Category Archives: News

Uncle Gallows-wallah

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Singapore’s hangman is a semi-retired 73 year old desi named Darshan Singh. This man, who looks like any other jolly uncle on the street, has executed over 850 prisoners in his 46 years at the job.

Darshan Singh holds the world’s record for executions: 18 men in one day, three at a time. He takes real pride in his work, bragging that he has never botched an execution. The government pays him $312 for each execution and he gets to dress casually at his job, “often just a T-shirt, shorts, sports shoes and knee-length socks.” [Link]

His next execution is likely to be that of convicted Australian drug trafficker Van Tuong Nguyen.

Nguyen will meet Mr Singh a few days before he is executed and will be asked if he would like to donate his organs.

On the day before his execution, Mr Singh will lead him to a set of scales close to his death-row cell to weigh him.

Mr Singh will use the Official Table of Drops, published by the British Home Office in 1913, to calculate the correct length of rope for the hanging. “I am going to send you to a better place than this. God bless you.”

On the day of Nguyen’s execution, Mr Singh will be picked up by a government vehicle and driven to the prison, arriving at 2am local time (0400 AEST) to prepare the gallows.

Shortly before 6am, he will handcuff Nguyen’s hands behind his back and lead him on his final short walk to the gallows, just a few metres from the cell.

… Darshan Singh will place a rope around the 25-year-old’s neck and say the words he has spoken to more than 850 condemned prisoners during his 46 years as Singapore’s chief executioner.

“I am going to send you to a better place than this. God bless you.”

[According to his colleague:] “Death has always come instantaneously and painlessly. In that split second, at precisely 6am, it’s all over.” [Link]

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Krishna for Christmas

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ABC Home is a Jagannath of a furnishings store which fills an entire New York City block. Here’s their sidewalk display for the holidays. They hawk Lakshmi with leather gloves, Buddha with bath beads. Reindeers game at Krishna’s feet, Ganesh sits blue by Christmas trees. Three white women, expensively dressed with close-cropped hair, chatted by the display: ‘And then the Buddhists get annoyed…’

30% Off — She Love You Long Time — Take Lakshmi Home Today

It’s syncretic, it’s pretty, it’s callow. I don’t see Jesus and Mary lounging among the loofahs, I don’t see Moses parting the Listerine. But you can buy ‘spicebodhi,’ capsaicin enlightenment in a bar. Symbols my parents revere become interior design props. Mild, tolerant, ‘cardamom-scented‘ Hinduism and Buddhism are gussied up and vended. We gave you Manhattan, you give us beads.

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It’s So Hard to Say Goodbye

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Well, it seems that my month-long tryst with Mutiny is about to end.  When I first headed up to the North Dakota HQ, I was just a small-town gal with a laptop and a dream of bringing general-interest news stories to the South Asian community.  I leave here with an enhanced appreciation for the bloggers and readers of Sepia Mutiny, and also with scenes of unspeakable North Dakotan depravity seared into my brain. 

Before I turn in my linens and SM-monogrammed guest towels, I just want to thank all you readers for not tearing me to shreds, and for your kind and thought-provoking comments.  And of course, thanks to the Mutineers for being such helpful, hard-working, and gracious hosts.  Finally, thanks to Shakti Kapoor for helping make all of this happen for me. 

See you in the comments section!

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If you steal from us we will cut off your hands

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You know what makes us Sepia Mutiny Bloggers angry? We spend 24 hours a day blogging from our world headquarters in North Dakota for no pay. That’s okay. Some people don’t like our opinions. That is okay too. What really irks us though is when REAL journalists “borrow” story ideas from us without in some way acknowledging our existence. As bloggers, linking back to the original source is a requisite. On the flip-side, we will often blog about some topic on our site, only to see it a day later in some “legitimate” newspaper without any credit to us. This next example however, is just flat-out fake journalism based on content from our site.

Here is a comment that our own Manish Vij made on my entry about a racist city councilman in Orange City, FL:

Manish Vij on November 2, 2005 11:48 PM · Direct link
Wow, what an ass. Why not send Sherrill a polite, firm note: donsherrill@earthlink.net

Keep it clean, folks.

Later on Manish sent out an email over the South Asian Journalists Association listserv:

An Orlando city councilman made some incredibly insulting remarks about his Indian-American election opponent. Apparently his knowledge of geography is shaky… You can email him at: donsherrill@earthlink.net. Be firm but polite– keep it clean.

[Later] Sorry, folks, I meant Orange City, Florida.

Now, here is a quote taken from an article titled “Anti-Indian slurs mar US city council elections” about the same councilman, which appears in India’s Daily News and Analysis (DNA):

“I think it is important that Sherrill understands that he has offended Indians. We are inviting everyone to email him at donsherrill@earthlink.net. Be firm but polite — keep it clean,” said Orange city resident Manoj Vij. [Link]

Uttara Choudhury
Saturday, November 05, 2005 09:01 IST

See anything strange folks? I will bet my left nut that there is no Manoj Vij in Orange City, FL. I will bet my right one that this reporter created a fake source with a fake quote and forwarded it to his/her editors by using Manish’s comment.

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The smudge on Judge Alito’s spotless record

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Both the Los Angeles Times and the New York Times recently featured in-depth profiles on Samuel A. Alito Jr. who has been nominated to the Supreme Court of the United States (see previous post). Both articles show the judge in a fair and mostly positive light, digging all the way back to his childhood to foreshadow the brilliant judge he would one day become:

Alito, who was valedictorian, excelled to such a degree that teachers at Steinert were forced to adjust their grading curves to exclude his marks. “Sam almost always scored 100, so the teachers responded by giving him an A and then determining the curve for everyone else,” McDonald said.

For college, he chose the lone Ivy League school in New Jersey. At Princeton, Alito majored in an elite public affairs program in the Woodrow Wilson School. He shunned the university’s selective private clubs and instead belonged to Stevenson Hall, a social and eating club that was more egalitarian because it was open to all students. He participated in the debate club. [Link]

Dave Sidhu of DNSI noticed something in both articles that he researched some more and then brought to our attention. It seems that Alito’s career had one small scandal that was connected to his days as a tough Justice Department attorney in the state of New Jersey. From the LA Times:

The Alito era did suffer a measure of scandal and embarrassment. One of the prosecutors in the office was charged with faking death threats against herself in the course of a case against two Sikhs accused of being terrorists.

What’s this all about? The New York Times fills in more detail:

In one of his office’s more difficult moments, Judy G. Russell, a special prosecutor who was a former assistant United States attorney, was found to have sent death threats to herself and the magistrate hearing an extradition case.

The threats came in the matter of two Sikhs facing extradition to India on terrorism charges. Mr. Kuby, a member of the defense team, faulted Mr. Alito for not having the prosecutor arrested and for failing to uncover the false threats more quickly.

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A New Wave of Fear

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The New York Times reports on escalating political violence in eastern Sri Lanka.  Much of Sri Lanka’s eastern province is controlled by the LTTE, which has been battling against a breakaway faction of the Tamil Tigers called the TMVP (Tamileela Makkal Viduthalai Pulikal) for the last year and half.  The group is led by a former LTTE commander called Karuna, and is alleged by some to be operating with the blessing of the Sri Lankan army.  In the past year, abductions and assassinations have increased in the region:  190 documented killings occurred this year between February and November, compared to 60 last year:

There is no sanctuary even at a relief camp here for families displaced by the tsunami. Since February three women at the camp have been widowed.

Dayaniti Nirmaladevi’s husband was gunned down as he fetched noodles one night. Radhi Rani’s husband was shot after a fishing trip. Koneswari Kiripeswaran lost her parents and her only child, age 4, to the tsunami, only to have her husband shot dead at a bus stop on his way back to work in Qatar.

All three women said their men had been active in political organizations opposed to the notorious ethnic separatist group – the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam – but had given up politics. It is impossible to verify their claims.

LTTE supporters have been attacked, as well:

Here in Batticaloa the violence is not limited to enemies of the Tigers. One night in late September, Khandasami Alagamma’s husband was eating dinner in the front yard of a pro-Tiger charity where he worked as a night watchman when five grenades were lobbed at the building. He was killed instantly.

A visit to Batticaloa turned up a chilling inventory of violence.

On Oct. 1 a mason hired to repair a Hindu temple was shot to death as he slept on its terrace; the police say they do not know why. The day before, the vendor of a pro-Tiger newspaper was shot dead on a busy street. On the Wednesday before came the grenade attack on the pro-Tiger charity, and on the Saturday before that, a tailor was killed inside his shop just after sundown. He is believed to have been an informer, but for which side is unclear.

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50,000 Fiction…Novembers

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2005_participant.gif

Thanks to my neo-luddite lifestyle, I’m a day late (with this post), and 1667 words short (with my, ahem, novel). 😉 That’s how many words I need to average, per day, if I want to hit the magic number of 50,000 by November 30th. This lunacy I blog of can only mean one thing; either my father’s cousin was right about unmarried girls going mad by the age of 30 OR I’m doing NaNoWriMo for the third time. As much as some of you would opine that it’s the former, I assure you, it’s the other one.

Some history about this exhilarating, arduous, exasperating example of folly which requires copious amounts of hope, tenacity and your drug of choice for alertness, via the official site:

National Novel Writing Month is a fun, seat-of-your-pants approach to novel writing. Participants begin writing November 1. The goal is to write a 175-page (50,000-word) novel by midnight, November 30.

Valuing enthusiasm and perseverance over painstaking craft, NaNoWriMo is a novel-writing program for everyone who has thought fleetingly about writing a novel but has been scared away by the time and effort involved.

Everyone who has thought about being a novelist? Really? So that’s like…87% of the people reading this. Dear 87%, there’s no need to fret about your great South Asian American novel, NaNoWriMo is about raw content, not polished prose. The idea of writing without inhibitions is the cliche from which all writing workshop exercises emanate:

Because of the limited writing window, the ONLY thing that matters in NaNoWriMo is output. It’s all about quantity, not quality. The kamikaze approach forces you to lower your expectations, take risks, and write on the fly.

Make no mistake: You will be writing a lot of crap. And that’s a good thing. By forcing yourself to write so intensely, you are giving yourself permission to make mistakes. To forgo the endless tweaking and editing and just create. To build without tearing down.

Here’s why I’m telling you about this HERE, on the Mutiny:

As you spend November writing, you can draw comfort from the fact that, all around the world, other National Novel Writing Month participants are going through the same joys and sorrows of producing the Great Frantic Novel. Wrimos meet throughout the month to offer encouragement, commiseration, and — when the thing is done — the kind of raucous celebrations that tend to frighten animals and small children.

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I Heart Our Readers: SF Meetup Wrap-up

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Oct 30 meetup.JPG

The verdict was unanimous;’twas the best meetup EVER. Photographic evidence of that here.

October 30th, 2005, San Francisco: four current SM bloggers and six Bay Area mutineers met at North Beach’s yummy, caffeinated, iconic, no-worries-no-matter-HOW-long-we-stayed Caffe Greco and didn’t leave for six hours. Well, it was SEVEN for a certain guest blogger who forgot that daylight savings time commenced at 2, on Sunday. 😉 Hey–that’s what she gets for being so unbrown, i.e. on time. Had she been the standard I.S.T.-mandated hour late, she still would’ve been on time, except this time, with the rest of us. 😉

I attempted to live-blog the merriment, like I did the last time it was held in San Francisco; sadly, an unexpected lack of wireless prevented that. Forgive me for making you wait 48 hours? 🙂

Unpolished transcript, after the jump… Continue reading →

John McCain on Gandhi

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It turns out Senator John McCain (R-Arizona) in the middle of all his wonderful work in the Senate has finished writing another book (I think this is his third). This latest publication, entitled, “Character Is Destiny : Inspiring Stories Every Young Person Should Know and Every Adult Should Remember,” is a collaborative effort between McCain and his longtime colleague Mark Salter, and is a book comprised of 34 profiles of varous public figures: anyone from Winston Churchill and George Washington to one Mohandas Gandhi. I haven’t read the book so I can’t really comment on the work. But what I can comment on is the interview that McCain gave last night on the Charile Rose show (thanks Sudin), where the Senator discussed a range of current events including the new book.

In the interview, Rose, after discussing his own political future and the Supreme Court among other things, discussion turned to the book. From the transcript of the Charile Rose Show,

CHARLIE ROSE: You sure seem to have the energy to do it.

This is a book called “Character is Destiny: Inspiring Stories Every Young
Person Should Know and Every Adult Should Remember,” written with Mark Salter, your longtime colleague. Honor, purpose, strength, understanding, judgment, creativity and love. Profiles here of a whole range of people, from Thomas Moore to Gandhi. Respect. Just give me one small example of Gandhi and respect.

JOHN MCCAIN: Gandhi demanded respect. I wrote about him in his time in India — in South Africa, before he left for India, where he stood up for the rights of the, quote, “coloreds,” as they called the Indian people. And he fought, and he developed this non-violent opposition that he –that later won independence for India. He was jailed. He was mistreated. He was beaten. And he demanded the respect that are due to all human beings. And he was an incredible, powerful player, and unfortunately, murdered by, as you know, by a Muslim.

I hope he didn’t put that last bit in his book, you know, the part about Gandhi being murdered by a Muslim, because well, that would be factually incorrect. Now, many of you out there, and most of you I assume haven’t researched for a book which discusses Gandhi, know that Gandhi wasn’t assasinated by a Muslim, but was killed by Nathuram Godse, a Hindu. Continue reading →

Biting the hand that feeds

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One of the smartest moves the U.S. could have made (and did make) was moving military assets (helicopters to be specific) from the Afghanistan theater into Pakistan after the recent Earthquake. The U.S. learned in Indonesia after the Tsunami that the most effective way to win hearts and minds in the Muslim world was with less talk and more action.

The U.S. military has sent helicopters, a field hospital and a construction battalion to earthquake-stricken Pakistan – a gesture that has irked Islamic hard-liners but may help improve Washington’s image in the Muslim world after the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

“When they do something against Muslims, we condemn them. Now, as they are helping us, we should appreciate them,” said Yar Mohammed, 48, a farmer in Muzaffarabad, the devastated capital of Pakistan’s portion of the divided Himalayan region of Kashmir.

“We are facing hard times, and they are helping us…” [Link]

Now it seems some of the Islamic hardliners have decided to take it upon themselves to jeopardize the help their fellow citizens are getting by taking shots at the American aid helicopters. The AP reports:

Assailants fired at a U.S. military helicopter Tuesday as it ferried supplies to earthquake victims in Pakistan’s portion of divided Kashmir, the U.S. military said, but it vowed to continue aid flights.

The attack with an apparent rocket-propelled grenade came as the CH-47 Chinook flew over Chakothi, a quake-ravaged town near the frontier separating the Pakistani and Indian portions of the Himalayan region, said Capt. Rob Newell, a spokesman for the U.S. military relief effort.

“The aircraft was not hit and returned safely with its crew” to an air base near the capital, Islamabad, he told The Associated Press.

The Pakistani army spokesman, Maj. Gen. Shaukat Sultan, expressed skepticism an attack took place, saying engineers were using explosives to clear a road near where U.S. helicopters were flying.

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