Monthly Archives: May 2005

Over my head

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This post is about part-desi actresses who pass for white or Arab in mediocre movies which you’ve actually seen, whose ethnicity you learn later, then feel a really big d’oh! coming on, like Homer Simpson missing the email about an overturned tanker-trailer full of jelly donuts.

Exhibit A: Zuleikha Robinson, the Bedouin love interest in Hidalgo and daughter of Shylock in The Merchant of Venice.

My father is English and my mother is mostly Indian and a little bit of Burmese and a little bit of Arabic… I was born in England and then I moved to San Francisco, then we moved to Malaysia, and Thailand, and Singapore. By this time I was thirteen and I left to go to boarding school in England.

I hope she means Arab. Robinson is currently filming the part of Moushmi, the love interest in The Namesake.

Exhibit B: Rhona Mitra, the New York friend in Sweet Home Alabama (and Lara Croft).

… my dad is from Calcutta. But I’m also part Irish. It’s a confusing heritage. I never know if I want to be running across the fields with no clothes on or sitting in the pub drinking Guinness… we used to nick holy wine from the church and drink it in the potato patch at the back of the school.

Hmm, yes, that’s definitely convent school behavior. Whether Indian or Irish, I can’t say. Here’s a fun quote out of context (thanks, Chandni):

Q: But you have had your breasts enlarged.

A: Yes, but my dad had nothing to do with it… apparently a load of people phoned up the hospital where he works, the next day asking for tits like Rhona Mitra.

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How to stick it to your wife (sort of)

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LetÂ’s say that youÂ’ve just had a brutal argument with your wife. SheÂ’s always giving you the business about something: You spend too much time with your friends…you ought to spend more time with the kids…you need to spend less time with your mistress…and so on. After a fight with his wife, an unemployed man in Uttar Pradesh had just about enough. He flew the coop, and returned two years later with the ultimate retort:

During his absence, he got himself castrated and became a eunuch, earning money by singing and dancing, a common form of employment among IndiaÂ’s ostracized community of eunuchs. “I was always fond of singing and dancing, but felt suffocated in my body as a man,” Nabiullah was quoted as saying. His wife, Shama Parveen, fainted when he returned home late last month… [Reuters/Yahoo!]

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‘100 Promises to My Baby’ by Mallika Chopra

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Deepak Chopra’s daughter released a new book, entitled “100 Promises to My Baby”:

As she eagerly awaited the birth of her first child, Mallika Chopra began to craft a unique gift that would express her profound loving commitment to the baby growing inside of her. 100 Promises to My Baby is that gift – one that reflects her deep awareness of the sacred responsibilities of parenthood. Here the author shares the vows she made to help her child – and all children – grow up feeling cherished and secure, look at the world with wonder and curiosity, and learn spiritual values that enrich life and contribute to making the world a better place. [Rodale Store]

The first, and possibly most important, promise:
#1. You’ll never have to patronize any of grandpa’s “spirituality” seminars.

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Q: What is EVEN BETTER than a Star Trek convention?

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If I wasn’t a broke ass graduate student I’d be on a flight to Boston tomorrow morning. “Why,” you ask? The Guardian says it all [tip from Francis Assisi]:

timetravel.jpg

One of the strongest arguments against time travel is that we are not overrun with curious tourists from the future. A university student in Boston plans to change that, by inviting budding Doctor Whos to the world’s first time traveller convention this weekend.

The organiser, Amal Dorai – a masters student in electrical engineering and computer science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology – aims to test the theory of time travel by inviting people from the future to the event.

This is friggin awesome! Dorai’s hypothesis seems to me to parallel the Fermi Paradox which asks why we haven’t been overrun by intelligent beings from elsewhere in the galaxy yet.

“We are doing this as a very low-risk, low-cost way to investigate the possibility of time travel,” he said. “I think the probability they will come is very low, but if it does happen it will one of the biggest events in human history.

“Of course, no time travellers doesn’t rule out the possibility of time travel, they could have just decided not to come to our convention.”

Ahhh…hope. The last refuge of the nerd. Incidentally there was a Star Trek the Next Generation episode years ago where a time traveler from the past pretended he was a time traveler from the future. No word yet on how Dorai plans to handle this possibility. If we were to teach a time traveler from the past too much, he/she could pollute the timeline. It’s enough to make your head spin. Continue reading →

Fear and loathing in Austin

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The infamous Ajai Raj is an English major and campus journalist who idolizes Hunter S. Thompson and swears like Cartman. He complains about being busted for pot:

The Pigfucking Establishment had other plans. My roommate and I were awakened at 3 A.M. by two grinning Austin Police Department officers and a greasy-haired fat fuck of an RA who gets his jollies by hanging around with his thumb in his ass until he smells marijuana so he can inform the Justice League in exchange for a free raffle ticket. No shit– as the cops cuffed me for having an ounce of grass, this fucker got a chance to win a free microwave. Or to suck off a sheriff, as far as I know or care.

I was led in handcuffs into a waiting room full of crazy yelling degenerates, wife beaters, whores, thieves, and contemptible crying cunts… my balls were fondled by leering criminals posing as representatives of justice… according to our “justice” system, a straight-A college kid holding a bag of weed is as bad a criminal as a guy who beats his wife and kid. I learned that in Texas, a cop can decide to arrest you for no reason at all and you can sit in jail for 72 hours before you’re even charged with a crime…

The law is sticking all kinds of fingers in my asshole right now, but with a few savvy business deals, I can plow through this shit and come out smelling like roses. Ironic, really–to get out of this drug charge, I’m forced to arrange bigger drug deals than I ever intended to. C’est la vie, non?

Raj worships the original gonzo journalist…

Hunter S. was, and is, my hero. No other writer has had a greater impact on my way of thinking…

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Thugs on film

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The Daily Show covered a UK campaign event, contrasting the fully-scripted campaign commercials Dubya passes off as town halls with the brutal British ones. A desi guy in the audience virtually yelled at the British prime minister about the Iraq war:

That is a lie. You lied to this country, and that’s why we can’t support you the following election.

Wow, actual political commentary instead of rear entry and a hand job. So Ajai Raj continues to squat on his dubious throne.

Watch the video. The back of the hand is at 2:03 in the clip.

Separately, Raj got his mug splashed all over Fox News. Ann Coulter started off gracious:

He asked one of the more intelligent questions from the liberals… I like question and answer… It was no worse than the other ones…

But then her tone turned nasty:

Challenging questions are a little more fun than someone standing up and engaging in Tourette’s syndrome at the mike, but that’s kind of funny too… Who was he trying to persuade with that?

She added sarcastically:

Oh, and he’s attractive… I can’t really tell them apart. Good-lookin’ guy like that doesn’t really stand out in any leftist crowd…

Watch the video.

Previous Ajai Raj posts: 1, 2, 3

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Pat Robertson Strikes Again

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Yesterday, Robertson told “This Week with George Stephanopoulos” that he didn’t believe Hindus or Muslims should serve as either federal judges or members of the President’s cabinet:

GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS … in your book The New World Order you wrote, “‘How dare you maintain that those who believe in the Judeo-Christian values are better qualified to govern America than Hindus or Muslims.’ My simple answer is, ‘yes, they are.'” Does that mean no Hindu and Muslim judges? PAT ROBERTSON Right now, I think people who feel that there should be a jihad against America, read what the Islamic people say. They divide the world into two spheres, Dar al Islam Dar al Harb. The Dar al Islam are those who’ve submitted to Islam, Dar al Harb are those who are in the land of war and they have said in the Koran there’s a war against all the infidels. So do you want somebody like that sitting as a judge? I wouldn’t. [cite]

Just one little thing stands in Robertson’s way. It’s called Article VI, Section 3 of the US Constitution:

“no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States”

While he attacks Islam more often, Robertson intensely dislikes Hinduism as well. In 1995 he said Hinduism was demonic, and that Hindus ought not be allowed to enter the United States.

One might see Robertson’s decision to block Hindus and Muslims from the judiciary in terms of the importance he places upon it:

On Sunday morning, Christian Coalition founder Pat Robertson told TV viewers nation-wide that the threat posed by liberal judges is “probably more serious than a few bearded terrorists who fly into buildings.” When an incredulous George Stephanopoulos asked if Robertson really believed that these judges posed “the most serious threat America has faced in nearly 400 years of history, more serious than al Qaeda, more serious than Nazi Germany and Japan, more serious than the Civil War?,” he responded, “George, I really believe that.” [NYT Daily News]

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