Rumi Nations

With his recent opinions in the famous 'Khushboo' case, the CJI has luckily refused to meddle in people's private decisions. It's perhaps symptomatic of how stupid and archaic Indians are that what the actress had said should have been controversial to begin with. It's merely a reflection of people's misplaced priorities. India is a nation where people are bothered about other people's private behavior but do not find it outrageous if kids have to beg at traffic lights and spend their childhoods working instead of studying in school. Indians are a strange people with a completely misplaced set of priorities.

I guess that's about as charitable as I can get to describe the present generation of young Indians that I have seen grow up. I am somewhat at a loss to make sense of the way the mind of this generation works. I find it strange that someone should be educated ... above all, educated in the principles of science ... and yet continue to hold on to archaic rituals that have no meaning at all, absolutely no meaning. Some of it has to do with upbringing. People in India are brought up to 'respect' their elders and somehow people never bother to question the validity of certain assumptions. I find old people of India to be complete fools with a set of stupid beliefs and rituals who deserve no respect whatsoever because they have essentially spent their lives in trivial pursuits that has no deep meaning. I think of the larger perspective. Look at the historical perspective, for example. Look at India in the 20th century. India got independence around the middle of the century. The...

http://www.theglobalist.com/StoryId.aspx?StoryId=8353 Well, it's good to see the Prof. agree with my perception that financial firms got more sympathy than they deserved last year and so the world of financial 'wizards' is basically back to square one. Bring on the next financial crisis!!! Only, not too soon like in a year or two but a while from now when people have conviniently forgotten this crisis ... Oh, and Stiglitz is optimistic ... of course, he doesn't have to live in Delhi ... Slums, power cuts, incessant blaring of horns, marriage processions on public streets, etc. ... did I miss out any other problems of living in India ... or of living in China or any of the other places on the planet outside of the developed nations of Europe and America and Asia? Well, I guess I missed about 1,000 or 10,000 other problems which might be specific to peoples and societies ... Cheers! Well, I am not going to be like ... or, better still, make that, I refuse to be like Jack...

Paul Krugman advocates taking a strong stand against China's monetary policy that has long kept its currency artificially undervalued. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/15/opinion/15krugman.html Taking on China quite paradoxically would also involve taking on the American consumer in some way. Or, the American consumer mindset. China is almost single handedly responsible for the Wall mart economy that Americans are so in love with. Putting surcharges on Chinese imports would raise the prices of all those 'toys' Americans love so much ... everything is Made in China, right? From children's toys to digicams to plasma TVs and much else ... perhaps, except cars and houses and fast food. I wonder what the prophet of the 'flat world' would have to say about this punitive course of action ...

Krugman: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/12/opinion/12krugman.html Brooks: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/12/opinion/12brooks.html?hp Both really praising the vision and administration of Obama. While the WSJ writers point out how Obama is no LBJ, they perhaps forget that the Congress of the 21st century is not the Congress of the sixties. The entrenched interess, the viciousness of the partisan attacks, the billions of dollars at stake in Congressional legislation, human greed that is not constant like the height of the mighty Everest keeps rising with every generation ... Lincoln and LBJ and Jefferson and Washington would have operated differently today than they did in their milieu. If going back to the farm after retirement is a virtue, then George W. Bush has it, does he not? Well, perhaps he did not exactly retire to his ranch.

Our home, this spaceship, this Earth, keeps spinning and spinning ... suspended in space. And an invisible force keeps it tethered to its home star, the source of all its energy. And that star too is not really still. It too has a story to tell. Once upon a time, 5 billion years ago perhaps, it was just a lot of gas. Then that gas got together and gravity compressed it and when compressed enough, nuclei started fusing in the processing converting some matter into energy — in the ultimate sort of alchemy. And that energy radiates out in the form of photons that have different energies and span the electromagnetic spectrum. Some of that light we see as our visual apparatus is sensitive and limited only to those wavelengths. Imagine being present at that day of creation when the Sun would have shown for the first time ... ever. Like a village getting electricity for the first time ... only, a trillion trillion times more fundamental. A star shining for the first time ... I wonder if that ...