Accidental Blogger

Pakistan Predictions 2012 (omar ali)

First posted on 3quarksdaily.com

Punditry without predictions is like a fish without a bicycle and who would ever want that? But if one does make predictions, one’s predictions can be checked. That, perhaps, is why no paid pundit makes too many predictions. But, with nothing at stake, I will not only make predictions, I will also recall predictions from 3 years ago for criticism And dear socialist friends, please remember these are not prescriptions, they are predictions. I don’t like them much either.

March 2009.  I took a road trip across the Eastern United States that month and asked several generally well informed Pakistani friends what they thought was likely to happen in Pakistan in the days to come. I am reproducing that article unchanged below; the first few theories are what my friends proposed would happen, followed by my own predictions from 2009. I consulted two of the same friends again this week and their current predictions and my own 2012 predictions follow.  It is, of course, a very small and unrepresentative sample, biased towards liberals, infidels and leftists with no other input. And it is not expressed in University-Speak. So please, be gentle. 

The 2009 scenarios.

1. Things fall apart: This theory holds that all the various chickens have finally come home to roost. The elite has robbed the country blind and provided neither governance nor sustenance and now the revolution is upon us: the jihadis have a plan and the will to enforce it and the government has neither. The jihadis have already captured FATA and most of Malakand (a good 20% of NWFP) and are inevitably going to march onwards to Punjab and Sindh. The army is incapable of fighting these people (and parts of it are actively in cahoots with the jihadis) and no other armed force can match these people. The public has been mentally prepared for Islamic rule by 62 years of Pakistani education and those who do resist will be labeled heretics and apostates and ruthlessly killed. The majority will go along in the interest of peace and security. America will throw more good money after bad, but in the end the Viceroy and her staff will be climbing rope ladders onto helicopters and those members of the elite who are not smart enough to get out in time will be hanging from the end of the ladder as the last chopper pulls away from the embassy. Those left behind will brush up their kalimas and shorten their shalwars and life will go on. The Taliban will run the country and all institutions will be cleansed and remodeled in their image. 

2. Jihadi Army: The army is the army of Pakistan. Pakistan is an Islamic state. They know what to do. They will collect what they can from the Americans because we need some infidel technologies that we don’t have in our own hands yet, but one glorious day, we will purge the apostate officers and switch to full jihadi colors. The country will be ruled with an iron hand by some jihadi general, not by some mullah from FATA. All corrupt people will be shot. Many non-corrupt people will also be shot. Allah’s law will prevail in Allah’s land. And then we will deal with Afghanistan (large scale massacre of all apostates to be held in the stadium), India, Iran and the rest of the world in that order. 

3. Controlled burn: This theory holds that there is no chance of any collapse or jihadi takeover. What we are seeing are the advanced stages of a Jedi negotiation (or maybe a Sith negotiation would be a better term). The army wants more money and this is a controlled burn. They let the Taliban shoot up some schools and courts (all bloody useless civilian institutions anyway). Panic spreads across the land. People like John Kerry come to Islamabad and almost shit in their pants at the thought of Taliban “60 miles away from the capital”. Just as Zia played the drunken Charlie Wilson and the whole Reagan team for fools, the current high command is playing on the fears and ignorance of the American embassy and morons like Kerry and even Clinton. 5 billion is peanuts. The sting has been prepared with extreme finesse. When Obama coughs up a good 10-20 billion, things will be brought under control, but just barely. The scam will continue for the foreseeable future. The jihadis may have their dreams, but the army is in charge and can easily defend the “settled areas”. The rest can stay in jihadi hands as a suitable cash cow. 

4. The coming war on the Indian border: The border of India is on the Indus, not on the Radcliffe line. The Taliban will take over the mountains, but they will be resisted at the edge of the plains. The Americans will train the army to fight this new war. There will be setbacks and loads of violence, but in the end the center will hold. America will fight a new kind of drone war in the mountains and in time, the beards will be forced to negotiate. Along the way, many wedding parties will also get bombed but you cannot make an omelet without breaking eggs. The Indian part of Pakistan will make peace with India and India will help us fight the Northern invaders. The army high command is NOT jihadi. But they lack capacity and need time to build it up. They need to be supported and strengthened. America should pay them more money and pay more heed to their tactical advice.

5. Buffer state: a variant of the above theory holds that Punjab is the historic buffer of India. All sorts of invaders come in, fight over the Punjab and capture it. Then the peasants get to work. We might even convert to whatever barbaric ideology they have brought, but in time the peasants outbreed and outflank the invaders. In the end, the invaders become Indian and help us outbreed and outlast the next invading horde. We win by “assimilation and attrition”. I am not sure if this is an optimistic theory or a pessimistic one. In India, the two are practically the same anyway. 

And this was my personal opinion in 2009: The state is stronger than many people think. But it is grossly incompetent and the elite itself is split and infiltrated by jihadi sympathizers. It won’t collapse soon, but all problems will continue to get worse for the foreseeable future. A big drone offensive is coming and there will be much secondary fighting in Pakistan. But there is at least a 50-50 chance that Jihadistan will NOT be able to expand into the Punjab and Sindh (though much terrorism will surely happen). The army will be gradually purged of jihadis and will one day come around to being a serious anti-jihadi force, but it won’t be easy and it may not happen. If the army continues to have jihadi sympathies, then all bets are off and many horrendous scenarios are imaginable. The US embassy presumably knows more than we do. On the other hand, their declassified documents make it clear that they are incredibly naïve and racist in their assumptions and tend to regard the people they have colonized as mildly retarded children; so there is a good chance they don’t know batshit about what is going on, but are able to present impressive looking PowerPoints about three cups of tea with Kiyani and the other brown children who inhabit the world outside the green zone.. 

The 2012 Predictions. This time I asked the friend who proposed “controlled burn” (he wants to be known as Subcommandante Zee) and Dr. A, who proposed “Jihadi army” in 2009 and then I made some new and improved predictions of my own.

1. Mutually Assured Corruption. This is Subcommandante Zee’s current prediction (and he claims copyright on the term); Pakistan’s army and bureaucracy used to get first dibs on everything, but their short-sighted policies have weakened their hold over the country and they will now share power with the politicians and the judiciary in an arrangement of mutually assured corruption. This elite will continue to enrich itself and will provide limited governance at least in the core Punjabi and urban areas. The Jihadis will continue to occupy sections of FATA and the current on-again off-again peace process will alternate with tit for tat bombings and killings for the foreseeable future, but they will not be able to expand beyond the Islamic emirate. Punjabi Jihadis will remain divided between true believers and ISI-controlled assets and will continue to be used to milk the Americans and to maintain a background level of Islamism in society. Baluchistan will become Pakistan’s Kashmir, an unhappy population subject to harsh measures but unable to break away. Unlike Kashmiris, they will also be swamped by settlers and thumped by Jihadis allied with the army. In that sense, they will be worse off than Kashmir. But they cannot break away unless a foreign power (the USA and no other) acts on their behalf and that will not happen because the US has interests in Pakistan and no matter how badly the Pakistani army behaves, as a nuclear power they will get a second (and third and fourth) chance as long as they themselves remain aware of the limits of American patience.

2. Jihadi Army. Dr. A proposed this scenario in 2009 and he is sticking by his prediction. He says that that the “optimists” assume that economic self-interest or non-jihadist cultural elements will somehow dominate the hardcore Jihadist elements because economics and deep cultural roots trump fringe Jihadism in principle. But this fails to take into account the peculiar nature of the Pakistani state. Pakistan is the perfect marriage of Islamic supremacism, psychotic self-hatred (i.e. hatred for our own Indian roots) and elite incompetence. The elite may indeed regard hardcore Islamism as a step too far, but they are terminally corrupt and incompetent and every passing year brings us closer to revolution. And in Pakistan, the revolution will not be Marxist, it will be Islamist. An overwhelming majority of the population long since abandoned all “un-Islamic” identities in principle (though not in practice, yet). When the shit hits the fan, they will look towards something called “Islam” to solve their problems. And it won’t be the thinly imagined Islam of Ziauddin Sardar or Westernized Karachi socialites. It will be the real deal; Salafist-Wahabi Islam willing to kill all infidels. And they will start at home with Shias and other internal enemies.

My own prediction in 2012: More of the same. I agree with Subcommandante Zee that the elite will hold on with “mutually assured corruption”. I think Baluchistan will remain a festering wound but it will not reach Bangladesh or Kashmir level of violence. I think some of the Jihadist militias in FATA will continue to fight the state but outside of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa the level of violence will be tolerable. And I think Imran Khan will not be able to solve corruption in 19 days or terrorism in 90 days. In fact, I think he won’t even be able to come into power. I think the US will gradually lessen its footprint in the region and will try to hand over a lot of the local imperialist duties to China, but the Chinese will prove too smart to take up the job. Through all this, economic growth and rapid cultural change will continue in Pakistan and will even accelerate. The army’s hold on the country will weaken over time. Their dream of a “Chinese model authoritarian regime with Islamic characteristics” will remain unfulfilled.  Nothing will look satisfactory to anyone, but the state will not collapse and there will be no wider war. In short, I don’t think Pakistan is about to collapse, but I don’t think it is about to undergo some magical transformation under the wise leadership of Kiyani or Imran Khan either. And I don’t think it’s going to see an “Islamic revolution” because there is no there there. The Islamists themselves have no workable plan for any such revolution. They are mouthing empty slogans and at some level most people know this.

The long term future of Pakistan is “Indianization”. Not in the sense of “Indian cultural invasion” or “Indian hegemony”, but in the simple literal sense of “becoming more like India”. Obviously not exactly like India, but close enough for government work;, a corruption-ridden, imperfect third world democracy with an expanding capitalist economy and many internal divisions and stresses and the additional burden of Islamic fantasizing. And I think there is little chance of developing a unique indigenous socialist/islamist/vegetarian short-cut past all these problems, much to the dismay of the Arundhati Roys and Tariq Alis, not to speak of Hindutvadis and Islamists. Pakistan will not show the world some new path to the future. It will be a “normal” South Asian country, trying to stabilize a democratic model derived from British Indian roots while working out a modus vivendi between its ancient cultures, its “Islamic” ideals and the modern world. The economy has now become too large for even the narrow elite to be dominated by imperial mercenary duties or scams related to the same. In that sense, things will be a little better. It’s not a perfect outcome, but we do not live in a perfect world.  

 

 

How the Mind Works: The Dunning-Kruger Effect (Norman Costa)

How the Mind Works: The Dunning-Kruger Effect (Norman Costa)

A Facebook friend, Jose Del Solar, posted the folowing article on the Dunning-Kruger effect: Incompetent People Too Ignorant to Know It.

The Dunning-Kruger effect is fascinating, and I've written about it before. In short, people with little knowledge are unable to appreciate their intellectual deficit. Instead they view themselves as very knowledgeable. They overstate their own intellectual competence. On the other hand, people who are very knowledgeable, see themselves as far less accomplished.

Most people will pass through a low knowledge episode or short period of the D-K effect in the course of being educated, growing, and learning. In fact, we may do it multiple times, usually before we get out of high school.

I remember one of my own experiences in 10th grade biology. We had many classes on human blood and the circulatory system. A friend and I agreed that we learned a great deal of the subject matter, compared to our total ignorance at the start of 2nd year biology. We could not imagine that there was more to learn, because it seemed, to us, as comprehensive as we could imagine.

It may sound cliche, but as we learn more and more we appreciate how little we know about the larger subject matter areas. D-K folks never get that far. The D-K effect is evident in just about any subject matter area you can imagine.

What I have found so bothersome, and troubling, is the number of people in positions of power (corporate, military, politics, varied institutions) who cannot imagine that there own knowledge of the world is deficient. The two most obvious examples that come to mind are George W. Bush, and Sarah Palin.

Even when they are brought up to speed on an area where they were deficient, they still cannot see that there could be more to come. To you and I, this is obvious, and we can't get our minds around the fact that they are completely oblivious. Palin was never embarrassed by the fact that she thought Africa was a country, not a continent. However, she was pissed that others made her feel inferior because she was not in the know.

One of the post-hoc giveaways of the D-K effect is that the person who leaves a position of great power is unable to manifest a sense of humility at confronting and dealing with the things that demanded great intellectual effort and new learning. They don't express a sense of awe and respect for what others who preceded them had to deal with, nor any sympathy or compassion for the next person who will occupy the seat of power they just vacated. Again, Bush and Palin are two great examples.

There is another phenomenon that I've observed, and it may be a variation on the D-K effect, except that you find it in otherwise knowledgeable and smart people. This happens when confronted with a problem to be solved, or an area of new knowledge that is important to the present situation. They come to an solution, or an understanding, very quickly and then they hold onto that idea or position with enormous tenacity. One exceptional example was Alexander Haig. He was the former Supreme Commander of NATO forces, Whitehouse aide to President Nixon, and former Secretary of State. I've known a number of these people in executive positions in IBM Corp. This is not a matter of blind adherence to ideology. It's a very different animal.

It is always interesting to try to divine the thought process of political figures. Since this is a Presidential election year, it's a more salient matter. Rick Santorum, in my opinion, formed every significant thought he ever had by the time he was 21. Intellectual life, since that time, has been a process of seeing anything new as a variation on what he already knows. There is a prearranged slot on the shelf for anything that comes along, and no need to create any new slots or reconfigure the old ones.

Mitt Romney, in my opinion, is very much aware of his intellectual limitations and the availability of other view points on just about any issue. Newt Gingrich is harder to read. I am not sure if he displays a thought process that discounts new learning, and overvalues what he knows, or if he is just being confrontational, insulting, and controversial as a strategy, or as a character defect.

I have this mental image of showing the article I referenced, above, to someone who lacks knowledge yet believes they know just about all there is to know. After reading the article they look up at me and ask, "Yeah, so what's your point?"

3rd Annual 3QD Arts & Literature Prize

Right as clockwork, another competition is under way at the great and friendly blog 3 Quarks Daily - this time for the best blog writings in art and literature to be judged by author Gish Jen. Please nominate a well written suitable piece published in the last 12 months. For details, follow the link above.

 

Taj Collage (Sujatha)

The Taj Mahal and the gardens around it now:

 

 

 

 

 

and below, before the 1900-1908 renovations by Lord Curzon: 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This comparison was prompted by Ruchira's email mentioning a recent book published on the gardens of the Raj: "The book claims that while English women of the Raj period

introduced exotic European flowers and residential green lawns in India, Lord Curzon's manicure of the grounds of the Taj Mahal may have been a wrongheaded attempt at landscaping."

It is evident that the greenery takes a larger share of the focus with the earlier design, harkening back to the general principles of Mughal Gardens, of which Shalimar Bagh in Kashmir, built by Emperor Jahangir for the redoubtable Empress Nur Jahan is an excellent example. But the clearing of the greenery that was part of the main approach to the Taj Mahal, Curzon forced the viewer to focus on the building and architecture. The garden became a thin  frame around a central 'monument to love', rather than part of a harmonious whole in a sylvan wonderland.

What do you think? Does the Taj look better with the severe manicure of the grounds or with the lush greenery preceding the 20th century 'makeover'?

Robert Glaser, American Psychologist, 1921 - 2012 (Norman Costa)

Robert Glaser, American Psychologist, 1921 - 2012 (Norman Costa)

The New York Times printed an obituary for the renowned American psychologist, Robert Glaser. You can read it HERE.

Bob Glaser's major contributions to American psychology were in the fields of learning (educational psychology) and psychological testing. My doctoral degree is in educational psychology. It was impossible to write a paper on the subject of school learning and not have a reference or two to research by Glaser.

So, I went back to my graduate school bible on educational psychology to note the references to Glaser's research. The text was, "Educational Psychology, A Cognitive View," by David P. Ausubel, 1968. Here are some highlights of Glaser's research:

1. For meaningful verbal learning, as opposed to rote learning, the reinforcing value of Skinnerian feedback is discounted. Learners who respond covertly, or read the correct answer, are just as likely to learn and retain as those who produce an overt response that is reinforced.

2. One result of this is a more efficient learning experience. Learners do not need reinforcement at each and every step in the learning of meaningful verbal materials. Having a student construct a response, rather than reading it, shows no difference in outcome, except that response construction takes longer.

3. Breaking down learning tasks into small steps reduces learning errors, but increases total time to learn. In general, programmed learning is equal to, or slightly better than, more conventional methods of teaching.

4. When teaching the meaning of scientific terms, "...repetition has only a transitory effect upon retention...." "Spaced reviews produce significant facilitation in retention of the reviewed material."

5. Glaser made the distinction between norm referenced testing and criterion referenced testing. Norm referenced testing places the score of the individual relative to the average and standard deviation of a larger group (for example, all 8th graders in Houston, Texas public schools.) Criterion referenced testing compares a person's score to an agreed 'absolute' standard of performance. You find this in vocational testing for doctors, airline pilots, life guards, handlers of very hazardous materials, etc.

Bob Glaser came out of a corps of military psychologists who served during World War II. His research on programmed instruction came out of military research on training.

The technology and theories of psychological testing were developed for the selection of servicemen and servicewomen, and Army Airforce pilots, bombardiers, and navigators (the US Navy as well.)

Experience and knowledge gained in the war effort were transfered to universities after the war.

Bob Glaser was among many psychologists who cautioned the public and educators about the limitations of testing. "In a report that called test results “fallible and partial indicators of academic achievement,” the panel [headed by Glaser] warned educators to avoid letting them become “the major goals of schooling.”"

In my personal view, Bush's "No child left behind" legislation is a monument to the failure to heed that warning. It is also a monument to the politicization of testing, education, and the war on teachers.

Glaser was only 4 years younger than my father, Frank Costa (1917 - 2010.) My father grew up in Manhattan on the East Side. Glaser grew up in the Bronx, where my family moved in the early 1950s.

Glaser had to leave New York University, a private institution, when his father suffered a business reversal. However, he enrolled at The City University of New York, a public institution, which provided tuition free education for all who were accepted. CUNY was able to provide free college education to the children of New Yorkers, even in the depths of the Great Depression. It was a high yield investment in the students, our city, state, and the country. When the population of the City University of New York became more black, yellow, and brown, it was discovered that the City and State of New York could not afford free college education for its citizens.

I am sorry the NY Times chose to cite Diane Ravitch's 2010 book in support of Bob Glaser's views, “The Death and Life of the Great American School System: How Testing and Choice Are Undermining Education.” Ravitch was an intellectual goon in the Bush Department of Education who did as much as she could possibly do to discredit the views of people like Glaser, beat the crap out of teachers, and organize the transfer of many millions of tax payer dollars to politically connected testing corporations.

After leaving her post she had a conversion experience on her Road to Damascus, confessed her sinful life of murder and assassination, and embraced the teachings of the righteous educators who knew what they were doing all along. They could have found a more deserving person to contribute to Bob Glaser's eulogy.

Rise of Indian consumerism and Valentine's Day

Valentine's Day, an alien and mostly unobserved event just a decade ago, is now big in India.

The bird that made a big splash

I am currently in New Delhi, staying where I always stay, in my parents' old house where I spent a large part of my youth. At the request of a friend I photographed the inside and outside of my home and posted some of the pictures on Facebook as three albums showing different parts of the house.

It is nearly the end of winter in India; spring is just a few weeks away. Delhi is full of migratory birds as well as those that live here year round. Many of these birds congregate in the backyard of our house throughout the day, partly because of the grains of rice, crumbs of bread and a clay pot of fresh water to be found there. So far I have caught sight of parrots, nightingales, magpies, doves, crows, sparrows and one  species of song bird that I did not recognize. Yesterday afternoon I took my camera to the backyard. After exercising considerable stealth and patience and working around a bright sun, tree branches and skittish birds, I managed to capture some decent shots of the avian visitors. (There were many more blurred shots than pictures in focus) Most of the photos of the Delhi home created some interest on my Facebook pages but the "Birds in the Backyard" collection is the biggest hit by far.

One photo in particular has garnered a lot of admiration. It shows the unnamed "songbird" I mentioned earlier (I have now been told it is an oriental magpie robin) - an unusually friendly bird in a pensive mood and strategically framed. The most common comment that viewers have made about the photo is that it looks like a painting, a Japanese painting in particular. It is true - I thought the same when I saw the photo I had managed to snap - a lucky shot of "life imitating art."

 

The caste system in India - no one is immune...

Not even Islam or for that matter, any other major Indian religions which "officially" do not subscribe to social stratification by virtue of one's birth. Therefore it is not unusual to hear of "Brahmin" Christians, "Kshatriya "Sikhs and "Rajput" Muslims of high birth.The effects of the Hindu caste system go beyond the grotesque practices of exploitation and brutality for which it is notorious. Most social interactions from matrimony to business dealings are largely dictated by caste considerations. Indian politics are rife with loyalties and rivalries based on caste and religion. There are layers upon layers of cultural/ social / religious dimensions to regional and national politics in India, and the candidates for public office rely heavily upon identity politics. Communities in India irrespective of wealth and status, quietly practice their own individual forms of the caste system in private as well as public life, frequently giving shape to the political leadership. These differences are particularly sharp during communal unrest. In more placid times, people tend to think more of their own economic interests and the voting pattern of a particular religious group or caste cannot be taken for granted.  It is not uncommon for unethical politicians to instigate riots and disturbances close to elections in order to divide communities and then pander to one side or the other. Right now elections are being held in several north Indian states with sizable Muslim populations. Politicians are predictably watching the "Muslim vote bloc." But some are warning that to count the vastly diverse and complex Indian Muslim communities as a monolitic entity may prove to be a miscalculation. Shahid Siddiqui, a Muslim member of the Indian Parliament from UP explains why.

The myth of the Muslim vote bank, though denied by sociologists and debunked by psephologists, refuses to die. It reasserts itself with new vigour at every election. Even those well aware of the diversity within the community cannot resist building their arguments on this spurious claim.

The vote bank theory has been convenient for labelling Muslims and shoving them into handy brackets. It was done in India to explain the political behaviour of Muslims across regional, linguistic, caste, class and social barriers. Today it is done globally to gloss over inconvenient and inconsistent behaviour: it is a one-size fits all formula that cuts across regions and rides over locational differences and circumstances. Whether they are Thai, Chechen, Palestinian or European, Muslims are judged unfailingly by their faith and so-called beliefs. In this foretold story, everything is pre-decided: the crime, the culprit, the cause, the evidence and the punishment.

The vote bank

The idea that there is something called a “Muslim vote bank,” which behaves uniformly across the board, suits equally the Muslim leadership and its right wing Hindu counterpart. Muslim leaders and middlemen can bargain with political parties on behalf of this “collective” vote, as if individual Muslims have no opinion of their own and can be herded together in a pre-determined direction for a price decided mutually between the politicians and the community's self-appointed spokespersons. The Muslim vote bank helps communal Hindu organisations to manufacture their own “Hindu vote bank,” and use the whipped up Muslim threat to achieve their ultimate objective: a Hindu-Muslim electoral polarisation. The secular sections too have become unwitting participants in this game. Their intention is presumably to lift Muslims out of their sense of insecurity but the constant focus has only served to perpetuate the fear and victimhood that have been the bane of the community. Experts on 24x7 TV channels habitually use the vote bank theory to offer pat explanations for Muslim behaviour and to reach pre-fabricated conclusions.

I know I will be roundly attacked for these assertions for they question the very basis on which sectarian elements on both sides have built their arguments. The Muslim Ulema refuse to accept the ground reality of Islam in India which is as much mired in caste politics as any other Indian religion. The plain truth is that Muslim society is as divided as Hindu society and along the same caste and regional lines. Caste is such a formidable Indian/Hindu institution that no ideology can escape it: Islam, Christianity, Marxism, rationalism, modernism have all floundered on the bedrock of this hard reality. Islam became acceptable in medieval Indian society as a caste group and not as a religious group. Mughals, Pathans, Turks, Sheikhs and Syeds were regarded as sub-castes, so much so that other Indian converts to Islam came to be conveniently regarded as outcasts.

Then there is this story which points out the ways in which caste politics is now being exploited with Muslim voters by pandering politicians. What I found interesting in this article is what I had suspected all along. A community votes as a bloc when their existence or identity is threatened in some way. With right wing Hindu parties like the BJP mostly in a waning phase in Indian politics, Muslims in India are voting for pocket book issues and not cultural ones. More interesting is the Congress Party's shameless pandering to the community by awarding Scheduled Caste / Scheduled Tribe status to "low caste" Muslims. As I pointed out earelier, it is an open secret that in India, there is "always" a caste system, irrespective of the faith of a community and that there are indeed rich and poor Muslims in India whose livelihoods and status fall across social lines based on traditional occupations which mirror the Hindu caste system. But isn't it somewhat cynical and ironic to introduce this kind of stratification as policy for a religious group which at least on paper, doesn't recognize such classifications? The third interesting item in this news report is that the Muslim special groups which may benefit from the government quota are anxious not to anger the large and powerful Yadav community (a designated SC / ST Hindu community) of UP with whom the Muslims had in the past joined hands to break the upper caste Hindu monopoly in the politics of Uttar Pradesh. This is identity politics at its best - making strange bedfellows, creating and disrupting unlikely alliances and fostering atavistic tendencies.

Nerd sweat, conservation of (prasad)

The total amount of nerditude in the universe is fixed; it can only be converted from one form into another.

Thus Spake the Crocodile...(Sujatha)

 

Carefully crafted, teary-eyed sentiments indeed. As well they should be, given the outrage poured on Susan G. Komen Foundation's decision to stop giving grants to the Planned Parenthood for breast cancer screening and preventative education. This could mean a huge drop in liberal contributions to the Orgy of Pinkfulness that the Komen Foundation sustains not only in October, but year-round as part of its effort to 'eradicate breast cancer', a goal that remains muddied by the numerous partnerships it forges with corporations who don't exactly promote good health through their products.

"Critics of the decision have pointed to the fact that Komen recently hired a vice president who had pushed for the defunding of Planned Parenthood during a gubernatorial run. 

According to Komen, the decision was born not out of political pressure but rather as part of an ongoing effort to exact "stronger performance criteria for our grantees."

The outrage has so far garnered from the public a substantial proportion of the funds that Planned Parenthood stood to lose.

Planned Parenthood said Wednesday that it received more than $400,000 from 6,000 donors in the 24 hours after news broke that its affiliates would be losing grants for breast screenings from the Susan G. Komen for the Cure breast-cancer foundation.

Komen, meanwhile, incurred heated criticism from some members of Congress, numerous liberal advocacy groups and some newspaper editorial writers. But it was applauded by many conservative religious and anti-abortion groups that abhor Planned Parenthood for its role as the leading U.S. abortion provider.

If we are all a little less pinked-out after this, we can thank Karen Handel for her decision to push through the defunding 'organizations under investigation' rule. But I have a feeling that come October, the frenzy for the Pinking of America will rebound, as it always does, with the fresh legions of the newly-diagnosed.