Laila Lalami

From the Independent:

The Booker Prize, that unassailable bastion of British literature, is to undergo a cosmopolitan makeover which could see American authors competing for the prestigious award by 2004. An international stockbroking company unveiled yesterday as the new sponsor of the highbrow literary accolade in a 2.5m deal wants to expand its remit across the Atlantic. (…)
Critics of the Booker, won last year by Peter Carey for his True History of the Kelly Gang, have long argued that it must look further afield if it is to keep its standing as Europe’s premier fiction prize. Organisers of the Booker have also had to weather a number of controversies about the judging, amid allegations that it operates as a closed shop of London-based literati. The novelist and sometime Booker judge AL Kennedy last year branded it a “pile of crooked nonsense” and said her fellow panellists had failed to read the 300 books on the long list.

Booker prize may expand to include US

Went hiking this weekend. Alex checked the weather report and it was supposed to drizzle lightly on Friday, clearing up by Saturday, with some more drizzle by Sunday afternoon. This sounded pretty good because we were supposed to do Mount San Gorgonio, and it’s nicer to do this trail when it’s not too hot. So we pack up, get to San Bernardino County around 2 pm, and then find that it’s actually rainy and cold, not drizzly. No problem, we can take it, we think. We then drive up to the foot of the mountain and find snow. That’s right. Snow, the last weekend of April. At that point, I was ready to turn back, but Alex and his two hiking buddies were getting so excited I didn’t want to rain (ahem) on their parade. So we decide to march forward. Thank God Alex had packed hats, ponchos, and some thermals.

I didn’t expect to like it, but it was one of the best hikes we’ve ever done. After the initial shock of walking through the snow and the cold, we warmed up and started to appreciate the scenery. It was much more beautiful than in September (the last time we did it). It was very peaceful and the snow-covered trees looked unbelievably beautiful. It was great. We made it to Halfway Camp by 5:30, set up the tent, ate dinner, and tried not to freeze. The temperatures dropped some more, it snowed some more, and none of us got any sleep. By 10 pm, there was ice everywhere, including in the tent. I can honestly say this was the coldest night of my life.

Next morning, the sky was clear and the air was magnificent. All the boys were hoping I would say that we should just go back because none of them wanted to spend another cold night but they didn’t dare say it. The funny thing is that after we compared “night in the cold” stories, the consensus was that noone wanted to spend another night there, so it was out of the question to summit that day because it would have been a bit too much with all the stuff we had brought. The sun made an appearance around 8 or 9 am. That helped warm us a bit. Then, while our friends slept in the sun, Alex and I hiked up to High Creek camp, and noticed some clouds up in the distance. We went back down and told the others about the bad weather coming in, and everyone hurried to pack up the equipment (which by 11 am was finally drying up some), and headed back down the mountain. It was fun. I will post some pictures if I have some time today.

I haven’t been blogging as much, mostly because the news has been so depressing. The Church of the Nativity standoff, the debate over Jenin, Le Pen in France, etc. The only thing that brings me any peace is reading. I just finished Etel Adnan’s Paris, When It’s Naked. I also read Aimee Bender’s story “The Leading Man”. And I’m reading and re-reading Nathan Englander’s For the Relief of Unbearable Urges and Junot Diaz’s Drown.

From the Washington Post:

At a time when Arab Americans are increasingly insistent on being heard in the public forum, and on a weekend that saw tens of thousands gather on the Mall to protest U.S. policy in the Middle East, a smaller but no less passionate gathering was happening in Northwest Washington. Convened at American University’s Washington College of Law, the first Ameen Rihani International Symposium to be held in the United States included scholars from around the world. They spent two days resurrecting, analyzing and praising the writings of a man they called “the father of Arab American literature.” It was a love feast — but with political implications.

Rihani, a Lebanese-born Christian Arab who immigrated to the United States in 1888 at the age of 12, was a friend and mentor to the far better known Lebanese poet Kahlil Gibran, author of a prodigiously best-selling book of mystical poems called “The Prophet.” But while Gibran’s slender book of verse went round the world and has inspired more high school yearbook epigraphs than Led Zeppelin, Rihani’s works — poems, essays and, it seems, the first novel published in English by an Arab — have faded from view in this country. (…) Rihani articulated an inspiring sense of dual identity. He was an Arab and an American, a perceptive critic of both worlds, and his writings are a constant dialogue between two identities he refused to collapse with anything so simple as a hyphen.

For Writer Ameen Rihani, A Postscript and An Introduction

In a repeat of what happened here with the gubernatorial primaries (where Dick Riordan was so focused on his run againt Gray Davis that he neglected right-winger Bill Simon, and Simon ended up winning the primary), Lionel Jospin lost the French primary to Jean-Marie Le Pen. So Le Pen will face Jacques Chirac in the second tour of the French elections. A major upset of course, especially for the socialists who were poised to be running against Chirac’s RPR. The Rassemblement Pour la Republique is fairly to the right. So it’s an extreme right-winger against a moderate right-winger. Oh, douce France!

Here is an article from Le Monde: Le seisme Le Pen, which is pretty representative of the coverage of this major election upset. Chirac, for his part, has been dogged by corruption scandals for the last few months, hence the title of this article from Liberation: Votez escroc, pas facho. Vote for a crook, not for a fascist!

The new Doonesbury story, started Monday, is pretty darn funny. Here are the links for Tuesday’s, Wednesday’s, Thursday’s and Friday’s cartoons as well.

A bit of good news. There won’t be any drilling for oil in Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge for a little while.

Drilling was at the heart of Bush’s energy policies from the moment he took office, and the Republican-controlled House obliged him last summer by adopting it as part of its huge energy package. Yet, even after declaring the drilling essential to the nation’s long-term security and energy independence after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, the president could not overcome potent Democratic opposition in the Senate and an unusually intense lobbying effort by environmentalists who declared the vote the ultimate litmus test for lawmakers.

A Stinging Repudiation Engineered by 3 Democrats.
One thing I learned from this article is that the two main advocates of drilling are Alaska Republicans, which is, um, fishy, considering that most of their constituents oppose the drilling.

The April 9th Weekly Review from Harper’s is here. Favorite item:

President Gloria Arroyo of the Philippines called on female police officers to be more like Charlie’s Angels.

From the Philadelphia Inquirer:

Few have read it; it’s not due in stores until next month. This hasn’t stopped Harmful to Minors from becoming the most vilified book in America.(…)The book says that sex, “meaning touching and talking and fantasizing for bodily pleasure, is a valuable and crucial part of growing up, from earliest childhood on.” Critics say it endorses sex between adults and children; some see it as part of a trend in academic studies that seek to normalize pedophilia.

Book blasted for views on childhood sexuality.

The man cannot even get clean underwear or food, and he is supposed to be able to stop all the violence by himself. Difficult times, conditions inside Arafat’s compound.

But the only thing that the siege of Arafat’s compound has achieved is raise his waning popularity with his own people and with other Arabs. As Jordan’s King Abdallah said, Arafat’s popularity is now unrivaled in the Arab world. Way to go, Sharon. That’s what’s going to stop the bombers.