Have you sent the chaddis yet??

Nisha, Divya and Nithin are spearheading a fantastic campaign, Munnabhai style, to get the Ram Sena to join the Valentine Day celebrations.

Not that the Ram Sena isn't planning to join the V Day celebrations - they have their heads and hands full of violent ideas for Feb 14, all targeted to stop us degenerate, unenlightened Indians, especially women, from imbibing foreign culture, beer, alcohol, roses, etc

To divert their minds, let's send them some love, and chaddis. Pink chaddis, to be precise. the cheaper, the better. I do not recommend you stink them up, but should you desire to do so against my advice, may I suggest beer dousing?

Join the Pink Chaddi Campaign at http://thepinkchaddicampaign.blogspot.com/.
Also available on Facebook.

Send the chaddis today.


poster courtesy: Shilo (?), official website

Oh naive me!

I have to admit that I had no idea I was public property.

I really wasn't aware that politicians had a say in deciding what I could wear, what I could drink, what time I would be allowed to show my face in public...

And I certainly didn't expect that if I failed in meeting their demands, they could hit me with impunity.

You have got to see it to believe it:



Now that I am wiser, I expect no one's going to spend a jail term for this attack. Only we women will end up self-imprisoned in our own houses because the world is increasingly unsafe.

Meanwhile, instead of distancing themselves from the violence, this is what people who I now realize are my masters had to say in support of the attackers:

"It is not good for a young woman to go to a pub.” Bijoya Chakravarty, BJP’s national vice president

“India is not Europe. Mushrooming of pubs is not part of the Indian culture.” Manju Kumar Majumdar, Communist Party of India state secretary


Well I hope it is Indian culture to wish painful lives and painful deaths to certain people. Coz I am certainly going to indulge in it.

Bailout's not a bad word, provided...

If you're alive, I suppose you're aware that a financial doomsday is underway and that governments across the world are scrambling to resurrect the economic system.

Few like the idea, and no one likes the scale of the giveaways - still, more or less everyone agrees - it is necessary to get the financial system out of trouble by buying out bad assets, infusing capital, reducing cost of funds, etc etc. Even I, who thinks the banks bought it upon themselves and deserve a whipping, realize that there is no point sitting on the sidelines and applauding a fall - something needs to be done.

The problem is that the something costs a hell of a lot: adding up to trillions of dollars in US alone. And that's not counting the contingent liabilities that the government has taken in its books.

The measures have yet to prove they work - stocks are still falling, as is industrial production and consumer purchase. The only thing up so far is unemployment. Of course, the lack of results so far hasn't stopped other nations from following suit - but that is expected. Anyone who wants to be re-elected will have to show that they are reacting to the crisis.

What is more interesting is that media and (former) free market enthusiasts are broadly supporting the bail-out moves. Sure, "experts" on TV, the same guys who thought derivatives were awesome and high debt the signs of a healthy economy, are now giving speeches on what checks and balances should exist when taxpayers help out the industry. But by and large, all channels, all economists, are supporting the giveaways.

How things change... Do you remember about a year ago, when India's agrarian crisis was in the news? When things were so bad in the sector that forget unemployment and losses and poverty and famine, the situation had reached a stage where farmer suicides had become a norm? And the government announced a loan waiver?

[Here is what I wrote that time.]

Well, that bailout was certainly unwelcome. The experts were aghast - there was no proof it would help in the long run, they said. And this would encourage farmers towards willful default, they warned. Let the market sort out troubles, as it always does, in the long run, went the suggestion.

Suddenly, now that help must reach the white collar worker and the shareholders, the same arguments have been put to rest.

That's right,

Bailout's not a bad word, provided... you're rich.

Of course I went to Leopold's.

I was in Bombay for just three days. After the mandatory hours of family get-togethers and upset stomachs, there was no time for Vada Pav or chowpatty or even chappals on Linking Road.

But I couldn't leave without seeing Leo once again, nor without a glimpse of the Taj.

Colaba had been my home for a special year - my first year as a working woman living alone in a big city. My office was a five-minute walk from Gateway. Searching for paying guest accommodation, it took me no more than a first glance to decide the area would be home too. Yah, the low tide stank badly and my male colleagues felt protective when I left office late in the red light district.... but I had rarely felt so comfortabe in my skin as there. What else can you feel in a place so alive? Here, the lights were always on. Days brought in a stream of shoppers and tourists. Nights throbbed with youngsters partying. And the food... that in itself was worth a migration.

So when the mayhem began, as I saw the events unfold from another country, I stopped in my tracks. It was surreal, seeing the gun shots, the raging fires, the mass murders playing out over an area whose every road I knew. I felt sure the stains wouldn't go away, couldn't go away, that the episode would change the picture of the Colaba I knew.

I have always avoided revisiting places from my past - there's something disquieting about finding out that the see-saw and swings park from my childhood is now a parking lot, that the school field has turned into an academic block... I prefer staying away, with a hazy but original picture intact in my head, than seeing the changes and getting a cover version lodged in my memory instead.

But this was different. I felt compelled to go, to be a part of what had happened, even if two weeks too late.

And so I went.

My visit turned out to be quite surreal, but not for the reasons I had expected. Thing was, nothing much has changed. The stalls that line the road outside Leo are still choc-a-bloc, as are the tables behind the open-door ground floor of the restaurant. There's the same steady hum of traffic in the background and the same loud hustling and bargaining on the sidewalk.

I drive through the alleyways that gradate this bustling scene into the decorum of the Taj. Saloons and shops that you go to only if you know where you're going. Quiet as always. And open for business still.

A few more turns, and only then I see the first sign, the only sign I see, of the terror attack: Peeking out above the heritage buildings is the corner spire of the Taj, still blackened at the edges by the fire that is now symbol of the terror attacks. A baricade stops me from taking the road by the sea and searching for changes, but by now I know, Colaba is determined to erase reminders of those three days of November.

I suppose the tingling in my stomach was the fight between a relief that things are the same and an awareness that it could so easily have been different. Never before had I walked the place thinking how fragile it was.

But no, Colaba is not fragile.

Ironic, isn't it? Those gun-toting agents of terror tried to change the map of Mumbai, but succeeded only in firmly entrenching Mumbai to what it has always been. If there's one place where old buildings won't come down, where old favourite restaurants won't shut down to relocate, where street stalls won't be asked to vacate public space - it's here.

If you can't beat them, laugh at them

I am incapable of generating dark humour, and accordingly, envious of anyone who can turn bad news into fodder for laughs. In other words, I am a devotee of everyone from Dave Barry to Doonesbury; and now Saturday Night Live has joined the list.

Here's the awesome parody of the Sarah Palin - Joe Biden debate (You'll enjoy it much more if you have an idea of what actually transpired):

Mob violence seems here to stay

My earliest memory of being afraid comes from when I was a child, when I was young enough to race into my parents' bed after a nightmare. It was the voices that scared me – of a loud group of men speaking over each other so thoroughly that you couldn’t make out a single coherent word in the final sound muddle. My imagination added the yellows of fire to the soundtrack, as if they were carrying burning sticks in their hands, and I fled from my bed.

For a long time I considered the memory a real vestige from the 1984 riots. But on hindsight, my parents wouldn’t be sleeping soundly with such commotion outside. I guess the neighbors were seeing a movie on high volume and I must have seen the serial Tamas in the recent past.

But I never forgot the memory.

And India forgot it too soon.

Mob violence has a long history in India, indeed, as long as its political existence – beginning with the Partition. The mayhem of the times should have been a lesson. Instead, every time minorities found themselves at the receiving end – be it Sikhs in Delhi or Muslims in Gujarat or Pandits in Kashmir – the authorities proved at best apathetic and impotent, and at worst, participants in the crime.

For instance, here’s what Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi had to say after his mother’s assassination in 1984, a period marked by genocide of the Sikhs. [By their genocide, I refer to mobs barging into their houses, grabbing the men of the house out of their hiding place, hooting as they dragged them out, flinging tyres around their necks and setting them afire, with their families looking on.]

But, when a mighty tree falls, it is only natural that the earth around it does shake a little.

Narendra Modi, Chief Minister of Gujarat went one better. After the Godhra incident – when a train bearing Hindu Kar Sevaks was set on fire – every one knew there were going to be riots. I remember because it was the day I got married. All our guests took first flights out as soon as the ceremonies were over, expecting a spillover to reach Bombay any moment.

But Modi failed to rein in the police into action at a time when he should have actually called in the military for help. Worse, as several journalists found out, he was complicit in the riots.

[I know many do not believe that the pogrom was premeditated, that it was a spontaneous reaction of aggrieved Hindus; perhaps this will change your mind ]

This time, the excuse for violence was – they deserved it. A whole community of people deserved being raped, burnt alive, diced by swords, getting their wombs ripped off, because someone else from their religion had committed arson [by the way, arson by Muslims in Godhra was never proven, only conjectured].

Some of my friends went to Gujarat soon after, when the stench of carcasses and fear still hung in the air. While visiting affected localities, they saw these posters on walls: "Christians, you are next.” The man-eaters were boldly looking for the next victim.

Welcome to Orissa.

Once again, the perennial top favourites – rapes, and people burnt alive.

Once again, criminals getting away with it.

Worst, once again, a group who thinks the victims’ community had it coming and deserved every bit of the ‘punishment.’

Unfortunately, people will always find plenty of excuses to murder their neighbors. The lack of prison sentences for such murders has let loose a whole host of mobbing throngs in India, who are striking with increasing regularity. Unless the instigators [read politicians] and executors [read mobsters] are put behind bars, there will be no end to such violence.

The tone needs to be set: bestiality, no matter what cause, is unacceptable. Adrenalin, no matter how high, isn't a pardon from the gallows.

Anne Kilkenny - is she for real?

For those who are still unaware of who she is, scroll down and read her famous letter that has reproduced itself to 271,000 pages on the net in the last four days and made it to the top post on Wordpress.

I started reading it by chance, and couldn't stop till the last sentence. IMHO, even the venerable Obama couldn't have phrased it better.


So question 1, is she for real?

Well, Anne Kilkenny certainly exists. Here, she is quoted in New York Times in an article (no mention of her letter)

Ann Kilkenny, a Democrat who said she attended every City Council meeting in Ms. Palin’s first year in office, said Ms. Palin brought up the idea of banning some books at one meeting. “They were somehow morally or socially objectionable to her,” Ms. Kilkenny said.

And question 2, did she write it?

In the google links I went through - and I went through many - some wondered if the letter was authentic, but no one could call it a hoax for sure. Meanwhile, there were those who said they'd called Kilkenny and confirmed authenticity.

More convincingly - the New York Times article I mentioned earlier is dated Sep 2 - 2 days after her letter starting splashing around the internet (Aug 31). Unlikely that the journalist spoke with her without knowing the letter's background.


So for now, I think it is wise that when you think of Ms Palin, be scared. Be very scared.

----
the letter (reproduced)

Dear friends,

So many people have asked me about what I know about Sarah Palin in the last 2 days that I decided to write something up . . .

Basically, Sarah Palin and Hillary Clinton have only 2 things in common: their gender and their good looks. :)

You have my permission to forward this to your friends/email contacts with my name and email address attached, but please do not post it on any websites, as there are too many kooks out there . . .

Thanks,
Anne


ABOUT SARAH PALIN

I am a resident of Wasilla, Alaska. I have known Sarah since 1992. Everyone here knows Sarah, so it is nothing special to say we are on a first-name basis. Our children have attended the same schools. Her father was my child's favorite substitute teacher. I also am on a first name basis with her parents and mother-in-law. I attended more City Council meetings during her administration than about 99% of the residents of the city.

She is enormously popular; in every way she’s like the most popular girl in middle school. Even men who think she is a poor choice and won't vote for her can't quit smiling when talking about her because she is a "babe".

It is astonishing and almost scary how well she can keep a secret. She kept her most recent pregnancy a secret from her children and parents for seven months.

She is "pro-life". She recently gave birth to a Down's syndrome baby. There is no cover-up involved, here; Trig is her baby.

She is energetic and hardworking. She regularly worked out at the gym.

She is savvy. She doesn't take positions; she just "puts things out there" and if they prove to be popular, then she takes credit.

Her husband works a union job on the North Slope for BP and is a champion snowmobile racer. Todd Palin’s kind of job is highly sought-after because of the schedule and high pay. He arranges his work schedule so he can fish for salmon in Bristol Bay for a month or so in summer, but by no stretch of the imagination is fishing their major source of income. Nor has her life-style ever been anything like that of native Alaskans.

Sarah and her whole family are avid hunters.

She's smart.

Her experience is as mayor of a city with a population of about 5,000 (at the time), and less than 2 years as governor of a state with about 670,000 residents.

During her mayoral administration most of the actual work of running this small city was turned over to an administrator. She had been pushed to hire this administrator by party power-brokers after she had gotten herself into some trouble over precipitous firings which had given rise to a recall campaign.

Sarah campaigned in Wasilla as a “fiscal conservative”. During her 6 years as Mayor, she increased general government expenditures by over 33%. During those same 6 years the amount of taxes collected by the City increased by 38%. This was during a period of low inflation (1996-2002). She reduced progressive property taxes and increased a regressive sales tax which taxed even food. The tax cuts that she promoted benefited large corporate property owners way more than they benefited residents.

The huge increases in tax revenues during her mayoral administration weren’t enough to fund everything on her wish list though, borrowed money was needed, too. She inherited a city with zero debt, but left it with indebtedness of over $22 million. What did Mayor Palin encourage the voters to borrow money for? Was it the infrastructure that she said she supported? The sewage treatment plant that the city lacked? or a new library? No. $1m for a park. $15m-plus for construction of a multi-use sports complex which she rushed through to build on a piece of property that the City didn’t even have clear title to, that was still in litigation 7 yrs later--to the delight of the lawyers involved! The sports complex itself is a nice addition to the community but a huge money pit, not the profit-generator she claimed it would be. She also supported bonds for $5.5m for road projects that could have been done in 5-7 yrs without any borrowing.

While Mayor, City Hall was extensively remodeled and her office redecorated more than once.

These are small numbers, but Wasilla is a very small city.

As an oil producer, the high price of oil has created a budget surplus in Alaska. Rather than invest this surplus in technology that will make us energy independent and increase efficiency, as Governor she proposed distribution of this surplus to every individual in the state.

In this time of record state revenues and budget surpluses, she recommended that the state borrow/bond for road projects, even while she proposed distribution of surplus state revenues: spend today's surplus, borrow for needs.

She’s not very tolerant of divergent opinions or open to outside ideas or compromise. As Mayor, she fought ideas that weren’t generated by her or her staff. Ideas weren’t evaluated on their merits, but on the basis of who proposed them.

While Sarah was Mayor of Wasilla she tried to fire our highly respected City Librarian because the Librarian refused to consider removing from the library some books that Sarah wanted removed. City residents rallied to the defense of the City Librarian and against Palin's attempt at out-and-out censorship, so Palin backed down and withdrew her termination letter. People who fought her attempt to oust the Librarian are on her enemies list to this day.

Sarah complained about the “old boy’s club” when she first ran for Mayor, so what did she bring Wasilla? A new set of "old boys". Palin fired most of the experienced staff she inherited. At the City and as Governor she hired or elevated new, inexperienced, obscure people, creating a staff totally dependent on her for their jobs and eternally grateful and fiercely loyal--loyal to the point of abusing their power to further her personal agenda, as she has acknowledged happened in the
case of pressuring the State’s top cop (see below).

As Mayor, Sarah fired Wasilla’s Police Chief because he “intimidated” her, she told the press. As Governor, her recent firing of Alaska's top cop has the ring of familiarity about it. He served at her pleasure and she had every legal right to fire him, but it's pretty clear that an important factor in her decision to fire him was because he wouldn't fire her sister's ex-husband, a State Trooper. Under investigation for abuse of power, she has had to admit that more than 2 dozen
contacts were made between her staff and family to the person that she later fired, pressuring him to fire her ex-brother-in-law. She tried to replace the man she fired with a man who she knew had been reprimanded for sexual harassment; when this caused a public furor, she withdrew her support.

She has bitten the hand of every person who extended theirs to her in help. The City Council person who personally escorted her around town introducing her to voters when she first ran for Wasilla City Council became one of her first targets when she was later elected Mayor. She abruptly fired her loyal City Administrator; even people who didn’t like the guy were stunned by this ruthlessness.

Fear of retribution has kept all of these people from saying anything publicly about her.

When then-Governor Murkowski was handing out political plums, Sarah got the best, Chair of the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission: one of the few jobs not in Juneau and one of the best paid. She had no background in oil & gas issues. Within months of scoring this great job which paid $122,400/yr, she was complaining in the press about the high salary. I was told that she hated that job: the commute, the structured hours, the work. Sarah became aware that a member of this Commission (who was also the State Chair of the Republican Party) engaged in unethical behavior on the job. In a gutsy move which some undoubtedly cautioned her could be political suicide, Sarah solved all her problems in one fell swoop: got out of the job she hated and garnered gobs of media attention as the patron saint of ethics and as a gutsy fighter against the “old boys’ club” when she dramatically quit, exposing this man’s ethics violations (for which he was fined).

As Mayor, she had her hand stuck out as far as anyone for pork from Senator Ted Stevens. Lately, she has castigated his pork-barrel politics and publicly humiliated him. She only opposed the “bridge to nowhere” after it became clear that it would be unwise not to.

As Governor, she gave the Legislature no direction and budget guidelines, then made a big grandstand display of line-item vetoing projects, calling them pork. Public outcry and further legislative action restored most of these projects--which had been vetoed simply because she was not aware of their importance--but with the unobservant she had gained a reputation as “anti-pork”.

She is solidly Republican: no political maverick. The State party leaders hate her because she has bit them in the back and humiliated them. Other members of the party object to her self-description as a fiscal conservative.

Around Wasilla there are people who went to high school with Sarah. They call her “Sarah Barracuda” because of her unbridled ambition and predatory ruthlessness. Before she became so powerful, very ugly stories circulated around town about shenanigans she pulled to be made point guard on the high school basketball team. When Sarah's mother-in-law, a highly respected member of the community and experienced manager, ran for Mayor, Sarah refused to endorse her.

As Governor, she stepped outside of the box and put together of package of legislation known as “AGIA” that forced the oil companies to march to the beat of her drum.

Like most Alaskans, she favors drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. She has questioned if the loss of sea ice is linked to global warming. She campaigned “as a private citizen” against a state initiaitive that would have either a) protected salmon streams from pollution from mines, or b) tied up in the courts all mining in the state (depending on who you listen to). She has pushed the State’s lawsuit against the Dept. of the Interior’s decision to list polar bears as threatened species.

McCain is the oldest person to ever run for President; Sarah will be a heartbeat away from being President.

There has to be literally millions of Americans who are more knowledgeable and experienced than she.

However, there’s a lot of people who have underestimated her and are regretting it.


CLAIM VS FACT
•“Hockey mom”: true for a few years
•“PTA mom”: true years ago when her first-born was in elementary school, not since
•“NRA supporter”: absolutely true
•social conservative: mixed. Opposes gay marriage, BUT vetoed a bill that would have denied benefits to employees in same-sex relationships (said she did this because it was unconsitutional).
•pro-creationism: mixed. Supports it, BUT did nothing as Governor to promote it.
•“Pro-life”: mixed. Knowingly gave birth to a Down’s syndrome baby BUT declined to call a special legislative session on some pro-life legislation
•“Experienced”: Some high schools have more students than Wasilla has residents. Many cities have more residents than the state of Alaska.
•No legislative experience other than City Council. Little hands-on supervisory or managerial experience; needed help of a city administrator to run town of about 5,000.
•political maverick: not at all
•gutsy: absolutely!
•open & transparent: ??? Good at keeping secrets. Not good at explaining actions.
•has a developed philosophy of public policy: no
•”a Greenie”: no. Turned Wasilla into a wasteland of big box stores and disconnected parking lots. Is pro-drilling off-shore and in ANWR.
•fiscal conservative: not by my definition!
•pro-infrastructure: No. Promoted a sports complex and park in a city without a sewage treatment plant or storm drainage system. Built streets to early 20th century standards.
•pro-tax relief: Lowered taxes for businesses, increased tax burden on residents
•pro-small government: No. Oversaw greatest expansion of city government in Wasilla’s history.
•pro-labor/pro-union. No. Just because her husband works union doesn’t make her pro-labor. I have seen nothing to support any claim that she is pro-labor/pro-union.

WHY AM I WRITING THIS?

First, I have long believed in the importance of being an informed voter. I am a voter registrar. For 10 years I put on student voting programs in the schools. If you google my name (Anne Kilkenny + Alaska), you will find references to my participation in local government, education, and PTA/parent organizations.

Secondly, I've always operated in the belief that "Bad things happen when good people stay silent". Few people know as much as I do because few have gone to as many City Council meetings.

Third, I am just a housewife. I don't have a job she can bump me out of. I don't belong to any organization that she can hurt. But, I am no fool; she is immensely popular here, and it is likely that this will cost me somehow in the future: that’s life.

Fourth, she has hated me since back in 1996, when I was one of the 100 or so people who rallied to support the City Librarian against Sarah's attempt at censorship.

Fifth, I looked around and realized that everybody else was afraid to say anything because they were somehow vulnerable.

CAVEATS
I am not a statistician. I developed the numbers for the increase in spending & taxation 2 years ago (when Palin was running for Governor) from information supplied to me by the Finance Director of the City of Wasilla, and I can't recall exactly what I adjusted for: did I adjust for inflation? for population increases? Right now, it is impossible for a private person to get any info out of City Hall--they are swamped. So I can't verify my numbers.

You may have noticed that there are various numbers circulating for the population of Wasilla, ranging from my "about 5,000", up to 9,000. The day Palin’s selection was announced a city official told me that the current population is about 7,000. The official 2000 census count was 5,460. I have used about 5,000 because Palin was Mayor from 1996 to 2002, and the city was growing rapidly in the mid-90’s.

Anne Kilkenny
annekilkenny@hotmail.com
August 31, 2008