hanging in a jar

For I once saw with my own eyes the Cumean Sibyl hanging in a jar, and when the boys asked her, "Sibyl, what do you want?' " she answered, "I want to die."

I thought of this quote today because my 90 year old mother has been crying a lot lately, and when I ask her why, she says she wants to die. Like the mythic Sybil, she's in some kind of stasis -- neither really living nor finally dying. She spends most of her days walking around her rooms -- walking and moving objects and dropping used kleenex like breadcrumbs. While she walks, I sit, busying my hands with crocheting. I'd rather be reading, but I don't like being interrupted when I'm reading, and she interrupts frequently --

...where is my money? ...where is my brother? ...are you my mother? ...where are my glasses? ...where are the men? ...are you going dancing? ...is it raining?..... ..what should we have for supper? (this last asked an hour after we had supper)

If I run over to my computer to check email or such, she is in her doorway, calling "Elaine....Elaine!" I'm stuck an audio clip from The Graduate.

Back to Sybil. Several years ago, I blogged a piece about Sybils and such that I still like and am reprising below. Interesting enough, while googling for additional information about Sybil, I happened upon a wonderful blog that I had never seen before. It is written by a woman who is indeed a kindred spirit. I will have to find the time and go back to read more of her posts, many of which echo my sentiments exactly.

Meanwhile, here's my old post about...

Cybill Sibyl Symbols

I am an old woman with a deck of cards

A witch, an Amazon, a Gorgon

A seer, a clairvoyant, a poet.

I have visions of becoming and

I dream in female
--(Barbara Starrett, 1974)

I adored the character that Cybill Shepherd played in her '90s sitcom. Raunchily relevant in menopausal splendor, she laughed a lot --mostly at herself -- loved largely, and dreamed in female. The Lady of Situations.

Sibyl is another gut-grabbing female, one I first encountered the first time I turned to the first page of T.S. Eliot's "Wastland." (I still have verses from that epic endlessly looping through my brain: Madame Sosostris, famous clairvoyant/ has a bad cold nevertheless/ is known to be the wisest woman in Europe/ with a wicked pack of cards. Here, said she, / is your card, the drowned Phoenician Sailor (those are pearls that were his eyes. Look!) / Here is Belladonna, the Lady of Rocks, / the lady of situations.)

*****************

For I once saw with my own eyes the Cumean Sibyl hanging in a jar, and when the boys asked her, 'Sibyl, what do you want?' she answered, 'I want to die."

The quote which prefaces T.S. Eliot's "Wasteland," "NAM Sibyllam quidem Cumis . . ." is taken from the Satyricon of Petronius Arbiter, a Roman of the first century B.C.E. The Sybil is a prophetic character who, when granted a wish by Apollo, asked to live for as many years as there are grains of sand in a handful. She forget to ask for eternel youth, however, and is confined to a bottle so as to prevent her body's disintegration..... The Sibyl, then, is a bit of a paradox: she strove to live eternally yet ended up in constant danger of decay and pain. Her quest for eternity was a failure that Eliot finds terribly important yet terribly dangerous. His goal is not to end up like the Sibyl, but to free her. (quoted from a link that is no longer active)

Cybill and Sybil, symbols of women with strong voices -- strong with meaning, with intention, with visions of constant becoming -- with guts full of female dreams and hearts used to surviving great tides of sorrow. A lot like the many women bloggers I know and love.

The road I drive into town is edged with farmland. During first days of autumn, I pass so many signs of endings -- fields of corn stalks the color of caramel; acres emptied but for the baled rolls of hay; wayside strips of sunflowers, heads bowed low with their burdens of shedding seeds. I am, these days, envious of endings.

Taking Care and Care Taking and getting away

Ahh -- Elaine finally got away on vacation. I'm glad to hear it. I can feel the autumn air - and time passing - in her post:

Sunday was a deliciously fattening breakfast at the newly opened Cheescake Factory in Albany. It's amazing how much has changed since I moved a year ago. New mcmansions being built where the nursery was where I used to buy my plants; the strip mall where I would hunt for bargains at TJ Maxx, empty.

And we are changing, too, as each, in her own time, reaches retirement age. Four of us had careers with state government, so our pensions are better than most. The other two are worried that they will never be able to retire, since their work histories are different. One, for example, works for the post office. Her retirement pension will be only $7000 a year.

Tags: kalilily time = Powered by Qumana

Dealing Effectively with Energy Vampires

I already wrote a really long post on my own weblog on this subject, so I'll try to be brief here as an overview. If you find the idea useful and interesting you can learn more about how to apply it by reading the full post on my blog.

Basically the idea is that the only way energy vampires are a danger to you is if you decide that you need to stop them from taking your energy. If you want them to not get your energy, you have to either sheild yourself from them (which takes energy to do, so is still exhausting) or get away from them (which can be difficult in many situations and lead to a life of isolation for a really sensitive person, since most people are energy thieves at least part of the time).

Yet even for a super-empath like myself there are ways you can "feed the vampires" that actually will energize both you and them.

There are 4 key understandings necessary before this is possible: 1) you have to let go of the idea of a world of separate beings who are supposed to each get only what they have earned, be punished when they get something for nothing, and be rewarded when they somehow "earn" any joy they receive; 2) you have to also let go of the idea that the only energy available to you is that to be found within your own separate body and energy field; 3) you have to recognize that all energy is just energy. There isn't bad energy you need to be afraid of and good energy you can allow in. There's just energy; and 4) you must be willing to help people meet their needs even when they are utterly incompetent at knowing what their needs are or at pursuing them in mature, non-violent ways.

If all of this sounds like something you are willing to do... check out the full article at http://www.indigo-ocean.com and also consider picking up a copy of The Ever-Transcending Spirit by Toru Sato, which introduced me to the idea of allowing the energy theft to take place, which I had never considered before. Most of the rest of these ideas you won't find in that book (no infinite source of energy, etc.), but there are a number of other really valuable ideas that are also in the book, plus the general idea of energy exchange and ways of lifting one another up is fleshed out much, much more thoroughly, and productively so.

The Unbalanced Ratio

Lately, I've been following an interesting conversation over at ScienceBlogs. In The Pipeline Problem, Chad Orzel, a college physics professor, argues that the lack of women in the sciences is not his fault. Sure, there are sexist pigs in every field, but he implies that the problem lies primarily in the grade school years where girls are discouraged from going into the sciences by disinterested teachers and peer pressure. Suzanne Franks posts a rebuttal: one cannot pin all the blame on elementary and high schools. Even university professors must shoulder some of the responsibility--their lectures may be turning young women off or their faculty ratio may not be so great. More subtly, they may not even realize that they've only invited male speakers to a seminar or show only pictures of guys on their recruiting website.

Although Orzel is a bit naive in his views (how can he be really sure his colleagues are not doing any harassment?), both do bring up good points. Science on a university level can be intimidating even if all the male professors are Very Nice People. Being a minority is both alienating and lonely and many people, whoever they are, cannot handle that kind of isolation for very long. I went to a science-oriented university as an undergraduate--less than 30% of my graduating class was female. It was not due to the admissions process, which was fifty-fifty, but the critical point when prospective students visited campus that severely skewed the ratio.

Elementary, middle, and high school weren't better--although, I wouldn't say the problem was with male teachers as much as with female teachers with low expectations and an ill-hidden distaste for the sciences. Physics teacher? She didn't think we could do the math. Biology teacher? She didn't believe in evolution. Chemistry teacher? She blabbed about how great her sons were instead of teaching orbital theory. With all that negative stimuli during my formative years, one could wonder how I retained any shred of love for science at all. I'm pretty sure none of my female classmates from high school have. They all wanted to become lawyers or psychiatrists or political activists or artists.

(Cross-posted at Syaffolee.)

Walking to Cure Crohn's and Colitis

My brother and his family are walking to raise money for the Crohn's & Colitis Foundation of America. As you may remember, I wrote that my nephew was diagnosed with Crohn's earlier this year. As you also know--if you know anyone with Crohn's--it is a difficult and painful disease. My nephew has been quite ill. There are medicines that help ease some of the symptoms, but as of yet, no cure. So they walk.

Their family goal is to raise $500. They are up to $120. I would appreciate your help in blowing past their goal.

CCFA Facts...

CCFA was founded in 1967:

Today Crohn’s and colitis affect more than a million Americans.

Approximately 30,000 new cases are diagnosed each year.

Each year, more than 100,000 children suffer from inflammatory bowel disease.


Dollars raised will go toward:

Summer camps for children with IBD

Information and education for 1.4 million patients and their families

Support services and research programs

Nearly 81 cents of every dollar CCFA spends goes directly into research and educational programs.

================

I'm off to donate now.
Thank you.

Tags: Crohn's Disease, Colitis, Crohn's & Colitis Foundation of America, Cure, Illness, Family, Philanthropy = Powered by Qumana

Possessed

A wise and tremendous post by Tish, full of so much that rings so true that I am not sure what pieces to show you. Every daughter and mother should read this post:

There's more to it though. As I was reading Ed's response to my comment, I was reminded of my Mother. She often talked of me and my sister as Her Children. We were never really adults. And The Future was always about how she would be getting old, who would take care of her, what illness would take her over, how she was going to die and did not want to die alone. Our lives were, in some way, about her death.

I know all of this has had a very profound effect on us both. I see it in my niece and nephew and all their problems...and I see it in myself. There are few days that go by where my mother's pain does not come in to my consciousness--sometimes out of guilt that I am living my own life. Some of this is out of anger--anger that she couldn't be the kind of mother I wanted, anger at my grandmother for being so abusive towards a small helpless child who did not ask to be born, and anger at the secrets that wrapped us in crippling shrouds from which none of us could escape.

Tags: mothers, daughters, illness, dysfunction, psychology, trauma = Powered by Qumana

What about advertising?

So far, Blog Sisters has not accepted ads, nor have we had a business model around advertising. Hell, we haven't had a business model around anything. This isn't even a business. And lord knows I'm no model. But I digress...

Those Google ads at the top? I don't know how to turn them off or I would. I went into Blogger and looked--everywhere I think--and there doesn't seem to be a way to dismantle them. I found a way to make them smaller. That's something.

For the record, I have not made enough from Google ads to make up for even the first year of hosting this site, where I paid BloggerPro and Blogspot the highest amount available for the most space and bandwidth--$120 if I remember correctly. That was in 2002. And I never even got a Blogger hoodie when Google bought Blogger. Again, I digress.

I pay for the domain www.blogsisters.com each year, which forwards to this place. Now the hosting is free, so that's something. Not a hoodie, but something.

So what have I made? Since 2003, on this blog and allied, I've received one check from Google for about $100. That means we are averaging, $33 a year.

Let's hit the islands!! (Hee hee.)

I'm saying these things because the net isn't like it used to be. You might not trust me. Or you might. The rush to monetize sites is at an all-time high. I want to assure you, I haven't done that here. And I don't plan to do that here.

I want us to have a place with no strings attached, to say whatever, however, to whomever, within or without reason. To play and to scream. To clap and claw. To tidy and to vomit. To come and go without obligation. To stop by on your way to. 

This was one of the first places for women bloggers to come together and write.

If that's all we do, we've done so much.

Tags: advertising, community, blogging, tech, pr, marketing, blog sisters, google, blogger, web2.0 = Powered by Qumana

Maybe This

Maybe this community is the one where women have nothing to risk or to gain but voice.

Maybe that's the most powerful commodity there is.

Tags: women, feminism, voice, blog sisters, web2.0, marketing, PR, tech, visibility = Powered by Qumana

Blog Sister Helen Jane...

...has a load of gerunds, and the most beautiful Husky I've ever seen.

Tags: husky, gerunds, busy = Powered by Qumana

Don't Swoop Your Ass in at the Last Minute and Minimize This Woman

Cross-Posted on Allied.

-------------------------------

Melinda's post on the conference hubub of last week pisses me off.

To take writing like I've done over this last week on the topic of male-only and nearly-only conferences, and to dumb it down to my post about getting your ass on Skype, does me a disservice. And I've worked too hard and am too long in this field to be done a disservice without speaking up about it.

Just for the record, you might want to check out the following if you're here looking for that Skype post. These are Other Things I Wrote Before The Topic Showed Up On BlogHer:

*********************

The Biggest/Smallest Prick Award - wherein I call out by name the makers of some of the stupidest comments of the week.

Your Balls Are In Your Court - wherein I tell me who are my friends and colleagues, Fuck You, for endorsing a conference with (formerly--before we spoke up) 53 men and 1 woman.

Unfuck Stowe Boyd - wherein I tell how a real man might respond to a Fuck You from a woman.

Crunchnotes Comments - wherein I push back against the organizer of Yet Another Men-Only Conference with zero help from the ladies.

MORE LINKS inspired by this discussion over the last several days.:

  The Twelve (or so) Step Program for Conference Speakers and Organisers  

There's been a lot of talk the last few days about Office 2.0, a conference that brought gender inequality in technology to a new low. Fifty three speakers and one woman was the original unpleasant statistic, and a few people got very ...
posted by suw.charman@gmail.com @ 5:00 PM

  What not to do when organising a conference  

I was reminded of Dr. Ellen Weber article on performance lately, when I read some news coming out of the office 2.0 conference. Remember you’ll get what you ask for, and no more. The article talks about if you don’t have a metric to ...
posted by mgilmartin @ 7:41 AM

  Listening to Shelley Powers about women in tech  

all noise all the time: vive la difference"—vive la différence ars longa, vita herring Recent posts by Tara, Shelley, Jeneane, Denise, and Madame Levy -- though all are not talking about "the same thing" (whatever that is) -- make it ...
posted by chuquet@googlemail.com @ 2:01 AM

  vive la difference  

vive la différence ars longa, vita herring. Recent posts by Tara, Shelley, Jeneane, Denise, and Madame Levy -- though all are not talking about "the same thing" (whatever that is) -- make it painfully clear that there is still a ...
posted by clocke @ 12:01 AM

  Technology Changes How We Do Things  

Not. What. We. Do. Wanna better world? Be better people. Paying attention yet? Of course you're not. That's okay. We've got the rest of eternity. Hey, that's why it's called Groundhog Day.
posted by @ 7:37 PM

  88 Lines About 44 Bloggers  

It's a slow weekend in the blogosphere, so I thought I'd do another mock opera. With apologies to the Nails, here we go. You'll need to listen to the song while you read (it will stream from my blog, if not via the feed). ...
posted by @ 7:18 PM

  The Babes of VoIP  

by Phil Wolff. Ken Camp makes a call to Women in VoIP to gripe about the few females at internet telephony conferences like those run by Jeff Pulver and Rich Tehrani and Tim O'Reilly. In the last episode, the Office 2.0 conference had ...
posted by pwolff@dijest.com (Phil Wolff) @ 5:35 PM

  Whew?  

In the midst of the brouhaha over it the gender-exclusive politics over at the Office 2.0 conference, it occurred to me that I will be speaking at a conference this coming week, too. I hadn’t given the matter much thought before, ...
posted by AKMA @ 8:42 AM

  Why it is important to speak up  

This week, there was a big hullabaloo over the upcoming Office 2.0 Conference. The short story: the conference was dominantly male speakers, only one woman. The organizers were initially unclear as to a) why this was a problem and b) ...
posted by Susan Getgood @ 11:17 PM

  Where Are The Women: A Marketing Problem with a Marketing Solution

*************************

And for the record, Part Deux, I don't consider myself a "feminist," because I have known too many self-identified feminists to inflict harm on women as they wage war against the forces they seek to undo in the name of women. I don't know what kind of "ist" I am -- I think I don't need a label -- but understand that I won't be quiet for a man; I won't be quiet for a women; I won't be quiet for anyone.

Thank you for stopping by.

SKYPE: jeneanesessum (no "s").

Tags: conferences, web2.0, blogging, tech, PR, business, Marketing, Advertising, Feminism, Gender, Women, Mother = Powered by Qumana

Bigger Than Life

I don't watch "reality" shows because I have enough real life around me every day, thank you. I don't watch the "American Idol" or "Rock Star" type shows either because they're all just so much hype, and that's why I am late discovering this generation's cross between Janice Joplin and Tina Turner.

Her name (it really is her birth name) is Storm Large, and she's got an angel's face atop a 6 foot Amazon's body and a voice than ranges from raunchy rap to melodic musings, but I like her rap stuff best of all -- she's better than any of the big guys out there.

I guess she got eliminated on the Rock Star Supernova show. But she's still playing out in Portland, Oregon, where they just love her.

Don't miss her in-your-face performance of her own original song, Ladylike. Watch it here.

Her own website is down because it's been innundated with traffic and the webserver she's on couldn't handle it.

I don't know her, never met her. She's a generation behind me, but I think she's way ahead of any other female in today's music world.

I used to fantisize about becoming an "old lady rapper." This is my "old lady rap:"

Old Lady Rap-Back

you don't see me
not really with
my angles softened
my curves
gone to middle thick

I see that your gaze
doesn't stick
on my face
lined with time's tricks

I know you got it
rough never enough
you think that's new?

I grew this tough skin
long before you
rode through streets and sin

and as for fuckin'?
I was mouthing it
long before your sorry ass
passed its first gas

I know the words but
I make a choice
of voice
that says more
than you
think
you know

Obviously, no competition for Storm Strong.

TheGoodBlogs and Blog Sisters

You may notice that some of your posts are being featured on TheGoodBlogs site. They asked if the could help us raise the visibility of the women writers who belong to this community and I said, "Hell yeah!" Or it sort of went like that.

Check out the sidebar widget--it lists posts from many of the active members of Blog Sisters who are writing their hearts out here and on their own blogs. With TheGoodBlogs, you can promote writing from community members as individuals across blogs. What you see on MY thegoodblogs widget are the most recent posts from our active member blog sisters from their own blogs--how cool is that? Goes WAY beyond technorati faves. TheGoodBlogs lets me tell you which blog sisters are writing new posts on their home blogs.

I've put the blog sisters widget on my blog, and Elaine has put it on her blog, and other sisters are asking, can I get a TGB widget? And I am saying, YES! Just email me at jeneane DOT sessum AT gmail DOT com.
Let's get this old hangout humming again. It was about voice then and it still is. you, us, voice. okay?

Tags: thegoodblogs, the good blogs, community, web2.0, tech, blogging, promotion, business = Powered by Qumana

Political Haiku, etc.

Wow, I haven't posted here in a long time! Well it's time to catch up a bit. Since my last visit here, I've posted a variety of political song parodies, limericks, and haiku at my Notables political humor blog. In fact, just today I posted 3 political haiku. You can find my Ode to ABC here and my The Rumsfeld Trap here.

Also, I've recently launched a second blog, devoted to my non-political humor. I hope you'll check it out.

looking back and forth

I was one of the first Blogsisters that Jeneane recruited, and there was a time I posted here frequently. That was when I had time to read and ruminate and write. That was before I became the caregiver for my 90-year-old increasingly demented mother.

If you're like me, you don't like to think about being 90 and alone and afraid and at sea in a world totally out of your control. I watch my mother become a child again, and I wonder if I will follow in her physical and mental footsteps. I wonder if my daughter will take care of me when I'm a child again.

It's not fun to think about those things. I can only hope that, since I take better care of myself than my mother ever knew she should, the path I go down to old age will be less frightening.

So, my sisters, I remind you to take your vitamins and your calcium and prescriptions for keeping your bones strong. Dance, and do puzzles, and read, and court those joyous moments. My mother didn't do any of that, and so at 90, she has so very little worthwhile life left in her.

I hope that at 90, I will still be posting here at Blogsisters, looking for inspiration, conversation, and even some healthy confrontation. It can't hurt.

9 months of gestation in 20 seconds

http://www.pressnall.com/gestation_project/ This guy took a series of photos every other day as his wife was pregnant with their first child. How cool to watch the pregnancy bloom!

Useful Service, Cool Job

I just learned of a really cool company called The Welcome Committee that helps people who are moving to new locations do so with the minimum level of stress. They provide what they call Location Counselors/Concierges who do things like ordering dry cleaning services, finding day care centers, giving directions, offering "insider tips" and also offering some emotional support to the new residents. What a great service and what a great job!

I have moved so many times (NY to NC to RI to MA back to RI to CA to .... well you get the idea) and each time I went through such ordeals trying to find my way around. It was also lonely, stressful and overwhelming trying to figure out the simplest things. You basically can't optimize, can't try to find the "best" anything, and must just settle for ticking things off your endless "to do" list. If I had had help like this each time I moved I would have been soooo much better off. And I definitely would have been willing to shell out a couple hundred bucks or so for that assistance (what I'm guessing it might cost to use this service, after you sign-up and pay your Concierge for a few hours of help).

I'm probably pretty settled where I am now, so don't need anything like this anymore, but what a cool job also. If ever I can clear a few things off my plate of standing committments I might try to become one of their Counselor/Concierges. The idea of getting paid $40 an hour to help people learn what I had to learn through trial and error sounds like rewarding work, and taking someone out for coffee as a part of my "job" sounds totally fabulous.

Good job Welcome Committee. This is something that truly adds value to people's lives.

PersonalDNA

My PersonalDNA |

Be Sure to Keep an Eye on BlogHer.Org This Weekend

The BlogHer conference begins this evening, so keep an eye on the BlogHer site for links to live blogging, IRC Chat, and more.

Blog Sisters in the Pittsburgh Tribune

A very nicely done article in the Pittsburgh Tribune on women and blogging that quotes yours truly, as well as the BlogHers who were kind enough to give a nod to their Blog Sisters. The article discusses how blogs have helped women find and exercise their voices.

You may wonder if some media training isn't in order for Mrs. Sessum, as she reveals before God and clients the imminent loss of her uterus and her penchant for X*anax. It's not every day you get THIS kind of publicity!

"If life were supposed to be orderly, then my house wouldn't look like it does and my kid wouldn't have open paints and blendy pens all over her floor, and I wouldn't have to take a half of a zzzzanax as I mull over the many possibilities in the weeks and months ahead."
-- allied.blogspot.com, by Jeneane Sessum, as she contemplates an upcoming hysterectomy

w00t!!

Tags: Pittsburgh Tribune, Blogging, Women, Blog Sisters, BlogHer, Good Writing, Tech, PR, Gonzo Marketing, Worst Practices, Cluetrain, Gluetrain = Powered by Qumana

Family Sues for $200K in Losses over "Ugly Bride"

I am stunned and horrified by the following story and I'm wondering what can be done to protest something of this sort....I don't give a darned if this kind of thing goes on in India where I don't vote and don't have a voice. But you can bet that I give a lot more than your average rat's ass that this frivolous and hateful lawsuit is being persued in Hampden (Massachusetts) County Superior Court The following is a reprint from Masslive.com because you will not believe this story unless you read it with your own eyes:

Family Sues over "ugly bride"

SPRINGFIELD - Arranged marriages are an ancient tradition in India, but when a Belchertown family went there to meet a bride-to-be and judged her too ugly for the groom, they chose a 21st-century solution. They called the wedding off, and the groom's father is now suing for damages.

Vijai B. Pandey, 60, filed a lawsuit in Hampden Superior Court last month against friends who tried to arrange a marriage between his son Pranjul K. and their niece. The Pandeys, after spending money on long-distance calls and airfare, found her much too homely.

When the Pandeys saw the bride in New Delhi last August, they were "extremely shocked to find ... she was ugly ... with protruded bad teeth, and couldn't speak English to hold a conversation," Vijai Pandey stated in the lawsuit. The woman's complexion was also cited for the broken engagement.

Pandey's civil complaint against Lallan and wife Kanti Giri of Boyds, Md., seeks $200,000 in damages, and charges them with fraud, conspiracy and violation of civil rights, among other claims resulting in emotional distress.

Lallan Giri, an anthrax expert who has spoken at major scientific conferences on anthrax vaccine safety, said only, "We plead not guilty, 120 percent," when reached last week. Giri referred questions to Springfield lawyer Mark J. Albano, who refused comment.

However, the Giris' former lawyer, Matthew R. Hertz, said the conflict doesn't belong in court, and Pandey mischaracterized the original plan. "It was more of an informal 'would you like to meet her' ... no money ever changed hands that would require reimbursement," said Hertz, of Solomon, Malech & Cohen in Bethesda, Md.

Nimai Nitai das, president of the International Society for Krishna Consciousness of New England in Boston, said he hears occasionally of Hindu families seeking reimbursement for marriage arrangements gone awry. "In the U.S., sooner or later, everything winds up in court ... but I've never heard of a lawsuit about this," he said in a recent interview.

Arranged marriages among Hindus remain "very common," Nitai das said, adding that Westerners hold misconceptions about the practice, and marriages aren't planned before a child's birth.

Indian law sets a minimum marriage registration age of 18 for men and 21 for women. However, registration only became mandatory this year, following a decision by India's Supreme Court in February. More than third of brides in India are married before age 18, the Christian Science Monitor reported in May.

In parts of India, contracts are still written, Nitai das said, with stipulations including the bride's dowry. However, in modern Hindu society, arranged marriage means "the families are much more active in the planning," than typical Americans, he said.

When the Giris initially proposed a marriage between Pranjul K. Pandey, 37, and their niece, the Pandeys pointed out that Pranjul was handsome, personable and spoke English, and asked if the young woman was "equally beautiful ... and a good match," Pandey's lawsuit states.

The Pandeys were assured that she was comparable, and would learn English. The Giris agreed to compensate Vijai Pandey "for everything," if their niece was found unsuitable, Pandey wrote.

The Pandeys got a photo of the potential bride, but "couldn't tell much" from it. Nonetheless, they became "heavily involved by long telephone calls to India," and sent money for the woman's passport, anticipating her move to the United States after the wedding, court documents state.

A trip to India last summer, by Vijai Pandey's wife Lalita, their daughter Pramila, and Pranjul, was to finalize Pranjul's marriage, according to the lawsuit. The Pandeys arranged for the Giris' niece, her mother and sister to travel to New Delhi from elsewhere in India, but after an Aug. 22 meeting, called the marriage off.

Vijai Pandey asked the Giris for the compensation they promised, because they knew all along that the young woman "was homely and unsuitable and no match for Pranjul," he wrote. The Giris declined to give Pandey money, despite his phone calls to them last September, and a fax in March.

Nitai das said brides don't have to be pretty for arranged marriages to succeed. "I have seen some very handsome men who are happy with somewhat homely women," he said. Although Nitai das doesn't know people involved in the lawsuit, he said the plaintiffs may have been "reacting to ... the misrepresentation," about the young woman.

Lallan Giri is an executive at Emergent BioSolutions Inc. in Gaithersburg, Md., and Pandey, for reasons not fully explained, named the company as a defendant. Pandey is also suing Hertz and his law firm. Hertz sent Pandey a letter in March on the Giris' behalf, which was "extremely malicious," Pandey wrote.

The document was a standard "cease and desist," letter, Hertz said.

The Pandeys and Giris had been friends since 1979, when the Giris lived under "extremely humble," conditions in Amherst, the lawsuit states. Later, when Lallan Giri's career advanced and the Giris moved away, problems arose. "He started show-boating, boasting ... with (a) BMW, (a) Mansion, and acting as a big shot in a different class," Pandey wrote.

The Giris, Pandey said in the suit, made "innumerable, uninvited ... and imposing visits" to his Belchertown home, and used his computer for personal and official business.

In a brief phone interview, Pandey said he is a retired environmental engineer. He was once an Amherst insurance agent, according to newspaper archives.

In 1991, Pandey was sentenced to nine months in jail following a conviction for bank fraud in Springfield's U.S. District Court. In 1994, convictions from the 1980s, for larceny and leaving the scene of property damage, were overturned in Northampton District Court, and all charges dropped.

Pandey, who filed suit against the Giris on his own, has initiated several civil complaints since the 1980s. Defendants included Western Massachusetts judges and lawyers, an insurance company and others. Many cases were dismissed, and some were settled.

What can be done?? I do not want our courts to be taken up with something that is not only cruel and hateful but has nothing to do with life in the United States. As I said, if anyone has any ideas, email me (tishgrier@yahoo.com) or post a comment...