If thou lend money to any of My people, even to the poor with thee, thou shalt not be to him as a creditor; neither shall ye lay upon him interest. (Exodus, 22:25)

The key texts of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam are all very clear about the sins of lending money for interest – and yet it doesn’t seem to have stopped anyone who professes those faiths from making a good profit. When was living in North Philadelphia while attending Temple, the only businesses around us were funeral parlors, pharmacies, and check cashing places. Check cashing places offer “payday loans” which can have annualized interest rates as high as 390 to 900 percent! Things are even worse in the developing world, where suicide is one of the leading causes of death among rural women. Especially in China, but not because women try more often – just because they succeed more often due to inadequate emergency health care. It is a major problem in India as well.

Among the Chhara, the Denotified community at the heart of our film, as many as fifteen percent of the population still thieve for a living. Although there community increasingly boasts of lawyers, teachers, journalists, artists, and other professionals, many members of the community are unable to escape a life of crime. Part of the problem is simply discrimination. We know of one woman who has an MA in English literature, but can’t get a job as a teacher because nobody will hire a Chhara. But part of the problem is the curse of usury, as eloquently described in this article by Chhara journalist Roxy Gagdekar:

those trapped in Chharanagar’s criminal gangs, including Rohan, are caught in the double bind of debt of disrepute. A gang generally borrows money on heavy interest (5% to 10% per month) from moneylenders in and around the locality, and its burden increases after each failed criminal run. Chhara gangs, usually made up of five to 12 members, choose targets in cities other than Ahmedabad. Therefore every sortie drains the gang’s resources: money is spent for food, commuting, and accommodation.

… “The only solution is to try to steal enough to clear the whole financial burden of the crew,” said Nirmal, another Chharanagar resident bound by Bhach. “We don’t have property to mortgage or the goodwill secure loans from banks.”
Rohan, now in his 40s, joined a gang some 15 years ago. He has not been able to break through the forbidding circle of liability and thieves’ code of honour.

“I was shut into a gang when I was a student of second year, because we were starving,” he said.

One solution would be to implement a micro-credit program in Chharanagar, but the hurdles are tremendous. Not only are the local moneylenders very powerful and eager to defend their grip on the community, but the ongoing illegal activities scare away most NGOs. Still, the one thing micro-credit programs have been shown to do well is to reduce the power of moneylenders.

Last year, when Muhammad Yunus won the Nobel Peace Prize for Grameen Bank’s innovative microfinance program in Bangladesh the media was largely uncritical, with few people asking any tough questions. But some did point out that micro-credit did little to lift people out of poverty. As Gina Neff points out, most recipients of such programs are already relatively well off (for poor people), and as both Neff and P. Sainath point out, micro-credit still hasn’t been shown to do much to lift people out of poverty.

When I was in India earlier this year I went to a talk by someone who has worked for decades doing rural development in West Bengal who is now involved in a mico-credit program. He was very open about these criticisms, even as he defended the programs. He said that the only statistics most micro-credit programs keep track of are repayment rates, and repayment rates don’t tell us anything about whether people are being lifted out of poverty. He also argued that there was no magic link between micro-credit and the empowerment of rural women. In some cases it did have that effect, but in many places it did not – sometimes even having a negative effect. Like the above critics, he argued that micro credit needed to be part of a larger solution.

In the end, even though the 24 to 35 percent interest rates offered by mico-credit programs are far higher than the rates most rich people would get at a bank, they are much, much lower than what local moneylenders usually charge and for this reason alone I think they can be quite liberating. I hope the Chhara can find a way to implement a functioning microcredit program in their community, preferably one targeted at the women who are all too often forced to brew illegal alcohol when they are widowed at a young age and with no marketable skills. We met some tough Chhara women who are working to create alternative local industries, but its an uphill battle …

What really struck me, however, were the opening credits by Daniel Kleinman, who is mostly known for making music videos. For the first time in history (I haven’t had time to re-watch all of the Bond opening credit sequences, but you can do so yourself here), naked silhouttes of women’s bodies aren’t used in the credits. Instead, we have animated sequences of men fighting with images of cards and roulette wheels. It is very effectively done, but I immediately thought: this is going to be a very gay movie, in a sadistic homo-erotic way. And I was right.

[Warning: Spoilers after the jump.]

Writing in Slate, Dana Stevens describes one of the most sadistic and homo-erotic scene:

In a torture scene, Casino Royale’s blood-weeping villain Le Chiffre (Mads Mikkelsen) visits great indignity upon James Bond’s manhood (though to judge from subsequent love scenes in the film, no lasting harm is done). As he readies his instruments, Le Chiffre compliments the naked and bound superspy on the physique he’s about to harm: “You’ve taken good care of your body. Such a waste.” The screening audience laughed aloud at this line, because Daniel Craig’s body is truly something to behold. He’s ripped without being the least bit muscle-bound and possessed of a coiled, catlike grace that’s atypical for an action star. Like Uma Thurman, he’s somehow athletic and delicate at the same time. Craig’s naked body, which is partly, if not fully, on view in virtually every movie he’s made, puts me in mind of a great couplet from Ogden Nash: “Should you behold a panther crouch/ Prepare to say ouch.”

Normally Bond films have a strictly male gaze, with plenty of time spent dwelling on the bodies of scantily clad women. There is some of that here, but it seems to be an afterthought. Queer Beacon (who carefully distinguishes between “gay” content and “homo-erotic” content, putting the film in the latter category) comments on one of the publicity stills for the film:

On a lot of Bond movies we do get to see James Bond shirtless, but the sexytime has always been clearly about the Bond girls, about objectifying them; this time, even though we have two hot Bond girls, the attention is clearly on Craig. And it should be. Seriously, you will get a boner with this one.

I think the film was meant for such an audience, although it is possible that there is emerging a new female gaze that is indistinguishable from the male gaze except for the subject, but somehow I doubt that women were the intended audience for such scenes. Which isn’t to say that there isn’t a fair amount put in for the ladies, especially a degree of psychological weakness and vulnerability, coupled with a certain infantilization and impetuousness. But in one of the best such scenes, when Bond is given a tailor-made suit, the woman’s gaze seems only to exist to assuage any uncomfortable male viewers as they watch Bond preening himself in the mirror.

It is also interesting that while most films include high-tech killing machines, the most high-tech gadget in this film is a self-applied defibrillator which Bond is unable to activate without the help of the female lead. (Of course, only the white woman is allowed to hold her own against Bond, the exotic Mediterranean woman is too sexual to be allowed any power. Hell, she doesn’t even get her sexual cravings satisfied … )

The film departs from the usual Bond formula in a myriad of other ways, there is no scene where the villain explains his evil plan – in fact, there is no plan to be reveled. And Bond doesn’t even say any of his famous lines. Again, from Slate:

Asked by a bartender if he prefers his martini shaken or stirred, Craig’s Bond snaps, “Do I look like I give a damn?”

Part of the explanation is that this is supposed to be the “first” Bond story, and his character is still emerging. As Kleinman says:

“By the end of this one, 007 is more like the Bond we all know and love,” says Kleinman, who is onboard to design the credit sequence for the next installment. “So I think those dancing girls may well come back again.”

Great, so we can we expect to see the misogynist Bond we know and love again in the next film? Maybe I prefer him gay …

When I took this picture I didn’t know the name of the girl. Now I do. It is Poonam, and she wants to be a doctor when she grows up. The thing is, she is now 14 and that is the time when most girls in Chharanagar get married. Her older brother was pressuring her to leave school and get engaged. It seems that she was saved by this picture!

I’ve never published a single one of my photographs, but when reporter Sonia Faleiro went to Chharangar to write her excellent article for the Indian journal Tehelka, there was something wrong with her digital camera and she couldn’t get the kind of large-format glossy pictures the magazine needs. So she asked me if she could use some of my Flickr photos for the story. I said yes, and the above picture was the one chosen to lead the story. They touched it up and it looks even better than it does here.

Poonam is the top student in her class, loves English class, and is a reporter herself – she edits the newsletter that the Chhara children publish by themselves. Her parents are uneducated, but her gradmother finished seventh grade and helps the children with their schoolwork. She reads everything her granddaughters do.

When her parents saw Poonam’s picture in the newspaper, the decided that her work with the theater and her education wasn’t such a waste of time after all, and they decided to allow her to put off the engagement for now and allow her to continue school.

Technorati Tags: Chharanagar, Photos, Photography, india

She’s a woman who understands judicial restraint.

And that about sums it up – they needed a woman or a minority, but they needed one who ‘knows her place’ …

If confirmed by the Senate, Miers would be a rare appointee with no experience as a judge at any level. Initial searches of news archives also suggested that Miers has not been an outspoken advocate for or against any particular issue.

Or it could be that Bush is just rewarding his cronies with high level appointments instead of dinky ambassadorships. As new CPB president Patricia Harrison said of her appointment (according to Celia Wexler):

“Gee, it’s great I don’t have to leave the country,” with the implication being, well, you know, you give a lot, maybe you get to be an ambassador, but this is even better, because you know, I get to be on the CPB board and I can stay at home.

UPDATE: Maybe she won’t be quite so restrained after all…

This December, Shashwati and I are going to India to shoot a documentary film about the residents of one city’s slum who are using theatre to fight back against decades of prejudice and police oppression.

Help us tell their story.

Even though we are paying our own way to India, we need to raise $15,000 to cover expenses for the shoot: transportation in India, accommodation, salaries for the people who will help us on the shoot, equipment rentals, etc. We’ve already raised $3,000, but we need to do much more.

I wrote about the people of Chharanager after our last trip. You can read more about the film, the people and organizations involved, and how to give money, or the film’s web site. And here is my Flickr photo gallery of Chharanager pics.

Thank you.

PS: If you can offer support in the way of help with web/graphic design, promotion, advertising, or just posting this information on your own blog, that will be much appreciated as well!

Because of their traditional responsibilities for collecting fuel and water, in many developing countries women and girls would benefit the most from access to improved energy services. The time and physical effort expended by women and girls in gathering fuel and carrying water seriously limits their ability to engage in educational and income-generating activities. Literacy rates and school enrolment levels are dramatically different for men and women in many developing countries. Much of women’s time is taken up with difficult and time-consuming chores related to producing and processing food without mechanical or electrical equipment and to cooking without clean-burning fuels and energy-efficient appliances.

Many women and girls also suffer from health problems related to gathering and using traditional fuels. In addition to the time and physical burdens involved in gathering fuel, women suffer serious long-term physical damage from strenuous work without sufficient recuperation time. Women must worry about falls, threats of assault, and snake bites during fuel gathering. They are also exposed to a variety of health hazards from cooking over poorly ventilated indoor fires, including respiratory infections, cancers, and eye diseases. Smoke from poorly ventilated indoor fires accounts for close to 2 million premature deaths per year.

A web site dedicated to solar cooking estimates that:

Many families living on less than one dollar a day spend 1/3 of it for cooking fuel. This cost often means less food to eat. Solar cookers typically reduce fuel needs by 1/3 and pay for themselves in two months of fuel savings. The gentler temperatures of box and panel types of solar cookers also preserve more nutrients.

Even simply using a solar cooker to sterilize water can make a huge difference:

Waterborne and smoke-related diseases are the primary killers of children. When fuel is scarce and expensive, it is hard to heed public health messages about boiling water. Every solar-cooked meal is smoke-free [smoke from cooking fires is also the major killer of young women in developing countries and is linked to low-birth weight and infant mortality] and solar cookers easily pasteurize water and milk.

But, you ask, how does food cooked on a solar cooker taste? You will be happy to know that that guardian of taste, the New York Times has fully endorsed solar cooking:

Mary retrieved the mushrooms after 90 minutes. Beautiful, juice-packed portobellos, made slightly mellow by the sherry. Then the scallops were done, soon followed by the chicken. ”That looks like something out of Bosch,” Mary said of the scallops, which were swollen and silky. The chicken was piercing and hearty, the peach cake just what you’d want on a summer afternoon.

They even have recipes. More recipes for solar cooking can be found here.

[Disclosure: The Mary mentioned in the above NY Times quote is a family friend. She is affiliated with Solar Cookers International, the non-profit organization behind Solarcooking.org website.]

An interesting, if brief, article here on the history of women’s sumo (onnazumo), which was at one time more popular than the men’s sport. Another good article here details the current state of the sport. Finally, here is a good profile of Katrina Watts, the Australian woman who serves as one of the English language commentators, as well as dating a former champion.

UPDATE: More here. (Via Frog in a Well.)

The Burka Band are one of the first pop groups to emerge in post-Taliban Afghanistan. Performing on Western instruments (electric guitar, drum kit) and singing in English, these 3 ladies not only wear the traditional head-to-toe burkas, they sing about ‘em on their debut 7″ from the German label ata tak. Not quite a Muslim Shaggs, the result is charmingly amateurish rock-xotica:

“Burka Blue” [MP3 download] Although they say their mom wears blue jeans now.

Via Global Voices.

Florida Governor Jeb Bush said the state would not fight the judge’s decision, but expressed sadness about the situation.

I guess that whole Schiavo thing didn’t do so well in the polls.

A pregnant 13-year-old girl in Florida has been told she cannot have an abortion because she lacks the maturity to make such a decision.

Her legal guardian is the state of Florida. I wouldn’t wish a fate like that on my worst enemy.

The BBC has this caption under a photo of two girls with baby strollers:

Some say forcing a 13-year-old to give birth is illegal and cruel.

Poor girl. In addition to having Florida for parents and being pregnant at the age of 13, she is going to also be America’s newest political football.