Land of Lime

What is the proper etiquette at talks and conferences? I will leave aside the question of our (audience’s) expectations from a speaker for another occasion. But as audience members, what are our obligations to the speaker and towards other audience members?

Is it acceptable to keep reading materials, in case one is bored or notepads, both for taking notes or to do some writing of our own, if the speaker proves less than inspirational?

How about cell phones (of course, one would ensure that they are in the silent mode) and text messaging, PDAs and laptops, to take notes but also to email or check baseball score? Also for quick fact checking and to find references. What about using PDAs and laptops in our classroom, where wireless is on offer?

Would any or all of this be distracting to the speaker or other audience members?

On Saturday, at the ‘Fate of the Disciplines’ conference, someone sitting behind me complained that my laptop was distracting her from concentrating. To be honest, at that moment, I wasn’t necessarily taking notes, although I did want to blog about the conference. I was checking a reference.

Usually, I sit in the back and in a corner or even on the floor, ensure that my typing noise doesn’t compete with the speaker for anyone’s attention and try to be unobtrusive. But on saturday, I was persuaded to sit in the last but one row, which led to the complaint. Honestly, there were times this weekend when I cared more about the NFL draft than the conference. But I believe that once we are in a conference setting the speaker should get our attention.

But I also think our listening habits too are slowly changing in the Google age. Even if we do not want to check email or sports scores, we want to check the veracity of statements that the speaker is making immediately. Many of us have by necessity become multitaskers and on occasions lack the capacity to just do one thing at a time, like listen to a talk, especially if it is a boring talk. A few years ago, I probably would have read a book or made some notes if I was bored at a talk; I have read novels and written chapter outlines on occasions. But these days, I am also tempted to open my laptop and either get online or even write. In the last three years, I have spent most of my time staring at a computer screen, to write my dissertation or to get my office work done and a laptop has become an appendage I cannot be without. There are times, when I lack the discipline to show appropriate deference towards the speaker.

Well, I also wonder whether our conference etiquette will undergo any changes with more and more digital natives in the audience. I would like to be oldschool in this matter but I am already corrupted, a little, for better or worse.

There are also larger issues involved here, which are consequential in regards to our own lifestyle habits with the ubiquitous presence of wireless and DSL. But let us save that for another day.

The two big stories in America today seem to be the miss-steps and misfortunes of two college students: Kaavya V and Reggie Bush.

Kaavya’s stealing have been well chronicled, lampooned and now, she has even inspired a plagiarism competition.

Churumuri reports a statement by that wise sage who goes by the name of William Dalrymple. He apparently characterized Kaavya as a ‘ruthless Asian babe’. Who are his other examples? Faria Alam, a staffer in the British Football Association, who had affairs with all the senior functionaries of FA, including England’s coach, Sven Goran Erikson and Jyoti De-Laurey, who worked for Goldman Sachs and is accused of stealing over four million pounds. As my friends here would say: what’s he smoking? Well, having witnessed his other drunken performances on Indian television, nothing he says surprises me, actually. Still his list of ruthless Asian women does him no credit nor does Kaavya V, for all her faults, belong in such company.
Dalrymple is a writer that some of us admire but we also expect more dignified and considered comments from a writer of his stature.
In the meanwhile, let this poor girl take a class or two and actually write a term paper, before she either writes the next masterpiece or responds to all the plagiarism charges or becomes known by her first name all over the world. Friends who have read her class papers vouch for all the learning she has to do and we might let her do that in some peace. Let her get a burger with friends and grow up, without being viciously hit by Internet pundits and Nytimes every day, well for the next week or two.

Reggie Bush is a familiar story. The USC running back and the most exciting college footbacll player that I have seen in the last ten years has his own mis-steps to account for. Well, the consensus 1st pick in today’s NFL draft, he has already lost that spot when Houston decided his demands and off-field troubles weren’t worth the trouble. Now it turns out that his parents had benefited from agents and others, like all the families of elite college athletes do. Details of unpaid rent, loans and what not are slowly coming out. In American collegiate sports, this isn’t anything new and so doesn’t have the cache of the Kaavya V story. But needless to say, problems of collegiate sports represents a bigger sickness in our universities and yeah, in our society as well.

What do we value as achievement? What are the acceptable paths to get there?

What are the stories of our times? As we dissect Kaavya V’s plagiarism, I wonder: why aren’t we talking about Soyinka’s memoirs? Much of America will spend this weekend, debating the NFL draft (well, I am draft-nik too) and finding excuses for the behavior of Reggie Bush and his fellow star athletes.

I write this sitting in a conference on the ‘Fate of Disciplines‘ on a saturday morning. That’s actually another story for our times and I will post my rantings on the conference itself sometime today.

David Remnick interviewed Wole Soyinka (you can watch it for free until tonight and for $.99 afterwards) on Charlie Rose yesterday. Watch it.

Soyinka’s new memoir You Must Set Forth At Dawn arrived in the mail this afternoon and my work day has already gone to pieces. I will post a review this weekend on this book and some of his other works, which I will be compelled to re-read again, especially his childhood memoir, Ake.

In the meanwhile, a short note on two points that jumped out in the interview last night. In response to a Remnick question, Soyinka confirmed his initial reluctance to write a memoir on his adult life. Years of childhood, he said, are years of innoncence and once can vouch for those years and be authentic. Whereas, with regard to the adult life, one can elides, even when one is not truthful. Whether he is being absolutely truthful or not, there is enough in this man’s life to be curious on what he has written.

His other interesting comment was about the high expectations they (educated, revolutionary African youth) had of themselves: to show the British what they could do in their newly liberated countries, as the black genius flowered. Regardless of what eventually transpired, today it has become virtually impossible even to dream of such an ambitious goal of wanting to be ‘Renaissance People’, who would take their societies forward, towards an egalitarian future. Whenever Soyinka speaks or writes, he reminds us of that. This Salon review didn’t get that simple truth. Here are two more review-links: WAPO and SF Chronicle.

Will this question decide America’s immigration policy?

I have been meaning to write on the immigration issue for a while, especially after it has begun to slowly emerge as an issue that just might energize America. Let us, for the moment, ignore the chatter in Washington and among pundits-airwavists everywhere. Their interest is to play immigration as a wedge issue and do electoral math on that basis.

What we have here is an issue in which at least some people have a lot at stake and it might open up a serious conversation from grounds up, in a way Civil Rights movement or anti-Vietnam war mobilization did. If draft is reintroduced, then Iraq war (and Iran adventures) too might possess that potential. If nothing else, people are out in the streets in significant numbers.

We will obviously talk more on this issue in the weeks and months to come but today I want to draw your attention to one obvious and much talked about substantial issue in the debate on immigration: skills. Well, the question is a simple one: what you got? If you are a poor Latino or an Afro-Asian cabbie, then not much in terms of skills, if you don’t take into account the capacity to work for long hours, live on very little and be away from the family. We have twelve million of these illegal aliens, who are now on the streets.

At the other extreme, we also have highly skilled (legal?) immigrants, who are on the Hill, lobbying the Congress and doing what needs to be done. Skill and money, that’s a great combination. Mitra Kalita’s interesting story on the lobbying efforts of (brown) Indians in the WAPO brings out this new form of focused mobilization a few skilled people will achieve.

Obviously, what interests me here are modes of mobilization and struggle. Resourceful and educated Indians, Chinese and such will go to the Hill and retain lobbyists whereas the millions of illegal aliens will march in the streets. We all know who will have a greater impact but still it will be interesting to watch how all this might unfold.

Well, in the meanwhile, let us march on May 1st.

It wasn’t a great game between Arsenal and Villarreal. The onus was on Villarreal to score a goal and they did all the attacking, but couldn’t find the net, despite controlling possession. Scrappy Arsenal were lucky to hold on to their slender lead and hold on they did, what with the missed penalty by Riquelme and Franco refusing to score a goal all game. Was he playing for Villarreal or for Arsenal?

There was no memorable run nor was there the flowing, passing game that Arsenal under Wenger have come to be known for. But they finally entered the finals of the Champions league, for the first time. We are still on course for an Arsenal-Barcelona finals and even if this game was a let down, the anticipation of a dream finals is irresistable.

In the new BSKOOL cafe in Chicago, Arsenal fans (mostly from England, except for this token brown SAsian) and Spanish fans form two separate camps, as everywhere else. Today, I was sitting with the Spanish crowd and it wasn’t easy not to sympathize with them, given their dominance all through. But Arsenal will take even an ugly win for European glory.

Here are some random asides.

1. Will there be an Airbus or Boeing with 800 odd seats, albiet standing seats only? Is that the future of airtravel? Well, there is no regulation forcing Airlines to provide a seat, as long as the passenger is secured! NYTimes has an interesting story on thin seats, same or less legspace in economy classes, even as business and first class move towards high comfort, Spa style travel.

2. Now here is the story of a digital native. A few weeks ago, I wrote on Kaavya Viswanathan’s novel How Opal Mehta Got Kissed, Got Wild, and Got a Life. Now, she is being charged with plagiarism are levelled against her. She has admitted her ill mistakes and apologized. Well, nice and dandy are all these charges, stories and the earlier success including the big half million dollar advance, contract with Dreamworks and making the NYT bestseller list.

What was less talked about then is that Kaavya herself went through an IvyWise college counselor, paying tens of thousands of dollars. Well, now it turns out that this counselor not only got her into Harvard but also introduced her to the world of agents and publishers through her own agent. This is a world beyond our comprehension. IvyWise counselors have agents and they can set you up for life, not just get you into college!

Well, let us be clear. Kaavya didn’t want emulate Orwell, who took menial jobs and starved in Paris, to understand what it means to be poor. Orwell was convinced that unless he came out of his class location, he couldn’t be a better writer. Here is a girl, who wanted to be an investment banker and writing provided her, it seems, the first shot at both investing and banking at a fairly young age. The novel though is a decent, quick, light read, which a lot of people would buy, read and laugh a little.