Rumi Nations

In this land of Gandhi and Buddha, the Bugatti Veyron is now also available. I know it's yawningly lame to use that hoary phrase. It's of course as erroneous to imagine that Indians are born ascetics as it's to imagine that somehow Chinese are born to be Communists or Russians are born to be Communists. Indians seem to be ascetic only because they lack the wealth to be otherwise. All that is changing of course — in India, China, and Russia. Here's a review for those of us who can't afford it: http://business.in.com/article/appraisals/bugatti-veyron/342/1

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/29/nyregion/29young.html?partner=rss&emc=rss Well, I am wondering how long the dead will be free from the fear of being sued. Or, may be, it's already ok to sue dead people too. The most-deserving candidate for lawsuits is of course quite obvious — the imaginary character known as 'God.'

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/22/business/22chicken.html?th&emc=th

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/17/world/asia/17japan.html?src=me&ref=general To use a hoary cliche ... "a cautionary tale" from the Land of the Rising Sun. I am thinking of that once-somwhat-celebrated book that I had read Silicon Samurai. And I am also wondering as I could not make out clearly ... what is that book with the word 'Samurai' in its title that Jack Nicholson's character is reading on the private jet in The Bucket List.

http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/204899.php $160 million is basically small change. I am happy that no Indians are involved in this ingenious scam. Or, should I say ... I am a bit surprised ...

http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/204658.php I don't know what to make of this ... Well, I guess what suprises me above all is that this has not caused the "usual suspects" to cry foul in any significantly audible fashion which I think is somewhat strange ... I guess the crazies who oppose advances in medical science are after all less crazy than the "defenders" of the gods ... I am thinking of the hue and cry — millions of people out on the streets in many cities around the world — that happened when someone made fun of someone in cartoons ...

http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/729212?src=mp&spon=17&uac=122954PX

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/17/magazine/17obama-t.html

http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/730284?src=nldne&uac=122954PX

Ngugi wa Thiong' o? Juan Goytisolo? Adonis? Over the past several weeks, some version of this list was muttered, usually to a silent spouse in the middle of the night, by insomniac writers contemplating another Nobel Prize about to go where it shouldn't; i.e. to someone other than themselves. (Not that winning puts out the competitive fires. Saul Bellow, who won the Nobel for literature in 1976, was said to ahve grown wistful every October after that, because you can win it only once.) Nor is the muttering restricted to the papabili who make the short list; pretty much every living writer with a word processor thinks that he or she has a shot at wining. (Edmucd Wilson reports that our own James Thurber longed for it to go, just once, to a humorist; predictably, he never got anywhere near the podium.) When this year's prize was announced, last Thursday, it went to a writer, who, if not a North American (again), is at least familiar to North Americans: the Peruvian novelist ...

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/10/science/10google.html?_r=1

Wonderful movie ... This movie starring two of my favorite actors (Morgan Freeman and Jack Nicholson). Saw the movie again. How can one make a movie as good as this one? That's what I am wondering about. I can't think of much else to write.

This is of course from the New York Times. He concludes his wonderful article with a perceptive quote from Walter Benjamin: "There is no document of civilization which is not at the same time a document of barbarism." http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/03/opinion/03mishra.html?_r=1