Posts Tagged ‘Saudi Arabia’

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Letter From New York 05 10 15 On Mother’s Day and the existence of real world problems…

May 10, 2015

Today is the 10th of May. It’s Mother’s Day. My mother is long gone though I still am surprised that there are moments when I think: I need to call Mom and tell her this. So does my brother once in awhile.

So Happy Mother’s Day to all and sundry; when I was having my haircut today the woman cutting my hair asked me what I was doing for Mother’s Day and I had to tell her nothing. My mother has now been dead for twenty years. It seems impossible but it’s true. The last time I saw her she thought I was her brother Ted. It broke my heart.

And those are the things we have to face with aging parents and to worry about for ourselves as we age. I do, for myself. On Sundays I read the Wedding section of The New York Times and the Obituaries. Today there were a few people near my age who had died and it struck me how fragile our time on life earth is and how fleeting.

But these are existential questions and probably first world problems.

In Yemen, they are hoping that the conversation about a ceasefire will become reality. It will help get supplies to folks who are on the edge of starving. That’s a real world problem.

Apparently, there is an attempt being made to get a five-day truce to start on Tuesday to allow for the delivery of humanitarian supplies. There is also going to be a meeting between Arab leaders and Obama at Camp David this week though today King Salman of Saudi Arabia announced he would not be attending. Instead he is sending his Crown Prince and his Deputy Crown Prince in a gesture intended to communicate his displeasure with the US and its effort to reach a nuclear deal with Iran.

In Liberia today the churches celebrated that the country now seems free from Ebola. That’s a real world celebration.

In devastated Nepal, efforts are being made to provide sanitation for all of those who have lost their homes in an effort to prevent cholera and other diseases in advance of the coming Monsoon season. It is critical for the country that has in the past few years made major progress in creating better sanitation; much of that has been reversed by the earthquake. That is a very real problem. And it’s not a first world problem.

In our first world set of problems, security has been increased at US bases in this country because of a heightened concern over ISIS attacks in the homeland.

“Homeland” is a word I don’t remember being used for this country before 9/11, before there was a Department of Homeland Security. It is vaguely unsettling to me – like the Nazis who called Germany “The Fatherland.” It evokes a sense of siege, which I suppose we are in, in a way.

ISIS is a very real world problem all over the world.

Raul Castro met with Pope Francis. He is now thinking about going back to church. That’s a “Saul on the road to Damascus” moment if there ever was one.

Two days of mourning have been declared in Macedonia for the death of eight police officers that were killed in a raid against a terrorist organization, which seemed to have been made of ethnic Albanians. In the story, there are threads of organized crime, heroin and the continued instability of countries that once made up Yugoslavia.

Speaking of a Yugoslavian kind of situation, the hegemony of the television networks is really beginning to splinter this year as we go into the “upfronts,” that moment in the year when television networks get as much as 75% of their inventory purchased by advertisers.

Television ratings, overall, are down 9% from last year to this. Digital is getting more dollars and networks are facing a moribund upfront. It will still be huge but probably flat or down. It is an amazing thing to watch.

What is also amazing to watch is the sunset happening outside. Today was supposed to be a day of thunderstorms but instead there were crisp blue skies and the warmest day of the year. Clouds are beginning to form and we’ll probably have rain tomorrow but today was spectacular.

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Letter From New York 05 07 15 Rolling south on the Anniversary of Lusitania’s sinking…

May 7, 2015

As I write this, I am traveling south on the Northeast Regional Amtrak to Washington, DC, passing through an unattractive industrial zone right this minute. I am going down for a few appointments and to visit my friends, Lionel and Pierre, who are now living in Baltimore. I’ll take a train back up there this evening after I finish my 5:00 meeting.

They have already made dinner reservations at The Oyster House, one of their favorite restaurants.

As I am gliding down to DC the British voters are at the polls to decide who’ll be the next Prime Minister though I rather suspect there is going to some coalition building that will need to be done to form a government. It could all come down to the Scots, who have been surging in the polls and may hold the key to forming a new government, something neither the Tories nor Labour seem to want to contemplate.

The NY Times had an article about unusual polling places in the UK that included a pub and a hairdressing salon. Might be nice to have a vote at the pub, preceded or succeeded by a good draught of ale.

My friend Nick Stuart is going to a party tonight at the British Consulate for expats like him to watch the results. As I recall, Nick told me he tends to vote Liberal Democrat, the party brought in last time by the Tories to form a government.

France just strengthened its surveillance laws while here an appeals court has declared that the NSA, as revealed by Edward Snowden, has gone too far and has ruled its phone data collection illegal.

Tom Brady, quarterback for the Patriots, and arguably the biggest sports star today, has had his luster tarnished by fallout from Deflategate with the NFL saying it was probable that knew the balls were probably being deflated. It’s not a pretty tale.

A pretty tale for Maersk is that their ship, the Tigris, has been released by Iran and its crew is safe. In a sign of de-escalation of tension, the US Navy is no longer escorting American ships through the Straits of Hormuz.

To the west of the Straits of Hormuz is Yemen, now staggering under a humanitarian crisis triggered by the inability of ships to get permission to land their cargoes of food and fuel. Yemen imports 90% of what it consumes and there are at least ten ships laden with goods being prevented from landing by Saudi Arabia. It’s estimated that 80% of the country is going hungry. Anything that does get in finds its delivery delayed by the ongoing fighting, power outages and loss of foreign workers, who have fled the violence.

Continuing to the West, in Africa, disturbing allegations have risen against some of the French forces that were stationed in the Central African Republic last year. At least fourteen soldiers are suspected of having sexually abused minors in a refugee camp. Also disturbing is that it is also alleged that the UN slowed an investigation into the charges while suspending the UN worker who reported the abuse.

My impression of Thailand is generally that of a reasonably gentle country and one that is also reasonably safe. Yet mass graves have been found there. They are believed to contain the bodies of individuals from Myanmar [Burma] and Bangladesh, which had paid smugglers to get them into Thailand. Fifty police officers, some senior in rank, have been transferred from their current jobs to other positions. Eighteen arrest warrants have been issued.

General Prayuth, who runs Thailand after seizing power a year ago [I also forget about the regularity of the coups there] was confronted with the issue almost the moment he came to power but though he promised the US immediate action there was not much movement. Thai officials seem often to be passive about the issue or are actually involved in the game.

If you missed my note about it yesterday, today is the 100th Anniversary of the sinking of the Lusitania. After it was torpedoed, men on the deck exhorted each other to “Be British, boys, be British!” There were 39 babies aboard the Lusitania; only four survived. If you’re interested, I do recommend “Dead Wake,” a book by Erik Larsen chronicling the last voyage of Lusitania.

We are now south of Wilmington, Delaware and the scenery has improved. There is still another hour or so to go. I look forward to seeing Lionel and Pierre’s apartment and to experience a bit of Baltimore.

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Letter From New York 05 15 15 Perhaps a toast to Maximillian?

May 5, 2015

Today is Cinco de Mayo, a day celebrated by the Mexicans to commemorate their victory over the French in 1862. It is NOT the day of Mexican Independence; that’s celebrated on September 16th.

It’s a complicated story of debts not repaid, French ire and later a desire to build an empire in Mexico that was to expand French influence.

After their defeat at Puebla in 1862, the French came back with more troops and took over Mexico and installed Maximillian I as Emperor of Mexico, a situation that lasted only three years and ended with his death by firing squad.

His wife, the Empress Carlotta, a first cousin of both Queen Victoria and Prince Albert, Victoria’s consort, was in Europe attempting to raise support for her husband when news of his death arrived. She went insane.

So, as you have your margaritas tonight, you might want to think of Maximillian.

You might want to give a thought to David Cameron, Prime Minister of Britain. The British Election season is ending and the voters are going to the polls. Cameron’s government has done a fairly good job on economic reforms and getting the country on the way to recovery so he is trying to use those accomplishments to get people to vote for him.

And he will probably end up with the most seats but not enough to form a government on his own and he’ll have to put together some sort of coalition to rule. It’s going to be interesting to watch what happens; things are very interesting in Britain right now. Let’s see how it all falls out.

Today in the UK, Queen Elizabeth II, visited her great granddaughter, Princess Charlotte of Cambridge at Kensington Palace. No word on her reaction to the child though one of her middle names is Elizabeth; another is Diana.

Across the Channel in France, the legislature has voted to vastly expand the abilities for security services surveillance capabilities, almost without judicial governance. It is a reaction to the terrorist attacks earlier this year. It reminds one judge, who is opposed to it; of America’s Patriot Act.

Also in France a political drama is unfolding. The far right National Front Party has suspended its founder, Jean-Marie LePen, on orders of his daughter, Marine LePen, after he, once again, minimized the Holocaust. Jean-Marie is hoping his daughter will marry soon so her name would change. He’s ashamed of her. Really good soap opera.

In Nigeria, Boko Haram, at last, seems on the run. Nigerian soldiers have been paid back wages and given hazard pay as well as getting better arms. A year ago Nigerian troops were doing the running and this year they are reclaiming lost territory and have freed 700 women and girls in the last week alone. It is said that Boko Haram is running low on ammunition and supplies. Fighters from Niger, Chad and Cameroon have joined Nigeria, helping to tilt the balance against Boko Haram.

Sadly, another forty migrants from Africa have drowned in the Mediterranean, according to Save The Children. 4,500 migrants were rescued from the sea over the last weekend.

Joo Won-moon, a South Korean student at NYU’s Stern School of Business, traveled to North Korea, via the Great Wall of China, wanting to be arrested. He seemed to think his arrest would trigger some event that would warm relations between North and South Korea. It hasn’t happened, of course. He seems to be being treated well by the North Koreans but no word on releasing him. Not a place I’d like to be.

Russia’s Foreign Minister, Lavrov, has declared that “someone” in the EU does not want the Ukrainian truce to hold. He doesn’t say who that someone is.

John Kerry, Secretary of State for the U.S., dropped in on troubled Somalia to give them a confidence booster.

In Saudi Arabia, King Salman abruptly fired a top aide for apparently slapping a foreign correspondent covering the reception being held for King Mohammed of Morocco. The move was a hit on Saudi Arabian social media. Thumbs up for the King.

And in a final note for the day, one of my favorite actors, Martin Freeman, he of “The Hobbit” and “Sherlock” has joined the cast of “Captain America: Civil War” due out at the end of next year.

Now, I’m off to dinner with my friend, and attorney, Mary Ann Zimmer, at her apartment. Tomorrow is another day.

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Letter From New York 04 29 15 Another anniversary in 2015…

April 29, 2015

It is nearly impossible for me to believe that we have reached the end of April. Today has been a glorious day in New York City, probably the finest day of the year. Warm with a gentle breeze flowing, signs of flowers blooming, I passed tulips and pansies on my way to the subway this morning, all bringing a smile.

South of here, in Baltimore, the city is quiet but very tense. Offices and restaurants that have been closed are reopening. In a first for Major League Baseball, a game between the Baltimore Orioles and the Chicago White Sox was played in an empty stadium, it being considered too dangerous to bring people together in a public venue.

Schools reopened and protests continued, peacefully. The Maryland Governor is hoping that the peaceful night that preceded a peaceful day marks a turning point in the city. It is a city of fragile calm, a place that is delicately balanced between peace and violence.

In Washington, Prime Minister Abe of Japan, made a speech to Congress, acknowledging Japanese responsibility in WWII and making his case for a strengthened, resurgent Japan as a counterweight to China. He also made his case for the Trans Pacific Partnership.

Kim Jong-un, the pudgy little North Korean dictator, is reported as having killed 15 senior officials since the beginning of the year – that’s at the rate of about one per week. It may be true. It might not be true. It’s hard to know with North Korea but we do know little Kim Jong-un has a very itchy trigger finger.

Far away in Nepal, itself very, very fragile after the earthquake that has destroyed much of the Kathmandu Valley, there was a moment of hope today when a man trapped for 82 hours in the rubble was rescued. But hope is wearing thin and survivors clashed with soldiers as supplies continue to have difficulty reaching outlying villages that have been devastated. The death toll continues climbing and is now officially over 5200.

In Saudi Arabia, King Salman has re-ordered the succession and named as Crown Prince a member of the third generation, a grandson of the founder, King Abdullah. Prince Mohammed is said to be very pro-Western and very much against Al-Qaida [they attempted to assassinate him a few years ago],

In Nigeria, 300 women and girls have been rescued from the Boko Haram. They are traumatized and some have no home to return to as their villages have been razed in the fighting between the government and Boko Haram. They are described as needing psychological care and physical support.

While the group was being rescued, Boko Haram seized a town in what has become a back and forth battle between Nigeria and its allies and the Boko Haram, who are determined not to pushed off the stage.

I said in one letter that 2015 was a big year for anniversaries and another one is upon us. Forty years ago tomorrow Saigon fell and we ended our involvement in Vietnam.

As a young boy, I remember some older boys talking about our sending troops to Vietnam. I’m not sure why I remember it. Perhaps it seemed like a great cloud passed over me. For some reason, I remember exactly where I was standing when that conversation happened. I think some of those boys grew up, got drafted and went to Vietnam.

And now it is forty years after those horrific shots of helicopters departing the rooftop of the American Embassy in Saigon, with thousands screaming for rescue as they lifted away for the last time, forty years since we lost that war.

Last year, I went to a conference on “moral injury” and spoke with a man who had been to Vietnam, returned and lived what he thought was a normal life until one day, not long before I met him, it all cracked open and he came to wrestle with the demons that had stayed with him all those years from caring for wounded soldiers in the jungles of Vietnam.

We all carry our wounds. It is part of living, unfortunately. But so are the joys that come along, unexpectedly, like the tulips and pansies I passed this morning, lovingly planted on 93rd Street.

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Letter From New York 04 07 15 From the heat of Delhi to the chill of the Northeast…

April 7, 2015

Outside the cottage, it’s grey and damp, all the colors very muted after the riot of hues, which was India. I can hardly keep my eyes open and am crying for a nap.

I made this an easy day, collecting two plus weeks of mail, sorting it, paying some bills, attempting not to do any serious mental work as my brain is more than a little cloudy.

It is both good and a bit odd being home; hard to grasp I have come and gone from India, that it was real and not a dream. I have thank you notes to write. My friend Sanjay was incredibly generous and that humbles me. Everywhere I went in India, people went out of their way to make me feel comfortable and respected.

I got out just before the burning heat of summer descends on the country; there were little tastes of it along the way and I’m glad to be missing it.

Tomorrow I must get down to work, having a few things due on Thursday when I will be going back to the city. I’ll be there Thursday and Friday and then again most of next week.

Next, I need to sort out the things which I brought back for people, little gifts from the markets and the things from my friend, Jag’s, Crazy Daisy store in Delhi.

To fight the chill, I have lit a fire in the Franklin stove and turned up the heat a bit. Jazz plays in the background.

Spring is not willing to grab the land and bless it with warmth. Old man winter is grumpily holding on, determined we not forget him too soon this year. And he has been successful.

While I have been acclimating to being home, Rand Paul has declared he is running for the Presidency, number two in the Republican game. He is likely to be followed by as many as twenty more. It’s a banner year for Republican contenders.

Speaking of things Washington, a power outage affected much of DC this afternoon, including the White House, which went on a back-up generator, and the State Department where a spokesperson used the light on her phone to continue handling questions.

The EU is a bit in the dark about why Prime Minister Tsipras of Greece is gallivanting off to Moscow to visit with Putin. It is making them nervous; Tsipras’ flirtations come as the tortuous negotiations over Greece’s debt continues. In another gambit, Greece has declared that Germany owes it about 280 billion Euros in war reparations. Germany asserts these claims have long been settled.

It’s the day many have been waiting for: HBO Now [as opposed to HBO Go] is available on iOS devices. It means you can now watch “Game of Thrones” without a cable subscription. It is going to be REALLY interesting to watch how this plays out. HBO and sports are two major reasons people keep their cable subscriptions. One reason down…

Now that Tikrit is back in the hands of the Iraqis, they have begun discovering a series of mass graves believed to hold the remains of 1700 Iraqi cadets who were captured by IS and murdered. While this gruesome task is going one, there is another task in front of the liberating Shia forces: to win the hearts and minds of the Sunnis who mostly inhabit the region.

For years, Tony Blair, the former Labour Prime Minister of Britain, has been keeping a very low profile. He has “issues” with Mr. Miliband, who is now leading the Labour Party. But he has recently declared his “full support” for Miliband, who loudly repudiated the policies of Blair to gain leadership of the party. Blair is warning about holding a referendum on Europe, which Tory Prime Minister Cameron is advocating.

Strife continues in Yemen; there are reports bombs hit a school, killing a number of students. Aden is being bombarded by air and from the sea. The country may descend into a worse humanitarian crisis than Syria and that probably would only play into the hand of Al-Qaeda. The Houthi rebels are being supported to some extent by Iran while the Saudis are full blown in their efforts to restore the previous government. It is a crisis threatening to spiral out of control.

Now I am going to do my best to catch a quick nap before going over to Coyote Flaco for some fajitas. I didn’t find those in India.

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Letter From New York 04 04 15 A Delhi afternoon, thinking and writing…

April 4, 2015

It is early in the day for me to be writing but a hole just opened in my schedule so I decided to make use of it and write my blog for the day. My friend Raja was to have come and picked me up and we were to have gone to his wife’s shop. Unfortunately, he was at a shoot late into the night and then up early again working so he cancelled for the afternoon.

It is a greyish day in Delhi and on the cool side as it rained all night while I slept.

My day started with a late breakfast with Kiran Karnik, who was GM of Discovery India when I was here in the 1990’s. He is a small, thin man, very gentle and razor sharp. He is currently doing many things. One of them is being on the Board of the Reserve Bank of India as well as being President of the India Habitat Center, where I am staying.

Service in the restaurant this morning was impeccable, he said smiling.

Sanjay was at the breakfast, too. We were nostalgic for the days when we were launching Discovery India, laughing at some of our adventures. Talk then moved to politics, both here and in the States. Both Sanjay and Kiran are concerned that parts of the fabric of Indian society are becoming worn in the rush toward modernization. Within twenty-five years India will be one of the world’s top four economies and that change will be wrenching, just as it has been in China.

Prime Minister Modi seems to be enormously popular and is, from all accounts, charismatic. “Conventional wisdom” is that he should be Prime Minister and have all his ministers from the Congress Party, his opponents, because they have experience in government. The BJP, which is Modi’s party, has not governed all that often in India and hasn’t had a lot of national experience.

Some large announcement is coming shortly about interest rates though Kiran gave no hint as to what it will be. He did say they [the Reserve Bank] were closely watching the situation in Yemen for what affect it might have on oil prices along with the “rain issue.” This last season was exceptionally rainy, having a negative effect on food production. Every little thing becomes a factor that needs weighing.

It was interesting to hear Kiran’s perspective on the Yemeni situation. He pointed out that this is the first time in memory that Saudi Arabia has used its military in this way. Thinking about, I had to agree.

They intervened in Bahrain but that was minor compared to this.

We all agreed that the world situation is remarkable and deeply fraught. The Kenyan massacre of Christians at Garissa only underscores the situation.

Pope Francis spoke out about it at Holy Friday services in Rome. Christians are being killed for their beliefs in Africa and in the Middle East. Shabab is promising more Kenyan attacks.

In the Middle East, Tikrit has been freed from IS though the once bustling city, hometown of Saddam Hussein, now lies in ruins. The Iraqi Prime Minister, Haider al-Abidi, has ordered looters arrested.

As we pass through the Easter weekend, which culminates on Sunday with the celebration of Christ’s resurrection, the world is parsing all the reports on the Iranian Nuclear Deal, attempting to see if there are true threads of hope or mere obfuscation.

Pakistan is walking a tightrope between Iran, with which it shares a border, and Saudi Arabia, which has been a staunch Pakistani ally. Saudi Arabia wants Pakistan’s help in Yemen and Iran is doing its best to make sure that doesn’t happen. So far Pakistan has managed to stay upright on the tightrope but it is going to take some deft diplomacy to continue that if the Yemeni situation continues.

Easter, when I was young, was always a time for new clothes and long hours in our Catholic church. Some of it I remember fondly. Some of it not so much. One year it was unseasonably warm and Visitation Church grew so hot students at Good Friday services were fainting by the dozen.

Those seemed like simpler times. Perhaps that is nostalgia. “The Go-Between” is a novel by L.P. Hartley, adapted for the screen by Harold Pinter. Both book and film begin with the haunting line, “The past is a foreign country; they do things differently there.”

I do not think I would want to go back to the days of my youth. There were too many things that were wrong there but sometimes I am nostalgic for the simplicity that seemed to live there.

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Letter From New York 03 30 15 Safely back in Delhi…

March 30, 2015

There is one thing I have learned from my times in India. The people drive with cheerful, careless, reckless abandon. After we left the guesthouse at the Indian Institute of Technology in Roorkee, I made sure my seat belt was tightly fastened. As we started down the long road to Delhi, I realized that more often than not we were on the wrong side of the road.

Drivers seem to feel that a steady use of the horn gives them both right of way and immunity. After watching death bear down on me at 60 kilometers an hour once too often, I surrendered to the experience and closed my eyes, saying a prayer and hoping to doze.

Once I opened my eyes to see us just avoiding rear-ending the car in front of us; another time to see us squeeze between two other vehicles on a two-lane road. I closed my eyes again and thought pleasant thoughts about arriving in one piece in Delhi.

We drove past ramshackle buildings that could never have been new and past new buildings that looked old before they were finished. In air-conditioned comfort, I looked out at the faces of people, many smiling in the wonderful way Indians have. Some looked intense but most seemed content, living in the world they did. A woman in a red and blue sari passed me, intent on getting where she was going with her burden of groceries in a bag.

I drifted off again and then, before I really knew it, I was at India Habitat Center, where I will be staying the next two nights before heading down to Jaipur.

An old friend surfaced this morning, via Facebook, and I am going to see if I can get to Goa to see him. I had thought he was living in Haridwar but it turns out he has not kept his Facebook profile up to date and is now in Goa.

Tonight, I will see if I can work that out.

At this very moment, much to my frustration, I am Internet challenged. While it says I am connected, no pages load so I have no connection to the greater world.

The Times of India this morning was bursting with reports about dissension in the AAP, a relatively new party that swept elections in Delhi in the last two months. Two of the founders of the party seemed to have been banished for “seditious” activities. Made American politics seem almost tame.

In Roorkee, I met an Australian named Jo, who now works at the University of Southampton in Britain and who has been on loan to IIT Roorkee for the last six months helping them revamp their administrative policies. She goes home tomorrow and is deeply sad after having become very attached to Roorkee and India.

She, Ron Eglash and I had a spirited conversation yesterday night about the differences between British and American politics at the given moment. She was fascinated and intrigued by the sharp differences right now between Republicans and Democrats. Her feeling is that Tories and Labour in the UK have become too similar though the advance of UKIP, a newish party that wants to pull away from Europe and which is gaining a surprising degree of popularity, frightens her. Jo’s opinion is that UKIP has a racist streak up its spine.

The Iranian talks are coming down to the wire and it may well be there will be no resolution though Iran still says it is “doable.” Tomorrow is the last day of the self-imposed deadline and negotiators seem willing to talk until 11:59:59 PM of March 31st.

The Times of India, which was left at my door at the guesthouse in Roorkee, also reported on the continuing Saudi airstrikes against Yemeni rebels.

It was actually cool when I left the guesthouse and I wore a sweater for the first time since being in India.

Now that I am safely back in Delhi, I look forward to the rest of my time in India. I am hoping I can find a way to Goa to see William, who has lived here since 1969. He was 19 when he arrived and has never really left.

I have plans tomorrow to do some Delhi shopping with my friend Raja and am going to put together a list of people for whom I would like to bring home something. It’s part of the fun of traveling, finding delights for friends and relatives.

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Letter From New York 03 19 15 With the speech over, back to Delhi…

March 29, 2015

It is always hard to know exactly how well it went when you give a speech, which I did today. Personally, I think it went well. No one fell asleep. There were very few yawns. It was supposed to go for sixty minutes; it went for 90+ with all the questions.

Professor Ron Eglash, who spoke before me, stayed for my speech and when we got into the car to go back to the guesthouse, he told me that I was brilliant! And he’s American, so he wasn’t using “brilliant” the way Brits do, to say that was nice. He thought I was really good and I appreciated it.

Twenty students rushed the stage to have their pictures taken with me so I felt, for a few seconds, like a rock star.

All good.

The day came grey and drizzly today and the grey has never really gone away. Post speech, I’m feeling a bit tired and am going to finish this and then try to catch a few minutes catnap. I’d really love a glass of wine but the campus is “dry” so I will have to wait for Delhi for that.

Now that the speech is done and the conference closed, I have gone back to perusing world events a bit more closely.

Angie’s List has put on hold its expansion in Indiana until it further understands the implications of that state’s Religious Freedom Act. They were about to break ground in a few days on a $40 million building project. In the meantime, the legislature is drafting a “clarification” of the law, which it plans to unveil in a few days. I am very curious to see the clarifications. I’ll still be in India when they come out but I will be looking.

It is Palm Sunday, the beginning of Christian’s Holy Week. Pope Francis prayed for the victims of the Germanwings crash in the service today.

In other Francis’ news, he keeps hinting that he thinks his Papacy will be short, ended by some great event. I hope not. He is popular among Catholics and is stressing Christian themes in a way no Pope has for decades.

In good news for heavy drinkers, it is being reported that coffee counters the bad effects of drinking on the liver. One cup of coffee turns back the dial on three drinks. I predict coffee sales will rise.

Rising slightly are hopes that a nuclear deal will be made with Iran, but only slightly. There are still major differences and it’s not clear they can be overcome. Secretary Kerry was to return to the States for an event honoring his friend and colleague, the late Ted Kennedy. Kerry has cancelled the trip to remain at the negotiations.

Netanyahu says the deal is worse than he feared.

There are no negotiations going on in Yemen. There are lots of dropping bombs. Saudi Arabia claims to have destroyed the ballistic missiles the Shiite rebels seized when they toppled the Sunni government. The Arab League is holding a summit and is presenting a pretty united front against the rebels, announcing at the same time a regional security force.

The situation underscores the tensions between Sunni Saudi Arabia and Shia Iran. Places like Yemen and Libya are the grounds now for proxy wars while the two powers attempt to become dominant in the Middle East.

In the confusing battleground that is Syria, the Al-Nursa Front has taken the city of Idlib. As they entered the city, they reported that Syrian troops had executed some detainees before fleeing the city. Al-Nursa is one of the groups, along with IS, vying for power in fractured Syria.

It is difficult to keep the players straight.

Singapore is saying farewell to its founding father, Lee Kuan Yew. The Prime Minister of India is there along with many other world leaders. The city is said to be at a standstill. For them, it’s like saying good-bye to George Washington.

Tomorrow, I leave Roorkee to return to Delhi. The weather looks ominous and so I will be praying for a safe driver. It will be good to be back in Delhi, where creature comforts are a bit more available. Not only is the campus “dry,” it is also vegetarian. I am hankering for some chicken tikka.

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Letter From New York 03 26 15 Second Day in India, at Humayun’s Tomb

March 26, 2015

It is said that only mad dogs and Englishmen go out in the noonday sun. I must either be a mad dog or an Englishman as I was out in the noonday sun in Delhi. It was a lazy morning and I slept in later than I intended; I couldn’t seem to roust myself from sleep. After a leisurely cup of coffee and some email work, my friend, Raja, sent his driver Emmanuel for me to take me out sightseeing.

Emmanuel doesn’t have much English. An Indian native, he is a 7th Day Adventist. He did understand Qutub Minar and we drove there through the noonday traffic. Once I had purchased my ticket, I was approached by a guide who would take me through the site; the cost was 300 Rupees, about $5. I thought: why not.? His name was, I think, Parbal.

Qutub Minar is the site of Delhi’s oldest mosque. Qutub Minar is the minaret built to call the faithful to prayer. It is a magnificent edifice and a World Heritage Site. Built of red sandstone and marble, it towers to 73 meters. Its construction started in the late 12th century and was finished in the mid 14th century. The entire complex was amazing and Parbal took me through it, step by step for about 90 minutes.

There is an iron pillar in the midst of the complex. It predates the Qutub Minar and it was said that if you held your arms around it backwards, your wish would be granted. It is now fenced off. I was annoyed. I have a couple of wishes I’d like granted.

From there, I went to Humayun’s Tomb. Humayun was a 16th Century Mughal Emperor who inherited a kingdom, lost it and then got it back with help from the Persians. While not a good military strategist, he was a very good man, which earned him the title of “Perfect Man” among the Mughals.

He had several rascally brothers who kept betraying him and he kept forgiving them, several times over in the course of his lifetime. By the end of his life, he had recovered his empire and expanded it. His son was Akbar the Great.

It was the first garden tomb in India, surrounded as it is by acres of gardens, threaded through with narrow water channels and dotted here and there with fountains. It was designated a World Heritage Site in 1993 and has since then undergone much restoration. It was the inspiration for the Taj Mahal.

I visited it twenty years ago and attest that it is definitely in better shape than it was then.

As Emmanuel drove me through the streets of Delhi, I realized another change in the city. There are fewer homeless crowding the boulevards. Twenty years ago when you left the manicured gardens of the Oberoi Hotel, you were immediately thrust onto a boulevard crowded with rough tents and hundreds of people living there. Not so today.

Stopping for a bite to eat in a little brasserie, I watched a bit of the big Cricket match, not that I could make much sense of it. Everyone else was enraptured by the proceedings, not caring about anything else.

But while I was sleeping and touring, the world kept ticking on.

The Sunni Saudis are bombing the Shia rebels in Yemen and have amassed 150,000 troops to be used if they need them. The paper left at my door here at the India International Center, had a front-page report about the Yemeni President fleeing his home.

In a confusing and disturbing report, it appears one pilot was locked out of the cockpit at the time of the Germanwings crash in the Alps. The voice recorder reveals the pilot knocking on the door lightly and then pounding on it and then trying to break it down.

The military is going to charge Bowe Bergdahl with desertion, bringing, once again, into question the prisoner exchange that secured his release.

The US has now been asked by Iraq to send airstrikes in support of the effort to liberate Tikrit, where the offensive has stalled. It started doing so while I was asleep last night.

In Mosul, continuing their winning ways, IS stoned to death a couple in their 20’s for adultery and beheaded three young men because they were nephews of an opponent. Residents of Mosul are urging the Iraqi government to rescue them.

The sun is beginning to set outside the window of my room. A soft light is signaling the beginning of the end of the day. In awhile, my friend Raja will come and we will go off to dinner.

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Letter From New York September 26, 2014

September 27, 2014

Or, as it seems to me…

The whole of the Hudson Valley is enveloped in grey, with rain occasionally splottering down on me – though so far the torrential rains promised for this afternoon have yet to appear.

Earlier this week I read a NY Times column by Roger Cohen reminding us that things aren’t as bad as they seem. He was fairly upbeat: he dismissed ISIS as a bunch of thugs in trucks and Putin as a thug running a failing regime. New York is a better place than it has been, perhaps ever. And that is true, he says of a lot of American cities – they are better than they ever were! Hey, even Detroit is beginning something of a comeback.

His article buoyed me through a couple of days, into today, when the grey kind of “got to me” and I began to fret about the world in which I live. The boys of ISIS may just be thugs in trucks but they are killing by the thousands and causing people to become refugees in the hundreds of thousands. They are, unfortunately, effective thugs. Putin may be a thug at the head of a failing regime but failing though it may be, he can still stir up trouble of all kinds.

New York is probably better than it has ever been while it is more unaffordable than it has ever been. Manhattan seems to becoming an island of only the rich. Certainly seems to be the case in Midtown, where Billionaire’s Row is rising.

Yet I cannot bring myself to completely despair – not quite in my nature. But there are plenty of reasons to be concerned, even as some hopeful signs bloom. One of the American auto companies is adding 1200 employees to one of its plants to keep up with demand. That is a good sign. So is that new homes sales reached their highest point since 2008.

Winston Churchill is supposed to have said: You can always count on the Americans to do the right thing – after they have tried everything else.

The question we face is what is the right thing to do, particularly in the Mideast. The warriors of ISIS are thugs and that’s part of the attraction they offer their followers, the opportunity for uneducated young men to practice sanctioned thuggery. Their wild brand of Sunni extremism seems to be an outgrowth of Saudi religious extremism. Which apparently is causing the Saudi King some concern; he has brought his Kingdom into the fray, his Air Force flying sorties against ISIS.

It is a bit of a diplomatic coup that Obama has managed to put together any kind of coalition to fight ISIS, especially one that includes other Sunnis. [While I am beginning to recognize the differences I can’t tell you what theological dispute resulted in this devolution to thuggery.] I am sure I will learn more as it is impossible to follow world news without also learning more about the nuances of Islam, as multi-layered and confusing, it seems, as is Christianity.

The fear I have is that we are living on the cusp of an Islamic Reformation. Some scholars say we are long overdue for a Reformation within Islam. That does not cause sanguinity within me; look what happened during the Christian Reformation. Wars and pestilence ravaged the land while Christians killed each other because they disagreed with how others worshipped Christ. It was all very unchristian.

And I fear that is what might be happening in Islam. You don’t worship Allah the way I worship Allah and so therefore you are damned and deserve to die. You are heretic. Ah, harkens to that wonderful time known as the Inquisition. Christians refined torture to a delightful degree, practicing it on other Christians.

The easy thing to say is that religion, of any kind, is the root of all evil. But perhaps within religion answers can be found and perhaps Islam can learn from the mistakes of their Christian brothers.

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