Monthly Archives: October 2006

Nobel Peace Prize to Muhammad Yunus, Grameen Bank

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A fine, fine choice for the Nobel Peace prize! Mohammed Yunus and the pioneering micro-credit institution he founded, Grameen Bank. More on this as we get time to put together a full post, but here is the Nobel Peace Prize committee press release:

The Norwegian Nobel Committee has decided to award the Nobel Peace Prize for 2006, divided into two equal parts, to Muhammad Yunus and Grameen Bank for their efforts to create economic and social development from below. Lasting peace can not be achieved unless large population groups find ways in which to break out of poverty. Micro-credit is one such means. Development from below also serves to advance democracy and human rights.

Muhammad Yunus has shown himself to be a leader who has managed to translate visions into practical action for the benefit of millions of people, not only in Bangladesh, but also in many other countries. Loans to poor people without any financial security had appeared to be an impossible idea. From modest beginnings three decades ago, Yunus has, first and foremost through Grameen Bank, developed micro-credit into an ever more important instrument in the struggle against poverty. Grameen Bank has been a source of ideas and models for the many institutions in the field of micro-credit that have sprung up around the world.

Every single individual on earth has both the potential and the right to live a decent life. Across cultures and civilizations, Yunus and Grameen Bank have shown that even the poorest of the poor can work to bring about their own development.

Micro-credit has proved to be an important liberating force in societies where women in particular have to struggle against repressive social and economic conditions. Economic growth and political democracy can not achieve their full potential unless the female half of humanity participates on an equal footing with the male.

Yunus’s long-term vision is to eliminate poverty in the world. That vision can not be realised by means of micro-credit alone. But Muhammad Yunus and Grameen Bank have shown that, in the continuing efforts to achieve it, micro-credit must play a major part.

Continue reading →

(updated) Harold and Kumar go to Afghanistan!

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First they went to White Castle, because they had some prodigious munchies. Then they went to Amsterdam, for love and to get more of the stuff that gives them the munchies. Now they’re going to the source. Chasing a rumor, a legend of whole forests of marijuana over ten feet tall … that’s right, in their third movie, Harold and Kumar are going to Afghanistan for yet more hillarious hijinks! [Hat tip to BearLeft for the story]

It seems that Harold and Kumar are the Canadian government’s newest weapons in “The War on Terror”:

Duuuuude. Forests of 10 foot pot?

Canadian troops fighting Taliban militants in Afghanistan have stumbled across an unexpected and potent enemy — almost impenetrable forests of marijuana plants 10 feet tall… General Rick Hillier, chief of the Canadian defense staff, said Thursday that Taliban fighters were using the forests as cover…

“We tried burning them with white phosphorous — it didn’t work. We tried burning them with diesel — it didn’t work. [Link]

Clearly the best thing to do, when the Taliban are hiding, is to smoke them out . However, should our intrepid duo fail to finish the task, the Canadian government does have other options.

They could call upon our bredren in Vancouver to come and collect the goods, package them, and even ship them to the US for (ahem) proper disposal. You wouldn’t even have to provide them with extra security.

Lost in the weed(s)

Or, they could simply wait until Holi and offer it to armies of aunties at half price (desis will drive for hours to get a good deal). That forest of pot will become a mountain of bhang pakoras in seconds flat. If the Taliban try to stop them, well woe to anybody who stands between aunties and a sale …

UPDATE:

It looks like this may be regular hemp, the type grown for its fiber and as livestock feed:

In 2003 working for the UN in the South-East we encountered two types of marijuana plant production. The first was grown for ‘export’ as part of the drug trade and is a smaller plant with long head which contains a concentration of THC – the active substance in marijuana. The second and most common was the marijuana forest which is grown for its hemp and for feeding cattle. From the photos and description I believe it is this latter type that the troops encountered. Burning or otherwise destroying it would require some fore-thought as it probably is part of some poor farmer’s livelihood. [Link]

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55Friday: The Callipygian Edition

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I know. Normally, there is a song title plucked fresh from my iTunes to grace that prominent, headlining area, but today, by very special request, your girl Friday is going to acknowledge one adorable-assed comment from a few weeks ago and sample it for this post. This is the remix, etc etc…

So I see a word I don’t recognise. I go to dictionary.com to look it up. I find out this word means:
having well-shaped buttocks
Having beautifully proportioned buttocks
I suddenly discover a whole new meaning to my life, to insert this word into conversations whenever I can, because it is as curvacious a word as the thing it describes. I think this has taken over as my favorite word in the English language, which used to be ‘Serendipity’, followed closely by ‘luminous’ and in third place ‘lepidoptery’.
But now I know what callipygian means, I am in love with that word. Please write a post featuring this word in the headline.[link]

And you thought I wouldn’t remember…silly sepiates. I’m all about the love, especially when that’s MY word you’re crushing on (well, it’s mine along with “apposite“…can’t overlook that one). Red Snapper’s kind command has been playing on my mind for these past two weeks, as I considered what post would be…um…apposite for such curvaceous titling. Finally, I have decided to take the easy way out. 😉

This Friday, take a crack at writing a flash of a story, with just 55-words to flesh it out. Take your inspiration from Sir Mix-a-lot, Wreckx- n-Effect or anyone else who’s got love for the booty (HELL, YES!). Write nanofiction about Wessside interpretations of Miami Bass, extra-memorable Seinfeld episodes, Boricua starlets who destroy innocent Beatnuts songs or how “kundi” is going to be Sepia Mutiny’s big contribution to the emerging 2nd gen cross-cultural lexicon (HA! Take THAT Northies!). Or, write about something else which fits in exactly 55 words. Just write something. And then post your astounding ass-terpiece in the comments below, so we can ogle it shamelessly, okay? Get crackin’, you mutinous poo-flingers.

Sepia Mutiny does not waste your time. [link]

It does on Fridays, mang. 😉 Continue reading →

The (Babes in) Arms Race Escalates

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It isn’t quite North Korea versus the world, but the celebrity arms race between Angelina and Madge escalated this week, as Madonna and hubby Guy Ritchie visited Malawi to launch a charity for orphans that will base its activities on Kabbalah. Actually, the better analogy is the Cold War: just as the United States and Soviet Union did in their time, the celebs are collecting the allegiance of various third-world countries, which gain publicity in exchange for putting up with the antics of their new patrons. Ethiopia and Cambodia, the native countries of her two adopted children, are in Angelina’s sphere of influence. Now Namibia, which provided seclusion, and guard against paparazzi for the birth of Shiloh Nouvel earlier this year, is firmly lodged in her column. Now Madonna and Guy have made their own Southern Africa play.

Of course, they can’t just start up a charity for those poor Malawian orphans; they have to have one of their own! The lucky son-elect is David Banda, age 1, whose mother died after his birth. David’s father is in the picture, and has given the adoption his blessing:

“They are a lovely couple. She asked me many questions. She and her husband seem happy with David. I am happy for him. Madonna promised me that as the child grows she will bring him back to visit,” he said.

And the Malawian High Court has awarded Madonna and Guy an exemption from the country’s law against cross-border adoptions:

Malawian law does not allow for inter-country adoptions, and generally requires people who want to adopt to spend 18 months being evaluated by Malawian child welfare workers. But it seems even this is no obstacle for the Material Girl after Malawian officials, who refused to elaborate, indicated that such restrictions would be waived for the couple.

The best part of this is that the government of Malawi is going to send its own social workers to check on the child’s well-being:

“Government in this instance will use our Washington office (embassy) to monitor the progress with the couple (Madonna and Ritchie),” said Andrina Mchiela, spokeswoman for the Ministry of Women and Child Development.

“And also government will appoint a welfare officer from Malawi to liase with our Washington embassy and make visitations to where the child will be,” she added.

For more serious analysis of celebrity adoptions from Africa, check out this article from today’s Washington Post. Continue reading →

Raj Bhakta Messes With Elephants, Texas

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Pennsylvania Congressional candidate Raj Peter Bhakta is desi, so you figure he has an affinity for elephants. And he’s a Republican, so you figure he has an extra-special affinity for elephants. So it only makes sense that the brother would turn to some pachyderms to assist in his campaign.

brownsvilleeleph.jpgWhich brings us to… Brownsville, Texas, not exactly part of the suburban Philadelphia congressional district Raj hopes to represent, but the frontline in his topmost issue, the one that occupies front and center of his campaign website: Illegal immigration. On Tuesday, folks near Brownsville were surprised to see these three elephants in the Rio Grande, prompting, according to the breaking-news item in the Brownsville Herald, “reports that someone was crossing into the United States from Mexico on an elephant.”

Well, upon further investigation, it wasn’t quite Hannibal crossing the Alps, but instead a stunt occasioned by an epiphany:

He was in Brownsville to raise funds with friends and decided to get a first-hand look at border security while he was here, he said.

In Brownsville, he witnessed half a dozen men swim under one of the international bridges “with complete immunity” which in turn prompted him to take the immigration issue to the next level.

Bhakta decided to see if he could get an elephant accompanied by a six-piece mariachi band across the river.

The elephants splashed, the mariachi band played, the cameras rolled for the inevitable campaign commercial. Bhakta was shocked, shocked:

He said he was “staggered” by what happened on Tuesday and was planning on sharing the story with his potential constituents.

“If I can get an elephant led by a mariachi band into this country, I think Osama bin Laden could get across with all the weapons of mass destruction he could get into this country,” Bhakta said.

Well, Bud Kennedy of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram has a different take. In a classic “don’t mess with Texas” column, he eviscerates Raj in many different ways. For one thing, he found out that the elephant supplier was kept in the dark and unhappy how his pachyderms were put to use: Continue reading →

The Third Man

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600_youtube.jpgAs you may have heard, there’s this little company thingy called YouTube that’s gotten a little popular lately, and then there were all these big companies that got interested in getting some of that popularity for themselves, because, like, they thought that it could make them some money, and, like, open up glorious new ways of communicating. And then this other company called Google got interested, and… well, 1.65 billion dollars and a lunch at Denny’s later, you know the rest.

I saw a bit of that video — on YouTube, natch — where founders Chad Hurley and Steven Chen get a little gloat on, calling the union of YouTube and Google that of “two kings.” But there’s long been rumored to be — OK, reported and confirmed — a Third Man behind the video site sensation, and of course, that man is desi.

At least from this New York Times profile, Jawed Karim, 27, sounds like a thoroughly nice guy and likeable nerd, and one with a knack for good ideas and an appetite for seeing them enacted. He was already an early participant in PayPal. But through his rise as an Internet multi-millionaire his chief focus has been academia.

Mr. Karim said he might keep a hand in entrepreneurship, and he dreams of having an impact on the way people use the Internet — something he has already done. Philanthropy may have some appeal, down the road. But mostly he just wants to be a professor. He said he simply hopes to follow in the footsteps of other Stanford academics who struck it rich in Silicon Valley and went back to teaching. …

David L. Dill, a professor of computer science at Stanford, said Mr. KarimÂ’s choice was unusual.

“I’m impressed that given his success in business he decided to do the master’s program here,” Mr. Dill said. “The tradition here has been in the other direction,” he said, pointing to the founders of Google and Yahoo, who left Stanford for the business world.

So it couldn’t happen to a nicer guy, and here’s a round of Sepia congratulations to Jawed. (No word on whether he’s single.) Beyond that, I’m curious about what all you tech and media macacas out there think of the whole YouTube thing. Obviously, it’s viral as a mofo and pretty fun to surf around. But do folks consistently use it to post their own content? Is it just a library of pre-existing content that at some point will find an intellectual-property arrangement with original providers and a commercial business model? Or is it a harbinger of paradigmatic change? Continue reading →

No longer worried (was: Be careful tonight, please)

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A small airplane has crashed into a building in New York City. It hit a 50 story condo on 524 E. 72nd Street, and part of the building is on fire. There are no indications yet that this is anything other than an accident, the building is right on the East River, and so it is possible that it was hit by a small plane or helicopter that got lost:

Witness Sarah Steiner told CNN that fires were burning on the ground. “It looks like the plane just flew into someone’s living room there.” “It looks as if the aircraft didn’t go into the building but fell down,” she said. “It may be part of the debris burning on the ground.” Steiner said that when she arrived, she saw fire shooting out of two windows on the 30th floor of the 50-story building. Video from the scene shows at least three apartments in the high-rise fully engulfed in flames. [Link]

Television views of the fire showed flames shooting out of four windows and smoke that streamed up into the sky, visible for miles. [Link]

THERE IS NO INDICATION OF TERRORISM:

“We haven’t heard from any of our facilities that anything’s missing.” New York City government source told CNN there are “no indications of terrorism…” [Link]

The FBI has told the BBC that there is no indication that the crash is terrorism-related. [Link]

A senior Homeland Security official said there is no indication of terrorism, but rather it the incident appeared to be a “terrible accident“. [Link]

But these are the sorts of events that make people scared and angry, and these are the sorts of times when people feel justified acting out their racism as a hate crime. Please be careful tonight. I know I’ll be looking over my shoulder as I get in and out of my car, especially once the news gets out. It’s times like these that I wish I lived in a large city on the coasts, and not a smallish conurbation in the midwest where I encounter enough racism even on a regular basis.

UPDATE 1 :

The fire seems to be largely out now:

16 engine and 9 ladder companies have responded; most of the fire has been extinguished…. A total of four people have been confirmed dead – two people from the plane, two people from the building. Additionally, the aircraft was a Cirrus 20, which supposedly has a parachute for emergencies. [Link]

Multiple shots of the building right now available from Gawker.

Update 2: Stranger than fiction – blame the Yankees?

New York Yankees manager Joe Torre says the plane that crashed into a building in Manhattan is registered to team pitcher Cory Lidle[Link]

What could be more all American than that? Maybe it will put an end to all the speculation that this is somehow terror related.

Update 3: It is Cory Lidle’s plane. While this was a tragedy where 2-4 people may have died, I feel no guilt for the relief coursing through my veins right now. This was the only way that a plane crashing into a NYC building would have been conclusively decoupled from terrorism in its reporting – it was a famous person, an athlete, a YANKEE, whose plane it was. This will change the entire framing of the event.

Continue reading →

Speaking of desi hustlers…

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Who said this?

“There is no way to restore the culture without winning the war on terror. Conversely, the only way to win the war on terror is to win the culture war. Thus we arrive at a sobering truth. In order to crush the Islamic radicals abroad, we must defeat the enemy at home.”

Ann Coulter? Rush Limbaugh? Bill O’Reilly? Sean Hannity? Nah.

The “sobering truth” in question is that arrived at by our illustrious co-ethnic Dinesh D’Souza, in his new book The Enemy at Home: The Cultural Left and Its Responsibility for 9/11, which is to appear in January. Blogger and Vanity Fair writer James Wolcott received a galley copy, and offers an advance review, of which here are some choice bits:

It’s one thing when Michael Savage or Ann Coulter denounce liberals as heathen traitors. One spouts halitosis on the radio, the other is an exhibitionist hag; both cater to their fan base. But D’Souza isn’t some low-grade, high-volume performance artist. He’s a research scholar at the Hoover Institution at Stanford, which he thanks in the acknowledgments “for providing me with the institutional support to do my work.” D’Souza writes, speaks, and thinks like something hatched in a think tank–a careerist toady.

The theme of the book is quite simple, and vile.

“In this book I make a claim that will seem startling at the outset. The cultural left in this country is responsible for causing 9/11.”

Then the qualifiers begin multiplying. The term ‘cultural left’ doesn’t refer to the Democratic Party, nor to all liberals. (Peter Beinart presumably gets a pass.) Nor is he saying that cultural lefties actually brought the towers down. He isn’t so rash as to suggest Molly Ivins piloted one of the planes, parachuting to safety before impact. So what is he saying?

“I am saying that the cultural left and its allies in Congress, the media, Hollywood, the nonprofit sector [profiteers are always patriots, of course], and the universities are the primary cause of the volcano of anger toward America that is erupting from the Islamic world.”

Note well: the primary cause. Not the treatment of the Palestinians, the caging and starving of those on the Gaza Strip, the hundreds of thousands of clusterbomb droplets left behind in Lebanon, the U.S. military bases on Arab soil, Abu Ghraib, the Mideast tyrannies propped up by American money and influence–these are secondary. Muslims are angry, D’Souza concedes, but they are mostly angry because their anger has been fueled and fanned by the cultural left.

“Thus without the cultural left, 9/11 would not have happened.”

I like that “Thus,” as if he’s actually proven something.

“I realize that this is a strong charge,” D’Souza writes, “one that no one has made before.”

The reason it hasn’t been made before is that it’s a sleazy, shameless, ignorant, ahistorical, tendentious, meretricious lie, one that was waiting for the right brazen liar to come along to promote it, and here he is, and his name is Dinesh D’Souza…

The most excellent evisceration continues at some length, with examples, details, and specific debunkings; check it out. And in the spirit of fairness and balance, you can pre-order your copy of The Enemy Within for $17.79 here. Continue reading →

Online Power

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I’ve often talked about the power of online organizing for the desi community. There have been many sites (besides our much loved Sepia Mutiny) that have attempted to faciliate this for our community; The now defunct DesiOrgs.us, the weekly profiles from The Desi Connect, and the still beta networking site Desi Page. Last month, a new site hit the inter-desi-networks, the South Asian Forum.

The South Asian Forum aims to tell the story of South Asians through the lens of its organizations and organizing work. From one-one-one interviews with community Youth Solidarity Summerorganizations to an extensive history and framework of South Asians in the U.S., this Forum hopes to capture the deep and rich history of South Asian collective action in the U.S.

In addition, the Forum brings together a collection of various resources and tools, such as an online directory of organizations and a census fact sheet, to aid those working in or interested in the South Asian community.

Through the collection of data, sharing of resources, and storytelling we can identify current and emerging issues, barriers and gaps, and develop sustainable strategies for the future. [link]

This website has a lot of potential, and is a wealth of information for anything related to the South Asian American diaspora. The website is well divided into different sections- such as the history of South Asians and South Asian organizing in the U.S., to the voices of our community with interviews and surveys that have been done, all the way to Census resources. Most importantly, at least when it comes to building networks and coalitions, is the South Asians Organizations Directory — a database of various types of organization serving the brown community. This fabulous online resource was put together by a task force of leaders in our community. Continue reading →

A Hustler’s Delight

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SilvaWilcsee_050306_1.jpgOK. So it’s New York, right? And there’s all these posh bars and lounges where, if you survive the scrutiny of the enormous lunkheaded individuals guarding the door while self-important, bluetooth-earpieced publicists brandishing clipboards peer at you over designer eyewear, you are admitted to the privilege of purchasing diluted, undersized “premium” cocktails, sometimes served in plastic cups, for fifteen or twenty dollars a pop. I know, it sounds like a great time, right? Well, for one thing, there’s a lot of fast money floating around this town in the hands of people who don’t know what else to do than flash it. But more importantly, only suckers actually pay full price. (A rule that applies in many settings, by the way.) The real action is when media houses, PR firms, banks, and other capitalist swine upstanding corporate citizens rent out these establishments for parties where those fortunate enough to be on The List may eat and drink unlimited and gratis, and leave with at least a big goodie bag of schwag, or better, a couple of business leads and maybe someone to share some drunk sex with at night and figure out how to get rid of in the morning.

In this world, where if it didn’t happen in the Flatiron or Meatpacking districts it might as well not have happened at all, and you’re always just in from Los Angeles, just off to London, or more likely, working as a flak for the people who truly are, this world snarkily yet slavishly celebrated by outlets like Radar magazine and Gawker.com, there reside, as you might imagine, some less than savory characters. For let’s face it: Delusions of grandeur, fantasies of power and sophistication, lots of booze, hotties, free stuff — the scene is a hustler’s delight.

And so it came to pass that a hustler rose to great heights.

And that hustler was desi.

A kind soul posted a link to the story of Priyantha Silva on the news tab yesterday, but with a description so laconic that few of you may have been drawn to click it. Really it should have said: READ THIS! THIS SHIT IS RIDICULOUS, HILARIOUS, CLASSIC! Realizing this, a number of Sepia stalwarts have been emailing us demanding that we blog it. But really, it’s one of those stories that doesn’t warrant blogging. It stands alone. It speaks for itself. How could we improve on it? So without further ado, I direct you to the Ballad of Brother Priyantha, and await your wise commentary.

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