Once more, into the breach?

Well, why not? How could it hurt, really?

Politics, lesson one:

This, from today's NYT:

The investigation of Mr. Rosen and Mr. Weissman also surfaced recently in news reports that Representative Jane Harman, a California Democrat long involved in intelligence matters, was overheard on a government wiretap discussing the case. Ms. Harman was overheard agreeing with an Israeli intelligence operative to try and intercede with Bush administration officials to obtain leniency for Mr. Rosen and Mr. Weissman in exchange for help in persuading Democratic leaders to name her the chairman of the House intelligence Committee.

What, me worry?

What does 'Provenance Unknown' mean?

If you've ever wondered about 'the how' by means of which artifacts end up at your favourite museum for your admiration, there's a revealing paragraph in an article on the Dunhuang caves in today's NYT:

Other people soon knew. In 1907 the British explorer Aurel Stein arrived. For a pittance he bought around 5,000 silk and paper scrolls from Wang and sent them to England. Some were paintings and banners; the bulk were religious and secular books in Chinese, Sanskrit, Tibetan, Mongolian and other regional languages, evidence of the capacious ethnic melting pot that China has always been.

Of all Stein’s books the prize was a ninth-century woodblock copy of the Diamond Sutra, or the “Sutra of the Perfection of Wisdom of the Diamond that Cuts Through Illusion.” As if defying the scripture’s insistence on transience as the only reality, this marvelous scroll is the earliest known dated example of a printed book, six centuries older than the Gutenberg Bible.

After Stein came the French linguist and Sinologist Paul Pelliot. In one marathon reading session he eyeballed the entire remaining contents of the library cave, sorted out the cream and packed it off to Paris. Then a Japanese expedition arrived to claim a share, followed by a Russian one. In the 1920s the swashbuckling American art historian Langdon Warner sliced 26 murals from Mogaoku cave walls and gave them to Harvard, along with a pilfered sculpture. (You can still see the ghost-outlines of figures where he lifted off the thin plaster sheets.)

So much for 'provenance unknown.'

A tribute to Amar Sonar Bangla, with love

Through the jongole I am went
On shooting Tiger I am bent
Boshtaard Tiger has eaten wife
No doubt I will avenge poor darling's life
Too much quiet, snakes and leeches
But I not fear these sons of beeches
Hearing loud noise I am jumping with start
But noise is coming from damn fool's heart
Taking care not to be fright
I am clutching rifle tight with eye to sight
Should Tiger come I will shoot and fall him down
Then like hero return to native town
Then through trees I am espying one cave
I am telling self -" Chatterjee be brave"
I am now proceeding with too much care
From far I smell this Tiger's lair
My leg shaking, sweat coming, I start pray
I think I will shoot Tiger some other day
Turning round I am going to flee
But Tiger giving bloody roar spotting Bengalee
He bounding from cave like footballer Pele
I run shouting "Kali Ma tumi kothay gele"
Through the jongole I am running
With Tiger on my tail closer looming
I am a telling that never in life
I will take risk again for my damn fool wife!!!!!

Rabindranath Tagore (1861-1941)

And now for something completely different. For those who've read Sy Hersh's recent article, here's a video that sheds light on the history of the US-Iran relationship. It should be viewed, I think, as not only representative of a certain sort of military relationship: rather, it reveals the texture of a cultural relationship - one in which geo-political imperatives, the belief in the rectitude and desirability of American-style consumption, and the interests of the military-industrial complex are all present. A period piece, perhaps, and one deserving of sympathy as we move ever closer to .... what?

For Michael Bhatia

Today I discovered that a friend of a friend died in Afghanistan. There's tragedy enough in that sentence, but the death of Michael Bhatia was painful in another way: Michael was working on a project that I had tried (in vain, alas) to organize with the Canadian Army in Kandahar. From the little that I have been able to glean of Bhatia's life, it is clear that he was a brilliant scholar (his dissertation, based on three hundred and fifty interviews, studied the motives of Afghani Mujahiddeen) and a fine person too. But perhaps most importantly, Michael had the tremendous moral courage to stand for his convictions. Bhatia did not merely study the country from afar and he was not a propagandist for the pro- or anti-war crowds. Instead, in the finest traditions of service through scholarship, Bhatia went to Afghanistan: to live among soldiers and civilians, to reflect on their lives, and to produce work that would have had tremendous impact on the lives of ordinary Afghanis. Such intellectual strength and nobility is truly rare, and it will be missed. Without the privilege of knowing Bhatia and of reading his work, I can only commemorate his sacrifice.

This loss hurts.