Accidental Blogger

Return to Macondo

June 4, 2007

Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Colombia’s only Nobel Laureate, recenty visited his home town of Aracataca which he immemorialized as the fictional town of Macondo in his literary tour de force One Hundred Years of Solitude. Garcia Marquez, who lives in Mexico City, returned to his place of birth after twenty four years and for the eighty year old author who suffers from lymphatic cancer, this may well be the last visit. He was warmly welcomed by the town’s people where his formal title is "El Nobel." However the name that greeted him everywhere he went was his nickname – Aracatacans spiritedly chanted "Gabo, Gabo!"

The natives of Aracataca are of two minds on what their most famous son has done for them. Some think that his world wide reputation as a leading literary figure is honor enough for the obscure place of his birth. Others feel that Garcia Marquez should have done more to improve the living conditions of his impoverished home town. (the author dismisses that as an inappropriate demand; he is a writer and not a mayor, he points out.) But to the delight of the townsfolk, Garcia Marquez and his wife have recently persuaded Colombian authorities to build a rail line to connect Aracataca with the coastal resort town of Santa Marta which might bring in much needed tourism cash to the isolated and neglected town. There was even a referendum (it failed due to poor attendance by voters) to determine if the town should be renamed Aracataca-Macondo in order to fuse fiction with fact.

But homecoming is not an unvarnished joy for the author who has been an exile for a long time. Things have changed in his absence. The home that is the place of his birth and his literary inspiration, is no longer the home of his reality (see my recent post on a related subject). In fact, Garcia Marquez did not stick around in Aracataca for long. After arriving on the train that he helped put on track as a boost for Aracataca, he skipped town within a short time.

ARACATACA, COLOMBIA — When a passenger train crawled into the station bringing Gabriel Garcia Marquez back to his hometown for the first time in 24 years, tears welled up in the Colombian writer’s eyes. …..

….. "I think he wanted to pay a tribute of love to his people who had been asking him to come back for years," said Jaime Abello, who runs a journalism school sponsored by Garcia Marquez. The author began his career as a newspaper reporter.

"The magic of Garcia Marquez is that he was capable of turning his cultural heritage into works of art, and people are so grateful for that," Abello said. "They love him."

So what explains his long absence from the town that inspired some of the greatest fiction to come out of Latin America?

For one thing, his visits often degenerate into chaotic scrums as fans, journalists and hangers-on chase after him. Garcia Marquez, who lives in Mexico City, even skipped his mother’s funeral in 2002, partly because he feared his appearance would be too distracting.

He last toured Aracataca in 1983, the year after he was awarded the Nobel Prize in literature. As he grew older, he avoided the town because trips down memory lane can be painful, said Juan Gossain, a well-known radio personality who befriended the author in the 1960s.

"He wanted to avoid the clash between his poetic memories and hard reality," Gossain said. "Friends have died. Houses no longer exist. The trees that he remembered are no longer there." …..

With the help of $500,000 from the Colombian government, the childhood home of Garcia Marquez is being renovated to mimic the Buendia household in One Hundred Years of Solitude. Officials went so far as to hold a referendum on changing the name of the town to Aracataca-Macondo. But the effort came up short because not enough people turned out to vote. Now they are banking on the newly christened "Macondo Train" to bring fresh faces and tourist dollars to town.

Yet after dismounting the train, even Garcia Marquez didn’t find much worth sticking around for. After a lunch of fried fish and coconut rice, he skipped the re-enactments of scenes from his novels by schoolchildren, avoided a pack of journalists and took the first bus out of town.

See the full story here.
Are the Democrats Not All Exactly the Same? (Joe)

June 3, 2007
Some interesting things may have been said at the recent debate. To wit:
- Obama would assassinate Osama bin Laden; Kucinich would see him held to account in an international court of law.
- Bill Richardson would be willing to boycott the Beijing 2008 Olympics if China continues to support Khartoum instead of using its considerable influence to end the violence in Darfur/Sudan. Chris Dodd would not; he argues that a boycott would actually delay China’s decision to start acting responsibly and stop supporting genocide.
- Obama thinks veterans should be required to go to V.A. hospitals "unless they have difficulty accessing and it places a hardship on the family, then they should be exempted and can go to others" — whatever that’s supposed to mean. It sounds like lawyer-talk to me: intentionally unclear, attempting to pander to both sides. This in comparison to Richardson’s position that veterans should have health care cards which would allow them to go to doctors or hospitals of their own choosing.
- Biden thinks the U.S. should use military force to stop the genocide in Darfur. The rest of the Democrats were asked to raise their hands if they agreed with Senator Biden. Clinton refuses to engage in these kinds of "abstract hypotheticals," which is understandable, because it’s not like she attended Yale Law School or anything where presumably she would have learned how to reason through hypos rather than feeling the need to duck for cover. Obama agreed with Clinton: "I don’t want to raise my hand anymore."
- Kucinich wants everyone to have health care, and thinks some of the other Democrats would rather just allow the insurance companies to remain in charge. Edwards criticizes Obama’s so-called universal health care plan as in fact not universal.
- Obama, a member of the Veteran Affairs Committee in the Senate, who as noted above either thinks or does not think that veterans should basically be forced to receive care only at V.A. hospitals, was completely unaware of the poor outpatient conditions at Walter Reed Army Medical Center until the Washington Post ran its story.
- Biden thinks the "don’t ask, don’t tell" policy is ridiculous and the military should not be able to continue to its current practice of sex discrimination.
- Hillary likes to mention Bill. A lot.
- Biden, who voted for a 700 mile fence between the U.S. and Mexico, thinks such a fence would be impractical, and he only voted against it to stop drug trafficking. Apparently, Biden is an idiot and his voting record is meaningless.
- Obama objects to the question of whether English ought to be the official language of the United States because all future generations will learn to speak English and the question is a distraction. Huh? As far as I can tell, he doesn’t want to answer it because it’s a political question intended to have political consequences, and instead favors not asking the question because it’s not possible to move forward if we discuss what we’re trying to do and how we’re trying to do it.
- Edwards was wrong for his Iraq vote and apologizes; Clinton admits no error, because she lacked important information. Edwards also criticized Senators Clinton and Obama for voting correctly on the funding bill, but doing so quietly and without showing any leadership (they did not say how they were going to vote in advance).
- Edwards thinks "WAR ON TERROR" is a bumper-sticker slogan. Clinton says that it’s not because, in case we’ve forgotten, she was a United States Senator for New York when New York City was attacked on Sept. 11, 2001. She also thinks that we are much safer now than we were before 9/11.
Conclusions: Obama failed to endear himself to me. So did Clinton, but she is a much more well known entity, so I’m less surprised about that. Kucinich is not going to be the nominee, which means… Edwards is the realistically best of the bunch?
Inspirational Billboards

June 3, 2007
Our school bus route used to take us past the famous Cathedral of the Sacred Heart in central New Delhi. Every Monday morning during our middle and high school years, my friends and I (most of us non-Christians) used to eagerly look forward to the new signs on the church’s curbside billboard that were posted every Sunday, bearing messages which were clearly religious but also quite entertaining. Some of them were pretty clever. The signs were a novelty for us – their mixture of religion and banter. No other places of worship, Hindu & Buddhist temples, Muslim mosques or Sikh gurdwaras resorted to pun and word play to get their spiritual message across. Whether the Sacred Heart Catholic church gained any converts with their humorous approach, I do not know. Some of the signs I remember even now – decades later.
- Sheep gambol; men gamble. (never quite figured this one out)
- Do your best, let God do the rest.
- Modern man’s prayer: "God, give me patience and give it to me now!"
- What are you doing on earth, for heaven’s sake?
Strangely enough, I haven’t come across many church signs of this kind in the US although I have lived in very religious parts of the country. Vehicles bearing unusual religious bumper stickers are common enough ("In Time Of Rapture, This Car Will Be Driverless!" , "Relax, God Is In Control" and the rather plaintiff "Catholics Love Jesus Too!" among others) but most church signs tend to contain prosaic information. The Houston area bristles with churches of every possible denomination. If you draw a circle with a radius of 3 miles with my home as the center, you’d encompass more than a dozen places of worship in the vicinity. There are mainstream Baptist, Catholic, Lutheran and Presbyterian churches, as also a Buddhist temple, a synagogue, a Mormon church, a church for Arab Christians and an elaborately carved Hindu temple. My home in fact shares its backyard fence with a church. But nowhere have I seen church signs which declare anything more unusual than announcements for prayer services and church functions. I have occasionally come across religious bill boards with more unorthodox messages while driving through the countryside. But within the city they are mostly non-descript. Of course, while most signs are geared towards spreading the "good word," some churches do not flinch from messages of hate even when their name is Lovingway.

Doree Shafrir had an article in Slate a few days ago about church signs in America.

The pun-laden signs you see outside churches have always intrigued me. "Seven days without prayer makes one weak." "Forbidden fruit creates many jams." "We have a prophet-sharing plan." They’re funny and a little bit alien, if you’re not a regular churchgoer. And it’s hard to tell whether they’re intended primarily to amuse regular congregants, or to attract soul-searching passers-by. The pun-laden signs you see outside churches have always intrigued me. "Seven days without prayer makes one weak." "Forbidden fruit creates many jams." "We have a prophet-sharing plan." They’re funny and a little bit alien, if you’re not a regular churchgoer. And it’s hard to tell whether they’re intended primarily to amuse regular congregants, or to attract soul-searching passers-by.

Don’t forget to visit the site where a blogger envisions a sharp but friendly argument between a Baptist and a Catholic church, using church signs!
A Danish Dilemma

June 1, 2007

In a recent survey Danes emerged as the happiest people in Europe. But now there is a fly in the ointment of their contentment. The Danes can no longer understand each other!
Move over for ‘Khartoum Karl’, Baghdad Bob (Sujatha)

May 31, 2007

As if the grandiose claims and threats of ‘Baghdad Bob’ ( Mohammad Saeed al Sahaf of Iraq) weren’t enough, we now have a new candidate for the grand prize of propagandery : ‘Khartoum Karl'(Link to WaPo article via Rawstory):

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Udderly Amazing!

May 31, 2007

I love watching clouds. I don’t know much about them but I like to look at them. The eagerly awaited Indian monsoon clouds, the foreboding dark clouds during a thunderstorm, the golden clouds at sunset, the menacing funnel clouds signaling tornadoes and the plain white fluffy clouds drifting in a cerulean sky – they are all beautiful. Today I stumbled upon some spectacular photos of a particular type of cloud formation. I may have seen some variation of it, having lived in the midwest for more than fifteen years where the phenomenon seems to occur most frequently. But I don’t remember ever seeing anything quite like the clouds depicted in the photos. Their metereological name is Mammatus Clouds. As the name suggests, hanging heavily from the sky they resemble female breasts. See the amazing and luminous Mammatus Clouds in the skies over Hastings, Nebraska here and read about the mechanism of their formation here and here.
Do You Resist Science?

May 30, 2007

If you do, your distrust may have its roots in your early years – what ideas you were exposed to and from whom. So say Yale psychologists Paul Bloom and Deena Skolnick Weisberg. For those who may not wish to read the detailed article, I will summarize here the findings along with some of my own observations.

According to Bloom and Weisberg, resistance to science may stem from several different areas – prevalent religious and political beliefs in the child’s social circle, lack of first hand experience of certain phenomena, intuitive (and wrong) take on how things work in the physical world and innate cynicism. Examples:

Political and religious teachings of elders and those whom we trust can influence how we evaluate science. Global warming and evolution are two debates over which Americans are starkly divided for political and religious reasons. Both phenomena require long periods of time to arrive at their present day outcomes and both are difficult to reproduce in the test tube within a short time. One might be tempted to classify the opposition to them as the lack of first hand experience. Not quite. We believe in a lot of things we cannot see or whose presence we cannot verify using our normal physical faculties. Yet most people irrespective of their religion or politics, accept the reality of germs, electricity and atoms without ever obtaining positive proof of their existence. There is no active religious or political camp which questions the disease causing nature of pathogens, utility of electricity as a source of energy or the structure of the atom. For that matter children and adults alike, accept without question faraway geographical (that there is a continent of Antarctica) and historical (that there was an Abraham Lincoln) facts because there is no controversy surrounding them. On the other hand, the truth about global warming and evolution is in contention because there are competing narratives rooted in religion and politics to explain (or dismiss) both. Scientists are no longer persecuted or burnt at the stake for their heretical claims but heated debates still rage when science challenges deeply held religious beliefs or flies in the face of political expediency.

What we personally experience trumps our class room and book learning when it comes to our understanding and predicting physical phenomena. What we learn in theory is often counterintuitive to what we feel and science education alone does not make us immune to making unscientific decisions. Consider the diagram below of two possible trajectories of a ball exiting a curved pipe.

Laws of physics tell us that the ball will move in a "straight" line after it leaves the curved pipe (figure A). But even after knowing that, a large number of college undergraduates picked figure B where the ball continues in a circular path. They instinctively and erroneously applied the "Aristotelian common sense" of object movement, ignoring the correct laws of motion they had read in science books. However, if the ball is replaced with water, a scenario which most have observed in their backyard while playing with the lawn hose, they correctly predicted a straight path for the exiting water.

Despite the explosion of scientific knowledge in the last century and a half where space travel is routine and NASA’s photographs from outer space are commonly available in most elementary schools, some still believe in a flat earth and a Geo-centric solar system. The reason for such dogged obscurantism is partly religious and partly due to "instinctive" reaction to what seems counterintuitive to the naked eye. A spherical and revolving / rotating earth just doesn’t feel right to some folks. They continue to ask : Why don’t the people on the other side fall off? Why don’t I feel the earth move? Why do I see the sun rise, set and cross the sky?

Another reason why we resist science is our skepticism about situations where the outcome is either suspect or in dispute, as also our cynicism towards grandiose claims. This cynicism is on the whole a good thing because scientists have personal biases too and we should not fall prey to false dogmas just because they are "scientific." The recent spate of FDA approved drugs being recalled from the market (not just newly approved ones), industrial accidents and pollution, corporations pushing genetically altered food and other scientific developments whose value is clearly questionable, raise our suspicions about science. Are children skeptical too? "Yes", say Bloom and Weisberg: "… when five year-olds hear about a competition whose outcome was unclear, they are more likely to believe a character who claimed that he had lost the race (a statement that goes against his self-interest) than a character who claimed that he had won the race (a statement that goes with his self-interest). In a limited sense, then, they are capable of cynicism."

Then there is the bias of the public against scientists themselves. Even though individual scientists live among us and lead mundane lives, as a group they tend to conjure up the image of … well, clever "conjurers," somewhat like the alchemists of yore. But most important among the factors that influence our acceptance of or resistance to scientific knowledge depends on whom we listen to in our early years. If the teacher has one explanation for how animals and people came to inhabit the earth and our parents and pastor have another, which version we believe depends to some extent on whom we trust more. However, I don’t agree with the authors that this influence is always easy to predict or that it lasts a life time. Most children (unless they have been methodically indoctrinated), even in their pre-teen years are sophisticated enough to weigh two sides of a story and make up their own minds. If they choose to believe their science teacher and not their parents, it doesn’t necessarily mean that their overall trust in dad and mom will diminish. Children understand that adults are not infallible and can make mistakes. They also learn early enough that different adults (parents, coach, teacher, counselor, doctor) bring their own areas of expertise to the table. Kids therefore can make judgements regarding which adult to trust in a particular situation.

As an erstwhile science teacher, I cannot stress enough the importance of training school teachers rigorously. Science teachers should be interesting, convincing and receptive to their pupils’ curiosities and inquiries. The effort must start from elementary school itself. Waiting until high school and college may be too late. We should remember that teachers are not just the repositories of dry, seemingly irrelevant and monotonous facts but they are also in competition with other societal forces outside the classroom for the trust of their students.
Memorial Day

May 28, 2007

When war is raging, every day is Memorial Day.

(Editorial Cartoon: Memorial Daze by Nick Anderson, Houston Chronicle.)
Art Illusions

May 24, 2007

Two optical illusions – one of color, the other of detail.

Chris Jordan of Seattle runs the numbers in the series "An American Self Portrait," a commentary on consumerism. The images reveal the details by progressively zooming in. See the entire series here. [Link: Sujatha]

Click on the following picture for enlargement. Stare at the plus sign in the center and if you know the explanation for what you see, let me know. [Link: 3 Quarks Daily]
CotL # 39

May 24, 2007

The new Carnival of the Liberals # 39 hosted by Coturnix is up at A Blog Around The Clock.
Budding Scientists, Brilliant Artists

May 24, 2007

John Bianchi of Discover magazine sent me the following email.

"DISCOVER Magazine has just announced a nationwide contest, open to students grades three through eight, to create the cover of its October 2007 issue. Participants are asked to submit artwork capturing their vision of "The State of Science in America" to the magazine editors. This contest ends June 20 ^th, 2007, so anything you can do to help us spread the word to budding scientists and brilliant artists is much appreciated."

Please see below the announcement for the competition. I am no longer a teacher and am therefore not in touch with school age children. If there are interested teachers, parents and educators among our readers, please spread the word around in your local elementary and middle schools. The deadline for submissions is June 20, 2007. See more details of the competition here. (the announcement is perhaps a bit late; schools are probably out for the summer)

“The State Of Science in America”

National Student Competition Will Yield Drawing for October Issue,

Looking to Next Generation of Scientists for Inspiration

New York, NY — DISCOVER Magazine announced that it will take the unprecedented step of holding a nationwide contest among students to design the cover of its October 2007 issue. The issue will focus on the state of science in America and will look to the next generation of scientists for the cover art.

The October issue will explore the status of America’s sciece labs, research universities and science eduction as well as technological advancements and international competition. This will be the beginnign of an ongoing exploration by the magazine to spark public discussion among readers and policy makers, including presidential hopefuls, of the quality of science in the United States.

"Taking this unprecedented step – given the importance of a magazine’s cover – underscores our commitment to raising this discussion" says Bob Guccione, Jr., CEO and Publisher of DISCOVER Magazine. "There’s no better snapshot of the future of science in America than what a child sees and perceives science to mean today. We look forward to presenting that vision in October."

The competition will be open to students grades three through eight who will be asked to depict the wonder and excitement of science. The contest begins immediately. The deadline for submissions is June 20, 2007. Guidelines and details are available at www.discovermagazine.com. The winning entry will be chosen by DISCOVER’s editors.

In addition to the winning entry, to be published as the cover of the October issue, six finalists will be profiled in the issue, as well as on www.discovermagazine.com.
Home – Lost, Found and Imagined

May 23, 2007

More than twenty six years ago, I left New Delhi, India to follow my peripatetic husband on a journey that would take us across two new continents and four different cities. Until then my birthplace Delhi, was the only home I had known. Most of my family and all my friends lived there and frankly, I had never imagined leaving that comfortable zone of familiarity except for travel and tourism. In the years since the initial uprooting, the idea of home has undergone dramatic changes in my mind, as has the definition of comfort zone. What exactly is home for any one of us? Where the heart is or where the hearth is? Is it the place we ourselves grew up in or where we bring up our children? Do we define it by the food, the smells, the climate or the faces around us? Or is much of it in our minds?

For ages humans have left their homes in search of food and adventure, as also in fear. They have set down new roots in unfamiliar landscapes . Having done so, they have surely at one time or another reflected back on that decision and wondered if their lives were better or worse for having left. Good and bad fortunes are both ascribed to the decision to leave one’s homestead.

Severing ties with once familiar surroundings can come about in two ways – voluntarily and involuntarily. For some it is a deliberate choice of a new life in a new place. Others leave under the threat of natural or man made disasters. There is no doubt that the initial trauma and the feeling of helplessness is much greater for the latter group. But after years, when things have settled down and a modicum of normalcy returns, do things even out? Do those who are violently uprooted from their nests continue to pine for their loss longer and more keenly than those who leave peacefully? During WWII did European Jews fleeing the horror in their homeland miss Poland, Germany, Hungary and Lithuania once they found safe haven elsewhere? Or were they able to shed their attachment for the "home" that didn’t accord them dignity and provide sanctuary? Will Palestinian refugees ever accept a peace settlement with Israel without a "right of return" clause? Are displaced persons from war torn regions more or less nostalgic about their homes than immigrants such as myself who chose to relocate under placid circumstances? Or is it all in our head, how rooted or uprooted we feel in one place or another?

Both of my parents and my father- in-law lost their ancestral homes during the partition of India to what was to become Pakistan (east & west). My own parents came from the eastern wing of partitioned India which saw far less sustained violence than the western part to which my husband’s family belonged. My parents’ side of the family lost considerably more in material wealth and social standing than did my in-laws. Yet there was a dramatic difference in the way the two families chose to remember their loss. Although their circumstances had been seriously and even brutally altered, my parents and other close relatives went on to live reasonably comfortable lives in India, going about their business in a forward looking manner. They explained the partition in terms of politics, history and the perfidy of the British. Their progeny (me included), born in independent India in safe and peaceful circumstances heard their stories and in their imagination, often conjured up a sense of loss more wrenching than the refugees themselves felt. But that is always the peculiar burden of subsequent generations – to feel more helpless, more enraged and more emotionally bereft for the sufferings of their elders. The victims themselves who live through the terror and the humiliation manage to often remember their experience with aloofness and perhaps even triumph, looking back at discrete events which they managed to survive against all odds.

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Blogging From The Top Of The World!

May 22, 2007

Eighteen year old Samantha Larson of Long Beach, California has climbed the highest seven mountain summits on all continents. On May 16th she reached the top of Mount Everest, making her the youngest American to have achieved this feat. During her Everest climb she packed her oboe along with her climbing gear so as to be ready for a band concert upon her return. And she BLOGGED during this grueling adventure! How did she do it without internet access in the rarified atmosphere of the Himalayas? She called her mom in New York via satellite phone and relayed the messages to be posted on her blog. Wow! But then Samantha is an exceptionally motivated and capable young woman. Read more about her adventures and accomplishments here.

(Samantha preparing for the climb)

From Earth’s tallest point, the message was understandably breathless.

"We made it to the top!" Samantha Larson told her mother via satellite phone Thursday after reaching the summit of Mount Everest. "Now all we have to do is make it back down."

Larson, 18, of Long Beach, became one of the youngest people to scale the 29,035-foot peak, reaching the summit with a group that included her father, David Larson, 51, an anesthesiologist at Long Beach Memorial Medical Center.

The honors graduate of Long Beach Polytechnic High School put off her arrival as a freshman at Stanford University by a year to scale some of the world’s highest mountains.

She began posting reports on her Everest trek last month at www.samanthalarson.blogspot.com, continuing her blogging until she was more than halfway up the mountain. Her mother, Sarah Hanson, and her brother, Ted, added Samantha’s triumphant comments. ….

[W]hen father and daughter "finally started our summit push yesterday, making our way from base camp to camp two," Samantha wrote Sunday. "We don’t have Internet access up here, but we were able to relay this information to our correspondents in New York via satellite phone. We’re taking a rest day today, and plan to press on tomorrow. If all goes well, we should summit on the 17th."

Tom Sjogren, one of the founders of explorersweb.com, an extreme adventure news portal based in New York, said that as far as they know Larson is the youngest to crest the seven summits. But with such high numbers of climbers, statistics are hard to verify.
Law, Science, and Sex (Dean)

May 21, 2007

A post today on Out of the Jungle, a legal information blog, has me thinking. It refers to this AP article in the Boston Globe (and elsewhere) regarding the growing numbers of students arriving at law school after a detour through the sciences. Their obvious target is patent law, the practice of which requires prospective attorneys to take a supplemental bar exam to demonstrate their scientific competencies. The article features a former MIT doctoral student, Loretta Weathers, who tired of "the solitude of the lab" and sought a "sexier" career in technology law. So now she’s a patent attorney, but the article cites a copyright infringement case as an instance of how she has brought her scientific expertise to bear on the law. Huh?

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Laptop Wars (Sujatha)

May 21, 2007

And I’m not talking about my Dell vs. your Mac, either… This is a war to win the maximum number of consumers in the backwoods of the world, the battle of the $100 (at least in name, currently actually costing $175/-) XO laptop from OLPC (One Laptop Per Child) and the $200 dollar Classmate PC priced at $3/- to undercut OLPC from Intel.
Ex- MIT prof.Nicholas Negroponte (yes, he’s related to the former intelligence czar John Negroponte, as in ‘brother’) is accusing Intel of undercutting his non-profit‘s efforts to bring a tough inexpensive laptop to the children of the world, citing Intel’s long rivalry with rival chip-makers AMD, whose chips are used in OLPC’s laptops.

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