Aging

You always hear about our culture being obsessed with youth and beauty. Today I realized it from a different angle. Most people you see on TV were born in the 80's. So now when I hear about stupid things done by celebrities I realize it's not just the stress of fame that causes them to do stupid things: it's just immaturity. I think that's why I can't stand pop culture anymore. As Cedric the Entertainer would say, I'm a grown ass man.

In other, happier news...my family is coming back from Detroit today!

9/11

It's amazing how symbols work, isn't it? A few small strokes of the pen can speak a whole word, a whole sentence, a library. 311, a music group. 411, cool lingo for "information." 7-11, slurpees, Big Eats, and loiterers. Then there's 9/11.

Yesterday whenever I'd see the date on my phone, I'd think, wow it's almost 9/11. And today every time I saw the date on my phone I felt a chill. One thing everyone can agree on is that it was a day that changed the world.

Maybe it's because I'm an immigration lawyer with a largely Muslim clientele. Or my partner is Ashraf Nubani, a lawyer best known for his role in the high-profile terrorism cases in the Eastern District of Virginia. (My partner was featured in a full-length article in a special September issue of the American Bar Association Law Journal, entitled, "The Go-To Lawyer of 'Northern Virginiastan') But as I see civil liberties erode it makes me think they won, at least something. And that disturbs me.

I'm no card-carrying member of the ACLU. But I am a father. And all of a sudden I find myself caring what the world will be like in 50 years. I grew up loving the idea of freedom, and as i got older I realized how little of it is freely available around the world. On a cops show once they showed a traffic stop in the former Soviet Union, and in their zeal to display law enforcement authority, the announcer proudly exclaimed in a voice-over of a scene where a driver was being dragged out of his vehicle, "In the Soviet Union, the cops can pull you over for any reason at all." Small, crappy example, but you get the point. So when I see it eroding in my own country, it disturbs me. No actually, I hate it.

In the immigration context I see the powers that be use every ounce of their greatly expanded authority to break up families, sometimes with a ghastly sort of enjoyment. Once at immigration court I saw a mother with two small children appear at her husband's master calendar hearing, brought into court in an orange jumpsuit and shackled like a criminal. All because of "mandatory detention" under INA 236 that robs even an immigration judge from having jurisdiction to make a bond redetermination. As they let the tall black man away one of the kids started running after him just saying "Daddy, Daddy." He couldn't have been more than 3 or 4 years old. And the ICE officer grabs the kid by the arm and sharply tells him he can't go any further. I mean, hey, this is a matter of national security. The scene brought tears to my eyes as I thought of how I would feel if my son ran after me only to be held back by some rent-a-cop ICE officer. I never practiced law before 9/11 but I hear tell, it used to not be like this.

It's a question that has been asked by all since that fateful day: What will be left to protect? With every twisting of the law for political ends, legal gamesmanship, every bit of bought testimony, selective enforcement, summary deportation, concocted charge, and denial of deserved relief, I see what's left, dwindling away, and the judge's hands apparently tied because no one wants to be the judge who dared question national security in...what's the catch phrase? this post-9/11 world.

Issa Baba

By far the coolest thing going on in life right now is watching my puttar grow up. There's just no other way to say it. It's just...cool like dat. When you see his very human reactions to things - it makes you realize how much he's actually soaking up, just being. And I'm pushed by an unconscious desire to stimulate him whenever I'm with him, though admittedly my natural inclination towards laziness allows Issa to run free and amuse himself without baba pointing out the fact that the weather is sunny in Punjabi, then repeating same in Urdu and then in English. But what got me the most was the other morning when he picked up my cell phone (yet again....grrr) and this time instead of attempting to swallow it, he held it in one hand, put it up to his ear, and began babbling, quite incessantly. And Rabiah showed me how he now stands tip toe, and can just about reach for door handles. (If a door is ajar he already knows how to pull it open, though he hasn't learned how not to jam his finger when he slams it shut again.) But apparently he's figured out the doorknob concept. He's standing and cruising quite comfortably, but no true-blue steps yet, though I don't think it will be much longer, and I'm no hurry to see it just yet anyway. He's learned to "gimme 5" (that's one thing I haven't done in Punjabi yet, cos "panj de dio" makes no sense) and I know he understands simple things like "aa jao" and "nahin." He's also developed a "shareer" look when he's about to do something he knows he's not supposed to...it's bad cos I try to say "nahin" but I can't say it with a straight face.

Anyway I should get back to work...

Second Amendment, my ass

Naturally we all want to blame somebody - or something - for the senseless massacre at Virginia Tech. Maybe it was mental illness. Maybe it was his upbringing. Neglect. Too much violence on TV. Blah blah blah.

It was more than likely a combination of factors that led him to do this. Rarely does one act driven by only one motivation.

But the thing is - these motivations are commonplace. There are a lot of mentally ill young men. There are a lot of neglected kids. Lots of people watch, and internalize, TV violence. But these people don't trap innocent people in a building and start spraying them with bullets.

The point is, a lot of things have to happen to allow such a massacre to erupt. If certain things in this process didn't happen, then neither would the massacre.

Should not we, as a society, invest some time and energy into implementing ways to derail such nefarious trains before they reach their destination?

And that's gun control. No, make that a ban. The 2d Amendment was never meant to allow such a bloodbath. Yes we can blame a lot of other things. But "The president believes that there is a right for people to bear arms," deputy press secretary Dana Perino said. Then President Bush arrived at the lectern to decry the deaths of the students and their suspected gunman. As News & Observer columnist Barry Saunders wrote, "C'mon, dawg. The least you could've done was express condolences for the dead kids and their families first."

But we cling to the 2d Amendment, as if it could never be changed or limited. The rest of the world laughs at the 2d Amendment and the ridiculous gun lobby as a relic of a bygone era, kept alive by good ol' boy cash and consituting further proof that we Americans have absolutely no common sense. But then, neither do we Americans care what the rest of the world thinks of us. Just let us keep our guns, 'cos they go bang and it's cool.

Authorities found a $571 receipt for a 9mm glock, a firearm capable of rapid firing and able to deploy more than 10 bullets, purchased recently from a firearm store in Roanoke, Virginia. He had no criminal record, and he was legal. So he walked in and bought the gun. But you can't blame the storeowner. There is no way he could have known what the kid was plotting. But the system....ah....yes, you CAN blame the system. It killed 32 people.

Of all the reasons why Cho Seung-Hui did what he did, if he couldn't have gotten his hands on that $571 glock, then none of this....

What the hell. We have a constitutionally protected right to bear arms. It says so, in the 2d Amendment. It's for protection, oh, and recreational use.

I guess it's just too bad the 2d Amendment didn't protect the 32 victims of a clearly non-recreational user.

لاہور لاہور ہے

LAHORE, Va.

A Pakistani entrepreneur wants to transform a backwater town in central Virginia into a desi tourist draw, recreating Lahore. Lahore, Virginia. It sounds so weird on the tongue. Lahore, Virginia. Try to say it Punjabi style.....L'haaaaaaawr, Var-jeeee-niya. It gives new meaning to "لاہور لاہور ہے"

But if he pulls it off...I mean, whoever named that town, whoever that random store owner was....of all the cities in the world he could have picked to name his small Southern farming community...it couldn't be more perfect. Lahore is such a romantic city, ancient, full of history, charm...it is the undisputed cultural capital of Pakistan, and in many ways, all of South Asia. It holds a draw even to ABCD's like me (by the way, that stands for Amreeeeekan Born Cultured Desi" when applied to me) who've never lived there.

If he makes Lahore, Virginia into what he says, I mean, I will be there.

Where else could I get ras malai with my sweet tea?

Warning!! Fake Qur'ans! Don't Fall For The Dangerous Trick!

Recently another age-old circulating email made it into my inbox warning about the grave threat (or "dangerous trick") of a "new" fake Qur'an called Al Furqan al-Haqq. Moreover, this is being distributed in Kuwait, har dee har har.

I've been seeing this crap for quite a few years...actually now that I think about it, I was in law school when I first heard about it, meaning it's likely over 10 years old - hardly "new."

Anyway, the fact that the website you can read this fake Qur'an at is http://www.islam-exposed.org/furqan/contents.html should be indication enough. Why does anyone in their right mind think that this actually poses a threat? You might fall off your chair laughing at it when you read it, and you could bump your head, maybe. But if a Muslim who reads this suddenly renounces Islam, exclaiming in ecstasy that he has truly found the Haqq, then chances are the book had very little to do with his sudden conversion. He was either 99% of the way there already, "there" being defined as a) apostasy, or b) a paagal khana.

Actually this "book" is a compilation of anti-Islamic diatribes authored by Anis Shorrosh, an Arab Christian made famous in the Muslim world by his videotaped debates with Ahmed Deedat. Apparently he took on the challenge in Quran 2:23 (And if ye are in doubt as to what We have revealed from time to time to Our servant, then produce a Sura like thereunto; and call your witnesses or helpers (If there are any) besides Allah, if your (doubts) are true) and, by all accounts, failed miserably.

Anyway visit the link. It's quite comical. Eg, Surah 2, entitled "The Basmalah," verse 2, which reads:

"He is Triune in Unity, united in Trinity, indivisible as deity."

ہیں؟ كی آكھیا ؟میں سمجھیا نہیں

The Finer Points of Parenting

Experience in a given field can readily be ascertained by a discussion of the finer points of said field. This is the surest way to weed out the BS artists, and I say this as a rather accomplished BS artist myself.

So I find myself talking about a finer point of parenting - at least up to the 9 month or so stage, because I find such finer points humorous and worthy of recording. A poopy diaper, I have learned, can usually be folded in such a way as to minimize the stink, by rolling the diaper and then folding the tabs one under the other, much like one would wrap a samosa. When cleaning out our diaper genie, I noticed it was filled with these "diaper samosas" as Rabiah calls them, and it was quite full, as it hadn't been emptied in a few weeks (mainly because I'm the only one who changes Issa's diapers in that room) and was rather surprised that the diaper genie emitted only a musky odor - but not that assaulting stench that can literally knock you over.

I thought it was so cool I should share it.

* * *

Today Carolina won the ACC title. And I remember the excitement over a win - especially such an important one - over a hometown rival (even though it wasn't Duke which is always so satisfying) and remembering the bonfires on Franklin Street and the police blockades and car horns and yes, drunk frat boys throwing toilet paper by the yard onto the bonfire. Then I realize that was 12 years ago...then I got to thinking about that one Internet story that used to circulate about some professor who, at the beginning of every year would pass out a list of anecdotes about that year's freshman class to humorously point out the growing generational gap. I first read this anonymous professor's anecdotes when I was still in college - basically the same age as the kids he poked fun at. You know, that for this year's freshman class, TV's have always been in color, and they have no memory of the Ford administration, etc. etc.

Some years later - I guess more recently - I read the updated version and man, does it work to make you feel old. This year's freshman class would not know how to operate a rotary dial phone. There's always been caller id. No one has just "one number" anymore (think about forms you saw your parents fill out when you were young: they'd add for name, address and phone number. Now, such a form would be rather meaningless, because there's the landline, the fax number, at least two cell phone numbers, a Skype ID, four email accounts, blah blah blah) They don't remember the old school cable boxes where you had to dial the channel you wanted. There's always been the Internet as far as they can remember. (Seriously, can you even remember how you used to live without the Internet? How cool is it to just google any question you have, when I remember having to go to the library and check out a filmstrip with my mother to learn how they put toothpaste into the tube.

My dad once told me about the first time he saw a neighbor use a radio dial, and was intrigued - if not amazed - at the manual dexterity required to tune into a station. I wonder what type of story I'll tell Issa when he gets older.