Accidental Blogger

Sunday Cyber-Sermon (Sujatha)

Here are the suggestions of Sujatha, the humble not-so-uber-geeky blogger, on C&Ping from webpages when composing blog posts:

1. Focus on Tested Websites, not obscurities. (Psalm 345:1-3)

Notice how Sujatha extols Google first. Then, in comparison to Google, she has no need of alternate search engines.

"The Google is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear?"

"The Google is the strength of my life; of whom shall I be afraid?"

Undoubtedly one of the greatest hurdles to overcome in blogging is fear, the fear of PC Viruses, Trojans and Malware.

Sujatha did not let fear take the blog out of her life.
Blogger Ruchira shares the story of a person who had a very bad day.

"Heinous pictures and videos can be deposited on computers by viruses — the malicious programs better known for swiping your credit card numbers. In this twist, it's your reputation that's stolen."

It began when Mike was suspected based on his internet charges by his employers of excessive internet usage. An investigation turned up pornographic pictures on his computer, which cost him his job and thousands of dollars in money spent to clear himself of the charges, which were found to have been the result of PC viruses downloading porn on his computer when he wasn't even at work.

Have you ever felt like that? One minute you’re whistling through life, blogging away happily and the next you’re caught up in a whirlwind of stress, as unwanted ads pop up on your blog's webpage.  Life sucks you up into its vortex and just when you think you’ve recovered from one trouble another wind of adversity blows in your direction.

Don’t be like Mike. Don’t let the blog go out of your life.

But how is this possible? It becomes possible when we focus on who the Devil WebAdsman is. In the case of Ruchira and her blog, it was the material cut and pasted from the Smithsonian website, that had the horrendous hidden code, which showed up C&Ping to Notepad. It quoth "Read more:http://smithsonian.blah.blah.blah.com" and stealthily, like the verily serpent that is Satan, downloaded Ads for cars and other monuments to human greed to tempt us faithful bloggers from the path of righteousness.

He is our light. He is our salvation. We are no longer living in the darkness of sin. We will diligently check for hidden code when we cut and paste from internet sources. No enemy can take the Internet’s salvation from us! No enemy can impose Satanic Ads on our blog posts!

--With apologies to The original sermon creator and a tip of the hat to Margaret Atwood and her marvellous alternate theology of The God's Gardeners in her latest book "The Year of the Flood"

All Sujatha wants for Christmas is a book by Malcom Gladwell

Here is why.

"I am them!"

Sounds like something straight out of ancient Hindu philosophy. Well, you realize you are drunk, you are driving and not very well; naturally, it's time to lapse into metaphysics or at the very least, some commendable drunken clarity.

Mad Men in 60 Seconds (prasad)

A Diplomatic Diary: Maddening Nigerians, Dishonest Nicaraguans, Lewd Thais, Unimpressive Canadians ...

And bloviating bureaucrats! Recently disclosed letters from UK diplomats to their home office in London reveal the contempt and exasperation they harbored for their foreign hosts. To their credit, the supercilious officials sniffed equally impatiently at cocktail parties and the "stuffiness" of their own ministry.

LONDON - It's not exactly diplomatic - details of what British ambassadors really think about their foreign hosts were disclosed Sunday following the release of a series of frank, and sometimes outright rude, letters to London from embassies around the world.

Canadians are deeply unimpressive, Nigerians are maddening, Nicaraguans often dishonest and the Thais commonly lewd, British diplomats claim in notes sent to Britain's Foreign Office over the past five decades.

The letters were disclosed to the BBC under Freedom of Information laws.

Lord Moran, high commissioner in Ottawa between 1981 and 1984, claimed Canadians had limited talents.

"Anyone who is even moderately good at what they do - in literature, the theatre, skiing or whatever - tends to become a national figure. And anyone who stands out at all from the crowd tends to be praised to the skies and given the Order of Canada at once," Moran wrote in his letter, according to files released to the BBC.

The letters also reveal how diplomats were bored by endless rounds of cocktail parties, and exasperated by the British government's failure to shake off its stuffy image overseas.

Until 2006, ambassadors retiring from their post or moving country traditionally sent a valedictory dispatch to London, offering their candid personal assessment of the country in which they had served.

In a 1967 memo, Roger Pinsent, Britain's outgoing ambassador to Nicaragua, was scathing in his criticism.

"There is, I fear, no question that the average Nicaraguan is one of the most dishonest, unreliable, violent and alcoholic of the Latin Americans," Pinsent wrote.

Two years later, David Hunt - then high commissioner to Nigeria - said the West African country's leaders had "a maddening habit of always choosing the course of action which will do the maximum damage to their own interests."

"Africans as a whole are not only not averse to cutting off their nose to spite their face; they regard such an operation as a triumph of cosmetic surgery," Hunt claimed in his letter.

Anthony Rumbold, Britain's ambassador to Thailand from 1965 to 1967, mocked his hosts for an apparent lack of culture. "They have no literature, no painting and only a very odd kind of music; their sculpture, ceramics and dancing are borrowed from others, and their architecture is monotonous and interior decoration hideous," Rumbold wrote.

"Nobody can deny that gambling and golf are the chief pleasures of the rich, and that licentiousness is the main pleasure of them all," he said.

Other diplomats used their letters to criticize British bureaucracy, and the sometimes dull world of international relations.

The rest of the diplomatic report card here.  I guess bureaucrats are  the same everywhere - always pompous and mostly contemptuous of what they are in charge of overseeing.  The Brits I suspect, are especially jaded.  Although Nicaragua, Nigeria (and other African countries) and Thailand bear the brunt of bitter and hostile criticism, I find the condescending assessment of Canada as a nation satisfied with utter mediocrity, a withering low blow.  Wonder if it will prompt Ottawa to opt out of the Commonwealth.

Desperately seeking happiness

I don't want to come across as cynical or grumpy. In fact, I am for the most part a happy person and have nothing against other happy people. After all, most human enterprises, be it work, pleasure or leisure, are geared toward increasing the happiness quotient in our life's ledger book. Civilizing efforts through the ages - family, community, religion, philosophy, scientific and technological advances, medicine and government were organized and operated around the notion that we should employ these entities to identify what is "good" for us and what make us happy.

In recent years, the concept of happiness has spilled over from the confines of philosophy, literature, religion and the psychologist's office - from the merely personal to a collective concept. I first wrote about the broader definition of happiness when I introduced here a very interesting book by Anthony and Charles Kenny a few years ago. Government agencies too are now concerning themselves with happiness, going beyond economic indicators such as the GDP or the magic of the free market. Cut and dried number crunching is giving way to assessing the more nebulous Well Being Indices.  Leading the way in diagnosing national cheer was the tiny country of Bhutan. I wrote about it here and the New York Times had a four page article on Bhutan's attempt at redefining prosperity based not merely on wealth but also the happiness co-efficient and coining the new political phrase Gross National Happiness.  

Bhutan, the king said, needed to ensure that prosperity was shared across society and that it was balanced against preserving cultural traditions, protecting the environment and maintaining a responsive government. The king, now 49, has been instituting policies aimed at accomplishing these goals.

Now Bhutan's example, while still a work in progress, is serving as a catalyst for far broader discussions of national well-being.

Around the world, a growing number of economists, social scientists, corporate leaders and bureaucrats are trying to develop measurements that take into account not just the flow of money but also access to health care, free time with family, conservation of natural resources and other noneconomic factors.

The goal, according to many involved in this effort, is in part to return to a richer definition of the word happiness, more like what the signers of the Declaration of Independence had in mind when they included "the pursuit of happiness" as an inalienable right equal to liberty and life itself.

It is not surprising that Bhutan, a Buddhist country, is astute enough to appreciate that happiness  goes beyond personal material wealth. Now French president Nicolas Sarkozy is seeking the help of three Nobel winning economists to educate his own country on what constitutes a healthy and happy society.

So far so good. But what about the quest for individual happiness? Americans have for long relentlessly pursued personal fulfillment (gratification?) as defined by religious leaders, inspirational speakers, media personalities, financial institutions and peddlers of products and services. Do happiness seeking individuals add up to a happier society overall?  Not necessarily, says an article in Newsweek. Paradoxically, the obsessive pursuit of personal happiness may in the end, prove to be an obstacle to the very state of over all bliss people seek, say some observers of social trends. The anxiety to be happy (Oprah style) may in fact make us somewhat self obsessed and detract from collective contentment. The article makes some good points but I am afraid that in comparing Americans to Europeans or other "happy" people, there may be some risk of conflating complacency with good spirits.  I am copying Julie Baird's article in its entirety below the fold because Newsweek items have a tendency to "disappear" after a while. The most cogent point about happiness appears at the very end. It is attributed to Eleanor Roosevelt, a remarkable woman, who obsessed very little about her own happiness and made improving the happiness index of others her life's mission. She is said to have observed that happiness "is not a goal, it's a byproduct."

Right Ho and Toodle-oo! (Why India still loves P.G. Wodehouse)

Although he may no longer be eagerly sought out by the reading public in the country of his birth, P.G. Wodehouse enjoys an enviable degree of popularity in India. Every so often I come across reports and articles puzzling over why a long dead British humorist from a long lost era continues to charm a couple of generations of modern Indians who have very little fascination (outside the academic world of literature and history) with the likes of Kipling or the culture of colonial England. Here is an excerpt from the transcript of a report on NPR that I found while searching for Wodehouse: (Do listen to the audio recording of Mandy Cunningham eavesdropping on a group of Wodehouse fans in Bangalore, India)

CUNNINGHAM: These people have gathered to share their love of the works of the comic novelist and satirist P.G. Wodehouse. Each person have adopted the name of their favorite Wodehouse character.

RAHM(ph): My name is Rahm, and I go by the name of Smith, Rupert Smith. Smith preferred to use big, long words. You know, he would use 20 words in a sentence when five would suffice. It's an eccentricity of sorts, but I felt that it's something that I would like to talk myself.

CUNNINGHAM: The group, like many others around India, knows everything there is to know about Wodehouse. They know that he was born in England, that he spent most of his years in the United States, becoming an American citizen, and that he wrote short stories, lyrics for musicals and almost a hundred novels. The reason they're so well informed is that most of them, like Narupa(ph), was introduced to Wodehouse at a very tender age.

NARUPA: When I was about nine or 10, there was this Indi series on TV, and I remember my father was so disgusted with the adaptation that from his office library, he handed out a copy of "Leave it to Smith" and made my sister and me read it.

CUNNINGHAM: Most of the group cut their teeth on stories about Wodehouse's most-famous characters, the erudite gentlemen's gentleman Jeeves and his affable but buffoonish aristocratic boss Bertie Wooster, depicted here in a BBC adaptation.

(Soundbite of BBC program)

Then there was this article I read more than three years ago, attempting to analyze Wodehouse's peculiar hold on middle class India's imagination.  

Up on the eighth floor of a concrete high-rise, I find the retired history lecturer at St Stephen’s College, part of Delhi University, and staff advisor to its Wodehouse Society, smoking a beedi, a pungent roll-up cigarette.

The apartment has a lingering odour of lunchtime curry. It’s a dashed rummy place to be talking about Bertie Wooster. I have come to explore the curious Indian obsession with P. G. Wodehouse.

Nearly 60 years after the nation’s British rulers packed their bags and legged it home, his books are on sale in most bookshops, sometimes nestling nervously between Jeanette Winterson and Virginia Woolf.

Wodehouse never wrote about India, but sells better on the subcontinent than in Britain, with pirated copies in common circulation. He is one of the most heavily requested authors at the British Library in Delhi and there are clubs and internet chatrooms devoted to him. ....

....The club’s [St Stephen’s Wodehouse Society] president in the mid-1980s, Thomas Abraham, is now president of Penguin Books India, the country’s largest Wodehouse publisher. “We’ve all grown up with Wodehouse,” he says. “It’s a phenomenon here. When one of his books goes out of print, everyone goes ballistic. My publishing counterparts in the UK are very amused.”

In a country where most books in English sell fewer than 1,000 copies and 5,000 constitutes a bestseller, the corduroy-suited Abraham estimates that his company sells up to 70,000 Wodehouses a year: part of a thriving “retro-market” that ranges from Agatha Christie to Modesty Blaise. Most Wodehouses are bought by middle-class Indians whose public school-like “English-Medium” education arguably equips them to appreciate the author’s verbal virtuosity and literary allusions better than many Brits.

“Wodehouse’s appeal is a pure sense of linguistic delight,” says Abraham, who has read “about 82” of his 85 books. “In the 1980s there was a debate about whether he was ‘literary’ or not, but the fact is that the books are a great read, laugh-aloud funny.

“It’s a whole world of clean, wholesome, escapist fun and parents here like to hand it down to their children. Today’s humour is fairly dark, but the appeal of these books for parents is: ‘No sex please, we’re Indian’.”

Back in 1945, George Orwell noted the books’ moral uprightness in his celebrated essay In Defence of P. G. Wodehouse: “Most of the people whom Wodehouse intends as sympathetic characters are parasites, and some of them are plain imbeciles, but very few of them could be described as immoral . . . Not only are there no dirty jokes, but there are hardly any compromising situations.”

Orwell recalled meeting a young Indian nationalist who saw Wodehouse as a satirist of English society, “an anti-British writer who had done useful work by showing up the British aristocracy in their true colours . . . On the contrary, a harmless, old-fashioned snobbishness is perceptible all through his work.”

I don't know that one can accurately point to a national trait, history or culture to explain why Wodehouse is loved by Indians. I happen to be a long time Wodehouse fan but not for some of the reasons described in the Times article. The nostalgia for the Raj, the butler, the pucca sahib culture of the gymkhana etc., none of them works for me.  I think I know what I find so charming about P.G.W. - mainly his extraordinarily adept linguistic calisthenics, for sure. And perhaps also what Orwell said.  Although I am perfectly at home with dark brooding humor, searing satire, biting badinage and cutting edge cleverness, there may indeed be something oddly comforting about a prodigious body of literary work which has no sex, no serious love, little existential angst and very few moral dilemmas. One of my favorite posts here is on Wodehouse, one that I wrote soon after I launched this blog. I am bringing it to the front  for new readers.

Bob Mankoff Thinks Big About Humor

Bob Mankoff, the cartoon editor of the New Yorker was interviewed at Big Think about various aspects of humor - its roots, triggers, social utility and form. In the following videos, Mankoff answers some questions:

1. How do men and women use humor in a social situation?
2. When does humor, which almost always originates in bad taste, work effectively?
3. What is the future of humor and why do liberals tend to be more humorous than conservatives?

(Thanks to Andrew Seidler of Big Think for sending in the links)

The Hammer Hams It Up

While we are on the subject of You Tube videos:

Somehow, it is still hard for me to believe that this guy was my representative in the US Congress for many miserable years. Beginning around 1:30 the video becomes ridiculously scary. I didn't know whether to laugh, cry or throw up! How will all this booty shaking affect the money laundering charges? (link: Sanjukta)

Because Warcraft makes things better... (D)

...in any world whatsoever!

The Numbers Guy

A valuable lesson for those conducting public discourse - balance is overrated. Not all opinions are valid.

The most interesting line (1:54 on the video): Science knows it doesn't know everything; otherwise it would stop.

Video link via the always interesting Lindsay Beyerstein.

Getting old? On the other hand...

Here are some perks of reaching 50, being 60 .... and heading towards 70 and beyond!

01. Kidnappers are not very interested in you.
02. In a hostage situation you are likely to be released first.
03. No one expects you to run--anywhere.
04. People call at 9 pm and ask, did I wake you?
05. People no longer view you as a hypochondriac.
06. There is nothing left to learn the hard way.
07. Things you buy now won't wear out.
08. You can eat supper at 4pm. 
09. You can live without sex but not your glasses.
10. You get into heated arguments about pension plans.
11. You no longer think of speed limits as limiting.
12. You quit trying to hold your stomach in no matter who walks into the room.
13. You sing along with elevator music.
14. Your eyes won't get much worse.
15. Your investment in health insurance is finally beginning to pay off. 
16. Your joints are more accurate meteorologists than the national weather service.
17. Your secrets are safe with your friends because they can't remember them either.
18. Your supply of brain cells is finally down to manageable size. 
19. And you notice the list is all in Big Print for your convenience. 
20.You can't remember who sent you this stupid list.

As has happened before, this one came to me from a friend. It is all a matter of perspective of course. Feeling old is a state of mind. Age on the other hand, is an irreversible reality.

(Sorry, if some of you find this utterly juvenile although that may not be so bad when speaking of old age. Also, I had nothing weightier to post. A more serious article to follow)

 

NCBI ROFL (Joe)

Bringing new meaning to navel gazing and much, much more, is NCBI ROFL. Am I just giving a shout out to a friend's blog? No -- I'm giving a shout out to a friend's blog that posts abstracts from real scientific research articles that are often hilarious enough to have you rolling on the floor laughing. So check it out!

Hand - Eye Coordination

If only the problems of Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, Iran, Israel-Palestine, N. Korea and the Republican right were as easy to swat away! (Link via a friend's e-mail)

Flying Footwear As A Means of Journalistic Inquiry

The Indian elections are just around the corner. Politicians are out bloviating in full force. Journalists are following them around and asking questions. Some of them are not taking "no" or evasive tactics for an answer. Instead, the proactive reporters have begun taking things in their own hands (or feet in this case, perhaps) and are throwing shoes at the offending politicians. Apparently, assaults by shoe hurling have reached epidemic proportions at Indian political venues.

Reporting from New Delhi -- If the shoe fits, throw it. Or so many people in India seem to believe these days.

Taking a cue from Iraqi journalist Muntather Zaidi, who earned a year in jail for his "real-time editorializing" after hurling both of his shoes at then-President Bush, India has witnessed a flurry of flying footwear in recent weeks.

These missiles of malcontent have left politicians on edge and prompted inquiring minds to ponder: Why can't journalists aim better? Do they get their shoes back? And is this so endemic that shoe hurling will become a required subject at journalism schools?

"It's become an epidemic," said Ashis Nandy, a political psychologist.

First off the mark here was local reporter Jarnail Singh, who got into a heated exchange with Home Minister Palaniappan Chidambaram this month. At issue was why a prominent lawmaker of the same party was cleared of all charges in the death of 3,000 Sikhs after he was accused of firing up a sectarian mob a quarter of a century ago. As blood pressures soared at the news conference, Singh, himself a Sikh, launched his size 9 Reebok sneaker at the minister, who was standing five feet away.

Although his question may have been "on target, his shoe was not," one news portal noted. "Perhaps he will practice some more at a nearby shoe-throwing range."

Fame of the 15-minute variety quickly followed. The Shiromani Akali Dal, a Sikh political party, offered Singh a $4,000 reward for his "courage and bravery." And several people pushed for an auction so they could acquire the offending item. Singh responded that hurling was a not-for-profit activity aimed at making a point. And anyway, he said, the police who grabbed it for evidence still haven't given it back. No charges have been filed.

 

A few days later, a 64-year-old retired school principal threw a shoe at popular Congress Party lawmaker Naveen Jindal during an election rally. Let out on bail after a short time, hurler Rajbal Singh Saharan explained that he hadn't aimed at Jindal as much as India's political system. Returning home inebriated that day, he said, he saw the rally and became enraged at the false promises of politicians at a time when his son had just lost his job.

 

Read more about the flying missiles here.  The L.A. Times reporter speculates that the Iraqi journalist who threw his shoes at Bush may have set a journalistic trend. Perhaps. But that applies only to the latest fad in the Fourth Estate. Shoe throwing (or shoe waving) as a gesture of utter contempt, is an age old cultural practice in many parts of Asia. 

Sujatha Struggles With A Philosophical Question

A few years ago on a plane, my husband and I got into polite chit-chat with a fellow passenger. The talk turned to children. The lady asked what our kids were up to with their lives. Our daughter was at the time a graduate student in philosophy. Instead of providing that simple bit of information, my husband said rather grandly, "My daughter is a philosopher." The woman retorted laconically, "Aren't we all?" My husband, I am sure, was properly chastised for his pomposity.

What is philosophy? Who is a philosopher? What do philosophers do?  All tricky questions, in my opinion.  Answering them can be a bit like the "Not this, not this"  approach to describing God / Brahman in Hindu philosophy . Our own Sujatha was interrogated by her young daughter along the same lines recently and came up short.

"What is a Filo- so-fer?" M enunciated carefully.

"What?"

 "Here it says that Muskrat was a..." and she showed me the book page.

"A philosopher. Umm, I think that's a person who ponders hard-to-answer questions, like 'What is the purpose of life?' "

 "Or, how did the Big Bang start the universe", M tried to grapple with this new term.

 "No, that's a scientific question. A scientist can do experiments to try and find the answers to such questions. That can't be done in philosophy."

"Or, how did God create Man?"

"No, that's a theological question, not a philosophical one."

 "Or why are we Hindus instead of some other religion?"

"Not exactly", I was starting to run out of adjectives that could be easily explained (cultural? social? ethnic?). "Though it is possible that people of different religions may develop their own philosophies."

M gave up trying to get a coherent answer from me and went back to her book and the whimsies of Moomintroll and Muskrat.

Original post at Fluff 'n' Stuff.

Where's the Bunny?

Beware of identity theft this Easter! (photos via my good friend Nancy)

 

Food of good intentions

H₂OM - a blessed beverage, Intentional Chocolate - a snack that is "imbued" with a monk's meditation, Creo Mundi - a protein mix that has been praised loudly.  How much will you pay for these "good feeling" (not just feel good) foods? An article in the latest issue of Time magazine reports that some are shelling out generously for foods which are embedded / infused / imbued with good intentions, on the assumption that nourishing powers of edibles are enhanced by good thoughts.  

Move over, organic, fair trade and free range--the latest in enlightened edibles is here: food with "embedded" positive intentions. While the idea isn't new--cultures like the Navajo have been doing it for centuries--for-profit companies in the U.S. and Canada are catching on, infusing products with good vibes through meditation, prayer and even music. Since 2006, California company H2Om has sold water infused with wishes for "love," "joy" and "perfect health" via the words, symbols and colors on the label (which "create a specific vibratory frequency," according to co-founder Sandy Fox) and the restorative music played at their bottling warehouse. At Creo Mundi, a Canadian maker of protein powder, employees gather around each shipment and state aloud the benefits they hope to imbue it with for their consumers--increased performance, balance and vitality. Intentional Chocolate, founded in 2007 by chocolatier Jim Walsh, uses a special recording device to capture the electromagnetic brain waves of meditating Tibetan monks; Walsh then exposes his confections to the recording for five days per batch.

We hear your eyes rolling. But some claim there's actually something to the idea that humans can alter the physical world with their minds, and they offer research to prove it. Dean Radin, a senior scientist at the Institute of Noetic Sciences in Petaluma, Calif., conducted a test in which, he says, subjects who ate Intentional Chocolate improved their mood 67% compared with people who ate regular chocolate. "If the Pope blessed water, everyone wants that water. But does it actually do something?" Radin asks. "The answer is yes, to a small extent."

James Fallon, a professor of psychiatry and human behavior at the University of California at Irvine School of Medicine, is skeptical. "So I take a rutabaga and put it close to my head, and it somehow changes the food and improves the mood of the person who ate it?" he asks. "Nah."

Gimmick or not, in this economy any product that promises a spiritual pick-me-up could be in high demand. Since the recession, says Phil Lempert, editor of health-food site Supermarketguru.com "everyone is ready to jump off a bridge." With the right marketing, he says, embedded foods "could be huge."

Still, not everyone is keen on the idea of packaging spirituality. Once the profit motive comes into play, "it's difficult to keep things pure," says George Churinoff, a monk at Deer Park Buddhist Center in Oregon, Wis., who was involved with Intentional Chocolate in its early stages. "Then [the product] may not be blessed in any way with motivation except maybe to make money."

Like the Navajos, I too grew up in a culture where food is routinely imbued with spirituality and blessings, not so much by humans but by gods. (see prasad) I have therefore consumed large quantities of "embedded" foods, mostly from the household shrines of my mother and other relatives. The divine fare was always delicious and I don't know if the goodies imparted any special benefits because of the worthy intentions infused in them. I however remember my mildly observant but  supremely hygienic mother's cautionary words regarding the consumption of blessed foods outside the home : "Eat only the whole fruits, not the sliced ones;  take very small amounts of cooked food and only if it is still warm; stick mostly to dry items; avoid all cold liquids, milk based products and especially the holy water; do not consume anything in a large communal place of worship." I may have ignored her advice a couple of times - once for a delectable helping of suji halwa in a large, crowded Gurudwara and on another occasion, when I ate some pre-sliced coconut in a South Indian temple. Given the frequent cases of food poisoning, hepatitis and other nasty outcomes of eating in public holy places, it was amply clear to me that the blessings of the gods didn't always protect against earthly maladies.

The foods described in the Time magazine article of course pose few such disease causing threats. What is suspect is their ability to transmit the good intentions and peaceful vibes via the gastrointestinal pathway. If a controlled study can be done to prove their efficacy, perhaps such fare can be of greater use than just soothing the nerves of antsy individuals. How about India and Pakistan sharing "laddus" of peace?  Israelis and Palestinians feasting on falafel of harmony? The whole world exchanging grains of accord and amity? The placebo effect alone may be worth the trouble.

Shameless Ploy to Show Off My Son (Dean)

So Slashdot has this post about a recent study of the cognitive development of toddlers that concludes that kids don't learn by planning for the future. The comments are, as always, provocative, opinionated, droll, and in ways more informative than the underlying article and study [sub. req'd].

The study is of course far more elaborate and sophisticated (read: beyond me) than the article represents, so I'll take exception to the latter. For one thing--and this may be critical--I don't understand the experiment. How does identifying whether or not a cartoon character Blue is happy or sad about the emergence of either watermelon or Sponge Bob measure proactive or reactive thinking at all? If the older kids "can anticipate the answer before the object [the watermelon] appears," I'd say they're better at guessing, not remembering.

That aside, the truly laughable notion of this study is the hypothesis that one "might expect the child to plan for the future." Even more ridiculous is the prospect that this fairly describes how the minds of adults work. If that were the case, I wouldn't be scrambling right now to figure out how I'm going to make good by April 15 on the employment taxes I have known for a full year I would soon owe the federal government. On the other hand, I have been planning to arrange for a babysitter this coming Saturday to allow my wife and me to attend a beer festival in Berkeley. So maybe one's "capacity to anticipate and prepare for future events" is a function of the appeal of those events. Or maybe it's just the case that beer : watermelon :: taxes : Sponge Bob Squarepants.

India - Israel: "Armsdog Millionaire" or A Lethal Love Affair?

Ever since the Indian government established full diplomatic relations with the state of Israel in 1992, a couple of ideas, one historic and the other rooted in the present, have drawn the two countries into developing close, friendly ties. The first, the peaceful and harmonious history of Indian Jews is indeed a cause of pride and celebration for both countries. But the second reason that has strengthened Indian-Israeli relations is not so benign. Targets of radical Islamist terrorism, the two nations find common cause in increased militarization to counter that threat. However in my opinion, if India is not careful, it may feed off Israel's acute existential paranoia. Rather than solve its own problems of religious strife and human rights violations within and around its own borders with diplomacy, fairness and a cool head, India may be tempted into flexing its military muscles unnecessarily, with disastrous results.

Israeli arms manufacturers see a huge market for cashing in on India's security fears. But instead of making an old fashioned sales pitch at arms fairs or in covert meetings, the Israeli armaments company, Rafael is promoting its lethal wares through a Bollywood style song & dance video. The kitschy lyrics evoke historic ties and current anxieties. Examples of the horrendously hilarious and gratingly juvenile dialog between what appears to be the Indian military establishment (the female) and Rafael (the male):  

Rafael: We have been together for so long, trusting friends and partners. What more can I pledge?

Indian Military: I need to feel safe and sheltered. Security and protection. Commitment and perfection. Defense and dedication.

Rafael: I promise to defend you. Fulfill your expectations. Shield and support you [and] meet my obligations.

The song continues with more such mindless and crappy exchanges punctuated by a very annoying  refrain of "Dinga Dinga Dee!"  I am not sure if the actors are a mix of Israelis of varied ethnic origins  who took a crash course in Indian film style dancing and felt confident enough to come up with this amazingly tacky video - some in the cast don't look very Indian. But I suspect that the sales video was probably inspired by the huge success of the movie Slumdog Millionaire.  Don't miss the heavy handed shot of the missile (a phallic symbol?) that floats in the foreground and other weapons in the background around which the dancers cavort.

My co-blogger Sujatha said when she sent me the link, "Don't know whether to be appalled at this attempt to woo the Indian military establishment or double over with laughter." Appalling it definitely is. It could also have been funny if it weren't for the implied deadly message.

Update: The New York Times reports:

Wired’s Noah Shachtman notes via Twitter that the Israeli newspaper Haaretz got in touch with the company that made this video and reports that “The actors are Israelis of Georgian and Indian origin.” Haaretz adds that “A Rafael spokesperson said that the video had been received with much acclaim in India.”

Wash, Rinse, Spin and Liberate!

I love my washing machine - a sturdy, reliable, oversized contraption with a stainless steel drum that doesn't chip like most enameled ones.  But never have I looked upon it as my liberator! Well, not any more than my car, refrigerator, microwave oven, cooking range, garage door opener and sundry other  household conveniences. And in computing comparative liberating power, it is difficult to assign a higher rank to the washing machine than to education, modern medicine, electricity or even indoor plumbing. But the Vatican  has declared that the washing machine (!) deserves special veneration for unshackling women from their oppressed existence.

  As International Women’s Day is celebrated, the Vatican had a novel message for the women of the world: give thanks for the washing machine. This humble domestic appliance had done more for the women’s liberation movement than the contraceptive pill or working outside the home, said the the official Vatican newspaper, Osservatore Romano.

“In the 20th century, what contributed most to the emancipation of Western women?” questioned the article. “The debate is still open. Some say it was the pill, others the liberalisation of abortion, or being able to work outside the home. Others go even further: the washing machine.”

The article is entitled, “The washing machine and the emancipation of women: put in the powder, close the lid and relax”, taking its name from the Washy Talky, the Electrolux bilingual-talking washing-machine launched in India seven years ago, which would remind the absent-minded housewife how to use the appliance.

The Catholic Church was never likely to laud the pill for its transformative power on women’s lives. Since Pope Benedict became the leader of the world’s 1.1 billion Catholics, he has published a religious document condemning contraception for “negating the intimate truth of conjugal love, with which the divine gift [of life] is communicated” and has urged pharmacists to refuse to dispense the morning-after pill. The Osservatore Romano held the pill responsible for polluting the environment and contributing to male infertility.

Slumming at the Oscars

Okay, so we haven't talked about it here despite the hoopla. Slumdog Millionaire that is. But today I came across this hilarious video that is worth posting. I am flummoxed by the mass appeal of the movie which swept this year's Oscars and a bit amused when people ask me slightly breathlessly if I am happy about its stupendous success. Friends of my age haven't bothered but two young people at my gym made the friendly overture of mentioning the Oscars "miracle" to me. I am wondering if other Indian Americans are being asked about Slumdog too.

I know, I know, it is just a harmless icebreaker. I thought it was cute that the two young acquaintances approached me with a smile and kind of "congratulated" me for the success of Slumdog. Of the three, only I had hated the movie. And why didn't the film sit well with me? Well, not because it exposed the seamy side of India Shining. India is a huge, complex and multi-faceted country. People anywhere can believe what they wish about India. I myself harbor many complaints and much anger in my heart about the inequities of Indian society. What director Danny Boyle showed in the movie about the heartbreaking squalor of Indian slum life is exaggerated but not entirely incorrect.  But that is not what the movie is about and why it won awards and accolades. It was the puerile, unrealistic and gaudy triumph of the underdog in the story that made it a hit - with just enough sexual tension, cruelty and filth thrown in the mix to complete the image of India that appeals to much of the world. Here is Indian journalist Tarun Tejpal expanding on what I said. (link: Usha Alexander, another non-fan of the Slumdog)

One feels awe not for the film, but for its miraculous journey. Clearly, in an increasingly low-brow ocean of publicity and hype, the idea of true excellence is a drowned raft.

Not shorn of the hype, but because of it, to an Indian, the film ought to disappoint. It tells me nothing that I don’t already know; and it tells me things I know to be not true. Unlike Amitabh Bachchan I have no problems with the film focusing on India’s abject poverty. That focus is salutary, and crying out for further exploration. My problem is the opposite— that it trivialises it. Uses its excreta and chopped limbs to tell a dubious story that leaves the viewer not disturbed but cheerfully smug. You leave the seat exhilarated, not in pain.

The film tells a very big lie: that India’s poor have a happy shot at leaping out of their misery into affluence and joy. One day you can be in the crap heap — diving into excreta — and the next running down a slum girl who may have failed to make school but seems to have managed to walk through Vogue’s offices on her way to teenage. With a stunning lack of plausibility you see the slum child Jamaal grow into a refined public schoolboy who must surely be eating cucumber sandwiches for lunch. India’s wannabe wealthy — billionaires among them — would slice their fingers to boast such a sophisticated son. For that accent alone, they would throw in their toes too.

Aw! Gee! The camera is shaking, the story is sprinting — there is no way anyone can tell if a few chapters have fallen out, several links of logic lost. You have to be grateful Jamal only grows up to be Dev Patel. Given the absence of any need to explain the miraculous transformation, he could well have become Brad Pitt or Prince Charles. To further celebrate the carnival of implausibility, Master Dev acts with the cool flatness of the cucumber sandwich (that he surely must be eating) — no neuroses of the slums tarnishing his soul.

For those celebrating the authenticity of the film, here’s a secret: the makers clearly had no interest in verisimilitude. It’s been the rough approach of artists working the India material for the last hundred years. It arises from a clear understanding of “audience”. The awgee mobs filling theatres around the world, and paying in dollars or some such muscular currency, cannot tell the difference between Hindi and Hindu or the vast distance between Mumbai and Agra. Much like the American tourists at the Taj Mahal, who cannot distinguish between an unlettered, ignorant urchin and a licensed guide.

Update: I wonder if African-Americans are becoming similarly wary of being congratulated on Obama's election to the presidency. Apparently,they are :-)

Where in the world is Dubya?

Just over a month ago George W. Bush, our most incompetent president in recent memory became a private citizen.  Mr. and Mrs. Bush have moved to their new home in an upscale neighborhood of Dallas. The transition from being the most powerful man on earth to a Texas suburbanite must take some work. I was wondering what George Bush must be up to now that the boxes have been unpacked and he has had time to get familiarized with the new digs (Bush had not seen his new home before moving in). Laura Bush told ABC News that she and her husband are settling in and gradually finding the rhythm of their new life. I believe Mrs Bush when she says that the newspaper is not being delivered on time and that she has had to do little cooking, with friends bringing over food. But I do not believe that she simply forgot to watch President Obama's address to the nation and the joint session of Congress last Tuesday.

After years of having everything they wanted right at their finger tips, the Bushes are finding that sometimes the little things are the most difficult to get.

"The only thing we don't have are the newspapers. It has been slow to get The Dallas Morning News delivered," she said. "People bring the newspaper to us later in the day. It's just not being delivered yet."

Despite the lack of newspaper delivery at their new home, the former first lady said they are keeping up with the news back in the nation's capital but they certainly are not operating on Washington's clock.  In fact, Mrs. Bush said she did not watch President Obama's address to Congress on Tuesday night because she "totally forgot about it."

"The next day I thought it was so ironic that for eight years I would be a nervous wreck before the State of the Union, and for days before, as George would be preparing his speech, worried about it and thinking about what was going to be in the speech. And this time it came and went and I didn't even think about it."

Forgot?  More likely she deliberately avoided it knowing what a painful contrast it would be to listen to a coherent presidential speech after the eight years of drivel that her clueless husband had dished out. And what has George Bush been doing in retirement? Well, it is reported that he is looking for a "play group" in his new neighborhood of Preston Hollow. [link: Sujatha]

Open house at Pershing Elementary on Wednesday drew a dozen Preston Hollow-area parents to check out the prospects for their children. But the Dallas school's most prominent visitors didn't have any kids in tow. Only Secret Service agents.

George and Laura Bush have been little more than rumors the last few months, fleeting glimpses behind tinted windows of big, black Suburbans. But the kids got a first-hand look Wednesday when their new neighbors took a tour. 

The Bushes were scheduled to visit three classes but popped in on any room with an audience.

Ducking in one room, Bush asked, "Hey, kids, do you know who I am?"

Gasps all around, then someone blurted, "George Washington!"

"That's right!" the visitor said. "George Washington Bush!"

Well, the middle initial was the same, anyway.

In a dual-language class, Bush tried to introduce himself in Spanish. But it came off a little too twangy. He tried again. Blank looks. Even held up three fingers. You know, a "W." Still nothing.

Finally, Pershing's energetic principal, Margie Hernandez, stepped in with a proper Spanish introduction.

Ohhhhhhh.

The kids laughed. The former president laughed. The principal laughed, out of relief, mostly.

So much for the ex-president and his wife. At least they can look forward to an idyllic retirement. The disgruntled cadre of right wing followers they have left behind on the other hand, are in the mood for an armed revolution!

  

The Mom Song

With my children all grown up, I no longer have the opportunity to sing the Mom-Song on a regular basis. But the Wife-Song I sing for my husband (to his great chagrin), sometimes sounds awfully close to it. (thanks to Razib for uploading the video on You Tube and my friend Nancy for sending me the original link)

Valentine's Day Love Guide: Think International Relations

Forget chocolates, roses, baubles and bears. Don't fret over the perfect ambience for the candlelight dinner. Ignore Mars-Venus interpretations of the world. What you really need to pay attention to in a romantic alliance is diplomacy, negotiation and balance of power. So says Stephen M. Walt, professor of International Relations at Harvard. Believe me, as a long married person who has had to negotiate and re-negotiate terms of endearment over the years, Walt's perspective is closer to the truth than all feel-good psycho babble out there.  (via 3 Quarks Daily)

To begin with, any romantic partnership is essentially an alliance, and alliances are a core concept on international relations. Alliances bring many benefits to the members (or else why would we form them?) but as we also know, they sometimes reflect irrational passions and inevitably limit each member's autonomy. Many IR theorists believe that institutionalizing an alliance makes it more effective and enduring, but that’s also why making a relationship more formal is a significant step that needs to be carefully considered.

Of course, IR theorists have also warned that allies face the twin dangers of abandonment and entrapment: the more we fear that our partners might leave us in the lurch (abandonment), the more likely we are to let them drag us into obligations that we didn't originally foresee (entrapment). When you find yourself gamely attending your partner’s high school reunion or traveling to your in-laws for Thanksgiving dinner every single year, you’ll know what I mean.

Realists have long argued that bipolar systems are the most stable. So if any of you lovers out there are thinking of adding more major actors to the system, please reconsider. As most of us eventually learn, trying to juggle romantic relationships in a multi-polar setting usually leads to crises, and sometimes to open warfare. It's certainly not good for alliance stability.

IR theory also warns us that shifts in the balance of power are dangerous. There's an obvious warning here: relationships are more likely to have trouble if one partner's status or power changes rapidly. So that big promotion that you both celebrated may be a good thing overall, but it's likely to alter expectations and force you and your partner to make serious adjustments. The same is true if one of you gets laid off. Bottom line: it can take a lot of patience and love to work through a major shift in the balance of power within a relationship.