[Originally posted on June 14, 2003]

Truth has a way of asserting itself despite all attempts to obscure it. Distortion only serves to derail it for a time. No matter to what lengths we humans may go to obfuscate facts or delude our fellows, truth has a way of squeezing out through the cracks, eventually. But the danger is that at some point it may no longer matter. The danger is that damage is done before the truth is widely realized. The reality is that, sometimes, it is easier to ignore uncomfortable facts and go along with whatever distortion is currently in vogue.

Senator Byrd, it would seem, is too old-fasioned and cantankerous for today's America. He'd do better to move to the UK where they have anachronistic habits like questioning their leaders about the veracity of their claims or facing up to the possibility that their soldiers are not above committing war-crimes.

It would of course be the Brits who'd seek to sully our brave, White Knight image of ourselves by debunking an account of our soldiers' bravery. Should we pay them any heed? Mark Bowden, author of Black Hawk Down, offers a nicely nuanced explanation of the foggy line between the reality of war and the myths that emerge from it.

What has me perplexed is why we Americans, who instinctively mistrust our government with our taxes, seem to feel no discernible need to challenge its claims and stories about sending our men and women to risk their lives in foreign lands on missions to destroy, kill and maim. Are we so hard up on real victories and bravery that we must buy into every glorious tale of battle no questions asked? Of the Private Lynch story, Mr. Bowden says:

As for her fighting fiercely, it is a timeworn military reflex to claim that a killed or captured soldier fought bravely, whether or not it is true. It comforts the family, salutes the fallen (or captured) comrade and boosts morale. It is not surprising that this was in an intelligence report. Anyone familiar with military stories would have viewed it skeptically.

I can buy that. Even if the specifics of her "fighting fiercely" are in dispute she's brave enough to be doing what she's doing. However, this apparently was a "military story" and it was leveraged as a spin device for the war with the active complicity of our media. This is true even if the spin was no comparison to Hollywood realism, which Mr. Bowden offers as the evidence of its absence. The skepticism, even in hindsight, has yet to make it into our collective consciousness.

And what of the WMD? I'm having a hard time accepting that it doesn't matter to us that the reason we went to war remains a speculation after our military victory. Sure, we deposed a brutal despot, but is that where the reality of this war, its aims and its aftermath begin and end?

I'm still waiting for us to snap out of shell-shock.

--aslam

10:19:05 PM  

Originally posted on June 6, 2003:

Beginning yesterday, Turner Classic Movies is showing Bollywood hits, three every Thursday evening for four weeks, going into the wee hours of Friday morning. I stayed up to watch them last night. Damn, these people can do song-and-dance come rain, shine, riots, festivals, wars, births, deaths, weddings, divorces�you name it! Bollywood takes very seriously its role as dream-factory not only for Indians and other South Asians but also for much of the world outside North America and Europe, from Asia to Africa to the Americas. I think that screening Bollywood movies nationwide in Iraq after the toppling of Saddam Hussein would�ve prevented the post-war mayhem.

The first one last night, Dilwaale Dulhaniya Le Jayenge (The Brave-Hearted will Take the Bride), was a phenomenal hit. A quintessential Bollywood masala. Even the gag-inducing extolment of �Indian culture� throughout the movie didn�t keep me from watching Shah Rukh Khan�s shenanigans and the toe-tapping dance-numbers. Something for everyone in this grand folk-drama, even a sobbing plug for the individual liberty of women � in this case, the right to marry the man of her choice � as long as the patriarch protecting the precious and endangered �Indian culture� permits it.

A couple of days ago I said to a friend that B/Hollywood movies can be the most fun one can have without an imagination. The next movie last night challenged that. Bombay was beautiful and fun with all the essential ingredients but the dream it was offering was of hope in Indians countering the sinister elements among them who foment communal hatreds. Of course, it had to be done to A.R. Rahman�s catchy tunes.

That was enough heady fun for one night. I couldn�t sit through the third. Speaking of A.R. Rahman, his (stage) musical, Bombay Dreams � produced by Andrew Lloyd Webber � is a blast. It is, you guessed it, about Bollywood. It�s a Bollywood-ishtyle musical about Bollywood people making Bollywood movies. Europe and North America no longer need to miss out on the fun and the grandeur. My own Bollywood dreams include a Bollywood movie with Jackie Chan or Jet Li and a Bollywood Star Trek musical.

--aslam

10:14:23 PM  

...after a disk crash and learning the painful lesson about the importance of backups!

If this is the only post that you see, it's because I am in the process of publishing my past missives anew. Wish me luck!

--aslam

Originally posted on May 8, 2003:

Although mangled and consequently maligned in our times, they are essential to the condition of those of us who are human. Myths, products of that wondrous faculty - imagination - that separates us from our machines and without which we would have no machines. They often fly in the face of reason, the faculty that we so doggedly try to inculcate in computers, our newest machines. Logic, reason's colder, harder alter-ego may be the lifeblood of our computers but only our fantasies can take them the distance that they need to go before they can be worthy of us. Much of the reality that surrounds us is born outside its known borders, where reason doesn't always reign supreme. I suspect that much of reality itself lies beyond the borders that we know. I wonder if our myths are our sense of this reality or perhaps they are our collective fantasies that grew old and wise - or just old - waiting to be incorporated into our reality.

I don't know what it all means but can't help feeling that trying to find out is what it's all about. This is my jumping-off point for plunging into the sea of cyber-conceit where every opinion fantasizes of being the answer. My own conceit is that my opinions harbor no such fantasy.

--aslam

9:46:50 PM