Today, Amardeep pointed out this lengthy response by Korean-American Wesley Yang to Amy Chua’s Tiger Mother phenomenon – Paper Tigers: What happens to all the Asian-American overachievers when the test-taking ends?

… Here is what I sometimes suspect my face signifies to other Americans: an invisible person, barely distinguishable from a mass of faces that resemble it. A conspicuous person standing apart from the crowd and yet devoid of any individuality. An icon of so much that the culture pretends to honor but that it in fact patronizes and exploits. Not just people “who are good at math” and play the violin, but a mass of stifled, repressed, abused, conformist quasi-robots who simply do not matter, socially or culturally.

I’ve always been of two minds about this sequence of stereotypes. On the one hand, it offends me greatly that anyone would think to apply them to me, or to anyone else, simply on the basis of facial characteristics. On the other hand, it also seems to me that there are a lot of Asian people to whom they apply.

I saw the article before when it came out in May, but was reminded of it at an interesting time. The more I talk with my parents and older adults of my family, the more I realize how Asian, or more specifically Indian, my thought processes are not. Increasingly, I am of it, but I am not it. They’ll probably never get me – my priorities and quirks, but mostly my logic – and they cannot. Of course, my thoughts and decisions will forever be shaped to a certain degree by being raised in Kuwait by Indian parents, but I am, for better or for worse, American.

It comes down to expectations because of what we look like. The ones our immigrant parents have of us because they bore us and we look like them. And those the “native” Americans of this country to which our families came have of us because, well, we look Asian, so we had damned well better behave that way.

That way. The high-achieving, hard-working, deferential and thus quietly successful way we Asians are expected to go through life. For all my defiant Other-ness, I am able to (barely) deliver everyone’s expectations because I happen to be well-versed in science, mathematics and American English, am pathologically obsessed with employment and can slide in and out of different cultural and sub-cultural contexts. It most definitely hasn’t been easy, as described above, but I get by.

What of my counterparts and the hordes of Asian-American kids behind me, however, who cannot partially differentiate their way out of a wet paper sack and also have the personality and spine of that same wet paper sack? The ones who really want only to draw, write poetry and play soccer or, heaven forbid, have no apparent skills and charms and subsequently no clue what to become when they grow up. I know several beautiful, young people whose future paths haven’t been walked by anyone else yet, but who live in constant, secret fear of being compared to the achievements of the rest of their model society as well as the inevitable rejection of their parents. Is a profound lack of imagination and cruelty the best these kids can hope to get?

It’s the last paragraph of Yang’s article that reminded me hope lies in readjusting expectations from what our parents want of us or what America expects of us to the forgotten What We Want Of Ourselves.

… though the debate [Chua] sparked about Asian-American life has been of questionable value, we will need more people with the same kind of defiance, willing to push themselves into the spotlight and to make some noise, to beat people up, to seduce women, to make mistakes, to become entrepreneurs, to stop doggedly pursuing official paper emblems attesting to their worthiness, to stop thinking those scraps of paper will secure anyone’s happiness, and to dare to be interesting.

Because let’s face it, we’re not either of them. Then the truth that it’s really us and neither our parents nor anyone else who ultimately have to live our lives, think our thoughts, feel our joy and pain and feed, clothe and shelter us. Once we accept this fact, the strange third place in which we find ourselves is actually a boon and we can be anything we want from here. So, to the All-Asian-American Rejects, I say: Look beyond your face and into who you are. Take your difference and define your own identity and success. There is no set path, so you have to figure out what you want and build from there. Your secret weapon is America – this still-undiscovered country that socializes you into smiling, talking with others, being the salt of the earth and even an honest, comforting, calming mediocrity – and having been born and raised here by parents who, at some point, were risk-takers, too. If you fail, you will have failed, but it will have been on your terms.

Again, I keep pointing things like this out because an overwhelming majority of non-Christian non-whites who live in America are just trying to make it to tomorrow like everyone else, without some nosy, jobless, hateful assholes trying to chip-chip-chip-chip away at our American-ness and peace of mind because we happen to be superficially Other. The economy sucks, one-third of the families without shelter in America are in Florida and the FLORIDA FAMILY Association is busy fighting a television show called All-American Muslim, which in all likelihood was invented to educate and prevent against just an ignorant situation such as this. And there you have it.

***

Washington Post: Lowe’s stands by decision to pull ads from show about Muslims despite growing backlash

Lowe’s is planning to stick by its decision to yank its ads from [TLC’s All-American Muslim] despite the growing opposition the home improvement chain is facing over the move.

But Lowe’s knows that the consumers they alienate will shop there anyway for, unless Khalid the halal butcher branched out into nationwide hardware stores, where else are they going to shop?

This started over “American liberties and traditional values” and the Florida Family Association’s seeming obsession with them. Phillygrrl over at Sepia Mutiny has more suggestions for the American Wholesomeness Crusade.

I applaud the strongly-worded email you sent to the FFA, in which you wrote, “While we continue to advertise on various cable networks, including TLC, there are certain programs that do not meet Lowe’s advertising guidelines, including the show you brought to our attention. Lowe’s will no longer be advertising on that program.” I definitely agree with you that unless a certain program accurately displays every single variation of a certain demographic it has no place on American television. Incidentally, while we are on the subject of advertising, may I humbly suggest a few more dumb reality shows that I believe could benefit from your advertising guidelines? In no particular order:

1. 19 Kids and Counting. The Dugger family. Super Christians. Super fertile. Super nice. But this show only profiles Christians who appear to be somewhat ordinary folks while excluding those fringe-radical Christians that pose a clear threat to our American values.
2. Sister Wives. One man. Four wives. Sixteen children. This show purports to innocuously depict a harem of weepy, cake-baking mothers. But it riskily hides the Mormon agenda’s clear and present danger to American liberties and traditional values.
3. Strange Sex. Glamorizes strange sex acts without fully portaying the dangers that can accompany certain fetishes. Erotic asphyxiation is a silent killer, people.

Read the whole thing, it’s pretty good.

And why should Lowe’s hog the media attention? The following companies – Bank of America, the Campbell Soup Co., Dell, Estee Lauder, General Motors, Goodyear, Green Mountain Coffee, McDonalds, Sears, and Wal-Mart – have also pulled advertising support from All-American Muslim.

Hope you’re happy, true Americans! Traditional values have been kept alive where values equals the constitution minus the smelly bits that, by the way, assure that you can practice your own religion in this country without harassment! Merry Christmas!

Speaking of Christmas, did you know that Sikh-Americans are single-handedly killing Christmas in Stockton, California? Fox & Friends says so! Never mind that Sikhs got Republican Nikki Haley elected to the office of governor in South Carolina.

OH NOES NON-CHRISTIANS HAVE JOINED THE REPUBLICAN PARTY AND SUPPORT AMERICAN LIBERTIES AND TRADITIONAL VALUES … uh … wait a second.

The thing is I’m not going to stop shopping at Lowe’s because of this. If I were to boycott all the American companies that forget human rights, decorum, cultural sensibilities, community relations, i.e. the true American values, I couldn’t shop anywhere. Go over to Home Depot instead? The ones with a strong union-free policy and who sell old-growth lumber? As I was saying, I’m not going to stop buying Lowe’s hardware, Dell laptops or Campbell’s soup, Republican Sikh-Americans aren’t going to stop watching Fox News and we’re not all going to give up habits that support large, multi-national companies which put mom-and-pop shops with real values out of business.

And these companies are fully aware of it, which is why they get away with this shit.

A float in the Krewe of Thoth parade - Mardi Gras 2008

Apropos of the reason for this Hindu festival: Questions Lit Up, in which Pratap Bhanu Mehta takes on the Delhi University ban on teaching A.K. Ramanujan’s essay on the Ramayana and chides the Indian left and right for hijacking the culture for political gain.

… The Right commits the mistake of assimilating all tradition to one single glob, undifferentiated, where nuances don’t matter. But equally, the so-called Left has created intellectual divisions and categories of understanding that bear no relation to the texts at hand.

This is what I read to the group of family and friends gathered at the memorial service on Monday. It is granted to the public domain by its author, Maitri Erwin.

***

Let me start by saying that if there was anything Michael disliked, it was wasting precious time celebrating and eulogizing the dead. With that said, let’s celebrate and eulogize Michael Stern Hart.

I’ve known Michael for exactly nineteen years. When we first met, I had just moved to the United States after enormous physical and emotional upheaval. The person that Michael came across at that time was smart, different and very, very angry. Smart was good, different was better, but Michael had no use for static anger. I can still hear him asking, “What are you going to do about it?” And it was through Michael that I was re-introduced to my basic humanity and my capacity to do good from a desire to change. Michael Hart helped me change my life.

“When in Rome, be a Roman candle.” Never be afraid to change the circumstances in which you find yourself.

Michael was one big dynamo of an unreasonable person. Can I get an Amen? [Even the pastor didn't get an "Amen" as loud as that response, by the way.] Well, so am I. The constructive interference of the two personalities wasn’t always … constructive, but Michael and I never parted ways mad because, from the very beginning, we were on the same side, no matter what.

The side which counts success as moving up and on yourself, not pushing others down to look better in comparison. The side which sees wealth in giving knowledge away, not in hoarding it or in money and stuff. The side which recognizes that in order to give knowledge away, you’ve got to work hard everyday to make sure you have more of it. The side of energy, fire, change.

Thank you, Michael, for teaching me how to get the most out of a university, for the hundred Socratic arguments, for the endless frisbee games, for sugar on Garcia’s pan pizza and for seeing me in me.

As for more of Maitri-kind, they’re coming. I’m just sorry that they won’t get to meet you. But, hey, you will make for great bedtime stories.

I’d like to close with words from The Little Prince, which he read to me one afternoon. From the eBook, of course, because it tickled him that I read books on my iPhone.

“Here, then, is a great mystery. For you who also love the little prince, and for me, nothing in the universe can be the same if somewhere, we do not know where, a sheep that we never saw has– yes or no?– eaten a rose …

“Look up at the sky. Ask yourselves: is it yes or no? Has the sheep eaten the flower? And you will see how everything changes…

“And no grown-up will ever understand that this is a matter of so much importance!”

***

I miss you, Michael. Got your back.

Computerworld UK “Fortunately, Project Gutenberg, which continues to grow and broaden its collection of freely-available texts in many languages, stands as a fitting and imperishable monument to a remarkable human being who not only gave the world great literature in abundance, but opened our eyes to the transformative power of abundance itself.”

Cult of Mac “If you have ever downloaded an ebook of any sort, from any source, you have Hart to thank for his pioneering work in the field.”

Brewster Kahle “A special man, a guiding light, a good friend. I miss him.   Lets build that billion book library that he is dreaming of.”

MetaFilter (gods, the wonderful comments on this one) “The Internet needs more people like this and less like thi$.”

Tim O’Reilly “#ebook pioneer Michael Hart, founder of the Gutenberg Project, died yesterday. Anyone who’s read a book online owes him.”

More:

Nat Torkington “I learned how hard it is to be a pioneer: doing work that others don’t value is thankless and marginalizing. I learned how hard it is when others eventually follow you: they don’t value what you’ve done nearly as much as they should … I learned to be generous with my time. I learned that sugar on pizza is a taste it takes longer than one day to acquire.”

eBook Newser

The Rumpus “I have more Project Gutenberg files on my e-reader than I do of all other types combined, and I doubt I’m alone in that.”

Boing Boing

Geekosystem “While his work is often eclipsed by the sleeker, sexier [$$$] offerings through the Amazon and iTunes eBook stores, his aspirations were of the highest order.”

Slashdot From the comments: “… our opinions on methods often clashed, but I have no doubt that he sought to serve humanity to the best of his ability, and especially to bring knowledge and opportunity to everyone in the world – without exception. He strove mightily to break down the barriers to knowledge, and to dethrone the gatekeepers who seek to prevent ordinary people from joining the company of the elite.”

Guardian UK

TechWorld “Hart’s work on Project Gutenberg can be seen an attempt do ‘something right’: Within the constraints imposed by national laws — the ludicrous Mickey Mouse Protection Act, for example — Project Gutenberg endures and continues its work of freely disseminating knowledge and challenging illiteracy.”

Dinner, ca. 2000 . Copyright CC BY-NC-SA Maitri Erwin

Founder of Project Gutenberg, Michael Hart, passed away unexpectedly at his home in Urbana, Illinois yesterday. The world has lost a true renaissance man, the one who first gave us the gift of electronic books (eBooks). I have lost my oldest friend and confidant in these United States.

Read Michael’s obituary, wonderfully written by Greg Newby, CEO of Project Gutenberg.

My heart is in a million pieces and my brain equally scattered, and with all the words I come up with for the most pedestrian of things, I’d like to be more together and present when writing about Michael. To say he was an iconoclast, inspired me and was a crucial ingredient in the brazen, outspoken human I am today doesn’t even begin to cover it. Michael showed me what the internet could do, but more importantly, he gave it back to you and millions and millions of others, its rightful owners.

This is one of the last things Michael reiterated to me recently, “We only rise above mediocrity when there’s something at stake, and I mean something more consequential than money or reputation.” So, if I am happy and proud today, it’s because Michael will live on forever through Project Gutenberg and every spark, idea and changed life that has come from it. If I am also devastated and horribly angry, that comes from the fact that there are simply not enough people in the world like him. You and I may be clever, but Michael was a doer who DID. He changed the world forever. What I love him for the most is he would kick my behind for this negativity. And so I say, we are all – each and every one of us – Project Gutenberg. We will continue to break down the bars of ignorance and illiteracy.

As Greg says in the obit,

Michael S. Hart left a major mark on the world. The invention of eBooks was not simply a technological innovation or precursor to the modern information environment. A more correct understanding is that eBooks are an efficient and effective way of unlimited free distribution of literature. Access to eBooks can thus provide opportunity for increased literacy. Literacy, the ideas contained in literature, creates opportunity.

Michael is remembered as a dear friend, who sacrificed personal luxury to fight for literacy, and for preservation of public domain rights and resources, towards the greater good.

Funerals are not for the dead but for the survivors. I don’t mourn Michael, for he would not want for us to do that, but I do mourn the loss of a Roman candle in a sea of tealights. Michael, my friend and teacher, never goodbye, only thank you and love. Lots of love. Lots and lots and lots of love.

The New York Times reviews Sharon Bertsch McGrayne’s The Theory That Would Not Die: How Bayes’ Rule Cracked the Enigma Code, Hunted Down Russian Submarines, and Emerged Triumphant from Two Centuries of Controversy.

Three topics I love to think about rolled into one: anything at all to do with Enigma, geophysical parameter estimation and the craziness behind not changing your mind given the increasing likelihood of evidence to the contrary.

336 pages long, so I kinda expect it to be a quick Winchester-esque romp through probability estimation, but any book that shows how much we use Bayes’s theorem in almost all fields of science and engineering and everyday is alright by me. In fact, Bayes is one of the first things taught in an oil and gas reservoir characterization class. Quantifying unknowns is tricky business and the subsurface is inherently unknown at best, so it is to every reservoir geophysicist’s advantage to use as many data sets as possible in parameter estimation and assign uncertainties to each input – seismic attribute volume, velocity model, core sample, log curve, etc. – as early and often as possible. (Paper: Bayesian reservoir characterization by Luiz Lucchesi Loures)

The reviewer states that “a serious problem arises, however, when you apply Bayes’s theorem to real life.” What exactly that is supposed to mean? As pointed out earlier, Bayes’s theorem is used in very real-life areas as nebulous as cryptography and the search for fossil fuels. Also, news flash: every undertaking has associated human agendas. So, why can Bayes not be implemented in studies of global climate change and autism? But on one thing we agree – the sad fact that there are many of us, scientists or not, who are “wedded to [our] priors.” So, and I guess this goes for everyone, absorb and digest as much information as possible, stop to think about or research the likelihood of what you learned and try not to let confirmation bias get in your way.

Good luck. (Get it? Good luck? Never mind.)

A US diplomat was caught in a row after her remarks of “dirty and dark” Tamilians, prompting the American consulate [in Chennai] to term them as “inappropriate”.

“I was on a 24-hour train trip from Delhi to Orissa. But, after 72 hours, the train still did not reach the destination… and my skin became dirty and dark like the Tamilians,” US Vice-Consul Maureen Chao said, going down the memory lane two decades ago when she was a student.

So, of course, that IndiaTV article shows a rare picture of many dark-skinned Tamilians getting dusty while traveling by foot in the hot sun.

Why would Maureen Chao, who otherwise seems like a fairly decent person say those words and in Chennai, the capital of Tamil Nadu, for cripes sake? And what the hell was she thinking saying this in a country in which self-loathing about skin color is #1 pastime after cricket pathology? (Has anyone made a bar chart of Fair And Lovely sales by Indian state yet?)

Kuzhali Manickavel puts it the best. [Inserting reminder to self to get her new short story.]

… I am also very much louing the illustrious people who are taking the high road on this one, kindly educating the rest of us on how us Indians should consider that an apology has been issued so that makes everything ok, it was ‘just a joke’ and most importantly, we should remember that all of us want to study in America and then live there forever and ever and that is FAR more important than some diplomat saying something about Tamilians being dark and dirty. You’ll never get that green card honey if you upbraid US consulate peeps. Come on now, eyes on the prize.

Meanwhile, in England, rioting “whites have become black” and The Help is screened at the White House.

Better get on making those mixed-race babies and quick.

If you’re truly interested in such debate, the first rule is to question the validity of your premise beforehand.

The Muslims who conducted the 9/11/2001 attacks were wearing button-downs and khakis, while the people who held Mumbai hostage in November of 2008 wore jeans and tshirts. Unless you’re actually in, say, Basra or the Swat valley, your chances of being attacked by a person in a dishdash or chador are slim to none. Not only is this a horribly inefficient method of profiling, the attitude is also extremely silly. My aunt had “dothead” yelled at her in New Jersey by a man tattooed with a German Iron Cross, while a fellow geophysicist of Indian origin was recently beaten up in London by a bunch of punk thugs wearing Union Jack tshirts and bandanas as they referred to him as a “Paki.” These are attacks that occur almost everyday in the western world. At the gym the other day, I saw a guy with a giant iron cross tattooed on his right leg. A colleague put up the British flag in his office. By all rights, I should be frightened by these outward symbols of identity, correct? If I had then gone on the Rachel Maddow show and freaked out about it, I would have been laughed off the set.

The best way to fight fundamentalism is to get rid of it in yourself first. Each time I hear paranoid squawks about the growing Islamization of the West, I don’t fear Muslims. All I think is, “Hey, these guys sound exactly like those old mullahs in Kuwait who fumed and incited their young over the growing Westernization of the East.” Don’t sound like a fanatical mullah, for starters.

Next time: “Collective guilt” for you, but not for me.