is the word 'diary' better than the word 'blog'? probably not.
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I didn't realize that the world was imperfect until just this moment.
Scene: the garden party for Trip's birthday. After some hours of talking about old gossip and yummy wine and food, I found myself seated near two human rights attorneys. Trip mentioned that I work on human rights, and I steeled myself for the inevitable. We started talking about ideas. I made my 'apologies' for not being a lawyer. And, as often happens, one of them immediately began saying things to me like, "that is not the way a person in a refugee camp would think of things." Me: "of course not." Him: "a person in a refugee camp is just struggling to get by, has no time to get intellectual about the corrupt foundations of rights discourse." Me: "of course not." Him: [expectant look.] Me: "do you really think that is a valid criticism of my attempt to think about why we live in a world where refugee camps proliferate and become permanent rather than in a world where the existence of refugee camps shames everyone into solving the problem they stand for?" Him: "I'm just saying." Me: "Well, I am too."
The other human rights attorney was much more interested in discussing the ideas. Do not hear me to be saying that all lawyers are the same. They are not.
It is not at all that I don't see that practicing human rights law means something different from writing about human rights law. It's that I see that the two do not and should not have to be the same. (In fact it is ethically important that the two do not have to be the same.) I also think it would be nice if we lived in a society that valued the work of thinking. In case you haven't noticed this, that is not where we live.
But sometimes it's nice just to look at a Puerto Rican sunset (photo by Marilyn).
11:30 p.m. - April 20, 2006
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