Category: Journal

Alternate History

Victor Davis Hanson today:

For some time, a large number of Americans have lived in an alternate universe where everything is supposedly going to hell. If you get up in the morning to read the New York Times or Washington Post, watch John Murtha or Howard Dean on the morning talk shows, listen to National Public Radio at noon, and go to bed reading Newsweek it surely seems that the administration is incommunicado (cf. “the bubble”), the war is lost (“unwinnable”), the Great Depression is back (“jobless recovery”), and America about as popular as Nazi Germany abroad (“alone and isolated”).

But in the real adult world, the economy is red-hot, not mired in joblessness or relegating millions to poverty. Unemployment is low, so are interest rates. Growth is high, as is consumer spending and confidence. Our Katrina was hardly as lethal as the Tsunami or Pakistani earthquake. Thousands of Arabs are not rioting in Dearborn. American elderly don’t roast and die in the thousands in their apartments as was true in France. Nor do American cities, like some in China, lose their entire water supply to a toxic spill. Americans did not just vote to reject their own Constitution as in some European countries.

And for bonus points, American Soldiers Terrorize Iraqi Family.

Into the Wardrobe

Saw The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe last night with the beauteous fiancee. Four thumbs up! I thought it was wonderful. One’s always going to have quibbles, but since the movies were so different from my own internal vision of Narnia, I think I could approach them on their own terms. Some great moments:

  • Lucy and Mr. Tumnus both hiding behind inadequate objects. If I can’t see you…
  • The light in the professor’s eyes: “The wardrobe, you say?”
  • The Talking Rhinocerous.
  • The red Lion rampant on a silver shield.
  • My name is Phillip!

Wow

I grew up in West Africa, in Liberia and Cote d’Ivoire. West Africa is not known as a hotbed of bureaucratic and administrative efficiency and service.

But my experience this week at the Indian consulate was beyond anything I have ever experienced in America, Canada, Europe, Africa or Asia. What I was given was so far in excess of “the runaround” that I can only stand in awe. I was lied to and given contradictory stories, often within hearing of previous story-tellers. I was screamed at, ignored, shuffled in line and laughed at to my face. I jumped through every hoop I was presented with, complied with every changing directive and new requirement. Finally a decision was made on the visa application in question — exactly ten minutes before the last minute I could send the resulting passport via FedEx to its destination — which was to reject the application.

And the visa wasn’t even for me, it was for my 18-year-old cousin.

All I can say is that if that’s India’s best and brightest, they did absolutely nothing to disprove any particular ethnic, cultural or national stereotypes that might be applicable. And it wasn’t just because I was a white boy. There were many examples of the same behavior towards ethnic Indians in the visa office.

So if you want a visa to India, mail it to Ottawa. Enter the Vancouver consulate at your own peril.