Laila Lalami

When, hours after the terrorist attacks of 9/11, the President came out and accused Bin Laden, it was probably for good reason: Reports now abound that he had received intelligence as early as August 6 warning that Bin Laden was planning to hijack planes. Naturally, everyone in Washington is all over this. Denials on one side, accusations and counter accusations on the other.

Democrats are demanding the Aug. 6 CIA memo that mentioned the hijackings and another pre-Sept. 11 document–an FBI memo that warned headquarters that many Middle Eastern men were training at American flight schools. “Why did it take eight months for us to receive this information? And what specific actions were taken by the White House in response?” Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle, D-S.D., asked. Turning the tables, [White House spokesperson] Fleischer noted Friday that Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, told a TV interviewer in July that panel staff members had informed her of a “major probability” of a terrorist attack. “And that raises the question,” Fleischer said, “what did the Democrats in Congress know. And why weren’t they talking to each other?”

Bush Defends Self on Warning Controversy. I predict some action againt Iraq really soon…

From the Detroit Free Press:

Mohandas Gandhi’s wooden spinning wheel still stands among the simple throw pillows where he once sat cross-legged, threading cotton, receiving world leaders and promoting his vision of a unified, secular India. Today, just beyond the whitewashed cottages of the independence leader’s ashram, across a dry riverbed where sacred cows graze under the searing subcontinent sun, Muslims and Hindus have turned on one another with a ferocity not seen in a decade. The violence in Gujarat, Gandhi’s home state where he founded his ashram, has claimed more than 950 lives statewide since late February, mostly Muslims beaten or burned to death, or killed in police shootings. Human rights activists say the death toll may come closer to 2,000 when missing people are also counted in the western state. (…)
“Whenever you have deluded yourself that you have been freed of the religious biases your forefathers lived with, the poison that flowed in their veins, comes a fierce reminder like this,” [Indian filmmaker] Bhatt said. “The Indian mind is still shackled to its religious prejudices. Incidents like these just mirror the real soul of India.”

Read more of this excellent article at: Hindus, Muslims juggle old hate, shared hopes via Holy Weblog.

Do writing programs help or stifle creativity, asks the Village Voice:

Of course, graduate writing programs have produced top-shelf writers: Michael Chabon, Matthew Klam, Rick Moody, Junot Diaz, Nathan Englander, Jhumpa Lahiri, and Lorrie Moore. The appeal is clear: the master of fine arts degree offers a protected two-year gestation in a supportive, creative community and credentials to cite in getting that first book published. (…)
While the University of Iowa awarded its first M.F.A. degree in 1941, the past 30 years have seen a blossoming of their prominence and popularity: It is now harder to get into the Iowa program than into Harvard Medical School. At the same time, skepticism over their usefulness and backlash against so-called “workshop fiction” have dogged the M.F.A. since the late ’80s. (…)
Publishers and booksellers, of course, also promulgate fads and define genres, which promise familiarity of structure and aesthetic. One expects literary fiction to defy such familiarities. And yet “debut fiction” has become its own category, a mini-genre packaged and presented by Barnes & Noble’s “Discover Great New Writers” series, awards like the Hemingway Foundation/PEN, or the annual debut fiction issue of The New Yorker (or the Voice’s own Writers on the Verge list). Troll through a selection of recent books and it’s hard not to notice categories: the ubiquitous urban single woman novel (Melissa Bank and her offspring Melissa Senate, Lisa Jewell, etc.), the well-researched historical fiction (Heather Parkinson, Charles Frazier), the prizewinning Indians (Akhil Sharma, Jhumpa Lahiri), queer lit (David Ebershoff, JT Leroy).

Taylor Antrim goes on to examine debut fiction by three writers (Meera Nair, Steve Almond, and Raul Correa) and finds that “they share an underlying contrivance, a received and overly strict notion of what constitutes a story and how best to tell it.”
Young, Gifted, and Workshopped

Star Wars comes out tomorrow, and of course, my husband has had tickets for days. As is usual before a SW event, there will be some documentary on TLC or the Discovery channel or some snippet on the 11 o’clock news about how George Lucas used stories of ancient mythology and Joseph Campbell’s work to fashion the story about a galaxy far, far away. I had never really questioned this, because it was so reported by so many reliable sources. But this Salon article by Stephen Hart debunks the “myth”:

Lucas himself was mum about any Campbell influence when the original Star Wars opened — “The word for this movie is fun,” he told Time in 1977 — but he began name-dropping the retired Sarah Lawrence academic (who died in 1987) as the movie became a pop culture milestone. Feature writers took him at his word, unwilling to believe that a mere science-fiction flick could be so popular unless some deeper meaning was at work. Campbell, happy to have his work associated with the most successful film series of all time, returned the favor by praising Lucas’ use of mythological motifs, though he had trouble keeping straight exactly which motifs were being used. The relationship built until the men have become as closely linked in the public mind as Chang and Eng. (…)
Like many of mankind’s oldest legends, this notion offers multiple levels of absurdity. First, if knowledge of “man’s oldest stories” underlies the popularity of “Star Wars,” then why is Lucas’ non-”Star Wars” resume so dismal? Apart from conceiving the “Indiana Jones” films, which owe their box-office impact to the kinetic genius of director Steven Spielberg, Lucas has produced an unbroken series of flops. Anyone here remember “Howard the Duck”? Or “Tucker: The Man and His Dream”? “Radioland Murders,” anybody? And let us not forget “Willow,” which is a virtual textbook of Campbell’s mix ‘n’ match approach to mythology.
Second, and more damningly, the real roots of “Star Wars” are obvious to anyone not blinded by snobbery or the need for self-inflation. They lie not in “The Odyssey” or the “Upanishads,” but 20th century science-fiction magazines such as Astounding, Amazing Stories and Galaxy. The “true theology” of “Star Wars” was written not by Virgil or Homer, but Isaac Asimov, Robert A. Heinlein, Frank Herbert, E.E. “Doc” Smith and a host of other S.F. writers.

The article goes on like this, examining different characters and events in the original Star Wars and pointing to sci-fi books that could have served as “inspiration”. Interesting read. Galactic Gasbag

I’ve blogged on a few occasions about the Israeli reservists who are refusing to serve in the Occupied Territories, but I just read an article in the L.A. Weekly about a group of high-schoolers, which calls itself the Shministim, and which is also taking up the same stance with respect to army service. The article discusses other such groups of “refuseniks” and the place that they take in Israeli society. An excerpt from the article:

“We are not negating the need for the army, we’re saying that the army cannot be used for political purposes, whether it was in 1982 with the invasion of Lebanon, or now with the occupation,” says [activist] Rahat. “Beyond that we see the whole framework of the occupation as one flagrantly illegal act, and if you go there you have no choice but to take part in order to take orders that are flagrantly illegal.” From his point of view, doing guard duty at a settlement may not be illegal from a minimalist point of view. “But if you look at it on a larger scale, being there is guarding something that is illegal as determined by international law.” Yesh Gvul believes that seeing the suicide bombings as the cause and the occupation as the result is going backward. “You have to drain the swamp,” says Rahat, “in order to get rid of the mosquitoes.”

Just Saying No: Israeli Soldiers Vote with their Feet.

Interestingly enough, such a statement comes on the same day in which the Likud party voted in favor of a resolution never to allow the establishment of a Palestinian state, with Netanyahu saying “a state with all the rights of a state, this cannot be, not under Arafat, nor under another leadership, not today nor tomorrow.”

Meanwhile, Arafat is touring the territories to reassert his leadership over a region he was not allowed to visit for 5 months, instead of attending to the more pressing problem of restructuring the PA.

I enjoyed Nathan Englander’s For the Relief of Unbearable Urges so much that I found myself slowing down considerably toward the end because I didn’t want the pleasure to end. I just started In Cuba I was a German Shepherd, by Ana Menendez, and have been telling my husband (who is of Cuban ancestry) about each story as I go. Delectable so far.

From the BBC:

Tens of thousands of Israelis have taken to the streets of Tel Aviv to demand the immediate withdrawal of the Israel army and settlers from Palestinian territories. The protest, organised by the Peace Now movement, also called on the Israeli Government to pursue the Saudi peace plan which specifies a full withdrawal in return for full peace with Arab countries.

Thousands Rally for Peace in Tel Aviv.

Meanwhile, the planned assault on Gaza has been delayed because of international pressure, though the tanks are still staying put for now. Israel Delays Gaza Assault Amid Peace Pressure.

Elsewhere, Shimon Peres was quoted as saying that Israel may have been wrong for not supporting the formation of an independent Palestinian state earlier. And:

“We feel that the weakest point in the Palestinian making is the fact that they have three or four or five dissident armed groups, and each of them is shooting on its own in a different direction, and by doing so destroying any possibility of having a joint agenda,” Peres said.

Peres: Israel should have backed Palestinian state earlier

Top of the news today:

In an unprecedented challenge to Fidel Castro’s 43-year-old rule, activists delivered more than 11,020 signatures to the National Assembly on Friday, demanding a referendum for broad changes in Cuba’s socialist system less than two days before a visit by former President Carter. Known as Project Varela, the signature-gathering campaign is seen as the biggest homegrown, nonviolent effort in more than four decades to push for reforms in Cuba’s one-party system. (…)
Asked by reporters in April about the campaign, Foreign Minister Felipe Perez Roque said he doubted it would succeed and accused its organizers of being on the U.S. government payroll. Paya, who says the project has received no money from any government or group outside Cuba. “This is not project of the opposition, but a citizens’ project to attain the rights of all Cubans,” Paya said, reading a prepared statement. “The world should know that we Cubans are traveling our own road to improve our society. Whoever wants to express solidarity with Cuba, and respect the self-determination of Cubans, should support this demand for a popular vote.

Cubans Deliver Reform Petitions.

As Jose Marti said, “Only oppression should fear the full exercise of freedom.”

I just noticed that Mark Bowden’s excellent article on Saddam Hussein is finally online at the Atlantic site. It’s a fascinating read. Check it out: Tales of the Tyrant.

From the Boston Globe:

Anglo-American understanding seems to have suffered a setback, judging by the furor over the US publication of a rough early work by novelist Virginia Woolf. In Sunday’s editions of the London newspaper The Independent, Woolf’s great-nephew Julian Bell disparaged the book’s introduction, by author Louise DeSalvo, as ”crude Freudianism.” English novelist Jeanette Winterson was quoted as saying of the book’s publication, ”It offends me. Virginia Woolf was very fierce about what should and shouldn’t be published, so she would have hated this.” Yet according to the publisher and DeSalvo, who edited the manuscript, the Woolf estate authorized the book.
The fragmentary work, called ”Melymbrosia,” was completed by Woolf in 1912, when she was 30, but never published, though much of its content appeared in Woolf’s first published novel, ”The Voyage Out,” in 1915. The material concerns the sexual and social awakening of a young Englishwoman, Rachel Vinrace. It deals with themes of lesbianism and incest, and Woolf filed it away. After her death, her husband, Leonard Woolf, donated the manuscript to the Berg Collection of English and American Literature of the New York Public Library.

Early Woolf novel elicits harsh words