Tony Curtis & Jack Lemmon in "Some like it hot"

The final few minutes of the movie leading to the famous last line, "nobody's perfect!" ... This is the scene that came to my mind when I heard that Curtis died ...

So, is the US at war in Pakistan, too?

The Wall Street Journal (via the Hindustan Times) reports that:

The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) is using aerial drones and weaponry being diverted by the US military from Afghanistan to step up its anti-terrorism operations in Pakistan.
"The shift in strategic focus reflects the US view that, with Pakistan's military unable or unwilling to do the job, more U.S. force against terrorist sanctuaries in Pakistan is now needed to turn around the struggling Afghan war effort across the border"

 So, what is the Pakistan government's response?

Responding to a point of order raised by Lt Gen (r) Abdul Qadir Baloch, the PM said, “If they (NATO) don’t apologise and remove our apprehensions, we may consider other options as well.”

He said cooperation in the war on terrorism did not mean compromising on national integrity and sovereignty. He said Pakistan is a responsible and nuclear state, adding that being political people, “we have lodged a civilised protest” with NATO headquarters over the force’s violation of the country’s air space”.

I have no idea what he means by "options" ...

The prime minister, who did not elaborate “other options”, appeared miffed by the outburst of Mr Baloch who, speaking at the top of his voice, said if Pakistan continued to tolerate strikes by drones and now manned helicopters, “a time will come when they will come overland” and, referring to Pakistan’s military strength, added: “We will have to beat them back.” 

other than, say, choking off the NATO supply lines and making them easy targets?

Looks like we have put the Pakistan government in one hell of a legitimacy-questioning awkward position, which has already been in a weak state ... no wonder Musharraf is smelling opportunities :)  Here in Washington?

Meanwhile, in response to reports of political upheaval in Pakistan, White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said that the United States considers Pakistan a "key ally" and believes that "the government of Pakistan is committed to democracy and to the preservation of civilian leadership."

So, here in the US, any tough questions being raised in the Congress about the way this war is escalating?  Yeah, right!  All bloody war mongers out there, who are now too busy with their re-election scams campaigns :(

The eternal fountain for comedians: Christine O'Donnell, and politicians :)

Bill Maher continues looking into the treasure trove, and the latest gem (ht):

I was dabbling in witchcraft, I've dabbled in Buddhism. I would have become a Hare Krishna but I didn't want to become a vegetarian. And that is honestly the reason why -- because I'm Italian, I love meatballs!

My neighbor-friend, who is as much to the right of the political spectrum as I am to the left, often talk politics, sometimes over food too.  He and his wife are wonderful hosts and friends, and always have some of the tastiest foods--yes, even better than my cooking!  We laugh a lot comparing notes on our shared distaste for politics, politicians, and all the unscrupulous elements, who provide us with more than enough for conversations and we rarely have to repeat anything :)

The other day when he was getting all worked up, I reminded him that politics is the best comedy show that society can even put up.  It is the best live theatre, which often looks good even in reruns.  We watch those clowns--political parties do not matter--and laugh.  Their fundraising for elections is nothing but the ticket price we need to pay for the greatest show on earth.  Some of those entertainers get really good at it, and some don't.  Most are "G" rated and every once in a while it crosses over into the "R," "NC-17" and "X" categories.  Some, like Clint Eastwood, seem to dislike retirement and manage to put on quite a performance even as they get old and drooling.  

Of course, all these will be simply fantastic if only they did not have the power to launch wars, or screw our lives many times over in so many aspects of life, while we are laughing away.

Aaron Sorkin & Colbert about Facebook and more: way too cool!

These are awfully talented people.  One of the best Colbert Report interviews, yet.  I wished it had continued on ...

The Colbert Report	Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
Aaron Sorkin
www.colbertnation.com
Colbert Report Full Episodes 2010 Election March to Keep Fear Alive

Next to that, this one pales ... would have been good by itself, but not in comparison with Colbert/Sorkin :)
Justin Timberlake also talking about the same movie:

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
Justin Timberlake
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Rally to Restore Sanity

Flowcharts of the day: religion

If you are shopping for one, here is the simplest one:

But, if you are looking for complexity in the decision-making process, then the following one can be of assistance:

And here is Colbert explaining religion--Christianity

The Colbert Report	Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
Stat of the Union
www.colbertnation.com
Colbert Report Full Episodes 2010 Election March to Keep Fear Alive

"Peepli" ... and on the death of theatre in India?

Thanks to Spiked, I ended up watching this trailer for Peepli:

The storyline, as Spiked summarizes it, is:

The film, a comic satire, tells the story of Natha (Omkar Das Manikpuri), a poor farmer in the fictional state of Mukhya Pradesh. Faced with the prospect of losing his ancestral land, Natha is convinced by his brother to commit suicide so that his family will receive a compensatory 100,000 rupees from the state government. As Mukhya Pradesh is preparing for elections, Natha’s story is picked up by the media and quickly becomes the focus of political debate and of competing media outfits. Eventually, the humble farmer, his family and their goats are virtually imprisoned in their shabby house, surrounded by raving flocks of TV reporters, while politicians show up bearing gifts of hand pumps and TVs for which there is no well or electricity.

Sounds promising.

It so reminds me of a Tamil film from three decades ago, called "Thanneer Thanneer", which in English would translate to "Water, Water."  Adapted from a play, the movie was one sarcastic comedy on the plight of the poor, the bureaucracy, and the self-promoting and self-aggrandizing politicians.  It was brilliant.

There are wonderful stories to be told, given the vastness of the country.  It doesn't always have to be about poverty and politics either.  Even the lives of the millions of middle class are ripe with stories.  I can't understand why instead the movie folks churn out the same old formulaic movies over and over.

More than the formulaic movies themselves, I am concerned about what comes across as the death of the arts in India.  The last couple of times when I was in Chennai for extended periods of time, everyday I scanned the paper for listings of plays and off-beat films.  It can't be that the paper systematically did not list such.  It was rare.  I couldn't believe, and still cannot believe, that a city and a culture with a rich history of literature can be so devoid of live performances.  Movies and television have completely taken over.  Perhaps the education system too does not encourage the arts, with its focus on promoting science and technology?

Even in the small town of Neyveli, I have watched Tamil plays--at the "Sangeetha Sabha."  That was more than thirty years ago, and before the age of television.  I still crack-up when I think about the clever and punny dialogs in one of those plays that capitalized on the slang and near-dialects in Tamil in different parts of the state, including the "Tirunelveli Tamil" with which I could easily identify.  Perhaps even Neyveli's cultural life has changed since then. 

Anyway, last year in Chennai, one day I spotted something interesting in the paper--about an Italian film that would be screened.  For free! It was not at a movie hall, and I had a tough time locating the venue off Anna Salai.  Finally, I reached the place.

I walked up to the door, and the older gent at the table there asked me whether I was a member.  I explained to him about me visiting from America and having seen the note in the paper. He clarified that the movie was being screened for members of the Film Chamber or some professional group that was involved in the movie-making industry!  He suggested that I wait and talk to the boss to see if I could watch the movie.

A few minutes later, the boss appeared, and he half-heartedly okayed my request.  The movie itself was nothing to write about.  But, the experience was strangely surreal.  Sitting in a darkened movie hall in Chennai, with a whole bunch of strangers who were whispering in Tamil, while watching an Italian movie with English subtitles.  It was the experience that was fantastic.

I continued to scan the paper for Tamil plays, or English plays.  But, nothing.  Then, one day I read in the paper about the publication of a book by an IIT professor--translation of poems from Tamil.  Selections included from the very old to the contemporary.  I was hoping that there would be some kind of a book reading that I could attend.

A few minutes on Google, and I had the email address of that professor.  She replied that there would be a book-reading and invited me to that. 

It was truly an O'Henry moment of irony--the event was to be held the weekend after I was scheduled to return home to America!

Big brother is watching you!

The commentary in text is here

On India's Commonwealth Games: the nasty sneers

I have blogged earlier about my opposition to the Games--the same reasons why I "boycotted" the Asian Games back when I had just about started my undergrad program; I don't recall watching even a single event on TV.  I did love the "swagatham" song of the games though.  And the reason is that such an expense ought to be a much lower priority than the more urgent ones. Like the hundreds of millions who are poor.  Or the reports of child labor in the construction activities.

But, it is a democratic government that is spending the money and will be punished or rewarded at the next elections. At the end of the day, these resource allocation decisions are India's internal matters.

It is strange that most of the governments and athletes from the richer and whiter countries did not worry about whether they ought to encourage India spending such large sums.  (though, investments like with the new airport or metro will payoff.)

They didn't worry either about the possible security issues that the event might trigger--for the athletes as well as for all in Delhi--Indians and otherwise.

They didn't even worry when reports were trickling in that the projects were well behind schedule.

But, now, they raise their voices about .... bathroom conditions?

Spiked says it much better than I can:

one does not need to be a supporter of the Indian government – and spiked is not – to see that the British critics want it all ways. They complain about the ‘obscenity’ of spending millions on shiny modern sports stadiums in the midst of the poverty of the city slums. Yet they scream like children with a spider in the bath when they discover that the facilities for ‘our’ athletes might not be up to luxury standards, ignoring the fact that the most ‘uninhabitable’ corner of the athletes’ village will have better facilities than the places that countless Indians inhabit every day.

I sympathize with my high school friend who has been pretty much on a "fuck you" mode in his Facebook postings in response to the hysterical yelling and screaming by the British and the Kiwis, and his fellow-Indians too ... I bet he will light up the cigarettes in the pack all at once if he reads what Spiked notes:

As Prince Philip famously remarked of a dodgy old fuse box during a visit to a factory in, er, Scotland: ‘It looks as if it was put in by an Indian!’

Ouch!  Does the Prince not know by now what is humor and what isn't?

The final words from Spiked:

Yet something else makes me want these games to be a success for India. There is a new orthodoxy abroad which preaches that staging major sporting events can benefit the peoples of developing nations and help to unite the world. This is pious nonsense, as the experience of the recent World Cup in South Africa has demonstrated once more. But the alternative sanctimonious prejudice of our age is, if anything, even worse. This one preaches that there is something ‘arrogant’ or ‘obscene’ about a developing nation such as India daring to attempt grand projects such as the Delhi games, rather than concentrating its efforts on the poorest. Thus the critics protest loudly about the ‘resettlement’ of thousands of shanty town-dwellers to make way for the stadium – the sort of slum clearance that always accompanies major urban redevelopment – and ignore the new airport, subway lines, roads and railway bridges that the bloated budget for the games has brought to the city. The message to India is: know your place. But the backlash in India against the international Delhi-bashing suggests there is as little chance of that happening as of Prince Charles winning a medal next week.

On the need for more teachers in school ...

More here
(ht)
Really???

McDonald's food doesn't decay. So, eat it and live forever? :)

From Salon and the LA Times:

New York photographer Sally Davies left a McDonald's hamburger Happy Meal, complete with a small side order of french fries, siting on a shelf in her home for more than 130 days. Every three days, Davies took a photo of the food. By day 137, the food looked pretty much the same.

Some were quick to blame McDonald's for using preservatives to elicit the appearance of "fresh" food. But scientists now say it's preservatives aren't the reason why the Golden Arch's food won't break down..

Yes, it did not decay even four-and-a-half months after it was purchased :)  Explain away, scientists:

Marion Nestle, chairwoman of New York University’s food studies program, told us over e-mail that McDonald’s would have to use "really a lot of" sodium propionate to prevent bacterial or mold growth. McDonald's French fries, for example, which have repeatedly proven their hardiness to spoilage, contain citric acid as a preservative. But a bigger factor might be the fat content of the fries. About 50 percent of the total 250 calories contained in a small order of fries come from fat. "Anything that is high in fat will be low in moisture," says Barry Swanson, a professor at the Washington State University department of food science. And low moisture means less room for mold to grow.

BTW, isn't it neat that "Nestle" is the last name of the food studies program's chairwoman?  (editor: yes, you are the billionth person to find this funny. Don't you have a class to teach?)

However, don't load up on those burgers and fries to achieve immortality:

For better or for worse, McDonald’s is no more a chemical laboratory of secret compounds designed to embalm us from the inside than any other processed food maker. A Happy Meal manages to stay unspoiled because it is fatty, salty and practically empty of nutrients -- which, really, are all good reasons to avoid it anyway.

Dancing to celebrate the 1000 year old "Big Temple" in Thanjavur

From the descriptions, it certainly suggests an impressive spectacle of a performance by a thousand classically-trained dancers to celebrate 1,000 years of the "Big Temple" in Thanjavur.

The temple is not merely a symbol of the religion, but also of the rich history, and the achievements of the past.  The construction of the Big Temple for that time period is a remarkable piece of architecture and engineering, and art.

It is also a reminder of how much the usage "the dark ages" overlooks the bright economic, cultural, intellectual, and creative light in other parts of the world--like in Thanjavur, under the Cholas.

One of the dancers who participated in this, Madhumita Srinivasan, writes:

The scene was probably similar to the one witnessed by King Raja Raja Chola 1000 years ago: grandly lit temple, an entire town wearing a festive look, and thousands gathered for a visual and aural treat around the temple courtyard with dignitaries to witness it.

I bet it was.  Am reminded of the historical fiction that "Kalki" penned--"Parthiban Kanavu."  Come to think of it, I learnt a lot more about the history of Tamils--the Cholas and the Pallavas in particular--from Kalki's serialised novels that my parents had carefully bound together.  My favorite though was "Sivagamiyin sabadham."  In all those stories, Kalki helped me imagine the past in ways that no textbook could, and it would have been a wonderful experience to relive that past through this dance.

Srinivasan writes:

Then finally it was our time. The thousand, and in fact more, dancers were on their feet. Just the spectacle of all of us taking our positions attracted applause from the crowd. Soon the dance pieces – a customary invocation to Lord Vinayaka and Karur Devar's verses on the Thanjavur Peria Kovil were performed, blurring the lines between the past and present.

As if in a flash, it was over. Only the applause and the weariness of post-performance remained.

Am mighty glad they did this.

Cartoon of the day: airline flights

Poem of the day: Dumb Luck!

Dumb Luck
Corey Marks

 
The horse—its number smudged
by sweat and thumbs nuzzling
 
predictable exactas
stamped in black—stumbles
 
at the last, run too hard, run
beyond what her ankles could bear,
 
and the jockey, who’d driven
her ahead of the other horses
 
now churning past and flinging
back rings of dust, rides
 
her down, out of the grace
and rush of the race and into the hoof-
 
torn dirt, the shit and grit
and the shudder he’s lost control of...
 
Then another rush: people
flurry to the fallen animal, the jockey
 
is raised, stunned and still
he feels he’s moving—something roils
 
in him, around him, under him.
Words are inconsequential
 
as flies. Dumb luck.
The animal won’t rise.
 
Nearby, the winner paces,
cooling, saddled now with the reason
 
for the day, heavy chest
widening against his rider’s approval,
 
each breath ragged and expendable
and replaceable as the printed bets
 
that drift the grounds, skittering
between knuckles of grass
 
beneath the stands where people
stare, the ones who got it wrong,
 
used to seeing what doesn’t come,
to wagering chances bound to be
 
nothing, nothing, nothing
but lost. Though someone got it right
 
and smacks his ticket
against his palm, exactly sure
 
of what it bears. He looks away
as the crowd around him cranes
 
and gawks into the afterlife
of chance—a white truck,
 
a man with an open-mouthed kit.
A needle. A hurtling world
 
closes like a gate.


The Threepenny Review
Fall 2010
Source(ht)

More on athletics versus education

Two items from the same issue (Sep 29th) of the newspaper:
First on athletics:

Chip Kelly, University of Oregon make a $20.5 million deal with new contract | Six-year deal puts Chip Kelly among the highest-paid coaches in the nation

And now on education:

The Oregon University System presents the state’s next governor and Legislature with a welcome opportunity. It’s understood that all state programs, including higher education, can expect less state support in the next budget period and beyond. Oregon’s universities, however, believe they can perform as well as in the past or better, even with stagnant or declining state funding, if Salem would give them more flexibility in managing their own affairs.

So, ... let me see. Despite all the tight controls that the state has on the little resources it allocates, universities find enough and more millions to spend on athletics.  And, they expect people like to me to believe that their spending on educating students will improve if only those controls would be released.  Oh yeah, it so excites me as a taxpayer that academics will suddenly become the overwhelming priority.  As a faculty member, I am ecstatic about total independence for state universities. (editor: can you be anymore sarcastic?!)

Oh, in case you thought this was the story only at the large schools in the system, I want to remind myself about this from the president of the smaller, regional, university where I am employed:

In 2008-09, university support accounted for more than half of the $4 million athletic budget this past year, reaching $2.2 million from just less than $900,000 in 2006.

Let us see when the highly entertained taxpayers wake up to reality that the joke that is on them on so many levels ...

Mapping stereotypes: Europe according to the US

The site has quite a few maps that caricature the "geography of prejudice" (ht)

We need more wishes for "world peace" from beauty contestants

On the same day, I read three news items that involve cross-border military activities:

Iran/Iraq (Kurdistan)--from the BBC:

Iran's elite Revolutionary Guards have crossed into Iraq and killed 30 Kurdish militants blamed for bombing a military parade last week, state TV reports.

Israel/Palestine--from the NY Times:

Three Palestinian militants were killed late Monday in an Israeli bombing in Gaza, witnesses, medical and security personnel said, a continuation of sporadic violence in the territory that is controlled by the Islamist group Hamas.

US/NATO (Afghanistan)/Pakistan--from the VOA:

Pakistan is strongly protesting two incidents in which NATO helicopters launched air strikes into Pakistan while in pursuit of suspected Taliban militants fleeing across the border.  NATO says at least 30 militants were killed.  Afghan officials cited a higher death toll of at least 60 combatants.

I suppose Pakistan is kind of ok with unmanned drones flying into its airspace and targeting militants, but not manned helicopters?

'nuff to lose sleep ... cue Sandra Bullock in Miss Congeniality:

Drooling for ... masal vada!

I wish I hadn't read this, and looked at the photo there :(

In a couple of months I know I will have this, and dad's favorite, thavala vadai, that he gets from a tiny restaurant run by a daughter of Kannadasan's ... she has this special only one day of the week :)

Cartoons about the academic world :)

I think I might have been doodling around in graduate school for even longer than I did if it were not for my adviser telling me one day something like this: "Sriram, I think it is time you wrapped up the PhD."  He said that very calmly :)  Hmmm.... that was a long time ago!
I was reminded of that when I came across this cartoon:

Then, I, too, had a lot of hair on my head, and it was mostly black with a few grey strands.  Now, the little hair I now seems to be all grey, and so is the beard.  The beard though wants to grow uncontrollably fast, and if it were not for the beard trimmer that I use every few days, I will pretty much be a real-world example of the caricature in the following cartoon :)

As you can see, I don't look that different from the cartoon image .... muahahaha

Barack O'Bush stays on course with wiretapping. Screw privacy!

Not a good way to start a week: the radio-alarm kicked in with NPR's Steve Inskeep talking with retired congressman, Lee Hamilton.  In a measured pace, Hamilton referred to Obama's foreign policies not being that much different from Bush's.  Half-asleep still, I pick up the local paper, which screams in its headlines that the Obama administration wants to expand wiretapping--which began under Bush.

I was sure that Glenn Greenwald would have said something about this; he does:

What these Obama proposals illustrates is just how far we've descended in the security/liberty debate, where only the former consideration has value, while the latter has none.  Whereas it was once axiomatic that the Government should not spy on citizens who have done nothing wrong, that belief is now relegated to the civil libertarian fringes.  Concerns about privacy were once the predominant consensus of mainstream American political thought. 

Greenwald notes that America is no different from Saudi Arabia or the United Arab Emirates (and India too?) that demand:

full, unfettered access to all communications.  Amazingly, the administration had the temerity to condemn the UAE's ban on Blackberries on the ground that it impedes "the free flow of information," but in response, the UAE correctly pointed out how hypocritical that condemnation was:

Yousef Al Otaiba, the UAE Ambassador to the United States, said [State Department spokesman P.J.] Crowley's comments were disappointing and contradict the U.S. government's own approach to telecommunication regulation.

Not a good beginning to a week, which is also the beginnings of a new academic year.
And, here is how Greenwald ends his commentary:

What makes this trend all the more pernicious is that at exactly the same time that the Government is demanding greater and greater access to what you do and say, it is hiding its own conduct behind an always-higher and more impenetrable wall of secrecy.  Everything you do and say must be accessible to them; you can have no secrets from them.  But everything they do -- including even criminal acts such as torture, assassinations and warrantless surveillance -- is completely off-limits to you, deemed "state secrets" that not even courts can review in order to determine their legality.

Well, renew your ACLU membership, and fight for civil liberties that, yes, the Constitution guarantees us.

Remembrance of things past: சுராங்கனி சுராங்கனி (SuranganiSurangani)

Quote of the day: about faculty and universities

I suppose back-to-school has gotten me thinking a lot about higher education!
The following quote is a beauty:

the radical ambiguity of a profession in which one is hired for one purpose, expected to carry out another, and prized for achieving a third: teaching, research, and prestige are independent variables, besides being incommensurable per se. The upshot is as lively a set of anxieties for the agents and the responsible heads of the institution as one could hope to produce by teasing hamsters in electrified cages. Hence the peculiar governance and subdued restlessness of the American university.

If you find yourself nodding in agreement, you might all the more be impressed that the quote is from "The Academic Marketplace,  a 1958 treatise on scholarly prestige by the sociologists Theodore Caplow and Reese McGee."

Yes, prestige is a strange beast.  And it was prestige, or the perceived lack of, that triggered a lot of commotion on campus during the dog days of summer :)  The passing of fifty years means that the more things change, the more they do feel the same!

More on the higher education bubble

In an earlier post, I quoted at length Megan McArdle's argument that colleges and universities appear to have gamed the system in order to extract for themselves as much as possible the economic benefits of higher education that used to go to students in the past.  Political Calculations' post seems to add to this:

We didn't set out to go looking for it, but we couldn't help but notice what would appear to be a really unique correlation between the average annual tuition at a four-year higher education institution in the United States and the total amount of money the U.S. federal government spends every year.

First this chart:

Notice the jumps compared to the median household incomes.

The argument here is that when household incomes did not grow much at the median level, and when state governments decrease their allocations for higher education, then one would expect adjustments in the service provision that would try to hold the costs constant, or at least hold the increases to a minimum.

But, that hasn't happened. Why?  We might not immediately think of the federal government's role in subsidized loans to students ... it is not that different from how low interest rates led to higher home prices during the real estate bubble times.  I recall even my realtor making this point eight years ago.  Realtors and mortgage brokers know this all too well because they operate with a clear sense of how much monthly payment the potential homeowner can take on. To them, that monthly payment is a critical variable in the process.  So, when interest rates are held low, it makes it possible for buyers to go after larger-value homes.  But then the homeowners and their advisers also sense this, and home prices are correspondingly adjusted upwards.  Pretty soon, the later entrants to this crazy market do not realize that such a system will only help those who are already homeowners, and are we to be surprised that those who joined this game towards the end are the ones "underwater" now?

In this case, colleges and universities then correspondingly adjust their tuition upwards.  Increasingly, students are like the late entrants to the real estate bubble.

Back to Political Calculations:

This correlation suggests that the U.S. federal government is directly behind the bubble we observe to exist in the cost of U.S. higher education, with federal spending during years of recession effectively insulating U.S. colleges and universities from the nation's economic circumstances by subsidizing their operations.
These subsidies, delivered at times of recession, free U.S. higher education institutions to set the price of their tuition independently of their students' ability to pay based upon their or their family's current household income.
The only limiting factor for U.S. higher education institutions then would be the actual growth of U.S. federal spending. This would be why the average cost of college tuition in the United States would appear to have come to track the total level of federal government spending so closely.
As a result, the cost of college tuition has skyrocketed with respect to the typical family's household income. Consequently, when a student attends college today, they must increasingly rely upon subsidies from the federal government that fill the gap between what their institutions charge and what they must pay for out of their own pockets.

How does all this translate to a typical student?  Here is a classic statement:

"I get financial aid but I get less because more goes to tuition," said Tiffany Webster, 22, who lives on campus. "It just seems like it is getting too high for a Cal State school. It should be affordable."

Which is how we end up with a scenario like the one in this graph from "Carpe Diem"'s Mark Perry, who adds that maybe, just maybe, students--like American consumers now--are not that excited to take on debt like they used to.  Perry notes that:

After remaining stable at about 11-12% of median household income between 1994 and 2001, student loans as a share of income climbed to more than 18% in 2006, before declining to 15.5% in 2007 and 13.6% in 2008.