The Minority Rule

Indian-American Bobby Jindal's victory last week in the Louisiana gubernatorial election prompted me to examine what I call "the minority rule" in my Monday Diamondback column. People like Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, Nancy Pelosi, and Condoleezza Rice are proof that minorities have successfully infiltrated that last frontier--the apex of political leadership in this country.

Yet what they and Jindal have in common is what connects them with most politicians in high positions: their affiliation with a Judeo-Christian religious tradition. Simply put, being a woman or black or brown no longer makes you unelectable--as long as you still have the right religion. This, obviously, has some problematic repercussions:

"I definitely don't have any problem with religious people in politics, but I am concerned that religious people of non-Judeo-Christian faiths as well as atheist or agnostic people can be marginalized from the political process. I think the American public is definitely capable of judging a candidate on his or her merits and would not attach much importance to a candidate's religious affiliation. But because religion is talked about so much in the political arena, and because almost all politicians are Christians or Jews, I worry that others who would be great public servants are discouraged from running for office and thus never try."

Click here to read my new column. Also check out this interesting article from the Post about the generational divide between Indian-Americans' attitudes toward Jindal. The older generation (people my parents' age and up) are ecstatic at Jindal's win and proud to have an Indian-American in such a high position. They know how difficult it was for Indians when they first came to the U.S., and had a very different experience than people of my generation. The latter are much more likely to take Jindal's political considerations into account (and not vote for him just because he is Indian). They also are unhappy that Jindal distanced himself from his ethnicity during his run.

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On an entirely separate note, take a look at my previous Diamondback column, in which I tried to explain what "love of the game" really is to a sports fan. It's everything and anything from the rollercoaster ride of following a team through its trials and tribulations with a community of like-minded believers, to the pride you feel when you see a player you saw as a rookie gradually grow into a living legend. And yes, allowing our moods to be affected by the performance of a group of highly-paid strangers is admittedly irrational, but that doesn't mean it's not worth the time and emotion. Read "Fan Feelings".

The "Goracle" Strikes Again

Congratulations to Al Gore for winning the Nobel Peace Prize yesterday. I don't really think he should have won.

Nothing personal--I think Gore is a smart, experienced, and competent leader who probably would have been a good president. But a couple things trouble me about his win.

You could start by explaining to me the connection between giving PowerPoint slideshows about global warming and the award's ostensible purpose: the promotion of world peace. And I'm already reluctant to embrace an alarmist approach to global warming, an initiative which will likely gain more traction thanks to Gore's Nobel win. (For more on my take on global warming, see this previous post, or better yet, a superb article called "Chill Out" which ran in the Post last week).

It also seems to me that the Peace Prize, unlike the other Nobel awards in literature, physics, et al., is much more of a "fad" prize. The winners in those categories all appear to be octogenarian scientists or authors or economists who are recognized for their contributions several years after they were made, after sufficient time has passed that the magnitude of their accomplishment can better be appreciated. Not so with the Peace Prize, which seems inclined to more often make statements about the here and now.

Meanwhile, there is another current situation that is sorely deserving of the world's attention: the Burmese monks protesting the brutal military dictatorship in their country. The junta in Burma is already holding one worthy Nobel laureate, Aung San Suu Kyi, under house arrest; they have prevented a democratically-elected government from ruling; they have engaged in vicious acts of torture, rape, and a host of other human rights abuses.



When the monks defied the junta and peacefully marched in public, thousands of ordinary citizens joined in, marching with the monks and serving as "human shields" against soldiers and police ordered to beat up or even shoot protesters. This inspiring struggle is still unfolding, and it could do with all the publicity anyone is willing to give it, so that the Burmese junta is held accountable for their actions. (For more details on the horror, see here, here, here, and here, for starters.)

...So, not to take anything away from Mr. Gore, who has had a remarkable career since he withdrew from the contested presidential election of 2000, but with a host of other worthy issues around the world in need of recognition, his just wasn't the name I wanted to hear announced on Friday.

Update 10/14

My friend Nikhil wrote to me defending the Nobel committee's desire to bring attention to global warming. In response to the "Chill Out" article I cited above, he said "I don't think it's right to base environmental policy judgments simply on cost. It's too utilitarian and undermines the point that you're actually trying to change something that is really hard to change." Nikhil also pointed out that "climate wars...actually happened this year in Africa--people were fighting for now-scarce arable land."

After writing this post, I came across a good article by Ronald Bailey in Reason Magazine:

"In any case, global warming is not the result of environmental sin; it is the result of human progress creating another commons problem. We do not need to "lift global consciousness"; we need to find a cheap, low-carbon source of energy. I have no doubt that man-made global warming is an economic and technical problem that an inventive humanity will solve over the course of the 21st century."

Amen. Read the whole thing here.

The Real World

My column in today's Diamondback shines the spotlight on my tentative first steps toward graduating and entering the real world. It's not a smooth transition for unsuspecting students like myself, who quickly find that employers aren't just waiting to hand out fat paychecks to us so that we can plan our next exotic vacation.

An excerpt from "The Real World":

If you happen to be a pre-med student, you just might be lucky enough to stay in school until you are 35. If you are choosing to go to graduate school, you must be commended because, without people like you, there would be no one to sit in Starbucks with a laptop to use the free Wi-Fi all day.

But for the rest of you soon-to-be alumni, expect to find a vastly different world out there...

In theory, the hardest part should be whether to spend your first paycheck on Redskins season tickets or a new 60-inch plasma HDTV to watch the Redskins at home. I've found, however, that getting a job isn't as easy as switching to GEICO. It takes way more than just one quick 15-minute phone call, and contrary to popular belief, it will do absolutely nothing to help you save 15 percent on auto insurance.

Employers, with an irrational need to find "qualified" and "competent" workers, require interrogations of prospective candidates. Apparently it's not enough that I've never taken steroids, financed illicit dog fights or attempted to enrich uranium for purposes of terrorism...

Click here to read the entire column.