Tonight I finished an inspiring book by Sam Roberts, A Kind of Genius: Herb Sturz and Society’s Toughest Problems (PublicAffairs, 2009).  Focused on the New York efforts of Sturz over five decades, the book traces the rise of the Vera Institute of Justice and numerous ancillary endeavors.  Working mostly along with but outside of government – except for major stints leading criminal justice policy and city planning during the mayoral administration of Edward Koch – Herbert Sturz was an accomplished social entrepreneur well before that term arose in common parlance.  His work continues as his eightieth birthday approaches.

The subjects of the book resonate with current challenges in New York, New Haven, and around the country: from drug and prison policy to the re-entry of former prisoners to society; from unemployment and homelessness to worker training, housing, and economic development; from domestic violence and juvenile justice to national service and after-school learning.

. . .

Early in 2001, Herb Sturz – having helped to launch The After-School Corporation – spoke to a graduate school class on “The After-School Child” taught by Gil Noam.

Months before, this op-ed piece discussed New Leaders for New Schools as an example of social entrepreneurship:

   2000 October 30 Boston Globe "Don't Mistake a Low Youth Vote for Apathy"

Last September, I wrote of "Long-Term Care: Grandma at 97"; yesterday, she died.

The daughter of immigrants, Dorothy Kruskal Brown was born during the last year of William Howard Taft's presidency and lived through the first year of the Obama administration.  Her long life had many joys and blessings, and also considerable sorrows.  One couldn't hope for a better, more loving grandmother.

I last saw her a week ago, when she recognized my father and me and brightened at our visit, despite her gaunt, extreme fragility, as well as her confusion and hearing loss.  I kissed her hello and good-bye for what proved to be the final time.

Below is the obituary that will run in the Willimantic Chronicle for this displaced, nearly lifelong New Yorker.

Dorothy Kruskal Brown, born June 10, 1912 in New York City, died January 29, 2010 at Mansfield Center for Nursing and Rehabilitation.  She was the widow of A. A. Brown and the daughter of Miriam Jacobson Kruskal and A. Herman Kruskal.  Her son James William Brown predeceased her in 1951 at the age of six years; her sister Ruth predeceased her in 1955.  Survivors include: [two sons and a daughter-in-law, three grandsons and their wives, and four great-grandchildren], as well as nieces, nephews, and friends across generations.  Dorothy Brown was a 1934 graduate of Radcliffe College, PBK with honors in history.  After the death of James William she earned an M.A. in special education from Teachers College of Columbia University. Thereafter she taught autistic children as well as remedial reading. Following retirement she was an active babysitter for infants and toddlers.  She will be remembered as a person of exceptional generosity, integrity, warmth, humor, and wit. Donations in her memory may be made to the Dorothy K. Brown Fund at Mansfield Center for Nursing and Rehabilitation, 100 Warren Circle, Storrs, CT 06268.

With the Yale-New Haven Teachers Institute’s 2009 Annual Report to be published this spring, reports from 2008 and 2007 (and earlier years) are available online:

http://www.teachers.yale.edu/pdfs/ar/ar2008-full.pdf

http://www.teachers.yale.edu/pdfs/ar/ar2007-full.pdf

An October 2009 news release issued jointly with the New Haven Public Schools addressed the curriculum units Institute Fellows wrote in 2009, in the context of a recent evaluation report about the Teachers Institute approach.

Finally, here is information on the Yale-New Haven Teachers Institute seminars for 2010, before tomorrow’s January 26 application deadline.

It’s been a year since this blog addressed basketball, in a January 26, 2009 post about Jim Calhoun, Ray Allen, UConn basketball and the Obama inauguration.  Basketball returns here now because I was at Gampel Pavilion in Storrs yesterday among more than 10,000 fans who witnessed Connecticut defeat then #1-ranked Texas, 88-74.

To say “witnessed” might understate the collective role of the audience, who sometimes can marginally participate in a game and influence its outcome. One fan, one hundred fans, cannot make a difference.  Ten thousand can and did.

Each season is a drama, each game an act.  Yesterday’s theater featured – both among the frenzied fans and adrenaline-fueled Husky players – an extraordinary emotional charge.  The crowd and the team fed each other’s energy, eventually overwhelming ostensibly superior Texas with a tremendous surge of the UConn players’ skill and will.

John Wooden (whose teams won 10 NCAA titles at UCLA -- not to be confused with John Woodenlegs, quoted by Sarah Palin in a statement she mistakenly attributed to Wooden) sought to instill “competitive greatness.”  Yesterday’s second half exhibited that as UConn took over the game with inspired focus. 

After beginning the second half with a turnover that led to a Texas basket, the Huskies trailed by 10 points, 44-34, with 19 minutes, 51 seconds remaining.  An immediate timeout by interim head coach George Blaney – substituting for head coach Calhoun, away on an apparently stress-related medical leave -- settled the team.  From there, UConn overpowered Texas by a score of 54-30.

Today’s sports pages relate details, starting with Jerome Dyson, who had a career-high 32 points.  He said, “This is definitely at the top.  The fans today, I’ve never seen them like that before in my four years here. This is a great day. I haven’t been part of a big win like that since I’ve been here.”  He continued, “The crowd is what got us into it. Once we started making a big play here, a big play there and the crowd got going, the energy just went through us, and we kept it going.”  Blaney commented, “As loud as anything I’ve heard here in Gampel.”   New Haven Register reporter Dave Borges described a “raucous crowd.”  The Hartford Courant’s Mike Anthony "never heard a building get louder."

This was a team victory, drawing not only upon Dyson and two other stars, Stanley Robinson and Kemba Walker, who scored in double figures along with senior stalwart Gavin Edwards, but also upon role players.  One story was Ater Majok, who is from Sudan and then Australia and showed great hustle in diving for balls and blocking shots.

Much has been made in sports columns about the pressures of coaching major college basketball.  Certainly coaches are expected to win and faulted if they don’t.  They are highly paid, often several times more than university presidents.  (Jim Calhoun’s salary elicited controversy last year.)

But real stress is when you lose your father at age 15 as Calhoun did (and why he is right to take seriously his own health), or evacuate your country to live for years in refugee camps, as Ater Majok did.  Stress is losing your job when you have to support a family, or not having health insurance when you’re sick, or praying for a soldier’s safe return from Afghanistan.  The catastrophe in already impoverished Haiti is of a different magnitude.

In these times of 10 percent official unemployment and far higher rates of youth unemployment, with government budgets at all levels straining to serve growing needs, sport can be a welcome diversion.  Yesterday, rooting on and watching the team win was exhilarating in person and a boon to members of “Husky nation” across Connecticut and beyond.  (My brother savored the news from India.)

In the January 2009 post (on "Basketball, Politics, and Purpose"), I recalled the “joyful thunder” in Hartford Civic Center in January 1990 when the “hitherto humble Huskies” stunned mighty Georgetown with a 14-0 opening run that signaled a new era in Connecticut basketball.  Already by 1990, I had been a fan more than half of my young life, with memories of late 1970s and 1980s trips to the old campus field house – capacity under 5000 but often loud – where I had also attended basketball camp for three summers.  Bonding with my father – and often too with my brother, mother, and friends – was an element of those experiences.   Countless hundreds of hours were devoted to playing basketball and watching UConn games together, even if winning could be elusive.  After years of mediocrity, the turnaround Jim Calhoun engineered was a marvel that no Connecticut fan should forget.

A pet peeve of mine is when fickle UConn fans, who take for granted the team’s recent success, carp about a loss here or there when they should have more serious things to worry about, or worse when they boo the home team, as on occasion has happened. No fan should boo his team.  Team sports are about unity, on the court or the field and with the fans.  If you take the time to care about any particular team, you should be loyal, or at least civil.  Sure, boo the referees if that’s cathartic.  (I admit to doing some of that, including yesterday!)  But cheer for your team.  You might even help along a victory.  It’s been frustrating to observe eroding support even in Gampel Pavilion (let alone in Hartford), where three years ago a complacent, distracted crowd let a long home-winning streak fall vs. Marquette.

Yesterday was different, a flashback to twenty winters ago when the state of Connecticut didn’t take winning basketball for granted, and a vocally supportive crowd consistently boosted the team. 

“Fan” is short for “fanatic”; anyone with a sense of proportion should recognize that to take much interest in a game is not purely rational.  According to Courant columnist Jeff Jacobs, “The fun returned to UConn basketball [yesterday]. And it returned with the kind of ear-splitting, second-half, national television rush that made everyone . . . remember why our state had made such an emotional investment in the first place.”  Said Jacobs, “Never has there been a louder, more exuberant” win than yesterday’s.

What Alan Greenspan might call “irrational exuberance” applied as fans clapped, cheered, shouted with delight.  During a 26-6 run that included steals, dunks, blocked shots, and an improbable desperation three-pointer, I became so enthused that I jumped off my seat and clumsily fell backward.  Fans in the next row helped me up.  Moments later, we were leaping up again and exchanging high-fives in the upper reaches of Gampel Pavilion.  The crowd continued to roar as the clock ticked down.  Below, the student section – which had anchored and stoked the cheering with chants of “Stand up, Gampel” – rushed the court to embrace the players.  Huskymania was back.  Connecticut blue had defeated Texas burnt orange.  For a couple of hours, problems were in retreat.

Best wishes to Jim Calhoun for his health.  Best wishes for everyone’s health.

. . .

Credit sources: Hartford Courant (Mike Anthony and Jeff Jacobs) and New Haven Register (Dave Borges) and their websites: www.courant.com and www.nhregister.com, along with www.youtube.com. 

As a statewide task force examines ways to improve prevention and protection under Connecticut law and policy, cases of domestic violence continue to flare.

A recent murder-suicide in West Haven involved a man who had been arrested for abusing his wife, who had just obtained a protective order; he evidently killed her and then himself, orphaning their young children.  Arielle Levin Becker’s January 18 Hartford Courant article quotes Sandra Koorejian of Domestic Violence Services of Greater New Haven.  Abbe Smith’s January 19 New Haven Register account quotes Erika Tindill of the Connecticut Coalition Against Domestic Violence, of which DVSGNH is a member.

Other recent domestic violence reports included  this January 19 Register story about a man who was taken into police custody “after he allegedly shot at his ex-girlfriend” while “the woman’s kindergarten age son was in the car.”  A couple of weeks earlier, there was news of former Bush Administration lawyer John Farren’s abuse of his wife in New Canaan, with Sandra Koorejian interviewed by WTNH Channel 8's Jocelyn Maminta:

 “‘The way we counsel victims is that, if the offender is unwilling or unable to accept any responsibility for their behavior, then the behavior is going to continue, you can not solve the problem yourself,’ Koorejian explained. If you or someone you know is being abused, please call toll free 1-888-774-2900.”

Channel 8’s Crystal Haynes interviewed Koorejian in November 2009 about how “Domestic violence cases are on the rise in Connecticut . . . some legal experts are blaming the economic conditions.”

Both Sandra Koorejian and Erika Tindill have been cited in various posts to this blog, including in the summer and fall of 2009, most recently on December 1.

A January 19 Courant article discusses a task force on domestic violence – described in the December 1 post to this blog -- that

“plans to meet at the state Capitol on Jan. 25 to address the issue. Members are awaiting more information about the case before deciding if they will look into the matter themselves.  ‘I'm sure we will look into some of the issues that stem from this case,’ [State Rep. Mae] Flexer said. ‘This incident demonstrates why the task force was created in the first place.’  [State Rep. Karen] Jarmoc said the group plans to put together a series of recommendations for the legislature to consider when it goes into session in early February. The proposals could include more funding for police departments and emergency shelters, better education about teen dating violence in high schools and a call for enhanced communication between court officials and law enforcement agencies. But the task force also will have to weigh the price tag for such proposals, Jarmoc said.”

 “Better education about teen dating violence” is one key.  According to Grace Merritt’s January 6 Courant article citing a 2007 State Department of Public Health survey, in Connecticut, “13.4 percent of students reported being hit, slapped or otherwise hurt by a boyfriend or girlfriend, compared with 9.9 percent of students nationally.”  It’s hard to know to what extent these figures suggest a more severe problem in our state or, rather, more awareness and reporting.  Either way, the incidence of such violence is substantial enough that it needs addressing.

Domestic Violence Services of Greater New Haven – a United Way-affiliated organization – is a lean operation but, amid growing demand for its services, always in need of funds.  Those services include a shelter for women and children, an emergency hotline, court-based advocacy, counseling, transitional housing, and preventive public awareness. 

Sandra Koorejian tells me, “During the first quarter of this fiscal year--July through September--DVS served 2,739 women, men and children--a 13% increase over the same period in 2008. Shelter occupancy has more than doubled. State and federal revenues are flat and could be cut.”  With budget mitigation plans uncertain, “DVS is vulnerable.”

Milford businesswoman Louise Hebert is among the beneficiaries and champions of the kind of services that DVS provides.  A survivor of domestic violence herself , she is outspoken about the organization's value and avenues for progress.  She is involved in a March 6, 2010 fundraiser that is one way to help Domestic Violence Services of Greater New Haven to break the cyle of violence that afflicts every community's families and children.

A recent event featured Yale-New Haven Teachers Institute seminars for 2010, and information before a January 26 application deadline. 

In his January 17 letter to the editor of the New Haven Register, “Early learning helps stem crime, too,” Police Chief James Lewis wrote:

“I was interested in the article ‘Preschool learning is what counts.’ Offering an early introduction to learning through school readiness programs helps young children reach their potential in school. As a police officer for almost 40 years, I know that early learning opportunities for at-risk kids from birth to age 5 also reduce the odds they will commit crimes as adults. Research backs that up. In Michigan, researchers tracked children in high-quality preschools and their peers left out of such programs. By 27, the at-risk children not in the program were more likely to be chronic lawbreakers than similar kids who received high-quality early education. The children left out were also more likely to be arrested for drug-related crimes as adults.”

Chief Lewis referred to a January 4 New Haven Register article.

A related organization is Fight Crime: Invest in Kids.

The Perry Preschool project in Michigan was the subject of this radio broadcast:

http://americanradioworks.publicradio.org/features/preschool/

The Perry Preschool study also was cited in the following account:

2008 September 2 New Haven Independent "Preschool: Public Policy Gets Personal, Early Childhood Resources and Research"

A January 2 post to this blog mentioned "Preschooler Pat-Downs" of my 4-year-old and 2-year-old children -- twice each, with metal-detecting wands -- in London's Heathrow Airport. 

A January 14 New York Times article by Lizette Alvarez provides context:
Meet Mikey, 8: U.S. Has Him on Watch List
 
“Since Michael Hicks was 2, he has been frisked and his family delayed at almost every airport they have entered.”

Today would have been Martin Luther King Jr.'s 81st birthday.  King was born in 1929, considerably after such other major 20th century figures as JFK (1917) and Nelson Mandela (1918).  King's assassination in 1968 deprived the country and the world of a leader who might otherwise still be contributing to events.

President Barack Obama, in his superb speech last month accepting the Nobel Peace Prize 45 years after Martin Luther King Jr.'s prize, evoked King's words in his 1964 Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech:

"I refuse to accept the idea that the 'isness' of man's present nature makes him morally incapable of reaching up for the . . . 'oughtness' that forever confronts him."

These words about striving for self-improvement and societal improvement have resonated since I first encountered them in fall 1987 and quoted the same passage on my high school yearbook page.

Then, the Soviet Union still existed, the Cold War dominated, and Nelson Mandela was imprisoned in apartheid South Africa.  The Iran-Iraq War (in which the U.S. backed Saddam Hussein's Iraq) neared its conclusion, and the U.S. supported the Islamic Mujahadeen -- which included Osama bin Laden -- against the Soviets in Afghanistan.

If our problems today are different and the world no less turbulent, there are causes for encouragement, not just despair. 

In his Nobel speech, Barack Obama spoke of Gandhi’s and King’s “fundamental faith in human progress -- that must always be the North Star that guides us on our journey.”

President Obama continued, “For if we lose that faith -- if we dismiss it as silly or naïve; if we divorce it from the decisions that we make on issues of war and peace -- then we lose what's best about humanity. We lose our sense of possibility. We lose our moral compass.”

No one should take for granted Obama's election as President, his accomplishments so far amid the extraordinary adversity he  inherited, and the continuing potential for his presidency to be significant.  He is part of a legacy of fitful human progress he now is helping to shape. 

Inspired by King among others including anonymous everyday doers, President Obama concluded his December 2009 Nobel address in a way that allowed for the kind of calamity that has since befallen Haiti, and how humanity must now respond:

“Somewhere today, in the here and now, in the world as it is, a soldier sees he's outgunned, but stands firm to keep the peace. Somewhere today, in this world, a young protestor awaits the brutality of her government, but has the courage to march on. Somewhere today, a mother facing punishing poverty still takes the time to teach her child, scrapes together what few coins she has to send that child to school -- because she believes that a cruel world still has a place for that child's dreams.  Let us live by their example. We can acknowledge that oppression will always be with us, and still strive for justice. We can admit the intractability of deprivation, and still strive for dignity. Clear-eyed, we can understand that there will be war, and still strive for peace. We can do that -- for that is the story of human progress; that's the hope of all the world; and at this moment of challenge, that must be our work here on Earth.”

A January 4 post mentioned that January is National Mentoring Month and indicated a few related resources.  Mentoring is often a dimension of other out-of-school learning and youth development programs, such as those listed below.

in New Haven:

Boys and Girls Club of New Haven

Citywide Youth Coalition

CTRIBAT

LEAP

Solar Youth

 

Nationally:

Building Educated Leaders for Life (BELL)

Citizen Schools

The attempted Christmas bombing of an Amsterdam to Detroit flight is leading to new restrictions on air travelers.  My family experienced this -- at least ostensibly -- increased scrutiny this week in departing Delhi and passing through London’s Heathrow Airport en route to Newark.

According to this New York Times article , “Though passengers arriving from Frankfurt passed speedily through customs at Kennedy Airport in New York, they said that in Germany the security was intensified. ‘I really was surprised,’one passenger, Eva Clesle, said about the level of scrutiny in Frankfurt, adding that officials had inspected backpacks by opening ‘every single zip.’”

“Every single zip” was not inspected December 30 at Heathrow, where though my wife was required to unzip the main compartment of her carry-on backpack, undetected were cartons of milk in another section of the backpack.

Also noteworthy:  Our children, ages 4 and 2, were patted down twice each as they went through security checks at Heathrow, in addition to having their shoes removed.

The next day, back home in New Haven, the kids had incorporated these security precautions into their play.  Brother and sister spontaneously were patting each other down, blissfully unaware of the real dangers behind the arguably absurd examination to which they had been subjected.

. . .

A few recent news items:

*December 26 AP story:

 “More than 40 people are feared dead after a bridge collapsed while under construction in western India,” 170 miles from Jaipur. “Police were investigating the cause of the accident and have arrested two project managers on charges of culpable homicide. . . . They work for South Korea's Hyundai Engineering and Gammon India. The two companies were jointly building the bridge.”

*January 2 AP story:

 “Four trains collided Saturday in two separate accidents caused by dense winter fog in [Uttar Pradesh in] northern India, killing 10 people and injuring 47 others. . . . Fog also delayed dozens of domestic and international flights in and out of New Delhi.”

*NPR’s Scott Simon has apparently been in Delhi recently, as reported on today's Weekend Edition Saturday:

“The U.S. government has issued a warning for American citizens on travel to India, because of instability in the region.”

Fog and haze were substantial as my family flew out of Delhi on December 30 – just two days after we traveled by second-class train from Jaipur to Delhi.

Evidently we were fortunate to depart Delhi when we did, and to have traveled safely by train from Jaipur on the 28th.  May others – Americans, Indians, everyone – be safe in this new year. 

Happy new year to readers of this blog!  I am recovering from jet lag following a December 30 flight from Delhi via London and Newark that returned my family to New Haven yesterday.  Before posting more tomorrow about that, today I wanted briefly to record our last couple of days in India.

On December 28, we left Jaipur by train in the evening and arrived in Delhi around 11 p.m.  

December 29 daytime was absorbed with packing and visiting with a family with a 3rd-grader daughter and 7th-grader son.  He told us of his morning "tuition" small-group prep classes in math, science, and English before he attends the second shift at his regular school from 1 to 6 p.m.  (The students were on break during their winter holiday.)

As afternoon turned to evening (with a couple of power outages that are the routine, given an overstrained energy infrastructure), we walked from my wife's parents' Faridabad apartment to a nearby mall.  The walk, through what has been a slum and is rapidly becoming a middle-class residential neighborhood, was a rare opportunity during what has been an overly car-dependent and traffic-ridden trip.  It will be a significant boon to Faridabad, and to the entire Delhi region, when the Metro commuter rail is completed.  So far, only a few Delhi neighborhoods are served by the Metro, whose construction has been evident all over town (and has temporarily worsened the already major problem of road congestion.)  The sleek Faridabad mall, like the Noida one described in the December 21 post below, was comparable to an urban or small suburban mall one might find in the U.S.

In the evening, we had dinner at the apartment of longtime family friends of my wife and her parents.  The host couple, Fawzia Mujib and Farhan Mujib, are both physicists.  Farhan Mujib, however, retired from physics some years ago to pursue artwork, including collages, full time.  (He is also an accomplished cook!)  Another guest was N.C. Saxena, now a UNICEF consultant cited in this October 8, 2009 New York Times Magazine article by David Rieff on "India's Malnutrition Dilemma." Other guests included N.C. Saxena's wife and their daughter and son-in-law (both of whom are involved in business ventures while the parents of four boys -- her business is baking "karma pies"), as well as a husband-and-wife team of biological scientists from Bangalore's Tata research institute.

The next morning, the 30th, we left Faridabad for the Delhi airport.  The drive highlighted Faribad's flourishing real estate sector; we passed numerous new developments and signs for "Flats, Flats, Flats."  Through the hazy fog and thick traffic, we saw the remains of an ancient fort near signs related to construction of the Delhi Metro train.  One sign included these pithy lines of encouragement and understatement:

"Be a Part

To Build the Nation,

Inconvenience Regretted"

These words reminded me of another sign spotted by a Metro construction area the previous week:

"Work in Progress for Better Tomorrow" (sic)

India is a great nation with many "inconveniences."  Work is in progress for a better tomorrow.

. . .

A few miscellaneous observations about the India trip not already mentioned above or in earlier posts below:

In the Indian newspapers during our stay, there was ferment over the Copenhagen Summit, education policy, the Commonwealth Games (whether Delhi’s infrastructure and security measures would be ready by October 2010), and police abuses.  India’s vigorous press is a clear strength, an area of advantage over China.

We also visited with a friend who works for Wipro’s handheld computing division, someone who travels frequently throughout India and beyond.  He described the choking pollution around Bangalore, the high-tech city to the south in the state of Karnataka.  According to him, it’s far worse than in Delhi, which for several years has required many vehicles to use compressed natural gas (CNG) fuel.   The Delhi Transport Corporation touts itself as "the world's largest eco-friendly CNG bus service." 

Regarding Bangalore, this December 9 New York Times article by Vikas Bajaj was interesting:
In India, Anxiety Over the Slow Pace of Innovation
“Indians fret that Bangalore, and India more broadly, will remain a low-cost satellite office of the West, rather than a hotbed of entrepreneurship.”

Still, the science and technology prowess of India is considerable.  To take one example, the pharmaceutical industry, this May 2007 article explored “The Indian Advantage,” how “Major drug companies in the West are expanding their research programs in India.” 

. . . 

An earlier trip to India informed the following piece that appears elsewhere on this website:

2006 September "From New Haven to New Delhi: Globalization and Its Human Scale"

My family marked Christmas today in Jaipur, in the northern Indian state of Rajasthan (population 64 million), which further west borders on Pakistan.  It's been an unconventional holiday, to say the least, but perhaps appropriately so given the participating family members -- who combine Jewish, Muslim, and Hindu as well as Christian backgrounds.

Our eclectic crew departed Delhi yesterday by train, enjoying “second-class” service to Jaipur.  Our only disappointment was that the train windows were too dirty to see clearly enough to take photographs of the countryside, which alternated between bare dry terrain and irrigated fields of mustard and of wheat.

We then spent Christmas Eve in a Rajasthani amusement park where my daughter and I rode a camel, dancers performed in colorful garb, and waiters nearly forced us -- amusingly and indigestibly -- to eat well past the point of satiation.  The latter scene was reminiscent of an old Saturday Night Live episode in which diners are told the deal is not how much you want to eat but literally how much "you can eat"!

Today we saw a centuries-old fort and hilltop barrier that resembles the Great Wall of China.

Stark are the arid, in some cases desert conditions of Rajasthan and the region’s dependence on irrigation.  It’s obvious why camels – still working on the streets of Jaipur itself – have been historically valuable animals here.

Safe Water Network  is a Connecticut-based organization whose areas of work include Rajasthan.

. . .

This Christmas week has included improbable images of snowmen (in a hotel display) and Santa-mask-wearing Delhi street hawkers.  We’ve seen hints of opulence in a brief hotel stay, as well as overwhelming evidence of the surging middle-class: new cars and motorcycles, cell phones and cyber cafes, gleaming malls, students in uniform, and advertisements for new apartments, hospitals and business schools. 

Even more salient, though, are the enduring ravages of poverty and inequality in this country where 4 in 10 children are underweight at age 5 – 500 percent worse than the comparable figure in China – and the literacy rate is just 61 percent.  

Begging is a substantial part of the informal economy, with organized crime often involved.  Recognizing this, my wife – a Hindi/Urdu speaker whose hometown is New Delhi where she has witnessed the begging phenomenon for years– and I have tried to inure ourselves to the appeals of beggars.

In only two cases has she relented.  While in Delhi, my wife was haunted by two young girls, sisters of about ages 6 and 2, outside a Nehru Place café.  Losing her own appetite, Sahar asked the 6-year-old if she was hungry and then walked across the plaza to buy her a healthful vegetarian meal.  Fending off dogs, the girl ate readily and attempted to feed her sister.

Today in Jaipur, after lunch -- in effect, our Christmas dinner -- we encountered a frail young mother holding her baby outside a restaurant.  My wife asked whether her baby was hungry and gave a liter of milk to the woman, whose sorrowful face indicated that cash was really what she was seeking. We were left contemplating the disparities and dilemmas of the global economy, and the elusiveness of facile solutions.

(Nicholas Kristof of the New York Times has helped popularize various proven mechanisms of international charitable assistance and microenterprise, to supplement aid and trade efforts of governments.)

. . .

Last year, this blog's December 26, 2008 entry (archived toward the bottom of this website's home page) chronicled reflections on Christmas in Malaysia.

Also archived on this website is a January 24, 2009 entry on "Slumdog Millionaire and the Many Indian Realities."

Today I visited the site of Mahatma Gandhi's last days and 1948 assassination, after having begun reading his (1925) autobiography.

The site takes visitors from the room in which he spent his final months, along the path of his final steps, to where he was murdered by a Hindu extremist.

Signs on that path bear several passages of Gandhi's own words, including these evoking today's continuing tensions and violence in South Asia and elsewhere:

“My patriotism is not exclusive, it is calculated not only not to hurt any other nation but to benefit all in the true sense of the word.  India’s freedom as conceived by me can never be menace to the world.”

Visiting the site is a powerfully solemn experience.  It resonated with my reading this week of his autobiography, subtitled The Story of My Experiments with Truth.

Among the many memorable passages is this one (from page 155 of the 1993 Beacon Press paperback), where Gandhi writes:

"It has always been a mystery to me how men can feel themselves honoured by the humiliation of their fellow beings."

Yesterday, I arrived in India for the first time since 2005.  My wife -- a citizen of India -- had traveled there days earlier with our two young children.  A friend of hers took us for a daylong drive.

Even on a Sunday, greater New Delhi was bustling and traffic considerable, exacerbated by construction associated with the Delhi Metro train and facilities for the Commonwealth Games (scheduled for October 2010).

Our drive around the region offered an opening (albeit mostly superficially road-side) glimpse at three of India's some 28 states:

*Delhi itself (population 17 million, twice that of New York City), the city-state that is the nation’s government capital (with west coastal Mumbai  the financial and Bollywood capital in the state of Maharashtra).

*Haryana (population 23 million), where my parents-in-law – after two decades in Delhi proper – now live in the city of Faridabad just outside Delhi.  According to a December 11 NPR story on the Haryana city of Gurgaon:

“India is the planet's fifth biggest carbon polluter. Even with its vast population, its per capita emissions are many times lower than the West. As India's economy grows, so will its pollution. India's government has announced measures to combat climate change. But some question whether it can carry them out. The city of Gurgaon has become the front-line in a battle between government and growth.”

Faridabad exhibits similar infrastructure and environmental challenges, though it is more residential and less corporate and technology-oriented than Gurgaon.

*Uttar Pradesh (UP), of which we drove through a sliver, the booming city of Noida.  With an estimated population of 190 million, UP is larger than all but five entire nations!  It would rank 6th, just behind Brazil and ahead of Pakistan.  UP includes Agra (where the Taj Mahal is located), the financial center Kanpur, the court city Allahabad, the Muslim university city Aligarh, and the ancient city Varanasi (also known as Benares).  It happens my brother has lived on and off in UP’s capital city, Lucknow, for years. 

Another major UP city is Noida, growing rapidly with the larger metropolitan Delhi region.  Via an impressive new highway to a Noida mall, the “Great India Place Big Bazaar,” we observed a monumental project that UP Chief Minister Mayawati – a leader of the nation’s Dalit outcaste group – is developing on what formerly was green space.  Her critics fault her and her party for alleged corruption, including bribes from developers.  We and our children were disappointed to discover what had been a Noida park with a playground was off limits, under transformation into a golf course, despite the presence already of another golf course nearby.

At the Noida mall, our friend’s young son and our own children were treated – if that’s the word – to the Indian version of McDonald’s.  The mall and the McDonald’s exhibited an adaptive international commerce.  The Indian menu, with no beef of course, featured the “chicken maharajah mac” and otherwise largely vegetarian choices (I had a paneer salsa wrap – not bad).  As we sat in the food court, we observed American wrestling – presumably Linda McMahon’s product – on a large-screen TV, near women in saris and a group of teens enjoying a mall outing as many of their U.S. counterparts do. 

Let’s trust that, in the global exchange of culture and commerce, McDonald’s and televised wrestling are not the best of the U.S. exports to India. . .

Tonight, a police officer stopped and questioned me blocks from my house as I was walking home around 10:30.

As his cruiser approached Livingston Street from Whitney Avenue, he slowed the car and called out, "Can I talk to you?"  He asked what I was doing and where I was going.  When I replied "walking home from work," he asked -- with some suspicion -- where I work.  When I said "downtown," he asked where.  I told him which building near the Town Green.  I asked whether he was looking for someone in particular -- whether to be alert for a person of a specific description.  He said I fit the description: "a white male wearing a dark coat." 

In the freezing night, I was also wearing a dark winter hat and haggardly sporting a ten o'clock shadow -- evidently, a suspicious figure on solitary streets.

The officer was doing his job; his conduct seemed professional and legitimate, even if it left me a bit unsettled.  He let me go after I offered to produce identification.  That offer apparently defused the situation, and he never learned my name -- or the ironic fact of my participation in the East Rock neighborhood's Community Management Team, a main purpose of which is to promote crime awareness and prevention.

. . . 

Having attended the October 15 presentation that New Haven Police Chief James Lewis, District Manager Lt. Thaddeus Reddish, and other members of the NHPD made at Celentano School (for a joint gathering of the Newhallville and East Rock management teams), I’m disappointed  Chief Lewis will not be remaining beyond his soon-to-expire contract.

I respect the service of the great majority of police officers and myself once experienced a (not too) violent crime on a Brooklyn subway years ago.   A NY Daily News column recounted "Crime and Apathy on the D Train"  in spring 1996.

According to Jay Mathews of the Washington Post in his November 19 article on "High School Research Papers: A Dying Breed":

"The leading U.S. proponent of more research work for the nation’s teens is Will Fitzhugh, who has been publishing high school student papers in his Concord Review journal since 1987."

. . .

This blog's June 11 entry mentioned the Concord Review, Will Fitzhugh, high-school term papers, and the documentary film "Two Million Minutes."

In a post called, "Varsity Academics® in History, Writing, and Beyond," I mentioned having renewed my subscription to the Concord Review.

NPR’s "Beyond Black and White"  series is worth a listen.

One of the stories in that series treats a new book called Blended Nation: Portraits and Interviews of Mixed-Race America, by Mike Tauber and Pamela Singh.

Other resources:

The Mavin Foundation “helps build healthier communities by raising awareness about the experiences of mixed heritage people and families. [Its] projects explore the experiences of mixed heritage people, transracial adoptees, interracial relationships and multiracial families.”

An October 9, 2009 New Haven Independent article addressed related issues in a local high school classroom.  (The third comment posted at the bottom of that article contains information about pertinent curriculum units that New Haven teachers have developed as Yale-New Haven Teachers Institute Fellows.)

A few recent New York Times articles examined intercultural relations in South Korea and experiences of children of mixed ethnic and national origins:

Baby Boom of Mixed Children Tests South Korea
By MARTIN FACKLER, November 29, 2009
“Migrant women from poorer parts of Asia have helped fuel a South Korean baby boom but brought concerns about assimilating the offspring of mixed unions. . . . More than one in nine children could be of mixed background by 2020, demographic researchers say. The trend is even more pronounced in rural areas, where most of these marriages take place. Among farming households, 49 percent of all children will be multicultural by 2020, according to the Agricultural Ministry. . . . the biggest threat to the mixed children is that they will be ostracized in a society that began grappling with ethnic diversity only when labor shortages forced South Korea to accept foreign workers in the 1990s. The risk has been underscored by recent studies showing that the children of mixed marriages are more likely to be the victims of domestic abuse or bullying in school.”

South Koreans Struggle With Race
By CHOE SANG-HUN, November 2, 2009  
“South Koreans were taught to take pride in their nation's ‘ethnic homogeneity,’ but in the past seven years the number of foreign residents has doubled.”

Ward Helps Biracial Youths on Journey Toward Acceptance
By JOHN BRANCH, November 9, 2009  
“The Steelers' Hines Ward, the son of a Korean mother and an American father, provides support to biracial youths in South Korea who are often ostracized for their mixed-race heritage. . . . Eight boys and girls, between 16 and 21, were visiting Ward from South Korea, where people of mixed races are considered everything from a curiosity to an abomination. . . . They are part of a generation caught between yesterday’s racism and tomorrow’s acceptance.”

. . .

New Haven-area writer Chandra Prasad edited and contributed to Mixed: An Anthology of Short Fiction on the Multiracial Experience  http://www.chandraprasad.com/Mixed.php.  It’s an illuminating collection; read it!

. . .

I first wrote about related issues in a commentary on the This I Believe website,  "Cushioning Globalization through Global Families" in May 2006.

This blog’s January 25, 2009 entry on “The Obamas: A Global American Family” observed that a January 21 New York Times article by Jodi Kantor "vividly illustrated the compelling stories and pluralism of the Obama extended family":

"A Portrait of Change:  In First Family, a Nation's Many Faces"

According to my January 25 post, “One could argue there is not only biography and demography here, but also implications for both domestic and international relations.”

A June 2006 essay that expanded on the This I Believe comments had similarly asserted: “A happy consequence -- and a cushion -- of increasing globalization will be more global families. Call this intimate diplomacy. Countries including the United States and Canada have long prospered through immigration. Further weaving together the planet's continents and citizens should be our aim. Love and marriage -- the deepest forms of trade and investment -- complete the tapestry.”

As the Hartford Courant continues to make coverage of domestic violence a new priority since the related killing of a Fox 61 TV colleague, the Connecticut legislature has established a task force to address the issue. 

Advocates hope this signals momentum toward stronger laws, enforcement, and funding to prevent this problem, punish its perpetrators, and protect its victims.

October 3, September 24, and earlier posts to this blog concerned domestic violence and men’s crucial role in breaking the cycle of abuse.

Now, two December 1 Courant articles highlight this task force and a family’s  call for reforms.

Erika Tindill (who was mentioned in August 17 and July 18 posts to this blog) of the Connecticut Coalition Against Domestic Violence was quoted in Josh Kovner’s December 1 article on the task force.

In Kovner’s words, advocates spoke of “a public health emergency, one that has to be fought with public-awareness campaigns, programs that reach boys in grammar school and a sea change in attitudes about victims.”  The aim should be to involve teenage boys, husbands, boyfriends and fathers who aren't abusers in order to reduce domestic violence.

Erika Tindill: “Most batterers are men, but the vast majority of men are not batterers. Men need to be involved in community outreach in meaningful ways.”

. . . 

Find resources at the Courant’s "Overcoming Battered Lives" blog and Domestic Violence Services of Greater New Haven -- a United Way-affiliated organization now mounting a holiday appeal for much-needed funds.

It's been a year since the brutal attacks in Mumbai, when innocents of many faiths were massacred by fanatic Lashkar Islamists from Pakistan.

Soon afterward, in a post to this blog, I wrote:

Sunday, November 30, 2008

Mumbai and My Family 

“My brother and his family, as well as my wife's family, live in India.  Terrorism has killed more people in that country than in any other besides Iraq since 2004 (and indeed more than in "all of North America, South America, Central America, Europe and Eurasia put together," according to this August 27, 2007 Times of India article with information to that point).  There is reason for grave concern -- both about personal security and about implications for foreign investment, tourism, and economic growth.  The prospect of inflamed India-Pakistan relations is particularly troubling.

Over Thanksgiving, our family gathered -- the day after the Mumbai attacks -- to reflect on our blessings, to share time together, and to hope that those attacks do not signal further escalation in violence in India and South Asia more broadly.  This past summer had already seen bombs in New Delhi neighborhoods, including a market place, my wife and I had been in three years before.  The Mumbai incidents have scores of direct and indirect victims -- Indian (mostly) and foreign, Hindu, Muslim, Sikh, Jewish, Christian.  Comfort to their families.

Members of our family will continue to live in India, to do business there and to visit.  We may be shaken and are well aware of its problems.  But our faith in its strengths, its resilience and its future is powerful.   (This 2006 article may be of interest.)”
. . . 

Late in 2009, the outlook for peace and stability in South Asia remains a major concern, with turbulence in Pakistan, Afghanistan, and nearby Iran, not to mention a growing Maoist insurgency within India to compound tensions with its external rivals.

A few New York Times articles from recent weeks:

India's Guard Is Up, but Weaknesses Remain
By LYDIA POLGREEN and VIKAS BAJAJ, November 25, 2009 
“A year after the deadly assault in Mumbai that killed 163 people, the city has made limited security improvements.”
Pakistan Charges 7 Terrorism Suspects a Year After Attacks That Shocked Mumbai
By SAHAR HABIB GHAZI and SABRINA TAVERNISE, November 26, 2009
“On eve of the anniversary of the attacks, the indictments mark one of the first steps toward what is expected to be a complex trial.”
Militant Group Is Intact After Mumbai Siege
By LYDIA POLGREEN and SOUAD MEKHENNET, September 30, 2009 
“The group behind the assault in November 2008 has the capability and intent to strike India again, intelligence files show.”
Maoist Rebels Widen Deadly Reach Across India
By JIM YARDLEY, November 01, 2009 
“Indian Maoists, once dismissed as ragtag ideologues, have evolved into a potent and lethal insurgency.”

. . . 

Now it is Thanksgiving 2009 -- just two days after Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh visited Washington and days before President Barack Obama reveals his plans for continued U.S. involvement in countering terrorists in Afghanistan. 

Thanksgiving is often viewed primarily as a family holiday.  It is that, but going back to Abraham Lincoln’s 1863 proclamation of the first annual national day of thanksgiving during the Civil War, it is more.   Lincoln envisioned “the full enjoyment of peace, harmony, tranquillity, and union.”

Today my family will have in mind India – where my brother, sister-in-law, nephew and other relatives are, and to which my wife, mother, and children will be traveling soon.  We will also be giving thanks for the wonders of this country that has brought us together, and for the men and women of the U.S. military risking their lives in today's wars. 

Let us think, too, of the people of Mumbai.  Peace to them.