given that bush is among the most dangerous person on earth to have ever held office, he was probably passing a snide comment when he told obama...'go have fun'. perhaps he thinks only pure blooded americans like him can run a top office.
having said that, let us not be misled into thinking even for a minute that obama is the rescuer. he is sharp and a politician to boot. he correctly assessed the nation's mood against bush and made his plans accordingly and succeeded. the emotional rhythm of his speeches hardly matches the premeditated steps he has taken since his victory.
he always knew the african americans would back him. after all, as his speeches -- likened to martin luther and mandela -- suggest, he was trying to 'empower' the 'un- and under-represented, in this case, fellow 'blacks' if i may use the negative word.do you think now that obama has won the african americans will have a cosier life? hardly. all they will have is a 'sense', and only 'sense', of being empowered.
there are many eminent african amerians in every field of life who have made it to top. and obama tops the list. but a vast majority of the african americans are unlike their successful brethren (or sistren to satisfy the sexists). they are poor, uneducated, taken to drugs and crime -- a result of their bleak conditions. they will continue to rot in their own world, shunned by everyone, including the successful african americans.
in world history, members of an unrepresented class or race have, with some brave exceptions, ridden to power with the help of the superior class or race of their times. and once having tasted power, they have always tried more to retain that power by trying to emulate the superior class or race than to consolidate their base among their own class or race by uplifiting their fellows. obama will prove no exception.
i will be happy to be proved wrong.
Tuesday, November 11, 2008
Saturday, August 23, 2008
British conundrum: twit or twat?
Britons are farthest from being prudes when it comes to salacious writing. They have the entire Victorian era to swear by. Using a questionable vowel in a four-letter word normally does not cause panic, unless if it appears in a book for children.
Jacqueline Wilson has arrived at this literary truth the hard way.
One of Britain’s best selling authors has been made to look foolish after a grand parent decided she will not have her grand niece read Wilson’s My Sister Jodie when she found that the four-letter word, twit, appears later in the text as twat.
A misprint or not, the woman’s complaint has led the book’s publishers, Random House, to remove the word from the next edition and superstore, Asda, to remove it from its shelves across the country.
It all began when Anne Dixon from Co Durham, bought a copy of the book as a gift for her great-niece Eve Coulson, aged 9.
As a precaution - to make sure that the book was not too sad for Eve, not to check for obsenity - Dixon, 55, decided to read it herself. “I got to the page where the reference was made to a ‘toffeenosed twit',” she said. “On the next page the word changed. I thought I was mistaken, but I saw to my shock it had been repeated twice again.
“I am not a prude. In fact, I am quite broadminded, but this is completely inappropriate for children. They should not have to be subjected to trash and vulgarity. I did not expect this from a well-respected author and do not want my young niece to have to see this obscene slang.”
Dixon sent an e-mail to Dame Jacqueline but when she did not reply she complained to the Stanley branch of Asda, from which she had bought the book. Asda has now withdrawn the title from its stores nationwide until it is amended by Random House.
Perhaps the reason for Dame Jacqueline's failure to reply was sheer embarrassment. According to Random House sources, she was unaware of the word's reference to the female genitalia. Her dictionary, The Times was told, listed it as meaning “a foolish or despicable person”.
The Collins English dictionary gives three meanings for the word, twat: “The female genitals, a girl or woman considered sexually and a foolish or despicable person (unknown origin)”, in that order.
The Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary says twat means “vulva” often used in the “vulgar”, its origin “unknown”.
However, a dictionary for kids on the web, http://dictionary.kids.net.au/word/twat
offers the meaning: “A man who is a stupid incompetent fool”.
The mother of everything British, Encyclopedia Britannica, has no results for the word on its web site at all. It tells you: “There are currently no full text results for your search: ‘twat’. Please check to see if you spelt your query correctly. Or, try a different or more general query term”.
Twit, on the other hand, means “a silly person” or “fool” in all dictionaries.
No wonder, then, that British authors preferring to spell twit with an ‘a’, to give them the benefit of doubt, may have chosen to go for the non-sexual meaning of the word.
To that extent, Dame Jacqueline is in good company. The poet Robert Browning included it in his dramatic poem Pippa Passes (1841), under perhaps the mistaken impression that it meant some kind of nun's headwear: “The owls and bats/ Cowls and twats/ Monks and nuns/ In a cloister's moods.”
The popular theory is that Browning was misled by a scurrilous poem of 1660, which included the couplet: “They'd talk't of his having a Cardinall's Hat/ They'd send him as soon an Old Nun's Twat.”
Dame Jacqueline, who has sold more than 20million books in Britain and whose stories have been translated into more than 30 languages, also has the support of John Simpson, the chief editor of the Oxford English Dictionary. He said: “I do not think it is felt to be the worst swear word in the language. It is used to mean a mere fool without any indication of what its original meaning is. I am a bit surprised that it has been taken out.”
A spokeswoman for Random House said: “We are very sorry if anyone is offended by the language. Jacqueline Wilson aims to reflect the realities of modern life. In the context of the character we felt the word was used in a way that accurately portrayed how children like Jodie and her friends would speak to each other. We have sold over 150,000 copies of the book since March this year and have only received three complaints.”
Is that three cheers for the twit?
Jacqueline Wilson has arrived at this literary truth the hard way.
One of Britain’s best selling authors has been made to look foolish after a grand parent decided she will not have her grand niece read Wilson’s My Sister Jodie when she found that the four-letter word, twit, appears later in the text as twat.
A misprint or not, the woman’s complaint has led the book’s publishers, Random House, to remove the word from the next edition and superstore, Asda, to remove it from its shelves across the country.
It all began when Anne Dixon from Co Durham, bought a copy of the book as a gift for her great-niece Eve Coulson, aged 9.
As a precaution - to make sure that the book was not too sad for Eve, not to check for obsenity - Dixon, 55, decided to read it herself. “I got to the page where the reference was made to a ‘toffeenosed twit',” she said. “On the next page the word changed. I thought I was mistaken, but I saw to my shock it had been repeated twice again.
“I am not a prude. In fact, I am quite broadminded, but this is completely inappropriate for children. They should not have to be subjected to trash and vulgarity. I did not expect this from a well-respected author and do not want my young niece to have to see this obscene slang.”
Dixon sent an e-mail to Dame Jacqueline but when she did not reply she complained to the Stanley branch of Asda, from which she had bought the book. Asda has now withdrawn the title from its stores nationwide until it is amended by Random House.
Perhaps the reason for Dame Jacqueline's failure to reply was sheer embarrassment. According to Random House sources, she was unaware of the word's reference to the female genitalia. Her dictionary, The Times was told, listed it as meaning “a foolish or despicable person”.
The Collins English dictionary gives three meanings for the word, twat: “The female genitals, a girl or woman considered sexually and a foolish or despicable person (unknown origin)”, in that order.
The Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary says twat means “vulva” often used in the “vulgar”, its origin “unknown”.
However, a dictionary for kids on the web, http://dictionary.kids.net.au/word/twat
offers the meaning: “A man who is a stupid incompetent fool”.
The mother of everything British, Encyclopedia Britannica, has no results for the word on its web site at all. It tells you: “There are currently no full text results for your search: ‘twat’. Please check to see if you spelt your query correctly. Or, try a different or more general query term”.
Twit, on the other hand, means “a silly person” or “fool” in all dictionaries.
No wonder, then, that British authors preferring to spell twit with an ‘a’, to give them the benefit of doubt, may have chosen to go for the non-sexual meaning of the word.
To that extent, Dame Jacqueline is in good company. The poet Robert Browning included it in his dramatic poem Pippa Passes (1841), under perhaps the mistaken impression that it meant some kind of nun's headwear: “The owls and bats/ Cowls and twats/ Monks and nuns/ In a cloister's moods.”
The popular theory is that Browning was misled by a scurrilous poem of 1660, which included the couplet: “They'd talk't of his having a Cardinall's Hat/ They'd send him as soon an Old Nun's Twat.”
Dame Jacqueline, who has sold more than 20million books in Britain and whose stories have been translated into more than 30 languages, also has the support of John Simpson, the chief editor of the Oxford English Dictionary. He said: “I do not think it is felt to be the worst swear word in the language. It is used to mean a mere fool without any indication of what its original meaning is. I am a bit surprised that it has been taken out.”
A spokeswoman for Random House said: “We are very sorry if anyone is offended by the language. Jacqueline Wilson aims to reflect the realities of modern life. In the context of the character we felt the word was used in a way that accurately portrayed how children like Jodie and her friends would speak to each other. We have sold over 150,000 copies of the book since March this year and have only received three complaints.”
Is that three cheers for the twit?
Monday, August 11, 2008
First individual Olympic gold for India
The numbers first. Since the first modern Olympics in 1900, India has won 8 golds and a silver for team game hockey, one individual gold in shooting (2008), two individual silvers in sprint, and 4 individual bronzes. A grand total of seven individual medals out of 16. Of these, two were won by a Britisher, Norman Pritchard, then representing India. That leaves five medals won by Indian Indians in 108 years.
Perhaps this is progress. Just as the poor in India are becoming poorer at a slower rate, just as cities are getting polluted at a lesser rate than before, the birth rate is also coming down ever so slowly, a marginal decrease in the number of primary school dropouts.
The list of Indian achievements is unending. If it is a drop in the ocean, it's all about how each drop makes an ocean.
There's no stopping the Indian media today. Newspaper reporters and TV teams and their OB vans have been staking out at the residences of Abhinav Bindra, the new Indian wunderkind. Anyone, human or pet, who even remotely knows him, would have been interviewed before the day ends. Political parties and local resident associations must have by now hired the best musical bands, fetched the best of the dry colours left over from last Holi, and budding mimics of plyaback singers who are dime a dozen in every street, to begin celebrating the Indian achievement (the timing of the celebration strangely coinciding with the arrival of the electronic media). Astrologers will have a field day in news television studios.
The media will not rest until they record a phone conversation between Bindra and his mother and father, until the family has visited a place of worship and thanked the God, the Country and India's great past, in that order.
The religious problem in Jammu over a piece of religious land takes backstage today. The courts may or may not pronounce judgments. There will be no one to hear complaints about lack of water in municipal taps or the short-circuitting of an electric transformer. The government ministers will be with their secretaries, checking their appointments with tv news stations at prime time. The country will also conveniently ignore the country's inglorious defeat in the third cricket test against Sri Lanka.
All, thanks to Abhinav Bindra. He made India forget its ills, weaknesses, corruption, atrocities, abuses, poverty, illiteracy and what not. He made the rich and the poor alike sing his country's praise. By night, India would have appropriated Bindra's achievement as its own, a reflection of its 5,000-year past, a precursor to the future when India will emerge a power to reckon with.
Will we Indians ever learn to be honest to ourselves for once by not taking the credit for someone else's success? If Bindra won the gold in Beijing today, it was because he was successful in bucking the system.
There are thousands of Bindras out there in India who are waiting to similarly overcome the system for personal success. How many will eventually succeed?
Perhaps this is progress. Just as the poor in India are becoming poorer at a slower rate, just as cities are getting polluted at a lesser rate than before, the birth rate is also coming down ever so slowly, a marginal decrease in the number of primary school dropouts.
The list of Indian achievements is unending. If it is a drop in the ocean, it's all about how each drop makes an ocean.
There's no stopping the Indian media today. Newspaper reporters and TV teams and their OB vans have been staking out at the residences of Abhinav Bindra, the new Indian wunderkind. Anyone, human or pet, who even remotely knows him, would have been interviewed before the day ends. Political parties and local resident associations must have by now hired the best musical bands, fetched the best of the dry colours left over from last Holi, and budding mimics of plyaback singers who are dime a dozen in every street, to begin celebrating the Indian achievement (the timing of the celebration strangely coinciding with the arrival of the electronic media). Astrologers will have a field day in news television studios.
The media will not rest until they record a phone conversation between Bindra and his mother and father, until the family has visited a place of worship and thanked the God, the Country and India's great past, in that order.
The religious problem in Jammu over a piece of religious land takes backstage today. The courts may or may not pronounce judgments. There will be no one to hear complaints about lack of water in municipal taps or the short-circuitting of an electric transformer. The government ministers will be with their secretaries, checking their appointments with tv news stations at prime time. The country will also conveniently ignore the country's inglorious defeat in the third cricket test against Sri Lanka.
All, thanks to Abhinav Bindra. He made India forget its ills, weaknesses, corruption, atrocities, abuses, poverty, illiteracy and what not. He made the rich and the poor alike sing his country's praise. By night, India would have appropriated Bindra's achievement as its own, a reflection of its 5,000-year past, a precursor to the future when India will emerge a power to reckon with.
Will we Indians ever learn to be honest to ourselves for once by not taking the credit for someone else's success? If Bindra won the gold in Beijing today, it was because he was successful in bucking the system.
There are thousands of Bindras out there in India who are waiting to similarly overcome the system for personal success. How many will eventually succeed?
Thursday, July 10, 2008
India shuld stand up for its N-rights, deal or no deal
India should stand up for its nuclear rights, deal or no deal
Venkata Vemuri
The level of political debate in India on the Nuclear deal with the US is as abysmal as the surreptitious attempt by the Indian bureaucracy to push it through on the ground that it is a matter of national pride. Neither the Left, nor the Opposition, and certainly not the Manmohan Singh government, has taken the Indian public into confidence on the real issues that are of concern.
These issues are crucial for India’s long-term foreign and nuclear policies. We should be more concerned with India’s strategic role vis-à-vis a futuristic – but possible -- stand-off between China and the US, rather than the short-term gains in terms of nuclear energy or the one-upmanship game with Pakistan. India is already capable of tackling the last two.
Let us proceed step by step. What did we achieve after the 1998 nuclear tests? It is an unspoken truth that the tests failed to validate India’s warhead designs. When we talk of warheads, we can only be talking of nuclear missiles capable of reaching China, not Pakistan. Only when we have such missiles can we be confident that India has a credible nuclear deterrent. How do we reach that stage? Naturally by conducting more nuclear tests.
Is India in a position to conduct more such tests? India has offered a voluntary moratorium on further nuclear testing. If the N-deal comes through, the moratorium will no longer be voluntary, but legally binding on us. The proposed amendment to US law that will make the N-deal official is that the American President will, from time to time, certify that India has not tested a nuclear device. Which means, if India conducts a test in the future, the deal becomes void.
So, without a nuclear test, any thought of becoming a nuclear power or having a credible nuclear deterrent is a pipe dream.
The issue relates to availability of fissionable material for nuclear weaponisation. India has agreed, under the draft agreement of the deal, to identify and separate civil and military nuclear programmes. India has also agreed to place the civil facilities under the IAEA.
There are two issues here. One, the deal will not overnight give India the status of a nuclear weapons state. Far from it. It will be recognized as a non-nuclear weapons state which is not a signatory to the NPT. To that extent, India will be better off than Pakistan. That is not what India will be satisfied with, but has no option but to accept it.
Secondly, once the civil facilities are under IAEA safeguards, there will be restrictions on the fissionable material for use in India’s military facilities. India’s nuclear doctrine depends on the availability of this material. For, the number of nuclear warheads India wishes to have to achieve the critical state of deterrence is determined by, first of all, India’s threat perception and next, the material available for weaponisation.
According to India’s nuclear doctrine as it stands today, the limit of critical deterrence depends on its threat perception. Which means India can increase its nuclear stockpile if the threat perception increases. Such a doctrine allows India the advantage of not having to tie itself to a certain number of warheads. However, the IAEA safeguards will mean, at least theoretically, a weakened deterrence if India’s adversaries increase their stockpiles. For, in such a situation, increasing India’s own stockpile will depend on how much un-safeguarded material is available to it.
Having said that, the safeguards issue is not as serious as the moratorium on testing. It is well known that India has the capability to develop its own nuclear plants. Moreover, despite the agreement it will remain India’s right to classify future nuclear plants as civil or military, thus giving the country an escape valve.
What the entire debate on the deal boils down to, is this: Does India feel it requires a credible nuclear deterrent against China? If so, it has to clearly state its position before the current form of the deal is signed. Otherwise, its dream of having a credible deterrent and being a major nuclear power is washed out.
Yes, India needs a nuclear deterrent against China insofar as its future geo-political stakes are concerned. Then why is the current Indian government shying away from stating this to the US? One point that goes in India’s favour – and a very vital one at that – is that the US cannot face a standoff with China without the support of India. For facing China, both need each other. It is also true that the US excursions into Asia have a black and bleak record of failure. Vietnam, for example. In the future, any standoff with China can only be on the issue of Taiwan. And the odds of the US going it alone, without India’s aid, are high.
Let us just assume that the current deal actually goes through. Theoretically it is possible that the US itself may go in for nuclear testing in the future, thus allowing India to do so too. How is that possible? The current deal has a clause which says that India will assume responsibilities and reap the same benefits as accruing to states with advanced nuclear technology like the US. The flip side, however, is what if the US does not undertake tests in future?
It is a big if.
The nuclear deal by itself does not much harm Indian interests as long as India retains the right to conduct nuclear tests in the future. Indian bureaucrats, like the messy mice that they are, are already indulging in vacuous arguments that India’s moratorium on tests is unilateral and therefore, what is a unilateral proposition cannot be bound by an agreement. The why not get this included in the piece of paper?
India is at present in a political turmoil over the deal. It may all come to a naught if the deal is not passed in the current session of the US Congress. The basic legal paper of the deal, called the Hyde Act, 2006, has a provision that the final agreement between the US and India can be taken up by the Congress for passage only if the Congress is in a continuous session for 30 days. There is a recess of the Congress in August, which leaves less than 40 days before the Congress adjourns on September 26, 2008. The agreement cannot come for passage until the IAEA and the Nuclear Suppliers’ Group okay the deal. How long will that take? If it takes more than a fortnight, there is no option but to wait for the post-Bush administration to assume office. What have the Democrats in mind about the deal?
More importantly, when will India stand up for its own rights? That is the prime issue. What is happening in India right now has so far nothing to do with this serious debate.
Venkata Vemuri
The level of political debate in India on the Nuclear deal with the US is as abysmal as the surreptitious attempt by the Indian bureaucracy to push it through on the ground that it is a matter of national pride. Neither the Left, nor the Opposition, and certainly not the Manmohan Singh government, has taken the Indian public into confidence on the real issues that are of concern.
These issues are crucial for India’s long-term foreign and nuclear policies. We should be more concerned with India’s strategic role vis-à-vis a futuristic – but possible -- stand-off between China and the US, rather than the short-term gains in terms of nuclear energy or the one-upmanship game with Pakistan. India is already capable of tackling the last two.
Let us proceed step by step. What did we achieve after the 1998 nuclear tests? It is an unspoken truth that the tests failed to validate India’s warhead designs. When we talk of warheads, we can only be talking of nuclear missiles capable of reaching China, not Pakistan. Only when we have such missiles can we be confident that India has a credible nuclear deterrent. How do we reach that stage? Naturally by conducting more nuclear tests.
Is India in a position to conduct more such tests? India has offered a voluntary moratorium on further nuclear testing. If the N-deal comes through, the moratorium will no longer be voluntary, but legally binding on us. The proposed amendment to US law that will make the N-deal official is that the American President will, from time to time, certify that India has not tested a nuclear device. Which means, if India conducts a test in the future, the deal becomes void.
So, without a nuclear test, any thought of becoming a nuclear power or having a credible nuclear deterrent is a pipe dream.
The issue relates to availability of fissionable material for nuclear weaponisation. India has agreed, under the draft agreement of the deal, to identify and separate civil and military nuclear programmes. India has also agreed to place the civil facilities under the IAEA.
There are two issues here. One, the deal will not overnight give India the status of a nuclear weapons state. Far from it. It will be recognized as a non-nuclear weapons state which is not a signatory to the NPT. To that extent, India will be better off than Pakistan. That is not what India will be satisfied with, but has no option but to accept it.
Secondly, once the civil facilities are under IAEA safeguards, there will be restrictions on the fissionable material for use in India’s military facilities. India’s nuclear doctrine depends on the availability of this material. For, the number of nuclear warheads India wishes to have to achieve the critical state of deterrence is determined by, first of all, India’s threat perception and next, the material available for weaponisation.
According to India’s nuclear doctrine as it stands today, the limit of critical deterrence depends on its threat perception. Which means India can increase its nuclear stockpile if the threat perception increases. Such a doctrine allows India the advantage of not having to tie itself to a certain number of warheads. However, the IAEA safeguards will mean, at least theoretically, a weakened deterrence if India’s adversaries increase their stockpiles. For, in such a situation, increasing India’s own stockpile will depend on how much un-safeguarded material is available to it.
Having said that, the safeguards issue is not as serious as the moratorium on testing. It is well known that India has the capability to develop its own nuclear plants. Moreover, despite the agreement it will remain India’s right to classify future nuclear plants as civil or military, thus giving the country an escape valve.
What the entire debate on the deal boils down to, is this: Does India feel it requires a credible nuclear deterrent against China? If so, it has to clearly state its position before the current form of the deal is signed. Otherwise, its dream of having a credible deterrent and being a major nuclear power is washed out.
Yes, India needs a nuclear deterrent against China insofar as its future geo-political stakes are concerned. Then why is the current Indian government shying away from stating this to the US? One point that goes in India’s favour – and a very vital one at that – is that the US cannot face a standoff with China without the support of India. For facing China, both need each other. It is also true that the US excursions into Asia have a black and bleak record of failure. Vietnam, for example. In the future, any standoff with China can only be on the issue of Taiwan. And the odds of the US going it alone, without India’s aid, are high.
Let us just assume that the current deal actually goes through. Theoretically it is possible that the US itself may go in for nuclear testing in the future, thus allowing India to do so too. How is that possible? The current deal has a clause which says that India will assume responsibilities and reap the same benefits as accruing to states with advanced nuclear technology like the US. The flip side, however, is what if the US does not undertake tests in future?
It is a big if.
The nuclear deal by itself does not much harm Indian interests as long as India retains the right to conduct nuclear tests in the future. Indian bureaucrats, like the messy mice that they are, are already indulging in vacuous arguments that India’s moratorium on tests is unilateral and therefore, what is a unilateral proposition cannot be bound by an agreement. The why not get this included in the piece of paper?
India is at present in a political turmoil over the deal. It may all come to a naught if the deal is not passed in the current session of the US Congress. The basic legal paper of the deal, called the Hyde Act, 2006, has a provision that the final agreement between the US and India can be taken up by the Congress for passage only if the Congress is in a continuous session for 30 days. There is a recess of the Congress in August, which leaves less than 40 days before the Congress adjourns on September 26, 2008. The agreement cannot come for passage until the IAEA and the Nuclear Suppliers’ Group okay the deal. How long will that take? If it takes more than a fortnight, there is no option but to wait for the post-Bush administration to assume office. What have the Democrats in mind about the deal?
More importantly, when will India stand up for its own rights? That is the prime issue. What is happening in India right now has so far nothing to do with this serious debate.
Friday, May 2, 2008
Cricket and the TV Carnival
Nothing makes news in India anymore than the IPL. The Indian Premier League is the umbrella organisation conducting an unofficial, purely entertaining, T20 cricket tournament in the country. The teams are owned by famous film stars like Shahrukh Khan and Preity Zinta, business magnates like Mukesh Ambani and Vijay Mallya. The matches are telecast live during prime time in the country. Such is the craze that television ratings, both for entertainment and news, have taken a beating they will never forget. The news universe has actually shrunk by 5 per cent, and the news producers in the scores of news channels are at their wits' end trying to stay in the game. The entertainment channels are worse off, given their advertisement commitments. When the IPL announced the tournament, people and pundits laughed if off. The newspersons smirked. The entertainers wrote it off. Now is the time to lick the wounds.
What does this unmatched popularity for the IPL show mean in terms of viewers' tastes and their sudden shift from all news and entertainment? It is clearly a subject for primary research.
What does this unmatched popularity for the IPL show mean in terms of viewers' tastes and their sudden shift from all news and entertainment? It is clearly a subject for primary research.
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