Boats to freedom

More boats to Gaza strip should be the strategy. In fact boats must flood the waters to Gaza. Perhaps like the salt march in India's freedom, Gaza needs a boat march. The sparrow remains free because it will not tolerate imprisonment. It dies when caged so that the species remains free. But parrots remain caged. So its a choice people must make and there is a price to be paid. Freedom is not cheap and a much valuable commodity.

Subsidized manufacturing

Being self reliant in agriculture is a big bonus for America and this happened because of intelligent subsidies. If some one had done that for manufacturing too then America would not have had so many manufacturing job losses. Subsidies may be one of the ways to compete by keeping prices of goods low. Another is of course large scale cnc manufacturing. Labor leaders try to keep automation out on the pretext of losing jobs. But the real reason is they are afraid that they may not be able learn new skills. And thus most jobs got shipped elsewhere. People must become leaders only if the are willing to keep on top of new technology so that they can predict where their followers must go. Frankly, current labor leaders all over the world are opportunistic and dumb and do nothing for struggling labor except to make sure the leaders do not lose their power.

There is nothing more exciting than manufacturing. Morever, CNC manufacturing will bring in jobs across the spectrum, a lot more real jobs than alternate energy jobs which is all the rage today. New areas like alternate energy is well funded with very little expectations in return. So a lot of people have a well paid vacation in the name of research. On the other hand manufacturing cannot lie. Everyone can clearly see how many pens you made and how much it should cost. Moreover there is no room for misleading experts to interpret results. Now are we surprised that manufacturing jobs are rather unpopular in these times and place?

Human vultures

The Palestine Israel conflict is an excellent scenario for human vultures to get their fill. Israel wants palestinians to just go away and they make life very hard for them.
The international charity organizations want them to stay so that they get their funds flowing in the name of helping the suffering people of Palestine. The status quo is quite profitable for vultures. If you can do something about a situation then you must do it. If you cannot then the next best thing is to express an opinion and the last best thing is to boycott and wash your hands off the crime. But profiting out of human (or animal) misery is gross.

Mangalore air crash

Tough to see people from Mangalore cry. One happens to be quite fond of that city. The air crash is unfortunate.

Al Jazeera's excellent news reporting

Over the last decade Al Jazeera has done an excellent job of news reporting surpassing BBC and the likes for a while now.

Nature cure centers in India

Nature cure centers are very popular in India and is actually really good for health. People need to go to sanatoriums to service their bodies as they would service a car. But because nature cure is not main stream it tends to be awfully expensive. Like sandalwood and teak, ayurveda needs urgent attention by the Indian government. I can picture a world where temples and hospitals all over India offer ayurveda centers and people more contended, at peace, and healthy than they are today. Heaven!

America in the middle east

Let us step back in time and think about what American presence was in the middle east a decade back. It was mostly a good thing. People preferred working for American and British companies because the compensation was good and employees were treated well compared to not only companies owned by people from the middle east, but when compared to world standards. It is to that state that America must return for in the long run the inherent goodness of the American people is more powerful and prosperous than its barrels and guns.

Women's education

An educated woman's home gets educated. Some fundamentalists by keeping women behind are keeping society behind. I hate the creeps. Diplomacy takes flight when I see fundamentalist creeps.

Nuclear weapons fear

Nuclear weapons by Iran is not so frightening, not for the US, at least. Iran cannot and will not use it in its own neighborhoods without harming itself. But of course it can export the technology to rogue nations who are suicidal. Iran's history has no such tendencies. What one needs to worry is how good Iran has got at other weapons like missiles which can do real time harm to US presence in the middle east. America's interests lie in making friends with Iran which in my opinion is a progressive nation in the region compared to Saudi Arabia or even Kuwait. Also Iran benefits by making friends with America because it will have access to technology it needs to progress. Yes there are other injustices happening in the world but the solution to each problem is different and not quite connected.

Freedom

Jean Jacques Rousseau said that Man is born free, yet he is everywhere in chains. And some people claim they are free. Freedom is a much cherished dream very hard to achieve. And when they are free they do smile.

The monopoly game

Big companies are unpopular mainly because they establish monopolies. Microsoft was quite unpopular in the nineties with competition always whining that they did not stand a chance of survival. But if we take a moment we realize that Microsoft stayed at the top because it was able to come up with competitive products that always carved a market for itself. The Nineties were easy because companies had Microsoft to blame till Google happened. Microsoft to date has not been able to come up with a search engine that can truly compete and hence loses its lead. Technology always wins and whining helps little is a lesson to learn.

Human rights

The only way children's rights will improve is when women's rights improve. The same people who torture women torture children.

On not giving up

While discussing some annoying reviews on my work someone just told me not to give up. That advice amused me. Why would I give up? I was thinking all the while that the reviewers need to give up. Clearly they do not know their job, are frustrated, and talking nonsense. And we all see that I have signed my name to this opinion as opposed to the anonymous goons who write absurd reviews. I never was one to support anonymous reviews in scientific communities. Ah! we do have the habit of wishing for the sky!

Mangalore pub attack

Attacking young girls in Mangalore is really a shameful act. No matter what your child does I do not think any parent will like a bunch of goons punching them around. If some people think there needs to be law that protect culture then it must be done with debates and in a more democratic way. In some countries pubs are illegal. Make pubs illegal in Mangalore. The very idea of making pubs illegal in Mangalore is a no no because the majority of people in Mangalore like to have pubs around maybe. I say make anything you like illegal in Mangalore but make sure that law abiding people can know beforehand what the laws of the land are. So Ram sena should have attacked the people who gave licenses for pubs or lawmakers instead of attacking children who were doing nothing illegal.

The problems of immigrating

Indian women must think twice before agreeing to come to US on a H-4 visa. Many women who are professionals like medical doctors come to US and stay home for years before they are allowed to work. It is a huge waste of resources. Young people make mistakes which in a society like India are smoothed out by elders. But here there are no such support systems. It is important that young people join cultural groups as soon as they come here so that they do not forget who they are and their backgrounds. Sometimes, there are benefits to immigration, and sometimes there are none. Especially for Indian women these days benefits seem few. Many Indian immigrants join the rat race and there are a lot of instances of people committing suicide and killing their family because they lost a job. Step back, take time, and contemplate. You did not get to where you are without immense blessings. A regular count your blessings and options will save the day.

When a person gets married the hope is that all is going to be great from then on. The hope is so strong that a person is not trained or advised on serious problems he/she may face among new people. Similarly, people immigrating to new countries must have a backup plan to fall back on if the promises are not met or if they face serious problems which include personal ones too.

Insulting Indian shooters in UK

Indian shooters who went to UK to compete for a world cup are insulted and harassed. The organizers are trying hard to get some cups for the UK competitors. If they were so worried why do they organize world matches? If you must play, you must play fair. Else declare yourself winners, who cares? Competitions are getting nastier every where and people are forgetting their manners.

Losing the feathers in a plume.

When one culture meets another, invariably, people lose their plumes. So the west mocked an African prince for one prince looked very much the same as the other. And people from the east can never tell which man in which suit is more important than the other. The plumes make sense among your own but its best you wear your own than anothers. So Aishwariya Rai in her gowns on the red carpet never looks as gracious as Aishwariya in a sari or a lehenga. I say hold on to your plumes across cultures to preserve grace and beauty. Nothing fits more ill than borrowed plumes.

Arizona and its immigration problem

Is Arizona right or wrong in passing a law that requires that people carry documentation all the time? Now this causes an uncomfortable feeling to all people of color. Though the news is all about Latinos, Asian Indians, Pakistanis, Chinese, East Europeans, and all other immigrants wonder whether they will be targeted. Moreover the police officers of Arizona are not all of one particular race. So one of these days the governor herself may be called upon to prove citizenship. This law is going to be awfully annoying to every one, I can bet.

Now comes the problem of immigration. I am appalled how all the critical jobs are held by immigrants. Plumbing, electrical, machining, farming, loading and unloading, janitorial, etc are done by Mexicans, the Asians run hair salons, laundries, do nursing, clerical, and other such jobs, and the Indians do the programming. Now the European and African Americans usually either do a good job like managerial or technical jobs, else they do not work at all and live off government money.

A lot of American businesses will be critically affected if they do not have illegal immigrants. This is a reality that law makers must face. Temporary work permit may solve the problems. No one is illegal then. But at the same time temp work permits may not attract Mexicans to come to America.

Exams you cannot fail

Maharashtra is experimenting with not failing students from class 1 to class 8. Grading without failing anyone is a good idea. Grading is a good judge of the student's expertise in a certain area of study. Moreover awarding students for doing well in a subject is a much better idea than punishing some one who did not do so well.

Not failing students allow them to have an opportunity to learning for 8 years of their life. Very rarely do students who are thrown out of school, because of repeatedly failing, go back to school. School dropouts later become social problems. Of course this means the teachers have to be extra good to motivate students to learn. Even if there are no great teachers this is a better system.

Recently came across the idea of "money for getting good grades". Its an awesome idea and motivates like nothing else. Pythagorus will not like it because he was of the line of thought that it was demeaning to seek wealth or for that matter anything in learning. You study because you are he might say. But a lot of children and grown up people think that studying improves a person's economic standing. This is a myth. Marie curie for most part of her studying life lived an impoverished life and got sick time and again because of inappropriate lodgings. Emmy Noether lost her job because of Nazis and in general academicians are not rich and their families suffer financially. Hindus believe two women cannot get along and hence the goddess of learning (Saraswati) and the goddess of wealth (Laxmi) will not reside in the same house.

But some how studying is a good thing. A learned person is a better person.

Unpainted walls and nostalgia

A few decades back the buildings in Bombay were mostly unpainted for years. A painted building would stand out as someone dressed in new clothes. Now freshly painted buildings have become a norm. And unpainted building are sought after in arts. No wonder because there is something comforting about unpainted buildings. It is so true that becoming richer cannot make you happier. When the money is limited you are spending it right on things that matters most to you. For example, the outside of a building is for outsiders and we paint only our homes. Similarly when one gets richer a lot of money gets spend for and on outsiders.

Race and education

The whole approach of doing more or less for some students based on race is stupid. People come from all backgrounds to a classroom. Education is between you and some books and some edging and encouragement surely helps. But great scientists seldom got any. Dividing young children on the basis of race, religion, etc in a classroom is passe and an era that should never return. What was the purpose of an exclusive outing for black children to meet a black astronaut? To show that even you can become one. I think this is really stupid. Why on earth should little children think they cannot become who they want to because they have a particular skin color? Schools by doing such things are telling children that the norm is not that you can be who you want to be and you have to try harder. The truth is no one has it easy.

Discrimination of blacks is a relatively new phenomenon that began with colonization a few hundred years old. Discrimination of jewish people lasted a lot longer for almost 2000 years. Now there is a new trend of discriminating against muslims. Brahmins who traditionally discriminate were discriminated against in Tamil Nadu and had to leave the region. Russians thought Polish people should not have higher education and Marie curie had to go to France after working as a governess for four years to continue her studies. The germans under Hitler threw Emmy Noether out of her university position and she died young. Yes, the two women I admire most in science have been discriminated against.

Any one can be discriminated against. It is like your house can be hit with a burglary and hence burglary is bad and a crime against humanity. The reason why Niemöller words will never lose its relevance.

"THEY CAME FIRST for the Communists,
and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Communist.

THEN THEY CAME for the Jews,
and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Jew.

THEN THEY CAME for the trade unionists,
and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a trade unionist.

THEN THEY CAME for me
and by that time no one was left to speak up."

Aung San Suu Kyi's imprisonment

Aung San Suu Kyi has been in jail for too many years and it is demotivating for people in similar situations. A sense of hopelessness prevails. For people who have lived free
some things are incomprehensible but yet something like this could happen to any one. Scary I must say because you see a whole world watch without doing anything when an innocent woman goes to jail.

Interviewing at Google

I wonder how many people in the world have been interviewed by Google. It must be a past time for Googlers to interview people. I think there is hardly an English speaking person who does not know at least one person who interviewed at Google. Getting an interview call from Google is mostly a joke unless you are a software programmer from Stanford. Google is willing to talk to any one who applies, artists, acrobats, and all. Its true that words are cheap and plenty and Google do not pay the interviewee.

The vulnerabilities of the stock market

As a casual visitor to the stock market I was appalled at the vulnerabilities of the stock market. Some people think of dealing in stocks as gambling but there is a big difference. Stocks can be manipulated big time and by very few people. For example you just need to sell a couple of stocks at about 20 % less than the current value and see the stock dip in one day. A big company is usually watched by shorts (we can call them as stock vultures waiting to devour the carcass) and there is no escape usually. Yes there is competition out there and quite smart ones too and a company is naive to think no one is out to get them especially if they are quite successful. The workaround may be is to limit the quantity of stocks that go outside the company and also may be deny sales at price way below a reasonable percentage. Seriously, alarm bells should ring if the current value of a stock is 20 and 50 people bough it at that price and suddenly 10 people decide to sell it at 18. These dips have to be steep to make a difference else the authentic sales can smooth out these ripples. Ironically, you may make more money shorting a stock than holding on to it once you are certain a company is doing well.

Dirty teams

Teams usually form for a good reason and sustains for a bad one. If there was no other team to play against very rarely can a team last together. Thus the fundamentalists team, the maoists team, the stalkers team, the paparazzi team thrive and harass individuals. If a team bothers you, you need to go after the head, the few people who harness the mob. Boy, you would love to see some heads rolling if you ever have been victim to dirty team harassment.

Joy over hanging

India celebrates as Kasab hangs. Kasab killed and will die for no reason. There is no one crying for him in India or Pakistan. He is ostracized. It is a social problem that youngsters are promised heaven and made sacrificial goats. Young people will learn a lesson from Kasab's case that they are no heroes if they behave like him and there are no people who care. Greedy people want to make scape goats of people like Kasab and Kashmir. Its a sad situation. Cannot say I feel joy in hanging any one, its not just me. It would be of academic interest to find out why Kasab became who he is and his background. It is no personal agenda because India has never done anything to him. Then where did his motive come from? Looks like the people involved in the attacks were drugged or crazy.

Not so long ago I heard an Iraqi say than Iraqi blood is now cheap. 50 people dying is no longer news. I think blood has become cheap of all people around the globe in the last decade. Perhaps it was always cheap. Anyways India has brought to justice the people who were involved in 26/11, a lot more than we can say about what the US has done so far about 9/11.

A window to poverty

Dalit literature provides a window in to poverty that other books do not. Oh yes, Tolstoy, Dickens, and Tagore did write about poverty but the works by people who have experienced extreme poverty is a lot more compelling and eye opening. Poverty is a lot worse than that described by Tagore or Tolstoy because a poor person laments more the deprivation of his soul than stomach. For some reason most people (including me) believe that a certain group of people can face hardships better than others and that is the myth these windows burst.

Dignity of labor

As long as unskilled labor remains undignified people will need to resort to tricks and gimmicks to find it.

Social prejudices

Having been fairly free of social prejudices for most of my life, my recent brush with dalit literature got me thinking about these prejudices and where they come from. Most prejudices are nurtured and encouraged if there is a direct economic benefit. So the upper classes in India exploited a group of people for work they themselves did not do and paid no wages. What could be better than that? Slaves provided by religion or so it may seem. Culture propagates this economic benefit and the perpetrators of this crime loathe the victims. The loathing helps the exploitation. But this is subconscious for most people and they do not think about it. If the exploitation was not so financially beneficial then people would seriously ask "Can a dirty cloth wipe a desk clean?" No. The people who sanitize the sorrounding have to be cleaner than everything else so that they can clean. Or at least that should have been the logical way to go. So if the society was truly logical I would find eating food in a bhangi's house safer than a Brahmin's because the bhangi is a professional cleaner and knows the job. Alas, the society leans more towards exploiting than logic.

Cleaning is among what I consider unskilled labor. I see no reason to hate unskilled labor. Of course if you are skilled you may be justified in seeking more respect but there is no particular reason to loathe unskilled labor. Especially in modern India where you do have to pay for janitorial services. I say we can safely do without the pretenses of caste superiority.

Incidentally, the caste system prevailed all through the 700 years of Mughal rule and the 300 years of British rule but came crumbling down in democracy. For all the failings of democracy we must say it did get rid of this unnecessary evil.

The concern of men

Considering that the male species very existence is threatened in nature, man has taken a lot of care to make sure he lives long. In species where females are self sufficient like spiders and especially in communities like bees and ants, the males live a very short life. Among farm animals the males face the butcher way before a female does. Among apes and humans the males by providing protection and food and by removing the independence of women became quite important. The apes males may retain their importance if the forest survives but the human males are increasingly of not of much use to society. If a man complains of old age he might as well not and thank his stars instead. Imagine if he was a farm goat he would never have had a chance to see grey hairs. Ideally the birds are the best examples in nature of freedom and dignity a family must stand for unless we are talking about chicken.

Freedom of press - a myth or reality?

The idea of freedom of press is great. But does this freedom exist in reality? Freedom of press works well for Paparazzi who one wishes did not have this fundamental right. On the other hand decent news papers and magazines depend greatly on advertisements and sponsorships and a free press in a corporate setting is a joke. In oppressive regimes people yearn for the freedom of the press and when people become free they become paparazzi or corporate. So we come to the conclusion that propagating freedom cannot be a job but either it is an ideology or a hobby. This holds for academics too. In the past either the rich like kings studied or the hermits did. Both had no need to earn a living. And then there was freedom in academics.