Entries for April 2009
Mental Illness and Homelessness
Most of the Tuesday evenings are incomplete for me without listening to the voice of the Will_Lyman during Frontline program broadcast over Public Television.
This past Tuesday Frontline broadcast a documentary which was sequel to this original documentary broadcast in 2005
The 2005 program titled New Asylums discussed the national trend of using the prison to lock up mentally ill and release them, only to see the mentally ill come back to jails with in months.
The program telecast last week saw the developments in the lives of few inmates over the intervening years the news was not good most of the inmates tracked alternated between homelessness, crime and prison.
This phenomena can be tracked to decision in the past years to close the asylums and allow the mentally ill to recover in free environment and in community. The objectives of the policy has not been achieved.
If one sees the movie Soloist, it will become clear the amount of effort that goes into keeping mentally ill out of trouble and in safety.
It is estimated 1,000,000 mentally ill in prison in US who will be out in some time most of them will be out without the knowledge of good and bad, and no skills to survive in this world.
We expect the powerful nation ever to exist in this world to perform the moral duty of protecting the weakest, that contract has been abrogated, it's the duty of the civil society to do something about it.
Lanka
The longest running civil war in Asia between LTTE and Sri Lankan government will be soon over.
Lalith Athulathmudali, Ranasinghe Premadasa, Amrithalingam, Neelam Thiruchelvan and Rajiv Gandhi if you thought these are alphabet soups, the answer is no, these are the names of real people, real presidents, real prime ministers killed by LTTE.
LTTE which claimed to protect ethnic minority Tamils in Lanka, I hope will be soon part of history, and no terror organization will ever match its ruthlessness and network.
Ever since a civil war started LTTE has been pushing Tamil minority to create a huge diaspora to fund LTTE. There is a large diaspora in Europe created by the liberal asylum policies and European countries failed to see that Tamils were also part of the problem. The presence of large number of Sri Lankan Tamils in Europe shaped a policy which was antagonistic to Sri Lankan state. I think Lankan government was right in sending back the Swedish foreign minister this morning who arrived in Colombo to press for cease fire, Sweden has recalled its ambassador but in this era of Hugo Chavez sending diplomats and kicking them out is like playing cards
LTTE spread the word Tamils can't live safely in Sri Lanka when there are suburbs in Colombo like Welawetta dominated by Tamils. I remember once meeting a Sri Lankan Tamil in a train in India he started lamenting about how unsafe it is for Tamils to live in Lanka. I told him about my very long stay in Lanka as part of my work and discussed about my trips to Tamil neighborhoods for dinners, he became quite and didn't utter a word for the rest of the journey.
LTTE's ruthless strategy, European support to Tamil cause and effective propoganda made it a controlling force in Tamil speaking parts of Lanka.
Now with relentless pursuit by Lankan army and government refusing to accept cease fire which doesn't allow LTTE to regroup, I hope it's over for LTTE.
The bloody battle shifted focus from grievences of Tamil minority who suffered from affirmative action that favored the majority Sinhala and Sinhalese official language policy. The affirmative action was introduced because when British left Lanka the beaurcracy was dominated by Tamils. Major reforms have happened like official business can be done in Tamil and trivial ones have happened like removing the Sinhalese character Sri from license plates, but much more needs to be done.
Sri Lankan goverment will do a great favor by addressing the problems of all its citizens, and make use of the opportunity created by the defeat by LTTE to achieve lasting peace.
Conservatives and Global Warming
GOP house minority leader Boenher, said last week that Global warming is an hoax because human beings exhale Carbon di Oxide.
I hope after tax day tea party charade, they protest against Global warming hoax by sleeping in Pure Carbon di Oxide tanks.
Pulitzers
I anticipate for Apr 20th every year when Pulitzers for excellence in journalism. This year there were two finalists from my home town paper Plain Dealer. They were Regina Brett for commentary and Diane Suchetka and feature writing
Description of their work is given below
Diane Suchetka’s five-part series was about a mechanic whose arms were severed in a shop accident and who had them reattached. Pulitzer judges called “Fixing Mr Fix-It,” which ran in December, a “harrowing tale” and a “disciplined narrative that takes readers on the man’s painful, personal and physical journey to recover.”
Regina Brett was a finalist for commentary for the second year in a row with her columns about releasing evidence to defendants in criminal cases and passing on a breast cancer gene to her daughter.
You may agree or disagree with Regina but she does adhere to high standards of journalism, who doesn't get beaten down by nasty comments to her stories on the Plain Dealer website
It was sad both of the missed Pulitzers, I congratulate them for coming so close. Regina next year it is going to be third time lucky.
American Dream
I had commented on the New York Times story which you can find here, soon after that New York Times published a story about Newark, Ohio high school student Tiffany Clay
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Tiffany's story is remarkable one, she grew up fast, while at school she works almost full time, maintaining high grades and most importantly excels in music. The quality of her talent is evident from video clip in the NY Times about her. One doesn't hear much good news about economy from Ohio these days but there is no dearth of news of people making things happen despite tough times.
Tiffany is remarkably pragmatic, she doesn't want to pursue music because of the uncertainties and instead wants to pursue nursing because of the demand created by the huge health care industry in Ohio. One doesn't know how many talented Americans have to give up their dreams for want of money, guidance and encouragement. Probably American Dream is not for them, there is no popular support for these young people achieving their American Dream, I see more press for more work visas and immigration reform to enable people achieve American dream, it seems bit odd to me that young Americans should be denied their dream after all charity begins at home.
The New Story about Tiffany was an remarkable piece of journalism which you don't see much see these.
Next Year's Oscar
Next year's Oscar for best actor will go to Jamie Foxx for his outstanding performance in The Soloist (A great movie, you will get to see some Cleveland too)
Columbine 10 Years After
Second anniversary of the Virginia Tech shootings was observed two days ago. Today was the tenth anniversary of the Columbine shooting, these incidents remind me of the shooting incident here at Case Western which I survived.
I heard news about these anniversaries while driving, it made my anxiety levels go up, in one occasion I almost caused an accident. Being a survivor is tough time heals rather slowly.
My prayer and thoughts go to victims and their families and to survivors who are living with it.
My prayers also go to perpetrators of these incidents who in most occasions took their lives, after being isolated, misunderstood and taunted, lost the sense of their humanity. I hope they being in a better place will make them realize world was not a bad place.
Charter Schools
I looked into Charter Schools concept as I am involved primary education these days. I noticed in charter schools a sort of self selection is taking place, a kind of students who don't move around 12 schools in a school year and students who have relatively stable households (a rarity in many inner cities).
If suburban school success is due to urban flight, success of some charter schools is due to fact the people it attracts would have joined urban flight if given half a chance.
I can't see a necessity for charter schools if it can help only self selected students.
American American
After looking at the controversy surrounding the lifting the travel ban to Cuba I thought of this.
American policy making has to satisfy Cuban Americans, Venezuelan Americans, Colombian Americans, Mexican Americans, Hispanic Americans, Irish Americans, Polish Americans, Jewish Americans, Arab Americans, Indian Americans, Pakistani Americans, Filipino Americans, etc. My doubt is when will the American policy making will satisfy American Americans
Tech Recruiting
I say a news article in New York Times with the following title Tech Recruiting Clashes With Immigration Rules, it talks about recruiting foreign tech workers. I don't know whether it reflects bad immigration policy or failed education policy.
I was also surprised when former presidential candidate Pat Buchanan said in a morning TV show today, calling President Obama's plan to increase college graduates in US a unnecessary and elitist. The conservative's disdain for education is a bigger threat to American Power than China and India
Kirtan
I was part of a Kirtan singing evening yesterday. Kirtan is form of prayer in Hinduism, where gods name is chanted repeatedly, with a person leading a group. The proponent of this form of prayer was 14th century Indian saint and reformer Chaitanya Mahaprabhu, who made in popular in current Indian states of West Bengal, Orissa and Republic of Bangladesh. Kirtan is the most visible form of Bhakti Yoga philosophy.
Kirtan does exist in India these days mostly in the small temples of rural India, most of them located on river banks or the edge of village tank. It is treat to listen to evening Kirtan along with setting sun reflected on the river or tank and also chiming of temple bells. Most of prayers in temples in India reflect the the Hindu orthodoxy with a priest facing god and perform rituals and devotees standing in attention with little participation nor understanding.
After attending the Kirtan by Krishna Das, I was elated and refreshed. I also noticed that most of people who turned up for the prayer were White Americans who enjoyed the event in their own way, chanting, singing and even laying down, allowing the magic of evening to seep into them. After the evening I couldn't compare the the form Hinduism I saw there and orthodox form I know. That evening event helped people to celebrate god, celebrate one's life and gain new energy. Orthodox Hinduism is rife conflict based on various ethnicities in India, caste, class etc.
What was surprising was the realization that post independence secular India has not led to serious movement to reform Hinduism. This is mainly due to compulsions of electoral politics regional parties want to Hindus into castes and sub castes to micro target them, putting master in micro targeting Karl Rove to shame. One national party assumes that history of India began in 1947 and doesn't believe in Hinduism and the other National party believes that one and half millennium foreign invasion should be corrected so status quo should continue
GOP and Government
If Republicans hate government, why do they want to become presidents.
Cleveland FIlm Festival
Last week was dysfunctional and sleep deprived. There were 26 reasons to it, they are listed below.
Lightbulb (English)
At the edge of the world (English)
Children of Invention (English and Chinese)
Apron Strings (English and Punjabi)
Ramchand Pakistani (Urdu and Hindi)
Reckoning (English)
Strangers ( French, Hebrew and Arabic)
Candidate (Danish)
Dunya and Desie (Dutch and Arabic)
Loss (Lithuanian and Irish)
Back Soon (Icelandic and English)
Shall we Kiss (French)
Alexander the Last (English)
Thing with no Name (Zulu)
Generation Rx (English)
Chery Blossom - Hanami (German and Japanese)
Kanjivaram (Tamil)
Sin by Silence (English)
Surveillance (English)
Ciao (English)
El Camino (Spanish)
Treeless Mountain (Korean)
The Tour (Serbian)
Loose Rope (Persian)
No One's Son (Croation)
Quite Chaos (Italian)
The list is of movies with their language in parenthesis, the movies explored human greed, cunning, serendipitous nature of the world, human relations, issues of race, conflict between poor and rich and many more subjects. They were some of the movies that were part of the recently concluded Cleveland International Film Festival. What was amazing was that issues explored by these movies seemed to be of importance across various cultures. The movies also opened my eyes to acting and film making talent across the globe. Raising doubts about importance placed on expensive Hollywood talent.
Amidst the celebration of talent, I had a lingering doubt about quality of subtitling, my doubts arose after watching the movie in my native language (Tamil), I felt subtitling did a good job of translating words but not the language.