Hey! I’m a Time Magazine Person of the Year!
Posted by: mwatson32 on: December 18, 2006
As many of you know, Time Magazine chose ME and millions of other “citizens of the new digital democracy” (their term for internet users and content creators) as their Person of the Year 2006 . I would be remiss if I did not respond to such an honor.
First, let me thank the editorial staff at Time Magazine for even considering me. I particularly want to single out Richard Stengel, Managing Editor at Time, for even giving me a shot at this profoundly moving accolade. I wept uncontrollably when the news reached me…to be so honored was almost more than I could bear.
The only award I had ever received previously was 4th runner up in a Chili Dog eating contest in Toad Suck Arkansas (yes it’s a real place). I still have the trophy, a bronze weenie, sitting on top of my eight track tape player which I have cleverly rigged to play through my IBM 386. (How often have I wished for an Apple!). My custom framed Time Magazine cover will now share space with the weenie. I could not be more proud.
For the record, you should all realize that Mr. Stengel faced a tough decision in making his final choice. It seems that Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was a finalist as well. (it’s true, read the news accounts). In the end, Mr. Stengel told the press, ” It just felt to me a little off selecting him.” Only a fair and considerate man would struggle with such a decision. It must have been hell for him. I’m not sure how I beat out such a distinguished world leader, but am never-the-less very pleased and gratified.
I have sent a conciliatory note to Mahmoud because I know how much his feelings must be hurt. I did, by the way, add a PS suggesting to him that his World Conference disavowing the Jewish holocaust of WWII might have been a little ill-timed if he truly hoped to win Time’s Person of the Year 2006. Timing is everything Mahmoud, live and learn.
There were 26 runners up for the prestigious award, “People who Mattered” as Time described them. Included on that list were such notables as North Korea’s Kim Jong ll, Vice-president Dick Cheney, President Bush, and out-going Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld. Oh…and the Pope. A pretty lightweight group when you think about it. No wonder we won.
Finally, I want to say to my millions of co-recipients that it is a deep privilege to share this award with each and all of you…well almost all of you. If you surf porn all the time or prowl teen chat rooms, I’m not wild about sharing it with you. Oh and all you guys in Nigeria..forget it, no way. Every mortgage refinance group is also off my share list (really guys, give it a break).
And finally, this is for every Democrat and Republican candidate who wrote and asked for money during the last campaign. If I had known we were on a first name basis, I would have been in touch sooner that we might talk personally about such issues as internet taxation and regulation. Hit me with another personal note and we can set up a call.
The rest of you, however, are good to go. And I was thinking: Maybe we ought to plan a casual get together one of these days…a kind of “after the award party” like the Hollywood celebs do. Hey, maybe Time will host it.
I’ll call them tomorrow and get back to you. Ciao.
Thirteen Moons
Posted by: mwatson32 on: October 21, 2006
Reviewing a book I’ve yet to read.
“The belief I’ve acquired over a generous and nevertheless inadequate time on earth is that we arrive in the afterlife as broken as when we departed from the world. But, on the other hand, I’ve always enjoyed a journey.
Will Cooper in Thirteen Moons
I’m going to do something here that may seem ludicrous at first blush. I’m going to review and recommend a book without ever having read it. Give me the benefit of the doubt and read on—please.
Random House paid Charles Frazier $8 million dollars in advance for his 2nd novel Thirteen Moons. Frazier is quickly establishing himself in the pantheon of great contemporary American writers. His first book, Cold Mountain won the prestigious National Book Award in 1997—not bad for a first time out-of–the-chute author.
The almost inevitable follow-on movie, Cold Mountain, also did well earning seven Academy Award nominations and four wins including best cinematography, best leading actor (Jude Law) and best supporting actress (Rene Zelweger).
If you never saw Cold Mountain the movie, it deserves a look. But, as always seems the case, the book is better. Far better. Frazier’s writing embodies a lyrical style that flows much like free verse. In a word it is poetic. And when skillfully applied to the dangerous and lonely odyssey of an escaped confederate soldier trekking hundred of miles back to his Cold Mountain home and the woman he loves—it reveals a master storyteller with a knack for riveting readers. It got me in the first paragraph.
Now Comes Frazier’s next book, Thirteen Moons, given to me by my wife Donna as a birthday gift. I have yet to read it.
Instead, the book sits on my nightstand while I finish up another tale. Still, the anticipation of reading the works of a great writer like Frazier makes it irresistible. I find myself picking it up, thumbing through it, and hoping for some advance revelation to help satiate my curiosity and satisfy my constant need for a great story from a gifted writer. I am rewarded simply by touching, perusing the dust cover–and allowing myself a few peeks inside.
The physical qualities of the book—and all the ancillary notes and information—already speak to me. These are the things we often overlook in our zeal to get quickly into the story. On the cover, the title is set small in an italicized lower case non-serif font with a black raised bevel look. The words “A Novel” appear just under it in a formal flourish of black script. Frazier’s name is wrought large in all caps (serifed) near the bottom. It is white and beveled and fairly screams, as I am sure the publisher intended, “Look. Great Writer. National Book Award”. Publishers know what sells.
The “dust jacket” art features a muted color rendering of forested mountains and misty sky taken from a photograph, but made to resemble an old and textured painting. It depicts the Appalachians of North Carolina (Frazier’s home state and a first hint that the Cherokee Nation may figure in the story). The cover was designed, elegantly I might say, by a Mr. Thomas Beck Stvan. However, he was not the book’s designer. That honor goes to Ms. Barabara M. Bachman. I learn this on the inside fly sheets where copyright information and other required facts, disclaimers, and legalities are offered up.
I suppose I have known books have designers, but I never really thought much about it until now. Ms. Bachman chose Mr. Svan for the cover art, but she also chose the paper on which the story is printed—a premium cotton acetate made in America—as well as the font in which the story is set. It’s called Fournier, a serifed font named for Pierre Simon Fornier. A prolific French designer of fonts in the mid 1700s, Mr. Simon is said to have created 146 fonts during his life. His legacy seems to have endured in the modern font that bears his name. Would he be honored to have it used in a book by such a notable new writer? I suspect so.
Further hints: The inside covers and their fly leafs appear to be a kind of aged paper containing an unrecognizable form of faded rust colored handwriting. The copyright page sheds more light on these scribblings. They are from the Cherokee syllabary, an excerpt, in fact, from the Cherokee myth of Kanati and Selu dealing with the origins of corn and grain circa 1888.
And finally, there is the teaser copy on the inside front panel of the dust jacket. I am drawn to it, not only by the promise it holds, but by the fresh smell of new ink and paper that greets me when I open the book. The teaser copy does its job well, giving me a sense of what lies ahead in the story. Heres a sample:
“In a distinct voice filled with both humor and yearning, Will [the main character] tells of a lifelong search for home, the hunger for fortune and adventure, the rebuilding of a trampled culture, and above all an enduring pursuit of passion. As he comes to realize, When all else is lost and gone forever, there is yearning. One of the few welcome lessons age teaches is that only desire trumps time.”
For an old man who just turned 61 I instantly knew the truth in these words. And I was filled with a longing to know this Will character–to hear his story.
If all of this intricate examination of a new book created a certain allure serving to heighten my own anticipation of a good read (and it did) then I am left only with having to apply that final test I always turn to when evaluating a book’s potential—a reading of the first paragraph. Read it and judge for yourself:
“There is no scatheless rapture. Love and time put me in this condition. I am leaving soon for the Nightland, where all the ghosts of men and animals yearn to travel. We’re called to it. I feel it pulling at me, same as everyone else. It is the last unmapped country, and a dark way getting there. A sorrowful path. And maybe not exactly Paradise at the other end. The belief I’ve acquired over a generous and nevertheless inadequate time on earth is that we arrive in the afterlife as broken as when we departed from the world. But, on the other hand, I’ve always enjoyed a journey.”
Again, true words that tear at the soul of this old man—broken in some ways to be sure, but still in the journey and still enjoying it from the perspective of that long view back over years and experiences.
Thirteen Moons is gonna be good. Get it and read it. And as for my wife; once again she gives the perfect gift at the perfect time. Love and marital longevity have a way of providing for that kind of insight, but I still find myself asking, “How does she always know just the right thing at the right time? And so it is that books reward even beyond their literary intent. I can’t wait to read this one.
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Saving Nazanin
Posted by: mwatson32 on: January 15, 2007
Ateqeh Rajabi, a 16 year old girl, was publicly executed by hanging, August 2004, in the town square at Neka, Mazandaran Province, Republic of Iran. Her crime? “Acts deemed incompatible with chastity”.
The “incompatibility” in this case was sexual intercourse with an older man. During her trial (Ateqeh was not allowed a defense attorney and was left to defend herself), Judge Haji Rezail became outraged when the young girl removed her hijab (headscarf worn for modesty in Arabic cultures) He was further angered by her tendency to speak with a “sharp tongue”, presumably in her own defense.
Incensed by these unforgivable actions in his courtroom, Judge Rezail rushed to Tehran to urge the conservative mullahs comprising the Iranian Supreme Court to uphold, then and there, the death sentence he had pronounced on Ateqeh. They did; and upon his return to Neka, Judge Rezail personally carried out Ateqeh’s sentence by performing the execution himself.
Her corpse was left hanging for days as a deterent to other young girls who might stray. Though it was well known around Neka, the Iranian judge ignored the fact that 16 year old Ateqeh Rajabi was not only young, but mentally incompetent as well.
In an earlier Iranian case, May 2004, 19 year old Leyla Mafi was sentenced to 99 lashes to be followed by “stoning until dead”. Her story is a long and sad chronicle of abuse, lashes, cruelty and injustice. Layla had been forced into prostitution at the age of eight by her mother. At nine she conceived a child which led to her being whipped publicly on prostitution charges. At fourteen she had twins out of wedlock for which she was also brutally whipped under Iranian law
Leyla’s more recent infraction, the one earning her 99 lashes and a death by stoning sentence, involved her being charged with having another child out wedlock as well as being associated with a brothel. Amnesty International, which followed the case closely, reported that Leyla Mafa possessed the mental skills of an eight year old. Under pressure from several human rights organizations, the Iranian Supreme Court lifted the young girl’s death sentence in March of 2005, but upheld the 99 lashes which was duly meted out in February, 2006. After her punishment, Leyla was committed to an Iranian Institution for Women.
To our modern and civilized world these cases are extraordinarily crude, unjust, and excessive. But they occur all to often in the ancient, theocratic, male dominated culture of Iran. In fact, under current Iranian law, girls over the age of nine and boys aged 16 can face a death penalty for crimes such as rape and murder. Capital punishment is imposed in certain cases of illegal sexual relationships as well. At least 18 child offenders have been executed in Iran in recent years–eight of them in 2005.
If Iranian laws and judicial practices are heartless and unfeeling toward its women and children, the issue is made worse by a sick cultural bias in cases of rape. Observers of Iranian legal proceedings, many educated Iranian women among them, well know that victims of rape in Iran’s male dominated system can be and are, in a sordid twist of law, charged with the crime of having extra-marital sex. In an instant, the system that should assure them justice transforms them from victim to defendant. While their rapists are exonerated and go free, these women, some of them teenagers, face a penalty of 100 lashes–and even death.
This brings us to the case of 17 year old Nazanin Mahabad–uneducated and dirt poor–who, in a moment of profound courage during an attempted rape, took a bold stand for all of Iran’s women, children and young people. For her desperate action she earned a death by hanging sentence in 2006 at the hands of an Iranian court. Here is her story:
Nazanin and her niece, Samieh, had gone with their boyfriends to a park west of Tehran. It was to be a pleasant day in the sun and a needed respite from the poverty and endless menial labor that helped Nazanin and her five siblings subsist in a ruined home on the dusty outskirts of the city. It was a rare moment of girlish laughter and peace soon to be shattered. When three men approached the group they began harassing the girls and threatened the boys who fled in fear. It only took a moment then for the men to move on the girls throwing them to the ground and tearing at their cloths.
What stirred Nazanin to do what followed is a matter for speculation. Certainly it was a natural reaction rooted in a primal need to defend. But it may have been more. Nazanin had lived long enough in a society where rape was common and rapist were freed. Perhaps she saw the tragic irony in her situation. Be raped and face possible stoning or even death for extra-marital sex, or fight back for herself and her niece and face charges of attacking her male attackers. She chose to fight, pulling a knife she carried concealed because she knew well the dangers she and other girls routinely faced in around the poorer suburbs of Tehran.
Nazanin would take it no more. She stabbed one of her attackers in the hand, but when a second man suddenly attacked her with vicious and clear intent, she plunged the knife into his chest. He died from his wound. Charged with murder under the Iranian system, her story of rape called into question, Nazanin must have known that yet another Iranian court would leave her male attackers free and put another young girl to death by hanging. Her less than competent court appointed attorney seemed not to care, and Nazanin’s own simple plea had no influence in the court: “I wanted to defend myself and my niece. I did not want to kill that boy…no one came to our help.”
As the trial continued, Nazanin also asserted that she was acting to defend her honor and chastity. The Judge in the case rejected that argument out of hand, however, because a court ordered medical exam had shown Nazanin not to be a virgin. It was true. Little more than a year earlier, Nazanin, then 15, had been raped. Forensic physicians verified the scarring from that brutal attack as consistent with rape and the loss of virginity. This, and the fact that she had reported that rape as well to local police who ignored it, had no bearing in her Iranian court. In the end, she found herself facing a death sentence.
At that time, all hope must have abandoned Nazanin Mahabad. Alone in a prison, facing death, her fear became all consuming. But not all was lost. Word began to spread among caring factions in and beyond Iran. Pressure began to mount. Letters were written, thousands of them. Bloggers weighed in. Media picked up on the case and flashed Nazanin’s story to the world community of activists and organizations who wasted no time weighing in with Iranian officials. Petitions were created and sent with hundreds of thousands of names. By May of 2006, when Nazanin’s case came before the Iranian Supreme Court, the world was watching. And the Court knew it. In a not-so-surprising ruling by that time, it turned over Nazanin’s death penalty and sent the case back to lower court for a new ruling.
Today (Jan 14, 2007), with the assistance of new lawyers and the under the watchful eyes of a deeply concerned world, Nazanin Mahabad was exonerated of murder by the local court, her death sentence lifted. Thousands of anxious followers of this case breathed a collective sigh of relief. The court could have sent her to prison or even awarded the death penalty again, but the prayers, pressure and intervention of caring people won the day.
But Nazanin will not be set free yet. The court held that her self defense during the incident was an act of disproportionate force. A girl of 17 (at the time) defending herself and her niece against three men trying to rape them. Still, the court ordered that she pay blood money to the family of her deceased attacker in order to receive a full pardon. Until then she will remain in prison. Her lawyers are appealing the blood money ruling and seeking bail to free Nazanin at last.
The caring world still has some work to do in order to finally free Nazanin. I have little doubt it will happen. In the meantime we are left with Iran and its crude and warped system of justice for women and children. Its barbaric practices are even more disturbing in that Iran is among the nations of the world signing the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) and the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC). As such they agreed with the rest of the world not to execute anyone for any offense committed when they were under the age of 18. These treaties also prohibit the use of torture and cruel, inhuman, or degrading punishments.
If Iran will callously disregard it’s international commitments not to kill, mame, and brutalize its own young women and children, how can other nations, by any sane reasoning, believe it can trusted on any matter. I include in this line of thought their continuing assertion that they will only use nuclear energy for peaceful purposes.
Authors Note: Want to help in Nazanin’s case? Go here: http://save.nazanin.googlepages.com/