Month: May 2006

The View From Your Window

Capetown

Cape Town, South Africa, sundown.

This one has a back-story, which is worth – just this time – recounting:

I’m visiting my partner outside of his native country of India for the first time ever. I’m a US citizen, he’s Indian, and like so many foreigners, he can’t get a visitor’s visa, never mind a green card, for the US. And of course I can’t sponsor him since we’re a same-sex couple. Even getting a visa for South Africa was a difficult undertaking for him. But he got it, finally, just six hours before his flight from Bombay was departing. We’re vacationing together in Cape Town, South Africa, and these are the views from the place we’re staying. Sundown on our first day here.

Not many straight couples understand the way in which bi-national gay couples are kept apart, hounded and isolated by immigration laws, especially in the U.S. where gay couples are deemed non-existent under federal law.

Quote for the Day

"Make no mistake: the real reason why Congress is so concerned about the raid on Jefferson’s office is that many of them know that corruption within Congress is rampant. If the FBI and the Justice Department can start getting serious about investigating corruption in Congress, many of their colleagues (and possibly they themselves) could be next. Is it any accident, do you think, that instead of trumpeting corruption by a Democratic Congressman, Speaker Hastert – who himself is rumored to be under investigation in the Abramoff affair – is objecting loudly to the search of Jefferson’s office?" – Jack Balkin, on his blog.

A Rose By Any Other Name

The blogger, Ali Eteraz, recently posted a reminiscence from a female American soldier in Iraq. She’s back home now and has a blog at LiveJournal. This posting about a small moment in Iraq affected me, because it reminded me of the hope we still have a duty to aspire to, and the nobility of the cause now compromised. It was an ordinary, stiflingly hot afternoon, and four American soldiers were given tea by an Iraqi family, headed by a mother with small girls. Over to the soldier:

"[W]e had to get moving anyway, so we started to get ready to go. And then Rania came running up to me, waving her hand to show me she had something for me.

It was a rose. It was at that perfect moment, bloomed and fresh, and so fragrant it filled the Humvee. (There’s another sentence I’ll never be able to use again.) I was touched beyond measure.

What this little girl could see from her doorstep was a bunch of sweaty probably irritable Americans ‚Äî and shell casings, torn branches, and debris from the battles. She wasn’t touched by any of it, even though her house had been. It was us she saw, and she saw us as potential friends. The little girl trusted adults to do the right thing. Her parents must be the most amazing people in the world.

I got out of the Hummer and saw her mother standing at the gate, waving good bye. There are some gestures that are universal —- putting your hand on your heart ought to say something. She held her hand over her heart and said her name, which I simply cannot reproduce. But then she took my hand and kissed my cheek, and I remembered other days, in France, where cheek kissing seems charming rather than affected. She could not know that I had only just lost my mother, and that her caress made me feel whole for just one second. I could know nothing more about her than her kindness and her gentle eyes. I kissed her cheek and we stood there and smiled at each other, and then we had to go.

When you think of Iraq, don’t think of terrorists or Saddam Hussein. Think of Rania and her mother’s hospitality, of the American soldiers sweating on her doorstep and sipping tea from little glasses on a ninety-degree day. Muktada Sadr does not represent Iraq and no matter how many people he kills or attacks, he never will.

Another small window into another world. Know hope.

China, India, Global Warming

Yesterday, I made the point that I didn’t see what use it would be for the United States to cut back on greenhouse gases, while China and India raced ahead, spewing pollution at a rate that makes the West look squeaky clean. They haven’t signed up for Kyoto; and they will rightly complain that we weren’t ham-string while we were developing our economies, so why should they? Several of you countered my point. Here’s the most succinct expression of the other view:

The best argument that I can make about China and India, is that if the United States were to really tackle our CO2 emissions, we would do it by producing technology that would produce CO2-free energy in a cost-effective way, or similarly technology that makes substantially more efficient.  That is something that Chinese and Indian companies would readily purchase from us, especially as global pressure increases to comply on the issue.

The thing to remember is that these countries are growing so much, but they still have a great ways to go, and they are about as agressive as any nation when it comes to adopting new technologies.

I can see that. But that means primarily a pro-growth, pro-tech green emphasis, rather than on old-style environmentalism in which government intervenes to prevent certain pollutants. I can see the point. A policy that greatly increased the gas tax, while slowing greenhouse emissions through tradable permits might well prompt the private sector to come up with cleaner energy resources. Whether those resources would be economically attractive to the developing world is another story. My skepticism is muted, but not abolished. A global push for clean drinking water might alleviate far more human suffering far more reliably than a compromised and uncertain attempt to halt global warming.