Say-So

The walloping “once in a century” tsunami of sub-prime mortgage defaults, financial institution collapses and inter-bank lending freezes has swept eastward, rising tall in the United States, gushing forth and toppling the economies of Iceland, Ukraine and Hungary and unhorsing the economies of the EU. The fallout is felt world wide in the form of wildly oscillating currency prices and erratic stock market performances.

At the epicenter of the “submarine quake” triggering the destructive wave - in the United States - the long term and steady deregulation of financial markets which started under the Reagan administration, continued through three Bush terms (George H.W and George W.) and the Clinton years, along with the faulty economic ideology abode by Alan Greenspan was fatally joined in a “menage a trois” by the loosening of the borrowing criteria. The resulting, unbridled growth culminated in the dot-com bubble. With barely 2 year respite the US housing bubble began rising.

Now that the burst of this latest mass delusion is finally history after years of circulating warnings of which perhaps the most famous is the term - Irrational Exuberance - fingers are being pointed back at the man who curiously coined that phrase, the 1987-2006 Chairman of Federal Reserve - Alan Greenspan. Perhaps rightfully so. He held one of the most important economic policy-making jobs in America 19 years out of the last 25 which when looking at the Inflation adjusted S&P 500, 1925-Present were marked by insatiable and unprecedented stock market boom thwarting all previous highs in American economic history.

A self described Libertarian-Republican, a friend and admirer of Ayn Rand who contributed to her non-fiction book Capitalism: the Unknown Ideal, Greenspan admitted in a congressional hearing in October that his free-market anti-regulation ideology was flawed. At the 1996 Annual Dinner lecture of the AEI sounding quite confused and uncertain, he nevertheless thought that it was possible for “financial asset bubble” to be detached from the “real economy”:

But how do we know when irrational exuberance has unduly escalated asset values, which then become subject to unexpected and prolonged contractions as they have in Japan over the past decade? And how do we factor that assessment into monetary policy? We as central bankers need not be concerned if a collapsing financial asset bubble does not threaten to impair the real economy, its production, jobs, and price stability. Indeed, the sharp stock market break of 1987 had few negative consequences for the economy. But we should not underestimate or become complacent about the complexity of the interactions of asset markets and the economy. Thus, evaluating shifts in balance sheets generally, and in asset prices particularly, must be an integral part of the development of monetary policy.

Such mix of sophisticated thinking and naivete is explainable only through one other quite uniquely human but terrifying capacity: faith. Faith in market fundamentalism in this case. It was therefore possible for Greenspan to set forth monetary policies which premeditated or not engineered the housing bubble, possibly to cushion the post dot-com correction and snatch the US economy off the brink of looming 2001-2002 recession. Whether the aggressive and prolonged cut of interest rates was motivated by twisted neo-conservative patriotism in the face of “post 9/11 world”, greed or naivete, is a matter of perspective. What is certain however, is that along with President Bush’s infamous calls “to shop” as part of the civilian sacrifice required at the time of war (”the war on terror”, the war in Afghanistan and the Iraq war), the interest rate cuts were measures to kick-start the American economy at all costs. The bulk of the cost it appears now, was transferred to the overextended borrower who was actively enticed and encouraged to consume beyond his/her means in order to keep the US economy churning.

Catherine Rampell, the author of “How Long Before the Market Bottoms?” which embeds Robert Shiller’s Inflation adjusted S&P 500 graph, summarizes her post by saying:

After the Great Depression, it took 29 years — until 1958 — for the market to reach its pre-Depression, inflation-adjusted peak. After the 1970s recession, it took 24 years — until 1992 — for the market to make a full “recovery” by the same measure. So no matter whether you start from the recent 2007 peak, or from the market’s absolute inflation-adjusted peak during the tech bubble in 2000, we may still have at least a decade to go before full “recovery.”

It rings true, against voices who speak of one, three or even 5 year recovery. Economists describe the depth and breadth of the oncoming recession in terms of alphabet letters V, U, W, or L. The Wall Street Journal (via The Conscience of a Liberal) ironically predicts the “the W recession” to follow the M shape of the preceding boom.

Robert Shiller who’s S&P 500 historical chart provides such strong visual to the present day crisis, is an economist and a Professor of Economics at Yale University as well as a best selling author of “Irrational Exuberance” which was updated and re-released in 2006 and barely off the press “The Subprime Solution“. The Irrational Exuberance book review states:

Shiller amasses impressive evidence to support his argument that the recent housing market boom bears many similarities to the stock market bubble of the late 1990s, and may eventually be followed by declining home prices for years to come. After stocks plummeted when the bubble burst in 2000, investors moved their money into housing. This precipitated the inflated real estate prices not only in America but around the world, Shiller maintains. Hence, irrational exuberance did not disappear—it merely reappeared in other settings.

He studies investor confidence indexes and is one of the key scholars in the field of Behavioral Economics.

Behavioral finance highlights certain inefficiencies and among these inefficiencies are underreactions or overreactions to information, as causes of market trends and in extreme cases of bubbles and crashes). Such misreactions have been attributed to limited investor attention, overconfidence / overoptimism, and mimicry (herding instinct) and noise trading.

The ongoing global economic calamity, deemed the worst since the Great Depression, is a case in point.
The investors’ reactions to the government’s attempts to contain and control the crisis are arbitrary and volatile. The insights of the economists tackling the Subprime Mortgage Crisis/Credit Crisis, most likely go as deep as the studies ran or aknowledged by Improbable Research that is to say they are obvious, unusable and often absurdly funny. The slap on the forehead - “duh” effect - of hind sight into the recent economic events, in a moment of dark humor seemed not very different from the conclusions reached by the 2008 lg Nobel Prize for Physics winners, Dorian Raymer of the Ocean Observatories Initiative at Scripps Institution of Oceanography and Douglas Smith of the University of California, San Diego who mathematically proved that heaps of string or hair or almost anything else will inevitably tangle themselves up in knots.

It is well known that a jostled string tends to become knotted; yet the factors governing the “spontaneous” formation of various knots are unclear. We performed experiments in which a string was tumbled inside a box and found that complex knots often form within seconds. We used mathematical knot theory to analyze the knots. Above a critical string length, the probability P of knotting at first increased sharply with length but then saturated below 100%. This behavior differs from that of mathematical self-avoiding random walks, where P has been proven to approach 100%.

The political discussion in America in the last three weeks throughout the Democratic and Republican conventions and thereafter has been riveting. The 2008 presidential elections are called “historical”, “critical” and “change-bringing” by both parties. Seven weeks before the elections and despite the hop-scotching poll results the stance of the Republican party is clearly defensive indicating that this time it is the Democratic candidate who is endowed not only with progressive ideas and inclusive attitudes but also with likability, charm and charisma, the very qualities which remembering past elections, seem to matter more to voters than intelligence of a candidate and his knowledge of domestic or international issues. John McCain’s campaign oafishly emulates the Democratic party successes by hijacking Hillary Clinton’s achievement in mobilizing women’s support in the Democratic primary elections and putting forth Sarah Palin as the Republican Vice Presidentential choice. Both Hillary Clinton in the primaries and John McCain in his nomination acceptance speech blatantly stole Barack Obama’s slogan of campaigning for “change” and thus perhaps inadvertently admitted that it is He who has the upper hand. Most surprisingly, in a knee jerk reaction that was placing Sarah Palin’s name on the Republican ticket, McCain’s campaign relinquished their most widely trumpeted argument against Barack Obama’s candidacy - his youth and relatively short serving time as a Senator. In a great departure from his campaign mantra of “country first” McCain has made a strategic choice by picking the very conservative Palin as his running mate and put the needs of his electoral campaign ahead of those of the country. This “cut to measure” approach appears to be a true trademark of McCain’s 2008 presidential tender. The so called “man of principles” and a “maverick” recanted his position on most every single issue he held. The list is only too long.

On tax cuts (CNN Money, February 19 2008)

McCain now advocates extending the Bush tax cuts that he twice voted against.

On waterboarding (Dallas News, Mar 12, 2008):

McCain has been unequivocal in stating his conviction that waterboarding is torture, and is illegal. He also traded on his public reputation for probity on this question to lay into his GOP presidential opponents who were anything short of forthrightly condemning waterboarding. He even said in that debate that the Army Field Manual ought to be the standard, and said he doesn’t understand how anybody could want an American to torture. So now he comes out to vote against a bill that would actually have banned waterboarding. How does he justify it? With what strikes me as incomprehensible legalism. Seriously, can someone please explain how McCain’s rationale makes sense? Because I’m not seeing it. I think he’s flip-flopping — and on an issue that he’s not given any of his opponents any wiggle room on.

On aid to some mortgage holders (The New York Times, April 11, 2008):

Mr. McCain, an Arizona Republican, had been painted as uncaring by Democrats, and drew murmurs of concern from some Republicans, after a speech in California last month in which he cautioned that “it is not the duty of government to bail out and reward those who act irresponsibly, whether they are big banks or small borrowers,” and noted that the crisis had been brought on by both lenders and borrowers.Since then, he has gone out of his way to try to signal that he understands that times are tough and that people are hurting. His speech in Brooklyn — which is to be followed by what aides are billing as a major economic address next week — was a shift in tone (…)

On domestic spying (Wired BlogNetwork, June 03, 2008):

McCain’s new position plainly contradicts statements he made in a December 20, 2007 interview with the Boston Globe where he implicitly criticized Bush’s five-year secret end-run around the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. “I think that presidents have the obligation to obey and enforce laws that are passed by Congress and signed into law by the president, no matter what the situation is,” McCain said. The Globe’s Charlie Savage pushed further, asking , “So is that a no, in other words, federal statute trumps inherent power in that case, warrantless surveillance?” To which McCain answered, “I don’t think the president has the right to disobey any law.” McCain’s embrace of extrajudicial domestic wiretapping is effectively a bounce-back from Fish’s comments, made at the Computers, Freedom and Privacy conference in Connecticut last month.

On offshore oil drilling (Washington Post, June 17, 2008):

“We must embark on a national mission to eliminate our dependence on foreign oil,” McCain told reporters yesterday. In a speech today, he plans to add that “we have untapped oil reserves of at least 21 billion barrels in the United States. But a broad federal moratorium stands in the way of energy exploration and production. . . . It is time for the federal government to lift these restrictions.” McCain’s announcement is a reversal of the position he took in his 2000 presidential campaign and a break with environmental activists (…)

On immigration (CNN Politics, July 16, 2008):

n 2005, he angered some in his party when he and Democratic Sen. Ted Kennedy unsuccessfully pushed for a comprehensive immigration overhaul bill that included a path to citizenship. His sponsorship of the legislation angered some conservatives and nearly derailed his presidential campaign in 2007. But at a Republican debate at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in January, McCain was asked whether he would still vote for his original measure. “No, I would not … because we know what the situation is today … that people want the borders secured first,” he said, prompting accusations that he had flip-flopped.

On timetable for withdrawal from Iraq (FirstRead MSNBC, July 25, 2008):

In an interview on CNN today — which the DNC is passing around — McCain said that withdrawal from Iraq in 16 months is “a pretty good timetable.” That answer came when McCain was asked about Iraqi Prime Minister Maliki’s earlier claim to Der Spiegel that Obama’s 16-month plan “would be the right timeframe for a withdrawal, with the possibility of slight changes.”Of course, McCain did stress that such a withdrawal would “have to be based on conditions on the ground.” But calling 16 months a “good timetable” is something McCain hasn’t said before — and probably never would have said a week ago.

On affirmative action (ABC News, July 27, 2008):

McCain has long opposed quotas but his new support for ending affirmative action programs which stop short of quotas puts him at odds not only with Democratic rival Barack Obama but also with the Arizona senator’s own views in 1998.

The persistent rightward drift on most of the above issues has put McCain more in line with the canonical position of his party. The nomination of ultra conservative running mate has cemented the support of the initially lukewarm Republican base towards his candidacy for president. The poll ratings have surged. It is clear that nonconformism and individualism have no place in the GOP cosmology - it is partisan loyalty even if dishonest - that scores marks.

Sarah Palin has been called a “Rovian pick” and her RNC podium appearance - a “Rovian speech”. Karl Rove who advises John McCain’s campaign, unlike Machiavelli, did not lay down his views, principles or doctrine explicitly in writing, hence the “ian” suffix (Rov-ian) creating an adjective is a misnomer. Much has been written about Karl Rove however and his demagogic tactics. What comes across at the first glance as Palin’s weakness as a VP candidate, her small town roots and lack of governing experience, he saw as an asset. It wasn’t her wisdom, prior accomplishments nor the ability to gather bi-partisan support. On the contrary, it is the lack of thereof, her being a small town mayor, a plain talking hockey mom, a mother of pregnant and unwed teenage daughter and a parent of a child with Down’s syndrome that excited the Republican party proponents.

Jonathan Haidt an associate professor of psychology at the University of Virginia in a recent, fascinating article “What Makes People Vote Republican?” speaks of “ingroup/loyalty” as one of five values which are particularly important to social conservatives who constitute the Republican party base. He describes it as one “involving mechanisms that evolved during the long human history of tribalism”. His formal dissertation confirms what is patent to any keen observing eye, that the “Hockey moms 4 Palin” phenomenon is an expression of partisan unity based on identity, not policy. It is the same reason for which sport fans celebrate while shouting “we won” without having set a foot on a playing field.

Loyalty based on identity rather than social and political issues can be observed on the Democrats’ side as well with Blacks united
behind Barack Obama and Women rallied behind Hillary Clinton when the two opposed each other in the Democratic primaries. They are both accomplished, brilliant and exceptional individuals however, who also happen to be one “a woman” and the other “a black man”. In light of their popularity among their respective fan camps - Palin’s addition to the McCain ticket glares flatly and transparently like a patch of worn out fabric. She is to rake in the votes of working women who struggle with raising children and sustaining a traditional family unit. She is the “everyman” heroine and the Republican party tool.

During my 5 week absence from the United States between April 19th and May 30th, I led a largely self absorbed life in Buenos Aires, taking in the local reality, learning about Argentina’s political and economic challenges of the moment, bonding and assimilating. During that time, when my attention was turned away, the American media buzzed (and I seem to have caught the tail end off it upon my return) with articles and interviews with Fareed Zakaria. Within matter of weeks he appeared on Charlie Rose, The Daily Show and was a speaker at the New Yorker Conference.

Zakaria was a guest on The Daily Show for the first time shortly after the nefarious events of 9/11, in October 2001. As the editor of Newsweek magazine he talked about Islamic fundamentalism and why the regimes of the middle east provide such fertile ground for dangerous anti-American sentiments. He explained in brief and simplified manner what his Newsweek article - Why They Hate US thoroughly and knowledgeably laid out in a masterstroke of irrefutable logic. In that article he dismissed the simpleton’s notion promoted by president H.W. Bush, his administration and the supporting media, that America was hated for its “way of life” in which wealth and freedom are staple. He went on to analyze and explain how historical events of the last 30 years, economical predicaments and cultural particularities of the region, have conglomerated to shape the anti-American attitude of an increasing number of young middle eastern men, the attitude which gained mass and exploded into the forefront of American consciousness with two planes demolishing the World Trade Towers, and a third crashing short of its Pentagon target, killing thousands.

Fareed Zakaria’s latest book The Post American World is groundbreaking and equally as insightful. Mr Zakaria’s body of work encompasses many informative and enlightening essays, books and articles. “The Post American World” however is pivotal in potentially being capable of reflecting back to Americans how their country, their government and its policies are perceived in the global, international context. Just as an individual can benefit from a critical glance in a mirror, so can a nation. Zakaria’s book does America a favor by providing content which can be used as a reflective surface for our consideration. It helps to examine the quasi-mythological stature United State has risen to in the eyes of its patriot citizens as a result of the country’s role in the outcome of WWII and its unrivaled economic standing in decades following. The country found itself in an unprecedented position of being the world’s single dominant power after the collapse of the counterbalancing arch-nemesis - the Soviet Union in 1991. The imperial laurel crown seemed to have settled deeper onto the forehead of American body politic.

With the decline of communism, the currents of Globalization (at work for centuries, academically defined in the 60s and institutionalized in the 90s) were reinvigorated. They silently have been terra-forming the economic balance of power in the world. The United States today finds itself slightly caught unaware by unintended consequences of its own international economic policies. Since, flaunting of the “free market” is as typically American as holding high the standard of “democracy”. American companies have aggressively pursued new business opportunities opening up in China as the Soviet sphere of influence crumbled. Next came India. The access to massive cheap labor in both countries combined amounting to a third of our planet’s population proved irresistible. With help of foreign investment, China established itself as the producer of very affordable goods for export to the rest of the world and India as a hub of inexpensive information technology know-how. Both, as if to spite the critics of Globalization, have found their own respective international stronghold market niches which afford them economic influence and by extension political power from which they were excluded in the 20th century. Chinese and Indian rapid development are only two among a few others. Russia is rebounding. Brasil is the most recent new appendage to the list of large and fast growing countries.”The Rise of the Rest” is appropriately the subtitle of Fareed Zakaria’s book which aims to map out the position of the United States among nations in the light of the changes of the last decade. The book’s descriptions reads as follows:

This is not a book about the decline of America, but rather about the rise of everyone else.” So begins Fareed Zakaria’s important new work on the era we are now entering. Following on the success of his best-selling The Future of Freedom, Zakaria describes with equal prescience a world in which the United States will no longer dominate the global economy, orchestrate geopolitics, or overwhelm cultures. He sees the “rise of the rest”—the growth of countries like China, India, Brazil, Russia, and many others—as the great story of our time, and one that will reshape the world. The tallest buildings, biggest dams, largest-selling movies, and most advanced cell phones are all being built outside the United States. This economic growth is producing political confidence, national pride, and potentially international problems. How should the United States understand and thrive in this rapidly changing international climate? What does it mean to live in a truly global era? Zakaria answers these questions with his customary lucidity, insight, and imagination.

The un-American view - is a tough point to sell in USA and a difficult mindset to convey. Zakaria summarizes his ideas in The Future of American Power and offers a faint consoling statement to those who find it difficult to part with sitting at the helm of world affairs in The Rise of the Rest :

It’s true China is booming, Russia is growing more assertive, terrorism is a threat. But if America is losing the ability to dictate to this new world, it has not lost the ability to lead.

The new leadership role requires an inclusive world policy and a recognition of legitimate interests of other countries, a perspective clearly incomprehensible to the majority of American present day politicians. My intuition goes against Zakaria’s assertion that challenges the United Sates faces are mainly political and only to a small degree economic. The future he describes for America is in my opinion largely a theorem of best possible outcome. I see the decline of the country’s economic influence as a factor of its political girth. I find beauty in the following coincidental symmetry: the totalitarian regimes associated with communism were toppled from inside first by a native systemic creation - a workers’ union - the Solidarity, while the American imperial bubble was quietly punctured as the country was busy contemplating its own greatness by capitalism’s main driving process hungry for incessant growth and profit - the spread of free markets and Globalization, and its embodiment - the multinational corporation.

On my recent trip up to Vancouver, I have not left the apartment I stayed in for three days in a row. The grey sky obscured the world, blanketed and isolated me. Time halted, as the sun stopped marking the times of the day. My dog turned into a cat. He ate canned tuna and slept all day. The twilight was all encompassing and everlasting.

On any other visit, 3 days at a time over long weekends, I have no misgivings about efficient use of my time. I head out to shoot. I want to score photos to label otherwise than “San Francisco” and tilt the balance away from the overbearingly heavy font on my photoblog. The shooting experience varies from city to city. Having returned to photograph in the same locations multiple times, I am beginning to notice a consistency in the type of photographs I am inclined to take at each place. I recognize a few factors. First being how easy is it to maneuver and physically navigate the streets. Last is my own personal and emotional response to that location. Somewhere in the middle, caught in between the two extremes are my subjects, the locals who live and work, their culture, manners and their degree of expressivity.

Vancouver is difficult differently from Buenos Aires. The streets of Buenos Aires are narrow and crowded or wide and very crowded. The pace of traffic both human and motorized is overwhelming. I find myself wearing a constant look of bewilderment as if a gust of wind generated by the heaving multitudes snatched my hat and left me with one hand mid air too late to catch it. On the streets of Buenos Aires I tend to front assault. Since there is no time or room to move around my subjects, I spot a scene some distance away, keep walking towards it while watching it approach. I wait for it to walk into my frame at a given focal length. In one movement, I jerk, focus and shoot, putting the camera away as my subjects and I brush shoulders in passing. I often catch the “deer in the headlight” look on people’s faces which is interesting in itself but rewarding and entertaining for only so long.

While Buenos Aires incapacitates with visual excess, Vancouver has me look harder for new ways to frame a shot. In a city which separates walk-ways from bicycle-lanes, where every person passing offers a helping hand to a stranded cyclist, where school boys bum free rides on city busses by asking the driver for permission, in the ruling territory of “thank you and please” the public is very reserved and proper. On Robson street shoppers walk, at cafes patrons sip and sit, at the beach families and friends lay and relax. Whatever it is the residents engage in, it is unhurried, measured and low key. On grand avenues and at green city squares I lurk behind bus stops and by cafe’s vitrines, to include reflections, shadows or other lines in hopes of making mundane city inaction into a scene of interest.

Warsaw is paralyzing. I walk for days with the camera hang over my shoulder. I become a teenager who suddenly sprouted in height and towers over her peers. I am self conscious about my camera. It betrays me as polonus and not a Pole. In a state of profound paranoia my subjects have turned the tables around and are watching me, watch them. When I finally beat some sense into my head and press the shutter, I invariably get in trouble. I am bereft of the impunity that comes with looking like a foreigner and I understand only too well the mumbled insults that follow. “Very tall and naked, noticed by everyone in Warsaw” is a hard place to be while attempting street photography in which 90% of success is determined by confidence with a minor mix of arrogance. The remaining percentile of skill sets requires the foot work of a tennis player and hyper awareness of a seasoned cabbie. “Owning the street” is an elusive state of mind, it is seeing without being seen. It is sensing the curb with your feet and being aware of the street’s traffic without looking. It is falling in step with the subject for that one click of the shutter.

On my return to San Francisco, I was greeted by full blown summer, interrupted since then by the city’s typical fog spells and coastal winds, yet bright California sunshine nevertheless. Traveling between 3 cities in a matter of 15 days accentuates the differences and individual character of each one. It appears that only now, 6 years into my stay, I’ve become able to recognize the typical San Francisco flavor. The bright full spectrum light intensifies the colors in my photos and makes street photography such thrill, precisely here. The block parties and uninterrupted string of outdoor events provide interest and focus to my shooting. The young and the young at heart who indulge in pursuits of happiness on their days off in free and uninhibited manner - are a treat to a street photographer hoping to get that one shot that is better than anything else she has taken to date. As my photoblog is approaching its 1000th post, unable, uninspired and unmotivated to head out, I reflected on my personal photographic experience, its joys and challenges and the unstoppable compulsion to keep shooting, during the 3 gloomy days under the grey Vancouver sky.

The traditional Polish dish served on Christmas Eve, Kapusta z Grochem is also commonly used as the proverbial equivalent of the Kitchen Sink in the English language, or the “anything and everything” of a particular topic. Having listened to a recent Forum interview with Jennifer 8. Lee about her book, “The Fortune Cookie Chronicles: Adventures in the World of Chinese Food”, and having read yet another fascinating chapter of Liao Yiwu’s Paris Review series of encounters - “The Retired Official” which recalls the Great Chinese Famine, I tip my hat to the resilience of the Chinese people and their creativity in search of comestibles in dire circumstances. Similarly, putting split peas into a pot along with sauerkraut, as baffling as the combination seems to me, is the legacy of the poor people of Eastern Europe and their lean years.

The lethargically crawling days of the first months of 2008, come spring, culminated in a sudden “peas and cabbage” barf of events in my personal life. Back in the lull of February, with first whiffs of spring air and warm and decisive sunshine, I watched the virile forces of seasonal rebirth in the ubiquitous mating pursuits of male pigeons. The aggressive pacing and puffing-up of feathers that is not a dance but a chase, leaves me dumbfounded by its euphemistic name - the “mating ritual”. Sexually driven males relentlessly trot behind females (or other males) who invariably attempt to get away. They persist until they succeed, or until they tire, or till their attention and their path of pursuit swerves to follow a new potential subject. If intercourse is achieved, it bears no similarity to the way human females positively respond, embrace and unfurl in the act of copulation. Nor, is the human male pursuit of sexual encounter limited to cornering a female into a situation of no escape routes. Men must employ psychological tactics to come up with the right combination of sound-bites, visuals and olfactory stimulations to trigger a positive response of the women they desire. The process is self selecting since simple minds and cliché methods procure simple, cliché women. I vividly and fondly remember a scene from Martin Scorsese’s film Raging Bull, when rising boxing star Jake LaMotta meets the budding, almost a woman not quite a child, beautiful Vicky. He swaggers over towards her, looks her over in silence for a moment and after a short introduction by his brother Joey, points over to his car with a nonchalant head gesture and says: “You wanna go for a ride?” to which she plainly responds: “All right…”. The minimal dialogue exchange between the two throughout their courtship brings forth the body language and emphasizes the simplicity of their psyche but more importantly, the archetypal nature of their connection. The beautifully acted love sequences, more than any other I’ve ever seen, depict the bare, naked essence of human male and female, falling in love.

“Love is only visiting” - she said. Smilingly, she dedicated the practice to the appreciation of love in our lives saying that we bask in it and enjoy it deeply because it does not stay. I frequented Studio Rasa for their lunch sessions. On one of the last practices, a teacher shared an introductory thought induced by her own personal turmoil. These words meant to bring student yogis in touch with the present moment in humility and surrender, had the contrary effect of almost launching me out of the classroom. I am a conscientious objector in fatal matters such as death or loss of love. I cannot deny or dispute the factuality of such events. Yet, I refuse the implication of reveling in their existential aspect. Death is easily defined, universally recognized and accepted, love is nothing like it. The word may embody a wide range of concepts from friendship, to admiration, physical desire, infatuation or habit and attachment. It is not measurable in pulse beats. Its presence or absence are not definite, clinically defined states. Yet my approach to both is equally “unenlightened”. Life and Love are to be lived with every fiber of our bodies and mourned with equally dooming abandon.

- - -
Note: This entry was written in early April. It was stashed and unpublished till now.

The sudden spell of undisrupted gorgeous sunny weather over San Francisco is mocking me.
The weight of a headache I carry uphill to my apartment is threatening to grind me down into the pavement. I welcome the stupor that comes with excess food and drink. My maternal grandmother has passed away.

We were not close. I could not describe who she was, what were her passions or driving motivations in life. She did not fascinate me when as a teenager I watched her serve food or light the Sabbath candles. I don’t regret in typically nostalgic manner not having taken more time to know her. Our relationship for all it was and wasn’t, was a result of a generational and cultural gap which neither one of us could honestly transcend. The lacerating wound of her departure comes not from close emotional loss. It is strangely visceral. I know that in her death, there is a little bit of my own.

With my grandmother’s passing the single persistent link to my Jewish heritage has disintegrated as if let loose by her last breath. The history of the Jewish community of Bessarabia and later the Soviet Republic of Molodva seems a little less my own.

Dr. Zvi Vasilavski on Yizkor Book Project wrote:

Small and tiny was the Jewish tribe that placed its tent, a nomadic Jewish tent, in the wide fields of Bessarabia. Poor and negligible was this tribe among the great Jewish tribes that lived in the dry lands of Vohlin, Podolia and new Russia and that were densely populated and carried an ancient history. Minute was also its part in the Jewish culture of the Diaspora of the last generations: A few sad melodies, a gypsy Moldovian-Vohlin Jewish mixture, bringing tears to your eyes and softening your heart with the sunset on a Saturday evening, and bringing a unique flavor in the prayers during the days between Rosh Hashana and Yom-Kippur – this is the only gift to the nomadic Jewish temple, that Jewish Bessarabia brought with it. Simple Jews lived there. Their food – mamaliga, and their drink – Bessarabian wine. Their food more than an egg, while their religiousness, less than an olive. Only the reflecting light of the Podilic Hasidim, is shining their light from the black land to the blue sky. Their life table is full, but their spiritual table, poor and miserable. If a Jew from Lita would come by, only lightly knowledgeable in the Bible and the Mishnah – he would be considered a scholar, a Rabbi. In contrast, many of the Jews are farmers, workers of the land, muscular and strong. In their love for the land, they were not blessed with being overly pampered, but were closer to the origins of life and the world.

At the turn of the 20th century Kishinev ’s Jewry constituted 43% on the city’s inhabitants, attracting migrants escaping persecution from within Russia while offering a glim hope of better living conditions. While the Kishinev pogroms were the birthright of my great grandparents, my grandmother’s lot included the Soviet takeover of Moldova soon followed by the Nazi invasion. Riva Milshteyn-Rozenfeld must have been her contemporary, only a few years older. Her memoir describes those days.

My mother’s youth set apart by another 20 years, was an energetic break from the past. She as many of her generation, took on a true progressive outlook encouraged by the Soviet propaganda, shedding the burdens of history by distancing herself from Jewish identity and religion. She still understands and speaks a little Romanian. This language did not traverse the next consecutive generation however, and is entirely foreign to me. The only reminder of this part of my genetic compound is the knowledge and affinity of mamaliga .

Not having formed any deep attachments to places or loyalties to new nationalities while having traveled a lot, I remain a true cosmopolitan. On sad days like this, I find myself being eroded, as if with the sale of the piece of land which belonged to my father’s family and where I was born, and with the passings of my family members - what constitutes me, my heritage, my brief personal history, is being cut loose and floats off into the distance, bit by bit.

It is not the romantic fog blanketing the hills overlooking the San Francisco bay, or the cafe culture which in truly modernist Parisian way took root here with the Beat generation , nor is it the proximity to highly admired, world class, brilliant and resourceful community of the Silicon Valley . It isn’t the stunning coastal vistas, Victorian “painted ladies” or the murals in the Mission that have left a Cupid’s arrow irretrievably planted in the area of my heart marked by the letters “SF”.
The memory of fog horns breaking through the city’s monotonous traffic hum will forever flood my nervous system with serotonin, generating a pious experience rivaled only by soft snow fall on a winter Friday night in Montreal, when the city is illuminated and silenced while being tucked in by the copious white for the weekend.
The truly significant appreciation of San Francisco is embedded in me thanks to the city’s unrivaled GLBT community.

That strong realization became apparent on one of my usual weekend hunts for street photos last year, first at San Francisco Pride Celebration , and later in the summer at the annual San Francisco Love Fest , where besides the colorful costumes, loud music, alcohol in designated areas, brown bags otherwise, pot cakes and other substances unknown to me and for the most part illegal, the atmosphere was imbued with freedom of self expression in magnitude unprecedented anywhere else in the world. Amongst exhibitionists and fetishists of all possible denominations, were families; a family of two handsome Nordic looking men hand holding a 7 year old boy; a family consisting of two voluptuous black women closely watching over a brood of kids running around. It is at that moment when a transcendent recognition of universality of love as a human experience struck me. The queer and proud community of San Francisco is at the forefront of today’s continuing struggle for civil rights . The emancipation of women and African-Americans is history now, and though there is no national holiday commemorating the 19th amendment , Martin Luther King Day coincides every year with Roe V Wade anniversary, challenged in San Francisco by massive turn outs of anti-abortion activists from the surrounding country side.

This year, the pro-choice activists did more than counter protest. According to indybay.org , they organized a rally of their own. It was a meager gathering. A handful of a couple of hundred San Franciscans vs a healthy few thousand of pro-life attendees, mostly outsiders. I’d like to think that if the United States ever regressed to revoke the legality of women’s right to choose an abortion, the pro-choice attendees would match or outnumber the pro-lifers in head count. As is, the few Roe V Wade supporters, resorted to wonderfully creative tactics to make their voices heard over the repetitive mumblings of prayers of the anti abortion marchers. The “pro-choice” - “pro-life” issue is not isolated or pure in the agenda promoted by either side. Supporting the dichotomy is the massive behemoth of religion and its “anti-” on the opposing side. While the anti abortion slew led by men in long robes, paraded with crosses, Jesuses and images of the Virgin, the counter protesters waving metal coat hangers met them with home fashioned signs saying: “Better aborted than abandoned” and “May the fetus you save be gay”. I was strongly impressed with a very young lesbian couple leading a toddler by hand and carrying a younger baby in a back carrier. They sidelined the politically motivated religious procession along the Embarcadero stretch. At one point the more vocal woman of the couple burst out in random inharmonious vocalizations mimicking the religious chanting of the faithful followers. I thought it was brilliant. The contrast could not have been starker. Ultimately, there is a grand philosophical precipice between the two sides, that of “self-expression” vs. “self-suppression”. Belgian Le Soir in its eurotopics.net english translation speaking of Austrian army recruiting two Imams, used the word “obedience” referring to religious following. Perhaps it was just a slip of a tongue which sometimes plagues multilingual writers. I thought it was very accurate. While the 1000 Genome Project intends to examine and compare 1000 human samples from around the globe in order to help study disease, I hope that in not too far future, genetic sampling can help highlight other pivotal differences between people, such as what makes some of us indiscriminate, blind followers yearning to obey rigid hierarchical structures, and some of us free thinkers and iconoclasts yelling at the top of our lungs in uninhibited self expression.

“Persevering”, my coworker once described me. “Dogged” and “obsessive” I might add.

The post is again about Poland and what quickly becomes patent, my unresolved issues with the country of my birth. In the past year I have incited a few electronic discussions with my extended family on the topic of politics and the strong nationalistic, religious and conservative character of Poland in its current incarnation. On my recent visit we kept at it in person. Pointing out the negatives of laisse-faire market liberalism and the dangers inherent in strong nationalist and religious sentiments, I caught myself basing all my arguments on my daily living experience and current events in the United States. Both Poland and the USA are governed by right wing conservative parties, both are overwhelmingly Christian. It was only too inviting and too easy to make simpleminded comparisons.

I scoured Warsaw bookstores looking for an authentic overview of the most recent polish political history. I was searching for a local voice and a local perspective. For the most part however, I would find very little of interest, only the usual all too common display of John Paul II anthology and a litany of polish WWII victimhood. Ultimately, in a downtown Warsaw bookstore (hosting a gun shop! [my "liberal/latte sipping/San Francisco intellectual" bias bobs up in acknowledgment that Walmart and guns is lamentable but expected, yet a combination of bookstore and guns seems shockingly denatured]) I reached out for a book by David Ost.

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It is now a few months since I paused that last thought, Poland kicked the ultra right wing coalition and elected a pro market government which differs from its predecessor by a hair, mainly in the international pro-European stance - a welcome change. I have since finished reading The Defeat of Solidarity . The irony of reading a book in Polish translation about the socio-economical and political processes in Poland written in English by an American professor of political science, is noteworthy. I suspect that the reason for my inability to find a Polish authored analysis of the transition from a planned market to a free market economy and its effects on the Polish society is due to the lack of distance and grand perspective, which David Ost possessed by virtue of simply being an outsider.

The book is very informative. Its most captivating point in my opinion is the attempt to explain how the hardships of economic reforms and the inability of political leadership to keep its electorate, ultimately resulted in increased support for extreme right-wing ideas. It may seem like an unfortunate turn of events where the working classes shunned and dismissed by their elected leaders found others, who happened to espouse nationalist and catholic ideologies and who were willing to listen to their grievances and take on their causes all of course, in the self serving pursuit of rising to power. The truth of the matter is however that Poland always has been a tradition bound conservative society; nationalist, since its borders were constantly threatened by invading neighbors ever since its birth as a country in the 10th century, and fervently catholic, ever more so, since religion was denounced by the communist regime. The path that David Ost is tracing however fascinating, is rather a short one. It takes a religious society with strong national identity to one that is inclined to emphasize those aspects as unique attributes.

My hesitance for drawing too literal of a parallel between Poland and America, stems from uncertainty as to whether the same basic list of ingredients will produce the same exact cake. In other words, whether liberal market, social conservatism and prominent religion will result in a society of marked contrasts between rich and poor, little or no social safety nets or benefits, discrimination towards minorities on the basis of alternative sexual orientation, reactionary and defensive stance in respect to the rest of the world, dated and dangerous attitudes towards women and reproductive rights, inclination to limit or outwardly suppress free speech in attempts to appease religious sensibilities, just to name a few.
Common sense dictates that I am both right and wrong in tracing the similarities between the two countries as predictors of Poland’s ultimate post transitional outcome. Of course, there is the process. Skilled cooks can work marvels with just potatoes, peas and carrots. At the same time, their creation has zero chances of turning out to be a lemon merengue pie.

Storytelling is as ancient as human history itself, a fact suggesting that it is therefore an intrinsic process of our psyche. Stringing causes with effects, events and speculations, rumors and half truths - creating narratives is comforting. Our specie has the need to spin order out of chaos and to pluck a seemingly coherent story out of confusion. As humans developed over hundreds and thousands of years, so did our culture and complexity of our thoughts. Art, the outward expression of our inner selves, mirrors that process. Early societies had fables, folk stories and religious tales. We have deconstruction and oulipo. This is the reason I find myself at odds, grimacing slightly whenever traditional storytelling is extolled. It has its place, merit and beauty however, my appreciation for it has been tamed by the pleasures derived from reading and viewing highly conceptual works. Being presented a partial image, a slice of a situation, a stark contradiction without further detailed explanation, without a final resolution is more satisfying. It engages our minds, has us fill in the blanks, causes us to participate more fully.

Striving to tell stories through images seems particularly superfluous. After all a visual medium aims to please ocular senses in principle. Great photographs, paintings or drawings are intensely pleasing on the merit of their form alone. The delight at harmonic composition, vivid colors or subtle tonal gradations is viscerally palpable. Images by Dave Hart whom I am happy to know personally, are an example.

Conscious of this personal bias, I am forever attempting to measure how much “form” and how much “content” makes a photograph, or a visual essay, a successful one.
Jon Torgovnik, one of the laureates of this year’s Getty Images Grants for Editorial Photography presents an antithesis in his story about the Israeli Reserve Soldier. Jonathan writes:

This project looks at the face of the reserve soldier in the Israeli army, both as soldiers and civilians. Every person portrayed in the project was photographed twice. One portrait was taken while they were active in reserve service, mostly in the West bank and Gaza. The second was taken while in their civilian life, after they completed one month of duty.

The format of the essay is that of two snapshots placed together side by side. The subjects are positioned in front of the camera in a straight forward facing stance, aware of being photographed. The depth of field is in the medium range, enough to have the subject stand out yet providing plenty of recognizable context. Natural light and outdoors setting is preferred. Here images cede priority to content. In magnificent reversal, the photographic medium becomes the typography of the story, the pictures being the type by which means the narrative is told.

Pulitzer.org has a recorded time line going back to 1917 and since 1995 posts the winning works online. The 2007 prize for breaking news photography was awarded to Oded Balility. In the photo:

“A lone Jewish settler challenges Israeli security officers during clashes that erupted as authorities cleared the West Bank settlement of Amona, east of the Palestinian town of Ramallah.”