You are currently browsing the monthly archive for November 2010.
I’m travelling for the next 10 days so the blog will not be updated. If you’re good though, I’ll get some photographs and a travelogue.
Where am I going?
Mexico.
Why?
Because I had 10 days of leave and no plan. I didn’t know I would have 10 days off, else I would have gone to Peru now. But that’s already done, so I had to come up with another destination (That’s what this post was about). I searched for the highest peaks in North America. McKinley is extreme in the winter, Logan is not trivial in the winter either, so I settled for the third highest peak: Pico De Orizaba, at 18,500 feet. It is in Mexico, so Mexico I go. Yes, alone.
I’ll be staying away from the web, from the drug mafia and from the crevasses on the glacier.
I had to shuffle the planning of this trip with work, and I barely managed to finalize the itinerary in the last couple of days. [It is still better than Ladakh, where I landed without a plan.]
I discovered after reading this post that I underestimated Pico De Orizaba. And now I have butterflies in my stomach. Exactly like love. Now I’m trying to plan accordingly so I can acclimatize longer and maximize the likelihood of summiting. Insha’allah I’ll summit this Monday.
On second thoughts, I prefer a round-trip offer from powers that be (or that aren’t — I don’t want to offend irreligious sentiments).
If things go as planned, I’ll also be visiting Chitchen Itza, one of the new 7 wonders of the world. It will be my third in 2 years. Spoiler alert: The next one will likely be Petra in Jordan, unless life (or the Middle East) has other plans.
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Finally, let me bust the myth that travelling and adventure require money. Time, yes; money, no. Making time is easy if you can prioritize adventure, and you can always scale plans according to your budget. The ones who use money or time as an excuse for not going on adventures are the ones who wouldn’t even if they had both.
To everyone else, Travel like death is after you. Because it is.
Namaste.
This is a great creation as an argument against the invasive screening procedures by the T.S.A. :
[Pro-tip: Even if India does get similar screening machines, please do not create such naked photographs of Bharat Mata. You will hurt the sentis and the mentals among Hindus.]
If I were gay and horny, I’d be looking at career opportunities with the TSA. If not, I believe I can still claim to be gay at the screening so I’d get a female TSA agent to grope me.
If I were a priest, I’d be flying all over the U.S. to spread the message of Jesus. Not for the groping, of course.
If I were a pedophile, I’d hope I was the one screening this 3-year old. And this. And countless others that haven’t made it to YouTube.
If I were Scottish, I’d go commando under a kilt (NNSFW).
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On a serious note, I recommend opting out of the X-ray like scanner. The probability of getting cancer due to radiation from the scanner is just about the same as the probability of being killed by a terrorist on a plane. True story.
Opt for a pat down and ask for a private screening. Atleast that’s what I plan to do when I fly tomorrow (more on this coming in another post).
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Ben Franklin quote: Those Who Sacrifice Liberty For Security Deserve Neither.
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Image credit www.FlyWithDignity.org
Great expose by Open Magazine. As the 2G scam headed by A. Raja unravels, some known skeletons are in there too. Barkha Dutt and Vir Sanghvi’s conversations with Nira Radia (a big-shot in telecommunications) were made public. I’ll save you the trouble: Barkha was in on the scam, allegedly. I don’t know if her involvement can be considered not legal, but it certainly doesn’t seem ethical.
Audio links:
http://goo.gl/q05Ni
http://goo.gl/N3oyR
http://goo.gl/dQ3ih
http://goo.gl/SWpUP
http://goo.gl/rNwGF
Alternate link to transcript here.
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It almost feels like I am the only one not in this scam.
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Meanwhile, Manmohan Singh was seen in his office polishing his squeaky clean image. He has commendably stayed away from all corruption and scams — all because of his staunch Gandhian values: See no evil, Hear no evil, Speak no evil.
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Each scam/controversy involving the Congress has one victim who is thrown under the bus by the party (to save the party’s image): Kalmadi, Deshmukh, Chavan. This time around, it’ll be A. Raja.
To repeat though, Manmohan Singh remains clean. Everyone can continue forwarding e-mails about Singh being the most qualified head of a country. If you do want to worship him though, I’d suggest not prostrating right under his nose. He wouldn’t notice you.
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Update: Barkha Dutt will likely use the only weapon in her armor: sue for defamation. Journalists who should question the defamation clause in our constitution thereby limiting free speech seem to be the ones using it most often.
Links via @over_rated.
Watch this Jon Stewart interview where he remarkably critiques the news media in the U.S. on The Rachel Maddow Show.
Must-watch for those who think Indian media is biased against a certain community. I think the Indian media has problems, but a critique is equally harmful if not thoughtful and analytical.
Ex-RSS chief K. Sudarshan made comment about the holier-than-everyone-else Gandhis, so Congress erupts across India, wants ex-RSS chief to say sorry.
Gandhis are the Rams of the Congress, no?
More power to these girls.
On second thought, they already have enough, so more power to the rest of girls to defend themselves.
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We’re well past the phase where guys needed to be urged to stand up for girls against eve-teasers. Today most girls are capable of kneein’ a guy in the crotch. That’s all you need. Trust me.
Rakhi Sawant calls a participant ‘impotent’ on her reality show Rakhi Ka Insaaf. The participant commits suicide; Rakhi Sawant booked.
I’m left wondering whom not to feel sympathetic for.
I love free speech (it is a metric of liberty) so it helps that I hardly ever take offense. I’d love for everyone to never take offense, but I understand that folks do get offended — even reasonable folks. And if something offends them, they absolutely have the right to protest. It is over how the protest should take form that I disagree with fundamentalist organizations. For reasonable folks, here’s a great example of a successful protest from yesterday:
Techcrunch discovered that Amazon.com was selling a book The Pedophile’s Guide To Love And Pleasure. Pedophilia is illegal in the U.S. and Techcrunch was shocked Amazon was openly selling the book (and taking a share of the profits). They wrote to Amazon, which replied:
Amazon believes it is censorship not to sell certain books simply because we or others believe their message is objectionable. Amazon does not support or promote hatred or criminal acts, however, we do support the right of every individual to make their own purchasing decisions.
(Let’s forget for a moment that it wouldn’t be censorship as Amazon is not the government, just a private business.)
Michael Arrington, editor of Techcrunch, wrote a post saying he was boycotting Amazon until they took the book down.
The book meanwhile, which was the 158,221st best-selling book when this saga began, quickly moved to a very visible top-100 spot. Internet activists did their thing: A Facebook page to Boycott Amazon got over 10,000 likes and the Twitter hashtag #BoycottAmazon took off.
Within hours, regardless of what their supposed stance on censorship was, Amazon pulled the book.
And that’s how it’s done.
Hope you remember this the next time you join a mob to pelt stones at Salman Rushdie’s residence or forcibly enter M.F. Hussain’s painting exhibition.
In one of the vetti-bugger polls conducted by a dating website:
Men believe that the perfect girlfriend is the one who has a high sex drive, enjoys a hearty meal and gets ready to go out in 10 minutes.
In short, men want to date men.
Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) is protesting against this statement issued by Congress last week:
“Revelations through detailed investigations have exposed the true character of the RSS and its sister organisations. Communal and terrorist elements, whichever source they may originate from, that aim at destroying our national fabric will be fought at any cost,” a party statement said.
As much as the Congress would like us to believe that the RSS is the polar opposite of SIMI, it is not.
Meanwhile, the RSS reacts thus:
Even as Bhagwat went on to claim that no RSS activist could be even remotely connected with acts of terror, he disowned all those who were suspected to be involved in such acts.
Score.
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RSS has a Facebook page now, which helps it connect with our youth to spread Islamophobia[1] and provide evidence of anti-Hindu bias in India. The page links to an article that describes conspiracy theories and claims that Hindus’ rights are being infringed in India. Not knowing what rights are does help in creating FUD.
Personally, I think the RSS has far bigger things to worry about than Islamification of India, such as their hideous half pants.
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On a related note, I’ve been hearing from friends about the anti-Hindu bias in media. The symptoms are all there, but in my opinion, the cause is not an elaborate conspiracy. But I respect others’ wish to feel victimized. (The weird bit is that Hindus, Muslims, Sikhs, Christians — everyone can make effective and appealing arguments that they’re victimized in India. And no one seems to care about the irony of that.)
As for solutions, India is not yet a land where people suggest free-market solutions. Much of social rhetoric is based on demanding that everyone else do the morally right thing (and the right thing is often aligned beautifully with their own beliefs). So while there is a lot of whining about NDTV and CNN-IBN and how they are anti-Hindu, no one wants to compete with those channels by starting/promoting news sources that they feel are balanced. A claim that ‘Everyone is biased against Hindus’ is more appealing than ‘Some media channels are not balanced, so let’s start/promote a news source that is balanced’.
The primary clash I see is between conservative Hindus and atheist Hindus/liberal Hindus. When conservative Hindus see themselves as Hindus and atheists/liberals as non-Hindus, they’re not interpreting Hinduism correctly.
My 2 cents.
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[1] Islamophobia is an overused word in the West and often out of context. However, it is an underused word in India. When I use Islamphobia, I refer to the accepted definition of the word from a glance at the comments and articles on the RSS Facebook page.
As a rule of thumb, any time someone refers to Muslims as ‘they’, beware that an Islamophobic statement is just around the corner. Many around me are Islamphobic, and they don’t seem to realize it. Whether the Islamophobic statements made are justified or not is a matter of debate. But any statement generalizing a negative aspect of a particular community is accepted as prejudice, or in this case, Islamphobic.
If you’re next statement is that Muslims can be Hinduphobic too, you’re right. But my statement stands.
