Sorry guys, my blog has been messed up ever since I moved to MT3.2 - I cannot see my entries/comments/trackbacks and cannot even approve them or do anything. I am working on getting hte issues resolved :(
For 890th Day in a Row, Times Urges Defeat in Iraq “For 3rd Day in a Row, Bush Says Withdrawal Now From Iraq Would Embolden Terrorists“—headline, New York Times, Aug. 25
To encourage me to spend a little more time on my blog, I went ahead and ordered up a nice little makeover for the site. E-Webscapes did a great job of trying to read my mind and they gave me this great design. Let me know what you guys think - more serious blogging to follow :)
The at Shivam’s place will be up tomorrow. Ashish has already begun accepting nominations for this week, so go ahead and drop him a line.
The Mela is up now!
I was hoping against all hopes that I could end the Friday on a good note, but here is the story of a certain Kalpana Kumari who was so enraged by a sleeping pupil in her class that she hit in the head with a pencil hard enough that a piece of lead got stuck in his scalp and had to be removed by a doctor. How old was the child? All of FOUR! This makes me furious and just takes me back to my childhood. My sister was a chubby little thing in nursery with really cute, chubby cheeks. Of course, her nursery teacher’s favorite punishment when my sister messed up…was to slap her hard on the cheeks. I remember when I went over to her nursery to eat lunch with her and I would see her getting slapped around. She would be so scared when I made any mess in the lunch area, since that would mean more slaps.
I myself went to a missionary school where a “sister” almost broke her cane beating me up since I had my hair open - I was in 4th grade. When my sister was in First grade, her new teacher’s favorite way to punish her was to pull on one cheek while slapping her hard on the other. Even when we were in eigth grade, I remember once that I could answer something in class that other students missed. My reward was that I could hit on the palms of the students who missed the answer with a scale. Since I didn’t hit them hard enough, the teacher hit me hard to show me how I should have hit them.
I cannot imagine how all the above abuse helped me or my sister in any possible way. I completely fail to see it. It actually messed our minds up in a way since I remember when we monitored younger students when their teachers were on break, we were as cruel to them as their teachers. We didn’t see anything wrong with that. It still breaks my heart to think of the horrid way were treated and we then treated the little kids. All this in the name of education! That’s surely what kids need - someone beating the living shit out of them in the name of teaching them good manners and a way to earn an honest livelihood.
…especially for those that question the patriotism of Muslims in America just on the basis of their religion - the story of an EMT in Manhattan on 9/11.
(via Dean’s World)
A bone-chilling account of those dark days in 1984 after Indira Gandhi’s assassination from the viewpoint of a Sikh child who witnesses the gruesome murder of Sikhs that followed. I was but a child too, just like Amit was - I was just 10 and barely remember anything beyond watching the Indira Gandhi’s funeral on TV. I have heard about the massacre, but was far enough to be shielded from such monstrosities. I had a happy childhood - unlike Amrit, whose psyche is forever scarred by the fear and rage within from what he went through. I am sorry, Amrit! I am sorry you had to go through this. I feel guilty that this was done to you and yours in the name of religion and revenge. I am ashamed that while living in the same country, I was untouched by anything while you were cowering in fear of your life. I am sorry that when I met Sikhs who had shaved their beards and hair off to save themselves during those days, I didn’t show more interest in their stories and listen them a little more. I wish justice would be done to your cause.
The United Nations bankrolled the production of thousands of banners, bumper stickers, mugs, and T-shirts bearing the slogan “Today Gaza and Tomorrow the West Bank and Jerusalem,” which have been widely distributed to Palestinian Arabs in the Gaza Strip, according to a U.N. official.How sick and stupid must they be those that fund this kind of craziness and insanity in the name of International law?
The U.N. support of the Palestinian Authority’s propaganda operation in the midst of the Israeli evacuation of Jewish settlers from the Gaza Strip has provoked outrage from Israeli and Jewish leaders, who are blaming Turtle Bay for propagating an inflammatory message that they say encourages Palestinian Arab violence.
A UNDP spokesman, William Orme, said his office gave money to the Palestinian Withdrawal Committee to “help the Palestinian Authority communicate to the populace about the withdrawal and its economic and social impact.”Yeah - right! How best to communicate the impact of a major compromise Israel is making to the Palestinians but by making inflammatory banners and hang them high enough to provoke and taunt. What kind of a bizarro world is this when this is the kind of disgusting organization that we have chosen to represent our interests. Truly pathetic!
“It is time we began to ask who are these women who continually rubbish men. The most stupid, ill-educated and nasty woman can rubbish the nicest, kindest and most intelligent man and no one protests. “Men seem to be so cowed that they can’t fight back, and it is time they did.”It is going to take a feminist to question the other feminists and show up the plight of men in this society, because any man trying to do so is automatically regarded as a politically incorrect animal who is only interested in his patriarchy and the oppression of women. God forbid, anyone actually acknowledge that patriarchy is only a thing of the third-world countries and not the West.
(This link found via Trudy Schuett - her own take on the issue)
Harry Burns: You realize of course that we could never be friends.
Sally Albright: Why not?
Harry Burns: What I’m saying is - and this is not a come-on in any way, shape or form - is that men and women can’t be friends because the sex part always gets in the way.
That conversation probably started one of the most enduring cliches of our generation, that men and women cannot remain friends. It has been repeated ad nauseum in other movies and recently in Hum Tum to the point I feel like throwing up when I hear it. Personally, I don’t believe it. It has in fact been kind of the opposite for me - I sometimes have a crush on a cute guy, we get to talking and then we become good friends and the crush disappears. It has never happened to me (except with my husband, of course) where I started out friends with someone and then wanted to sleep with that person. To put it in a cliche, most of the time it was the friendship thing that got in the way of my crushes…What do you guys think?
I am extremely sorry! I apologize to Neelakantan and Amit for omitting their blogs from the AWOL BlogMela. For some odd reason, I thought I saved the notification emails from all the comments and the Mela nominations, so I did not check the comments section. Once again, I am really sorry for the oversight.
Here are those two posts that should have been included in the Mela -
Indian IT services compared to the automobile industry by Neelakantan, Open Letter to our Parliamentarians and An ode to the “no commenters” by Amit.
A very happy 59th Independence Day to the Indian folks!
August:
18th August: Shivam Vij
25th August: Ashish Hanwadikar
September:
1st September: Sunil Laxman
8th September: Harini Calamur
15th September: Amit Varma
22nd September: Ram
29th September: Akshay
October:
6th October: India Genie
13th October: Selva
20th October: Neelakantan
27th October: Nitai
November:
3rd November: Veena
10th November: Karthik
17th November: Amit Varma
24th November: Ram
December:
1st December: Bangalore Guy
8th December: Saket
Ubercarnival: If you want your hosted mela to be included in N.Z.Bear’s Ubercarnival, do the following -
1) If the host blog is registered in the TTLB Ecosystem, and has a working RSS/Atom feed, you can tag a Carnival entry post to be picked up automatically by including the following exact phrase in your post’s text, replacing [Carnival Name] with the name of the carnival and with ÜberCarnival as an active link to http://www.truthlaidbear.com/ubercarnival.php:
“[Carnival Name] can also be found at The Truth Laid Bear’s ÜberCarnival.”
The Ecosystem scans will notice this text and automagically add your Carnival entry to the ÜberCarnival. The one caveat with this method is that if you don’t put the tag at the top of your post, and your RSS/Atom feed doesn’t provide full text of your entries, the tag may not be included in the feed, and therefore won’t be found by TTLB.
2) Add it manually, by using the submission form here:
http://www.truthlaidbear.com/addcarnival.php
The manual approach will still require that the Carnival entry you are submitting includes a link back to the ÜberCarnival page, but it is more forgiving as the link can appear anywhere in the post (the validation step for the manual page accesses the post directly and does not rely on RSS/Atom feeds).
Pappu just stood there looking sadly at the rusted iron gates with a huge padlock on them. The place was deserted and dusty, but to him he could see it the way it was 12 years ago, when he and Munni had so much fun running around with postman uncle - sampling the sweets and wonders of the Mela. It seemed like just yesterday. The pain of the fact that he hasn’t seen Munni since that day had never gotten old to him. He blamed himself for making his sister miss school to go to the Mela and for not keeping an eye on her and letting her get away and melt into the crowd. Since then, he had made the yearly trip to the Mela grounds hoping to catch a sight of Munni, but in vain. The Mela kept losing people to more modern entertainment like multiplexes and malls. The grounds remained closed and the few reminders of the past glory were almost ruined to the ground.
Pappu sighed sadly and turned away. He knew in the heart of his hearts that Munni is gone is never coming back again. Just as he turned the corner, he heard some faint music that caught his attention just because it was so incongruous with the desolate setting. There was something faintly nostalgic about the melody, so Pappu walked quickly to the place it was emanating from - it was a tiny but colorful establishment announcing the the arrival of a traveling “intellectual carnival” - “Coming Soon…” it loudly proclaimed with various posters of soon-to-arrive attractions.
There was a poster with an imposing looking swami who was going to perform amazing feats of yoga.
There was the poster of two debaters who could debate any topic under the sun from any point-of-view possible.
There was a big poster of a famous novelist who loved controversial themes in his books and was famous for offending a lot of people - he would write on any topic his audience asked him about.
There was also to the side the picture of a buck-toothed baby, who was supposed to be the most intelligent baby in the world.
The last poster was about technology and the most advanced computing system in the world.
There was something about the different topics combined with the haunting melody being played in the background that stirred some vague memories in the back of Pappu’s mind - he could not put a finger on his feelings or what it was that bothered him so much about the display, but he knew for sure he was going to be there next week when the intellectual carnival opened, so he can further delve into this mystery.
Bharateeya Blog Mela can also be found at The Truth Laid Bear’s ÜberCarnival.
An abortion-rights group is running an attack ad accusing Supreme Court nominee John Roberts of filing legal papers “supporting … a convicted clinic bomber” and of having an ideology that “leads him to excuse violence against other Americans” It shows images of a bombed clinic in Birmingham , Alabama .This is what makes me distance myself from those militantly on any side of any issue - especially if the militancy of thought eliminates reason from discussion and disassociates itself from any rationality and open discussion. You can always argue with me and reason me towards your way of thinking - when you resort to outright lies to impugn on a person’t integrity to serve your agenda and rally up your base, you are pathetic and are not worth listening to.The ad is false.
And the ad misleads when it says Roberts supported a clinic bomber. It is true that Roberts sided with the bomber and many other defendants in a civil case, but the case didn’t deal with bombing at all. Roberts argued that abortion clinics who brought the suit had no right use an 1871 federal anti-discrimination statute against anti-abortion protesters who tried to blockade clinics. Eventually a 6-3 majority of the Supreme Court agreed, too. Roberts argued that blockades were already illegal under state law.
The images used in the ad are especially misleading. The pictures are of a clinic bombing that happened nearly seven years after Roberts signed the legal brief in question.
Frankly, these people scare me - I am pro-choice (conditionally) and I don’t want anyone legislating against my body. I want to be on the side of people who want to be for womens’ rights - organizations like NOW and NARAL are now no better than the people they decry and have lost any credibility with people like me who want to be progressive but stop short of feminist extremism (frankly, I don’t even think these idiots are representing womens’ interests anyway).
Looks like Abhishek (the next Mela host) is AWOL, so as usual, I will pick up the slot for tomorrow’s Mela. Do send in your nominations to my email address or as comments to this post. I apologize for not being on top of this a little more.
We have been acting as though there is one thing called “Muslim culture”, and elderly imams or enraged, misogynistic young men are its only voice. A few weeks ago, it was driven home to me how wrong this is. I wrote about how the best way to defeat jihadists was to empower Muslim women, and I was inundated with e-mails from Muslim women, many explaining how the logic of multiculturalism weakened their hand.One, in particular, is worth quoting at length: “My younger sisters go to Denbigh High School [in Luton] which was famous in the headlines last year because a girl pupil went to the High Court for her right to wear the jilbab [a long body-length shroud]. Shabinah [the girl who took the case] saw it as a great victory for Muslim women … but what happened next shows this is not a victory for us.
“My sisters, and me when I was younger, could always tell our dad and uncles that we weren’t allowed to wear the jilbab. Once the rules were changed, that excuse was not possible any more so my sisters have now been terrified into wearing this cumbersome and dehumanising garment all day against their wishes. Now most girls in the school do the same. They don’t want to, but now they cannot resist community pressure … I am frightened somebody is going to fight for the right to wear a burqa next and then my sisters will not even be able to show their faces.”
How condescending must a group feel towards a culture to believe that they have to treat it just right, water it and grow it in petri dishes so they can look at the little displays and coo, :how adorable!” and pat themselves on the back for keeping the exotic species alive. How can they call themselves liberal or progressive when all they are doing is to strive to keep a culture backward, conservative and unchanged!
More on this a little later when I get some time - a truly heartbreaking story via the Asianweek…coming soon!
Been reading…a lot! I have completed the Lemony Snicket series that have been published so far (all 11), the new Harry Potter book and in the process of jumping in between a short story collection of Chekhov and another of Guy De Maupassant. Made enough time to watch “Hotel Rwanda” int he meantime too. What a movie! I think it is a big reminder of what happens when the world (conveniently) forgets or fails to act in to time in the time of such a massive humanitarian crisis. Just one more reminder of how UN-worthy of respect the UN is. It embodies the worst of the third-world countries it represents by doing nothing to really help anyone, but just remain mired in layers of corruption, conspiracy, beaurocracy and sheer ineptitude.
I may have probably read Checkhov and Guy before, but I only remember reading a translation of Guy’s “Ball-of-fat” in a Telugu magazine. It is the tale a prostitute who travels in a carriage with three other couples and another guy during one of the worldwars while France is still under German occupation. The story as it unfolds is a myriad different reactions and emotions the fat prostitute evokes in her companions and how she is affected by it all. It was pretty interesting to see Guy try to portray the protagonist as the now-cliched “prostitute-with-heart-of-gold”, while matter-of-factly mentioning the charming manners of a woman of noble birth and the crass behavior of a common woman. Class politics at its best and worst, but an interesting read that makes you feel for the characters.
Checkhov’s “Black Monk” on the other hand is almost “Devdasesque” in its story and manner. There is a weak-constitutioned intellectual (another stereotype that reminds me of a lot of Sharat Chandra’s heroes in their mental acuity, physical weakness and emotional immaturity), who goes on a vacation to a mentor’s orchards to recuperate. He meets the mythical “Black Monk” out there, while also falling for the mentor’s daughter. He marries her at his mentor’s wish and the girl is also in love with him…but happy endings were not the kind in store for me in my stories recently, so suffice it to say that there is a big question about the reality of the “Black Monk” and the story ends with quite a few deaths.
Chekhov’s story didn’t exactly resonate with me as much as Guy’s did. I don’t know if it is the idealist in me or my too practical self (yep, there is a contradiction!) that didn’t really lend me too much pity for an intellectual wallowing in self-pity and torturing emotionally those around him that love him so, as opposed to Guy’s emotionally tortures heroine who “sacrifices” for the good of the community and is derided for it.
Of course, my “too practical” self was also a little too busy pointing out that Guy’s heroine’s sacrifice wasn’t that much of a deal considering it is what she does for a living. I mean, if a prostitute sleeps with someone whom she hates for a purpose, does that make it a big emotional thing for her? She probably doesn’t like half the guys she sleeps with, but does so anyways to make a living, right? How is this any different? Discuss!
Three different people commenting on three different posts - each of them making assumptions about me and trying to refute something that I said by personally attacking me and not providing a shred of evidence or even a sliver of logic to explain why they say what they say. Normally I would let these things just slide, but there were interesting points to be made so I am making them.
Here is “Shy” on the arranged marriages post and he says -As far as what Shanti had to say, she was probably reacting, and she cud just be pardoned for that,wat say whitegirl?;)! I was really surprised to read that she is married and that too NOT arranged, unbelievable! I really wish I cud find out if she is HAPPY, as in feeling that high, that perpetual smile when people are in love and all those mushy things that I wish I knew!!,, I just get a feeling, that she is in denial, that just as there are Indian guys who r jerks, there are first generation Indian guys who are 1)Attractive2)Fit3)Charming4)Gentleman5)Courteous6_respectful I mean Shanti is the woman at the mall who would do a double take if she saw a white/asian et al girl with an Indian guy, and of course,kind of stare or just give the dreaded look(I have gotten a few!!) its part surprise and part denial ;)! I wud say Shanti, please dont be hasty and dont be judgemental sweetheart, and as your name says.. Peace..right guys?All I have to say is “Wha?” What really comes across in the initial “whitegirl” posts and this guy’s posts is a lot of insecurity. They cannot believe someone can hold views different from them and still be a happy, well-adjusted person. They will make assumptions and jump to conclusions about you since that makes them feel superior and lets them carry on with their worldview without so much as a rethought of their belief system. If you follow the thread though, you will see whitegirl’s 180 on the issue. Shy apparently needs a little more time to think and not be so defensive.
The second comment is of course, by “murlin evans” on the post about Iraqi body count - a very ho-hum comment full of cliches and ad hominems and not a single point or fact to save it. I wouldn’t normally bother to even acknowledge it except for that it fits the pattern of ideologues sputtering in defense of their ideology without trying to back it up with facts.
The third comment is really a series of comments by “Jerryl Verghese” on the post about B.Raman’s dumbass first column (he redeemed himself in a second the next day) about London bombings. I am assuming Jerryl is Indian because of his last name. Jerryl makes a lot of fair points that are completely lost amid the usual shrillness like this - “The United States of America is the largest terrorist organization in the world, bar none.” He has absolutely the right to make his arguments and like I said, he has a lot of good points couched in between a lot of easily refutable like the Kyoto/China and other such. What doesn’t make sense is the fact the post was lamenting the idiocy of linking all this to the bombings in LONDON - not USA, LONDON, ENGLAND. This is exactly the problem I had with B.Raman’s commentary. Sure, there are problems with US policy - I am the last person to give them a perfectly clean chit. To link all that to the extremism that raised its ugly head in London is making a giant leap of faith indeed. If Jerryl had instead emailed me with his points, I would have created a separate relevant post for the debate. When you focus on peripheral issues to the detriment of the issue at hand in a debate, you have already lost.