‘the Most Trusted Man in America’

“Any war is madness. What is going on in Iraq is a crazy war, I think we should have got out of there a long time ago!” Said Walter Cronkite on his annual visit to ASU campus on Monday, November 13. “It’s not too late…get out now for Heaven’s sake. Save American Lives,” he urged. (note ‘American’)
In the brightly lit Carson Ballroom in the Old Main of ASU Tempe Campus, the air was rife with excitement as young journalism students waited to interact with Cronkite. Christopher Callahan, Dean Walter Cronkite School of Journalism introduced the famous television anchorman to students. Cronkite said that he was happy to see the fourth estate of years to come assembled together.
In the Q & A session that followed with ‘the most trusted man of America’, students asked Cronkite questions about topics such diverse as the Iraq war, the recent congressional election, America’s space program coverage and career choices of women in the media. One student wished him a belated happy 90th birthday, which was on November 4.
In the course of answering questions, Cronkite said that he believed that Democrats would take a much different approach to policy issues, national and international, and contribute to a healthy American political and socio-economic system. “This will clean up the dirty air”, he added.
He sounded hopeful of the future of American media, he said it was in ‘pretty good shape.’ When requested to comment on the fact that over ninety percent of the media is owned by five corporations, he countered by asking the student if she was criticizing capitalism. “I am a capitalist”, he said. “I hate to see public ownership of media.”
To the question whether the media’s coverage of NASA Space Programs has dwindled, Cronkite said that this could be because no new explorations have taken place except satellites and shuttles that routinely bring back pictures. He said that it was foolish to send an expedition to Mars because of the enormous costs involved.
His advice to future journalists is to maintain ‘accuracy, honesty, and fairness’ while reporting. He said that developing the capacity to report news was more important than learning the various technical aspects of journalism.
“I am surprised and happy to see the amount of women in broadcast journalism today”, he said. “I won’t advice them any different than male prospective journalists, which is –do your best to be a good journalist. Sex is not a handicap anymore.”
He said that in terms of work, the ones that had the biggest personal impact were coverage of the Kennedy Assassination, and the Vietnam War.
There were lighter moments in the discussion when Cronkite remarked that in University of Texas at Austin, where he was a student, he made sure to take classes that started not earlier than 3 PM. He also remarked at the end of the session that he thought the questions asked were better than the answers.
He did flow off the tangent sometimes. Sam Salzwedel, a student of the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism who asked Cronkite a question on war coverage and got a …well….’related’ reply said, “Anything Cronkite says is valuable.” This was the dominating note of the session, awe.
The Department of Journalism at ASU was named Walter Cronkite in 1984. Since then Cronkite has been to ASU every year to meet the students and faculty, supporting every journalism and leadership endeavor. I found him a really sweet old man, hard of hearing, with a refreshing sense of humor. At ninety, his mind works just as well as it did in all the glorious years behind him.

Far Fetched? Not quite…..

The kind of junk mails I get is interesting. I wonder what is so fundamentally male about my name that I keep receiving offers for discounted Viagra, inflatable dolls and ‘satisfy her now!’ videos. There are on an average thirteen real mature…ahem…..sluts waiting for me in Tempe each week.

Playboy sends me free VODs. Tena asks me if I need free samples of (male) bladder protection items. Dr. Areyoukiddingme asks if I have questions on Prostate cancer.

Not that I do not get offers for, well, gender-neutral products. People keep asking me about my camera, cartridge and camping needs. They ask me if I get bitten by bugs or end up paying more for auto insurance. Some are concerned about my obesity, yet others about my low sex drive. No, many spammers do assume that I can be male, female or anything in between. It is the LACK of feminine offers that makes me wonder.

People are ready to send me Lacoste pour homme cologne (free S and H) but not Elizabeth Arden samples. They want me to review shaving gels but not cold wax. They insist that I use the right kind of boxers but never mention anything about lacy thongs. What’s going on here? ? : (

Dr. Doitright, and a Kelley, Jan or Eric is always worried about the size of my …ah well……something that I do not have at all. Rosy waits for me perpetually to be lonely some night.  A certain marriage counselor based in San Francisco is very keen to send me daily tips to my inbox so that I can keep my wife happy.

And all this in gmail as well as yahoomail……both with ‘advanced spamguards’!

Well, the inbox in indiatimes.com is even more intriguing. I open it once in three months or so only to encounter Meena from Mumbai, Daisy from Delhi and Rehana from…I think Raanchi offering to marry me! Gimme a break guys. I am not saying the accompanying pictures are not pretty, but the whole idea of marriage pisses me off too much to even consider trying to marry some vague girls.

Hmmmmm………….what is this?  Some high-level global conspiracy to help us discover our homosexual sides so that … er…. so that….I wonder? So that there aren’t enough children in the world so that funds can be siphoned away from Health and Family services and Education….to fight more wars? So that , well, soldiers are more sexually satisfied in camps (usually isolated in terms of gender) and can concentrate wholeheartedly on blowing cities up? I really really wonder……

Another victory…..

Thus ran the text of proposal 107:
Be it enacted by the People of Arizona: 1. Article: XXX. Constitution of Arizona is proposed to be added as follows if approved by the voters and on proclamation of the Governor: ARTICLE XXX. MARRIAGE TO PRESERVE AND PROTECT MARRIAGE IN THIS STATE, ONLY A UNION BETWEEN ONE MAN AND ONE WOMAN SHALL BE VALID OR RECOGNIZED AS A MARRIAGE BY THIS STATE OR ITS POLITICAL SUBDIVISIONS AND NO LEGAL STATUS FOR UNMARRIED PERSONS SHALL BE CREATED OR RECOGNIZED BY THIS STATE OR ITS POLITICAL SUBDIVISIONS THAT IS SIMILAR TO THAT OF MARRIAGE. 2. The Secretary of State shall submit this proposition to the voters at the next general election as provided by article XXI, Constitution of Arizona.

……..Proposition 107 would amend the Arizona Constitution to provide that in order to preserve and protect marriage: 1. Only a union between one man and one woman shall be valid or recognized as a marriage by the State of Arizona or its cities, towns, counties or districts. 2. The State of Arizona and its cities, towns, counties or districts shall not create or recognize a legal status for unmarried persons that is similar to marriage.

An overtly conservative state like Arizona did not pass the ban. And I am overjoyed. At the upsurge of Democrats’ victory, all over the country. At the prospect of not having a proposal become law that dictates someone’s sexuality. The role of Government, and laws must be limited to the ‘rights’ aspect pf marriage. There should be more bills, proposals and laws addressing the issues of domestic violence, marital rape, inheritance, adoption rights.

No law must tell anyone who to marry and how to marry. Who to love and who to hate. That is like challenging someone’s freedom of choice, hurting someone’s dignity, disrespecting someone’s essence of being. In a homophobic society, such laws legitimize the stigmatization of same-sex couples, and this is very, very undesirable.

The gay/lesbian activists in India should derive some comfort out of this. They are fighting a desperate battle. Social change takes time and many lives, dreams and aspirations are eliminated in the course of this transition. Some of my friends who chose to love people of their same gender lived lives of quiet agony, shame and hopelessness. Their capability as professionals, compassion as good wards,siblings,friends…….everything got unnecessarily drowned in just one aspect of their lives that they chose not to hide. All that remained of their social identity were: “that gay guy you know….” or “that bloody dyke…”

Unfair isn’t it? After all the rising divorce rates in urban India speaks of the instability that has crept in traditional social institutions. Stemming from composite factors, heterosexual, ‘normal’ legal marriages are not something that defines the ‘family oriented’ Orient anymore. Marriage as an institution has too many merits to be dissolved completely any time in the distant future too, but perhaps it’s time to re-define its paradigms. Not just in terms of sexualities, but also in terms of rights, responsibilities and economic arrangements.

Indian Penal Code defines homosexuality as ‘unnatural sexual activity’ (Section 377 IPC), but there is no section on ‘marital rape’ a disturbing phenomenon uniformly rampant in urban and rural India. The government urges the society to treat HIV positive people ‘normally’ but in some states HIV positive persons may be detained under one section of Public Health Act or the other. They may be thrown out of their jobs, homes and brutally discriminated against in all social situations, there is no law that protects them against that.

Well, this is yet another instance of reflexive hypocrisy in lawmaking and execution, a term I coined which combines the concepts of reflexivity, and hypocrisy, a concept that I will further explore/elaborate on, later…….

Meanwhile, let’s celebrate the spectacular collapse of Proposal 107 in Arizona…..yet another instance of sensibility prevailing over dominant and ignorant senselessness.

The Torture Question

Watched Frontline: The Torture question, today. Pretty disturbing. It showed Abu Ghraib and the detainment camp at Guantanamo Bay. The prison at Abu Ghraib, located 20 miles west of Baghdad’s city center used to be the main prison where political prisoners in the Saddam regime were tortured and murdered in the name of interrogation. For the last five years, this space is being used by American interrogators to extract actionable intelligence. Some of the detainees are political insurgents, ‘high value terrorists, criminals, and some, just innocent people picked up at random from the streets and homes of Baghdad.
U.S Army Interrogators present in the Abu Ghraib spoke in the documentary of their active role in the ‘quicker route to strategic information’. They talked about the sensory deprivation, sexual humiliation and other rough treatments meted out to the prisoners on a regular basis in the prison.
“I saw black eye and fat lips” said Sgt. Robert Brokaw, U.S army interrogator who went to Iraq in 2003. Brokaw witnessed beating up of prisoners, of whom, he believed only two percent were real terrorists.
Tony Lagouranis, described how he would use dogs to terrify prisoners during interrogation. “These German Shepards were muzzled, but the blindfolded prisoners would not know that. When we let the dogs loose on the prisoners, they would be badly terrified.”
There were talks of female interrogators forcing the prisoners to wear bras and thongs. They would tease the prisoners sexually, there was a case when menstrual blood (fake) was rubbed on the body of a prisoner….strange, how the meaning and context of humiliation changes at various situations. In another time, place, context some guy would do these things himself and be called a fetishist. ☺
What the Pentagon, and erstwhile (?) Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld repeatedly described as isolated incidents, and a ‘momentary madness’, were actually the part of a systematic process of torture, coercion and sadistic violence unleashed by the urgent need to obtain ‘actionable intelligence’ after the 9/11 attacks. Classified documents unraveled shows that the instruction to torture and break ‘prisoners’ had come from the highest level. “rough ‘em up” off was the keyword, “we want information at any cost”.
In the documentary interviews given by CIA Agent Michael Scheuer, Gen. Jack Keane, Brig Gen Janis Karpinski, and a host of other high profile officials directly related to the torture incidents at Abu Ghraib yesterday revealed that Geneva Convention was totally flouted in the treatment of prisoners in Iraq, as well as in the Guantanamo Bay.
It was under Rumsfeld’s directions that after 9/11, the gloves had to come off in treating insurgent detainees. New statutes drafted by a small circle of lawyers gave unlimited powers to the President of the United States and the Secretary of Defense to act unilaterally in redefining the rules of war, the program articulated. Warfare laws had to be modified to fight a ‘different kind of war.’
A certain Deputy Assistant Attorney General who was a part of this high-level legal team said in his interview, ‘under the fight against terrorism, you cannot kill the detainee. You cannot let him go; cannot try him in an ordinary civilian court system. The situation demands ‘specialized’ laws and procedures.’
But what does that spell for the torture question, for the United States? Michael Ratner, Expert on Constututional Law alleges that the entire interrogation procedure in Gitmo or Abu Ghraib were completely arbitrary and unconstitutional. There is a discernible pattern here; after all it was Gen. Geoffrey Miller who masterminded the torture routine in both these camps.
While demonstrations against Rumsfeld and the war continue, the biggest question today is, what does it imply for a single country to break the Geneva Convention? What would happen, for instance to captured United States soldiers? Was whatever marginal information elicited from the prisoners worth all the inhuman torture inflicted?
And after watching the torture videos, a certain thesis of mine, seems to be corroborated. I have a feeling that nothing excites human beings more after sexual encounters, than ‘turning up the worm with a stick’. It gives a feeling of power, adrenaline rush…..fulfillment, to actively torture someone.

….. i do it all the time :p

Prof Sharon Bramlett Solomon

She’s just great. She …in a bid to explain the ‘war of the worlds’ study, enacts what people must have felt right after that broadcast. she emotes, she imagines, she makes us imagine.

She is researching on interracial love, in the media. ‘Does color blind TV have a color line?’ she asks. For her, I compiled the list of ‘interracial couples’ in my favorite TV show:

 

 

Rachel and Paolo: Paolo (Hispanic) is terribly physical, but Rachel does

not seem to mind! Occupation-lounge lizard (Season 1)

Ross and Julie: Julie was in grad school with Ross. She’s Chinese.

Occupation-not sure-seems to be a professor.(Season 2)

Monica and Julio: Julio’s a Hispanic and a pseudo-intellectual. He’s a Chef.(Season 3)

Ross and Charlie: Charlie’s black, extremely good-looking and is a paleontologist.

Their affair goes on till Charlie’s ex-boyfriend, a Nobel Prize winning scientist steps in. (Season 9)

Prof. Bramlett-Solomon feels Asian guys like Chow Yun-Fat and Jackie Chan kick ass but don’t get ass … she feels soaps would not have a mixed leading couple, commercials, neither.

I am tempted to tell her that the only media where interracial ‘love’ seems to be flourishing is pornography……….

the take home exam

just concluded the take-home exam thus:

Returning to the question of ‘Freedom of expression: Why’? I want to sum up by saying, so that we can preserve, promote and protect the democratic values of freedom, tolerance, pluralism, political equality. So that we can make informed decisions; so that we never shy away from expressing ideas, opinion, dissent, questions; so that we, the citizens, as the raison d’être of democracy remain citizens and are not relegated to timorous subjects; so that we do not practice the kind of freedom that requires us to be just easy in our harnesses, but the kind of freedom that allows us to rise, reach the very best in us; so that we can exercise our inalienable rights; so that we are not scared about the future of all the generations to come, waiting in the womb of time; so that we learn to welcome and be initiators of change, and not have change pushed down our throats; so that we value the enormous potential of human civilization and appreciate what the pioneers, the founding fathers, the inventors, the entrepreneurs, the dissenters, the revolutionaries, the soldiers, the philosophers, the creators, the innovators, the thinking minds have achieved before us. It is so important that we build on what we have effortlessly got as legacies. It is so important that we do not fritter our future away or place it in the hands of some immoral, arrogant, unreasonable empire-builder, who does not regard the voice of the people, the Constitution, the confrere, the press.

To me, that is why there MUST be freedom of expression.

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