Russo's Risk Pool

Richard Russo's The Risk Pool follows Ned Hall, the only child of two estranged parents, from childhood to early adulthood. The book is a fictional first-person memoir that recounts Ned's years growing up in Mohawk, a blue-collar town in upstate NY. It's a marvelous story - engrossing and irresistible and all of the other descriptors you'll see on the back cover. Time and again, I would read another 20 pages after deciding I was done for the night - not because I needed to wrap up a cliff-hanger or an action scene, but because every place to stop was no better than any other. Russo tells the story of everyday life fluidly. The book's sole fault, in my view, is in devoting two hundred pages to Ned's first decade of life - a time devoid of love, lust, independence, and for Ned, ambition.

Growing up isn't easy for Ned, considering his mother's a lunatic and his father's a drunk. In their shadow, Ned becomes a quiet reflective introvert - a grad school drop-out-turned writer - who finds little companionship among his peers. Still, Ned's coming of age is not so unique as to defy analogy. His observations resonated with me. In his youth, Ned found few things “so curious as the mystery of how anybody could be Jack Ward and not live happily ever after." But an older Ned acknowledges that "despite living through the war, marrying a rich woman, fathering a beautiful daughter, living in the while jewel house, driving the big Lincoln, and dying in the saddle, Jack Ward had not been happy” (248).

Russo is entertaining and sharp, but especially clever. In describing Ned's mother, an obsessive woman who managed her money meticulously, Russo writes: “She always congratulated herself on the fact that she had absolutely nothing to worry about, and wouldn’t have, so long as she continued to worry all the time” (214). Sometimes, amid the cleverness, shines a simple peril of wisdom, distinguished strangely by its mundane nature. As Ned says, “there are few things better than riding a bike after a long winter. A bicycle promises spring as surely as the hollowing out of melting snowbanks, the return of songbirds, the first bright tulip bud” (233).

Ned's relationship with his father Sam Hall matures over the decades. For much of his life, there was no telling when Ned would see his father, who swooped in-and-out of town. After one good-bye, Ned relates in a steady tone, “I didn’t see him again for ten years, nor did I ever hear a word concerning his whereabouts. Not a letter, not a Christmas card” (268). As a kid, Ned is scared to approach his dad. "As usual," Ned says, "everybody seemed to know my father better than I did, and I always ended up feeling like an outsider" (101). As he spend more time with Sam Hall later in life, Ned begins to worry he shares too many of his father's poor habits (458). Not wanting his girlfriend to see any resemblance between Ned and his father, Ned keeps the two apart. Russo crafts a character who loves and reveres his father and visits him regularly, yet in his heart of hearts, knows he's terribly “afraid he [his father] would live to be a hundred” (458).

Perhaps I've quoted enough, but I want to conclude with one more quotation - my favorite in the book - where Ned reflects on his budding relationship with Jack Ward's beautiful daughter, Tria.

“Paradoxically, even though I doubted that Tria Ward felt much attraction, I began to be uncharacteristically certain that before long she would extend me the invitation. Such arrogance, I hasten to add, was far from customary. In my relations with other young women to this point in my life, I had always been rather pessimistic about my prospects, a circumstance born of experience. I’d been told that I struck most girls as gloomy, and at the university one honest sorority girl I had badgered about going out said that she had nothing against me personally, except that when she went out with a guy, like, she preferred to have a good time, you know? I knew. Perhaps I was confident about Tria because I was beginning to suspect that she was not the sort of girl who preferred to have a good time” (354).

Movie theater ethics

Is it ethical to steal from the rich to give to the poor?

Well, that's what I just did. I saw Michael Moore's Sicko last weekend. I had planned to review the film, but ya know what, it's been reviewed countless times already. For a positive take, see Krugman; for a negative take, see the National Review; for a sarcastic take, see the blog Paragon). For CNN's fact-checking, go here. I think that covers everything. Now for the juice.

In the theater, Jen and I staked out four seats. We were waiting on Ezra and Logan, who would be coming shortly, though not together. I had a ticket for Logan, as previously agreed, but not for Ezra. I thought maybe he had purchased his own. Logan hadn't arrived yet - so I held his ticket. Ezra, as it turned out, he had not yet purchased a ticket. He was simply running late. When I met Logan at the gate, Ezra informed us that the show had sold out. So there we were, on different sides of the red cord, a chasm between us. Nothing could be done, or so it seemed. Entering the cinema with Logan, I showed my ticket-stub to the ticket-checker. But when Logan tried to hand over his ticket, the checker assumed Logan also had a ticket stub and waved him through. Suddenly there we were, through the gate, with an unripped ticket! Incredible! I sent Logan on, left the gated area once more, and handed Ezra the ticket I had bought for Logan. And on we went.

Ethical?

Well, Ezra may have taken a seat that a paying movie-goer would have taken, especially since the movie was sold out. True, but two comments. First, a theater doesn't actually fill every seat when it "sells out." I'm not sure why, but it doesn't. In fact, there were several other unfilled seats. Second, Jen and I had saved a seat for Ezra since our early arrival. Saving a seat for a friend is surely permissible, especially since I had done so with the understanding that Ezra would actually buy a ticket. I think the ethics deal less with fellow movie-goers and more with the business. Someone might claim that since the movie had sold out, the theater hadn't lost anything. But Ezra may have returned to see the movie and paid the ticket price then. In that case, not only does the theater lose out, so does Michael Moore - each according to their cut of the ticket price.

I would bet that those who think it's okay to enter the theater without paying find the following reason most compelling: "I mean, the movie was playing anyway, right?" That's tempting. But to see how it fails, think of the city bus. Sure it travels even if someone doesn't pay. But the rider is financially accountable to the business, which must sell tickets to sustain itself. Not paying is tantamount to stealing. Of course, it's not so simple. It was the ticket guy, after all, who missed Logan's ticket. It's not like we sneaked in through the back door. Well, no. Our act was intentional, if not premeditated. If the cashier forgets to ring something up, the buyer should speak up - with movie tickets as with milk. Bottom line: taking without paying - nevermind the details - is theft.

We debated this conundrum after the movie. It was an odd conversation, meandering between the ethics of movie tickets and the disaster of our health care system. It felt silly to be worrying about that $7 ticket when there were larger problems to discuss. But I felt at least that this $7 riddle was something we could solve. Both Logan and Ezra acquiesced to my puritanical drive - annoying as it must have been - and forked over the $7 ticket price. With $7 in hand, I got up to purchase a ticket for the Monday morning showing of Sicko - when it was sure not to be sold out - to compensate for our unsanctioned viewing. But in the shadow of the box office, as I stood amidst Harry-Potter-mania, the thought of buying a ticket in order to rip it up, all to enrich the rich and empower the powerful, struck me as nothing short of absurd. Strangely, for once in my life, it was pertinent to say, paraphrasing Voltaire: Don't let the ethical become the enemy of the good.

So we gave that $7 to the Rescue Mission. Yes?

The (d)evolution of privacy

I gave blood this morning, something I've written about in the past.

In the interview, the Red Cross worker asked matter-of-factly for my social security number, address, phone number, health status, and other identifying info.

Then, "if you don't mind my asking," she asked for my sex.

What a world we live in.

Why people steal

Fellow blogger ZT posts this story from the Washington Post:

A grand feast of marinated steaks and jumbo shrimp was winding down, and a group of friends was sitting on the back patio of a Capitol Hill home, sipping red wine. Suddenly, a hooded man slid in through an open gate and put the barrel of a handgun to the head of a 14-year-old guest.

"Give me your money, or I'll start shooting," he demanded, according to D.C. police and witness accounts.

The five other guests, including the girls' parents, froze -- and then one spoke.

"We were just finishing dinner," Cristina "Cha Cha" Rowan, 43, blurted out. "Why don't you have a glass of wine with us?"

The intruder took a sip of their Chateau Malescot St-Exupéry and said, "Damn, that's good wine."

The girl's father, Michael Rabdau, 51, who described the harrowing evening in an interview, told the intruder, described as being in his 20s, to take the whole glass. Rowan offered him the bottle. The would-be robber, his hood now down, took another sip and had a bite of Camembert cheese that was on the table.

Then he tucked the gun into the pocket of his nylon sweatpants.

"I think I may have come to the wrong house," he said, looking around the patio of the home in the 1300 block of Constitution Avenue NE.

"I'm sorry," he told the group. "Can I get a hug?"

Some took the story as one of love triumphing over evil. But that's too theological to be correct. I think about it in the context of prison work. After all, if this guy is caught, he could face ten years in the slammer - probably in a max-security. In Soul on Ice, (New York: Dell, 1968, p. 58), former prisoner (and revolutionary-turned-Republican) Eldridge Cleaver put it this way:

One thing that the judges, policemen, and administrators of prisons seem never to have understood, and for which they certainly do not make allowances, is that Negro convicts, basically, rather than see themselves as criminals and perpetrators of misdeeds, look upon themselves as prisoners of war, the victims of a vicious, dog-eat-dog social system that is so heinous as to cancel out their own malefactions... Rather than owning and paying a debt to society, Negro prisoners feel that they are being abused, that their imprisonment is simply another form of the oppression which they have know all their lives. Negro inmates feel that they are being robbed, that it is 'society' that owes them, that should be paying them, a debt. [Quoted in Ted Conover's Newjack, New York: Random House, 2000, p. 207]

The Washington Post didn't identify the attacker's skin color. But the point holds. Those who feel marginalized - whether by their race or their poverty or whatever - believe that they owe nothing to society. In fact, society owes them. And if society won't cough it up, they'll simply take it.

Thus, inviting the would-be robber to partake in that everlasting symbol of privilege - a glass of red wine - mollified his criminal intention. It deprived him of his motive, which was not just to enrich himself, but to be counted and recognized. It makes perfect sense that he asked for a hug. Sharing their feast of plenty, he felt like one of them. As the Washington Post reports, "In the alley behind the home, investigators found the intruder's empty crystal wine glass on the ground, unbroken."

Health insurance myths

In his NYT column today, Paul Krugman debunks the hip replacement myth:

[I]t’s true that Americans get hip replacements faster than Canadians. But there’s a funny thing about that example, which is used constantly as an argument for the superiority of private health insurance over a government-run system: the large majority of hip replacements in the United States are paid for by, um, Medicare.

That’s right: the hip-replacement gap is actually a comparison of two government health insurance systems. American Medicare has shorter waits than Canadian Medicare (yes, that’s what they call their system) because it has more lavish funding — end of story. The alleged virtues of private insurance have nothing to do with it.

Here (via the White House) is what President Bush said about universal coverage last week:

“I mean, people have access to health care in America. After all, you just go to an emergency room.”

Like this one, Mr. Bush?

Reasoning from the gut

William Saletan at Slate weighs in on the liberal-conservative question:

I have problems with liberals. A lot of them talk about religion as though it's a communicable disease. Some are amazingly obtuse to other people's qualms. They show no more interest in an embryo than in a skin cell. ... At most liberal bioethics conferences, the main question in dispute, in one form or another, is whether to be more afraid of capitalism or religion. I also hate the word progressive. It manages to be arrogant and meaningless at the same time, as though anything the left wants to do is a good idea. I suppose it's no more arrogant than values, the Republican buzzword for whatever conservatives want to do.

Eventually, though, Saletan sides with the liberals. He criticizes conservatives for being too dogmatic about questions of right and wrong, or appealing to what bioethicist Leon Kass calls "the wisdom of repugnance." Regarding the prospect of human cloning, Kass writes that "repugnance is the emotional expression of deep wisdom, beyond reason’s power fully to articulate it. Can anyone really give an argument fully adequate to the horror which is father-daughter incest (even with consent), or having sex with animals, or mutilating a corpse, or eating human flesh, or even just (just!) raping or murdering another human being?" It's not "what do you think," but rather "how do you feel?" Kass concludes, powerfully, "Shallow are the souls that have forgotten how to shudder."

I don't find "the wisdom of repugnance" compelling. Neither does Saletan, nor my former professor Felicia Nimue Ackerman, who replied: "Narrow are the souls that cannot comprehend that different souls shudder at different things." This "wisdom of repugnance" jettisons argument and relies more-or-less on gut-level reasoning. It is no way to discuss public policy in a shared society. But I don't think gut-level reasoning is merely a conservative phenomenon. Liberals and conservatives alike appeal to the gut. Vegans do it in their "arguments" for animal independence. Liberal bioethicist Linda MacDonald Glenn does it in discussing enhancement technologies, such as in the use of prenatal genetic diagnosis (PGD) to create smarter, stronger children. She writes: “To try and strive to have a perfect race—that’s a very scary thought.” In fact, nearly everyone discussing enhancement seems nuts about the idea. I see titles like: "New Breeds of Humans: The Moral Obligation to Enhance" (J. Savulescu) and "Our Posthuman Future" (F. Fukuyama).

Now I don't want to eschew gut-level reasoning altogether. Most of us, I imagine, would rush to save a drowning child (as the classic example goes) not because we feel the moral law devolving upon us (thank you, Mr. Kant) or because a quick calculus finds the child's life to be worth more than my pants (thank you, Mr. Singer). Instead, standing on the lake-side, we feel something in our gut that compels us to perceive and seek to end the suffering of another person.

Wise are the souls that understand that ethics neither ignores, nor ends at, the gut.

An Iraqi in Baghdad

An Iraqi reporter for the New York Times in Baghdad, Khalid W. Hassan (pictured), was killed earlier today on his way to work. On this page, colleagues at the Baghdad bureau shared memories. He was 23 years old and set to get married this fall. He was supporting his mother and three younger sisters, whom he had moved into a more expensive apartment after their previous apartment was destroyed in a truck bombing a few months ago. Khalid's father, a Sunni Arab, was shot by Sunni gunmen last fall “for the crime of taking a car ride with an acquaintance who happened to be Shiite.”

Who shot “this heavyset, pranksterish 23-year-old”? Why?


The NYT: “The murderous turmoil in Baghdad has reached a point where many families never know the killers of their loved ones, or their motives. Sunni insurgents? Shiite militias? Killers who mimic one or the other, while pursuing more private motives of greed, spite or revenge?”

Reporter Paul von Zielbauer recalled this story about Khalid Hassan:

I remember walking with him to a hotel next door, to interview an Iraqi woman about an article I was researching on love affairs in Baghdad. Khalid had eagerly put himself forth as a leading expert on the subject. On the way to the hotel, escorted by a guard with a revolver, we walked past a child seated on the curb. On a wooden plank before him, the child, scruff-faced and silent sold local candies. I walked right past him. Khalid stopped, talked to the kid, gave him a few Iraqi bills and took no candy.

“These kids are out here all day in the heat, and they have nothing,” he told me as we walked. “I feel bad for them, you know, dude?”

For all the times I have seen KHALID W. HASSAN REPORTING, thank you.

Ratatouille

If Sicko is sold out at your local theater, consider seeing Ratatouille (trailer here) instead.

In this Pixar film, a rat named Rémy dreams of becoming a chef at Gusteau's, a famous bistro in Paris. But the idea isn't palatable to the human chefs - except to a young man named Linguini who by family legacy and a little dumb luck manages to land a job there. Of course Linguini can't cook. In fact, Linguini is a blubbering idiot whose near-permanent deer-in-the-headlights expression is eclipsed only by his inability to do anything right. Linguini is a real Forrest Gump kind of character who somehow despite his idiocy manages to win our affection and sympathy.

Not just a coming-of-age story, Ratatouille is a story about how anyone can achieve great things through hard work and skill. That meritocratic message, however, is complicated by a story of inheritance. Gusteau, the man famous for saying "anyone can cook," leaves his restaurant not to his best chef but to someone with no culinary talent whatsoever: his son Linguini. Linguini, meanwhile, doesn't know he's the legal heir - which begs the question of why the chef who took over is so concerned. I also didn't understand why Colette, the female lead, falls in love with Linguini, though I suppose it's a side-story and therefore doesn't need much explaining. Finally, I wonder if Rémy could have communicated with Linguini by writing to him, given that the rat can read.

Kudos to the film for sticking to its plot, even though it suggests that the amiable chef Gusteau fathered a son out of wedlock. And despite the curious absence of female rats, the film espouses a feminist message. Colette tells Linguini: "How many women do you see in this kitchen? Only me. Why do you think that is? Because high cuisine is an antiquated hierarchy built upon rules by stupid, old men." Questions aside, this film is a delight, with gorgeous animation and perfect voices. And it's hilarious. I was laughing from my belly, such as when a mean-spirited chef tells the novice Linguini: "Let us toast, to your non-idiocy!" I'll finish with this funny exchange:

Mustafa: Someone has asked me what is new!
Horst: What did you tell them?
Mustafa: I told them I would ask!
Skinner: What are you blathering about?
Mustafa: People are asking what is new!
Skinner: What did you tell them?
Mustafa: I told them I would ask!

Pathologies of Power Preview

Expect a review of Paul Farmer's Pathologies of Power, forthcoming. I wrote previously about Tracy Kidder's Mountains Beyond Mountains, a journalistic biography of Farmer. Farmer's own writing, of course, discusses global health inequalities in greater depth. If I were to sum up the main thesis of this book, I'd quote Amartya Sen, whom Farmer himself quotes (8). The difference is that Farmer would replace "development" with "health."

“Development requires the removal of major sources of unfreedom: poverty as well as tyranny, poor economic opportunities as well as systemic social deprivation, neglect of public facilities as well as intolerance or over-activity of repressive states.” [Amartya Sen, Development as Freedom, New York: Knopf, 1999, pages 3-4.]

The other difference is that Farmer writes with a bit of a zing, fuming at one point:

“Does being human confer a right to survive?” (211).

Bleeding heart liberals

Gotta love them: idealistic, compassionate, naive. But why? What makes someone a liberal? Is it an outlook toward the world, a feeling toward other people? How are liberal beliefs connected?

Here's my attempt to discern a trend, through a partial list of liberal views:

The government should aid the poor, even if it requires a hike in taxes. Abortion services should be easily accessible. War should be used (if ever) as a last resort. "Terrorists" are people, too. Gays should get marital benefits. Embryonic stem cell research should get federal funding. The government should administer the health care system. The death penalty should be abolished. Guns should be more difficult to acquire. Universities should consider racial and socio-economic background in admissions. Undocumented immigrants should receive social services. (I mean, who else but immigrants still believe in the American dream? Liberals certainly don't.)

What connects these views? Is it an arbitrary collection, a packaged deal? Liberals purport to be optimistic, but deep down, I think we're as pessimistic as they come. To many liberals, the rags-to-riches American dream is dead. Of those who think that everyone has a chance to succeed in America, 46% are conservatives and 26% are liberals. Of those who think inequality is a serious problem, 53% are liberals and only 12% are conservatives. I interpret these data to mean that conservatives are either oblivious to the plight of the poor, or they're wildly optimistic about it. Strange to say, conservatives have a deeper faith than liberals do in social mobility and progress. No need for the government to step in to address inequality, they think. The American economy is bursting with opportunity. One of these days, the poor will figure it out.

What makes a person optimistic? Family history plays a role. A rich person who was born poor may be more likely to vote conservative. By contrast, someone born to an middle class family may believe that success is deeply rooted in social class. They'll say: it's no surprise that rich kids go to the best colleges, or better yet, that they get to go to college at all. Liberals want greater governmental intervention to reach out to poor people, sick people, gays, women, victims of gun violence, and others caught in the gaping rut of inequality. Conservatives, meanwhile, in their optimism, trust that the market will shakes things out. What they conveniently ignore is that success takes a good deal of luck (as few want to attribute their success to luck). Instead, they think talent is all that matters. But it's not. Liberals know it. To be a liberal is to recognize that success has as much to do with the circumstances of one's birth as with one's work ethic.

Sicko

I can't remember ever having been so excited for a movie. Sicko comes out this weekend. I hear it's a rare piece of objective and unbiased journalism, adorned of course with Michael Moore's sex appeal.

Here's the trailer:



At the bioethics center today, we crowded around my computer to watch. As one professor put it: "Sometimes, you don't need angry philosophers clamoring for justice. Satire works much better."

Britain's Israel boycott

On May 30, 2007, Britain’s University and College Union (UCU) called on members to consider a boycott of Israeli universities, essentially charging Israeli academia with complicity in the country's occupation of the Palestinian territories. The statement was approved 158 in favor, 99 against, with 17 abstentions. The Zionist lobby of course went nuts, disregarding all attention to details. Here are the details: The UCU statement calls on members to consider a boycott of Israeli academia. The union will vote on whether to actually institute the boycott next year. Under the boycott, UCU members would be urged to refrain from attending Israeli conferences and from submitting to Israeli journals. It would not prohibit British universities from inviting Israeli academics to their own conferences. Thus it's a bit melodramatic, maybe even bogus, to claim that the proposed boycott constitutes “a dangerous attack on academic freedom.”

This saga stretches back several years, but gained speed when an Israeli historian named Ilan Pappe came out in support of the proposed academic boycott, citing “the need to apply external pressure on Israel as the best means of ending the worst occupation in recent history.” I heard Pappe speak in July 2005 at Jerusalem's Alternative Information Center. I bused in from Ra'anana (an hour to the north) and took this picture of Pappe (to the right). As might be expected, Ilan Pappe is not popular in Israel. The infamous historian Benny Morris (my former professor, mind you) didn't shy away from denouncing Pappe as a “Palestinian propagandist” when he noticed one of my classmates holding Pappe's A History of Modern Palestine.

I was at first mixed about the proposed academic boycott. Now I am firmly against it. In general, I am supportive of boycotts and continue to favor a boycott of any company, Israeli or not, that profits from the occupation or usurps Palestinian land. But I think an academic boycott is wrong-headed, even if the majority of Israeli academics condone the occupation. Some, at least, do not. AJ Heschel asserted eloquently that “Few are guilty, but all are responsible.” Fine, so let's target those few: the Israeli state, the religious Zionists, and the West Bank companies.

The boycott will fail for two reasons. First, engagement, not isolation, is the modus operandi of academic communities. Second, Israelis, more so than others, are prone to believe that the world hates their guts. Maybe the Jews have earned their right to this worldview given the centuries of oppression. As a result, a boycott - far from encouraging Israeli academics to quit their shameful silence - will only convince them further that the world seeks their destruction. And so a boycott will do little, if anything, to bring the world closer to a more peaceful Middle East.

Boycotts aside, the complacency of Israeli students and professors is appalling. The occupation wages on just over their border; it’s plastered on the newspapers and in their graveyards. But NYT columnist Thomas Friedman wants to downplay the proximity. In a column on the proposed boycott, in which he accuses the UCU of anti-Semitism, Friedman writes about Israeli Arabs graduating with doctorates from Israel’s Hebrew University as if that were somehow proof that Israeli academia is enlightened and has nothing to do with the miserable occupation.

Writing from that graduation ceremony, Friedman describes how the university's Jerusalem amphitheater “faces out onto the Dead Sea and the Mountains of Moab... against a spectacular biblical backdrop.” I too have stood on that campus. So I know that facing out the other way, one can see the Arab villages atop the Jerusalem foothills. In these villages, too close for Israeli comfort, the Israeli Civil Administration and the Israeli army continue to demolish Palestinian homes for lacking building permits. Why Palestinians who are neither citizens of Israel nor desire to be have to attain permits from the Israeli government to build houses on their own rightfully acquired land, I don’t know. It’s just one of those things that comes with being occupied.

I visited a few of these demolished homes in 2004 and then again in 2005. From where I stood upon the rubble, the looming towers of Hebrew University were clearly visible. Friedman and other opponents of the boycott defend Israeli academia as if the occupation occurred someplace other than its backyard. But that claim is delusional, just as the proposed academic boycott is misguided. The boycott’s real flaw, let it be known, is in promulgating the same strategy of collective punishment that Israel, for forty years now, has imposed upon its neighbor.

Are girls better losers?

By “better,” of course, I mean “more gracious.”

Last week, my ultimate frisbee team lost in overtime, 16 to 17, having given up a four-point lead. It was pathetic: a series of preventable turnovers at the goal-line. Hell, the other team didn’t win it; we lost it. But the winners rushed the field anyway, boisterous and exuberant, while the losers stared shocked at their cleats and kicked the grass, saying: “I can’t believe that just happened.”

I shook hands with the opposing team and staggered off the field. I was angry as hell – an emotion I don't think I had ever felt before on an ultimate field. I played a mediocre game, with stupid decisions and shoddy defense. Sure, it was my third hour in eighty degree humidity, but I can’t imagine that members of the opposing team faired much better. My teammates certainly didn't. We had dropped three throws in the last three points. Not only that, but those who dropped the throws proceeded to coach everyone else. We had a glut of talkers and a dearth of listeners - a plethora of advice that even the self-appointed advisers could not heed. Even the winning team, I remember thinking, should have adorned sack-cloth and sulked with the rest of us, in testament to how a group of seasoned players - with decades of collective experience - had played so poorly.

I spoke to my father that night. "Look," I said to him - because I needed to say it out-loud, to somebody - "maybe I should have taken the dump throw at count four, but damnit, I don't want to hear it from the kid who couldn't land a viable cut even when he was poached."

My dad had just returned from taking my little sister to a college recruitment exhibition for field hockey. Between her field hockey and my wrestling, he's watched his share of sports. "Ya know," he replied, "the girls handled losing much better than the boys. They're less scared of it."

A week later, I wonder if it's worth lamenting the competitive nature of men's sports. Its presence is everywhere. Walking off the field last week, reeling from the fresh wound of our defeat, I wanted nothing more than to drop to all-fours and beat my fist into the ground, futile as it would be.

I looked over to a teammate, to try to cope with the loss. "It hurts," I managed.

"It should," he said.

Human nature and the cookie jar

Yesterday the center director brought in a plate of cookies. That's not unusual. Several times a week somebody brings in blueberries, chocolate, banana bread, or other snack for public consumption - another indication that I have a wonderful place to work.

At 5 PM, there were two cookies left on the plate.

"Whether I bring in a dozen or a million," she joked on her way out, "there’d still be two left at the end of the day."

How true.

Cruisin' with the Pope

Earlier this week to great fanfare, the Vatican issued a "10 Commandments" for driving, or in Catholic-speak, "Guidelines for the Pastoral Care of the Road." Here they are:

1. You shall not kill.
2. The road shall be for you a means of communion between people and not of mortal harm.
3. Courtesy, uprightness and prudence will help you deal with unforeseen events.
4. Be charitable and help your neighbor in need, especially victims of accidents.
5. Cars shall not be for you an expression of power and domination, and an occasion of sin.
6. Charitably convince the young and not so young not to drive when they are not in a fitting condition to do so.
7. Support the families of accident victims.
8. Bring guilty motorists and their victims together, at the appropriate time, so that they can undergo the liberating experience of forgiveness.
9. On the road, protect the more vulnerable party.
10. Feel responsible toward others.

I'm impressed, although I don't really think of cars as an "occasion of sin." Maybe it only applies to cars with spacious backseats. In any case, it's tempting to say: "Doesn't the Vatican have more important things to do?" But the truth is: It probably doesn't. It could pray more, but the mass is already quite long. Plus, driving causes a lot of suffering: Every year, 1.2 million are killed and 50 million more are injured. So for once, I'm pleased to have the Vatican as a back-seat driver.

In fact, I wish they'd do more of it. So here are ten others. Suggestions welcome.

1. Thou shall carpool.
2. Thou shall purchase safe carseats for thy kids.
3. Thou shall have the transmission checked every ten thousand miles.
4. Thou shall use public transportation whenever possible.
5. Thou shall not smoke with closed windows.
6. Thou shalt not apply make-up while driving.
7. Thou shalt not be distracted by thy cell phone.
8. Thou shalt not disturb fellow travelers with loud music.
9. Thou shalt not beep at cyclists. (Who knows, maybe it's the new white donkey.)
10. Thou shalt not get fewer than 37.5 miles to the gallon (as Europe requires).
    

On that last item, the Vatican's document is pathetic. In fact, its lead author Cardinal Renato Martino is known to question the reality of climate change. The Church ought to be more concerned with the pastoral care of the environment. What Jesus drives is at least as important as how he drives it. Allow me to direct every good Christian to read about "creation care" at the excellent website, "What would Jesus drive?" It's the entry ramp to the road of salvation.

I can't feel your pain, but...

I've been reading the heart-wrenching blog kept by Will Okun and Leana Wen, the two young people traveling through Rwanda and Congo with New York Times columnist Nick Kristof. In his latest post from the conflict-ridden Congo, Will Okun writes about fear:

"Imagine living in a rural community where your daughter could be raped, or even sodomized, by soldiers every time she leaves home. Recently, Nick Kristof asked a village leader to speak with a woman who had been raped, and the line continued to grow and grow at a sickening rate. Imagine living in a rural community where you do not grow crops to feed your family, because the soldiers will simply eat all the fruits of your labor anyway. Imagine hiding the fact that you have a job, because the soldiers will ransack your house first. Imagine leaving your village and home with your family in the dark of night for places unknown, because the soldiers’ violence devours everything in its path."

Fear is a paralyzing emotion like no other. Human beings across the world experience it - in Iraq, in Gaza, in Chicago. Despite its ubiquity - it can, after all, affect anyone - it actually affects very few. The problem is: Those who don't experience it hardly know it exists. Empathy is a weak mobilizer. True to the golden rule, we still begin sentences with "Imagine yourself..." and "How would like it if..." But the new plan is simply to shock the conscience. Will Okun explains: "Sadly, it is not enough for a human woman to live in squalor, to be malnourished, to be uneducated, to have no access to clean water or health care. This is not news. Only when she is raped, her children dead and her family killed in war, then we will finally take heed and demand intervention."

It's just not effective to implore people to imagine themselves as susceptible to other people's misfortunes. To help a beggar, I don't need to imagine myself in his or her place. Frankly, I can't. Instead, I need to attach that person's good to my own - what Martha Nussbaum calls the "eudaimonistic judgment." Acting compassionately has three necessary parts, she says. I act compassionately (a) when I see that the other has suffered a terrible misfortune, (b) when I judge it to be undeserved, and (c) when the other an important place in my scheme of goals.

Empathy is an "epistemological aid," to be sure. But alone, it's not so impressive. Those without fear won't - can't - experience empathy. That's okay, though, because there's no need to imagine what it is demonstrably real. Empathy should take a backseat. In its place: interconnectedness.

Love thy neighbor

I just met my new next-door neighbor - though I suppose I'm the new one here. Ann has lived next-door for 49 years. To answer the question, she counted back the time, to 1958, using children's names instead of years. Her husband died 3 years ago, but Ann has no lack of family. At 84 years old, she has 11 children, 25 grandchildren, and 3 great-grandchildren.

She and her husband - 2 people - have so far spawned 39 others.

"It's a lot of birthdays," she sighs. "I'm constantly writing checks."

For my generation in this crowded world, I doubt it's responsible to have as many as 11 children. At 6.7 billion people, and with 2.5 billion more expected by 2050, we're exploding at the seams. I'm not suggesting that Ann - born in 1923 - should have had fewer children. Back then, no one realized the world's resources could be so limited. Nor am I suggesting that her children aren't productive members of society (the number of grandkids speaks for itself, and the illustrious careers they all have). In fact, she says, all of them but Michael went to college - "but he's a good boy," she adds, lest I'd be too quick to judge him the runt of the litter. "He mows the lawn each week."

It's not easy to balance the earth's dwindling resources with procreative liberty, so I said nothing and behaved myself. When she mentioned the 11 children, I didn't even ask if she was Catholic.

Update (06/01/2008): I just came across this essay by Greg Mankiw, justifying his third child. An excerpt is below. I would if he'd say the same thing about having eleven children.

Those who fear overpopulation share a simple insight: People use resources. They eat food, drive cars, and take up space. Because resources are scarce, the only way to improve living standards, Malthusians argue, is to limit the number of people with whom we have to share these resources.

The rebuttal to this argument is equally simple: People create resources. They bring into the world their time, effort, and ingenuity. Before deciding whether world population growth is a curse or a blessing, we have to ask ourselves whether an extra person added to the planet uses more or less resources than he or she creates.

Albania: I'm with stupid

President Bush visited Albania last week. For some reason, the Albanians adore him. Prime Minister Sali Berisha called him “the greatest and most distinguished guest we have ever had in all times.” Late-night host Conan O'Brien even joked that Bush was overheard saying, 'I wonder who they're mixing me up with.' To the Albanians, Bush delivered two crowd-pleasers, (1) affirming U.S. support for Albania's bid to join NATO, and (2) endorsing independence for Kosovo.

Most of Kosovo's two million people are ethnically Albanian; the others are Serb, Turk, and Bosniak. Kosovo is technically part of Serbia, but in actuality, the region is governed by the United Nations Mission in Kosovo and the local Provisional Institutions of Self-Government. The NATO-led Kosovo Force provides security. Since 2006, the UN has moderated final status negotiations on Kosovo's disputed sovereignty, producing a plan that now sits before the UN Security Council - with a looming Russian veto. Meanwhile, the negotiations stagger on.

The NYT reports:

On Saturday in Rome, the president agreed that there should be a deadline to end the United Nations talks, saying: “In terms of a deadline, there needs to be one. It needs to happen.”

But on Sunday, Mr. Bush tried to backtrack when asked when that deadline might be.

“First of all, I don’t think I called for a deadline,” Mr. Bush said... He was reminded that he had. “I did?” he asked, sounding surprised. “What exactly did I say? I said deadline? O.K., yes, then I meant what I said.”

Is it clever evasion or plain ol' idiocy?

It's a small small world

In the last post, "Dithering on climate change," I focused on China and hardly mentioned the dithering of the United States. In his column the next day, "Repression by China, and by Us," Nick Kristof did something similar. He discussed the plight of a woman who's been beaten and jailed by China for seeking little more than workman's compensation. Toward the end, he named Sami al-Hajj, the Al Jazeera cameraman whom the U.S. has imprisoned at Guantánamo for the last five years, despite no evidence that al-Hajj has done anything wrong or unlawful.

So one might wonder: What business does an American have condemning China?

Though Kristof raises the question by adjuring Bush to "give America back its moral authority to speak up for human rights," he doesn't discuss it - at least not here. But the inference is clear: The U.S. is its own rogue state, denying rights to 'illegal combatants' and secretly detaining them at hell-holes (ahem, 'facilities') like Gitmo and Abu Ghraib. It's reasonable to ask whether Americans - with our own government's obstinate disregard for global warming - can seriously rebuke China for ignoring the perils of a changing climate. Has the U.S. really surrendered its 'moral authority'?

Whether we retain moral authority or not, Americans are at least perceived to have lost it. In this age of 'identity politics' where people and their arguments are considered inseparable, I exude hypocrisy when I meddle in international affairs, even if I downplay my citizenship. As it's been said before: Remove the log from thine own eye first. Yet the alternative perspective - that I should stand idly by - is just as absurd. I am not my government. Why? One might say that I can't be held responsible for all the havoc my government wreaks. And yes, that's important. But the United States, on some level, is a "government for the people, by the people." In a real democracy, it doesn't make sense to say "I voted for the other guy." My participation in civil society - from protest rallies to blogging - implies my consent to be governed. You see, the reason "I am not my government," is not simply because I oppose its policies but because I am more than its citizen.

It became real in June 2005, on the Red Sea coast of Egypt, of all places. Friends and I were lucky enough to happen upon a birthday party for a Israeli girl in her mid-twenties. We drummed and danced till late, then lounged around on cushy beach chairs in the night and got to talking.

"What do you think of Israel?" she asked.

"Not bad," I replied in Hebrew, casually.

"Be'emet," she said, "what do you really think?"

I paused. A good five seconds passed. She had a look that could only be answered sincerely.

So I said - bluntly baldly - "Your country was born in sin."

For all her sincerity, she was suddenly (though I suppose unsurprisingly) sour.

"And what about yours?" she said.

So we argued - as if sin were the only way a state could be born, as if I as an American lacked the standing to criticize her country for a crime my country had itself committed a few centuries earlier, as if it were somehow unfair to hold Israel to account so long as the U.S. got away with it.

It was romantic in a way - an argument in the night, shifting between languages, between countries, across continents, passionate and heated with the fire crackling and then simmering, debating until our eyes drooped and the beach quieted, the rustle from Red Sea beside us. It was tragic, too - another group of young people inventing clever hakuna matata justifications to excuse the sins of their fathers - anything to save themselves from the awful, disorienting recognition that their identities - as Americans, as Israelis - existed because another identity was destroyed.

I spent nearly eight months in Israel/Palestine in 2005. It was then that I started thinking of myself as "an international" and not just or even primarily as an American. Sure, my passport bears the seal of the United States - but in the end, it's just a passport and not a way of thinking. To be a global citizen is not to be stateless but rather state-ful. In a small, globalized world, one must value not only the 'state of the union,' but also the state of the world. With human rights abuses as with global warming, we can no longer subsist - if we ever did - on "mind your own business" diplomacy.

Dithering on climate change

China released its much anticipated report on climate change yesterday. Yet for all the anticipation, the report merely reiterates the country's refusal to cap emissions. Capping emissions, they say, would be 'unfair' to China, a country that manages to qualify as "developing." Nevermind that not capping emissions would be unfair to millions of others. Although the Chinese "strategy" calls for better energy efficiency, the plan is unlikely to actually lessen consumption, just the rate of increase. Ma Kai, the director of China’s National Development and Reform Commission (and a master of double-speak) said this: “Our general stance is that China will not commit to any quantified emissions reduction targets, but that does not mean we will not assume responsibilities in responding to climate change.”

The writing in the New York Times was a bit curious. The article reports that in the next few years, China will become the "world’s biggest emitter of greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide, which scientists say cause global warming." Scientists say?! Do people seriously disagree? This subtle layer of ambiguity obscures our moral imperative. We should get over our sheepishness and stop pretending that climate change is some sort of new and controversial discovery.

How will global warming affect China? Even the Chinese report warns of rising sea levels, , expanding deserts, and increased temperatures, as well as shrinking glaciers in Tibet. By 2030, the country's agricultural output could be slashed by ten percent - a loss that would foretell incipient unemployment, taking livelihoods as well as lives. Years from now, the Chinese (just like the U.S.) will ask themselves: How could we have known so much and yet done so little? Maybe the Chinese know as much about climate change as they do about Darfur. Reporting from China, Nick Kristof writes that people are utterly oblivious to the genocide their government is sponsoring.