The BBC reports on the European Union being urged to ban the swastika after Prince Harry got caught last week brandishing one on his arm:

The EU has been urged to ban the swastika because of its Nazi associations with hate and racism. But the symbol was around long before Adolf Hitler. The swastika is a cross with its arms bent at right angles to either the right or left. In geometric terms, it is known as an irregular icosagon or 20-sided polygon.

The word is derived from the Sanskrit “svastika” and means “good to be”. In Indo-European culture it was a mark made on people or objects to give them good luck.

It has been around for thousands of years, particularly as a Hindu symbol in the holy texts, to mean luck, Brahma or samsara (rebirth). It can be clockwise or anti-clockwise and the way it points in all four directions suggests stability. Sometimes it features a dot between each arm.

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The world is paying attention.

From the editorial page of the Wall Street Journal:

Expletives Undeleted: An Indian call center gets a rude introduction to American vulgarity. Friday, January 14, 2005 12:01 a.m. A nasty radio-show phone prank directed at a call center in India is the latest proof that abusive language is the last resort of the impotent. Something to remember when any of us is confronted on the low road to incivility. The call in question was played Dec. 15 on Philadelphia’s WUSL-FM, which bills itself as “Bangin’ Hip-Hop and R&B” Power 99. Morning DJ Star, aka Troi Torain, dialed the number of a company advertising a hair-beading device for kids and was connected to a lady at an ordering service in India. After ranting rudely about outsourcing, the DJ turned on the operator, calling her a “dirty rat-catcher” and a “bitch” before threatening to “come out there and choke the eff out of you.” Just another day for the lead host of the syndicated “Star and Buc Wild” show, who promotes himself as “The Hater.” But when a station employee posted the recording on WUSL’s Web site this month, it spread like wildfire among Indians around the world. On sites like Turbanhead and SepiaMutiny, people got their first taste of American shock-jockery, and were appalled.

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India and the U.S. finally drafted an open skies agreement. This means $700 airfares, more direct flights, more flights from smaller airports, and more flights from U.S. carriers, so you don’t always have to fly via Lufthansa, KLM, Singapore or Air India. The agreement eliminates all kinds of crufty protectionism dating back to the national carrier-dominated era of air travel: Air India is not currently allowed to fly to both Los Angeles and San Francisco, for example, and only three carriers are allowed direct flights; all others have to route via a third country. India’s domestic air travel is surging 20% a year, international at nearly the same rate. The agreement will probably be signed next month.

(Note to the savvy: Turkish Airlines from NYC to Delhi is beautiful and inexpensive; you fly in nearly a straight line, plus you get to see gorgeous Istanbul and the palaces and mosques of the Ottoman Empire.)

While we’re modernizing air travel, will someone please update Air India’s hokey, ill-conceived jet paint? The tagline in goofy Curlz script reminds me of the shabby Indian restaurant in Where’s the Party Yaar? (‘When you can’t afford the Palace, come to the Place!’)

The Mughal arches surrounding the windows are cute, but ‘antique’ is the last thing you want to associate with an airplane from a developing country. Think modernist. Think Virgin Atlantic. Maybe use the stylized Air India centaur . Graphics department — futtafut!

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Indian and Pakistani soldiers living together? Must be a Bollywood film, no? From the Indo-Asian News Service:

A contingent of Indian Air Force (IAF) personnel being sent to join the UN peacekeeping mission in Congo will serve alongside Pakistani soldiers.

IAF officials said the contingent, comprising 285 personnel and six Mi-17 transport helicopters and four Mi-35 helicopter gunships, would be deployed at Bukavu to provide cover to Pakistan infantry troops.

It is a region that rebel forces recently captured.

“Our forces will live and operate with the Pakistani peacekeepers at Bukavu,” an IAF official told IANS.

Will it become the begining of a beautiful friendship, or a rumble in the jungle? Regardless, I doubt their behavior could be any worse than that of the UN troops already there. Continue reading →

Prunes get no respect I tell you. The Pacific News Service reports on the woes of Sikh prune farmers in central California. Yeah, I had no idea either.

Prune growers in California’s Central Valley, which stretches from Fresno north to the Yuba City-Marysville area, are facing their worst harvest on record, following an extremely hot spring, which left little time for pollination.

Jaswant Bains, one of the area’s largest growers, said this year’s harvest has been “just about the worst crop ever.” Hot and dry weather during pollination resulted in a lack of fruit setting, he explained to India-West. Additionally, he said, high winds during the summer contributed to a heavy fruit drop during the picking season.

The Yuba City-Marysville area produces 99 percent of the nation’s prune orchards and about 70 percent of the world’s supply of prunes. Sikhs – many farming the land of ancestors who migrated here in the late 19th century – account for roughly 30 percent of prune farmers in the United States. Overall, the “dried plum” industry, as it is now known, could lose more than $100 million this year, as farmers said they harvested from 25 percent to 45 percent of a normal year’s crop.

I wish I had known all these years that so many Indian farmers harvested prunes. I would have totally drank more prune juice in solidarity. Prune juice has many benefits. Anyways, is there any relief in sight for these farmers? Continue reading →

The Philadelphia Daily News is reporting that Lee Daniels, director of the highly acclaimed film “The Woodsman,” (starring Kevin Bacon) has cast an SM Favorite, Aishwarya Rai to star in his next film, a musical Ladies Night. Daniel’s describes the film

“like ‘Waiting to Exhale’ meets ‘Chicago’ meets animation.”

In addition to Rai, Daniels indicated that he has cast, Mo’Nique, Macy Gray, Missy Elliot, Alicia Keys,Mariah Carey, and Patti LaBelle and hopes to cast Beyonce as well.

Right now, there are only a few things that outrage me more than hate-spewing sucka MCs. However, the thought of criminal acts being perpetrated against children just obliterates my livid reaction to mocking shock jocks.

Just what kind of monsters walk this planet? What manner of despicable @$$^0)# could inflict more pain on innocents who have already lost everything they’ve ever known in an epic tidal wave and quake?

This sickens me:

SRI LANKA:…A 60-year-old man tried to sell children, ages 12 and 13, in Balapitiya, near the hard-hit southern city of Galle, said police officer W.D.T. Wijesena. Police were tipped off of the sale and arrested the man on Tuesday, he said.

…The fate of the children was not immediately clear. The children are among scores who lost their parents in the Dec. 26 tsunami that killed about 31,000 people in this island country.

The United Nations and international aid agencies have expressed concerned that child traffickers could take advantage of the situation and try to sell orphans into forced labor or the sex trade.

I pray that Sri Lanka’s stringent rules regarding adoption are enforced during this tragic moment of vulnerability.

I’ve heard some infertile couples decry the “maze of red tape” they have encountered in their bid to create a family; I’m sure those legitimate, deserving, would-be parents welcome such red tape now, as it attempts to serve as an imperfect wall between fragile young survivors and the horrid exploitation some sub-human deviants wish to inflict on them.