Anticipating joy, a doting mother suffers a horrific tragedy, while on her way to a friend’s house to prepare for Eid:

Radiant, content and at the pinnacle of her life, Syeda Arif held her 2-month-old daughter in her arms as she plucked out a baby bag from the trunk of her Honda.

It was 3 p.m. Tuesday and she had just pulled up to a friend’s home along Sherman Way with her daughter, Ikra, and 5-year-old son, Ayman.

Less than a block away, strangers Armando Gamboa Ayon, a Pacoima teen, and Brian Gilbert Barnes, a porn star and self-proclaimed pot smoker, were taunting each other, zipping west through heavy afternoon traffic on Sherman Way in a show of bravado, pushing the speedometer to 90 mph, police said….

In a chain-reaction crash, Ayon plowed into a parked car, which then slammed into Arif’s, crumpling it like a tin can and crushing her and her son. Her daughter flew out of her hands. [LA Daily News]

I’ve read differing reports which suggest that this was either road rage or a street race. Whatever it was, it was wrong. Ayon stayed, the porn star fled the scene, both have been arrested (the latter turned himself in).

LAPD Detective Bill Butos said the motorists were “cutting each other off, they were jockeying for position. They were tapping on the brakes, one of the vehicles was tapping on the brakes, trying to cause the other vehicle to ram into the vehicle. They cannot point to the other individual and say, well, that person started it.” [KTLA]

Continue reading →

Amarjit Singh is a 56 year old chef at a restaurant called Texas Smokehouse at 34th St. and 2nd Ave. in Manhattan. A few days ago he was preparing for another day at work when someone broke into the kitchen, stole a bunch of knives, and then slashed him as he tried to resist.

Singh ran outside to get help, but didn’t see anybody initially. Instead, what he saw was the same guy who slashed him, stabbing someone else:

Then Singh gazed back up Second Ave. toward the Texas Smokehouse restaurant, where he had been preparing for another long day as a chef when the bare-chested madman came in and grabbed at least four knives from the kitchen.

The madman who had slashed Singh and sent him fleeing down to E. 34th St. was now up at the next corner, repeatedly stabbing a 67-year-old woman outside the Gemini Diner.

Singh instantly made a decision that proved him one of our city’s very best and bravest. This chef from Queens by way of India became New York royalty as he forgot his own wounds and dashed straight back into the mortal danger he had just been so lucky to escape.

The madman looked up from the bloodied woman and rose on seeing the courageous Singh approach. A 25-year-old onlooker named Antionette Brown watched amazed as the madman slowly backed up. He was clutching at least four knives but seemed unnerved by Singh’s uncommon courage and selflessness, as if Evil were being vanquished purely by the power of Good. “He probably saved her life,” Brown later said. (link)

So let me get this straight. The guy was slashed, bleeding profusely, and UNARMED — and he faced down a knife-wielding psycho with four sharp knives? I’m speechless.

(An off-duty police officer later shot the assailant in the stomach after he refused to drop his knives. The woman who was stabbed survived, and was well enough at least to be interviewed by a reporter. And there are some other choice, “Only in New York” details in the New York Daily News Story… Thanks to Rajath Vikram for the tip.) Continue reading →

The question comes up again and again when I talk to friends and colleagues about U.S. foreign policy. The question is most urgent when discussing the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, but equally valid when the topic is the Indo-U.S. Nuclear deal, or even what is happening right now in Myanmar.

The question is this: is the U.S. acting in ways that are true to the credo of supporting and spreading democracy around the world, or does it merely do this when it is clearly in its own interests? Is present-day U.S. foreign policy governed by a “realist” philosophy (do what you have to do) or an “idealist” one (spread democracy)?

Noah Feldman has a think piece on this in a recent New York Times Magazine, where he gives special attention to the situation in Pakistan. To begin with, this is how Feldman frames the question:

As ideal and slogan, though, the creed of exporting democracy differs from the creed of expanding empire in one important respect: When we fail to follow it, we look hypocritical. An empire that extends itself selectively is just being prudent about its own limitations. A republic that supports democratization selectively is another matter. President Bush’s recent speech to the United Nations, in which he assailed seven repressive regimes, was worthy of applause — but it also opened the door to the fair criticism that he was silent about the dozens of places where the United States colludes with dictators of varying degrees of nastiness. (link)

The obvious examples of “realist” collusion are Saudi Arabia and Egypt, where the U.S. hasn’t pressured for democratization, since in these cases more “democracy” might mean more anti-American Islamists. Regarding Burma/Myanmar, President Bush recently took a strong stance of condemnation, but in Feldman’s view this may not be especially convincing:

The problem is that our support for dictators in some countries tends to undermine our ability to encourage democracy elsewhere, because it sends the message that we may change our tune the moment an immediate interest alters our calculations. The monks of Yangon have put their lives on the line; if our embrace of their cause is conditional on, say, our not needing any favors from the ruling junta this week, why should they trust us? Double standards are not merely hypocritical, but something much worse in international affairs: ineffective. (link)

In Feldman’s analysis, the U.S. support for Pervez Musharraf is a little trickier. Continue reading →

Via a tipster, the Telegraph (UK) has something on The Compulsive Confessor, a Bombay-based blogger:

In breezy postings, the 25-year-old girl-about-town – India’s answer to Bridget Jones – told thousands of readers of her partying, smoking and binge drinking, along with candid musings about sexual techniques and escapades. Meenakshi Reddy Madhavan writes her Sex and the City-style blog under the pseudonym “EM”, aware that although her material would not seem outrageous to a British audience, in India sex remains a taboo and anti-obscenity laws are strict. (link)

This particular article tries to play up the salacious content of the blog, and seems hell-bent on finding “controversy,” though this angle falls a little flat at certain moments:

Madhavan, a Delhi-born writer for a news magazine, Outlook, launched The Compulsive Confessor during a dull day at the office in 2004.

While her critics grow daily more scandalised, her thousands of fans believe she is changing the face of modern Indian womanhood. Her blog is among the most popular in India, receiving 400-500 hits a day, although only two per cent of India’s 1.1 billion population have internet access. (link)

(I would make a comment about how “400-500 hits a day” is actually not a lot of hits, but I’m sure that number has spiked since this profile appeared.)

The most interesting part of the article, of course, is in the concluding paragraphs, where it’s revealed that The Compulsive Confessor now has a book deal with Penguin India:

Unsurprisingly perhaps, the publisher Penguin India has commissioned Madhavan to write a semi-autobiographical novel, hoping she will rival the success of Candace Bushnell, the American author of Sex and the City, in giving voice to a new generation.

Meanwhile, Madhavan is apprehensive that news of her real identity will spread even further when the book is published, making it harder to be frank in her internet journal. “It will be harder to write when you’re no longer anonymous,” she said. (link)

Hm, she’s worried about news of her identity spreading after her book’s published? What about when she’s profiled by a major British newspaper, where the reporter uses her real name?

(Note: I hope this isn’t one of those situations where the reporter used Madhavan’s name against her wishes, thereby outing her… Something about this profile doesn’t quite smell right…)

Take a look at The Compulsive Confessor; what do you think? Is she the next Shobha De? Or merely the next Amy Sohn? Continue reading →