Why Does the Higgs Particle Matter?

Physicist Frank Wilczek's essay is absolutely lovely to read, and inspiring, because it considers not only the science but also the human aspects involved in an inquiry of this magnitude:

The scientific work leading to the Higgs particle discovery involved thousands of engineers and physicists, not to mention billions of taxpayers, from all over the world co-operating to pursue a common goal. For most of the highly gifted participants, it involved long, often frustrating and sometimes tedious labor, with modest prospects for personal reward. They did it, anyway, because they wanted to understand the world better, and to be part of something great. They did, and they were. In this we have seen, I think, an example of humanity at its best.

Plus it helps that it's written in language that even a lay person like me could at least try to understand the concept.

The entire essay is here.

When All That's Left of a Pressure Cooker are Fragments and Hurt

As an intern at a communications consulting company many years ago, I had to get familiar with the firm's documents and their various formats and templates. The resident tech guru pointed to the computer screen and said, "Click on that icon." Try as I might, I couldn't see an image of Jesus, Mary or any other religious figure. I turned to him and shook my head. "The icon. Here." He pointed to a very specific spot on the screen. I clicked on what looked like a folder and we were on our way.

That was the first time I had heard the word 'icon' used in that context. I had taught myself basic word processing at my grad school's library a few months earlier and was a neophyte when it came to tech jargon. It was not long before the list of words whose original meanings slowly merged with the meanings they acquired in the tech industry grew longer and longer. Mouse. Drive. Memory. Bug. Virus. Chip. File. Folder. Save. Recycle Bin. It was discombobulating at the beginning but not by the time Link, Tag, Navigate, Cloud and Friend came along.

It is only natural that this sort of co-opting of existing words and giving them new meanings must occur every time a new industry tries to find its footing. My favorite example is of the use of the word 'broadcasting' in the radio and TV industries. It originally referred to the way seeds were sown on farms - they were either 'broadcast', i.e., cast over a large area, or 'narrowcast'. These days, however, one hardly ever thinks of agriculture when that word is used.

Over the last few years, a newer enterprise - the terror industry - has been busy usurping words and their meanings. And it is accomplishing this feat not by using the words differently, but by commandeering mundane objects for its lethal purposes and wresting control of how we view those objects and the words we use to denote them.

Ordinary, everyday implements have always come in handy in committing crimes on a small scale - kitchen knives, arsenic, baseball (or cricket) bats, hockey sticks, pillows, etc. For acts of terror the tools of choice have expanded to cover fertilizers, nails, batteries, ball bearings, bleach, nail polish removers and cold packs. The original meanings of these words have not changed much, but a new, somewhat discomfiting connotation has layered itself on top of the original meaning. Belts, shoes, loose change in pant pockets, jackets, watches, lotions, gels, nail clippers - memories of security lines at airports attach themselves to thoughts of dressing up to go out. I can never think of box cutters (a term I'd not heard before) without also thinking of 9/11.

While our awareness has expanded to accommodate the understanding that some of these objects may be deployed to cause large-scale destruction, they hardly evoke the sort of memories that the latest entrant to this rather ignominious list - the pressure cooker - does.

To most people who've ever used it, the pressure cooker comes packaged with good, warm memories of the sights and sounds of home, of family, and of home-cooked food. Home cooks hold on to their pressure cookers for as long as they can because once they have mastered the nuances unique to each unit, it's hard to want to let go and start all over with a new one. The whistles of the cooker blend into a family's early morning rhythms. The aroma of steamed vegetables, rice and pulses is a harbinger of meals to follow.

Until a few years ago, a shiny new pressure cooker (along with detailed recipes) occupied a large portion of suitcases when kids in South Asia left home to go away to college abroad. It was too expensive an item to purchase on a student's (non-existent) budget. These days it is more widely available here in the US, and with people willing to try their hand at a variety of cuisines, it's not a rare item on wedding registries either. And it is not the sort of thing that would trigger a thorough sweep of your luggage at airports.

That was then.

Kitchen disasters with pressure cookers are not uncommon, usually due to faulty gaskets or weights. But there is an unbridgeable gulf between accidents and wanton acts designed to kill and maim other human beings. Many more words in our vocabulary have now mutated to acquire a slightly different shape and have settled somewhat uneasily in our collective memories. Marathon. Boston. Finish Line. Pressure Cooker. They trigger sad thoughts for lives lost and pain suffered; they bring thoughts of good human beings, of a situation that could have been worse but for many kind-hearted people; they call up anger at the senseless attacks on innocent lives. But no matter what, they trigger thoughts that never were before.

This is now.

~~~~~~~~~~~~

Update - April 29, 2013

This essay was published at The Aerogram.
 

How Does the 2013 Immigration Reform Proposal Compare to the 2006 and 2007 Senate Bills?

Via e-mail from the DC-based Migration Policy Institute:

The Migration Policy Institute has completed an analysis of the major provisions in the bipartisan group of senators' 2013 immigration reform framework, comparing them to provisions in the earlier 2006 and 2007 Senate legislation.

The side-by-side comparison's topics include border security and enforcement; visa reforms; earned legalization of unauthorized immigrants; strengthening of the US economy and workforce; and immigrant integration.

As this Issue Brief was completed in advance of today's release of the Senate immigration bill, the side-by-side will be updated in the coming days, as our experts comb through further details of the 844-page bill.
 

Here is the link to the comparison (pdf file): http://www.migrationpolicy.org/pubs/CIRbrief-2013SenateFramework-Side-by-Side.pdf

If you are interested in immigration issues and human migration in general, the Migration Policy Institute is a great resource. Here is a link to their site: http://www.migrationpolicy.org/

Update on Devan's Bone Marrow Transplant Search

Update to this post below, from Time Magazine:

Devan's doctor informed the family a cord blood match had turned up. It's not a perfect solution, but Devan's doctor says it's good enough. Blood from the umbilical cord is rich in blood-forming cells, and cord blood doesn't have to match quite as closely as marrow from an adult. In the U.S. registry, compared to the over eight million potential marrow donors, there are only about 160,000 cord blood units. Tatlow urged pregnant women to donate their cord blood: "For pregnant women, your baby's umbilical cord, which is otherwise thrown away, can save a life. It just seems like a very simple thing to do for the greater good of mankind."

Devan's ordeal isn't over. He still needs to go through weeks of chemotherapy and then a dangerous transplant and recovery period. "It's pretty tough as a parent to see our own child facing this road ahead," Tatlow says. "But this is a lifeline for us."

The Collapse of the World Trade Center Towers as Seen From the Air

ABC News has obtained aerial photographs of the collapse of the Twin Towers taken in the immediate aftermath of the attacks. They were taken by Det. Greg Semendinger of the NY Police Aviation Unit, the only photographer allowed in the airspace around that time, according to the NY Times.

They make for stunning visuals. All of my visual memory of that day seems to contain images of the towers seen from the bottom up, of debris falling all around the people fleeing the carnage of building parts falling, of ash falling.

These pictures offer an entirely new perspective, especially when grouped together as aerial pictures - the ash looks like it's spreading sideways and up, not falling.

The Blizzard of 2010 aka Snowmageddon

The snow came down thick and fast and wet. If you didn't keep up with it, it got heavy as the minutes ticked by. Fluffy and light on top, watery (later icy) at the bottom.

Just beyond the windows, the kitchen was warm and inviting.

We shoveled and shoveled. And shoveled. At least five times on the deck in the back and four times out front.

This morning, the sun was out!

Our fence grew a few inches overnight.

Winter is here, but spring seems so far away.

Icicles cling on to the roof edge for dear life.

A jet zooms across a nearly cloudless, blue sky this morning.

The sidewalk looks like a tunnel.

We lost the top of our holly tree to the weight of the snow.

I have a feeling we'll remember this for a long time.

The Heene Story: Has Crying "Wolf!" Gone Hi-Tech?

By now you must have all heard of the story of the boy who was thought to be flying thousands of feet above the ground in a fly-away balloon. Alone, cold, scared and in mortal danger. As an entire nation (and probably a good portion of the rest of the world) followed every twist and turn in this improbable tale, we were sick with fear for the boy, we felt sorry for the parents and, finally and happily, we were relieved when we were told that the young boy was safe and sound and on solid ground.

Little did we know that the tale had yet another incredible twist left in it - turns out, if what the police say is true, the entire story is a hoax. We were set up, we were suckered in, and our emotions played on, just so the parents, allegedly, could attain their ultimate goal of appearing on a television reality show. The Larry King Interview where the six-year-old Falcon Heene suggested that he was told to hide in the attic of their home (fully stocked with snacks) "for the show", more television interviews where the boy threw up on camera, the subsequent police investigations, and now news that the parents had hired lawyers to defend them and were ready to surrender to the police - each one of them leading to stratospheric levels of disbelief and leaving a bad taste in the mouth.

The daily news and the internet are chock full of reactions to this story, all, as you can imagine, expressing shock, disgust and anger, even a feeling of being betrayed.

It also left in me a sense of wonder. The act of crying "wolf!" had undergone a seismic shift in tone. No longer was a lone boy yelling from the top of a mountain to the people in the village below. If the story does turn out to be a hoax, what we saw was grown people - a mother and father to boot - calling news stations directly with desperate appeals for news helicopters to chase the errant balloon, calling the police, imploring them for emergency help, giving hysterical television interviews over the telephone, and appearing on camera to perpetuate sympathy for an ordeal they had not suffered.

How we - the villagers in the ancient fable but in the twenty-first century a nation punk'd - behave the next time around may not be apparent right now but might become all too clear when we turn on the television and come upon another father crying inconsolably on camera at the disappearance of his child, begging for help.

What will we do then? Will we watch, riveted to our seats, and pray for the safe return of the child? Or did Aesop already give us the answer all those centuries ago? Will we roll our eyes, click the remote and move on to the next channel?

~~~~~~
Updated to add a link to Wikipedia's page on Aesop's The Boy Who Cried Wolf and to the latest development in the story.

Mumbai Terrorist Attacks: Anatomy of a Siege

Nearly a year ago now, we went on a road trip to Asheville, North Carolina, for the Thanksgiving holiday. We had about an hour left on the nine-hour drive when a friend called us from Chicago with the news that Mumbai was under attack. "Are you close to a TV?" he asked. Two hours later we turned on the TV in our apartment and saw the horror unfolding right in front of television cameras.

The rampage, the deaths, the agony, the chaos and the destruction - they were all there, the images constantly and relentlessly flitting across our screens, the cameras documenting the mayhem minute by painful minute. We had questions. Why did it take so long for the military forces to reach the hotels and the hospitals? Why were reporters not cautioned about broadcasting the tactics of security forces? Could the attacks have been avoided in the first place? Could the damage have been minimized?

In an article titled Anatomy of a Siege, Marie Brenner weaves in the numerous strands of the events that transpired that day in a gripping essay for the November '09 issue of Vanity Fair:

The city’s rage had narrowed down to one issue: long into the night a squad of police and a contingent from the army had stood outside the Taj while terrorists roamed the floors above, taking hostages. The police were waiting for orders from a commissioner of noble lineage who stayed put in his car at the nearby Oberoi hotel and for the arrival of commandos and anti-terror forces from New Delhi. From his station a few blocks away, A. N. Roy, the head of the state police, screamed at his men, “Why can’t they go in? Why are they standing there?” But powerful as he was, Roy could not directly command the local police. India is a top-down society of entrenched bureaucrats, with appallingly inadequate communication among agencies.

[...]

One of those trapped was Dr. Mangeshikar, who had started her evening declaring that she would stay at the wedding one hour tops. The hotel staff passed trays of sandwiches and drinks at Chambers. “Leave this kitchen right now—the terrorists are on the way,” Kang ordered. “They refused to leave,” Kang told me. “They said, 'We are preparing food and drinks for the guests.’” Kang ordered them again, “Leave! Your lives are in danger.” Dattatrey Chaskar, a waiter, begged Kang, “Save my son!” No one could find the young man. Later he would be discovered huddled among stacks of lamb chops in a cold-storage cabinet.

Parts of the story leave you shaken, you look at some of the survivors and wonder what you'd have done in their situation. Would it have occurred to me to conjure up a make-shift toilet out of sheets in a corner of the room for hotel guests holed up in a room - as it did to Mallika Jagad, who happened to be in charge of a banquet that day?

The entire story is available by clicking here: Anatomy of a Siege.

Related posts: Volunteerism vs. Terrorism

Tennis: Del Potro's 2009 US Open Victory Speech

Woo hoo for Del Potro. That was an amazing victory over Federer. A victory he had every right to savor. Which he did - in spite of a miserly Dick Enberg, the CBS Sports commentator and host of the prize ceremony.

For those who weren't able to watch the match's concluding moments, Del Potro dutifully answered Enberg's questions. Half-way into the rather embarrassing recitation (by Enberg) of the dollar amounts Del Potro had won and the names of the sponsors who had funded the prizes, the 20-year-old asked to say something in Spanish. Enberg brushed him off saying that there was no time left and promptly continued his way down the list. I'm not really sure how there could have been no time. What if the match had gone on a few games longer?

A few seconds later Del Potro repeated his request. Enberg then launched into an explanation of what Del Potro would do (really, who needed the explanation?) and reluctantly tipped the microphone toward Del Potro, who proceeded to, as far as I could make out, thank his vociferous Argentinian fan-contingent in the stands and tip his hat to Guillermo Vilas.

It was short, very sweet and so heartfelt. Those few moments rounded out a great run at the US Open for an up-and-coming tennis star. I wish Enberg - who has been around the block few times in these situations - had been a bit more magnanimous. Yes, we, the TV audience, get to watch the match courtesy the sponsors, but really the sponsors and the audience are there because of the players. May they please have their moment?

Update: Fixed the spelling of Vilas' name and added a Wikipedia link to Vilas, South America's only other US Open champ.

Update 2 (09/15/09): Link to CBS video of Enberg-Del Potro exchange. Note that they don't have the portion where Del Potro makes his request to address the audience in Spanish. Also note there are ads in the video with (briefly) language that is not office or kid-friendly.

Update 3 (09/16/09): Thanks to BPSK for this video of the relevant portion of the Del Potro-Enberg exchange:

CBS defends Enberg's performance:

“Dick had a number of elements that he had to get through on a very tight schedule,” said LeslieAnne Wade, the senior vice president for communications for CBS. “It was Dick’s job to get through those as quick as he could. And in the end, he did give him the opportunity to make his comments.”

Michael Jackson and The Yearning for Normal

When I was in middle school and high school back in India, Sundays were welcomed with great anticipation for a couple of different reasons. It was the one day of the week there was no school (Saturdays were half-days); Sundays meant family get-togethers; Sundays meant free-wheeling, no-destination-in-mind trips with my dad; Sundays also meant half an hour of 'Western Music' programs on TV. Other than the annual Grammy telecasts - days late and always in the dead of the night on a Saturday - Sunday mornings were our only window into what was happening in the music world in the US and the UK.

And so we saw and heard ABBA, BoneyM, Michael Jackson, the Bee Gees, the Beatles. We had cassette tapes of these artists that we listened to on a single-speaker 'Two-in-One,' but being able to watch them on our small television screen was quite something else. When the Grammys rolled around, we were familiar with a mere one or two of the nominated artists, but who cared?

Of all the Michael Jackson songs, I only knew three of them back then - Billie Jean, Beat It!, and Thriller. I could not for the life of me figure out Thriller. I did not know why they were in a graveyard, I did not know why the man laughed that maniacal laugh in the end. I did not know all of the words to Beat It! or Billie Jean. I don't think I know them even now. But I loved the beat, the energy, the confidence, and the absolute certainty of Jackson's dance steps and actions. He knew what he was doing and it was thrilling to watch him do it so well. When I finished listening to the songs, I felt pumped up, inspired, I was amazed that someone not too much older than me was so successful.

Little did I know that the success came at a price so huge as to be incalculable. I had no clue about the backstory.

It was only when I moved to the US that I realized he had siblings, that there was something called the Jackson 5. I pieced together the story from TV specials and magazine articles. Over and over, one concept popped up repeatedly in the media coverage of Neverland, the child molestation charges, the dangling of the child through the window - his yearning for a normal childhood. Although I noticed it at the time, it did not resonate with me at all. Why would anyone want a normal childhood if he was so obviously talented and could be so successful? A normal childhood was boring. It was infinitely more exciting to be able to travel the world, to have millions of fans hanging on to your every step, to be so rich.

That was many years ago. Now, with children of my own, I have an understanding of normal and not-normal childhoods. Being a wife and mother, having lived away from my parents for a number of years and having had the opportunity to see a lot of lives up close has put my own childhood in perspective.

And yesterday, when my husband first told me that Michael Jackson was in a coma and moments later I saw on the news that he was dead, and this morning as I've been reading website after website covering his life and death and music, my mind raced back - longingly - to those days so far away in my past when my brother and I danced our crazy steps to his music, when we wondered who Billie Jean was, when we would race to lower the volume on the TV or on the music player when we heard our dad clearing his throat disapprovingly and tried to explain but failed hopelessly when our parents asked what this kind of music was all about.

As one of the commenters to this Coates essay put it, I, and a lot of others, are homesick.

Do you see the irony in this? On hearing of the death of a music icon who did not have the sort of upbringing that would have inspired feelings of homesickness in him - whose lack of a normal childhood gave millions of us the music that colored our growing years - my first thoughts were of my own childhood homes, of the various living rooms and bedrooms in which we played his music, of my parents and of my brother, of my cousins and uncles who indulged us by buying us music.

Thank you for the music and the memories, Michael. R.I.P.

In the Wake of the Iranian Elections

From .faramarz's Flikr photostream

Amazing coverage at the Daily Dish. More at Global Voices. Gripping photos on Flikr. History is happening.

Obama's Cairo University Speech

Andrew Sullivan carries the entire text of Obama's speech at Cairo University. Many goose-bump inducing parts, including this one:

So long as our relationship is defined by our differences, we will empower those who sow hatred rather than peace, and who promote conflict rather than the cooperation that can help all of our people achieve justice and prosperity. This cycle of suspicion and discord must end.

I have come here to seek a new beginning between the United States and Muslims around the world; one based upon mutual interest and mutual respect; and one based upon the truth that America and Islam are not exclusive, and need not be in competition. Instead, they overlap, and share common principles – principles of justice and progress; tolerance and the dignity of all human beings.

I do so recognizing that change cannot happen overnight. No single speech can eradicate years of mistrust, nor can I answer in the time that I have all the complex questions that brought us to this point. But I am convinced that in order to move forward, we must say openly the things we hold in our hearts, and that too often are said only behind closed doors. There must be a sustained effort to listen to each other; to learn from each other; to respect one another; and to seek common ground.

The speech is most definitely worth a read and worth sharing with our children.

Video below from YouTube:

The Newsweek Oprah Story: What Do Celebrities Owe Us?

Newsweek carries a scathing article in its latest edition, about Oprah and the 'bad', 'wrong', 'risky' health advice she dishes on her daily TV show:

Her viewers follow her guidance because they like and admire her, sure. But also because they believe that Oprah, with her billions and her Rolodex of experts, doesn't have to settle for second best. If she says something is good, it must be.

This is where things get tricky. Because the truth is, some of what Oprah promotes isn't good, and a lot of the advice her guests dispense on the show is just bad. The Suzanne Somers episode wasn't an oddball occurrence. This kind of thing happens again and again on Oprah. Some of the many experts who cross her stage offer interesting and useful information (props to you, Dr. Oz). Others gush nonsense. Oprah, who holds up her guests as prophets, can't seem to tell the difference. She has the power to summon the most learned authorities on any subject; who would refuse her? Instead, all too often Oprah winds up putting herself and her trusting audience in the hands of celebrity authors and pop-science artists pitching wonder cures and miracle treatments that are questionable or flat-out wrong, and sometimes dangerous.

Yes, Oprah is popular. Wildly so. Yes, she has a broad-based, ardent following for her TV show. Yes, the things she recommends on her show have the habit of flying off the shelves (or whatever the equivalent is on Amazon). But does any of this mean that she owes anything to her audience other than being honest when she says she tried such and such product or when she says she loved the book she picked for her book club?

I am not an expert on Oprah. I watch clips from her shows off and on and read her and about her in magazines and on websites. From what I've seen and read, she comes across as the person who is enthusiastic about certain things (some ideas, some products, some services) and uses her show - a vehicle and brand she created from scratch and built to dish on her view of life and its struggles - to talk about them. That a million people rush off buy the thing she mentions on the show - what exactly does it require her to do? Worry that her audience might use the information blindly without investigating it further for themselves? Should she be responsible for the actions of her audience?

This is a question I've asked before in relation to the Phelps marijuana fiasco. Just because a celebrity is good at something and they make money off of it or are popular because of it, does it mean that they should be on their best behaviour, do the right things and say the right things?

The Newsweek article places a litany of demands on Oprah's show. A sampling:

""Because of the power and influence that Oprah's show has, she should make an extra effort to be clear."" (Comment on a show about the HPV vaccine.)

"Oprah said almost nothing about possible risks." (Comment on a show about 'thread-lifting'.)

"Fanning believes Oprah should have made it clear that Thermage isn't for everyone."

Which leads me to believe that the audience has no responsibility for its own actions, that her viewers are gullible and unquestioning, that they will swallow every piece of advice that tumbles out of her mouth without assessing the pros and cons for their specific circumstances and health conditions. Is this really so? If that is the case, then Oprah and other celebrities like her are standing at the top of a very long, slippery slope. Which one of her audience members should she worry about? The ones that do not understand that medical or cosmetic procedures involve risks? The ones that do not get that medicines may have side effects? The ones that do not know enough to ask if such and such procedure is right for them? The ones that will refuse vaccinations for their children because Jenny McCarthy said so and she was on Oprah's show? Where do you start and where do you stop?

The article gives off a whiff of wanting to take the contrarian view just because. The complaints against the show appear lame and the authors and the experts they consult indulge in some heavy patronizing. The recommendations for alterations to Oprah's show (listing a procedure's side effects, introducing experts who take the opposite view on the medication being discussed, among other things) are great - if you are a C-SPAN show or a medicine ad that must follow the Federal Trade Commission rules or one of those public TV channels that no one watches. Not if you are Oprah and all you are selling is escapism in doses of an hour a day and the idea that we are all in the same boat (so what if she is super rich and super connected and super famous while most of her audience is thoroughly entrenched in the middle class?), and believe strongly in stories about wanting to be the best you can be.

So let's hang back and take Oprah's health advice with a pinch of salt. As we should. And as I'm sure she would want her audience to.

Updated June 2: Changed 'author' to 'authors' in the penultimate paragraph. The Newsweek article is credited to two writers.

A soldier faces down the Taliban - in pink boxer shorts

I was driving to Arlington National Cemetery this morning when I heard this report on NPR's Weekend Edition titled Real Men Wear Pink Boxers:

Photo Credit: Associated Press photographer David Guttenfelder

U.S. Army Specialist Zachary Boyd of the 1st Battalion, 26th Infantry, who is 19, was sleeping when the Taliban attacked his unit in Afghanistan's Kunar province. Specialist Boyd leapt from his bunk. He grabbed his weapon, pulled on his helmet and vest, and manned his station behind sandbags at Firebase Restropo. He did not stop to pull on trousers.

His mom's reaction? Priceless.

"I was always telling him to pull up his pants," Sheree Boyd recalls. "I would give him a wedgie to make him do it. As a mom, you want your son to look nice. But he has always been one to run around in his boxers."

Bravery comes in all forms. Some are brave in battlefields. Some are brave in ordinary homes just like yours and mine all over the world.

Totally Random Stuff (aka Everything But the Kitchen Sink)

I've been meaning to blog about these things over the past few days, but haven't been able to for one reason or another. So apologies in advance for socking you with all these topics. I'm hoping at least one with resonate with you.

1. Credit card companies and the dope they have on us: There's an eye-opening article in the latest issue of the New York Times magazine about what exactly our credit card companies know about us and how they use that information to make decisions about our accounts. Particularly revealing was the part about the methods they have devised to predict the credit risk of each of their clients.

The exploration into cardholders’ minds hit a breakthrough in 2002, when J. P. Martin, a math-loving executive at Canadian Tire, decided to analyze almost every piece of information his company had collected from credit-card transactions the previous year. Canadian Tire’s stores sold electronics, sporting equipment, kitchen supplies and automotive goods and issued a credit card that could be used almost anywhere.
[...]
Why did birdseed and snow-rake buyers pay off their debts? The answer, research indicated, was that those consumers felt a sense of responsibility toward the world, manifested in their spending on birds they didn’t own and pedestrians they might not know. Why were felt-pad buyers so upstanding? Because they wanted to protect their belongings, be they hardwood floors or credit scores. Why did chrome-skull owners skip out on their debts? “The person who buys a skull for their car, they are like people who go to a bar named Sharx,” Martin told me. “Would you give them a loan?”

That so much of the detritus of our lives is being scrutinized and dissected so methodically is creepy, but I'd rather that they be assessing credit risk before handing out credit cards instead of slapping even the most infrequent offenders with horrendous fees to make up for their own lack of discernment when casting their nets for clientele.

2. Elizabeth Edwards goes public: OK, so you all have heard about Elizabeth Edwards' new book, Resilience. She's already been on Oprah, the Today show, Larry King Live and has been the subject of a myriad other talk shows. I have not read the book, but it is apparently her take on the adversities she has faced in her life. And they are not few or insignificant - the loss of her son (I don't know how anyone can recover from the loss of a child, but kudos to her and her family for deriving lessons from it and talking about it), her cancer, her husband's affair. One whammy after another.

Of all the topics the book is said to cover, the one the media chooses to zone in on is her husband's affair. Why does she bring it up? What does she hope to gain from it? What does this do to her children? Why is she putting herself and her husband through this? She is only opening herself and her husband up to scrutiny by talking about it now. And so on.

Here's Maureen Dowd in the New York Times:

But it’s just a gratuitous peek into their lives, and one that exposes her kids, by peddling more dregs about their personal family life in a book, and exposes the ex-girlfriend who’s now trying to raise the baby girl, a dead ringer for John Edwards, in South Orange, N.J.

Here's Tina Brown in The Daily Beast:

The hazard of confessional books is how fast the world moves on while they're written. Hearing about that doggy old "misdemeanor"—as she insists on calling her husband's infidelity with a campaign videographer while he was running for president and she was fighting terminal cancer—just drags us back into the messy aftermath of the election season at a time when we are now busy trying to get on with a collapsing economy and save our own lives.

This seems like a damned if you do, damned if you don't scenario. If she had written a book about her life's adversities but had not written a word about her husband's affair then the media would have been all over the book for being incomplete and irrelevant. There were also questions swirling around her when the news of the affair first broke as to why she supported his campaign, why she stood next to him at events projecting a picture of solidarity even in the face of betrayal. Here's Salon's Rebecca Traister, one of my favorite writers:

These revelations are crushing to anyone with an idealized view of Elizabeth Edwards. She was supposed to be the responsible one, the direct one. Even if you thought he was kind of plastic-looking, smarmy, perhaps untrustworthy, Elizabeth was solid and dependable and straightforward. But here is the reality: She allowed her husband to risk the health of the nation, not to mention the health of her family. And she remained deaf and dumb to rumors that everyone was hearing. Why did they stay in the race, at the inevitable cost of their privacy, and the potential cost of a national election? Elizabeth has no cogent answers for this, except to note the crazy fantasy that perhaps drove them both.

Perhaps the book and dealing with all the issues she does in it is her way of answering those questions, her way of getting her version of the story out to the public. Moreover, what is the right way to behave in these situations? Are spouses supposed to stand by their straying partners in full view of the public and appear supportive (I'm being politically correct here, but if you do know of straying women and their supportive husbands, please do let me know)? Why?

3. The case against breastfeeding: In an anguished article on feeling self-imposed and societal pressure to breastfeed her children, Hanna Rosin wrote in The Atlantic last month:

The debate about breast-feeding takes place without any reference to its actual context in women’s lives. Breast-feeding exclusively is not like taking a prenatal vitamin. It is a serious time commitment that pretty much guarantees that you will not work in any meaningful way. Let’s say a baby feeds seven times a day and then a couple more times at night. That’s nine times for about a half hour each, which adds up to more than half of a working day, every day, for at least six months. This is why, when people say that breast-feeding is “free,” I want to hit them with a two-by-four. It’s only free if a woman’s time is worth nothing.

When I read that part about breast-feeing being free I was reminded that that's exactly what I remember people saying in India where a majority of the women just don't have the money to buy formula or do not otherwise have access to it.

It is very easy to want to judge Rosin and I don't want to do that. I wish each of us had the wherewithal to assess all the information available to us but also the self-awareness and courage to do what works for us. No more, no less. Lord knows breastfeeding is hard, and really, each person's perspective depends on her unique set of experiences. The article is honest and thoughtful and I applaud Rosin for that, but this bloggingheads.tv interview (by Rosin) of Dr. Sarah Lawrence, an expert in and advocate of breastfeeding goes ten steps ahead in arming us with what we need the most when approaching parenting - the right attitude.



If you missed it, Dr. Lawrence, while being a resident and a doctor on call, breastfed each of her nine children for two years. If that is not a lesson in figuring out what is important to you, finding a way to do it and moving on with your life, then I don't know what is.

4. Finally, here's a tip. When you are expecting guests over for lunch or dinner, no matter what you're serving, and whether you are cooking the meal yourself or having takeout, about half an hour before guests are scheduled to arrive, saute a few slices of onions in a couple of teaspoons of oil. Nothin' like fried/roasted onions to give off vibes of a warm, welcoming kitchen.

So, let me know what you think!

I have no words. Just happy for one father.

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

David Goldman's story - bringseanhome.org.

Stump stomps the competition at Westminster

Talk about second chances.

Ch Clussexx Three D Grinchy Glee (aka "Stump" - thank god for small mercies!), a beautiful spaniel with a shiny coat, almost died five years ago. He spent 19 days in the hospital fighting for his life. And now, at age 10, he's the oldest winner in the history of the competition.

Aside: "Old dog teaches new tricks" seems to be the most popular line in stories about this dog.

John Updike passes away

From the New York Times obit:

John Updike, the kaleidoscopically gifted writer whose quartet of Rabbit Angstrom novels highlighted so vast and protean a body of fiction, verse, essays and criticism as to place him in the first rank of among American men of letters, died on Tuesday. He was 76 and lived in Beverly Farms, Mass.

From the Atlantic Monthly, part of one of his poems entitled Madurai:

From our terrace at the Taj Garden Retreat,
the city below belies its snarl of commerce—
men pushing postcards on the teeming street,
and doe-eyed children begging with their words
so soft the language can’t be understood
even were we to try and were not fleeing
the nudge of stirred pity. Can life be good,
awakening us to hunger? What point has being?

Mumbai Terror Attacks: The Photographer Who Took the Terrorist's Photograph

The Belfast Telegraph interviews Mumbai Mirror pictures editor, Sebastian D'Souza. He's the man that took the now ubiquitous photograph of a young terrorist striding - nonchalantly it seems - toward his victims, his gun drawn and his backpack strapped around his shoulders.

By Sebastian D'Souza, Mumbai Mirror

Sebastian D'Souza, a picture editor at the Mumbai Mirror, whose offices are just opposite the city's Chhatrapati Shivaji station, heard the gunfire erupt and ran towards the terminus. "I ran into the first carriage of one of the trains on the platform to try and get a shot but couldn't get a good angle, so I moved to the second carriage and waited for the gunmen to walk by," he said. "They were shooting from waist height and fired at anything that moved. I briefly had time to take a couple of frames using a telephoto lens. I think they saw me taking photographs but they didn't seem to care."

[...]

"Towards the station entrance, there are a number of bookshops and one of the bookstore owners was trying to close his shop," he recalled. "The gunmen opened fire and the shopkeeper fell down."

But what angered Mr D'Souza almost as much were the masses of armed police hiding in the area who simply refused to shoot back. "There were armed policemen hiding all around the station but none of them did anything," he said. "At one point, I ran up to them and told them to use their weapons. I said, 'Shoot them, they're sitting ducks!' but they just didn't shoot back."

[...]

I only wish I had a gun rather than a camera."

Updated to add a link to Desipundit which in turn links exhaustively to blogs on the Mumbai attacks.