Charity begins in someone else's pocket.

Suckers; One born every minute.

Someone¹ once said, charity is a quick-fix method for people to clear a dirty conscience. Charity is for the mentally weak who have been told that they must part with their hard earned wealth because it is the "right thing" to do.

And to the fucking idiot that even thinks about giving me the wealth, materialism and their fleeting existence and irrelevance to the "cosmos" bullshit; type your comment after you quit your job, donate all your money, sell your house/car, donate your computer, travel to sub-Saharan Africa and live off the land. Until then, shut your pie hole.

And if you are oh-so-brilliant and want to bring up how you won't be able to comment if you donate your computer/move to sub-Saharan Africa; that's the idea Einstein.

1. Probably just me.
   

Snips and Snails, and Puppy Dog Tails

Okay, I am just going to come out and say it. Feminism, with their methods of fighting, their arguments, rhetoric and hypocrisies are much alike, “moderate” Islam, pro-affirmative actionists and what I consider to be a predominantly Indian trait¹.

The argument:

1. Women would NOT go raping men.² (Context: If stereotypical sexual roles were reversed).

   That is perhaps³ as far from the truth as the myth that pedophilia did not exist (in the 70s and 80s), or that women were not sexually aggressive with minors, especially with minors under their care.⁴ The fact remains, that most feminists will gladly enjoy the support of the existing gender stereotypes in order to gain advantage in this “battle” of the sexes. Most women, especially feminists, that I have encountered, either find it hard to believe, or are incapable of entertaining the notion that women can be sexually aggressive with adult men. It stems from the stereotypical notions that men want/need sex all the time, and any offers for sex are by definition, not unwanted. That is just as sexist as a guy claiming dominion over “his woman’s sexual real-estate”. As for the original argument, it is only rhetoric, since there is no way we can find for absolutely certain the actual results. However, if nascent studies of female sexual aggression towards men are any indication, the first argument might quite easily be rebutted and debunked.

2. Men are sexist.

   Yes, some men are. Perhaps I am too. But I would rather test this with a simple hypothetical scenario. Answers to this question help us understand who really is sexist.
   
   Stop being a whiny little runt and grow a pair.
   
   A guy saying that to a woman is… a jerk (using societies predetermined standards).
   A woman saying that to a man is… assertive.
   
   Somehow, when women proudly proclaim their superiority over men, claiming men think from their penises and only use a fraction of their brain as compared to women, they are not being sexist.
   
   So, as is quite visible from the double standards, as I am going to be judged as being sexist no matter what I do or say in my life, I would like to earn that sentence… so here are my parting thoughts on men being sexist. We are.
   
   Q.What do you tell a woman with two black eyes?
   A. Nothing. She has already been told twice.

3. The Indian feminist and the dichotomy of Affirmative action.

   This argument is only valid for non-backward caste women that are anti-affirmative action in relation with the correction of India’s caste system. This might be a small group, but in India, it is a significant proportion of people in the “limelight”. The average feminist⁵ is against the affirmative action policy of the Indian government as a means to correct the (caste based) social structure that has been in social turmoil for centuries. My stance on this subject matters not. What is telling, however, is that the same affirmative action is rampant, and lobbied towards by feminist groups in India. With reservation for women in almost every sphere, from bus seats across the country, to entire railway cabins (in Bombay’s⁶ urban railway transportation system), to government jobs to the legal system⁷, it is insanely hypocritical to criticize affirmative action for backward castes while lobbying aggressively for affirmative action for women.

   The andro-feminist⁸ lobbyists and/or apologist camps are either in for the rhetoric⁹, or patronize any actual debate by lackadaisical (at best) propaganda¹⁰.

   “sorry our point of views don’t meet, since i geniuely want reservation for women even if caste based reservation is removed….the needs of women is better understood by a women and not men…. some men show respect to women not all…..u r blog show ur insecurity….if u hav mother , wife n daughter ask them to read it, they might gv u the right opinion…” [sic]

   The rhetoric of this argument is quite lucidly and effectively rebutted within the same web-blog.

   “You are basing your ideas on assumptions and pre-conceived notions such as:

   1. Women understand women better.
   (By that token of false logic, men understand men better. Therefore, no laws that affect men should be made by women.)
   2. Women are better than men.
   (Do I need to say something? Really?)
   3. Men are privileged and women are victims.
   4. Women alone are discriminated (against).
   5. Men’s rights constitute insecurity.
   (Being concerned about men’s rights, in a day and age that is saturated with women’s rights groups is not being sexist or insecure. It is insecure in so much that we do not want to sit by, watching the freak show, only to find we are left with none of our basic rights and freedoms. This can be illustrated by the adoption laws of various countries, and father’s rights. It is only gaining prevalence, that gender bears no significance as far as child interests)
   7. Some men show respect to women (Which implies that women alone should be respected and with an assumption that men are automatically respected)."

   [Changed for formatting and omission of point 6 due to out of context information. Italics indicate content added]

   The same rhetoric is repeated on Wikipedia’s article relevant to the Women’s Reservation Bill of India that aims to incorporate a 33% reservation for women in the upper and lower houses of the union parliament as well as in state legislative assemblies.

   • Due to female foeticide and issues related to women's health, sex ratio in India is alarming at 1.06 males per female. It is expected this will change the society to give equal status to women.^{[citation needed]}
   
   
   • Women are supposedly more resistant to corruption. Therefore, this bill might prove to be a factor restraining the growth of corruption.^{[citation needed]}”

   [citation needed tag to the Wikipedia article did not exist prior to the conception of this post, Saturday, July 24, 2010]

   No original research is cited for any of these claims. They are, in principle, a fallacy from false assumption. For instance, “women are supposedly more resistant to corruption” is a false assumption since there is no reason to believe that statement. I could submit my own rebuttal committing the same logical fallacies that are committed by feminists¹¹, but hey, some of us actually have ethical responsibilities to the truth.

4. Equal Work for equal Pay.

   The equal work for equal pay argument, at the surface seems like a valid concern. After all, why shouldn’t women get paid equally for performing the same work as their male counterparts? It seems only fair. However, the equal pay fight is not a request for equal pay for equal work, though that is the premise. Financial equality is an attempt at equal pay for equivalent work.
   
   The perfect example of this is Wimbledon and women’s tennis.
   
   The same is true in countless other disciplines (of sport, at least). Why do women’s leagues exist in other sports? Why don’t female cricketers, or baseball player, or basketball, football play in men’s leagues? Aren’t they “equal” to men in every way? Yet, they harp about the lack of interest in these disciplines from the general population. Perhaps because the level of competition in the women’s disciplines is hardly even a fraction of the level of competition, fitness and skill of their male counterparts, in this day and age.
   
   And in the event that these comments are misconstrued as being sexist, I am a big fan of Karnam Malleshwari, have always been. In spite of the fact that Women’s weightlifting is separate from Men’s. I have no misconceptions that men and women have evolved differently (biologically and physically) that it won’t be over-night, that women will be able to compete on a regular basis at the level men do (if at all that possibility exists). Keep in mind; this is true of (generalizing) strength and stamina sports. The same cannot be said of skill sports.

5. The Label Argument.

   Whenever men decide to take the offensive stance against feminisms ill’s we are suddenly met, with a defensive, pitiable¹²stance. The argument against all of the above 4 points takes on the form of “us and them” within the “realm”. Brands of feminism are invoked, and an adherence to a different brand can be prescribed as seen fit. It is, in essence the same argument that “moderate” Islam prescribes to.
   
   “We are not violent. Do not label an entire group because of a few miscreants.”
   Or
   “The Quran does not prescribe violence. If a muslim uses violence, he/she is not a muslim.”
   
   The same argument is used by feminists, claiming that radical feminism should not be used to tarnish the image of “real” feminism. However, the “qualitative” differences matter not when the quantitative damage is vast and can be enjoyed by feminists irrespective of their brand name.
   
   But I should make the concession for the possibility that I am wrong, or too harsh against feminists. Perhaps it is true. Why should all the feminists be tarnished because of certain brands of feminism? Oh well, because ALL men must pay for the sins of some? Because a guy in delhi cannot keep it in his pants, I must too be labeled as a sex-craving lunatic. Every guy can think only from his pants. Well fuck you to the women that prescribe to this double standard. If you can generalize all men based on the (horrific) actions of some, then you too should be able to face the criticism of the whole based on sub-sects of feminism. Some would argue an eye for an eye. Well, sure, I am all for that. Go rape those men that raped that innocent, helpless woman¹³, but don’t stand there, trying to poke my eyes out and expect me not to defend myself. And if the eye gouging gets too insistent, do not expect friendly counters.

Note:

1. I am talking about hypocrisy here, of course. If there was any doubt.

2. This is perhaps the oldest, most naïve, and dumbest argument I have heard for a pro-feminism stance.

3. I say “perhaps” because there isn’t really a way for us to find that out. Unless we find ourselves magically transformed into (or remotely viewing) an Amazonian civilization.

4. Female Sexual Abuse

5. I do not care what label of feminism you identify with. Neo or not, feminism is feminism.

6. It is Bombay. Fuck you to the self-proclaimed keepers of India’s future. Or lack of it.

7. Yes, laws can be made, with a bent towards affirmative action. Renuka Chaudhary, or as I like to refer to her, sexist bitch extraordinaire, has successfully done so with the Domestic Violence act. And yet, not the slightest of mutterings from these egalitarian feminists I am told exist. Seems kind of like the flying spaghetti monster.

8. A term I have coined, for there is a lacking of such. An Andro-feminist, is a male feminist lobbyist, either actively, or passively. These are men that have been so brainwashed into thinking themselves unworthy, sexist pigs, that they cannot rationally form an argument, unless their wives/mothers/sisters etc. tell them so.




9. Full Post Here

10. http://india_resource.tripod.com/caste-quotas.html
    “A humanities professor at IIT-Mumbai tried to argue that because "merit" isn't applied uniformly in the socio-economic sphere in India, one ought not be too perturbed over its sacrifice in India's centrally-funded institutions of higher learning. Moreover, he argued that merit was a concept that was "over-emphasized" because it was so fraught with human subjectivity and contextual sensitivities that it wasn't really possible to truly determine who was "meritorious" anyway. Jayati Ghosh (a British-educated JNU academic in the Prime Minister's Knowledge Commission) was cynically dismissive of the merit argument, opining that the IITs weren't institutions of merit anyway presumably because a Chinese study (of rather limited value and significance) had determined that because the IITs had produced no Nobel Prize winners, they could not be considered as institutions of any international import. Even though Ms Ghosh is neither a scientist nor an engineer by training (and does not appear to be particularly familiar with the biased methodology that was used in the Chinese study) Ms Ghosh enjoys the luxury of being taken seriously because of her political connections with the CPM.”

11. An example of such a logical fallacy would be:
    Benazir Bhutto, Mamata Bannerjee, Jayalalitha, and countless other female politicians are corrupt. Therefore female politicians are corrupt. Therefore an increased representation of women in parliaments will not reduce the corruption in the country.
    
    This logical fallacy is called Fallacy of accident or Sweeping generalization. See ITY, you don’t just learn “bad” words here.

12. argumentum ad misericordiam

13. It is startling how easily women transform their images from strong, capable and “equal” to, helpless as need suits them. To the few women that have confided how unsafe they feel in the streets (of India, usually) and their fears of male aggression, I find the best solution is to recommend mace/pepper spray. However, all these women have, by way of one nonsensical argument or another, convinced themselves of how ineffectual that would be.
    
    Female1: But what is common in most of my dreams is me, out on the roads all by myself…feeling so unsafe
    TDD: Buy yourself a pepper spray?
    Female1: I dont go out at night.

A Suitable Couplet

I was commenting on a blog earlier today and I found my first Kakoli Couplet.

"Fuck male ego. Fuck pride.
Where is my multimillionaire bride?"

Scrambled Green Sleave

My green sleave is fading away. But the scrambled green sleave I long for, grows stronger. I am addicted without being addicted, rejoicing without the need for ecstasy. I desire to burn it all to shreds, if only to rub your face in it.

Fuck You And Your 'Holiday'.

For something that is an ambiguous concept at the best, Love takes up a lot of our time, a lot of air-time (even if we discount porn) and is the ultimate control mechanism in the modern era (second only to religion of course). The same could be said about hate, but that would only point to a double standard which the delusional are exceptional at promoting.

To make my point, every time Love gets a bad name, it is discounted as being Lust, greed (sure, money is never a motivation for love!), or something along the lines. The same rules are hardly applied to Hate. For instance, Terrorists around the world who purport acts that can make a rational human squirm (though I wish to make it clear, that you do not have to be completely rational to squirm at those actions) are labeled haters, when in reality, hate is just a mislabel by the above set guidelines. Some do it for Lust (I believe the promise of 72 virgins in heaven is sufficient proof), some for greed, perhaps some out of jealousy, but the pure instinct of hate is rarely witnessed.

Perhaps, it is never witnessed because it does not exist in the sense we hope it does. It is rather easy to defeat one emotion, to rationalize it away than to find yourself a half-dozen new ones, each with their own set of underlying conditions. But that is only the negative motive. The positive motive, by the same token, pure Love is rarely witnessed. If we discount the love of a parent for their child as being their evolutionary objective (if you do not agree with that statement and/or do not believe in evolution at all, you are obviously quite lost, and might I suggest getting back to Google and restarting your journey), a particular specimen of “Love” can quite easily be inspected and dissected into sexual desire, the need for companionship, attachment aka conditioning aka a child’s love for its parents and therefore invalidate Love as a singular by the same rules that invalidate Hate.

The argumentative will choose to see my attempt at making Hate seem more glorious than it is, but it is quite certainly an attempt to level the two up, since they are on the same level. They are true opposites and therefore set into battle by the memes of our culture and our kind.

As you might have guessed, this is my long drawn out attempt at a Fuck you to Valentine’s Day.

In parting, I leave you with the mind of Aaron T Beck, psychiatrist, researcher and author who in his scientific capacity calls love a mania.

In Defense of the Critic

Being a critic is a thankless job, most often. I admire real life critics who do it for a living. After all, it is the ultimate “damned if you do, damned if you don’t” profession¹. You are always going to hurt someone, cross someone off. Let me get straight to the point, for once, and only just this once.

I was accused, recently, of criticizing things far too much, having no authority in the fields I am criticizing people for, and while that is completely true, the premise is utter bullshit.

For the sake of coherence, which I doubt too many of my readers are comfortable with, I will go about this in logical sequence, another thing brainwashed sheep have difficulty doing. Having accepted the criticism that I have no authority in the fields I choose to criticize people in, the proposition on the table is that I should graciously accept defeat and cease any further attempts at criticizing things I do not understand. Well, I am willing to accept that proposition, but only as long as my one condition is met, and anyone with half a rational brain (again, it would appear I am singing to the tone deaf) would agree that what I am about to suggest isn’t too unfair.

So, all those of you, anxious to know the key to shutting me up, hear me well. The same rules must apply to you as well. Since none of you are authorities on music, movies, literature, politics, cars and practically everything under the sun, YOU HAVE TO SHUT THE FUCK UP as well. When you stop opining about how good the latest Michael Bay fiasco is, or how good Ledger’s joker was (oh, what a bitter-sweet was that is), or how great Michael Jackson’s mediocre song and dance styles really are (if you take out the pop out of it), then I will follow suit. When you admit that you have no basis to be showering laurels on these sorry excuses for “artists” and that you will forever purse your lips regarding your personal attempts to glorify these people, I will lay down my pen.

Before I end, I must clear the air. My comments on my facebook status message etc, about the mediocrity of the pedophilic Michael Jackson as an artist, were hardly to stir shit up. That is my true opinion. Would the world have lost out if Michael never sung a single note? Not mine. And while it is politically incorrect to diss the dead, I have never cared for being politically correct. So here is a big fuck you to Michael Jackson fans, and a vehement fuck you to Sacha Baron Cohen and Universal for bending over backwards. If you can’t handle the witty and not so witty snipes at “MJ” (funny, how that is so similar to OJ) then don’t fucking watch TV, don’t visit my blog and definitely DO NOT click on this next link.

Another contribution of MJ to pop-culture is definitely his contribution to costume design on movie sets, having inspired the alien in M. Shyamalan's Signs and the instantly noticeable Joker, from the crap-chute that was The Dark Knight.

Yes Michael, I know “You’re bad”. Now if we can only get rid of the Catholic Church, the kids will be safe.

And for those looking for a moment of sensitivity, Billy Mays just died last month as well. He will be missed. He did have a soothing voice. Or he just nagged the fuck out of you till you bought something. But he will still be missed by me; Funny guy.

1. Unfortunately, the professional critics are just whored out publicists. I have yet to come across a decent review of a “mega-hype” movie that does justice to the profession, whether it be favorable or not.
   
   
2. I was thinking about calling this post, “Fuck You, Michael Jackson”. Only one thing prevented me. The possibility that he really was a pedophile and that a title like that might be insensitive to the plight of the kids whose lives MJ touched.

Red, White and Brown Nosed

For a man that makes his living off stereotypes, Russell Peters does not notice the dichotomy of assaulting the media for using stereotypes for furthering agendas and propagandas. But for those people that like intelligent humor, be it the wit and sarcasm of Yes, Minister, or… the wit and sarcasm of George Carlin, you will instantly notice the fallacy of Peters’ chosen words. He is a part of the media. But unfortunately his ignorance is shown by his inability to take part of the blame, or it just shows his hypocrisy.

In his “new” act, “Red, White and Brown”, Russell Peters claims to have found himself a new voice; retiring old jokes. As usual, his act is confused as he shuttles between his identity of a North American and his “cheap” accented brown identity, and in that we can take solace, that Russell Peters is Indian, not just genetically, but even culturally.¹ He is a true hypocrite; One that would do Mother India proud.

Russell Peters is a cult comedian, like George Lopez, or Dane Cook, mediocre comedians targeting fringe audiences and cults that they have cultivated. Perhaps with respect to the specifics of the jokes Peters is “fresh” but considering the subject matter remains the same as his earlier acts (same jokes about Indian cheapness, about Chinese accents, about Italian machismo…). And while there is some humor to be found even in repetition, it can only go so far. If Red, White and Brown weren’t advertised as a “new act”, perhaps this would be a good extension of his earlier acts… and amusing². However, this blatant attempt to beguile audiences or just his ignorance as to what constitutes a “new act” takes out some of the fun of watching a mediocre comedian.

After all, it doesn’t hurt if you are eating an egg salad sandwich, knowing that it is an egg salad sandwich and nothing more. But when you are served an egg salad sandwich, all while you were expecting smoked salmon, then it is just disingenuous; and you have every right to take it as an insult to your intelligence. After all, you just paid for something more!

P.S. I watched it on YouTube; “The new home of piracy”.

NB:

1. Peter’s attempts to make the distinction between his genetically derived Indian-ness, such as his skin color, his physical attributes versus Indian personality traits (which he claims not to have) is a large part of the act as he discusses his trip to India. It is only laughable that he does not notice how he undermines his own point!


2. Notice the distinction between amusing and funny. A good knock-knock joke is funny. Repeating a good joke over and over again, is at best… amusing.

Fuck Leno

I’ve been watching a lot of Leno the last few days, and suddenly it dawned on me, the similarities between Simi Garewal and the slimy rich fuck that is Leno. Leno is the biggest ass kisser I have ever seen. He makes Jon Stewart seem like an investigative journalist. Wait, that isn’t fair; Lou Dobbs makes Jon Stewart and The Daily Show seem like a news show; I didn’t mention O’Reilly or Limbaugh, because that’s a circus. That is where I will be taking my kids after the elephants and the lions are extinct.

Anyway, back to Leno and his ass-wipe of a show. Is it me or do the audience at Leno’s “Tonight Show” laugh and applaud every damn fucking thing, even when it isn’t funny. The “awws” from the audience makes me think they will fit right in at a screening of Full House. But I digress again. Leno had the chance to interview Broke Obama and Con-doleezza Rice; and throughout the interview, the only thing I noticed was that his big fucking chin couldn’t be found; because it was stuck up their ass.

But what was more pathetic was when he was kissing this dumb broads ass on his show (Emma Roberts, for the Google perverts). While he had his head stuck up this barely legal chick, and she was making fun of Paul Giammati for being old, all I could think of was, let’s see where you are when you are as fucking old as him (btw, the only thing different about her being 18 is that men in basements with beer bellies could finally jerk off to her images in public. I am currently looking for a basement and free beer.)

Back to Leno though, Leno, the thoughtful, empathetic guy who worries about the crises faced by America and its middle class; the guy who does two free shows in Detroit to lighten up the days of a few people who are facing financial hardships. Fuck that, I can’t do it. Give me a couple hundred classic and super cars and I’ll be a fucking asshole 365 days a year – for free.

To those that think this is just another angry rant (well, it is that, but not just), this is who Leno thinks is worthy of interviewing (resting on the laurels of an Obama interview¹); Miley Cyrus, Taylor Swift, Dennis Rodman, Lisa Lampanelli, Emma Roberts, Frank Calliendo, “cast” of American Idol, Bill Mays and John Cena (in the last two weeks). I omitted some names, for instance, the saving grace, Michael Caine. And just to prop up a benchmark, a network that is predominantly a comedy network, whose sister networks include Nickelodeon and MTV in that same period, interviewed Michael J Fox, Tom Zoellner, Peter Orszag, Seth Rogen, Bruce Springsteen (yes, the dirty black blots on this list), Jack Cafferty, Nandan Nilekani, Gen. Richard Myers and Jim Cramer.

And all this thanks to NBC; the worst network to date; worse than Star Plus and their Saas Bahu serials. Wait! You can’t make me pick between the two. I would much rather light a match to my pubic hair. I would much rather tweeze every single hair off my body; I would much rather watch Sarah Palin become President of USA. Can we bomb the US then using the “Bush Doctrine”?

Edit:

Sometimes Jon Stewart's jokes are created out of thin air; so much so that the audience does not notice. You can't possibly expect something that hasn't been rehearsed. Take this play with words for instance.

Talking about "pestilence and fear in the modern world" with Philip Alcabes (with AIDS as the talking point):

"I'm wearing a condom right now, on the show. I've been wearing it since 1987... Has a couple of holes in it, but I'm working through it."
- Jon Stewart


NB.


1. I think it is perfectly fair to mention here that Obama seems to be nothing more than a media whore at the moment, and would be on my blog if I had a few million readers, and answer questions about how he would avoid drinking India’s “newly developed” Coca Cowla, if it ever became the “state drink”.

2. This was written on the 7th of April.

3. How to make Leno less lame?

4. Things some guy hates ABOUT Leno.

Pissing In The Wind

Holy Coca Co(w)la. The Colas are doomed!

India is the land of useless regulation. We are world leaders in double standards and NO standards. A blog I visit, recently had a post about how Indian products make unsubstantiated claims, which in first world countries would be unacceptable. But in the land of hindutva¹, hypocrisy and lack of regulation make a perfect couple and no valentine's day for them either.

So what is the connection between colas and Indian hypocrisy? Not the pesticide thing… I really don't care about that. So if the pesticide scandal and the prospect of impending fatality are not big enough to bring a multinational corporation down, then what is? Piss. Yes, urine, and not just any urine, the blessed and holy piddle emanating from the saviors of the world, beef. This wee-wee is being branded by none other than the saviors of bharat mata, the RSS. As if the great Indian rope trick, images of free roaming elephants and dung laden streets weren't bad enough for urban India, now this.

But this is just the tip of the iceberg. There are "doctors" and "scientists" that claim "research" on cow urine therapy has been performed to demonstrate its effectiveness.

"Our Aim is...

Our main aim and objective is to prevent and cure most of the diseases by applying a totally natural and highly effective new concept. We will be pround if we will be able to give some Relief to this world. We are trying to follow the path of serving humanity shown by God. We are trying to make this therapy much more simple and feasible."

In the face of this fundamentalist ignorance, I quote the words of my Goan brothers², "Aamcha Feni aamka jai, tujha mut tu pee" (roughly translated: "We want our feni, you drink your piss").

But before I end this post, I have a few questions. Will golden showers stop being a fetish in India and be part of the rejuvenation regiment? I guess you don't have to worry about taking a whiz in a pool anymore.

1. Hindutva isn't the only one I think is guilty of this hypocrisy, for the record.

2. I have never found any record of anyone having said this. As far as I know, the only person that has ever used this phrase is my uncle, Vijay Bijur. Therefore I attribute this to him.

His "story" goes like this. The slogan was raised by the goans during the prohibition era of Morarji Desai, who claimed that the reason of his good health was that he drank his own piss. As far as I know, this is a fabrication of his brilliant mind.

Holy Wars

“In a short space of time all the people in the Delhi fort were put to the sword, and in the course of one hour the heads of 10,000 infidels were cut off. The sword of Islam was washed in the blood of the infidels, and all the goods and effects, the treasure and the grain which for many a long year had been stored in the fort became the spoil of my soldiers.”

Taken from the Tuzk-e-Taimuri‎, Timur’s (alleged) memoirs recount a fateful day of “ethnic cleansing” as he looted and plundered and amassed wealth and a haraam harem. I could see Timur being an egotistical, religious maniac, exaggerating his escapades to sound impressive; to furnish a permanent place in the annals of lunatic murderers. But in spite of his bloated ego, Timur’s intent is clear. The infidels must be purged. Allah’s will be carried out.

Elsewhere, less than a couple of centuries away, the French Religious wars raged on, 36 years, probably desensitizing a couple of generations of brie lovers to violence. The culture shock the French must have faced was thankfully short lived. Nearby, less than 20 years later, the Germans and the British would start one of their own wars based on their inability to agree on the details of what god “instructed” some random asshole on some remote mountain over a millennium ago. Over these 66 years… and one day, an estimated 15.6 Million people would be wasted away at god’s command¹.

Almost instinctively, the apologist is certain to point fingers at the murderous tendencies of prominent “atheist” mad men, Hitler² and Stalin³. While this argument has swiftly and effectively been rebutted by the “four horsemen”, I choose to show that the genocides and wars that raged from religious and theistic impetus have been far more gory, gruesome, blood curdling than the major wars of the 20^th century, The World Wars.

In comparison, the two world wars overshadow the two major religious wars (that I can recall) by sheer volume of cadavers. With conservative estimates of 19 and 40 million chronologically, they far outyield the 15 million estimated of the religious wars.

Tanks, mines, missiles, gunships, bombers, fighter planes, submarines, and of course, Fat Man and Little Boy have made the body count of the world war’s possible; making wars a little more impersonal in the 20^th century. The days of staring into the eyes of the enemy had been left behind in the medieval ages, to those who could stomach the blood and gore; to the pious. Technology in battle had the ability to delay the effect of battle, the effect waste of human life can have on a rational mind, only bringing it to the foreground post mortem.

But what the religious wars lose in body count, they make up for in sheer callousness and underestimation of human life. Staring into the enemy’s eyes, day after day, for decades together, mercilessly slaughtering, is a task that the religious masses seem to effortlessly pull off and master. Only god knows what devastation these armies would be capable of, if they had the resources of the 20^th century, with enough enemy bodies as in the 20^th century⁴.

1. These remain just the most obvious, bloody, and patent representations of religious violence. James Haught recounts other atrocities that have been committed by religion and the pious.

2. Hitler’s religious beliefs are still highly debated, and to this day, attempts to prove his atheistic ideology have been inconclusive. However, Hitler was a practicing Roman Catholic and remained one until his death.

There is an obvious rebuttal to this point of mine, and I will preempt it by offering my rebuttal, saving us some time.

Many claim that Hitler, an irreligious man (at least one who was against Christianity in his heart), used his ties with the roman catholic church to gain the sympathies of the catholics and protestants, and was nothing more than shrewd confidence trick. Having said that, it was the above mentioned churches that lent credibility to Hitler among the people of Germany, and more importantly, they were not against the bloodshed and means of the Nazis and Hitler. So as co-conspirators, the above mentioned churches are just as guilty as Hitler’s ideology (whatever it may be).

3. Hector Avalos, a scholar of the Bible, has in his book “Fighting Words: The Origins of Religious Violence” claimed that Stalin “had a complex relationship with religious institutions in the Soviet Union.” I say claimed, as I have not read the book myself and rely on a source, while not completely reliable, certainly no worse than the monkey work contained in certain other texts.

4. The world population and its explosion has been a primarily 20^th century phenomenon. During the period of the two world wars, the population rose from about 1.5 billion to 2.5 billion, in spite of the massive bloodshed in the two wars, of 131 million or 0.131 billion, or more importantly 6.5 percent of the mean population. While the world population during the 100 year period of the two religious saw a negligible rise from 427,000,000 to 500,000,000 and the death toll at 3.5 percent.

While that figure might seem to indicate the brutality of the world wars, it is limited, as almost all statistics are by the “big picture”. The big picture here shows of a zealous war, fought with no major technological assistance, in just a small portion of the earth (the world wars were fought by 35 and 68 countries compared to a handful during the two medieval wars).

Gun Shy

"There is no reason for anyone in the country, for anyone except a police officer or a military person, to buy, to own, to have, to use, a handgun. The only way to control handguns use in this country is to prohibit the guns. And the only way to do that is to change the Constitution."

-- Michael Gartner

NY Times: Daily gun deaths in USA

Gun control is probably one of the most controversial debates in current day United States. After LGBT rights, abortion and possibly the death penalty, gun control is probably the most hotly debated issue. A pacifist for as long as I have thought about this question, everything seemed black and white. People for the right to bear arms have always struck me as a little crazy.

My first experience with a handgun was not so long ago. Even though it wasn’t loaded, the safety was on, I felt a bit like a geeky teen at the prom, just approached by the prettiest girl; apprehensive, panicky and definitely sweaty. I was silently relieved when the firearm was put back into its gun safe. Okay, not so silently. I even made it a point to vocally point out how uncomfortable I was, if my body language hadn’t already betrayed the fact.

Don’t get me wrong, I have always been in reverence of handguns. During my high school years (Junior college back home) I was quite the gun enthusiast, admiring their inherent beauty, while awestruck at their immeasurable power, but always too much of a pussy to ever venture into the real world of guns. Forensic science and firearm forensics especially, held me captivated. Fortunately, I told myself, firearms let go that strangling grip, of an invention that definitely would have been the end of me, and from a career that would definitely be a dead end. My knowledge of firearms, therefore, always remained nascent and underdeveloped.

It has been said that fear always springs from ignorance. It could be argued that this was the case with me and firearms. They would be right. I was soon to re-discover and re-think firearms; though not as blue eyed as my teen self. Having been on the Pro-gun control side of the issue, the arguments for gun control were sufficiently convincing to me. After all, who needs more guns in the hands of the corrupters of society?

But things would turn gray soon. Thanks in part to an “indie” movie that I accidentally came across (a sign from god? *^%K, I’m republican) tackling the very issue of gun control. Dear Wendy, probably one of the most hated movies (because it is “ideologically doctrinaire on the one hand and a wannabe hot youth movie on the other”) seemed to make sense to me. I guess I am THAT insane. The movie is about a pacifist youth, exploring guns, his fascination for it, and the eventual demise of his pacifist views when he is forced to use his guns, and on the law too!

People dislike this movie, because it is supposedly anti 2^nd amendment, and “talks about an issue the filmmakers know nothing about”, but for some reason I found it the exact opposite (again, only cranial misfirings to blame). The movie was a romanticized commentary on perceptions of guns, pacifism, pacifism and guns, their incompatibility etc. And for me, it began the dreaded thought process of the “morality” of gun culture.

While the movie had barely begun to make me think, barely budging me out of my comfort zone, another incident would force me on a fast track to reconsider my stance. The Mangalore Pub incident (where 40 politically backed psychopaths violently evacuated a pub of all its women, while battering them and assaulting any men that came to their aid, all in the name of Indian culture, while media and law enforcement paraded and silently witnessed, respectively) while initially leaving me unaffected and unruffled, as my capacity to withstand Indian stupidity and idiocy was assumedly at its limits; would soon turn to shock and squeamishness, as I witnessed the videos of the act. This was further compounded by the reactions to the incident, which I thought Indians would unanimously find revolting. What I was to discover, painted a very different India, from the one I was exposed to, during my formative years in three of India’s four metropolitans.

Apart from an unprecedented culture shock (one that I didn’t even notice when I first stepped onto US soil), these incidents forced me to empathize, (not with the women, for that would be patronizing) with the men that tried to protect their women (be it sister, girlfriend or just out of humanitarian kinship). I was forced to relive the scenario, for the terrible fear that gripped me, warned me of my unpreparedness for such an eventuality. “What would you do under these circumstances?”

The answer would not come, possibly because I really was unprepared, not just physically, but mentally and emotionally as well. And being as physically advantaged as I am, there was no recourse in sight. That is when I came across Thomas Jefferson’s own views over guns. He opined that guns (as a symbol of power) are necessary for every citizen to hold onto, not to shoot down their neighbors dog, but to make sure no one else gets to shoot him down, or his rights.

A strong body makes the mind strong. As to the species of exercises, I advise the gun. While this gives moderate exercise to the body, it gives boldness, enterprise and independence to the mind. Games played with the ball, and others of that nature, are too violent for the body and stamp no character on the mind. Let your gun therefore be your constant companion of your walks.
--- Thomas Jefferson to Peter Carr, 1785.

It can be argued, and rightly so, that Jefferson was in an era of the Wild West, where an honor code was sufficient to keep people from killing each other, which has been eroded away by people and, I hypothesize, their religion. In fact, since we are quoting Jefferson, here are some more, to get some perspective:

We may consider each generation as a distinct nation, with a right, by the will of its majority, to bind themselves, but none to bind the succeeding generation, more than the inhabitants of another country.

"We might as well require a man to wear still the coat which fitted him when a boy as civilized society to remain ever under the regimen of their barbarous ancestors."

--Thomas Jefferson to Samuel Kercheval, 1816.

While the debate in America is a lot more complicated than Jefferson could have visualized, with all the (religious) nuts that roam around freely, I feel that India, which is in this regard more than a 100 years behind it’s time (arguably more), is yet to embark upon its true revolution. We are yet to fight for our freedom, and show that we will not stand for an aggressor, whether it is from within the state or from outside of it. All Gandhi did, was show to the world that we have the capacity to withstand immeasurable amounts of cruelty and injustice. And while Gandhi’s non-violence might have earned us some brownie points in international opinion, on our non-violent and non-aggressive stances, it has long been nullified with the history of violence since then. It is time; I think, that Indian’s re-evaluate their stance on guns. It is time we lose our sheepish naiveté, our misplaced mistrust of guns and our indoctrinated fear of revolutions.

A Bitter Jealous Post

We are a species obsessed with instant gratification. From the Who Wants to be a Millionaire syndrome to the theist worshipers, everyone wants to get something that they are not willing to work for.

But we have started taking instant gratification to new extremes. The 15 minutes of fame syndrome, brought to its pinnacle, nay, summit (which has been diluted in meaning thanks to all the summit meetings of the bureaucracy), by the likes of youtube and dailymotion, lending credibility to talentless fucks, or demigods born out of pure showmanship (and hardly peer reviewed). But I kept telling myself, it didn’t matter; all the attention they were getting was useless in a world that runs on money, and in a world that forgets these under-achievers as swiftly as they created them (remember N’ Sync?).


But what happens when these acts of infantile imbecility provide with credible monetary gains? What do (ir?)-rational hardworking people do, when they see someone work half as hard (if at all) and living their dreams? I am talking, of course, about Matt, of “Where the hell is Matt” fame.


Sure, all you blue eyed, youtube yuppies and junkies and whatever else’s will be quick to jump to his aid, defending his intentions to be noble, enamored by the other worldly music of his videos, proving my point once again.


For a person who claims to be doing this for the thrill and enjoyment of traveling and soaking in cultures and all that nice sounding stuff, tell me, what would the purpose of publishing a video and a website be? Oh, you don’t think it is for the monetary gain that instant (if even fleeting) stardom brings? Well, Stride gum, is a sponsor. Guess what sponsors do? They pay you money. What for? Hmmm… lets see… putting a small little link to their website on your site and videos, mentioning them a few times in your travels, perhaps passing on a few sticks of gum even, heck whatever gets the name out there.

Oh yes, there is the inevitable argument, “so what if he gains from his previous journeys?”. Well, what is wrong, is the fact that there are at least a handful of people out there that are doing the same sans the retarded dance, but you don’t see them getting sponsorship deals!


I will end with a disclaimer; this is not a shot at the “shooting stars” that the internet breeds, it is a reflection of the society that allows mediocrity to breed. We create stars out of nobodies, and revel at our ability and achievement at having done so, while letting the true achievers fade away silently, unnoticed. And to the naïve that ask, “what harm is coming of it?”; we harm ourselves by the propagation of the phenomenon, by making “future generations” think that it is somehow more glorious to be remembered for something unoriginal, something marketed, outwardly glossy and substantially tepid, than to push the limits of our human intelligence.

Butter-fry Effect.

The insignificant flutter of a butterfly’s wings on the remotest corners¹ of the earth may be elemental in the production of large disasters. The mystique of cause-effect relationships that seem outwardly unconnected is explained by the butterfly effect. But so potent is this perception that its agents are visible in every facet of our lives, on every avenue.

Even so, on my first work related “road trip”, leaving as early as 5 A.M. for Wisconsin, the work of this miraculous agent was quite visible.

Road trips have often been a topic of Hollywood flicks, from the absurdly retarded Road Trip series to much more endearing dramas, these movies offer a snapshot into country America.

As dissociated as events in some of these movies may be to real life, they mimic life in the most uncanny of ways. They cross barriers, geographic, cultural and perhaps even economic. I am, of course, talking about “rest stops”.

But as we stopped for breakfast, the reality of the butterfly effect and its unpleasant bedfellow; globalization, dawned on me. The oasis we had breakfast at a glaring example of the adulteration of our modern day lives by the whorifying enabler of globalization; Consumerism. With McDonalds at the right, taco bell to the left and everything in between a sampling of the finest in franchise cuisine America has to offer. As we embrace the gifts of globalization, the cost-cutting it affords us, we choose to ignore the local businesses that rely on our continued patronage for survival.

But in our pursuit of wealthiness, we have let slip the very essence that made those movies endearing. The small town cafes, bistros, pancake houses, moronically replaced by corporate food cloners that serve only to stifle the creativity that makes us unique, the servers grudgingly serving a daily dish of rude awakening. As we pinch pennies, filling the coffers of big business, we pay the ultimate price as we let them control our lives, our choices, our individualism; and effectively our freedom. I guess this fast paced life will overwhelm the abilities of our generation to sample the diversity of human evolution as we zombify our very existence.

Note:
1. A turn of phrase, obviously, originating in the day of old world "knowledge" where the earth was flat. Just as we keep the phrase and its intended meaning in spite of dispelling the darkening myth that gave birth to it, so it isn't entirely inconceivable for an atheist like me to use common phrases of language that invoke the imaginary supernatural being that supposedly gave birth to all that exists.

You have been warned. The next person to question the hypocrisy of using these phrases gets punched in the face.

Random Rant #149

Every man that wears a beard is Saddam. It’s true. I’ve heard it so many times; it has to be true. In fact, with my brown skin and beard, all that is missing is a chain of 7-Eleven’s to make me the stereotypical Islamic fundamentalist (or my yellow taxi cab)! But then I make up for that with all the bazookas that I play along with all day. I guess I’ll keep it for now, the beard that is (I have to leave my bazookas at the door).

Where Is That Damn Pencil?

I realized something today. There is never a pencil around when you need one, or a pen! For that matter, there is never anything sharp around when you want it.

Have you ever been forced to be within a closed room (or public transport) with a bunch of WHITE, early teen, high school, Legally Blonde wannabes? Let me tell you, it is "like" worse than getting hit by a bus… and living through it. It is worse than having your head shoved into your butt, worse than getting your head shaved… with a pair of tweezers. It is worse than pulling out your finger nails straight out. It is worse than having a raving, religious lunatic preach about god and the bible, about good and evil, about vice and virtue, about damnation and salvation. Wait, that last one isn’t true. I would know. And there you have it, another moment I wished I had a pencil.

                             Image by Fernando Graphicos

An Idiot for the idiot box!

Television for a few years now (perhaps even a decade) has shown us why it has earned the name, Idiot Box. It probably has something to do with the fact that it makes idiots out of us. So well is this fact documented that a movie Idiocracy was made to predict our future, as witty satire. But it did achieve another feat, aside from the one already mentioned. It proved how much they can dumb down television (which includes movies for me) for mass consumption, if there ever was a doubt with Spartans, the Scary Movie series, Disaster Movie, Date Movie, Epic Movie…

But then television loves to prove to us how fucked up our society really is, be it a “wardrobe malfunction” (read nipple slip) at the super bowl, or a “celebrity malfunction”. I am sure I could spend another 15 minutes and find a few more, but this isn’t the point of today’s post.

This post is dedicated to the cinematic abyss that is Indian television. And no, I won’t be taking potshots at our “saas-bahu”¹ soap operas, even though I am tempted. It would be far too easy. I will however let the funniest words ever to be uttered on television speak for itself.

Talking about this incident, a friend commented, "Indian television was just lame before this incident, now it is American".

I won’t ruin the fun for those of you that haven’t already seen or heard of this abomination and will let you watch the video and make up your own mind. I don’t think a rational human being will need much prodding. All I want to know is what able minded individual thinks the guy deserves it? And to those that have to ask what I think, I say, he didn’t hit her hard enough.

Side note: It is imperative to indicate that the genre of satire is not defined by these sorry box office excuses for cinema. There happen to be classics like Yes Minister, The Family Guy, just to drop a few names.

Olympic Dreams

With the end of the Beijing Olympics (yes I know it ended some time back), there are those that are reveling in the pseudo-national pride that comes with your nation performing, however lack luster, at the big event; ecstatic at our performances in shooting, wrestling and boxing, Indian sports fans and the above mentioned pseudo-patriots are going crazy with accolades. At the other end of the spectrum there are the critics that either can’t/won’t take anything positive from it or are just inclined to finding the cloud that carries the silver lining.

The medal trio is enjoying the adulation being poured in on them, while the other athletes either disappear into obscurity or get back to training for the next event of their season. But that sounds just like the India I left two years back, where effort goes unnoticed, hard work and dedication sidelined by the Indian publics need for instant gratification.

But let us leave them for the moment and concentrate on our critics. Just 3 medals from a billion strong? Or how about the fact that countries the size of Estonia, or ones with political strife like Zimbabwe manage to win more medals than us?

"We are the world’s biggest democracy, the second most populous country in the world. Then why is that in a span of 4 years, we are only able to produce 57 top athletes?"
Source: http://www.iwebie.com/indias-2008-beijing-olympics-dreams

But these comparisons are simplistic. Canada, the second largest country finished just 19^th, and Indonesia, with the 4^th largest population did worse than the aforementioned politically handicapped nation. This just goes to prove, your size, population or wealth has no bearing on how well you will do at the Olympics or any large sporting event for that matter.

"This is a matter of national shame, an aspect that the Indian Govt. needs to look at closely."
Source: http://www.iwebie.com/indias-2008-beijing-olympics-dreams

This sentiment is highly reflective of Indian behavior, our need to shirk off responsibility and redirect blame. It isn’t the government that is to blame. It is the Indian public. A nation, taking a crap on Rathore, without even knowing what the reason for his poor performance might have been. And even if there is no reason, I believe our medal winners (and prospects) deserve a little more respect than they are currently being shown

But what irks me more than everything else Indians do is the fact that some of these critics aren’t too appreciative of the fact that our medal winners are getting the attention that they are currently receiving.

"Now lets move our focus towards the sportsmen themselves. Vijender Kumar has already started talking in terms of modeling. Sushil Kumar seems to be completely over the moon. Its obvious that these people have started losing their focus even before their actual journey has commenced. At a time when they should start concentrating on the Commonwealth Games, India's so called medal winners are everywhere except for where they should be."
Source: http://www.intheorbit.com

Note: They are not “so-called” winners.

Well, it is alright when those douche bags get coke and Pepsi deals, isn’t it? I find nothing wrong with the Indian sportsmen and women cashing in on their newfound and (possibly) short lived fame due to their “so-called” Olympic triumphs. After all we are a fickle nation with no regard for our sports heroes. Maybe you will remember some of our athletes that had to sell their medals¹ from other events in order to survive. Or maybe you do not. But that is our nature. And it is this nature that has dawned on these three men and they deserve to make the best of what they have now. May they never have to worry about selling their hard earned medals.

But all this begs the question, who is to blame; when our system rewards performances after results and provides no impetus (different from incentives) for our athletes (cricketers aren't athletes in my opinion). I don’t have the answer, and I don’t think Indians really care either. The question will be put on the back burner until a few months before the 2012 Olympics.

But all this doesn’t hold a candle to the final and most absurd accusation, one that pisses me off so much that I believe that anyone that dare make such an accusation deserves castration; and that is for the lack of time to construct an appropriate torture that matches the blasphemy. It is said that the reason we had so many ‘flakers’ these Olympics was due to the fact that they lack passion. To those cricket loving douche bags that know not true passion when they see it, I hope you rot in the world’s dirtiest cesspool

I don’t see how they can levy this accusation, with reasonable seriousness, when our sportsmen who toil in their respective sports even though the chances of any glory are minimal, even if they do bring in the results (Karnam Malleswari won a few lakhs for her bronze and some Arjuna Award or some titular facade). Most of them toil in their sports into obscurity. Few have heard of the gallant sportsmen who fight so that we may one day have an Abhinav Bindra or an Akhil Kumar.

India doesn’t deserve the medals these young men and women bring in. And while I will be hurt if we continue to perform as we have in the past, I believe the Indian nation deserves nothing more.

1 Poverty crushes spirit of weightlifters.