anyone catch the miss america pageant this weekend?

Miss Alabama Deidre Downs, an aspiring doctor who put off medical school to compete for the Miss America crown, won it Saturday night.

but…

…Miss North Carolina Kristin Elrod was second runner-up, followed by Miss Arkansas Lacy Fleming and Miss California Veena Goel.

this wasn’t Goel ‘s first attempt at the crown; the UCLA grad/Pi Beta Phi Alumna was a runner-up in the 2001 and 2003 miss california pageants as well. if at first you don’t succeed…

this year, Goel got some press as part of the national pageant:

In a preliminary competition earlier this week, Miss California, Veena Goel, won the talent section for a jazz dance routine and told reporters she had been dancing since age 3.

she also commented on this year’s swimwear “controversy”:

Goel, 22, defended the swimsuits, saying they were intended to show that contestants were physically fit, not just thin, echoing the official line of the organizers.

not just thin? interestingly enough, Goel’s “platform” was eating disorders; the issue is a personal one, since she suffered from anorexia in the past.

via HT and Salon.

according to a report on “Population and Development” from India’s Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, indian adolescents are having sex. often. without birth control.

wait–which indian kids are they talking about? surely not MY virginal cousins who’ve been shoved spitefully in my face for my entire life as paradigms of modest perfection. i kid. okay, i don’t. bitter! party of one!

my shock and scorn aside, i present most of the brief article below:

In the chapter on Adolescent Reproductive Health and Development, the report says: “Sexual relations among adolescents tend to start early, involve multiple partners and often are casual. They are also characterized by lack of contraception or condom use, and occasionally involve coercion and non-consensual experiences.”

The report further says that misconceptions aside, a large number of teenagers don’t even know the correct way of using a condom. “Young people between the ages of 10 and 25 years make up for 50 per cent of new HIV infections,” it concludes chillingly.

Only 59 per cent adolescents know about condoms and 49 per cent about contraceptive pills, the report says. “Instead of asking adolescents not to have sex, we have to give them information on how to protect themselves,” says Anjali Gopalan, director, Naz Foundation India. “Children are not stupid, they will protect themselves if they know how.”

and to think, vinod and i posted within minutes of each other…if young people in india are behaving this way, it’s quite possible that “India is already in first place”. sigh.

i’ve often stated (usually for no obvious reason) that little boys in patkas are the most adorable thing ever…but little girls in pigtails are precious too. or are they?

New Delhi, Sep 12.(PTI): The Sikh community has the lowest sex ratio of 893 females per 1000 males well below the national average of 933.

…As regards the disparity of the absolute and relative number of males and female population in the society, expressed in terms of sex ratio or number of females per thousand males, the Hindus recorded 931 and were slightly below the national average whereas sex ratio among Muslim was 936.

my only consolation after such sadness? “my” team is doing just fine:

The sex ratio among the Christian population grew handsomely from 994 in 1991 to 1009 in 2001, it said adding, for the Buddhist and the Jains, the sex ratio remained almost the same as 953 and 950 respectively.

gujarat’s most literate citizens are Jains:

The largely business-oriented community, which has a population of around 5.25 lakh in Gujarat, has a staggering 87.08 per cent literacy. This is much above the total literacy figure of 58.86 per cent in the state.

Among the Jains, 88.59 per cent men and 85.52 per cent women are literate. In comparison, there is 58.16 per cent literacy among Hindus, 61.89 per cent among Muslims, 67.70 per cent among Christians, 74.27 per cent among Sikhs, 55.30 per cent among Buddhists and 61.04 per cent among other faiths

as for hindus, those pesky scheduled castes blew it for ya:

The literacy figure among Hindus is higher than only that of Buddhists, who are largely converts from Dalits. Literacy rate of Hindus is bogged down by the low level of literacy among Scheduled Tribes, who constitute nearly 15 per cent of the Hindu population in the state. For example, the figure in largely tribal Dahod district is barely 36 per cent.

what on earth is wrong with our intelligence? this is disturbing, to type the least:

The US military in Afghanistan has apologised for detaining a BBC World Service reporter and interrogating him at its Bagram air base near Kabul. Kamal Sadat, an Afghan who also worked for Reuters, was taken from his home in eastern Afghanistan by US soldiers late on Wednesday.

…Mr Sadat is a well-known reporter in Afghanistan for the BBC’s Pashto and Dari language services.

Based in the province of Khost near the Afghan-Pakistan border, he has worked for the corporation for almost two years.

…Speaking after his release, the reporter said he was never told where he was.

He said he was kept in a small, windowless cell, blindfolded most of the time and interrogated by an American official about his work.

if this is a “well-known” reporter, why are we behaving like this? oh, right. it’s because we probably don’t have any pashto or dari speakers paying attention to such figures. i’m no expert, (have a field day with that admission in comments, why don’t you) but that seems like poor “strategery”, to me.

if indeed that WAS the case, then honestly, is it THAT hard to ring up the beeb and ask, “yo, is this terrorist a reporter like he says he is? oh, word? all right-y then…our bad.”

it’s fine to be vigilant, but please, do your homework. breaking down someone’s door, displaying menacing behaviour towards their innocent family members and confiscating the tools of their trade…that’s a fine way to treat a journalist who works for the largest press-outfit of our most beleaguered “ally”.

liz hurley has a little naan in the tandoor (that sounds so much better when it’s “bun in the oven”, doesn’t it??) :

Hollywood bombshell Liz Hurley is expecting her second baby, with Indian boyfriend Arun Nayar, News of the World reported.

The model is expecting a sibling for her son Damian in February, it said.

Liz and Arun have been dating for 18 months following her split from Damian’s father Steve Bing.

A source close to Liz was quoted as saying: “Unlike Bing, Arun is happy at the thought of a new baby.”

via hindustan times and a bunch of gossip columns 😉 Continue reading →

since most brown restaurants in britain are actually owned and operated by bangladeshis, an indian entrepreneur in coventry has decided that it would be novel to put the “indian” back in indian food. read on:

Ownership of ‘Indian’ restaurants by Bangladeshis in London is so widespread that many Asians of Indian origin remark that they should pay royalty to use the word ‘Indian’ in their businesses – because that is what brings customers in.

Several patrons also often complain that what is served in such restaurants as Indian food is a pale shadow of the real thing.

…Jo Matharoo, one of three brothers who are partners in the venture, said:…”Flamingo Bar and Grill will be the real thing.

“What many people don’t realise is that 50 percent of people in India are vegetarians so that is a market we intend to cater for strongly.”