A thick slice of Bubba pie

Posted on January 17, 2006 by manish

My friend and international man of mystery Parag Khanna just published an essay which made the cover of Harper’s, Jan. 2006 (not online yet). Congrats, Parag! It’s a modest proposal for reforming the U.N. by putting Bill Clinton in charge:

Indulge me for a moment as I fix the world. First, rich countries must raise their development budgets… underdeveloped societies must root out corruption and boost investment in social welfare… we must strengthen the capacity of international institutions to manage global collective security against the threats of terrorism… we must move rapidly toward free and fair global trade, and involve NGOs and the international business community in providing responsible and accountable delivery of public goods around the world…

… there is only one solution… Embed a super-American at the highest level. That man, at this moment, is Bill Clinton.

But is Bubba the right plumber for these pipes?

Allegations of widespread sexual abuse came to light in a U.N. refugee camp in Bunia, Congo. Blue-helmets were paying girls as young as thirteen or fourteen with bread, milk, or a little cash…
U.N. personnel… have eased the burden they bear in lightening poverty with fermented marijuana cocktails along the banks of the Mekong River.

Parag tells of his first experience with the U.N.’s legendary inefficiency:

I first got involved with the United Nations just before its fiftieth birthday. In 1995, at age seventeen, I was likely the youngest intern wandering the corridors of the two glass towers… One week the Youth Unit had exceeded its quota of printing paper, so we simply were not allowed to make photocopies until our stock was replenished. I started to wonder: If the unit, or even the whole Division for Social Policy and Development, ceased to exist, would anyone miss it?..

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‘We’re Not Gonna Take It’

Posted on January 17, 2006 by manish

A NYT columnist tells a story of vengeance (paid link) that’s become all too familiar (thanks, Turbanhead). It’s got overtones of Mirch Masala, Krantiveer and Bandit Queen:

… in the central Indian city of Nagpur… [f]or more than 15 years, the mud alleys of the slum were ruled by a local thug named Akku Yadav. A higher-caste man, he killed, raped and robbed in this community of Dalits… One woman, according to people here, went to the police station to report that she had been gang-raped by Akku Yadav and his goons, and the police raped her.

Neighbors tell how Akku Yadav forced a man to dance naked in front of his teenage daughter. They say that he chopped one woman into pieces in front of her daughter, and that another woman burned herself to death after he and his men gang-raped her…

Usha turned on the gas, grabbed a match and threatened to blow up everyoneWe have the bad guy, now we need the heroine. Usha Narayane, one of the few to leave the slum and get an education, was back home visiting relatives when the gang attacked. What Narayane managed to pull was like walking into a biker war with a hand grenade:

Akku Yadav returned with 40 men and surrounded the Narayane shack. He waved a bottle of acid and threatened to disfigure Usha’s face, and to rape and kill her… Usha turned on the gas, grabbed a match and threatened to blow up everyone if the gang broke into the house…

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The blog formerly known as Sepia Mutiny

Posted on January 15, 2006 by manish

As you may have heard, last month Bangalore decided to change its name to Bengaluru, a contraction of a Kannada phrase, ‘benda kaal ooru,’ which means ‘city of boiled beans.’

We here at the Mutiny fully support casting off the linguistic corruption of the oppressor. We raise our henna’d fists in solidarity and announce the following:

Sepia Mutiny shall henceforth be known as FaÃ¤rtinfernÃ¸, which means ‘blog of hopeless flames.’

Anyone visiting us in North Dakota must use the new name, or their luggage will wind up lost.

Anyone using the old name will be refused entry into places of worship for being insufficiently brown.

We are spending 900 kajillion dollars to update our signs and stationery. That leaves us nothing to fix our traffic jams, deteriorating infrastructure and inadequate power and bandwidth for our technology operations, but our readers will be happy knowing that we’re spending our time on what really matters.

All blog business will be conducted in our native language: uninformed bloviation, semantic squabbles, unfunny jokes, incomprehensible literary references, tales of virility, meandering personal stories and poli-sci-theory put-downs which nobody gets.

We apologize for this radical change.

To more fully throw off the yoke of the oppressor, every post will be written in our ancient script of Chefspeak.

YÃ¸rn desh born, desh born YÃ¸rn, bÃ¸rk! bÃ¸rk! bÃ¸rk!

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Ninety-nine bottles of beer

Posted on January 14, 2006 by manish

The origins of India pale ale are similar to those of Bombay gin, which was mixed with quinine to combat malaria, in that there’s a real, tropical reason for the name:

After the British East India Company had established itself in India… it had a large number of troops and civilians demanding beer… Ships typically left London, cruised south past the equator along the coast of Africa, rounded the Cape of Good Hope and then crossed the Indian Ocean to reach Bombay, Calcutta, and Madras. The temperature fluctuations were huge, it was a very long trip (about 6 months) and the rough waters of southern Africa resulted in an extremely violent voyage…

Early shipments to India contained bottled porters, the favorite beer in London, which generally arrived flat, musty, and sour… Hodgson took his pale ale recipe, increased the hop content considerably, and raised the alcohol content. The result was a very bitter, alcoholic, and sparkling pale ale that could survive the challenges of travel and shelf life in India. [Link]

High hop levels can preserve a beer’s flavor in two ways: they have a limited ability to protect beer from spoilage by some microorganisms, and, more importantly, their bitterness can mask stale flavors. While the beer arriving in India would certainly have suffered from oxidative staling during the long voyage, it could still taste acceptable because of the masking effect of alcohol and hops. [Link]

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Pirate of the Caribbean

Posted on January 14, 2006 by manish

After reading the tale of John Boysie Singh, 20th-century Trini pirate of the Caribbean, methinks Keira teams up with Parminder again, maties:

Johnny Dhillon?

John Boysie Singh, usually known as “the Rajah,” “Boysie” or “Boysie Singh” … had a long and successful career as a gangster and gambler before turning to piracy and murder. For almost ten years, from 1947 until 1956 he and his gang terrorized the waters between Trinidad and Venezuela. They were responsible for the deaths of many fishermen — the number has sometimes been put as high as 400. Their technique was generally to board fishing boats, murder their crew, and steal the engine which they would later sell in nearby Venezuela after sinking the boat.

Boysie was well-known to everyone in Trinidad. He had successfully beaten two charges of murder before he was finally executed after losing his third case. He was held in awe and dread by most of the population and was frequently seen strolling grandly about Port of Spain in the early 1950s wearing bright, stylish clothes. Mothers and nannies would warn their charges: “Behave yourself, man, or Boysie goyn getchu, oui!” [Link]

“Bhagrang Singh, his father, came from de Punjab. He was a member of the Hindu tribe dey call de Chutri; a tribe dat was known for its bravery in war. While he was in India, Bhagrang Singh kill a man of high rank and run to Trinidad to save he neck. He didn’t come here and call heself Maharaj for people to tink he was Brahmin. He was a warrior. When he came to Trinidad he brought wid him a cavalry saber made of fine steel. Artistically, the handle of the saber was shape into a falcon’s head with red stones for eyes. Dat was de warrior in he…

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Blowback Mountain

Posted on January 13, 2006 by manish

The latest foreign affairs crisis is the specter of a nuclear-armed Iran. The country broke seals on uranium enrichment facilities this week, making it clear it intends to build nukes. Iran’s mullahcrats sometimes make Kim Jong-Il sound like Mr. Rogers:

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, president of Iran, gets fresh with a supporter

One of Iran’s most influential ruling clerics [Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani] called Friday on the Muslim states to use nuclear weapon against Israel, assuring them that while such an attack would annihilate Israel, it would cost them “damages only”. [Link]

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has described the Holocaust as “a myth” and suggested that Israel be moved to Europe, the United States, Canada or Alaska… Ahmadinejad sparked widespread international condemnation in October when he called for Israel to be “wiped off the map…”

“There is a perception, based on past experience that only when Iran threatens and pushes does the West back off,” he told Reuters. [Link]

Which responsible, nuclear-armed military put nukes in the hands of nutty madrassa grads? Do you even have to ask?

The Iranians turned over the names of their suppliers and international inspectors quickly identified the Iranian centrifuges as Pak-1s, the model developed by Khan in the early 1980s. [Link]

The CIA report is the first to assert that the designs provided to Iran also included those for weapons “components.” [Link]

Nature has given it all the raw uranium it needs. With help from the rogue Pakistani nuclear scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan, it has acquired uranium enrichment centrifuges and possibly a workable bomb design. And thanks to its ample oil reserves, it has the means to withstand all but the most sweeping and universally enforced sanctions. [Link]

Khan was hardly ‘rogue’:

“One thing we do know is that this was not a rogue operation… How do you get missiles from North Korea to Pakistan? Do you think A.Q. shipped all the centrifuges by Federal Express? The military has to be involved, at high levels.” The intelligence officer went on, “We had every opportunity to put a stop to the A. Q. Khan network fifteen years ago…” “This is not a few scientists pocketing money and getting rich. It’s a state policy.“

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Bobby Jindal: ustad of Indian culture

Posted on January 13, 2006 by manish

Rep. Bobby Jindal led a delegation of members of Congress to meet with Manmohan Singh today to discuss the India-U.S. nuclear cooperation agreement. Indian MPs laid the smack down on U.S. support for the Pakistani military:

They were shown the precise spots in the Indian parliament building that bore the brunt of terrorist attacks Dec 13, 2001, to underscore India’s continuing battle against terrorism. [Link]

… Indian MPs raised the issue of cross-border terrorism allegedly supported by Pakistan. One MP questioned the Congressmen on US double standards in dealing with Pakistan, which was not moving fast enough towards democracy, sources said. [Link]

Jindal was last seen comparing and contrasting the dhol technique of Tigerstyle vs. the duggis of Tabla Beat Science: Jindal was seen explaining the finer points of Indian culture to colleagues

The 34-year-old Jindal, whose parents migrated from Punjab and who narrowly lost the 2003 gubernatorial race in Louisiana, was seen explaining the finer points of Indian culture to his US Congress colleagues. [Link]

Southern India noticed a pocket of hot air which raised temperatures across the region:

Influential US Senator and former Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry, who is currently in India, has lauded the “remarkable transformation” taking place in India. “India and the US are at the centre of an economic revolution,” Kerry said here on Thursday before he left for Hyderabad. [Link]

Off the record, the BJP gave Republicans tips on dealing with the Abramoff scandal. First lesson: don’t take a bribe for any question mentioning Sepia Mutiny of Britain.

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Baby photo

Posted on January 13, 2006 by manish

Guess who this guy is? Hint: the photo was taken 24 years ago. Answer after the jump.

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Blood marriage

Posted on January 12, 2006 by manish

The idea of paying blood money to settle murders in rural Pakistan reaches its logical conclusion, since women are still considered nothing more than chattel:

A village council in Pakistan has decreed that five young women should be abducted, raped or killed for refusing to honour childhood “marriages”… The marriages were part of a compensation agreement ordered by the village council and reached at gunpoint after the father of one of the girls shot dead a family rival. The rival families have now called in their “debt”, demanding the marriages to the village men are fulfilled. [Link]

Shall the sins of the father be visited upon the ~~sons~~ daughters?

The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan condemned the “barbaric custom of vani”, – the tradition of handing over women to resolve disputes – and called on President Pervez Musharraf to enforce a ban. Last year a three-year-old girl near Multan was betrothed to a 60-year-old man in a similar settlement. [Link]
Her father had killed someone, and she had to marry a member of the victim’s familyHer father had killed someone and she had to marry a member of the victim’s family as compensation under a centuries-old custom of Pakistan’s ethnic Pashtun tribes. Known as swara, the custom calls for a girl to be given away in marriage to an aggrieved family as part of settlement for murder perpetrated by one of her relatives… the custom is still prevalent in the semi-autonomous tribal regions where Pakistani law seldom applies and where jirgas, or councils of tribal elders, settle disputes the old way… “Sons are never given away in settlement because we women folk are easy target…” [Link]

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