This Charming Man

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This morning I awoke to find my cell roommate, Rajni, sleeping on my leg. Monkeys can be heavy. Monkeys can also be strong. “Rajni, man, I’m late making breakfast for the masters, eek!”, I gave her a shove. She single-handedly flipped me off my hammock and onto the floor, face first. Monkeys = 1:Neha = 0. THIS. After spending all night coughing because she insists on smoking cigars before bedtime. All those cute gibbons and gorillas about and I get stuck with a smoking lemur.

Anyway, I crawled around looking for some type of wake up/make up music, something less aggressive than my usual fare of German synths, big bass, and synthetic hand claps (just like garba!). Something combining bittersweet melodies, energetic drums and clever lyrics. Something to make Rajni like me better so we can just chill, sing along and bond over heartbreak, instead of all this fighting-biting. Good thing I took my indie-loving friend Bird’s advice and brought along some most suitable fare…

voxtrot.jpg

Last December, Spin mag profiled a then under-the-underground band called Voxtrot and made it their ‘Band of the Day’:

The Austin, Texas quintet’s debut EP, Raised by Wolves, is a stunning mini-collection of John Hughes-heyday paeans, twitchy pop, and surging, Strokes-y dancefloor fillers. [link]

Had I been keeping open to the possibility of jangly guitars bringing me to my knees then news of lead singer, Ramesh Srivastava, would have hit SM tip boxes way sooner:

When Srivastava moved to Glasgow at the age of 19, he’d already written the tracks that would comprise the Raised By Wolves EP, songs with deft arrangments and charming melodies that evoke Belle & Sebastian, Morrissey, and the Lucksmiths, but with jagged, rumbling guitars remindful of early Cure and, sometimes, Joy Division. [Link]

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Ice cream truck driver 1, Government 0 (updated)

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In a case which I have been following daily for the past week, a Federal judge in Sacramento has declared a mistrial in the “terror” case against a Pakistani American ice cream truck driver. His son’s (accused of attending a terrorist training camp) jury is still deliberating but may also end up hung (see previous posts for backstory 1, 2, 3). This is a huge defeat for the government. CNN reports:

Umer Hayat, 48, and his 23-year-old son were tried at the same time but given separate juries. The son’s jury was still deliberating Tuesday.

The announcement of a mistrial in the father’s case came one day after the jurors told U.S. District Court Judge Garland E. Burrell Jr. they could not reach an unanimous decision after nearly two weeks of deliberations.

“The jury declared that it was hopelessly deadlocked this morning,” deputy court clerk Carol Davis said Tuesday. Burrell questioned each juror and then discharged them…

“They couldn’t prove it because it didn’t happen,” Umer Hayat’s attorney, Johnny Griffin III, said outside court Tuesday. “He’s not a terrorist. There is no evidence to demonstrate he is a terrorist…” [Link]

What makes the government’s loss particularly embarrassing is that jurors were shown a taped confession but STILL didn’t find him guilty. I’ll bet you this case is used as a teaching tool in law schools for years to come. That’s what happens when you try to manipulate someone who doesn’t have mastery over the English language (see my previous post #3 linked above). The manipulation seems like it was evident to the jury but we will have to wait until they are interviewed in the coming days.

The Hayat case centered on videotaped confessions the men gave separately last June to FBI agents and a government informant who secretly recorded hundreds of hours of conversations but whose credibility was challenged by the defense.

Defense lawyers’ biggest hurdle was trying to persuade jurors to discount the men’s videotaped confessions. They argued that the confessions were made under duress, after the men had been questioned for hours in the middle of the night… .

The father and son eventually told the agents merely what they thought they wanted to hear, without realizing the legal consequences, their lawyers argued. [Link]

The case against the son was considered stronger by the government but the fact that the jury has been out this long is a good sign for him as well.

Update: The jury convicts the son after all. Continue reading →

LGBT Asian Americans enter immigration debate

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At first I wondered why the Asian American LGBT community would be speaking out as a group against the House’s immigration bill. Surely individuals in the Asian American LGBT will have a diversity of opinions on this issue since it doesn’t seem to be related to discrimination or a denial of rights based on one’s sexual identity. They have written a letter to President Bush, Dennis Hastert, and Bill Frist however, which explains their opposition to the bill:

(1) We urge you to address the detention and deportation of immigrants. Many Muslim, South Asian, and Southeast Asian Americans have been improperly racially profiled and have not been afforded constitutional due process protections.

(2) We urge you undo the requirement that local police enforce complicated immigration laws. LGBTs have already encountered many problems with police misconduct and police brutality. There are insufficient assurances and resources to make this workable.

(3) We urge you to support the reunification of immigrant families and binational same-sex couples and ease the highly restrictive process to apply for political asylum.

We hope you will show compassion and will take our views into your consideration. [Link]

I support members of the LGBT community and their right to speak out on any issue. I also agree that the House’s immigration bill is just plain wrong and should be scrapped. I can’t however understand the intent behind this statement or how they think it will increase any kind of political pressure. In fact, it seems kind of opportunistic to me (especially point 3). Are they conflating separate issues just to get noticed? A joint statement by the group also contained the following as a possible explanation to my question:

…the House bill makes being an undocumented immigrant a felony. The same was true for LGBTs. Sexual relations between same-sex couples were criminal until the Supreme Court struck down sodomy laws. So they wrote, ‘To love and show compassion should never be criminal.'” [Link]

Still seems like a weak connection to me. I am pointing this out because I often see various organizations (e.g. non-profits, non-partisan PACs, etc.) advocating for idealogies peripheral to their apparent mission, which results in an ultimately less effective/powerful organization. In this case I agree with their stance but I feel that by taking a position as a group they may be pigeonholing themselves into irrelevance for future debates.

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Issues, Loans and Dreams, Oh My

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One of the first questions people always ask me in regards to my work with SAAVY is, “What issues are important to South Asian American youth?” “What issues are important to South Asian American youth?”In surveys our organizers took of the South Asian youth (18-25 yr.) community during the 2004 elections where we asked “What issues are important to how you will vote?” the top three were, 1) The war in Iraq, 2) healthcare and 3) economy. Though these were issues that influenced them on how they voted, it is interesting to note how it is different from a survey taken earlier where we asked “What issues are important to you as a South Asian American?” Our results showed that the top 5 issues, in no particular order, were 1) racial profiling 2) hate crimes, 3) affirmative action 4) globalization and 5) cost of education.

The cost of education has been a big topic in the news recently, and is an important issue to most of the youth I talk to. I know I can’t be the only one affected by the recent hike in interest rate of federal student loans.

Rep. George Miller (D-Calif.) and Senate Minority Whip Dick Durbin (Ill.) introduced bills before the Easter recess that would halt the scheduled July 1 increase in interest rates for federally subsidized student loans, reducing the fixed rate from 6.8 percent to 3.4 percent. Miller and Durbin last week helped launch a coordinated grassroots campaign aimed at promoting the bill among college students and their parents… Durbin and Miller’s “raid” refers to the $12.5 billion cut in student aid programs passed earlier this year as part of budget reconciliation, but Keller said the bulk of the cuts hit banks and other lenders in the pocket, not students. [link]

Here we are fighting for a decrease in the federal student loan interest rate, but what about undocumented immigrant students out there that don’t even have access to apply for federal aid? For them, we have the DREAM Act.

Of the estimated 10 million undocumented immigrants in this country, approximately 1 million come from Asia. Most South Asians in the United States are unaware of the number of undocumented people in our community and the obstacles they face. [link]

Two bills recently introduced in Congress seek radically different outcomes for undocumented U.S. residents…A provision in the Senate bill, called the DREAM Act, would allow some undocumented residents to qualify for legal residency if they arrived in this country before age 16 and at least five years before the bill’s enactment. [link]

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Kaavya is Innocent, Until Proven Otherwise

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Dear Kaavya,

This is your Akka writing. The fact that you have never met me is immaterial; we are brown and we don’t live in the land our parents were born in—that alone means that you probably have relatives you’ve never met, just like I do, so Akka it easily is.

Paavum Kaavya (letÂ’s call you PK for short), there is something I want you to know, but before I disclose that, I have to admit a fault of which I am rather ashamed, a fault which I hope youÂ’ll forgive your imperfect Akka for.

I was jealous of you.

Just a bissel, but it was enough to make me loathe myself for a few minutes. Green looks fabulous on me, but envy surely does not flatter. Wait, don’t frown—I promise that once I was aware that I was being a twat, I earnestly called myself out on it and owned my jealousy. Long before I admitted that my “unlikely-fantasy-if-wishes-came-true” job was acting, I cherished what to me seemed an even more far-fetched aspiration: to write. Getting a book deal seemed like the greatest thing which could possibly happen to someone. To get paid to write? Wow. And that you did, with a stunning advance, which everyone bandies about ad nauseum, since it makes your “fall” all the more violent.

Sigh. How I wished that my parents had been savvy enough to enroll me in an Ivy-League-Prep-Camp-Thing. Where my counselor, who just happened to be a published author, would discover me as if I were some naïve starlet in a ‘40s era soda shop and then pluck me out of the sweaty, freaked-out ranks of cloned overachievers and marvel at my genuine uniqueness. My parents made me turn down Columbia for U.C. Davis. My parents are SO not your parents. Your parents gave you everything, including an inadvertent star-making opp that made me want to howl. You’re nearly half my age. It’s like watching your little sister get married before you do. It’s a little humiliating to endure, in this obsessed with chronological-milestones culture we share.

So, whenever this group blog of mine did a post about you, I’d look down and notice that my skin suddenly looked wayyy more olive than usual. Then I’d take a deep breath and tell myself that you deserved it. That you had hustled for it, working on your writing when in comparison, 17-year old me probably would’ve been brooding over which Smiths or Ultravox LP to spin next. My skin would go back to the shade my mother calls “irrantharam” and I’d exhale with relief. It felt good to be silently proud of you.

Here’s the thing my little PK: I still am. And I’m a little appalled at how many people are crowing elatedly about your alleged toppling. The first thing I thought of when I read the “Crimson” writing on the blog was that tragically accurate, snarktastic story about the pet shop with international crabs. You’re looking at me blankly. I’m sure you haven’t slept. Tut-tut. That won’t do. You know brown girls are predisposed to developing those nasty under eye circles. Take a benadryl, bachi. Your skin and, well, everything will thank you. Hell, take a nap right now. I’ll dispel your probably non-existent curiosity about crabs for you, like a wee bedtime story.

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Ensign’s Log: Stardate 2006.4

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Top down, rust willing. HQ arrival, stomach flipping.

Chevy ride, Cavalier 1996. Canuck tux locked down, toque looking gorgeous.

Maple offerings smuggled in the back seat. Curry crisps, beaver tails, India Pale Ale treats.

O ho! What’s that? Some sound is coming… No, it can’t be! Real MONKEYS hollering?!

Big one, red bum, jumps up in front of me. I freak, knees weak, try to smile friendly.

“You’re late!”, squeals bandar bhai, all crossly. “I’m sorry…The border…It is like that only!” Continue reading →

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Where the Muslims are

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Earlier, I blogged about some maps of the number of religious houses of worship by state – 702 Mandirs, 89 Jain temples, 236 Sikh gurdwaras, 2039 Buddhist temples, and 1855 Islamic masjids / mosques. In response readers asked for maps of the numbers of religious adherents as a percentage of the population. I thought this would be tough, so I told the monkeys in the basement of our bunker that they wouldn’t eat until they brought me such information. I was worried that I would have a bunch of starving monkeys on our hands, but lo and behold – they came through. Below the fold is a map of Muslims as a percentage of residents by county across the entire USAA map of Muslims as a percentage of residents by county across the entire USA. Click on it if you want a larger version.

There are only a handful of counties with between 2 and 10% muslims – Queens (obviously), but also one in Michigan, one in Ohio, one in Delaware, one in Virginia and a few in Georgia. Not at all where I expected them to be. None of them are in California at all, but both CA and upstate NY have a number of counties with between .8 – 2.1% muslim populations, as do Michigan, Jersey, Texas, and several other states. Heck, even Wyoming and Colorado meet that threshold in a few places!

Unfortunately, no such maps are readily available for Hindus, Jains, Sikhs or Buddhists, probably because they’re too small a section of the population, and too dispersed, to readily show up.

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(My Dream Girl is) Guest Blogger: Neha

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IÂ’ve spent the last five days at the cathedral for Greek Orthodox Easter and as anyone who knows anything about the Orthodox Church is aware, this means that I spent close to twenty hours in a haze of frankincense and liturgical chanting. Sometimes, an hour would pass which didnÂ’t require much participation on my part and my thoughts would predictably wander.

Taz seemed to be a hit with our readers— and that meant that the pressure was on. So, who should our next honored guest blogger be? She should obviously be a she, but which witty woman could we borrow, who could hang with the incorrigible XYs in the bunker, beat them at pool and Xbox AND do it all backwards while in high heels?
133933513_8c3ced2c63_m.jpg The chanting continued and I looked up towards the mosaic-adorned dome. My wish listing continued shamelessly, despite the fact that greed is a sin.

My dream girl would adore Almodovar yet choose to further shrink the pathetic amount of space we provide guest bloggers in their cells by unpacking books she canÂ’t live without, by Rand and Rushdie, no less. (I can see that IÂ’m going to get no rest any time soon, not with having to stand outside her door to keep the Vij and Vinod at bay.) When I ask her why on earth sheÂ’d bring thousands of pages to a place where sheÂ’d be expected to write feverishly, sheÂ’d reply that she couldnÂ’t, nay, wouldnÂ’t be forced to choose just one tome to take with her to the barren land where our bunker lies.

SheÂ’d have to be okay with musical snobs who make Pitchfork-ers seem humble; we play a ton of conscious hip-hop, loopy trip hop and even a smattering of pop. If she can stump us by dropping something unfamiliar in the mix, sheÂ’ll be golden. What am I typing…sheÂ’s my dream girlÂ…sheÂ’ll school us mercilessly, probably with something addictive like Spank Rock.

The chanting grew appropriately mournful and so did I. My dream girl was just that, an apparition, an apsara, an absolutely impossible cocktail of coolness. I sighed audibly and the austere yia yia to my left glared at me. Time to focus on gettinÂ’ saved. I had been a bad girl, after all.

Suddenly a light pierced the church, as if heaven itself was opening and I heard what sounded like a celestial chorus of angels in perfect harmony. Eureka. I have found her. Continue reading →

How Kaavya Viswanathan got rich, got caught, and got ruined

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Many of you have already picked up on the story broken by the Harvard Crimson on Sunday. It appears VERY likely that young author Kaavya Viswanathan is a cheat. Her newly released novel, part of a lucrative two-book deal, has several passages that are almost identical to a 2001 novel that examined similar adolescent themes:

A recently-published novel by Harvard undergraduate Kaavya Viswanathan ’08, “How Opal Mehta Got Kissed, Got Wild, and Got a Life,” contains several passages that are strikingly similar to two books by Megan F. McCafferty–the 2001 novel “Sloppy Firsts” and the 2003 novel “Second Helpings.”

At one point, “Opal Mehta” contains a 14-word passage that appears verbatim in McCafferty’s book “Sloppy Firsts.”

Reached on her cell phone Saturday night, Viswanathan said, “No comment. I have no idea what you are talking about.”

McCafferty, the author of three novels and a former editor at the magazine Cosmopolitan, wrote in an e-mail to The Crimson Saturday night: “I’m already aware of this situation, and so is my publisher…” [Link]

Normally I would be skeptical until I heard more about this, but the Crimson has just broken it down to the point where you know how this is all going to end. Her literary career is over. If I were her I would think about falling back on medical school or something real quick. I was thrilled to see a teenage girl that could still write and didn’t use “u” instead of “you,” or “r” instead of “are.” My hopes for the next generation are now completely dashed. Here are just two of the numerous examples of apparent plagiarism cited by the Crimson:

From page 217 of McCafferty’s first novel: “But then he tapped me on the shoulder, and said something so random that I was afraid he was back on the junk.”

From page 142 of Viswanathan’s novel: “…he tapped me on the shoulder and said something so random I worried that he needed more expert counseling than I could provide…”

From page 237 of McCafferty’s first novel: “Finally, four major department stores and 170 specialty shops later, we were done.”

From page 51 of Viswanathan’s novel: “Five department stores, and 170 specialty shops later, I was sick of listening to her hum along to Alicia Keys……” [Link]

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Ignorance of the Law is no Defense unless…

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…unless you’re a Bangladeshi Muslim Woman in the UK. Then it’s all good –

A BANGLADESHI woman who shook a baby boy so violently that he suffered brain damage walked free from court yesterday because a judge conceded that she did not know how to behave in the West.

Rahella Khanom, 24, caused the five-month-old boy in her care to suffer fractures to his breast bone and ribs as she tried to rid him of evil spirits, Southwark Crown Court was told.

The injuries inflicted on the child over several weeks had caused one side of his brain to shrink. It was believed that the boy would have been screaming in agony for eight weeks because his injuries went untreated.

…The court was told that Khanom, a Muslim, did not understand that shaking a helpless baby would not exorcise an evil spirit.

The judge issued a verdict which is almost its own caricature of a relativist, multiculturalist world gone astray –

the judge said that Khanom’s strong cultural and religious beliefs, and the fact that she had been forced by her husband to live in isolation since coming to Britain from Bangladesh, meant that there were exceptional circumstances in her case.

One can only imagine other, future defenses inspired by the socio-cultural isolation tank argument.

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