apropos of anything

It used to be Superman’s motto. In the new movie, however, the “American way” part has been replaced by “all that stuff”, purportedly to make the movie more palatable to foreign audiences since the modern Hollywood exec thinks beyond just sea to shining (or, these days, steaming) sea. Liberal as Hollywood is, though, I have to wonder if there’s more to it than that. Perhaps they’re opining that the American way isn’t quite the gleaming ideal it used to be. Perhaps.

Around the Fourth of July, I had a post percolating in my head about what the holiday meant to me and how that meaning has changed over the years. I never wrote it because I couldn’t put into words what I wanted to say, but here we are again, just over two weeks later, and I’m thinking the same thoughts.

Boys wounded in an Israeli warplane missile attack in Srifa, Lebanon, sit on hospital beds.

It’s been seven days since Israel fired on Lebanon in retaliation for the kidnapping of two Israeli soldiers by radical militant group Hezbollah. I’ve wanted to discuss it here because I certainly can’t stop talking about it anywhere else, but I am just incapable of being objective about the whole mess (semi-affectionately referred to in my office as The Apocalypse).

I’m not objective. I think Hezbollah was stupid and irresponsible, but I also think Israel threw “proportionate response” out the window when they retaliated. It’s like cutting off somebody’s arm because they poked you in the stomach. I think the longer this goes on, the higher the likelihood of a destabalized Lebanon, which in turn will lead to an even more tumultuous region. I think Hezbollah will never release the kidnapped soldiers unless Israel gives them something in return, and I think every missle fired at Lebanon gives the already unbalanced people in Iran even more of a reason to get involved and start their own missile-launching.

Lebanese Prime Minister Fouad Siniora asked President Bush to use his influence with Israel to orchestrate a cease-fire that would bring both parties to the negotiating table, but the President declined, saying Israel had a right to defend its borders. Be that as it may, I see no logical reason for Bush to eschew diplomacy in favor of continued violence or to decline to use his influence for good, especially when all of Europe and even his own Secretary of State believe such an action would be prudent.

All of which brings us back to the Fourth of July and the American way. As a child, the Fourth was nothing more than a day that ended in fireworks. We did not do any kind of celebrating. The Fourth of July was a holiday for Those American People, and we, we were Indian. It started that way because we were too young to think any differently, and it continued that way because we didn’t want to hurt our parents by telling them that we were Americans of Indian heritage, not Indians of American residence.

That influence continued through college even those summers when there were no parents to offend. I’d celebrate a little — barbeque here, summer concert there — but it’s never been my style to wrap myself in a flag. Still, it was comforting to know that for the most part, my government made good decisions, and I was grateful and happy to live here.

Today, we’re at a time when our foreign policy turns my stomach and being American no longer feels synonomous with being free and encouraging freedoms. It matters not that cowboy diplomacy is on its way out; it matters that cowboy diplomacy ever existed, that we the American people, so wrapped up in jingoism, flag-waving, and our desire to have our world exactly how it suits us best and damn the consequences for others, have cemented our global status as the boorish bully on the block.

It’s not a pleasant feeling. Not for me.

Please don’t tell me that if I don’t like it here, I don’t have to stay here. I love living here. I am still grateful every day that I live here instead of anywhere else in the world. What I would like, though, is to be able to believe that as the planet’s strongest, most influential nation, we are doing a credible job of leading the world into the future. I would like to believe that we are hearing all sides of the story and trying to help rather than jumping in with eyes closed and guns blazing. I would like us to uphold our own standards of guilt and innocence and to regain the trust of the rest of the world. I would like the nation of the free and equal to remember always the sovereignty of other countries. I would like America once again to be the inspirational leader that has grace and knows humility, whose people who come to help and not to hurt.

At the memorial service for the Oklahoma City bombings, President Clinton said, “When there is talk of hatred, let us stand up and talk against it. When there is talk of violence, let us stand up and talk against it. In the face of death, let us honor life.” Right now, for want of two soldiers, there are three hundred dead in Lebanon, yet the only governments talking against the violence are in Europe and Asia. Right now, on the basis of fabricated evidence, there are over 50,000 dead in Iraq, and it’s going to get so much worse before it gets better.

“You must tell the world we do not support Hezbollah,” a Lebanese woman tells CNN’s Hala Gorani. “We do not support anyone. But my country is being destroyed by people using it as a battleground.”

Somebody needs to be a leader and guide both parties towards a fair resolution. If I had my druthers, that someone would be us. And then maybe Superman could stand for the American way again because it would be worth standing for.

I think the wireless part of my wireless router may be dead… and of course that means more computer problems at home, so if I owe you an email, my apologies, and I hope to get to it soon.

In the meantime, I know there’s a lot to pray about these days, between the Mumbai bombings and Israel bombing the hell out of Lebanon (if it weren’t for the computer problems, there’d be a whole thing about that in this space instead), but I’m going to ask for one more: it’s been a whole year already.

I finished The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair That Changed America this weekend. It’s a very absorbing slice of turn-of-the-century American life, especially in how it makes me think about our uber-technological world affects our lives. Things are supposed to be easier for us.

Thunderbird, my friend

I know they are, but everybody is so BUSY now. Multitasking is the norm; I know I’m always doing it, calling people on my cell as I’m driving, or emailing people at bizarre hours of the day, whenever I have a few minutes to whip out a message. And it really is whipping because gone are the days when I wrote long, chatty emails or, perish the thought, actual hand-written letters.

In The Devil in the White City, Larsen makes a point of noting that people back then wrote long letters regularly. It was, after all, their primary method of communicating. As I read the excerpts, I couldn’t help wondering how these people, who did not have laundry machines, cars, or even computers, managed to find the time to do all they did (build an entire world’s fair on an accelerated schedule without bulldozers and the like) and still write letters of such length and detail.

(And also correct spelling, which is such a point with me because I hate reading anything that’s littered with spelling mistakes. It’s called a dictionary, people. Learn it, live it, love it.)

I wrote letters in high school and even through the early part of college. They were long and gossipy, decorated with stickers, and accompanied by article clippings or photographs I found interesting. They took a long time to write, but when your friends live in other cities and long-distance phone calls are a luxury (remember 10 cents a minute?), that’s what you do. I still have every letter I was ever mailed in return. There’s something more personal about them than email, and I’ll likely keep them long after I’ve deleted old messages out of my inbox.

I don’t really write letters now. It’s mostly a time thing, I guess, as I can craft an equally long email in half the time it would take me to write a letter. Also, email allows me the luxury of editing as I go, whereas once I’ve written something down on paper, I’ve committed it unless I’m willing to rewrite the entire page.

I miss getting something other than bills in the mail, though.

On an entirely unrelated note, I am looking for a good Arab cookbook. I’ve heard good things about Spice, but I don’t know if it’s Arab Arab or Americanized Arab. I’m looking for the former. Suggestions, anyone?

KEN SPIT ON SUPERMAN!

HE. SPIT. ON. SUPERMAN!!!!

I think I may have to find a new job now, or at least make Ivan be the buffer at all times. Of course, Ivan is so offended by the spittle that he might not want to take on that role, and we’ll both have to find new jobs.