I Haven't Disappeared ...

I'm here.

Quote of the Day

"I want to know why I'm planning a funeral while George Bush is planning a wedding."

—Anika Lawal, whose daughter, Army Sgt. Princess C. Samuels, 22, was killed by enemy fire on Aug. 15 in Taji, Iraq

Quoted in The Washington Post, Aug. 21, 2007, under the headline "Waldorf Mother Is Furious At Soldier Daughter's Death"

Shift Happens … So Does Pani Puri

From my May 16, 2007, post on the DesiConnect blog

Back in March, I wrote [on the DesiConnect blog] that the Web site SlideShare.net, which lets you share your PowerPoint presentations with the entire world, had launched the World’s Best Presentation Contest. Last week, the winners were announced, and it turns out that the two first-place winners (the judges’ top choice and the people’s top choice) both have India-related content.

Shift Happens. Did you know that the top 28 percent of the population in India with the highest IQs is greater than the entire population of North America? This slide show presents some startling statistics about our rapidly changing world. China and India are competing more strongly than ever with the United States. Technology is connecting us and transforming our society in ways never imagined. Change is part of the human condition, and this slide show reminds us that, well, shift happens.

PaniPuri. For those of you who love eating pani puri, this slide show will have your mouth watering. It celebrates all the virtues of this popular Indian food and concludes that it’s a “true World 2.0 Product.”

Keeping Girls in School, One Maxi-Pad at a Time

From my April 18, 2007, post in the DesiConnect blog

We’re all aware that in poor developing countries, fewer girls than boys attend school. International development “experts” have analyzed the problem to death and have produced heaps of books and reports that offer all sorts of explanations and solutions for the school-attendance gender gap. (Examples: Girls aren’t in school because the culture is patriarchal. The solution is to offer parents cash or food subsidies to keep their daughters in school.)

Sometimes in life, however, problems aren’t as complex as they might seem. I’ve recently come across two pieces of evidence that suggest that part of the gender gap in school attendance is simply a matter of feminine hygiene — or lack of it. With more maxi-pads and more toilets, more adolescent girls could be back in school.

Piece of Evidence #1 (Source: Thomas Friedman’s April 18, 2007, column)

Naisiae Tobiko, a 28-year-old Kenyan woman, noticed that when she was a child, girls from families poorer than hers often came to school, but as they grew older, they missed four days of school each month. Many even ended up dropping out because of missed school days. She asked them what was going on, and they said they could not attend school when they were menstruating because their families could not afford maxi-pads.

“How can I come to a place when I am bleeding?” asked the girls, some of whom were using rags or mud.

Today, it’s Tobiko to the rescue. In partnership with the Girl Child Network and other NGOs, she distributes free menstrual products to girls. So far she’s reached 189,000 girls out of a target of 500,000. More maxi-pads equals more educated young women, which equals more informed moms, which equals healthier, happier children in the next generation.

Piece of Evidence #2 (Source: Page 378 of William Easterly’s hardcover book The White Man’s Burden: Why the West’s Efforts to Aid the Rest Have Done So Much Ill and So Little Good and Nov. 29, 2004’s BusinessWeek article “The eBay Way“)

GlobalGiving is a “matchmaking” organization that pairs development projects with funders. In 2002, some teachers in Coimbatore, India, noticed that many girls were leaving school once they reached puberty. The teachers posted a project on GlobalGiving. The project ad was titled “New Toilet Block for School. $5,000.” Four U.S. donors, including a writer from New York City, funded the project. Three months later, the girls had their own toilet block. It turns out that girls had been dropping out en masse because lack of private toilets made them feel embarrassed when they were menstruating. Two years after the toilet block was constructed, 100 girls had stayed in school. GlobalGiving estimates that by 2012, 440 girls will have stayed through graduation — that’s $11.36 per girl to keep her in school.

Sometimes, it’s the small things that make all the difference.

A Nation of Narcissists

As promised, I'm slowly getting back into blogging. Here's the link to my latest piece, "A Nation of Narcissists."

Hang in There!

No, I haven't abandoned this blog. I'm been working on some important side projects, such as this TCC piece. I'm also a weekly Wednesday blogger on the new DesiConnect blog.
I've set April 15 as my relaunch date. So please hang in there. I'll be generating some new content soon.

I've Hit the Pause Button, Temporarily

Please bear with me as I take a hiatus from posting. I've found employment and am settling into a new job in a new location.

Technology Will Liberate Women

You know that "career vs. family" dilemma with which many women struggle? Well, just as the birth control pill gave women more control over their lives, technologies that permit motherhood in middle age will liberate women from the career vs. family dilemma.

That's the point I make in my latest piece in The CulturalConnect. Read on:

“Impregnate me now.”

A woman I know had given her husband this command back in May 2003. The woman, who at the time was completing her Ph.D., had an academic conference to attend in April 2004. To be able to make the conference, she needed her yet-to-be-conceived baby’s birth to fit into a schedule: Conceive in May, deliver in February and attend the conference in April.

The challenge of determining the best time to have a baby is one I came across often in graduate school, where many women in their mid to late 20s are at a crossroads in their personal and professional lives. They may be at the biologically optimal age to have children, but they are neither financially nor personally ready for a baby.

As a result, American women of the 21st century struggle to weave their career aspirations and their desires for a family into a life that allows them to have both a fulfilling profession and children—something men have always been able to do. Unfortunately, biology and culture have an inconvenient habit of getting in the way.

Biology dictates that women are the ones who carry, deliver and nurse infants. Culture dictates that women are the primary caregivers of small children.

This mix of biological and cultural realities means that women such as the “impregnate-me-now” woman struggle to determine the best time to have a child. For some women, the right time to have a child never comes, and the biological clock simply runs out, evaporating dreams of motherhood.

Humans have an uncanny ability to adapt, however, and as the 21st century progresses, the obstacles posed by biology and culture have a strong chance of being overcome. The struggle to balance career and family may certainly become a struggle of the past, one that will come to be viewed as the “birth pangs” of transitioning from a male-dominated society to one in which the sexes are equal.

Advances in reproductive technology will get women out of the mode of feeling they need to make a tradeoff between career and family. In 2005, a 66-year-old retired professor became the oldest woman ever to give birth.

Talk about a post-retirement second career.

Although many people today question the appropriateness and even the ethics of women bearing children in their 40s, 50s and 60s, older motherhood is certain to become more accepted over the next few decades as reproductive technology evolves and becomes less expensive, and as life expectancies increase. Remember that there once was a time when a woman unmarried by age 30 was considered a spinster.

Simply put, many women will obviate the challenge of the work-family balance by sequencing motherhood after career. Right now in the year 2006, this might sound crazy and far-fetched, but consider this fact: From 1978 to 2000, birthrates among American women 35 to 44 more than doubled, according to the National Center for Health Statistics. The primary barrier to motherhood at even older ages is merely human biology, and technology is swiftly making that barrier history.

Older motherhood makes sense: An older woman is more likely to be financially and personally prepared to have a child than a woman in her 20s or 30s. Young women must struggle to pay off student loans, find a life partner and buy a house, all while working long hours to establish themselves in their careers.

Older women are more secure in their lives. They have found their life partners. They have settled in a house, and have saved money. They are at points in their careers where they have the seniority to take off more time and demand more flexibility in their work schedules. (Or, if they are like that retired 66-year-old professor, they no longer have to work.) It becomes the perfect time to embark on motherhood.

So, just as the birth control pill gave women more control over their lives, technologies that permit motherhood in middle age will liberate women from the career vs. family dilemma.

Technology will also benefit women in another way: more options for telecommuting. Advances in information technology mean that more Americans will be able to work from home. Parents of all ages will be better able to continue working and advancing themselves professionally while caring for a young child.

In addition to technology, cultural changes will also enable women to better juggle work and family responsibilities. More men are taking on the role of Mr. Mom and becoming primary caregivers for small children. As an increasing number of women come to have more earning potential than their husbands, it is only logical that there will be more stay-at-home dads.

And, of course, there are demographics. As the baby boomers age, older workers’ demands for part-time work and flex-time (where workers have some latitude is establishing their own work hours) are likely to increase. The boomers—particularly those who haven’t saved enough for retirement, but who want a reduced workload—will desire part-time and flex-time work opportunities, and employers will have a difficult time resisting such a large, vocal demographic. Mothers of the future will benefit from these more flexible work policies.

That “impregnate-me-now” woman told me, “I’m debating having a second child, but I don’t know how to time it.” A few decades from now, this woman’s predicament will be a predicament of the past, one overcome by technological innovation and cultural change.

My First Piece for The CulturalConnect

My inaugural piece for The CulturalConnect e-magazine recently appeared. It is an opinion column on the need for a Muslim Gandhi in the Middle East. When it comes to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the only way for the situation to become resolved is for Arabs to be agents of their own destiny and embrace non-violent tactics. Clearly, violence is getting them nowhere, and they certainly do not have the moral high ground, no matter how legitimate their grievances may be.

(The photo above of Gandhi is from Wikipedia. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gandhi, accessed Nov. 22, 2006.)

More on Duke's Culture of Crassness

Last April, in the midst of Duke University's lacrosse rape scandal, I coined a term to describe campus culture at my alma mater: culture of crassness. The phrase debuted in my April 19 column and since then culture of crassness has become a debated concept. Most recently, Chronicle columnist Jane Chong discussed it in her Oct. 25 column.

I'm intrigued at how quickly a term I created in my little apartment in Durham spread like a virus and made it into a national news magazine (Newsweek) within two weeks. Originally, I was going to use the term "culture of crudity" in my April 19 column. But, crudity sounds too much like crudités--a platter of raw vegetables served as an hors d'oeuvre. (My guess is that both words originate from a root word meaning raw.) How glad I am that I went with culture of crassness.

I know it may sound old-fashioned that I think it's important to promote a culture of character, and not positively reinforce a culture of crassness. Well, I'm sticking to my guns.

Falling Birthrates Cause Economic "Contractions"

The Lexington Herald-Leader just published an opinion column I wrote that ties into the recent increase of the U.S. population to 300 million on Oct. 17. The newspaper gave it the headline "Falling birth rates cause economic contractions." I take it that contractions is a pun alluding to childbirth.

This column is a revised version of the column "Our Most Valuable Natural Resource" that I posted on this blog March 27, 2006.

Revamped, Relaunced, Reconnected!

Are you young, driven and forward-thinking? If so, you should join The CulturalConnect--a collection of e-magazines that each week profiles an ambitious young entrepreneur and spotlights an inspiring young professional in the non-profit sector. The purpose is to allow you to connect with other young, driven and forward-thinking professionals who share your cultural community, your viewpoint and/or your passion for progress.

The CulturalConnect revamped its look and content last week, and now also includes an editorial piece each week--either an opinion column (Rearview), a how-to piece (Note2Self) or a compilation of reader responses to a provocative question (Professional Confessional).

Subscription is totally free. Just go to www.theculturalconnect.com and provide your e-mail address. There's absolutely no spam involved. You just get one inspiring edition of the magazine(s) of your choice delivered to your inbox each week.

(Note: I'm a writer for the this media publishing company, which is totally staffed by unpaid volunteers. None of my columns have been published yet by The CulturalConnect, but expect my byline by a Rearview piece soon!)

Would a Muslim Gandhi Please Step Forward?

Today, October 2, is Mahatma Gandhi's birthday. In honor of him, I have written the following opinion column.

Colonial India had Mahatma Gandhi, a Hindu who brought the British Empire to its knees through non-violent resistance.

Black Americans had Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., a Christian who mobilized religious groups and tapped the conscience of America with non-violent civil disobedience.

And now, if Arabs wish to fight Israeli oppression, they need a Muslim Gandhi to step up to the plate and lead them in non-violent resistance.

The violent tactics of the past just aren’t working.

For decades, Israelis and Arabs have been fighting one another back and forth over disputed territorial claims and the rights of Palestinians. Most recently, Israel and Hezbollah battled one another over the summer. The cycle of violence simply continues back and forth with each side blaming the other.

A Muslim version of Gandhi, however, could break that cycle. A Muslim Gandhi who led non-violent mass protests in the Middle East would give Arabs the moral high ground—the one crucial thing they lack right now. When an oppressed group and it supporters embrace non-violence and flock around a non-violent, religious leader, they gain the moral edge. They become morally unimpeachable.

A Muslim Gandhi will have to be exceptionally bold. Both Gandhi and King met untimely deaths as a result of standing for their convictions. In the Middle East, a Muslim Gandhi will face all manner of persecution.

But if no Muslim Gandhi emerges, what alternative solution is there to the violence and terrorism? Currently, only violent groups such as Hezbollah are giving a loud voice to Arab grievances. Ultimately, however, violence doesn’t prick the world’s conscience; it only reinforces negative stereotypes.

That’s exactly why Arabs need their own Gandhi—someone who can win by moral authority. But, is it possible?

Some argue that Islam is a religion of the sword that is completely incompatible with the principals of non-violence. It doesn’t take much more than a basic Google search, however, to prove that there are Muslims in the past and present who have interpreted their religion quite differently.

Most notable is the figure of Abdul Ghaffar Khan. As a Muslim leader from the Pashtun tribe in what is today Pakistan, he organized 100,000 Muslim followers in non-violent resistance against the British during colonial times. In 1930 they shut down Peshawar for five days through non-violent tactics.

Ghaffar Khan defied the stereotype of the violent Pashtun fighter. He embraced non-violence and required all his followers to sign a 10-point pledge that included a renunciation of violence. Unlike today’s so-called Middle Eastern freedom fighters, he saw Islam as a religion of non-violence. He believed that non-violence was a form of jihad: non-violence could lead to the purest form of martyrdom because it put one’s life at the mercy of one’s enemies.

Believing that Ghaffar Khan sets a precedent for Muslim non-violence, Mohammed Abu-Nimer, a professor of international peace and conflict resolution at American University in Washington, DC, writes, “Palestinians can follow the same path in mobilizing hundreds of thousands [of] nonviolent soldiers instead of relying on small armed groups or individual bombers.”

Just imagine: hundreds of thousands of non-violent Palestinians marching hand in hand through the streets, singing their own Palestinian version of We Shall Overcome. Hunger strikes, sit ins, blockades—all with a Middle Eastern twist. Each round of Israeli arrests of peaceful Arab protestors would only strengthen the Arab cause, just as did the arrests of black Americans who sat at whites-only lunch counters.

For young Arabs in the Middle East, the ball is in their court. Arabs there can’t choose how they are treated by Israel, but they can choose how they respond. Decades of fighting hasn’t brought jobs, prosperity or peace. It’s time to change tactics.

It’s time to put down the sword and pick up a more powerful weapon. That weapon is the one described by Abdul Ghaffar Khan when he said to his fellow Muslims, “I am going to give you such a weapon that the police and the army will not be able to stand against. It is the weapon of the Prophet, but you are not aware of it. That weapon is patience and righteousness. No power on earth can stand against it.”

Some Arabs in the Middle East may think that a Gandhi-style resistance movement is too idealistic or too naïve. Without a non-violent champion, however, the Arab cause lacks the moral high ground needed to shame Israel and the United States into a resolution to the conflict.

In a New York Times article last month, Yomana Samaha, a radio talk-show host in Cairo, she said, “Hezbollah is a resistance movement that has given us a solution.”

Wouldn’t it be great if Samaha could instead say that a non-violent Muslim Gandhi has given Arabs a solution?

One Year Later: My Thoughts on Sept. 11, 2002

The following is a collection of thoughts I had on the first anniversary of the tragic 9/11 terrorist attacks.

The terrible events of September 11th have forced me to consider more deeply what it means to be an American and how I can use the advantages that I have as an American to create a worldwide culture of peace. As the American-born daughter of Indian immigrants, I've always lived in the awkward position of straddling two disparate cultures. Various groups' and individuals' attempts to define that it is to be a "true" American have the unfortunate effect of creating a hostile, divisive in-group/out-group dichotomy and making me feel like an outsider in my own country.

An explicit example is the recent "patriotic" rally at Applebee's Park, which sent the message that to be American is to be heterosexual, Christian and politically conservative. More subtly, in early August Parade magazine promoted Marilyn vos Savant's new book, Growing Up: A Classic American Childhood, in which she defines the activities that comprise a "classic" American childhood. Among her "especially" American activities are baking apple pies, fishing with your grandfather, running a lemonade stand and joining in a taffy pull. Similarly, a classmate last year labeled me as "un-American" for not engaging in the "classic" American activity of watching the Super Bowl.

It's true that I am neither Christian nor conservative. It's true that I never had the "classic" American childhood about which Marilyn vos Savant romanticizes. It's true that I don't care for football. Nevertheless, I am a U.S. citizen and my vote counts just as much as any other citizen's. These people that attempt to capture and define what is to be American contradict the very notion that the freedom to be an individual and not follow a cultural script is the essence of American democracy. .

In short, September 11th has motivated me to educate Americans that no one cultural subgroup exemplifies what it is to be a "true" American. Americans come in all colors, religions, sexual orientations and cultural heritages.

Secondly, September 11th has also forced me to strive even more ardently for the establishment of a worldwide culture of peace. Americans often take their educational and economic advantages for granted. We are pampered individuals living in relative paradise. Having visited India nearly a dozen times, I am acutely aware of the glaring economic and social inequalities that exist in our world. I can't be complacent to it. Indeed, if Americans continue to remain ignorant and indifferent to the plight of others worldwide, they do so to their own detriment.

How can I and other Americans create this global culture of peace? We need more than just a "war on terrorism." We must also help ensure social justice, economic justice, human rights and individual freedoms for all the world's people. As we globalize economically through free trade, we must also globalize our concern for the well-being of others through nation building, humanitarian aid and support of global coalitions that promote justice such as the International Criminal Court and the U.N. Convention to Eliminate All Forms of Discrimination Against Women. Terrorism and violence will never be eliminated unless global poverty, illiteracy and discrimination are eliminated as well, for these are the festering injustices that breed desperation and anger.

We must also continuously question and evaluate our country's foreign policy. Is its aim the protection of the interests of a wealthy few and the securing of low gas prices? Or, is its aim the promotion of democracy and freedom? In light of these questions, I am troubled by the jingoistic brand of ultra-patriotism that September 11th evoked. A certain degree of pride in our country is indeed healthy and legitimate. The sentimentalized stories of heroes and victims that we see in the media have important theraputic value. Unfortunately, we have not had a commensurate historical, material and geopolitical analysis of September 11th and our country's foreign policy. If we wish to establish long-term peace, however, then we must intiate such a discourse.

In closing, the tragic events of September 11th have motivated me to educate others that America is and must be a nation of diverse individuals. Even more importantly, September 11th has reaffirmed my dedication to being an active participant in the creation of a more just and humane world. Indeed, the greatest justice we can attain for the victims of September 11th's attacks is to create a world that no longer breeds terrorism.

Invisible Citizens: Youth Politics After Sept. 11

In 2002, I made a contribution to the book Invisible Citizens: Youth Politics After September 11. The book captures the views of adults age 18-25 toward politics and civil liberties in the wake of the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. An edited version of the post below appeared on pages 44-46 of the book when it was published in 2003 by iUniverse, Inc. The book was edited by Ganesh Sitaraman and Previn Warren, who were then students at Harvard University.

Reading what I wrote back the spring of 2002, three thoughts strike me. First, I was more comfortable with racial profiling then than I am now. I still agree, however, that if racial profiling becomes a necessary evil, then it should be conducted in the most discrete and non-humiliating way possible. Second, my fear that "Maybe the government is lying to all of us right now!" has turned out to be true. The Bush administration mislead the public about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and the links between Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden, among other forms of deception. Third, my views then seemed more sheltered. I had no awareness that my country would soon be initiating a preemptive war against Iraq. Had I know that then, my views may have been different.

My Contribution to Invisible Citizens
In mid-November of 2001, my father made a trip to India to visit my 88-year-old grandfather. On previous occasions, while traveling alone as a single brown-skinned male, my father had been racially profiled at European airports. Now that September 11’s attacks had occurred, my family wondered what he would be subject to at U.S. airports.

My mother and I drove him to the local airport. We arrived extra early, not sure what he’d encounter. Increased security measures required that cars not be left unattended at the curb, so I waited in the car while my parents went inside. A security officer paced by the cars. “Is he eyeing me suspiciously because I’m brown, or is it a figment of my imagination?” I nervously wondered to myself. “Be on your ‘best’ behavior.’ Don’t do anything that would seem out of the ordinary.”

Forty-five minutes later, my mother returned. She was half-laughing. “They opened up his suitcase on a table in front of the check-in counter,” she explained. A young college-aged woman wearing latex gloves had rummaged through the suitcase’s contents. She had unfolded my father's underwear and shaken it out. The boxes of Bic pens intended as gifts for my not-so-wealthy relatives in India were opened. The pens were tested to see if they wrote. What made my mother laugh? It was all the gifts intended for female relatives. Here my father was, standing in an airport, with a suitcase containing an unusual amount of “girly” stuff such a hair bows, lace and Avon cosmetics. Furthermore, the young woman was unable to cram all my dad’s stuff back in his suitcase afterwards, so my mother had to repack everything.

As my mother and I drove off, my mother concluded, “I guess I can’t blame them.”

Even I have to agree that racial profiling is permissible at a time like this. It’s not being done out of pure prejudice. Face it: All the terrorists so far have been brown-skinned, Arab-looking men. Racial profiling is an efficient and effective means of identifying people who are possible terrorists.

My only request is that it be done in a way that doesn’t humiliate and degrade the individual. I’d be mortified if my undergarments were rummaged through in sight of everyone at an airport. I don’t want everyone eying me and thinking, “That person might be a terrorist.”

Yes, search more carefully those people fitting the profile of a terrorist. But please, make it discrete and away from the crowd. We can devise creative ways of pulling aside certain-colored people without having to draw the attention of the crowd. No innocent person wants the crowd, through their suspicious stares, to be branding him or her as a possible terrorist.

Lastly, regarding racial profiling and other restrictions of civil liberties, we must have a plan for when the restrictions will end. Possibly, have a review of the policies every four months and decide if any can be lightened. Determine what conditions must be met in order for restrictions to be lifted completely. Basically, have a plan specifying just when the restrictions will end. Otherwise, we will be living indefinitely with limited civil liberties and undermining the very values we seek to defend.

********

A few weeks ago, I was logging my computer onto the Internet. When the initial screen appeared, I saw the headline, “Pentagon Considers Planting Fake News Stories.” Shocked, I read on about how some had proposed that the Pentagon be granted the power to plant false new stories in foreign media outlets such as Reuters. “This is outrageous,” I thought, “A government that’s about democracy and freedom can’t do something like this!”

I have a friend whose father is originally from Iran. In 1997, when Princess Diana died, he was in Iran visiting relatives. The television news there informed him that Diana’s death had been arranged by members of the British royalty who were angered by her dating a Muslim man. My friend’s father was quite surprised to learn the “real” truth upon returning to the United States. My point is: governmental lying is what I associate with repressive regimes, and not free, democratic countries such as the United States.

I realize that our federal government cannot tell the world everything. Certain activities must be kept secret for security reasons. But…outright lying? If you can’t tell the truth, say nothing at all!

My distrust of the government has increased. Maybe the government is lying to all of us right now! Am I a paranoid freak?! Can I trust anything the government says?

As a democratic republic, Americans are their government. Then, why do I now feel as if my government is “the other?”

*********

My friend’s father, who is originally from Iran, says that the biggest difference between Iran and the United States is that people in Iran want freedom and democracy while people in the United States have both, yet don’t take full advantage of them.

Now, more than ever, is a time for us to exercise and appreciate the liberties we do have, for it is at war-frenzied times such as this when they are most in jeopardy. In particular, cherish freedom of speech as guaranteed to us in the 1st Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. An event as horrific as September 11’s attacks challenges us to critique the accepted order and fundamentally reorient our foreign policy. We must listen to our leaders, but we must also listen to ourselves. I hear people say, “You’re either with us or against us.” What a false dichotomy!

We must apply the critical thinking skills we acquired in our educations. Seriously question the accepted order. If you end up disagreeing with it, don’t be afraid to jump off the bandwagon and swim against the current. Speak up; that’s one of the paramount freedoms that you have.

The Need for a Global Perspective

As some of you may have noticed, I have devoted this week to posting pieces I wrote in 2001 and 2002 in the wake of the September 11th terrorist attacks. Some of my thoughts that may have sounded liberal and controversial back in 2001 now seem more mainstream today. Some of my thoughts may sound naive because they were written without the knowledge that the United States would preemptively attack Iraq in 2003. This week, I offer these old thoughts as a window into how Americans' viewpoints toward the war on terrorism have changed in the five years since 9/11.

Some Thoughts I Had in March 2002

As the daughter of Indian immigrants, I stand in the awkward position of having to straddle two oftentimes disparate worldviews. On one hand, I love America for the opportunity it has given me: a good public education, equal rights, the freedom to criticize public officials and the chance to participate in grassroots democracy. I do not take being an American for granted at all. I am acutely aware that my life would have been radically different if my parents had not come here. I know that there are some jaded and cynical people who think that achieving the American Dream in this Land of Opportunity is no longer possible. Relative to the rest of the world, however, the United States does truly afford us the chance to pursue happiness.

On the other hand, there is a part of me that is angered at the United States. My experience growing up in Kentucky has taught me that the knowledge that most Kentuckians, if not Americans as a whole, have about other cultures and countries is limited. I have met people that do not know on what continent India is located, much less what its major languages or religions are. The United States is entangled with the affairs of so many countries abroad. Ironically, the average American knows virtually nothing about these countries. I strongly believe that the greater our involvement with other countries, the greater is our responsibility to educate ourselves about their culture, politics, religion, economics and languages.

I have traveled abroad extensively and listened to people explain from where their anti-American sentiments arise: the United State's spurning of international agreements that promote human rights, international security and environmental protection; the United State’s foreign aid to Israel, which continues to ignore various United Nations resolutions; the United State’s hypocrisy of championing freedom and democracy while supporting groups that practice the opposite. Of course, none of this justifies violence, but it does help in seeing the United States from the eyes of a foreigner.

My wish is for the United States to wake up from its apathy, shed the cloak of self-righteousness, reject blind patriotism and engage in an open-minded and educated investigation of international affairs. This involves going beyond the evening news and requires educating oneself by reading books, accessing foreign media through the Internet, sampling the alternative press and attending seminars. I know this requires work and brain power. Our country has been attacked, however. Is it not too much to ask then for Americans to make an effort to dig beyond the rhetoric and gain a deeper geopolitical understanding of what’s truly transpiring in our world?

Answering the Question: What the most compelling issue raised by September 11’s attacks?
I remember my first day of seventh grade in late August of 1990. Third hour, I had social studies. The teacher asked if anyone could point out Iraq on the map pinned to the wall. Iraq had invaded Kuwait three weeks earlier, so such a question was relevant.

No student raised a hand. Most had blank expressions on their faces. Finally, I got up and pointed out Iraq on the map. The teacher look surprised. I felt the same. Did no one else know where this country was?

I mention this example because it demonstrates Americans’ general apathy and ignorance towards foreign affairs. And, it is the complacency resulting from this apathy and ignorance which I feel is the most compelling issue raised by September 11’s attacks.

A Recipe for Peace

The post below is an opinion column I wrote for The Lexington Herald-Leader back in December 2001 when I was a community columnist. The newspaper was unable to publish this column. Reading this column nearly five years after I originally wrote it, I find it interesting to read my thoughts about promoting democracy in the Middle East and developing a Middle Eastern Marshall Plan. Bush's war in Iraq is supposed to unleash a wave of democracy in the Middle East, but I am increasingly pessimistic that Bush's approach will work. (Then again, I never was confident that it would work.)

If we truly wish to stop terrorism, we must develop a policy that prevents people from becoming terrorists in the first place. Our policy must eliminate the cause and not just treat the symptoms.

As a short-term strategy, bombing Afghanistan has removed immediate security threats by dislodging the Taliban and destroying a portion of Al Qaeda. The long-term solution, however, must reject military action alone and include a fundamental reorientation of our foreign policy.

The objective of a long-term policy is extending human rights, justice and opportunity to all, not just “protecting our way of life.” Terrorism is bred when people living under undemocratic institutions are politically and socially oppressed and lack the opportunity to better their lives. Denied human rights, justice and opportunity--and without democratic institutions through which to attain redress--desperate oppressed people and their sympathizers resort to extremist ideologies and terrorism.

How do we reorient ourselves? First, we must encourage democracy in the Middle East and not support authoritarian regimes. These countries deny their citizens human rights and due process of the law. Saudi Arabia, for example, engages in public beheadings. These countries’ dictators and mullahs teach their people to hate the West and die for Allah because it deflects anger away from themselves and keeps their people from rebelling against the elites.

We need to stop giving military support to dangerous characters. We encouraged radical Islam by training bin Laden and arming fanatics in the 1980s to fight against the “godless” USSR. We supported Saddam Hussein during the 1080s. This year, we have supported the Northern Alliance, a group with a tradition of brutality.

Our opponents have legitimate grievances. Economic sanctions against Iraq have contributed to the deaths of at least 600,000 Iraqi children. Every month, currently, more children die from the sanctions that died in September 11’s attacks. These sanctions allow the Iraqi regime to stay strong and hurt those we are trying to help. We must also reconsider if we really need U.S. troops in Saudi Arabia. This has been a strong recruiter for radical Islam.

We need to use our wealth more constructively. To quench the hotbeds of terrorism, we must engage in nation building and give more in humanitarian aid. The Marshall Plan kept communism from dominating Europe. A similar plan would keep extremism from dominating in the Middle East.

We have to embrace multilateralism by forging alliances and making agreements with other nations.We need the aid of allied troops to establish a stable democratic post-Taliban Afghanistan.

We must also cooperate in the formation of the International Criminal Court, which will try those responsible for war crimes, genocide and crimes against humanity. The Court, expected to open next year, has the support of nearly all European countries, including our key allies, Germany, France and the United Kingdom.

In light of this need for multilateralism, Bush’s withdrawal from the ABM treaty (a cornerstone of international security) was a bad move. How can we expect other countries to abide to their international commitments if we do not ourselves? Expecting other countries to support us as we act only in our own self-interest is absurd.

We need to change our policy regarding the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The billions we have given to Israel have been used to deny human rights to Palestinians, provoking further violence. The United States has to be an impartial broker in a peace process that includes a dual-state solution acknowledging Israel’s right to exist and establishing a viable independent Palestinian state. Meanwhile, Arafat must do all within his power to dismantle terrorist groups, and Palestinian leadership should try Gandhi-style protest to garner worldwide sympathy.

Lastly, we have to do more than put flags on our cars, eulogize September 11’s victims and blindly let Washington “do its thing.” As participants in a democracy, we must continuously question and evaluate the foreign policies our leaders enact. U.S. foreign policy has erred in the past and provoked the anger of many across the world. We can learn from these experiences, however, and forge an improved foreign policy that is not based on “me first” short-term objectives. The greatest justice we can attain for the victims of September 11’s attacks is to create a world that no longer breeds terrorism.

This is the recipe for peace. Bombing other countries and living within the protective bubble of a missile defense shield is not the solution. Promotion of human rights and justice for all is.

My Thoughts One Month After 9/11, Part 2

The following are some random thoughts I penned in Oct. 2001, one month after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

People from my parents’ generation remember where they were when John F. Kennedy was assassinated. Those from mine will always remember where they were when September 11’s terrorist strike against the United States occurred. I certainly know where I was. Unaware at the time of the horror that was transpiring far northeast of me, I was leading a discussion on the 12th-century philosopher Maimonides in my philosophy of religion class at the University of Kentucky. Only after class was over at 10:45 a.m. did I learn of the shocking news.

The reality that the World Trade Towers had collapsed was hard to believe. I was dumbfounded, sad and angry all at the same time. Flocking with students around one of the televisions on campus, I felt disgusted when I saw the live footage of Palestinians celebrating in the West Bank.

The only positive thing we can get out of this tragedy are the lessons we learn from it.

I do not take being an American for granted at all. My parents are immigrants, and I am acutely aware that my life would have been a lot different if they had not come here.

Those responsible for September 11’s attack need to be brought to justice. Countries that provide sanctuary for terrorists and foster their activities must be held accountable. Terrorism must be pulled out by its roots, and the conditions that feed it need to be extinguished. We have demanded that the Taliban hand over Osama bin Laden.

In the process of doing this, let us not stoop down to the level of barbarity that the terrorists have used. Remember that the Taliban were not democratically elected by the Afghan people. They brutally took power and established a horrifically repressive regime. The Taliban have been especially repressive when it comes to the treatment of women and girls.

Don’t confuse the Afghans and Afghanistan with the Taliban. The Afghans did not elect the Taliban and the Taliban do not represent them.

My Thoughts One Month After 9/11

The following is an opinion column I wrote in October 2001, just after the September 11 terrorist attacks. An edited version of this column appeared in The Lexington Herald-Leader newspaper in Lexington, Ky.

-----

I remember my first day of seventh grade in late August of 1990 at Lexington Traditional Magnet School. Third hour, I had social studies. The teacher asked if anyone could point out Iraq on the map pinned to the wall. Iraq had invaded Kuwait three weeks earlier, so such a question was relevant.

No student raised a hand. Most had blank expressions on their faces. Finally, I got up and pointed out Iraq on the map. The teacher look surprised. I felt the same. Did no one else know where this country was?

This example illustrates the message I present today: Now more than ever, we need to foster a better understanding of other cultures and countries. Following September 11’s terrorist attacks, numerous hate crimes were committed out of pure ignorance about Arab-Americans, Muslims and others of brownish skin tone. A Sikh man originally from India, for example, was shot just a few days after the terrorist attacks. I doubt whoever killed him knew anything about the Sikh religion or why Sikh men wear turbans. Ignorance led to a case of mistaken identity and a senseless death.

The vast majority of Americans have decried these acts of hatred. This is to be commended.

The very fact that numerous hate crimes have been committed, however, still shows that more must be done to dispel the cultural misunderstandings existing within the United States. The fact that people actually have to be told that Islam does not tolerate terrorism and that not all Arabs are terrorists shows the extensive lack of understanding that existed in the first place.

My experience growing up in Lexington has taught me that the knowledge that most Kentuckians have about other cultures and countries is limited. As the daughter of Indian immigrants, I have met people that do not know on what continent India is located, much less what its major languages or religions are.

Yet in this era of globalization, people of different cultures will be forced to interact with one another more often. This brings forth the potential for both conflict and cooperation. If we want to coexist peacefully with others, we have to be able to view the world through their eyes and determine why they see the world as they do. Doing this requires us to know more about another countries’ customs, politics, religions, languages and economic situations.

We gain this understanding through education, both formal and informal. I encourage anyone that is a student (or planning to return to school) to study a foreign language. In addition to acquiring vocabulary and grammar, you will be learning about another people, their literature, their history and their traditions.

I would also recommend visiting foreign countries for anyone that can travel. I spent last spring studying in Spain and lived with a Spanish family. By experiencing every facet of Spanish daily life, I gained a broader understanding of the culture and worldview of another country. Learning about other cultures can occur on a more informal level as well.

Even sources such as National Geographic magazine and the Discovery Channel allow glimpses into cultures distinct from our own. Breaking away from the isolation of interacting with only those having a background similar to one’s own also fosters cross-cultural understanding. Some of my richest experiences at the University of Kentucky have been making friends with individuals from backgrounds in sharp contrast to my own.

Groups representing sub-communities within the larger American society have to extend beyond their boundaries and make their existence known to the wider public. The Indo-American community within the Bluegrass area, for example, had collected $6,000 in donations for the Red Cross and Salvation Army as of early last week. Local groups such as the Bluegrass Indo-American Civic Society are continuing to raise additional funds. Through such actions, members of sub-communities are making known both their positive role within larger American society and their solidarity with it.

Understanding the rich diversity of human thought and behavior that exists not just in the United States, but globally, is key to dissolving the ignorance that leads to hatred and violence. The United States is a country that, unlike many others, openly embraces the diversity of its people. Still, however, more progress needs to be made in gaining a deeper understanding of other cultures and countries. Doing so is critical if we wish to prevent future violence and desire to promote a more harmonious existence within a world marked by a rich plurality of cultures.

Cheers to a 16th-Century Feminist

When Moderata Fonte, a Venetian noblewoman, wrote her book in 1592, she wasn’t shy with the title. The title she gave her book was The Worth of Women: Wherein Is Clearly Revealed Their Nobility and Their Superiority to Men.

Pretty provocative.

In her book, Fonte presents a literary dialogue—a debate, if you will—between two teams of Venetian noblewomen. On one team, three women argue that men have numerous faults and that women surpass men in many ways. The other team of three women argues in defense of men and says that men aren’t so bad.

From a 21st-century perspective, it’s clear that in the past 414 years, some things haven’t changed.

There still exists a sexual double standard. Women are supposed to remain chaste, while it isn’t quite so bad if a man sleeps around. Many husbands still mistreat their wives, and to this day there are scholars who argue that women are less capable—intellectually, professionally and emotionally.

Of course, there have been advances. In Fonte’s time, women had three choices in life: wife, nun or prostitute. Today we ask little girls, “What do you want to be when you grow up?” In Western society, women are not longer forced into arranged marriages, and girls have an array of educational opportunities available to them.

Nevertheless, today’s readers will see that many of the questions and issues that women faced in Renaissance Venice endure to this day. For example: Is marriage good for women?

Leonora, a young widow on the anti-men/pro-women team, declares, “I derive the greatest happiness from living in peace, without a man. For we all know what a marvelous thing freedom is” (p. 47).

Even today, women recognize the loss of freedom, as well as independence, that marriage can bring. For many new wives, it begins with the loss of one’s maiden name, a marker of one’s identity. Then comes the exit from the workforce, the loss of financial independence and the transformation into the trailing spouse who follows her husband as he relocates with every job change.

Granted, not every wife experiences these changes. But enough women can relate to the loss of freedom and independence that it has become the subject of countless books and magazine articles.

Most recently, it was the subject of an Oprah episode. In that episode, Kristin Armstrong, the former wife of cyclist Lance Armstrong, tells the story of how she went from being an independent, 24-year-old career woman who owned her own house and cute little green Miata, to a woman who married, quit her job, gave away her dog, moved to France, had three children and supported her husband’s professional cycling.

In giving up her independence, Armstrong says she lost part of herself and became a “yes” woman who worked to make everyone happy but herself. In a Glamour magazine article she wrote on the same topic, she says that shortly after her wedding, she found herself grieving for her old name and independent self. The epiphany moment when she realized how much of her independence she had lost occurred when she made a joke to Lance about being opinionated. He looked at her and asked confusedly, “You?”

Kristin Armstrong isn’t against marriage and she isn’t trying to blame men, but she wants to make women aware of a truth: “Marriage has the potential to erode the very fiber of your identity.”

It’s that potential that has made Oprah avoid marriage. In her show with Armstrong, she says she never got married because she didn't want to “sacrifice herself and her feelings for a man.”

While marriage doesn’t have to be that way, the reality is that it ends up being that way for many women. Fonte knew it in 1592 and Armstrong now knows it in 2006.

I see it myself on a regular basis. In my hometown, a respected school board member recently resigned. Her husband’s job was taking the family out of state. She’s another example of the trailing spouse who sacrifices her interests.

Coming back to Fonte, she was a remarkable woman of her time. She was literate, she questioned the sexism of her time and she had the guts to write a book in defense of women. This noblewoman helped initiate a line of intellectual inquiry that has led to the many rights women today enjoy.

If you’re a woman who has gotten an education, who votes or who has a career, you have Moderata Fonte to thank.

Bibliographical Information:
Fonte, Moderata (Virginia Cox, translator). The Worth of Women: Wherein Is Clearly Revealed Their Nobility and Their Superiority to Men. The University of Chicago Press, 1997.

Fried Our Ties to the French

A wise rule in life is to never burn bridges with anyone. You never know when you might need that person's help one day in the future.

That rule is now coming back to haunt the United States.

In 2003, the United States did much to fry its relations with France when Republicans in the House of Representatives decided to bestow a name change to the French fries served in the House’s cafeterias. On the menu, French fries were no longer called “French fries.” Instead, they were renamed “freedom fries.”

The name change was the result of anti-French sentiment among House Republicans. They were a little upset that France did not support U.S. policy towards Iraq (preemptive attack).

Earlier this month, the original name was reinstated. An Aug. 2 BBC news article cites a House official who says “fries are no longer being offered under the ‘freedom’ nomenclature.”

French fries are back on the menu!

But, the French aren’t exactly back on the same page with the United States.

An Aug. 19 Los Angeles Times article by Paul Richter reports that President Bush is urging France to send more troops to Lebanon as part of a multinational peacekeeping force. The article quotes Bush as saying, “France has said they’d send some troops. We hope they send more.”

Sorry, Bush, but you and your fellow Republicans have burned some bridges, just as you squandered much of the world’s goodwill after 9/11.

Putting French fries back on the menu may have been an attempt to rekindle relations with the French—suddenly Republicans realized they might actually need the French to help with peacekeeping efforts after an Israeli/Hezbollah cease fire.

But the damage has already been done. The immaturity of freedom fries did nothing to foster cordial relations with France. It’s ridiculous that Bush expects France to help out now that he’s suddenly discovered that the United States can’t simply “go it alone,” even if it is the world’s superpower.

You reap what you sow.

And this time, its fried relations with the French.

Two Sisters, Two Paths

Woman A has 10 children, lives in a one-bedroom apartment and struggles on her husband’s $400 weekly paycheck. Woman B has two children, owns her own house and has greater financial stability.

Though their lives are different, these two women have something in common—they are sisters.

Woman A is Ángela Magdaleno. Woman B is Justina López. Both grew up in Mexico, left school after fifth grade and later immigrated illegally to the United States in 1984. Today, after 22 years in this country, Magdaleno speaks no English, lives in Los Angeles and still has illegal status. In contrast, López learned English, lives in Lexington, Ky and is now a U.S. citizen, after gaining legal residency under the 1986 amnesty law.

The two sisters’ story—an article in July 28’s Los Angeles Times and August 3’s Lexington Herald-Leader—probably evoked outrage from many readers. Hardworking, law-abiding Americans have to pay for the education and healthcare of Magdaleno’s 10 children, all U.S. citizens.

The sisters’ story probably also evoked many questions. Why did Magdaleno have 10 children she couldn’t afford? What should be done with illegal immigrants?

For me, the article evoked memories. I’m a Lexington native, but I lived in Los Angeles for a while after college. The neighborhood in which I lived was predominantly Hispanic, and there I came face-to-face with some of the cultural differences that make women’s lives there so different.

While I would head to the office with a laptop case hanging from my shoulder, the average woman my age would head to the grocery store with a chubby baby hanging on her hip. That’s probably why Magdaleno’s 17-year-old daughter said, “Damn, that’s weird,” upon seeing that daughters of Mexican-immigrant families in Kentucky were in their mid-20s and still childless.

At the non-profit organization for which I worked in Los Angeles, I one time had to translate a transcript of Hispanic immigrant women from Spanish to English. The women—most of whom had only a fourth- to sixth-grade education—were asked questions about their healthcare needs. They explained that in the rural cultures of their home countries, it made sense to have many children (to do farm work, I presume), but that in the United States, managing so many children was difficult.

The women had limited awareness about contraception. They said they had heard vaguely of “those pills you take to not get pregnant,” but had also been told that they were dangerous.

With limited education and few other options in life, these women tied their identities to their roles as mothers, and not to a career. They repeatedly said that children were a gift from God. Every child they had then was a blessing that strengthened that motherly identity.

These women’s lives were much like those of the girls in Magdaleno’s hometown of Los Positos—lives of arduous work, little education, no contraceptives and therefore rearing “all the children God gives you,” as Madgaleno’s sister Alejandra Magdaleno puts it.

Of course, many immigrants assimilate. Of Magdalena’s total of nine siblings in Kentucky, none has more than two children, four own houses and all have built their own American dream.

I hope Magdaleno’s story does more than just spark additional bashing of illegal immigrants. That’s not constructive. Instead, Magdaleno’s story offers insight.

First, it illustrates the importance of keeping girls in poor countries in school beyond just sixth grade. Education delays childbearing until women are older, reduces birthrates and empowers women by giving them more options in life.

Second, I hope Magdaleno and her siblings force Americans to consider why people make the choices they do. Why did Magdaleno have children she can’t support, while her siblings didn’t? This issue isn’t unique to illegal immigrants. It comes up regularly in discussions about single moms on welfare and poor families in rural Kentucky.

Third, Magdaleno’s story illustrates why we need to craft policies that don’t give illegal immigrants time to set down roots. When a family lives here illegally for 22 years and produces 10 new U.S. citizens, it becomes emotionally and politically difficult to simply ship them back.

Lastly, Magdaleno’s story reminds us of the role that poverty plays in illegal immigration. People who leave their families and risk their lives to work here illegally are in a state of poverty more severe than anything we have here. Tougher immigration policies will only go so far. A foreign policy that helped the world’s poor, on the other hand, would address a root cause of illegal immigration.

And, that would be win-win solution for all involved.

Happy Birthday to India!

Today, August 15, is India's Independence Day. On August 15, 1947, India became free from the British.

Today, India is the world's largest democracy. With its rapid economic development, it is on its way to becoming a world power.

Admittedly, India still has a long way to go. Illiteracy, corruption, poverty, environmental destruction and the lower status of women are all problems. But at the same time, these problems are being tackled, and advances are being made.

Relative to other former European colonies, India has come a long way.

Happy 59th birthday, India.

A Recruiting Station in India

The US Army fell 7,000 soldiers short of its recruitment goal in 2005. Now Retired Brig. Gen. Kevin Ryan, a senior fellow with the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard's Kennedy School of Goverment, has proposed a novel solution: set up an army recruiting station in New Delhi, India! The number of enlistment-age adults in India exceeds the entire U.S. population of 300 million.

Non-Americans have been serving in the US armed forces for many years. Having a green card is the only requirement. The US government speeds up the citizenship process for anyone who finishes one year of duty. Since 2002, 25,000 immigrants who served in the military have become citizens.

Foreign recruitment is quite an ingenious solution to the problem of recruitment shortfalls. In makes citizens out of people who are more willing to die for the American way of life than Americans themselves are.

Source: Christian Science Monitor. "Enhance force levels? Look to immigrants." Kevin Ryan, July 26, 2006, http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/0726/p09s02-coop.html

Fundamentally Incompatible

Quote of the Day:

“The real underlying issue is that fundamentalism in the Southern Baptist form is incompatible with higher education. In fundamentalism, you have all the truths. In education, you’re searching for truths.’’

--David W. Key, director of Baptist Studies at the Candler School of Theology at Emory University

Christian fundamentalism is incompatible with higher education because it precludes freedom of inquiry.

Ironically, the entire western concept of the university stems from Christianity. Monks went to universities and studied not just religion, but also literature and science. Today, the gown worn by graduates each May is based on the robes that monks once more.

So many of the private universities in the United States have a religious affiliation. Notre Dame is Catholic; Duke is Methodist.

Georgetown College in Kentucky was Baptist.

But, Georgetown College is Baptist no more. It severed its ties with the Kentucky Baptist Convention because its academic freedom was being compromised. William H. Crouch Jr., the president of Georgetown said, “I sat for 25 years and watched my denomination become much more narrow and, in terms of education, much more interested in indoctrination."

Universities have traditionally been all about freedom of inquiry. Now, a ugly truth is raising it's head: fundamentalism is anti-intellectual.

How can you search for truth when all that needs to be known can be obtained from a literal interpretation of the Bible?

* This whole issue reminds me of an article I read in the Lexington Herald-Leader four years ago. One of the counties in Kentucky has no public libraries because so many of the people there believe that the only book you ever need is the Bible.

Undermining Internet Censorship

Google, Microsoft and Yahoo! are violating their own corporate policies to comply with the Chinese government's restrictions of free speech on-line.

Examples:
--Google has introduced a censored version of its search engine in China.
--Microsoft has shut down a blog at government request.
--Yahoo! has given Chinese authorities account holder information, which has resulted in prison sentences for people exercising their fundamental right to freedom of speech.

These corporations' complicity in Internet censorship is well documented in the report "Undermining Freedom of Expression in China," issued by the international human rights group Amnesty International.

Google, Microsoft and Yahoo! are having their values tested. Will they take a stand?

These corporations have done a lot to facilitate free speech and democratic values. Google owns Blogger, the host of this blog. Microsoft is the creator of Publisher, the software I used to create my website. Yahoo! (via Geocities) is the host of my website. These three companies have all facilitated free speech greatly when it has been easy to do so. But, the true test is whether they can do it when the going gets tough, as it is in China.

I and other defenders of free spech on-line are doing what we can to hold Google, Microsoft and Yahoo!'s feet to the fire. I am publishing fragments of censored material on this blog (see the Links section in the right-hand column of this blog). I'm participating in the campaign to be IRRESPRESSIBLE.

I've never taken it for granted that I have the right to free speech. I'm so thankful to have this blog. I understand the difficult position that Google, Microsoft and Yahoo! are in. I hope that they can rise to occasion and take the difficult stand to not be complicit in restricting free speech.

A Debate Stemming from Hypocrisy

Imagine that the North Korean government is planning to execute five people and then incinerate their bodies.

Pretend that you’re some kind of diplomat from some other country and you offer this alternative: “Please don’t execute those five people and incinerate them. Instead, give me those five people to take to my country. My country will kill them and harvest their organs for transplants that will save the lives of suffering people. You’re going to be killing those five people anyway, so why don’t you just give them to me for my country to kill? We’ll be putting the bodies to good use in saving people’s lives.”

Question: Is it morally ok for your country to kill those five people since they would have been killed anyway?

My hunch is that most people in the United States would say that it is completely immoral to kill those five people for their organs even if North Korea would have killed them anyway.

If you’re pro-life on the abortion issue, you probably believe that destroying an embryo is equivalent to murdering a person who is already born. If I assume this belief is also true among pro-life individuals, then why are so many pro-life politicians (e.g. Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tennessee and Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah) supportive of stem cell research?

Answer: They are hypocrites.

Republican Senator Orrin Hatch, who strongly opposes abortion, believes that the stem cell bill passed by the Senate yesterday is pro-life because it promotes scientific research that can potentially save many lives. He said:

"I believe we are aiding the living, which is one of the most pro-life positions you can take.”

Suddenly, some pro-lifers believe it is okay to kill embryos if doing so has as the potential to save the lives of people already born. Plus, they add, those embryos would have been killed anyway.

Is an embryo entitled to the same rights as a human already born?

Some pro-lifers haven’t made up their mind.

Note: President Bush is expected to veto the stem cell bill in a couple of hours.

Angry Parents Don't Make Good Public Policy

My favorite quote from today’s New York Times:

“So all of the statistics that you have, they don’t mean a thing to me.”

This quote is from the sports article “Metal Bats Are an Issue of Life and Death” by Ira Berkow. The article says there is a “national crusade” to replace metal bats with wooden bats in amateur baseball leagues. Several players have been killed and/or severely injured when struck by balls hit from metal bats. The article quotes sources as saying that metal bats allow players to hit balls longer distances at faster speeds. This supposedly makes metal bats more dangerous than wooden ones (at least this is what families of people killed and/or injured by balls hit by metal bats are saying).

Based on what I read in the article, there still is much debate about whether metal bats are more dangerous. The only hard numbers the article included were:

“Between 1991 and 2001, 17 players were killed by batted balls, according to the Consumer Product Safety Commission. Eight involved metal bats and two involved wood bats. In seven instances, the kind of bat was not documented.”

Regardless of whether metal bats are more dangerous or not--no matter what the final number crunching of statistics may show--it won’t shift some individuals’ feelings about whether to ban metal bats. Here’s a paragraph about a proponent of metal bat banning:

“Freddy Ricci, a Staten Island resident whose 14-year-old son Anthony’s teeth were knocked out by a line drive in 2001, told the committee that nothing could compare to ‘sitting in an emergency room, with your son, with teeth getting knocked out, blood drenched to his underwear.’ He added, ‘So all of the statistics that you have, they don’t mean a thing to me.’” (Emphasis added.)

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not trying to take a position right now on this issue. I am, however, saying that angry parents don’t make good public policy. More broadly, angry people acting out of outrage don’t make good public policy. Facts will simply not persuade them. This lesson I learned well from studying public policy in graduate school.

Outrage moves people more than facts. The authors of the book Freakonomics discuss this phenomenon at length when comparing which is more dangerous to a child under age 10: a gun or a swimming pool? (Turns out that a swimming pool is more likely to kill a child under age 10. See pages 149-150 of the book). People--in particularly parents--are poor assessors of risk because they are driven more by outrage than by hazard (the actual chance that something will kill or injure someone). The authors of Freakonomics (Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner) quote Peter Sandman (a “risk communications consultant”) as saying, “When hazard is high and outrage is low, people underreact. And when hazard is low and outrage is high, they overreact.”

My hunch is that this whole controversy about metal bats is about high outrage and low hazard. I mean, only 17 people total were killed by batted balls from 1991 to 2001, regardless of the type of bat.

This is why angry parents don’t make good public policy.

I know there are some exceptions, but scanning the news on a daily basis, it’s clear that outrage drives public policy more than cold, hard facts. Thus, “Angry parents don’t make good public policy,” is a valuable maxim to keep in mind.

Does Blogspot Censor?

Until about five minutes ago, I would have been inclined to answer the above question in the affirmative. In all fairness, I would have also acknowledged that I was basing my response on two limited pieces of evidence.

First, I had never been able to list the Irish music band U2 under the "Favorite Music" category of my Blogger profile. Every time I typed in "U2" on the "Edit User Profile" page, the band's name just wouldn't appear in my profile.

Did Blogspot (acutally named Blogger) have something against U2? Perhaps there was some corporate competition between Blogger and the producers of U2?

Second, I haven't been able to get the "About Me" portion of my profile to include the web addresses for my on-line resume and personal website. When I have tried to include the website addresses, Blogger altogether refuses to post my profile on my blog!

I figured that either Blogger censors, or some weird technical glitches must be occurring. Maybe if I searched Blogger Help I might find answers, but that would require time and effort, and frankly, I felt lazy about looking for answers.

But, I forced myself to search anyway. I quickly found out the answer regarding U2. Blogger doesn't have anything against U2. Rather, it has something against items that have fewer than three characters. (I, on the hand, value conciseness.) Blogger Help's recommended solution is to add a period after U2. So, "U2." is now listed under the "Favorite Music" portion of my profile.

I still haven't figured out how to include website addresses in the "About Me" portion of my profile . A good faith effort to locate an answer on Blogger Help has yielded no results.

So, I guess Blogger doesn't censor. It just has technical limitations. (For example, right now I can't upload a photo to accompany this posting.) These are nuisances. But, I'm still willing to tolerate them. Until I develop the web savvy to blog independently, I'm reliant on Blogger. Thanks, Blogger, for providing me with a megaphone to address the world.

Searching for Work

Annoucement to the World: I am currently seeking work that would combine my strong writing, editing and quantitative skills with my interests in public policy and the news media. My long-term aspiration is to be an opinion columnist who helps shape the debate on the most pressing public policy issues. In the meantime, I am also interested in conducting policy research and analysis, and/or working in the field of journalism. I have a master's degree in public policy, with particular expertise in the areas of Social Security, healthcare, demographics and international development. Download resume from this page.

The 1.5-Hour PowerPoint Presentation

Mini-review of An Inconvenient Truth (the "Al Gore movie"):

--Al Gore is on the lecture circuit with a 1.5-hour presentation on the perils of global warming. If you're not the type of person who enjoys listening to guest lecturers at college campuses, this film may bore you.

--This film may go over the heads of many of the people who need to learn more about global warming. Gore presents many graphs, quantitative information and scientific terminology that may lose people who have not taken higher-level science courses. This film could have been greatly improved had the valuable information been presented in a format more easily understandable by a general audience.

--This film will probably end up just preaching to the choir of people already concerned about global warming. I am not optimistic that it will inspire people who are currently apathetic about the issue or who are still sitting on the fence.

--Oprah's June 28, 2006 episode probably did more to bring attention to global warming among a target of audience of apathetic and/or unaware individuals. Actor Leondardo DiCaprio and scholar Dr. Michael Oppenheimer paired up in this Oprah segment to present information about global warming in a more understandable and charismatic way.

--I do have to give Al Gore credit for at least trying to bring attention to this important issue. With 2 billion plus people alone in the rapidly developing countries of China and India, we humans will have to innovate our way out of a lifestyle that is dependent on fossil fuels and the emission of greenhouse gases. The status quo cannot continue; it is just not sustainable as the billions of people in developing countries strive to emulate the lifestyles of people in wealthy, developed countries. Alternative fuel sources abound (I have a bachelor's degree in chemical engineering, so I feel particularly justified in opining on this matter). It all comes down to fomenting the combination of political will, public policies and economic incentives that will allow us to adopt more environmentally sustainable practices.

Nearing the End of a Blogging Hiatus

I wish everyone a happy and safe Independence Day weekend. My travels will be taking me to Niagara Falls, so I'll be spending July 4th in both the United States and Canada. (I'll guess I'll find out whether July 4th is a day like any other on the Canadian side of the Falls.)

I feel lucky to have been born in the United States. I don't take my U.S. citizenship for granted. My life could have been much different had I been born in some other countries of our world.

After returning, I'll resume blogging. My hiatus is nearly over.

Reflections on Memorial Day

A few reflections on Memorial Day:

--Perhaps by remembering fallen soldiers, we can be inspired to create institutions and policies that prevent war in the first place. War simply represents the breakdown of policy and diplomacy.

--Why is it that we never reflect upon innocent civilians who have died in the midst of war? They too died in our fights for freedom, and unlike most of today's soldiers, they never volunteered to be placed in the midst of bullets and bombs.

--It seems so disrespectful that Memorial Day is a time of sales at retail stories, barbeques and celebrations of the beginning of summer. I'm not against having fun, but just like Christmas, the true meaning of the day has become obscured by commercialization and partying.

--My sympathies go out to people who have ever had a family member or friend die, get injured or become traumatized by war, whether as a participant or civilian.

Quick Update

I haven't been able to make a substantial post for several days because other activities have kept me occupied:

May 14: I officially graduated from Duke University with a master's degree in public policy.

May 17: I departed to London to visit a friend.

Today, May 20: I'm in Geneva, visiting another friend.

May 25: I'll return to the States to resume my job search and start making more substantial blog postings.

Take care, everyone.

I've Apparently Coined a New Term

Culture of crassness. That's the term I coined last month to describe the less appealing side of campus culture at Duke University. I wrote about Duke's culture of crassness in one of my columns in The Chronicle last month, and last Tuesday, I saw my column quoted in Newsweek magazine's cover story "Sex, Lies & Duke" about the rape allegations against members of Duke's mens lacrosse team.

Specifically, Newsweek wrote, "At a 'Conversation on Campus Culture' inside the cavernous chapel, a Duke administrator, reading from a student blog, asked whether Duke is intentionally or unintentionally promoting a 'culture of crassness at the expense of a culture of character.'"

The student blog referenced in the above Newsweek quote is the very blog you are reading right now. This Duke administrator read from my April 19, 2006 posting, which is simply the same as my April 19, 2006 column in The Chronicle.

The only comments I would like to add at this point are:

Based on my experiences as a teaching assistant at Duke, I can say that Duke undergraduates have outstanding academic talent. Based on other experiences at this campus, however, I can also say that student behavior too often embodies a “culture of crassness”—a culture alcohol abuse, sexual looseness, noise violations, public urination and other forms of boorish behavior. I hope that this rape investigation steers Duke towards promoting a campus culture of character—of dignity, courtesy, self-restraint and personal responsibility. It’s not at all unreasonable to demand a level of student conduct commensurate with Duke’s level of academic rigor.

I Was a Flying Pig!

I was a flying pig yesterday morning. I ran Cincinnati's Flying Pig Marathon in 4 hours, 6 minutes and 52 seconds (4:06:52). Prior to the marathon, I had thought I would run it in around 4 hours, 45 minutes since I had been averaging about 10 minutes 45 seconds per mile while training. The spirit of the flying pig was with me Sunday morning though, and I averaged 9 minutes, 25 seconds per mile over the 26.2-mile race.

Social Security Reform: Analyzing Options

This semester I took a course on Social Security reform. We examined the pension reforms that other developed countries have undertaken, and analyzed what lessons the United States could learn.

For my final paper, I analyzed four Social Security reform options: individual accounts, government-owned pension reserves, notional defined-contribution accounts and automatic balancing mechanisms. I evaluated each option against six reform criteria and determined that automatic balancing mechanisms fared best against my six criteria. Perhaps this policy option will steer the debate away from the false dichotomy of individual accounts vs. piecemeal reforms to the current system.

To read the final paper, please click here.

Duke's Connection with the Word Genocide

This week, Duke University students will be stressed with finals. For many, it will be a painful week of pulling all-nighters and suffering through back-to-back exams and papers. Yet, today's rally for Darfur in Washington, DC puts it all in perspective. As students living in the sheltered, nurturing world of Duke's so-called Gothic Wonderland, we don't have to worry about whether we'll be alive at the end of the week. The same is not true for the people of Darfur, though.

Genocide is taking place in Darfur, Sudan as I type this very entry. I can't hear the people's cries or feel their pain, but I know it's happening.

Genocide is a special term. It's not just any old type of killing that transpires during times of war. While genocide has occurred throughout millenia of human history, it wasn't until the 1940s when a man with a connection to my university, Duke, stamped the crime with a name.

That man was Raphael Lemkin. He was a Jewish lawyer from Poland. He was "obsessed with genocide long before he knew what to call it," writes Samantha Power, Pulitzer-Prize-winning author of the book A Problem from Hell.

As the Germans made their way into Poland, Lempkin saw what was coming. He left for the United States. He had accepted a position at the law school at Duke University.

My recollection from reading A Problem from Hell is that Lemkin worked tirelessly to convince anyone who would listen--from officials in the U.S. government to those of other countries--to intervene to stop the killing. Typically, he was told something along the lines of "...but death is just part of war."

Lemkin had difficulty communicating that the mass killings in Europe during World War II weren't your everyday, typical type of war deaths. This was a special type of killing.

When Lemkin heard Churchill describe Hitler's actions as "a crime without a name," he knew he had to create a word that would capture the horrendousness of what was occuring and galvanize the world to take action.

Tapping into his love of linguistics, Lemkin created the word genocide.

Lemkin wasn't a law professor at Duke for very long--less than a year, as I recall from my reading of A Problem from Hell. Lemkin had to move on. He began a one-man campaign of pleading with politicians, diplomats and newspaper editors to bring attention to genocide and to stop it.

Lemkin's one-man campaign to end genocide has grown to the point that today, thousands of concerned people are rallying in DC.

Unfortunately, genocide hasn't stopped.

Lemkin's life is inspiring, though. He gave genocide its name. I hope we can give genocide its final blow.

For more about Raphael Lemkin, please click here.

Options for NC's State Employee Pension Plan

We finally got our spring consulting project catalogued in the library and posted on the web!

Last spring, I worked in a group with five other people to analyze whether it would be beneficial for North Carolina's state employee pension plan to transition from being defined-benefit to being defined-contribution. In the current defined-benefit system, the state government gives retirees receive a pension benefit whose amount is based an individual retiree's years of service and earnings history. A defined-contribution plan is similar to the 401(k)s that many employees in the private sector have. Under this system, the state government would put a certain percentage of employees' wages into individual accounts. The funds in the accounts would grow, and the employee would have his or her own "pot of gold" upon reaching retirement.

Our conclusion? Based on our simulations of benefits under defined-benefit and defined-contribution plans, we learned that a defined-contribution plan did not present any clear benefit over the current defined-benefit plan. Thus, the transition costs of changing to a defined-contribution plan are not warranted. North Carolina should maintain the current defined-benefit structure of its state employees' retirement system.

Our complete report is available at: Best for North Carolina: Best for State Employees

A Social Security System...in India?

I did it! Last week, I completed my magnum opus--my master's project. I had been working on it since last August, so I certainly felt a sense of pride when looking at the final bound copy last week. Eight months of library reserach, journal reading, note taking, spreadsheet calculations and word processing are all condensed in my 61-page final product.

The project is on the financial feasibility of a old-age social security system in India. My conclusion? Well, in a nutshell, I would say that India is not yet ready for a universal social security system that would provide a pension to all people over the retirement age. For the time being, I would recommend providing social assistance to the most destitute of the elderly and then later when the country is more economically and administratively developed, implementing a universal system that covered the entire elderly population.

This sort of transition is similar to Australia's experience. Austrialia started out in 1909 with a means-tested pension. ("Means-tested" means only poor people of little means were eligible for the benefit.) Then in 1983, the country began the transition to a system that covered all eldelry people.

The complete report is available at: A Social Security System...in India?

Creating a Culture of Character

This column appeared in the April 19, 2006 edition of The Chronicle.

In a recent letter to the Duke community, President Richard Brodhead wrote about the need to take the "ethical dimension of education" more seriously in light of the rape allegations against members of the men's lacrosse team.

President Brodhead is on to something. Duke has high standards when it comes to academics, but we don't have high standards when it comes to carrying ourselves with character--with dignity, courtesy towards others, self-restraint in the face of temptation and a sense of personal responsibility.

Admittedly, we have a Community Standard and various rules and regulations, but student conduct over the past academic year has demonstrated that these have done little to cultivate a culture of character.

Rather, much of student life is pervaded by a culture of alcohol abuse, sexual looseness, noise violations, public urination and other forms of boorish behavior--what I call the culture of crassness.

For example, one Saturday afternoon last October, I was walking across the Main West Quad towards the Chapel. A group of three students holding cups of beer surrounded me and asked, "Can I pour beer on you?" They proceeded to follow me and make lewd remarks.

That students feel perfectly free to openly engage in such behavior--deriving pleasure from demeaning others--speaks volumes about our campus culture.

This culture of crassness is particularly ironic given that Duke's most iconic symbol is its chapel--the very place from which a culture of character has traditionally been promulgated.

The ongoing investigation of rape allegations against men's lacrosse players has brought to attention how low our standard of acceptable conduct has fallen.

On the night of the alleged rape, an e-mail sent from a lacrosse player's account referred to strippers and said, "i plan on killing the bitches as soon as [they] walk in and proceding to cut their skin off while c- in my duke issue spandex."

While many people, such as President Brodhead, have rightly described the e-mail as "sickening," it is disturbing that many have also dismissed it as a mere joke. One person said in The Chronicle last week that the content of the e-mail, in slightly altered form, could have appeared in student conversation at the Great Hall.

If true, we should be deeply troubled that sadistic enjoyment of heinous murder and mutilation has become an acceptable subject for dinnertime conversation.

New York Times columnist David Brooks had it right when he referred to the e-mail in a recent column by saying, "The person who felt free to send this message to his buddies had crashed through several moral guardrails. A community so degraded, you might surmise, is not a long way from actual sexual assault."

You don't have to be a psychologist to know that our thoughts influence our emotions, which influence our behaviors. "Ideas have consequences," author David Horowitz said in a talk last month.

A culture of crassness can't be pinned just on lacrosse players, however. As individuals, we have to look at ourselves in the mirror. Every time we egg someone on during a drinking game or cheer for someone engaging in raucous tailgate antics, we are positively reinforcing such behavior and propagating the culture of crassness at the expense of a culture of character.

To be fair, not all Duke students embrace the culture of crassness, and most are not completely steeped within it. Rather, we all sit at varying places along the spectrum from crassness to character. Unfortunately, though, too many of us have gravitated towards the undesirable end of that spectrum. And, these are the students who receive the most public attention.

In response to the rape allegations, President Brodhead has proposed the Campus Culture Initiative to improve "the ways Duke educates students in the values of personal responsibility, consideration for others, and mutual respect." It's unfortunate that some students didn't learn these values before entering college.

Approaching graduation next month, I'm sincerely thankful for the high-caliber education I've received. I only hope that in its upward trajectory, Duke insists upon high standards of conduct and demands a culture of character.

I'm a Reserved Inventor

Reserved Inventor

You can take this personality test at: www.personaldna.com

Hungry Baby

Source: One of those heavily forwarded emails.

When No Men Make the Cut

For my latest opinion piece--about reasons why so many poor, urban women have children out of wedlock--please click here.

Our Most Valuable Natural Resource

(The image of Lisa Simpson to the right is from The Simpsons website-www.thesimpsons.com.)

“Children are our most valuable natural resource, even more valuable than oil.” This astute observation was made by the cartoon character Lisa Simpson, while campaigning for Springfield’s Mayor Quimby’s re-election in the television show The Simpsons.

While children are indeed our most valuable natural resource, they are also in short supply in the developed world. And, a shortage of any valuable natural resource—whether children or oil—is bound to have some troubling implications.

To understand these implications, it’s first important to grasp what’s been going on with children. In the U.S., fertility peaked at 3.7 children per woman during the post-World-War-II baby boom, but has since fallen to 2.1 children per woman.

The situation in other developed countries has been even more extreme. Italy and Japan have some of the world’s lowest fertility rates, at 1.3 children per woman. This figure is well below the replacement rate—2.1 children per woman—needed to prevent population decline.

Already in Germany, death rates have begun to exceed birthrates. Between 2003 and 2005, the number of people in Germany shrunk by 82,000, according to the country’s Federal Statistical Office. Most developed countries are expected to follow Germany’s pattern of reaching a population peak and then declining.

Aside from the far-fetched possibility that Germans could become extinct, there are three major reasons why this birth dearth in the developed world should be of concern.

First, falling birthrates have begun to place strains on social security systems. In the U.S., there were about five working-age people for every person over age 65 in 2000. By 2050, however, there will only be about three working-age people for every person over 65.

With fewer workers to pay each retiree’s Social Security check, something will have to give. Taxes will have to increase; Social Security benefits will have to fall; or the retirement age will have to rise.

The Bush administration has proposed reforming Social Security by adding the option of individual accounts. Such a reform isn’t unprecedented. Countries such as Sweden and Australia have already made individual accounts part of their social security systems.

As promising as individual accounts may sound, their sustainability depends on the overall health of the economy, which is the second area of concern with respect to fertility decline. A country’s GDP (gross domestic product) is a function of the number of workers it has and their productivity. As the number of workers decreases, raising productivity is the only way to generate economic growth.

How much productivity can increase is up for debate, however. Technological and organizational innovation can raise productivity. But, as people age they tend to take fewer risks. They become less entrepreneurial; and they invest less in risky tech stocks and more in safe bonds.

Additionally, governments may likely decrease spending on education and scientific research in order to cover skyrocketing costs of healthcare and pensions. Borrowing by the government could also divert capital away from technology investments in the private sector.

Essentially, it’s still up in the air whether productivity can rise enough to increase per capita GDP in a country with a shrinking labor force and growing number of elderly dependents.

The third area of concern is the international balance of power. In terms of U.S. military power, it may become increasingly difficult to maintain military spending at desired levels as Social Security and Medicare consume more of the budget.

In many developed countries, as the age 18-24 demographic shrinks and as families have fewer sons, people may become more hesitant about engaging in armed conflicts. Even if advanced military technologies could reduce the number of troops needed in a conflict, those technologies would still require considerable government spending in research and development.

Thus, falling birthrates should raise concerns over retirement security, economic growth and the international balance of power.

In the U.S., Americans will be faced with tradeoffs between spending on the elderly and other needs. In a panel discussion on fiscal responsibility at Duke University last month, Stuart Butler, vice president of domestic and economic policy at the Heritage Foundation, said we need to consider how fair and just it is to let the budget become overwhelmingly consumed by entitlements for the middle-class elderly. He also said we need to consider the equity of letting Bill Gates get subsidized drugs while soldiers can’t get flak jackets.

In that same panel, Diane Lim Rogers of the Brookings Institution warned that the only way politicians will implement solutions to the problems posed by the demographic tsunami of aging baby boomers is for the public to turn unpopular choices into popular choices.

She’s probably right.

And so is Lisa Simpson when she reminds us that children are our most valuable natural resource—the future generation we take for granted until we realize it’s not there.

Defection of Young, Healthy Males

This column was published in The Chronicle March 22, 2006.

Young, healthy men: Please don't defect. We need you. That was the underlying message I got while sitting through a statistics-filled PowerPoint presentation on Duke's student health insurance plan at Monday night's GPSC meeting.

Currently, students pay $1,589 for insurance. That's 50 percent higher than the $1,063 students paid just two years ago. As a result, students under 26-who were repeatedly referred to in the GPSC meeting as "young, healthy males"-have been defecting from Duke's student health insurance plan and privately purchasing cheaper individual plans.

Sadly, those of us who aren't young, healthy and/or male don't have that luxury. To join a private, individual plan, applicants have to complete an extensive medical history questionnaire. If you're older, if you're female or if you have a pre-existing condition such as allergies, diabetes or an anxiety disorder, then you are typically charged a higher cost or are outright rejected.

Thus, expensive students-those over 25, female and/or unhealthy-remain on Duke's plan, which accepts all students at the same price.

Any student of economics or public policy should now know the phenomenon I'm describing-adverse selection. As inexpensive students-the young, healthy males-exit Duke's plan, the plan becomes more concentrated with expensive students, which drives up insurance costs to levels that are increasingly unaffordable to the very people who need healthcare the most.

Monday's presentation included a recommendation for age banding, a structural change that would address adverse selection head-on. Next year students under 26 would pay $1,469, those 26 to 34 would pay $1,541, those 35 to 44 would pay $1,939 and those older than 45 would pay $2,791. Given that all students, regardless of their age, currently pay $1,589, it's clear who the winners and the losers would be.

Let me emphasize that age banding is just a recommendation at this point. (If you have feelings either way, e-mail GPSC at gpsc@duke.edu.)

Age banding represents just one of the many ethical dilemmas that plague health insurance. Just as younger students currently subsidize the higher medical costs incurred by older students, single students subsidize students with families. During the 2003-2004 academic year, single students paid $1,063 for health insurance but only rang up an average of $757 in medical costs. Meanwhile, students with families paid $2,282 for insurance but rang up an average of $4,773 in medical costs.

Similarly, if the data were available, it would probably show that men subsidize women, slim people subsidize obese people, non-smokers subsidize smokers and gym rats subsidize coach potatoes.

From a philosophical viewpoint, how much of this subsidization is fair, both at Duke and in the United States at large? On one hand, there's the individualistic, personal-responsibility-oriented viewpoint: Why should I, as a slim, marathon-running vegetarian, have to pay the healthcare costs of a fat smoker who goes to McDonald's three times a week?

On the other hand, there's the compassionate, we're-all-in-this-together viewpoint: Society should help people who have the bad luck of being afflicted by asthma or hypoglycemia. Plus, people who are young and childless today are likely to one day be old and have kids.

I lean more toward the compassionate, we're-all-in-this-together viewpoint even though it means subsidizing people who make poor lifestyle choices. For ethical reasons, I want people with ulcers, hay fever, depression, thyroid disorders, spina bifida and cancer to have access to affordable healthcare.

For pragmatic reasons, I want people to have affordable healthcare so that they can be economically productive workers and receive relatively inexpensive routine preventative care rather than expensive emergency care when untreated health problems turn into emergencies.

As I sat through last night's health insurance presentation, I came to the conclusion that the equity issues raised by age banding, single students' subsidization of families and the defection of young, healthy men are problems that Duke simply can not solve on its own. Without outside help from effective public policies at the state and/or national levels, Duke and other institutions will perennially face the problem of getting enough inexpensive people to remain in a plan and subsidize the expensive people.

Presently, my sentiment is that it would be more practical for Duke's most expensive students to be subsidized by Americans as a whole rather than the shrinking population of young, healthy males on Duke's plan.

Young, healthy males may be able to defect from Duke, but it's harder to defect from the United States.

The Trade Offs of Foreign Ownership

No, I haven't forgotten about this blog. I just decided that my master's project comes first for the next few weeks. It has to--if I don't complete it, then I can't graduate!

What's Been on My Mind Lately:

Foreign Ownership

Consider the following:

--The overwhelming majority of Americans are against letting American ports be managed by an Arab-owned company based in Dubai.

--In my hometown of Lexington, Ky, a large fraction of the residents oppose the sale of Kentucky American Water Company to a German company. Foreign ownership of our water utility makes a lot of people nervous. Can a bunch of Germans thousands of miles away truly be responsive to the water needs of central Kentuckians?

--Last year, many American politicians were opposed to a Chinese state-owned company's potential purchase of an American oil company (or was it an American oil reserve?--sorry I can't remember.). Recently I found out that one of my classmates--who's from China--is answering the following policy question in his master's project:

How should Chinese state-owned energy enterprises best evaluate political and legal risks to avoid adverse results when attempting takeovers on US petroleum assets?

--Some American politicians believe that domestic airlines should not come under foreign ownership because of national security considerations.

--Kentucky author Wendell Berry has written ominously about becoming overly dependent on foreign trade. He worries about cases such as what would happen if the United States procured all or most of its food supply from foreign sources. To him, one of the best ways to ensure "homeland defense" is to meet as many of the homeland's needs on our own before turning to outside sources.

Basically, when it comes to economic globalization, there are trade offs. Any introductory-level economics course will teach you about the mutual advantages of international trade. At the same time, economics textbooks don't say much about the dangers of becoming dependent on others. Presently, the United States is at a crossroads. How do we balance the benefits of globalization and international trade with the vulnerability that comes from letting foreigners own and manage some of our most crucial assets?

Also on My Mind:

Master's Project- I've been making tremendous progress on it. I truly wish I could spend more time and go into increasing depth on it. There's so much to say! Old-age income security for people in India is a large, complex policy issue, but there are so many policy options about there. It's such an opportunity to think outside the box and develop some creative solutions.

Social Security reform- My 30-minute presentation on individual accounts last Friday went well. I explained what the accounts are, outlined their their potential benefits and drawbacks and concluded with some questions I think people should consider when trying to evaluate individual accounts as a reform option. Currently, I'm concerned about transition costs. Countries such as Chile and Sweden built up budget surpluses in anticipation of their transitions to individual accounts. The United States has the exact opposite--a huge budget deficit. Yes, the transition costs are supposed to be "cancelled out" by the savings from clawing back traditional pay-as-you-go Social Security pensions, but an extra trillion-plus dollars in debt has other political and macroeconomic consequences that may not be too pleasant. Plus, there's the intergenerational equity issue of who gets to pay back the debt incurred from the transition costs.

Taking a macroeconomics course- I admit it. I've never formally studied macroeconomics. Mostly, I've just learned tidbits here and there through reading journal articles and pieces from the popular press. But, starting this Monday, I'm taking a class at Duke's Fuqua School of Business called "Global Economic Environment of the Firm." Basically, it's a macroeconomics course. I'm excited. I'll finally be filling in one of the weaknesses I feel that I have in my knowledge base. I get to learn about business cycles, interest rates, inflation, foreign exchange, unemployment, GDP, international capital flows and all the other important economic principles that you read about in The Wall Street Journal and The Economist.

Increasing My Web Savvy Day by Day

I recently learned how to scan documents and save them as pdf files. Then I learned that I could upload them to my website!

Yes, I know to some people this may sound like no big deal, but I'm a bit of a neophyte at web design, so I delight in every small stride I make.

I scanned and posted as a single pdf file two pieces I wrote:
1) An op-ed about women and social security that I wrote for the Lexington Herald-Leader last August (page 1 of the pdf file), and
2) An article comparing Bush and Kerry on health policy that I wrote for The Chronicle in October 2004 as the presidential campaign was in full swing (pages 2 and 3 of the pdf file).

Immersed in Social Security

I haven't posted in four days because I've be immersed in the world of security securty at many levels.

Last Friday, I began a half-semester course "Managing Entitlements with an Aging Population." Basically, I'll be analyzing various ways in which the U.S. Social Security system can be reformed to accomdate the strain of the baby boomers. I'll be reading lots of reports from the GAO (Government Accountability Office) and various think tanks. I'll also be studying the experiences of developed countries such as Japan, Australia, Sweden, the UK and France. I bravely volunteered to give the first class presentation this coming Friday. I have to present for 30 minutes on the reform option of fully funded individual accounts. Lucky for me, I've already read up on the Chilean system. In preparation for the presentation, I'll also be reading up on Sweden and Australia.

This weekend, I made tremendous strides on my master's project, the title page of which reads "A Social Security System...in India?" I've number crunched demographic, policy and economic indicators in an extensively large Excel spreadsheet in order to calculate what pension deficits in a pay-as-you-go system would be under varying demographic, policy and economic scenarios. My results? Well, I've "embargoed" them temporarily until I meet with my advisor Wednesday and get him to look over my results.

Over the past 15 hours, I've been focusing on health policy. I'm a writing tutor for a graduate-level health policy course, and the students have a report due this week. I got up at 5:35 this morning and edited one team's report until 10:00 (in addition to the 1.75 hours I put in yesterday evening). These long reports are a lot to wrangle with!

Aahh! I love policy. I love writing. I love editing. I'm so fortunate to be doing what I love.

Someone Wants Your Eggs

Are you a Hispanic, Spanish or Italian woman who is under 29 and had an SAT score of at least 1,300? If you answered yes, someone wants your eggs for $15,000. This was the information in a classified ad that appeared in the March 1 edition of The Chronicle--the second ad listed in the "Annoucements" section. I have qualms about egg donation between strangers. The donor may never have the chance to see or be involved in the life of the resulting child, who is biologically hers. She may never know whether the child that came from her egg looks like her or has a similar personality.

As more and more women try to have children at older ages, I suppose egg donation may become a more common practice and could grow more acceptable. It's a bioethical issue that raises a lot of questions. For example, what are the chances that a college-age woman with an SAT score above 1,300 will have eggs that yield a child with similar academic talent (not considering environmental factors)? How ethical is it to try and have a designer baby?

If you are interested in learning more about women who have children at older ages by using donor eggs, you can read my opinion column "Pushing the Boundaries of Birth" that I wrote last fall.

What I Couldn't Cram into the Space of a 750-Word Column

One of the challenges I have as an opinion columnist is that there is so much I want to say, but I only have 750 words in which to say it. So for anyone who read my column today and wants to learn more about how globalization, stricter U.S. immigration policies and demography will make it increasingly more difficult for the United States to meet its demand for talented scientists and engineers, you are welcome to peruse a 21-page term paper I wrote for my Globalization & Governance course in December 2004.
Impact of Globalization on U.S. Demand for Scientists and Engineers, and Implications for National Governance

If you don't have time for a 21-page paper, you can read an op-ed column that I penned last spring about the underrepresentation of women in science and engineering and also the impact of motherhood on working women. Like my column today, this column is also titled "Why I'm Not an Engineer" and opens with a similar lead. Please read on past the first several sentences; the column isn't identical to the one printed today.

Why I'm Not an Engineer

This column was published in The Chronicle March 1, 2006.

My senior year in high school, I was voted "Most Likely to Discover the Meaning of Life Through Differential Calculus." The following year, in college, I received an A in my calculus IV class. Five years later I graduated with a bachelor's degree in chemical engineering. Now I'm working on my master's degree.

The only thing is, I'm working on a master's degree in public policy, not chemical engineering.

Why didn't I become a chemical engineer? The question has been on my mind a lot the past year, from the time of former Harvard President Larry Summers' inflammatory hypothesis of why women are underrespresented in science and engineering to his resignation last week.

Both women's and racial minorities' underrepresentation is an important issue not just from a social justice viewpoint, but also from an economic competitiveness viewpoint. Science and technology fuel economic growth, but three forces are beginning to erode U.S. preeminence in these fields.

First, globalization has increased competition for talented scientists and engineers. Historically, the United States filled its labor shortage of scientists and engineers by "importing" them from other countries. For example, 38 percent of doctorate-level scientists and engineers in 2000 were foreign born. Due to globalization, however, other countries are becoming competitive with the United States and attracting scientists and engineers who otherwise would have come here.

Second, U.S. immigration policy has gotten stricter since Sept. 11, making it harder to get a visa. This impedes the brightest international students and researchers from coming to the United States and strengthening its science and technology sectors. In fall 2003, U.S. universities recorded their first decline in foreign enrollment since 1971.

Third, demographic trends raise the concern of who will replace retiring scientists and engineers of the baby-boom generation. From 2010 to 2025, the share of the college-age population that is Hispanic, African American or American Indian/Alaska- Native will increase from 32 to 38 percent. These groups, however, earn bachelor's degrees in science and engineering at less than half the rate of whites and Asian/Pacific Islanders.

Given these forces of globalization, immigration policy and demography, what should the United States do to ensure it has enough scientists and engineers to remain competitive? The obvious move is to start developing the untapped potential of underrepresented groups-both racial minorities and women.

During the last year, however, we have been fixated on whether women have less intrinsic ability in science and engineering. I am fine remaining open minded to the possibility of innate differences between the sexes, but we should not let that debate serve to justify the status quo. Over the past 40 years, women have gradually increased their presence in science and engineering-an advance hardly explained by genetic differences.

Furthermore, even if innate differences do exist, it may not have to do so much with ability as it has to do with preferences. Social science research has shown that girls are more interested in people, social values and humanitarian and altruistic goals. Boys have expressed more interest in things, theoretical values and abstract intellectual inquiry.

Whether this difference is the product of nature or nurture is up for debate. If it is due to innate differences, though, that does not excuse the current degree of women's underrepresentation in science and engineering. It just means these fields need to be marketed with more of a human face.

And they can be. Engineers develop life-saving drugs, environmentally friendly fuel sources, prosthetic limbs and safer roads. Organizations such as Engineers Without Borders help communities in poor countries develop clean water supplies, irrigation systems, bridges and wastewater treatment systems.

In addition to marketing science and engineering in ways that may appeal more to women and racial minorities, we need to change the cultural attitude that math and science are hard subjects that are acceptable to be bad at. So many Americans have no shame saying, "I'm bad at math; I can't even balance my checkbook." But, you'll never here someone saying, "I'm bad at reading; I can't even understand the newspaper."

Turning back to me, I left engineering because it left me unfulfilled. Working at a chemical plant just does not lead to direct, visible improvement of the human condition. Thus, it is no surprise that I am now studying the "save-the-world" field of public policy.

So, while I may never discover the meaning of life through differential calculus, I have enjoyed applying my mathematical talent to my economic and statistics courses here at Duke.

Does Bill Gates Need Subsidized Drugs?

Should Bill Gates get subsidized prescription drugs while soldiers in Iraq can't get flak jackets? It was this question of equity that a Stuart Butler, vice president of domesitc and economic policy at the Heritage Foundation, posed this evening at a panel sponsored by the Duke Political Union.

The panel, entitled "The Fiscal Wake-Up Tour," was about the train wreck the United States is headed towards if doesn't get its house in order and become fiscally responsible. The demographic tsunami of retiring baby boomers will make spending on Social Security and Medicare rise dramatically.

Tax revenue will not be enough to pay for it all, especially if the Bush tax cuts are made permanent. Whatever money we come up short we'll have to borrow--something we're already doing at high levels. Panelist Diane Lim Rogers from the Brookings Institution said that since early 2001, 90 cents of every dollar the U.S. government borrows comes from foreigners. That means that the government won't be paying back U.S. children when they become adults; rather, it will be paying Chinese and Japanese children when they become adults.

Butler of the Heritage Foundation questioned whether it is fair and just to let middle class entitlements take control over the budget. In 2005, spending on mandatory programs such as Social Security and Medicare already devoured 53 percent of the federal budget. Projecting into the future, Social Security and Medicare will comprise increasingly larger fractions of the budget, squeezing out funding for other things. Deficits--largely driven by rising healthcare expenditures-- will increase steeply.

To fix this problem, the Heritage Foundation representative presented the policy choice of rethinking the principles of social insurance. He said we couldn't tweak our way to fixing the problem. Rather, there may have to be some fundamental changes. In this context, he made the comment about whether Bill Gates should get subsidized prescription drugs while soldiers can't get flak jackets. Symbolically, he was addressing the issue of how much of our tax dollars should got to supporting comfortably situated individuals while needy people go without.

Normally, I wouldn't think I'd be agreeing with someone from the Heritage Foundation, but the man had a point. There are a lot of wealthy and very upper middle class people whose lifestyles wouldn't be cramped with their entitlements were reduced.

Ultimately, I think the woman from the Brookings Institution had it right when she said no solutions to our fiscal problems will be implemented unless the public turns unpopular choices into popular ones. The four panelists, representing a diversity of political and professional viewpoints, were all in consensus that something has to be done, and that the choices to be made all involve pain.

So, it's up to us--the public--to convince our political leaders to make painful choices. Pain now means a lot less pain later.

Perhaps as an opinion columnist I can be someone who can shape this debate and make unpopular choices popular.

Updated Webpage

I just finished updating my webpage (http://geocities.com/preetiontheweb). I had many links to fix because The Chronicle recently revamped its website.

Geocities has a data tranfer limit of 4 gigabytes per hour, which I have currently exceeded while checking all the links on my updated website. As a result, Geocities has shut down my website for an hour. So, it you ever try visiting my website and you get some sort of "This site is unavailable"-type message, you'll know what happened.

If I pay Geocities, I can get a website that not only has a larger data transfer limit, but also has a shorter URL (website address). I'll investigate that option either over spring break or after I graduate.

Daily Triumphs

My triumph of the week: I ran 18 miles yesterday afternoon!

As I untied my shoes after the run, I thought to myself, "Did I really just run 18 miles? Did I really just do that?"

I guess I did. According to the odometer of my car, the loop that I run is 6.2 miles, and I ran the loop three times yesterday. 6.2 x 3 = 18.6, so I did indeed run 18 miles (a little over that amount to be exact). I'm increasingly more confident that I'll be able to run my marathon later on this year.

Other triumphs/highlights of the week:

--I went bowling with my classmates yesterday evening and bowled 104. (For me, that's a good score).

--After bowling, I attended a fun party at my classmate Stefan's apartment.

--Thursday night, I finished the final paper for my half-semester non-profit management course, all while watching the Olympics on television.

--I finished the readings and reading response for my population & development course in record time.

--Wednesday afternoon, I attended a series of panels on the underrepresentation of women and some racial minorities in the science and engineering professions--a topic that interests me since I'm a woman with a bachelor's degree in chemical engineering.

--I attened a web design training on Tuesday night, where I learned some basic html code and and how to use it in Dreamweaver. I'm pumped! (I want to use my web design training to create a more sophicated website and blog. I probably won't have time for such an overhaul until after I graduate, however.)

--Early in the week, I made substantial progress on my master's project. After a few hours of digging around, I even managed to find a decent estimate of the percentage of India's GDP that comes from wages. (It would take me too long to explain why it's nice to have that estimate.)

So, that's the good life. I know I may sound overly perky. Let me assure you, it's not like nothing bad ever happens to me. It's just that I choose to pay selective attention to the positive and not ruminate on the negative. I've found that dwelling on the negative doesn't add any forward momentum to my life, and if something isn't going to take me forward, then I just have to jettison it.

Ploughing on Through

Producing deliverables. That's what I spent most of today doing. My master's project is due April 21, and if I want to graduate (and, yes, I do) I have to work steadily and diligently over the next several weeks.

I'm gotten the impression that my situation is similar to other graduate students who are writing theses and dissertations: determining how to self-discipline oneself to make regular progress is challenging. My strategy has been to break my project down into discrete manageable pieces and set an internal deadline for each one. So far, I've been able to roughly adhere to my deadlines (oops, split infinitive). Contingencies--and yes, I'll include the winter Olympics (they only happen once every four years!)--arise, however, and some parts of my project have taken longer than expected to complete, thereby throwing off my carefully planned sequence of internal deadlines. But, I scheduled in a couple of buffer weeks to absorb these delays---a contingency plan for contingencies.

Today, I spent most of the day like the young woman in the photo above, hunched over my desktop and reading what is now a 22-page incomplete draft. With no classes Monday to Wednesday, I've been treating my master's project as a full-time job. I worked at my desk today from 9 am to 6 pm, with a few breaks for lunch and snacks.

My master's project is on aging in India. More specifically, I'm answering the policy question: What is the scope of the problem that the government of India faces in meeting the needs of its elderly population between now and 2050, and could a gradually introduced, pay-as-you-go pension system be a feasible part of the solution?

Yes, I'm designing a social security system for India.

As life expectancy increases, birth rates fall and the traditional multi-generational family structure erodes, more and more Indians don't know what to do with the elderly. Previously, the elderly lived with their adult children, but as people have fewer children, as young adults migrate from rural villlages to big cities and as subsequent generations develop more individualistic attitudes, the family-as-social-security concept is in decline.

Would some sort of government pension system be the solution? Most developed countries think so. But, their systems are generally beginning to come under strain as the baby boomers hit their rocking chairs. And, of course, healthcare for the elderly is an even more pressing issue.

What, then, should India do? The verdict will be out April 21.

Reappraise...or Collapse

"Our way of life is non-negotiable."

This quote from Dick Cheney was the starting point for author Jared Diamond’s talk at Duke University this past Thursday, Feb. 16.

In Diamond’s view, it’s imperative that societies be able to negotiate—that is, reappraise—their core values. In his recent book Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed, he explains why some societies—such as the Navajo--succeeded in the face of environmental and population problems, and why some societies—such as Easter Island-- failed.

It all comes down to a society’s willingness to reappraise its core values, selectively jettison those that no longer serve its interests and adopt new values that enable it to survive. Basically, it’s reappraise or collapse.

In Papua New Guinea, the indigenous groups that have been most successful have been those that selectively adopted aspects of modern European culture that best suited their interests. Diamond described his encounter with a Chimbu man who bought a sawmill and wore a grass skirt. This native New Guinean had adapted to the modern world, but still retained his Chimbu identity.

In contrast, the Norse stubbornly refused to reappraise their identities as Christians and did not mix with the Innuits they met when they sailed to Greenland. Despising the pagans, they refused to learn from these native peoples how to procure food and otherwise survive in Greenland’s harsh climate. The Norse ended up starving to death; their society collapsed.

Diamond believes that the United States needs to reappraise some of its core values and selectively renegotiate. Three critical areas for reappraisal are consumption, individualism, and isolationism.

32. That’s the ratio of consumption between people in the developed world to those in the 3rd world. Originally, the United States was a boundless continent, and overconsumption was not a worry. But now, as countries such as China and India strive to emulate our lifestyles, our present pattern of consumption is unsustainable. We need to reappraise our value of linking increased consumption with increased standards of living.

Montana. That’s the state whose tradition of rugged individualism is coming into conflict with communal rights. Each landowner benefits individually from developing his or her own land. But when everyone does it, Montana loses the beauty that draws so many people there in the first place. In Europe on the other hand, a landowner has to get government permission to cut a tree on his or her own land.

Oceans. Those were the barriers that allowed the United States to follow a foreign policy of isolationism throughout much of its history. In light of recent problems with terrorism, however, the United States needs to engage with the world and invest in the fundamentals that will stop terrorism.

Diamond’s thinking combines the best of Paul Ehrlich and Julian Simon. In his book, The Population Bomb, Ehrlich argues that the earth’s natural resources can’t keep abreast with human’s rapid population growth. Simon disagrees with such Malthusian predictions and argues that humans can innovate themselves out of any approaching environmental crisis. Like Ehrlich, Diamond recognizes that many modern-day societies are heading towards collapse if they maintain the status quo. But similar to Simon, Diamond also believes that if societies can reappraise their values and change how they do things, then they can avert collapse.

Adapt or die. That’s how it all works, not only for society, but also for individuals and businesses. The individuals that most successfully get through crises are those that have flexible personalities and can renegotiate their values while still retaining those aspects of themselves that are essential to their identities.

Businesses constantly have to monitor their ever changing external environments. Newspapers, for example, are experiencing falling subscription rates because of the Internet. Newspapers will have to adopt a new business model or else they’ll go the way of the phonograph and horse buggy.

Sorry, Dick Cheney, but the American way of life will have to be negotiable. In the face of rapidly aging baby boomers, skyrocketing oil prices, global warming and sophisticated terrorist networks, the Unites States must renegotiate its core values and adapt to a world that is changing at a dizzying pace.

Without reappraisal, the United States risks the fates of Easter Island, the Anasazi, and the Norse in Greenland: collapse.

10 Hours to Select a New Boss

I went to sleep at 4:41 this morning. No, I didn't go to a party yesterday night. No, I didn't go clubbing. Rather, I spent Friday night and and the wee hours of Saturday morning selecting the editor for the next school year's edition of The Chronicle.

Nearly 100 staff people of The Chronicle, Recess and Towerview had gathered in the White Lecture Hall on Duke's East Campus by 4:30 pm yesterday. And, we stayed there until 2:30 am today.

During those 10 hours--while the rest of our friends were probably imbibing the night away somewhere on 9th Street--we elected a new editor through a process of interviewing the candidates individually, discussing our views about them and The Chronicle, and then voting. While I'm bound by strict rules of confidentiality from revealing any of what was discussed behind the closed doors of that lecture hall, I can say that our decision was not made rashly.

Rather, we spent 10 intense hours passionately discussing the merits of the candidates and the future of The Chronicle, all while sitting in cramped lecture hall chairs--the ones with the tiny fold-out writing surfaces.

At 2:21 am, the votes were tallied. Ryan McCartney is now the editor of the 102nd edition of The Chronicle.

With McCarntey's election, I feel the paper is being passed into good hands. McCartney has a quiet, steady dedication to the craft of journalism. While I won't be at The Chronicle next year, I feel that if he were my editor/boss, he would be someone whom I would feel comfortable approaching with new ideas. And not only would he listen attentively to me, but he would also take me seriously and be sincerely committed to actually helping me implement those ideas.

And new ideas, new strategies are what The Chronicle--as well as all American newspapers--desperately need. With the diffusion of the Internet, fewer people are reading ink-on-paper newpapers. As broadcaster Judy Woodruff said during Duke's Career Week, newspapers need a new business strategy.

Newspapers have to develop an on-line presence, or they risk going the way of typewriters and phonographs. It's a basic principle of management--whether with business, a non-profit charity or a newspaper--that you have to adapt to your changing external environment. Adapt or perish; that's simply the way it goes.

It's still to be seen how The Chronicle will develop its on-line side. Personally, I'd jump at the chance at doing a blog or being an e-columnist, perhaps writing a "life after Duke" e-column from an alumnus perspective after I graduate. "Gimmicks" such as contests with prizes, surveys, personality questionnaires and juicy advice columns could draw readers to the website and make it the place students visit on their laptops while they wait for their 8:30 am classes to begin (or as they struggle to stay awake through those morning classes).

Arguably, such "gimmicks" may seem as if the paper is being dumbed down, but we'll never know if we don't try. And if we don't try something--even something that may seem foolish--and if we maintain the status quo, The Chronicle will flounder as the wired world zooms on by.

These are my thoughts less than 10 hours after the 10-hour election of Ryan McCartney. I wish him and the rest of The Chronicle staff the very best.

And next Friday night, I hope we all stay up until 2:30 am celebrating.

Keeping Abreast, I'm Now on facebook.com

During orientation week before the first semester of my freshmen year, the other freshmen and I were given a sheet with instructions on how to set up our university email accounts. As I remember it, most of us didn't even really understand what email was.

For one of my classes that first semester, our initial assignment was to send an email to the TA as a way of showing that we knew how to use email.

The year was 1996.

There was no BlackBoard. We had to trek to the library, check out books that were on reserve and then photocopy (at our own expense) the readings for our classes.

Few journals were on-line. To research a paper for my first-semester introductory cultural anthropology course, I had to walk through the stacks, pull bound journals from the shelves and head to the Xerox machine.

There was no on-line course registration. We had to sign up for classes via phone by entering code numbers that corresponded to different classes and different sections.

And, there definitely was no facebook.com.

I had never heard about facebook.com until last semester. Intrigued by undergraduates' stories of how much time they waste on the website, I decided I needed to stay abreast with this advance in technology and I created a profile of myself two Saturdays ago.

I'm now on facebook.com. I have three friends. One is my brother.

And, I spent an hour on it last night. I'm sure that facebook.com session was probably that first of many where I'll get sucked in and end up using my time unproductively.

So, happy facebooking.

Faced With Extinction

Are Germans an endangered species? This provocative question was the lead of a recent Reuters article about Germany's shrinking population. Between 2003 and 2005, the number of people in Germany fell by 82,000, according to Germany's Federal Statistical Office.

Germany has gone over the hill. Birthrates have fallen below the replacement rate of 2.1 children per woman needed to sustain a stable population.

"Germans are at risk of dying out if the trend continues," the article quotes Harald Michel, managing director of the Institute for Applied Demography, as saying.

It's rather extreme to predict a world devoid of Germans-and their tasty pretzels, boisterous Oktoberfests and cute umlauts. But I can relate to the uneasiness of realizing you're part of a group that seems to be dying out.

I'm the member of what might be an endangered species. I belong to a linguistic minority group that makes up about 0.05 percent of the world's population. My family speaks a language called Konkani. I'm passively fluent in the language; I understand it when it's spoken, but I can't speak it (go figure).

Unlike Germany's case, though, Konkanis aren't at risk of dying out because of falling birthrates, but, rather, because of intermarriage.

For generations, Konkanis married Konkanis. It made perfect sense to marry someone who spoke your mother tongue and shared a similar culture.

Now days though, as young Konkani adults migrate from rural areas to big cities, to other Indian states and to other countries, and as they seek to marry whomever they want (as opposed to following the tradition of arranged marriage), more Konkanis are marrying people who aren't Konkani. Consequently, their kids don't learn the language since it's not the one spoke in the home.

(In my case, both my parents speak Konkani, but growing up in the United States-away from a larger community of Konkanis-the best I could do was learn to understand the language.)

So, due to intermarriage and migration, fewer children in each subsequent generation may speak Konkani; fewer may identify as Konkani.

The result: Konkani could be a dead language, possibly by the next century.

It's kind of freaky to think that I may belong to a dying breed-that I'm one of the last people with any degree of fluency in a language that may be going the way of Latin and Sanskrit.

What's even freakier, though, are some of the extremist ways in which some people react when they feel threatened by extinction.
Consider what's on the mind of Lamb Gaede of Bakersfield, Calif.,: "The white race is becoming extinct, and we're trying to fight that. My biggest fear is that by the time I'm old, the white race won't even exist anymore."

As members of the musical duo Prussian Blue, Lamb and her sister Lynx-who were featured in the Feb. 9 issue of Recess-sing songs promoting racial separation.

Birthrates among white Americans have been below replacement levels since 1971, writes Phillip Longman, author of the book The Empty Cradle. He conjectures if U.S. fertility patterns approach those in western Europe, we might see increased xenophobia and racial tensions.

I really hope we don't go down that route. In an era of globalization, it doesn't make sense morally or economically.

I also hope we don't try to put women back in the home to make more babies. Rather, falling birthrates provide an impetus for more family-friendly work policies such as increased opportunities for part-time work and affordable daycare. At a time when working adults may have to pay higher taxes to support pensions and healthcare for elderly baby boomers, it hardly makes sense to pull women from the labor force.

For me as a Konkani, I accept that change is simply part of the human condition. It'll be a little sad if one day there are no more Konkanis, but I don't think that justifies an extreme response, such as eschewing intermarriage.

Fear of change is natural. In the play The Fiddler on the Roof, the Jewish father feels torn between adhering to the tradition of arranged marriage and allowing his daughters to marry men with whom they're in love. In Thomas Friedman's book The Lexus and the Olive Tree, the Lexus represents the dizzying pace of globalization while the olive tree represents the tug to stay rooted in tradition.

As Germany and other industrialized countries face population decline, let's hope that fear of change doesn't lead to draconian reactions.

This column was published in The Chronicle, Feb. 15, 2006.