Fidel Castro has begun his long goodbye.

Our man in Havana had barely hung up his boots, when our man in Washington DC announced from Rwanda that “The United States will help the people of Cuba realize the blessings of liberty.” Hmmm. Even in an age on notoriously short memories that takes the cigar.

Blessings of liberty? Iraq is still counting them. Afghanistan is still enjoying them. Let a thousand poppies bloom, I say.

President Bush went on to tout “free and fair elections” and said the time was now to begin “a democratic transition.”

You might think after Iraq, our born-again democrat would be a little more circumspect about bestowing democracy to all and sundry.

What’s with this western fetishization of democracy as a means of resolving all problems?

In Iraq democracy has brought the country close to fracture, rebirthing old ethnic tensions.

In Pakistan, democratic elections have brought more confusion in its wake and a wobbly President.

In Turkey, democracy brought Islamists to power but the European Union still won’t invite it to dinner.

In Kenya there were elections but the fruits of democracy have been bittersweet after years of Daniel Arap Moi’s corruption.

In East Timor, democracy needs the UN as a custodian and nanny-in-chief even as the President was wounded by a renegade officer.

And Russia turned into a Putinocracy through the ballot box.

When some critics of the Iraq invasion wondered if Iraq was ready Bush and the neo-cons bristled. It was arrogant and condescending to assume anyone was not ready for democracy, they said. True, enough.

On the other hand while people might be ready (and excited) to cast votes are the institutions of democracy ready for that pent up demand? Can countries without real political parties just leapfrog into elections? Churchill said democracy was the worst form of government, except for all the others that have been tried. But is democracy by itself a silver bullet or is it just a checklist item for the West still bringing civilization to the barbarian hordes around the world? Might we be expecting too much for democracy to accomplish in too short a time?

Democracy brought to (Fill in the country name). Mission accomplished.

If it were only that simple.

I guess President Bush has been in an amnesty mood lately.

I am so glad Scooter Libby was around to oblige him.

Too bad for those 10-12 million undocumented. They thought they might get what the talk show hosts were calling “amnesty” but their Z-visas hit a dead end in the Senate.

Thank god, Libby, once again the consummate team player, stepped into the breach and saved the President’s image of the Compassionate Conservative.

Think about it – its not such a bad trade off.

How much more concentrated the compassion when focused on one deserving man than diluted among 10-12 million undocumented people. (Kind of like tax cuts, they have much more bang for the buck when it comes to the high-flying CEOs than the average guy getting a $150 refund!)

But hey, at least someone got to come out of the shadows.

We should all be grateful for that this July 4 as we ruminate on life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

Now I am sure some of those illegal immigrants must be thinking this is bait and switch just like well, we are going to Iraq to find yellowcake, I mean to establish democracy. But I would reassure them to be positive and see the silver lining.

In fact, maybe we can get that newly dirty word, “amnesty” back into the American vocabulary. Libby of course has not been pardoned. He just had his sentence commuted. The undocumented were not getting amnesty. They were getting Z-visas. I say, let’s just call a spade a spade and reclaim that word amnesty – for you, me, Libby and the undocumented. Can’t we all just get along?

If the public is able to swallow Libby’s commutation and eventual pardon, maybe we can start thinking about ideas like amnesty again. Libby, you could say is showing us the way. Shame on those who think he is getting it easy.

In fact he isn’t. He even has his own touchback provisions with his probation officers. A key difference is the undocumented would have had to leave the country to touchback according to one of the amendments. Libby is prohibited from leaving the country. So no little vacation in Mexico for him. He also has to issue written reports every month. Some would say the undocumented have it easier. No monthly touchbacks. No written reports. And their fine is smaller too.

You could say Libby has taken one for the team.

My cynical and uncharitable colleague says Libby had his sentence commuted not because President Bush wanted to throw a bone to the conservatives but because they were afraid he would spill the beans. That’s a canard.

What will they say next? The President was hoping the immigration bill would go through, so Libby could slip in there and walk away unnoticed, lost in a crowd of 10-12 millions.
I think as the immigration bill went down in flames, the President still wanted to show the country a flicker of hope, that with one stroke of his pen he could help someone rejoin the American family.

The question will be what will Libby do with his new lease on life? Once the undocumented are documented will they still want to pick lettuce, wash windows or baby sit our children for the wages they once had? No one knows that answer and everyone is scared to find out. But in Libby we have a small controlled experiment in “life after amnesty.”

As I said I think Libby might be a test run for a larger amnesty.

The immigrant rights movement might just have a new slogan.

Today Libby. Tomorrow 12 million undocumented.

Mira Nair’s The Namesake just went into wider release, garnering solid reviews after it opened in six theaters on March 9, putting Indian immigrant stories up there on screen.

But the best thing about The Namesake is that a quick scouring of the headlines in mainstream media reveals a miracle – no “spicy” “masala” “curry” or any such food-words to describe the film, at least not in the headline.

Here’s a sampling – Modernity and Tradition at a Cultural Crossroads – New York Times

The Emotional Journey to a New Home

A Guilt Trip to India Gets to the Heart – Newsday

Depth of family is in ‘The Namesake’ – USA Today

Only the Wall Street Journal makes the cultural kitchen stop
‘Namesake’ Is A Richly Spiced Immigrant Saga—- An
Endearing, Wry Tale Of Indian Family in U.S

Not bad, given that once upon a time a movie like The Namesake would probably be called Whitebread Naan.

EvenMira Nair when she was first breaking into the mainstream followed the naming formula – Mississippi Masala. Since then we’ve had Tortilla Soup, Chutney Popcorn, Tandoori Nights, Lumpia, Catfish in Black Bean Sauce, Dim Sum: A Little Bit of Heart. Even when it’s not food we have to bow to the take-a-little-bit-of-ethnic, add a-little-bit-of-mainstream and voila you have a title that everyone can digest. Monsoon Wedding. Shanghai Knights. Shanghai Kiss. Shanghai Knights. Night of Henna.

Now we have just plain old The Namesake. Not a whiff of curry in that title. Bland as whitebread. I think that’s progress enough to rejoice about.

The Persians are coming. I don’t know too much about the Battle of Thermopylae and I haven’t read the Frank Miller graphic novel but the overriding message of the film 300 was “The Persians are coming” and only 300 brave Spartans stand in the way. Given the timing of the movie, it felt a little like an ROTC ad for the Marines – the few, the brave, the fast, the furious.

The other overriding message is the Persians are gay. The Spartans are kind of gay too in a homophobic, “we are not boy lovers” way. Or as homophobic as you can be when your entire army’s battle uniform is hot pants and cape, so you can just bludgeon the enemy with your abs. (And to think some Marines or reservists got into trouble for posing nude for some magazine.)When the Spartan king clashes with the Persian emperor Xerxes it’s meant to be the clash of civilizations. It feels more like a bar brawl between two gay fashion statements – muscle bear without body hair vs effete sissies with lots of piercings. No prizes for guessing who is what. Here’s a hint – when a weapon flies close to Xerxes’ face, his hand flutters in front of him in a “Not-the-face” kinda way. Only the hard and strong may call themselves Spartan. Umm that sounds like an ad for a gay porn site actually.

Once you’ve gotten over the gay Jets and Sharks having a rumble in Sparta, 300 is a very topical film. First everyone with a turban is evil and should be tossed off a cliff or into a deep hole, even the ones who are just messengers not soldiers. If President Ahmadinejad writes any more letters, I think after 300 no one is going to deliver them.

More contemporary parallels – there is a coalition of the willing here too. And like the current one it’s pretty measly as well. Untrustworthy Brits, I mean Spanish, I mean Arcadians who desert the Americans, I mean the Spartans, when the going gets tough. Meanwhile the cowering Congress doesn’t realize “Freedom isn’t free at all. It comes with the highest of prices. Blood.” Wasn’t that in the State of Union speech before the last Presidential election?

Spartan blood is a small price to pay we are reminded against “Asia’s endless hordes.” And the endless hordes had better watch out – “Spartans never retreat, Spartans never surrender.”

The 300 brave Spartans and their hotpants are the only things that stand between civilization and “the barbarians.” And they make a promise to the world – “we will rescue the world from mysticism and tyranny.”

And they do all this with just 300 hard and strong men. (The movie was obviously made before Donald Rumsfeld got the boot). But if 300 can hold back the Persian masses surely the surge of 21,500 more soldiers can do the job in Iraq. Except here’s the one small problem – in the Battle of Thermopylae, the 300 Spartans were defending their home against the swarming barbarian Persian hordes at their gates. The 21,500 new American troops in the Middle East are the ones doing the surging at the gates of Persia.

Pesky details – on the plus side I am hoping the DVD will include the “Get Spartan Abs in 300 Days Killer Workout.”

Babel didn’t win the Academy Award for Best Film but in a way it’s work was done. The director Alejandro González Iñárritu was quoted talking about how he started out to make a film about how language and culture keeps people separate but ended up making a film about how connected everyone is in the end.

Watching the Oscars, for the first time, you could really sense the Babel of the world right there at the Staples Center. And it wasn’t just in the Foreign Language Film category. I don’t know I’ve ever heard so many languages and so many accents right there on the stage. From Ruby Yang’s “xie xie” after picking up the award for the The Blood of Yinzhou, to Ennio Morricone’s entire acceptance speech in Italian to the Spanish accents of the winners for Pan’s Labyrinth – it was a real linguistic spectrum. And the only linguistic stumble really came from Clint Eastwood calling composer Morricone “a scorer.”

When a winner thanks their family, all those who are named are thrilled. But I bet when Ruby Yang said “xie xie” thousands of Chinese watching the telecast clapped. My friends and I were hoping if Deepa Mehta won for Water she’d said a few words in Hindi or Punjabi.

She didn’t win but the melting pot was really on full boil. Mehta was nominated for a Hindi film (Water) which was actually the Canadian entry – the first time that had happened. It was amazing to hear Hollywood go global. Ang Lee had already pushed that door open when he directed and won the Oscar last year for a story as American as Brokeback Mountain. Alfonso Cuarón walked right through that door when he directed the nothing-to-do-with-Mexico Children of Men. This year only one of the five Best Actress nominees was American and Clint Eastwood was nominated for a Japanese film.

Maybe next year the Oscars will finally dispense with that Best Foreign Language film. (And maybe include figures from world cinema in their remembrance line up but then the ceremony might last 5 hours.)