At 7:49 PM last night, August 12th, there was a trembling of the earth, a darkening of the skies, and crop failures around the world. Oh, and Faiqa and Tariq’s newest creation was plucked, mewling, from the dark vestiges of her womb.
She had asked me to put up a post once the baby was born, and since I get to post on her blog about her newborn son, I get to name him. From henceforth he shall be known as Yanni Mohammad Barack Tariq Guadalupe Avitable Khan, but you can call him “Y”.
He weighed 7 pounds 13 ounces and measured at 21 inches. His penis, however, weighed 3 pounds, 2 ounces and measured at 11 inches.
Faiqa has given me permission to post this exclusive photo of baby Y, before anybody else has even seen him!
The new addition to Faiqa and Tariq's family
Please join me in the comments and wish Faiqa and Tariq congratulations on the birth of their new son and N. congratulations on the arrival of her new baby brother.
Hmm, am I the last blogger on the Internet to find out that Jon Stewart schooled Jim Cramer of CNBC’s “Mad Money” on Thursday night?
(Yes, hello, pregnant women have a hard time staying up after 9:30p.m.).
I only know because Tariq forwarded me an e-mail in which my hero (Jon Stewart) decimated his hero (Jim Cramer).
Now, I know why people watch sporting events.
There’s an incredible rush that comes from a vicarious victory, even if it is a moral one, that can only be displayed in moments such as these.
If you, like me, live under a rock you can go here for a quick update.
I don’t necessarily agree with the contention in that article that Stewart failed to “deliver a knock out punch.” Considering that Stewart proves generally amiable towards his guests, I thought he handed Cramer’s head to him on a platter. Plus, Jon wasn’t funny, at all. This added to the decimation.
Angry Jon Stewart, by the way, is extremely uncomfortable.
Remember a few years ago when Stewart went on “Crossfire”? He was funny and poignant.
The tone with Cramer on Thursday night was completely different, but the message was essentially the same.
“You’re hurting America.”
Despite my hero worship of Mr. Stewart, I have to wonder if he’s not being too idealistic, and, in many ways, if his thoughts don’t reflect the general idealism with which Americans view the responsibilities of “the media.”
We feel victimized. We rant about their negative influence. We complain about the selective nature of their reporting. We casually glance over the obvious fact that if a news station is live seventeen hours of the day that there may not be enough time to actually check on the facts associated with the headline.
In the end, aren’t we’re responsible for what we choose to believe?
How is blaming CNBC for duping the American people out of researching their investments and economy not a twinkie defense?
Is Jon Stewart right? Yes, in the ideal sense, I think he is.
But he’s arguing an antiquated concept. He’s arguing for an unbiased media whose priority is delivering accurate information to the population.
We have got to rework this definition. For the past fifteen years, since I started caring about the news, I’ve noticed that the priority lies squarely within entertainment value. Accuracy of information has played a secondary role in these matters. This is why hardly anyone watches PBS and CSPAN.
It’s all about advertisers and ratings. Couldn’t we just deal with the reality of our television media instead of waiting around for the real media to show up? This is our real media.
(Incidentally, we should also stop confusing commentators with journalists. We really should know better. Peter Jennings? Journalist. Keith O.? Commentator).
It’s time to grow up, America, and realize that we can’t fully rely on our television to tell us how to invest, who to vote for and what to think. We, gasp, have to do it ourselves.
This might translate into a personal shift in priorities. It might mean we’ll have to write a senator for clarification. Read several papers instead of one. Watch CSPAN.
The way I see it, it’s either that, or stop blaming the media for not protecting us from all the bad things we think are happening to us and actually take responsibility for our unquestioning and childlike acceptance of televised information.
Nonetheless, I did love Stewart’s performance on the show. I’m a big believer in discussing how the world should be. Even if the chances that it will ever be that way prove slim.
My favorite part was when Jon Stewart, in uncharacteristic seriousness, vented “I can’t reconcile the brilliance you have with the intricacies of the market with the crazy bullshit you do every night.”
Louisiana governor and the GOP’s “great beige hope” for 2012 Bobby Jindal was on CBS’s 60 Minutes Sunday night. So great is the Republican hope for Jindal that we’ve already begun discussing it less than two months after the inauguration of President Obama.
At 37 years old, Governor Jindal is an impressive young man. By all accounts, I think he’s the kind of Republican that I respect. I don’t agree with most of what he believes, but I respect him.
Educated, ethical (as ethical as a politician from Louisiana can get, anyway) and ambitious, Jindal represents the mirror image to President Obama. A Darth Vader to Luke Skywalker. Or maybe more like a Faith to Buffy. Or a Spike to Angel. Thankfully, I’m just shy of being geeky enough to come up with something clever here.
Many of you probably already know that he declined when asked to submit his name for the McCain vice presidency. Like the good ol’ boy Southern politicians of the 19th and early 20th century, he’s going to have to be asked several times until he offers a reluctant, yet highly calculated, “Well, alrighty, if y’all really, really want me to, I’ll serve ya’.”
(And please don’t let that drawl confuse you, the man is an Ivy League educated Rhodes scholar. This only proves my point that gifted minds can and do use the phrases “alrighty” and “y’all”). I think this act is slowly ingratiating him into the heart of the American people… mind crushingly boring rebuttals to Presidential addresses notwithstanding.
And, now, let us finally get to the point.
In case you haven’t noticed, Bobby Jindal, born “Piyush (prounounced pee-yoosh) Jindal” is of the Indian ethnicity.
He picked up the name “Bobby” while watching “The Brady Bunch.” (Do you even remember Bobby, Governor? He was the youngest one who tattled on all the other Brady kids and was hall monitor at school? My next post on Jindal: What kind of kid looks up to Bobby Brady?!)
Anyway, this name changing business is fine. I have no problem with Indian/Pakistani people who genuinely bear or have intentionally adopted anglicized names. Never mind, that I have stubbornly endured thirty three annoying years of having to say “It’s pronounced Fie-Kah, like the tax.” So, Harrises, Rogers, Sonias, Petes, Robs, Marys, Sophias, Adams, and Saras can just rest easy. This isn’t about that.
I do get a little annoyed when I hear people from the subcontinent or of its origins say one of the following, though:
“Did you know that the governor of Louisiana is Indian?”
“There are lot of South Asians in Americans politics, take Gov. Jindal, for example.”
No. The governor of Louisiana is not Indian.
He. Is. American.
And this is not me that is saying this. It’s him and his lovely red clad Nancy Reagan channeling wife, Supriya, on their shameless promo for the 2012 election. “60 Minutes“.
Asked if their family maintains any of the Indian traditions, Supriya Jindal told Safer, “Not too many.”
“No, they’ve been here for so many years that…,” her husband said.
“Years that we’ve sort of adapted. And we were raised as Americans, you know? We were raised as Louisianans. So, that’s how we live our lives,” Supriya Jindal explained.
He’s a classic example of the American melting pot. This oyster and crawfish-eating Louisianian tends to downplay his ethnic background
…
“He clearly presents himself as true blue American,” Safer remarked.
“And he is the genuine article. He’s deeply, by nature, deeply conservative, deeply patriotic.”
And, you know, that’s fine, too, if they don’t celebrate Indian traditions.
But, you know what I find exasperating?
Aside from the sad masses of Indian expatriates all over the world attempting to appropriate Governor and Mrs. Jindal as Indians when clearly they don’t want anything to do with being Indian?
I find it irritating that there’s an implication that if you do celebrate your heritage that you were somehow not raised as an “American.”
A “classic example of the American melting pot” does not include dismissing one’s heritage. Classic examples of the American melting pot incorporate their heritage, and they assert its value as an integral part of being American. Right?
The Jindal family’s choice not to identify closely with their Indian heritage is fine with me, and I don’t disparage it. It’s not necessarily a classic example of the melting pot, though. It’s an example of the shedding of one identity for another. This is a respectable and legitimate American phenomenon among immigrants concerning ethnic identity. One of many.
It is in no way a proof of inherent patriotism or American-ness, though.
Chinatowns, Little Italys, Cinqo de Mayo, St. Patrick’s Day and countless other ethnic celebrations are American entities, now. They may have originated elsewhere, but these celebrations exist as pieces of American heritage because a few citizens refused to downplay their ethnic identity in attempts to be perceived as more American.
These infusions are, in my eyes, a gift to the American people. Something that enriches all of our lives.
These inclusions are the classic examples of the “melting pot.” More so than say, the choices that seek to “downplay” identity.
I respect the Jindal’s choices to not celebrate their heritage, but the underlying assumption that this makes them more American or more patriotic is just… a little sad.
And infuriating.
For those of you who missed it, you can watch Jindal’s interview on “60 Minutes” right here.
UPDATE: Gov. Jindal didn’t actually decline the nomination. He did not submit his name when asked to for the “vetting” process by the McCain campaign.
Peggy Noonan, in the Wall Street Journal, along with criticizing the stimulus package, mentioned that
I keep the television on a lot, and somewhere in the 1990s I realized that Bill Clinton was never not in my living room. He was always strolling onto the stage, pointing at things, laughing, talking. This is what the Obama people are doing, having the boss hog the screen. They should relax. The race is long.
I have no idea what this sentiment has to do with the stimulus package. But, it did remind me of this skit from SNL.
The part about Somalian warlords put me into hysterics.
Thanks to JT. I stole this from your Facebook account.
Not only are we being led by a dynamic, eloquent and passionate leader, but he’s black. Obama’s presidency is a testament to him, to all African Americans, and to everyone in this nation, regardless of their race.
The first black president of the United States.
Now, that we have that out of the way. Can we discuss this term “post racial America”? Because it’s starting to get on my nerves.
First, it conveys a false sense of total accomplishment. Notice I wrote “total” accomplishment. I would not be so cynical to write that President Barack Hussein Obama is not a great accomplishment in terms of American race relations. Of course, it is.
But the election of Barack Obama, my friends, has not erased racism from the American landscape. As much as I hate to be the Debbie Downer in this situation, I will do it for the sake of honesty and truth.
We do NOT live in a post-racial America.
Referring to ourselves as a post-racial America implies a sad sense of falseness and delusional mindset.
I’ve been reading a lot of blogs that are decrying individuals who continue to talk about race or racism as people who are unwilling to let go of this nation’s racist past. I read the words “get over it” a lot. Or, even better, “let’s move on.”
In all the nations that have ever existed on this planet, I challenge you to find a single instance of a people who have “gotten over it” when faced with a past of oppression, genocide, violence and rape. Victims of abuse do not “get over it.”
They may incorporate their pain into who they are. They may use that pain to accomplish more, to become better, to become stronger. The abuse that they have endured, though, becomes part of them forever. They decide whether they will make tragedy a furnace which strengthens them or an excuse for their own personal failures.
But they don’tforget. And nor should they.
“Get over it.”
No American who takes their citizenship seriously should “get over it.” In terms of “moving on,” we will never do that until we accept the full extent to which racism permeates our culture.
We are all victims in our own ways. (Part of the reason for denial, I think, stems from the fact that Americans hate being perceived as victims. We’re the heroes. The ones that save the day. Never the “sad, pathetic victims.”)
We are victimized by American racism. The descendants of a kidnapped people, the descendants of their kidnappers, the descendants of people who were not remotely wealthy enough to profit from any of this pain, the descendants of people who were not anywhere near North America when all this human suffering was happening… We are all victimized by this human tragedy, and victims should never forget.
There are two ways that racism can victimize you. The first is obvious. You’re black, brown, white, purple, so you can’t go here, say this, or do that. Pretty straightforward.
The other way that we might be victimized by racism is by pretending that it doesn’t exist. That it’s not part of the landscape anymore. That anyone who brings up racism is harping on the past and refuses to get over it.
Denial victimizes us by preventing us from being who we should be: advocates for social justice, defenders of the oppressed, and protectors of the pure ideals that form the foundation our great democracy.
Barack Obama, by himself, can’t cure cancer, fix the economy, save the whales, stop global warming or bring “Angel” and “Buffy” back to prime time. And his inauguration sure as hell didn’t “cure” racism.
Everyone scolding those of us who are willing to face the realities of this world, the one where prejudice and racism still exist, would do well to remember that.
