shamash says...

Plagiarism: A Learned Behavior?

If you've been reading the news lately, you've probably seen the story of Kaavya Viswanathan, the Harvard sophomore who has admitted to plagiarizing portions of her book.  Terry has a post on it, as does Snarkaholic. I've also read with great interest Steven Sleigh's post about the role of the "book packager" in the publishing industry.

An article published earlier this month sheds light on the life of this teen. In it, she is quoted as saying,

"I was surrounded by the stereotype of high- pressure Asian and Indian families trying to get their children into Ivy League schools."

It is difficult for educators to teach the importance of honesty and integrity when the academic culture supports success at any cost.

How can teachers make a difference, when the All Mighty Grade is more important than originality? Should a teacher encourage the gifted artist to go to art school when the father will accept nothing but an MBA from MIT?

How do we teach our children that being true to themselves is more important than grades and that integrity is so much more important than laurels gathered under false pretenses?

More Than a Thunderstorm

I don't have a radio.

I don't have a TV.

The only English-language newspaper comes out once a week, minus a weather forecast.

Online, at the moment of this posting, the weather report for this city says, "This station is not reporting." I wonder why.

Thank goodness for word-of-mouth, emails from friends, and the internet. I should have known it was more than a simple storm yesterday. Cyclone Mala has sent us all running for cover.

Update:

All interests in [this country Somewhere in Asia], Bangladesh, Thailand and the Andaman Islands should closely monitor the status of this severe cyclone. Major evacuations of low lying areas along the . . . Coast will likely be needed imminently.

My favorite beach in this country has been evacuated. :-(

And the Gods Answered

Bring your umbrellas, folks.

(photo by Shamash)

Thirst

It's that time of year in this city Somewhere in Asia when we need the monsoon rains like the fish need water; all of Nature is longing in wait for the sky to open up its dark clouds after such a long, dry season of sun.

We all drink much more than we eat. We drink from gallon jugs all  sorts of elixirs: warm water, cold water, watermelon juice, lime juice - with honey, and without- iced coffee, and iced tea. No matter how much we drink, it's never enough.

Send the rains, Mother Earth, Pachamama, the Buddha, Krishna, Allah, Yaweh, and Shiva.

We are all so thirsty.

image by tracy baran via moonriver

Be the change you wish to see in the world

Photos by Zana and Avijit

Above my classroom whiteboard in colored letters, the quote “Be the change you wish to see in the world” by Gandhi spans the wall. The letters, cut out of construction paper, are six inches high, and laminated. Lately, though, I haven’t been thinking much about changing the world. I’ve been thinking about research papers, grading, my master's thesis, and the end-of-the-school-year wrap-up.

Not until last night, with the oppressive heat keeping so many of us in this country up until the wee hours of the night (and longing for the monsoon rains to begin), was I so deeply touched by a story that proved that living by this motto one can, indeed, make radical change possible. All it takes is a dream, a bit of integrity, compassion, and a deep love for all people. Photographer Zana Briski, director of Born into Brothels and founder of Kids with Cameras is my latest hero.

going postal: the things that you own

I love Fight Club for its rich dialogue and heavy one-liners, such as in this image (via havecoffeewillwrite, via Worth1000.) I wrote a bit about Fight Club here.

I've been thinking a lot lately about what I own.

When I move, I'll give a lot away: much of my furniture, my plants, my clothes, my dishes, my pots and pans, my appliances.

I won't give away my collection of art, however. Or my precious books, signed by friends and authors, many of which were bought in far-away countries in dusty used-bookstores.

I'm attached to owning beauty.

It's a difficult vice.

Don't ask me what these two images have in common, but in some, freakish way, they're connected. (image 2 via gapingvoid) For an interesting post on the sex and cash theory, check out lifestylism.)

The Art of Travel

"At the end of hours of train-dreaming, we may feel we have been returned to ourselves- that is, brought back into contract with emotions and ideas of importance to us. It is not necessarily at home that we best encounter our true selves. The furniture insists that we cannot change because it does not; the domestic setting keeps us tethered to the person we are in ordinary life, but who may not be who we essentially are.

If we find poetry in the service station and motel, if we are drawn to the airport or train carriage, it is perhaps because, in spite of their architectural compromises Edward Hopper,

1938 oil on canvas

Compartment C, Car 293

and discomforts, in spite of their garish colours and harsh lighting, we implicitly feel that these isolated places offer us a material setting for an alternative to the selfish ease, the habits and confinement of the ordinary, rooted world."

The Art of Travel (p. 59-60) by Alain de Botton

You do not have to be good

You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting--
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.

"Wild Geese" by Mary Oliver, Dreamwork

photograph by Karin Rosenthal

"clearing you out for some new delight"

The Guest House

"This being human is a guest house.
Every morning a new arrival.

A joy, a depression, a meanness,
some momentary awareness comes
as an unexpected visitor.

Welcome and entertain them all!
Even if they're a crowd of sorrows,
who violently sweep your house
empty of its furniture,
still, treat each guest honorably.
He may be clearing you out
for some new delight.

The dark thought, the shame, the malice,
meet them at the door laughing,
and invite them in.

Be grateful for whoever comes,
because each has been sent
as a guide from beyond."

by Jelaluddin Rumi, translated by Coleman Barks

original image by shamash

Women Say "NO!" to War

On the picture are "women and crosses and coffins on a beach in Santa Monica", a few days ago. Do pay attention to the little figure on the bottom right side to have a better perspective of this performance. via new-art.blogspot, via moonriver