Rushdie on Colbert

Salman Rushdie on the Colbert Report. Rather funny...

"She's a female wizard... She's also extremely sexually arousing"

J.K. Rowling at Harvard Commencement

Huffington Post reports on the Harvard Commencement.

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. — J.K. Rowling stressed the crucial importance of imagination during a speech Thursday at Harvard University's spring commencement, saying, "We do not need magic to transform our world."

The "Harry Potter" author also spoke about the benefit of failure, recalling the humiliations of her time in poverty before her career took off with her string of novels about a bespectacled boy wizard.

Before the speech, some members of Harvard's class of 1936 paid tribute to Rowling by carrying brooms during an alumni procession.

President Drew Gilpin Faust also welcomed witches, wizards and Muggles _ non-magical people in Rowling's books _ to the commencement. Faust noted that there was a larger number of young children than normally expected for a Harvard graduation and that she knew she was the just "the warm-up act."

Rowling, who was given an honorary doctor of letters degree, urged the Harvard grads to use their influence and status to speak out on behalf of the powerless.

"We do not need magic to transform our world," she said. "We carry all the power we need inside ourselves already; we have the power to imagine better."

Imagination gives one the ability to empathize with others, she said.

"Imagination is not only the uniquely human capacity to envision that which is not, and therefore the fount of all invention and innovation," Rowling said. "In its arguably most transformative and revelatory capacity; it is the power that enables us to empathize with humans whose experiences we have never shared."

Rowling described a low point seven years after graduating from college, when she was a poor single mother.

"The knowledge that you have emerged wiser and stronger from setbacks means that you are ever after secure in your ability to survive," Rowling said. "You will never truly know yourself, or the strength of your relationships, until both have been tested by adversity."

She called such knowledge "a true gift, for all that it is painfully won, and it has been worth more to me than any qualification I ever earned."

Subcontinental Politics in NY

Saja is reporting on a suit filled in NY against the BJP by the supporters of the Congress Party.

Defendants in a $100 million lawsuit filed in New York by members of the Indian National Overseas Congress (INOC) are seeking to have it dismissed. The defendants, who are aligned with the Overseas Friends of BJP, placed a $65,000 ad criticizing Sonia Gandhi in The New York Times last October (click on the image to enlarge), during her visit to New York. Some background from The New York Sun:

The suit, filed recently in state court in Manhattan, seeks $100 million in damages against several New Yorkers who marked a recent visit by Ms. Gandhi to the United Nations by criticizing her in an advertisement placed in the New York Times.

The suit was brought by a New York organization that claims to be a subsidiary of India's National Congress Party, which Ms. Gandhi heads. It is extremely unusual, if not unprecedented, for a foreign political party to sue for libel in an American court.

The defendants include Narain Kataria, who said he retired a decade ago after a career as a legal secretary at the New York-based firm Cahill Gordon & Reindel, and Arish Sahani, who said he retired as an agent at the New York Life Insurance Co.

Ms. Gandhi, whom Forbes.com once declared the third most powerful woman in the world, was in New York last October for the anniversary of Mohandas Gandhi's birth, which the United Nations has declared the International Day of Non-Violence.

The article suggests that Sonia Gandhi had nothing to do with the lawsuit. A lawyer for the defendants, Daniel Kornstein, claims the lawsuit is an effort to "to muzzle and punish Congress Party critics in America."

Mr. Kornstein noted that Mohandas Gandhi himself once headed the National Congress Party and was an advocate of free speech.

Of this libel case, Mr. Kornstein wrote, "Gandhi would not approve."

But INOC's lawyer, Sheldon Karasik, said there are limits to free speech.

"The totality of the statements clearly crosses the line," Mr. Karasik, who has filed a similar complaint in state court in New Jersey, said of the advertisement. "It's one thing perhaps to stand up on a soapbox and rant but it is another thing to be very specific and gather a laundry list of alleged wrongs that are supposedly statements of fact."

Here's what Santosh at UberDesi had to say about the ad:

To me, the ad seemed like a huge waste of money. To those who knew Sonia Gandhi, they probably already made up their mind to like her or hate her and the ad was not going to change that. To those who were not familiar with Sonia Gandhi (layman on the streets of America), the ad basically conveyed to them that Sonia was not related to Mohandas Gandhi. Other than that, Americans are used to seeing attack ads in mass media on a regular basis and are probably inured to them by now. So in essence, they spent $65,000 to take out a full page ad saying someone is not related to someone. Think of it this way, an American in India takes out a full page ad in the Times Of India saying George Washington is not related to Denzel Washington (totally random choice of two people with similar last names). Americans in India know that and Indians in India probably know that and even if they don’t, they could care less. The entire effort seems like a massive waste of money and resources, not counting the lawsuit which is breathing down their necks.

Hope and Change

Cricket in NYC

Saja describes NYC public school's first cricket championship. I like the fact that girls participated as well.

rom: "NYC Schools Update"
Date: May 30, 2008 3:36:23 PM EDT
Subject: NYC DOE Press Release - First Public Schools Championship Cricket Match on Sunday

FIRST PUBLIC SCHOOLS CHAMPIONSHIP CRICKET MATCH ON SUNDAY

230 High School Student-Athletes Participated in Inaugural Season of
Varsity Competition

The first season of cricket as a varsity sport in the Public Schools Athletic League (PSAL) will culminate in a championship match at 12 noon on Sunday, June 1, when John Adams High School competes against Newcomers High School at Erskine Field at Gateway Mall in the Canarsie section of Brooklyn.

The cricket league attracted 230 high school students, including five female students, on fourteen varsity teams. The teams competed in more than 150 matches during the season. Major newspapers and television news networks, in the U.S. and abroad, have reported on the new league.

“It’s exciting to have one of the world’s most popular sports beginning to thrive among the student-athletes of the New York City public schools,” said Donald Douglas, PSAL Executive Director. “It has been a great first season.”

“First time at bat and cricket has been a terrific success, attracting many students who would not otherwise play competitive sports,” said Eric Goldstein, Chief Executive for School Support Services, which oversees the PSAL. Goldstein started the league after noticing high school-age students playing pick-up matches in parks across the city.

“As an added bonus, our students gained national and international attention.”

More than30,000 student-athletes participate in the PSAL, with many playing multiple sports. In addition, more than 200 schools participate, competing in 28 varsity sports and nine junior varsity sports, represented by more than 2,400 teams.

San Francisco Airport worst for Turbaned passengers

India West reports that San Francisco airport is worst for Sikhs.

Prabhjot Singh, vice president of marketing at Computer Associates, has been pulled aside for a second screening on each of the nine times he has traveled out of San Francisco International Airport in the past five months.

Singh, who wears a turban, said he is subjected to a head-wear search every time he leaves his local airport. “I definitely feel I’m being profiled,” he told India-West.

“It makes people wonder ‘what did this guy do,’” said Singh, 30, who has lived in the U.S. since he was 10. “The people who watch this happening are definitely getting the impression that people wearing turbans are suspect,” he said.

The Sikh Coalition issued a report card earlier this month citing San Francisco as the worst airport in the nation for turbaned travelers. The Coalition, a Washington, D.C.-based civil rights organization, received 80 complaints of secondary headwear searches between Dec. 1, 2007 and March 31, 2008. More than one-third of those incidents occurred at SFO.

The Transportation Security Administration issued new nationwide security screening procedures for religious headwear on Oct. 27, 2007. After a traveler clears the metal detector, a screener may opt to perform a second search if he believes the passenger’s clothing is too bulky.

The TSA said bulky clothing could include shoes, jackets, flowing clothing or non-form fitting headwear.

The screener must give the traveler a choice between going through a puffer machine, patting his own headwear down and then being swabbed on his hands for traces of chemical residue or having TSA personnel pat his headwear down in public or private.

The new guidelines were issued in response to concerns raised by several Sikh organizations, including the Sikh Coalition, said the TSA in a statement, and do not allow a screener to touch a Sikh’s turban unless the traveler permits it.

The secondary search allows for detection of non-metallic threat items, such as plastics or chemicals, said the TSA.

Neha Singh, advocacy director for the Sikh Coalition, believes local officials at SFO have interpreted the new guidelines as mandatory screening procedures for people wearing turbans.

Other airports in the country have correctly interpreted the guidelines as discretionary screening. But TSA personnel at SFO are pulling aside all turbaned passengers, she told India-West.

“We’ve been very encouraged by the TSA’s response to our concerns, but we want to make sure the new policy is correctly implemented,” said Singh, who will be opening a new Fremont, Calif., branch of the organization this July (see separate story).

Nirvikar Singh, a professor of economics at UC Santa Cruz, told India-West general courtesy and awareness seems to have improved at SFO, but he nevertheless always gets pulled aside for a headwear search at that airport, but not at others. His adult son has had a similar experience with SFO, said Singh, who is also a special adviser to UCSC Chancellor George Blumenthal.

Ginni Singh, CEO of Fremont-based Singh Semiconductors, agrees. “I’ve flown through Louisville, Kentucky, and North Carolina and not been searched,” he told India-West, adding he also gets stopped every time he flies from San Francisco. “This is intentional stereotyping.”

But TSA spokesman Nico Melendez told India-West the policy at San Francisco International Airport was the same as other airports nationwide. He attributed the larger number of complaints from San Francisco to the large number of Sikhs living in the Bay Area, which is home to one of the highest concentrations of Sikhs nationwide.

“If it looks like there’s something protruding in there, or that something may be hidden in the headwear, the screener is going to pull that person aside,” said Melendez, adding screeners use the same policy for all headwear, including cowboy hats and baseball caps.

Melendez said the TSA had no plans to do anything about the report card. Singh said the Coalition would continue to issue similar report cards every quarter.
:by indiawest

Spelling Bee.

A Desi, Sameer Mishra won the 2008 spelling bee.

13-year-old Sameer Mishra spelled “guerdon” correctly to win the 2008 Scripps National Spelling Bee. The word, rather wonderfully, means “something that one has earned or gained.” Champion!

Sameer was a crowd favorite throughout the tournament. When told one of his words in the semifinals was a dessert, he deadpanned: “That sounds good right now.” He rolled his eyes and muttered “wonderful” when told that one of his words had five different language roots. He once asked “Are you sure there are no alternate pronunciations?” In another round, he uttered “That’s a relief” after initially mishearing the word “numnah” (a type of sheepskin pad).

And what did he have to say while hoisting the heavy trophy? “I’m really, really weak.” link

Seriously, this kid was a delight. The last desi to win was Anurag Kashyap in 2005. Only three years ago, but an eternity for a competition heavily loaded with over-achieving, heartbreaking desi kids.

As someone who can’t spell cat without spell-check, I never really paid attention to or understood the mesmerizing drama of spelling bees. Not until I recently saw the documentary Spellbound. Suddenly the years of study, weight of familial expectation, the children’s innocence and drive, the announcer’s voices, the rigid rules, the way personalities emerged in unexpected ways under crushing pressure…This was nail-biting, stomach-knotting suspense!! Hot damn!!

I caught a bit of the finals last night - this year seemed harder than ever before. After the jump, a list of the twelve finalists (five desis!) and the words faced by the last three standing in order of elimination.

Of 16 rounds, here are the final 4:

Round 13:
Sameer Mishra (Lafayette, Indiana) spelled hyphaeresis correctly.
Sidharth Chand (Pontiac, Michigan) spelled Kulturkampf correctly.
Tia Thomas (Coarsegold, California) spelled opificer incorrectly.

Round 14:
Sameer Mishra spelled taleggio correctly.
Sidharth Chand spelled introuvable correctly.

Round 15:
Sameer Mishra spelled esclandre correctly.
Sidharth Chand spelled prosopopoeia incorrectly. (He was so close! Spelled it “prosopopoea.”)

Round 16:
Sameer Mishra spelled guerdon correctly. And wins!

Round-by-round results for the twelve finalists are here.

Second place winner Siddarth Chand is on the left, and two of the four fourth place finishers are center (Samia Nawaz) and right (Kavya Shivashankar). What is it about desis and spelling bees? We’ve posed the question before but appear to have answered it only partially, at best. Then again, the fact that desi kids also kick-ass in the geography bee might mean there is some truth to the idea that desis like gulping trivia like little brown pac-men. Whatever the case, I’m still scratching my head, spellbound.