The editor of the NYT’s Metro section, that’s who, and she/he is holding it close to the vest, which is kind of puzzling. In an otherwise admirable report, which gives us a rare look behind the scenes into the “West African diaspora” in New York City where a fire claimed the lives of eight children and a woman this week, a salient question is left unanswered. Never mind that this defies common sense. It also violates one of the cardinal rules of storytelling: don’t leave any threads hanging.

But as so often happens, tragedy also exposes an immigrant community’s secrets. There is the Malians’ practice of taking more than one wife, transplanted by some from village compounds in the hills of western Mali to crowded apartments in the Bronx. There is their often-faltering climb up the entrepreneurial ladder, with attendant business failures and bankruptcies. And there is the tricky business of immigration status: Many Malians are here illegally even as they raise children who become the newest generation of New Yorkers.

I’ll cut to the chase. The “salient question” left unanswered is: What “cultural” practice is it that allows polygamy? Why, it’s Islam. But that’s never mentioned once in this piece—although one interviewee specifically mentions the role of her religion in the mix of issues being discussed [e.a.]:

Polygamy is common in Mali and throughout West Africa. But it is illegal in the United States, and it can bar immigrants from gaining permanent legal residency or citizenship. Many West Africans are uncomfortable talking about the practice with an outsider, particularly so soon after the tragic fire.

But many West Africans say that Mr. Magassa’s arrangement is a subterranean feature of life here, particularly for older men who can afford it. At a spacious African hair-braiding salon on 125th Street, Aminata Dia, the Senegalese owner, consulted with her husband before talking about the practice to a reporter. She said men traditionally bring the first wife first, but of late many prefer to bring the youngest.

“I wasn’t surprised,” Ms. Dia said. “It’s our religion that allows men to have four wives. But two wives in the same house, it’s not so common — usually they have one wife abroad and one here.”

A fierce argument erupted about whether this was too volatile an issue to talk about with an outsider. “All women suffer from polygamy, but our religion says we should not speak,” said an employee, Aminata Fatou, 29. “One can’t do away with that.”

Countered Ms. Dia: “If every woman shuts her mouth, she is complicit. I’m against polygamy — it’s bad for the woman, the man and the children.”

For the record, this “insider” is saying exactly the same thing that Ayaan Hirsi Ali says (albeit more pointedly and loudly). I don’t hear anyone calling her a “native informer” or an “Enlightenment fundamentalist.”

Furthermore, Ms. Dia has enough common sense to fill an entire immigrant community:

Then she added a coda: “If you leave your country, you have to come with the good things, not bring the bad things with you.”

It’s people like Ms. Dia who have turned America into the successfully-bublingbubbling-over melting pot it is. Long may the pot continue to melt us.

A different view—

Lebanon: 

Lebanese men take pictures using their mobile phones of a model wearing a creation by K-Lynn lingerie during the Ski and Fashion Festival in the Lebanese ski resort of Faraya, northeastern Lebanon, Saturday, March 10, 2007. (AP Photo/Hussein Malla)

 

 

 

 

 

Rina Castelnuovo for The New York Times

Views of the Mediterranean and beach access are luring some American second-home shoppers to residential developments on Tel Aviv’s vibrant waterfront.

…from downtown Tel Aviv to the heart of Jerusalem, foreigners — especially Americans — searching for second homes are redefining Israel’s high-end real estate market. Part of Tel Aviv is, in fact, in the midst of a mini-Manhattan makeover with the recent arrival of New York-style residential projects designed by the likes of Philippe Starck and Richard Meier. Even Donald Trump has entered the Tel Aviv marketplace with plans for a 70-story residential and commercial tower — Israel’s highest — in the suburb of Ramat Gan.

———

*** At least one news outlet took note of the unlikely coverage of the luxury real estate market in Israel and was none too pleased:

Foreign buyers of Israeli real estate, the Times notes, are “taking advantage of a decrease in terrorism and property prices still far below Western levels” to scoop up their luxury vacation homes.

The “decrease in terrorism” is factored in as one might list beach erosion in the Hamptons. The word “Palestinians” is nowhere to be found in the article, though the expensive real estate deals and “gated communities” it touts are all founded upon land seized from a people who were violently dispossessed and turned into refugees nearly six decades ago.

The human suffering caused by the mass confiscation of Palestinian land that began in 1948 has only been intensified by the policies of the Israeli government, backed by Washington.

The reportedly gory movie 300, which has been proclaimed as overly “martial” by the usual suspects—i.e., most critics, who were turned off by the subject matter: brave Spartans fighting off a Persian horde way back when—took in $70 milliion at the box office. On a regular old weekend in March.

300 was anything but spartan, reaping an estimated $70 million on around 4,800 screens at 3,103 theaters in its opening weekend. That eclipses all previous ancient battle pictures by a wide margin, including Troy and Gladiator, and ranks fifth among comic book adaptations.

Nikki Finke reports on who was in the audience—pretty much everyone:

So who was seeing 300? I’m told that the audience was about 60/40 male-female and about evenly split younger/older, with playability exceeding the norms on all quadrants in terms of both ‘definite recommends’ and the top two recommend boxes.

As for me, I haven’t even had a chance to see The Lives of Others yet. Too damn busy.

Blogging will be sporadic this week, too.

In it to win it? How tacky:

“I know that Barack is in this not just to win,” Michelle Obama told the crowd of more than 1,500 people at a $100-per-head event at the Grand Hyatt Hotel on East 42nd Street.

“This race is not about winning, because winning isn’t enough nowadays. Winning without dignity, winning it without honor, winning without authenticity and truth is not winning at all, and we’re not in it for that.”

Earlier, Michelle Obama said, “Barack is the real deal . . . Barack is really exactly who he says he is. You know, there’s no hidden agenda to this guy. He is decent, he is sincere, he is authentic, he isn’t manufactured.”

Moral purity and demagoguery alert!