Saturday, November 13, 2004Iris Chang, RIPI was somewhat surprised, flipping through the Merc the other day to see the announcement of Iris Chang's death. For those who don't know of her, she was the author of The Rape of Nanking, which played an important role in getting the Japanese government to finally apologize for atrocities committed during World War II. I remember her popping up on the Chris Matthews show, Hardball, to discuss the book and the problems of genocide and war crime in modern society. Such a research focus surely must take its toll on the human spirit, but it's not clear if it's what led to Chang's final action: At the age of 36, she drove out to a deserted stretch of road, set a suicide note on the seat next to her and shot herself. She shot herself not far from the Cats, a restaurant south of Los Gatos that I haven't visited but which looks like it's one-part home cookin', one part truck stop. Newspaper accounts didn't give the precise location, but it was apparently one of the many roads going in around the Lexington Reservoir. Behind which I live, which is why this particularly caught my attention. In Chang's final note, she asked that she be remembered for who she was, not who she had become. Apparently, in the final year of her life she'd fallen into an awful depression for which she was even hospitalized briefly, while overseas. She leaves behind a husband, a two-year old son, and a painful reminder for our society: Iris Chang, though in a depressing field, seemed pretty much on top of the world. She was a highly respected researcher in her field who had both academic prestige and a fair amount of clout for a human rights activist not full-time with one of the more prominent NGOs. Where her depression came from is not clear - at least not from the details available for public consumption. Its seriousness did not become fully clear until earlier this week. But a lot of people less famous than Chang meet with the same fate, and our society does way too much of the stiff upper lipping and the "you've got so much to live for"-ing while paying way too little attention to people seemingly suffering personal emotional crises. I suspect there's an element of fear in the way our society deals with depression: if it could happen to Chang, there's no telling who else it might happen to. A loved one. Even us. Easier to say that someone's just out of sorts, or needs to get it together, get right with God, whatever. Better to put the discomfitting possibility that a brain might go bing off to the side and pretend it doesn't exist. The people who are the worst at this are those suffering themselves. What happened with Chang I do not and probably never will know. Even if we get a lot of details, we'll never truly know what was going through her mind in her final day, final hour, final minute. Do we pick up from here with a sad harumph about "who knew?" however, or do we take this chance to let our own loved ones know that it is okay to slow down, okay to feel worn out and awful, okay to need help... and that it is our heartfelt wish to help them get it and support them in doing so? We hear a lot about the homeless, about drunks, about people who "don't want to get their act together." Iris Chang had her act together. She was a wife, a mother, an influential researcher and a widely respected author. She could afford a psychiatrist, a therapist, could afford to take a rest - as far as we know - without laying awake nights thinking about the mortgage. So before you write off someone who just isn't dealing with life anymore, remember Iris Chang and ask which you'd prefer - the self righteous satisfaction of knowing that the child warn't right, warn't your fault, ain't your fault what happened... or the possibility of reaching out, trying to help and knowing come what may that you did your best to help and understand. 
posted by gbarto at 8:30 PM Friday, November 12, 2004On the Barrifs and Terriers front...Well, falling barriers anyway. An Arab-American dropped his cultural barriers enough to let a beagle into his family. And discovered that in the USA it doesn't matter who you are or where you're from... if you've got a dog, you can't be all bad. Here's the scoop.
posted by gbarto at 4:12 PM Wow! Instapundit linked it, so you've already read the Belmont Club's take on religion and democracy. But be sure to go back and read the comments, especially this equally lengthy essay by commenter Wildiris. She warns it's a start to the thinking, not the final word (he could have subsituted Den Beste's DWL - Don't Write Letters) but it's chockful of interesting stuff to argue for and against. Really, read the whole things, comments included. If you've ever laid awake nights wondering how the Augustinian conception of sin led to republican government or whether the separation of church and state is just another example of Christian morality seeping into secular democracy, this is the post for you!
posted by gbarto at 3:59 PM Wednesday, November 10, 2004Hugh Hewitt is still right on the Specter question. You'll have to scroll down a little to find it though.
posted by gbarto at 6:25 PM Tuesday, November 09, 2004Programming question:I've written a little module to show Arabic "flash cards" in a small window in the corner of the screen. It can be found here at the "Click to start" button. The code works beautifully in IE 5+, so far as I can tell. But when I run it on mozilla firefox, I get a bunch of "undefined" errors, almost as though the associated javascript source code and/or the linked stylesheet were failing to load. Does mozilla have a different way of loading an outside source code file or is it just plain clunky for something put together this way? Any ideas? (If any people still messing with this stuff manually actually read this page.)
posted by gbarto at 11:58 PM AOL headline: Attorney General Ashcroft Resigns That agonized howling you're hearing in the night is Democratic fundraiser letter writers coming to terms with their loss.
posted by gbarto at 11:06 PM Monday, November 08, 2004For the record...Hugh Hewitt is correct on the Arlen Specter question. Specter is, of course, an odious little man. There is much in him not to like. In fact, he grates on me almost as much as McCain in sanctimony mode. But taking this shot at uniting the country under the Republican banner and blowing it for the sake of holier than thou politics - in Washington, for God's sake - is a bad, bad idea. Is Specter a jerk? Sure. Has he been a bit McCainesque with his own "more moderate than thou" b.s. in the past? Yup. But he also fought hard for Clarence Thomas and hasn't, as far as I know, flirted with whether or not to support his own leadership when it comes to organizing, etc. Why should they question him on the other side? There is in all of this one question: Is Specter a Lowell Weicker? That is, barely even a RINO? If so, NR can fire up a new PAC and take their shot. As a matter of fact... they did so. Toomey (I believe it was) lost. Rightly or wrongly, the voters of Pennsylvania stayed with Specter. So, it must be noted, did a Bush administration that doesn't seem to feel nearly as threatened by Specter as some on the old right. The TurkeyBlog, for one, hopes that Hewitt and co., watching the politics, will win over the NRO folks, however principled they take their stand to be. Ripping apart the party at the precise moment when we're best positioned to build it up may provide some emotional satisfaction. It may also pave the way for a Judiciary Chair with a name like Kennedy. Keep a cool head, folks.
posted by gbarto at 8:41 PM Way last Thursday, Mickey Kaus was talking about the exit poll numbers and how badly they missed. Theories include: 1) Demographic of people willing to talk to pollsters was more Democrat. 2) Demographic of early morning voters was more Democrat. 3) Dems sent in operatives to drive up exit poll numbers so that if (when) they leaked, it would be a boost for Kerry. What if... the people polled lied? Living here in California, had I been asked I might just have given a pollster a heartrending tale of how my three best friends died in Iraq and I was voting for Kerry twice. And gone home with a twinkle in my eye. How many Republicans, asked if they were gun totin', sister lovin', abortion hatin' rednecks, might not have said, "Goodness me, I'm with the party of sweetness, light and cookies for all, the Democrats!" just to screw up the polls and issue an ironical screw you to their media betters? In fact, if I were running the Republican operation, I'd advise every committed GOPer to lie to any and every pollster so that when the next elections came around the left-leaning media could sit and stew over just what 95% support for the Democrats really was likely to translate into. So long as the media skews the polls, there's no reason we shouldn't just render them meaningless.
posted by gbarto at 1:14 AM Sunday, November 07, 2004Well, well, well. According to AOL, we've stormed Fallujah and Iraq has declared a state of emergency. We're, hmm, 4 days out from the election and already on the move. Good. Deepak Chopra - unlikely source for something like this - says to spend your money to keep the flow going so it can come back. Bush is spending his political capital - and we're guessing it, too, will come back.The Iraqis, too, are spending a little political capital here, trying to stay in control as the turmoil unfolds. If they're smart, they'll keep a loose enough hold to maintain order - too tight a grip and Iraq will be left to suffocate or burst free. Kind of like holding a kitten. In any case, it's too soon to tell if the news is good or bad, even if it is good or bad. The good news, in the larger sense, is that freedom's soldiers are again on the march and the enemies of hope and tolerance are more than a little discontent with the state of the world.
posted by gbarto at 11:42 PM |
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