How much longer are we going to be expected to put up with the Patriotism police? Now that pretty much everyone with a brain has realized how complicit, if not downright guilty, the government is for 9/11, can't we all agree that there are many ways to show ones' love for our country. Some of us think the love must be blind, some of us think greed is patriotic, some of us think that its our responsibility to make sure our country is a force for good in the world.

The following is a poem I wrote in 1984, soon after returning from a long train trip to Kerala in India.

I went for a clackety-clack-click rumble train trip,
tripping, rolling, clackety-click-clack
swaying,
Going my way, north, to Delhi, from Kovalam.
I met some
foreigners, four, fast, familiar, friends.
They had to Kovalam
come clackety-click-clack to fun,
and run,
in the sun,
to get undone,
under the clackety-click, high sun in the Kerala sky,
their clickety-clack lives melting, bleaching,
as they go beaching,
always reaching
for the clickety-clack secrets of the Indian villages,
stopping just short of pillages,

(they leave those clackety-clack to their brother tourist
who seeks the pitiful poorest
of the poor.
to cure their first world clickety-clack blues.
Blackened, blended, they fuse and use the peaked power
pulsing-- ping! zing! through the wires clackety-clack
But call them hypocrites or call them liars,
you'll clackety-click see their fires,
"Our wealth and waste are ours alone,
if they want some, they can get their own!")

Clackety-click
clickety-clack
And so we bitch as we roll back,
to Delhi
to home and all that Coke,
It's such a joke,
a jest, a jive,
for us to assume such a live,
living for just some day, and not too long,
in this way, as they do,
as they clackety-click pass away
behind the train, into the night,
and we clickety-clack, move off, in light,
illuminated and luminesced,
all hardships are clackety-click, recessed
beyond our beds, our berths, beyond.

They lie there sick
clickety-click
they eat their rice and onions
with lots of spice
and pick from their hair
the tiny lice
that crawl and creep
and scritch and scratch.
clackety-click
clickety-clack
But we go back.
Home.

Being a Muslim in the United States is such a complex experience. I think its similar to
how person's of Japanese origin must have felt during WWII, when they were considered
to be the enemy, merely because of national origin. However, for Muslims, there are not really
any recognizable ethnic traits, so the reaction is delayed.

For those of you who have not yet experienced it, the reaction can range from benign curiosity,
to slight discomfort, to outright abuse. I've been fortunate that most of my friends, acquaintances and colleagues
are open minded and tolerant, so there are only the usual misunderstandings that I have to deal with.
However, I have had people tell me to F**k off back to Iran. I had a client who sent an anonymous letter to
the FBI about me. My wife, who immigrated here from Europe, but looks more eastern than I, gets all sorts of
odd and unfriendly reactions.

What is most disturbing though, are not the one-on-one interactions, but the weirdly surreptitious
anti-Muslim sentiment that is becoming institutionalized, particularly in the Federal Government. I would
recommend everyone to find and watch the documentary, "whose children are these?" about hardworking immigrants
who come to this country, make a home, raise a family, contribute to society and government and then
are treated like criminals simply because of their religious beliefs or national origin.
http://www.nycmaharanifilms.com/whose.htm

I seem to remember a time when living in the United States felt very different than it does now. I'm not sure its true, since I was much younger than, and perhaps its just the nearsightedness of aging. It could also be because I wasnt then living in New York City, with its fevered sense of desperation. I was still in the relative suburbs, outside of the always staid District of Columbia. But anyways, the difference of attitude in this country is so marked that it is palpable.

As I remember, people used to be friendlier. People smiled at one another. Car jacking didnt exist and only insecure white ladies locked their doors. I remember being left on the sidewalk with a stranger while my mother ran into a shop at the age of four. And, I was perfectly safe. Did that really happen? Am I looking on the past with rose colored lenses? I could have dreamed it up, but didnt there used to be an oil crisis, when people waited in lines for gas, and the whole country became obsessed with saving energy? What happened to that? What happened to all the solar panels on schools and government buildings? Didnt all cars used to get over 20 miles to the gallon? Wasn't gasoline less then a dollar a gallon? Didnt everyone say they were going to drive less if it went aboe a dollar a gallon? Do we?

I recently read two of John Updike's Rabbit trilogy, Rabbit Run and Rabbit is Rich. Rabbit Run is great. A young man coming to terms with his changing life. But Rabbit is Rich was so much more fascinating because it was about a time that I can remember. I was in Grade School. I remember Carter, and Toyota, "oh what a feeling", and the recession. I remember people who saved money, people who lived in their life savings. I can even remember a tennis trend and platos retreat! Would you go to a place like Plato's Retreat now? With AIDS? With Porn Stars getting sick? One thing that's less remembered about the sexual freedom of the seventies, is that it was just plain friendlier. Being stoned was definitely better for us than being high on coke, crack, or heroin, or methodone. Looking to get laid made us nicer than trying to trade online does. Screwing was nearly as good as the gym and alot less judgemental.

Even in one of America's darkest moments, the hostage crisis, I felt safer and less anxious than I do today. Today we are supposedly the world's only superpower, but we feel threatened by tinpot dictators. Today, we are the world's wealthiest nation, but we are impoverished by our debt and deficit. We are the most powerful marketplace, but we use protectionism and unfair tariffs on those who threaten our hegemony. Most personally affecting has been the change in the country's attitude towards its immigrants and especially to those who are Muslim. We were under attack by a fundamentalist Islamic Republic, with huge popular support, and yet I don't ever recall hearing anyone cry for a crusade. Now it seems Islam and the Muslims have become the new Soviet Union... which is making me reconsider my views on the Soviet Union... if the Political System and government disinformation system hasnt changed too much, then was the Soviet Union really inscrutable, or was it just unbelievably stupid policy wonks who couldnt understand it. Could a guy like Paul wolfowitz or John Ashcroft have made it that far in the seventies? Didnt all the politicians speak better too? In full sentences? And remember how much of an effort Carter made to pronounce the Arab and Persian words... he'd been in the Navy for god's sakes!... while today the only public mouth attempting correct pronounciation is on TV at 11:30 at night! opposite comedians! who get better ratings! does any of this make any sense?

Progress no longer seems the correct term for what is happening in this country. I've just turned 38, and I feel a similar national sense that our best years are behind us. We are acting long in the tooth: hoarding wealth, spreading discontent, becoming intolerant, eating without pleasure, collecting useless status objects, wearing too much jewelry, too much makeup and way, way, way too much flab. Wasn't there a time when every fast food restaurant had a salad bar? I do remember that right, don't I? It could be that I am confusing the Roy Roger's fixins bar for a salad bar... but I think it was true. I think you used to be able to get regular size at the movies. I definitely remember a yogurt craze. When did healthy food become uncool again? Why is the food industry acting like they've only just now learned that fat is bad for you? Why is the public letting them?

As I watch this happening, I keep thinking that I must have slept through some kind of dramatic event that changed everything. I mean I can see how Reaganomics is probably responsible for the financial woes of the country, and I can see how the hostage situation, followed by the Lebanon War, followed by the Libya thing, followed by the Salman Rushdie thing, followed by the first Gulf War, followed by the first World Trade Center bombing, followed by the USS Cole, followed by 9-11 made Americans deservedly scared of Muslims. But you could probably find that more Muslims in the world were with us than against us back then....