Author: Andrew Sullivan

Ian Desai visits the Indian leader's library:

From the heart of this library, I began to learn that the common conception of Gandhi as a solitary, saintly hero who stood up to the British Empire and led India toward independence was incomplete. Gandhi was actually an energetic and effective director of one of the 20th century’s most innovative social enterprises. He was, in essence, an exceptional entrepreneur who relied on a tight-knit community of coworkers—and an extensive store of intellectual resources—to support him and his work. …

Though philosophically he disavowed material possessions, Gandhi became a savvy and serial collector of books and people. When he returned to India, he brought a number of his coworkers from South Africa with him as well as almost 10,000 books and pamphlets.

"There Was Earth Inside Them" by Paul Celan (1959) was translated from the German by John Felstiner and appeared in The Atlantic in November, 2000:

There was earth inside them, and
they dug.

They dug and dug, and so
their day went past, their night. And they did not praise God,
who, so they heard, wanted all this,
who, so they heard, witnessed all this.

They dug and heard nothing more;
they did not grow wise, invented no song,
devised for themselves no sort of language.
They dug.

There came a stillness then, came also storm,
all of the oceans came.
I dig, you dig, and it, the worm, digs too,
and the singing there says: They dig.

O one, O none, O no one, O you:
Where did it go, then, making for nowhere?
O you dig and I dig, and I dig through to you,
and the ring on our finger awakens.

(Photo by Jennifer Hardt)

Penelope Trunk shares her experiences:

When you date, there’s the official dance date you do, which I can handle. I’ve been dating enough to know you do dinner, talk, go to someone’s house, move close, kiss, lay down, get close to sex, go to bed. That’s the dance. I know where we are and what’s coming next.

But if you’re married, there’s no dance. You are just there, in bed. So the dance becomes a micro dance. There are little cues you give the other person, a careful touch in a spot you don’t usually touch, a kiss that is a kiss that means this-is-not-a-goodnight-kiss, a pointed question like, did the kids fall asleep? These are tiny cues that have to come with other, tiny cues.

I tell [my husband], "I can’t take it. The subtle stuff. It's too much. Just tell me you want to have sex."

The Oscar winner doing what he does best. Strangely uplifting:

Mark Craig saved all of the tapes from his 1985 answering machine and compiled them into a documentary called Talk To Me, available at 4Docs. You can watch a clip at NPR.

David Bornstein profiles Julia Borbolla and the animated characters she uses to help abused children talk about their problems. The cartoon's words and mannerisms are controlled from a keyboard in a separate room:

One of the first times Borbolla used the Antenas character was with a five-year-old girl whose parents brought her in because she had been wetting her bed. Antenas asked the girl, “Who do you live with?” She replied: “My father, my mother, my little brother, and the maid.” When Antenas asked: “What’s a maid?” the girl replied “It’s a woman who helps mother with the house and when your father goes out, she hurts you.”

Another time Antenas asked a young boy, “What’s a driver?” and the boy said that a driver is a man who uses the car and touches you in the guest bathroom when your parents go out. Borbolla explained that these disclosures ─ spontaneous responses to general questions ─ are highly reliable, especially when they come from young children. But therapists also follow up with the child and the family to confirm facts.

How the average consumer spends their paycheck.

(Hat tip: Andrew Price)

Maura R. O'Connor examines the coverage of the crisis:

The longer American news outlets ignore these critical and complex issues, the easier it will become to view their occasional jaunts to Haiti with cynicism: it’s [a] convenient place to get B-roll of tragedy and disaster. Their coverage increases viewership, but without a moral component of responsibility towards Haitians themselves over the long-term, such coverage is basically exploitative.

And over time, superficial reporting on Haiti’s problems – which plays a role in soliciting charitable donations from Americans – will arguably make the media culpable in the very system of aid-dependence and misguided development policies that help keep Haiti poor.

Kentaro Toyama explains the limits of telecenters:

[S]tories have sparked high hopes for telecenters: distance education will make every child a scholar; telemedicine can cure dysfunctional rural health-care systems; citizens will offer each other services locally and directly, bypassing corrupt government officials. …

What do people want to do with the technology they have access to? Those of us who have worked in interventionist ICT4D [Information and Communication Technologies for Development] have often been surprised to find that poor people don’t rush to gain more education, learn about health practices, or upgrade vocational skills. Instead, they seem to use technology primarily for entertainment. Telecenter surveys find that when a village has ready access to a PC—connected to the Internet or otherwise—the dominant use is by young men playing games, watching movies, or consuming adult content.

Surprise!

A reader writes:

I'm surprised you didn't include Denis Leary's classic comment about Sting's masterpiece of smug:

"Save the world? Try saving your fucking hair."