Obama’s Mistake

For a President who has been given the mandate to implement change in his first term and as early as possible, Obama has performed admirably. He has summoned to the table the best problem solvers he could find, and even his opponents. His successes are for history to record. Even under the pressure of enormous problems like world peace, global warming, and widespread economic meltdown, Obama has kept his level head and practical demeanor throughout the first year of his term. He has gained the respect of world nations, their leaders, and those who think for themselves, wherever they may be.

His mistakes on the other hand have become a matter of political leverage for his detractors. His overt critics include the likes of  Rush Limbaugh, Charles Krauthammer, and Glen Beck, of Fox News. He also has covert critics, who have to appear as his allies in the public eye while privately maintaining an anti-American, anti-Obama stance. These are the leaders of those nations that are in the eye of the anti-American storm of our time, including Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Hammid Karzai, Nouri al-Maliki, and Asif Ali Zardari.

For reasons that are unfathomable for many, Obama and his political machine publically takes on some of these false prophets of the Murdoch news empire and the false leaders of autocratic nations of the Middle East. There is a sense of naiveté in the zeal with which these attacks are organized by the Obama machine and indeed the attention devoted to them at all. A President of any stature has to learn to stay above the fray. Otherwise there will be a price to pay.

…ooOoo…

According to an old fable,  in a far far away fiefdom, one bright morning, the king was enjoying his morning tea. The tranquility of the moment was pierced by the shriek sound of a young, brash bird.

“kock-a-doodle-do, kock-a-doodle-do

I found a penny

I am a wealthy henny

kock-a-ddodle-do.”

After some hours of this unwelcome song, the King ordered his minions to go over to the nearest neighborhood garbage dump, where the bird seemed to be ruminating and take away his damn penny so he would shut up. Before the Kings’ men could come back to inform him that the mission was a success, much to the King’s chagrin, he became the unwilling audience to another serenade.

“kock-a-doodle-do, kock-a-doodle-do

The king is miserly

The king is poorer than me

kock-a-ddodle-do.”

This was adding insult to injury. Now the King had to worry, besides his peace and quiet, about his reputation. Just as soon as they arrived, he ordered his men to return to the cock and give back his “damn penny.” Listening from afar he was delighted with the immediate effect his new strategy had on the sing-song-cock, but the brief silence of the morning was once again interrupted by a familiar tune and new lyrics.

“kock-a-doodle-do, kock-a-doodle-do

The king is cowardly

The king is afraid of me

kock-a-ddodle-do.”

By this time the King had had it. He did not even wait for the news to be delivered by his men. He sent out a new posse to catch this Florence-Jenkins-wan ‘a-be and cook it for dinner.  His order was carried out with haste.  That evening he enjoyed a tasty meal enhanced by the after effects of the quiet day he enjoyed due to his final move and the satisfaction of devouring his nemesis, the garbage-dump-bird. It was a long night and by the time he went to bed the King was feeling over stuffed and lethargic. After a few restless hours  in his royal bed, he felt an excruciating pain in his belly. The cock had managed one last heroic effort and extending his neck out of the King’s behind and started on a familiar croon.

“kock-a-doodle-do, kock-a-doodle-do

The king’s behind has ruptured

Thank heavens, my life has been recaptured

kock-a-ddodle-do.”

…ooOoo…

By taking on Rush and Fox News head on, Obama has already experienced the annoyance and insults that have been added to his injury. Without a doubt, these characters are the brash cocks of their own neighborhood’s garbage piles. Similarly, Obama has suffered through his on-again-off-again public skirmishes with Ahmadinejad, al-Maliki, Zardari, and Karzai.

If he is not careful, one early morning in the White House, he will wake up with excoriating pains.

(c) all rights reserved by Sail Anon

Most Scary Costume

Traditional characters include the Devil, the Grim Reaper, ghosts, ghouls, demons, witches, goblins, vampires, werewolves, zombies, skeletons, black cats, spiders, bats, and crows. I decided to go as myself.  Not that I’m cheap, trying to save a few bucks, or too lazy to think of an effective Halloween costume; I was convinced that the scariest I could be was myself.

I realized this when I was looking at the mirror, the eve of All Saints day, November 1, 2009, and saw this average human specimen: balding at the top, with salt and pepper hair, puffy under the eyes, and a belly; ghoulish, you might say in the dark of the night. What did a ghoul ever do to us that we would feel free to besmirch its good name by likening it to a human being? First of all, it is highly unlikely that you would ever meet one unless of course you have spent some time in the graveyards of Arabia. Check for yourself. Look it up in Wikipedia if you prefer. Here, I’ll do it for you: “a ghoul is a mythological monster from ancient Arabian folklore that dwells in burial grounds and other uninhabited places.” A ghoul is no more likely to hurt you than a Banshee, a Ch’iang Shih—a Chinese vampire – or Zeus, for that matter.

Ghouls abound in current Egypt. The graveyards in Cairo have been inundated by the homeless turning these serene and creepy environments into lively and functioning neighborhoods with running water and electricity. These poor souls are the creation of a far more evil being. Government policies that discriminate, economic systems that exploit, and police systems that enforce are all created by people. And don’t tell me these are well meaning people. They know exactly what is going on, and turn a blind eye to it in the interest of protecting their own stake in the current order of things.

Cats, spiders, bats, and crows have done more good for the planet and other species than humans, with all their mighty tools, could ever dream of accomplishing before they cause their own extinction. Cats control the rodent population; spiders and bats control the insect population; and crows despite their human like ingenuity in using tools and displaying superior cognitive behavior, support nature’s ecosystem as well as any other animal species.  New Caledonian Crows are the only known species other than chimpanzees, and of course humans, to make, select, and use tools to extract their food. Perhaps because of their ingenuity they have been demonized in more than one occasion, to wit, through their cousin the raven, by one of the great diviners of the human soul, Edgar Allan Poe, in the last stanza of his eerie poem:

And the raven, never flitting, still is sitting, still is sitting
On the pallid bust of Pallas just above my chamber door;
And his eyes have all the seeming of a demon’s that is dreaming,
And the lamp-light o’er him streaming throws his shadow on the floor;
And my soul from out that shadow that lies floating on the floor
Shall be lifted – nevermore!

This confirms my contention that the course of whatever evil we manage to attribute to other things, real or imagined, through our clever cognitive tricks, begins with human deeds. Is there any other species on the face of this small planet that plans, organizes, builds tools for, strategizes, and puts into action events that are intended to cause systematic extinction of its own kind, let alone the other species, in the guise of spiritual, bodily, and communal satisfaction? The Barbarian Invasions, the Crusades, the 100-Year War, the 30-Year War, the Opium War, the Slave Trade, the First and Second World Wars, the attack on the World Trade Center, and the ongoing slaughtering of animals are but a few of our less than civil deeds.

Ghosts, ghouls, demons, witches, goblins, vampires, werewolves, and zombies in their singular efforts to scare and harm pale in comparison to any of these humans “accomplishments.” Our efforts can only be compared to those of the Devil and the Grim Reaper, two characters that we invented in order to pass the buck . To add insult to injury, we undertake their missions ruthlessly and effectively and then blame them; evil to the core.

I was still staring at the mirror, contemplating what to wear and how to bring out this particular human attribute. Should I place just enough fond de ten and eye shadow to subtly reveal the rot that is inside? Should I create a sinister smile with garish paint colors to blatantly conceal what is inside while revealing concealed evil? Or should I wear a mask that accentuates our true nature? This is when it occurred to me that I was perfect. I needed no accentuation, alteration, or re-framing to convey my intention. Humans have a long way to go to make amends to other humans, to other species, and to the planet. Until we do, it is best that we wear the naked truth on our outward appearance, without any aids or impediments.

Everyone thought that I was too lazy to think of and furnish myself with a Halloween costume, even though no one had the courage to say. When I declared that I was perfectly scary as I was, it was met with consenting smiles, gestures, and cryptic utterances of approval.

Civility had prevented them from contradicting me.

(c) All rights reserved by Sail Anon

Talking Man

“Kick the habit and join the unhooked generation!” is one decade-old slogan that took a lot of concerted effort on the part of individuals, researchers, politicians, and health care officials to realize. But in the end, it helped wean most Americans from their smoke sucking habit beyond anyone’s expectations. Today, the only way you can see smokers, as if they are members of an endangered species, is by going to a special viewing spot: the designated smoking area. Most buildings are smoke free. Even restaurants and bars are “clean” zones. Unless you smoke in your home, there are precious few options for regular smokers to consume in comfort.

For a while, doorways and building entrances became outdoor smoking dens. These were the easiest to reach spaces outside of the official smoke banned area. And smokers took almost a defiant pleasure to blow smoke, literally, in everyone’s face as they entered and exited buildings. Especially in inclement weather, smokers wrapped themselves inside their trench-coats and clouds of smoke and tried to stay warm for at least five minutes, even though it takes about seven at a leisurely pace, to absorb enough nicotine to last till the next smoke break.  Body heat plus the smoke conditioned microclimates formed in front of every entrance eave or porch. Non-smokers hurried through the plumes and huddling bodies so that they would inhale no more second-hand smoke than they had to. The visual image of a smoker in this context is indelibly ingrained in the minds of all passers-by, whether through the smoke filled entrance or nearby. The human figure with one hand stuck to the mouth became a symbol of regression into habits that looked and felt an awful lot like thumb-sucking. (Surely there must be some Freudian explanation for this.) In any event, this image of man, or woman, satisfying his, or her, most basic desires in broad daylight and under the guise of addiction, has been a most convenient excuse for a most unacceptable behavior: sucking in public.

Rodin’s “thinking man,” on the other hand, has been the uplifting iconic image of humankind that befits out loftiest ambitions.  In this case, the athletic male body made from bronze, resting his manly chin against his masculine fist propped up by his equally muscular and graceful arm  gracefully resting on his knee, is engaged in deep though, presumably responding to his profound urge to think. He is satisfying his deep desire to figure things out, solve the never ending mysteries of human curiosity. It has been a downer if not plain angst to have to think that, in the span of less than a century, we have descended from the pedestal of ‘thinking” to covering under eaves.

Yet, change is ever present. We have a new evolutionary phase emerging. Before, during, and after any event or assembly that requires an attendee’s uninterrupted attention, people take breaks to talk. Now their hand is neither glued to their chin to think, nor their lips to smoke, it is glued to an ear to prop up a cell phone. We demonstrate an incredible desire to talk, to whomever we want, at whatever time or place, about anything at all, with no regard for whomever may be around us, anywhere, anytime, anyhow. When did this desire exhibit itself in our past? Is it the neighborly chats around the fence gate, hanging around the neighborhood drugstore, or gathering around the cooler at work? No, this is a brand new addiction. We have very little interest in what is going on around us when get that all important call from a co-worker, business deal, doctor’s office, or someone in an emergency.

But wait, most cell phone calls are not those types of calls. We want to ask mom if this outfit I found at Macy’s looks good on me. Quick, snap a picture, guess what, I can do it with the cell phone, which has now grown into a multi functional device. I need to remember that ingredient in the recipe which I left on the kitchen table; can someone read it for me? I am too lazy to go upstairs to talk to you, oh I’ll call you. And true story: I am too busy talking to you on the phone, so I cannot stop and chat with you even though I see you walking towards me. Since cell phones took over our lives, say about less than a decade ago – incidentally, a little blimp in the evolutionary scale of humankind — our hands have been glued to our ears and our lips do not stop chirping.

You may wonder what happened to the emergency call which was the primary pretext for people to get these devices in the first place. We are still waiting for that technical glitch to be solved. It turns out most 911 call stations are designed for land lines. “Darlene struggled to speak as she called 911 from her cell phone. She could barely tell the operator her address: 602 Wales Drive. The operator, trying to understand her, sent an ambulance to Wells Street in Atlanta — 28 miles from her apartment in Johns Creek, a suburb north of the city.” If you do not want to suffer Darlene’s predicament, in an emergency, you better find a land phone at least until this technical problem is resolved, which should take another decade or so. As to the business call, it still survives among the plethora of unwanted commercial calls that each cell phone is inundated by and the increasing number of “National Do Not Call Registries” to which you must subscribe. But no sweat, just dial it on your cell.

It should be humbling to note that since Rodin made his thinking man in 1902, we have experienced two other principal states of evolution: the sucking man and the talking man, both of which has brought out to daylight our innermost addictive tendencies revealed only through new technology: the modern cigarette and the cell phone. It is further sobering to note that the modern cigarette was made popular at the turn of the 20^th century while the cell phone at the turn of the 21^st. It took almost a century for cigarettes to be eliminated from our daily lives. The safety of cell phones is a matter of debate these days. It may take a decade or two for the definitive findings to see the light of day since the phone industry would not relent until they develop the “safer” improved versions before conclusive findings would be available.

Just think about that!

© All rights reserved by Sail Anon, October 18, 2009

It is an abundant morning

My sneakers are cuddled by the cobblestones

They callused the hands of 200 year-old East-Europeans

My fedora greets a dozen dormers

They framed the gazes of many sons and daughters of steel

I make my way to the lab,

hospital,

studio,

incubator,

robot,

bank.

I am challenged by the masses who built the Second Industrial Revolution

I am lifted by their presence

There is an abundance of bridges,

blast furnaces,

tanks,

railroads,

I-beams,

cars,

refrigerators.

My spirit is elevated

I envision worlds that do not exist

gadgets that hear

medicines that heal

buildings that live

energy that gives life

I am one with the pioneers of steel and artifice

I have callused hands,

money,

intelligence,

and the ingenuity of middle managers

I am  East-European and I am Far-Eastern

It is a beautiful abundant morning in the Burgh

© all rights reserved by Sail Anon, 10/10/2009 2:45PM

Two Tigers, One Rat, A Strawberry and A Man

There is an ancient Buddhist story that both inspires us about the opportunities and cautions us about the challenges of life.

One fine morning, in order to revive his constitution and invigorate his mind, a man decides to take a stroll in the woods.  He was absorbed in his thoughts and the nature that engulfed him. However, soon he noticed that he was being followed by a tiger. While the predator was at a safe distance, he was concerned that the coincidence in the direction of their movement might be more than just a coincidence. Being the cautious man that he was, he hastened his pace. To his chagrin, so did the tiger. Little by little, his haste grew into panic and he found himself running as fast as he could, with the tiger in hot pursuit.

Suddenly he came to a deep precipice with a valley below. Sensing the eminent danger was becoming more acute by the second, he grabbed a vine nearby and started climbing down the side of the cliff. As he was feeling that his heroic exertion to save his life was about to pay off, he heard the now familiar panting of the tiger becoming louder, not fainter, as it had been at first, as he descended the vine. This made him stop and look down. There was another tiger waiting for him at the valley below.

In spite of the fact that things were less than favorable, he thought that he could wait out one of the tigers, if not both of them, only if he could conserve his energy and use the side of the cliff as a ledge upon which to settle some of his dead weight. This is when he noticed that there was a new critter sound in the air: the gnawing of a rat. His vine was being used as a filing instrument by the incisors of a rat that ruminated on the side of the cliff.

Could things get any worse? At this moment of utter despair, he saw a juicy ripe strawberry hanging off of a bush on the side of the cliff. It was within his reach. This is when all sense of danger and catastrophe left him. With a broad smile on his face he plucked the strawberry and tossed it in his mouth, savoring the sweet tart flavor and aroma of the fruit that has been prepared by nature for this singular opportunity for him to enjoy, at this particular hour, on this particular fine day.

(c) all rights reserved by Sail Anon

Price of Success: NPR and Mr Simon

It is no speculation that NPR has risen to prominence in the annals of American news sources in the last few decades, perhaps at a rate few expected. “In 2008, the cumulative audience for NPR’s daily programs reached a record 20.9 million, a 9 percent increase over the previous year.”[web source: NPR Wikipedia] It is also known to most followers of NPR that its Weekend Edition Host and Peabody Award-winning correspondent Scott Simon’s stock has skyrocketed along with the fortunes of his employer.  He has been praised for his warm, humorous, thoughtful, and down to earth reporting as a signature spot every Saturday morning since early 80s. Some may even see a connection between the two. I remember reports on NPR singing the praises of Mr Simon because he passed up what might have been a more fame-fortune studded career in the TV news-entertainment business. Judging from the direction that TV news has recently taken and Mr. Simon’s self-centered style of reporting, this can now be considered, in retrospect, a missed opportunity for both Mr Simon and NPR.

Mr Simon has had several on-air faux pas’ that are well known and publicized. Whether it is calling for military action at the heels of 9/11, laughing at plots to murder Dick Cheney, or confusing the Chinese identity with that of the Taiwanese [Scott Simon, Tanners of Taiwan: Life Strategies and National Culture, Cambridge MA: Westview Press, 2005, ISBN:0-8133-4193-0 (pbk)] he is not innocent when it comes to making rookie mistakes. His veteran mistake is to count on his reputation and innocent good will to bail him out of these more than embarrassing moments. It is not that fact that he will be tossed out on his behind because of minor incursions here or there, however it is the fact that his self-delusion and self-confidence has reached such a level that he thinks he can get away with anything.

Consider the following.

Mr Simon interviews a UN official about the détente that is in the process of emerging between the Turkish and the Armenian governments on October 10, 2009. He uses the phrase “Armenian Genocide” without any suggestion or invitation to do so by the interviewee, who wisely stays clear of the phrase. It is well known to all interested in the issue, which should include Mr Simon since he has boisterously displayed his bias on NPR and on NBC in several occasions, that this is a hotly contested concept. Not only politician and the lay person, but also the erudite and the historian are conflicted about using the term “genocide.” This is an insult to the intelligence of the NPR listener who likes do her own thinking. Furthermore, according to the Ombudsperson of NPR, NPR refrains from using such terminology in spite of evidence that may seemingly favor one side or the other.

The inclusion of the term Armenian Genocide in our daily language has been instigated by political opportunists, ethnic fanatics, zealots, and forgerers of historical document. Its continued use is welcomed by media darlings like Mr Simon, among others.

Its appeal is split. Some Turks accept it, many do not. Many Armenians accept it, some do not. Historians on both sides defend their position with reason. Most Christians do not question it, most Muslims do. Most importantly, the two governments in question have agreed to open their borders, which is a step towards mutual understanding and agreement. In a delicate climate of negotiation someone makes the premature call that it is genocide. Is this person a historian specialized in Turkish-Armenian relations? Is he a member of the Armenian Diaspora? Is he an individual with deep knowledge of the issue? No. He is a nationally recognized news reporter who is pandering to his biases.

NPR has placed so much stake at Mr Simon’s invulnerability and infallibility that now it will pay the price for its rise to success partially on his back. As an avid supporter and listener to NPR, I caution this venerable institution. I will not listen to Weekend Edition until Mr Simon apologizes for his less than innocent indiscretions, in the matter of the Turkish Armenian political opening. I also invite all listeners who like to do their own thinking, to do the same.

(c) all rights reserved by Sail Anon