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  • The Waiting Pox (Cyrus)

    I have been meaning to write something substantial for my first post
    to Accidental Blogger, but my brain has been roasting at a pleasant
    39°C (that’s 102°F for the Imperialists) for a large portion
    of the past week. It has simmered down to near normal now, and the
    pox are on the retreat.

    I was not planning on getting Chickenpox at 30 years of age, indeed, I
    thought it to be nigh impossible. The social wisdom on the matter is
    clear. You get the pox once, likely as a youth, able to enjoy the
    ministrations of your parents, yet endowed with the ability to feel
    guiltless about your whining. After that, you never get it again.
    Secure with this common sense, I happily accepted an invitation to
    dine with some soon to depart friends, aware that their pre-school
    aged twins were showing the first signs of the pox. A vague memory of
    horrid itching was all the protection I needed.

    Fast forward two weeks, and I felt a little malaise. And then it
    hit. Chickenpox isn’t like a cold. It doesn’t slip between your
    chest and head, desperately trying to outfox your immune system,
    knowing well it has no chance to make it to the big time. The
    pox announces its intentions loudly and boldly, splashing them with
    color (red) all over your chest and back: I am here, and I am going to
    try and kill you.

    In response, I fell back into old routines developed in childhood,
    possibly during my first experience with the poxs, some 25 years past.
    I remembered again why feeling cold is bad (fever is high), and
    sweating is good (body is trying to cool down). In an attempt to
    seize a little control in a situation where I had none, I tried to run
    my body as if it were a nuclear reactor. Mentally, I would call up
    the control room in put in orders, “divert resources to keeping core
    body temperature below 39°,” or, in a moment of extreme headache,
    “alert, alert, make sure the brain isn’t swelling.” I had been
    reading about encephalitis, a possible complication from Chickenpox.

    All very childish I suppose, and I can’t say I persisted at it very
    long, but it did provide some much needed distraction from the
    monotony of persistent full-body throbbing. At the core, that is what
    a illness like Chickenpox comes down to: monotonous waiting, waiting
    for the fever to subside, waiting for it to come back, waiting for
    someone to go shopping for food, waiting for your eyes to stop
    hurting, waiting for life to start again.

    The Internet makes the waiting worse. It keeps one connected and
    aware of the outside world. I know what all my friends are doing
    today, so I know exactly where I want to be besides here in bed, with
    just my laptop keeping me warm. It’s a little taste of a phenomenon
    I have come to think of as Hypothetically Lost Opportunity Syndrome
    (HLOS), where one pines for an event or person that seems remarkably
    close, with the Internet informing you of their presence in big bold
    letters, right there, just in front of you, but actual physical
    attendance is not a real possibility. There is a form of mental
    discounting taking place, with a fire sale on reality. Being sick
    shrinks the HLOS radius until it is acutely felt. It’s enough
    to make one think about disconnecting for a time. Not knowing can be
    mentally healthier.

    The fever is mostly gone now. I can read for hours at a time without
    my eyes tiring, and I’m discovering which friends make the best
    selections at the supermarket. The waiting isn’t over yet, maybe
    another week to go, but at least I can function with some capacity
    again. Heck, that was only a week, right? Seems silly to even
    complain.

    My father contracted the pox twice as well, years apart. This turns
    out to be not so uncommon. Some people only gain partial immunity, or
    their immunity fades with time. There are possibly apocryphal
    on-line reports from people who claim to have had three or four bouts
    with the virus. So much for the social wisdom. Here is hoping
    that two times is enough for my body to get the antibodies right.

  • 2nd Annual 3QD Politics Prize

    The nomination process for 3 Quarks Daily's 2nd annual prize for the best political writings on blogs is now open. Please check out the announcement and nominate a post of your liking.

    This year the competition may be of special interest to our authors and readers – an A.B. post will be among the nominees. Although Andrew's excellent essay on the marketing of malt liquor is not a conventional political post, there is plenty of politics involved in his analysis. It therefore qualifies, in my opinion. Please keep an eye on the nomination and voting schedule and consider voting for Andrew's post when the time comes.

  • Manu Joseph’s Literary Offences (narayan)

    In 'Serious Men', his first novel, Manu Joseph has brought together a small group of well realized characters and set them at each others throats in the age old context of class warfare, Indian style. The conflict is set in motion through the machinations of the protagonist, Ayyan, who is motivated by an unrelenting hatred of privileged people, all of whom he sees as Brahmins. He is Karna pitted once more against the Pandavas, and this time he means to win. Ayyan, the Dalit, is a modern day picaro, all hate and no humor, with a plan to sabotage windmills rather than tilt at them. Even an Iago, perhaps.  

    The Hindu, one of the oldest and most respected newspapers in India, has given its Best Indian Fiction Award of 2010 to 'Serious Men'. From this first notice I became envious and wanted to know more about the book and its author. I came across a glowing review , and heard from the author himself in a Huffington Post interview. What was not to like? A respected journalist-editor; an intriguing story; a theme of guaranteed appeal; original characters whom readers can love or hate with no in-betweens; Bollywood potential – nay, Hollywood potential. Aspiring authors would kill for such a winning conflux of graces. And yet …

    By the end of day one of my read I was beside myself. The book offended my sensibilities and I took a hi-lighter to mark its infelicities. Buckets of bile bubbled in my innards. My friend showed up for dinner. I raged at the book. She grew apprehensive. I read out to her all the snippets I had marked. My voice grew hoarse. She bid me stop, "Narayan, you're going to have a conniptionfit!"  In another hour I returned to a semblance of normalcy. "Can you not overlook all this and just read the book for its story?" she said. Apparently all the touts of 'Serious Men' had done just that. The short answer to my friend's question was, "No, I can't". Neither can the Leatherstocking Tales be read this way any more; to bring some sanity to my rage and simplify matters, I invoked Mark Twain's critique of James Fenimore Cooper's novels of colonial America. 

    Here is Mark Twain enumerating eighteen rules that Cooper violated; they require :

    1. That a tale shall accomplish something and arrive somewhere.
    2. That the episodes of a tale shall be necessary parts of the tale and shall help to develop it.
    3. That the personages in a tale shall be alive, except in the case of corpses, and that always the reader shall be able to tell the corpses from the others.  
    4. That the personages in a tale, both dead and alive, shall exhibit a sufficient excuse for being there. 
    5. That when the personages of a tale deal in conversation, the talk shall sound like human talk, and be talk such as human beings would be likely to talk in the given circumstances, and have a discoverable meaning, also a discoverable purpose, and a show of relevancy, and remain in the neighborhood of the subject in hand, and be interesting to the reader, and help out the tale, and stop when the people cannot think of anything more to say.  
    6. That when the author describes the character of a personage in his tale, the conduct and conversation of that personage shall justify said description. 
    7. That when a personage talks like an illustrated, gilt-edged, tree-calf, hand-tooled, seven-dollar Friendship's Offering in the beginning of a paragraph, he shall not talk like a negro minstrel in the end of it. 
    8. That crass stupidities shall not be played upon the reader as "the craft of the woodsman, the delicate art of the forest," by either the author or the people in the tale. 
    9. That the personages of a tale shall confine themselves to possibilities and let miracles alone; or, if they venture a miracle, the author must so plausibly set it forth as to make it look possible and reasonable.  
    10. That the author shall make the reader feel a deep interest in the personages of his tale and in their fate; and that he shall make the reader love the good people in the tale and hate the bad ones.  
    11. That the characters in a tale shall be so clearly defined that the reader can tell beforehand what each will do in a given emergency. 
    In addition to these large rules there are some little ones. These require that the author shall: 
    12. Say what he is proposing to say, not merely come near it. 
    13. Use the right word, not its second cousin.
    14. Eschew surplusage.
    15. Not omit necessary details.
    16. Avoid slovenliness of form.
    18. Employ a simple and straightforward style.

    Most of these are coldly and persistently violated in 'Serious Men' as I demonstrate in the appendix.

    Thinking to simplify my assessment, I sat up all night seeking ways to categorize Joseph's literary offences. I hope I have succeeded in my choices in the spirit of Twain. The evidence is appended to this article for interested readers. Twain asserts that Cooper's art has some defects. In one place in 'Deerslayer,' and in the restricted space of two-thirds of a page, Cooper has scored 114 offences against literary art out of a possible 115. It breaks the record. Much as I am tempted, I promise not to make such exaggerated claims.

    So why the bile, you ask?  Right off the bat I'll admit that bad reviews can be the sour-grapes of would-be writers, and I am not immune to the fantasy of being a published fictioneer. It is The Way of the World : the envy of Nature's oafs by Fortune's fools (or is it the other way around?). Touché!  Setting this aside, I ask : why the award? why the tributes? why the glowing reviews? Here's a sampling :
    == elegantly describes – novelist of serious talent – fine literary art
    == Joseph’s writing has an unmistakable assurance and intelligence, and he steers almost completely clear of the contrivances of plot, infelicities of style, stereotypical narrative arcs, and oddly ingratiating manner found in so many contemporary Indian novels in English.
    == If there is one novel you must buy this year, whether or not you have the slightest interest in South Asia, make it this one.
    == The assurance, wit, and compelling storytelling make this a debut to treasure, and the book will take its place amongst the great comic novels that through the comedy shine a light on their times.
    The unanimity, in this instance at least, suggests a mutual admiration society of literary shills – writers, journalists, editors, publishers, book-sellers, and paid reviewers – Pied Pipers to a trusting Indian readership – collectively, an army of lemmings.

    Outside this conclave of vested interests stands a lone dissenter. Commenting on an obscure blog, the anonymous Annie complains of "a bitter aftertaste", and, "Oparna, Oja, Lavanya – the basest that women can be made out to be; the male gaze of the writer all through the novel. I also wonder how a journo has grabbed the best fiction award instituted by a journo-house." Brava, Annie!

    From the author himself we have another clue : "Joseph joked that a high-profile prize in the UK might alter the way the book is perceived at home. 'In India, the novel is being received very well. As long as it doesn't win the Booker …' he said." My, my! Could these be sour-grape varietals from a rival vineyard? Indians now have a champion to front them as they take pot-shots at the last three compatriots who won the Booker prize. All have been marginalized already to degrees – Roy for her activism, Desai for her narrative, and Adiga for the sin of inauthenticity – as if good language and a respect for idiom, idioma y idiotismo, did not matter.

    In standing up to all this I must again shelter behind Mark Twain. Speaking as a reader with no Eng. Lit. credentials – a Dalit of the book world – it seems to me that it was far from right for the Brahmins of the publishing business to deliver opinions on Joseph's novel without having read some of it. It would have been much more decorous to keep silent and let persons talk who have read 'Serious Men'.

    Far from being a great novel, 'Serious Men', despite its vaunted merits, is junk writing in the tradition of Bulwer-Lytton and high-school prose. The Hindu has bought itself a pig in a poke. Silk purses and sow's ears come to mind, as does gato por liebre.  Caveat Emptor!

    >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> [Sample the Appendix for a few chuckles] >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

    (more…)

  • Doctor’s Dilemma (Sujatha)

    <p A fascinating article and discussion in The New England Journal of Medicine.

  • A case of bogus science..(Omar)

    Dr Pervez Hoodbhoy in Dawn. 

    Dr Rahman (and others like him) reflect a particular type: the third world scientist who is intelligent, trained in his own specialty, is scientifically productive (700 papers) and yet is almost completely untouched by the narrative of science, rationality and "heroic materialism" which is almost normative in the higher reaches of science in the modern world.

    This statement is not well worded and may be misunderstood. But those who know Dr Rahman and others like him will recognize what I mean. One can see Dr. Hoodbhoy as a good example of what the un-Rahmans look like. One cannot imagine the roles in this article being switched. i.e one cannot imagine Hoodbhoy writing bullshit about HAARP weapons and Dr. Rahman pointing it out in an article defending the values of science…. 

  • Rules of Grammatical (Norm)

     

    I invite readers to contribute their own Rules of Grammatical in the comment section. Who knows what a wonderful compendium we will create.

    01. Considering proper grammar, dangling participles are used to subtly distract the reader from the true horror of split infinitives.

    02. There are times when it is acceptable to use a preposition to end a sentence with.

    03. The definite article is overused, and distinguishes the bad writing from the good writing.

    04. The good writer automatically makes the decision of avoiding the use of the present participle in place of the infinitive.

    05. In his classic essay on grammar, Smith explains why you can't use contractions in place of full forms.

    06. Tomorrow, wednesday, we will review the work of british grammarian Smith on the correct use of Capitalization.

     

     

  • Terror in Mumbai; Propublica investigates… (Omar)

    My apologies for the long note (luckily the long part is below the fold), but Propublica and the Washington Post have just published two articles about the Mumbai attacks.. and Mumbai continues to interest me because I think the cold-blooded intent, the conscious choices, the pleasure taken in the killing, the personal touch, these make Sajid Mir and company more evil than President Bush (I am not sure about Rumsfeldt, he always struck me as a bit of the Sajid Mir type) and I find myself trying to figure out if my "gut reaction" is intellectually defensible? Is it really correct to feel that the murder of 170 people was a more evil act than the bombing of thousands? After two years, I still think so, but I welcome comments.

    Anyway, I went back and looked at postings on our yahoogroup from the time of the attacks. At that time we did not know the identity of the attackers, but we all assumed they were from Pakistan (though there was some thought that they may be Indian Muslims trained and assisted by Pakistani groups, and that they may also have a Bangladesh connection). A few excerpts from those exchanges are below the fold. Some have stood the test of time, others do not seem to have panned out…

    (more…)

  • An Even Dozen

    When it rains, it pours. I went out looking for a few new authors for the blog just a week ago. Three have already come on board, two have posted and a fourth signed up over the weekend bringing the total number of A.B. authors to twelve.

    Jesse Schaefer comes to us from Arizona and he is looking forward to writing about art and other topics of his liking. I met Jesse the same way I did the other newcomers – at 3 Quarks Daily :-)  Here is Jesse on Jesse:

    I was born in London and grew up in San Francisco, where I was plagued by distraction and a chronic doodling problem the entire way.  Most biographically pertinent were the several years I spent pursuing classical art training in Florence, Minneapolis and New York. I now happily call Tucson my home.

    Welcome, Jesse; we look forward to hearing from you.

     

  • Bombed in Karachi (Omar)

    Bombing in Karachi :  Washington Post. 

    A group of terrorists was able to get together and attack a major police facility with automatic weapons and a huge truck bomb. Obviously, these are not isolated disgruntled individuals taking revenge for the latest drone attack. They are well organized, well trained and well supplied with arms, ammunition, technical capability and intelligence. How did that come about? I had a facebook exchange after the news which maybe relevant to the question and led to this article.

    First some background: A very intelligent senior journalist in Pakistan had complained that we are suffering in the war on terror and the US is asking us to "do more" without realizing how hard things are. The notion that we are being unfairly asked to “do more” and things would be fine if that was not done, is a common feeling in Pakistan. My reply was as follows.

     According to this version of events the US and other powers got a military dictator to arm and train these maniacs (no Pakistani interest in this scheme is implied), then things sort of coasted along happily for 12 years, then came 9-11 (frequently believed to be a Mossad-CIA operation) and the US came and said “we want them dead now”. Since then, we have been dutifully trying to kill these maniacs and the current Pakistani government in particular is trying its best to kill them and it is unfair of the US to ask us to "do more". I think this version of events misses some points.

     First of all, the jihadi project was indeed a CIA project, but it was also OUR project from the very beginning. America wanted Russia humbled in Afghanistan. WE wanted that humbling to be done by Islamist jihadis under our control and some of “us” had the foresight and brilliance to see in this an opportunity to settle scores with India and plant the seeds of our caliphate and so on and so forth. Second, after the CIA finished its dirty business in Afghanistan and left, “we” multiplied the jihadi infrastructure by 10. We redirected it to Kashmir and spread it throughout Pakistan. Of course the westoxicated burger-jihadi middle class had very little notion of what was going on. These were serious things, handled by serious people in the security establishment, not shared with the rest of the country except on a “need to know basis”.  But it is disingenuous to think the multiplication of jihadi militias throughout the nineties was also America's fault (though the US did ignore it, perhaps because they thought it improves their leverage over India, perhaps because they were busy with other things). Then, after 9-11 (which was not an inside job in my view), “we” (meaning our security services) protected good jihadis and failed to go after the indoctrination or finance pipelines because “we" wanted the infrastructure kept alive for future use against India.

    The current government may be "doing more", but how will "doing less" help in this situation? And if the army is now on board with stopping this menace (and I think it may be that their leaders indeed are on board by now, though the rank and file is being fed a diet of anti-Indian and anti-Israeli propaganda to justify this action) then why are army-sponsored PR operators and ex-generals and admirals still writing op-eds as if the jihadis are our heroes and America is the enemy?

    (more…)

  • Relativity Theory and Quantum Physics TRIVIA, For The Rest of Us. (Norman)

    Since this is my first post on Accidental Blogger, I thought I would do something short, interesting, and very different. How about a trivia quiz for all you budding physicists and astronomers.

    Relativity Theory and Quantum Physics TRIVIA, For The Rest of Us.

    1. Who was the first to formulate, correctly, a theory of relativity?

    2. Who first worked out the formula E = mc2?

    3. Who is associated with the Theory of Invariance?

    4. What contribution did Einstein make to moral relativism?

    5. Who first worked out the mathematics and theory of the Big Bang?

    6. What contribution did the Vatican make to modern cosmology?

    7. What was Hubble's first estimate of the age of the universe?

    8. What Pope wanted to announce that the Big Bang theory was proof of the biblical account of God's creation of the universe?

    9. Who told this Pope that it was a stupid idea?

    10. What Pope told physicists, astronomers, and cosmologists NOT to study the moment of creation, per the Big Bang theory?

    11. Why did this Pope caution the scientists?

    12. What prominent physicist reacted to this Pope's caution, by deciding to do it anyway?

    13. Who wanted to know "The Mind of God?"

    14. Who said that quantum physics has no deep meaning, only formulas that work?

    15. Why did Heisenberg isolate himself on a North Sea island to work on his Uncertainty Principle?

    16. Who coined the phrase, "Spooky action at a distance?"

    17. Who said that whatever was not explained by his physics, was guided by the hand of God?

    18. What expanded at a rate that was faster than the speed of light in the very early universe?

    19. Time travel has been experimentally proved, but in what direction? Travel into the future, or into the past?

    Put your answers in the comments box. I'll post the answers later.

    While you are at it, please send this TRIVIA link to your friends and favorite scientists.

  • One more Accidental Blogger!

    After despairing for many months at the flagging rate of posting on the blog, I took the plunge and invited three new authors to Accidental Blogger in quick succession. You have already met Norman and Omar. Now please welcome Cyrus Hall. As with the other two new arrivals, I became acquainted with Cyrus also in the labyrinths of the comments section of 3 Quarks Daily. I am delighted that he has agreed to blog here because Cyrus is thoughtful, funny, has a wide range of interests and is wise beyond his years. Here is a little background info, in his own words.

    Cyrus Hall is a computer scientist looking for ways to use his super
    powers for something other than a YAFB (Yet Another Facebook).  He has
    spent his late-20s bumming around Switzerland, somehow eking out a PhD,
    and plans to do "something else" soon.  Whatever that might be.  You can
    listen to his occasional DJ sets here.

  • Arundhati Roy: Crusader Without A Solution? (Omar)

    Arundhati continues her crusade against Indian oppression in Kashmir in the NY Times.

    Arundhati-Roy 
    Indian security forces have committed (and continue to commit) many serious human rights abuses in Kashmir and it is always good to highlight such abuses and that far, she can be said to be doing some good (as are many other human rights campaigners). But her romantic endorsement of all "resistance" as good and of practically all modern states as bad is very shallow. "Resistance" is not an end in itself. It is a means to an end. The questin is: What end? She has to tell us what she thinks is a desirable outcome and how we can get there from here? At least the preliminary steps? Without that, its hard to take her too seriously.
    e.g., It would be good if she was more forthcoming about her proposed solution to the Kashmir dispute (and the costs and benefits of this solution)? Union with Pakistan? Freedom as a separate country? Partition? with what borders? Suppose the Indian army disappears today, what will happen next? Politics grows from the barrel of the gun (as her Maoist friends can tell her while they share warm boiled eggs); who has the guns? and whose politics will prevail? Who will be the winners and losers in such a case and how will it be better or worse than the current impasse?

    I am not denying her right to be contrarian. She can say what she wants. But she has to provide more than criticism of the existing order. She has to specify what she wants to replace it with? and then we can discuss how good or bad her ideas are. After all, she is not the only person to find the existing global order unjust and unfair. But history is full of examples where the cure was worse than the disease. Roy does seem to enjoy being an international icon of rebellion and anti-imperialism, but more substance is needed.
    At the same time, the Indian middle class does indeed have people who go bananas every time she opens her mouth. So she does seem to perform a valuable function in exposing the nineteenth century nationalism of the emerging middle classes ..A disease that is common to many "emerging" economies, in India, in Pakistan and in China (where the disease is much worse than it is in India).