Two Assholes

Today was a day of Assholes. No personal interactions mind you, but just observations about assholes.

Asshole Number 1: The Asshole who decided he was too “intelligent” and “well-educated” (yes, he actually said that) to be isolated for carrying drug resistant tuberculosis around the world on several airplanes in several countries. If the news article I read was correct, he actually refused to stay in Italy after knowing he had drug resistant TB by flying to Prague and then to Canada, and then drove back into the US. That’s an awfully Herculean effort just to be an asshole.

I’m not entirely clear whether his TB is dormant or not, which is a good thing because it would then be less infectious…but drug resistant TB is no fucking joke….ridiculous. Although…I will say his chances of dying are fairly high.

Judging by this picture and the fact that he’s a personal injury lawyer is enough to proclaim him ASSHOLE. (There is a bizarre anti-world conspiracy feeling to this whole uncle works for the CDC doing TB stuff thing though…)

Asshole(s) Number 2: I spent my morning in a divorce training pro bono session at a major midtown law firm in a room with 50 or 60 other summer associates from other law firms and I’ve decided that Blackberry’s annoy me. Or at least summer associates at law firms who compulsively check their Blackberry’s during a presentation training us to represent battered women in their divorces. I can’t exactly pin down what is so assholey about it…but it almost seems like these people seem to believe that the possession of a Blackberry makes them more important and indispensable to the Street. Nay, to the world!

Anyhow, I know I check text messages a lot. And I know that a Blackberry is going to be a major part of my life in the future…but if I ever get out of hand with it, and adopt an air of an asshole with it…you have my permission and my request to simply give me a weary deadpan and simply say “Asshole.” And every time I try to explain why I have to check it, please interrupt whatever I’m saying with a simple word: “asshole.” (I’ll probably still have to check it, but still say it.)

Oh, while surfing for a picture of super durfwad Asshole number 1, I found asshole number 3:

Samir Patel misspelled a word in fifth round of the national spelling bee. His mother appealed. “Based on subtle differences in how the word’s final syllable can be pronounced.”

…Jesus.

…And finally, I’d like to point out the existence of what appears to be, incredibly, a Reversal of Perpetual Assholism. I haven’t seen the details (caveat emptor), but apparently Bush has called for 30 billion for Global AIDS, as well as a Kyoto-like curbing of greenhouse emissions. (Environmentalists are still bitching, of course, but at least it means our President isn’t completely, absolutely, 100%, undeniably, supremely fucking crazy. Just almost completely so.)

‘Tis All. I was in the office until 8 pm working on a project I have no business doing…and that’s all I really have to report about work.

New York

Well I’ve been AWOL (not that there is anyone who would have noticed of course)…but the reality is that in the midst of all the ridiculous infrastructure, skyscrapers, wifi hotspots, and thousands of computers….I actually don’t have internet….which will explain why I haven’t really responded to emails, posted comments, posted on the blog, paid my credit card bills, or anything else of that nature.

That being said, I am 6 days into my life at BigLaw, BigLaw being Wall Street, corporate, grey suits, and the overt pursuit of the Almighty Dollar. The firm itself is beautiful. The artwork on the walls is (generally) tasteful, the woodwork and carpeting is lavish, the offices have huge peering into the majestic views of…the sides of other buildings…and the people are actually quite friendly, intelligent, and easy to be around. So far I’ve been paid a ridiculous salary to read the Wall Street Journal, check my email incessantly, and complain to my two officemates about how I don’t have any work to do. The summer gig seems to be a long summer of “self-discovery” about what type of corporate lawyer you want to be, and a long schmoozefest attempting to convince you that life at a law firm is as nice as it would seem in the ideal. That means 3 hour lunches twice a week, at the restaurants people without corporate accounts tend to not eat at, and summer events like Trapeze School (HELLLLL YEAH) and meeting the Mets and playing ball against the Mets organization on the field at Shea Stadium (I would be excited if I wasn’t such a woman.)

I think I’ve grown to like New York a lot more than I thought I would. The honest truth is that I’ve always been anti-big city more or less because I have been too insecure, scared, and frankly intimidated by big cities, especially places like New York which is the biggest of big cities – the rich Wall Street investment bankers, super trendy hipsters, punk rockers, hippies, movie stars, super models, sex and the city, and all of the other things that I’m too lame to be immersed in. But now that I’m here, all of those aspects of the city are really the lamer parts of the city. There’s a large contingent of middle class white kids feigning poverty and authenticity in clothes from goodwill and studded chokers, small tee-shirts and slim fit jeans…a lot of Greek Duke University-types bringing Carrie Bradshaw’s New York to life merely by trying so hard to live it that they actually create it…and plenty and plenty of people who simply aren’t attractive at all. In short, it’s just a really busy city with lots and lots and lots of people doing lots and lots and lots of things. So I like it.

This is definitely not to say that I am or ever will be a New Yorker by any standards. I don’t fit in here, I’m sort of ambivalent to a lot of the bullshit that New York and New Yorkers seem to carry around, and I don’t think I really will be for a very long time…but for the time being, I can see myself here and think things will be OK.

Anyhow, I think it’s about time to go to bed…and I feel like after this first post I’ll be posting more. Let me know where you are, how you are, what you’re up to and if you’re gonna come to the city!

I wrote this two days ago...but forgot to post it.

Well that was just plain fun…

After a night of scrubbing, sweeping, drinking Belhavens and watching “The Prestige” and “10 Items or Less” (Both movies which I highly recommend), I went to bed and woke up at 8 to finish up the move-out.

So I packed up all my crap, did some final laundry, ran some errands, and arrived back in my apartment to find that the young gay couple who were taking my apartment had let themselves in, believing that I had already left. And after getting them all set up, I said goodbye to my apartment for the summer and hopped in my car at 2 pm.

…And so I was off, for a surprise visit back to South Carolina. I admit there’s really no reason to drive 1000 miles with gas prices over 3 dollars a gallon, simply to fly back to New York 24 hours after my arrival…but I felt like it would be fun. A way to unwind, relax, and to see my parents, since I don’t really speak to them all that much.

So off I went, with 10 new CDs and a long robusto Cohiba cigar. 5 of them were Barack Obama’s “Audacity of Hope”, read by the Senator himself, and 5 of them were “Heat” by Bill Buford…a fantastic book about a cook’s life in the kitchen of a major Italian restaurant in Manhattan which dives into the life history and character of Mario Batali, explores the experience of working as a cook in his restaurant, and eventually takes the author on multiple trips to Italy to learn the old ways of butchering, handmade pasta-making, and the history of Italian cuisine. A splendid book really.

And here I am at 3am somewhere north of Durham, having covered 700 miles, 2 gatorades, 1 Aquifina, 1 Quiznos sub, 3 cigarettes, 1 cigar, finished “Heat”, listened to 4 of 5 cds of Obama’s book, told 6 lies to my mother about where I am and what my plans were, and one cup of coffee.

Good day.

(I also change my mind about Bird and the Bee. I actually DO like the cd. Or most of it.)

Kirk Cameron

Kirk Cameron is an absolute basketcase...

If you don't recall, Kirk Cameron played Mike Sever on 'Growing Pains' in the 80's. These days, he is marauding as a fundamentalist Christian nutjob who tries to evangelize us heathen folk by starring in such movies as "Left Behind" "Left Behind II" and "Left Behind III." (The latter two aren't the real names)
If somehow you have escaped awareness of what the "Left Behind" series is, it's essentially a fundamentalist interpretation of the Rapture and the return of the Anti-Christ...which revels in the massacre of non-believers and places the head of the UN as the Anti-Christ. (By the way, given that these are some of the best-selling books of our time...it's terrifying to realize that increasing numbers of Americans have embraced the series as an accurate assessment of how things will generally turn out.) I'd also like to note that this is just the next logical step in the line of brilliant scholarship that produced works such as this (as some of you may remember):

Two things to note: First, the exclamation point. "Gorbachev!"
Second, the author is from Greenville, South Carolina.

In addition, I would like to point out that there is now a Left Behind videogame.More importantly, I'd like to point out that the premise of the game has been the focus of some controversy. Why?
Because one of the major premises of the game appears to be this: Non-christians must either be converted or killed.

Jesus would be proud.

Anyhow...the real purpose of the post was simply to mock Kirk Cameron...which got out of hand as I started down the "Left Behind" pathway...Here's reason 1:


This is a line of argumentation that is perfectly acceptable to large portions of the (voting) population. That is TERRIFYING. And funny.

The second reason is that Kirk Cameron recently went on Nightline to debate the existence of God. Slate wrote up a nice little article about it here....and here's a great little excerpt:

If Nightline wanted to host an enlightening discussion about religion, it would have invited some intelligent believers to mount a defense of faith and to talk about why faith and proof of it are mutually exclusive. Instead, the show served up Cameron goofing on Charles Darwin, apparently the preferred target of dimwitted theists. At one point, Cameron, mocking the theory of evolution, held up a photo-illustration of a duck with the head of crocodile. Seeing this, [the opposing party], stunned, could not help but mutter, "Oh. My. God."

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOHYEA!!!

Finished with Exams!

Edit: I promptly came home, tore the sleeves of a t-shirt, put on my headphones, and rode around the city on my bike for the next 3 hours running errands (ie. Buying the new Bjork cd, Riding out to MIT to look at the Gehry building.)

Rodrigo y Gabriela.

I can't tell whether or not I'm momentarily drawn in by the novelty and energy, but I gotta say I am definitely impressed and loving Rodrigo y Gabriela and right now. They're ex-thrash metal guitarists from Mexico now producing enormously full sounds with two acoustic guitars...although you wouldn't guess it from looking at them, especially Gabriela. The broken english and timid Spanish doesn't hurt either...

In any case, they're pretty fucking wild...Here's some live clips if you're interested...although the stuff on their myspace page is much higher quality and better to listen to...





And here is some random video where they sit down and explain how they play their parts....CRAZY.


Finally...they have spawned a generation of You-Tubers attempting to play their songs...This one is actually pretty impressive. Ok. I a little deficient...


But better than these two white guys...



......If you made it this far and actually watched even ONE of those clips...You must be pretty interesting. Or at least find this interesting. In which case you should get in touch with me and we should try to see if we can see 'em live. Unless you're a minority.

God People are Funny.

I mean, c'mon! That's just funny.

(KUTV) SALT LAKE CITY A Salt Lake County woman has been arrested, accused of attacking her husband with a hammer on Friday night.

Joel Ricks told authorities that his wife Amy told him she had a surprise for him. He said she blindfolded him and led him into the basement of a Holladay condominium.

The woman then allegedly struck her husband with a hammer multiple times.

The man was able to escape and called 911. Deputies arrested his wife for aggravated assault.

Although another news story off of Fark was about a man who stabbed his 70 year old father to death, and then immediately after managed to kill himself by decapitating himself with a chainsaw. I'm not exactly sure how he managed to do it, but it seems like he managed to completely cut his own head off. (Shudder)

Nature is Crazy.

I'm sure glad I don't live in Ohio anymore....I was terrified of these things as a kid, and I think for damn good reason...

Look at how these things descend from the sky...if I saw that tendril coming down, my eyes would slowly get wider and wider with alarm until I no longer looked chinese.



Or what the hell were THESE guys doing? I bet that car smells like empty bowels and full pants. (I actually haven't heard these videos because I'm in the library, but the YouTube comments indicate that they're morons or something.)

Black People.

(How many white people just did sort of a startled mini political correctness test to see if that title is offensive? Since surely your gut had some sort of reaction...)

Anyhow, this post doesn't really have to do with that. I was just trolling around on the internet and stumbled across this interesting article about black people, college, affirmative action, and all that good stuff. It's confirmatory rather than eye-opening, but I thought it was interesting nonetheless. Here's some excerpts for the lazies who don't feel like reading the article:

Among students at 28 top U.S. universities, the representation of black students of first- and second-generation immigrant origin (27 percent) was about twice their representation in the national population of blacks their age (13 percent). Within the Ivy League, immigrant-origin students made up 41 percent of black freshmen...

[Black chick in the article] would like to know why. She asks if her cause has lost its way on U.S. campuses, with the goal of correcting American racial injustices replaced by a softer ideal of diversity — as if any black student will do.

“To white observers, black immigrants seem more polite, less hostile, more solicitous, and ’easier to get along with” the study said. “Native blacks are perceived in precisely the opposite fashion.”

That idea immediately found detractors.

“I can’t speak for white people, but that’s crazy,” said Adoma Adjei-Brenyah, a Columbia University student with college-educated parents from Ghana.

I would offer a snide and breezily caustic remark that paints everyone involved in this debate as stupid or ridiculous...but I think it's actually a really interesting issue to think about...and i'm not sure how I feel about it.

I do appreciate how they framed their spokesperson for the African perspective though. Very balanced with no insinuations.

Thoughts? (This sort of bald solicitation for other people's thoughts generally amounts to nothing. I know. Shut up.)

I admit...

...It actually took me about a minute to figure this out. Plus, I was on the phone, so Josh can attest to the fact that I sat there....silent....not quite sure why he thought it was funny.

But...it is funny....




And now for something else that I found interesting...

(This will take you through a guide of how I use modern media too.)

After watching Marie Antoinette (Yes. My quality of life has taken a dive. But it was Sophia Coppola. That has to mean something.), I naturally went onto Wikipedia to read about the real Marie Antoinette. You know, the same shit. To see what she looked like. To see what actually happened. Whether I should replace my understanding of history with Kirsten Dunst...etc.
...and...after being horrified by the unbelievable inhumanity and bloodlust of the French Revolution, I noticed that one of her loyal ladies in waiting was decapitated for refusing to betray her loyalty to the queen...and had her head placed on a pike, and the severed head was paraded in front of Marie Antoinette's window. (Actually, if the ol' Wiki is to be believed, she was gang raped, had her breasts cut off, she was mutilated, possibly had her genitals cut out, and THEN her head was placed on the pike. More reason to hate the French eh?)

As was also natural, I went to look up who played this lady in waiting in the movie on IMDB...remembered who her character was...and then went back to Wikipedia. As if that would enrich my experience, right?

So then I kept reading, and I found out that some lady named Madame Tussaud, made a death mask of this lady, named Princess de Lamballe. And I thought to myself, "what the fuck is a death mask?"

So in the ever handy upper-right corner Google searchbar of Firefox, I typed in Death Mask....and the rest of the night was pretty much lost.

Up until and past the time of photography, apparently, for purposes of identification, or for making statues, or for various other reasons...it was common practice to take a waxen or plaster cast of a dead person's face. This sparked my interest. Because I have always really wondered what old dead people actually looked like. For example, these are all pictures of James Madison.






I find this Profoundly unhelpful. I want to know what he actually looked like! Apparently he was 5'1" and 110 pounds. That is not what I see. So for people like Madison (unfortunately, he doesn't have one), I could actually see what they looked like! So I searched and searched...and had a jolly ol' time...until, well, hours later I did my evidence homework.

Anyhow, here's a few:

This one is obvious, but serves as testament to its accuracy.

This one is not obvious. It's Napoleon.

Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure will never be the same.....

Quick Question.

I'm totally not trying to be political here...but I have a question:

As someone, who like me, may have grown into political consciousness sometime over the past 6-8 years, are you just shocked at how bad this Administration has been?

i don't mean this in a democratic, or liberal way....but just...as an American citizen. I mean, just on every single level, in every news cycle, in every sense of governing...isn't it just incredible how awful this is? Is this just what it feels like to grow up and see that the world truly is messy, and that there are no easy solutions? or is it as bad intentioned and incompetent as it seems? I could make a 300 page list of awful things that have been done.

I'm actually looking for an answer. shocked? no? Supportive? Is this just what growing up is like?

I've been driven back to music as my most favoritest refuge....

This began as a very short post. And it has evolved into an omnibus of various thoughts...

Music has reclaimed me recently.

I went a few random local shows, and I realized how much I missed it. Then I popped in Ozma's Crossing over the Borderline into my car CD player on full blast on the way to the clinic, and spent 30 minutes remembering how I used to feel about music...the way it sends shocks down my legs so they can't stop bouncing, the way the energy pours back into me, and how it felt to not think about the law, or a career, or fucking Harvard Law School and just make a total fool of myself rocking out to Joanna Newsom at full blast in a predominantly black, low-income neighborhood. (My subwoofer kicks their shitty hip hop's subwoofer's ass. Even if it is only projecting the sound of a harp and harpy.) (That's for you AJ. The harpy bit.)

I go through periodic cycles where I return to certain artists in massive storms of immersion, for example Bjork, Smashing Pumpkins, Tool, the Beatles, and the like...but I don't think I've ever actually phased out of music completely until I got into law school. So I've decided to take that back too.

(Incidentally, I've also begun re-reading Rilke's "Letters to a Young Poet", which always somehow manages to slap me in the face, one way or the other. Good stuff.)

try to love the questions themselves like locked rooms...Do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given you ecause you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer. Perhaps you do carry within yourself the possibility of shaping and forming as a particularly happy and pure way of living; train yourself to it - but take whatever comes with great trust, and if only it comes out of your own will, out of some need of your inmost being, take it upon your self and hate nothing.

Anyway....

For the one or two of you who may actually care, I've decided to post Bjork's two performances on SNL from some recent episode, in tribute to my return to this wonderful little world. At this point, slightly more accessible than Medulla, but still probably less accessible than Homogenic or Post. Of course, this doesn't say much...since the first time I bought a Bjork CD on a whim, I hated it so much and got so fed up that I threw it across the room. (It was 6 months later when I found it under the couch...It must have burned a groove into my mind because I felt the melodies and emotions settle into comfortable and ecstatic corners, and the rest is history.)

I did, however, forget how incredibly weird Bjork is on stage. And how she simply simply cannot dance. In fact being so bad that you could almost say she dances well.






And for those of you who find this too inaccessible, or too boring to even consider clicking...or who would like a little more of a classic Bjork experience, here's her video for Bachelorette: a Fractal illustrated into life, a mirror's reflection of a mirror.



Or we could just go with a solid, universally loved song...accompanied by two Bjork robots making out. It's really quite incredible. Albeit incredibly bizarre.




And finally, this is the song that has hypnotized me for the past few weeks. I can't figure out why, though I don't think the song really hits til after 2:30. Though I certainly recommend that if you want to listen to it, you do NOT watch the video. Completely kills it. In fact, just don't look at it. It's just plain silly. In fact it's humiliating to associate myself with this video.



Cheers!

My music rotation since Monday:
--Imogen Heap
--Damien Rice
--Joanna Newsom
--Coheed and Cambria
--Jack's Mannequin
--The bird and the bee
--Inara George
--Muse
--The Everyday Visuals
--Rodrigo Y Gabriela
--Regina Spektor

Please make suggestions! I'm on my way to tracking down Pere Ubu and Silversun Pickups. I love the fact that all of these artists, with a few exceptions, are easily accessible in small concert venues at almost a non-stop rate. That's the good stuff.

And as you can guess from the length of this unnecessary post....exams are around the corner....Good luck to you law students!

I'm verbose, but not eloquent.

I have several reasons for supporting Obama. Primary reasons include intellectual honesty, the embrace of community and individual ideals, the non-dogmatic willingness for dialogue and working towards a solution instead of believing that solutions are readily available and anointed by God...but also because I feel like we are witnessing a moment in history that signals the decline of the United States. The moment was not September 11, but September 12: The day the Bush Presidency was given the carte blanche. The beginning of the decline of pluralism, of a democratic morality, of national decency and integrity, and of the legitimacy of US leadership and influence.

Instead of trying to explain it myself, Andrew Sullivan (a very prominent conservative / libertarian) has put it much better.

But this much we can already say: Obama brings something no one else does to this moment. By replacing one of the most globally despised and domestically divisive presidents in American history with a young leader half-Kansan and half-Kenyan, America would be saying something to the world: Bush-Cheney is not who we are. America is not what it has come to appear to be. This country is among the most culturally and racially and religiously diverse on the planet. America has long been a powerful and vital beacon for human rights - not, as recently, the avatar of torture, rendition and executive tyranny. The simple existence of Obama as a new president in a new century would in itself enhance America's soft power immeasurably, just as a clear decision to leave Iraq would provide much greater leverage for diplomacy and military force in a whole variety of new ways. Obama would mean the rebranding of America, after a disastrous eight years....

This is the reason for his ascendancy. This is what the American people sense and the world awaits. This is what the Islamists fear. That last alone is reason to feel hope. Money quote [from Obama]:

We must [lead] not in the spirit of a patron, but the spirit of a partner – a partner that is mindful of its own imperfections. Extending an outstretched hand to these states must ultimately be more than just a matter of expedience or even charity. It must be about recognizing the inherent equality and worth of all people. And it’s about showing the world that America stands for something – that we can still lead...

[I]f the next President can restore the American people's trust – if they know that he or she is acting with their best interests at heart, with prudence and wisdom and some measure of humility – then I believe the American people will be ready to see America lead again.

They will be ready to show the world that we are not a country that ships prisoners in the dead of night to be tortured in far off countries. That we are not a country that runs prisons which lock people away without ever telling them why they are there or what they are charged with. That we are not a country which preaches compassion and justice to others while we allow bodies to float down the streets of a major American city.

That is not who we are.

OH. MY. GOD.

Yes. An impression of Janice.

And if you understood that reference, you're as big of a loser as me. Or at least a woman.

Anyhow, This is the crazies.

Let me just say that I am very uncomfortable with this. And if you don't feel like clicking on the link and going to the article, let me just post this quotation:

"We think the clinics will be a great opportunity for our business. But most importantly, they are going to provide something our customers and communities desperately need -- affordable access at the local level to quality health care," said Wal-Mart Chief Executive Officer Lee Scott in a statement.

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Fantastic!!!!!!

This is one of the Daily Show's best moments I've seen in a very long time: HAHAHAHAHA

Holy shit! Crazy!

Maybe I shouldn't so amused, but I thought this was ridiculous, and thus, hilarious. I mean, clearly it's an absurdity, but that doesn't detract from the Chineseness of it all.

TORONTO, Ontario (AP) -- Doris Moore was shocked when her new couch was delivered to her Toronto home with a label that used a racial slur to describe the dark brown shade of the upholstery.

The situation was even more alarming for Moore because it was her 7-year-old daughter who pointed out "nigger brown" on the tag.

"My daughter saw the label and she knew the color brown, but didn't know what the other word meant. She asked, 'Mommy, what color is that?' I was stunned. I didn't know what to say. I never thought that's how she'd learn of that word," Moore said.

The mother complained to the furniture store, which blamed the supplier, who pointed to a computer problem as the source of the derogatory label

Kingsoft Corp., a Chinese software company, acknowledged its translation program was at fault and said it was a regrettable error.

"I know this is a very bad word," Huang Luoyi, a product manager for the Beijing-based company's translation software, told The Associated Press in a telephone interview.

He explained that when the Chinese characters for "dark brown" are typed into an older version of its Chinese-English translation software, the offensive description comes up.

"We got the definition from a Chinese-English dictionary. We've been using the dictionary for 10 years. Maybe the dictionary was updated, but we probably didn't follow suit," he said

hahahahahahahahahahahahaha. That's so chinese. I mean. Come on!!!!!

Will this be enough?

This time: 32 people killed.

I am stunned.

Edit:

Virginia Citizens Defense League President James Van Cleave -

Excerpts from Van Cleave's e-mail with the subject title: "VA-ALERT: Gun-control claims lives at Virginia Tech"

"As most of you know VCDL has been pushing hard to change Virginia law to allow college and university students with concealed handgun permits to be able to carry a gun on campus for self-defense. ... We could not get the bills out of subcommittee."

"The General Assembly turned a deaf ear to allowing college and university students to be able to protect themselves and here we are today :-( "

"ENOUGH OF ELITIST BALONEY FROM COLLEGES AND UNIVERSITIES!
If just ONE of those victims had been armed, this most probably would have turned out very differently".

This will never end.

Just some more...

Just for those who may conceivably care...Here is a video I made of them before I left, that I actually think is decent.

God I miss them.

For just one moment, when I walk through Harvard Science Center, I feel cool again.

But that's not what this post is about.

I write today with a sense of bittersweetness and great joy. And probably a heavy dose of melodrama. But it's 4:30 am.

On Monday, I received an email at 2 am from Freedom Foundation with a simple note that Girish's adoption had become final, and that he will be leaving for Sweden the next day.


(That's him on his birthday.)

Girish was the first child to open up to me at Freedom, an effervescent 15 year old who spoke English. One morning I found him sick and home from school with a (very common) viral fever, and with him my love for the children began and my sense of home at Freedom began to take root. That day I learned that he was from Mumbai. That his father used to repair televisions in a small rundown booth on the side of the road. That his mother was beautiful and loving. And that he had a younger brother, named Ganesh, who had been adopted by a Swedish family 4 years earlier. He told me that after his parents both died of AIDS when he was 9 or 10, he tried to make ends meet by cleaning tables in shoddy roadside dhabas, and lived on the streets with Ganesh.

But he was not hardened. He was not cynical, he was not suspicious, dishonest or conniving. He was a fantastic 15 year old. (Well, to be honest, we found out that he was actually 14 the month before I left.) I would plug in my little Indian cellphone into my laptop and we would get on the internet, and I would do the best that I could to show him where Sweden was on the world map. To find pictures of Stockholm. To explain that Sweden was cold as balls. To calculate the time it would take to fly there. To explain that it was so cold that ice on the river would be so thick that you could walk on it.

And then, of course, he would start begging me to play Half-Life. (And eventually Half-Life 2, when my mother shipped it to me for Christmas. Incidentally, I beat Half-Life, Call of Duty, Medal of Honor, and Half-Life 2 in India. A group of 22 children stood behind me and watched the whole thing. Actually, the kids beat Half-Life 2.

Except for the hard parts. That's him wearing the orange checkered shirt. Behind the clump of children is a laptop displaying an unholy war unfolding in Half-Life 2. )

To get back to the story, Girish's little bro Ganesh lived in Sweden with a Swedish family. When Girish was 10 and Ganesh was about 6, the Indian government allowed the family to adopt only Ganesh even though the Swedish family desperately wanted to keep the brothers together: But Girish had HIV, Ganesh did not, and Indian government policy did not allow HIV+ children to be adopted. So Freedom fought for 5 years to let the family adopt Girish. Last week they won.

Girish was the second oldest child. Murugesh was the oldest (17), Girish was second (15), and Suresh was third (14). The rest of the children basically clumped around the ages of 8-11, so these three formed the ruling triumvirate: a group of the first generation of adolescent HIV+ teenagers struggling to forge a path that had never, ever been attempted or possible. HIV+ children just didn't live past 6 in a country like India. And HIV did not appear in India until 1986. But more importantly, Murugesh relied on Girish. As the oldest, most responsible, and most talented of the children, Murugesh had a sidekick in Girish. Girish was the only other HIV+ boy who was facing the same uncontrollable sex drive; the only other person who could compete with him in cricket; the only other person who could help him control the rest of the children and carry the burden of maturity and responsibility. And now he Girsh is leaving to Sweden. And I know Murugesh is heartbroken.

The other miracle about Girish is that he is in perfect health in spite of his HIV-status. Most of the children had begun anti-retroviral therapy by the ages of 6-10, as their CD4 (immune system) cell count dropped into AIDS range (<200) and viral suppression therapy was necessary to bring them back to functional immunity. Yet Girish, at the age of 15, still inexplicably managed to maintain a normal CD4 count without treatment. A miraculous anomaly in the world of HIV.

And now he will be leaving Freedom Foundation to start a new life with a new family in Sweden. He will have his brother back, and a new (blonde) sister, a new mother, and a new father. With Swedish medicine and his miraculous health, Girish may live to see 30, 40, or even 50. Or, in my dream of dreams, Girish may live to see a cure for HIV. And Girish may write me an email when I am 65, and he is 55, still calling me Jay Uncle. I could even meet him for coffee one day, as an adult. This is a source of joy. Girish finally has all the love, care, and medicine he needs.

But the mere existence of this miracle leads inexorably to the conclusion that the other children may not be so fortunate. They have lost part of their unique family. The big brother that most of them have know for the past 5 years. And Girish will certainly have to watch his adopted brothers and sisters succumb to a virus, with his experience in Sweden leading him to the awareness that they didn't have to: Prasanna Kumar, Harshini, Shafi, Shaziya, Murugesh, Varsha, Suresh, Deepthi, Saritha, Saraswathi, Harshita, Raju, Anitha, Gautam, Karthik, Punitha, Annappa, Rajesh, Vishal, and Abdul Gaffar...

There is so much more to say that I'm tempted to write another 10,000 words...but I think I've said enough. All I wanted to do was share the significance of a triumph.

My heart races right now just thinking about what has happened in Girish's life in the past 48 hours. Born into a loving family, he lost his family to HIV at 10, lost his brother to Indian emigration policy, and moved into a rundown HIV hospital on the outskirts of a third-world city...and just a day ago, he boarded a plane to one of the most advanced industrial countries in the world. The kid who was so stunned and enthralled by the Spiderman movies and computer games is now entering a new world. A world full of Swedish speakers. Blondes. Neo-nazis. Socialism. A new school. A new culture. Jews. A new life. Eating meat 3 times a day. Clean streets. Supermarkets. Cable television. High-speed internet. A brother who speaks Swedish. But most importantly, he has a new family who has fought for 5 long years to win the chance to take him...and now he has a chance to start over. So I'm happy. A wonderful human being has been given a chance for a wonderful life. There isn't much more we can ask for.

Bjork!

Bjork's new album is out in less than a month...and her first song is now available! For the one of you who might be interested...here it is!



It sounds like a return to her more energetic Debut era stuff with more maturity. I'm excited again! (unlike the feeling I had after the first week of listening to Medulla.)


On a more personal note, last night I decided to convince my friends to an album release concert and art show that was happening in a big rock club in Boston. The band was a local hipster-ish band named "The Everyday Visuals" and I actually had a fantastic time. I had several oversized PBRs, watched 3 or 4 bands (Hippie folk singing white chick, an awesome Jett Rink-ish high energy rock band, a hipster band who sounded indistinguishable from any of the Killers/Franz Ferdinand/Interpol/Stellastarr genre, and finally the Everyday Visuals)...and just had a blast.

I totally missed being in clubs and seeing shows.

Anyhow, it's work time! Back to lawlaw land....sigh.