February's winner is...
…by a huge margin, Aadisht Khanna with his post - The W-Fillets #100: Under the Influence II
Aadisht, send me an email, so I can send you the gift certificate.
…by a huge margin, Aadisht Khanna with his post - The W-Fillets #100: Under the Influence II
Aadisht, send me an email, so I can send you the gift certificate.
Jewish and other religious groups planned protests later in the day. Among them Amcha, The Coalition for Jewish Concerns, planned to protest wearing concentration camp uniforms at one New York theater to liken the film’s portrayal of Jews as akin to the Nazi Holocaust.Being neither Christian nor Jewish, I have absolutely no bone in the fight over Mel Gibson’s new movie, “The Passion of Christ”, but don’t you think it is a little too thin-skinned to say the movie’s portrayal of Jews is like the Holocaust? Gimme a fucking break! This reminds me of the PETA and their “chicken holocaust” ads that were equally insensitive to real victims and made a farce out of the issue. People, it is just a movie - I am not walking around claiming that “Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom” is somehow akin to slaughter of Indians or specifically Hindus, whom the movie insulted and made fun of…
Michele has a great post about the issue and about Bush’s announcement yesterday about the ban on gay marriages - A Small Victory: one word, a million denials (Updated) - which describes exactly how I feel about the whole thing. That doesn’t mean of course, I condone Newsom’s forcing of the issue or the courts making decisions about social structures on behalf of the people in a democracy. Regardless of how Bush feels about this issue, I think it is a good idea he has atleast put control of the issue back in the hands of voters where it belongs.
Personally, I am completely and unequivocally in favor of gay marriages. I have been close friends with both gays and lesbians since I have been here in the US - most of the times I didn’t even think someone might be gay till they told me about it - it really didn’t matter to me. I have spent a whole flight back from San Fran to Dallas sitting beside a gay man discussing his insecurities about meeting his partner’s parents for the first time and dissing on husbands and their quirks. Strangely, it didn’t feel any different from bitching with my girlfriends. I have seen committed gay couples living together for longer than I knew my husband, but unable to call themselves a married couple and fall back on the bond of marriage just because they happened to have sex in a different way.
Isn’t that what it comes down to when you think about it? That homosexuals are attracted to someone their own sex instead of someone of the opposite sex? So what? I think it is pathetic when someone makes the argument that it somehow reduces the sanctity of heterosexuals to let gays marry. I don’t think so - I think when Carmen Electra and Dennis Rodman can have a drunken 10-day marriage - when Fox can marry two idiots in a show called “Who wants to marry a multimillionaire” and when Britney Spears can marry a friend for “fun”, now that reduces the sanctity of my marriage since these people are making a mockery of the institution of marriage. How are two committed people of the same sex who value each other as much as any other heterosexual couple harmful to marriage? If anything, we are making it even more sacred a bond by making marriage the ultimate commmitment. I wish people who oppose this would look beyond their instinctual hatred of anything gay and realize this truth.
Here is me all dressed up for dining out on our 5th anniversary as a married couple (and 26-1/2 weeks pregnant to boot). Oh, and the vase beside me is the anniversary special from my husband :)
MADRAS, India - An explosion and fire in a research facility at India’s main space center Monday killed at least six people and seriously injured three others, police said. Flames erupted at the solid propellant fuel plant at the government’s Dhawan Space Center, on Sriharikota Island, just off India’s southeastern coast, the center’s spokesman, K. Ravindran, told The Associated Press.I wonder what went wrong…
It sure warms my equality-loving-feminist heart to see pictures of Iraqi women not lying down and taking it but taking to the streets in an effort to make their voices heard. Check out pictures taken by Zeyad from a womens’ rally opposing the proposition 137 proposed by the GC that would curtail their right to vote - Healing Iraq Photoblogs.
Go Women! If they won’t give you what you want, don’t be afraid to fight for it!
Well, after being my abrasive best in yesterday’s post, here is some diabetes-inducing sweetness for y’all :) One of the really fun and weird things about being pregnant, is the baby kicking you from inside your tummy. Now that he is about 1.5lb in weight, he kicks hard enough for me to really feel it. It is nice sometimes when I am bored - he kicks me, I poke him back and we play this game of responding to each others’ gestures. Of course, it is not so fun sometimes like when he kicked me so hard in the bladder that it was a good thing I was at home and could run to the bathroom before I peed in my pants…literally.
I am reading books to him and playing lots of classical music (Mozart and Vivaldi, in particular) in hopes of somehow jumpstarting his brain-growth (yeah, I know I am playing right into the hands of people who are making money preying on the eagerness of many young parents like me).
On the professional side, I had a .NET interview this morning that went really well and it will be a good opportunity for me to jump into if it works out. They said I might be overqualified for the position (I know, first time someone said that to me), but I am still keeping my fingers crossed, so let us see what happens. Keep in touch all of you - tell me what is going on!
p.s. Oh yeah, JK’s back and blogging away furiously, as is Kingsley. Welcome back, guys - it is good to see you both again.
Ok, I have counted till 100, taken deep breaths and I am afraid I am still mad, pissed off at a few morons. Yeah, I know I am supposed to ignore them and pretend they don’t exist in my world, but once in a while it just irritates me enough that I need to come out in the open. It started rather innocuously with a post on Jivha’s blog about gay marriages, in which he talks about conservative morons. I thought that not only did that phrase didn’t account for many liberals who are also against gay marriages, but was a overly broad generalization - the kind I am getting sick of from both sides of the partisan land. so, I comment pointing out that John Kerry is against gay marriages (he is pro-civil unions) and of course, the moron-brigade that regularly haunts his comment section shows up - here are the responses:
Huh… the Bush lover and gay hater makes her voice heard again. What will you do if your kids turn out to be gay and lesbian Ms. Shanti? Will you sent them out of your home, will you treat them like secong class citizens as preached by your beloved spiritual and moral hero George Bush. Come clean now. Posted by: RamaThere you go - this idiot has no idea where I stand on gay issues - he could find out by checking out comments I had made at Jivha’s blog itself defending gays that I am not really a gay hater (I am pro-gay marriage for that matter, though I think the courts should keep out of it). Or, the moron could atleast dig up links showing John Kerry actually supports gay marriages or that conservatives are the only ones who oppose this issue and so on, but I guess that would take too much brain power for that. So the easiest thing to do? talk crap about me and my kids. Seriously, this idiot has said crap about me on Jivha’s blog time and again till I stopped commenting there, but you know what pushed me to reply this time? He mentions my kids - he is essentially talking crap about my unborn son and I am not going to take this anymore.
Rama, you freaking idiot! If you have the balls to do so, come debate me on issues here on my blog - don’t think hiding behind Jivha’s blog and making hit-and-run comments about me and my child and attacking me personally is somehow indicative of your superiority over me.
Of course, then there is this extremely enlightening comment -Hey Shanti, take your right wing, Bush loving agenda somewhere else or to your own blog. Don’t attack John Kerry, whatever he did to you? He is a good, decent guy who doesn’t make decisions to pander to his base. don’t you go on nuts on him. If you are a open minded person you will see that, But we all know what your are. What about George Bush comments on this matter? He doesn’t care about daily innocent Iraqi and US soldiers deaths but he is deeply troubled and loosing his sleep over the “Gay marraige” issue. Ya, thats says a lot about your leader.Of course, as is usual again, there is no rebuttal of the links I provided - she thinks I put words in Kerry’s mouth when it is a news item (Kerry backs civil unions, not gay marriage) and then goes on to ask about Bush. Now tell me Kalpana, what the fuck does Bush being anti-gay marriage have anything to do with the point I had made in my comment? Did I say I supported him on the issue? Did I ever announce to the world I was a Republican or a Bush-backer? Why is it that if one is pro-war, one is automatically assumed to be pro-Bush? Show me one post where I said I like him or thank God for him?
Posted by: Kalpana
See, this is what is completely wrong about the environment these days. I don’t debate politics or even post much about them anymore, since everyone thinks they know what is right and the other side is complete morons. It is great to take sides on issues and believe in principles, but I think one is narrow-minded when everything one thinks of and agrees to surprisingly conforms to only one side of the political spectrum, whether left or right. I am pro-gay marriage, pro-abortion till the end of the second trimester and pro-war. I make up my mind on individual issues based upon their merits and demerits - not just because Bush said so or the Democrats said so. It makes me sick when extreme partisans would rather slander the other side on issues rather than try to reasonably argue their positions, while respecting the fact that even people who don’t agree with you are capable of intelligent thought, as long as they are sticking to issues and not just attacking people!
p.s. One last thing! Call me all names you want on MY blog and I will answer you the way you deserve. If you bring my baby into any of this though, trust me - I will eat you alive!
Hi everybody, this month’s fresh edition of the Blog Mela is here. Look at the featured entries and don’t forget to vote for the best of them to get a $10 Amazon gift vertificate once voting is open.
Firstly, we have Suruj Dutta writing about “Greedy Old Men” - Palestinian politicians whose corruption and decay is hurting the Palestinians more than anybody else can.
We have Vinod Valloppillil delivering a well-deserved fisking to the Verbal Terrorist™ in this well-written post, “Arundhati Roy: The New American Century” - there is also an entertaining discussion going on in the comments.
Aadisht Khanna has an imaginary conversation - The W-Fillets #100: Under the Influence II - between Indian Prime Minister Vajpayee and his coterie of people in which he seeks to prove that the people must be … under the influence. Hilarious!
Alpha ponders on what wearing a mangalsutra (or not) means to her and in the process comes up with some insights into the Indian-woman-in-America mind, in the post “The Mangalsutra Malady”. (Note the URL is changed - the post is available for reading now).
Finally, we have MD, another desi in America giving “THANKS [to] MR MALCOLM ROGERS”, a man who has made art accessible to the prdinary people by displaying it in the Bellagio hotel in Las Vegas. She is a brand-new blogger, so let us encourage her to write a bit more now, shall we?
Update: Voting is now open for this month’s best entry and will close on the 28th of Feb, 7:00 PM CST. You can vote for an entry once every day. Let the games begin! ;)
A very, very happy Valentine’s Day to you all!
I am snowed in, so it is a very cozy, home-bound Valentine’s for me this year - Of course, it is also my Sammy boy’s birthday, so it is all the more special for me :)
CANBERRA, Australia - A snorkeler attacked by a shark off Australia’s east coast swam to shore with the predator still gripping his leg and then drove to a lifesavers’ club to have it removed. Australian Luke Tresoglavic, 22, was snorkeling on a reef off Caves Beach, about 75 miles north of Sydney, when a wobbegong shark about 2 feet long bit him just below the kneecap and held on.
Update: You thought this man was amazing? Anyone catch tonight’s episode of Survivor? Richard Hatch had a similar thing happen to him - he was trying to catch a foot-long shark so his tribe can get something to eat and the shark latches on to his upper arm. He swam around with it for a while trying to get it off, bit at it and finally pounded its head against a rock to kill it and take it ashore. Wow! Oh, and considering Richard was swimming naked at the time, I am glad the shark latched on to his hand and not…ummm, anything else.
I was reading my latest issue of Atlantic Monthly, when I cam across this interesting tidbit about India in the “World in Numbers” section - According to the organization Freedom House, India was moved from the classification of “free” to “partly free” in 1991 and was reclassified as “free” in 1998. The website has archives for only the last 3 years, so anyone have any idea why this was so? Was ‘91 the year of Babri Masjid riots?
Hello, fellow bloggers! It is almost time for this month’s Blog Mela, so send in your nominations to me by emailing me or by leaving a comment on this post. Remember that the blogs must have been made between the dates of Jan 15th - Feb 14th, 2004. Don’t be shy about nominating yourselves. As usual, we will have voting on the entries for the period of one week after the posting of the Mela and a $10 Amazon gift certificate for the winning entry - come on, capitalists, libertarians, anarchists and “closet” communists!
That ended up being some game now! What a thrilling end to an awesome second half - of course, and to imagine that this is the first time I watched a full football game in my entire life ;) Seriously, I could never really get into football before, but this game just did it for me in terms of building tension and somme superb moments. I feel terrible for the Carolina Panthers - they fought very hard and did not deserve to lose. The Patriots just deserved to win more.
As for the half-time show, my husband and I had a combined jaw-drop-to-floor moment when we saw Janet Jackson’s breast hanging out in full view - my husband kept arguing with me it must have been a plastic something and could not have been her breast, since that couldn’t be on regular TV, now could it? The poor man - he was in shock for a long time :)
The best way to express how much I loved tonight’s game? I have never missed an episode of “Survivor” in all 8 seasons so far, ever since I started watching the show sometime in the middle of the first season - tonight, I didn’t much care about the All-star season’s premier, I was that absorbed in the thrill of the football game.