Accidental Blogger

And the Media Circus goes on... (Sujatha)

Now, of course, the headlines are solidly focussed on the Norway shootings, and every article is accompanied by the photo with movie-star good looks of accused shooter Anders Behring Breivik.

The initial reaction to the news seems to have been "Goody, another bad event that we can use as an excuse to talk about Islamist jihadi conspiracies."

(Read more on this at "Media Reacts to News that Norwegian Terror Suspect isn't a Muslim" )

Howevr, the truth never gets in the way of agenda-pushing. Vide this paragraph by Jennifer Rubin, who happily pounced on the shootings as evidence of jihadism in her Washington Post op-ed:

"This is a sobering reminder for those who think it’s too expensive to wage a war against jihadists. I spoke to Gary Schmitt of the American Enterprise Institute, who has been critical of proposed cuts in defense and of President Obama’s Afghanistan withdrawal plan. “There has been a lot of talk over the past few months on how we’ve got al-Qaeda on the run and, compared with what it once was, it’s become a rump organization. But as the attack in Oslo reminds us, there are plenty of al-Qaeda allies still operating. No doubt cutting the head off a snake is important; the problem is, we’re dealing with global nest of snakes.”

Once proven wrong, however spectacularly, she came up with this soggy offering:

"That the suspect here is a blond Norwegian does not support the proposition that we can rest easy with regard to the panoply of threats we face or that homeland security, intelligence and traditional military can be pruned back. To the contrary, the world remains very dangerous because very bad people will do horrendous things. There are many more jihadists than blond Norwegians out to kill Americans, and we should keep our eye on the systemic and far more potent threats that stem from an ideological war with the West.

And so it continues, all over the media. From the recent rushes to judgment in several highly publicized cases, one would think that they would have learned lessons about jumping to conclusions. Whatever happened to journalistic integrity and fair shakes?

What Were We Saying About Hindus? (Norman Costa)

What Were We Saying About Hindus? (Norman Costa)

From the Wall Street Journal

July 21, 2011

Animated Debate Is Curtain-Raiser

By SUMATHI REDDY

""Sita Sings the Blues," an animated modern take on the Hindu religious epic, "The Ramayana," has won awards and been shown at hundreds of locations across the world since its release two years ago.

"Never has creator Nina Paley faced a problem until now, oddly enough, in Queens, one of the most diverse communities in the country.

"A planned screening of the film has had to be moved at least twice—the most recent this week—because some Hindus said they found the film's interpretation offensive."

Read more HERE.

Taking Back Yoga in Texas

What else should they take back to claim ownership of the faith? This recent story (via a friend's Facebook posting) in CNN's Belief section caught my eye due to its proximity to my home. The opinions expressed in the article by young American Hindus of Houston appear mildly paranoid and parochial to me. But then I am not a practitioner and religious identity never meant much to me. Many Hindus like other religious conservatives, are steeped in beliefs and rituals that define and delineate them from followers of other theological and philosophical dogma; that in itself is not remarkable. What struck me as more interesting is that the attitude of the young Hindus quoted here is being characterized as "Americanization." Perhaps there is some truth to it. Or would "Texanization" be more accurate?

 

Driving to lunch recently at a strip mall Indian buffet, he spoke of trying to forge a distinctly American Hindu identity that’s more tightly woven into the national fabric.

“The immigrant generation is focused on India, on the home country,” he said, noting that the TV in his parents’ house is often turned to a Hindi-language channel beamed in from the subcontinent. “I’m focused on the United States, which is my home country.”

That helps explain why a national group he’s involved with, the Hindu American Foundation, recently launched a Take Back Yoga campaign, aimed at raising awareness about the practice’s Hindu roots and values among non-Hindus.

And it's why Bhutada testified at the Capitol in Austin last year against a statewide school curriculum that calls Hinduism a polytheistic religion, a characterization many Hindus reject.

And it's why one area temple has begun placing copies of the Bhagavad Gita, a Hindu scripture, in thousands of Texas hotel rooms, right next to the Gideon Bible.

The developments speak to a new, publicly assertive stance that’s shared by many first-generation American Hindus across Houston, home to one of the country’s largest and fastest growing Indian enclaves, and by many young Hindus across the nation.

The article notes correctly that Hinduism is not a proselytizing faith. Why then the Gita next to the Gideon's Bible in hotel rooms and who are the competitors for the "Americanization" efforts? 

Some young Hindus are envious of the attention that American Muslims and Mormons have received in recent years – even if not all of the attention has been positive – and are trying to raise Hinduism’s national profile.

The goal seems to be for Hindus to become more vocal, assertive and un-selfconscious about their beliefs in public. The approach appears to have somewhat of an evangelical flavor. Sujatha wondered, as did I, whether the demonstrative devoutness of other religious communities in Texas including evangelical Christians, has rubbed off on the local Hindus who find themselves surrounded by public religiosity. The Christian right of the Lone Star State after all, works tirelessly to put a stamp of its faith on matters of the state including public school curricula.

The BAPS Swaminarayan Temple featured on this page and in the CNN report, is on a good day, almost walking distance from my house. It is a beautiful structure and I have taken many visitors there to have a look around. I also go there occasionally to buy the excellent and freshly prepared Indian desserts sold on the premises. I don't participate in the religious activities but did note with interest that the main evening prayer session at the temple is segregated by gender. Women sit in the back cordoned off from the men. A sign near the cut off area reads, "No Ladies Allowed Beyond This Point." No one seems to mind.

Searching for the Google Effect on People's Memory (Norman Costa)

Searching for the Google Effect on People's Memory (Norman Costa)

External brain. There's a growing belief...that people have become more dependent on online information, but few studies have directly examined this."CREDIT: RANDALL MONROE/XKCD.COM"

[P]eople are using the Internet as a personal memory bank: the so-called Google effect. What surprised [Assistant Professor Betsy] Sparrow most was not people's reliance on nonmemorized information but their ability to find it. “We're remarkably efficient,” she says.

Read more HERE and HERE.

Fibonacci's 'Numbers': The Man Behind The Math (Norman Costa)

Fibonacci's 'Numbers': The Man Behind The Math (Norman Costa)

In 1202 Fibonacci published his "Book of Calculation." Eight centuries later we have Arabic numerals and "Quicken - Deluxe Edition."

Though generations of schoolchildren have cursed arithmetic, the world was a much more inconvenient place without it. Before the advent of modern arithmetic in the 13th century, basic calculations required a physical abacus.

But then came a young Italian mathematician named Leonardo da Pisa — no relation to da Vinci — who, in 1202, published a book titled Liber Abaci. That's Latin for "Book of Calculation."

And though it doesn't necessarily sound like an overnight best-seller, it was a smash hit. Liber Abaci introduced practical uses for the Arabic numerals 0 through 9 to Western Europe. The book revolutionized commerce, banking, science and technology and established the basis of modern arithmetic, algebra and other disciplines.

Read more HERE.

Mumbai: Explosions shake India's financial hub (Norman Costa)

Mumbai: Explosions shake India's financial hub

More HERE.

Hi Res photos HERE.

NPR HERE

CNN HERE..

"Empire of the Summer Moon"

 
Much as I would have loved to review this very excellent book at length, I will give that ambitious notion a pass. I just read Empire of the Summer Moon by S.C. Gwynne for my book club. During the animated discussion at our last meeting, the majority opinion was that the book is a great read and also that it disabused us of many of our previously held beliefs about Native Americans and their relationship with the white settlers who displaced them from their territories and hunting grounds. Even my Texan friends were surprised by their faulty knowledge of various Indian tribes, the character and motivations of the  early western settlers, the Texas Rangers, the role of the federal government in formulating wrong headed and dishonest Indian policies and the individuals whose cunning, bravado and fighting skills decided once and for ever, who would rule the western plains and deserts of America. Gwynne's account of the tumultous early history of Texas and surrounding western regions would be a useful (and interesting) addition to high school and college history text books. Compared to the popular and brash narrative of the west which is often clouded by self serving myths, biased reporting and outright falsehoods, Empire of the Summer Moon is detailed, well researched and contains a wealth of little known but vital information about the conquest of American Indians, specifically the fearsome Comanches who dominated the prairies of west Texas. 

For example, my fellow readers and I had no clue that :

• The expression Comanche Moon is associated with great fear and impending disaster and that it is not a romantic meteorological phenomenon. 
• The Apaches were not the most accomplished horsemen among the Plains Indians and they could not actually fight on horseback as Hollywood westerns would have us believe.
• Members of different Indian tribes killed each other in far greater numbers than the casualties they inflicted upon their European conquerors.
• West Texas was where the longest, most decisive battles between Indians and white Americans took place. The struggle for supremacy lasted more than four decades.   
• Plains Indians met the horse in the late 1600s or early 1700s. By 1750, the new horse culture turned the existing hierarchy of Indian tribes on its head. The Comanches, once the lowliest among the western nomadic tribes, mastered the Spanish mustang in a way not seen since Chengiz Khan's Mongol warriors galloped across the steppes, changing the course of north American history and dictating which white European "tribe" would eventually come to occupy southwestern states like Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado and Texas.
• The Indians and their white adversaries were equally brutal in their tactics of dealing with the enemy. The Indian raiders' habit of torturing and raping women horrified Europeans but little compunction was shown by the other side when it came to burning women and children to a crisp while routinely setting Indian villages on fire. Scalping of victims was originally a peculiar Indian custom. As the conflict in the west lingered, the European raiders too became adept at this gruesome battleground sport.
• White settlers were solely responsible for the wholesale slaughter of the American buffalo (to near extinction) although Plains Indians had hunted them extensively for centuries as their main source of food, shelter and clothing.
• The Indian tribes often took captives from other tribes, as also from white communities during raids. Some they brutalized and used as virtual slaves. Pre-pubescent children   between the ages of 7 - 11 on the other hand, were frequently adopted and treated as part of the tribe. Many kidnap victims, like Cynthia Ann Parker, longed forever to return to their Indian communities after they were rescued and returned to their biological families. Cynthia's seventeen year old pregnant aunt Rachel Plummer too was abducted in the same raid. But being an adult woman, she experienced a far more brutal treatment than did the nine year old Cynthia who was adopted by the Comanches. After a captivity of nearly 22 months, Rachel was able to escape and join her family. She wrote an account of her life as a captive of the Comanches - the first of such narratives ever published in Texas.       
• Cynthia Ann Parker's bi-racial son Quanah Parker (pictured on the cover), a handsome, fearless and brilliant warrior-chief was the last significant holdout against the inevitable white domination of America. He too would eventually come to accept his fate of diminished circumstances, living his retirement years in Oklahoma, bargaining shrewdly with whites for as much advantage as he could garner for his family and his tribe. Quanah adjusted to the white man's ways with considerable optimism and intelligence without ever compromising his pride and hertiage. He became friends with many white ranchers, farmers, politicians and military men including Ranald Mckenzie  who pursued and captured him. He became the natural leader of not just the Comanches but most other reservation Indians trusted by white and native Americans. To his dying day, he made sure that no Comanche who came to his doorstep requiring assistance would go back disappointed.
• Some less well known frontier figures like Jack Hays, Sul Ross and Ranald S. Mckenzie played far more critical roles in deciding the outcome of the conflict between Native Americans and European settlers than did rash, bumbling adventurers like George Armstrong Custer and popular folk heroes like Kit Carson. (Carson, unlike Custer, was basically a decent guy who understood and respected his enemy)

Author S.C. Gwynne's superb writing style benefits further from his balanced journalistic approach to history. There is not a whiff of the "noble savage" sentimentality in his description of Indian life. Even though he recognizes the harsh and brutal nature of many tribes, the author is at the same time unequivocal about the  tragedy of their eventual plight in the face of European aggression and expansionism. He is honest and even handed in describing the ruthlessness of the hostilities between the native and newer Americans, a conflict which was not only a clash of widely disparate world views but also a fight to death for territory and political control. In the end, Gwynne leaves us with no doubt that the price of realizing America's Manifest Destiny was paid overwhelmingly by the continent's aboriginal inhabitants, both in terms of human lives as well as spirit.

By the late 1860s when the US was recuperating from its own horrific civil war, the Indian Question was targeted for a final solution. The government had concluded that Indians were not to be trusted to live peacefully among white settlers. They were to be segregated in reservations, the biggest one being in the territory of Oklahoma. In 1867 a "peace council" between several Indian tribal leaders, many from rival tribes, and the representatives of the US government was held near Wichita, KS amidst much pomp and show. (Note that white Indian hunters, Texas Rangers and government soldiers routinely used warring Indian tribes against each other. Tribes like the Utes, Tonkawas and Apaches scouted for Europeans and fought side by side with them against their rivals such as the Comanches and the Kiowas, the fiercest horse tribes and the last of the Indians to be tamed.)

Decimated in numbers, their buffalo herds depleted, white settlements encroaching inexorably into their territory, the Indian tribes knew by this time that they were about to lose the autonomy to roam and hunt freely in centuries-old familiar grounds. The outcome of the council was a foregone conclusion and both sides knew it. But the Indians still made their voices heard, more out of pride and desperation than any real hope. There last ditch but futile appeals by Indian chiefs to the Great White Father to be allowed to hold on to their traditional way of life amidst the prairie plains, the caprock, canyons, streams, springs and bluffs of the southern plains - a long corridoor between the 98th meridian near San Antonio and the eastern edges of the Rocky Mountains running north up to Kansas and Colorado and south down to the Mexican border. Here is the poignant and extraordinarily candid perspective of one of the Indian spokesmen, Ten Bears, an aging Comanche chief:

The Art of Physics, or should it be The Physics of Art ? (Sujatha)

Jackson Pollock may have been a secret physicist, judging by a recent scientific analysis of his techniques and works. Or not.

How many times do we do things without stopping to examine the underlying physical principles? I'm sure that many a cake may have been put together Amelia Bedelia-style, "A pinch of this, a toss of that", and the end result is sometimes better, though quirkier than the perfectly adhered-to recipe.

It makes for fun to know that we do what we do, but doesn't make the outcome palpably better. But the exploration of those principles can make for fascinating stuff.

Pollock's works have alway been the subject of both awe and derision. Whether it was lauded as a 'liberation from value- political, esthetic, moral' or derided as 'a joke in bad taste', the paintings themselves, remain to this day, widely popular and iconic in status as the years pass.

 

From the Wired.com article:

"Now, Boston College art historian Claude Cernuschi,  Harvard mathematicians Lakshminarayanan Mahadevan and Herczynski have turned the tools of physics on Pollock’s painting process. In what they believe is the first quantitative analysis of drip painting, the researchers derived an equation for how Pollock spread paint.

The team focused on the painting Untitled 48-49, which features wiggling lines and curlicues of red paint. Those loops formed through a fluid instability called coiling, in which thick fluids fold onto themselves like coils of rope.

“People thought perhaps Pollock created this effect by wiggling his hand in a sinusoidal way, but he didn’t,” Herczynski said.

There is even an interesting video that illustrates the principle of the fluid mechanics behind some of the curlicues that show up in detailed view the Pollock painting.

 

Now you know what to do on a rainy day with food coloring/paint/flour and paper. Experiment away and make mini-Pollock style masterpieces of your own. You don't need to understand the Physics behind it to enjoy it. Maybe that was partly what Pollock's painting was all about, more about the enjoyment of the moment of creation, and less about understanding the phenomenon behind it.

The "Akinator" knows ...

A friend sent me the link to this interesting web game and I am pretty impressed with the results. I have played it a few times and I can see that it can become quite an addictive distraction. The batting average of the Akinator in my hands is pretty impressive so far. Here are some of the "characters" it identified for me and the number of questions it asked to find the correct answers.

Rabindranath Tagore - 18
Jawaharlal Nehru - 13
Aung San Suu Kyi -18
Emperor Akbar - 19
Shah of Iran - 18
Friedrich Nietzsche -20
Aristotle - 10
Obama - 7
Audrey Hepburn and Sophia Loren - 8 each

I played the game on the American site. It is quite natural that Asian figures took a bit longer than a recent American president and popular western film stars. (I haven't tried Indian movie stars or fictional characters yet) Also, it is not terribly surprising that Nietzsche needed double the number of questions than did Aristotle. Even the couple of mistakes it made were not illogical - Ferdinand Magellan for Vasco da Gama and Guru Gobind Singh for Shivaji. The accuracy of the Akinator of course depends on the depth of our own knowledge of the character we want it to identify. What amazed me somewhat is the totally random and superficial nature of the questions it asks and comes up with the correct answer. 

Ask the Akinator and tell me how your real and fictional "characters" do in its hands. Just remember that they have to be somewhat well known.

About $22 Billion In Gold, Diamonds, Jewels Found In Indian Temple

About $22 Billion In Gold, Diamonds, Jewels Found In Indian Temple

"In Southern India a story that sounds like the plot line of a Hollywood adventure is unfolding. Over the past week, on orders from the country's Supreme Court, a panel has found a treasure estimated to be worth $22 billion in the underground vaults of a Hindu temple in Trivandrum, India."

...

"The vaults had not been opened in about 150 years and the treasure spans some 500 years. India's Supreme Court ordered that the vaults of the temple be inventoried after a man filed a suit that worried about how the trust was caring for the riches."

Read MORE.

 

India and the Temple of Treasure (Sujatha)

Mind, I've never been a fan of the silly memes (Indians eat monkey brains?!!?) so egregiously used in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. But when a real treasure trove shows up in nowhere other than the quiet temple that I used to visit in my hometown, making it perhaps the 'Richest Temple on Earth' as all the headlines have been blaring in the last 24-hour cycle, one cannot resist indulging in a laugh at the chagrin of all  Indiana Jones wannabes and the unspectacular way in which this treasure was found.

No National Geographic special will be needed to capture the excitement of discovery, for there is none. The fact of the treasure's existence was well-recorded enough in temple documents. It was only the extent that had not been truly gauged till now, when a court-ordered listing of the contents of the cellars yielded up an astounding inventory.

From the AP account:

Inside the Sree Padmanabhaswamy Temple, investigators were counting the staggering hoard of gold coins and statues of gods and goddesses studded with diamonds and other precious stones. Outside, small groups of armed policemen patrolled the temple grounds in the heart of the Kerala state capital, Trivandrum.

Metal detectors were hurriedly installed at temple entrances after six days of searches revealed a treasure trove of artifacts, statues and temple ornaments made of gold and embellished with jewels.

The valuables were donated to the temple by devotees over hundreds of years, and India's erstwhile royal family has been the custodian of the treasures.

News anchors struggle at the sight of the name, and wisely, don't attempt to pronounce either 'Thiruvananthapuram' (mangled by the British as Trivandrum, still used in popular parlance, but restored to its original unpronouncability by the Kerala government several years ago.). Nor do they try to utter "Anantha Padmanabhaswamy temple". Whew, it was much easier when the 'Tirupati' temple was declared the richest years ago.

A battle will ensue in court over who is entitled to all these riches. There is a claim from the erstwhile royal family of Travancore, who have acted as hereditary guardians of the temple, having made generous endowments to in the past for upkeep and ceremonies. They have also filed a petition to keep all the details of the discoveries out of the media limelight. The Kerala state government opines that the treasure belongs to the temple, not the royal family. So, there will likely be counter-claims on the treasure from the state Devaswom Board, a bureaucratic department that  was formed by the government to administer these temples in post-Independence India.

What does one do with $22 billion worth of gold and diamonds (and that is the estimated worth without taking into account the antique value)?  It came from the blood, sweat and tears of so many people over so many centuries. Maybe they ought to put it in a museum for the public to enjoy and see, but wouldn't that be a magnet for thieves, harder to secure now that all is brought to light.

Or, perhaps, they should be parcelled out to premier institutions all over the world, keeping some for the local museum. The money obtained by selling them off could be put to good use in establishing universal education and healthcare all over India. The Travancore royals had always been in the forefront of such moves when they were rulers. One wonders if they might adopt such a strategy, if they were granted possession of this treasure by the courts.

Would a democratic government do the same, should they win this case, or will India's famously corrupt politicians gobble up the lion's share of any such profits? Only time will tell.

 

PAKISTAN: Christians Concerned After Minorities Ministry ‘Devolved’

 

PAKISTAN:

Christians Concerned After Minorities Ministry ‘Devolved’ 

"Pakistan has abolished its Federal Ministry for Religious Minorities as part of a larger plan of government decentralization approved by the Parliament of Pakistan in February. The move against this specific ministry had been delayed at the urging of the Minister for Minority Affairs Shabhaz Bhatti before his assassination on March 2.

"A source in the Pakistan government said the decision to proceed with the ministry’s closing was like killing Bhatti “a second time.” According to the plan, the responsibilities of the ministry will be devolved from the federal level to the provincial level. But this source worried that in practical terms that may mean "removing from the agenda of the central government issues related to minority rights.""

Read more HERE.