Eavesdropping on a conversation between the Obamas

Obamas

Last night I had a strange dream.  In pursuit of a tried and tested desi American dream, I was apparently driving a taxi in Washington the night of the President’s State of the Union address to the Congress.  It was getting late, I had no passengers and I was driving by the Capitol Building when I saw a formally dressed couple standing on the sidewalk waving for a ride.  As I stopped my taxi to pick them up, imagine my shock when I realized they were none other than Barrack and Michelle Obama!  Don’t ask me why they didn’t have their security and political posse around.  I had no clue why they were ditching the normal cavalcade of a Presidential ride for a Taxi ride.  It was like being inside a David Lynch movie – strange and delectable, but you always know it is bullshit and not really happening.

As they settled into the backseat, Obama said “White House please!”

Off I went, still stunned and speechless.

BO: “So, how was it honey!  You think I knocked them dead!?”

So it isn’t true.  He doesn’t actually carry a teleprompter with him at all times and he doesn’t need one to talk to his wife.  Uh.. rumors!!

Mrs. O didn’t seem all that impressed.

MO: ”It was alright dear.”

BO: ”Just alright!?  Come on now.  You know no speech of mine can be just alright.  How about that bit when I said I didn’t take on health care because it was a good political move?  That was funny?  Wasn’t it?”

Silence from Mrs. O.

BO: “Or when I asked how long we can put America’s future on hold by not tackling the tough issues.. that should have resonated with the folks, right?”

MO: “I don’t know dear.”

BO: “And I demonstrated yet again how much of a uniter I am.. that I only intend to operate with bipartisanship.  You saw how I scolded both the democrats and the republicans about turning every little issue into a political contest!?”.

MO: “But you are a democrat honey.”

BO: “I know.. but great presidents rise above political partisanship.  You know how I model myself after Abraham Lincoln.  Keep your friends close, and keep your enemies even closer.”

MO: “I have news for you O.  You are not Abraham Lincoln and this is not 1861, and your enemies like nothing better than to see you fail at every thing you do.”

BO: “Come on Michelle.. you know I mean well.  I just don’t want to abuse our  majority in the house and the senate.  Besides, the republicans will come around.  Look.. even you rejected me when I first asked you out, but just like you, they will eventually give into my irresistible charm and wit. “

Mrs. O is visibly miffed now.

MO: “I can’t believe you are comparing me to those a-holes.  Did you see the smirks on their faces when you announced that 3o billions from the Wall street bailout funds will be used for small business incentives?  Watch out for a fresh wave of propaganda painting you as a communist and a socialist.  They are not interested in fixing anything.  They are only interested in burying you and spitting on your grave.”

BO: “They will come around when they realize I have no hidden agendas here.”

MO: “I don’t think anyone questions your intentions dear.  Thats why the people elected you with such a huge majority.  But what good does having right intentions do if you are not acting on them. “

BO: “Like I said tonight, I want to bring a change in Washington and bring back that respect and confidence in politics to our people.”

MO: “At what cost?  What happened to the lofty goals of your health care reforms?  How watered down can you let your plans become to appease those that hate your guts.  The republicans don’t give a shit for your ideals or your ambitions.  If you are such a uniter, why don’t you get your own party representatives to unite and get things done.”

BO: “I believe in working towards a consensus in tackling major issues such as health care and energy.”

MO: “Uh!  You seriously think the buffoons who spread rumors that you are an Arab to get people to hate you, who run campaigns claiming you are not even a US citizen and who never lose an opportunity to brand you as a second coming of Karl Marx give a flying fuck about your health care reform or your energy plan?  Meanwhile, here you are, planning your greatness and preaching to these people how they should behave when the people who elected you want you to focus on fixing the problems they are straddled with.”

BO: “Thats harsh.  Like I mentioned earlier tonight, I was left with a shit pile of issues to deal with… economy, health care, trillion dollar deficit, environment, energy.. you of all the people should know this.”

MO: “Yes, but you can only talk about doing great things for so long.. at some point you should just do it instead of preaching about being buddy-buddy with the republicans.”

BO: “Yes, but I look cool talking about it!”

And then I heard a noise, breaking up my unusual dream in the middle of the night.  I woke up to the rerun of the GOP rebuttal from the Virginia Governor on the TV that wasn’t shut off.  Carefully flanked by demographically diverse group of people, this can put the best late night infomercial to shame.  Black, Chinese, aged, military, women.. they covered all their bases.  But wait.. not even a token desi in that group?  Dissed as usual.. even in a phony political setup!

GOP Rebuttal.. puts the best infomercial to shame

 

William Zinsser::Writing Good English

William Zinsser

William Zinsser is the author of many books on writing, including the widely acclaimed best seller “On Writing Well“.  He is also an English teacher who is now teaching at the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.  As presented in The American Scholar, here’s his talk to the incoming international students at the Columbia Graduate School of Journalism in the fall of 2009.  A very engaging and opinionated viewpoint, his principles for writing well in English have little to do with grammar and grandiosity and everything to do with keeping it simple, clear, logical and concise.  Below, I highlighted a few select snippets from his talk, but you can read the entire article here from the source, if it interests you.

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[..]

So what is good English—the language we’re here today to wrestle with?

[..]

It has a huge vocabulary of words that have precise shades of meaning; there’s no subject, however technical or complex, that can’t be made clear to any reader in good English—if it’s used right. Unfortunately, there are many ways of using it wrong. Those are the damaging habits I want to warn you about today.

First, a little history. The English language is derived from two main sources. One is Latin, the florid language of ancient Rome. The other is Anglo-Saxon, the plain languages of England and northern Europe. The words derived from Latin are the enemy—they will strangle and suffocate everything you write. The Anglo-Saxon words will set you free.

How do those Latin words do their strangling and suffocating? In general they are long, pompous nouns that end in -ion—like implementation and maximization and communication (five syllables long!)—or that end in -ent—like development and fulfillment. Those nouns express a vague concept or an abstract idea, not a specific action that we can picture—somebody doing something. Here’s a typical sentence: “Prior to the implementation of the financial enhancement.” That means “Before we fixed our money problems.”

Believe it or not, this is the language that people in authority in America routinely use—officials in government and business and education and social work and health care. They think those long Latin words make them sound important. It no longer rains in America; your TV weatherman will tell that you we’re experiencing a precipitation probability situation.

[..]

Let me read you three typical letters I recently received in the mail. (I keep letters like this and save them in a folder that I call “Bullshit File.”)

The first one is from the president of a private club in New York. It says, “Dear member: The board of governors has spent the past year considering proactive efforts that will continue to professionalize the club and to introduce efficiencies that we will be implementing throughout 2009.” That means they’re going to try to make the club run better.

Here’s a letter to alumni from the head of the New England boarding school I attended when I was a boy. “As I walk around the Academy,” she writes, “and see so many gifted students interacting with accomplished, dedicated adults” [that means boys and girls talking to teachers] and consider the opportunities for learning that such interpersonal exchanges will yield…” Interpersonal exchanges! Pure garbage. Her letter is meant to assure us alumni that the school is in good hands. I’m not assured. One thing I know is that she shouldn’t be allowed near the English department, and I’m not sure she should even be running the school. Remember: how you write is how you define yourself to people who meet you only through your writing. If your writing is pretentious, that’s how you’ll be perceived. The reader has no choice.

Here’s one more—a letter from the man who used to be my broker; now he’s my investment counsel. He says, “As we previously communicated, we completed a systems conversion in late September. Data conversions involve extra processing and reconciliation steps [translation: it took longer than we thought it would to make our office operate better]. We apologize if you were inconvenienced as we completed the verification process [we hope we’ve got it right now]. “Further enhancements will be introduced in the next calendar quarter” [we’re still working on it]. Notice those horrible long Latin words: communicated, conversion,reconciliation, enhancements, verification. There’s not a living person in any one of them.

[..]

So if those are the bad nouns, what are the good nouns? The good nouns are the thousands of short, simple, infinitely old Anglo-Saxon nouns that express the fundamentals of everyday life: house, home, child, chair, bread,milk, sea, sky, earth, field, grass, road … words that are in our bones, words that resonate with the oldest truths. When you use those words, you make contact—consciously and also subconsciously—with the deepest emotions and memories of your readers. Don’t try to find a noun that you think sounds more impressive or “literary.” Short Anglo-Saxon nouns are your second-best tools as a journalist writing in English.

What are your best tools? Your best tools are short, plain Anglo-Saxon verbs. I mean active verbs, not passive verbs. If you could write an article using only active verbs, your article would automatically have clarity and warmth and vigor.

Let’s go back to school for a minute and make sure you remember the difference between an active verb and a passive verb. An active verb denotes one specific action: JOHN SAW THE BOYS. The event only happened once, and we always know who did what: it was John who activated the verb SAW. A passive-voice sentence would say: THE BOYS WERE SEEN BY JOHN. It’s longer. It’s weaker: it takes three words (WERE SEEN BY instead of SAW), and it’s not as exact.

[..]

Henry David Thoreau

One of my favorite writers is Henry David Thoreau, who wrote one of the great American books, Walden, in 1854, about the two years he spent living—and thinking—in the woods near Concord, Massachusetts. Thoreau’s writing moves with simple strength because he uses one active verb after another to push his meaning along. At every point in his sentences you know what you need to know. Here’s a famous sentence from Walden:

I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of nature, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.

Look at all those wonderful short, active verbs: went, wished, front, see, learn, die,discover. We understand exactly what Thoreau is saying. We also know a lot abouthim—about his curiosity and his vitality. How alive Thoreau is in that sentence! It’s an autobiography in 44 words—39 of which are words of one syllable. Think about that: only five words in that long, elegant sentence have more than one syllable. Short is always better than long.

Now let me turn that sentence into the passive:

A decision was made to go to the woods because of a desire for a deliberate existence and for exposure to only the essential facts of life, and for possible instruction in its educational elements, and because of a concern that at the time of my death the absence of a meaningful prior experience would be apprehended.

All the life has been taken out of the sentence. But what’s the biggest thing I’ve taken out of that sentence? I’ve taken Thoreau out of that sentence. He’s nowhere to be seen. I’ve done it just by turning all the active verbs into passive verbs. Every time I replaced one of Thoreau’s active verbs with a passive verb I also had to add a noun to make the passive verb work. “I went to the woods because” became “A decision was made.” I had to add the noun decision. “To see if I could learn what it had to teach—two terrific verbs, learn and teach; we’ve all learned and we’ve all been taught—became “for possible instruction.” Can you hear how dead those Latin nouns are that end in i-o-n?  Decision. Instruction. They have no people in them doing something.

So fall in love with active verbs. They are your best friends.

Ihave four principles of writing good English. They are Clarity, Simplicity, Brevity, and Humanity.

First, Clarity. If it’s not clear you might as well not write it. You might as well stay in bed.

Two: Simplicity. Simple is good. Most students from other countries don’t know that. When I read them a sentence that I admire, a simple sentence with short words, they think I’m joking. “Oh, Mr. Zinsser, you’re so funny,” a bright young woman from Nigeria told me. “If I wrote sentences like that, people would think I’m stupid.” Stupid like Thoreau, I want to say. Or stupid like E. B. White. Or like the King James Bible. Listen to this passage from the book of Ecclesiastes:

I returned and saw under the sun, that the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, neither yet bread to the wise, nor yet riches to men of understanding, nor yet favor to men of skill, but time and chance happeneth to them all. [Look at all those wonderful plain nouns: race, battle, bread, riches, favor, time, chance.]

Abraham Lincoln

Or stupid like Abraham Lincoln, whom I consider our greatest American writer. Here’s Lincoln addressing the nation in his Second Inaugural Address as president, in 1865, at the end of the long, terrible, exhausting Civil War:

With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right [eleven straight one-syllable words], let us strive on [active verb] to finish the work we are in, to bind up [active verb] the nation’s wounds, to care [active verb] for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan [specific nouns],—to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations.

[..]

So remember: Simple is good. Writing is not something you have to embroider with fancy stitches to make yourself look smart.

Principle number 3. Brevity. Short is always better than long. Short sentences are better than long sentences. Short words are better than long words. Don’t saycurrently if you can say now. Don’t say assistance if you can say help. Don’t saynumerous if you can say many. Don’t say facilitate if you can say ease. Don’t call someone an individual [five syllables!]; that’s a person, or a man or a woman. Don’t implement or prioritize. Don’t say anything in writing that you wouldn’t comfortably say in conversation. Writing is talking to someone else on paper or on a screen.

Which brings me to my fourth principle: Humanity. Be yourself. Never try in your writing to be someone you’re not. Your product, finally, is you. Don’t lose that person by putting on airs, trying to sound superior.

There are many modern journalists I admire for their strong, simple style, whom I could recommend to you as models. Two who come to mind are Gay Talese and Joan Didion.

[..]

Joan Didion

..here’s Joan Didion, who grew up in California and wrote brilliant magazine pieces about its trashy lifestyle in the 1960s. No anthropologist caught it better. This passage is from her collection of early magazine pieces, Slouching Toward Bethlehem.

There are always little girls around rock groups—the same little girls who used to hang around saxophone players, girls who lived on the celebrity and power and sex a band projects when it plays—and there are three of them out here this afternoon in Sausalito where the Grateful Dead rehearse. They are all pretty and two of them still have baby fat and one of them dances by herself with her eyes closed [perfect simple image]. . . .

[..]

I’ve given you these examples because writing is learned by imitation. We all need models. Bach needed a model; Picasso needed a model. Make a point of reading writers who are doing the kind of writing you want to do. (Many of them write forThe New Yorker.) Study their articles clinically. Try to figure out how they put their words and sentences together. That’s how I learned to write, not from a writing course.

[..]

The epidemic I’m most worried about isn’t swine flu. It’s the death of logical thinking. The cause, I assume, is that most people now get their information from random images on a screen—pop-ups, windows, and sidebars—or from scraps of talk on a digital phone. But writing is linear and sequential; Sentence B must follow Sentence A, and Sentence C must follow Sentence B, and eventually you get to Sentence Z. The hard part of writing isn’t the writing; it’s the thinking. You can solve most of your writing problems if you stop after every sentence and ask: What does the reader need to know next?”

One maxim that my students find helpful is: One thought per sentence. Readers only process one thought at a time. So give them time to digest the first set of facts you want them to know. Then give them the next piece of information they need to know, which further explains the first fact. Be grateful for the period. Writing is so hard that all of us, once launched, tend to ramble. Instead of a period we use a comma, followed by a transitional word (and, while), and soon we have strayed into a wilderness that seems to have no road back out. Let the humble period be your savior. There’s no sentence too short to be acceptable in the eyes of God.

[..]

Please remember, in moments of despair, whatever journalistic assignment you’ve been given, all you have to do is tell a story, using the simple tools of the English language and never losing your own humanity.

Repeat after me:
Short is better than long.
Simple is good. (Louder)
Long Latin nouns are the enemy.
Anglo-Saxon active verbs are your best friend.
One thought per sentence.

Good luck to you all.

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Mixing religion with racquetball

Racquetball, a good workout..

I am not a bad Racquetball player. Going back to my glory days of gully Cricket in the mean streets of Hyderabad, any sport involving hitting a moving object with a stick came somewhat naturally to me, whether it was Gilli Danda or Table Tennis or Badminton. I even have a runner-up certificate from the only Racquetball competition I ever participated in at the International Olympiad during my graduate years here in the US educational system to prove for it, granted that International Olympiad was a glorified name for a competition among a collection of semi-sporty nerds within the international student community who needed to be cajoled and coerced into participation to make it look like an event. Yes, the competition wasn’t exactly elite, but I felt no shame in vying for the throne of that one eyed king in the land of the blind. While that runner-up certificate isn’t exactly hanging on my living room wall now, it is still there somewhere among the remains of my school memorabilia to establish the fact that I am not a complete stiff when it comes to Racquet ball.

Awhile back, I had just gone through a major surgery rehabilitation, and with my natural born aversion to treadmills, free weights, exercises and workouts, I decided to revisit my local YMCA for a few pick-up games of Racquetball to get back into some reasonable pre-surgery shape. I walked into an open court and started hitting a few balls against the wall on my own. A few minutes later I heard a knock on the door and opened it to find this old white guy with a grizzled white beard wearing knee braces and a head band around an almost bald head with a sprinkling of white hair over his Racquetball goggles. He might have been at least twice my age and and the wrinkles on his face couldn’t belie that.

“Are you waiting for a partner?” he asked.

“No, just hitting a few balls.” I replied.

“Interesed in a game?” he inquired.

“Feel free to join me.” I said. I had not built up any endurance and knew I’d be gassed in a few minutes, but the guy might have been at least twice my age and it showed on his face. I figured I’d be able to manage.
He was over 6 ft tall and I noticed that he carried an expensive E-Force racquet and walked in with a noticeable limp in spite of those protective knee braces he was wearing.

He could have been just as old as this "Up" guy.. didn't stop him from humiliating me in Racquetball

We hit a few balls to warm up and started a game. I had never played with anyone this old before and didn’t know what to expect and was completely unprepared for what was in store.  He started the game with the serve and it was 3-0 before I could touch it, 6-0 before I could make a valid return and 8-0 before I could break it. Once I got a hang of his serve, I had to deal with his long reach, a deadly low shot and a drop off the side wall that he could seemingly hit in his sleep. The game was over before it started, I lost 15-1. I notched it up to my sluggishness from the layoff. I wasn’t all that tired since I hardly moved from the bludgeoning I took from him. I felt I had something left in the tank for another game. So we played a second. I was able to extend the rallys a little bit, but I did all the running and he did all the hitting without moving at all on the court. I was out of breath 5 pts into the game and lost the game 15-4. The old fart was never once in the backcourt, always in the middle, and never out of position through out the game. Leaving out the gory details, I was annihilated by a limping old man on bad knees without having to break a sweat in a sport that relies on your agility as much as your wrist strength while I was on my knees grasping for air through out the game. As I pulled myself up on my feet from my knees and dragged myself out of the court, I asked him if he’d be available to play for the next few weeks.

I felt so humiliated that I needed to redeem myself. Plus, I had an in-built excuse of someone just coming out of a major surgery rehab.
“Besides, “ I said to myself, “I am being too nice. I should stop congratulating that old goose on every winner.  Good shot this..good shot that..enough with the false modesty.  I don’t hear him encouraging me even as he is steamrolling my ass. No more Mr.Nice Guy! I have to be ready with a gameplan next week.”

“I can be here same time next week, but you are not going to just give up like you did today, are you?” he asked with no hint of a joke in his tone.
Is he freaking serious? Give up!? Does he think I gave up? Is this fucker needling me now because he beat me badly? Condescending bastard!

“I didn’t give up. I am just coming out of a rehab and ran out of gas.” I said, defensively.
“OK, same time next week.” he said as we left the courts.

Next time we met I had a plan. Old man or not, bad knees or not, I realized my only chance was to make him move. So, sportsmanship be damned, I stopped congratulating him on his shots and tried to make him move and extend the rallies instead of going for broke with winners. He was in general more aggressive in establishing position and once he got in between you and the front wall, he could dictate play easily. I didn’t allow him to get to his spots as meekly as I did before, and as you can call obstruction in Racquetball if you feel the other player is blocking your path to the ball, I called them without hesitation every time he was remotely in my way. Normally, I leave it to the other player to concede this on his own. This guy was conceding nothing, and I was never as motivated to beat anyone more.

I felt worse than Adam Sandler being beaten up by Bob Barker in Happy Gilmore..

As if this humiliation was not enough, there were steady group of spectators watching these games as these courts are open to a view from a waiting area were parents and kids meet before they leave. True or false, I disliked the the desi stereotype – the one of a semi-gangly nerd who is good at math and sucks at sports and speaks like Apu in Simpsons. I didn’t want to be the one to perpetuate this myth further with continued annihilation at the hands of a broken down old man who looked like he might need a walking cane to move in his living room. Yet, whenever the game got close, he had another gear that he could shift to and cruise to the finish. It was as if I was playing Roger Federer, except he was older than Roger Federer’s grandfather. I felt worse than Adam Sandler when he was beaten up by Bob Barker in Happy Gilmore.

We played for 3 more weeks. We didn’t speak much after the games other than confirming dates and times for the subsequent meeting. I got a bit closer each game, and if I ingored the fact that he might be as old as my dead grandfather, I was enjoying the competition, and this was serving the actual purpose of regaining some of my fitness back. The last game we played, I finally managed to beat him 15-13, and I could have sworn that the guy actually perspired a little bit.  I felt as if I had won the Wimbledon and needed to retire right away on a high, I couldn’t go any higher. Take that old man!

After the game, as we sat on the bench outside the court and packed our bags, he asked

“Do you speak Hindu also?”

I once faked to be a Mexican to a stranger I had just met when she automatically assumed I was an Indian without bothering to verify with me.  There was also a time when I would have acted like a prick and said “No I don’t speak Hindu, just as you don’t speak Christian.”

I am a more patient man now-a-days and am also used to this type of an inquiry by now.  It is not uncommon for Americans not as exposed to desis to get religion and language mixed up.  The man was merely interested, so, instead of acting like a wise-ass I corrected him politely.

“The language you are refering to is Hindi.  I am a Hindu because Hinduism is my religion.”

“Your English seems alright.”

“I have to thank my Indian educational system for that.  You have a great game by the way.” About time I admitted this to his face.

“My knees are not holding up anymore, but I’ve been playing this game for the past 25 years and I love it.  I also play regularly with other players from my church.  Do you follow your religion?”

I felt queasy talking religion with strangers.  Matters of spirituality and one’s own perception of God are of very personal nature.  You can discuss with close friends you can trust, but I prefer to stay away from these topics with near strangers.

“I do.. to some degree.” I replied with an uncomfortable smile.

“Have you committed any sins in your life?” he asked.

Oh-oh.. a red flag went up inside.  He is breaking all established rules and protocols for conversations with strangers.  First religion, now morality, what next? politics and sex?

“I don’t know, it is difficult to define what a sin is.  Unless it is a blatant act against humanity, that definition can change from person to person.” I replied.

“You should read the bible to learn about your sins.  All of God’s commandments are in it and if you break them it is a sin.” He was simplifying for me.  There was belief in his voice.

It made me squirm a bit more.  I really didn’t want to continue this conversation.  I could tell it was not going to end well.

I remained silent, but he continued, “How do you know you will go to heaven after you die?”.

“I don’t.” I replied, not the least bit interested in getting into the notion of heaven and hell with him.

“If you don’t, what is the meaning of your life?  You don’t have one.” he said with conviction.

He was being annoying now.  I wanted to put an end to this conversation.

“You are assuming I believe in everything that you believe in.  I might not.  We both can believe in whatever we want to, but it really doesn’t matter as long as you are not hurting me and I am not hurting you.” I said, hoping that might end this weird conversation.

He was in no mood to stop.

“I know I am not perfect.  I have committed a few sins in the past and I will commit more in the future.  But God will pardon me because I go to church and ask for forgiveness.  I know I am going to heaven after I am done here.”

Good for you old man, can you please stop trying to show me the path.

He was in no mood to stop.

“There is also scientific proof about Jesus’s life.  You should really come to our church this weekend.  You will find your meaning for life.”

I knew I had to put an end to this.

“No offense, ” I said, “but I am neither interested in your church nor interested in discussing religion with you.  When it comes to God, what I believe in and how I provide meaning to my life is my personal matter, and I am not interested in discussing that with you either.  You are a very good racquetball player and I did enjoy playing with you.”

“Thats fine, “ he said with a trace of bitterness in his voice, ” I have nothing to lose, but you will go to hell without any salvation.”

I had had enough.  I just stood up and left.

ah.. that alluring ticket to that mythical heaven..

I get Jevoah’s Witnesses knocking on my door every now and then, but even they were never this annoying.  On my way back home, I wondered if converting people to his religion was part and parcel of his deal to catch that bus to his Pearly Gates.  If something preached by a religion, any religion, controls your activity beyond your personal realm and influences your fellow human, there is no getting around murder and violence in the world, because none of that mayhem appears as important to those that are brainwashed on that ultimate goal of reaching that gateway to heaven.

Needless to say, that was the last time I played with that old man.  We still run into each other every now and then at the YMCA, but pass each other by like total strangers.  I suspect he is still busy finding unsuspecting strangers to join his church to buy that ticket to heaven.

 

TIME’s person of the Year 1927-2009.. American presidents.. Hitler.. Americans.. Putin.. more American presidents

TIME's Person of the Year 1927-2009

From Time Magazine, here’s an interactive of all of their Person of the year selections from 1927 to 2009. Click on the image above and you can select each person to read the article from source.

TIME started this shtick in 1927 when they first chose Charles Lindbergh as their Man of the Year for his achievement of the first solo non-stop trans-atlantic flight, supposedly as a way of making up at the end of the year for not having him on the cover when the flight occured. They caught up with the times (no pun intended) of political correctness and changed the title to Person of the Year in 1999, though the total number of women they bestowed this honor to through all these years is a whopping 5 excluding the colletive “You” that they made Person of the Year in 1999 when someone in their offices got really lazy and decided to throw us all masses a bone for our “user contributions” to social and public sites such as wikipedia, Youtube and other internet social, knowledge and information outlets.

A quick count gives me 51 Americans in the list to date, with every serving American President since 1930 making the list at least once. George W made it not once, but twice, and heck.. Newt Gingrich was selected in 1995 for becoming the first Republican speaker of the House in 40 years

TIME's view of the world atlas

proving once again that even for the most erudite journos of this land, the “world” for the most part stretches only from the shores of California to the beaches of Maine. Nevertheless, they are very well written articles and provide quite an interesting look into history, even if you feel like you are looking through red, white and blue colored glasses.

By looking at those characters, if you are wondering what TIME considers its criteria is for these selections, here’s a brief explanation from them.

TIME’s Person of the Year is the person or persons who most affected the news and our lives, for good or ill, and embodied what was important about the year.

So, it doesn’t mean the person has to be a heroic figure, a major philanthropist or a Nobel Laureate, it only means he or she had to have been “in the news” through out the year, affect our lives for good or bad, and prove to be important positively or negatively. Hence the selection of Ayatollah Khomeini in 1979, a villain to the west.. and you wonder if it is also the reason why Vladimir Putin made it in 2007. Surely, he wasn’t

Gorbachev - Twice Man of the Year and Man of the decade.. just don't mention that to the Russians now.

Khomeini - Man of the Year in 1979

selected for the same reason Gorbachov was picked in 1987 and again in 1989, the second time as the person of the decade! I mentioned this to my Russian friend and he cussed out some obscenities I’d rather not type.. but if there isn’t enough validation for so many of the Russians now who loath Gorbachev for being the puppet of the west in their perception, him getting this accolade (if you can call it that) twice, is proof positive. Going back a few decades, TIMES seleced another Soviet leader twice for Man of the Year – Josepth Stalin in 1942 and earlier in 1939. An year earliers, in 1938 TIME selected none other than Adolph Hitler! Just read through that article on Hitler and then come back to 2007 and read the one on Putin and you can’t help but draw parallels between the two – from their rise to ascendancy under somewhat synonymous circumstances to their huge popularity within their countries not despite but due to their despotic, ruthless and dictatorial behavior.

Hitler - Man of the Year 1938

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Hitler rose to prominence in the post WWI Germany, appealing to the sentiments of those humiliated Germans with hurt pride in the aftermath of a defeated nation desperate for a Nationalistic hero to give them a sense of self respect and global relevance back at any cost. He thrived and prospered in Nazi Germany by spreading his Fascist principles, revving up a sense of “superiority” among his countrymen by belittling, admonishing and killing people of other races, suppressing free speech and all opposition and turning into a ruthless dictator by getting rid of everyone in his way. Here’s a snippet of that controversial 1938 Man of the Year selection and the corresponding commentary..
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What Adolf Hitler & Co. did to Germany in less than six years was applaudeldly and ecstatically by most Germans. He lifted the nation from post-War defeatism. Under the swastika Germany was unified. His was no ordinary dictatorship, but rather one of great energy and magnificent planning. The “socialist” part of National Socialism might be scoffed at by hard-&-fast Marxists, but the Nazi movement nevertheless had a mass basis. The 1,500 miles of magnificent highways built, schemes for cheap cars and simple workers’ benefits, grandiose plans for rebuilding German cities made Germans burst with pride. Germans might eat many substitute foods or wear ersatz clothes but they did eat.

What Adolf Hitler & Co. did to the German people in that time left civilized men and women aghast. Civil rights and liberties have disappeared. Opposition to the Nazi regime has become tantamount to suicide or worse. Free speech and free assembly are anachronisms. The reputations of the once-vaunted German centres of learning have vanished. Education has been reduced to a National Socialist catechism.

Putin - 2007 Person of the year - many similarities in style and rise.

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Compare this to the circumstances and rise of Putin’s star. End of Gorbachev’s Perestroika, sudden and epochal disintegration of Soviet Union, a suffering but aspiring nation plunged into turmoil by an inept leader in Yeltsin totally incapable of guiding the nascent Russian democracy leaving a corrupted and crime-filled Russia hobbled and rudderless and many of the Russians on the streets trying to sell whatever they can for survival. When Putin took over in 1999, Russia was in dire straits and needed a strong leader.  Here are a few snippets from a very insightful article from TIME on the rising star of Putin and the way Russia is changing under his rule, when they made him the Person of the Year in 2007.

Yeltsin bombed his way out of the threat of civil war and managed to hang on to power, but Russia was left hobbled. Virtually every significant asset—oil, banks, the media—ended up in the hands of a few “oligarchs” close to the President. Corruption and crime were rampant; the cities became violent. Paychecks weren’t issued; pensions were ignored. Russia in 1998 defaulted on its foreign debt. The ruble and the financial markets collapsed, and Yeltsin was a spent force. “The ’90s sucked,” says Stephen Sestanovich, a Columbia University professor who was the State Department’s special adviser for the new Independent States of the former Soviet Union under President Bill Clinton. “Putin managed to play on the resentment that Russians everywere were feeling.” Indeed, by the time Putin took over in late 2007, there was nowhere to fall but up.

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He is clear about Russia’s role in the world. He is passionate in his belief that the dissolution of the Soviet Union was a tragedy, particularly since overnight it stranded 25 million ethnic Russians in “foreign” lands. But he says he has no intention of trying to rebuild the U.S.S.R. or re-establish military or political blocs. And he praises his predecessors Yeltsin and Mikhail Gorbachev for destroying a system that had lost the people’s support. “I’m not sure I could have had the guts to do that myself,” he tells us. Putin is, above all, a pragmatist, and has cobbled together a system—not unlike China’s—that embraces the free market (albeit with a heavy dose of corruption) but relies on a strong state hand to keep order.

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In his eight years as President, he has guided his nation through a remarkable transformation. He has restored stability and a sense of pride among citizens who, after years of Soviet stagnation, rode the heartbreaking roller coaster of raised and dashed expectations when Gorbachev and then Yeltsin were in charge. A basket case in the 1990s, Russia’s economy has grown an average of 7% a year for the past five years. The country has paid off a foreign debt that once neared $200 billion. Russia’s rich have gotten richer, often obscenely so. But the poor are doing better too: workers’ salaries have more than doubled since 2003. True, this is partly a result of oil at $90 a barrel, and oil is a commodity Russia has in large supply. But Putin has deftly managed the windfall and spread the wealth enough so that people feel hopeful.

Russia’s revival is changing the course of the modern world. After decades of slumbering underachievement, the Bear is back. Its billionaires now play on the global stage, buying up property, sports franchises, places at élite schools. Moscow exerts international influence not just with arms but also with a new arsenal of weapons: oil, gas, timber. On global issues, it offers alternatives to America’s waning influence, helping broker deals in North Korea, the Middle East, Iran. Russia just made its first shipment of nuclear fuel to Iran—a sign that Russia is taking the lead on that vexsome issue, particularly after the latest U.S. intelligence report suggested that the Bush Administration has been wrong about Iran’s nuclear-weapons development. And Putin is far from done. The premiership is a perch that will allow him to become the longest-serving statesman among the great powers, long after such leaders as Bush and Tony Blair have faded from the scene.

But all this has a dark side. To achieve stability, Putin and his administration have dramatically curtailed freedoms. His government has shut down TV stations and newspapers, jailed businessmen whose wealth and influence challenged the Kremlin’s hold on power, defanged opposition political parties and arrested those who confront his rule. Yet this grand bargain—of freedom for security—appeals to his Russian subjects, who had grown cynical over earlier regimes’ promises of the magical fruits of Western-style democracy. Putin’s popularity ratings are routinely around 70%. “He is emerging as an elected emperor, whom many people compare to Peter the Great,” says Dimitri Simes, president of the Nixon Center and a well-connected expert on contemporary Russia.

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Now that Putin has solidified his grip on power, he no longer seems overly concerned with courting Western approval. Despite a chorus of disapproving clucks from the West, Putin has shackled the press, muted the opposition, jailed tycoons who don’t pledge fealty. In Russia this has been a terrible time to be a democrat, a journalist, an independent businessman. Just ask Garry Kasparov. The chess grandmaster—the highest-rated player of all time—is a far cry from stereotypically dysfunctional champions like Bobby Fischer. Kasparov has a keen political mind and a lively sense of humor. For years he has fought an increasingly lonely struggle as a democratic activist facing an uncompromising state. On Nov. 24, while holding a political rally in Moscow, he was arrested on a technicality and spent five days at Moscow’s Petrovka 38 jail.

A week or so after Kasparov’s release, we are sitting in Moscow’s Cosmos Hotel, where he is taking part in a human-rights meeting. Assembled is a ragtag group of Russian activists, and here Kasparov is a star. (Even here his two bodyguards sandwich him whenever he walks about.) Unlike many of Putin’s other critics, who seem fearful of chastising their leader openly, Kasparov isn’t cowed. “Putin wants to rule like Stalin but live like Abramovich,” he says, referring to Roman Abramovich, the billionaire Russian oil trader who owns London’s Chelsea soccer team. “Putin’s system is more like Mafia than democracy.”

Putin’s administration has blocked democrats like Kasparov from participating effectively in politics by making it all but impossible for them to meet the entry requirements. The President, in our discussion, routinely suggests that Kasparov is a stooge of the West because he spoke to the foreign press in English after his arrest. “If you aspire to be a leader of your own country, you must speak your own language, for God’s sake,” he says. Kasparov recently gave up his long-shot race for President.

By all indications, Putin’s ambitions are not one of a conqueror that Hitler was, though the Chechens, people of Chechnya, might disagree.   Russians believe he is only doing what is necessary to strengthen Russia and make Russia relevant again in the world order.  All the Russians think he has good intentions for Russia and Russians, as evident from his whopping 70% popularity rating, but if Hitler and his evil ways have served any purpose to Germany and the rest of the world, it is that the ends will never ever ever ever justify the means!  Ask those Germans in the mid to 30s what they thought of Hitler and his well intentions for them and their country, and if they had a popularity rating then, my guess is his would have put Putin’s to shame.

In spite of my earlier snickering at TIME’s perception of America as the world in their selections, ironically, this ramble perhaps reads more like American propaganda.  The point though is that the inherent desire and almost a compulsive need for an individual’s search for identity and the perils of its mis-association with a patriotic and mythical nationalistic pride is not only cause for much internal anguish, it is also a dangerous perpetrator of much violence in this world; but the ideals and myths of nationalism and their pros and cons are a topic for another day.

 

New

New

New is the day from the emerging sun
out from the clouds to break that dawn
bright on the white of the silent snow
filling the skies with its golden glow

Fresh from the lave of the morning run
thoughts of the dim and grim undone
by a sparkling beam through winter gray
in fleeting hours of a brand new day

A gentle glow over the new horizon
melting the fog from days bygone
brimming the heart with new hope to last
shunning the thoughts of despair from past

Yet another chance for a new beginning
opportunities abound from the stars spinning
descending down through the circle of time
awakening dreams of possibilities sublime

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Happy New Year!

 

Evolution of the mobile phone as a device for talking while driving

From the New York Times, here’s an overlapping interactive timeline of the marketing of the mobile phone from its inception to its current state, along with the research, warnings and legislation of its usage. Interesting transition since the commercial cell phone service began, from the initial marketing of a car phone usage as a status symbol for those busy executives on the go to the current cell phone makers’ “neutral” stand on talking while driving and speaking out against texting while driving.

Click on the image below to go to the source for the interactive timeline.

Interactive timeline of mobile phone usage while driving and its legislation (Click to interact with the timeline from source)

 

“Bo-tax” is dead – victory to Nip tuckers

Following up on the proposed “Bo-Tax” and the subsequent flexing of the collective muscle from AMA (American Medical Association) and ASPS (American Society of Plastic Surgeons), the Senate democrats whimpered out like the pussy cats that they are and killed the Bo-tax, but with a stroke of genius replaced the erstwhile 5% Bo-tax on elective cosmetic surgery with a new 10% Tanning tax on indoor tanning services.

Death of Bo-tax means more such transformations

New 10% tanning tax means more to pay for these magical transformations

As the Wall Street Journal reports:

Amid pressure from doctors, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid decided to remove a proposed 5% tax on elective cosmetic surgery in the health bill that was expected to raise $5 billion over a decade. In place of what was known as the Botax, he added a 10% tax on indoor tanning services.

The change is a victory for the American Medical Association, which urged lawmakers to remove the cosmetic-surgery tax after Sen. Reid included it in a draft of the bill he unveiled in November. The medical industry argued that the tax effectively discriminated against women, since they’re more likely to undergo such procedures.

The tanning tax is part of a last-minute package of amendments that are expected to be included in the final bill. It grants an exception for “phototherapy” services that are performed by licensed medical professionals.

My awesome natural born tan aside, thanks to my Indian heritage, what does old Harry have against white people? If the grounds for removing Bo-tax is truly because he bought into that bullshit argument that it is “discriminatory” against woman, how is this any less of a discrimination against those pasty Caucasians who shell out their hard earned dollar to add some color to their skin. Isn’t being born with a depigmented skin enough suffering for these poor souls? Why penalize them for aspiring to look like me?

The real reason that Bo-tax is taken out and this tanning tax is introduced is because the tax-payers associated with Bo-tax were paying the plastic surgeons who are in turn affiliated with AMA which as history shows is too powerful a group and has too powerful a lobby and has too great of an influence on Washington for the lawmakers to dare oppose. Considering that the democrats, leaders of the senate and the house, have shown the backbone of that of a giant caterpillar so far in standing up for what they believe in, this new reaction from Harry Reid is hardly a surprise. Instead, they decided to squeeze that money out of those tanning shops which are mostly small business operations that don’t necessarily have the lobbying support that the powerful AMA has. It goes on to show that regardless of what the party in power is or who the President is, it is those lobbyists that truly dictate the legislation in this country.

On the brighter side, this puts an end to any threat of  a potential shortage of such eye popping pictures as below.. hurrah!

Tara Conner - Miss USA 2006 - budding aspirations of wannabe beauty queens will not be thwarted!

 

Escape

Escape

When the moon loiters into the sedate night
when the quiet mist subdues the din in a daily fight
when the light suspends its vigil into a dark retreat
I will be waiting for you on wonder street

Since the day we met and ever after
with your peaceful look and nervous laughter
brought together by this mystical force
to pursue our dream through a destined course

Summoning the courage to break through the cage
of self-made barriers from a once callow age
driving through that fog in body and spirit
I will be waiting for you on wonder street

With your smiling lips and your kindly eyes
drowsing me into dreams of those blue skies
drifting over the white cloud of our distant life
you and I will share that future with no strife

Spending our days in woes of separation
buried under the sand of mindless reservation
breaking out of the grip of this desert heat
I will be waiting for you on wonder street

Where the people live under the friendly skies
and the tall green trees the only high-rise
where the fresh blue seas leave a golden sand
we will escape together to that forgotten land

 

Impending death of Test Cricket and how to save it

Test Cricket - A dying breed..

T-Rex Sue at the Smithsonian

Haroon Largot, the ICC chief executive, thinks that the current top position in ICC Test ratings that India is enjoying, no matter how shortlived this can be, augurs well for Test Cricket.  If Lorgat and ICC are banking on India’s current #1 ranking for this version of the sport to be saved, then they are merely hoping against hope.  If they are serious about saving Test Cricket, they better wake up to that smell of imminent death emanating from that aging body of Test Cricket.  If they don’t act now it will soon resemble that T-Rex skeleton on display in the Smithsonian for historical purposes, a once imposing creature now left for generations to wonder about the cause of its death by the woes of time.

A Dilshan T20 special for you

I am not as ardent a Cricket watcher as I used to be, because my Cricketing tastes haven’t adapted to the changing times and the influx of T20 coupled with the reduction in Test Cricket. I tried getting enthused for T20s, but call me pedantic or boring, it is not for me. I do accept the fact that Cricket now has three different versions of the game (btw.. is there any other notable sport in the world that can claim such a dubious distinction?), and I don’t mind an occassional T20 game, with a few one day games sprinkled in with the main focus and the games played centered around Test Cricket. Ask any self-respecting world Cricketer even during the current rage for 120-ball-reverse-hitting-paddle-scooping-thick-batted-short-boundaried-slam-bam-shabam, they still favor my distribution, but I recognize along with all those self respecting Cricketers that expecting this sort of distribution across current formats is nothing more than a pipe dream. It is only natural for the Cricket boards to dish out what is demanded by their markets and the market with no less of an influence from the Asian countries demands 1-day Cricket and T20s over Test Cricket, with T20s being wildly popular all over the world and Test Cricket only enjoying patronage in England and Australia. I maynot like it and I can be prudish and call it a pity, but thats just the way it is and BCCI and other boards along with the TV networks are only catering to those demands and the result is more and more 1-dayers and T20s with an occassional Test Cricket match sprinkled in for novelty. I don’t blame them, for money talks and thats where the money and interest is. If any of those Cricketers want to get paid well playing the sport, they will have to accept and adapt to this demand.

Empty Stands for Test Cricket in India

Test Cricket in India is quickly resembling Ranji trophy Cricket in terms of crowds and spectators. No one is interested and the stadiums are empty. The decline is so steep that India is scheduled to play only one or two Test matches in the next 12 months. That is just a damning indictment both on the popularity or lack there of for this version of the sport in the country and how much BCCI really cares for it beyond the bottomline. Though more Test matches end in a result now than during the 80s and early 90s, there are still way too many matches that end in a draw. Beyond the spectator-friendly-batsmen-dominated structure of 20 over and 50 over Cricket, the key to their popularity is that there is a definite resolution to the game. One team wins and one team loses. If ICC is serious about preserving Test Cricket or some close replica of it, they have to think of changing its format to ensure a result every single time. When you think about it, it is a bit ridiculous in today’s age of instant gratification that you can have a single game for 5 straight days and a quarter of these games still end up in a draw. You can thank Australia for bringing this ratio down to a quarter, but there is no reason why this can be fixed to ensure a result every game. But drawn games alone don’t tell the full story, of the games that are won, majority of them are really one-sided. While that might generate some interest in the winning team’s market, it doesn’t augur well overall for Test Cricket that tight, result-oriented contests,  a proven recipe to sustain and enhance interest in any sport are far and few in between.

Channeling my inner stats geekdom, with the aid of Cricinfo’s stats guru, an excellent tool for Cricketing stats, here’s some data to show what I think ails Test Cricket.
In 2009 alone, there have been 37 test matches finished to this day, 14 test matches resulted in a draw, and 23 produced a result.

Test Cricket in 2009

For the sake of a reference point, let us go with an arbitrary definition of a “closely contested game” as the one that is won or lost by less than 100 runs or with less than 6 wickets on hand. Granted, it can be debated whether this truly depicts a closely contested game, but it is fair to say it is somewhere in the ballpark. Out of the 23 games that produced a result, a grand total of 5 matches fall into this category of a closely contested game. I know there was an occassional match or two that produced an engrossing contest that doesn’t fall into this group, but the point is, a handful of closely contested matches in an entire year of Test Cricket all over the world is surely not going to generate any renewed interest among the spectators. I realize the circumstantial relevance of every Test match (a meaningless Test in a decided series doesn’t generate as much interest as a decider) and also recognize that the Ashes victory for England was widely popular in England and there is a healthy interest in Test Cricket in England and Australia, but that market in itself isn’t going to save Test Cricket.

Let us extend this analysis to all of Test Cricket played so far in 21st century including year 2000.  Here is the country-by-country distribution of this arbitrary definition of close contests in Test Cricket from 2000 – 2009.

Test Cricket in 2000s

On the whole, less than 14% of the matches produce closely contested results. In the 21st century (2000s), India has played 103 matches, out of which 67 produced a result and the remaining 36 ended in a draw. Out of the 67 that produced results, only 11 fall into that category of winning or losing with a less than 100 or less than 6-wicket margin. Yes, this doesn’t take into account close draws that can still be very gripping contests when they are achieved with 1 or 2 wickets remaining at the end or those wins that might be one-sided but remained closed from a timing standpoint where one team was dominant but could only win on the last session of the 5th day.. a la.. Ind-Aus Sydney affair. Even if we include these matches and increase this overall ratio to a generous 20%, it means at a minimum, 4/5th of the matches are not close and hence don’t generate enough interest to an average fan. Clearly, this is not good enough for the survival of this format. Yes, there can be dominant teams like the Australian juggernaut through the 1990s and early 2000s and they don’t have to apologize for making these contests one-sided, but making some changes to the structure of the longer version of the game can still ensure that stronger teams are not penalized while making the contests tighter.  It might mean that it is a slightly different type of contest, but the interest and popularity has to grow for its overall survival.

Referrals in Cricket - hope the brain trust within ICC has better plans than this for Test Cricket revival

There have been a number of ideas floated around to remediate this and resuscitate Test Cricket. The one that I like the most has been suggested by a few before. Make it a 90-over/inning with two-innings played over 4 days with a reserve day to compensate for the weather. This ensures a gauranteed result and manages to retain many of the nuances of Test Cricket, while adding to it the added importance of scoring rates and the additional strategies of how to pace your innings based on the type of surface you are batting on. It is somewhat of an extension to one-day Cricket, but with 2 innings and 90 overs per inning, the bowlers are not taken completely out of the picture and you get the flexibility of making it a day/night affair. Yes, you can still have one-sided affairs, but I believe there will be more tightly contested games than 5 or 6 per year now. For starters, with the appealing aspects of the shorter version of the game imbued into the longer version, this should generate immediate interest. It eliminates dull stretches of the game because every action or inaction has a definite consequence associated with it.  When a team or a player decides to put the crowd to sleep for personal milestones, now it might mean a loss to their team as opposed to a potential draw.  The drawback here is a potential pitfall that currently makes limited overs Cricket less of a sport for Test match enthusiasts, that of bowlers and captains preferring containment over aggression for wicket-taking.  Of course, sporting pitches will fix this issue and might even make the traditional format more appealing and with the brain trust at the disposal of ICC, they can surely come up with methods to make Test Cricket a more engrossing product for the average fan. On second thought, looking at the current referral system, that might be a stretch.

 

Random musical bookmark – Balamurali Krishna::Emi Sethura Linga?

I was just a little kid when I first heard this rendition from Balamurali Krishna over the airwaves of the All India Radio. The folksy tune, the simple but poignant lyrics and above all the phenomenal rendition of MBK blew me away.  Barely an instrument used other than his great voice, this just left me completely spellbound and a fan of his ever since.  While there are still a few curmudgeons who scoff at his penchant for improvisation, his magnetic voice, his impressive body of work, his contributions to the carnatic music for over half a century now, and most importantly the immense pleasure he has given to millions of music lovers through these years makes him one of the greatest Indian classical musicians of 20th century. Like many of the greats, as one can see from this rendition, he has his own inimitable style and just as the backdrop suggests in the video below, he is truly a living legend.

Lyrics (Telugu):

emi seithura linga?  emi sethura?

ganga udakamu techi neeku
linga poojalu chedamante
ganganunna chepa kappa engilantunnayi linga

akshayavula paadi techi
aripitamu chedamante
akshayaavula lega dooda engilantunnadi linga

tummi poovulu techi neeku
tushtuga poojjedamante
komma kommana koti tummeda engilantunnadi linga

mahanubhava
ma linga murthy
maha deva shambho