Letters to the Editor
s. sen
Published Letters: 74 Editor's Choice: 12
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Marathas and Muslims
[Read the article: Battle-lizards of the Maratha]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]There's nothing odd about the fact that Marathas served Muslim kings (like the sultan of Bijapur). This kind of "cross-religious" service was, in fact, quite common. Shivaji's own father had a long career in the Bijapur military, and Shivaji himself served for a while as an officer of the Mughal empire while the supposedly "Hindu-hating" Aurangzeb was the emperor. Conversely, it was not uncommon for Muslim soldiers to serve in the armies of Maratha warlords like Shivaji. There was nothing peculiar or traitorous about this, since the political life of medieval India was not organized around a strict Hindus-versus-Muslims principle or any principle of religious nationalism. The assumption that Muslim kings in India consistently terrorized Hindus, and the related assumption that the Marathas were consistently anti-Muslim, is a concoction of colonial historians that has been embraced by nationalists.
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Killer doctors and Iraq-centered terrorism
[Read the article: Inside the minds of killer doctors]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Well, doctors have also supervised executions, torture, and the design of biological and chemical weapons. And from the perspective of pro-lifers, they engage directly in a form of murder. The idea that doctors "do no harm" is not so much a Hippocratic axiom as evidence of the success of modern associations like the AMA.
On another point: Juan Cole might remember that Islamist terrorism in the UK did not begin with the Iraq war. The Rushdie affair, which was the first major eruption of this ongoing crisis, preceded even the first Gulf War. The invasion of Iraq has brought a new cause and a new scale to Muslim extremism in Britain, but the causes of that extremism are rooted largely in the internal dynamics of British society: its patterns of immigration, class differences, race relations, policing tactics, intergenerational relations, educational successes and failures, the limits of British nationalism, and so on. (Before Salman Rushdie became a neocon, he wrote a marvelous essay called "The New Empire Within Britain," about the impact of Britain's imperial past on its Thatcherite present. He might disown it now.) Affairs in the wider world - such as the Palestinian issue, the fallout from the anti-Soviet war in Afghanistan, and the Iraq calamity - provide these relatively inchoate problems with the focus that they otherwise lack, while militant Islam provides an alternative basis of political identification.
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Ditching pre-med and surviving
[Read the article: I don't want to be a doctor!]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]In my first semester of college, I discovered that I was bored stiff by my premed courses, and would rather take history, philosophy, and English lit. So I dropped all the premed courses, and signed up for the others. My Indian mother - who was very invested in my future as a doctor - was horrified, but she got over it. She was wistful about law school for a while, but got over that too when I showed no interest. Domineering parents fixated on med school (or law school) are a fact of life for middle-class kids with Asian (and, I suspect, Jewish) backgrounds, but for the most part they're not ogres. The "helping people" business is usually a crock. The parents want to see the Lexus in your garage, but more than that, they want the reassurance of middle-class respectability and professional status. If LW wants his father to give him permission to do what he wants to do, he might have to wait a very long time. He should do what he wants to do, and then mollify Dad. And rather than sell his father the "lawyer doll" that he himself doesn't want, he might try to convince Dad that architects, journalists, and educators (use as applicable) make perfectly respectable dolls.
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Feinstein is not the problem.
[Read the article: Dianne Feinstein, symbol of the worthless Beltway Democrat]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Dianne Feinstein's right-of-center political record has never been a secret. She's essentially a "Lieberman Democrat." Rather than ask why she is what she is, it's more useful to ask why Californians vote for her anyway. When she was mayor of SF, the foreign-policy implications of her politics did not come into play, except very occasionally. Also, even liberal big cities can be quite authoritarian just under the skin, because of their built-in fear of the urban poor. That's why NY gets people like Koch and Guiliani. It's also worth remembering that CA is NOT a "deep blue" state. Once you move away from the Bay Area and Greater LA and head into the Central Valley or the mountains, you might as well be Kansas.
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Vomit
[Read the article: A "far and balanced" inquisition]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]It would be difficult to find a better example of the vomit-worthiness of political discourse in America.
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The opposite of authorship
[Read the article: Dumbledore? Gay. J.K. Rowling? Chatty.]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Rowling's inclination to tell "off-page" stories about the Potter universe indicates, I think, the very opposite of authorship. Since it reflects an assumption that the story exists independently of any book, the act of authorship becomes meaningless and the author becomes merely a privileged window for readers and listeners. Children's writers seem to be particularly prone to this attitude towards their work - Enid Blyton used to do the same thing, albeit without Rowling's Oprah-influenced public-confessional flourish.
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Maybe, maybe not
[Read the article: The collapse of Bush's foreign policy]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Juan Cole is possibly being too alarmist/optimistic. The fact remains that Turkey did NOT launch the expected invasion of northern Iraq, in spite of massive provocation from the PKK. Clearly, the Bush administration was able to use its influence to restrain it. Also, it is increasingly apparent that the war in Iraq may be petering out, with the Sunni tribes bought off and the Mahdi Army at least temporarily disengaged. If Bush resists the temptation to attack Iran, the situation might actually stabilize. If Iran is attacked, however, we can be sure the Iraqi Shias will go back on the warpath with open Iranian support, followed quickly by Saudi support for the Iraqi Sunnis, and then it will all go to hell. The irony, of course, is that Bush (or Hillary Clinton) will eventually be trapped between a nuclear Iran and the Israel lobby and forced to make a choice. Ah, the joy.
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Pervert
[Read the article: If Britney Spears shouldn't be naked in front of her kids, what about me?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Shame on you.