Reflexivity

Imagine my surprise upon entering the lobby at Lessius University and witnessing a conversation in American Sign Language! My brain has been so otherwise-occupied that it never once crossed my mind that

a) anyone other than European spoken language trainers/researchers would attend or that

b) I might actually know people!

It was absolutely delightful to re-encounter respected colleagues, meet some of the luminaries whose work is required reading, and make new friends (although one always wonders whether they’ll claim me, and/or for how long!)

We started quite seriously, with the keynoter, Mariachiara, setting the context with a superb history of the tension between innate talent and built skill. Are interpreters born or made? Perhaps it is a both/and kind of question, with challenges of re-molding/re-training those with “the aptitude to perform” and fresh cultivation of those with “the aptitude to learn.”

At the end of the day, Miriam reflected that we (interpreter researchers) have learned that we’re asking the right questions, but we don’t seem any closer to clear answers! One needs only hark back to the presentations of Her Majesty of No Results and the Princess of No Significance to find evidence supporting Miriam’s perception. Are we guilty of trying to turn a sow’s ear into a silk purse?

“You’re argumentative!” one of my dinnermates proclaimed, as I sought to champion a shadowing task based on the persuasive argumentation of the aforementioned Queen.

I don’t want to be accused of breaking the pinkie pact (especially since I wasn’t at the presenter’s dinner the night before when they apparently made a rule not to ask each other hard questions), but . . . aren’t the hard questions the ones that most need to be asked?!

“You’re against essentialism in all forms!” Miriam bought me a coffee.
(I think this means we are now bonded for life.) Franz invited me to come after him hard….which I did but it wasn’t easy going. First he thought I was arguing that “everything is cognition,” which he agreed is a way that knowledge in the field can be understood. It took some fancy footwork to get across the idea that what I am critiquing is the way that we (interpreters, interpreter trainers, interpreting researchers) collude in assuming that everything in the field can be broken down into nice, neat, discrete boxes. Miriam rephrased this as the human propensity to put everything in categories.
“It’s interesting, but I don’t agree with half of it!” (Shhhsh that interpreter in the corner!)

“Why does your badge say ‘Belgium’ but you are speaking English?” Heidi was trying to process where I was from and why I was delinquent in signing up for the conference dinner. Really, I’m here under cover . . . just as there are “slides no wants to see” (recall the pinkie promise), there are also “some matters untouched” (Cronbach and Snow 1977:6).
“Is this rubbish?” (Get ready, I’m gonna be asking you, Chris!) Meanwhile, Amalija has two weeks to devise the perfect comprehensive provable aptitude test for her incoming screening. She has the power! As Sarka explained,

“some of these people want to be translating Shakespeare’s sonnets, they don’t want anything to do with other people!”

One of the huge dilemmas in interpreter training is predicting when a potential interpreting student might succeed against the evidence that convinces us they won’t, and how to justify the investment of resources when even those students with all the promising signs turn out unable in the end.

“There are no future facts.” (Robert S Brumbaugh, 1966)

What can we learn from the ones who had it made?

It is as if we all contain a multitude of characters and patterns of behavior, and these characters and patterns are bidden by cues we don’t even hear. They take center stage in consciousness and decision-making in ways we can’t even fathom.

The East-West debate came up: does one interpret only into one’s mother tongue, or from a mother tongue into another fluent language? Why, I wonder, are people so invested in this directionality? Meanwhile, the non-sign repetition task of nonsense biological motion that Chris reported seems an awful lot like shadowing to me…. and can I just mention how cool it is to attend a conference with five active languages, three of which are signed?! I am not able to articulate the significance of increases in visual memory, but it caught my attention…advanced interpreters can apparently correctly select geometric shapes after a delay more rapidly than beginning interpreters. Perhaps this is related to what I’ve noticed in my own neural net, specifically the new capacity to learn math after twenty years of signing.
Brooke had the two best slides so far, understating the case for the performance of simultaneous interpretation: “we have a lot to do.” (Can I get copies? Beg beg beg!) I’m especially intrigued by the risk/avoidance measures….just a few days ago I came up with the title for my next conference proposal: “Risk, Resignation, and Loss: Interlocutors on Interpretation in the European Parliament.” (Next week I present some of the results at a conference on Mikhail Bakhtin in Stockholm).
I love the metaphor of the airplane and its engines. Sarka and Heidi get credit for this one together, right? There are the pair (or more) of wing engines that are all about cruising, and then there’s the solo job in the tail, which is all about getting up to altitude. Sherry might win the prize for getting the earliest start, although there is a four year discrepancy concerning the age at which she began interpreting: four? Eight? Then you’ve got peeps like me who didn’t even start learning a second language until 28! Anyway, I am pleased to go along with the decisions that “all of us made” in Sherry’s “we”, particularly the one about merging modalities. The two tests she shared intrigue me: the CNS Vital Signs and the Achievement Motivation Inventory.
I hope no one throws a wobbly because of anything I’ve written here. I was duly warned that someone would have my guts for garters if I transgressed too far. Might I ask, instead, for a soft word on the side and the chance to edit?

Language is a force.
Language names, and by naming, it calls into being. This is how social reality is constructed and maintained. I think it is an effect of quantum mechanics, but smarter minds than mine are needed to make the connections in a compelling scientific manner.
Last fall I wrote a post on some dynamics of dialogue and discourse, in which I engaged with ideas of a discursive psychologist, Michel Billig.

The core of the argument laid out by Michael Billig (in the articles from Discourse and Society 2008, Vol. 19, Issue 6) is that we who think in terms of critical discourse analysis (CDA) need to be acutely aware of our own uses of language, lest we repeat some of the very elements of language use that we critique in others. Billig’s concern is with social scientific language in general; he selects CDA for heuristic and practical purposes: “It should be a major issue for analysts who stress the pivotal role of language in the reproduction of ideology, inequality and power” (p. 784).

In particular, Billig goes after the academic/theoretical use of nominalization, which is a shorthand way of condensing a particular dynamical concept (something with a lot of parts) into a single term. Debate over costs and benefits of using nominalization seem to swing on the temporal grounding of interlocutors. I’m thinking at the mundane level as well as at level of ideological reproduction. For instance, does saying something about (i.e., naming) tensions in a friendship necessarily make them worse or can it provide a means to shift footings? At the precise moment of making the utterance, there may be a spike in bad feelings – all that tension concentrated and released in the acts of speaking and hearing. But I think that it is what comes next (at least, so I hope) that becomes determinative for the subsequent unfolding. When nominalization is at play, Billig argues there is a tendency to depersonalize behavior or action such that individual contributions to whatever unfolds are lost to perception. So the pattern of tensions enacted when one or another party to the tension actually says something directly about the presence or evidence of tension becomes bigger than the minute social interactions that compose it. The pattern itself becomes “the thing”, and individuals are simply swept up in it, all agency erased.
The question is, when things are not going the way one wishes, what next? I watched an interesting video on the synthesis of happiness this morning (20 minutes long) which argues that if we assume irretrievability, then we enhance our capacity to choose happiness. I’m wondering if this basic precept – that’s what done is done and can’t be changed – could guide many other choices, including the ways we respond when we find ourselves seemingly trapped in a discourse that we don’t necessarily want. I believe it is the element of acknowledgment that I am finding most attractive. Perhaps my general communicative strategy is to reduce uncertainty (see What You Don’t Know Makes You Nervous) in order to make choices clear.
Perhaps.

“Are you speaking English?” asked the marine biologist. (I get that a lot.) NGO told me about dynamic semiotics while The Woman from Ghent provided commentary on the group’s unique social interaction – not to mention demonstrating the lesbian walk. Several times! Meanwhile, Irish informed me she’s “not really a tight bitch.” (I didn’t know that I was wondering!)
The length of my stay, age, and relationship status was determined (and double-checked), not to mention how I knew who. I was spared “change the subject” moments since none of my ex’s are known to this community. The night was divided quite evenly between laughter and dancing.
Yes, the work switch was definitely turned off – how else could I have arrived to my hosts’ place at 4:15 thinking it was just a bit past midnight?!

The park is magical. As are all the public, cultivated spaces here: I’m given the sense of a holodeck – programmed to appear wild but the evidence of human design remains.


Doesn’t that remind you of the lamppost on the other side of the wardrobe in The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe? (I have refrained from watching the movie, so this is my imaginary correspondence from a reading many years ago.)
We picnicked and talked about the seasons. Liesbet looked at me with incredulity when I said it is a fairly recent phenomena for me to actually consciously register the duration of seasons. (She thinks I’m a treehugger!) I mean, yea, of course I always knew the seasons change, but to have that deep embodied awareness that one season follows the next . . .

and each lasts about so long . . .

Yea, that’s a perceptual kind of awareness I’ve been growing only since the last five years or so. I’m always pleased when spring arrives, but I never trusted the end of summer. Fall, for nearly all my life, seemed to hurtle into winter. When autumn started slowing down – meaning, when I realized there would be some months of fall between the first cold night and the onslaught of snow – is when the reality of the seasons as a cycle dawned.
I know. How is it possible to have been so clueless for so long?
I was raised among people who weren’t noticing those things. Or, if they were, it was a private matter, not discussed. Education was abstracted, even hands-on activities. (Not that I recall very many – which isn’t saying so much, as I don’t remember much of the first half of my life…) Reading Alison Bechdel’s graphic novel, Fun Home, sheds a certain kind of strange light on my own childhood. I realize that there was a singular focus that bounded most of my family’s doings… no wonder I still struggle to spread perceptual awareness as broadly as necessary, and so often get lost in the resulting complexity!

Anyway, we took off our shoes and spread our toes in the cool grass, comparing seasons in Egypt, Belgium, and various climes in the U.S. There is no twilight in Egypt, for instance, only a day/night transition lasting less than half-an-hour. You feel the seasons there by the temperature. Here in Belgium, as in the US, I tend to smell the season first. There is also a quality of air – probably a function of humidity? – but it seems secondary to me, whereas in Egypt (so says Mahmoud) the feel of the air comes before the nose detects a difference.
There are American sayings about the seasons….I have a vague recollection…”April showers bring May flowers” is the only one that comes to mind. Appropriate! In Dutch there is a saying about the moodiness of the weather, apparently Arabic has one as well, but for a different month… correspondence, but not an exact alignment: synchronicity is variable, huh?

Luiza could not believe her ears. “We’re on the grounds of Fontainebleau!”



“What now” is a question I borrow from curricular design, social justice style. First cover the what, then the so what, and finally now what. What is the subject matter? Why should we care about it? How are we going to use this knowledge?


I was ready for three days in France, away from the halls of the European Parliament and the concentration of stimulation. “Scientists,” Luiza quoted the director of her thesis, “throw away the most interesting stuff!” I needed the change in place for perspective, knowing that whatever I encounter has the potential to enhance or distract my focus from the essential elements and determinative dynamics of the system of simultaneous interpretation in such a concentrated center of global influence. “What do you think of France?” she asks me. I cannot give a discrete answer: I am treading water, immersed in a sea of history, currents of contemporary discourse, and Jeanette Winterson’s The Stone Gods. The evidence, I think, displays a need to worship and the desire for control.
This is not unique to France, of course – it is the story of Europe, perhaps of homo sapiens.

Upon return to Luiza’s mod flat, I retreated from the day-trip’s high-speed (time)travel to recharge my introvert self. I soaked up the smell of melting then baking chocolate, absorbed the sounds of Dvorak’s cello concerto and Yann Tiersen’s juxtaposition of strings and piano (Sur le fil), wondered at the juxtaposition of Flemish musical history with Romania’s inability to develop (so-called) high culture (“we were too busy being invaded”), and read:

‘Is it to be believed . . . that an island abundant in all things necessary has been leveled to this wasteland through the making of a Stone God and then by his destruction?’ (2007, p. 133)

Who builds in stone wants to be remembered; no other monument lasts so long or so well. Yet people (governments, organizations, groups of all kinds) also try to fix social reality – relationships, communication itself – as if hardening the rules will determine outcomes, enabling the assertion of final control by banishing all possible space for anarchy.
We hash over linguistics while we eat: attempting to digest the cognitivists, distributionalists, generativists, structuralists, psycholinguists, and sociolinguists all at one go. We sleep. (No one reports dreaming.)
The Islamic Arts Department of the Louvre is closed, so I opt for Near Eastern Antiquities. I learn about the land “between rivers” (Mesopotamia), known to us through the “archeological fortune” of remains from Girsu/Telloh and Mari and (particularly) the reign of Gudea, who poses in all statues with hands piously held across his heart. In one statue, Gudea holds a “gushing vase” from whence stream fish, invoking Geshtinanna, “the goddess of the reviving water.”


I note references to Ishtar and Inanna, figurines of women, and circles. I am fascinated by the “oscillation tendency” of the city of Susa to be both “the eastern extension of Mesopotamia” and “the western expression of Iranian mountain civilization.” I am as repulsed by the ancient rite of hierogamy as Luiza was by the relatively recent public birthing of royalty. The art of engraving stones, by the way, is called glyptic.


Then, we tiptoed through the Tuileries, sauntered the length of the Avenue de Champs-Elysees to the Arc de Triomphe, past Place de la Concorde, La Madeleine, Napoleon’s burial site at the Dome des Invalides, and Grand Palais. We failed to find socks but did stop for sweets at Paul, before heading to The Lab.

The Lab is a treat. Jose dives into musical history, demonstrating how each of the old instruments work and explaining the way scores were written. We even get to see one of the earliest precursors of today’s synthesizer. Then we walk through a quiet residential area, hearing birdsong en route to the Eiffel Tower – another impressive artifact of manmade worship. From viewing angles underneath, it looks like a spaceship. How many wonders can a single day hold?


We passed the Pantheon (smart dead people buried here) on the way to dinner (which was absolutely scrumptious), and afterwards the fountain at Place Saint Michel and Notre Dame. Charlemagne looks like the WitchKing of Angmar; there were many times these past few days when I felt as if the statues atop eaves looked down on us mere mortals with bloody demand. How does it come to be that a quote by Napolean accompanies Barack Obama on the cover of Vanity Fair? Riding the Thalys back midday, I read:

“the regrettable acts of war . . . to the broken and the dead, the wounded and maimed, to the exploded and shrapnel-shattered, to minds gone dark, to eyes that have seen agony no tears can wash away, it hardly matters that the dead language of war repeats itself through time. The bodies that can say nothing have the last word” (p. 233-234).

I wondered where we were, as the train hurtled at top speed across a plain toward France’s border with Belgium. What “regrettable acts of war” had occurred here, and what can be done to ensure that such “regret” becomes a thing of the past rather than a recurring motif of human history? I know the notion is counterintuitive, but interpreters – professionally trained, ‘conference’ and ‘community,’ of any and every language combination – are poised at a liminal opening to societal self-organization that structures difference and equality within the most basic component structure: that of language-based interaction between human beings.

Continuing to gaze out the train window I see the first fresh hints of spring; the trees tinged bright green appear aglow. Earlier, Jose had noticed that the conductor addressed passengers in the language of their destination. The only way to avoid war will be to intertwine economies and social relations so densely that no class interest can benefit from disruption. To keep the system vibrant, differánce must be celebrated in core institutional processes.

“Are you blogging?!”
Patricia busted me right in the middle of Nederlands 1.2; I was taking notes on the confusion, even in the official language course, between languages. We are not being taught the local Flemish dialect, although Flemish versions sometimes appear in the midst of the officially-sanctioned Dutch. A French word had appeared on a worksheet instead of the Dutch term and the teacher drew our attention to it: this has happened before – not too often, but occasionally. I imagine that this is exactly how the languages are mixed in everyday use outside of the classroom.
Five of us from Cursus Nederlands 1.1 survived to 1.2 in the same classroom, same schedule, with the same stellar teacher. Six if Amin gets his act together and registers! Mahmoud got a job, Bouchra and Tolu have left us for higher levels – following Marse who is so far beyond us now we are lucky to get glimpses of her in the school cafeteria. I am still celebrating the small miracle of passing the level one test!
My struggle with learning Dutch (“very hard for Americans,” says virtually everyone) is somewhat similar to the experience of being on the outside of a conversation in a language I don’t know, as occurred several times last week in Strasbourg. Usually the other language was French – and I am reminded of the strategic decision last summer to start learning French, and then the practical choice of choosing Dutch because my residence in Antwerp enabled me less-expensive access to high quality intensive lessons. Not that I’ve been able to take full advantage of the lessons – I may be lucky to consistently attend 1/3 sessions per week this term. During pessimistic moods, I wonder if I was wrong to have prioritized the lessons over tramping the halls of Parliament last fall.
The social (and socializing) function of being with my fellow students in the cursus Nederlands, however, is vital for my sanity. Some of it is pure silliness, such as learning that Topi wears insulated socks (!), and some is wonder at the diversity of human experiences represented by our particular biographies. Marinella, for instance, saw the world as a youngster doing competitive sportshooting before moving from Bulgaria to South Africa for 19 years prior to her arrival here in Belgium.
I also admire the curriculum, and the ways Anne delivers it. Level 1.2 zeros in on two crucial skills: listening and grammar. I was annoyed and grudgingly impressed by the audiotrack we listened to (for answers to fill-in-the-blank questions on a handout) for including a low-level music background track. It was totally distracting – which forces you to concentrate while mimicking life in the real world, where there is always background noise of one form or another. As for the grammar, well, Topi was elegant as usual: “Dat is speciaal.” Patricia agreed, “Moelijk!” The entire array of language-learning services is impressive. Amin was very excited about all the resources he had learned about from Atlas, a social service organization whose mandate is to facilitate the acculturation of immigrants into Belgian society. (He enjoyed his appointment with Natalie, especially her enthusiasm.)
In terms of the research project that brings me to Belgium, having one foot in the community of everyday people and the other in the elite reaches of European governance helps me maintain a holistic perspective on the research objectives. How do attitudes and experiences with simultaneous interpretation serve as a lens for comprehending the role of language in Europe today? Is it possible to locate and describe how present-day policies and practices may play out over time? I believe it is possible to make some predictions, because the information about how current policies are affecting current practices are readily available – if we choose to recognize them.
Or are perceptually attuned to recognize them – which is the first matter of concern. Not only am I experiencing the limitations of my own mind to take in and process new information, but I am also observing non-verbal and discursive evidence of other people’s inability to either perceive or process new information. For instance, as I talk with Members (of the European Parliament), I am struck by how few of them have ever considered the system of simultaneous interpretation beyond echoing the usual litany of complaints and de rigueur compliments. It is not that they are un-thoughtful, far from it! Their responses when I question the practical realism of the expectations that inspire complaining are quite insightful. But some of the ideas I pose are outside their areas of knowledge – most of them simply admit this (a candor I find appealing and hopeful), some smaller percentage gamely go on along a path I find minor or tangential to my primary point (but nearly always in sync with a concern the Member had previously expressed), and a very few carry on in a way that leads me to suspect they are unaware that another way of thinking is possible.
I do not believe this is a matter of intelligence, at least not in most cases. I think it is a function of (lack of) exposure to different discourses. There seems to be only way to talk about simultaneous interpreting in the European Parliament; other ways of talking elicit responses ranging from curiosity to dismissal, from intrigue to risk – as if talking about interpreting is, in-and-of-itself, a threat.
Anyway, as other friends and I discussed last night, I have neither a magic blue diamond nor a genie to wish worries of “bad karma” away, only the goodwill of friends and those who do sense some value in the knowledge I seek to construct, even if my manner is clumsy as hell.

I left Mumbai pretty much as I arrived: pressed in a sea of people. I boarded my flight (departure 13:35) at 13:32. The long lines for security screening before and after each stop (check-in, immigration, boarding) reminded me of the bureaucracy in Belgium, in which you think you’re on the last step only to discover that there’s another one, and then another . . . and another . . .
Still, I made the flight and the entire visit in Mumbai was perfect. Well, we did miss most of the actual marriage ceremony (oops) but they were still unmarried when we arrived! Who kept re-setting snooze? Couples. You gotta watch out for them.

I was there at the beginning. Maybe not the very beginning, but I was around when the light began to dawn. I had already seen the signs: “it seems you are giving each other a lot of comfort.” Nonetheless, who would have guessed, even a year ago, that I would be attend a Brahmin wedding between two dear friends – and in Mumbai, no less? Peak experiences are infrequent, but yesterday was a sixteen and a half-hour nonstop wonder. The whole trip has been great: my senses were unable to sustain the full onslaught of constant stimulation but I did fairly well considering I was hardly there long enough to get over jet lag.
Being with such close friends eased much of the culture shock I might otherwise have felt. Against the backdrop of stark poverty, a bewildering maze of trains, auto rikshaws, and busses, with barefoot people everywhere (even running jackhammers), there is an organic self-organizing system of constant commerce, from evening train carriage entrepreneurs to millions of home-cooked lunchbox deliveries.
The city surges in huge gulps and massive swallows. Need to get off the local train at rush hour? Just wedge those hips into the tiniest crevice and wiggle open the gap. Like mudwrestling without lubricant, bodies morph around each other like blood squeezed through a capillary. As long as you plan ahead, you’ll be close enough to the doors to be disgorged, to all extents and purposes simply ejected in the periodic spasm of rolling stops and abrupt starts.



My friends’ wedding unfolded in delightful contrast. More a relaxed social event than the solemn witnessing characteristic of U.S. weddings, people chowed breakfast and caught up on recent news while others showered rice blessings on the couple as the priest made stuff up.



Laughter and goodwill permeated the crowd. It was a crowd – approximately 350 for the marriage proper. This was primarily the groom’s side of the family, although a solid contingent of the bride’s side did make it all the way from Chennai (and Sydney, among other globally-scattered locations). The bride’s side gets their turn on Sunday: another three hundred or so will gather to eat, toast the new couple, and eat. Did I mention that food is really the main event?
I ate much more than seems reasonably possible. It did not help that the US version of headshaking “no” translates pretty closely to the Hindi headshake for “yes.” Then there are the sortof rolling headbobbles that look like yes/no at the same time. No wonder the general attitude about nearly all things is a relaxed, “whatever!”
Although it felt effortless, there was nothing casual about the ceremony and rituals. The groom’s parents began planning last summer, setting aside enough mangoes to make the most delectable mango dessert imaginable. I can’t name the dishes, but I can say every single one was delicious and abundant. Between dinner the night before, breakfast during the morning rituals and actual wedding ceremony, and lunch afterwards, I could have eaten comfortably for a week. Everyone’s finery was on display, including some brash young men who sought to compete with the groom for splendour. (They had permission, outfits purchased with groom in tow; mine excepted.)



Still, the ease with which the women navigated in their saris, and everyone circulated among familiar relatives and strange foreigners was delightful. You wouldn’t know, for instance, that the bride and groom didn’t really want to sit in the royal chairs, so carefully maneuvered were they into conforming to tradition. Parents are definitely dangerous. The bride’s dad, in particular, pumped us for incriminating information on the lucky couple. Some people cooperated. Ahem. This is what happens, I think, when the entire sociocultural structure is designed to make relationships work. Whether the goal is to prevent divorce or promote harmony is beside the point: everything is geared to keep the couple together – even if “and happy” is a contingent on a variety of circumstances and conditions.
Which is all rather different than queer folk who pretty much have to make a relationship work on its own merits, often against overt hostility and nearly always against the subtler forces of indifference. I was stared at a lot, but only aggressively by one person (that I noticed). Others were curious: but then again, being American is an excuse for all kinds of strange behavior.
Did I mention how cool my friends are? They are the greatest.

Meanwhile, we devised a (level 2) test for the Shiva, and noted the building next door . . .

Does he know where to look to find his name?


Does he know he’s supposed to?!


“They do this in the south . . .”

Fringe benefits:

The first view out the airplane window was of a massive rock formation, then an expanse of land interspersed with building complexes, and then the low-lying shanties with their grey-brown roofs and liberal patches of blue tarp.
I started grinning as I walked off the plane, and continued to feel good, even as my fellow passengers surged to the immigration queue, propelling me forward at their pace! A random stranger placed a call to my missing friend, and I settled down to wait under the yellow fever vaccination sign, content that I’m really here.



Airport observation amused me for awhile, but that perfectly pleasant 80 degree (27 C) early afternoon shade was lulling me to sleep when who should appear? And then we were off! It is not apparent to me that Mumbai roads have lanes. Rickshaws compete to squeeze between cars, not to mention buses and trucks and that cow walking the wrong way up the middle of the road! I was so stunned I did not recover in time to snap a photograph! “Don’t worry,” Puru said. “There will be more.”

He brought me to the tree-lined campus of the India Institute of Technology, where we enjoyed a yummy tofu-and-vegetable curry with naan. We were not the only ones interested in lunch:

IIT is next to a wildlife preserve, they get all kinds of company, from monkeys to snakes to the occasional leopard. (So I’m told. Maybe they say that to all US Americans?)
The professor had to go off and do a bit more work, so he left me alone in his office. Hehehe.

At least it looks like he’s busy, huh? And still keeping up the activism: his office door displays a “Bush lies, out of Iraq” sticker, news articles on rural farmer suicides (rates increasing today) and victims of the DOW chemical explosion in Bhopal (still no justice, since 1984), a sticker supporting public transport, and a nice spread on novel ways the poor are organizing for electrical power.

Feels like home ~ or, at least like the good old days.