“Voting to Kill” by Jim Geraghty is a book that seeks to explain the transformation of the Democratic Party from the party of FDR, Truman and Kennedy to that of the perpetually anti-war party.
This book has been so engrossing so far (I am half-way through), I gotta say there have been very few non-fiction books that kept me turning the pages so fast. So far, Jim has covered Americans’ reaction to 9/11, Democrats and their actions on national security issues since 1968, Democrat and Republican reactions to 9/11, war in Afghanistan, elections in 2002, 2004 and the buildup to the war in Iraq. A pretty big list you say? It is and it is very well laid out with tons of cites that make me wish the book were in HTML format and I could simply click on the citations as links and read them.
I was really surprised as to how little I knew of American politics before the Clinton era. I am even more surprised as to how vividly I remember how disgusted I had felt at events like Cynthia McKinney’s shameless pandering to the Saudi Prince whose money Giuliani rightly rejected. There are numerous such instances mentioned in the book and each of them reminded me of my ill feelings towards the people who acted so obtusely those days. It almost makes me believe in Jim’s theory….that Democrats are digging their own graves as long as national security trumps all other issues for the general voting population.
Check out the brand-new brain-child of Blogcritics, Desicritics. It is a fun, little place to celebrate and comment on all things South-Asian!
Amit Varma will not be able to host the Mela on the 19th owing to his traveling in Pakistan at the moment - we desperately need a new host, so please email me or drop a note in the comments if you are available to take on the job. Thanks to Spaceman Spiff for offering to fill in!
January 2006:
5th January: Harini
12th January: Nilesh
19th January: Spaceman Spiff [note changed host]
26th January: Thej
February:
2nd February: Boomboom
9th February: Ambar
16th February: Karthik
23rd February: Ashish Hanwadikar
Go to Nilesh’s blog and nominate your lovely posts for the BlogMela for this week - hurry!
Well, a friend of mine has started a new blog called Company Talk - the idea is to dish on the different companies around from an end-user perspective. Go wish him luck and fight with him if it pleases you (whatever you do, don’t forget to give him a hard time - he loves arguing).
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!
It is at Dynamic Ram’s blog this week - check it out and find out what happens next in the saga of Pappu, Munni and Postman Chacha.
Could it really be a happy reunion for Pappu and Munni after the tragedy that struck their happy, carefree lives? We will just have to wait and find out once Ram puts up the Mela - go send him your nominations now!
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 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.