I am so ashamed of myself today.  I was up late last night watching TV.  As usual I was all alone.  After a long days worth of hard blogging I look forward to consuming several drinks and plopping down in front of the TV to consider my numb state.  As I was flipping channels a commercial caught my eye.  Admit it.  You guys watch these commercials too.  Usually I just change the channel after about 10 seconds, but last night I was just mesmerized.  I actually picked up the phone to order the product.  Someone named Jenny answered.  I realized that it was all a ruse.  I felt so ashamed.  So dirty…

WhatÂ’s funnier that having someone search your bag before getting on a NYC subway? How about being searched because you have wires on your chest than lead to a small black box on your belt while you are trying to get on the subway?

A friend just emailed this picture of himself with a portable Holter EKG that is monitoring his heartbeat. He uses the subway and NJTransit to and from Manhattan.

Brown – check.

5 o’clock shadow – check.

Visible Wires – check

Something box-like on your belt – check.

Dude youÂ’re getting sent to Gitmo! Continue reading →

It was bound to happen sooner or later and this past weekend it happened to me. My black backpack was searched. It wouldnÂ’t have been remarkable if it happened at a mass transit checkpoint. After all, statistically there was a good chance since I take the New York City subway and LIRR trains on a daily basis. But my brush with long arm of the law took place about 50 miles from Manhattan while standing in line to board a ferry to Fire Island.

For those of you not from the New York area, Fire Island is a small island off the coast of the southern fork of Long Island, New York. In the 1930s and 40s it was a haven for artists and writers and slowly turned into a summer retreat for mostly gays and lesbians. Today, Fire Island is synonymous with “gay beach”.

My wife son and I were with in line with our friends (a lesbian couple and their baby) waiting to board the ferry. As they opened the gate, and the line started to move, I shuffled along with the others in line. Right before I got I stepped on board, I was approached by a man in dark glasses. If he had asked me for my number, I would have been flattered.

“Sir, do you mind stepping aside? I just need to check your backpack.”

It sounded like a request. But it wasnÂ’t.

“Sure”, I said, and stood there while he checked my bag which was still strapped to my back.

After a cursory glance, he said “All done. That’s it”

As I began to leave, he said “Hold on, let me zip you up first”

He closed my bag and I stepped on to the ferry to join my family and friends.

After taking a seat on the top deck I looked to see if others were being checked. No one else was under scrutiny. Our friends who were renting a place on the island for the weekend met as us and while we were settling in one of them asked “Did they stop and check you before you boarded the ferry?”

“Yes” I replied, “Did they check you too?”

“Yeah, they checked my bag and after that I stepped out of line to see if they were doing this to others. I stood there counting to see if it was every 5th person or if there was a method. But I was the only one they searched.”

Now I must add that my friend who was searched is gay, Guyanese (Indian descent) and dark-skinned and I of course had a three day growth of beard.

IÂ’d like to think they were screening us to make sure werenÂ’t smuggling in anything that would take away from the “fabulousness” of the island. Continue reading →

A Ugandan politician came up with a novel scholarship scheme a couple of weeks ago (via chick pea):

A Ugandan member of parliament has pledged to reward [high school] girls for their chastity by paying their university fees if they are virgins when they leave school… Bbaale County MP Sulaiman Madada said any girl in his district who wanted to take part in the scheme aimed at promoting girls’ education would be given a gynecological examination by health workers to check they were virgins. [Link]

“We want to encourage people to be morally upright and not to go into early marriages,” Madada said, adding, “We also want girls to resist defilement. We do not want these girls to get exposed to AIDS…” [Link]

If ‘free schooling for virgins’ were extended to desis, it would rapidly bankrupt both the IITs and the MITs. But the program would hardly cost a paisa at certain art schools in Bombay, and even in Delhi it would get cheaper over time.

Of course, if you interrogated virginal high school students before handing out the money, you might find out why they want to go away to college in the first place 

Madada has not extended his offer to young men, because there is no medical examination to prove their virginity. [Link]

You don’t need a medical exam for that. Just ask if they blog.

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Last week Turbanhead wrote about how exasperating it sometimes seems when trying to get your documents in order to travel abroad (in terms of dealing with the often clueless bureaucracy). NRI worldwide recently reported on a few anecdotes that suddenly don’t make Turbanhead’s ordeal seem so bad:

An American officer manning the counter asked her if she was a singer. She replied that she was — and was shocked when the gentleman asked, “How about singing a nice song for me?” Sonali landed on her feet, though, and joked that it would cost him.

He reiterated his seriousness, and ultimately, she had to hum a line or two. It was a “funny feeling”, but that was how she got her visa three years ago.

The story goes that none other than Asha Bhosle was about to be asked to prove she could sing, had an Indian staffer at the consulate not intervened and averted the faux pas! This incident could not, however, be independently confirmed.

That reminds me of those old cartoons where Yosemite Sam would shoot his guns at Bug Bunny’s feet until he danced. Michael Higgins tips us off to yet more consulate related humor on The Renegade of Junk blogsite:

Yesterday, I sent my Indian passport off to the Consulate to be renewed. The preliminary groundwork that needed to be completed for this purpose was, to say the least, a trying experience. In fact,in general, any activity requiring interaction with my fellow citizens of this country has become a trying experience.

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There’s a big charity drive running in New York. Its ads, splashed all over the sides of NYC buses, contain pictures of enormous backpacks. The drive’s military-sounding name? Operation Backpack NYC.

Operation Backpack benefits homeless children in the Greater New York area by outfitting them with backpacks full of new school supplies in September… A typical twelfth grader is 17-18 years old and needs a larger backpack. Look for backpacks with classic colors and sturdy builds. [Link]

They’re asking New Yorkers to equip 10,000 largely brown teens with overstuffed backpacks. But no food containers, please.

Worst… timing… ever!

In other news, V for Vendetta is releasing shortly. It’s a movie about blowing up downtown London.

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An anonymous tipster informs me that there is but a single South Asian amongst the 50 Most Beautiful People on Capitol Hill, and he’s #48. [Via Wonkette]

The “50 Most Beautiful People on Capitol Hill” of 2005 is finally out and we’re not sure where to begin. We do notice that none of last year’s most beautiful made it to this year’s list. It’s a tough town, one year you’re young and gorgeous, the next you’re. . Denny Hastert.

Republican staffer Dino Teppara [previous mentions 1,2] seems to have made the cut. We HAVE to do better than just one for next year people. At least one Democrat, please.

If you are a jerk like me then you will soon be forwarding this link to all your friends who work on the Hill and telling them to start working out and dressing better for a shot next year. 🙂

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SM reader Cicatrix forwards us this picture (on the left) presumably taken at a Tube Station in London [Via Gawker]. But seriously people. How many of us in a rush to go to work have time to actually READ a sign. I’m not telling Tube workers how to do their jobs but I would have made it into a drawing instead of a note so you could get the gist of it faster. How about something like the one on the right instead?

A colleague told me this and I hope it brings us up from all the recent doom and gloom. Yes, it has a few of the hallmarks of an urban legend but the punch line doesn’t involve severed limbs, hastily scrawled messages on a mirror, or anyone winding up in a bathtub full of ice and a missing kidney.

“My girlfriend’s best friend’s boyfriend works for a ‘famous online travel agent’. They outsource their IT to Delhi in India. The UK office has been forwarding IT related emails to the Delhi office with the subject line ‘FYI’ and for the last 6 months, the Delhi office has replied with messages entitled ‘FYE’. No one at this ‘famous company’ knew what this stood for, so finally today someone questioned itÂ…” Continue reading →