Accidental Blogger

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  • Of Summits and Ethics

    About a week ago, the news of Mark Inglis being the first
    double-amputee to conquer Mt.Everest made headlines the world over. New
    Zealanders were justifiably proud of the tremendous achievement of Mr.Inglis,
    achieved despite his loss of both legs below the knee to frostbite in another
    mountaineering expedition a few years ago.

    Double Amputee Scales Mount Everest

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Inglis

     
    Then came the news that this expedition had passed by a
    dying British climber David Sharpe and paused briefly, sharing some oxygen with
    him. The expedition commander decided it was futile to attempt a rescue and
    thus 40 people pressed on to the summit, leaving Mr.Sharpe to die alone.

    Everest Pioneer blasts climbers who left dying man

    On reading these accounts, I wondered- what was it that
    could force men to take leave of common humanity and press on to the top of the
    Everest? How could Mark Inglis bask in his achievement at the cost of a human
    life that could have been saved?

    After more reading, I found many firsthand accounts of
    climbers, detailing the most taxing of physical conditions that high altitude
    climbers encounter- oxygen deprivation, edema, frostbite, respiratory issues of
    other kinds. While this almost tends to vindicate the ‘each man for himself’
    attitude, the climbing, especially in large commercial expeditions, is very
    much a well-planned group affair. While many serious Everest climber pays
    upward of $75,000 for his attempt at the summit ( as did Mr.Inglis) , Mr.Sharpe
    was apparently with a ‘budget’ version of the climbers’ outfits, while charging
    about $8000, provides the climbers with no Sherpa guides, no oxygen or camps. 

    So, did this just boil down to a value for money decision on
    the part of Mr.Inglis’ expedition group?
    Read the transcript of an ABC News Australia program below for different takes on this,
    including Grand Old Man of the Mountain Sir Edmund Hillary’s blasting of the
    ethics and morality of leaving dying climbers alone to face their fate, rather
    than turning back from the summit, putting humanity ahead of achievement. Disturbingly
    enough, Mr. Inglis comes across as curiously fixated on the costs of such
    expeditions in his appearance on the program.

    http://www.abc.net.au/7.30/content/2006/s1647727.htm

    I like to think that were I in the same situation, I would
    have taken the moral path and decided to attempt a rescue, not pushing on to
    the summit. It’s easy for me to see it as a black and white case from the
    comfort of my keyboard. On the other hand, if I recall my frazzled behavior
    when I’m battling a migraine- short temper, extreme irritability and general
    loss of compassion- and put it up against the extreme physical problems that go
    with high-altitude climbs, I’m less confident that I would make the
    compassionate decision and take the high road. 

    What do you think you would do in a similar situation?

     

  • One UFO That Was Launched

    Recently, guest blogger Sujatha entertained us with her account of the UFOs (UnFinished Objects) that clutter her closets. They are the results of her never ending interest in new art and craft projects which she led us to believe she pursues enthusiastically but doesn’t quite manage to finish.  Well, not true.  Here is an evidence of one she did finish … and very well, I should add.

    (Click for larger image)Crop_quilt

    This is a piece of 21" X 21" quilt which Sujatha calls the "Rainbow Pinwheels."  She made it for her children’s room and describes it this way: "I had picked out those fabrics and colors because they complemented a ‘cloud dog’ carving from Darjeeling that my mom had given as a present. It was a fun project, though the quilting ( not exactly visible) is nowhere near heirloom quality. The lines aren’t very visible in the photo."  Sujatha, it’s time to launch a few more of the UFOs and share them with readers.

    Accidental Blogger is becoming a prolific "art" blog (how much Bush bashing can one do, after all?) and a useful one at that.  After my own recent virtual exhibition, I heard from a "real" artist Richa Arora, whom I had featured here some time ago. (See her comment on my exhibition) Richa wrote to say that she was recently contacted by a collector in Mumbai enquiring about her work after he stumbled upon her blog exhibition here! The gentleman was searching for her teacher to whom I had linked within the write up and found her art in the process. Hope she makes a sale!   

  • Bush’s Dog Days In Delhi & Other Animal Stories

    The context is a bit old but the some of the information is new because most major news media never reported it. It took a cozy chat between two Grande Dames on the political left – one here in the US and the other from India, to reveal some interesting tid-bits about Bush’s vistit to India last March on which I reported here and here.

    In a recent interview with American journalist Amy Goodman , Indian writer and activist Arundhati Roy spoke about George Bush, India, Iraq and other topics ranging from the free market to colonialism. During the conversation, Roy also described some behind the scenes aspects of Bush’s trip whose real and symbolic meanings are both quite funny and vaguely sinister.

    Those interested in reading the entire lengthy conversation, please see here.

      PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH: We concluded an historic agreement today on nuclear power. It’s not an easy job for the Prime Minister to achieve this agreement. I understand. It’s not easy for the American president to achieve this agreement, but it’s a necessary agreement. It’s one that will help both our peoples.

    AMY GOODMAN: President Bush in India.

    ARUNDHATI ROY: Well, the strange thing was that before he came, they wanted him to address a joint house of Parliament, but some members of Parliament said that they would heckle him and that it would be embarrassing for him to come there. So then they thought they would ask him to address a public meeting at the Red Fort, which is in Old Delhi,… but that was considered unsafe, because Old Delhi is full of Muslims, and you know how they think of all Muslims as terrorists….  So funnily enough, they eventually settled on him speaking in Purana Qila, which is the Old Fort, which houses the Delhi zoo. And it was really from there that — and, of course, it wasn’t a public meeting. It was the caged animals and some caged CEOs that he addressed. And then he went to Hyderabad, and I think he met a buffalo there, some special kind of buffalo, because there is a picture of Bush and the buffalo in all the papers, but the point is that, insulated from the public.

    There were massive demonstrations, where hundreds of thousands of people showed up. But I must say that while Bush was in Delhi, at the same time on the streets were — I mean apart from the protests, there were 60 widows that had come from Kerala, which is the south of India, which is where I come from, and they had come to Delhi because they were 60 out of the tens of thousands of widows of farmers who have committed suicide, because they have been encircled by debt……

    AMY GOODMAN: Tens of thousands?

    ARUNDHATI ROY: Tens of thousands. And then, anyway, so these 60 women were there on the street asking the Indian government to write off the debts of their husbands, right?  Across the street from them, in a five-star hotel were Bush’s 16 sniffer dogs who were staying in this five-star hotel, and we were all told that you can’t call them dogs, because they are actually officers of the American Army, you know. I don’t know what the names were. Sergeant Pepper and Corporal Whatever. So, it wasn’t even possible to be satirical or write black comedy, because it was all real.

    AMY GOODMAN: Didn’t President Bush visit Gandhi’s grave?

    ARUNDHATI ROY: He visited Gandhi’s grave, and first his dogs visited Gandhi’s grave. Then, you know, Gandhians were, like, wanting to purify it. And I said, “Look, I don’t mind the dogs. I mind Bush much more than the dogs.” But Gandhi’s — you know, obviously one can have all kinds of opinions about Gandhi. It’s not universal that everybody adores and loves him, but still he stood for nonviolence, and here it was really the equivalent of a butcher coming and tipping a pot of blood on that memorial and going away. It was — you know, there was no room left, as I said, for satire or for anything, because it was so vulgar, the whole of it. But I have to say the Indian mainstream media was so servile…. It was extraordinary. "

    Note: Thanks to Sujatha for the link.

  • Of Tigers, Dolphins, Cyclones and Lunar Rainbows

    The Hungry Tide by Amitav Ghosh is a "good" book  – note that I don’t say "wonderful," as I do for most of his other books. In his usual style, Ghosh deftly weaves fiction with fact, the past with the present and geography with history. The result while interesting, has a slightly unpolished feel about it.

    Or perhaps the author intended it that way. The story unfolds in the Sundarbans, the ferocious untamed jungle country in the Gangetic peninsula which begins at the edge of West Bengal in eastern India and stretches across the southern parts of Bangladesh upto its border with Myanmar. The region consists of a vast archipelago on the Bay of Bengal which the author describes as the "ragged fringed edge" of Mother India’s sari. It is a place where nature is both beguilingly prolific and ruthlessly savage. The jungles are thick and teeming with flora and fauna, the former dominated by the hardy mangrove and the latter by the magnificent Royal Bengal tiger. The intricate canals of the Sundarbans with channels of salt and fresh water, support numerous aquatic creatures which include fish, crocodiles, crabs and snakes. It is also the home of the south Asian Irrawady dolphin – a rare species of river dolphins. The islands of the Sundarbans are regularly battered by floods and cyclones. The human inhabitants of the islands are poor and depend mostly on the river and the jungle for their livelihood because the land is not suitable for agriculture due to repeated flooding with salt water. And they live their precarious and meager lives with one eye on the ebb and flow of the tide and the other on the menacing clouds which signal that a storm is brewing.

    It is in this remote place that we find the female protagonist of the book getting off a train in a dusty and dilapidated place with the unlikely British name of Canning. Piya Roy is an Indian American marine biologist from Seattle who has come there to do what she hopes will be her seminal cetological research. She wants to find and study the elusive river dolphins whose population has dwindled drastically. Piya, whose parents are Bengalis is back in the land of her ancestors. Despite her ethnic Indian looks, her body language, manner of dress and bold independent ways clearly set her apart as a foreigner in the eyes of local observers. She needs help in both navigating her way around land and water and for communicating with non English speakers. She finds what she is seeking from two men. Fokir, an illiterate fisherman born and bred in the Sundarbans becomes her guide on the river. The man who becomes Pia’s translator is Kanai. He is an educated, multi-lingual ladies’ man who has come there to see his idealistic social worker aunt whose deceased husband has left a journal for his nephew.

    The Hungry Tide describes Piya’s journey through land and the intricate waterways of the Sundarbans. She finds the dolphins but also experiences many furies of nature. The story unfolds at several levels. There is the history and the myth surrounding the islands and their inhabitants as recorded in the diary of Kanai’s uncle. The socio-political condition is evident in the tireless efforts by Kanai’s aunt to improve the health and education of the locals, especially women and children. The ecological aspect is addressed in the context of Piya’s research. In the midst of it all, a palpable sexual tension is created by one woman and two men finding themselves in close proximity within the limited confines of a boat.  Fokir who is married, illiterate and pitifully awkward on land and with whom Pia must communicate with gestures, becomes a strangely attractive creature on water because of his intimate knowledge and confident ease about the river and its mysteries. Kanai, with whom Pia has much more in common in terms of education, language and social class, fails to connect with her despite his sincere efforts. The book ends in a natural catastrophe and human tragedy. But also on a note of success and hope.

    The Hungry Tide provides some terrific insights into the Sundarban’s mythical, hisorical, ecological and contemporary sociological background.  But there is a disconnect in the narrative and it struck a false note.  The parallel stories of the characters in the present and the history and myths recorded in Kanai’s uncle’s journal were perhaps meant by the author to give a complete picture of life on the Gangetic delta. But I felt somewhat jarred by the backing and forthing and due to the excess of folklores and myths. Ghosh is a very fine writer and I am a great admirer. But The Hungry Tide for some reason had the feel of a "translation." I felt as if I was reading a story originally composed in Bengali and later transcribed into English – a bit haltingly and self consciously. I also had a hard time picturing the topography of the region. But that may be my own shortcoming. I seem to be able to visualize urban scenes in places that I have never seen much more clearly than I do unvarnished nature. But the most disappointing feature of the book was the oddly stilted dialogue. The characters seemed more real when they were thinking or silent than when they spoke to each other. Pia, the main character, remained a sketchy, aloof and unfleshed out person till the end. For those who have read Amitav Ghosh before, it is a book surely worth reading. To those who have never read him, I would say that this is not the book with which to begin one’s exploration.

    One bit of translation trivia:  As is common (now customary) in contemporary south Asian literature in English, many Indian words (in this case, Bengali) are used throughout the story. Some are simultaneously translated by the author and some are not. One word which Ghosh uses repeatedly is gamcha (I would have preferred the spelling "gamchha.") Ghosh doesn’t explain but one can guess its meaning from the use the object is put to. A gamcha is literally translated as "body wipe" and it is made out of very thin and usually checkered cotton cloth. In rural Bengal a gamcha is variously used as a towel or large kerchief, as a turban in the heat and sometimes even as a small fishing net.  If you look at the author’s photo in the back jacket cover of the book, you will notice that he is wearing a red and white checkered scarf around his neck that looks a bit like an Arab kaffiye.  I looked closely – it is a gamcha.

  • Crafty Conclusions

    – Reposted from Desijournal.com

    I have more than a dozen UFOs from the constellation Craftia hiding in my closet, wondering when I will finally let them see the light of day. These UnFinished Objects are in various stages of completion- I’m hoping that highlighting some of them in this article will jog me into going back and finishing them.

    First came Herkimer Mouse, an adorable little grey fella with a bright red sweater, hands clasped in prayer (or was he pleading "Please finish embroidering me…Please!!"). Bought for the miserly price of $1.20 from the clearance bin at a JoAnn Fabrics store in a galaxy far away, he was just awaiting finishing touches such as the whiskers and the twinkle in his eye to make him complete. What to do with the finished project? He clashes with the décor in my kids’ rooms. He looks too prayerful to fit in the office, family, living or dining rooms. He would stand out like a sore thumb in the puja cupboard, although placing him next to Ganesha, whose vehicle is a rodent, might not be such an outlandish idea. I give up –. Herkimer is going up for adoption, free to the first reader who would like to have him. Or if there are no takers, I will drop him off as an anonymous donation at the local Church.

    Being quite the knitting aficionado, I embarked on Barbara W’s Learn to Knit afghan with the enthusiasm of the convert, eager to learn all the nuances of knitting technique. Her 63 block afghan, I was convinced, would immeasurably improve my knitting skills and send me straight to Knitting Nirvana. I badgered my husband to let me piggyback the book onto his Amazon.com order rather than go through the hassle of borrowing it repeatedly from the library. Triumphantly thumbing through my new copy of the book, I quickly got through squares 3, 4, 5…6……7……..8…….9……….10. The afghan squares rest in a dusty basket, stuck at square 11 in the series, patiently awaiting my return some day. I may even be able to finish it as a gift in time for my 6th grader’s high school graduation.

    Next came Salley M’s Wee folk, made of pipecleaners, felt clothes, wrapped embroidery floss and beads with painted faces, cotton or yarn for hair. Who wouldn’t be charmed by the glorious full-color photos of armies of flower fairies and wee folk with acorn cap hats in her book! This fad had me trudging through 5 inches of snow to dig out sad little acorn caps under our oaks. In the first flurry of enthusiasm, I came up with a miniature doll dressed in bright orange felt, black yarn for hair and my daughter promptly dubbed her the "Japanese doll" for the Oriental slant to her eyes. A tiny Santa Claus , considerably leaner than normal, became a craft magnet on my fridge. A large flower fairy doll greets me daily next to potted plants on my kitchen window sill. I grew more ambitious, visions of demand for my handmade creations burgeoning from my friends. I was going to make several mini-Krishnas and see how the concept caught on. This called for an investment in assorted wooden beads, craft paint, doll’s hair and felt pieces. I got as far as painting three Krishna/Rama faces with varying degrees of success… and stopped. My favorite sewing needle was needed to complete some long-pending darning and had to be taken away from this promising cottage industry.

    Enthused by the brochure sent out by the local community college, I signed up for a non-credit course on beginning watercolors. My instructor turned out be a most eclectic gentleman whose primary credo was – "Anything goes, even it looks like the discombobulated efforts of a 2 year old elephant. " In fact, he was highly impressed by the photos of elephant artists and Koko the gorilla painting that I managed to locate for his edification. "That’s the true artistic spirit!" he announced to the class, a sea of white haired heads with a lone dark spot. I was too timid to admit that my personal tastes ran more to Thomas Kinkade style English cottages and flower gardens dripping with nostalgia and artful lighting. I attempted a few insipid trial paintings before coming up with my piece de resistance (according to my instructor, at least!) – a mysterious-looking and colorful painting of a cross legged man in the forefront, with a menacing cloaked figure in the background. This was my MoMA-worthy ‘interpretation’ of a National Geographic photo of some Afghan rebel smoking a cigarette in a desert, with his burqa-ed wife in the distance. Next, fired up by the instructor’s assertion that living creatures are among the best subjects for a stunning composition, I identified an old blurry photo of nestlings with wide open mouths as my next subject. Having sketched the picture, I got as far as painting a few underwashes of yellow, brown and green before I abandoned the project due to lack of interest in the subject.

    On to the next fad. I flirted with crochet, quilting, pottery, decoupage, paper crafting…. The list goes on, and each time produced more UFOs to reside in my closet. Trying to get this craftmania under control, I put myself through the 12-step Craftaholics Anonymous process. I’m currently at the stage where I’m reduced to ooohing and aaahing over the lovely pictures in books from my local library, without being able to actually try them out (part of the self-control techniques needed to get out of the addiction). So many crafts, so little time!

    Conclusions:

    Some kind doctor is going to issue an online diagnosis of adult ADHD and send me a prescription for Ritalin or whatever drug it is that is currently not on the FDA blacklist for causing potential strokes or heart attacks.

    That grand old lady of Television Craftdom, or Carol "Kizhavi" (‘old woman’ in Tamil), as my friend Pankajam maami likes to call her, will give me a call to appear on her show as a craftaholic par excellence.

    My kid’s school is going to receive a huge donation of assorted art and crafting supplies that have taken over every available room in the house. (My inner craftaholic pipes up in glee "Then I can go out and buy some more!!!")

    P.S:
    Herkimer Mouse is spoken for, with my kindergartener insisting  on appropriating it.
    I’ve had a serious relapse from the Craftaholics Anonymous 12-step- all Ruchira’s fault, since her lovely paintings made me go out to buy some oil paints and canvas paper to try some experimenting in a new medium. Yikes! Must get back with the program.

    Glossary:

    Puja – prayer ceremony

    MoMA- Museum of Modern Art

    Ganesha, Krishna – Hindu deities

    maami- Tamil term meaning aunt, generally applied to any matron as a form of respectful address.

  • A Bloodless Coup

    News of innovations in drug and medical research including those affecting women’s health make for interesting reading. While I do not take an academic interest in all pharmaceutical R&D, I do pay a fair amount of attention to what is reported in the popular news outlets. A story on the front page of Houston Chronicle this morning, caught me by extreme surprise – both because I had never heard about this new trend and for its possible implications. 

    I have known for a long time that women athletes who train very hard for strenuous competitive sports and experience drastic loss of body fat, often stop menstruating ( as also do some anorexics). Most resume their regular menstrual rhythm once they gain back a "normal" feminine physique.  The cessation of the natural periodic cycle, known as " Athletic-induced amenorrhea" is considered a very significant physiological change and is believed to put affected young women at increased risk of heart disease, osteoperosis and infertility. What I learnt in today’s report is that young, non-athlete women are choosing to eliminate menstruation altogether from their lives by means of certain birth control medications.

    "For young women with a world of choices, even that monthly curse, the menstrual period, is optional.  Thanks to birth control pills and other hormonal contraceptives, a growing number of women are taking the path chosen by 22-year-old Stephanie Sardinha. She hasn’t had a period since she was 17.

    "It’s really one of the best things I’ve ever done," she says.

    A college student and retail worker in Lisbon Falls, Maine, Sardinha uses Nuvaring, a vaginal contraceptive ring. After the hormones run out in three weeks, she replaces the ring right away instead of following instructions to leave the ring out for a week to allow bleeding. She says it has been great for her marriage, preventing monthly crankiness and improving her sex life.

    "I would never go back," said Sardinha, who got the idea from her aunt, a nurse practitioner.

    Using the pill or other contraceptives to block periods is becoming more popular, particularly among young women and those entering menopause, doctors say.

    "I have a ton of young girls in college who are doing this," says Dr. Mindy Wiser-Estin, a gynecologist in Little Silver, N.J., who did it herself for years. "There’s no reason you need a period."

    Such medical jury rigging soon will be unneeded. Already, the Seasonale birth control pill limits periods to four a year. The first continuous-use birth control pill, Lybrel, likely will soon be on the U.S. market.  The idea gained momentum after Barr Pharmaceuticals launched Seasonale in November 2003. It’s a standard birth control pill taken for 12 weeks, with a break for withdrawal bleeding every three months. Amid wide acceptance by doctors, sales shot up 62 percent last year, to $110 million.

    Publicity for Seasonale made women wonder, if just four periods a year are OK, why have any at all?

    Users of Pfizer Inc.’s Depo-Provera, a progestin-only contraceptive shot lasting three months, usually are period-free after a year or two. And many women have been getting extra prescriptions so they could continuously stay on birth control pills, the Ortho Evra patch or the vaginal ring, rather than bleeding every fourth week to mimic normal menstrual cycles. But the extra prescriptions have led to insurance company hassles.

    "What Seasonale did is get rid of that nuisance," says Dr. Peter McGovern of University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey. New extended-cycle contraceptives will do the same. Wyeth is hoping by late June to get Food and Drug Administration approval to sell Lybrel, its low-dose, continuous birth control pill.

    Dr. Patricia Sulak, who researches extended contraception at Texas A&M College of Medicine, applauds this new trend. "This redesign is way overdue," she says. "It’s going to be the demise of 21-7." Most doctors say they don’t think suppressing menstruation is riskier than regular long-term birth control use, and one survey found a majority have prescribed contraception to prevent periods."

    I can understand pre-menopausal women who often go into irregular and spotty menstrual cycles, using the drugs for a short time. I can also understand that for younger women with busy lives, menstruation is a nuisance with its accompanying physical and mental discomforts of cramps, PMS and other symptoms. But is the choice of totally eliminating an inconvenient but natural physical process completely safe?  I am usually for any innovation that makes women’s lives healthier, safer and hassle free. However unlike Dr. Sulak, I will hold my applause on this one until there are enough studies to show what the long term effects are on women’s heart, bone, uterine and ovarian health.

  • When Will We “Know” What To “Believe?”

    The May 12 breaking story (later dismissed as blogosphere babble) about the possible indictment of Karl Rove by Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald is becoming curiouser and curiouser.  Here is the latest from truthout.org.

  • MOL (Men of Letters) or WB (Wind Bags)?

    The US Senate hearings are a platform for our voluble senators to talk endlessly and posture before the American public and C-Span cameras. The exercise often appears to be designed for the senators to showcase their hard hitting questioning abilities, sharp wit, insider knowledge and gift of the gab. The apparent objective is to get to the bottom of things and make informed decisions. More often than not, the decision is a foregone conclusion – leaving us to wonder why they even bother with the futile theatrics.

    Yesterday’s Senate Intelligence Committee’s confirmation hearings for Michael Hayden, Bush’s nominee to head the CIA who is implicated in the NSA snooping on Americans, was no exception. Many words were exchanged – some cryptic ones.  Dana Milbank of Washington Post has a collection of the important sounding jargon that was thrown around during the exchange between Hayden and the senators.

    "The would-be DCI, currently the deputy DNI, really knows his ABCs.

    Gen. Michael Hayden, President Bush’s choice to head the CIA, hasn’t told members of the Senate Intelligence Committee very much during his confirmation hearing Thursday. But he sure can talk the talk.

    "As director of NSA, I was the national SIGINT manager," he said. "I would use this important new authority, the national HUMINT manager, to enhance the standards of tradecraft."

    This intrigued Sen. Kit Bond, R-Mo. "HUMINT is obviously the chief responsibility of CIA. You have been a SIGINT man for most of your career. … How will you adjust to HUMINT?" he asked.

    "I’ve actually been a HUMINTer," the nominee replied. "Actually I have more HUMINT experience going to CIA than I have SIGINT experience before I arrived at NSA."

    Hayden informed Bond that "there are other folks out there on the field playing this game — DOD, the FBI." He also disclosed "they talked about the MOU that had been signed between the DOD and the CIA in terms of how to coordinate and deconflict HUMINT activity."

    Bond pressed on. "There was some objection within the agency to the DNI sending two dozen CT analysts to the National Counterterrorism Center as part of the lanes in the road," he said. "To what extent should the NCTC be engaged in the all-source terrorism analysis?"

    "Sir, it’s a complicated question," Hayden said with obvious understatement. It was important, he said to sustain "high OPSTEMPO current CIA operations."

    Sen. Mike DeWine, R-Ohio, wanted to show he could keep up with the big boys. "Talk to me a little bit about what NASIC has done, the SAVANT program," he charged the nominee.

    Whatever Hayden was saying, Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., didn’t like what he was hearing. He wondered if Hayden had "parsed your words like a lawyer to intentionally mislead the public."

    By way of answer, Hayden made reference to his "testimony in front of the combined HPSCI and SSCI."

    After a few hours of this, almost everybody in the press and public seats had left the hearing room. It was time for some Z’s. Critics may say that the SSCI — that’s the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence — is AWOL these days when it comes to oversight. But, FYI, no one would doubt these guys are A-OK with their ABCs."

    Glossary for us mere mortals:

    • DCI: Director of Central Intelligence
    • DNI: Director of National Intelligence
    • DOD: Department of Defense
    • NSA: National Security Administration
    • SIGINT: Signal Intelligence
    • HUMINT: Human Intelligence
    • MOU: memorandum of understanding
    • CT: Counterterrorism
    • NCTC: National Counterterrorism Center
    • OPSTEMPO: operations tempo
    • NASIC: National Air and Space Intelligence Center
    • HPSCI: House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence
    • SSCI: Senate Select Committee on Intelligence
    • SAVANT – Situation Awareness Verification and Analysis Tool

    Sounds like a load of BS to me. If you want to know what was REALLY said, see here.

  • The Virtual Exhibition

    I am gratified for the kind and enthusiastic words posted in the comments section and via e-mail in response to the mini-exhibition of my paintings. It is also a bit embarrassing because I know the extent of my own artistic talent.  I don’t want to appear cloyingly modest – but I can assure you it is not much. However, I have certainly become emboldened to put up some more of my art work on the blog in the future after a decent interval. I don’t have a huge repertoire and some of the paintings are copies or near copies of published photographs in magazines such as the National Geographic which I made for good practice and interesting subject matter. I hesitate to publish them in a public forum without acknowledging the proper source, most of which I no longer remember except in a vague way. I suppose I can put some up by noting that they were "inspired" wholly or partially by sources other than my own imagination, particularly because some are very nice. I am going to use this post as a response to all the comments and some of Dean’s questions. I don’t know that I have anything terribly illuminating to say.  And it is not a lack of confidence (which I possess in plenty) but a bit hypocritical to speak authoritatively on a subject in which I have limited expertise.

    Although Dean kindly insists that my work is indeed "fine art," I have always been a sporadically inspired, moderately competent and wholly amateur artist. I am also quite lazy.  The artistic "spirit" is way stronger than the "flesh." But as far back as I can remember, I always liked to draw.  My mother had musical aspirations for me as a child. All efforts in that direction were frustrated by my inability to strike the right note and my mother at last admitted that I was blessed with a solid tin ear.  Fortunately, my father noticed my much greater enthusiasm for the paintbox than the harmonium and enrolled me in art classes with notable New Delhi artist, Abani Sen (see here and here) when I was twelve years old. During my three years at his studio, I learnt pencil, charcoal and pastel drawings (some watercolor) and how to "look" at objects before putting them to paper. The most invaluable lesson was in learning to "draw" both from memory and live model. (Note to Jackson Pollock : If you can’t draw, don’t paint). Since I was the youngest member of his class,(all others were serious students training for professional art careers) Mr. Sen was incredibly kind and indulgent towards me. That was the only real stint of formal art training I was exposed to. Soon I had to quit due to increasing study load in high school and then college. I continued to participate in collective efforts in campus art throughout school and even a bit in college where as a science student, my access to the art scene was severely limited. The real dry period ensued after starting a job, getting married and having children although even then I continued to sketch and paint off and on.

    As I told Sujatha, I am also a "social" artist. I do my best work in a studio setting when others are working at my elbow. Which is why the period between 1992 – 1998 in Omaha was specially productive. In 1992 I joined a group of amateur artists who gathered in the studio of a fairly well known Nebraska artist Joanie Furrrow, for weekly sessions of art and gabfest.  Although most of my work progressed at home, the once a week give and take with my friends kept my creative fervor burning. I first seriously took up oil colors there. The years with Joanie were not strictly lessons. She left us alone to do our own thing but taught us many useful techniques and pointed out blatant errors. Which was great because Joanie’s own tastes ran to lush gardens and pretty ladies and I prefer empty spaces, straight lines and sharp angles. Noting the difference in our proclivities, Joanie once quipped laughingly, "If Ruchira ever paints a tree, it is likely to be a dead one."  I have not found a comparable milieu in Houston.  There are either the highly professional studios geared to sales or very Mickey Mouse ones run by craft shops.

    I cannot honestly say that any one artist has inspired or influenced my work in any concrete way. There is a whole host of geniuses whom I have wished I could emulate. Like most non-serious artists, I admire a very wide range of art and artists from all over the world and through the ages, but still end up doing my own personal dabbling at the easel.  But as Anna noted in her comment, Joe was indeed on to something. If I were to ever set about consciously imitating just one single artist’s style and substance, it would most probably be Edward Hopper – although the tennis scene is entirely my own creation !   

    Sujatha: Thanks for all the useful behind the scenes information. If indeed I do take up painting again, I will surely talk to you. As for prints, I sold several when I had a small exhibition. They were all photographic prints, matted and ready for framing. I have also gifted some to friends and family. I never want to part with the originals although a friend coaxed me into selling her one that she really, really wanted. What are giclee prints? Are they digital or on paper?

    Coturnix: Thanks for your enthusiasm!

    Devan: You are perfectly competent to talk about art – as we all are. I agree with you about blogger persona imprinting one’s website.  That is why I have to be a bit careful about not making Accidental Blogger too much about the blogger. But as long as George Bush rules, there is little danger of that.                                    

    Dean: I don’t think I answered all your questions very well. Here is the last one.  With oil paint, it is very difficult to decide when a picture is finished.  The luscious and versatile medium is also very forgiving . It lets you cover up mistakes and go back and change things endlessly. As I said to you, my rule of thumb in deciding that a painting is done is when several members of the household start asking, "You are still working on that?" 

    Matt:  I never doubt your sincerity – after all, I read your blog and as I said once, one of the prettiest colors in my paint box is Cerulean Blue. I am really relieved that you liked my paintings. Otherwise I would have been up for one of your withering "two word" reviews. As for a separate website for my paintings, that cannot be justified unless I start again and produce some fresh work. And how was Mother’s Day?

    Sondra: I will surely listen to your e-mail advice.

  • Family Pictures (Virtual Exhibition #1)

    I have no worthwhile blogging ideas today – been a little busy too.  I am going to wing it and also indulge in a bit of self promotion. 

    Although I have loved drawing and painting since childhood, I have pursued this amateur but serious hobby in spurts of a few years at a time only about three or four times since my early teens. The last inspiration lasted between 1992 – 1998.  I haven’t picked up a brush in the past eight years.  I am posting three of my paintings here today as a test case. All are oil on canvas and painted in 1996 and 1997. They are not fine art but done with much enthusiasm and loving care. If you like them, please let me know.  I might then consider posting some others from time to time.

    (Please click to see a bigger image)Pic5_1  

    I have selected three paintings which represent my impressions of fond family memories.  The first one is a composite drawn from several old photographs and depicts a true life scene with my daughter and husband on the shores of the Black Sea in Bulgaria many moons ago.  My daughter was young enough to be thrown up in the air and my husband still looked good in a Speedo.

    Pic6_1 The second painting was made for my son’s high school varsity tennis coach as a gesture of appreciation for his efforts the year the Millard South (my son’s school) tennis team won the state championship. The name of the painting is "Advantage Millard South."

    Pic2_4 The third  one is inspired by my son’s love for music and our two beloved cats – Raja and Ali. Raja the grey one, is unfortunately not with us any more, having succumbed to cancer just over a year ago at age fourteen. He did not really care for music but loved his food, the most comfortable bed in the house and the outdoors.  His brother Ali is on top of the piano. Ali is now fifteen years old and he is a true music lover. My son swears that Ali is partial to Chopin.

    Note:  I had all my paintings photographed professionally. I have the prints on 8X10 glossies on Kodak paper but none of the images is stored on a CD or other electronic mode. The only way I can publish them is by scanning the prints which is what I have done here. I notice that some detail is lost and the color does not exactly match the original. But this is the best I could manage. 

  • So, this is the coolest thing ever…

    …or maybe it’s just because I have a thing for books.  And another for Wales.  There’s a review up at the New York Times (sorry, free registration required), covering both the travel and the Welsh book festival:

    THE tiny town of Hay-on-Wye in southeastern Wales
    seems like a curious place to hold a major literary festival. Getting
    there involves a circuitous three-and-a-half-hour drive from London
    through traffic-snarled highways and back roads crowded with ancient
    farm vehicles. Big on charm but low on hotels (there is only one), Hay
    also has the disadvantage of being situated in some kind of freakish
    precipitation belt that attracts an unusual amount of rain.

    Yet the Hay Festival, which began in 1988 as an insane glint in the eye of its organizer, Peter Florence,
    has expanded and expanded to become one of the world’s best-known and
    most exciting literary events — the "Woodstock of the mind," as former
    President Clinton, a participant several years ago, put it. (Think of
    it as a literary Sundance festival, minus the Hollywood swag.)

    For 10 days at the end of May, the town is given over to writers,
    and its population of 1,500 swells to a remarkable 80,000, as visitors
    troop to see the likes of Dave Eggers, Kazuo Ishiguro, Don DeLillo, John Updike,
    Clive James, Julian Barnes, Ali Smith, Patrick McGrath, Jeannette
    Winterson, Doris Lessing and Jaqueline Wilson, to name a few who have
    appeared recently.

    Not only can these writers engage in ordinary literary-festival
    activities — reading from their works, discussing their inspirations
    and answering the inevitable pen-or-pencil-preference question — but
    they can also be found wandering around town, ordering coffee in local
    cafes, getting drunk in the bars and buying books in the used-book
    stores for which Hay is renowned. […]

    That Hay has an absurdly high concentration of used-book stores —
    some three dozen of them — is due in large part to the efforts of
    Richard Booth, a zealous used-book seller who opened his first shop in
    1961 and has actively encouraged others to follow. Which is the best
    store? Who knows?

    There’s one devoted to mysteries and thrillers, one to poetry, one
    to bee-related books, another to books about music, and another to rare
    children’s books. There are huge ones, like the Hay Cinema Bookshop,
    and modest-size ones, like the delightfully named Sensible Bookshop. […]

    The town is tiny, built around just a few main streets in the shadow
    of a large ruin of a castle that dates to the 13th century and has
    survived multiple sackings and multiple fires. It now houses a
    two-bedroom rental apartment, a bookshop and a 24-hour outdoor display
    of books that are sold on the "honesty" system — you leave 30 pence for
    a paperback, 50 pence for a hardback.

    The town is relatively quiet in the off-season, but during the
    festival — which mostly takes place to one side, in an elaborate city
    of tents that rises, mushroomlike, out of the wet soil each year — it
    is literally thronging with people. (The invited writers may sometimes
    feign unhappiness at the zealousness of the fans, but they would be
    devastated to be left out of the festival.) You will have to fight the
    crowds in the streets and in the stores. […]

    Hay may be out of the way, but
    it is surrounded by delicious, London-quality food. With a range of
    so-called gastro-pubs — pubs selling superior food cooked by talented
    chefs — in the area, we settled on the Felin Fach Griffin, about 10
    miles down the road. The atmosphere was mellow but the food serious. I
    particularly liked my roast halibut, Robert’s bitter chocolate cake
    with orange sorbet, and the spectacularly crispy French fries.

    The fields across Wales were dotted with tiny newborn lambs, the
    sight of which inspired us to pay a visit the next day to the Small
    Breeds Farm Park and Owl Center in nearby Kington. There, we met a baby
    owl that looked like a dust mop; cuddled a 2-week-old pygmy goat; saw
    our first chinchilla; and were introduced to a small herd of miniature
    horses and donkeys.

    The area around Hay is rich in walking possibilities, if you don’t
    mind a little precipitation. We drove toward the Black Mountains, and
    suddenly the trees and bushes gave way to moss and thick, wiry grass.
    The wind howled, the rain beat down, the feeling was desolate, and if
    the climb up the nearest hill was steeper and harder than it looked,
    the climb down was much worse. […]

    I have to say, Hay-on-Wye sounds like a great place to visit on vacation–perhaps at any point in the tourist "offseason" rather than for the Hay Festival, although the possibility of running into David Mitchell (or any other author of your choice) is pretty enticing.  Anyhow, I’ve cut large parts of the article because it’s kind of long (2 "pages"), so I recommend reading the whole thing.

  • Pregnancy As Punishment

    I have previously spoken out about the need for safe and sensible measures to promote womens’s reproductive health and the immeasurable harm done to progress in this field by meddlesome religious bigots. Two of my angrier comments are here and here.

    This morning at Leiter Reports, I came across yet another evidence of the foolish and mischievous attempts by social conservatives to derail all attempts to properly educate American teenagers about responsible sex – a precursor to the healthy physical and emotional futures of adult women. Like most sensible adults, I believe that  young children have no business indulging in sexual activity. I also believe that prevention is always easier than the cure. Instead of lying and talking down to our children, we must address issues such as unwanted pregnancy, STD and the emotional harm resulting from careless and degrading sexual experience with our kids – both boys and girls. And we have to do it accurately, carefully and compassionately. Information about both abstinence AND safe and proper contraception is an integral part of that education.

    One would assume that given their vehement opposition to abortion, conservatives would support contraception which when practiced properly prevents a majority of unwanted pregnancies.  But astonishingly enough, they also oppose all effective contraceptive methods BEFORE and AFTER sexual activity that can prevent a pregnancy, insisting only on teaching abstinence, fear and divine retribution. Do they not know that even a chaste teenager may get pregnant against her wishes? Have they not heard of rape?  Also, not just teenagers face unwanted pregnancies.  Sometimes so do twenty four and thirty year olds and many of them may be "married" women. 

    Recently, the religious conservatives’ opposition to the Plan B method of contraception and the FDA’s feet dragging in making this drug available over the counter made national news. Disgusted by an FDA that takes its health & safety guidelines straight out of Jerry Falwell’s Medical Handbook (1692, Salem edition), The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists has decided to speak out. Physicians plan to advise women to stock up on their Plan B medication and prescriptions. Predictably enough, some conservatives are up in arms and fuming. The fundamentalists’ contradictory positions on abortion and contraception confirms my long held suspicion that chastity is not their goal.  They WANT  women to become pregnant – as often as possible. A pregnant woman is vulnerable, dependent and in case of an unwanted pregnancy, frightened  – therefore easier to control. 

    "Doctors raised the stakes in the nation’s ongoing battle over emergency contraception Monday with a new campaign that encourages women to get an advance prescription for the "morning-after pill," so it will be readily available later if they have unprotected sex.  The "Ask Me" campaign is organized medicine’s most aggressive effort yet to ensure that women have access to emergency contraception when they think they need it. The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, which represents nearly 50,000 physicians, is the sponsor…. "Accidents happen. Morning afters can be tough," reads a poster for the new campaign. "Ask me today — so you can have it when you need it. Be prepared."

    The morning-after pill — a high dose of the same hormones found in birth control pills —work s largely by preventing ovulation or fertilization of an egg, but it may also interfere with a fertilized egg becoming implanted in a woman’s womb. The pill must be taken within 72 hours after unprotected intercourse but is most effective within the first 24 hours. The difficulty is that many women can’t get to their physicians on short notice to ask for a prescription, and large numbers of low-income women don’t have a regular doctor. Some pharmacists have stopped dispensing emergency contraception, citing abortion opposition.

    The campaign is in response to the Food and Drug Administration’s refusal to let the morning-after pill, also known as Plan B, be sold over-the-counter. "Many of us feel the FDA’s actions have been unfair, unkind, unconscionable, unsafe and biased," said Dr. Iffath Hoskins, of the ob-gyn department at Lutheran Medical Center in Brooklyn, N.Y.

    Conservatives fumed at the medical group’s initiative. "We think this is a totally irresponsible move on the part of the doctors," said Jim Sedlak, vice president of the American Life League, an organization that says emergency contraception is a form of abortion.

    Conservatives have mobilized opposition to emergency contraception because they say it is a form of abortion and that it could lead to more promiscuous sexual behavior.  With their new campaign, ob-gyn doctors "will be pushing products that kill babies in the womb," Sedlak said. Instead of being backup protection against an unwanted pregnancy, Plan B will likely become a "primary method of birth control" for many young people, he said."

    Women, listen to your doctors.

  • Speak Clearly – Uncle Sam Is Listening

    Why am I not surprised? I had speculated in a previous post that the nefarious Bush-Cheney adiministration is not above spying on its own citizens under the cover of national security.  Now, just in time for the confirmation hearing of  Gen. Michael Hayden — Bush’s choice to take over leadership of the CIA, USA Today is reporting that the NSA had collected the phone records of millions of Americans in an effort to build a database of ALL phone calls made in the USA. AT&T Corp., Verizon Communications Inc., and BellSouth Corp complied with the request and turned over phone records of their customers. Only one big phone company, Qwest refused. Mind you, these were not phone calls made BY or TO suspected terrorists outside the US, but phone calls made within the country by millions of Americans.  The administration insists that everything it did  was within the law. Whose law? That of the erstwhile Soviet Union?  And by the way, Michael Hayden is the former Director of the NSA and the architect of the phone surveillance program.  When the NSA eavesdropping story first broke,  Bush had assured Americans that the procedure was legal and strictly targeted Al Qaida operatives.  Well, it appears that we are all suspected terrorists in the eyes of this undignified, suspicious and scofflaw administration.

    "Congressional Republicans and Democrats demanded answers from the Bush administration Thursday about a report that the government secretly collected records of ordinary Americans’ phone calls to build a database of every call made within the country.

    "It is our government, it’s not one party’s government. It’s America’s government. Those entrusted with great power have a duty to answer to Americans what they are doing," said Sen. Patrick Leahy of Vermont, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee.

    AT&T Corp., Verizon Communications Inc., and BellSouth Corp. telephone companies began turning over records of tens of millions of their customers’ phone calls to the National Security Agency program shortly after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, said USA Today, citing anonymous sources it said had direct knowledge of the arrangement.

    On Capitol Hill, several lawmakers expressed incredulity about the program, with some Republicans questioning the rationale and legal underpinning and several Democrats railing about the lack of congressional oversight.

    Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., told Fox News Channel: "The idea of collecting millions or thousands of phone numbers, how does that fit into following the enemy?"

    Please read the whole story so  you can find out how Bush has been keeping you safe – from yourself!