Forgive me, Danny Umer...#9
you are right...the Iraqi children do deserve more, as do their mothers, and many many more Iraqis, as well as our own soldiers who`ve been affected by it. And thank you for apologizing, because Bush and Blair won`t.

may Daniel Pearl`s memory be eternal.

--ana

Who Wants Peace, BAYBEH? Farzana,
wow...time doesn`t permit me right now to write what I wish to..am about to be kicked off this computer...but i find this very moving...will write more when am not too hurried.
love you,
ana

Tunnel Vision harimau...
there are those rare times when I actually like and agree with what you say...having said that, it`s Farzana, F-A-R-Z-A-N-A. Not Farts Anna. come on guy...if you`re going to muck up names here, then why don`t you muck up the rest of our names while you`re at it?
signed
anasucksabanana

Frost Bite tidbitoo....
what is this editorializing with `profoundly sad attempt at fiction`, yaar, tumhe kya kehne ke zaroorat thi? ye hum khud keh sakte thay!!!! ;-)
liked the imagery, and the `taboo` aspect of it. Please do keep writing profoundly sad attempts!!!!!
love,
ana :-)

Am no God DRUMZy...
now beeehaaave!

One Day in The Life of a (legal) Alien Zia...i probably should have added an adjective before experience! I`ve been to the INS a couple of times...not for the same reason you had to go, but boring as it may have been...it`s also damn annoying, and quite a few of the INS counter wallahs know nothing or don`t care to know anything about how to treat people. :-) Such is bureaucracy though.

Bollywood in the Panic Room harimau...
i think the movie you`re referring to is pestonjee...it was a good film without all the gaana bajaana and the `exotic` locales!

Dear Dana sobia...
a nice tribute to your professor. It`s really lovely to have had a mentor like her, and a friend. We don`t always get to say things like this to people we`ve admired, loved and cared for until it is too late (or we don`t think about saying them).
Couldn`t help thinking about my nana who also passed away on the same date...different year...don`t think I ever told him how much I loved and respected him. Hopefully he knew. Perhaps Dana knew how you felt too. :-)
regards,
ana

Am no God t. baba,
kyoon jhoot bolte haiN aap????!!!! No! wait! God doesn`t lie, so aap ne durust farmaya. :-)
`tis good...and humbling...
bspnd.
ana

One Day in The Life of a (legal) Alien arjun...
hello???? i didn`t say indians were in the same boat...my whole point was that gloating and triumphalism such as you and your friend indian do really don`t behoove you..but you don`t give a rat`s ass anyway so what`s the point. just keep on making your idiotic blanket statements about `us Pakis` ....since that is all your participation on chowk really pathetically consists of anyway. And next time you refer to me in `you Pakis`...kindly take note of the fact that i`m against what is happening in Kashmir, i refuse to be sucked into the abyss Pakistan has flung itself into, and I`m not a big fan of the RSS and BJP with their church burnings and violence against minorities either. So next time you address a post to me...either leave me and my like-minded friends here out of `you Pakis` or better yet...don`t address a post to me. Thank you!

One Day in The Life of a (legal) Alien {we are respected, but you are suspected}

---why don`t you tell that to the Sikh family in Arizona who lost a loved one, or Sikhs around the U.S. who have suffered because of the inability or ignorance of certain people in terms of ethnicity. Your triumphalism makes you just as much an ignoramus as some of these folks who supposedly respect you.

Eye Opening Facts: Steel Sector PaagalInsaan:
kyoon kismet ko tempt karte ho???!!!

Islam in Crisis (Part2) harimau #38
last night i watched a 45-minute film called `Gujarat--A Laboratory of the Hindu Rastra.`` It was quite revealing in terms of the BJP, the Hindu priests that defended the carnage in Gujarat, and what their vision for India in the not-so-distant future is.
perhaps no one in India will give a ## about this either, and unfortunately, due to its content, a whole lot of people won`t be able to see it. The filmmaker is on tour right now in the US.

One Day in The Life of a (legal) Alien apologies! i thought this was somewhat relevant.
-------------------
Patriot Act Sequel Worse Than Original
by Rajeev Goyle

JUST WHEN we thought the Bush administration`s assault on our constitutional protections had begun to subside comes news that Attorney General John Ashcroft is prepared to go even further.

The Justice Department over the last several months has prepared draft legislation - the USA Patriot Act II - that expands the war on terrorism in dangerous ways. It enlarges many of the controversial provisions in the first USA Patriot Act, which passed Congress in the shocking days after Sept. 11.

Overnight, that bill weakened constitutional safeguards that took us decades to build. This bill, if enacted in its present form, would do even worse damage. By giving itself unprecedented power to wiretap citizens, detain people in secret, revoke citizenship and disseminate citizens` confidential information, the administration has trained its sights not only on terrorists but on the very freedom it purports to uphold.

After all, it was President Bush who famously admonished us that we should not let the terrorists win by changing our open, free society and that we should live normally, go on about our business, travel and spend money. Many of us heeded his advice, albeit somewhat anxiously.

But the administration did not respond in kind. Instead of upholding America`s great tradition of respecting the rule of law, it has decided that no power is too great. Consider some of what is in Patriot II:


Wiretapping individuals for 15 days, without consulting a judge, if the government declares a national emergency.

Sampling and cataloguing genetic information without court order and without consent.

Permitting and encouraging the dissemination of confidential, sensitive information about citizens` credit cards and educational records among federal, state and local law enforcement officials.

Encouraging people to spy on one another by giving businesses blanket immunity to phone in false terrorism tips, even if done with reckless disregard for the truth.

Prohibiting the release of information about people the government has detained, even if they have not been charged with a crime, by creating loopholes in the Freedom of Information Act.

Stripping Americans of their citizenship if they associate with an organization that the Justice Department unilaterally determines to be related to terrorism.
And this is just a sampling.

The problem with the administration`s approach is not its vigor - people from all racial, political and religious groups want to bring terrorists swiftly to justice - but its overreach and its vast potential for abuse. Preventing abuse is the reason we have constitutional checks and balances in the first place.

All al-Qaida members caught in the United States should be investigated and dealt with. But what about the innocent people who, because of law enforcement`s mistakes, incompetence or prejudice, end up as ``suspected`` terrorists? Once suspected of terrorism, constitutional protections evaporate, leaving people in fear and subject to harm.

Hundreds of people with no connection to terrorism have been detained and deported in secret since 9/11 without access to counsel. Too many innocents are being caught in the web.

It was not so long ago that this nation went down a very slippery slope. Hindsight makes the shameful internment of Japanese-Americans during World War II and the FBI`s ruthless prosecution of civil rights leaders in the 1960s and 1970s universally condemned. We must be mindful of those lessons today.

Thankfully, these concerns are not limited to one side of the political spectrum. Bipartisan majorities have emerged that are deeply skeptical of the Justice Department`s power grab during this period of national anxiety.

Some of the loudest voices denouncing the administration have been powerful Republicans, including columnist William Safire and former conservative congressmen Dick Armey of Texas and Bob Barr of Georgia. And Democratic Rep. Jerrold Nadler of New York termed Patriot II ``little more than the institution of a police state.``

President Bush and Mr. Ashcroft have not formally introduced Patriot II to Congress and the public. But as they deliberate, perhaps they should heed their own advice. Don`t let the terrorists win. Keep America safe and free. We like America, and the Constitution, just the way it is.

Ramblings On the Fence Here`s a poem that reflects on the `diasporic condition`

A Better Life
~~Diane Mehta

Driving on midsummer`s deserted roadways
past the forts and empires, temple idols
praised like liberty, the abandoned tires
in your expression

How the evenings spread like a rooftop fire
in the heat of winter; Diwali sparklers
making citizens in the sky, your gilded
gardens with fences.

Countries have no sympathy; only praises
amplified like distances for the newer
land: the housing gauntlets we had to enter,
stripped but with freedom!

Standards change like faith in a foreign country:
how the slurs ignited like gas; remember
when he lit the match, then the flame was dancing,
swaying like cobras

Don`t you miss the rains in July, your mother`s
hair in wet braids, sandalwood-scented, spices
shaped like cones on plates and the servants laughing,
chewing on peppers?

Did you pledge allegiance to lawns and fences,
better lives for us; the best western education?
Neighbors take the place of extended families,
freedom expires

like your father dying in Bombay, hardly
sixty when he leaned into whiteness. Packaged
smoke unfurled and pulled him with yellow fingers
past all the rooftops.

Now you drive on highways to work and homeward.
Winter cuts the windshield with blistered fingers,
feeds you flashes: corn in the husk on street-grills,
red with paprika.

One Day in The Life of a (legal) Alien Zia...thank you for this. What an experience!

{Feel much safer knowing all the scary people are on record now.}

-ah, the irony of it all.