Masturbation: The Eyes Have It
Dr. Lester CN Simon
Saturday July 12 2003 (The Antigua Sun newspaper, with addition)
I write to add another perspective to the article in Sun Weekend of 5 July called, "Can Masturbation Cause Blindness'. I do concur with the opinions of the two local doctors, Drs. Christian and Charles that masturbation does not cause blindness. However, I wish to note that there may in fact be a connection between masturbation and vision.
During sexual stimulation, a substance called nitric oxide is released. The release of nitric oxide leads to an increase in another substance called cGMP. The role of cGMP is to effect an increase in the inflow of blood into the penis. An erection requires increase in the inflow of blood into the penis.
Unfortunately or fortunately (depending on your wishes,) cGMP does not last forever. It is degraded by an enzyme called PDE5. If there is too much PDE5, there will be marked degradation of cGMP, less inflow of blood, and loss of the erection. Alternatively, if there is less PDE5, there will be little degradation of cGMP, more inflow of blood, and maintenance of erection.
The drug Viagra helps to promote and maintain an erection by inhibiting PDE5. PDE5 belongs to a group of substances called PDEs, which include PDE3 and PDE6 among others. PDE5 is found in the penis. PDE3 is found in the heart. PDE6 is found guess where?) in the eyes.
In manufacturing Viagra, it was important to find a drug that was highly selective for PDE5 compared to other PDEs. This selectivity was achieved to a great extent but it was not absolute and complete. Viagra has approximately a 4,000-fold selectivity for PDE5 versus PDE3. This is important because PDE3 is involved in the control of contraction of the heart. Why gain an erection via less PDE5 and lose control of the contraction of your heart via less PDE3?
Viagra is only about 10-fold as potent for PDE5 compared to PDE6, which is found in the eyes. This lower selectivity of Viagra for PDE6 (eyes) compared to PDE5 (penis) is thought to be the basis for abnormalities related to colour vision observed with higher doses of Viagra. Indeed, there may be temporary difficulty discriminating blue and green colours at certain doses of Viagra. However, evaluation of visual function at doses up to twice the maximum recommended dose revealed no effects of Viagra on visual acuity, pressure in the eyes, or the reaction of the pupils of the eyes.
Nonetheless, there is a link between an erection and the eyes. Different members of the same family of substances, PDE5 and the PDCE6 are found in the penis and the eyes respectively. Masturbation may not cause blindness, but there is a biochemical connection between the penis and the eyes.
In regards to the temporary difficulty discriminating blue and green colours, any confusion over the colour of the dress of one girlfriend over that of another will only be temporary. You can always blame it on the blue pill…..or is it the green one?
Tuesday, November 6, 2007
Friday, November 2, 2007
Stolen Moments
HOW TO STOP A THIEF
Dr. Lester CN Simon
There are at least two reasons for feeling cheated when something (or someone) is stolen from you. There is the value of the stolen item and there is the fact that some lesser idiot outsmarted a greater idiot. And these two reasons are not necessarily in that order of importance.
I can vividly remember the first time I was involved in a theft. Actually, I did not see it as a theft at all at the time. My very big (huge in fact), older and more powerful cousin, who was known to beat up people and strangle poor, little, innocent animals for less than nothing, had commanded poor, little me to take two shillings and six pence from our grandmother’s money pan.
He was set on using the money to gamble and he swore he would bring it back with a little something extra for me. He was so persuasive and I was so tearfully fearful, I totally ignored the fact that all the money in the pan at the time of his commandment, amounted to exactly two shillings and six pence.
On the bad Friday of my crucifixion, as the effects of licks from the packing of a tyre ascended from my bottom to my head and I sought refuge at the rear of the normally, humanly impassable, old stonewalled oven, then used as a fowl coop, I discovered that successful stealing was very hard work. It demanded so much patience, discipline and attention to detail, its requirements were similar to the qualities that were later written in my report card as head boy of the Antigua Grammar school.
Should I believe that really good thieves are born and not made? How else can you explain that infamous New Winthorps village thief who used to waltz into Miss Williams shop with an empty West Indian Biscuit Company (WIBISCO) tin and, without passing over a red cent or a blue penny, danced back out with a full one?
He was so good, he would provoke an argument outside the shop and swore that he would cut up somebody in fine slivers like WIBISCO biscuit and stuffed them in the empty (now full) biscuit tin, which he would sit on and pretend to kick about as if it was the same empty tin he had deliberately sat on and kicked about beforehand.
Another expert village thief was the shop hand who contrived a chronic cough to mask the popping sound of the opening of a bottle of soda pop. He was so successful, he was taken repeatedly to Dr. Wizenger, who thought he had discovered an unusual case of tuberculosis. The fact that tuberculosis was called consumption, did not alert the good doctor, who practiced just to the west of The Antigua Girls High School, that the poor feller was not consumed by tuberculosis but rather, the rascal was consuming the shop’s soda pop.
So how do you catch these thieves? You have to figure them out like a detective, especially if the police have their hands full. I recall the time when I was studying for a very important, final exam at university and someone stole my bicycle and then my clothes from the clothes line. There was no point in studying for a final undergraduate, pathology exam if the simple matter of a theft could not be deduced. Elementary, my dear Watson.
Careful, macroscopic examination revealed that the only remaining item on the clothes line was a tam or woolly hat. Obviously the thief, or thieves, was amongst the dreadlocks living up the hill nearby, who had more tams than Tam o’ Shanter in the poem by Robert Burns. But my dear Watson, it is one thing to deduce correctly, it is quite another matter entirely to go marching into Zion or enemy territory chanting, “Calling all dreads and dreadlings!”….Whatever a dreadling was.
Maybe the correct approach is to become a thief yourself; but only to steal from yourself; a sort of Robin Falsehood. After all, if you become renown as the thief who breaks into his own place, calls the police, lies on himself in court so that he ends up in jail, breaks out of jail with greased lightening speed (okay, ignore the grease), only to break into his own place again and again, who on earth would want to mess with you?
But all of this is for the petty, analog thieves. How do you plan to deal with the brazen, white collar, electronic, digital scamps who would steal your identity from under your very nose? And then have the nerve to ask you who do you think you are; telling you to identify yourself? They must be thinking that if you cannot smell a rat right under your nose, you certainly will not miss the cheese.
My response to the need for a solution to these modern-day, white collar, digital crimes, criminals and scamps, is that I am working on a sophisticated but user-friendly, digital plan. Suffice to say, that somewhere in the plan is an electronic, digital “bull-bud” (this time, really greased lightening fast), a.k.a. bull-pistle, a.k.a. a tough, long whip made from the penis of a bull (Dictionary of Caribbean English Usage). When the swanky, scampish, scalawags log on to my belongings the next time, my WWW dot com, becomes ”Whips, Whops, Whoops, that done”.
Dr. Lester CN Simon
There are at least two reasons for feeling cheated when something (or someone) is stolen from you. There is the value of the stolen item and there is the fact that some lesser idiot outsmarted a greater idiot. And these two reasons are not necessarily in that order of importance.
I can vividly remember the first time I was involved in a theft. Actually, I did not see it as a theft at all at the time. My very big (huge in fact), older and more powerful cousin, who was known to beat up people and strangle poor, little, innocent animals for less than nothing, had commanded poor, little me to take two shillings and six pence from our grandmother’s money pan.
He was set on using the money to gamble and he swore he would bring it back with a little something extra for me. He was so persuasive and I was so tearfully fearful, I totally ignored the fact that all the money in the pan at the time of his commandment, amounted to exactly two shillings and six pence.
On the bad Friday of my crucifixion, as the effects of licks from the packing of a tyre ascended from my bottom to my head and I sought refuge at the rear of the normally, humanly impassable, old stonewalled oven, then used as a fowl coop, I discovered that successful stealing was very hard work. It demanded so much patience, discipline and attention to detail, its requirements were similar to the qualities that were later written in my report card as head boy of the Antigua Grammar school.
Should I believe that really good thieves are born and not made? How else can you explain that infamous New Winthorps village thief who used to waltz into Miss Williams shop with an empty West Indian Biscuit Company (WIBISCO) tin and, without passing over a red cent or a blue penny, danced back out with a full one?
He was so good, he would provoke an argument outside the shop and swore that he would cut up somebody in fine slivers like WIBISCO biscuit and stuffed them in the empty (now full) biscuit tin, which he would sit on and pretend to kick about as if it was the same empty tin he had deliberately sat on and kicked about beforehand.
Another expert village thief was the shop hand who contrived a chronic cough to mask the popping sound of the opening of a bottle of soda pop. He was so successful, he was taken repeatedly to Dr. Wizenger, who thought he had discovered an unusual case of tuberculosis. The fact that tuberculosis was called consumption, did not alert the good doctor, who practiced just to the west of The Antigua Girls High School, that the poor feller was not consumed by tuberculosis but rather, the rascal was consuming the shop’s soda pop.
So how do you catch these thieves? You have to figure them out like a detective, especially if the police have their hands full. I recall the time when I was studying for a very important, final exam at university and someone stole my bicycle and then my clothes from the clothes line. There was no point in studying for a final undergraduate, pathology exam if the simple matter of a theft could not be deduced. Elementary, my dear Watson.
Careful, macroscopic examination revealed that the only remaining item on the clothes line was a tam or woolly hat. Obviously the thief, or thieves, was amongst the dreadlocks living up the hill nearby, who had more tams than Tam o’ Shanter in the poem by Robert Burns. But my dear Watson, it is one thing to deduce correctly, it is quite another matter entirely to go marching into Zion or enemy territory chanting, “Calling all dreads and dreadlings!”….Whatever a dreadling was.
Maybe the correct approach is to become a thief yourself; but only to steal from yourself; a sort of Robin Falsehood. After all, if you become renown as the thief who breaks into his own place, calls the police, lies on himself in court so that he ends up in jail, breaks out of jail with greased lightening speed (okay, ignore the grease), only to break into his own place again and again, who on earth would want to mess with you?
But all of this is for the petty, analog thieves. How do you plan to deal with the brazen, white collar, electronic, digital scamps who would steal your identity from under your very nose? And then have the nerve to ask you who do you think you are; telling you to identify yourself? They must be thinking that if you cannot smell a rat right under your nose, you certainly will not miss the cheese.
My response to the need for a solution to these modern-day, white collar, digital crimes, criminals and scamps, is that I am working on a sophisticated but user-friendly, digital plan. Suffice to say, that somewhere in the plan is an electronic, digital “bull-bud” (this time, really greased lightening fast), a.k.a. bull-pistle, a.k.a. a tough, long whip made from the penis of a bull (Dictionary of Caribbean English Usage). When the swanky, scampish, scalawags log on to my belongings the next time, my WWW dot com, becomes ”Whips, Whops, Whoops, that done”.
Sunday, October 28, 2007
Independence
THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE
Dr. Lester CN Simon
Once upon a time, we had a history teacher at the Antigua Grammar School who made history; for real. He would waltz into class and rattle off his stories of English kings as if he and Henry, Richard, George, Edward, William and James were drinking buddies and he had gained access to historical facts that were secluded from all the history books in all the libraries in all the world. He did no home work. He did no school work. He did no real work at all. He was such a good storyteller, he became an ambassador; for real.
Teachers are not just highly valuable, they are highly vulnerable. They stand before a class of ingrates and are expected to mold fine sculptures out of lumps of clay. All the while they are doing this, the little, snotty wretches observe their every move within and without the classroom. The teacher is the first and last lesson.
It must be that some teachers deliberately teach nonsense just to see if their students are really learning. It cannot be that teachers are so daft to unwittingly teach abject nonsense. What would be the object, the verb or the predicate, the cause or the adverbial clause of such a proposition? Why, I can recall a teacher telling our first form that for that one week only, no one must stand up when he entered the classroom, and that anyone who continued to obey the normal, stand-up rule would be punished. And punished some of us were indeed. What about the response from the recently departed, enigmatic, mathematics teacher, Ottway Davis, when our entire fifth form decided to be rude to him by remaining seated when he entered the classroom one day? Without a filigree of annoyance, he simply and kindly asked us to be seated and got on with the lesson.
Good teachers teach their subjects very well. All of their students love them dearly and many students imagined they were their parents or their future wives or husbands, since, while students get older, good teachers never grow old. The really great teachers are remarkably different from the good ones. The great ones get us to learn the subject just as well but, crucially, they allow us to study the object critically. They, the teachers, are the object. To really learn, the student must become better and greater than the teacher. This is only possible if the faults of the teacher are exposed; if the vulnerabilities of both the teaching-subject and the teacher-object are scrutinized and argued fiercely. This romantic war between student and teacher can lead to temporary estrangement. So be it. The time must come when the former student walks away from the erstwhile master-teacher, puts away childish things and becomes truly independent.
It is in this general context that Antigua and Barbuda must emotionally walk away from excessive adherence to the Father of the Nation to become truly independent. This walking away is not a negation of the father. No; no; no, my dear good Labourites. Au contraire. It is an acknowledgement of the great works of the father because those very great works dictate and mandate the walking away. How else can plants propagate if seeds and spores do not abandon the parent tree and rely on the mercy of the wind of nature to find new fertile ground, confident in the knowledge that their father provided them with the gift of lasting life? Indeed, the father would be stark-raving mad with himself, dejected and unfulfilled if we religiously adhered to him, to the detriment of the springing up of new life.
For valid, historical reasons, we showered virtually all of our affections on the Father of the Nation. Even his nemesis, Tim Hector, praised him highly, at least as much as he criticized him harshly. (And we must do the same to Tim). However, the arithmetic of emotions dictates that if we put all our love and affection into one national personage, we will shortchange the love and affection we have left for the country. Our wars of liberation naturally created heroes; and heroes we must have. But some heroes are so powerful, too powerful; we have to deliberately pull away, or take them in doses, admixing their good, bad and ugly qualities.
Could it be that after he would have done something wrong (he had his faults), the Father of the Nation was appalled at the way we would continue to praise him as if we were docile idiots? He must have felt that we were, at those times, the dumbest, most “foolie” people on earth to genuflect to his occasional rubbish. Where were the harsh counterarguments, the banter, the taunting viragos and the running, verbal battles that he loved so well; on which he had cut his political teeth? He must have wondered, as he wandered lonely as a cloud, over vales and hills, where, oh where was the crowd, the host, of golden Tims?
At 26 years of age, as we get older and wiser and hopefully more independent, we understand that we must cherish dearly all those who went before; all those slaves and all those free men and women, natives and foreigners of every hue and dye, who fought to build this blessed country. The only fitting epitaph to all our national heroes, sung and unsung, especially the greatest of them all, the Father of The Nation, is a declaration of independence to balance the equation of national emotions. Take some emotions away from him and put some of these sterling passions into the nation of Antigua and Barbuda, if only because that is precisely what he did and what he would have wanted us to do, to be like the best and noblest part of him.
Happy Independence.
Dr. Lester CN Simon
Once upon a time, we had a history teacher at the Antigua Grammar School who made history; for real. He would waltz into class and rattle off his stories of English kings as if he and Henry, Richard, George, Edward, William and James were drinking buddies and he had gained access to historical facts that were secluded from all the history books in all the libraries in all the world. He did no home work. He did no school work. He did no real work at all. He was such a good storyteller, he became an ambassador; for real.
Teachers are not just highly valuable, they are highly vulnerable. They stand before a class of ingrates and are expected to mold fine sculptures out of lumps of clay. All the while they are doing this, the little, snotty wretches observe their every move within and without the classroom. The teacher is the first and last lesson.
It must be that some teachers deliberately teach nonsense just to see if their students are really learning. It cannot be that teachers are so daft to unwittingly teach abject nonsense. What would be the object, the verb or the predicate, the cause or the adverbial clause of such a proposition? Why, I can recall a teacher telling our first form that for that one week only, no one must stand up when he entered the classroom, and that anyone who continued to obey the normal, stand-up rule would be punished. And punished some of us were indeed. What about the response from the recently departed, enigmatic, mathematics teacher, Ottway Davis, when our entire fifth form decided to be rude to him by remaining seated when he entered the classroom one day? Without a filigree of annoyance, he simply and kindly asked us to be seated and got on with the lesson.
Good teachers teach their subjects very well. All of their students love them dearly and many students imagined they were their parents or their future wives or husbands, since, while students get older, good teachers never grow old. The really great teachers are remarkably different from the good ones. The great ones get us to learn the subject just as well but, crucially, they allow us to study the object critically. They, the teachers, are the object. To really learn, the student must become better and greater than the teacher. This is only possible if the faults of the teacher are exposed; if the vulnerabilities of both the teaching-subject and the teacher-object are scrutinized and argued fiercely. This romantic war between student and teacher can lead to temporary estrangement. So be it. The time must come when the former student walks away from the erstwhile master-teacher, puts away childish things and becomes truly independent.
It is in this general context that Antigua and Barbuda must emotionally walk away from excessive adherence to the Father of the Nation to become truly independent. This walking away is not a negation of the father. No; no; no, my dear good Labourites. Au contraire. It is an acknowledgement of the great works of the father because those very great works dictate and mandate the walking away. How else can plants propagate if seeds and spores do not abandon the parent tree and rely on the mercy of the wind of nature to find new fertile ground, confident in the knowledge that their father provided them with the gift of lasting life? Indeed, the father would be stark-raving mad with himself, dejected and unfulfilled if we religiously adhered to him, to the detriment of the springing up of new life.
For valid, historical reasons, we showered virtually all of our affections on the Father of the Nation. Even his nemesis, Tim Hector, praised him highly, at least as much as he criticized him harshly. (And we must do the same to Tim). However, the arithmetic of emotions dictates that if we put all our love and affection into one national personage, we will shortchange the love and affection we have left for the country. Our wars of liberation naturally created heroes; and heroes we must have. But some heroes are so powerful, too powerful; we have to deliberately pull away, or take them in doses, admixing their good, bad and ugly qualities.
Could it be that after he would have done something wrong (he had his faults), the Father of the Nation was appalled at the way we would continue to praise him as if we were docile idiots? He must have felt that we were, at those times, the dumbest, most “foolie” people on earth to genuflect to his occasional rubbish. Where were the harsh counterarguments, the banter, the taunting viragos and the running, verbal battles that he loved so well; on which he had cut his political teeth? He must have wondered, as he wandered lonely as a cloud, over vales and hills, where, oh where was the crowd, the host, of golden Tims?
At 26 years of age, as we get older and wiser and hopefully more independent, we understand that we must cherish dearly all those who went before; all those slaves and all those free men and women, natives and foreigners of every hue and dye, who fought to build this blessed country. The only fitting epitaph to all our national heroes, sung and unsung, especially the greatest of them all, the Father of The Nation, is a declaration of independence to balance the equation of national emotions. Take some emotions away from him and put some of these sterling passions into the nation of Antigua and Barbuda, if only because that is precisely what he did and what he would have wanted us to do, to be like the best and noblest part of him.
Happy Independence.
Saturday, October 27, 2007
When Will We Learn?
THE DEVIL FINDS WORK
Dr. Lester CN Simon
He remembers the days when liming was an art? To him, it was considered infra dig to appear even languid or, worse and much harder, appear indifferent, without taking an obscure, gallant stand and making a vague, valiant effort at it. He was such a naturally funny guy, he thought paradox was when you stood beside the dock of the bay. He would swear that Rasta was a colloquial expression in Italy for really bad pasta; after all Italy did invade Ethiopia.
He would also swear that he would never burn in hell because like his father, he was destined to be a carpenter. His father had philosophized that if he, the father, was mistakenly sent to hell, Jesus would call him up into heaven since he and Jesus were fellow tradesmen. Some sort of trade and workers union code, he thought. But somebody must have told him, the son, that the world owed him a living; so he exercised an extremely low level of his innate intelligence and became an imperfect idiot.
There were crucial stages in his development when he knew he was very good at doing some things, like quickly putting similar shapes together in kindergarten and understanding at once concepts like A and B are not just for apple and bat, but for Antigua and Barbuda as well. He was bored stiff in school, so much so, he would walk with a stiff bop and he had to cause trouble on purpose (and on other pupils) and make noise to stay awake. He was such a naturally funny guy.
Then one day, he met a man who told him how and showed him how to control people and make lots of money doing it. He was such a naturally funny guy in need of a challenge, he thought he would give it a try. First off, he had to learn the rules, not just to obey them but to know when to break them and replace them with new rules of his own making. For example, the customer is always right; my foot. The customers must be made to feel that they are always right whilst he, the seller, knows best.
Everyone is a customer or a potential customer because everyone has problems and it is his job to spot the problems. For example in the wake of a fatal shooting (some wake it will be indeed…I told you he was funny) near Sir Vivian Richards Stadium, an articulate and discombobulated woman called Observer Radio to suggest that some other name for the location be used to site the murder, so as not to sully the name of the great, living, national hero.
He was temped to call into the radio program but why enlighten the disturbed ones. He would have called to suggest that we say that the awful murder took place sort of south of Barbuda and sort of north of Montserrat. That caller was a potential customer in a state of denial; and many of us are in the same boat. This meant that with thousands of us in the same boat, we stood a very good chance of drowning ( I told you, he was funny).
He remembers someone in England responding to a riot by black people against injustice from the police some time in the seventies. It was said that black people in England were not a major problem since music, women and drugs would always pacify them. The Indian, Pakistani and Middle Eastern people were considered the real enemy since they had economic and scholastic power mixed with fervent religious practices. That was long before 9-11. Beware of still waters, he learnt, everywhere; and beware of stereotyping all waters. But isn’t stereotyping seeing people in at least two (stereo) ways? I told you he was funny.
So, to learn his new business well, he had to study hard and debunk some of the myths along the way. When it is said that the pervasion of drugs is due to people in desperation seeking economic opportunities, do not be fooled by the algebra. Desperation is relative. One customer may be striving for a single, well-balanced, decent meal on the table for his or, more likely, her family. The relative desperation is a brother or cousin (I told you he was funny) trying to buy a new jeep for his sixth girlfriend; ok, make it the third girlfriend.
He learnt that drugs are like electricity. Lots of people are connected; some more than others and some are not even aware of the current, or is it the currency (I told you he was….). Indeed, all countries have a drug problem. You think drugs can be in hell and Satan and his acolytes don’t know about it? In fact, in some countries the rich, powerful, professionals and officials are so connected and invisible, it is left to the black underclass to bear the brunt of the problem. That is one of the problems with some black people, he realized. They stand out. Some other people can steal so well, they even steal away your eyes from seeing them stealing. But some black people are such great novelists, they believe the dictum: Show, don’t tell.
And so, one major problem unnerved him as he set out on his new business venture. If all countries and all cultures have a drug problem, what was so peculiar about black people to make our drug problem so devastating? He refused to blame white people, if only because they need and do use electricity too. Is it our national state of denial that forces us, in understandable desperation, to turn the geography of Sir Vivian Richards Stadium on its head?
Freedom is a strange exercise. When it comes, from whatever or wherever it comes, it requires a new restriction, a new, hard working steadfastness to a responsibility and authority that is reminiscently contradictory since it harkens back to an ugly past. And this ugly past will remain ugly until we face up to it and understand slavery was firstly economic until someone did some clever race marketing.
And so, he reasoned, since we did not learn well the freedom from our first slavery, maybe if we become embroiled and totally immersed in a new drug slavery with all the killings and torturing with house slaves and field slaves all over again, we would escape some time in the future from this second slavery and learn our lesson well this time. He had always noticed in school, in every class bar none, that some people are hard of hearing and just have to be told twice; they just have to undergo an experience twice, before they understood. And so now I can tell you, we are all so naturally funny.
Dr. Lester CN Simon
He remembers the days when liming was an art? To him, it was considered infra dig to appear even languid or, worse and much harder, appear indifferent, without taking an obscure, gallant stand and making a vague, valiant effort at it. He was such a naturally funny guy, he thought paradox was when you stood beside the dock of the bay. He would swear that Rasta was a colloquial expression in Italy for really bad pasta; after all Italy did invade Ethiopia.
He would also swear that he would never burn in hell because like his father, he was destined to be a carpenter. His father had philosophized that if he, the father, was mistakenly sent to hell, Jesus would call him up into heaven since he and Jesus were fellow tradesmen. Some sort of trade and workers union code, he thought. But somebody must have told him, the son, that the world owed him a living; so he exercised an extremely low level of his innate intelligence and became an imperfect idiot.
There were crucial stages in his development when he knew he was very good at doing some things, like quickly putting similar shapes together in kindergarten and understanding at once concepts like A and B are not just for apple and bat, but for Antigua and Barbuda as well. He was bored stiff in school, so much so, he would walk with a stiff bop and he had to cause trouble on purpose (and on other pupils) and make noise to stay awake. He was such a naturally funny guy.
Then one day, he met a man who told him how and showed him how to control people and make lots of money doing it. He was such a naturally funny guy in need of a challenge, he thought he would give it a try. First off, he had to learn the rules, not just to obey them but to know when to break them and replace them with new rules of his own making. For example, the customer is always right; my foot. The customers must be made to feel that they are always right whilst he, the seller, knows best.
Everyone is a customer or a potential customer because everyone has problems and it is his job to spot the problems. For example in the wake of a fatal shooting (some wake it will be indeed…I told you he was funny) near Sir Vivian Richards Stadium, an articulate and discombobulated woman called Observer Radio to suggest that some other name for the location be used to site the murder, so as not to sully the name of the great, living, national hero.
He was temped to call into the radio program but why enlighten the disturbed ones. He would have called to suggest that we say that the awful murder took place sort of south of Barbuda and sort of north of Montserrat. That caller was a potential customer in a state of denial; and many of us are in the same boat. This meant that with thousands of us in the same boat, we stood a very good chance of drowning ( I told you, he was funny).
He remembers someone in England responding to a riot by black people against injustice from the police some time in the seventies. It was said that black people in England were not a major problem since music, women and drugs would always pacify them. The Indian, Pakistani and Middle Eastern people were considered the real enemy since they had economic and scholastic power mixed with fervent religious practices. That was long before 9-11. Beware of still waters, he learnt, everywhere; and beware of stereotyping all waters. But isn’t stereotyping seeing people in at least two (stereo) ways? I told you he was funny.
So, to learn his new business well, he had to study hard and debunk some of the myths along the way. When it is said that the pervasion of drugs is due to people in desperation seeking economic opportunities, do not be fooled by the algebra. Desperation is relative. One customer may be striving for a single, well-balanced, decent meal on the table for his or, more likely, her family. The relative desperation is a brother or cousin (I told you he was funny) trying to buy a new jeep for his sixth girlfriend; ok, make it the third girlfriend.
He learnt that drugs are like electricity. Lots of people are connected; some more than others and some are not even aware of the current, or is it the currency (I told you he was….). Indeed, all countries have a drug problem. You think drugs can be in hell and Satan and his acolytes don’t know about it? In fact, in some countries the rich, powerful, professionals and officials are so connected and invisible, it is left to the black underclass to bear the brunt of the problem. That is one of the problems with some black people, he realized. They stand out. Some other people can steal so well, they even steal away your eyes from seeing them stealing. But some black people are such great novelists, they believe the dictum: Show, don’t tell.
And so, one major problem unnerved him as he set out on his new business venture. If all countries and all cultures have a drug problem, what was so peculiar about black people to make our drug problem so devastating? He refused to blame white people, if only because they need and do use electricity too. Is it our national state of denial that forces us, in understandable desperation, to turn the geography of Sir Vivian Richards Stadium on its head?
Freedom is a strange exercise. When it comes, from whatever or wherever it comes, it requires a new restriction, a new, hard working steadfastness to a responsibility and authority that is reminiscently contradictory since it harkens back to an ugly past. And this ugly past will remain ugly until we face up to it and understand slavery was firstly economic until someone did some clever race marketing.
And so, he reasoned, since we did not learn well the freedom from our first slavery, maybe if we become embroiled and totally immersed in a new drug slavery with all the killings and torturing with house slaves and field slaves all over again, we would escape some time in the future from this second slavery and learn our lesson well this time. He had always noticed in school, in every class bar none, that some people are hard of hearing and just have to be told twice; they just have to undergo an experience twice, before they understood. And so now I can tell you, we are all so naturally funny.
Thursday, October 25, 2007
All Dressed Down
I LIKE THE ONE IN FRONT
Dr. Lester CN Simon
I like the one in front. I like the one behind. As a matter of fact, I like all the girls and I wish all the girls were mine. But not in these times. Jill and I were going up the hill to fetch a pail of water when my good friend Sammy asked me to help him plant a piece of corn in the gully. Quite sensibly and rightly so too, and moreover, being a farmer in a dell, Sammy explained that more water could be found down a gully than at the top of a hill. Plus, it was easier going down a gully than climbing up a hill. Furthermore, getting out of a gully was like going up a hill. So Sammy said I could bring Jill with me down the gully, if she wanted to come along, since there were plenty ears of corn to plant.
Shucks; Liza would have been a better companion down the gully. She was such a liquid, totally sweet-watery soul. So much so in fact, she drowned. Since then, every time I remember Liza, think about my nice girl Liza and wish Liza could come back, water comes to my eye. Liza. What a night, what a night, what a Saturday night. Long time girl since I haven’t seen you, I wish I could hold your hand. Long time girl since I haven’t seen you, I wish we could walk and talk.
But what about the brown girl in the ring? She looks like sugar and plum and she could show me her motion as she skip across the ocean. But silly me, I might get seasick, remember Liza and water would come to my eye. The trouble with Brownie was that her old lady went walking a mile and a half and she might just see us going down the gully to meet Sammy. Strange, Brownie had complained that every time she passed, we looked at her. Every time she passed we looked at her; so much so, she was going to tell her mother not to send her down there any more.
So it was Jill and I who went down the gully. But before I fell down and broke my crown, there was a strange sounding song coming from Sammy. Down the way where the nights are gay, the sun shines daily on the mountain top. Lord, see me trials. I got so frighten, my foot slipped out of the mango root-top, took a trip on a sailing ship and only when I reached Jamaica I made a stop. So I'm sad to say, I'm on my way and I won't be back in the gully for many a day. My heart is down, my head is turning around, I had to leave my little girl Jill before she came tumbling down.
Was it all a trick to get my girl, Jill, or was Sammy just different and greedy in an unusual becoming usual kind of way? After all, I remember when someone called him a black sheep and asked him if he, the black sheep, had any wool. He had said, yes sir, yes sir, three bags full: One for his master, one for his dame and one for the little boy who lived down the lane. Only the devil knows what is going on in Sammy’s, the farmer’s dell.
Rumor has it that Sammy’s son, Tom, stole the pig and away he ran. Rumor says the pig was eat, Tom was beat and Tom ran “crying” down the street. And recall when Sammy’s brother, Tommy Tucker sang for his supper? In these health conscious times, all he sang for was white bread and butter. How could he cut it without a knife? How could he marry without a wife?
So did Sammy plant the piece of corn in the gully? Did it bear till it kill poor Sammy? Is Sammy dead, really dead, oh? Although he stole my girl, Jill, it was not because he was a thief or usually unusual why Sammy is dead. It was the grudge, a greedy grudgeful thing for me and my girl Jill. That is why, like his father, Solomon O’Gundy, Sammy was born on a Monday, he christened my girl, Jill on a Tuesday, married her on a Wednesday, the wretched bastard took ill on a Thursday, grew worse on Friday, died on Saturday and was buried (in the gully) on a Sunday. That was the end of greedy, grudgeful Sammy.
So, like a lump of dump, I now sit on a wall. If, one fateful day, in remembrance of things past, I should have a great fall, please tell all the king’s horses and all the king’s cast of men not to try to put me and Jill and Sammy together again.
Dr. Lester CN Simon
I like the one in front. I like the one behind. As a matter of fact, I like all the girls and I wish all the girls were mine. But not in these times. Jill and I were going up the hill to fetch a pail of water when my good friend Sammy asked me to help him plant a piece of corn in the gully. Quite sensibly and rightly so too, and moreover, being a farmer in a dell, Sammy explained that more water could be found down a gully than at the top of a hill. Plus, it was easier going down a gully than climbing up a hill. Furthermore, getting out of a gully was like going up a hill. So Sammy said I could bring Jill with me down the gully, if she wanted to come along, since there were plenty ears of corn to plant.
Shucks; Liza would have been a better companion down the gully. She was such a liquid, totally sweet-watery soul. So much so in fact, she drowned. Since then, every time I remember Liza, think about my nice girl Liza and wish Liza could come back, water comes to my eye. Liza. What a night, what a night, what a Saturday night. Long time girl since I haven’t seen you, I wish I could hold your hand. Long time girl since I haven’t seen you, I wish we could walk and talk.
But what about the brown girl in the ring? She looks like sugar and plum and she could show me her motion as she skip across the ocean. But silly me, I might get seasick, remember Liza and water would come to my eye. The trouble with Brownie was that her old lady went walking a mile and a half and she might just see us going down the gully to meet Sammy. Strange, Brownie had complained that every time she passed, we looked at her. Every time she passed we looked at her; so much so, she was going to tell her mother not to send her down there any more.
So it was Jill and I who went down the gully. But before I fell down and broke my crown, there was a strange sounding song coming from Sammy. Down the way where the nights are gay, the sun shines daily on the mountain top. Lord, see me trials. I got so frighten, my foot slipped out of the mango root-top, took a trip on a sailing ship and only when I reached Jamaica I made a stop. So I'm sad to say, I'm on my way and I won't be back in the gully for many a day. My heart is down, my head is turning around, I had to leave my little girl Jill before she came tumbling down.
Was it all a trick to get my girl, Jill, or was Sammy just different and greedy in an unusual becoming usual kind of way? After all, I remember when someone called him a black sheep and asked him if he, the black sheep, had any wool. He had said, yes sir, yes sir, three bags full: One for his master, one for his dame and one for the little boy who lived down the lane. Only the devil knows what is going on in Sammy’s, the farmer’s dell.
Rumor has it that Sammy’s son, Tom, stole the pig and away he ran. Rumor says the pig was eat, Tom was beat and Tom ran “crying” down the street. And recall when Sammy’s brother, Tommy Tucker sang for his supper? In these health conscious times, all he sang for was white bread and butter. How could he cut it without a knife? How could he marry without a wife?
So did Sammy plant the piece of corn in the gully? Did it bear till it kill poor Sammy? Is Sammy dead, really dead, oh? Although he stole my girl, Jill, it was not because he was a thief or usually unusual why Sammy is dead. It was the grudge, a greedy grudgeful thing for me and my girl Jill. That is why, like his father, Solomon O’Gundy, Sammy was born on a Monday, he christened my girl, Jill on a Tuesday, married her on a Wednesday, the wretched bastard took ill on a Thursday, grew worse on Friday, died on Saturday and was buried (in the gully) on a Sunday. That was the end of greedy, grudgeful Sammy.
So, like a lump of dump, I now sit on a wall. If, one fateful day, in remembrance of things past, I should have a great fall, please tell all the king’s horses and all the king’s cast of men not to try to put me and Jill and Sammy together again.
Sunday, October 21, 2007
Ancient Lands
ENCOUNTERS WITH THE FIRST DECLENSION
Dr. Lester CN Simon
I knew I had entered a strange and enchanting place. I dressed differently. I was in uniform, with a cap and a tie. The boys played a fierce, dangerous game called corkings. I had a little grip. I had a desk all to myself. I was given a book of Latin grammar. It was in fair condition. Someone joked that it had been used by all the old boys. Some of their pictures adorned a wall in a big form that I would enter in years to come. There was a family likeness about this unfamiliar place.
It became more unfamiliar when we were instructed to learn the declension of mensa, the Latin for table. As if that wasn’t enough, we were given a preview of the forthcoming conjugation of verbs. Declension of nouns, conjugation of verbs? These were big words in a big school for big boys, like me.
It started to get clearer when we were told that in Latin, nouns have six cases. I knew it. I knew it. This school was so special, even the nouns were different. And I would become different too. I will have my own declension. After all, my first name could undergo the same declension as mensa, with a minor alteration of course. So, with that incentive and the flair I had for recitation at my village church, I embarked on the singular form of the first declension of Latin nouns:
Unlike, recitations at church and reciting the golden text to every, single visitor to my maternal grandmother’s house on Sunday evenings, Latin grammar demanded detailed explanation and I had to proceed from the familiar to the unfamiliar to get it right.
In the nominative case, the noun is the subject of the sentence: The table belongs to the school. In the accusative case, now called the objective case, the noun receives the verbal action: The boy broke the table. The genitive case is now called the possessive case: The table’s legs are uneven (The legs of the table are uneven). In the ablative case, there is an indication of the means by which the action is carried out. In English we use prepositions such as by, with, from, in and on for the ablative case: The boy is standing by (or on) the table.
So far so good. To understand the dative case, I had to learn that verbs can be transitive or intransitive (or both). For an intransitive verb, the action begins and ends with the doer: I laugh. she smiles. For a transitive verb, the action passes over (transits) from the doer to another person or thing: The boy broke the table.
I also had to learn about the object in a sentence. The word that is affected by the action of a transitive verb is the object. There are two kinds of objects: In The boy broke the table, table is a direct object since the table receives the verbal action directly. An indirect object is indirectly affected by the action of the verb and it always comes before the direct object in a sentence: The boy gave the table (indirect) money (direct). The dative case or indirect object is often
eliminated by using the actual word, to or for: The boy gave money for the table.
Most troublesome of all was the vocative case. Why would I say, “O Table”? To me initially, it was all part of the strangeness of that august place. After some sarcastic addresses to the table (O table), to my adulterated first name (Lesta: “O Lester”) to other pupils (O Benjamin; O Samuel) and to our Latin teacher (O master), I put the vocative case in its place and got on with the business of learning and enjoying Latin.
Decades later, I discovered that none other than Winston Churchill (and many others) encountered a similar difficulty with the vocative case of mensa (O table). Winston Churchill enquired of his form master what it meant. He was told that “O table” would be used in addressing a table, in invoking a table or in speaking to a table. It is reported that Winston Churchill blurted out in honest amazement to his form master that he never spoke to a table.
In response, his form master terminated the conversation by invoking the whip and promised that we would punish Winston Churchill on his backside, and very severely too, if he continued to be impertinent. It is written that Winston Churchill recorded, “Such was my first introduction to the classics from which, I have been told, many of our cleverest men have derived so much solace and profit.”
The Latin for table is mensa. The Latin for land is terra. Both nouns undergo the same, first declension in Latin. Those who understand the vocative case and are bold enough to address a table, to invoke a table and to speak to a table, might very easily, like Winston Churchill, be heroic enough to address the land, to invoke the land, to speak to the land and come to understand the meaning and value of land.
Hence, if one the lions of the British Empire, Sir Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill, a noted statesman, orator and strategist, knew that many of the cleverest men derived much solace and profit from Latin, we, Antiguans and Barbudans, will chant in the plural form of the first declension when they come for our lands: Terrae, terrae, terras (how lovely), terrarum, terris, terris. Terrae, terrae, terras (you get it?), terrarum, terris, terris.
Dr. Lester CN Simon
I knew I had entered a strange and enchanting place. I dressed differently. I was in uniform, with a cap and a tie. The boys played a fierce, dangerous game called corkings. I had a little grip. I had a desk all to myself. I was given a book of Latin grammar. It was in fair condition. Someone joked that it had been used by all the old boys. Some of their pictures adorned a wall in a big form that I would enter in years to come. There was a family likeness about this unfamiliar place.
It became more unfamiliar when we were instructed to learn the declension of mensa, the Latin for table. As if that wasn’t enough, we were given a preview of the forthcoming conjugation of verbs. Declension of nouns, conjugation of verbs? These were big words in a big school for big boys, like me.
It started to get clearer when we were told that in Latin, nouns have six cases. I knew it. I knew it. This school was so special, even the nouns were different. And I would become different too. I will have my own declension. After all, my first name could undergo the same declension as mensa, with a minor alteration of course. So, with that incentive and the flair I had for recitation at my village church, I embarked on the singular form of the first declension of Latin nouns:
Unlike, recitations at church and reciting the golden text to every, single visitor to my maternal grandmother’s house on Sunday evenings, Latin grammar demanded detailed explanation and I had to proceed from the familiar to the unfamiliar to get it right.
In the nominative case, the noun is the subject of the sentence: The table belongs to the school. In the accusative case, now called the objective case, the noun receives the verbal action: The boy broke the table. The genitive case is now called the possessive case: The table’s legs are uneven (The legs of the table are uneven). In the ablative case, there is an indication of the means by which the action is carried out. In English we use prepositions such as by, with, from, in and on for the ablative case: The boy is standing by (or on) the table.
So far so good. To understand the dative case, I had to learn that verbs can be transitive or intransitive (or both). For an intransitive verb, the action begins and ends with the doer: I laugh. she smiles. For a transitive verb, the action passes over (transits) from the doer to another person or thing: The boy broke the table.
I also had to learn about the object in a sentence. The word that is affected by the action of a transitive verb is the object. There are two kinds of objects: In The boy broke the table, table is a direct object since the table receives the verbal action directly. An indirect object is indirectly affected by the action of the verb and it always comes before the direct object in a sentence: The boy gave the table (indirect) money (direct). The dative case or indirect object is often
eliminated by using the actual word, to or for: The boy gave money for the table.
Most troublesome of all was the vocative case. Why would I say, “O Table”? To me initially, it was all part of the strangeness of that august place. After some sarcastic addresses to the table (O table), to my adulterated first name (Lesta: “O Lester”) to other pupils (O Benjamin; O Samuel) and to our Latin teacher (O master), I put the vocative case in its place and got on with the business of learning and enjoying Latin.
Decades later, I discovered that none other than Winston Churchill (and many others) encountered a similar difficulty with the vocative case of mensa (O table). Winston Churchill enquired of his form master what it meant. He was told that “O table” would be used in addressing a table, in invoking a table or in speaking to a table. It is reported that Winston Churchill blurted out in honest amazement to his form master that he never spoke to a table.
In response, his form master terminated the conversation by invoking the whip and promised that we would punish Winston Churchill on his backside, and very severely too, if he continued to be impertinent. It is written that Winston Churchill recorded, “Such was my first introduction to the classics from which, I have been told, many of our cleverest men have derived so much solace and profit.”
The Latin for table is mensa. The Latin for land is terra. Both nouns undergo the same, first declension in Latin. Those who understand the vocative case and are bold enough to address a table, to invoke a table and to speak to a table, might very easily, like Winston Churchill, be heroic enough to address the land, to invoke the land, to speak to the land and come to understand the meaning and value of land.
Hence, if one the lions of the British Empire, Sir Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill, a noted statesman, orator and strategist, knew that many of the cleverest men derived much solace and profit from Latin, we, Antiguans and Barbudans, will chant in the plural form of the first declension when they come for our lands: Terrae, terrae, terras (how lovely), terrarum, terris, terris. Terrae, terrae, terras (you get it?), terrarum, terris, terris.
Tuesday, October 9, 2007
Talk Talk Talk
ANTIGUA: 365 SPEECHES
Dr. Lester CN Simon
On my native island, where land and sea make beauty and people and people make ugly, nothing is what it appears to be; neither is it otherwise, according to a Zen master. An elder cousin, my first Zen master, said to me when I was little and pleaded with him for some of his pomegranate: “Who beg narn get and who na beg na warnt”. In these Zen circumstances, you have a trichotomy of choices. You can mope and do nothing, or you can walk away, call your favorite radio station and talk, talk, talk, or you create something new in place of the nothingness and plant your own pomegranate. It took me a long time to do a Columbus on that.
In a very incisive book called, Democracy and The Foreigner, Bonnie Honig invites us to change the topic from how to solve the problem of foreignness, to what problem foreignness can solve for us. Honig is a professor of political science. Grasping the meat of her insightful book is wonderfully aided by a review by Ellennita Muetze Hellmer of The University of Chicago.
At the heart of foreignness is the awakening of a familiarity of ourselves that can be illuminating or darkening, depending on the path we wish to follow. In fact, these two parallel paths must be pursued at all times for the good of society. The geometric fact that parallel lines do not have a definitional meeting place translates into the possibility that our love-hate relationship with foreignness may be a healthy one. It affords an essential and everlasting questioning and answering of the relationship between us natives and the state.
It is said that a foreigner is someone who makes us think we are at home. We are all familiar with the sudden intrusion of uninvited guests. Are we really upset with them or with ourselves? Can it be that they are simply showing up the tattered, open-sesame fence around our unkempt yard, the shaggy mongrel, or worse, the “licky-licky” pedigree dog that we cannot control, the garage full of junk and the absence of a clean, clear glass of “good water” even for ourselves? The fact that the place is dirty is not the glaring point. The burning shame is that they make it a little dirtier. The bed is unmade, chairs are all over the place, one of the toilets can’t flush properly, curtains are torn or absent and yet they come and “rample up” the place? Give me an aspirin; or the whole darn pharmacy.
Honig posits that debates about foreignness help to shore up our national and democratic identities. Anxieties, channeled appropriately, are one of the cornerstones of a good, democratic society. If we are anxious about foreignness and voice our concerns, it may help us to register other anxieties as well.
Societies must always be renewed in order to grow. The questioning of foreignness is actually a mirror-on-the-wall opportunity to compare our energies and attitudes and look at how we treat others and ourselves and how our government treats us.
But there is this local biliousness that makes us bitch against some foreignness (justifiably so in some cases), curse our government flat for not looking after us, and yet a simple community project in dire need of our almost effortless assistance goes a begging with a cold shoulder that will freeze a collar bone under a midday West Indian sun. The reason? It’s because we are disinterested. We just do not care and we cannot bother, until foreignness reminds us of what can be done with what we have. And even then we become more apathetic, if only to underscore the otherness of the foreigner.
Many types of relationships are empowered by foreignness (Be careful!) if we accept the ambivalence that foreignness brings. To this end, Honig urges an ongoing re-examination of the relationship between nationals and foreigners taking into account the natural and healthy suspicion and ambivalence that will lead to our re-examination of the relationship between all citizens and the state. Interestingly, overt attention to foreigners who look like the native majority and who are in great numbers may mask the possibility that a covert minority of others are eking out disproportionately more from the state.
In a remarkable touch of irony, Honig points out by way of an example that foreigners allow us to see a quintessentially democratic process at work. She contends that there are foreigners who give and foreigners who take. We natives love the ones that give. Ironically, the foreigners that take or wrestle away the rights of the state rather than wait for them to be granted are exercising a crucial democratic right that we the complacent natives allow to slip away or have long forgotten. And in our annoyance and defense of our rights, we abjectly refuse to claim and wrestle away these very same available rights. Why? Because politicians are supposed to deliver them to us gift-wrapped under a golden bow on a silver platter.
Foreigners and natives alike must come to accept that, like many good relationships, the contradictions and ambivalences, if earnestly exposed and espoused, can afford the growing and transforming of the relationship. This transformation should lead to incremental gains for all, even as new parallel lines with no obvious rendezvous emerge. So gird your loins and join the battle against fear, hate and poverty. The healthy debate must continue. The Zen master reminds us that it takes a wise man to learn from his mistakes, but an even wiser man to learn from others.
Dr. Lester CN Simon
On my native island, where land and sea make beauty and people and people make ugly, nothing is what it appears to be; neither is it otherwise, according to a Zen master. An elder cousin, my first Zen master, said to me when I was little and pleaded with him for some of his pomegranate: “Who beg narn get and who na beg na warnt”. In these Zen circumstances, you have a trichotomy of choices. You can mope and do nothing, or you can walk away, call your favorite radio station and talk, talk, talk, or you create something new in place of the nothingness and plant your own pomegranate. It took me a long time to do a Columbus on that.
In a very incisive book called, Democracy and The Foreigner, Bonnie Honig invites us to change the topic from how to solve the problem of foreignness, to what problem foreignness can solve for us. Honig is a professor of political science. Grasping the meat of her insightful book is wonderfully aided by a review by Ellennita Muetze Hellmer of The University of Chicago.
At the heart of foreignness is the awakening of a familiarity of ourselves that can be illuminating or darkening, depending on the path we wish to follow. In fact, these two parallel paths must be pursued at all times for the good of society. The geometric fact that parallel lines do not have a definitional meeting place translates into the possibility that our love-hate relationship with foreignness may be a healthy one. It affords an essential and everlasting questioning and answering of the relationship between us natives and the state.
It is said that a foreigner is someone who makes us think we are at home. We are all familiar with the sudden intrusion of uninvited guests. Are we really upset with them or with ourselves? Can it be that they are simply showing up the tattered, open-sesame fence around our unkempt yard, the shaggy mongrel, or worse, the “licky-licky” pedigree dog that we cannot control, the garage full of junk and the absence of a clean, clear glass of “good water” even for ourselves? The fact that the place is dirty is not the glaring point. The burning shame is that they make it a little dirtier. The bed is unmade, chairs are all over the place, one of the toilets can’t flush properly, curtains are torn or absent and yet they come and “rample up” the place? Give me an aspirin; or the whole darn pharmacy.
Honig posits that debates about foreignness help to shore up our national and democratic identities. Anxieties, channeled appropriately, are one of the cornerstones of a good, democratic society. If we are anxious about foreignness and voice our concerns, it may help us to register other anxieties as well.
Societies must always be renewed in order to grow. The questioning of foreignness is actually a mirror-on-the-wall opportunity to compare our energies and attitudes and look at how we treat others and ourselves and how our government treats us.
But there is this local biliousness that makes us bitch against some foreignness (justifiably so in some cases), curse our government flat for not looking after us, and yet a simple community project in dire need of our almost effortless assistance goes a begging with a cold shoulder that will freeze a collar bone under a midday West Indian sun. The reason? It’s because we are disinterested. We just do not care and we cannot bother, until foreignness reminds us of what can be done with what we have. And even then we become more apathetic, if only to underscore the otherness of the foreigner.
Many types of relationships are empowered by foreignness (Be careful!) if we accept the ambivalence that foreignness brings. To this end, Honig urges an ongoing re-examination of the relationship between nationals and foreigners taking into account the natural and healthy suspicion and ambivalence that will lead to our re-examination of the relationship between all citizens and the state. Interestingly, overt attention to foreigners who look like the native majority and who are in great numbers may mask the possibility that a covert minority of others are eking out disproportionately more from the state.
In a remarkable touch of irony, Honig points out by way of an example that foreigners allow us to see a quintessentially democratic process at work. She contends that there are foreigners who give and foreigners who take. We natives love the ones that give. Ironically, the foreigners that take or wrestle away the rights of the state rather than wait for them to be granted are exercising a crucial democratic right that we the complacent natives allow to slip away or have long forgotten. And in our annoyance and defense of our rights, we abjectly refuse to claim and wrestle away these very same available rights. Why? Because politicians are supposed to deliver them to us gift-wrapped under a golden bow on a silver platter.
Foreigners and natives alike must come to accept that, like many good relationships, the contradictions and ambivalences, if earnestly exposed and espoused, can afford the growing and transforming of the relationship. This transformation should lead to incremental gains for all, even as new parallel lines with no obvious rendezvous emerge. So gird your loins and join the battle against fear, hate and poverty. The healthy debate must continue. The Zen master reminds us that it takes a wise man to learn from his mistakes, but an even wiser man to learn from others.
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