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And I could go on, and on, and on…

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Possibly my shortest blogpost EVER

A pandemic so close

World Health Org. declared swine flu a pandemic , and I was confused about the severity of it. Massachusetts of course was initially affected by a couple of school children who went to Mexico and returned a couple of months back, and they tested positive. I was somewhat surprised when the HR folks at work today sent an update about two employees in the same building that I work, did test positive for swine flu a couple of weeks back, at least one of the employees is back at work  after a week of vacation (source: grapevine), I didn’t see anybody panicking, but will know more tomorrow. But it’s kind of weird that someone you know has passed through swine flu and they were a part of the global pandemic.

Surprising, and a little scary. But life goes on.

Some important information about Swine flu here..

http://massmed.typepad.com/each_patient_counts/flu-advisory/

“I eat like you, dream like you. I don’t feel any different.”

Those are the words of Jyoti, the 15 year old teenager who is a half-inch shorter than two feet.

The Daily Mail reports. She’s apparently making an appearance in British Television this week.

Another point to note is how the article mentions that people view her as a ‘goddess’, and maybe it adds to the crazy image that some ignorant westerners may have about India. From what I think, anything abnormal or unique or out of the ordinary – that most rural Indians don’t understand, be it a girl with 8 limbs, or a frog changing colors frequently has a mystery that defies the understanding of simple folks in rural areas. And instead of viewing it as a ‘curse’ or an indication of a negative thing, if that helps them to live with it peacefully. Then yes, it’s a god or a goddess, or the god of frogs and tadpoles. Maybe that is what the cultural differences in the world are about. What is crazy to some, maybe the mystery of the unknown, and hence something Godly to others. Let’s live with it?

Peace.

Classic Ind-Pak-US

Last year, 173 people were attacked mercilessly for an objective that is still unclear, and quite complicated. But is quite perverted in the name of religion. Indian govt. and Pak govt., struggled with issues related to non-state actors, language problems, backtracked promises, false assurances, red tape and outright denials. Finally Pakistan buckled under international pressure, and ‘arrested’ the founder of the terrorist group Jamat Ud Dawa/Lashkar.

Fast forward six months, people have forgotten what they shouldn’t, but remember the pain. The Indian government is re-elected for a second term, so it won’t compromise on anything- except civilian’s security until the next attack, Pakistan has pleased the United States and with their help and with billions of dollars in aid, has managed to defend it’s own territory from the lawless Taliban, Pak military, kills about 700 members of the aimless group with hardly any military challenge, except that of looking after a million displaced civilians.

Now, that things are a lot better – Pak. courts release Hafiz Saeed, the founder of Jamat Ud Dawa, India ‘protests’, and US is ‘disturbed’.  While Saeed, the instigator for terrorists, gives media interviews, whips the Kashmir ‘occupation’ and goes home to motivate further attacks on the easiest target for him. India.

Why can US and Pakistan, kill 700 Taliban terrorists and continue with the offensive to crush the Taliban terrorists and wipe them out, but not punish or execute or assassinate one terrorist with a proven track record of mayhem. When I say proven, unless you are the Pakistani military or the govt, please don’t ask where the proof is – nobody saw Bin Laden talk to the 9/11 hijackers -nobody asked for proof. It’s the same thing, Hafiz Saeed is a terrorist.

Now, why is the Swat offensive so ‘fruitful’, the only reason being if Pakistan falls, it will be a tougher challenge to control the ensuing chaos for US. To control Pak’s nukes would be a nightmare come true, even though their primary target will be India.  But Hafiz Saeed will never target anyone within the govt. or the military, he is probably state sponsored and is admittedly a fan of the Pak military – after all, they feed off on each other’s sh*t.

He will wage his proxy war against India by sending random youth trained with a perverted view of what he believes Islam is about, and how worthy it is to die and kill for a cause he believes in.And it is what the Pak. establishment wants. India did give another chance for the millionth time, hoping shamelessly that the perpetrators will be punished. However,since it is not the case anymore, it’s probably time to do something. Maybe Hafiz Saeed doesn’t deserve to live anymore. For sure he doesn’t deserve to life freely. Does it take a farce of  a ‘judicial’ process to even come to that conclusion? Why doesn’t the USA think of him as an enemy that must be crushed? Because he keeps India busy, or does not engage in any war against the US directly. Well, they did kill 28 foreigners in India last year, maybe an American life in India isn’t  as worthy as an American life in America. Who would have known?

Is the Indian government so blinded by the euphoria of electoral success that they can’t see what’s happening next door, and when another bunch of idiots with bombs strapped come to our homes and blow themselves up? USA will not fight the war for India, USA’s presence in af-pak is strictly for their own interest in national security, and are too busy managing their own two wars with Pakistan’s proxy-help, while India remains passive and aims to please the US, and the world by doing nothing, while her own people repeatedly face attacks and are killed.

Isn’t this classic Ind-pak-US? Will India do anything different, at least this time?

War probably is not a solution, but what is RAW doing, I hear about RAW only in Pakistani media, and how fearful and dreaded it is. Maybe Pakistani establishment needs to be re-assured that RAW doesn’t do much, or maybe they know it but want to keep their population under constant fear of RAW so they can rule them.

If the Pak govt, also plans the ‘arrests’ and ‘release’ in an appropriate timeline around Indian elections, we won’t bother them too much. Of course, we will give statements, strongly worded, expressing our innermost emotions – distressed, disturbed, horrified, angry and what not. I think silence is the solution, and enabling RAW to do it’s job mercilessly.

Amitabh Rukh Bachkhan

Is it just me? Or does anyone else think the wax statue is actually a mix of Shah Rukh Khan and Amitabh Bachchan?

Maybe it’s the hairstyle? Or the Hair style and eyes? Or the wax sculptor got confused about the controversy regarding who’s the real badshah of Bollywood?

Btw get 5$ off

10 Most interesting days

A friend graduating from the school of dentistry, Boston University, invited me for a graduation ceremony and an ensuing cruise party in the harbor. Well, the last time I had taken off from work early was in November, when I had to catch a flight back from California after ‘working from home’.

So I decided, what the heck, I work everyday like a zombie anyway. Drove to Boston University, attended probably the 100th convocation ceremony of my life (I should get a special degree for that), and then sailed over to one of the wildest parties ever. Food, booze, chicks, women and their husbands and in-laws and parents, and kids. Fun crowd, neat crowd, mature crowd. Fun.

After a hangover the next day, it was the bowling league’s dinner night. Whoa! 0.7 miles away form home and a close friend’s band playing. Why wouldn’t I go? Given the fact that I was winning some sympathy prize money. (actually not bad considering this was my first season of candlepin bowling)

Whuwudda thunk that a vampirish photo of the blogger would end up on their website? Lone brown guy among a hundred white people. Maybe the prize money wasn’t worth it

Sunday was the movie nite instead of the usual Friday – I don’t even remember the movie now.

Tuesday – special as always, a ‘public speaking’ class as we will call it, and Wednesday. An offer you can’t refuse.

Mark walked up and was like – you wanna ride a horse? The quintessential Yes Man that I am – said yes, even before he completed the question. Mystic was a big but polite horse, a 20-min crash course later, he left me on top of Mystic that tried hard to understand his new master’s signals and cries. whoa whoa whoa whoa was actually one whoa – to stop. And tch tch was a signal to go fast, but not fast enough to throw me out of the saddle. I somehow managed. To keep my ass planted on the saddle. The moment it galloped, the feeling was that of exhiliration. The first scooter drive, the first car drive, the same feeling now the first horse ride…and…and…..it nearly ran straight into an obstacle, coz, I didn’t turn it around. Dumb horse.

Thursday and Friday were planning and packing, Maine. Beautiful Maine. There’s only one state (among the ones that I have ever visited) that beats Alabama in natural beauty. Maine, in summer.

Oceanside cmaping, white water rafting, old orchard beach detour, the long weekend passed by in minutes.

Reflecting back, these have been the most enjoyable 10 days in life. Yet, each fresh memory brings back some painful memories. Something that makes each passing day a lot harder until you break free, I only wish I knew how.

Why Carrie Prejean?

Why Carrie Prejean?

Dear fellow liberals,

We took a step back – and were not even aware of it, or chose to remain silent in spite of noticing it. One dumb ass named Perez Hilton (and no, looks like that’s not his real name) attacked someone’s right to speech and then hypocrisy took over.

Her exact answer was this – “”Well I think it’s great that Americans are able to choose one way or the other. We live in a land where you can choose same-sex marriage or opposite marriage. You know what, in my country, in my family, I do believe that marriage should be between a man and a woman, no offense to anybody out there. But that’s how I was raised and I believe that it should be between a man and a woman.”

This was as you may know in response to her opinion about same sex marriage – attention wh*re (ADHD dog?) Perez Hilton who hounds celebrities to force them to accept their sexuality – an infringement of their individual privacy, asked her on the stage for the Miss USA 2009 pageant final round.And is outraged at her answer – you ask a question, be ready to get an answer, the outcome may or may not be what you want to hear, that’s not the point, you are asking for someone’s opinion. This should have ended there – Perez ill-ton could have said that’s not what he believes in and ended the situation or could have said something that made sense, but no, his tirade against someone who disagrees with him began in his celebrity-obsessed blog abusing her in the choicest of words, then inviting her for a cuppa coffee and then retracting back his own invitation, a confused mind, fighting for his own selfish reasons (fame & money) in the garb of gay rights. While most late night comedians (and mostly liberals) chose to stay out of it – CNN anchors and some of their mentally ’slow’ guests – chose to attack Carrie Prejean in their own way. One anchor tried to co-relate her answer to nonsensical Miss South Carolina (youtube viral) who spoke about South Africa and Iraq and American Citizens and whose paragraph was laden with sentences that lost any sense after two consecutive words. Clearly, he should have been a fellow contestant for South Carolina, if he thinks they are both of the same maturity level, another ‘guest’ on CNN was hysterical and demanded that Carrie Prejean ‘get out of people’s bedrooms’. While, all she did was to speak her mind out when asked to.

The tirade then started – topless photos, meaningless rules for a semi-meaningless pageant, trot around millions of people in two piece bikinis, but you are banned if you ever modeled for lingerie that a couple of thousand people who have sen the pic hardly notice after a month or two when there are loads of new models flaunting new styles of lingerie every week. Dig out her past, ask her if her gay right activist sister is gay, and then give conservatives and narrow minded people a chance to point a finger at the hypocrisy of liberals.

The whole idea, I thought was for liberals was to create a platform for someone to speak their open mind, and then we go and trample on someone’s thoughts because they are not what we want to hear?? Are we turning into hypocrite narrow minded ‘liberals’ we so wanted to get rid of? Stand up and speak, we definitely need to be open to what people can say without being racist/bigoted especially, when they mention ‘ no offence to anyone, but what I believe…….’, I meaning personal, meaning that individual’s belief – Obama who I consider a liberal in many ways doesn’t believe in same sex ‘marriage’ either – and there are so many others perfectly sound and logical in their individual capacity to form their thoughts. When liberal netizens can allow perez ill-ton to spout nonsense from behind a computer, we can definitely allow a young individual to speak her mind on stage, and those on CNN whose names don’t even matter, and have got it all wrong about liberal views and individual rights. F*** you.

-Browsekid.

A female LTTE militant writes her story

December 23 1987 was a warm, clear day, and I was hiding under a lantana bush with eight of my comrades in a village north of Jaffna. With our rifles cocked and our cyanide capsules clenched between our teeth, we awaited the soldiers who had been scouring the area for us for several hours. Our orders were to empty our magazines into them before biting into the glass capsules we called ‘kuppies’ that hung on a thread around our necks. As a Tamil Tiger guerrilla, there was no honour in being caught alive.

Telegraph reports

Life of a  female LTTE militant in the late 80’s described in a touching article.  While the author admits she shot at people with a gun – is relieved that she doesn’t know if the bullets hit anyone or not. There aren’t too many armed militants who get a second lease of life – after being on the run, and living in primitive conditions as a guerrilla, she moved out from Sri Lanka to India, and then to Sydney where she is now a parent herself.What does she think of the LTTE being crushed by the Sri Lankan army right now -

Although the Tigers have staged many comebacks in history, the latest government offensive may prove fatal. But the scars of this war will remain and until a political solution that recognises and respects the rights of the Tamil people is reached, I am certain that the Tamil fight will continue in one form or another.

And therein lies the problem, the Sri Lankan government, if under the euphoria of victory forgets the cause of the rebellion that turned into a terror orgy, does not make good use of the opportunity to clean up and integration of Tamils as equals, all hope is lost, again.

The author of the article above talks about her comrade at arms who had been an LTTE militant at 17 years of age, who continued her life as an LTTE militant driven by the organizations terrorist agenda and, consumed a cyanide pill when she was 24 and was awarded the highest post in LTTE rankings posthumously – Lieutenant Colonel.

The most shocking detail was that she had been wanted for masterminding, along with Prabhakaran, the killing of Rajiv Gandhi. The suicide bomber and her collaborators had been members of Akila’s unit, as I might have been if I had not walked away from the Tigers.

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There’s more in the article than just words from a former terrorist, who had a second opportunity. Something to learn – how often do normal people get to hear why someone becomes a terrorist? An ideology that confuses me with our categorization in the animal kingdom. We do behave like wild animals killing each other – but animals fight for food, water, shelter, self or offspring protection. Do animals ever fight for a cause, or for an imaginary god, does that make them more advanced or civilized or less?

I tell people that the only reason I joined the war was to defend my people, because I felt there was no other choice. I was not coerced to join the insurgency. As an idealistic 17-year-old, I believed in the power of the individual to make a difference.

Therein lies another problem, a mind is a terrible thing to waste, so is youth – the idealism, the energy, the confidence about changing the world – all going into destruction and violence.

An important story for all of us in many ways…

Pic-a-duck

This work by Browsekid is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 United States License

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Diploma in Shoe flinging

Press report:

Browsekid Institute of Unfine Arts.

With the latest advances in the science of shoe flinging across the globe, we are pleased to announce a new diploma program that is open to domestic and foreign students of all races, gender and age.Our introductory brochure will give you more details about the program.

History:

Shoe flinging has traditionally  been an Asian concept, where you are taught that your own foot is the dirtiest part of your body and since a shoe or other footwear covers it, it’s the lowliest form of god’s creation. In India,  ‘jhoothe leke maroonga, saale’ (Hindi), or ‘cheppu ichkoni kod-tha’(Telugu) are part of the thesauri of swear words that mean essentially a threat to dishonor someone for the rest of their lives by hitting them with footwear, and such vernacular was more often heard in between relatives who held a grudge against the division of property of their in-laws etc, but seemingly fought over trivial issues without openly ackonwledging the actual cause of the quarrel.

Read more here….