Category Archives: Digressions

May 12, 2008 · 9:29 am

On Tyranny

This morning on the metro I started Czeslaw Milosz’s The Captive Mind — recommended to me by my friend Sorin — and found this quote (attributed to “an Old Jew of Galicia”),

When someone is honestly 55% right, that’s very good and there’s no use wrangling. And if someone is 60% right, it’s wonderful, it’s great luck, and let him thank God. But what’s to be said about 75% right? Wise people say this is suspicious. Well, and what about 100% right? Whoever says he’s 100% right is a fanatic, a thug, and the worst kind of rascal.

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May 7, 2008 · 1:37 pm

The Old Camera Swallowing Trick

I hate going to the doctor. Does that sound ironic? How about when it is to have tests done in the radiology section of a hospital? In Spain, there is a saying that “at the blacksmith’s home, the family eats with wooden utensils”.

Actually, having a camera stuck down my throat wasn’t that traumatic after all. From the photo, you can tell that I had just come back to this world from full sedation. I didn’t feel a thing, I slept, dreamt (that I was working with Borja), and it was over. I even got my first ever glimpse of my own innards — I will spare you those photos — and everything seemed pretty halal.

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April 28, 2008 · 9:33 pm

April in Montmartre

One year a later, I spent another April in Paris and also without rain! That’s a real surprise because for the past year, traveling to Paris at least once a month, I think I haven’t had to fortune to live through a single rainless weekend.

But not this weekend. We had a beautiful weekend of sunshine. I tried to capture — unsuccessfully — the wonderful day in Montmartre with another low budget video. This time with Thelonious Monk playing “April in Paris“.

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April 25, 2008 · 2:01 pm

Intensity In Crescendo

Last night I went to the Auditorio Nacional in Madrid to see (and hear) my friend, Philippe Raskin, play. Although I had heard him play once before in a quartet setting, this was the first time I got to experience him live on solo piano. The experience blew me away. It was by far the best concert I have ever been to. I wish I had more time now to describe the performance in depth. Unfortunately I don’t, so I’ll be brief. Continue reading →

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April 24, 2008 · 5:06 pm

Inmate Count in U.S. Dwarfs Other Nations’

Eloy Muñoz Carabanchel

The United States has less than 5 percent of the world’s population. But it has almost a quarter of the world’s prisoners.

Enough said? Read more. (Photo of the abandoned Carabanchel prison by my co-worker, Eloy Muñoz).

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April 21, 2008 · 8:09 pm

A Freudian Slip

Yes, I know that when you speak in public, you often misplace phrases in a sentence’s proper order and lack the necessary visual aid of punctuation to get your point across as intended. And yes, I am sure that is what happened to Hillary yesterday when she was complaining about Obama’s analysis of her health care plan. She said,

[Obama] is attacking me … because I cover everyone with more misleading information.

I am sure she didn’t mean that her plan’s coverage is misleading.

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April 17, 2008 · 4:26 pm

Bob Marley Replayed

Last week while reading Unburnable, I felt some nostalgia for my Bob Marley days. When I was a kid between the ages of maybe 14 and 16, I was obsessed with Bob Marley, Reggae music and Rastafarian culture — though unlike Bill Clinton, the reason I didn’t inhale was because I wasn’t smoking.

Over time, I kind of lost my Bob Marley enthusiasm for a series of reasons. I even wrote a tongue-and-cheek criticism, for the sake of argument, about white people who assume the Rasta look. It was amazing to see how many people fell for the trap and responded angrily. Every once in a while I still put on some of my old Reggae albums by artists like Burning Spear, Joe Higgs, Ras Michael and the Sons of Negus, Jacob Miller, Ijahman Levi, and others that I had lived off of in my adolecence.

And whenever I revisit Bob Marley, I am always more than impressed by the depth his music. All of his music can be summed up by the lines from “Trench Town Rock” that reads, “one good thing about music is that when it hurts you feel no pain.” Continue reading →

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April 16, 2008 · 5:17 pm

Euthanasia and the Death Penalty

Bosch Stone

So there I was — just seconds ago — when I ran across a headline that read, “Supreme Court upholds Kentucky’s use of lethal injections“. My first reaction was to read the headline out loud, so as to evoke a response from my fellow co-worker Joan (who completely ignored me, by the way).

Just the other day, Joan and I were discussing the difference between euthanasia and the right to reject medical assistance. For some reason, I immediately thought that the headline referred to euthanasia rather than capital punishment.

Upon catching my error, I realized that I was finally losing my mental agility, that I was going soft and should immediately refrain from anything remotely resembling multi-tasking. Then I thought about it again. Why was I confused? Maybe I am not losing my mind. What is the difference between assisted suicide by lethal injection and capital punishment by lethal injection?

Both involve the taking of one person’s life by a third party. The difference with assisted suicide is that there is consent and the act is performed below the radar of the law. The difference with capital punishment is that the act is performed by the law.

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April 10, 2008 · 8:57 pm

Unburnable

I just finished Unburnable by first-time novelist Marie-Elena John from Antigua. Although the novel does have its shortcomings, it was overall a fascinating look into the complexities of Caribbean culture and the legacy of slavery, colonialism, and West African culture on the people who today inhabit the West Indies. The story takes place in both my hometown of Washington, DC and in the island of Dominica, and in a sense also compares and contrasts the Caribbean and African American experiences. If you’re interested in any of the aforementioned, I definitely recommend it. Here is a sample from Unburnable: Continue reading →

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April 10, 2008 · 7:49 pm