E-day. (election)

I hope we shall crush in its birth the aristocracy of our monied corporations which dare already to challenge our government to a trial by strength, and bid defiance to the laws of our country.
–Thomas Jefferson

My dream is of a place and a time where America will once again be seen as the last best hope of earth.
–Abraham Lincoln

In the end, that’s what this election is about. Do we participate in a politics of cynicism or a politics of hope?
–Barack Obama

I hope someday you’ll join us, and the world will be as one.
–John Lennon

Notes from an American in Pakistan: after Osama Bin Laden

So here’s the blog I wrote a few hours after I found out about Bin Laden, and I think I have an editorial that should be up tomorrow:

When Osama bin Laden was killed, I was at a dinner party given by an award-winning author, munching on sweetbread and chatting up brilliant filmmaker, writer and activist types. Though I’m in the country where Bin Laden was tracked and killed, for me the news ironically came from America. I read about his death in an email from Mississippi shortly after waking.

My American friends are bombarding my Facebook wall – “What’s it like to be there right now?” Honestly, I feel happy, scared and fairly apathetic. As I rode to work,  I watched Defense pass outside my window—the mosque, the goats, the  high rise construction site, the Pakistan State Oil station I see at least twice a day—and thought, ‘this is what a world without Osama bin Laden looks like.’ And I felt unaffected.

I wonder too—what’s it like here, what will it be like a week from now, a month from now, a year from now? What will Osama’s death mean for al Qaeda, for the organization’s past and future victims, for American foreign policy and for those living in regions affected by American foreign policy? What does this mean for Pakistanis, Afghans, North Africans, Americans abroad?

Keep reading…

US unhappy with political game of Obama’s Asia tour

I want to write about Obama’s Asian tour, but I keep realising that I’m stupefied by the complexity and the pageantry of it all. From America’s view, South Asia is a diplomatic cesspool, confounded by the fact that much of this uncertainty stems from our own past and present policies.

When Obama returns to the White House, he will have visited five countries—Japan, Singapore, South Korea, China and Indonesia. But, barring the G20 Summit, the bulk of press coverage will focus on two of those countries—Indonesia, because of Obama’s personal connection, and India—as well as another country not on the itinerary. The press wants to know: what does Islamabad think about Obama in New Delhi?

Obama’s Asia trip has nothing to do with Pakistan

The most obvious answer is: nothing. This trip has nothing to do with Islamabad—why should it? Another obvious response—isn’t $2 billion in weapons, or $7.5 billion over five years, enough to buy some peace—bad pun intended?

The truth, both in-between and unrelated, is better pondered by someone more knowledgeable than me. But I ponder anyway, and this is what I’ve come up with: Obama’s tour is definitely about weapons—$15 billion worth, plus a couple of nukes for good measure. It’s more about China, less about Indonesia, and even less about the Indians who died in the 2008 Mumbai attacks. But it is about terrorism, or at least, it’s about the potential for increased terrorism on US soil, and it is about capitalism, and maybe it’s even about democracy. To put a long story short—Obama’s trip is about America’s interests, in whatever geographic form they come.

Keep reading at Pakistani paper, The Express Tribune.

Art News Digest

Go here.

State of the Arts

A summary of last week’s art news, minus the Met’s Rose Period Picasso fiasco, because that’s hardly news at this point…

What Recession?

Demand and short supply prevailed at the Sotheby’s and Christie’s old masters sales this week. The $109 million that changed hands at Christie’s set a new record for a single old masters auction and established new price highs for the artists Rembrandt, Raphael and Domenichino. Sotheby’s old master’s sales totaled $74 million, well situated in the pre-sale estimate of $54-75 million. Sotheby’s most buzzed items included “Portrait of a Woman, Called ‘La Belle Ferronniere,’ ” once thought to be authored by Leonardo da Vinci. It sold for $1.5 million—triple the  $500,000 estimate.

These outcomes support the prediction that high quality conservative art will fare better during a recession. The old masters, the impressionists and the modernists are an inflation hedge, while acquisitions by recent superstars have become risky investments.

In a survey of 25 museums, The Art Newspaper notes that endowments are recovering, and the Met reports that its income is at pre-recession levels. But California closings (Claremont Museum of Art and the Fresno Metropolitan Museum) and cautionary moves, such as the Los Angeles County Museum sending 17 pieces through Sotheby’s last week, indicate that institutional art budgets remain shaky.

All is not lost in our most leveraged state. On Wednesday the Getty Foundation announced that it will award $3.1 million in grants to 26 California institutions to help fund next fall’s bevy of exhibits, “Pacific Standard Time: Art in L.A. 1945-1980.” This gift doubles the previously announced commitment.