October 25, 2005
Just in case
Just in case I am not a jittery, nervous fool scared about undertaking a 24-hour-flight to India with my toddler (aka little monster by those who really know him) in my lap all by myself, Ravi points me to this post of his about the exact same airline and the flight I am about to take to Mumbai - Stranded in snowing Schiphol. Heartless, I say!
Still, just in case I do make it alive to Mumbai, I am planning to meet up the gang (aka cartel by those who really know them) on Sunday for breakfast before I take off for Vizag. See ya’ll there :)
October 24, 2005
Mela Schedule (updated Dec 9th)
October:
27th October: Neelakantan
November:
3rd November: Nitai
10th November: Shivam
17th November: Veena
24th November: Amit Varma
December:
1st December: Ram
8th December: Bangalore Guy
15th December: Saket
22nd December: Karthik
29th December: Chandoo
January 2006:
5th January: Harini
12th January: Nilesh
19th January: Amit Varma
26th January: Thej
February:
2nd February: Boomboom
9th February: Ambar
Hosts, please note the updated schedule - I have moved everyone by a week to get the Mela back on track. From now on, if any host falls behind the schedule, or fails to make their hosting date without first notifying us of the change or problems if any, it will be taken into consideration the next time they ask for a slot. Let’s keep this going smoothly now - thanks to everyone who supports the venture and who make this possible and keep the mela going strong even after three years and counting…
Neelakantan has put up his nomination call, so please go drop your nominations with him!
Hosts, if you want to submit your carnival link to the Blog Carnival, here is the submission form - Oops - the submission form I linked to is for readers to submit their entries to the Mela and not for the hosts - sorry for the mistype and misread!
October 19, 2005
Silliness about Swastika
Here is a post I found via the Desipundit about some using Google Earth to figure out that a “Sanskrit Studies” building at JNU is shaped like the Swastika - river’s blue elephants: The Swastika in JNU. So what? Why be all alarmist about it? A Swastika is a big component of Sanskrit and Hinduism (which are both very inter-related due to the long association). What next? Getting alarmed over Ganesh posters that depict him with a Swastika in his hand and those of other Indian gods?
update: The link for the post above was changed for some reason overnight, so I found the right link and updated the post this morning. FYI, the post’s author apparently doesn’t want anyone to link to the post so she has taken to changing the URLs every few hours too keep the linkers confused - how original! The post still remains on her blog, so just go to the main page and scroll down. As an aside, if you don’t want people to read or comment on something you have written, I think a good idea is to NOT post it online.
October 18, 2005
A happy Ramadan month to you too!
Here is a Canadian Muslim professor who merited my dusting off this category after a long, long time - TorontoSun.com - Salim Mansur - Islam’s worst enemies. We need more like you to speak up, Mansur. People like you serve two purposes - you allow more moderates of your ilk to come out and speak up about the atrocities being committed in your name, you also are a blow to those who would lump all your co-religionists in one monolithic lump and treat you all like potential terrorists. Kudos!
October 14, 2005
Another blow to women's rights
In India, grown women are not allowed to be independent enough to live by themselves in 90% of the places, but apparently a 15-year-old can have a “free will” and get married. Wanna bet how many of the marriages are going to be between teenager kids and lech older men? Why is it that a 15-year-old is not considered wise enough to vote or inherit property, but old enough to get married and bear kids? What kind of an idiot judge was it who delivered this verdict? Why is it that as times change, we are trying to move back civilization-wise instead of progressing more?
Girls over 15 free to marry: Court
The marriage of a minor girl above 15 years of age is not illegal if it is her free will and she cannot be sent to Nari Niketan against her will, the Delhi high court has ruled.
[emphasis mine]
October 13, 2005
Suck it, Toral
Oh Toral, Toral, Toral! You sucky, self-important, bitch! Seriously, if you had half as much talent as you think you do, you could have stepped up and contributed to the team. As for your “religious” reasons for not wearing the costume? What crock!
More on this tomorrow when I am not so drunk or pissed!
Just because...
It has been a while since I put up any baby updates, so here is one of the little demon :)…
He is all of 16-1/2 months now and is soon to be promoted to the toddler class in his daycare. One more thing - I am leaving to India with him for a 2-week wedding trip this October 28th, so we will be celebrating his first Diwali there.
Before I forget, Happy Dasara to you all!
Last update - I have just been offered a dinner on my arrival to Mumbai on the 30th of October and a blogger meet by Yaz - I am holding the Mumbai-wallahs (that means you, Ravi!) to the promise of at least a meet…
October 11, 2005
Stifling the freedom of speech
Here is a story of a blogger who was forced to resign from his job - all for the mistake of linking to a story that a sham business school didn’t like - Vantage point: An Update!
This sort of thing amazes me all the time. If someone is so sure of their righteousness, I would expect to them to be transparent to the public in their operations, put all facts forward and let the chips fall as they may. Instead of that, this sham business school (yeah, try suing me for that, morons!) just tries to cut off the voices of those who dare to speak against it. If I were a student, I would first be outraged at the management for successfully conning me (what kind of a businessperson would I be if I were so gullible!) and would stand for my fellow citizens’ right to free speech, especially when they are indirectly working on my behalf.
Here is a more full accounting of the story. Read it and decide for yourselves.
update: Check here for the wikipedia entry on IIPM.
October 10, 2005
Ram Gopal Verma's disaster movie
…also known as a remake of “Sholay”. Take a look at the cast he has selected for his remake of Sholay - rediff.com: Sholay, recast - and then tell me that the man hasn’t been listening to his own PR for a bit too long. Seriously, trying to remake a classic of the likes of “Sholay” itself is no mean task without the director trying to add “his own touch”, just for the sake of it. There is no reason to cast Amitabh as Gabbar Singh - none whatsoever expect Varma’s hubris and his belief that he can somehow make the classic in his own image. It is not going to work and guess what, he will sit there and blame us unenlightened folks for failing to see his greatness. Bah!
October 7, 2005
Friday fun talk
Anybody catch “The Apprentice” last night? I was cautiously optimistic about the ex-Bollywood-wannabe Toral Mehta, hoping she would go farther in the competetion than dreamy MCP Raj did in the season past. Alas, it was not to be. She turned out to be such a snobby bitch, I would have slapped her if I were one of her fellow apprentice women. Why, oh why can we not get a proper Indian person who can “represent”? Why do we get the Omarosa-wannabe instead of a sane, mature contestant?
October 5, 2005
Out of their frigging minds
This is just awesome - when are we going to draft a bill that will penalize men whose sperm is being used by those criminally unmarried women to get criminally pregnant? What the fuckity fuck has marriage got to do with anything? While we are at it, why don’t we also draft legislations that will outlaw driving and voting for women so they can sit at home and stop indulging in criminal acts like having sex and getting pregnant without getting married? Morons!
Unauthorized Reproduction bill has been drafted
Republican lawmakers are drafting new legislation that will make marriage a requirement for motherhood in the state of Indiana, including specific criminal penalties for unmarried women who do become pregnant “by means other than sexual intercourse.”
According to a draft of the recommended change in state law, every woman in Indiana seeking to become a mother throu gh assisted reproduction therapy such as in vitro fertilization, sperm donation, and egg donation, must first file for a “petition for parentage” in their local county probate court.
update: Ok, the bill seems to apply to only those women who use artificial methods of reproduction, so it might not go as far as my post or the linked post suggested, I take a little bit of my outrage back (see above). It still is an extremely bad law. How many women who can afford IVF treatments do these idiots think are not in a position to raise a child by themselves? Even if they are extremely poor, no body has the right to restrict a non-criminal woman’s right to get pregnant whenever she feels like it.
Update: The legislation has now been dropped
October 4, 2005
No gay male adoption?
Here is an interesting thought - doesn’t Peggy Drexler’s conclusion pretty much make the conservative fundamentalists’ argument against adoption by gay males?
October 3, 2005
No Pooh for you!
Well, apparently Winnie the Pooh and Piglet are now banned from a benefits department at Dudley Council, West Midlands. What next? Can we get computers banned fomr offices since the Amish are offended? How about banning men from my workplace since I can claim that my feminist sentiments are offended by their mere presence? Sheesh, people - whatever happened to live and let live?
Funny is this particular line from the story -
Councillor Mahbubur Rahman, a practising Muslim, backed the ban. He said: “I’’s a tolerance of people’s beliefs.”
From where I sit, it looks like a ban is as bad as intolerance gets than anything else.