On March 9, 2011, just one day before the 52^nd anniversary of the Lhasa Uprising, the 14^th Dalai Lama, Tenzin Gyatso, announced his retirement as leader of the Tibetan Parliament in Exile.

The Dalai Lama’s retirement marks the first step toward separating church and state and creating a non-theistic structure as the people of Tibet take steps toward mediating Tibetan-Chinese relations. Despite leaving his role as political leader, though, the Dalai Lama plans to retain his title as the spiritual leader of the Tibetan People. Since his announcement, there have been steps taken to elect a new leader of the exiled government. There are currently three candidates for the position.

Lobsang Sangay, a graduate of Harvard Law and a prominent Tibetan Scholar, is currently leading in preliminary elections. Sangay, the youngest of the three candidates, is seen as the more moderate candidate, with a platform focusing on mediation between China and Tibet. In 1992, at the age of 24, Sangay became the youngest executive member of the Tibetan Youth Congress, and his diplomatic relationship with China is stronger than the other candidates, giving lectures on conflict resolution between Indo-Tibetan exiles and political leaders in China.

Tenzin Tethong, a Tibetan Studies professor at Stanford University, is a former personal representative to the Dalai Lama himself and, upon arrival to the United States from India, served as a coordinator to structuring the current Tibetan encampments throughout both the U.S. and Canada. His work has been seen as the major reason for success of Tibetan exiles in North America and has many of his votes coming from American immigrant groups.

Tashi Wangdi is the current representative for the Dalai Lama. He remains in India and is the closest to the day-to-day affairs of the Tibetan legislative system. Though lacking in pedigree, Wangdi benefits from his close ties to the current government.

After spending part of this past fall in Tibet and discussing this with a close Tibetan friend of mine who is currently living in exile, I was informed about the opinions of the Tibetan people. Sangay, who is looking more and more likely to become the next leader of Tibet, is often credited for his academic merit but has the least experience in actual government relations. Is this what Tibet needs? A young mind like Sangay to revitalize the people? Or do they need a more practical and experienced leader like Tenzin Tethong or Tashi Wangdi? The next several months will be very telling as to what the future holds for the Tibetan Government in Exile.

But for what this year’s Superbowl lacked in quality, they made up for with controversy. Groupon.com, which is a web-based coupon directory service, launched their new advertising campaign. Their first ad, featuring Cuba Gooding Jr. and his take on whale watching was stunning and somewhat controversial.

This ad was followed by another ad, featuring Academy-Award winning child actor Timothy Hutton as a diner at a Chicago-based Himalayan restaurant. What made the ad controversial was not Hutton’s lack of relevance, though it is slightly disgusting, but rather the commercial’s obvious exploitation of the human rights issues facing the Tibetan people.

As someone who spent the fall living in Tibet, I was very turned off the first time I saw this. It bothered me not just because it tore apart a country striving to exceed beyond its current state, but poked fun at perhaps one of the most publicized cultural wars of my lifetime. They chose obvious important religious and cultural locations to display in the ad (Lhasa, Mt. Everest. etc) with the hopes of getting a rise out of the viewers.

The question is were these commercials done with the intent of being controversial? Was the purpose to stun with the intent of advocating social awareness? Or was this controversy part of a grand scheme to attract attention under the guise that any press is good press?

Aside from being a socially insensitive graveyard for B-list actors, Groupon.com has done a great job of making themselves relevant in the online rat race for attention.

Growing up, I was surrounded by Buddhists. My parents were heavily involved in the local Peace Pagoda, one of the only two fully chartered Japanese temples of its kind in the United States. My father, a chef, would cook large and decadent meals for the monks and their supporters while my mother assisted in the organization and planning of many of their events. As a child in this environment, I was often exposed to things that most people my age could only have imagined. My parents chauffeured around Thich Nhat Hanh and other prestigious Buddhist figures in our minivan and I even brought nuns and monks into school for show and tell.

The town I grew up in, Amherst, Massachusetts, was well known for its involvement with the Free Tibet Movement. Renowned Indo-Tibetan professor Robert Thurman taught at Amherst College, my high school, Northfield Mount Hermon, and invited various Buddhist laureates to serve as visiting speakers. Even Richard Gere, Mr. Tibet himself, went to the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. The town’s interest in Tibetan and Buddhist themed issues eventually led to the community serving as a safe ground for exiles and refugees escaping China’s proliferation of Tibet. The Dalai Lama himself would come on occasional visits to captivate the community.

This type of community allowed me to develop a strong interest not just in Buddhist-themed issues, but also in studying different cultures in general. When I was 17, I had the chance to travel to the land of my ancestors, Ireland, as part of a high school independent program I created to study the religious conflict in Northern Ireland, which has plagued the island for centuries. While there I had a small video camera, which I used to document the experience. After returning home, my peers, particularly those in the Buddhist community were passionate about my work and pushed me to continue pursuing my newfound interest in filmmaking.

It became natural for me to continue this kind of work. At 19, I spent part of the summer living on the Choctaw American Indian Reservation in Mississippi. While there I produced a documentary about their economic growth and preservation of culture. While in college and graduate school I continued making movies, hoping all along to at some day do a film about the people I grew up surrounded by.

In and around Amherst there are many Tibetan themed gift shops. Some of them are quite exploitive, selling small trinkets and overpriced mementos produced in back alley sweatshops somewhere in Nepal, even including a store owned and operated by a white man who employs borderline Tibetan slave labor in the cultivation and promotion of his items.

That being said, there are some stores that actually serve a great purpose. One store, Glimpse of Tibet, is run by a close friend of my mother who was formerly a Tibetan nomad and now spends her time in exile between India and Northampton, Massachusetts. My mother’s friend knew of my interest in film and suggested I consider traveling to Tibet to do a film about a community of nomads she knew who were working to start a school for their children as a means of preserving their ancient traditions. The project interested me considering its close connection to the film I did on the Choctaw Reservation.

The one problem in doing this kind of work is that we often become too idealistic. There is a trap that many filmmakers get caught up in believing they can do what they choose without understanding the necessary steps and possible consequences. I soon learned that my trip to join the nomads in Tibet would be out of the question considering visa issues. I knew the likelihood of me, a young aspiring filmmaker, being allowing into Tibet were close to none. Despite this inability to travel there, it remained a dream of mine to produce a film over there. I knew that at some point in my life, I would have a chance to go.

More to come…

DHAKA, BANGLADESH — Mahe Noor left her village in southern Bangladesh after Cyclone Sidr flattened her family’s home and small market in 2007. Jobless and homeless, she and her husband, Nizam Hawladar, moved to this crowded megalopolis, hoping that they might soon return home.

Two years later, they are still here. Ms. Noor, 25, and Mr. Hawladar, 35, work long hours at low-paying jobs — she at a garment factory and he at a roadside tea stall. They are unable to save money after paying for food and rent on their dark shanty in Korail, one of the largest slums in Dhaka. And in their village, more people are leaving because of river erosion and dwindling job opportunities.

“We’re trapped,” Ms. Noor said.

Natural calamities have plagued humanity for generations. But with the prospect of worsening climate conditions over the next few decades, experts on migration say tens of millions more people in the developing world could be on the move because of disasters.

Rather than seeking a new life elsewhere in a mass international “climate migration,” as some analysts had once predicted, many of these migrants are now expected to move to nearby megacities in their own countries.

“Environmental refugees have lost everything,” said Rabab Fatima, the South Asia representative of the International Organization for Migration. “They don’t have the money to make a big move. They move to the next village, the next town and eventually to a city.”

Certainly food for thought in light of the Copenhagen climate summit.

And for good measure, here’s a clip of her talking about Sarah Palin’s book.

…rushed through Parliament allowing stiffer fines and extended detentions for those deemed unruly, to public displays of newly acquired anti-riot and emergency equipment, leaders here say they are preparing for the worst while hoping for the best. Meanwhile, a variety of protest and advocacy groups — some with obscure political lineage — have signaled in online postings and other public statements that they will not be cooperating.

Mr. Larsen said that about $122 million was being spent to secure the city and to fortify the Bella Center, a sprawling site southeast of central Copenhagen where more than 15,000 negotiators and onlookers will gather to forge the framework for an agreement to address climate change.

High steel fences atop concrete barricades surround the Bella Center, and vehicles can enter only through a couple of well-armed police checkpoints. The southern reaches of the Inderhavnen, or inner harbor, canal, which runs just west of the Bella Center, are embroidered with concertina wire to prevent access by water.
Could this end up looking like the 1997 WTO protests in Seattle (a city that, at least by American standards, is quite liberal)? I guess we’ll find out this week.

In October 2007, over 1,500 homes and 500,000 acres of land were destroyed in southern California forcing 1,000,000 people out of their homes and leaving many of them homeless in the process. These fires went on to injure 85 people, 61 of who were firefighters, while leaving 14 dead as a result.

Aside from the immediate effects of the blaze, experts believe the environmental toll from the 2007 fires will take decades to recover. Due to the fires, the air quality in San Diego has risen to near lethal levels, citing a major health concern throughout southern California. With damage costs reaching over $1 billion, the 2007 fires continue to affect the social and cultural aspects of the community.

Since the fire, state and government organizations have begun instituting programs to better equip themselves for future disasters. While outside of these groups, the general public still lacks a strong enough understanding of these fires to be ready in case of emergency.

Wildfires: A California Disaster is a short educational documentary about wildfires in California that we hope could be used to further educate the people of our State about the different causes of these fires, how to prevent them, and ways to prepare if there is a need in their community.

Buy It Here!

“In the last two decades of the twentieth century, the South Asian Indian presence in the United States and Canada has been felt in all major walks of life. Physicians from India are to be found not only in the major metropolitan area medical centers but also in remote parts of the continent. South Asian engineers abound, particularly in the information technology industry. Newspaper kiosks, doughnut shops, hotels, restaurants, gas stations, and conveniences stores have been conspiculous for their brown-skinned proprietors and employees.” The opening paragraph from, “Health, Faith Traditions, and South Asian Indians in North America.”

There’s the sheer “are you kidding me?” incredulity to this opening salvo. And then, to boot, there’s the fact that an Indian, Prakash N. Desai, wrote it. Anyone remember that old Lewis Black joke about the stupidest thing you’ve ever heard and brain aneurysms?

hey everyone just want to give Saskatoon fans the heads up that this may be my last show ever. don’t want to call it a retirement show because i may change my mind 9 months from now, i probably will. But the fact of the matter is that this may be a good time to call it finished.
i am still gonna go to rap shows and listen to rap and go on open mics and even rap my songs outside shows and what not. It’s been one hell of a strange and fun run, i couldn’t believe when i first rapped outside saskatoon and this music took us from moscow to la saskatoon to edmonton. i have met alot of amazing people. i got so many opportunities that other people never got so i am not gonna complain about how rap did me so wrong. for every 1 thing that went down wrong 15 things went down right. i got so much support from chaps and soso and nolto and factor and kay and noyz. recently from Thomas Quinlon and han solo records. (it is not fair to thomas when i turn down video fact opportunities or mazazine interviews) I show more love when these people are not around by listening to there cd’s so much. i must have listed to nomads cd over 100 times. I just want to say that i have always been 100% heart on the mic. i am doing one more song over a factor beat that i have been working on for the past 10 months. other than that i won’t be recording for awhile. i have a tear in my eye as i write this but i will still punch you in the mouth.

Take a look at a few of clips of him rapping. Here with Pip Skid doing “All up in this piece:”

“Another left wing peace song” with Nomad:

And, finally, “Ah Hemsky;”

My friend, E., is collecting donations for Read for the Record. She says, “Jumpstart is entering its annual to get books to children who need them. As some of you know, each year we choose a flagship book that will be read to children in schools across the United States. This year I am happy to say we will be reading The Very Hungry Caterpillar! If you are in the Atlanta area, I’d be happy to host you as a volunteer reader in the morning on October 8th at one of my three preschool site partners. It is lots of fun, and the sites are very easy to get to.”

So, if you’d like to donate to this cause, visit this site. She adds “It costs $10 to donate one book ($8.99 for the book plus shipping). Because I deliver these books every year, I know that each and every book is donated is delivered to a child who has few to no books in his or her home library.”

Most of you spend–”even in this ‘economic climate’”–more than $10 a night drinking. I think you can afford to donate at least one book to this worthwhile cause.

The White House has tried to make concessions by making the speech available in text on Monday morning and editing some of the supplemental materials that some found objectionable. It doesn’t matter. I think Conservatives just don’t want their children acutely exposed to Obama. Let’s also not forget the fact Ronald Regan did the same thing in ‘88, and so did Bush ‘91. What did Regan talk about that day you ask? Tax cuts for gods sake! The Republican party needs to take a long look in the mirror and stop allowing idiots to be the face of their party.

What’s funny about this whole debacle is that the White House saw it coming. President Obama perhaps figured that the kids who were not allowed to watch his speech would later be pulled in by this sweet Nascar PSA.

• Dissent often quotes Richard Rorty who, in praise of the magazine, called it the most important publication for the American left. So when did they become “…fodder for limo liberals (snark intended)?”
• On Kennedy’s effectiveness, it turns out the “lion” was “willing to get into bed with the hunter after it was done roaring.” (Read this as meaning that compared to other liberals and progressives Kennedy was able to compromise and get things done.)
• Finally, on Kennedy being more liberal than his brothers, it’s perhaps the case of comparing people out of context. That is, “his brothers had a very different compromise environment.” (On this point, think of comparing athletes against other athletes in their own generation instead of comparing, say, Rod Laver against Pete Sampras against Roger Federer.)

So, food for thought. Things to mull over, etc.

And, for kicks, here’s an earlier video of her on Hardball arguing with Pat Buchanan about SCHIP.

For a country that heralds itself as the world’s largest democracy, the picture painted by the HRW report isn’t pretty. In January 2009, “Officer Singh” told HRW: “This week, I was told to do an ‘encounter.’ I am looking for my target. I will eliminate him.” The “encounter” Officer Singh refers to is “the practice of taking into custody and extrajudicially executing an individual, then claiming that the victim died after initiating a shoot-out with police. Officer Singh says he wanted to be an honest cop. He says, “[n]o one is born corrupt. It’s a tailor-made system: if you’re not corrupt, you won’t survive.”

But the story doesn’t stop there. There’s also torture. One torture victim, an eighteen year old boy, says, “[a]fter they finished tea they pulled off my shirt and trousers. The constable kicked me, and then constables came and held my hands and legs. They drenched me with a bucket of cold water…For one and a half hours, I was beaten like this…. [On the third night] the SI [sub-inspector] and SO [station officer] pressed their feet against my thighs. I felt my veins, it felt like they would burst. They said, “We’ll make you impotent and you’ll be of no use.” The police, however, are unrepentant about their actions. A constable from Bangalore, for example, remarks, “We do use some extralegal methods. You might disagree, but we cannot do all work by the book. Then the police would be completely ineffective.”

These are only a few snippets from the report. India’s population, as most well know,  features one of the world’s largest underclasses, which includes a pronounced north-south gap. The rich, and middle-class, can, then, if it comes down to it, bribe the police. But this isn’t an option for the socially, politically, and economically marginalized lower classes and untouchables. There’s obviously a lot of noise about India as an emerging economic (super)power. But there’s been substantially less attention paid to issues like police abuse, class warfare (in the literal, not Palin, sense), and violence against females.

I was very fortunate to have heard Cohen while I was at Harvard. He first delivered a paper on conservatism. (As he wrote in his paper, “Things ain’t what they used to be.”) The next day he debated UCLA’s AJ Julius on the topic of justice. (Julius has a fantastic paper, “Basic Structure and the Value of Equality,” in which he engages Cohen’s critique. He also had a handout which looked somewhat similar to this. [I also think there's no greater respect you can pay your teacher or someone you've learned from then working on a large project engaging one of their ideas.]) I was intending to leave after the debate but some of my friends who had previously gone to Oxford told me to stick around. They told me that when Cohen was an undergrad at McGill he was so poor that he’d do standup comedy to get some money together. So, after dinner, Cohen went to the front of the auditorium where, a couple of hours earlier, he’d locked his intellectual horns with Julius’s, and did some of the funniest comedy I’ve ever heard. His books aren’t easy to to read, and you’ll need to be familiar with Rawls to understand the latter two, but his writing is first-rate philosophy.