Here's my podcast. Varahasimhan, a friend, collaborates with me on this. This is our first. There are grunts, groans, pauses, stutters, grammar errors, repetitions, poor audio quality in parts, etc. Let me remind you: this is our first podcast. We both were quite the tight-asses that we usually are not. Recording our conversation made us slightly conscious of ourselves, I guess. When we discussed the final topic I had a lot to say but came across quite incoherent. I hope to get better with time.
You can download the podcast here.
This one's in English. Here's the timeline:
0 - 5 mins: Introduction, Why Podcast?
5 - 21 mins: FTC's new regulation for bloggers.
22 - 25 mins: Marge Simpson's Playboy Centerfold
26 - 42 mins: Is our society compromising ethics by liberalizing?
43 - 44 mins: Goodbye
We'll be doing one in Tamil quite soon and I'm hoping we'll be our relaxed selves joking around. We greatly appreciate your feedback.
Update: The audio quality is poorer than I expected. I used Skype to call, Powergramo to record the call and Audacity to clean up the background noise. I realize that I should have subjected the audio file to some volume-even process because for a good part my voice level is low. If you have any alternative technologies to suggest, please do. I want my second podcast to be very very clear.
Markets & Models
This is bad reporting. I'm not expecting NewYoker's level of depth from every daily or weekly, but I read the whole piece (surprisingly through Slatest) and felt bah at the end. On top of conveying nothing, it's plain vanilla stupid. This is the capsule: Filippa Hamilton, a model for Ralph Lauren (RL) was fired because she's fat. She said "They fired me because they said I was overweight and I couldn't fit in their clothes anymore". Hamilton's photo was published after digitally doctoring making her look unbelievably slim. "I think they owe American women an apology, a big apology," she said. "I'm very proud of what I look like, and I think a role model should look healthy." And this becomes news? Rolling-eyeballs, scratching-head, plug in your favorite cliche, but wasn't she getting paid for her figure, skin texture, bust size, etc?
I'm not a fan of models. They look anemic and there's no life in their eyes. Though I find some of them beautiful their expressionless ramp walk makes them all look like cold-hearted robots. But that's just me. The market's requirements are different. Cultural conditioning goes a long way in defining beauty. And it is such culture codes embedded unconsciously that dictates RL to hire or fire models. Men in west dream of slim, smooth skinned and sharp featured women which makes women want to have those attributes. Jared Diamond once wrote in an essay that men in Papua New Guinea thought western women were sexually unattractive, "look at their pale skin, small breasts and weak arms, they're not fit for raising a family" they would say. (Had it been Papau New Guinea she would have been fired for not being plump enough).
Hamilton's second statement can be interpreted as opportunistic if only it weren't so moronic. She has had a contract with RL since 2002 and all the while she must have passed their metric test. Now that she's put on some flesh she's suddenly proud of her looks and demands an apology - not to her - but American women. Her implication is ludicrous. Any advertisement for a personal adornment feeds to a dream. Somehow their product makes you feel good, improves your productivity, adds class. Even a silly deodorizer transforms you from a office geek to a babe magnet. Women's clothing being such a big market and RL being such a premier they have high standards of the dream they want their customers to experience.
PS: I was very reluctant on writing this post because what I have to say seems so obvious. But I had to persuade myself into posting this because it must not be obvious to a few who think it's news worthy (NY Daily, Slate).
I'm not a fan of models. They look anemic and there's no life in their eyes. Though I find some of them beautiful their expressionless ramp walk makes them all look like cold-hearted robots. But that's just me. The market's requirements are different. Cultural conditioning goes a long way in defining beauty. And it is such culture codes embedded unconsciously that dictates RL to hire or fire models. Men in west dream of slim, smooth skinned and sharp featured women which makes women want to have those attributes. Jared Diamond once wrote in an essay that men in Papua New Guinea thought western women were sexually unattractive, "look at their pale skin, small breasts and weak arms, they're not fit for raising a family" they would say. (Had it been Papau New Guinea she would have been fired for not being plump enough).
Hamilton's second statement can be interpreted as opportunistic if only it weren't so moronic. She has had a contract with RL since 2002 and all the while she must have passed their metric test. Now that she's put on some flesh she's suddenly proud of her looks and demands an apology - not to her - but American women. Her implication is ludicrous. Any advertisement for a personal adornment feeds to a dream. Somehow their product makes you feel good, improves your productivity, adds class. Even a silly deodorizer transforms you from a office geek to a babe magnet. Women's clothing being such a big market and RL being such a premier they have high standards of the dream they want their customers to experience.
PS: I was very reluctant on writing this post because what I have to say seems so obvious. But I had to persuade myself into posting this because it must not be obvious to a few who think it's news worthy (NY Daily, Slate).
Dawkins says:
"[My biology teacher] came into class and asked: 'What animal feeds on hydra?' We didn't know. He went right around the whole class asking. Everybody was guessing, and then, finally, we said, 'Sir, Sir, what animal does?' And he waited and waited, and then he said, 'I don't know. And I don't think Mr Coulson does either.' He burst into the next room, got Mr Coulson and dragged him out by the arm, and he didn't know either! It was a wonderful lesson, I never forgot it and neither did anyone else: it's OK to not know the answer."
Podcast in the Offing
I was reading some of by earlier blogs posts - the ones I wrote about 8 years back. It was sickening to my stomach and strongly felt like throwing up. There were some generous people who said "You can write". Wow, talk about humanity. Anyway, I was reading these cringe-worthy posts and then I thought about the ones I had written in diaries even before that which nobody knows where they're now. Though it comes as a relief, there's some distress. I don't remember how bad they are. In other words, I'm trying to measure my evolution in terms of my thought process. Not just my range of thinking but also my skill to express those ideas coherently.
And then I thought 10 years hence I'll have a bunch of blog posts, but why should I restrict myself to the written word. With such posts I always have the freedom to edit & update a number of times. But with a podcast I don't think I'd have the willingness to rerecord whole sentences, edit the old one out and plug the new one in. Polishing a podcast would be painful - and that's nice because that would be a raw and faithful representation of my thoughts. Moreover, to be able to know about my thoughts through my own voice has a strong fingerprint element to it than written words.
All pumped up, I started recording using the software that comes with the machine - and the quality was awful. Well a part of the credit goes to my timbre, but the technology is to be blamed too. I'll research a bit, download a proper audio software, buy a microphone and post my first podcast by next weekend. But here's the thing, though each of my posts hardly take 2.5 minutes to be read the podcasts will be quite longer. Of course there'll be some rambling but I plan to include stuff that I would usually have exorcised from the post. I consider it a success if I can publish a podcast every month.
Hmm, I'm thinking way ahead of myself. Let me publish my first podcast and see how it all works out.
Obama Wins Nobel Peace Prize And the Academy is Asked WTF
The Nobel committee sent a bouquet of roses to the White House today morning and sent tins of black paint to 204 other individuals and organizations that were nominated for this year's peace prize. The nominations for 2009 peace prize closed on Feb 11, just 21 days after he was inaugurated. His success at the international level can mostly be narrowed down to stellar speeches which strove hard to reshape the image of America. But that's not in any way adequate to even consider him for such a reputed international prize.
I'm a huge fan of Obama as a personality. He embodies personal responsibility and effuses charm. His speech-making skills are supreme. And I don't doubt his intentions - he wants the world to reduce their nuclear arsenal, he's encouraging greater co-operation between nations to fight climate change and he's taking human rights seriously in countries like China & Myanmar. I think the prize for all of his qualities and vision was given by the American electorate when they elected him the president. Now it's time for him to restore the confidence of American public and project diplomacy & pragmatism, which his predecessor lacked, in the world arena.
Many say that this could be interpreted as a work-in-progress and could be validated for the actions the man will take in the years to come, but that's such a weak argument. The MacArthur genius grant does that - they choose accomplished personalities and give $100000/year for five years with no strings attached, providing artistes and scientists a much needed financial freedom so that they can continue their great work and contribute to the society. But to be shortlisted for the genius grant one should have a solid record, not just noble visions.
Nobel prizes are usually awarded to personalities who have made ground-breaking changes in their field of work. The peace prize has been quite wobbly - you don't see a Ph.D student starting research on a promising technology nominated in the physics category. In this light it is surprising to even think about Obama's nomination, let alone his victory. If the committee were hell bent on giving some prize, they should have given him the literature prize. As an author of 2 best selling books, his literary resume is a bit heavier than his political one from an award perspective.
Update: And now to why I like Obama. He said the following today morning:
I'm a huge fan of Obama as a personality. He embodies personal responsibility and effuses charm. His speech-making skills are supreme. And I don't doubt his intentions - he wants the world to reduce their nuclear arsenal, he's encouraging greater co-operation between nations to fight climate change and he's taking human rights seriously in countries like China & Myanmar. I think the prize for all of his qualities and vision was given by the American electorate when they elected him the president. Now it's time for him to restore the confidence of American public and project diplomacy & pragmatism, which his predecessor lacked, in the world arena.
Many say that this could be interpreted as a work-in-progress and could be validated for the actions the man will take in the years to come, but that's such a weak argument. The MacArthur genius grant does that - they choose accomplished personalities and give $100000/year for five years with no strings attached, providing artistes and scientists a much needed financial freedom so that they can continue their great work and contribute to the society. But to be shortlisted for the genius grant one should have a solid record, not just noble visions.
Nobel prizes are usually awarded to personalities who have made ground-breaking changes in their field of work. The peace prize has been quite wobbly - you don't see a Ph.D student starting research on a promising technology nominated in the physics category. In this light it is surprising to even think about Obama's nomination, let alone his victory. If the committee were hell bent on giving some prize, they should have given him the literature prize. As an author of 2 best selling books, his literary resume is a bit heavier than his political one from an award perspective.
Update: And now to why I like Obama. He said the following today morning:
Let me be clear, I do not view it as a recognition of my own accomplishments, but rather as an affirmation of American leadership on behalf of aspirations held by people in all nations.
To be honest, I do not feel that I deserve to be in the company of so many of the transformative figures who've been honored by this prize, men and women who've inspired me and inspired the entire world through their courageous pursuit of peace.
Hero
The camera is placed in a horribly out of control swing that goes hither and thither - aimed at the general direction of the south Asian man who's emerging from the waves, without a shirt but with a pant, but wait a minute, there are 11 white girls in tightly stitched bikinis that their nipples pierce through.... where was I, yeah, what are they doing running their hands over the chest of this clueless man person who hasn't shaved in 2 days and why is the cameraman cranking in and out the zooming functionality of the lens so as to go from an excruciating panoramic shot with everything-in-the-frame but no fucking detail to another excruciating water crashing water molecule freaking hydrogen-oxygen bond shot and while it's a breezy balmy day at the beach what the heck was the costume designer thinking when he gave those sun glasses to what now seems to be the alpha male and now why is he moving his hands and legs crazily in the streets of London while those waiting for their bus watch this retard with a mix of pity and disgust and now he's driving this red convertible through the lush green pastures of Switzerland and there are cows, big ones, in the background.
Why hasn't Salman Rushdie Won the Nobel Prize Yet?
The Academy will announce the winner of Nobel Prize for Literature for 2009 tomorrow. I read 'Midnight's Children' when I was 23 and went haywire why they still hadn't given Rushdie the prize. This FAQ is for such young men (and women of course).
What? Yeah, yeah I'm still a young man.
Why didn’t/doesn’t Author X get it?
A lot of people claim to know exactly why certain authors get or don’t get the prize. Which is funny, considering the aforementioned confidentiality. Truth is, until 50 years have gone by, we usually have no way of knowing if they were even nominated.
Pick a reason:
What? Yeah, yeah I'm still a young man.
Why didn’t/doesn’t Author X get it?
A lot of people claim to know exactly why certain authors get or don’t get the prize. Which is funny, considering the aforementioned confidentiality. Truth is, until 50 years have gone by, we usually have no way of knowing if they were even nominated.
Pick a reason:
- There’s one award to give out each year, and on average, more than one deserving author. New books are published each year. Do the math.
- The people who decide on it are a bunch of literary snobs. They’re not necessarily politically conservative (by US standards) or raging communist revolutionaries (by European standards). They’re just snobs, elected by other snobs for the specific task of being anal about language and literature.
- Not everyone is a prophet in their own lifetime. See: Kafka, Franz; Proust, Marcel; and others.
- People, on a whole, read an awful lot of crap and keep expecting the Academy to validate their reading habits. Not gonna happen (see above under snobs, literary).
- The Academy has really boring taste sometimes. Fortunately, the older members are dying off.
- People like to speculate, and they seem to think that the longer they speculate about an author, the better his/her chances of getting it. Whether the Academy gives a damn about how often a certain author has been mentioned by people who are not them is unknown.
- Authors die. The Nobel can’t be given out posthumously. Good thing, or they’d have to start with Homer and Gilgamesh.
- Authors live. Not getting it one year doesn’t disqualify you from getting it next year or 20 years from now. See: Lessing, Doris.
The Polanski Affair
If you don't know anything about the Polanski news item, here's a brief recap: Polanski, at the height of his Hollywood celebdom in 1977 took a 13 year old girl to the actor Jack Nicholson's house saying that he's going to take pictures of her for the French edition of Vogue. He gave her drugged champagne and once her senses were quite numbed he performed oral sex, sexual intercourse and sodomy. Before each act she had resisted by saying 'No' and he had forced his way through. To escape conviction he fled the U.S. He was arrested last week in Zurich. He was on his way to the Swiss Film Festival to receive a Lifetime Achievement Award. At the time of this post, there's a good chance that he'll be extradited to U.S and sentenced.
About 8 years back when my movie hormones were pumped up I tried reading an unofficial biography of Polanski. The tone dealing with his crime was romanticized. It talked about how as a boy he had a rough ride under the Nazis in the Krakow camp, his mother was killed in the ghetto, how his fully pregnant wife was murdered - all giving him a turbulent state of mind. And to top it all, the author portrayed the girl as having features that were well older than a 13 year old, which might have confused (rather invited) him about her real age. It was morally repulsive to continue reading a book that cheaply defended a criminal and I put it down.
But to my surprise, it was not just that author who seems to be enamored with Polanski as an artiste, most of today's France is. It is one thing for a group of cinema directors (Scorsese being one of them) to stand united behind him and ask for the charges be dropped (as repugnant as it may be). But for politicians to call the arrest "Absolutely horrifying" and "Judicial lynching" is plainly preposterous. They have an obligation to say at least the politically right thing, not just reflect popular sentiment.
Some defenders claim that even the victim has forgiven and moved on and why should the law authorities continue to pursue. That the victim has moved on shows her grace and maturity. If anything, that's how one copes with her life - by treating every new day the first day of the rest of her life. But the idea of the justice system is to ensure fairness by assuring the common man and his teenage daughter that those with powerful connections don't escape through cracks. A good artiste does in no way translates to a law abiding person and as much as good art is necessary for society, strong law enforcement is even more vital for the functioning of a society.But to my surprise, it was not just that author who seems to be enamored with Polanski as an artiste, most of today's France is. It is one thing for a group of cinema directors (Scorsese being one of them) to stand united behind him and ask for the charges be dropped (as repugnant as it may be). But for politicians to call the arrest "Absolutely horrifying" and "Judicial lynching" is plainly preposterous. They have an obligation to say at least the politically right thing, not just reflect popular sentiment.
History is replete with abusive, unstable, socially graceless artistes who have gone on to produce masterpieces that have stood the test of time. I try to see Polanski and his works as separate entities. If we had to judge a song or a movie or a painting based on the moral highness of the artiste producing it, we'd have a lot of empty galleries, silent airwaves and crappy movies. Polanksi, as a director, has been handed the lifetime award by cinema fans long before. I don't think his notoriety will surpass his artistry. Picasso was never faithful to his 3 wives, but we don't remember him for that. With that in mind, Polanski should surrender himself without posing legal challenges and in the process make himself a real man.
Seeds of Objectivism
From Jon Chait review of a couple of books on Ayn Rand:
Anne C. Heller, in her skillful life of Rand, traces the roots of Rand's philosophy to an even earlier age. Around the age of five, Alissa Rosenbaum's [Ayn Rand] mother instructed her to put away some of her toys for a year. She offered up her favorite possessions, thinking of the joy that she would feel when she got them back after a long wait. When the year had passed, she asked her mother for the toys, only to be told she had given them away to an orphanage. Heller remarks that "this may have been Rand's first encounter with injustice masquerading as what she would later acidly call ‘altruism.’ " (The anti-government activist Grover Norquist has told a similar story from childhood, in which his father would steal bites of his ice cream cone, labelling each bite "sales tax" or "income tax." The psychological link between a certain form of childhood deprivation and extreme libertarianism awaits serious study.)
I'm an eloquent man, most of the times. When questioned or in need of an explanation I put forth my thoughts quite clearly that the listener doesn't need a rephrasing or a repetition of my response. But with the missus I'm another man. Today morning at 5 there was a barrage of accusations that I don't wake up enough times to put my child to sleep. God knows how many tons of hours of sleep I've sacrificed; alas, there's isn't a god. And today morning as usual I was stuttering, marshaling my argument skills with no effect while the lady shot point by point, instance by instance, quoting date and time leaving me wanting a glass of water. Had it been another person in a different setting, I'd have shot back too, but this time I was merely repeating the same thing again and again which she incorrectly discredited.
And this is not the first time nor am I the only husband. What happens to our skill to logically progress an argument with the wife in tight family corners?
Look at the evolution of a blogger. Amit Varma, author of IndiaUncut, the most popular Indian blog used to write some decent pieces for Mint & Cricinfo. After winning the Bastiat Prize for online journalism, competing with serious writers like Clive Crook, he's now the most popular media-porn columnist in India. He now writes this & that about India and Indians, mostly nothing of substance. Clive was not a push-over when he lost to Amit, but since then he's grown in stature. He writes lucidly on matters of importance to the general public. Anyone who writes on serious stuff is never going to be as popular as the gossip columnist or the frivolous writer flaming conspiracy theories. Did Amit intentionally steer clear of writing 8 paragraph columns about what's ailing the Indian polity and settle on picking snafu headlines from tabloid? Only he can answer. But I still don't understand his popularity - the blog was nominated for the best Asian blog award (came in an unbelievable 2nd) and he's now on the panel to judge this year's Bastiat winner. Where is this all heading?
Watching Federer battle Del Potro is like watching Tendulkar and Dhoni on two ends of the pitch. While Potro can get the ball across the net effectively it's clumsy to watch, especially when you have Federer on the other side performing a ballet.
Update: I spoke too soon - Federer's unforced errors in the fifth set exceeded what he's committed in this whole tournament. Kudos to Del Potro.
I wonder if there are any atheist or even agnostic musicians from India in the last 50 years (post-Darwin, generally speaking) whose legacy is half as impressive as that of Ilayaraja's or Rahman's or Balamuralikrishna's or M.S.Subbalakshmi's. I wonder if there's a direct relationship between submitting oneself to the divine and creating divine music.
Truly a useless observation but I have to point it out: After Federer won his first set and was walking to his chair, he took the optimum route so that the towel boy from the court corner didn't have to cover a few extra steps, which also means that Federer didn't have to wait a few extra seconds to grab his towel. Interestingly, he won the set without breaking a sweat.
After beating Robin Soderling 6-0,6-3,6-7,7-6 to reach the semifinals of the US Open, Federer said "It was cold in the beginning and I felt at home. After a couple of sets it was even cooler and he must have felt at home."
For those scratching heads - Federer's from Switzerland and Soderling's from Sweden.
For those scratching heads - Federer's from Switzerland and Soderling's from Sweden.
The Arrow of Love
My feedreader is overflowing with unread pieces. My Netflix documentary remains unseen for weeks. The weekly magazines are barely skimmed. I don't know where my library check-outs are. Personal time and space are lost. But the loss has flown into something more beautifully indescribable. When I wake up at 2 in the morning to sing a boring song without a hint of scale or tempo, my daughter listens as if that's the only sound that will put her to sleep. And the tiredness and frustration resulting from hours of sleeplessness melt away at her smile. And when she pulls the hair off my forehand when she cries, it isn't really painful. The disappearance of her blissful smile as soon as I focus my camera isn't that disappointing.
All the things that my wife and I do to keep her happy, healthy, safe, comfortable, asleep & active have heigtened my respect for my parents. I never realized the amount of work involved in caring for an infant can be done with such eagerness. I'll never be able to reciprocate the emotional investment my parents have made in me. Same way, I'll have to accept that my daughter will be able to unconditionally give all of herself only to her children (if & when) but not her parents.
Brilliant reporting & analysis from Steven Brill in New Yorker about incompetent New York teachers and the rigidity of teachers union in protecting them. Sample their attitude:
I asked the woman for her reaction to the following statement: “If a teacher is given a chance or two chances or three chances to improve but still does not improve, there’s no excuse for that person to continue teaching. I reject a system that rewards failure and protects a person from its consequences.”
“That sounds like Klein and his accountability bullshit,” she responded. “We can tell if we’re doing our jobs. We love these children.” After I told her that this was taken from a speech that President Obama made last March, she replied, “Obama wouldn’t say that if he knew the real story.”
The Afghan War
Diplomats and pundits and statesmen and politicians and professors and military men and reporters have written, spoken, argued, decried, urged, lauded and warned about the U.S war in Afghanistan. I earnestly add my share of bytes.
Obama has said a few times that the war in Afghanistan is a 'war of necessity' as against the 'war of choice', the one in Iraq. Few columnists recently delved into details of what actually constitutes 'necessity' and declared that this war cannot be called one such. (Briefly, a necessary war is when your security is threatened or when you can't pursue other options to resolve a conflict). But political speeches are such that complex ideas that require hours of explanations in thorough detail are conveniently simplified into understandable snippets for the common man. In that sense, what Obama implies is that the war in Afghanistan is more significant than the Iraq invasion which was launched on flimsy grounds and was executed without understanding their view of democracy.
But how necessary is this war, what are the stated objectives, how far are the U.S (and the International Security Allied Forces) in reaching them? After September 11, George W Bush decided to invade Afghanistan to root out Al-Qaeda and the Taliban that were harboring them. Presently, security analysts agree that there are very few pockets of the terrorist organization operating within the borders of Afghanistan. Most of them have moved east to the ungoverned tribal areas of Pakistan, some to Yemen and even as far as to Somalia. Understandably they seek Muslim countries with a weak state (and there are quite a few) and the U.S forces cannot keep stepping into these countries. And Al-Qaeda cannot forever hold a special place in the Pentagon/CIA/Whitehouse triad. If protecting American land and subjects is the point of 'war on terror', they should be lessening their focus on Afghanistan and adopt a zoomed-out view. (There are other forms of threat from grassroots terror camps that can easily target American embassy or personnel).
Two of the stated objectives after the fall of Taliban and driving away the Al-Qaeda is to institute a democracy and create sustainable conditions for nation-building. Theoretically, there's a democracy. Karzai was the democratically elected president in 2004 and as that term was coming to an end they had another election a week back and in a few weeks a winner will be announced. But how indicative are the subjects exercising their right to vote the vibrancy of their democracy? The government controls only one third of the area inside their political borders. Their army is poorly trained. The policemen demand bribe even if they're to do their part of the job. Money has to be pushed in almost all government offices - right from setting up a school to constructing a bridge. In spite of world's non-military assistance, it remains one of the poorest countries.
The U.S & allied troops are greatly outnumbered by the growing insurgents. There are approximately 29,000 US troops and 65,000 ISAF. The country's population is close to 40 million and for any adequate security, considering at least 1 armed person for 100 (such a ratio is not needed in a land of strong law enforcement) there needs to be 400000 troops, just to ensure that boys and girls can go to school and the lady can go to the market and the man can go to his office and all return safely. This is a whopping number. At this point, the international forces are not pitching in any personnel and U.S is the only active contributor. The chief of military operations there, Gen.McChrystal said that the current strategy is not working and it needs to changed radically. His aides suggested that he may need 40,000 more troops to plug the security holes. Considering the growing dissatisfaction at home at the way the war has evolved, the members of Congress may not approve for what could turn out to be another Vietnam.
Nation building is an abstract term. For the sake of this piece, let's say that it means building roads and bridges for effective transportation of men and materials, building and maintaining schools for the effective long-term growth, building & training a strong army that can defend itself, instituting an honest police force to resolve and contain civil conflicts… A diplomat recently said that 10 agricultural experts are more powerful than 100 soldiers in building a country. But when the nation's political entity itself makes money by cultivating poppy (for opium), there's not much one can do. And in areas where the corrupt police don't have much voice, there are warlords who wield their power over their tribes or cities. For a fee they resolve disputes; for a fee you can run your own mom-pop shop; for a fee you can build an office so that they don't blow you up; for a fee they'll return your son safely after kidnapping; for a fee they'll not disrupt your business; for a fee the international aid workers can continue to help the locals…
Afghanistan has been a place of constantly quarelling tribes. A unified leadership for the whole political entity cannot command respect and power, even if the leader is worthy of it. Hamid Karzai is clearly not that material. People are now longing the benign rule of Taliban. American officials say that they have to fight the kleptocracy, not insurgents, to create pockets of safe zones. Karzai recently brought in an exiled Uzbek warlord from Turkey to appease and win the votes of Uzbek tribes. Even during this election, local warlords and tribal leaders congregated and decided who they all should vote for. (In some areas, it is reported, a delegate of the local leader will walk into the polling booth and vote for everyone in the town). When power is distributed in this manner the U.S cannot dream of building a nation, instituting a democracy and happily flying back.
Should the U.S gradually withdraw its troops and call it a day? What if the Taliban from Pakistan heads back and wrests control of major provinces? Would that increase the threat level to America? Is it time to ditch the Bush doctrine of preventive/pre-emptive war and focus on protecting citizens like other countries do? After 8 years into war, is Afghanistan moving towards peace and stability? Do Afghans really like the presence of foreign troops? Do they feel safe or anger at the sight of a humvee? Should Obama consider cutting down on war expenses to prop up his starving economy and help finance his mammoth health care bill? (Taking a breath) If Obama were to pull out, what would happen to America's credibility? Is creating a monster there to counter Soviet expansion in the 80's not enough, need they create another one by leaving before the job is done now? Wouldn't American absence from the region embolden the militants in Pakistan in advancing and destabilizing the nuclear state? Would revising the military and political strategy (currently underway) reduce the pain? Can understanding and respecting their religious/regional affiliations of the populace and including their 'tribal leaders' in a bottom-up, 'you-have-the-power', decentralized approach be effective?
Obama has said a few times that the war in Afghanistan is a 'war of necessity' as against the 'war of choice', the one in Iraq. Few columnists recently delved into details of what actually constitutes 'necessity' and declared that this war cannot be called one such. (Briefly, a necessary war is when your security is threatened or when you can't pursue other options to resolve a conflict). But political speeches are such that complex ideas that require hours of explanations in thorough detail are conveniently simplified into understandable snippets for the common man. In that sense, what Obama implies is that the war in Afghanistan is more significant than the Iraq invasion which was launched on flimsy grounds and was executed without understanding their view of democracy.
But how necessary is this war, what are the stated objectives, how far are the U.S (and the International Security Allied Forces) in reaching them? After September 11, George W Bush decided to invade Afghanistan to root out Al-Qaeda and the Taliban that were harboring them. Presently, security analysts agree that there are very few pockets of the terrorist organization operating within the borders of Afghanistan. Most of them have moved east to the ungoverned tribal areas of Pakistan, some to Yemen and even as far as to Somalia. Understandably they seek Muslim countries with a weak state (and there are quite a few) and the U.S forces cannot keep stepping into these countries. And Al-Qaeda cannot forever hold a special place in the Pentagon/CIA/Whitehouse triad. If protecting American land and subjects is the point of 'war on terror', they should be lessening their focus on Afghanistan and adopt a zoomed-out view. (There are other forms of threat from grassroots terror camps that can easily target American embassy or personnel).
Two of the stated objectives after the fall of Taliban and driving away the Al-Qaeda is to institute a democracy and create sustainable conditions for nation-building. Theoretically, there's a democracy. Karzai was the democratically elected president in 2004 and as that term was coming to an end they had another election a week back and in a few weeks a winner will be announced. But how indicative are the subjects exercising their right to vote the vibrancy of their democracy? The government controls only one third of the area inside their political borders. Their army is poorly trained. The policemen demand bribe even if they're to do their part of the job. Money has to be pushed in almost all government offices - right from setting up a school to constructing a bridge. In spite of world's non-military assistance, it remains one of the poorest countries.
The U.S & allied troops are greatly outnumbered by the growing insurgents. There are approximately 29,000 US troops and 65,000 ISAF. The country's population is close to 40 million and for any adequate security, considering at least 1 armed person for 100 (such a ratio is not needed in a land of strong law enforcement) there needs to be 400000 troops, just to ensure that boys and girls can go to school and the lady can go to the market and the man can go to his office and all return safely. This is a whopping number. At this point, the international forces are not pitching in any personnel and U.S is the only active contributor. The chief of military operations there, Gen.McChrystal said that the current strategy is not working and it needs to changed radically. His aides suggested that he may need 40,000 more troops to plug the security holes. Considering the growing dissatisfaction at home at the way the war has evolved, the members of Congress may not approve for what could turn out to be another Vietnam.
Nation building is an abstract term. For the sake of this piece, let's say that it means building roads and bridges for effective transportation of men and materials, building and maintaining schools for the effective long-term growth, building & training a strong army that can defend itself, instituting an honest police force to resolve and contain civil conflicts… A diplomat recently said that 10 agricultural experts are more powerful than 100 soldiers in building a country. But when the nation's political entity itself makes money by cultivating poppy (for opium), there's not much one can do. And in areas where the corrupt police don't have much voice, there are warlords who wield their power over their tribes or cities. For a fee they resolve disputes; for a fee you can run your own mom-pop shop; for a fee you can build an office so that they don't blow you up; for a fee they'll return your son safely after kidnapping; for a fee they'll not disrupt your business; for a fee the international aid workers can continue to help the locals…
Afghanistan has been a place of constantly quarelling tribes. A unified leadership for the whole political entity cannot command respect and power, even if the leader is worthy of it. Hamid Karzai is clearly not that material. People are now longing the benign rule of Taliban. American officials say that they have to fight the kleptocracy, not insurgents, to create pockets of safe zones. Karzai recently brought in an exiled Uzbek warlord from Turkey to appease and win the votes of Uzbek tribes. Even during this election, local warlords and tribal leaders congregated and decided who they all should vote for. (In some areas, it is reported, a delegate of the local leader will walk into the polling booth and vote for everyone in the town). When power is distributed in this manner the U.S cannot dream of building a nation, instituting a democracy and happily flying back.
Should the U.S gradually withdraw its troops and call it a day? What if the Taliban from Pakistan heads back and wrests control of major provinces? Would that increase the threat level to America? Is it time to ditch the Bush doctrine of preventive/pre-emptive war and focus on protecting citizens like other countries do? After 8 years into war, is Afghanistan moving towards peace and stability? Do Afghans really like the presence of foreign troops? Do they feel safe or anger at the sight of a humvee? Should Obama consider cutting down on war expenses to prop up his starving economy and help finance his mammoth health care bill? (Taking a breath) If Obama were to pull out, what would happen to America's credibility? Is creating a monster there to counter Soviet expansion in the 80's not enough, need they create another one by leaving before the job is done now? Wouldn't American absence from the region embolden the militants in Pakistan in advancing and destabilizing the nuclear state? Would revising the military and political strategy (currently underway) reduce the pain? Can understanding and respecting their religious/regional affiliations of the populace and including their 'tribal leaders' in a bottom-up, 'you-have-the-power', decentralized approach be effective?
WTF?
Respected film critic Andrew Sarris writes the following in his review of Knocked Up:
Knocked Up isn’t going to help change the world or anything, but at the very least it may help take one’s mind off the relentlessly dismal headlines. I don’t know what greater service a mere movie can perform these days.
Conservative Tributes
Two conservative columnists pay sublime tribute to Ted Kennedy. This is why I like George Will and David Brooks. Though I disagree with these two wonderful analysts sometimes, they present their views with great decency and force that it's hard to turn away. It's as if they demand respect for their opinions through the means of presentation.
New Rule for Bill Maher
Bill Maher should stop inviting Ashton Kutcher as a guest on his discussion panel for Real Time. He gobbles data and anecdotes and opinions, possibly from newspapers or podcasts or may be they're even his own and then regurgitates them. He stacks his words as if to ensure he doesn't miss any that he had studied for the show. That's not how a discussion evolves. You contribute, contradict or complement a point made by the previous speaker in an interesting, insightful or a funny remark. But he often digresses and tries hard to impress. To go on driving in your own track is not fun to follow. You can say a mundane truism, if that's all you have to offer. You can say "I didn't know that". The pressure to impress and get the audience to applaud when on TV is understandable. But when flanked by smart people, not diluting the standard is important.
I sometimes wonder what I'd be saying if were a part of a discussion that I'm watching or listening to. Some podcasts are by stalwarts - they're razor sharp in their observations. I'd just sit on the sidelines and listen, and if allowed I'd ask them to elaborate on a few points they've made.
Lucid Dreams
When I was a young boy I'd often have dreams where I would fall off from tall structures - temple towers, buildings, mountains... As I was falling off I'd paddle my arms and legs and the sound I made because of kicking my blanket was enough to wake me up. That essentially killed the dream. Later, when I was in high school or even after I graduated from my engineering school I would have dreams where I would be late for an exam or utterly unprepared and would hurriedly flip through the pages. The timeframe of these exams were years before the dream. As I would sit to write the exam, suddenly my conscious side would kick in and reduce the level of panic. It would say "hey, you already wrote that exam, you graduated, this is just a dream". But the interesting thing was I wasn't awake yet. I was still partly asleep.
In the past few years, my dream-consciousness has evolved. If I find myself in a tight corner, as often they're the themes of my dreams these days, my consciousness doesn't step in right until the crucial moment when I'm about to be caught/revealed/slapped/exposed. But exactly at that scene of the dream, something inside me is activated that not only assures me "hey you aren't in this situation really, this is all fake", but also starts taking control of the situation and guides through events. I'd like to say that it's me writing the story of the dream, but they're so brilliant, the dialogues spoken are so deep and touching and funny and sharp if I were asked to write them in a wakeful state I'd only draw a blank.
A couple of days back I was dreaming of this guy dancing amazingly and guess what, I'm the one choreographing. I don't know a from b when it comes to dancing fundamentals, but I'm the one directing his dance steps. Now, I don't recall any of the steps other than the fact that it was exhilarating to 'see' him perform. I had never thought I was alone in going through this phenomenon (appropriately called Lucid Dreams), but didn't know it was such a well established area of psychophysiology. Here are a few links if you interested: [1][2][3].
Inglourious Basterds
Allow me to indulge, for this is not a review, only a ramble. First, let me get this off my chest - Time's Richard Corliss is an asshole for revealing the final scene in the first paragraph of his review. I usually read the first and last paragraphs of reviews from people I respect (Corliss not being one of them). I was just flipping the pages of Time and read the first paragraph a few hours before stepping into the theater. Imagine the bitterness in my mouth. But then he says something sensible in the last paragraph, and I quote here: It's just possible that Tarantino, having played a trick on history, is also fooling his fans. They think they're in for a Hollywood-style war movie starring Brad Pitt. What they're really getting is the cagiest, craziest, grandest European film of the year. The Europeanness Corliss means is that the action is in the words. And sometimes the simmering tension between conversationalists is so hot that when they finally pull out their guns the atmosphere seems to cool down.
*
Every review I've read is head over heels with Christoph Waltz's performance as the smooth Nazi criminal. He's good. But not all of them are talking about Melanie Laurent's portrayal as Shosanna Dreyfus. In one of the trademark QT scenes where dialogues and photography and acting skills come together: Laurent and Waltz sit together in a restaurant in Paris; he's a Jew hunter, she's a Jew under an assumed French name; he hints that he knows her identity by ordering a cup of milk (she was raised in a dairy farm). The talk is plain but we can feel her pain and fear. I've seen such control with other European actresses like Julie Delpy, Kristin Scott Thomas & Emma Thompson.
*
There are five chapters in the movie, all loosely related but contributing to the final chapter's momentum. The first chapter is titled 'Once Upon a Time in Nazi Occupied France...' - lending a fairy tale feeling and totally quashing anyone who expects historic authenticity. The second chapter is not titled, it simply says 'Chapter 2'; this is Tarantino's symbolic middle finger, somewhere between casualness and lazy arrogance to even name his film segments. And even when he comes up with a title, it doesn't make much sense. The final chapter is called 'Revenge of the Giant Face' or something like that, but has no significant meaning.
*
The beauty of individual sentences doesn't always add to the beauty of the scene as a whole. This is mostly the fault of the editor, not Tarantino, for he can't distinguish between the goodness or mediocrity of his dialgoues as they all are his children and he loves them equally. There's a scene where random German soldiers play a version 'find out who I am in less 21 questions'. And then the same game is played by characters of interest to the screenplay. This was a stretch. There's another scene where a German-speaking British soldier with a special interest in pre-German-war movies is picked to play a spy. The scene bothers us with details of German cinemas now and then. There are a few other examples of such sag and it would have been a taut experience had they been edited out.
*
We know that Tarantino is self-indulgent and sprinkles his works full of references to other movies, mostly B, sometimes parodying, sometimes celebrating. Another quote, this time from TNR's Chris Orr's review: Inglourious Basterds is far better than those films, but it is still, in some fundamental sense, less movie than "movie." And if Tarantino hopes to reach his full potential as a filmmaker, someday he's going to have to find the nerve to work once again outside the quotation marks. I can't agree more with the sharp Orr. Tarantino is a serious filmmaker and his talent cannot and should not be wasted on borrowing and punching classics and exploitation flicks. Though his 'Pulp Fiction' paid homage, it was ultra-refreshingly original. 'Kill Bill' is in a sense a Hong Kong kung-fu dance and 'Inglourious Basterds' in that same sense a spaghetti Western.
*
*
Every review I've read is head over heels with Christoph Waltz's performance as the smooth Nazi criminal. He's good. But not all of them are talking about Melanie Laurent's portrayal as Shosanna Dreyfus. In one of the trademark QT scenes where dialogues and photography and acting skills come together: Laurent and Waltz sit together in a restaurant in Paris; he's a Jew hunter, she's a Jew under an assumed French name; he hints that he knows her identity by ordering a cup of milk (she was raised in a dairy farm). The talk is plain but we can feel her pain and fear. I've seen such control with other European actresses like Julie Delpy, Kristin Scott Thomas & Emma Thompson.
*
There are five chapters in the movie, all loosely related but contributing to the final chapter's momentum. The first chapter is titled 'Once Upon a Time in Nazi Occupied France...' - lending a fairy tale feeling and totally quashing anyone who expects historic authenticity. The second chapter is not titled, it simply says 'Chapter 2'; this is Tarantino's symbolic middle finger, somewhere between casualness and lazy arrogance to even name his film segments. And even when he comes up with a title, it doesn't make much sense. The final chapter is called 'Revenge of the Giant Face' or something like that, but has no significant meaning.
*
The beauty of individual sentences doesn't always add to the beauty of the scene as a whole. This is mostly the fault of the editor, not Tarantino, for he can't distinguish between the goodness or mediocrity of his dialgoues as they all are his children and he loves them equally. There's a scene where random German soldiers play a version 'find out who I am in less 21 questions'. And then the same game is played by characters of interest to the screenplay. This was a stretch. There's another scene where a German-speaking British soldier with a special interest in pre-German-war movies is picked to play a spy. The scene bothers us with details of German cinemas now and then. There are a few other examples of such sag and it would have been a taut experience had they been edited out.
*
We know that Tarantino is self-indulgent and sprinkles his works full of references to other movies, mostly B, sometimes parodying, sometimes celebrating. Another quote, this time from TNR's Chris Orr's review: Inglourious Basterds is far better than those films, but it is still, in some fundamental sense, less movie than "movie." And if Tarantino hopes to reach his full potential as a filmmaker, someday he's going to have to find the nerve to work once again outside the quotation marks. I can't agree more with the sharp Orr. Tarantino is a serious filmmaker and his talent cannot and should not be wasted on borrowing and punching classics and exploitation flicks. Though his 'Pulp Fiction' paid homage, it was ultra-refreshingly original. 'Kill Bill' is in a sense a Hong Kong kung-fu dance and 'Inglourious Basterds' in that same sense a spaghetti Western.
*
I'm not sure if there's anyone in Hollywood who enjoys writing and listening to dialogues more than Tarantino. And the way he places them in his meticulous script, every scene grows a personality of its own. Be it the talk about tipping waitresses in 'Reservoir Dogs', or the foot massage before getting into character in 'Pulp Fiction' or explaining karma to a little girl whose mother is just murdered in 'Kill Bill'. They don't add much to the flow of the screenplay and the movie wouldn't be diluted without those scenes, but it is these little pearls that make the movie glitter. And then there's his boyish delight in shocking the audience and ignoring it altogether - the accidental killing of a man in a car from 'Pulp Fiction' elicits the response "may be you went over a bump or something". This is the real fanboy Tarantino. I can't wait to absorb 'Inglourious Basterds'.
Raja Kaiya Vecha
I was 11 years old when the movie Aboorva Sagotharargal was released. I was in a remote part of Gudiyatham at that time and on a typical day parents with their kids will sit in their broad verandahs with piles of mini wooden planks for lining up safety match sticks (one side of which will be immersed in a chemical compound and later dried) and weavers would occupy the roads to work on their blue & white thread rolls and the third major chunk of populace will be rolling beedis
What I strikingly remember is that almost every house would have their radios blaring because a good chunk of the household is outside working. Add to that tea shops, who have since the invention of radio abused them. And barber shops. And there's the 'audio' shop which would proudly display their black speakers as tall as me. And the bunk kadai. Even medical shops had them on in a low volume. On my daily commute to the school, I would get to listen to the complete song in varying volumes, with varying degrees of clarity with rare bits of silence.
And this one time - sorry about the much needed digression - I was sent to some shop to buy something and the song 'Raja Kaiya Vecha' was broadcast. The song starts with a bickering between a mom & son, I stand in front of a house to listen, and then onto the hero's talent as a car mechanic, I stop in front a tea shop, and then onto an irrelevant comparison between women and cars, now I'm in front of a barber shop. I had to grasp the song because one of my classmates had hyped up how inventive this song was in terms of sexual connotations and I had to illustrate my coolness and contribute to the discussion by what I made out of the lyrics the next day. After listening to the song I remember brainstorming about what word implied what and trying to come up with interesting theories. All this came back to me as I watched this song today.
China's Respect for Intellectual Property
An NYT report on WTO's ruling that China had violated international free trade rules by limiting imports:
Ron Kirk, the United States trade representative, praised the panel’s legal finding. “This decision promises to level the playing field for American companies working to distribute high-quality entertainment products in China,” Mr. Kirk said, “so that legitimate American products can get to market and beat out the pirates.”
Mr.Kirk knows pretty well that this is just a baby step of a diplomatic pressure. When Harry Potter books and DVDs are available for less than 1/10th of the marked price, only the insane and the high-on-ethical-pedestal will be paying a visit to the original showrooms. The U.S producers have long whined at the possibility of missing the huge Chinese boat and have constantly engaged in soft nudging since the Clinton days. You can't blame the Americans - when they're the Chinese's largest consumer, the U.S fiction writers and movie producers and software coders and chip manufacturers expect the potential Chinese consumer to return the favor.
Respect for intellectual property is not big in developing countries. The general public wants to enjoy the fruits at a much cheaper cost. There's an Asian edition by the original publisher for a lot of products which are quite less than what their western counterparts pay. But that pales in comparison to the bootlegged version available at the mom & pop store. In countries like India where law enforcement itself is weak, one can't do much but whine. But China has an iron grip on what its subjects can see and buy and can effectively enforce what should and should not be available for consumption. Their current lax ethics seems like an open policy of negligence to what the west has got to say.
China's stronghold is manufacturing and it's not easy to pirate and make them take a plunge. Of course you can manufacture a lesser quality shirt or a cheaper toy, but obviously it doesn't make business sense to 'copy'. Where as most of the western economies' export revenue is knowledge based which can be duplicated with relative ease and hence made money or gotten free. For China to take this issue seriously most of state's revenue should be earned through companies and institutions that are knowledge based. When the treasury coffers aren't getting filled because of shady deals under the tree, the police will wield its baton.
And China is morphing itself away from manufacturing. There are English classes held in football stadiums. It is luring Americans who can't find a job because of the recession. With trillions in foreign reserves, they have started to invest substantially in R&D and communication technologies. They just executed a mass transfer of their population from lower class to middle class by taking advantage of the rapid globalization; even the recession has not bitten them hard - in fact their stimulus package is touted by economists to be the most effective. The government has stepped up investments in sceince and technology studies & firms.
But their opaque bureaucracy has its drawbacks. The state recently instituted a policy where every computer bought will come with a software installed that's supposedly designed to filter 'inappropriate content'. Not just pornography (what's wrong with that?) but any foreign site that riles the Chinese action & policies. Youtube and blog sites are banned on whims and fancies. The press is not free; the judiciary has its limits; one needs permission from the local authorities for a peace protest march. Add to this other social problems like the imbalance in male/female ratio because of their one-child policy (which obviously leans towards a male progeny) and an educated middle-class that has been clamoring for more information and freedom.
China has had and will have a hard time trying to transform its huge young population into knowledge force and at the same time checking their tweets and facebook status (figuratively speaking). If the state loosens its hold and unleashes the power of cooperation in every sense, I believe they'll command a bigger piece of 'services & innovation' pie. Until that happens, their markets (not so black, they're quite open in the streets) will continue to support pirates. Of course, there will always be some sort of violation - copiers, scanners, video tools will be put to use. But it wouldn't as flagrant as it is today.
But their opaque bureaucracy has its drawbacks. The state recently instituted a policy where every computer bought will come with a software installed that's supposedly designed to filter 'inappropriate content'. Not just pornography (what's wrong with that?) but any foreign site that riles the Chinese action & policies. Youtube and blog sites are banned on whims and fancies. The press is not free; the judiciary has its limits; one needs permission from the local authorities for a peace protest march. Add to this other social problems like the imbalance in male/female ratio because of their one-child policy (which obviously leans towards a male progeny) and an educated middle-class that has been clamoring for more information and freedom.
China has had and will have a hard time trying to transform its huge young population into knowledge force and at the same time checking their tweets and facebook status (figuratively speaking). If the state loosens its hold and unleashes the power of cooperation in every sense, I believe they'll command a bigger piece of 'services & innovation' pie. Until that happens, their markets (not so black, they're quite open in the streets) will continue to support pirates. Of course, there will always be some sort of violation - copiers, scanners, video tools will be put to use. But it wouldn't as flagrant as it is today.
Humor is Hard
Hawkeye writes:
If aliens were observing social patterns of earthlings, their report would read something like this - the younglings discard waste products from their intestines, which are emitted out through fissures on the back of their bodies. Curiously the male's social standing among other human beings is determined by how many times, how quickly and how desirously he cleans the youngling's intestinal discard. Cleaning the backside of younglings and removing intestinal waste with passion and love shows that the male is progressive, sensitive, caring and responsible.
The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada is without a doubt the best movie I've seen this year, and probably will for the rest of the year. From a script by Guillermo Arriago, who is best known for his collaborations with Inarritu, Tommy Lee Jones simply sparkles as the lead actor and the director. I think I've written about this before - I see Jones in drabs like 'Fugitive' and 'MIB' which hardly leave an impression and then he blows me away in In the Valley of Elah. In a scene from this movie, we see him sitting in a jeep doing nothing. He doesn't twitch his lips or shake his head or play with his eyeballs; but somehow we can sense his pain and anxiety with that still look. Now, that's just terrific acting.
My friend Varaha wrote:
As the suicide bombers killed the infidels and went to heaven, they were not unhappy that the virgins were not veiled.
I've been writing for quite some time now. And I don't ever remember using a double-negative. I would frame the sentence in a different way. And this guy uses a triple-negative just like that.
Treating Kids
I went to a book shop in a hospital recently. As soon as I entered I saw that the lady behind the counter was preparing to close down the shop. Even before I asked (it wasn't lunch hour yet), she told me that her grand daughter is graduating from pre-KG to KG and her daughter had her invited to the graduation party. This reminded me of a line from the movie 'The Incredibles' where Mr.Incredible says "We keep coming up with new ways to celebrate mediocrity" on the occasion of his son's 'move' from the 4th to the 5th grade. I wouldn't go as far as to call it mediocrity; after all there's some effort involved. But call it a graduation party?
I grew up in a drastically different environment in India. I was slapped in school by the teachers, at home by my parents. And I was a good student and quite obedient. The general understanding was that the teachers and the parents wanted to discipline their children and the stick did the trick. And this was normal as almost every kid was treated similarly. Growing up in a lower middle class family, my mom borrowed money for my monthly tuition. I didn't buy those 'group photos' clicked every year with all the students of the class. Most of the time I didn't even bother to inform my parents of it as it would cost them. The family of six slept in 2 rooms and my prized possession of a table lamp came in when I was 13.
I grew up in a drastically different environment in India. I was slapped in school by the teachers, at home by my parents. And I was a good student and quite obedient. The general understanding was that the teachers and the parents wanted to discipline their children and the stick did the trick. And this was normal as almost every kid was treated similarly. Growing up in a lower middle class family, my mom borrowed money for my monthly tuition. I didn't buy those 'group photos' clicked every year with all the students of the class. Most of the time I didn't even bother to inform my parents of it as it would cost them. The family of six slept in 2 rooms and my prized possession of a table lamp came in when I was 13.
The rise of the middle class is not merely in terms of finance but also marks the level of cultural liberty. My 5-year old neighbor goes to a special class for math & reading that costs a little over $200 every month. Her parents sit with her to help her. When she goes wandering they softly but firmly pull her back and ask her to focus. After every mini assignment she's showered with 'good job'. Needless to say, new dresses and toys and restaurant visits are perks of good behavior. And this is not just my neighbor for she is representative of the new normal. Not just the U.S but also in India. As both parents are educated and employed, money is a lesser problem and spending 'quality' time with the kids becomes a priority.
I'm a strong advocate against force, be it verbal or physical towards children. It took some maturity for my emotional bruises to heal and see the love of my parents. But when compliments are used like 'pass the salt', what actually will the child think of itself? By treating every reading session an achievement, aren't we inflating the actual effort involved and thereby boosting the ego of the child? Do they even evaluate if their accomplishment is age-worthy? What would happen to their self-confidence when they're competing with much smarter kids later in life and there's nobody patting their backs?
I'm a strong advocate against force, be it verbal or physical towards children. It took some maturity for my emotional bruises to heal and see the love of my parents. But when compliments are used like 'pass the salt', what actually will the child think of itself? By treating every reading session an achievement, aren't we inflating the actual effort involved and thereby boosting the ego of the child? Do they even evaluate if their accomplishment is age-worthy? What would happen to their self-confidence when they're competing with much smarter kids later in life and there's nobody patting their backs?
With the passsage of time, almost every aspect of our culture has become liberal. This has prompted parents presenting a friendly face to their kids (they don't call their dad 'Sir' anymore). But this new degree of freedom shouldn't absolve them of their responsibilities. While every step is progress, I believe kids should be instilled in them a sense of humillty; parents and teachers should show them the long road they need to travel; they should expect no cheerleading just for trying things. As a parent I can understand how protective and over-cautious one can be. But may be it's time to take off those training wheels in the kid's bicycle and let him/her fall once in a while. After all, falling is progress.
This space has become a link festival in the last couple of months. Though my commentary appears alongside, it's very minimal and essentially asks the reader to head to the link. At this point I'm not forcing myself to 'write' articles and I'm going with an impulsive flow of this-can-be-blogged. But I don't want ScreenAct to become a bouncing pad where regulars come only to go to another page. I plan to strike a balance by curtailing the number of quote-posts and adding more of my thoughts about the topic. This will also help me to evaluate my thought train over a period of time.
Why?
When an article starts with packed confusion like this, there's not much incentive to proceed. Is that an attention-grabbing technique? I was more put-off than curious to know what the heck the author was blabbering about.
Sometime after the 14-year-old retired actor and chimpanzee Travis Herold was shot and beheaded by Stamford, Connecticut, police in connection with an aggravated assault against 55-year-old Charla Nash, but before former Atlanta Falcons quarterback Michael Vick finished serving a federal prison sentence for conspiring to violate the civil rights of dogs, South Korean scientists announced the birth of a beagle that glows in the dark.
Gladwell dissects the character Atticus Finch (To Kill a Mocking Bird) and the interplay of race and law in the south before desegregation. I found this excerpt interesting and shocking in equal parts:
One of Dorr’s examples is John Mays, Jr., a black juvenile sentenced in 1923 to an eighteen-year prison term for the attempted rape of a white girl. His employer, A. A. Sizer, petitioned the Virginia governor for clemency, arguing that Mays, who was religious and educated, “comes of our best negro stock.” His victim, meanwhile, “comes from our lowest breed of poor whites. . . . Her mother is utterly immoral and without principle; and this child has been accustomed from her very babyhood to behold scenes of the grossest immorality. None of our welfare work affects her, she is brazenly immoral.”
The reference to the mother was important. “Though Sizer did not directly impugn the victim herself, direct evidence was unnecessary during the heyday of eugenic family studies,” Dorr writes. “The victim, coming from the same inferior ‘stock,’ would likely share her mother’s moral character.” The argument worked: Mays was released from prison in 1930.
The superior Economist observes the state of Arab countries. Plain words, crisp observations, thorough coverage, unbiased, readable lengths* all make it a great choice for news & opinions.
Democracy is more than just elections. It is about education, tolerance and building independent institutions such as a judiciary and a free press. The hard question is how much ordinary Arabs want all this. There have been precious few Tehran-style protests on the streets of Cairo. Most Arabs still seem unwilling to pay the price of change. Or perhaps, observing Iraq, they prefer stagnation to the chaos that change might bring. But regimes would be unwise to count on permanent passivity. As our special report in this issue argues, behind the political stagnation of the Arab world a great social upheaval is under way, with far-reaching consequences.
In almost every Arab country, fertility is in decline, more people, especially women, are becoming educated, and businessmen want a bigger say in economies dominated by the state. Above all, a revolution in satellite television has broken the spell of the state-run media and created a public that wants the rulers to explain and justify themselves as never before. On their own, none of these changes seems big enough to prompt a revolution. But taken together they are creating a great agitation under the surface. The old pattern of Arab government—corrupt, opaque and authoritarian—has failed on every level and does not deserve to survive. At some point it will almost certainly collapse. The great unknown is when.
* I don't have anything against long articles. If anything, I have a tiny bias towards them for they usually explore a topic in great detail. But when it comes to current affairs and observations, there's usually a lot of stuff going around and it's better when the word count is limited to 500. And The Economist does it superbly without losing any depth or clarity.
Slamming Open the Door
One of the cruelties of life is a parent made to bury his/her child. American poet Kathleen Bonanno talks to NPR's Terry Gross about her collection of poems, Slamming Open the Door which are about her murdered daughter and how she deals/dealt with it. I was struck by how gracious Kathleen was in opening herself to difficult questions. Though it has been a few years since her loss, I don't think any parent can fully 'recover', for the lack of a better word, from such a devastation. I don't remember being moved so forcefully in such a long time.
Cinema Liberties
There are cinemas that are very firmly rooted in the real world and picture images and sound words seen in our homes and our neighbors. That fraction is negligible; the majority of the movie goers don't want to see a 'Pather Panchali' or a '21 Grams'. It's quite the opposite where they want to escape from their daily realities and see a dinosaur chasing a car or a 800-pound gorilla destroying a city. Almost every story told takes a certain amount of liberties - be it physical, political, biological, psychological.... heroes fly, doctors cry "what a medical miracle", judges reach verdicts the same day they hear trials, presidents achieve political solutions after make-believe negotiations.... And a somewhat intelligent viewer doesn't dig deep into the process, he just knows these are the means to tell a story and decide to play along with the writer/director. But this ploy of over-simplification on part of the film-maker takes a beating if the story itself sucks or has glaring holes.
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I saw 'Public Enemies' recently, the story of John Dillinger, a famous bank robber during the depression era. He's touted as, obviously, a public enemy by the bureau of investigation (before it went federal, and thus becoming FBI), his posters are out, he's shown in news reels before cinemas begin and the common man (& woman) know how he looks like. But guess what, this John Dillinger guy is always in open - at a race course, cinema theater, restaurant... without any make-up at all. In a hard to believe scene he even walks into a police office dedicated to hunting him down and converses with one of them. Michael Mann's movie, is very good in almost every dimension - action, direction, production design, costumes. But this aspect where he's just walking in the park but nobody nabs him is irksome and bring down its believability.
'Ice Age 3' posed another problem. We have dinosaurs at the end of ice age - which is a scientific impossibility. But apart from that, there's a whole range of species from which you can draw a forest food chain and they're walking and talking together as friends. This is not only rosy for kids but also incorrect. I wanted to ask my 10-year old niece with whom I watched "Did you ever wonder what they all did for lunch?" And then there's the impossibly horrible 'Journey to the Center of the Earth' where there's a whole world in the core of our planet. The story takes colossal scientific liberties which grind chillies on viewer's eyes (an Indian metaphor) over and over again.
But I don't have complaints when a 78-year old ties up thousands of balloons to his home and flies it from somewhere in USA to somewhere in South America without any GPS in 'Up'. It's a beautiful movie with a subtle message for adults, nice humour and a gentle touch of love throughout. Nor with 'Kungfu Hustle' which has no shred of logic and takes pride in its supreme lunacy. There's this little known Tamil film 'Thedinen Vandhadhu' which I find hilarious - a low budget 'B-center' offering which just fires on all humorous cylinders. It's my guilty pleasure, no doubt, but it has huge legion of cult following like 'Kadhanayagan'. Where 'Public Enemies' and 'Ice Age' failed 'Up' & 'Kadhanayagan' succeeded because it had my attention. I liked the what the characters said and did. The story is fantastic (as in unbelievable) but I lent myself to the story-tellers completely without any questions.
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Grabbing the audience's attention and holding on to it for most of the running length determines the commercial worthiness of a movie. Such a silly point to make, but I wonder why many writers, directors and producers miss it. To simply state that my taste didn't suit a movie or the audience are not mature enough to appreciate it is a bad argument. These products don't make any money for their bosses. Then why do the studios green light such projects? The truth would be close to 'studios are experimenting tones and styles and stories to see if this clicks with the audience'. You wouldn't know that a series like Austin Powers would take off until they're made. I think 'American Idol' is horrible, but I don't question the studio's judgement. But sometimes they overestimate the stupidity of audience and create what everyone equally considers to be a great bummer. A good way to cull them out is to check IMDb ratings which are broken down by sex and age - there are cinemas that have dismal score in almost all the categories.
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Aghast
Forget that J.C.Joshi guy who thrust science into palmistry. Francis Collins, Obama's nominee to be the next director of National Institutes of Health wrote the below, as quoted from a Sam Harris' piece from NYT:
Slide 1: “Almighty God, who is not limited in space or time, created a universe 13.7 billion years ago with its parameters precisely tuned to allow the development of complexity over long periods of time.”
Slide 2: “God’s plan included the mechanism of evolution to create the marvelous diversity of living things on our planet. Most especially, that creative plan included human beings.”
Slide 3: “After evolution had prepared a sufficiently advanced ‘house’ (the human brain), God gifted humanity with the knowledge of good and evil (the moral law), with free will, and with an immortal soul.”
Slide 4: “We humans used our free will to break the moral law, leading to our estrangement from God. For Christians, Jesus is the solution to that estrangement.”
Slide 5: “If the moral law is just a side effect of evolution, then there is no such thing as good or evil. It’s all an illusion. We’ve been hoodwinked. Are any of us, especially the strong atheists, really prepared to live our lives within that worldview?”
Arattai Arangam
I rarely tune in to this obnoxiously shitty show. Unfunny jokes sprinkled with 'messages', songs sung without a scale or a tempo, nonsensical metaphors about social commentary, 10-year old kids talking about foreign relations... What pisses me off is that the audience are just so rotten it's as if they're waiting to laugh and applaud if the speaker paused for a couple of seconds.
Paid Analysis
Michael Kinsley writes for Slate (emphasis mine) on the death of newspapers:
But how else will they be different from the newspapers of today (or a couple of years ago)? What of value will be missing? The lists tend to reflect the subjective tastes of the listmakers. But typically these lists include 1) local and community news; 2) international news (in particular that iconic Baghdad bureau); 3) investigative and "enterprise" journalism at all levels; and 4) serendipity—stories you stumble across as you turn the pages of a newspaper. (No one seems overly alarmed about national news or about commentary and analysis of any sort. As a paid-up member of the commentariat, I note this bitterly but without comment. It would be hard to argue that there is a shortage of opinions on the Internet.)Mike, let me assure you. I'm alarmed. I know that the web is abound with opinions and a great chunk of them are unbelievably naive and absurd. Most of those who take news seriously invariably value the editorial page too. Although most of the opinion articles published today are reflections of their bosses' political/environmental/economic affiliations, they're nevertheless informed and present at least one side of the argument convincingly. And this is very important for me to stay away from confirmation bias. And in cases of columnists like David Brooks - a conservative writing for a somewhat center-left paper, their opinions and the comments that ensue for their pieces are too invigorating to be lost to a bad business model.
Silly Crazy
I was reminded of this joke from 'Kadhala Kadhala' while watching 'Family Guy':
MSV: Swimming pool patheengala!
Mouli: Naan pakkadha swimming poola. America fulla swimming pooldhan.
MSV: Appa car ellam enga pogum?
MSV: Swimming pool patheengala!
Mouli: Naan pakkadha swimming poola. America fulla swimming pooldhan.
MSV: Appa car ellam enga pogum?
Incorrigible
A comment by a J.C.Joshi on the weekly science column by the wonderful Olivia Judson. These are the people who say evolution is the work of god:
Olivia, as a Hindu I am glad that you say, “…Even on your skin, the diversity of bacteria is prodigious. If you were to have your hands sampled, you’d probably find that each fingertip has a distinct set of residents; your palms probably also differ markedly from each other, each home to more than 150 species, but with fewer than 20 percent of the species the same. And if you’re a woman, odds are you’ll have more species than the man next to you. Why should this be? So far, no one knows…”
Although the subject is vast, in brief, the above perhaps could help realize it as the basis also arrived at by the ancients who developed the art/ science of ‘Palmistry’ that is practiced since time immemorial. Each finger and gaps between those are believed to represent different members of our solar system such that both palms represent two hemispheres, eastern and the western. In which, in the males, the lines on the right palm are believed to represent his likely behaviour as an independent individual, while the left palm indicates the likely effects of other external influences during the life-span and, hence, need to read both palms and predictions made based on the predominant lines on either palms, whereas, in females, the reverse is believed applicable…
Why We Eat Junk
Elizabeth Kolbert writes in The New Yorker on why we're fat. Though the following snippet is about the role of corporations in fattening the public, the article covers a broad range - social, biological, psychological and even political.
In the early nineteen-sixties, a man named David Wallerstein was running a chain of movie theatres in the Midwest and wondering how to boost popcorn sales. Wallerstein had already tried matinée pricing and two-for-one specials, but to no avail. According to Greg Critser, the author of “Fat Land” (2003), one night the answer came to him: jumbo-sized boxes. Once Wallerstein introduced the bigger boxes, popcorn sales at his theatres soared, and so did those of another high-margin item, soda.A decade later, Wallerstein had retired from the movie business and was serving on McDonald’s board of directors when the chain confronted a similar problem. Customers were purchasing a burger and perhaps a soft drink or a bag of fries, and then leaving. How could they be persuaded to buy more? Wallerstein’s suggestion—a bigger bag of fries—was greeted skeptically by the company’s founder, Ray Kroc. Kroc pointed out that if people wanted more fries they could always order a second bag.
“But Ray,” Wallerstein is reputed to have said, “they don’t want to eat two bags—they don’t want to look like a glutton.” Eventually, Kroc let himself be convinced; the rest, as they say, is supersizing.
In a funny, interesting and insightful (for a male) article by Sandra Loh on why sex-deprived working western women in seemingly stable relationships are beginning to crack down on their boring but stable marriages.
To work, to parent, to housekeep, to be the ones who schedule “date night,” only to be reprimanded in the home by male kitchen bitches, and then, in the bedroom, to be ignored—it’s a bum deal. And then our women’s magazines exhort us to rekindle the romance. You rarely see men’s magazines exhorting men to rekindle the romance....
If high-revving women are sexually frustrated, let them have some sort of French arrangement where they have two men, the postfeminist model dad building shelves, cooking bouillabaise, and ignoring them in the home, and the occasional fun-loving boyfriend the kids never see. Alternately, if both spouses find life already rather exhausting, never mind chasing around for sex. Long-married husbands and wives should pleasantly agree to be friends, to set the bedroom aglow at night by the mute opening of separate laptops and just be done with it. More than anything, aside from providing insulation from the world at large, that kind of arrangement could be the perfect way to be left alone.
Can a lawyer get any lower than this?
Link via Amit Varma.Bollywood actor Shiney Ahuja's lawyer on Tuesday gave a new angle to the case, claiming that the victim of the alleged rape belongs to a lower caste, which is "aggressive" in nature....
Elaborating his version of "consensual sex", Shivde argued that if Ahuja had tried to rape the victim, she could have "definitely" resisted. "She belongs to a lower caste, which is aggressive by nature, and she wouldn't have submitted herself so easily. They are known for being aggressive," Shivde said.
Reviews, Length & Presentation
Hoover Institution publishes great book reviews. I have 2 issues - length & style. The first one is a minor quibble. The author has got to write all his thoughts. For the sake of impatient readership the author can consider condensing or editing out ideas/opinions/sentences that don't fit into the crux of the review. But if the author wants it out there, there's no stopping. Still 5500 words is pushing the limits by modern web article standards. There are pieces in NYT Magazine, TNR & New Yorker that run upto 12 pages - but they deal with a solid topic, like the recession or racism or celeb-culture. James Wood, one of the revered book critics in work today, conveys his thoughts in a far lesser number of words. At this point in my life and with my exposure, I'm not inclined to read a review that's a considerable size of the book being reviewed. But I respect the author's decision to go all the way.
Their style really puts me off. I've seen instruction boards in a few railway stations in India that makes little sense - because they were framed in the British Raj and nobody took the pains to rephrase it. It would be something as simple as 'Don't spit on the platform', but to comprehend what's written on the board you'd need a colonial tight-ass next to you. Hoover's reviews aren't that bad, but the mere fact that they invite comparison to 19th century British English is worrisome. Read these sentences:
Regardless of one’s political proclivities or whether or not one just happens to like the personable Barack Obama, it’s clear that the president relishes the vague metaphor, adores the illogical argumentative sequence, and luxuriates in making words mean what only yesterday they didn’t.
Orwell is important here less for the topics he wrote about — although subjects such as poverty and oppression are obviously significant — than for the observational and anti-theoretical way in which he endeavored to write about them.
It's not ununderstandable, but there are much easier ways to say the same thing. It's almost like decoding a poem to enjoy the juice - only to find that there isn't any juice, but a talk about juice. There's a lot of fashionable nonsense on the web which requires both dictionary and wikipedia to understand individual sentences, but put together as a whole wouldn't make much sense. There was a time when I wanted to be a decorative writer and I devoured on articles and writers who used high-sounding words that many didn't understand. I've changed since then and started valuing content more than presentation. Salman Rushdie was my favorite writer. He still is, but more for his richly imaginative narration and less for his vocabulary grandeur. Having said all of that, I still recommend their reviews; criticism is a literary genre and Hoover is very good at that.
I lost interest in women's tennis after Henin's retirement. To put it succinctly, they all sucked. Williams's sisters intimidated their opponents through sheer power, Sharapova & Safina inconsistent and a host of other ex-Soviet players stepping into top 10 on a round robin basis. Today I saw bits of the Wimbledon semi-finals between Dementieva and Serena Williams. Though not anywhere near greatness, I was pleasantly surprised at the quality.
MJ
Geroge Best once said "I spent most my money on women and cars. The rest, I squandered". Now that MJ's dead, I can't remember him for his contributions to music (of which I don't know much about) but for the decline of his life and lifestyle. He went from making millions a year, not only popularity and adulation but a crazy love of his fans, being a milestone in cultural history to financial bankruptcy, being reviled by the mainstream and an object of constant jokes for late-night comedians. For many of his fans he was long dead and the child molestation trials were only a walking ghost.
One of my friends said that he would make an interesting psychological study - he's been in front of the camera since he was 5 and practically lived most of his life chased by paparazzi. In a TV show aired sometime in 2002 he rents a grocery store for a night so that he could push the cart and buy stuff like bread and coke - just to see how if feels to walk the aisles of a store like a common man. That moment was heavy and I felt very sad for him. To be able to walk in a park without attracting attention might have been a sanity booster to him, but that day never came. (It is in light of MJ that I find celebrities like Daniel Radcliffe great; the kid made millions of pounds before he was 18 but still has a cool head and talks sense).
I've never really seen or listened to MJ. There was a brief phase in my early years when he was all the rage, just to fit myself into a coterie I listened to most of his tracks. Given my music appreciation background (grew up listening to Ilayaraja) I wasn't impressed. After his death I looked up one of his live performaces in Youtube. His pelvic gyrations, robotic movements, moonwalks, I liked. But mostly I'm impressed at the way he controlled just parts of his legs - it felt like a meeting point of kinesthetics and dance.
Homosexuality is not a crime anymore in India, finally. So cops can no longer blackmail to slap a case if they find two men hanging together in a restroom... that's a relief. I came to know that it was a criminal act when Vikram Seth came out of the closet a few years back. And wondered why the hell should the government intervene between two consenting adults in their bedroom. But I found later that a good chunk of the population still perceived it not only as unnatural, but also unethical. A couple of my ex-colleagues called it a 'disease' and said that gays should be 'treated'.
Talking of laws and gays, even a culturally liberal country like US doesn't allow gay marriages in all of its states.
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Listen to what this clown called Kamal Farooqi has to say about the ruling:
You are known as a liberal Muslim. Why don't you see the sexual emotions of hundreds and thousands of people around us? If your son or daughter would have been gay how would you have addressed the topic?If my daughter or son would have been such, I would have definitely counsel them. I would have explained them this is unnatural and inhuman. Because this will ultimately lead to the destruction of the human race. This (legal right to have sex with the same sex) cannot come under the definition of 'freedom'. All kinds of freedom have some moral context or ethics. We have to follow those ethics.
Nature of Crime
Bernie Madoff got 150 years. He's 71 now and considering the average age of a U.S male, he might live another 10 years. So, the number 150, is merely symbolic, media fodder. A number thrown at the general public by the court so that they come to appreciate the immensity of his crime in the light of his punishment. I'm usually a man of peace, but I believe Madoff should have been let alone with his victims who shouldn't be punished if they were to resort to their primal instincts.
We associate crimes with where they leave their victims. So a rapist or a murderer is at the top of the list. Fine. But a pick-pocketer should not be relegated to the bottom just because he picks the wallet of a salaried man. The effects of a loss of what could be a sum equivalent to a weekly budget could be colossal. And in a time & culture of credit cards, hedge funds and electronic transfers, Madoff is proportional to a billion pick-pocketers. Not only did people lose their beach homes, but also their retirement savings. I was listening to this woman who lost $750000. A typical response-attitude would be "She's a rich bitch anyway, she just lost a yacth. She's not on the roads." But as I listened to her story I realized that it was her whole life's savings and she has worked hard and smart to get where she was. To rob that money was robbing her of her life's fruits, of her belief in humanity. Without spilling a drop of blood, he has sucked the life and soul out of her. That's as big a crime as murder.
Lera Boroditsky, a professor of psychology, neuroscience & symbolic systems (aww.. the very words sound sexy), writes in a brilliant article on how languages we speak shape our thoughts:
Follow me to Pormpuraaw, a small Aboriginal community on the western edge of Cape York, in northern Australia. I came here because of the way the locals, the Kuuk Thaayorre, talk about space. Instead of words like "right," "left," "forward," and "back," which, as commonly used in English, define space relative to an observer, the Kuuk Thaayorre, like many other Aboriginal groups, use cardinal-direction terms — north, south, east, and west — to define space.1 This is done at all scales, which means you have to say things like "There's an ant on your southeast leg" or "Move the cup to the north northwest a little bit." One obvious consequence of speaking such a language is that you have to stay oriented at all times, or else you cannot speak properly. The normal greeting in Kuuk Thaayorre is "Where are you going?" and the answer should be something like " Southsoutheast, in the middle distance." If you don't know which way you're facing, you can't even get past "Hello."
It baffled me to see Tony Blair not only stutter enormously but also fail to offer decently mature answers on his interview with Fareed Zakaria. I have my own problems with Zakaria in spite of being one of the most lucid writers on current affairs today. If you read his columns for Newsweek or his books, you'll be convinced that he certainly knows a great deal about the subject he's talking about and offers nuggets of insights that are easily understandable. But when he's on video, he doesn't have that grip on me, he has a little less charm. But Blair made Zakaria look like the king of TV hosts - he mumbled & jumbled and in the end didn't say anything worthy for the viewers to take home. And he was a charismatic leader for 10 years! Talk about the role of speech writers and teleprompters.
In order to get out of the confirmation-bias trap, I read WSJ and other conservative columns. Peggy Noonan is one I love to hate. She uses a grand language and argues with little or no points at all. Today I saw her in This Week where she sort of defended conservatives who fall off their high moral chariot while discussing Mark Sanford's affair. Wow, if this crap continues not only the Republicans, but also their mouth pieces will have no credibility left.
I bet that Roger Cohen will be a strong contender for next year's Pulitzer for international reporting. Though he gets a bit dramatic at times, I'm thoroughly impressed at his depth of coverage and his efforts in bringing the voice on the streets to the world.
Un-subtitled
Over the past year I've become a fan of West Wing - every episode is intensely dramatic, nobody stutters, every actor knows what to do, super photography, believable production design... I greatly liked the fact that the story didn't pander to the common denominator, trying to explain every action and it's consequence in great detail. If you're attentive you understood - this was more demanding in my case because I didn't know much about the American political system. In fact, I think I got a lot more about Capitol Hill & White House by seeing this series than if I had I watched a documentary.
I rent the sixth season and find out that it's subtitled only in French & Spanish. My fluency & command over American English is fairly good and in most cases I don't switch on the subtitles. But in niche dramas like West Wing where a lot of sharp politico dialogues are spoken in quick succession, though written with the mainstream in mind, I found it difficult to follow (and I'm one of those crazies who tries to understand every spoken word). It beats me why the stupid producers didn't subtitle it in English, especially after carrying it for the first five seasons.
Update: I don't see a reason for this post to exist. It's an utterly useless observation, just a bit garnished. Hmmm..
On Reading & Writing
I've been reading a lot this past year. Not just books, but a lot of print available online. From news reports to analysis to editorials to editorial cartoons. But I don't feel a strong urge to blog about issues and events that I feel strongly about - and that puzzles me. Because when I started blogging, everything I saw or felt had a blog-worthiness angle to it. There were times when I saw a movie just to write about it. And then gradually I lost my motivation to write about them though I have retained my appetite for movies. (I still continue to see 1 or 2 every week). I've been quite interested in world news for about a dozen years now and have a decent grasp of countries and their relationships. But I'm not pumped up to write about what I'm actively reading, informing and educating myself.
Currently I'm occupied with what's happening in Iran (general public protesting election results), how important freedom for that young generation is (average age of Iran is less than 30), the role of technology in mobilizing mass movements (twitter, facebook) how Mousavi himself wouldn't be radically different from Ahmedinejad (of course, all candidates are approved by the Islamic Assembly of Experts), a subdued American response (Obama hasn't said much), future of oil prices (obviously), impact on it's repressed neighbors (Saudi Arabia, Syria)....
I think it's mostly because if someone wanted to read about these, they'd go to experts like The Economist or NYT. And I don't want to regurgitate what's already said. Do I have strong, interesting, original opinions about some events? Yes, sometimes. But mostly I'm just under-informed to have a concrete opinion. I feel like watching CNN or reading an analysis isn't enough to write "I think they should..." Because I'm never in 'their' shoes. When I read 'From Beirut to Jerusalem' by Tom Friedman I felt an assurance because the author had been a reporter, he's seen action, he's talked with leaders, he's seen people suffer the decisions of their politicians, he knows the history of the place. Of course, I'm not a reporter and I cannot hold myself to his standards. My access to first-hand information is very limited.
This insecurity that I'm not coming up with quality content, I think I've written about it previously on this blog, arises when I see extremely half-baked blogs on the web. People recommending 'solutions' to political/racial/social problems that a rat wouldn't consider. When I read and smirk and move on, I also think about what I've written before on that or a similar topic. What would someone, better informed and having a sharper mind, think of my piece? Should I always begin with a disclaimer that says "I'm not an expert and these ideas of mine could quite possibly strike the reader as crazy"? Why so apologetic, can't the 'expert' cut some slack to me... No, because I'm not cutting any slack to that sophomoric blogger. I ask "when the internet is abound with resources why not do some basic research?"
I've for long, never taken my intellectual laziness seriously. Now, I'm confronting it. Reading a two-page article about the financial crisis may be just enough to say a sentence or two in a party. But people smarter than me are going to know where I stand the instant I mouth those words, just how I nod at people who don't know shit about anything but still talk about it. While I'm always a fan of people smarter than me, I'm beginning to realize that getting smarter is not all that difficult. I think I've rambled enough for today.
Anjali Arrives
And I thought I'd have more time after I become a father... not wishful thinking, just plain stupid thinking. Anyway, here are a few pictures of Anjali, who was born on June 5th and here's a video of her first hair wash, within her first hour. When she was crowning, the doctor said "we need some ribbons"... a lot of hair, she has.
Whoa
I was watching the spelling bee contest yesterday and the commentator said the following about one of the participants: He read a book titled 'How to be a Good Parent' when he was 8 and then told his parents the things they were doing wrong.
Facebook Bashing
It's 4 in the morning and second day in a row where I can't fall asleep. Add stuffy nose and sore throat to that. And also these Facebook messages (modified):
Person1: It's sooo colddddddddd!!!!!!!!!
I guess people like me who spell properly and use not more than one exlamation at the end of the sentence are now comparable to upperclass tight-ass Englishmen who drink tea, talk about weather and read the business section. If you haven't noticed, the length of any word can be stretched to emphasize your emphasis on the emphasizable.
Person2: Life is like [add anything you want here]
'Third Rock from the Sun' offered better nuggets of wisdom. These guys, trying to impress you-know-who, blabber something like 'Like is like a banana peel, only with no real fruit inside'. Of course, you can make sense out of it you're inclined to assign meanings to any crap.
Comment for a photo: wow, this is a cool pic yaar!!! you look sooooooo cuteee!!!!!
No, it's not that of a child. It's a close-up of a 31 year-old, slightly out of focus with bad lighting. Either you don't appreciate the basics of photography or your definition of cuteness is plainly screwed-up.
Status message: X is looking out the window.
Wouldn't this be appropriate: My current status is that I'm writing my status message. Vetti pasanga.
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