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.

Continue reading →

Breaking News: Kiran Desai Wins Booker Prize

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Red Snapper advises us that Kiran Desai was awarded the MAN Booker Prize for her novel The Inheritance of Loss just moments ago. Here is the official press release:

Chair of the judges, Hermione Lee, made the announcement at the awards dinner at the Guildhall, London, which was broadcast live on the BBC 10 O’ Clock News. Harvey McGrath, Chairman of Man Group plc, presented Kiran Desai with a cheque for £50,000.

Hermione Lee comments,

“We are delighted to announce that the winner of the Man Booker Prize for 2006 is Kiran Desai’s The Inheritance of Loss, a magnificent novel of humane breadth and wisdom, comic tenderness and powerful political acuteness. The winner was chosen, after a long, passionate and generous debate, from a shortlist of five other strong and original voices.”

Over and above her prize of £50,000, Kiran Desai is guaranteed a huge increase in sales and recognition worldwide. Each of the six shortlisted authors, including the winner, receives £2,500 and a designer-bound edition of their book.

The judging panel for the 2006 Man Booker Prize for Fiction is: Hermione Lee (Chair), biographer, academic and reviewer; Simon Armitage, poet and novelist; Candia McWilliam, award-winning novelist; critic Anthony Quinn; and actor Fiona Shaw.

The press release reminds us that Kiran Desai is 35 and the daughter of author Anita Desai. Also, according to the release, Kiran is currently a student in the creative writing program at Columbia. I’m sure her classmates aren’t intimidated! Salman Rushdie calls Kiran “a terrific writer,” which is more than he had to say about John Updike.

Seriously though: Warm and sepia-tinted congratulations to Kiran Desai and let’s all run out and read her book. Continue reading →

Beauty and the beasts

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There are two types of ABDs – those who live the daily, 9-to-5 grind, and those who live … on the edge. The punk ones, the ones who scandalize the aunties. Well, I’m sure that aunties across America have been doing some tutting about the actions of Jabeen Akhtar, who joins Ravi Chand in the audacious desi animal rights activist hall of fame. [Thanks DJ Drrrty Poonjabi]

Jabeen is an animal rights activist with PETA who “painted tiger stripes on her nearly nude body and sat in a cage in downtown Charlotte, N.C.” to protest the way that circuses treat the wild animals in their acts:

In a letter … Akhtar explained she “appeared caged, nude, and painted like a tiger in downtown Charlotte, N.C., to draw attention to the way animals suffer in circuses like the Ringling Bros and Barnum & Bailey Circus.

“Although it was uncomfortable to sit on the pavement exposed to the public, the hour I spent sitting on the sidewalk was nothing compared to what the animals go through every day of their short, miserable lives,” she said. [Link]

PETA alleges the circus commits numerous violations against the Animal Welfare Act, backing up the claim with case documentation and hidden video footage. Among the grievances: inhumane storage of animals, torture with electric rods and bull hooks, neglect leading to suffering and death, intentional killing of animals afflicted with illnesses. [Link]

I admire Akhtar. Not only did she take a peaceful yet eye-catching stand for what she believed in, she’s also an employee of the EPA. Now that takes chutzpah. Continue reading →

“Diversity”

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When I first started organizing in the environmental movement, the buzz word was “diversity.” The mostly white movement was trying to extend their base, and just didn’t get understand why people of color weren’t ‘interested in the environment.’ The diversity training I went through back then was effective and has shaped my approach to organizing ever since.

Wilkes University recently had their folks go through a diversity training, and it looks like they were a little more unsuccessful.

Two Wilkes University students say they were offended by leadership consultant Ron Feldhun’s course methods and said that during a weekend retreat earlier this month, several students were called racial epithets.

But Feldhun said his program was used as a scapegoat for the university to fire multicultural coordinator Andita Parker-Lloyd, who filed a racial profiling lawsuit against the city of Wilkes-Barre.

Navneet Virdee, a junior pharmacy major of Indian decent, said Feldhun called her a terrorist when she challenged the veracity of a diversity program meant to teach leadership principles. Virdee said Feldhun encouraged students to chant racial slurs at each other as a way to lessen the words’ impact. [link]

I’m no professional in pedagogy, but even I know that this method may not be the BEST one to encourage open minded discussion on race. Mad props to Navneet for speaking up. I’m all for diversity trainings and think that when done properly they are a great tool for success. But only when done right. It seems though there was internal politics involved in bringing the training to campus.

“My perception is that there was a conspiracy to get rid of a strong Black woman,” he says. “They fired her because she embarrassed the school when she stood up to that White police officer.” […] Parker-Lloyd was arrested for disorderly conduct on Feb. 16 after she tried to intervene on behalf of minority Wilkes students who had been pulled over for an alleged signal violation. [link]

Has anyone in the Mutiny been to one of these diversity trainings? Was it effective? Or was it dreadful like the one above? Really bad diversity trainings remind me of the the diversity training episode of The Office (starring desi-gal Mindy Kaling). Priceless and painfully humorous.

Continue reading →

Brangelina in Trouble? [Updated]

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Pitt and Jolie in Rickshaw Drama!
Jolie-Pitt Photog All Choked Up!
India Gets a Jhalak of Brad & Angelina!

The news wires are all abuzz with desi-related gossip about the couple we love to hate, Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie.

Pitt and Jolie, along with their three children, are in India to shoot scenes for the upcoming movie A Mighty Heart, in which Jolie stars as slain journalist Daniel Pearl’s widow, Mariane. Pitt’s Plan B production company is coproducing the film…Relentless paparazzi coverage of the Jolie-Pitt clan’s visit has led the couple to remain holed up in Pune’s Le Meridan Hotel almost nonstop since they arrived by private jet late last week. [link]

Brangelina starring in The Great Rickshaw Escape

Brangelina in India has created all the frenzy that the Hindustan Times Page Six thrives on. First, we had Angelina Jolie wishing she were filming in Pakistan instead, where Daniel Pearl’s abduction had originally taken place.

Meanwhile, Jolie says she and Pitt are disappointed they are not shooting the film in Pakistan. Security concerns there caused officials to suggest they work elsewhere. So with the exception of a few background scenes shot in Pakistan, A Mighty Heart will be made in Pune.

“I am disappointed that we could not shoot the film in Pakistan, a country that I love and have visited three times,” said Jolie in a statement issued on Saturday by Trevor Neilson, an adviser to the couple.

“They talked with people from all levels of the Pakistan Government and there’s certainly no hard feelings. But it became clear that it was preferable to film in India,” Neilson said. [link]

Now, we have Brangelina’s security with an (almost) killer choke hold…

A bodyguard for Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie manhandled a British photographer as he tried to take their picture at a hotel in western India, an incident caught on video by an Indian television station. On Saturday afternoon, when Pitt and Jolie tried to leave the hotel, one of their security guards caught a British photographer trying to take their photo, grabbing the man by his neck and verbally abusing him. [link]

And the infamous rickshaw escape…

The couple were chased by photographers, cameramen and reporters, forcing them to turn back after a 20-minute ride that took them past stores in downtown Pune, in western India.[…] Several traffic signals slowed their short rickshaw ride. At every red light, security men traveling in a rickshaw behind jumped out and surrounded the three-wheeler to prevent the media from snapping pictures of Pitt and Jolie. [link]

Oh, Brangelina. Welcome to the motherland. I’m placing bets that the next baby in their internationally adopted clan is going to be desi. Any takers?

Update: You can watch The Attack of the Brangelina Security Guard here! (Thanks, Manish!).

Continue reading →