memestream

This has been a lucky stretch for me in getting letters to the editor printed in major daily newspapers. Today the Washington Post ran a badly edited version of this letter I sent in response to Josh White’s report of a former Guantanamo prisoner involved in a suicide bombing in Iraq.

To the Editor:

Your story, Ex-Guantanamo Detainee Joined Iraq Suicide Attack (8 May 2008) states that “the Defense Intelligence Agency has estimated that as many as three dozen former Guantanamo detainees are confirmed or suspected of having returned to terrorist activities.”

This characterization begs the question which is absolutely central — and completely unaddressed in your report — as to whether this activity is, indeed, a “return” to terrorist activities or an initiation into terrorist action prompted, at least in part, by resentment based on the Guantanamo imprisonments. In a system which puts habeas corpus, not to mention release, beyond the reach of most detainees, is it plausible to believe that the DoD had evidence of prior terrorist participation on those it had released?

Mark B. Jacobs
San Francisco, California

Continue reading ‘Posted’

As English Bay neared high tide this morning, Yoo-Mi and I slipped into the water for a two-hour paddle — from our house in West Point Grey to Kits Point and back. We were accompanied by numerous cormorants, several great blue herons, and a curious harbor seal.

It’s nice to be back in Vancouver!

Continue reading ‘Afloat in Vancouver’

Photo: Associated Press

Beirut is once again in flames as Iranian-backed Hezbollah militias and Lebanese government forces clash in the worst outbreak of violence there since the end of the fifteen year civil war in 1990. The underlying political stalemate between the government and Hezbollah-led opposition parties, which has left the country without a president for nearly a year-and-a-half, is still unresolved. And, once again, America stands idly by and watches.

Continue reading ‘Lebanon Once Again Ignites While on America’s Back-Burner’

With Nirmala Deshpande in November 2002

Nirmala Deshpande died yesterday; and she is being eulogized as a great Gandhian leader in the major newspapers and hailed by politicians across India. I strenuously demur.

Continue reading ‘Nirmala Desphande and the Death of Gandhianism’

Where most people see trash, Shuddham sees opportunity; so it was only natural that fashion designer Anjali Schiavino would turn to Shuddham with her problem. Anjali was making an exclusive line of organic cotton clothing for a European client and wondered if there was a constructive use to which the pattern trimmings could be put. Thanks to our friend Anshu Gupta, we came up with an answer which Anjali immediately proclaimed as, “super cool!”

Continue reading ‘Health and Freedom in a Simple Piece of Cloth’

Tenzing started skiing this winter; but I was in India, and didn’t have a chance to see him on the hill, much less to teach him myself. Thanks to my mother, and a nice late season at Kirkwood, Zing and I were able to spend the day together cutting-it-up.

I credit ski racing as the single most positive, thoroughly formative influence in my life, from which so many other great things have cascaded. It taught me invaluable lessons about the abundance and easy accessibility of joy, the power of fearlessness, the fascinating relationship between the mental and physical sides of human perfectibility, and the pleasure of kicking ass. It would not disappoint me in the least to see Zing’s obvious love of speed and well-carved turns take him in the same direction.

Continue reading ‘Feed the Need for Speed’

I leaned to my right and whispered into Tenzing’s ear so that no one else could hear. My secret message was soon shared with everyone at the table, if not everyone in the restaurant.

“Mimi,” said Tenzing, referring to my mother, “Markie said I should eat the damned food. Do you think I should eat the damned food? I’m not sure I want to eat any more of the damned food.”

Continue reading ‘Eat the Damned Food’

When I left Pondicherry a few days ago, it was 31 degrees Celcius and humid. I now stand on the snowy slopes of Brighton Mountain, in the upper reaches of Big Cottonwood Canyon, Utah, where the temperature hovers around minus 12 degrees and the air is desert-dry.

And you thought the reason there was no snowboarding in Pondicherry was the shortage of mountains.

Continue reading ‘Penguins in Pondicherry’

India is justly famous for its chai – known in Starbucksland by the just-in-case-you-didn’t-get-it-the-first-time, Babelicly echoful moniker “Chai Tea Latte” – but in South India, coffee rules the streets. It is both repast and entertainment, as coffee-wallahs (how do you say “barista” in Tamil?) serve “meter-long coffee,” so called because the dense shot of “filter coffee” and sugary boiled milk are mixed cup-to-cup at full arms’ length. (Not all practitioners achieve the dramatic lengths depicted in my photo, above.)

Continue reading ‘Meter-Long Coffee’

A recently renamed lane in Pondicherry gives a hint at the great esteem in which the Chief Minister, N. Rangasamy, is held. The road sign reads: “CM Rangasamy’s Penis Grand Highway”.