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Anonymous


I see the grubby white utility van as I pull up beside it at the red light. Heavy aluminum ladders are latched onto its sides, like saddlebags weighing down a workhorse. Morning rush hour jams and crams the intersection at Irving Park and Clarendon where the buses stop and load up more commuters. All of us hurry to squeeze onto Lake Shore Drive. We are anonymous, autonomous rats, racing to work.

Quickly, I glance over at the van driver and I am surprised to see that he is putting on lip balm. I don’t know why I am surprised. The tail end of winter has whipped Chicago in the face and it still hurts. I watch as he carefully lines up the lid to press it back on the tube. And I think, I know that, I know that moment. I’ve done it a hundred times myself, determined not to dent the waxy balm with the cap’s edge. And if I slip and there’s a scrape, I apply one more coat to try to smooth out the gouge I’ve made.

I watch as he rubs his lips together. I rub my lips together too. Mine are dry and sore. I imagine his are smooth and soft. And in that moment, all anonymity slips away. He is familiar to me. We are the same. Just skin. Chapped from the long months of winter winds.

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Jews are “in” in Bahrain


Manama is not a very glitzy city when you compare it to cities in the region, but it is charming. Sadly the waterfront areas are being rapidly urbanized, making them look like an ugly replica of Dubai. And there were lot of South Asian laborers around the city. I met some from my native Nepal.

Along with its pragmatic attitude on women's rights and their participation in public life, Baharain has gone a new way on Jewish-Muslim relations.

The New York Times reports that "It's O.K. to be Jewish in Bahrain." It is no secret that in the region and around the world, Jewish-Muslim relations have suffered because of Israeli-Palestinian conflict, but Bahrain's King Hamad bin Isa Al-Khalifa — a Sunni Muslim — has taken steps to embrace the country's Jewish minority.

But not everyone is happy. Some see the King's move as a way to keep America — Bahrain's ally — happy, and some question the king's tolerance towards Jews and discrimination against the native Shia.

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Sorry


The bundled man hurries onto the train. Sloppily scooting through the aisle, dangling his umbrella from his wrist. Wet nylon droops from its spokes and the umbrella spins. The floor is wet, water in the ridges, and the bundled man slips slightly, skimming the teenager in the seat in front of him. The umbrella spits and splatters the back of the kid's neck. "Sorry," I hear the man say. I hear him say this from the other side of the train. But the kid can’t hear him, not from a foot away, because he's plugged into his iPod, which I can also hear from the other side of the train. The look of adolescent disdain on the kid's face is wasted as the man sits down behind him, oblivious.

Slowly, the kid reaches up and flips the droplets off his neck with the back of his hand. Flip. Flip.

More riders tumble onto the train. The aisle fills with dripping wool coats, and I adjust my bags to keep from getting soggy. In the process, I bang my bag into the woman seated next to me, hitting her purse. Reflexively I say, "Sorry." And the woman, also plugged into her iPod, hears me, recognizes my gesture at least, and without the effort of air behind her words, mouths, "It's okay." But it's obviously not okay because I hear her sigh a put-out sigh and clutch her purse as tightly as she purses her lips.

My discarded apology flutters to the floor, and the standing passengers grind it into bits beneath their feet.

No one can hear anyone anymore, I think. iPods, cell phones, bluetooths (or is it blueteeth if it's plural?). All of us putting plastic up against our ears, or shoving it down inside, a barrier between our eardrums and another being's voice. Yeah technology, more ways to communicate, to stay in touch, to be connected. Whatever. Screw it, I think, pulling out my iPod and plugging in.

At Fullerton, the woman next to me tries to squish past. I don't notice that she wants out because I have my music up loud. I barely have time to move my knees let alone stand, and her adult disdain isn't wasted on me.

Once she's gone I get a new seatmate. He's soaking wet, denim darker from the shins down. Rain rolls down his leather jacket and I follow the beads as they travel the length of his sleeve. He's holding a Palm Centro, like mine, but black, and typing furiously, thumbs tap dancing on the tiny keys. I assume he's playing a game, Tetris or Bejeweled, and think, yep, just another way we disconnect. But then I get a good look at his screen.

I smile when I read the subject line — Re: Apology.

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Me and my peeps waiting for the 1 train


 

Still waiting…    

  

The peeps inch closer to a commuter.  

 

The peeps, tired of waiting for the train, decide to commit hari-kiri.

 

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The hard road ahead


I’m a sucker for those Internet advertisements that promise a free iPod, laptop, or camera. I’m ashamed to admit it, but I’ve clicked on them enough times to know by now that what they promise and what they deliver are two different things. Usually you have to sign up for a few credit cards, maybe register for Netflix, and then spend $1500 or so on airplane tickets or home furnishings. So you do get a free iPod, but only if you spend $1500 first. What a bargain.

It’s a lesson that I must learn again and again: There is nothing in this life that comes for free. Everything must be earned, everything must be worked for and all must be built. There are no shortcuts, not in dieting, in exercising, in education, in relationships, or in anything else in this world. Yet it is human nature to search for an easier way.

This month’s issue of InTheFray features stories that explore the value of hard work. Sarah Hart takes a look at first-year architecture students preparing their final projects in Charrette. In The delicate art of Facebook snooping, Preethi Dumpala looks at how Facebook has made keeping up with former classmates, old friends, and ex-partners easier — and what this means. In my piece Tourism vs. Backpacking, I tell how my trip through Kashmir has taught me the difference between the two modes of traveling.

In Ashish Mehta’s short story Aliens, we are shown how the difficult moments of our childhood become the defining moments of who we are. Niclas Rantala presents photography that makes a powerful use of light in his slideshow Into the light. Finally, poet Lynn Strongin shares four poems in her series Lean over: there is something I must tell you.

In some senses, it is humanity’s desire for an easy way out that is behind thousands of years of technological development. Early farmers wanted an easier way to break the soil and invented the plow. The desire to move across the country quicker than by horseback drove the development of modern transportation. And the need for increasingly accurate counting and calculating machines resulted in the development of the modern computer. Yet each of these innovations was itself the result of hard work. There is no way around it: progress must be earned.

 

I am a writer/editor turned web developer. I've served as both Editor-in-chief and Technical Developer of In The Fray Magazine over the past 5 years. I am gainfully employed, writing, editing and developing on the web for a small private college in Duluth, MN. I enjoy both silence and heavy metal, John Milton and Stephen King, sunrise and sunset. Like all of us, I contain multitudes.

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Spring is in the air


With the onset of spring comes a lighter feeling, the desire to shed the things that have been weighing you down all winter physically, emotionally, and spiritually.  No one, young or old, is immune. It's hard for folks who live in climes where the trees remain green all year to understand fully the newfound energy and yearning to take a walk on the wild side when the buds appear after a long frostbitten winter. So when New York had its first balmy day this week with high temperatures near 60, I knew it was only a matter of time before something crazy happened. What I didn't expect was that it would involve a four-year-old girl and the 1 train.

Each morning I transfer from the 2 express at Chambers to the 1 local. On this day, the 1 train was fairly empty — anyone who wanted a seat had one. Across from me was a father taking his young daughter to daycare or pre-pre-pre-school, which it seems children must be enrolled in while still in the womb or be destined for a life of desperation and depravity. The father was deep in conversation with the friend seated next to him about the political candidates.

The little girl, unencumbered from her usual bundle of down coat, scarf, hat, and mittens, wanted to dance. She wanted to twist and shout and boogie on down. So she wiggled off her father's lap and showed off her moves that would rival some of the competitors on Dancing with the Stars.

Her father was wary and held on to her hand in case the train stopped short. But that wouldn't do. She wanted to be free from all restraints. She pulled from her father's grasp and shook what her momma gave her to a tune that was only in her mind. As we approached Franklin Street, her father stopped talking to his friend long enough to tell the girl to hold on to the pole. She grasped the silver pole in the middle of the car still dancing. (Let me pause for a moment to say that in no way am I guessing at or alluding to this girl's future career choice.)

The doors closed and we were on our way. The girl started a Flashdance-like stutter step and twirled around the pole. Her sheer abandon was infectious. I wanted to be four again, doing whatever the moment begot, hearing some kind of Orpheus-inspired melody in my mind, not letting my ego tell me it was embarrassing to do such a thing.

And then this sweet little girl did a thing so vile, everyone around her, including her own father, cringed involuntarily. Swept up by what can only be attributed to spring fever, she stuck out her tongue and licked the pole.

For you subway riders, no further explanation is necessary. In case you car commuters are wondering what the fuss is about and lest you think I'm a germophobic nut, I'll just say this pole, that most assuredly has never been cleaned since the train was commissioned during the Ford administration, has been held by hundreds of thousands of hands. Hands that have been sneezed on and coughed into. Hands that have gone to unmentionable places. Hands that picked noses only moments before. Who knows where else these hands have been?

I wouldn't be surprised if, in the coming months, a report was issued showing your house's dish sponge contains more germ-toting bacteria than the average subway pole. But I'm not taking any chances. Someone hand me some antibacterial lotion.

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Vagina warriors part two and vegetable curry


I'm still licking my lips from a beautiful vegetable curry I made today, along with an afternoon of inspirational theatre…

Theatre is a lot like cooking: all the elements need to infuse together to make a delicious meal. I was worried my broccoli and cauliflower had seen better days. I have a tendency to make my curries a little too spicy, and I didn't seem to have enough coconut milk to cover my colorful potpourri of veggies. I had just experienced the best biryani I had ever had this past week at a new vegetarian Indian joint in my neighborhood which actually had cashews in it. I figured I'd try to do the same and add cashews to my concoction. Sometimes being a copy cat works out, and sometimes it doesn't. I find the theatre to be the same. Either it is so boringly over the top, with everything included but the kitchen sink; or it is something that has been done way too many times before in too many formulaic ways.

I was pleasantly surprised to find that this was not the case with my curry/biryani or the theatre I experienced today. The play I saw was a compilation of monologues put together by Eve Ensler and Mollie Doyle called A Memory, A Monologue, A Rant and A Prayer: Writings To Stop Violence Against Women and Girls. The play was produced by Lillian Ribeiro (a true vagina warrior princess) and directed by Rose Ginsberg in a deliciously funky artist building that houses Art House Productions in eclectic downtown Jersey City, New Jersey.

As a V-Day veteran, I was once again encountered with a warm atmosphere of art for and about women when I entered the theatre space. This art included touching photographs with women's faces and booths with V-Day memorabilia and literature about domestic violence (with lovely volunteers from _gaia and Women Rising). Of course, I was greeted by the vagina warrior princess producer-host, Lilly Lips, who had on a bright orange bob wig and 1940s-looking navy blue suit, a combination that unexpectedly made her electric blue eyes shine exquisitely with love.

The actors were dressed in red and black. When the play began in a medley of powerful words about violence, I was pleasantly surprised to see male actors in the cast, which was something I missed in the original Vagina Monologues.

Each monologue was about a different occurrence of violence, some of which included a woman being tortured in Darfur, an urban woman being beat up by her boyfriend, and a college girl getting gang raped at a party. The audience was fully engaged and silent. All we could hear were these terribly sad stories, with the accompaniment of the screeching wind outside the building which was better than any sound effects any director could have planned. It was like the wind was involved in this theatrical event, or perhaps it was the screams of all the suffering souls who had lost their lives due to violence—haunting us to never forget them. This reminded me of the poems written by Marjorie Agosin in her book, Secrets in the Sand: The Young Women of Juarez, where she describes still hearing the cries of the women who were so brutally raped and murdered in the deserts of Mexico, where their unknown bones are still buried today.

 So, the stars were all lined up. The wind was involved, the actors and director gave justice to all the great playwrights that contributed to this work, and my cashews tasted great with my not-too-spicy vegetable curry. It was an afternoon of delicious, life-giving nutrition for the body, mind, and soul. Aristotle would be proud, or should I say Sappho?

I dedicate this story to all living beings who have suffered at the hand of violence. May we continue to hear your voices until there is peace on Earth.     

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To the MPAA — your biases are showing


Bruno is meant to "expose the rampant homophobia across the United States." The title character, a gay Austrian fashion reporter, "appears to have anal sex with a man on camera." The MPAA had a hissy fit over the dude-on-dude scene and handed down the harshest rating a non-porn film can earn.

Yet last month, The Last House on the Left was released with an R rating, and critics and audiences alike shunned it over the detailed, graphic, violent rape scene. One critic called it "stomach-churningly anti-human." The MPAA shrugged and gave it an R rating.

A teenage girl is brutally assaulted — yawn. Two adult men engaging in non-violent consensual intercourse — madness! In a review of the documentary, This Film is Not Yet Rated (which exposes the biases of the board members — and the board members themselves), Kirk Honeycutt of The Hollywood Reporter noted:

Board decisions in recent years reveal a strong middle-class, male, heterosexual bias. The board has declared that female orgasms in certain films go on "too long," and it comes down hard on shots of female pubic hair. Gay sex receives harsher treatment than straight sex. Graphic violence, even against women, skates free of the dreaded NC-17 rating.

The MPAA's answer to the anti-gay accusation: "We don't try to set standards, we just try to reflect them." Translation: "White, middle-class America hates the gays, so we do, too."

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B/O on the 2/3


The train was already in the station at Grand Army Plaza when I swiped my Metrocard. I double-timed it down the stairs.  The automated voice on the newer trains announced to stand clear of the closing doors. I flew through the nearest open door moments before it shut. I watched the platform slip away as I congratulated myself on my agility and speed and on the fact that I would now only be 10 minutes late to work instead of 15 had I been forced to wait for the next train.

Then I turned around.

I was alone in the car.

It takes a moment to process why one would be alone in a train car during the height of rush hour. Was this train out of service? Maybe we were headed straight for the bowels of the city, some Dante-esque place where the trains are destined for an eternity of riding on a circular track, never reaching a terminus. But through the window to the next car I could see plenty of people. In fact they looked like they were wedged in tighter than a toothpick between two molars.

And then I understood. The realization came to me slowly as if riding on a wave of air molecules. The entire car had been compromised by one extremely rank homeless guy.

I've smelled plenty of foul stuff before. One particularly horrific stink involved a county fair ride called the Gravitron. It was an enclosed ride shaped like a spaceship. You entered into complete darkness (except for strobe lights) and then the spaceship spun around gathering enough centrifugal force that you'd "stick" to the walls. After a month at the fair servicing thousands of funnel-cake-eating, pot-smoking teenagers, I imagine they had no choice but to burn the ride to the ground to eliminate the smell.

But this. This was extraterrestrial stink. I know I'm failing you as your faithful subway commuter, but I honestly can't describe the smell. It was layers and layers and months and months of egregious filth so powerful that it cleared an entire subway car. This was the kind of smell that stays with you. It permeates the fibers of your coat and your hair. Your eyes water. Even breathing through your mouth doesn't stop the funk from going undetected. Somehow, despite years of commuting under my belt, I'd boarded this car anyway. Rookie mistake.

There are not many things that would cause a New Yorker to forgo an opportunity to sit and instead pack himself into a car for the next 30 minutes. I've remained in cars next to people eating chicken wings, in complete darkness, with a mariachi band working the crowd, but this was unbearable. Damn the MTA for locking the doors between the cars.

The ride to Bergen Street when I could move to the next car was interminable. I was poised as we pulled into the station. As soon as the doors opened, I burst out of the car coughing like someone who had been stuck in a gas chamber then suddenly set free. I squeezed my way into the next car. People around me wrinkled their noses and issued sidelong glances at the new girl who stank to high heaven.

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Pakistan: signs of fracture


The attack on a police academy which killed nine comes just weeks after a visiting Sri Lankan cricket team was attacked. Lahore, Punjab province's largest city, has experienced two high-profile terrorist attack in a very short time span, proving that militants are not limited to the lawless Northwest Frontier Province (NWFP).

In an earlier post, "Pakistan dilemma," I discussed Pakistani government's decision to enter into a peace agreement with Taliban militants based in Swat Valley. The militants have established a Sharia court there and govern in the same authoritarian way as they did back in Afghanistan.

The decision to allow the militants to flourish in Swat Valley has hurt Pakistan's chances of defeating terrorism and getting rid of the Taliban and their al Qaeda friends. Why will the militants fear the government or the security forces when they see that, with enough pressure, the government is ready to agree to their demands?

President Obama has promised to overhaul America's policy on Pakistan and Afghanistan. He needs to stop pouring billions into Pakistan when the country's government is caving under the terrorists' demands. Terrorism in Pakistan can be defeated only when the country's government grows a spine.

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Environmental initiatives in Bangladesh


I recently visited Bangladesh and was very impressed by several of the environmental initiatives this small, poor, and overcrowded nation of a growing 150 million has achieved.

Bangladesh has already managed to completely ban polythene plastic bags in 2002, is successfully using a much cleaner alternative vehicle fuel of compressed natural gas (CNG), is reducing greenhouse gas by keeping vast amounts of waste out of landfills, and uses cycle-rickshaws, probably the most-green urban transportation around, which are abundant all over the cities.

Bangladesh has banned thin polythene bags since 2002; instead people bring their own reusable bag or must purchase a bag like these ones made from recycled materials.
 
Bangladesh is a relatively new country, becoming independent only in 1971; before this it was known as East Pakistan after the partition from India along with West Pakistan (now just known as Pakistan) in 1947.

This nation, wedged between India on the west and north and Myanmar on the east, is one of the poorest and most crowded places in the world; it’s also going to be most affected by global warming. Most of the time when you hear about this country in the news it’s for some kind of natural disaster like Cyclone Sidr in November 2007 or about a lot of its land disappearing if all the glaciers of the Himalayas melt and raise the sea levels.

So maybe because of this or despite it, Bangladesh has the environment in mind.

Bangladesh has thousands of cycle-rickshaws, which are by far the cleanest form of urban transportation.

 

One major problem is air pollution. The government has addressed this with the alternative fuel of compressed natural gas (CNG), which is less polluting than gas and diesel fuels. But industries such as brick factories are another major concern that several international agencies are addressing.

Compressed natural gas was implemented to clean the air and is now mandatory in all auto-rickshaws, which are now painted green and simply referred to as CNGs.

 

The Kyoto Protocol’s Clean Development Model (CDM) allows developed nations who signed the treaty to invest in clean technologies in developing nations. Bangladesh is a place that CDM is designed for and several CDM projects are operating successfully. One project is by an NGO named Waste Concern, which takes organic trash, turns it into salable compost, and sells the carbon credits in the overseas market. They keep the trash out of the waste stream and reduce greenhouse gases. In addition Waste Concern has created jobs for the poor and cleaned up the cities.

Tons of organic waste accumulates every day in city markets like this one, the Karwan Bazar in the capital Dhaka. Waste Concern takes the waste, makes compost, reduces greenhouse gas, sells carbon-credits, and has created jobs.

 

Making cleaner brick factories is the latest CDM project for a company that already has helped bring compressed natural gas to the country. Iftikhar “Sabu” Hussain, CEO of CNG Distribution Company, took me on a tour of the pilot clean-brick kiln on the outskirts of the capital city Dhaka.

Brick factories near Dhaka spew out smoke and pollute nearby farmlands.

 

The countryside adjacent to Dhaka is emerald green farmlands starkly contrasted with dirty white brick-kiln smokestacks belching black smoke. Bricks are essential building materials here; everything is built with bricks and the industry is in demand.

Bricks are essential building materials in Bangladesh; everything is built with them.

 

These seasonal factories spring up in the dry season and are unregulated and abusive to workers, says Hussain. They burn coal inefficiently and the smoke and soot fills the air and falls onto the nearby crops.

Workers at the pilot clean-brick kiln organize the bricks.

 

Mr. Hussain’s brick kiln uses technology from China that infuses coal into the actual bricks themselves. When fired, the embedded coal hardens the brick and combusts, therefore using less external coal and releasing much less smoke.


This pilot clean-brick kiln releases less smoke than traditional ones.

 

This factory seemed to release less smoke when I visited, but it wasn’t perfect. Some smoke still escaped, but as Hussain says, it’s still in the experimental stage.

The clean-brick kiln sits adjacent to farmlands outside of Dhaka.

 

keeping the earth ever green

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The whole story


Ron Howard is considering working on "an adaptation of The Strange Adventures of H.P. Lovecraft — which is a graphic novel from Mac Carter and Jeff Blitz that takes elements of Lovecraft's struggles in real life and combines them with a fantastical element that includes transforming all of his darkest nightmares into reality"

You want to know Lovecraft's darkest nightmare? Barack Obama as president.
Artists, Lovecraft readers, and gothic/emo students everywhere have also chosen to ignore Lovecraft's larger-than-life racism and how intertwined his hatred was with his work. It's not enough that a bunch of "fans" gather at his grave in Providence every year to "celebrate" the man. A fan-created Lovecraft website contains a page explaining the misconceptions about the author. They don't even touch racism. They don't even try to justify any of the following:

The mass of contemporary Jews are hopeless as far as America is concerned. They are the product of alien blood, & inherit alien ideals, impulses, & emotions which forever preclude the possibility of wholesale assimilation…

The primal savage or ape merely looks about his native forest to find a mate; the exalted Aryan should lift his eyes to the worlds of space and consider his relation to infinity!!!!

Let's not be bothered by things like truth, reality, and history. Let's all go to the movies!

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