Vacation Chronicles - Day 0.5

So, the pre-vacation started off pretty ominously for us…the house-sitter-to-be arrives the night before the vacation day (last night), leaves to bring her mom over, supposed to be back in 20 minutes….2 hours later, she is still not home and won’t pick up her cell phone. All I was thinking was - Where will i find another housesitter now? Is she dead? Will her mom take up for her dead daughter’s obligation to housesit for me so I can leave on vacation? Dang! I even paid her…

My thoughts didn’t have to get too gruesome, since she finally showed up wih mother in tow and we set off on our merry way…that is, until we got to the airport. We get through the security check and I almost breathed a sigh of relief when the security lady went, “Noooooo…not yet!”. Well, apparently they found some seriously forbidden articles in the carry-on. I was pretty sure all the weed and “coke” were checked in, so I had no idea what they could have found. After 15 minutes of rifling through my bras, my husband’s undies and my son’s diapers, the security woman triumphantly holds up two tubes - Aveeno, baby lotion and Bordreaux’s Butt Paste (my son’s diaper rash cream) - both things I had stuffed into the carry-on after a bleary-eyed diaper change that had met with much resistance. I had to steel my resolve to pretend not to hear my husband’s 100th “Didn’t I tell you no liquids!” and retort, “lotions are NOT liquids!”.

The flight itself was pretty uneventful until of course, we got into the line for Disney’s Magical Express and unfortunately happened to stand in front of Mr. & Mrs. Completely Ignorant Racial Profilers, USA. if you ever read this lady, a word of advice - don’t ever obviously lean and whisper into your husband’s ear while scaredly looking at terrorist couples with Mickey Mouse-obsessed toddlers….that too not every time you see them…just saying.

So, will we overcome the racist couple’s fear of our son every time he screams, “MICKEY MOUSE!”? Will my son’s rash cream-starved tushie be saved in time? Will we ever get to the so-called fun part of so-called vacations before the resort completely and totally bankrupts us with $10 Coronas?

Stay tuned!

Vacation Time

I know, I know - you are all saying, she just got back from a really extended blog vacation - how could she possibly be going on another one? The previous one was what you can call a “working” vacation since I was really overloaded with work and so could not blog much. Tomorrow though, me, my husband and my little one are leaving to go to Orlando to the Disneyworld on a 5-day vacation. I might post some pictures regularly out here and on Flickr, so it isn’t like I am simply going to disappear :)

Wish me all fun and joy, people!

Will they not stop?

Seriously, will the entertainment industry not stop until all our kids belong to them? :p Seriously though, check out this hilarious article from the Onion - New ‘Baby Weinstein’ Tapes Prepare Infants For Career In Entertainment Law | The Onion - America’s Finest News Source. I do imagine you have to be the parent of a baby or a toddler to really get it, you know what I mean!

Tea rocks!

Isn’t it awesome to be doing something because you love it and then you find out that it is actually really good for you? Read on for more scoop on how much drinking several cups of tea per day can help you…

Tea ‘healthier’ drink than water

They found clear evidence that drinking three to four cups of tea a day can cut the chances of having a heart attack.

Some studies suggested tea consumption protected against cancer, although this effect was less clear-cut.

Other health benefits seen included protection against tooth plaque and potentially tooth decay, plus bone strengthening.

The bone strnegthening part seems especially interesting for it might suggest benefits for aging and menopausal women who are at serious risk of osteoporosis.

Trolls beware!

You didn’t know you could get arrested for trolling blogs now, did you?

L’Affaire GoldFrisch III: We All Knew This Was Coming at Blog P.I. (beta)

Well, it is a good thing our trolls were not as bad as the one and only “Frisch”… the first troll to be prosecuted for trolling(per Instapundit). Heh!

Relaxing with dead dictators - updated

Relaxing with dead dictators, especially genocidal ones - if that is your idea of a fun evening, look no further…

It’s like if “The Producers” opened an eatery - Yahoo! News

“This place is not about wars or crimes, but where people come to relax and enjoy a meal,” said restaurant manager Fatima Kabani, adding that they were planning to turn the eatery’s name into a brand with more branches in Mumbai.

I love how “Fatima” (sounds Muslim - what are the odds the next eatery chain she manages features huge images of Mohammed or the crusaders?) doesn’t understand why her little eatery called “Hitler’s Cross” should be about war and crimes and other icky stuff instead of relaxed and hip dining - the stuff one always associates with Hitler. I mean, they only serve “Halal” meat here, y’all! Jewish meat is available in owner Punit Shablok’s next restaurant, “The Gas Chamber”.

Update: In case you are wondering what kind of people let restaurants like this get into business, here is an email on the Desicritics group from Anil -

I am at loss , who exactly is stupid here? Is it the insensitive jerks who named name a restaurant after Hitler(mind you it is not illegal under Indian law to do so) or the reactionary Jews and guilt ridden Germans who are making a mountain out of a molehill?

I quoted the email in its entirety, so there is no question of context. What disgusts me is that somehow Jews are reactionary for complaining that people don’t idolize a nutcase who tried to exterminate their entire race? How very PC!

Racism - Not self-defense - Updated

I tried really hard to not overreact to this item on the mutiny of some British passengers who refused to board a flight with two Arab-looking people who “might have” said something alarming in something that might or might not be Arabic. I didn’t want to jerk my knee too much - I tried to put myself in their shows - all I came up with was a big “F U” to the passengers who probably broke a few arms patting themselves on the back for bravely facing off with a couple of brown people.

I read through the entire thing - I understand how someone might have seemed suspicious wearing jackets during a warm patch of weather. I understand the atmosphere of suspicion the terror alerts create - the recently unearthed bomb plot would have made converts of some of the bravest people out there, probably. All that, still doesn’t excuse what happened. Where were cooler heads? Why couldn’t people think a little bit? The passengers have been through the same security measures all these dummies themselves came through, right? They have been checked as thoroughly as one can, right? What would have satisfied the idiots? IF the passengers stripped off completely?

How exactly are these morons making the atmosphere conducive for genuinely moderate people to not only live productive lives, but to report on those who are hell-bent on destroying those lives? This kind of nonsense serves no purpose but to propagate the racist tendencies and alienate those among us. I hope the passengers will NOT repeat this ever and call and write to apologoze to the innocent people they all virtually lynched in the plane.

Here is a good comment from Ann Althouse’s discussion of this same link -

The Krishnans said…


So lets see…Here is a scenario for thought. As someone who looks muslim - I am an Indian of Hindu ancestry - i have already been subjected to extra scrutiny by the TSA (i have no problem with that) and am waiting at my gate discussing the Bombay bombings with a colleague (who also happens to be Indian) and we are talking to each other in Hindi and the word bomb is part of our conversation. Mr and Mrs. Ignorant overhear us and freak out and refuse to fly with us thinking we are talking “Arabic”, look “muslim” and are security threat. All perfectly rational (but slightly silly - given that TSA has given us the once’s over). While certainly not racist, it smacks of paranoia. Its fine to be vigilant but the Malaga situation, at least to me, seemed to be an overreaction. But the one silver lining i see in this - flying while looking South Asian becomes more pleasurable because of empty planes.

Update: The passengers defend themselves…..

It was then, he said, that his wife Susanne began talking to another passenger who said she had sat next to the two men.

“She said she had heard them saying it was the last 30 minutes of their lives,” said Mr Wearden.

“It may well be that the two simply thought they were being funny, but it perhaps better explains the passenger reaction.”

He denied this reaction had been racist. “You hear about people making jokes about these things in airports and being arrested and told it is not a joking matter in the current climate. Well this was another case of that.”

Time to rethink....or not!

It was hard to be in the US around the Christmas of 1996 and to not be caught in the Jon Benet Ramsey mania. The beautiful, angelic little child who was brutally murdered, her ambitious mother, the beauty pageant history - there could not have been a more tragical drama if someone tried to make one up. I admit that I was one of those people who thought the parents were surely guilty - I wasn’t completely sure (whoever was?) but I was convinced that they had something to do with the murder, if not all of it. When I heard the news that there was a confession from the actual killer, I felt really bad the poor parents and was willing to do my “mea culpa”. Check out the lates feed from Google News and it seems like there is still plenty of doubt as to the veracity of the confessor and his confession.

This has all definitely made me a little bit more skeptical about the “parents-did-it” theory, but I am not yet totally ready to give up on it. Isn’t that the problem with pre-judgement? You hang to a theory long enough - it becomes Gospel. You are way too invested to let go of it now, even though evidence points to the contrary. I wonder about the police in Colorado those few years - I wonder if that was what happened with them. They found a plausible theory and stuck to it and ignored or rationalized away anything that took away from it.

Commenting effectively

I have been in enough discussions around the internet that I have seen all kinds of debaters. There are all kinds of people - those who use logic and facts coldly (one of the reasons why I like the cartely guys), those who are much too emotional to think logically (I have fallen in this category quite a few times), those who don’t have a point to make, but hate the people on the other side anyways, aka Trolls. In reality, one person is capable of being all three types in the same discussion, but most people seem to take on a single persona and use it to the maximum effect.

There is also a very thin line between what makes a person a troll vs. what makes you stop and listen to someone on the other side of the fence from you. I am trying to basically see where that line is and what it is that makes a person turn off from discussions. The internet being what it is, debaters are completely cut off from visual cues that usually signal if something is a friendly banter or a deathmatch between avowed foes. Words that sound a certain way to person typing them might not necessarily come off the same way to the other person or a casual reader unaware of the context.

I don’t comment on anything anymore at Desicritics for example, since I think it is an echo chamber with a few people peering down their lofty perches at a few other people who try the opposing view. No one even argues anymore - people simply sneer at each other.

We here recently had a troll attack - he claims he only wants me to hear his side. Well, hello! How are you going to reason with me when you start off by calling me names? What makes you think I will not only listen to you but agree with your point when you call me awful things? Maybe you don’t want to change minds, but just fling feces around - that makes you the worst kind of troll.

There have definitely been tough discussions on this blog on lots of different topics - I have been argued against and hung out to dry, sometimes by people who are close friends with me offline. It was fun - even if the discussions got emotional, we could set the differences aside as simply differing opinions. We didn’t hate each other or think less of one another.

It is when you start demonizing your opposition or ascribing evil to them that the discussion is as good as dead anyways.
Person 1: I really think X is far better than Y.
Person 2: I knew it! You evil, horrible person - how can you like X?
Person 1: You are too stupid to like X - how dare you support Y?
So ends that discussion. Just like any discussion where people use words like “Dhimmicrat” or “Rethuglican” and actually mean it - I mean, seriously! If all Republicans are evil and all Democrats are too dumb to tie their own shoelaces, why even have an American government? We might as well outsource governance to Bangalore. Is an Indian accented President that much worse than a Texas-accented one?

Coming back to the point though, if you want to be taken seriously, if you want others to listen to you and actually agree with you - please, please don’t start the debate off by assuming the other person sucks. Start it in good faith - assume that the other person is as good as you think you are. Treat them with respect till they deserve no more. Once you see they don’t deserve anymore, stomp them into the ground with facts and cold-blooded logic!

Shaddup, kids!

A friend emailed me this article that was very interesting and fairly unsettling in that we actually need an article to tell us what is common sense…Growing Up Healthy: No brats allowed! - Growing Up Healthy - MSNBC.com

The column starts off with people complaining that kids these days are brats and (oh! horrors!) their parents are letting them get away with it. Get this, parents even want to go outside of the house with their kids…Waaah!

Josephine Charlton, a public relations consultant in West Hollywood, Calif., says she loves children but feels they are becoming public nuisances nonetheless. Her local Whole Foods has been overrun by “breeders” with an oversized sense of entitlement, she says, museums are now inappropriately clogged with strollers, and even first-class travel has morphed into “Romper Room” in the air.

So, to want to expose your children to culture by taking them to a place like a museum is considered overrunning it now? Hey lady, here is a newsflash - we “breeders” pay for the museum upkeep as much as you do and what etiquette requires that there be absolute silence in a museum or for that matter in a Whole Foods Market?

Now, I have traveled around with my son - I have been to restaurants, on airplanes - all sorts of things. He can be awesome sometimes and dump all the salt on that table other times. I try my best to calm him down, but a little help is appreciated in moments like that. For example, in the packed sardine can that was the airplane we were flying on, I would have appreicated a little baby room where my tot could safely run a little bit or stretch his legs out without bothering anyone. I prefer to go to places where there are baby-areas that let my son vent all he wants before the tired, little guy wants sit down calmly again. It is really that easy!

I am not asking for millions in government-grants to create child-friendly places, but think about this - how much money is spent in making all places handi-capped accessible? Couldn’t we have asked the handi-capped to stay home? Why not extend the same kind of courtesy to our future citizens and do them the favor of a little kid-friendly area in shops where they can scream to their hearts’ content while the parents end up spending tons of money in your establishment? win-win, right? Instead of that, I see vile people like the woman above who actually thinks children are some kind of a disease and would rather complain than lift a finger to help.

There are a lot of good points made in the column, so read it all…

Here is more fun stuff in the reader responses -

When I go to a restaurant, movie or other public places, I do not want to hear crying babies, and children. I want peace and quiet! Carol, Pearce, Ariz.

Sure, Carol - that is exactly why people leave their homes and go out - to find peace and quiet in public places.

Happy Independence Day!

I am listening to the perfect song for the occasion on my IPOD right now (“Ee Jenda” from the telugu movie, Bobby - the name means “This Flag”) - a pretty cool song and one of my favorite non-AR Rehman patriotic songs. I will probably link up the MP3 here once I get home this evening. Here is something else to watch - From You Tube. Have a safe and fun Independence Day :)

San Francisco Rising?

San Francisco was a city that I was once proud of being able to live in for over a year - I am absolutely disgusted with stuff like this now - .

It is quite unsettling to see someone holding the Hamas flag and wearing a mask in such an admiring way. I guess it takes some guts to pay homage to terrorists who intentionally target civilians and try to kill as many of them as possible. More pictures like this at Zombietime… It is one thing to be pissed off at Israel - which is completely fine, mind you! Israel isn’t perfect in any way and they have their own demons to answer for. What I find totally offensive is the pro-terrorist part. Does one really have to support cold-bloded killers to speak up against Israel?

Boys and Their Toys

The husband got a little restless about the 5-year-old digital camera we still have and decided to dump it in the favor of this - KODAK EASYSHARE V610 Dual Lens Digital Camera. Had a lot of fun fooling around with this yesterday - looks great and is really tiny. Has some fun features including bluetooth, so we were able to wirelessly download pictures to our laptop. Only one problem I see so far is that the pictures suck at lowlight. I am still figuring that one out - any suggestions?

What better way to test a camera than to dress up for an all-out photoshoot? Expect a Flickr update with some “fashion photos” from yours truly and the little one ;)

A woman's worth

Here is a post from Ann Althouse about a Syrian program dissing Condoleezza Rice on her…looks of all the things - Althouse: “Her external ugliness reflects her internal ugliness.”

This is one of those things that pain me a lot about women speaking against women. It is never the capabilities of the woman that are called into question - it is always low-blows like her looks, her color, her marital status - what have you. The insults always spring back to how the woman compares to others in serving the patriarchy rather than what she is to herself and by herself.

I am sure many of us have heard women being catty on other women all the time. I admit I have done albeit in a jovial manner. If I were to insult another woman, I would make sure I would point out the flaws in her thinking abilities and intellectual capacity rather simply calling her a “cow”. How ridiculous that independent, successful women should still fall back to the age-old stereotypes of a geisha-like perfectness in a woman when it comes time to insult her.

Daily Takes

• Ha! Nothing more fun than to be working your butt off (literally!) on the elliptical when the TV shows a terror alert and the thankfully foiled terror plot to kill a few hundred people. Crazier still is why was the first thought that popped into my mind when I saw that all liquids were banned on flights and only baby formula would be allowed - that too after “taste tests”…was an image of a security person tastefully swirling the formula in his mouth and proclaiming, “A fine mushy texture - nice, almost-milky smell and a beautifully lingering medicinal aftertaste” and throwing up?
  
  One more thing - UK has banned all hand luggage on flights and Heathrow travelers were “asked to not fly unless they really needed to”. WTF? Now, I do understand security concerns and all that jazz, but most people do fly because they have to and a lot of those same people also need their hand luggage - to completely ban it does seem like a knee-jerk reaction. Of course, so is the decision to ban soda and hair gel in the US airplanes.


• Fauxtography - there are two explanations as far as I can see of the cluster that is the media from ME right now - 1. Things are really, really bad in Lebanon and in the effort to portray the full image of the terror, people are taking to doctoring photos because they are unable to get the images of the actual death and destruction (the fake but accurate defense) or 2. Things are not quite as bad as they are making them out to be and so images are being made up to exaggerate the situation. Eitherways, the truth is still out there somewhere - the first casualty of this war, so it seems.


• Speaking of pictures, here is a beautiful dissection of the two major photos of the Elian Gonzalez saga via the ever-interesting Dean’s World. I remember being very emotional about this issue and was actively involved in online forums discussing it. I supported Elian’s dad and was hoping the poor child would atleast get to be with his only surviving parent and out of his crazy Miami cousin’s house. I admit I was fairly biased and stuck to the point-of-view all this time. I do feel the same way still, though with not quite as much certainty and as much conviction as I had at the point.
  
  Coming back to the article in question, I think a major point one has to concede is that a photograph is still an opinion piece. As Saletan puts it. it is composed by someone and shows us things from the composer’s perspective. We also usually form our own opinions of issues and tend to fill in details and re-compose the elements of the photos to suit our perspective of the issue.

We are all moved into a new home

We moved hosting accounts recently - Hosting Matters was costing way too much for way too little space, so we moved over to Go Daddy now. Thanks, Sarah for all your help. Regular blogging will resume soon.

Oh - oh - one more thing - Cynthia McKinney lost, so all’s good with the world ;) We couldn’t be happier even if the NY Times “fauxtographers” staged us as being dead when we obviously aren’t :p

For more fun with “fauxtography”, visit here…