Like every human on this planet, I speak with an accent. In my case, I speak English with a curious, hybrid, mongrelized accent – Indian, but bearing the impress of twenty-seven years on the US East Coast. It is distinct and unmistakable–no American will ever think I have grown up in the US. It isContinue reading “Speaking In Accents – I”
Category Archives: Politics
Tocqueville On Slaves, House Of Cards, And Miami
In his classic Democracy in America, in the section “Situation Of The Black Population In The United States, And Dangers With Which Its Presence Threatens The Whites”, Alexis Tocqueville wrote: [I]n a certain portion of the territory of the United States…the legal barrier which separated the two races is tending to fall away, but notContinue reading “Tocqueville On Slaves, House Of Cards, And Miami”
Waterboardin’ Brothers: The ISIS And The US
Over at The New York Times, Rukmini Callimachi writes on the inhumane treatment the ISIS meted out to those they held hostage (some of whom, like James Foley, were subsequently beheaded). Of particular interest to all Americans should be her descriptions of their torture techniques: The story of what happened in the Islamic State’s undergroundContinue reading “Waterboardin’ Brothers: The ISIS And The US”
I’m Scared, Therefore I Work
A few weeks ago, I got into an argument–offline, not online–about those two horsemen of the apocalypse that are destroying the American nation, rendering it financially insolvent, and turning the American Dream into the American Nightmare. I’m referring, of course, to unions and teacher tenure. At the heart of these fears is a very interestingContinue reading “I’m Scared, Therefore I Work”
Trigger Warnings For Assigned Readings?
On Monday, I wrote a brief note here on Jose Saramago‘s Blindness, commenting on its very distinctive tragicomic style. Earlier in the day, my class had discussed–among others–parts XI and XII of the novel, two sections in which the violence and depravity in the abandoned mental hospital reaches new depths. Rape and a stabbing death areContinue reading “Trigger Warnings For Assigned Readings?”
Jose Saramago’s Blindness, And Its Many Visions
Jose Saramago‘s Blindness is a very funny and a very sad book. It is a very sad book because it is about a cataclysmic event–an outbreak of blindness in an unspecified place and time–and the breakdown of social and moral order that follows; it is very funny because this apocalypse of sorts provides an opportunity for theContinue reading “Jose Saramago’s Blindness, And Its Many Visions”
No Atheists In Foxholes? Plenty of Atheists In Cancer Wards
In writing about Brittany Maynard, the twenty-nine year old cancer patient who has scheduled herself for a physician-assisted suicide on November 1, Ross Douthat asks: Why, in a society where individualism seems to be carrying the day, is the right that Maynard intends to exercise still confined to just a handful of states? Why hasContinue reading “No Atheists In Foxholes? Plenty of Atheists In Cancer Wards”
Beyonce And The Singularity
A couple of decades ago, I strolled through Washington Square Park on a warm summer night, idly observing the usual hustle and bustle of students, tourists, drunks, buskers, hustlers, stand-up comedians, and sadly, folks selling oregano instead of good-to-honest weed. As I did so, I noticed a young man, holding up flyers and yelling, ‘LegalizeContinue reading “Beyonce And The Singularity”
At The Allrounder: Being A Mets And Yankees Fan
This past April, in noting the online debut of a new sports journal, The Allrounder, I noted its self-description: The Allrounder will be distinct from existing sports media sites in covering the whole world of sport. The site will feature writers from different countries, whose expertise ranges from basketball, cricket, and hockey to all codesContinue reading “At The Allrounder: Being A Mets And Yankees Fan”
Theater As Instruction Manual For Domestic Strife
In Benjamin Kunkel‘s new play Buzz, a central character, Tom, holds forth on theater–he says “something interesting”: TOM: The theater has a very ironic relationship to domestic life, don’t you think? Because what’s been the main preoccupation, for more than a hundred years? I’m thinking Ibsen, Strindberg, Shaw, Pinter…About the biggest theme is the horror ofContinue reading “Theater As Instruction Manual For Domestic Strife”
Samir Chopra 