Coretta King - A Tribute to the Keeper of A Dreamer

Civil movement leader of USA Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. wife Mrs. Coretta King died yesderday in a Mexico clinic at the age of 78. She was suffering from cancer for a long time. She was more than jsut a wife of a great leader of civil rights movements.
Follwing excerpt from a local newspaper (www.ajc.com) reads:
It would have been easy to label Coretta Scott King just a wife, but it would have missed the mark.
Before she married the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., the Alabama-born Coretta Scott had established herself as politically and socially conscious young woman. Formally educated in Ohio and Boston, she was an anti-war activist who rallied fellow students against violence and was a delegate to a political convention. She was an accomplished classical singer.

During the civil rights movement, she marched alongside her husband and sang to raise money for the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, the organization he co-founded.
After her husband's death in 1968, Coretta King emerged as an important activist in her own right. She founded the Martin Luther King Jr. Center for Nonviolent Social Change and led the fight to make her husband's birthday a national holiday. Yet she also was known as a loving mother who reared four children alone. She instilled in them a reverence for the ideals their father espoused, as well as an independence to chart their own courses, even if it challenged long-standing ideals of who or what they should be.
She became an international advocate for peace and human rights. She met with presidents and world leaders and was arrested fighting against apartheid. And well into her 70s, she traveled the globe to speak against racial and economic injustice, promote the rights of the powerless and poor, and advocate religious freedom, full employment, health care, educational opportunities, nuclear disarmament and AIDS awareness.
Coretta Scott King, 78, of Atlanta, died late Monday at a holistic hospital in Rosarito Beach, Mexico, about 17 miles south of San Diego, family members said. Willie A. Watkins Funeral Home on Ralph David Abernathy Boulevard is in charge of arrangements, which at this point are incomplete.
"Mrs. King's lasting contributions to freedom and equality have made America a better and more compassionate nation," President Bush said Tuesday in a prepared statement. "Laura and I were fortunate to have known Mrs. King, and we will always treasure the time we spent with her. We send our condolences and prayers to the entire King family."
Mrs. King suffered a debilitating stroke and heart attack in August.
Despite her physical struggles — friends and family members said her last days were painful — she made a surprise appearance last month during the King Center's annual Salute to Greatness awards dinner in downtown Atlanta.
She was wheeled into the ballroom of the Hyatt Regency Hotel, triggering a standing ovation. She smiled, waved and kissed family members, but she did not speak.
It would be her last public appearance.
For many, Coretta King was the closest thing possible to African-American royalty, from the regal way she carried herself to how others perceived her. Her image froze in the public's consciousness thanks to a Pulitzer Prize-winning photograph taken at her husband's funeral. Beneath her black veil, she seemed dignified and stoic even as she consoled her grief-stricken 5-year-old daughter, Bernice.

On Dec. 1, 1955, seamstress Rosa Parks refused to move to the back of a city bus. Her arrest sparked the Montgomery bus boycott. At 26, the movement chose Martin Luther King Jr. as its leader.
Coretta King has said it was an exciting time for the young couple because they were leading a life of purpose.
On the evening of Jan. 30, 1956, while Martin Luther King Jr. was speaking at Ralph David Abernathy's First Baptist Church, the Ku Klux Klan bombed the family home in Montgomery.
In her autobiography, Coretta King wrote that she was sitting in her house with a friend and daughter Yolanda when they heard a loud thump on the porch. She had been anticipating an attack and tried to run to the back of the house.
"We moved fast—not through the hall, which would have taken us near the sound, but straight back through the guest bedroom," she wrote. "We were in the middle of it when there was a thunderous blast. Then smoke and the sound of breaking glass."
She, the friend and baby Yolanda narrowly escaped injury.
"I think Coretta Scott King is the quintessential woman that has been far underrated in terms of her contributions," the Rev. Al Sharpton said Tuesday. "People talk about Dr. King, but it was Dr. King and Coretta King. When they bombed the house it was Coretta's house. She was home. He wasn't even there."
On a personal note, I would like to add that, what Mrs. Gandhi did to carry forward Mr. Gandhi's dream in the Indian context, Mrs. Coretta King probably did even more to carry forward the dreams of Dr. Martin Luther King in the United States' perspectives. May her soul rest in eternal peace.

"World's Largest Online Library" and Victoria Ocampo

The address of the website is: http://www.questia.com/
You can read many best seller contemporary novels and evergreen classics here for free(only time to invest)!
In this Library, I have found a nice book on Victoria Ocampo of Argentina, nobel laureate Indian poet Tagore's Vijaya. The title of the book is "VICTORIA OCAMPO: Writer, Feminist, Woman of the World". This book is translated and edited by Patricia Owen Steiner. Publisher is UNIVERSITY OF NEW MEXICO PRESS ALBUQUERQUE.
Victoria was a renaissance lady. An editor of the famous Latin American literary magazine the 'Sur', a poet, a novelist, a social worker, human rights activist..the list could go on and on. But, I was mainly curious about the life and works of this great lady primarily because of her much publicized friendship with the indian poet Rabindranath Tagore-perhaps the only guy whose lyrics are used as national anthem for two different countries-India and Bangladesh. Tagore was hosted by 'Vijaya' (the word Vijaya is the bengali synnonym for the word Victoria). His brief stay in Argentia was eventful and produced some sweet liteary works, some of which later was published in bengali language (Tagore's first language). In Shantiniketan(in the alternative university founded by Tagore in West Bengal, India), there is still preseved the deck chair that was presented by Victoria to Tagore on the later's return voyage from Argentina to India. Interested readers can read the book along with some complementary articles .
The weblink of the book on Victoria Okampo is as follows: http://www.questia.com/PM.qst;jsessionid=DbV6bvvhJZzhHM6SxwF54J3kkHCmhH1G3yG26CjTVLRKc77k6zP8!-2077773756?a=o&d=77473354

Amitav Ghosh - A Writer with an English Pen and a Bengali Soul

His web address is: http://www.amitavghosh.com
This everyoung journalist-turned-book writer was born in Calcutta in 1956. Had a journalist career in India. Received a PhD from Oxford and now lives in Brooklyn, USA.

I could care less about whether someone obtained his/her PhD degree from Oxford or from Mars. I care about how smoothly one can make transitions in their self-actualization process. Be it from Bengal to Brooklyn, or from London to Liberia for that matter. And, how candidly we can share with readers about our origins and, about our present situations and future destinations. No doubt, there is a genre of readers in the industrialized west, to whom mere narratives of everyday trivialities of rest of the world can read very intrigueing and, exoticly original. Same applies to the readers from the developing world, who find the descriptiion of everyday life of an average westerner enviably interesting. R.K. Narayanan's 'Malgudi days' got popularity in english language due mainly to the fact that 'exotic South India' was served in an accessible language. Now, Ghosh seems to be more urban, more sophisticated, and, is aparently making his living by serving not only 'exotic' to non-exotic readers, but, also by feeding western readers with images and thoughts from their own societies. That's great.
Ghosh's essay on Satyajit Ray was a great peice. In that essay, he tells us about how Japanse literary fans pay homage to their cultural idols. That's a nice polite way.

Back to daily grind..Reinvention of wheels....

The eight hour long exam is behind me. It is time again to try to find some 'new' things even if that would mean re-inventing the wheels.
Public diary keeping, as with 'public speaking', needs some homework, to sort out what to share, how to share and how much to share. We live in a time, when the list of 'apolitical' issues are shrinking, making our every statement, every opinion, every professional stance more vulnerable to a fault-finder's magnifying glass.
Anyway, I was watching a Latin American film today. The title of the movie is 'The Motorcycle Diaries'. A story of two Argentine friends' travel arross Latin America. Two friends started the journey by an old motorbike. But, understandably that 'mighty one'(the brand name of the bike made in 1939)was not mighty enough to survive the enthusiasm of two travel crazy youngs in 1952. The cinematography is beautiful, the landscapes of Aregentina, Peru, Chile..all were breath-taking as was claimed by the back page of the DVD coverjacket. Throughout the movie, there were the references of latin american literary personalities and their works (Lorka, Neruda, Marquez etc.). I would also like to recommend here another movie. This one is an Italian movie, title: 'The Postman'. I liked the movie, as a nice frienidship between exiled poet Neruda and a local rural postman in a small island in Italy was narrated in a sweet, melancholic way. So, here you go, now you know both the motor cycle diary and the postman are wort spending time on (if you really have time).

Exam approching, so irregular posting

I am taking an eight hour long exam very soon. So, these days are little tight time wise. After few days I will try to resume more frquent posting. Still have to learn how to post photos etc. or stuff from other websites. Hope you all are doing great! Wish me luck in the exam, please.

site seeing...web sites that cought my eyes today

Not everyday new things happen, new 'eureka' ideas pop up in the head of a doctoral student. So, someday I ponder..what I should write about?
Thanks God, there is site seeing opportunity...to share with friends about the sites that may interst them as these sites triggered my interest recently.

A friend from London refered this folloing website for bangla literature and networking:
www.satrong.com

A friend from Georgia referred these websites mainly for south asian community who share ideas in english language:
http://www.kavitachhibber.com/ [this website is a good place to share writings, ideas, dreams and apassions that impacts south asian people both in home and abroad]

Rivaaj Magazine:
http://www.rivaajmagazine.com/aboutrivaaj.html

This magazine, I believe, is primarily focused on new generation western women of south asian origin. But, hey, don't we know who really form the main readership group for bangla feminine magazins such as Sanonda and Anyonnya? (smile).
Please feel free to share with me your recent discoveries of websites of interst-GO SITE SEEING!

Social Security Fund Reform in USA

In USA, the debate is on the rise about an eminent reform of the nation's social security system. Currently, they have a 'PAY-AS-YOU-GO' system which means social security pension contributions of current working populaiton is being concurrently used to pay out for the pension benefits of the current retirees. So, as such, the contributions are not 'invested' to grow, rather, they are being paid out to current retired people. Some of the reform advocates have voiced in favor of a fully funded system, where the contributions of current working people will be actually 'invested' so that the pie grow bigger, so that, the contributor can receive benefit of his or her own savings when they retire. Current PAYG system is heavilty dependent upon demographic realities. Currently, about four workers are supporting one retiree's benefit. But as baby boomers start retiring in few years, the ratio of retired people to working people will increase significantly which may put the social security system in to unsustainable path where future benefits may have to be significantly sqeezed, if not eliminated. This also has enormous impact on people's labor and leisure choice.

National Exchequer, Partisan Gain, and Money Talks

The State I live in (Georgia), it is an election year here. Today's all the local dailies headline focused on present state government's plan of incrasing the expenditure on education significatly ["a windfall increase"-as titled by a leading local newspaper (www.ajc.com)]. The teachers would get higher salaries, class sizes would be smaller, etc. etc.-bit priority of public finance the last year of the present govt. But then, the 'eternally cynnical' opposition smells of using natinoal exchequre for partisan gain in this move of increased spending in education. The opposition's point is: " for last three years, we have been always pushing for this increased spending in education agenda...and always heard back the same excuse...not enough money to increase education budget. But then, ,now, in the election year, where did the money come from?".
So, it seems that it is not only developing countries, where it seems to be a widely held practice that spend public money strategically (but more covertly) for partisan, electoral gain. Then, one can argue that, the voters give that 'right' to a government when they elect one. So, instead of far crying what opposition needs to do is focus on how to win the hearts (actually, ballots) of the voters. But, then, if voters are 'very loyal to their salts and grains' and, if they don't have x-ray eyes to penetrated the surface to public expenditure to find the truth beneath, then there may emerge a vicious cycle of one party's reelection over and over again.

The Duality of Technology and Int'l Terrorism

Technology is bringing us together...email, cell phone, video phone, sattelite, super sonic air planes etc. etc...now a days people can travel across continents faster than ever before. But the politics of terrorism is making it harder to get the full benefit of faster modes of travels and communications accross coountries. So, could we say one force is centrifugal, one is centripetal..?
Or, there is a better metaphor to capture these rival forces who tend to cancel each other out and perpetuate the status quo..to benefit who??

Time Management and Prodctivity

I sometimes resolute that will finish all the studying a week before exam, but then find myself cramming up to the last minute before the exam starts.
Now, I would suspect that some people are finishing their readings and exercises earlier. Who are those people? better time managers? Book worms? Definitely a PhD program requires a tunnel vision, a continous and tenacious focus for four to five years on a particular field of study. Now, the opportunity cost of achieving this depth is we are missing out on breadth of life! So many things are happening around us...bird chimes, little art festivals, little wild flowers and herbs are growing and dying each day in the rural south..the real south? But we are missing out on these, hope some day we will catch up with these stuff, or, will we ever?

Study study study!

What an eight hour long comp means to anybody? Well the medical doctors are used to it in US, because they had to take the licensing exam which is pretty lengthy. But hey, I am not an MD, why should I then be sitting their for eight hours? I should finish early.

Site Seeting- Samaritans.org GOOD JOB!

I came accross this website: http://www.samaritans.org.uk/

This U.K. based NGO have volunteers to help out lonely people to reduce thera burden of loneliness.
Is not it cool?

Back to School...Ground Hog's Day Again....?!

Oh, now it's time to come back to school again, get the back pack ready loaded with books, read economics some more. I tried to read the nobel ecture of the laureates of 2005 on the web www.nobelprize.org, oh, although they have video clips laoded, the text version is not yeat available. So, is Nobel.org in need of some copy writers who can retread text from watching the video over and over again? I can do that!