This is sick

So, here's the deal. I've got an odd pain behind my knee and, being a cautious patient, I investigated this online and I discovered that it could be related to deep vein thrombosis. I went to the doctor and the doctor said - okay, I just had to type it that way because it sounded chirpy and like a nursery rhyme - I called the doctor's office, and was told that I couldn't make an appointment until next week because she's booked. She's booked for today, and she can only take me next Monday. So that means if I'm sick today, I have to hang on to that thought until next week when she is available. American Health Care sucks. I may have to wait a while to see a doctor in Sri Lanka, but I can see the doctor of my choice any day I want.

A Disobedient Girl

My debut novel, A Disobedient Girl, comes out in July, 2009

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Published on Wednesday, May 10, 2006 by CommonDreams.org

Ahmadinejad v. Bush : The Village Druid v. The Zygote

by Ru Freeman

On January 20th, 1977, for the first time in history, a newly inaugurated president got out of his limousine and walked to the White House. In 2001, a president appointed by the Supreme Court, speeded his limousine as it was pelted with garbage by American citizens. That is not the only dissimilarity between former President Jimmy Carter and Mr. Bush. Carter spoke the bottom-line of Christianity before it became fashionable to pose for pictures on your knees in a church. That bottom line allowed him to give a commencement speech at Notre Dame, just months after his inauguration, that stated that he expressly rejected America’s “inordinate fear of communism” and publicly committed himself to supporting the more important matter of human rights. Later that same year, he took the oil industry to task for executing “the biggest rip-off in history.” Later in Carter’s presidency, he faced and successfully negotiated the Iran hostage situation. Religion and oil are once more front and center in America, as it was nearly thirty years ago. And, once more, Iran is at the forefront of a new crisis for Americans, particularly American soldiers and their families. Then, ostensibly because Carter allowed the Shah to enter the United States for medical treatment, 66 Americans were held hostage for 444 days before he was able to secure their release. Today, every single American and all American interests wherever they are, have been threatened by Iran in response to the Bush administration’s aggression towards that country. I’m not speaking of the nuclear debate. I’m speaking of the amassing of forces along the borders of Iran, and of the conduct of covert operations against that country, both of which have been going on long before this latest Justification For War was put into public-motion. Sadly, Mr. Bush does not have the capability to release a single American from the vice of that threat. Ever. America is sinking once more down the slippery slope that took the nation to Iraq, took Iraq away from the Iraqi people and delivered it to the Taliban. This time we’re off to plunder Iran. Two days ago, President Ahmadinejad of Iran sent Mr. Bush an eighteen-page letter, breaking 27 years of official silence between the two countries. There was, reportedly, a sense of euphoria in the streets of Tehran, as Iranians contemplated the possibility of civil discourse. Unfortunately for them, they didn’t know that Mr. Bush is illiterate. There was no Carter to take note of this gesture, not even a Clintonesque Rhodes Scholar to be able to respond in kind. All America had was “Condi” to summarily dismiss the letter, its intent, its writer, its nation of origin, the very culture that created it, and, perhaps most disturbingly, the philosophical debate laid bare within it. The history of Iran began c.4000 BC. The Caucasian history of the United States began about 250 years ago. Conversation between Iran and America is like a discussion between a wizened village druid and a zygote in utero. Still, since both have to inhabit the same universe, conversation is what the Iranians were hoping for. After all, someone has to teach the zygote not only how to mature until it can join the world but how to survive within it, and much of survival depends upon the ability to communicate effectively and peacefully with other human beings. The cultural impasse between America and the Arab, and indeed much of the non-European world, has always been wide, and sadly, in the absence of a credible translator, it is growing. An Arab or Asian leader, in the event of receiving an epistle of eloquence and erudition such as this one was, would, far from dismissing it, rise to the challenge of bringing their own intellect to the negotiating table. Leaders, after all, are supposed to engage in the type of esoteric discussions that the nations they represent have elected them to manage. Non-western cultures are noted for their reliance on symbolic gestures, for subtlety in discourse. There is a story I recall from my undergraduate days in Washington DC. A young Middle Eastern student, freshly in the United States, got involved in an argument at a club. Before the situation deteriorated, this student removed his watch and asked his American friends to hold it for him, because he was not going to have it broken in a fistfight. His friends did just that: they held onto his watch as the argument escalated and he ended up on the street with serious bruises. He could not understand what had happened. “I gave them my watch,” he said, later, “they were supposed to stop me from having to go and fight with those people!” It’s a familiar tale. In most non-Western villages and street corners around the world, people get to a point in an argument where they utter some variation of the following: “You better hold onto me because otherwise I’m going to beat the crap out of X,Y or Z.” At this point, each person’s friends step up, literally hold onto the person, and “prevent” the fight by negotiation an amicable settlement. No war. Defending ones honor, saving face, avoiding bloodshed. All entirely doable. Yes, simultaneously doable. But there has to be a consensual agreement that these are the rules of engagement. That there must be dignity left intact for both parties. That both parties meet as equals, leave as equals. They both get to rattle their sabers and display their might but may withdraw without seeming to. Braggadocio is for the stage. Diplomacy is conducted at the quiet ethnic restaurant down the street from the theater, over a nice dinner, good wine and great conversation. When the Iraqi people said “we will fight unto death,” they were hoping to be spared that grim burden. Unfortunately, they were dealing with Americans who said “bring it on,” and meant it. When Americans said “bring it on,” they thought they were at the half-time show of the Superbowl. Unfortunately, when the Iraqi’s said “we will fight unto death,” they were prepared to keep their word. Carter was condemned at home as being tolerant of dictators. How could he spend New Year’s Eve with the Shah, and toast him as leading “an island of stability” in a troubled region? How could a Christian man kiss the atheist Russian Brezhnev? The kind, I suppose, that could restore Jean-Bertrand Aristide to power in Haiti, and negotiate the Camp David Accord between Egypt and Israel. What kind of madman sends his wife, and later his mother, to the funeral of a Pope? The kind who understood that gestures speak louder than words, that sending ones wife or mother, is a statement of respect far greater than quibbling over which ex-Presidents get to attend and showing up there with an entourage of uninvited politicians in tow such as happened at the funeral of the last pontiff. Yes, Carter was a President who understood the culture of other nations. A president who once said, “The same rocket technology that delivers nuclear warheads has also taken us peacefully into space. From that perspective, we see our Earth as it really is -- a small and fragile and beautiful blue globe, the only home we have. We see no barriers of race or religion or country. We see the essential unity of our species and our planet; and with faith and common sense, that bright vision will ultimately prevail.” If only common sense was not so uncommon. Now we have Iran. Now we have this missive from the Iranian President. I am praying that the zygote has learned something. Ruani (Ru) Seneviratne Freeman is a writer, dancer, activist and the Director of the Sahana Project.

	Published on Monday, June 26, 2006 by CommonDreams.org Censorship – The American Version by Ru Freeman I am an activist with a predilection for supporting progressive causes the world over. From tortured prisoners to under-funded public schools, I’m prepared to walk the walk. So it was with great interest that I read the report released by the Committee to Protect Journalists in The Nation (Sri Lanka) last week. The report, ‘Ten Most Censored Countries,’ did a roll call of serious offenses being perpetrated in North Korea, Burma, Turkmenistan, Equatorial Guinea, Libya, Eritrea, Cuba, Uzbekistan, Syria, and Belarus. Oddly enough, for someone like me who lives in America, the United States was not listed. Of course, CPJ – an organization whose mission I support – would argue that they were talking about censorship of the press. Well, in my book, censorship takes many forms. After all, what the press covers is driven very often by what is happening. And if only certain events are allowed to happen, and only certain news is approved for printing, if “balance” means that the truth must be watered down by equal space afforded the lies, then my friends we are living in a country where censorship is rife and growing. Some might argue that we live in the land of the free, but those voices are getting increasingly less certain. The Fourth of July parades are almost upon us and what is uppermost on my mind is which floats will be banned from the parade this time around. Last year it was a peace float organized by a unionist and community activist friend of mine. The parade organizers said he was “being disrespectful of our troops.” Our Troops is a catch-all phrase to mean Anything Done By Mr. Bush. Anytime he is in hot water, and the man has been in so much hot water that he should be squeaky clean or at least wrinkled like a prune by now, Our Troops are held up as a mortal shield. He doesn’t attend any of their funerals, and he ignores the fact that many military families throw his canned condolences in the trash, but by God Mr. Bush loves Our Troops. We are a land full of patriots, and our patriotism is nothing more than a red white and blue flag. We don’t know any history, we couldn’t care about how we got Here from There or where we might be headed, but we are proud of It. Whatever It is. These days, if we aren’t proud of It, we are liable to be shipped to Guantanamo and held without charges and without access to legal representation. If someone were to get wind of our incarceration, we can be shipped to other illegal detention centers sprinkled throughout Europe where we may be subjected to torture. Not much freedom there, and lots and lots of the ‘c’ word. The very term, patriot, has become such valued currency that the Bushites came up with the USA-PATRIOT Act. When it is bandied about, it is spoken of as the Patriot-Act. 99.9% of Americans don’t know what that means. They think it means being a patriot, so they support it. What it stands for is: Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorists. Yes, someone worked very very hard to come up with that acronym. Here’s just one sample of what that Act permits: Section 215 modifies the rules on records searches so that third-party holders of our financial, library, travel, video rental, phone, medical, church, synagogue, and mosque records can be searched without our knowledge or consent, so long as the government says it’s trying to protect against terrorism. When we watch our behavior because we don’t know who might be watching, and I’m not talking about God, that too is censorship. The CPJ faults these ten countries for a litany of wrongs. And yes, they are wrongs. But let’s compare and contrast. In Belarus, says CPJ, “broadcast and print outlets are owned by the government.” In the United States, broadcast and print outlets are owned by a handful of media moguls who have been lobbying to dismantle guards against media monopolies, most recently through the machinations of Colin Powell’s son, Michael Powell, who was Chairman of the Federal Communications Commission. In Belarus, “nominally independent radio and television stations avoid politically sensitive subjects.” In the United States, the Bush administration has worked tirelessly to cut public radio and TV programming, attacking National Public Radio and Public Television at the heart of those organizations by placing conservative right-wingers to oversee them. The Bush administration prevented CBS from showing an anti-Bush ad by MoveOn, a grassroots internet-based political organization, at the SuperBowl on the grounds that it was a political ad, but managed to have a pro-Bush ad shown during that same segment. This is censorship. It is true that in the United States we have privately funded alternative media that covers the stories that the mainstream press does not. Mother Jones, Common Dreams, Move On and so forth, all do a good job of keeping us already politically active people informed of what is happening on the frontlines. But we are the choir. We don’t need the sermon. The people who most need alternative information are kept from it first through Republican control of major mainstream news sources, second through reframing journalism as being a responsibility to display allegiance to Our Troops (i.e. the administration) in A Time Of War, and finally through under funding public schools so that generation after generation grows up believing that patriotism has everything to do with red white and blue napkins, butt-patches and condoms, and nothing to do with civic engagement or voting. This too is censorship. In the United States, we are afraid to criticize the government, and with good cause. The government has been collecting records of private citizens who have participated in peace rallies. Local police have been sent to locations, including right here in Portland, Maine, to photograph such gatherings. If we have no freedom of association, then we have no freedom of speech. If we have no freedom of speech, what can the press write about? Oh, yes, Michael Jackson’s face cream and Brad Pitt’s new girlfriend. I’d say we are being censored. Our latest scandal? The National Security Agency (NSA), has, under the orders of Mr. Bush, eavesdropped on the domestic and international phone calls of American citizens without warrants and against the law. Furthermore, the three biggest phone companies in this country, AT&T, MCI and BellSouth, willingly gave up the private records of their customers to the government. (Only Qwest, the smallest of the four companies approached by the government, stood its ground – maybe because it was small and small is beautiful). According to officials, it is the largest database ever assembled. Most frightening of all? The New York Times, that bastion of independence, held on to that report for a year, a year! under the orders of this administration before it printed it a few weeks ago. This is censorship. On May 30th, the Supreme Court of the United States, an office much maligned over its circumnavigation of the electoral process and the appointment of a president in 2001, and subsequently crippled by partisan appointments to the bench of a justice and a chief justice whose racism, xenophobia, homophobia, sexism, religious fundamentalism, commitment to the torture of prisoners in full-flout of international law, support of unwarranted domestic spying on citizens, and advocacy of executive privilege (translation=if George Bush wants to do it, then it doesn’t matter what the law says), were well documented, dealt another blow to the rights of the American people. It ruled to dismantle the constitutional protections afforded by the First Amendment right to freedom of speech to those whistle-blowers who are public employees and who expose corruption and injustices discovered during the course of their official duties. The government of course came out in force to endorse the ruling. Why wouldn’t they? After all, the benefits go to an administration whose reign has been marked by a scandal-of-the-month on a scale so large that at last people are ashamed to mention that little business of a smeared blue dress worn by a gal named Monica Lewinsky. Oh for the bliss of a presidential peccadillo from those good old days! As Steven Shapiro of the American Civil Liberties Union put it, “…it is fair to say, in an era of excessive government secrecy, this makes government cover-ups easier by discouraging whistle-blowers." No kidding. I suggest that the CPJ does its next report right here at home. They could talk to me, but it would be just as easy for them to ask the NSA for my file. Ru Freeman is a writer, activist, and dancer adn director of the Sahana Project. This article first appeared in The Nation, Sri Lanka.

	Published on Tuesday, March 7, 2006 by CommonDreams.org Yes, It Just Got Easier For the Pimp by Ru Freeman Oscar night in America is many things to many people. To see and be seen, to be seen “in” (Versace, Prada, John Galliano, Vera Wang etc.), even, sometimes, just to be (Robert Altman with his borrowed heart comes to mind). Among the things we expect from the Oscars is humor – amply provided by comedian Jon Stewart, a progressive-bias – ditto, and, of course, the glitterati. Perhaps the oddest moment came when the charming George Clooney (he took on the direction of Good Night & Good Luck, the story of the legendary TV journalist Edward Murrow and his battle with Joe McCarthy over his exploitation of America’s post-war paranoia, a responsibility that is clearly ongoing), claimed some fame for Hollywood by saying that the African American Hattie McDaniel (Gone With The Wind), was nominated for an Oscar when “Blacks were still sitting at the back of the bus” way back in 1939. Interesting tidbit, given that her male counterpart in the form of Louis Gossett Jr., had to wait till 1982 to win in the same category, that it took Hollywood nearly half a century to recognize Quincy Jones for The Color Purple, and sixty two years before it awarded the Best Actress in a Leading Role Oscar to Halle Berry in 2001 for her performance in Monster’s Ball. If Hollywood was leading the troops, Mr. Clooney, it’s in need of some regime change. Yet, clearly the Academy and all its many supporters felt that this was a year of acknowledging a few home truths. The nominees as well as the movies that walked away with the best of the best all dealt with moral subjects: prejudice, global tyranny, integrity in broadcast journalism and other such toothsome fare. Rachel Weisz (pronounced Vice), won for best supporting actress for her portrayal of an activist in Kenya persecuted by a pharmaceutical company in The Constant Gardener, Clooney carried away his Supporting-Role Oscar for playing a jaded-CIA patriot unhappy with American policy in the Middle East in Syriana, and the Best Picture award went to Crash, the fast-paced sleeper that took America’s “melting pot” theory and lit a fire underneath its posterior. So I thought the Academy was suffering from brain flatulence when it picked the song written and performed by members of Three 6 Mafia, ‘It’s Hard Out Here For A Pimp,’ from the movie Hustle & Flow, as not merely an Oscar contender, but a winner. If this was web-talk, I’d say, WTF? But since it’s not, I have to say, what the heck? Now Hustle & Flow is the story of a pimp aspiring to be a rap star, a legitimate tale in its own right about poverty and the dream that keeps each one of us waking up, even the pimp. Yeah, clearly a man’s gotta do what a man’s gotta do, it often involves screwing some woman over, and, we are asked to believe, there ain’t nothin’ out there for DJay (Terence Howard in an Oscar-nomination worthy performance swift in the tracks of an equally stunning turn in Crash) but pimping. For telling it like it is, we have to hand it to the producers of Hustle & Flow. But did the Academy seriously want to give a leg up to a song that trashes women (sorry, ‘hoes’ and ‘bitches’), turns the pimp into the victim because, poor guy, he wants “some thangs” that go beyond the rent? Women turning to prostitution is not new. Men exploiting women in that field is not new. But it sure as hell is new when a whole country is empathizing with the DJays of the world and jiving to: “You know it's hard out here for a pimp When he tryin to get this money for the rent For the Cadillacs and gas money spent Because a whole lot of bitches talkin shit Will have a whole lot of bitches talkin shit” But maybe it isn’t that odd that Three 6 Mafia “love the Academy, you know what I’m saying?” You see, we’re all interested in a million-dollar-designer-gown kinda way in that crazy stuff DJay and his friends see on the streets: people killed, people dealt, poverty with no meals, ducking bullets, “the blood sweat and tears when it comes down to this shit.” The Academy just gave you a whole Oscar to hang your dirty linen out in public in poor grammar, worse spelling and really foul language. To quote Three 6 Mafia, “Thank you Jesus.” And, after all, America is at home with pimping. America starts the wars that need the weapons, sells the weapons that fight the wars, it bottles the water that used to run free in the river behind your house, then sells it back to you for a profit, it withholds medication from the people who need it, while concocting illnesses that don’t exist, then sells you the fix…America can even package and sell you back your own problems on national TV (think Wife Swap and The Nanny). Yeah, America is cozy with the pimping-scene. America is killing you softly with her song, turning the dials in the big recording studio called The Planet, and it is not low-grade rappers but entire nations that are out there in the sound-proof cubicles, gasping for breath. I think of the lost history of Iraq, of Bagram, a detention site in Afghanistan that is worse than Guantanamo, of shredded international agreements on environmental protections, nuclear non-proliferation, disarmament and the scourge of small arms all of which are blowing in the wind, of the abandonment in Rwanda then and the neglect of Darfur now, the embracing of Israel and the funding to Fatah and the denouncement of Hamas and even the small and large efforts by American diplomatic missions all over the world to tell lies, lies, and nothing but lies, while the country itself unravels in slow motion between obesity and schools that are veritable orphanages, and I see why Three 6 Mafia stole the show. After all, Americans have forgotten how to sing ‘America The Beautiful.’ We’ve got ourselves a whole new anthem: "Wait I got a snow bunny, and a black girl too You pay the right price and they'll both do you That's the way the game goes, gotta keep it strictly pimpin Gotta have my hustle tight, makin change off these women, yeah." Ru Freeman is a writer, dancer and activist. She is also Director of the Sahana Project.