Author Archives: Abhi

About Abhi

Abhi lives in Los Angeles and works to put things into space.

The "Buddha Boy" returns

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A few months ago our News Tab was blowing up with people pointing us to the story of Ram Bahaudr Bomjon (a.k.a. the Buddha Boy) of Nepal:

Ram Bahadur Bomjon (born May 9, 1989, sometimes Bomjan or Banjan), also known as Palden Dorje (his official Buddhist name), is a young Buddhist monk from Ratanapuri village, Bara district, Nepal who drew thousands of visitors and media attention for spending months in meditation, allegedly without food or water, although this claim is widely contested. Nicknamed the Buddha Boy, he began his meditation on May 16, 2005. He went missing on March 11, 2006 and reappeared on December 25, 2006. [Link]

Just this past week the famed “Buddha Boy” re-emerged from the woods so dark into which he had disappeared for the last 10 months. Come on, was he really living in the woods for 10 whole months? Pictures never lie folks. If David Blaine can live inside an ice cube than surely this boy can live in the woods doing nothing but meditating:

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So long L.A., and thanks for the Meet-up memories

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As of Wednesday SM will be closing down its L.A. offices. But…not before we had a rockin’ meetup in a den of vice.

As usual, the West Coast represented the best. We had at least 40 people show up including Sunny of our British cousin Pickled Politics. You can see all of the (non-censored) pictures here. That isn’t a pink shirt I am wearing in the photoset by the way. It is Sepia. And if you think it’s ugly, too bad…because the rest of my clothes are in boxes. To all the bloggers, commenters, lurkers, people who we’ve blogged about, and groupie that showed up, thanks for making LA such a great city to live in (except for the traffic)! Keep representing. West siiiidddeee.

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Reminder-(a scandalous) L.A. MEET-UP this Friday

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The time and venue has been set. You have my personal assurance that this might not be the best, but definitely has the potential to be the most scandalous SM meet-up EVER. The last L.A. meet-up was planned by Taz and was a great success (and quite wholesome). This time around…well, I’m in charge. Since we are closing down SM’s Los Angeles Bureau within 10 days, this is a “can’t miss” event.

Who: Bloggers, readers, commenters, lurkers, and…groupies

Where: Nirvana Lounge in Beverly Hills

When: Friday Dec. 15th at 8p.m.

So what does this venue have to offer that isn’t evident from the picture I provide above? I’m telling you, this place has mangoes and peacocks all over the joint (not to mention an enormous Buddha head in the back there). It also provides us with three levels of gastronomical service:

* FOREPLAY
* LOSS OF INNOCENCE
* SENSUOUS PLEASURES

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We are "GO" for launch

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Lift-off of the Space Shuttle Discovery with Astronaut Sunita Williams aboard is scheduled for 8:47:35 p.m. EST. Watch it LIVE by clicking the picture below or turning on the news (CNN has it LIVE):

Good Luck and Godspeed.

UPDATE (8:57p.m. EST): They just jettisoned the External Tank. SUCCESS!! Time for orbital insertion.

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Last nights on Earth

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Just a reminder to everyone that STS-116’s first launch window opens up in ~three days and two hours. The mission will take Astronaut Sunita Williams up to the International Space Station where she will live and work for at least 6 months. You can watch the launch live on the internet at NASA TV (or on CNN). The best blogs to follow along at (besides us) are the official NASA blog and The Flame Trench. You can read about the whole crew here.

For those of you who are feeling a bit inspired by Williams’ impending flight, particularly if you are under ~30-years-old, you should also note that NASA is smack in the middle of an aggressive plan to return the United States to the Moon (in competition with both China and India) and just today announced plans for a permanently-manned international base by 2024 near the lunar south pole (close to Aiken Basin). If you are an undeclared undergrad then take note that engineering and science (besides just the life sciences) are about to become sexy once again.

NASA may be going to the same old moon with a ship that looks a lot like a 1960s Apollo capsule, but the space agency said Monday that it’s going to do something dramatically different this time: Stay there.

Unveiling the agency’s bold plan for a return to the moon, NASA said it will establish an international base camp on one of the moon’s poles, permanently staffing it by 2024, four years after astronauts land there.

It is a sweeping departure from the Apollo moon missions of the 1960s and represents a new phase of space exploration after space shuttles are retired in 2010.

NASA chose a “lunar outpost” over the short expeditions of the ’60s. Apollo flights were all around the middle area of the moon, but NASA decided to go to the moon’s poles because they are best for longer-term settlements. And this time NASA is welcoming other nations on its journey. [Link]

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Television execs love "real" Asian men

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Check out this picture. It is the cast of Beauty and the Geek 3 which debuts in January (here is a background on the series):

Is that Matisyahu with the white cap?

The CW (which I guess someone must still be watching) has decided to demonstrate that it is a network of diversity by featuring THREE Asian brothers in ONE reality show. This is unprecedented. We’ve now had a number of Asian Americans in reality shows but here three out of the eight men (competing for the mostly white women who are supposedly out-of-their-league) are Asian. What the F*ck? Can I get a “what what?” I mean, cynic that I am I always believed that the proper formula for a sexually charged reality show (The Real World being the paradigm) was to throw sex-crazed alcoholic white people together with angry black people and then add a homosexual in the mix to take the edge off. How do Asians fit in to that choreography? Oh wait…I get it. This is a show about Geeks. The guy in the middle with the glasses and red vest, that’s Sanjay from Westminster, California.

The producing team of Ashton Kutcher and Jason Goldberg (“Punk’d”) recruited an all-new group of eight gorgeous but academically impaired women and eight brilliant but socially challenged men for the third installment to test intellect and social skills. This cycle will remain true to the series’ format — pairing eight gorgeous but academically impaired women with eight brilliant but socially challenged men to test intellect and social skills — for a chance to win a $250,000 grand prize. [Link]

Sanjay, if you are listening then call up Ankur from Season 2 for some advice. And let’s all be grateful for the CW for featuring real Asian men. If I was an executive there I would have picked 8 nerdy women and 8 dumb-as-dirt but socially adept men (and three of them would be Asian). But alas, I’m not the TV exec type. I’ll just continue to pick nerdy South Asian women to blog for SM to compensate.

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Los Angeles Meetup: Friday, December 15th

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Is this the last ever Los Angeles Meet-up? Hard to say. Why risk it? The date is unfortunately non-negotiable since Sepia Mutiny’s Los Angeles Bureau is closing its doors in December and relocating to our newly purchased state-of-the-art blogging facility in Houston, Texas (no state taxes in TX).

Time: After 7p.m. (and until the cops come knocking).

Place: TBD. Check this post early next week (or check our Events Tab).

Who: Last time we had like 40-50 people show up and it was a damn good time (ended at 2a.m.).

I will post another reminder on the Tuesday before the meet-up. Mark you calendars now. Last time we met at the Golden Gopher. I’m still checking out options for this one.

RSVP to me if you can come abhi [at] sepiamutiny . com Continue reading →

Don’t you wanna be a blogger too?

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Friends, mutineers, countrymen, lend me your ears. There is something that has been bothering all of us here at our North Dakota headquarters for quite some time now. We talk about it often in hushed tones. It is the extreme dearth of fresh new desi bloggers out there. We are ever vigilant and constantly searching for freakishly interesting and smart bloggers to be pulled into the Mutiny and to blog tirelessly for you. We can’t keep doing this forever on our own, especially since many of us are going through transitions in our busy lives. To be perfectly honest, I think that when the time comes we will suddenly and viciously pull the plug on SM. It will be just after the moment we feel that we’ve got no blog left to give and nobody else is capable of picking up the keyboard to mutiny forward. If you like spending time on this website then don’t say we didn’t warn you. I sometimes wonder, if we never existed would more of you be blogging now? Must we burn Rome to save Rome?

So what am I asking? Some of you need to start blogging and do so with a purpose. Almost all of the guests we’ve had were bloggers even before SM was created. Where’s the new blood? We aren’t looking for suggestions like, “Hey what about so-and-so? Why don’t you ask them to guest.” Please don’t use the comments following this post for that. We wouldn’t be worth the ink on our blog unless we were also good scouts. We scout bloggers, sometimes for months, before inviting them to guest for you. Most often we find them by the content of their blogs, especially if they consistently leave interesting comments on SM or expounding on something they read here first. We are scouting several of you right now as a matter of fact.

As you may have noticed SM is very secretive (as all good mutinies must be to survive infancy), but for the first time ever I am revealing the basic requirements we look for in new bloggers (besides being desi). No surprise here:

1) Must be North American or have lived in North America for a significant amount of time.

2) Has a fabulous voice (voice = great writing + interesting perspective) and can cover a wide variety of topics (not just a small range of topics that they know really well). With a little research and a little snark they should be at ease writing about the policies of the International Monetary Fund or Diwali Barbie in under 90 minutes.

3) Have experience with blogging or internet publishing. We are too busy to teach people how to publish something on the web and how to use basic html tags. If you’ve run your own blog for a while then all this should be easy. Thus, if you aren’t already a blogger then you probably won’t be a good fit until you become one, even if you just won the Booker (just kidding Kiran…call me).

4) Be a fearless and passionate writer, not someone who worries how they “sound.”

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Two quick notes about Michigan

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Today’s Michigan Daily has an interesting story that sheds light on the evolving politics within the larger Asian American community. There is a secret society at The University of Michigan known as “Michigamua.” It is pretty much modeled after “Skull and Bones” at Yale, right down to their use of Native American artifacts. It existed at time I attended Michigan and my Indian friends mostly disapproved of its existence, although a couple of acquaintances of ours were in it. Many see it as an elitist organization modeled after other such organizations that help to maintain a white male patriarchy. Others see it as a way for minority communities to become part of the “establishment” by wielding the supposed power and influence that comes with membership (President Gerald Ford was a member). Recently, both the president of the Indian American Students Association and the co-chair of SAAN (where I was invited to speak earlier this year) were outed as members of this secret society. This prompted the following demand from the United Asian American Organizations, an influential umbrella group on campus:

United Asian American Organizations, a congress of 37 Asian/Pacific Islander student groups, passed a resolution last month insisting that the senior society meet five demands by the beginning of winter semester.

If it does not, UAAO promised to oust two member groups – the South Asian Awareness Network and the Indian American Student Association…

“Michigamua fails to prove to the campus community that they are no longer a racist establishment. The only way they could prove this is through transparency, a method they do not employ at this time,” UAAO executive board members wrote in a statement. “Because of this lack of transparency, United Asian American Organizations has taken steps to ensure the safety of the student of color community to which we belong…” [Link]

Let me translate and paraphrase in my own words: “You stand either with the racist establishment or you stand with other Asians of color.” It doesn’t appear likely that the browns want to quit though:

Members of IASA declined to comment for this article, but it appears their group does not intend to force Pai, the group’s president, to quit the society. It also seems unlikely that they will force him to resign.

SAAN has no intentions of barring its leaders from the society, said Shah, SAAN co-chair and society member.

“At this time, SAAN’s central planning team has decided to give the opportunity to the organization formerly known as Michigamua to implement the changes it promised last year,” he said. [Link]

Also, a second quick note about Michigan:

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Is 9-1-1 a joke in my town?

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The latest nationally recognized incident of excessive use of force by the LAPD police in Los Angeles (the third this week) came Tuesday night right here on the UCLA campus’ main library. Apparently UCLA has a policy by which they do random ID checks at the library after 11 p.m. That’s all good, since it is for the benefit of student safety. That’s what started this incident:

According to a campus police report, the incident began when community service officers, who serve as guards at the library, began their nightly routine of checking to make sure everyone using the library after 11 p.m. is a student or otherwise authorized to be there…

When [Mostafa] Tabatabainejad, 23, refused to provide his ID to the community service officer, the officer told him he would have to show it or leave the library, the report said.

After repeated requests, the officer left and returned with campus police, who asked Tabatabainejad to leave “multiple times,” according to a statement by the UCLA Police Department.

“He continued to refuse,” the statement said. “As the officers attempted to escort him out, he went limp and continued to refuse to cooperate with officers or leave the building.”

Witnesses disputed that account, saying that when campus police arrived, Tabatabainejad had begun to walk toward the door with his backpack. When an officer approached him and grabbed his arm, the witnesses said, Tabatabainejad told the officer to let go, yelling “Get off me” several times.

“Tabatabainejad encouraged library patrons to join his resistance,” police said. “The officers deemed it necessary to use the Taser.”

Officers stunned Tabatabainejad, causing him to fall to the floor. [Link]

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