Wouldn't you know...I found this posted by the columnist who wrote the "Sentenced to be Raped" article on the NYTimes website. Snail mail can reach him at:
Nicholas D. Kristof The New York Times 229 West 43rd Street New York, NY 10036
An update on Mukhtaran Bibi, the woman in Pakistan who was sentenced by a tribal council to be gang-raped, and who then started schools for boys and girls in her village. I thought I might get a response from the column, but it has blown me away. While I was off traveling, my assistant, Winter Miller, was opening stacks of letters from people who wanted to help - and who in many cases did help, with checks.
So we've got a box here with more than $90,000 in checks made out to Mukhtaran. Since they are drawn on U.S. banks, we need to work out a way to get her the money without incurring large check-clearing fees, and Winter has been working that out. Probably the money will go through a U.S. aid group, which will also help Mukhtaran keep the money safe and figure out how best to use it. I should know more in a couple of days, and I'll post any updates here.
I also heard from Mukhtaran that she has received many checks directly. She deposited some directly, but will hold on to the others for now, until we can figure out how to avoid those check-clearing fees. (Unless you make special arrangements, a bank in Pakistan will charge up to $50 in fees for depositing a U.S. check.) She is delighted with the response, needless to say, and thanks everyone for the help. My hope is that the attention will also help keep her alive, and will make it harder for the higher-status villagers who raped her two years ago to kill her now.
Wednesday, October 20, 2004
Thursday, October 14, 2004
NYT: "Addicted to 9/11"
Addicted to 9/11
Thomas L. Friedman
I don't know whether to laugh or cry when I hear the president and vice president slamming John Kerry for saying that he hopes America can eventually get back to a place where "terrorists are not the focus of our lives, but they're a nuisance." The idea that President Bush and Mr. Cheney would declare such a statement to be proof that Mr. Kerry is unfit to lead actually says more about them than Mr. Kerry. Excuse me, I don't know about you, but I dream of going back to the days when terrorism was just a nuisance in our lives.
If I have a choice, I prefer not to live the rest of my life with the difference between a good day and bad day being whether Homeland Security tells me it is "code red" or "code orange" outside. To get inside the Washington office of the International Monetary Fund the other day, I had to show my ID, wait for an escort and fill out a one-page form about myself and my visit. I told my host: "Look, I don't want a loan. I just want an interview." Somewhere along the way we've gone over the top and lost our balance.
That's why Mr. Kerry was actually touching something many Americans are worried about - that this war on terrorism is transforming us and our society, when it was supposed to be about uprooting the terrorists and transforming their societies.
The Bush team's responses to Mr. Kerry's musings are revealing because they go to the very heart of how much this administration has become addicted to 9/11. The president has exploited the terrorism issue for political ends - trying to make it into another wedge issue like abortion, guns or gay rights - to rally the Republican base and push his own political agenda. But it is precisely this exploitation of 9/11 that has gotten him and the country off-track, because it has not only created a wedge between Republicans and Democrats, it's also created a wedge between America and the rest of the world, between America and its own historical identity, and between the president and common sense.
By exploiting the emotions around 9/11, Mr. Bush took a far-right agenda on taxes, the environment and social issues - for which he had no electoral mandate - and drove it into a 9/12 world. In doing so, Mr. Bush made himself the most divisive and polarizing president in modern history.
By using 9/11 to justify launching a war in Iraq without U.N. support, Mr. Bush also created a huge wedge between America and the rest of the world. I sympathize with the president when he says he would never have gotten a U.N. consensus for a strategy of trying to get at the roots of terrorism by reshaping the Arab-Muslim regimes that foster it - starting with Iraq.
But in politicizing 9/11, Mr. Bush drove a wedge between himself and common sense when it came to implementing his Iraq strategy. After failing to find any W.M.D. in Iraq, he became so dependent on justifying the Iraq war as the response to 9/11 - a campaign to bring freedom and democracy to the Arab-Muslim world - that he refused to see reality in Iraq. The president seemed to be saying to himself, "Something so good and right as getting rid of Saddam can't possibly be going so wrong." Long after it was obvious to anyone who visited Iraq that we never had enough troops there to establish order, Mr. Bush simply ignored reality. When pressed on Iraq, he sought cover behind 9/11 and how it required "tough decisions" - as if the tough decision to go to war in Iraq, in the name of 9/11, should make him immune to criticism over how he conducted the war.
Lastly, politicizing 9/11 put a wedge between us and our history. The Bush team has turned this country into "The United States of Fighting Terrorism." "Bush only seems able to express our anger, not our hopes," said the Mideast expert Stephen P. Cohen. "His whole focus is on an America whose role in the world is to negate the negation of the terrorists. But America has always been about the affirmation of something positive. That is missing today. Beyond Afghanistan, they've been much better at destruction than construction."
I wish Mr. Kerry were better able to articulate how America is going to get its groove back. But the point he was raising about wanting to put terrorism back into perspective is correct. I want a president who can one day restore Sept. 11th to its rightful place on the calendar: as the day after Sept. 10th and before Sept. 12th. I do not want it to become a day that defines us. Because ultimately Sept. 11th is about them - the bad guys - not about us. We're about the Fourth of July.
Thomas L. Friedman
I don't know whether to laugh or cry when I hear the president and vice president slamming John Kerry for saying that he hopes America can eventually get back to a place where "terrorists are not the focus of our lives, but they're a nuisance." The idea that President Bush and Mr. Cheney would declare such a statement to be proof that Mr. Kerry is unfit to lead actually says more about them than Mr. Kerry. Excuse me, I don't know about you, but I dream of going back to the days when terrorism was just a nuisance in our lives.
If I have a choice, I prefer not to live the rest of my life with the difference between a good day and bad day being whether Homeland Security tells me it is "code red" or "code orange" outside. To get inside the Washington office of the International Monetary Fund the other day, I had to show my ID, wait for an escort and fill out a one-page form about myself and my visit. I told my host: "Look, I don't want a loan. I just want an interview." Somewhere along the way we've gone over the top and lost our balance.
That's why Mr. Kerry was actually touching something many Americans are worried about - that this war on terrorism is transforming us and our society, when it was supposed to be about uprooting the terrorists and transforming their societies.
The Bush team's responses to Mr. Kerry's musings are revealing because they go to the very heart of how much this administration has become addicted to 9/11. The president has exploited the terrorism issue for political ends - trying to make it into another wedge issue like abortion, guns or gay rights - to rally the Republican base and push his own political agenda. But it is precisely this exploitation of 9/11 that has gotten him and the country off-track, because it has not only created a wedge between Republicans and Democrats, it's also created a wedge between America and the rest of the world, between America and its own historical identity, and between the president and common sense.
By exploiting the emotions around 9/11, Mr. Bush took a far-right agenda on taxes, the environment and social issues - for which he had no electoral mandate - and drove it into a 9/12 world. In doing so, Mr. Bush made himself the most divisive and polarizing president in modern history.
By using 9/11 to justify launching a war in Iraq without U.N. support, Mr. Bush also created a huge wedge between America and the rest of the world. I sympathize with the president when he says he would never have gotten a U.N. consensus for a strategy of trying to get at the roots of terrorism by reshaping the Arab-Muslim regimes that foster it - starting with Iraq.
But in politicizing 9/11, Mr. Bush drove a wedge between himself and common sense when it came to implementing his Iraq strategy. After failing to find any W.M.D. in Iraq, he became so dependent on justifying the Iraq war as the response to 9/11 - a campaign to bring freedom and democracy to the Arab-Muslim world - that he refused to see reality in Iraq. The president seemed to be saying to himself, "Something so good and right as getting rid of Saddam can't possibly be going so wrong." Long after it was obvious to anyone who visited Iraq that we never had enough troops there to establish order, Mr. Bush simply ignored reality. When pressed on Iraq, he sought cover behind 9/11 and how it required "tough decisions" - as if the tough decision to go to war in Iraq, in the name of 9/11, should make him immune to criticism over how he conducted the war.
Lastly, politicizing 9/11 put a wedge between us and our history. The Bush team has turned this country into "The United States of Fighting Terrorism." "Bush only seems able to express our anger, not our hopes," said the Mideast expert Stephen P. Cohen. "His whole focus is on an America whose role in the world is to negate the negation of the terrorists. But America has always been about the affirmation of something positive. That is missing today. Beyond Afghanistan, they've been much better at destruction than construction."
I wish Mr. Kerry were better able to articulate how America is going to get its groove back. But the point he was raising about wanting to put terrorism back into perspective is correct. I want a president who can one day restore Sept. 11th to its rightful place on the calendar: as the day after Sept. 10th and before Sept. 12th. I do not want it to become a day that defines us. Because ultimately Sept. 11th is about them - the bad guys - not about us. We're about the Fourth of July.
Friday, October 1, 2004
Cheesesteak Rules
Okay people. I've gone through this with others who are alien to the ways of the cheesesteak. I'm gonna go through this one more time.
A cheesteak consists of:
A cheesteak consists of:
- Rib-eye steak -- sliced very thin or chopped
- Cheese: Provolone, American, Whiz, and perhaps Mozzerella (exercise caution).
- Toppings: fried onions (obtained by merely saying "with" or "wid" in local parlance), green peppers (optional), mushrooms (optional), red sauce (but then it's a pizza steak, which is almost it's own entity, so tread carefully).
If you have something before you that has any component not mentioned above IT IS NOT A CHEESESTEAK. It may be a "steak and cheese." It may be a sandwich or sub of some kind. But it ain't no cheesesteak. And even if it has the above components but has been obtained anywhere more than 50 miles outside of Philly proper, it still debatable as to whether it is in fact a cheesesteak. Consult a professional if there's any doubt by dialing 215 and seven numbers of your choosing. You should be able to obtain knowledgable guidance.
Robyn
Friday, September 24, 2004
NYT: "Sentenced to be Raped"
From the New York Times
September 29, 2004
By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF
MEERWALA, Pakistan - I'm still trying to help out President Bush by tracking down Osama bin Laden. After poking through remote parts of Pakistan, asking for a tall Arab with a beard, I can't say I've earned that $25 million reward.
But I did come across someone even more extraordinary than Osama.
Usually we journalists write about rogues, but Mukhtaran Bibi could not be more altruistic or brave, as the men who gang-raped her discovered. I firmly believe that the central moral challenge of this century, equivalent to the struggles against slavery in the 19th century or against totalitarianism in the 20th, will be to address sex inequality in the third world - and it's the stories of women like Ms. Mukhtaran that convince me this is so.
The plight of women in developing countries isn't addressed much in the West, and it certainly isn't a hot topic in the presidential campaign. But it's a life-and-death matter in villages like Meerwala, a 12-hour drive southeast from Islamabad.
In June 2002, the police say, members of a high-status tribe sexually abused one of Ms. Mukhtaran's brothers and then covered up their crime by falsely accusing him of having an affair with a high-status woman. The village's tribal council determined that the suitable punishment for the supposed affair was for high-status men to rape one of the boy's sisters, so the council sentenced Ms. Mukhtaran to be gang-raped.
As members of the high-status tribe danced in joy, four men stripped her naked and took turns raping her. Then they forced her to walk home naked in front of 300 villagers.
In Pakistan's conservative Muslim society, Ms. Mukhtaran's duty was now clear: she was supposed to commit suicide. "Just like other women, I initially thought of killing myself," said Ms. Mukhtaran, now 30. Her older brother, Hezoor Bux, explained: "A girl who has been raped has no honorable place in the village. Nobody respects the girl, or her parents. There's a stigma, and the only way out is suicide."
A girl in the next village was gang-raped a week after Ms. Mukhtaran, and she took the traditional route: she swallowed a bottle of pesticide and dropped dead.
But instead of killing herself, Ms. Mukhtaran testified against her attackers and propounded the shocking idea that the shame lies in raping, rather than in being raped. The rapists are now on death row, and President Pervez Musharraf presented Ms. Mukhtaran with the equivalent of $8,300 and ordered round-the-clock police protection for her.
Ms. Mukhtaran, who had never gone to school herself, used the money to build one school in the village for girls and another for boys - because, she said, education is the best way to achieve social change. The girls' school is named for her, and she is now studying in its fourth-grade class.
"Why should I have spent the money on myself?" she asked, adding, "This way the money is helping all the girls, all the children."
I wish the story ended there. But the Pakistani government has neglected its pledge to pay the schools' operating expenses. "The government made lots of promises, but it hasn't done much," Ms. Mukhtaran said bluntly.
She has had to buy food for the police who protect her, as well as pay some school expenses. So, she said, "I've run out of money." Unless the schools can raise new funds, they may have to close.
Meanwhile, villagers say that relatives of the rapists are waiting for the police to leave and then will put Ms. Mukhtaran in her place by slaughtering her and her entire family. I walked to the area where the high-status tribesmen live. They denied planning to kill Ms. Mukhtaran, but were unapologetic about her rape.
"Mukhtaran is totally disgraced," Taj Bibi, a matriarch in a high-status family, said with satisfaction. "She has no respect in society."
So although I did not find Osama, I did encounter a much more ubiquitous form of evil and terror: a culture, stretching across about half the globe, that chews up women and spits them out.
We in the West could help chip away at that oppression, with health and literacy programs and by simply speaking out against it, just as we once stood up against slavery and totalitarianism. But instead of standing beside fighters like Ms. Mukhtaran, we're still sitting on the fence.
September 29, 2004
By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF
MEERWALA, Pakistan - I'm still trying to help out President Bush by tracking down Osama bin Laden. After poking through remote parts of Pakistan, asking for a tall Arab with a beard, I can't say I've earned that $25 million reward.
But I did come across someone even more extraordinary than Osama.
Usually we journalists write about rogues, but Mukhtaran Bibi could not be more altruistic or brave, as the men who gang-raped her discovered. I firmly believe that the central moral challenge of this century, equivalent to the struggles against slavery in the 19th century or against totalitarianism in the 20th, will be to address sex inequality in the third world - and it's the stories of women like Ms. Mukhtaran that convince me this is so.
The plight of women in developing countries isn't addressed much in the West, and it certainly isn't a hot topic in the presidential campaign. But it's a life-and-death matter in villages like Meerwala, a 12-hour drive southeast from Islamabad.
In June 2002, the police say, members of a high-status tribe sexually abused one of Ms. Mukhtaran's brothers and then covered up their crime by falsely accusing him of having an affair with a high-status woman. The village's tribal council determined that the suitable punishment for the supposed affair was for high-status men to rape one of the boy's sisters, so the council sentenced Ms. Mukhtaran to be gang-raped.
As members of the high-status tribe danced in joy, four men stripped her naked and took turns raping her. Then they forced her to walk home naked in front of 300 villagers.
In Pakistan's conservative Muslim society, Ms. Mukhtaran's duty was now clear: she was supposed to commit suicide. "Just like other women, I initially thought of killing myself," said Ms. Mukhtaran, now 30. Her older brother, Hezoor Bux, explained: "A girl who has been raped has no honorable place in the village. Nobody respects the girl, or her parents. There's a stigma, and the only way out is suicide."
A girl in the next village was gang-raped a week after Ms. Mukhtaran, and she took the traditional route: she swallowed a bottle of pesticide and dropped dead.
But instead of killing herself, Ms. Mukhtaran testified against her attackers and propounded the shocking idea that the shame lies in raping, rather than in being raped. The rapists are now on death row, and President Pervez Musharraf presented Ms. Mukhtaran with the equivalent of $8,300 and ordered round-the-clock police protection for her.
Ms. Mukhtaran, who had never gone to school herself, used the money to build one school in the village for girls and another for boys - because, she said, education is the best way to achieve social change. The girls' school is named for her, and she is now studying in its fourth-grade class.
"Why should I have spent the money on myself?" she asked, adding, "This way the money is helping all the girls, all the children."
I wish the story ended there. But the Pakistani government has neglected its pledge to pay the schools' operating expenses. "The government made lots of promises, but it hasn't done much," Ms. Mukhtaran said bluntly.
She has had to buy food for the police who protect her, as well as pay some school expenses. So, she said, "I've run out of money." Unless the schools can raise new funds, they may have to close.
Meanwhile, villagers say that relatives of the rapists are waiting for the police to leave and then will put Ms. Mukhtaran in her place by slaughtering her and her entire family. I walked to the area where the high-status tribesmen live. They denied planning to kill Ms. Mukhtaran, but were unapologetic about her rape.
"Mukhtaran is totally disgraced," Taj Bibi, a matriarch in a high-status family, said with satisfaction. "She has no respect in society."
So although I did not find Osama, I did encounter a much more ubiquitous form of evil and terror: a culture, stretching across about half the globe, that chews up women and spits them out.
We in the West could help chip away at that oppression, with health and literacy programs and by simply speaking out against it, just as we once stood up against slavery and totalitarianism. But instead of standing beside fighters like Ms. Mukhtaran, we're still sitting on the fence.
Friday, August 27, 2004
Maine
I just returned from a trip to Maine to visit the grandparents. I do enjoy it there. It was nice and cool -- about 70 degrees -- which was a welcome relief from the icky-sticky Washington summer. I imagine that walking around DC in the summer is a lot like being trapped inside somebody's mouth. Shudder at my lack of tact all you want, but those who know whereof I speak know that I speak the truth.
Anyway...yes, Maine is lovely. Lovely people, lovely scenery, lovely moose. This visit was unique in that it was Jeffrey's first visit, so we schlepped him out to Pemaquid Point to gaze upon the Atlantic from an appropriately rocky and lighthouse-laden coastline. We taught him how to properly say "hah-bah" in proper New England patois (incidentally, "schlepped" is not proper New England patois, but what the hell).
We also watched a lot of Olympics. A lot of Olympics indeed.
I also discovered the Whoopie Pie, which evidently is a Maine delicacy, though damned if I ever knew it. We were treated to some of these delicacies from a bakery in Gahd-nah (or Gardiner) that was featured on Oprah (not Oprer). Quite good. Wicked good even. So good, battle lines were drawn in the Shepherd households in both Hallowell, ME and Richboro, PA as to who would get to feast upon a bit of Whoopie Pie. Learn more about the wonders of Whoopie Pies here.
Good times were had. Off to Texas next week. Oy, contrast.
Robyn
Anyway...yes, Maine is lovely. Lovely people, lovely scenery, lovely moose. This visit was unique in that it was Jeffrey's first visit, so we schlepped him out to Pemaquid Point to gaze upon the Atlantic from an appropriately rocky and lighthouse-laden coastline. We taught him how to properly say "hah-bah" in proper New England patois (incidentally, "schlepped" is not proper New England patois, but what the hell).
We also watched a lot of Olympics. A lot of Olympics indeed.
I also discovered the Whoopie Pie, which evidently is a Maine delicacy, though damned if I ever knew it. We were treated to some of these delicacies from a bakery in Gahd-nah (or Gardiner) that was featured on Oprah (not Oprer). Quite good. Wicked good even. So good, battle lines were drawn in the Shepherd households in both Hallowell, ME and Richboro, PA as to who would get to feast upon a bit of Whoopie Pie. Learn more about the wonders of Whoopie Pies here.
Good times were had. Off to Texas next week. Oy, contrast.
Robyn
Thursday, July 29, 2004
Oreo Cookie Cookie
I had the most wonderful confection the other day. Imagine if you will an Oreo Cookie Cookie.
Dig it:
It's your standard issue cookie, but instead of chocolate chips or M&Ms, it is festonned with sizable bits of Oreo cookies.
It is a cookie concocted out of other cookies. It is one of the most fantastic creations ever devised.
God bless the thought process that brought forth the Oreo Cookie Cookie: "My, these cookies are smashing, but what could make them even better. Aha! Other cookies!"
Suffice to say that as I stood in the middle of the Brookings Institution cafeteria, my mind was blown.
Yum.
Robyn
Dig it:
It's your standard issue cookie, but instead of chocolate chips or M&Ms, it is festonned with sizable bits of Oreo cookies.
It is a cookie concocted out of other cookies. It is one of the most fantastic creations ever devised.
God bless the thought process that brought forth the Oreo Cookie Cookie: "My, these cookies are smashing, but what could make them even better. Aha! Other cookies!"
Suffice to say that as I stood in the middle of the Brookings Institution cafeteria, my mind was blown.
Yum.
Robyn
Thursday, June 17, 2004
Aruba
Although I have had the good fortune to visit Aruba several times, this year's vacation was Jeffrey's first time in the islands, so it gave us an excuse to revisit the place. Normally, a Shepherd vacation consists primarily of eating breakfast, sitting on teh beach, going in for lunch, sitting on the beach, going out to dinner, going to bed. But we decided to be a bit more active in deference to those who might not be inclined towards such a sedentary vacation.
Aruba is unique among other Caribbean islands in that it is not lush and green as one would think a tropical island should be. It's mostly desert on the interior. The southern beaches, where most of the hotels are located, are as nice as you could hope a beach to be, with white, cool sand and blue, blue water. But the north is rocky and wild, with dramatic surf next to dry land with little vegetation, save cactus and the emblamatic divi tree. But it's still beautiful. I particularly appreciate the goats, wild donkeys, parrots and myriad lizards that populate the area.
The lizards in particular are rarely shy, and range in size from tiny geckos to large, friendly iguanas who like to sun themselves next to your chaise by the pool. This particular vacation, we adopted a family of small, dysfunctional green lizards -- or rather, they adopted us. One night we found a lizard with a truncated tail lying in the flower bed looking rather poorly. We actually thought he was dead at first. He was gasping for air and flailing around a little, so we put him in a box and gave him some water and lettuce and put him on the patio for the night. In the morning he was much better, keen to get out of the box and even followed Mom inside to the kitchen when we weren't looking. It was clear, however, that even in normal health, this lizard was, how you say, "special." He was a lot more slow and clumsy than most others, but seemed happy enough. On our final day, he returned with two other green lizards -- one of whom had a tail tied in a knot and the other who walked as though he had sustained some long-ago back injury, though he seemed to not mind it. A happy family of disabled lizards indeed.
Besides befriending wildlife, we also went snorkeling out by a WWII-era shipwreck and a coral reef where saw many a fish and a few squid. I hadn't ever been snorkeling, and to have your first try be in 50 feet of water over a gnarly shipwreck is quite something. The first few minutes are fairly odd, as you have to convince yourself to put your face in the water and breathe through your mouth, which is, of course, inherently against your better nature. But once you get the hang of it, it's very nice to float about with the fish. I'd highly recommend it.
Robyn
Aruba is unique among other Caribbean islands in that it is not lush and green as one would think a tropical island should be. It's mostly desert on the interior. The southern beaches, where most of the hotels are located, are as nice as you could hope a beach to be, with white, cool sand and blue, blue water. But the north is rocky and wild, with dramatic surf next to dry land with little vegetation, save cactus and the emblamatic divi tree. But it's still beautiful. I particularly appreciate the goats, wild donkeys, parrots and myriad lizards that populate the area.
The lizards in particular are rarely shy, and range in size from tiny geckos to large, friendly iguanas who like to sun themselves next to your chaise by the pool. This particular vacation, we adopted a family of small, dysfunctional green lizards -- or rather, they adopted us. One night we found a lizard with a truncated tail lying in the flower bed looking rather poorly. We actually thought he was dead at first. He was gasping for air and flailing around a little, so we put him in a box and gave him some water and lettuce and put him on the patio for the night. In the morning he was much better, keen to get out of the box and even followed Mom inside to the kitchen when we weren't looking. It was clear, however, that even in normal health, this lizard was, how you say, "special." He was a lot more slow and clumsy than most others, but seemed happy enough. On our final day, he returned with two other green lizards -- one of whom had a tail tied in a knot and the other who walked as though he had sustained some long-ago back injury, though he seemed to not mind it. A happy family of disabled lizards indeed.
Besides befriending wildlife, we also went snorkeling out by a WWII-era shipwreck and a coral reef where saw many a fish and a few squid. I hadn't ever been snorkeling, and to have your first try be in 50 feet of water over a gnarly shipwreck is quite something. The first few minutes are fairly odd, as you have to convince yourself to put your face in the water and breathe through your mouth, which is, of course, inherently against your better nature. But once you get the hang of it, it's very nice to float about with the fish. I'd highly recommend it.
Robyn
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