Speech at James River Day School 8th Grade Graduation, June 3, 2011

Thanks for that introduction. It’s really an honor to be here speaking at James River, although I have to admit the real reason I accepted this invitation is that I was under the impression I’d be getting an honorary degree.

Once I accepted the invitation to speak, the hardest part was actually getting the day off of work. When I told my boss why I needed the day off, she actually thought I was joking. “A commencement speech?” she said. “What wisdom could a 29-year-old possibly have to pass on to graduates?” And I said, hey, it’s fifth graders, it’ll be a breeze.

Now they tell me James River goes up to eighth grade -- not fifth grade, which was the case when I graduated. And I thought, whoa, this is really going to be a tough audience.

So please. I’ll promise to make my speech short if you promise to go easy on me. But just in case, I’ve asked AT&T and Verizon to block cellphone coverage for this entire area so there can be no Tweets or Facebook postings about how boring or lame or long this speech is. If you want to make a comment, you’ll have to do it the old fashioned way, by shouting it out or throwing something at me.

You know, a lot has changed around here since I graduated from James River in 1993. Besides only going up to fifth grade, we had a lot fewer buildings and no Field House. And,a s some of you may know, instead of the Cardinals, our mascot was the River Rat.

Those were just some of the changes I noticed the last time I came back to James River in the fall of 2007. The reason for my visit was simple: to apologize. At the time I was teaching second grade, and -- having myself experienced the frustration day in and day out of students acting out and failing to following class rules -- I felt I owed my James River teachers an apology. Because even though you may not realize it from the articulate, well-adjusted person I am today, I was a quite a terror in elementary school.

That apology really goes to the heart of the message I want you to take home today. Which is this: You may not realize until later how lucky you have been to have nurturing teachers at James River who have been crucial in shaping the people you are today.

To help illustrate this I’m going to tell you a story in two parts. The first is about how I did not appreciate – and sometimes not even respect – my teachers when I was at James River. The second part is about how later I realized that their support was critical in shaping the person I became academically and professionally. And finally, I’m going to wrap up with some brief recommendations for you graduates about what you can take away from your James River experience.

I.

Let me start out by saying that the reason I ended up at James River in the first place is that my parents felt that public school was not for me. Of course, that may have been due to the fact that while still in Kindergarten I both threw a chair across the classroom AND told off my teacher. My report card was filled with O’s for outstanding and S’s for satisfactory when it came to reading, writing and math -- but always an N for “Needs Improvement” when it came to self-control.

So my parents sent me to James River starting in second grade. Here my behavior improved somewhat, but I still had what my Dad called a “short fuse.” As I’m sure some of my former teachers remember, I would throw a temper tantrum whenever something didn’t go my way. This was compounded by a fierce perfectionism, which meant that anything from a strikeout in Ms. Schoew’s gym class to a less than perfect paper in Ms. Daniel’s second grade could set me off.

As a result, I spent a good number of afternoons in the office of the headmistress, Ms. Shiers. I can remember sitting alone, waiting for her to come in, thinking of endless explanations for my behavior and ways to plead with her not to call my mom.

II.

Years later, after becoming a teacher, I saw my experience at James River differently. I wanted to go back and apologize to my teachers -- Ms. Daniel, Ms. Fielding, Ms. Gough and Ms. Keefer, among others -- for what I put them through. I realized not only the patience that being a teacher requires but also the passion and dedication you have to put into the job.

When I look back, I realize how important these and other teachers were to inspiring me to be creative and pursue my interests. In fourth and fifth grade, for instance, my teachers encouraged my interest in creative writing and helped me enroll in the Piedmont Area Young Author’s Contest, which I won both years. Their insistence that I had a unique gift for written expression stuck with me, acting almost like an internal compass as I pondered several career paths before settling on journalism.

Besides encouraging me to write, my James River teachers also dreamed up memorable projects that stick in my mind even today. They nurtured my interest in government through James Rivers’ famous “Hall of States” and a mock presidential debate in which I got to play Bill Clinton. And they launched my theatrical career as “Dark Chocolate,” the notorious arch villain in “Food Wars,” a Star Wars parody we put on in second grade.

Having nurturing teachers and building close relationships with them is crucial because that’s really how you learn the best. Years later, I went to a large university, where sometimes I felt like a little fish in a big sea and I missed that personal attention I got from my teachers at James River.

III.

So as you graduate today, just take a moment to think about how lucky you have been these past nine years, or however long you’ve been here. No doubt, like me, you’ve had teachers during that time who’ve inspired you and brought out the best in you.

As you take the next step in your academic lives, try and replicate those close relationships. Because that’s really the environment where your best learning will take place.

And before you leave today, take a moment to thank those teachers who’ve helped get you here. Don’t make the mistake I did and wait 14 years.

Oh. And also, if any of you told off the teacher, now’s probably a good time to apologize for that, too.

Congratulations 8^th grade class of 2011! 

Fraternal Twin Quakes

Even before the dust seemed to settle following the 8.8 magnitude earthquake that rocked Chile Saturday early morning, news anchors were already comparing it with the catastrophic quake that struck Haiti in January. In the initial hours, at least on CNN, coverage seemed to focus not only on reporting the latest breaking news from Chile, but drawing parallels between the two events, without making apparent to viewers the immense differences between the two countries. I waited at least 45 minutes before hearing some sort of qualification to that effect (provided by CNN's Rick Sanchez, who also took it upon himself to simultaneously translate broadcasts from the network's sister channel, CNN Chile).

As someone intimately familiar with the Latin American and Caribbean region, the contrasts struck me even before I heard reports of the damage; on the one hand you have Haiti, the Western Hemisphere's poorest country and, on the other, Chile, Latin America's poster child of economic success and now a member of the OECD, an elite grouping of the world's most developed countries. But I am also aware of the American public's widespread lack of knowledge about countries south of the border. CNN's coverage of the Chile quake seemed to focus mostly on the devastation, the damage, the human tragedy (having already proven itself an expert in tugging America's heartstrings in the wake of the Haiti disaster)—all of which are necessary but not sufficient in explaining a massive and complex event such as a natural disaster.

What made Haiti's 7.0-magnitude quake so much more devastating than Chile's?

While maybe not as soon as I'd hoped, the press later began trying to unravel this question—with a vengeance. Here are articles on this from the AP, TIME, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, Fox News, The Christian Science Monitor and CNN (this not an exhaustive list). News report have zeroed in on a few points, including Chile's preparedness as a nation chronically hit by quakes, particularly in its establishment of sound building codes. But to say that Chile was better prepared because its buildings were made of reinforced steel and concrete barely scratches the surface. I think fundamentally you have to take into account a number of factors, which eventually all boil down to Chile be a richer, more developed country and thus having a government with the capacity to respond to a disaster of this magnitude.

Here is where I disagree with Tim Padgett of TIME, who wrote, "Chile can do things right, Haiti defenders argue, because it's more developed. Wrong. It's the other way around: Chile is more developed because it's doing things right." Wrong, Tim. It's because of both things, which are mutually reinforcing.

So let me present (in order of importance) the factors that I believe adequately explain the differences between the two events. Before doing that, I'd like to reiterate that are both significant tragedies and shouldn't be minimized.

1) Geoseismic factors. The quake in Haiti struck near from the capital city of Port-au-Prince, home to the country's greatest concentration of population and economic activity. Its epicenter was only 8 miles from the surface. Chile's temblor was centered 21 miles below the surface off the coast in a relatively unpopulated area (which led, unfortunately, to the tsunami that caused the greatest number of deaths), although close to Concepcion, the second-largest metropolitan area.

2) Economic development means a government capacity to respond quickly. Chile is a richer country than Haiti by a factor of ten, with a per capita income of $14,900 versus $1,300. Not only does it have well-developed infrastructure such as roads, a power grid and telecommunications system, but its citizens have a higher standard of living: they can afford basic necessities, well-built homes, cars, cable TV, etc,. and they pay taxes to the Chilean government. Chile is home to large companies—both private and state-owned—that also help fill the government's coffers with pesos through taxes. And sound macroeconomic policies have helped sustain modest growth for the past 20 years. Government institutions are therefore not only strong and trusted, but they have the capacity to react by deploying emergency responders, police and national troops. Compare this to Haiti, whose government struggled to provide anything for its citizens even before the earthquake. Afterwards, that capacity was essentially reduced to zero, compounded by the destruction of a large number of government buildings.

3) Earthquakes on the brain. Chile was struck by a massive earthquake in 1960—the largest ever on record—and Chileans, like Californians, have built their homes and lives on ground they know is a little bit shaky. This led to the development of sound building codes, put into practice because Chileans could afford their relatively high cost and enforced because of the capacity of the government to do so with minimal corruption. Haiti, on the other hand, had not suffered a major quake since the 18th century, and instead perpetually prepared (albeit not well) for hurricanes. As some have pointed out, Haitians were used to building dwellings with heavy, concrete roofs to resist high hurricane winds, a practice that turned deadly when those same roofs crumbled.

4) Capacity for recovery. Chile strong economy will be able to bounce back and grow following the earthquake. It is broad and more spread out geographically (obviously Chile is a bigger country), while Port-au-Prince essentially was Haiti and its entire economy. Chile's government will be able to step in and help fund rebuilding efforts—initial estimates of losses range between $15 and 30 billion, Chile's ambassador to the U.N. told the Latin America Advisor—as will the private sector. Early estimates cited by Dow Jones suggest insured losses are within the range of $3 billion to $8 billion, reaching potentially 25 percent of the total. In Haiti, recovery and reconstruction will be funded entirely by foreign donors and remittances from abroad.

Let me close with two additional thoughts.

First, let me address a factor that has factored heavily today in news coverage of the quake in Chile: looting and "a widespread breakdown of social order" in Concepcion (as WSJ put it). While this appears to differ from in Haiti (which did see sporadic looting and unrest at food distribution points), it could just be because in Chile there's actually something to steal, as my IAD colleagues noted today.

Second, it's true that even developed countries can be unprepared and suffer devastation from natural disasters, with Katrina of course being the textbook example. (But who would have expected a flood in New Orleans, really?) So I guess I would argue that being a more developed country gives you the capacity to respond, but doesn't necessarily ensure that you will do so diligently. The U.S. can learn from the quakes in Chile and Haiti—not only to aid other countries in responding to natural disasters, but to help protect our citizens from future calamities.

As one colleague noted today, if the Chilean earthquake shows us anything, it's what California's Big One might look like.

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Accident Waiting to Happen

If you wait long enough without blogging, an appropriate topic will usually present itself. Sometimes it hits you like a broken wrist, a bloody chin and half a tooth knocked out.

I woke up on Friday, January 8 at 8 am, which it just so happens is the time I’m supposed to arrive at work. But Fridays are usually laid back at the office, so I wasn’t too concerned. I did fire off an email to my boss telling him I’d be late, before jumping on my bike for the approximate seven minute ride to work. There had been a light dusting of snow, but once I hit 18 Street everything was clear.

Weaving in and out of lanes, rushing through red lights and narrowly avoiding potholes, I hurtled toward the office in record time. I was the king of the road, leaving other bikers in my dust and pedestrians puzzled as I made the final right turn into the alley behind my building. I had a brief scare when a garbage truck nearly backed into me, but like most bike commuters I shrugged it off with an air of invincibility.

Finally, I started my descent into the lower level parking garage, where I had locked my bike every day for the past year. On the 45-degree ramp, I could see the salt crystals the parking attendant had laboriously sprinkled the night before. “Cold out there?” I’d asked him as I’d left work yesterday. “Yes, it’s supposed to snow tonight. Be safe!” he’d replied ominously.

Nearing the bottom of the ramp, I started to pick up speed and could hear the salt grinding beneath my wheels. Suddenly the grinding stopped, the bike slipped from under me, and I hit the ground face first.

At this point, I should note that although I was wearing head protection, a standard bike helmet doesn’t do much for the face. Perhaps a hockey mask or motorcycle helmet could have provided the necessary prophylaxis, but I have yet to see any cyclist go to such lengths.

I didn’t lose consciousness, but when I opened my eyes I knew there had been some serious damage. I couldn’t feel much pain, but I could see blood on the concrete and had enough sense to realize that I had lost or damaged a tooth. My vision was flickering in and out of black. Without thinking, I dragged my body and bike out of the thoroughfare—leaving a trail of blood on the ground—and propped myself up against a wall. Then I called my boss, who was working from home that morning, and told him to send help from the office. Soon, two of my coworkers arrived and hailed a taxi to take me to the emergency room. Later, one of them said the floor of the parking garage had looked more like a “crime scene” than the site of an accident.

So, you might say, I made it out of the frying pan and into the fire, the latter being the U.S. health care system. Accompanied by one of my coworkers, I arrived at the George Washington University hospital, and made it surprisingly quickly through the waiting room and triage. Finally, I was ushered to the hospital floor and into a small curtained-off area, where I was greeted by a pretty female physician’s assistant. So far so good.

She asked me what had happened and I gave her the short version, telling her I hadn’t blacked out but felt a little woozy and that my arm was either broken or sprained. “Do you know where you are?’ she asked. “Yes,” I replied, hoping to convince her of my lucidity. “Well, where?”

Next they had to X-ray my wrist. An assistant came and wheeled me to radiology like a shopping cart, with my legs sticking off the end of the gurney. He deposited me in a waiting area in the middle of the hall, next to two or three other patients in transit. It was then that the full hospitalness of it all hit me—the smell of sickness and sterility mingling in the air; the other patients, worse off than me, trying desperately to get someone’s attention; doctors, nurses and other employees wandering the halls, always with somewhere to go that wasn’t here.

After the X-ray came the next stop on my bizarre journey: the suture room. Here the pretty PA handed over the reins to a clueless fourth-year medical student, who claimed he had experience sewing people up but was out of practice. “Well, the good news is that your chin laceration appears to be superficial,” he said. “Good, because I’m a very superficial person,” I replied, and we all laughed. But I wasn’t laughing 10 minutes later, when the PA came to over to examine the five stitches he had put in me. “These aren’t good,” she said. “You need to take a bigger bite, like you did on the first one.” I was completely conscious, although they had numbed my chin and put one of those green sterile cloths over me, with a circular cutout over my wound. “Take all of them out except for the first one, and then I’ll show you what I mean,” the PA said.

I was too timid to protest, so he did exactly that. By the time they removed the bad stitches and were finishing up the new ones, I had almost completely regained sensation in the affected area. “Just one more!” the medical student said, as I writhed with every prick of the needle.

They finished with the stitches, and decided now would be a good time to tell me I had fractured my radius. They fixed me up in a splint, and a nurse came around with some Percocet, since the shock had worn off and I was now beginning to feel a modest amount of pain in my right wrist. When I complained that I was also feeling some pain in my left arm, they ordered a second X-ray, which took another 20 minutes and came back negative.

As far as my chipped tooth, which was becoming highly sensitive and painful, they offered little advice, like it wasn’t even part of my body. As the nurse went over the discharge with me, I said, “I guess I’ll have to go see the dentist about this,” barely eliciting a response.

Then, I was back on the street, flagging down a taxi to take me home. All in all, I was in pretty good shape, but still needed help around the house, especially with my arm immobilized in a sling. Luckily, my girlfriend flew in for the weekend to take care of me, which turned out to be the best thing to come out of the entire episode.

Now, a week later, I’m making a fast recovery. My tooth is repaired, my stitches removed, and finally, after a week of trying to find an orthopedist and being rejected by GW hospital, I got a nice, blue cast to match the color of my eyes.

I only have to wait six weeks for it to heal; hopefully, it won’t take that long to come up with a new idea for a blog.

Brazil Under Scrutiny

Brazil is assuming a new economic and political prominence on the world stage—"taking off," as the editors of The Economist would have us believe.

A combination of a booming economy, a stable political environment and a growing middle class—plus the luck of finding 50+ billion barrels off its coast—have made Latin America's largest country both a good place to do business and a regional powerhouse. Brazil has also become a leader on issues of global concern: clean energy, the world financial system (through participation in the G-20, and now as a creditor to the IMF), and the Doha round of world trade talks.

Most recently, the country won its bid to host the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro—the first time the games will be held in South America and only the second time in Latin America. In the end, apparently International Olympic Committee members found Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva's calls for redressing the "imbalance" of the Games more convincing than Obama's description of Chicago's "rich tapestry" of diversity.

The moment the IOC awarded the Games to Rio, the press and pundits began asking if Brazil was actually ready to host what is arguably the world's most prominent sporting event (save, perhaps, for the soccer World Cup, which Rio will host in 2014), citing lingering concerns about security and infrastructure. These folks must have felt quite vindicated when Brazil received international coverage in October for a major drug gang war that broke out in Rio, killing at least 32, and a blackout last week that left parts of 18 Brazilian states in the dark (oh, plus the entire nation of Paraguay, which luckily is not bidding on the Games any time soon—Ciudad del Este 2024!).

My guess is the "Olympics card" will continue to be played in nearly every article on Brazil in the international media over the next seven years. That certainly won't be a deviation from the past; both times the Games were held in the developing world—Mexico in 1968 and China in 2008—issues of whether these countries were economically, politically and culturally ready played into the debate (Note: Sarajevo, which was part of Yugoslavia when it hosted the 1984 Winter Games, is now part of Bosnia and Herzegovina, considered a developing country).

The spotlight of the Olympics could also focus scrutiny on other aspects of Brazilian policy. While Brazil is domestically stable and a regional leader, one possible area of contention is its ties with Iran. The two countries have long maintained a substantial trade relationship, which totaled $2 billion in 2007, quadrupling from 2002. Brazilian exports to Iran about as high as those from nearer neighbors India and Turkey, according to Farideh Farhi, an Iran expert at the University of Hawaii. In addition, Lula was one of few leaders to speak out in support of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad following the latter's widely contested victory in Iran's June presidential election. He's also defended Iran's right to a peaceful nuclear program.

And next week, the windbreaker-wearing Ahmadinejad will visit Brazil for the first time ever, raising concerns in both Washington and Jerusalem. The US Congress last month held a hearing on Iran's role in Latin America. While the timing was a coincidence (the hearing had been postponed from earlier in the summer), Rep. Eliot Engel (D-N.Y.), who heads the subcommittee that deals with U.S. policy in the Western Hemisphere, had this to say:

When Venezuela expands its relations with Iran, I may not like it, but I chalk it up to President Chavez and his altered sense of the world. But, when Brazil expands its ties to Iran—just as the world is trying to deal with the secretive Iranian nuclear program—I’m left bewildered. Brazil is a rapidly modernizing country which wants to join the UN Security Council and be a world leader. I truly hope Brazil reaches that point, but expanding ties to Ahmadinejad, who denies the Holocaust and calls for the destruction of another nation-state, Israel, is not the way to get there. In the future, I think we have to expand our dialogue with Brazil on the dangerous role of Iran and encourage our friends in Brasilia to reconsider their ties with Tehran.

Last week, Israel dispatched its aging president, Shimon Peres, to Brazil, where he urged Brazilian legislators to be a "voice against terror" and condemn both Iran's alleged funding of terrorist groups like Hamas and Hezbollah and professed desire to destroy the Jewish state. In a joint press conference with Peres, Lula condemned terrorism but defended Ahmadinejad's visit: "You can't build the peace necessary in the Middle East if you don't talk to all of political and religious forces that want peace or oppose peace."

Could any good come from Ahmadinejad's visit? Perhaps the best to hope for are a few public condemnations from Lula of intolerance and terrorism plus some private efforts to push Iran on the intentions of its nuclear program. Lula's top foreign policy adviser said in August that both the US and Israel have asked Brazil to "exercise its influence" on Iran regarding the nuclear issue. It's worth noting that Brazil has its own nuclear program, complete with a uranium enrichment facility, and has so far opposed signing the International Atomic Energy Agency's additional protocol on nuclear safeguards, to which Iran is already a signatory.

But don't expect Lula to criticize Iran directly. In fact, one parallel might be Obama's approach to his China visit; while putting the economic and trade aspects of the relationship with China first, Obama is engaging the Asian country more quietly on issues like human rights, Tibet and treatment of ethnic minorities. He has avoided criticizing Beijing's policies openly, but in a town hall meeting with Chinese students sought to share America's "core" values—"freedoms of expression and worship, of access to information and political participation." He also promised to discuss those issues in private meetings with Chinese officials.

Perhaps Lula can in his public appearances with Ahmadinejad uphold Brazilian values like tolerance and peace, while in private coax Iran to act on some of the promises it has recently made to the international community.

Burning the Midnight Oil; or, A Blog is Risen

It's Halloween night, and I'm breathing life back into this blog, which has lain dormant for over eight months. Spooky, I know.

From now on, I hope to write more frequently and informally in an effort to achieve this blog's original goal, which was not to write insightful commentary or recount the travails of travels but rather to improve my writing through practice. While these days I get to do a lot more writing at work, I definitely miss having an outlet for personal reflection and sharing thoughts with others.

I'm starting with a few words about my most recent obsession: The Prize, Daniel Yergin's Pulitzer Prize-winning history of oil and its impact on civilization during the 130 or so years since its widespread commercialization. This is a book that I felt drawn to in part because of my burgeoning interest in energy journalism, which itself is predicated on a realization of the importance of oil and other sources of energy as a driver of our local, national and global economy. With the Senate preparing to take up climate change legislation soon and global efforts to reduce carbon emissions slated to culminate in Copenhagen in December, our energy consumption and production patterns will likely experience major changes in the years ahead. In order to understand where we are and where we're going, I figure it's key to understand how we got here.

Mind you I'm only on page 100 (out of 908 in all and 773 of text), but I'm already fascinated by the story of oil; it's easy to get wrapped up in the "oil enthusiasm" that so captured the hopes and dreams of those who hoped to strike it rich, and the few who actually did so. As Yergin points out, the story of oil is closely tied to the story of capitalism at every twist and turn, in all its positive and negative connotations. Not only do you have the John D. Rockefeller who built up an empire from a modest produce and meat trading business, but also the one who ruthlessly gobbled up competitors who agreed to absorption and drove those out of business who refused.

I didn't know that oil was first commercialized primarily for kerosene, or that the nascent oil drilling business originated in western Pennsylvania (followed soon after by Baku in present-day Azerbaijan). It's hard not to admire those visionaries who realized that the future of the oil business was in integration; it was fruitless to control distribution and refining if you didn't have control over production, and vice versa. The barons of industry realized they had to control it all, and their efforts quickly transformed into oil companies still recognizable today: Royal Dutch, Shell, Gulf, Texaco, Sun. Later, the breakup of the Standard Oil Trust would lead to another set of familiar players: Exxon, Mobil, Chevron, Amoco, Continental and others.

Still, at that point in the game, the early twentieth century, oil was primarily used as an illuminant, although the automobile industry was rapidly opening up a new market. While a catalyst for wealth and progress, oil had not yet reached the point of geopolitical significance. To put it another way: oil was a maker of men, but not yet of a maker of nations.

Describing the efforts of Shell magnate Marcus Samuel to popularize oil as a fuel for transport, Yergin writes: "Here, on the eve of the twentieth century, he looked ahead to prophesy, and rightly so, that oil's great future would be not as a source of illumination, but as a source of power."

I'm not sure if Yergin intended "power" here to have a double meaning, but it certainly encompasses two Merriam Webster definitions: "a source or means of supplying energy" and "possession of control, authority, or influence over others."

It's hard to imagine a world economy that didn't hinge on oil, but that was the panorama at the beginning of the twentieth century. (As Yergin notes in his introduction, a crucial moment in the history of oil came later, on the eve of the First World War, when Winston Churchill, then Britain's Home Secretary, decided to refit the Royal Navy to run on fuel oil instead of coal.) State-owned oil companies, which today are some of the biggest players in the oil business didn't yet have a rationale for existence; a Hugo Chavez or a Lazaro Cardenas (who nationalized Mexico's oil sector) were not only unimaginable but unnecessary.

Even if the world one day finds a way to replace its oil habit, it's likely that access to energy resources (whether from hydroelectric, geothermal, solar or wind power or biofuels) will still underpin the global economy and drive geopolitics. However nostalgic or indulgent, it's nonetheless striking to look back on a world where oil was just oil and not yet "a source of power."

25 Things About Me

In response to a recent Facebook/Internet trend, I've decided to have a go at this "25 Random Things" post. I hope it will leave you who are reading this at least somewhat surprised about what you don't know about me and also touched by my deep-down complexity. I know I'm not what I seem at the outset; that's what makes me so much better than you.

Rules: Once you've been tagged, you are supposed to write a note with 25 random things, facts, habits, or goals about you. At the end, choose 25 people to be tagged. You have to tag the person who tagged you. If I tagged you, it's because I want to know more about you.

(To do this, go to “notes” under tabs on your profile page, paste these instructions in the body of the note, type your 25 random things, tag 25 people (in the right hand corner of the app) then click publish.)

1. I prefer the British version of the Office to the American one.

2. My favorite meal ever was a delectable paella in Torremolinos. I love Spanish cuisine.

3. If I write a book one day, it would probably be non-fiction.

4. As a kid I read any comic book I could get my hands on. My favorites were "X-Men" and "The Flash."

5. In 11th grade, my ASVAB test results predicted I would be a journalist.

6. I HATE Michael Moore.

7. I experienced my first kiss in eighth grade on a bus trip to Orlando with the school band.

8. I love writing letters.

9. Despite having a number of girlfriends who considered themselves to be Jewish, I've never actually dated a girl who had two Jewish parents. Just a bunch of half-breeds.

10. Although I've traveled to seven countries outside of the US, every single one of them was a Spanish-speaking country.

11. If I could learn to speak any other language besides Spanish, it would have to be Hebrew.

12. When I was a teacher, I was once accused of deliberately failing to administer medicine to a kid.

13. I walk slow and run fast.

14. One thing that really pisses me off is when someone says "Thank you" but the other person, instead of replying "Your welcome," says "Thank YOU." There's too much thanking and not enough acceptance of thanks going on in this world.

15. One of my ancestors was a Dutch settler in Pernambuco, Brazil. He and his family fled to New Amsterdam (later New York) when the Portuguese took control of the area.

16. When I was in 4th grade, I got sent to the "Headmistress's Office" for flicking off a teacher.

17. My favorite author is Don DeLillo. I consider White Noise a masterpiece.

18. I once dated a Marxist, but she refused to burn me a copy of a Pixies cd.

19. I liked Craig Kilborn better as the host of the Daily Show. Sorry, Jon Stuart Leibowitz.

20. The first dog I ever had was named Max. He used to lick himself "down there" and my mom would say he was just doing doggy aerobics.

21. When I was six, I tried some doggy aerobics of my own with less-than-stellar results.

22. Lots of people think I'm shy. But if you're one of those people, I'm probably just not talking because I don't like you.

23. The only sport I watch religiously is college basketball. Why? Because I went to Duke, and no one escapes that experience without becoming a fan.

24. I travel most weekends, so I could not live without my Garmin GPS. Thank you, God, for giving us Garmin.

25. I'm not as gullible as you are. Only 14 is true. 16 is close, except that it actually happened in kindergarten.

Ask the Experts

There's a symbiotic relationship between journalists and experts: in order to survive, they need each other.

What good is a news story if it doesn't provide expert analysis of an issue from multiple sides? And what makes an expert more credible than being quoted in major news media outlets?

Although this relationship is mutually beneficial, the roles of both the journalist and the expert must be clear-cut. We should not allow the line between news and opinion to be shamelessly blurred as so often happens on 24-hour "news" channels.

I've worked for the past six months at the intersection these two worlds. As a reporter for a daily newsletter published by one of the top twenty-five most-cited think tanks in US media, I work alongside experts who routinely field questions from the AP, Reuters, BBC and even Al-Jazeera English. One of them even made it into my mom's local paper, The Corning Leader: now that's notoriety.

A journalist's job is to report the facts, but "just the facts" doesn't always suffice. Sometime you want to recount what happened and who said what, but you also want to examine the event's significance or implications for the benefit of your readers. Since journalists are supposed to abstain from voicing their own opinions, that means calling in a third party: the expert. These usually consist of academics, stakeholders, corporate analysts or an eminent scholar with such-and-such think tank. As long as you make sure you're giving equal space to differing points of view, the job of the journalist amounts to something like a referee.

From the perspective of the expert, the relationship is also attractive. He gets his name in print plus validation for his opinion and a boost in credibility. Other reporters start to call and this can create somewhat of a feedback loop. The danger here is that one bad choice of commentator by a journalist can validate someone on the fringes of credibility, and other media outlets could propagate that if they don't double-check their sources.

There are a couple of ways in which the line between journalist and expert can become blurred.

The first happens often enough: a reporter, by virtue of witnessing an event firsthand, takes on the role of "expert" in a conversation with a newscaster who is farther removed from the action. This arrangement is peculiar to radio and television, in which journalists are charged not only with creating prepared reports (the limit of print journalism) but engaging in real-time conversation about the news. Take, for instance, this report from PRI's The World, in which Jeff Barbee, a journalist for the Global Post in South Africa, describes first-hand the situation on the ground in Zimbabwe in the midst of a cholera outbreak last December. Barbee does a good job of fielding the newscaster's questions by citing specific sources, including MSF and members of the Zimbabwean military. His job is to recount events, not to analyze them.

When this can turn ugly is when journalists are brought on camera or radio to speculate instead of report facts. This is what happens 24/7 on cable news, where so-called journalists from reputable media outlets like The New York Times, The Washington Post or Politico, sometimes take on the role of pundit, providing their views and analysis on the day's news without distinguishing between fact, speculation and opinion. The trifecta noted above actually appeared this week on PBS's The News Hour, of all places; reporters from each of these publications shared their thoughts about why TurboTax-challenged Tom Daschle and Nancy Killefer withdrew their nominations for Cabinet posts. The problem with that segment is that each "reporter" gave their own analysis (i.e., opinion) on the situation, which included speculation about whether the Obama team had asked these two nominees to step down--something that had no basis in fact (they did acknowledged that).

If news organizations need someone to provide speculation they should call either upon independent experts or on their own "political analysts," which many of the networks do have these days (CNN Senior Political Analyst, etc.). Obviously PBS has a more limited budget so perhaps that explains why they turned reporters into experts.

Another type of overlap that often occurs is when journalists retire or take leaves of absence to work as "experts" in their specialized field. I've seen this happen in DC when individuals who once served as foreign correspondents for their country's own newspapers then flip the coin and emerge as director of a prominent policy center or think tank. One time, while I was attending a a panel discussion, one of these people asked a question and I was stumped as to whether he was asking it as a journalist or a policy wonk.

One sure thing is that for journalists, having a close relationship with some experts in your field is beneficial not only because it can provide you with handy quotes, but because it helps provide the background necessary to fully grasp your subject.

It may seem contradictory, but to be a good journalist is to be an expert in your chosen field. The difference is that, in print or on the air, your efforts should be focused exclusively on telling the story.

And if you don't want to keep your opinions to yourself, go work at a think tank.

Inauguration Ups, Downs, and In-Betweens

In order to fulfill my new pledge to post every other Wednesday, I'm providing this brief recap of inauguration festivities. Besides watching the parade on TV Tuesday afternoon, I didn't follow any media coverage of the events, so consider this a true first-person account.

Ups

- The swearing-in ceremony. Short, sweet, historical, and best of all, no more Bush! The audio was muddled so I didn't quite catch the oath of office snafu, but I did breathe a collective sigh of relief with millions of other Americans at knowing our country is in the hands of a different leadership.

- The opening of the "We Are One" Inaugural concert with Springsteen singing "The Rising." I always kind of liked this song, although I don't think it (and the album to which it lends its title) is really considered top Springsteen material. However, taking into consideration that the song was inspired by September 11th, the choice of the "The Rising"--in combination with its fire imagery and the accompanying gospel choir decked out in red--evoked an image of America the Phoenix rising from the ashes of the Bush days.

- My brisk walk home after the inauguration. After trying to exit the Mall to the north, I eventually gave up due to the crowds. Then I headed south from the Washington monument until I hit I-395, which was closed to traffic. So began the walk of a lifetime....Since I was familiar with the route, which I use on weekend roadtrips, I decided to take 395 all the way to its terminus at New York Avenue and continue on to my house. On the way, I experienced a scene out of a zombie movie as crowds of people swarmed into the tunnels searching for a way out of the city center.

In-Betweens

- Alas, I'm putting Obama's inaugural speech in this category. After all the hype and comparisons to Lincoln, FDR, and Kennedy I expected Obama's speech to leave something for posterity, a quote that would live on alongside "We have nothing to fear..." and "Ask not...." Listening to the speech I found little substance, although I was moved by his promise that America is "ready to lead once more."

- I found the invocation given by New Hampshire clergyman Gene Robinson at Sunday's concert and the one given by Rev. Rick Warren to be strikingly different. Putting aside the hubbub about the preachers' differing views on homosexuality, the former struck me as what a prayer at a governmental event should be--appealing to those qualities we know live within us, although sometimes we fail to achieve them--as opposed to Warren's, which called upon God to solve our own problems. In Robinson's speech, however, I did find comedy in the fact that he followed up "our new president is a human being, not a messiah" with "And God, we give you thanks for your child Barack." As for Warren's, I of course noted his inclusion of the Sh'ma, the Jews' holiest prayer, which for some reason alienated me almost as much as his appeal to "the one who changed my life, Yeshua, Isa, Jesus, Jesús." It's a reflection of narrow-mindedness that he interpreted "diversity" as naming Jesus in a few languages, and limiting himself to Judeo-Christian beliefs. On the other hand, at a time like this it's important to note that roughly 79 percent of Americans consider themselves to be Christian, which seemed to be borne out by the large number of people around me who joined in to recite the Lord's Prayer.

- Seeing Bush walk out was a mixed bag. Although I'm glad that idiot is finally out of the White House, I did find it rather disrespectful that many in the crowd started booing him (although they may have been chanting "boo-ush," I'm not sure). To me, it brought back the image of Republicans booing Obama during McCain's concession speech, even as McCain tried, characteristically, to get them to stop. Few seemed to agree with my philosophy at Tuesday's inauguration, except for one bystander who chided the booers, shaking his head and muttering: "Come on now. You gotta respect the position!" Maybe we all need to find a little McCain inside of ourselves.

- Although I attended the inauguration alone, at least there were more than 1 million other people there with me!

Downs

- My trek to the Mall on Tuesday morning was an exercise in futility, although it did reveal good results in the end. I took the metro at first to Chinatown, only to find the Mall was blocked from the north, due to the security blockade around Pennsylvania Avenue--the inaugural parade route. "The only way to get there is to walk around or go under," one official told me. "Okay, so what's the best way to get to the Washington monument?" I asked in response. "I'm from California," she said, "how should I know?" So I hopped on the metro again and took it south to L'Enfant plaza, where I de-trained only to find the station's exits clogged with bodies, which meant people were waiting as far back as the train platform to get above ground. I felt trapped and overwhelmed at the thought that I couldn't even get out if I wanted to. Eventually I went out the less-crowded back exit, and once above ground, diverged from the crowd as soon as possible. Thus I made my way to the Southwest waterfront and followed that up to the Washington monument to claim my place in history.

- On my way home, I resolved to buy some Obama buttons for posterity, to have something (along with this blog posting) to prove to my kids that I was there. At a neighborhood church on the corner on New York Ave and 4th Street NW, I bought three buttons with Obama's face on them, but at an exorbitant price. Ten dollars for three small pieces of history...that's American entrepreneurship at work! Oh well, at least I steered clear of the Obama commemorative plate!

Interview With a President

In five months I went from tying second graders' shoes to interviewing the former president of the world's 13th largest economy.

I met Vicente Fox, Mexico's president from 2000 to 2006, in a dreary board room overlooking the Missouri River. We sat down face to face -- he a washed-up world leader trying to maintain his relevance, and me, a nervous kid itching in a cut-rate Men's Wearhouse suit. On our left, we could see the "Mighty Mo'," filtered through a fog that never seemed to disappear the whole time I was in Omaha.

I had arrived in Omaha the previous night, my mind permanently swamped with the daunting task of interviewing a figure I perceived as nearly superhuman. What questions should I ask? How should I ask them? How in the mere fifteen minutes allotted to me could I establish the rapport and the confidence necessary to probe him on more difficult questions? And, perhaps most importantly, would we converse in English or Spanish?

With the help of my colleagues on the "editorial staff" I had come up with an outline of five general topics: the ex-president’s new presidential library and think tank "Centro Fox", his impressions on free-trade and the President-elect’s campaign promise to renegotiate NAFTA, the outlook for cooperation between Mexico and the US under the new Obama Administration, his thoughts on crime and security in Mexico, and an assessment of the internal political situation south of the border.

To research these topics, I spent hours poring over interviews Fox had given in recent days, particularly a CNN interview with Wolf Blitzer, and a roundtable discussion on NPR the day following the US election. I was at first taken aback by Wolf Blitzer's lack of patience with Fox, asking him a question and then moments later cutting him off mid sentence. I later learned that the "big-shot interview," as one fellow journalist called it, is as much about negotiating the conversation as it is about asking the right questions.

I spent the entire day on Tuesday in preparation, re-reading my notes, searching Google News for statements Fox had made to the Mexican media. My interview was scheduled for 3 pm and around 2:15 I hopped on the valet shuttle to the site indicated by my press contact, Gallup University, which is not a university at all, but the headquarters of the Gallup Organization, which in addition to polling, manages a worldwide business consultancy.

It was here that Fox had come to meet Gallup's CEO, I later learned, to confirm a deal between Gallup and the Centro Fox to hold joint forums on leadership development in Mexico, and to make Gallup polling data available to Fox’s research center. I stated my purpose at the front desk and was ushered to a chair alongside a rotund woman, who told me she was a reporter for the Associated Press.

“How do you like the AP?” I asked. For a reporter, she was unexpectedly stolid. “It’s alright,” she said, tight-lipped. I figured this was a good opportunity to improve my small talk skills in anticipation of the big enchilada.

“Do you work all the time? Is it a round-the-clock job?” When I'm around reporters I always feel like they know something about this job that I don't, and I vacillate between trying to prove I know what I'm doing and, conversely, asking a ton of questions about the job I'm supposed to know how to do. She opened up a little but, telling me about her beat—immigration and refugee communities in Omaha—and eventually the press person came to herd us into another waiting area.

Minutes later, Fox, trailed by is wife, handlers, and bodyguards (who, oddly, wore suit jackets on top of turtlenecks), strutted into the boardroom where he would receive reporters. The handlers ushered the AP woman in, and I learned that I was to be Fox's third and final interview before he was off to speak at a public engagement in Omaha’s Orpheum Theater. He was already running late and one of the handlers told me he'd have to leave the building at 3:25, which seemed to pretty much reduce my time to nil. But the aide reassured me I would get my fifteen minutes, echoing Andy Warhol's now famous pop culture prediction.

Before I knew it they came for me, and rushed me into the boardroom to an immediate confrontation with Fox, a large, confident cowboy with a mustache leaping off the sides of his narrow face. To put it plainly, I was nervous as hell.

I greeted him with a stuttering "Buenos dias," to which he immediately corrected me. "Buenas tardes," he said. "It’s the afternoon." Surely judging my Spanish to be inferior, he spoke to me from then on in lilted English reminiscent of Speedy Gonzalez.

I asked him first about what he was doing in Nebraska and his Centro Fox, as my superiors had wisely suggested. He warmed to this, but the now the problem was getting him to shut up before he wasted all of the time. As he rambled on about the Centro Fox and its goals I got increasingly worried that he was hijacking the entire piñata.

Suddenly I realized what I had to do. I summoned Wolf Blitzer. In the most diplomatic way I could, I cut him off—or tried to at least. He continued talking, but wrapped up his sentence, sensing my urgency to get on with it. From that moment on, I tried to control the conversation better, setting the ground rules for every topic by saying "You've said..." (e.g., you've called President Calderon's energy reform 'pyrrhic and small').

As much as I tried to dig deeper, I struggled to maintain depth considering the breadth of topics I had established for conversation. More often than not, by the time I felt comfortable with the topic and ready to ask a tougher, more probing question, my watch -- or a glare across the room from one of Fox's handlers -- told me it was time to move on.

Finally, one of his aides told me my time was up. Not wanting to miss a good photo op, I took advantage of the break in the conversation to snap a photo of Vicente and me. Then I followed him down the hall with my voice recorder in hand, trying to get a few final quotes on Mexico's energy reform (a Gallup aide later said I looked like a "young Tom Friedman").

And that was it: "adiós." My first big shot interview concluded in less than 15 minutes. On the whole, I thought it could have gone better, but it definitely taught me some lessons for next time. In any case, the article ultimately came out well, and both my bosses seemed happy with the end result.

Gracias, Señor Presidente.

What I Want in a President

Three more days until North Carolina goes to the polls, and signs of the impending election are everywhere: yard signs, bulk mailings, TV commercials -- even "personal" emails from candidates arriving daily to our inboxes (Michelle Obama, you've been warned). The wave we've been surfing for the last two years is coming to a crest (albeit preliminary), and it's got me pondering what exactly I want in the next president. Let me start simple:

1. First of all, he or she should be a human being. Too many dystopian visions of the future point to sentient machines, extra-terrestrials, or even newts as the cause of humanity's downfall (that's newts not Newt). Let's not make the same mistake when we go to the ballot boxes on Tuesday.

2. Our next president should be someone who has no political, familial, or amicable ties to any other human being on Earth. As recent developments in electoral politics have made perfectly clear, having a friend, neighbor, pastor, mother, or former roommate is simply a liability in this day and age. Why waste your vote on a candidate who at some point in his/her life came into contact with a private individual holding incendiary political views? The consequences for our nation would be disastrous: war, job losses, economic downturn -- these possibilities are too scary to risk. Better we choose someone so unconnected to human society, so untainted by the faults of man, that no one can bring him/her down. In short, something like...say...a newt? Damn.

3. He or she must be a bestselling author who has written at least two books, preferably with a shared byline. These books must be longer than 300 pages and capable of numbing the most devout reader into a coma of sublime dispassion.

4. Our new president must be willing to negotiate with America's enemies. Instead of the cowboy diplomacy of the Bush Administration, this country needs a better way to solve disputes with Iran, North Korea, Syria, Al-Qaeda, Al-Qaeda in Iraq, Al-Qaeda in Dayton, the Taliban, skinheads, drug dealers, Fidel Castro's cryogenically frozen brain, ExxonMobil, and other parties hell-bent on the destruction of the United States of America. Instead of talking of "obliterating" our enemies (what's next...vaporizing?), we should be inviting them to the negotiating table to discuss ways to compromise on key issues. Our new president should be briefed in state-of-the-art negotiation strategies (waterboarding), but not afraid to fall back on time-tested tactics for breaking a stalemate. In particular, I'm referring to "Rock, Paper, Scissors", which anyone above the age of seven knows can be a powerful tool for conflict resolution. America is ready for a shift from cowboy diplomacy to "playground diplomacy"; we need a president who will stand up to bullies, and prevent them from raining down suicide wedgies on innocent American citizens at home and abroad.

5. We need a president who appeals to all sectors of the population, not just a few narrow constituencies. Our next president should be able to unite diverse groups within the American population, from middle-class factory workers of Caucasoid origin to the Association of Arugula-eating African Americans (AAAA). It's no secret that small-town Americans are bitter, and when they get bitter they cling to guns and religion, and when they cling to guns and religion, well...let's just say they start kicking some ass in the name of God.

I could go on, but these five characteristics will suffice for the time being. Now it's time for you, the reader and potential voter, to append your own suggestions for our next president. Together we can assure America's future...

Say "no" to newts!

Bush loses road map; refuses to ask for directions

Remember the road map? Not the Rand McNally under your driver's seat with the sun-bleached cover and tattered pages; I'm talking about the 2003 plan by the quartet (Russia - bass, U.S - baritone., E.U. - tenor I, U.N. - tenor II) that was supposed to tame that languishing, 50-year-old beast known as the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Despite the Bush Administration's last-ditch attempt to claim some kind of progress in negotiations, the reality is that both sides, Israel and the Palestinian Authority, have fallen short of their promised obligations. Israel continues to build new settlements, and the Palestinian leadership is unable to stop terrorism. Both sides need to be held accountable, and the way to make that happen is to impose either incentives or consequences on both parties. Right now, Israel basically does whatever it wants, arguing for the right to defend itself in the face of rocket attacks by Hamas and Islamic Jihad. But Israel's actions, both by continuing settlement expansion and constant "collective punishment" meted out to Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank also play a part in prolonging the conflict. Israel, much like the Bush Administration on Iran, refuses to negotiate with Hamas if stated preconditions are not met, in this case the end of all terrorist attacks on Israeli citizens and a recognition of Israel's right to exist. While I personally think that Israel does have the right to exist, the only way to get Hamas to change its position is through engagement and negotiation, in order to achieve something like Egypt's recognition of Israel as part of their 1979 peace treaty. Instead of negotiating, Israel cuts off food and fuel supplies to Gaza, which only makes Palestinians more determined to strike back.

I want a president who is willing not just to placate both sides like Bush, but to openly criticize Israel and Palestine when they fall short of commitments. We need incentives and consequences in place for both sides; U.S. foreign aid is a good place to start. Israel has long been the largest beneficiary of U.S. foreign aid; it currently receives over $2.5 billion a year in primarily military aid, which is now scheduled to gradually increase to $3 billion per year within a decade. This dwarfs all other foreign contributions (except Iraq), but aid to the West Bank-Gaza didn't even make the top 15 (it did in 1995). The Administration requested $77 million for the Palestinian Territories for fiscal year 2008, about 3% of the Israeli figure (which consists mostly of military aid anyway). We've learned in Iraq that throwing money at people can make them switch sides fairly quickly; why not invest in Palestine and build some political capital?

No more bending over to AIPAC. No more fear of being "soft" on Israel. I want a president who is willing to challenge the status quo and not back down when either side falls short of its commitment. I am desperately pro-Israel; that is, I want to ensure the survival of the State of Israel. The only way to guarantee that is through peace.

The Posthumous Genocide

"...history has a way of intruding upon the present..."

- Dee Brown, Bury My Heart At Wounded Knee

Ninety-year-old ghosts made a haunt of American foreign policy last week, when the House Foreign Affairs Committee passed a resolution to label as genocide the Ottoman Empire's systematic murder and deportation of Armenians between the years of 1915 and 1923. Suddenly the slaughter of the Armenians -- already considered by many (like Samantha Power, author of "A Problem from Hell": American and the Age of Genocide) to be the first genocide of the 20th century -- became a hot button political issue, with the President warning that the bill's passage in the House "would do great harm to our relations with a key ally in NATO and in the global war on terror." Tom Lantos, head of the House Foreign Affairs Committee and the only Holocaust survivor ever to serve in the U.S. House, also noted the levity of the situation, stating, "We have to weigh the desire to express our solidarity with the Armenian people...against the risk that it could cause young men and women in the uniform of the United States armed services to pay an even heavier price than they are currently paying." Indeed, Turkey's president Abdullah Gul called the genocide vote invalid and unacceptable, and withdrew the Turkish ambassador from Washington. The row further complicates an already tense moment between the two countries, as the Turkish government threatens incursions into northern Iraq to hunt down members of the PKK, a Kurdish separatist group.

(In what might come as no surprise, the president of Armenia welcomed the House committee's decision.)

Although the Ottoman Empire's campaign against the Armenians predates the term "genocide" by nearly thirty years, it meets the fundamental condition laid out in the 1948 U.N. Genocide Convention; i.e., it was prosecuted with "intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial, or religious group." The Convention in addition outlines the following acts, any of which can constitute genocide if committed with intent to wipe out the target group:

(a) Killing members of the group;
(b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;
(c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;
(d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group
(e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.

In "A Problem from Hell", Samantha Power notes what she calls the "numbers problem;" that there is not, nor can there ever be, a consensus on how many deaths or forced migrations amount to genocide. But Raphael Lemkin, the jurist who coined the term and lobbied ceaselessly for an international ban on genocide, and the other authors of the Genocide Convention sought to deter this criticism, establishing instead the imperative of intent. "By focusing on the perpetrators' intentions and whether they were attempting to destroy a collective," she writes, "the law's drafters thought they might ensure that diagnosis of and action against genocide would not come too late."

The fact that the U.N. Genocide convention was not ratified by the United States until 1988 (and even then with significant reservations) reveals the underlying fear that submitting to international law could weaken America's sovereignty. Some worried its broad language could be used to prosecute Americans for their treatment of blacks under Jim Crow, or perhaps its eradication of Native Americans during the 19th century.

It is the latter issue that Ward Churchill takes up in his 1997 book A Little Matter of Genocide: Holocaust and Denial in the Americas 1492 to Present. Churchill argues that the destruction of Native American peoples and their culture constitutes genocide, and the lack of admission on the part of the U.S. government and its people constitutes denial. According to a 1999 review, Churchill (himself a Native American activist) goes on to suggest amending the U.N. Convention to include non-lethal acts that weaken the target group's viability, a definition which goes back to Lemkin's initial elaboration of genocide.

While I haven't read Churchill's 531-page tome on the subject, I just finished Dee Brown's Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee, which got me wondering why the systematic destruction and confinement of American Indians is never referred to as genocide. Brown focuses his narrative on the period between 1860 and 1890, culminating in a massacre at Wounded Knee Creek, where the U.S. Cavalry killed between 153 and 300 Sioux, that heralded the end of major resistance by prominent Sioux chiefs. Bury My Heart is a tragic (and, at times, boring) book because it tells practically the same story in every one of its nineteen chapters, though place and time vary: Indian chiefs who grudgingly make treaties with the U.S. government to preserve their tribal lands are eventually betrayed or forced to "re-negotiate" due to the proliferation of white settlement and mining. The options then left to the Indians are to fight an ultimately futile resistance, flee to Mexico or Canada, or capitulate to life on a reservation, where the government's promises of arable land, food, and supplies usually fall short.

Does this miserable refrain add up to genocide? Did the U.S. government ultimately wield the intent to destroy the Native American population -- "in whole or in part" -- that is a precondition for genocide under the 1948 Convention (which, by the way, is not retroactive)? Though Bury My Heart is filled with characters who, like General Philip Henry Sheridan, believed that the only good Indians were dead ones, it was not the policy of the U.S. government to systematically exterminate Native Americans. The unifying tenet of Indian policy during this period instead seems to fall under section (c) of Article 2 of the Genocide Convention: "Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part." The government moved Indians to the least desirable land and, in the process, destroyed their way of life. They were forced to become farmers on land too barren for farming, and thus condemned to partial extinction; the survivors, to perpetual marginalization.

The recent controversy about the Armenian genocide illustrates the impact changing historical perception can have on the present. Genocide carries with it huge moral baggage; neither Turkey nor the United States would like to bear that burden. And while referring to an event or events as genocide certainly empowers the victims of that atrocity with appropriate recognition and perhaps an opportunity to seek compensation, those who stand to benefit most are the members of the majority group. Americans shouldn't have to read Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee to recognize the campaign against our country's native peoples as one of systematic destruction and repression; it should be taught explicitly in schools and openly compared to twentieth-century genocides. The current generation of twenty- and thirty-somethings is largely untainted by the Hollywood imagery of the savage Indian, which so permeated the culture of our parents' generation. Yet nothing we learned in school accurately represented the true nature of the Native American genocide or the pitiable state in which many Indians still live.

Calling it a genocide has the potential to change that. It might make us uncomfortable, but it's time to let history intrude.

S-Chip on the Shoulder

Yes, it's true: George Bush hates America's children. As if the president wasn't unpopular already (his "disapproval rating" is hovering around 66%), Bush decides to veto a bill that would expand the State Children's Health Insurance Program, started in 1997 to fund health care for low-income children who fall above the poverty line and are thus not eligible for Medicaid. The new bill, which passed with bipartisan support in the House and Senate, calls for an increase in funding of $35 billion over five years for the program.

It's time to wake up: the war in Iraq is costing $1.8 billion a week, which makes the SCHIP funding a meager 5 months' worth. Unlike that war money -- which comes not out of the budget but emergency funding measures -- the SCHIP funding would actually be paid for by raising taxes, the cigarette tax, that is. Fund health care for those who need it, and decrease costs to the health care system by discouraging smoking -- almost sounds like a no brainer, huh?

Sure, the above treatment of the SCHIP debate boils it down into black and white. So let's consider Bush's argument, laid out in a speech to the Lancaster, Pa. Chamber of Commerce:

"The policies of the government ought to be, help poor children and to focus on poor children. And the policies of the government ought to be, help people find private insurance, not federal coverage. And that's where the philosophical divide comes in. I happen to believe that what you're seeing when you expand eligibility for federal programs is the desire by some in Washington, D.C. to federalize health care. I don't think that's good for the country. I believe in private medicine. I believe in helping poor people -- which was the intent of S-CHIP, now being expanded beyond its initial intent. I also believe that the federal government should make it easier for people to afford private insurance. I don't want the federal government making decisions for doctors and customers. (Applause.)"

Bush basically has two points, which are essentially the same thing: 1) SCHIP was started to fund health care for poor children, and expanding its mandate will go beyond covering the poor; it will draw in people who can already afford private insurance, and 2) expanding SCHIP is a step toward socialized medicine.

The first thing that Bush obscures is that America already has a program to fund health care for people below the poverty line; it's called Medicaid. Those kids are covered no matter what. SCHIP was started because health care costs became so high that even people who made twice as much as the federal poverty level (FPL is $20,650 a year) were unable or unwilling to insure their children. You've got to look at the phenomenal increase in health care costs in the past 7 seven years. Back in 2000, yearly family premiums on health insurance cost on average $6,450, which represented about 19% of the income of a family of four living at twice the 2000 federal poverty line. Now, with health care rates gone up 78% to $11,480, a family of four who is living at three times the poverty line ends up having to fork over that same share of their income: 19%. It was these families, who spend nearly a fifth of their yearly income on health care, that SCHIP was originally targeting, so raising the ceiling for coverage wouldn't necessarily mean expanding it "beyond its original intent." Even so, a recent study by the Urban Institute referenced on fact-check.org estimates that under the new SCHIP proposal, 70% of the children covered will still come from families that make under 200% of the federal poverty line.

As for Bush claiming that the program will cover families who make up to $83,000, it was a bit of a stretch. Because the SCHIP legislation is unspecific as to what constitutes "low-income children," states are allowed to set their own cut-offs for coverage, which range from 140% (ND) to 350% (NJ). New York State recently made a request to expand coverage up to families making $82,600 a year, which would be exactly 400% of the FPL. As within its power defined by law, the Bush Administration denied NY's request to increase the ceiling, so Bush's real concern is that future administrations might allow such expansions in SCHIP coverage.

The President's second objection, though essentially the same as his first is, as he puts it, "philosophical"; he is opposed to the government providing public health care to its citizens. Although I suspect he is really more concerned about the enormous amount of money to be made by private insurers (or to be lost in a socialized system), I'd like to take on the philosophical argument for a moment. I'm assuming that for him the philosophy behind his view is preserving "freedom of choice" and keeping the government out of our lives; to me it has to do with whether you consider health care a human right or something to make money off. When you look at our health care system today -- the skyrocketing premiums, the small businesses unable to keep up pace with increasing costs -- you've got to wonder why it is so intensely important that not only do we provide health care, but that we be able to make money off it. If anything, a socialized system (unlike the tax breaks and health savings accounts that Bush and other Republicans propose) would allow people to spend their money on other goods and services, which would still help grow other sectors of the economy.

Which brings me to my final tirade, which I assure you has nothing to do with SCHIP. The Dept. of Labor today released its latest report on job growth; the economy added 200,000 new jobs in the past two months, which gave the financial world some hope that we might not be hitting a recession after all. The detail that caught my eye, hidden behind all the statistics and measured optimism, was that the majority of these job gains were seen in health care and education. This is just a theory, but what if the root cause of all those new jobs was actually immigration? After all, a higher population demands more teachers and more health care professionals to serve it. If a connection actually exists (studies could try to show a regional correlation between immigration and job creation in education and health care), it could be crucial the immigration issue. We already know that immigrants (especially illegal ones) help the economy by bringing down the prices of goods (they also bring down the price of labor, which is good or bad depending on who you ask), but what if immigrants actually helped create jobs rather than "stealing them from working Americans"?

I wonder if that would change anyone's "philosophy."

Divest This‽

Here's the dilemma: Darfur is in Sudan, which is in Africa, which is in the Eastern Hemisphere and I'm all the way over here in the United States. It is far geographically and seems further mentally; like many Americans, I have many things to think about on a daily basis before I get to Darfur. Even if I do think about the genocide once every few days, I still often feel powerless as to how I can effect change.

I've given money to the Save Darfur Alliance, bought green Save Darfur bracelets, and tried to stimulate conversation on the topic when friends ask about the bracelet (trying to avoid sounding preachy). Yet still I feel hypocritical for not doing enough.

The two major obstacles that prevent Darfur (and other humanitarian issues) from reaching the forefront of public debate are distance and complexity. The first, distance, encompasses both the geographical and cultural separation Americans feel with Africa. Put simply, it's hard to empathize with people with whom we have so little in common. Differences include, but are not limited to, language, culture, religion, geographical surroundings, physical trauma, and living conditions (i.e. we have homes and they don't).

It should be the job of the media to try to break down these barriers, either through responsible reporting or documentary work (see God Grew Tired of Us or Lost Boys of Sudan, which though not specifically about Darfur seek to humanize war-torn Sudanese refugees). Instead, we're forced to suffer through endless reports on Lindsay Lohan's DUIs (with this notable exception) and the minute details of pre-primary politics. Another under-employed tactic for drumming up empathy for Darfur is to connect this current genocide with the Holocaust, the most well-known and culturally-embedded genocide. Viewed through the lens of the past, what's happening in Darfur can be more easily understood, and can even compel specific groups (Jews, for instance, of which I'll say more below) to take action.

In addition to breaking down public apathy for the Darfur issue, activist leaders must also be able to distill its complexity into an easily-digestible package. Only a small group of people will be willing to go out of their way to research the conflict or read a book on the genocide (like Not On Our Watch whose authors, Don Cheadle and John Prendergast, acknowledge that most of their readers are already activists or aspiring ones). Even if a person decides he or she wants to support the cause it can still be difficult to see how one person can make a difference (apart from donating money and buying green bracelets).

Enter divestment. The strategy is this: if enough investors sell stock in companies which do business with the Sudanese government (which supports the Janjaweed militias that wreak havoc in Darfur), they can make a large political statement even if the financial impact is slight. Divestment is less about paralyzing corporations that do business in Sudan than sending a message of solidarity with the Darfurian people. If enough people raise their voices against the Sudanese government, and back them up by divesting their dollars, international opinion will hopefully turn against Sudan the way it turned against Apartheid-era South Africa. The strength of the divestment strategy is that it empowers ordinary Americans, who might otherwise feel helpless, with a way to combat genocide.

Just when I thought I might never see the fruits of my donations to the Save Darfur Coalition, I received a letter updating me on their divestment campaign. The letter and accompanying advertisement unabashedly revealed their newest foe: not the Janjaweed militias or the Sudanese government, but an American company: Fidelity Investments. The genius of this campaign is that it brings the issue of genocide home, and makes activism manageable. Who, after all, wants their money going to support a regime with which American companies are forbidden to conduct business?

Of course, it's not as simple as that. Fidelity Investments does not directly do business with the Sudanese government (that would be illegal under Executive Order 13067, passed under President Clinton and expanded by President Bush), but invests in PetroChina, whose parent company CNPC is 100% owned by the Chinese government and has operations and fixed assets in Sudan. Got it?

The Save Darfur Coalition started its campaign against Fidelity in the fall of 2006, when it sent a letter to Fidelity executives asking for divestment from PetroChina. Fidelity responded with brief letter, in which it explained that "Fidelity portfolio managers make their investment decision based on business and financial considerations, and take into account other issues only if they materially impact these considerations or conflict with applicable local standards." The Save Darfur Coalition responded brilliantly by creating an ad campaign that featured a female refugee brandishing the Fidelity letter as a cruel commentary on the removed, sanitized nature of corporate-speak (view the video version here). But most major media outlets did not cover the story; conversely, many of them refused to publish the ads taken out by the Save Darfur Coalition, ostensibly because they singled out one corporation for the actions of many. Only the Boston Globe, whose parent company The New York Times Co. refused to run the ad in both the Globe and the Times, featured an editorial arguing against the decision and in favor of divestment.

In May 2007, Fidelity sold most of its U.S. shares (traded on NYSE) in PetroChina, although it claims the sale was not related to the Save Darfur campaign. Still, the company owns $834 million worth of shares on the Hong Kong exchange, along with a remaining $55 million worth on the NYSE. On the bright side, the divestment campaign has already spawned legislation in Congress that would make it easier for investment managers to withdraw money from companies that do business in Sudan and Iran. The bills, which passed nearly unanimously in the House on the last day of July, would prevent lawsuits from investors who felt divestment skimped them of promised returns. A little-known senator from Illinois who tries to keep out of the spotlight, Sen. Barack Obama, introduced a similar bill in the Senate that only covers divestment from Iran. The Bush Administration is opposed to such legislation.

One of the saddest moments for me in examining the debate on divestment was to see that two of the Fidelity executives targeted by the Save Darfur Alliance were named Mr. Cohen and Mr. Rosenfeld (you can see their names displayed conspicuously on the online ad). All Jewish people share a historical and cultural identity punctuated by oppression and strife, and most recently by genocide (regardless of whether they have a familial link to the Holocaust). Shouldn't that confer upon us a special responsibility to speak out against genocide, and honor the promise of "Never Again"? There are plenty of Jewish organizations (and ones like the National Holocaust Museum) that have plunged into the genocide in Darfur with fervency, but there needs to be more education and action on the community/synagogue level.

When I left for vacation in June, I had just finished Not On Our Watch, and I felt upbeat about how I could contribute to the campaign against genocide in Darfur. Since then, my resolve has only strengthened, given the Fidelity divestment campaign and the potential for working within the Jewish community. If activists can find ways to break down the complex issue of genocide, and remove some of the perceived distance, we can rally ordinary Americans to the cause. Together, we can show the international community and the Sudanese government that we will no longer tolerate genocide taking place right under our noses.

With a new U.N peace-keeping force authorized, and the government of Sudan agreeing to comply with the resolution, we are on our way.

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Sources:

http://www.wbur.org/news/2007/69046_20070726.asp
http://www.berkshirehathaway.com/sudan.pdf
http://fidelityoutofsudan.googlepages.com/fidelity%27sroleinsudan
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070731/pl_nm/iran_congress_dc_3
http://www.house.gov/frank/divestment073107.html
http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2007/05/10/divestment_dilemma/
http://www.sudantribune.com/spip.php?article23093