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of palestine and israel kynn bartlett of shock & awe writes, This is a consistent tactic among the supporters of Israel -- to blame the suicide attacks on the parents, and not on the years of oppression perpetrated by Israel. You've got a whole nation under siege for years -- kids kept out of school for months at a time due to curfews and school closures enforced by the IDF -- and you're surprised that some of those kids grow up to attack the system that keeps them down? I am not condoning violence, but I am at a loss to explain why years of Israeli violence against Palestinians should be ignored and all Palestinian violence should be blamed on cultural differences and bad parenting.the rest of the post is here. good read.
it's all in the name contrary to the spirit of shakespeare's assertion, the big cities in india seem to be as much affected by their names as by the people who inhabit them. in the past few years three of the larger metropolises have had their names changed, calcutta became kolkotta, madras chennai and my beloved bombay became mumbai. i remember being fairly agitated at the name change as was a large portion of the people of my age and class(upper and lower middle). the shiv sena was then in power, a sometimes extremist and unnecessarily violent political party the members of which think nothing of taking the law in their hands as and when the need arises to stir up the masses or to launch a new leader. bombay has been the name of this city for hundreds of years now but was changed, ostensibly, because it was a legacy of the british raj. there are theories on the origin of the name, one being it is an anglicized version of mumbai, the city's current name, which is plausible. the name mumbai is derived from the goddess mumbadevi, deity of the kolis, fisherfolk who were the first settlers of the islands that now constitute bombay. i'd thought the controversy surrounding the name change, though it was never really consequential, was over but was a little surprised to learn shiv sainiks, grass roots workers of the shiv sena, had protested a prominent mumbaikar's use of the term bombay for the city by stripping in front of his house. the shiv sainiks have perfected the art of intimidation in a way, they use force or the implication of force against law abiding citizens without any real risk of legal persecution. an ad campaign featuring a male and a female model wearing just shoes invoked a similar form of protest, they stripped to their undergarments and protested against vulgarity!!
the practice in my first few days back in bombay one thing i've noticed is how much easier it is to practice islam here than it is in los angeles. with the negative connotations the word jihad has today, it might be not wise to say this but i'm beginning to understand why they say practicing islam in the west is a continuous jihad. the basic meaning of that term is struggle and considering how difficult it is to reconcile the islamic and western indentities, struggle is exactly what being a muslim in the west is all about. more on this later.
reporting from korea ho hum, am in seoul, south korea at the moment, free surfing!! twelve more hours and i'll be back in good old mumbai!!
the brave new nuclear world the congress is moving ahead toward approval for research and development of a new breed of smaller tactical weapons designed to, among other things, bust imagined weapons of mass destruction in underground bunkers. from a report on the bbc website, my emphasis, The House Armed Services Committee is voting the money as part of the $400bn defence authorisation bill which will be reported out on Tuesday. why is this such a bad idea? with north korea already rattling the nuclear sabre and both india and pakistan ready with their own posse of nuclear weapons the horrors of the cold war era become so much more plausible in current times. imagine an attack akin to the one carried out on the indian parliament in december 2001 could easily escalate into a war between the two nuclear nations in the indian sub-continent. i'm certain only the most extreme of thinkers on both sides would favor a war, for unlike the times when america has gone to war in the last decade, the opponents are more evenly matched in this potential conflict. america has consistently refused remain true to its obligations and international agreements, from the kyoto protocol to its refusal to ratify the international criminal court. from the sf gate, a may 11 article, says this, Proposals in President Bush's 2004 budget would refurbish virtually every facet of the nuclear weapons complex, ranging from the nuclear test site in Nevada to the Savannah River plant in South Carolina. there is already enough existing nuclear power to pretty much destroy the earth, by lowering the bar and initiating the development of smaller weapons the united states is refusing to let nuclear war be the uniquely horrifying memory of the past century. smaller, low yield nuclear weapons make nuclear attacks much more likely, by, if not removing, then at least lowering the psychological and ethical barrier to their use. with the rumsfeld doctrine of pre-emptive strikes being an official part of this administration's way of dealing with threats to america, both real and conjured, i'm starting to fear the coming years. if bush wins the next presidential election i'll be living with a very uneasy feeling, that of impending doom.
news i) i have my employment authorization document after standing for six hours, trying to sleep on cold pavements and waiting in interminable lines. what that means is that i am flying to india on the eighteenth, phew, thankfully! ii) LGF hates the quran and muslims as is evident from this, if this is not hate mongering what is? iii) i'll be posting on palaver too now, an interesting community weblog. iv) this must be the strangest birthday ever for me but we did have german chocolate cake ;)
the lesson i've just finished an excellent short story, the lesson (1972) by toni cade bambara. it is colloquial, bare and, as the title suggests, does have a lesson. an excerpt, "Imagine for a minute what kind of society it is in which some people can spend on a toy what it would cost to feed a family of six or seven. What do you think?"every solution comes with its own set of problems. the ever widening gulf between the rich and the poor is both an economic as well as an insidious social issue, the solution to which is fairly complicated and not easily achieveable. with globalization and an enthused, high income yuppie generation reaping off the constantly expanding software industry in india, this looks like a developing situation back home.
artifacts found most of the artifacts alleged to have been stolen from the National Museum in Baghdad seem to have been safely recovered. From cnn, via tacitus, U.S. Customs agents, working with military and museum experts at the National Museum in Baghdad, have recovered nearly 40,000 manuscripts and about 700 artifacts, government officials announced in Washington Wednesday, leaving perhaps only a few dozen key pieces missing.this is great news, something to rejoice about, funny how it took them almost a month to get the information out though. the burning however, of the National Library, where incredibly important documents including ancient and rare copies of the Quran were incinerated continues to be a scar of the war that remains and is unlikely to be salved over by time.
peaceniks there seems to be a sliver of sense being exhibited by the pakistanis in the indians in an effort to solve the kashmir issue. pakistan has made overtures as the times of india reports. i'm wondering if america's actions in iraq have anything to do with all the flurry of activity to solve the region's considerable problems with terrorism. with their support for the so called 'freedom fighters' hardly being secret, it is time for the pakistanis to rethink their strategy of supporting infilitration into kashmir and let the indians some breathing space to nurse that region back to normalcy. of course the onus does not lie with pakistan alone, india has to take its share of the blame in screwing up things so badly in that most beautiful of the country's states, and to work out a plan to recovery. tacitus noted how america's granting of a free trade pact to singapore snubbing chile, atleast for a while, smacked of vengeance for chile's stand in the run up to the war. we in the subcontinent have a different tack, we stopped playing cricket with pakistan! a particularly sorry episode took place several years ago (and in fact has been repeated recently) when a local politician's thugs, a night before the start of an eagerly awaited game, dug up the cricket pitch making play impossible.
quiz time i'm an interpersonal thinker, atleast that's what the quiz at bbc tells me. with nothing better to do, i checked out this test though i'm normally wary of such attempts to analyze or characterize myself. other interpersonal thinkers include winston churchill, mother teresa and, ahem, william shakespeare, so i'm in really good company. i'd be much more suited to politics, psychology, counselling or teaching they say, i knew i was in the wrong profession, sigh! thanks to zoheb for this.
an unreasonable fear i've mentioned this before, but haven't discussed it at length. i was at the federal building today, 300 N Los Angeles St., i'll be there again next week, to get the papers that will allow me to make a trip outside the states. this was the first time i was there, for, i'm of that tiny group of non-american muslims currently in america who did not have to go to the ins and get fingerprinted. it is humbling. i'm very proud of being an indian, to think that i'm not being subjected to what can only be called religion based profiling because of my nationality is a perk i'd never imagined i would be required to enjoy. the time i was there, i had this strange feeling, somewhere deep in my heart, that they'll suddenly decide to get hold of me, and haul me off to an interrogation room, "we've been reading ublog, hmm, u need to answer a few questions". this is anecdotal of course, but yeah, the thought did occur to me. of course, going to the ins has always been a nightmare from the horror stories i've heard from seniors. you're required to be there at 3am or earlier to ensure that you get your work done. they do not seem to have online applications or appointments, atleast none that i know of. there is a lot more, guess i'll put that up next week, after my visit.
have you heard? have you heard? salam pax is back! eeyahooo!! ;)
saving lynch via the left coaster, excerpt from the other version of jessica lynch's 'heroic' rescue, An ambulance driver who tried to carry Private Lynch to the American forces close to the city was shot at by US troops the day before their mission. Far from winning hearts and minds, the US operation has angered and hurt doctors who risked their lives treating both Private Lynch and Iraqi victims of the war. “What the Americans say is like the story of Sinbad the Sailor — it’s a myth,” said Harith al-Houssona, who saved Private Lynch’s life after she was brought to the hospital by Iraqi military intelligence. go figure.
the same refrain they found dr.germ, but still no news or evidence of wmd, via bbc, my emphasis, The US says it has captured one of Saddam Hussein's most senior biological weapons scientists, Dr Huda Salih Mahdi Ammash. well known by whom?
an unlikely story rumsfeld says it is unlikely they'll find weapons of mass destruction at suspected sites. he's hoping for iraqis volunteering information. an excerpt, my emphasis, [.....]the reality is that, if we have knowledge of a site -- and a suspect site is probably the way we should phrase it -- it's very likely things are not there."stumble over something? i'd think by now they should've stopped stumbling and started looking with their eyes open, which they presumably are, but not finding anything to backup bush's pre-war claims. tacitus, who's been pro-war, though more for these reasons than those touted by bush, sees a silver lining in baghdad and the gulf. aziz advises getting hold of an umbrella.
corrupt politicians the new york times has an article about mayawati, chief minister of india's larges state. the headline calls her opulent and pugnacious, that's what she is and more. mayawati is an uncouth, unprincipaled, undeniably and eggregiously corrupt politician, as bad as another pet peeve of mine, jayalalitha. consider this, In January, as the poor were freezing in record-low temperatures, she threw herself a 47th birthday party, spending hundreds of thousands of dollars in government funds while collecting cash for her political party. She called it ``self-respect day.''she has capitalized on her dalit, lower class background, rallying the uneducated masses and capturing power, but she does not seem to have any qualms whatsoever, when the need arises, to form alliances with the very people she wilfully attacks on a regular basis. people like mayawati in power are a classic example of democracy's inherent weakness, of bestowing power to the wrong people, but what's the solution? i would say education, but even the most educated countries seem to have a fair share of scams by the people running the show. i came across winterspeak on bonoboland which in turn i hopped on through weblogs.com, and saw an interesting and related post, an excerpt, with my emphasis My take is that in a market, people have an incentive to study the issue and correct their biases, while in a political system, where you vote your identity, biases will go uncorrected and lead to wrong decisions. Watch me pull numbers out of thin air to buttress my case: the US spends $140,000 to save each life in highway accidents, but $2,000,000 to save each life from nuclear power. Public policy, therefore, has chosen to save fewer lives over more lives (or, if you prefer, kill more people over kill fewer people). Hardly an optimal social outcome.good point.
a tale of two american women one, as she was serving her country, went through hell and was lionised. the other followed her convictions, died doing that and was demonized.
good reads i'll be posting, hopefully everyday, certainly three to four times a week, interesting posts i come across on the eclectic mix of weblogs in my blogroll. here's the first issue of good reads the american sentimentalistdiscusses the significance, or rather the current lack of it, of may day. As it turns out, the answer to both questions is "plenty". Founded on the prairies and factory floors of Illinois back in the 1880s as part and parcel of the struggle for the eight-hour day, May Day was long the primary day devoted to workers until the more institutionalized Labor Day, with its now more important function as the the end-of-summer holiday, took precedence in the mind of most Americans. (For its part, the first day of May has also held centuries-long meaning as a pagan rite of spring and fertility, complete with the requisite dancing around a pole). However, throughout U.S. history, May Day has also long been associated with death as well. From the 1866 race riots in Memphis, in which 46 black veterans of the Civil War were killed, to the stunning success of Admiral Dewey's fleet in wiping out nearly 400 Spanish sailors in Manila Bay in 1898, to the day which started it all, when four demonstrators were killed and over 200 wounded when police attacked a Chicago rally of workers demanding the 8-hour day in 1886, people have died on the first day of May. al-muhajabah commented on the amina lawal case in december last year. there is an update posted yesterday. |
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