up. And sure enough, we are missing: all our knives, given to us over the course of 5 years by my parents; all of our coffee mugs, a collection dating back to college; all of our good silverware, given to us by Rebecca's mom long ago; all of our good pots and pans, given to Rebecca by me the xmas before storing them; and a whole lot of other things that we can't even remember.

Ironically, while the thieves took things like our silverware and our mugs that are of worth only to us, they left us with the (almost) full set of 1936 Pennsylvania silver, including its gorgeous felt-lined mohagony box (also a lovely gift from Rebecca's mom). This, of course, would have been very pawn-able, and not something we were likely to need on a day-to-day basis.

But we're taking it as a sign, and we refuse to continue using the 'camping' utensils that we've suffered for the past 2 years. So to hell with it: we're using the silver! Any guests to our houehold can therefore expect fine dining utensils.

They can also expect 'parting gifts': we have almost a dozen very small US appliances (mostly desk lamps) that won't do us much good connected to 230v. So come visit us and take one home!

it's a wonder I can think at all

for Christmas Sam got me a Nikon camera (love to take a pho-o-tograph) and as a result Paul and Art have been in my head for several days. that song is genius. it's about knowledge and seeing. it's about revolutions in perceptions of the world. and its datedness (Kodachrome) is now part of its import. remember when photos could be in colour? (I don't.) How about when HBO and MTV launched? What about your first Apple IIe? BASIC? Pong? electronically mailing friends across campus? it should be used as the kernel of all history/vision/perception lectures, except that none of today's current university students understand or appreciate the joys of the folk harmonising that Paul and Art pulled off. But I'd love to start a lecture with:

What is the connection here, between reading the writing on the wall--clearly a marker of adolescent toilet communication, the space where abstract insults and pick-up lines are traded--and Kodachrome? Is Simon happy about the shiny colours? The greens of summers? How does he communicate his cynicism? What does this tell us about the mood of mid-century popular consciousness? What is lost in the colour? How does nostalgia take shape here? And, why call upon his 'mama'? What kind of threat does she represent?

Ah. we can dream. meanwhile, my camera rocks. My portrait of an M&S mini christmas cake, below.

Kate Fox, Watching the English

I just finished reading the above book, which I realise never made it into the blog list at the right but there you are. These things happen. It was recommended by several of our English friends as a good introduction to the behaviour and patterns of those raised in England.

Just to be clear once again, for those who haven't gotten it quite yet: we do not live in England. Wales. Different country, different language, different national history/heritage/pride. So the book was only of limited use for understanding our current surroundings, and indeed one of the interesting things was how much it did differ from our experiences in Wales.

I can highly recommend said text for any anglophile or frequent visitor to England who has observed various stereotypes (queueing, constantly saying 'sorry', self-deprecation) and wondered what was going on. Kate Fox is an anthropologist whose methods (like deliberately bumping into people for an afternoon and counting how many said 'sorry' to her) are as funny as many passages in the book (the English don't like revolutions, and so she articulates their 'protest' chant as: 'What do we want? GRADUAL CHANGE! When do we want it? IN DUE COURSE!' which I find hilarious. well, call-and-response just gets me).

She also details the minutiae of class distinctions, which are quite different from those in the US, needless to say. So it was fascinating. For example: folding your napkin neatly after a meal is considered 'common' as it implies that you might need/want to re-use it. to be properly upper class, you should crumple your napkin messily and leave it whereever. I find this intriguing.

We have also just experienced one of the other measures of class in both the US and the UK: the grocery store. Where you shop is as important as anything else for indicating class. Safeway--King Soopers--Albertsons was the order when we were growing up in suburban Denver, until the wave of organic/whole foods type places added a further upper category. In Minnesota you can go to Byerly's where the floors were carpeted and they hung chandeliers over the produce section. In PA and the NE it's Wegmans. (Blogged about this before here.) Other regions certainly have theirs, I'm sure.

Here in the UK it's Iceland--Lidl--Asda--Tesco--Sainsbury's--Waitrose--whole foods type places: Iceland carries only frozen stuff. hence the name. Asda is Walmart-owned. Say no more. Tesco, where we've been shopping, is more or less the middle class starting point. We just discovered, however, that Sainsbury's now delivers, and so we got our first Sainsbury's order this week. Very exciting. Over-designed packaging, new exotic dips, and generally you pay more for basically the same stuff. We do admit, however, that some of the items are, er, a bit better tasting than the Tesco equivalent. Does that make us elitists? Or are we merely justifying our striving for upper-class status by finding the food better at the one-tick-up store? Of course, if we were truly upper class we wouldn't care--crumpled napkin and all. we also probably wouldn't blog. Sigh. so much for striving.

Mae hi'n niwlog!

indeed. with heathrow socked in by fog (due to lift today, hopefully) and Denver socked in by snow, we are somewhat proud of ourselves for the non-existent foresight that led to our decision to stay in our new house, nest, and relax this Christmas. because we are omniscient and can predict the weather. of course. what are the odds that LHR and DEN would be closed at the same time this year? well, the odds are one.

must make coffee and get in hot tub. happy Christmas eve!

vielen dank

all my years of language study, slogging through college-level Sturm und Drang literature. all that work. not much fluency, sure. but a line on the ol' cv. and what am I using it for?

• viewing Wagner's operatic oeuvre in the original, ohne subtitles?
  
• reading Der Spiegel in the morning along with the other 8 international newspapers I read?
  
• discussing the finer points of Goethe's aesthetics?
  
• quibbling with Kaufmann's translation of Nietzsche?

No, no, no, and no. What am i doing with my german? Yep, you guessed it: buying shoes from on-line retailers! Filling up my Warenkorb in order to receive Stiefel and Schuhe in der Post. Ah. Deutsch. Ich liebe dich.

Gotta love the liberal arts. Brilliant. Wundervoll.

home

we've been in the new house since September, and it just this past week clicked over into feeling a bit like home. No, we don't have our stuff yet (2nd Jan! very exciting!) and no, it won't wholly feel like home until we have things like matching, high quality silverware, more than one kitchen knife, pictures on the wall, our lovely rugs, and books, books, books.

But it is still starting to feel that way. and it's in a way that reminds me of the way Data of Star Trek TNG describes his understanding of love and friendship:

As I experience certain sensory input patterns my mental pathways become accustomed to them. The inputs eventually are anticipated and even missed when absent.

this is how it works with home. I know the silhouette of the back of the garden now. the feeling of the bannister, the way the door closes. it's not completely imbued with 'us-ness' yet, but the inputs are beginning to be anticipated. for sure.

PS. miss TNG. sigh.

Hero worship, or not

I've been reading a one-degree-of-separation blog recently, Frankly Frivolous, which is about all the TV you're watching--the stuff you admit to and the stuff you don't. And, as someone with certain, and admittedly sometimes arbitrary, standards for dialogue/writing/directing that often mean shows get the axe in ep 3 ("Dude. Where are we?" killed Lost for us, sadly), it's nice to be able to keep up with things via someone else's intelligent commentary.

And so I must respond to the Heroes discussion in FF's recent blog post. Don't get me wrong. Heroes is one of our guilty pleasure, fluff TV watches. We find it intriguing--sort of 4400 without the buddy-cop element and without the full 'verse worked out completely. I tend to like the show, although we both could do without Nikki's story-line entirely, thank you very much. If one treats it like a soap and fast-forwards through the bits you're not keen on, it works well.

But I have a problem with it, which is the same problem that Alias (also guilty pleasure, also fab, also yummy on many levels) had: Or-ee-en-tal-ism. That's right. "Eenja" the place where wisdom is had. Place of monsoons, umbrellas, kids playing football (except they'd be playing cricket if it were going all-out stereotype), white columns and huge mansions, small dark dusty academic offices (that look oddly like the same place as the NY apartment inhabited by the same character), sultry women in saris, protective mothers, everyone is a scientist, everyone wears fab Banana Republic-style flowy clothing (from before BR sold out and became Extra-Special-Gap)...At least in Heroes they play to the "better stereotypes" if there is such a thing. In Alias "Eenja" was one big confusing bazaar with veiled women and people scraping in the dirt in their oh-so-colourful sparkly garb. And so it's just annoying. Right down to the accent that Sendhil Ramamurthy takes on. It grates a little. Mr. Miyagi for the 00s.

I think the portrayal of Japan has similar elements, but Hiro is a much better character than Mohinder, and he doesn't have to do the cheeseball spiritual abstract voiceover stuff--Japan is a place of ritualised office calasthenics, manga, and cubicles with Star-Trek obsessed inhabitants hip to American culture, Japanese style. so there's orientalism there too, just a different flavour and with a different edge. Others more familiar with Japan and its popular image can help me in analysing that.

Heroes' Orientalism is the boring kind. The overt, in-your-face, why-oh-why kind. Because of this, it doesn't make me stop watching the show. It's just too overt to be truly offensive. Perhaps it's a signal that South Asia has finally made it onto the radar screen of mainstream America: it's not just China and Japan anymore. Welcome to the club.

Powers No. 2

I'm still planning that post about Hot Tubs. Indeed, I have to confess: I'm now planning a whole series of hot tub posts - certain to bore every reader and potential reader out there. But that process cannot begin until there is some literal closure. (And, yes, that is the correct use of literal.)

Thus, I thought I'd say a few words about the Richard Powers book that I recently finished reading. The book, Prisoner's Dilemma, is not Powers' most recent novel. That title goes to The Echo Maker, so kindly gifted to us by Rebecca's mom - and heroically delivered to us by Mike. I won't read that book for a while, not because I'm not eager to do so, but because I'm just enough of an ascetic to intentionally self-ration my consumption of sentences written by the man. My little history of reading Powers runs like this:

Galatea 2.2
Freely available in the sabbatical home fiction (and cookbook) library where we lived in State College, and then recommended to us by Joely. I read it, and liked it a lot - thought it an amazing combination of compelling plot, with genuine philosophical insight, and some nice techy stuff thrown in as a bonus. Some passages and sentences were mind-blowing, so I knew the guy had great talent. Still, I wouldn't call it one of the best books I ever read.

The Time of Our Singing
Imagine my surprise, then, when I bought the only Powers book available at the State College Barnes and Noble (or was it Borders, who can even tell the difference). The book looked long, and I was planning to fly from State College to London, so I figured it was good value for the money. I spent most of January, while Rebecca was away in India, reading it. It's the only book that, when I finished the last of almost 700 pages, I immediately and instinctively (without considering what I was doing) turned back to the beginning and reread the first chapter. It's also the only book I ever read over which I cried repeatedly. About a week or two after finishing it, I came to the inevitable conclusion that it was the best book I had ever read.

When Rebecca returned from India, I told her nothing about my perspective on the book; I simply handed it to her and said 'you must read this'. I said nothing to her while she read it, or when she was finished. About a week or so after her finishing, I asked what she thought of it. Her response: 'I think it's the best book I've ever read'.

Thus began our further journey through Powers Land, aided by finding most of his older novels used at Powell's later that summer.

The Gold Bug Variations
This is written on the same grand scale as the above book. It's massive, it's phenomenal, and it's an incredible feat. But it just doesn't quite pull it off. It's a fabulous book, but it misses the mark of genius. (Oh, and it finally made me understand - I think - something about DNA.)

Operation Wandering Soul
This is, by far I'd say, Powers' darkest novel, and it's not like he's normally all about light joyous gaiety. Everything artistic in ER was stolen from this book. It gives this incredible picture of the 80's - it's even funny in a way - and it has some of the best-written passages of any of his works. Still, it's a bit too depressing for my tastes. (And as you'll see below, I don't have a hypersensitivy to depressing works.)

Gain
This book centres on a protagonist dying of cancer and going through chemo; still, it's much lighter than the previous book. And it's totally gripping; and it's hopeful in its own way; and it 'gets' small-town America in the most amazing way. Brilliant book, probably tied for third on top Powers list.

Plowing the Dark
Virtual Reality, historical events, and a love story - what more could one want. A lot like Galatea, but deeper and richer and more intoxicating. Tied for third.

That brings me to the book I just finished, but I've about run out of steam. Prisoner's Dilemma is, above all, a story about family. It manages to tell that story while also talking, literally, about the Prisoner's Dilemma. It's also about hope and imagination, and even though this book too is about death, it's one of his most optimistic works. This text started off slowly for me, but it 'pulled it all together' - and this is the magic trick that Powers is always trying to pull off - so captivatingly and compellingly in the end, that it really took my breath away. It's his best short novel by far, I think, and his second best work overall.

I'd tell you to read it, of course, but it's rather obvious, isn't it, that I'm telling you to read them all.

the root question...

I've posted before, of course, on beets. obviously. we had thanksgiving last week and thus fell behind in our studious consumption of the organic veg delivery. and then we got another bag-o-veg, including (and I do not exaggerate here) a 35 lb cantaloup squash pumpkin thing from the 19th century. because things were bigger then. (note how there's no scale on that picture from 1867?) How we got it home is a mystery to me. faced with more parsnips, carrots, swedes, pumpkin, leeks, and onion than we seem capable of eating I swing into proactive mode:

• step one: adapt Indian potato curry recipe to swedes. eat for three days in a row. success.
  
• step two: take all of the apples, core, stuff with butter, spices, and other yummy things, and make baked apples. success.
  
• step three:given that we also overestimated our cheese consumption, we have several blocks of cheddar in the fridge. beets+parsnips+leeks+cheddar=yum. based on various 'au gratin' recipes on-line, I made the following. not at all weight watchers. not at all vegan. but, aside from the inevitable side dish of beef, vegetarian. (it's what's for dinner, remember?)

Rebecca's beet & parsnip au gratin

wash immense amounts of mud and earth off of root veg. seems that someone buried them in the earth prior to delivering them to me. odd.

wrap in foil and bake beets and parsnips for 2ish hours in a 180/350 degree oven until they are very much done

you can store them for later; at least let cool a bit

slice them into 1/4" round slices and layer them in alternating layers in a casserole dish (parsnips, beets. parsnips, beets. I made pretty pink and white pattern on the top. you can too.)

in a heavy saucepan sautee 2 leeks, sliced into rounds, including green bits. add a couple minced/mashed garlic cloves as well.

once the leeks are wilted and happy, add two tablespoons flour (or cornmeal--the only flour like thing I had around--worked well), stir around for a bit to coat the leeks. then add about 1/2 c water and mix--should be kind of like a runny-paste-o-leeks at this point. add in about 2ish c whole milk (I'm sure cream is better. didn't have any in the fridge)--let it get warm, then add about 2.5 c. grated cheese or more--I used white cheddars--a mix from the West country and Ireland. Nothing like diversity. Indeed. nothing like diversity.

add some pepper and dried thyme (2 teaspoons?), let the cheese melt into the sauce. don't let it boil. it's mostly milk.

pour cheese sauce over the beets and parsnips. grate some (or a lot of) cheese on top. bake, covered in foil, for 30 minutes or so at 180/350.

mm. cheese. beets. pretty pink and white and green. enjoy.

Really?

In case you hadn't noticed (I hadn't), the online quiz phenomenon seems to have mutated a bit. I ran across this one about 'American accents' the other day, on a blog that was discussing how ridiculous Americans are for thinking they have 'no accent'. From previous posts, you know I both agree with this specific claim (about the ridiculousness) and also find the general discussion interesting.

However, I was not expecting these results:

What American accent do you have? Your Result: Boston You definitely have a Boston accent, even if you think you don't. Of course, that doesn't mean you are from the Boston area, you may also be from New Hampshire or Maine.
The West
The Midland
North Central
The Northeast
The Inland North
Philadelphia
The South
What American accent do you have? Take More Quizzes

partition was the right thing to do. discuss.

this was the debate topic I set for my colonialism & nationalism in India module this autumn. it was fun. we debated the merits of British India's partition into India and Pakistan in 1947, discussed the casualties (estimates range from less than 100,000 to over 500,000 dead, many more displaced/separated from their families, etc., and took sides on the issue.

at the end of the discussion I took 10 minutes to allow the students to express their own views (not their pro/con roles) on the topic. they all agreed that partition was not the right thing to do, that it had led to horrible migrations and deaths, it was the result of the calcification of a bi-polar discourse of Hindu and Muslim, and that it seemed like it could have been avoided, perhaps not in the years immediately prior to 1947, but had the discourse gone another way, it might not have seemed the only option.

so I asked/suggested: the situation in Iraq, then, given what you're saying about India/Pakistan, would also fall into the same category: partition would be a bad thing. most of them protested this, saying, in fact, that partition of Iraq would be a good thing and seem to solve the myriad problems there. Ah. history. we love learning from it, don't we!

yes, the situation is different in many ways, but it's also similar: artificially reified broad categories (Hindu/Muslim--Shia/Sunni/Kurd) mapped onto territory that itself relies on earlier colonial line-drawing. my expertise doesn't lie in Iraq, Kurdistan, or the Gulf region, but this piece provides a good argument against partition, and reveals the extent to which American pundits (next blog post! etymology of pundit and its political implications!) are making the same arguments that many in the British colonial establishment made. Let's hope that the Iraqis aren't forced, by the exigencies of international and domestic political maneuvering and typological pigeonholing, into positions similar to Jinnah and Nehru in 1946-7. Let's hope.

weaver, weaving, wife: Greek? victorian? Manusamhita?

ah metaphors. ah etymologies. how I love thee. let me trace for you (really for me to get this clearer in my head) the path of my afternoon's research:

I'm preparing a talk on spinning for the department. this involves a wee bit of panic and some cursing of myself in June when December seemed so far away, the autumn so ripe with research time and possibilities. ha ha ha.

and so I am reading and thinking intensively. this is good. I sat down to read Chris Bayly's article on 'The origins of swadeshi' in Arjun Appadurai's book The Social Life of Things. Good information, interesting, and I hadn't quite developed my critique of the article as a whole when:

According to the Laws of Manu, unmarried girls were the spinners ('spinsters'), whereas after marriage they graduated to weavers (becoming 'wives'). (293)

intriguing. no citation. I google the Laws of Manu, now out of copyright after a few millennia. I search through it for 'wife' 'weaver' 'unmarried' 'girl' 'spinster' 'spin' and a few other terms. nothing. I google the relevant terms in google books and come up with, you guessed it, Bayly's essay.

so, to the etymology: where does wife come from? I go to my handy on-line sanskrit dictionary, look up wife. not really sounding like weaver nor related, meaning-wise, to weaver. hm. wife comes from the old English wif. this is sometimes connected to weaver, but only anecdotally (read: in blogposts I found when googling in hour 2 of this ordeal). then I hit on the motherlode: late nineteenth century texts waxing lyrical about the role of women! It seems that John Ruskin wrote this awesome dialogue-based text (Ethics of the Dust--note to self: must write book in dialogue form at some point, with myself as 'Lecturer') about women as weavers, claiming an Anglo-Saxon etymology for the connection, and advising girls that their good-wife status will be measured by their ability as seamstresses and weavers. and this then led me to (of course) the Greeks! Ruskin was obsessed with the weaving connections--good wife/bad wife--in Aeschylus and others, where the positive force of the weaver is contrasted to the arachnid-based nefarious web-spinner. In some discussions of this, I found the weaver-wife thing repeated.

it is unclear from this whether the weaver-wife connection was something that Ruskin/19th century classicists came up with that doesn't in fact relate to etymology at all or whether it really is in the greek (help here?). there's also the anglo-saxon 'peace-weaver' role for women, in which a woman would be wed across enemy lines in order to bridge a political disagreement. but in many of the sites I saw describing peace-weavers, they were distinct from 'wives' more broadly. some anglo-saxon history sites made the connection between weaver and wife, but with no citations I could find, and thus it would be just as likely their source was our dear Ruskin.

So: thoughts? wife-weaver? Greek connection? certainly none of my digging supported the Laws of Manu contention. I'm down the rabbit hole, and I've forgotten now why this is important. gender? India? spinsters? spinning? hm.