Category Archives: News

Mature Macaca Molested Montessori Minor, Maybe

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It’s only because Abhi doesn’t pay us I don’t have the time that I haven’t taken myself down to Manhattan Supreme Court to check out on your behalf, gentle reader, the ongoing circus that is generating press clips of this nature:

A city cop who testified he was seduced at age 13 by his East Side Montessori school principal suffered a figurative beating by the same headmistress in court yesterday. …

“Did that involve any noise?” Shargel asked. “Noises that are often attendant to the act of making love?” The cop answered, “The TV would be on loud.”

Backstory and Desi Angle (TM): Well, you see, the Montessori school principal in question is desi. Name of Lina Sinha, age 40. The alleged events took place about ten years ago. It seems something went down between the two, but just what, and how illegal, and whether it can be proved, is up in the air. He says she raped him when he was underage. She says they had an affair after he turned 17, which ended badly; that she had accused him of beating her and he, fearing this would lose him his job with the NYPD, turned around and accused her of rape.

Additional elements of note: Steven Soderbergh was almost a juror in the case. Too bad he didn’t make the final cut – there’s sex here for sure, and lies somewhere, and all we need is the videotape. Second element of note: Sinha’s attorney is Gerald Shargel, who is best known for defending mobsters. Damn! Maybe I will make it down to the court after all. The whole scene sounds classic.

Get your fix with these stories from the first day of the trial last week (Daily News flava; New York Post flava with photo of Sinha — go on, you know you want to; New York Times flava), and these updates. Looks like Shargel’s scoring some points, which is why he gets paid the big bucks. We’ll try and keep an eye on this tawdriness for you as the trial continues. Continue reading →

Virginia is for Lovers and Indians

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Guess what? Virginia ain’t just for lovers no more. It is also for Indian Americans. Well, at least on January 26th of every year:

Virginia will celebrate January 26 as Indian-American Day in recognition of the community’s contribution to the State.

A legislation to this effect was recently passed by its legislature.

“Over the past year, I have come to realize how much the Indian-American community contributes to the Commonwealth. In appreciation of their efforts and all they have done for the Commonwealth and its people, it is my pleasure to announce the creation of Indian-American Day in Virginia,” Lieutenant Governor Bill Bolling said. [Link]

Let me rephrase that quote by Bolling so that it is slightly more honest. “Over the past year, I have come to realize that you shouldn’t refer to brown people as Macacas but rather, you should make dosas with them.”

Although this is bound to upset some of our more sensitive readers, I do wish they had been more inclusive and called it “Macaca-American Day” instead. The way I see it, we have nearly 10 months to plan. How are we going to celebrate our own day?

“The face of Virginia is changing and the immigrant community is a powerful force in urban and suburban Virginia,” Bolling said, adding that he wanted to do everything he could to reach out to the immigrant community and build a ‘better’ Virginia.

“During my campaign for Lieutenant Governor I made a promise to the Indian-American community. I promised to do my best to develop closer ties with them and involve them more in the leadership of Virginia,” he said. [Link]
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Behind the News at the Washington Times

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Props to tipster Rajath, who overnight sent in a link to this extraordinary item (via Wonkette) on the blog of George Archibald, a journalist who worked for two decades at the Washington Times and clearly maintains close connections there, since he has the verbatim backstory on the paper’s recent series on female abortion in India. Now I know that gender selection in India (and in other countries, yes, yes) is a serious and real issue. And also, far be it from me to impugn the journalistic standards of the Washington Times, which as I’m sure you heroes know is the brave and patriotic alternative to that noted leftist, freedom-hating rag the Washington Post, but still, it seems that managing editor Fran Coombs has taken it to that other level:

The day before, there was a brief discussion on the foreign desk about a pending series by religion writer Julia Duin on the abortion of girls in India. The Times had expended a lot of money for Julia Duin and photographer Mary Calvert to travel to India to produce this series.

In the discussion with colleagues on The Washington Times foreign desk, editor Jones said: “The reason we are running this story is that Coombs thinks all the aborted girls means that Indian men will be immigrating to the United States to marry our girls.” That is an exact quote, what Jones told his colleagues on the foreign desk.

Coombs has told me and others repeatedly that he favors abortion because he sees it as a way to eliminate black and other minority babies.

Read Archibald’s post for more newsroom shenanigans involving this character. Meanwhile, if there are any red-blooded Caucasians reading this site, here’s another reason for you to hide your daughters from the impending hordes of brown. Continue reading →

A history of European vegetarianism

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I know that many SM readers like to partake in one particular cross-border skirmish we seem to have a lot here. You know the one of which I speak, right? It’s the herbivores vs. the carnivores (although technically we are all omnivores). Well, to throw a little fuel on to that fire I submit to you this book review over at Slate.com.. The book is titled “Bloodless Revolution” and is meant to be a sort of “history of European vegetarianism.” I haven’t read the book but the review was quite insightful. First the background on the book:

Here’s the story as he tells it in The Bloodless Revolution: In the 17th century, a fundamental question about the relationship between ourselves and the other creatures of the earth broke out into passionate debate, a debate that swooped over and around and through the culture, rattling long-held European assumptions about the very nature of life. There was no single word adequate to capture the ideas that were bursting forth, until the term vegetarian emerged in the middle of the 19th century. And with that, the battle was over–not because meat-eating came to an end but because European culture made a home for this challenge to dietary norms, giving it a local habitation and a name. Whether or not this constituted a victory for animal-lovers is hard to say. As Stuart points out early on, when the concept of vegetarianism became domesticated, it turned into “a distinct movement that could easily be pigeon-holed, and ignored.” But people did start thinking differently about animals, human responsibilities, and the rights of living creatures, albeit rarely to the extreme sought by such groups as PETA. Stuart sums it up well: Nowadays, he says, “negotiating compassion with the desire to eat is customary…” [Link]

The critic contends, however, that vegetarianism from a European perspective isn’t so much something they accept as a way of life but is rather a philosophy to be practiced off an on:

If vegetarianism has settled comfortably into Western culture by now, it’s because the term vegetarian has become so vast and shapeless that it describes just about everybody who isn’t on the Atkins diet. To be sure, there are vegetarians who avoid all animal food. But most are willing to eat eggs, and many eat fish. Chicken is fine with some because hey, it isn’t beef. Hamburgers? Absolutely not–or maybe just once in a while. And turkey because it’s Thanksgiving, ham because it’s Easter, pepperoni because it’s pizza–what on earth is a vegetarian, anyway? No wonder Stuart never tries to define the term. A huge, wonderfully entertaining cast of dietary rebels parades through his chapters, but all we really know about the eating habits of these pagans, scientists, doctors, scholars, theologians, writers, philosophers, and crackpots is that most of them ate meat. [Link]
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Talwinder, Virgil and the Universal Plot Line

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talwinder.jpgHere’s a story that bubbled up in the New York tabloids and local TV news a few days ago but didn’t make it any further. That’s because as incidents of police brutality go, the two shots fired into the legs of construction worker Talwinder Singh by off-duty NYPD officer Quillian Virgil don’t really seem, on current evidence, to be that egregious an abuse. In fact it seems that brother Talwinder (pictured, via NY Daily News) may well have put himself in position to get hurt through a series of frankly bizarre actions.

“OFF-DUTY COP SHOOTS ENRAGED PURSUER IN QUEENS,” blared the New York Post, making clear who it thinks was the victim in the confrontation that led to the shots being fired, near the corner of 103rd Avenue and 116th Street in Ozone Park, which in that stretch is heavily desi — Indians, Pakistanis, Bangladeshis, and Indo-Caribbeans from Guyana and Trinidad. (According to the 2000 census, the three census tracts that abut that particular corner are nearly one-third “Asian” — which around here means desi, with another 18% classified as “two or more races;” the foreign-born population is nearly 65%. In other words typical outer-borough New York, with these trends likely to have only accelerated since the census was taken.)

Anyway, piecing together the info — the Daily News has the fullest article — it seems that Talwinder Singh had already once thrown a brick through Sgt. Virgil’s home window before returning last Friday evening for more mischief. Apparently Talwinder had a metal exercise bar — one of these joints, specifically — and was using it to smash the sergeant’s screen door. Alerted by his wife, Virgil got out of bed and stepped outside to find Singh wilding out. The papers say Singh then pursued Virgil down the block and at some point Virgil stopped, turned, and told Singh to drop the metal bar. The reports say Singh then lunged at Virgil, who then shot him in the legs to immobilize him.

Without endorsing any particular version of events, the whole story seems a bit… unhinged. I mean, who goes and vandalizes a police officer’s house — repeatedly? There has to be some other dimension and the tabloids are happy to provide it:

Talwinder Singh, 20, reportedly was sneaking up to see his landlord’s wife, and neighbor Sgt. Quillian Virgil informed the husband, the source said.

Aha! The love interest! It’s alleged that the landlord then consulted Virgil for advice about how to evict the young rascal. Talwinder got wind of this and decided to go for revenge. Now the landlords haven’t been named so we don’t know if they’re desi — a good chance they are, but it’s piquant either way. However lips are sealed:

The landlord’s wife wasn’t talking about the man who lives one floor beneath her in a basement apartment.

“I have nothing to say,” she told reporters at the 116th St. home yesterday. “Nothing.”

Meanwhile the peanut gallery is weighing in:

Some neighbors described Talwinder Singh, a construction worker, as a troublemaker.

“These fellas were always drinking and fighting,” Nazimudin Mohamed, 47, said of Talwinder Singh and his relatives. “I knew something was going to happen.”

Talwinder was taken to Jamaica Hospital and charged with a variety of offenses. Internal Affairs is investigating Virgil’s side of the story. Again, we’ll see how it all shakes out but what I dig about this story is how archetypal it is, with respect to characters, motive and dénouement. You could take out the desi names and put in Italian, Irish or Greek ones and you’d have an American urban story from a previous wave of immigration and settlement. Or you could keep the characters and change the setting to London, for instance, and it would work the same way. It’s confirmation that there are some constants in metropolitan life, and, perhaps, of that old writer’s saw that claims there are only four plots in human affairs, and all stories are merely variations. Continue reading →

You better start behaving before dad cuts your allowance

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The big news out of Washington this morning was that the White House has confronted Pakistan about their lame efforts in going after terrorists within their borders:

President Bush has decided to send an unusually tough message to one of his most important allies, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, the president of Pakistan, warning him that the newly Democratic Congress could cut aid to his country unless his forces become far more aggressive in hunting down operatives with Al Qaeda, senior administration officials say…

American intelligence officials have concluded that the terrorist infrastructure is being rebuilt, and that while Pakistan has attacked some camps, its overall effort has flagged…

For the time being, officials say, the White House has ruled out unilateral strikes against the training camps that American spy satellites are monitoring in North Waziristan, in Pakistan’s tribal areas on the border. The fear is that such strikes would result in what one administration official referred to as a “shock to the stability” of General Musharraf’s government. [Link]

I find some humor in the fact that Bush is telling Musharraf to be worried that the Democrats will be more stern than him. It is a little like a mother saying, “you better shape up or you will be in big trouble with daddy.”

The Blotter reports additional details:

In a highly unusual move, the deputy director of the CIA, Stephen R. Kappes, was flown to Pakistan to personally present President Pervez Musharraf today with “compelling” CIA evidence of al Qaeda’s resurgence on Pakistani soil, U.S. officials say.

Kappes joined Vice President Dick Cheney for the surprise showdown meeting in Musharraf’s office in Pakistan.

The CIA evidence reportedly included satellite photos and electronic intercepts of al Qaeda leaders operating in Pakistan. [Link]

Of course, we all know that if El General goes down then things could get a lot worse in Pakistan. And so the dance continues (at least until daddy comes home).

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The economics of dating

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Two stories have caught my attention in the past two days, and both deal with everyone’s favorite subject: dating! Or rather, I should say the stories are more about the lack of suitable mating options that has resulted from the intersection of two topics we blog about quite often on SM: 1) the growing new economies of India and China; and 2) the messed up sex ratio resulting from female foeticide and infanticide.

Yesterday, PRI’s Marketplace sent a reporter in to the heart of “Parent’s Matchmaker’s Corner” in Shanghai. The corner is basically a trading floor where worried Chinese parents gather to trade biodata on their late-twentysomething children, mostly without the knowledge of said children. The story was set in Shanghai but it might as well have been Delhi, as almost identical market forces are at work. Among the many great insights (some humorous) in the radio story (please listen) are the following:

1) Chinese A-list men date B-list women because they don’t want someone as smart as them. They want a trophy wife.

2) Many Chinese A-list men go abroad to seek their fortune, thus restricting supply.

3) Chinese A-list women get screwed because they are in high demand (since there is an overall shortage of women), but only have B and C-list men to choose from.

4) A-list women throw themselves into work and/or fool around waiting for an A-list man that might never materialize.

5) B and C-list men grow increasingly bitter and frustrated because all the B and C-list women have traded up and the A-list women only want them for their bods.

This chain of events is set into motion for two reasons: 1) there is a skewed sex ratio; and 2) in the “new” economies you have as many or more educated women as men. Again, everything above seems to apply to India as well. You’ll also note that in America reason #2 is already applicable, but what saves us from the same spiral is that we don’t perform sex selection.

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The Science of TWA

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Absolutely zero Desi Angle (TM) here per se, but a whole heap o’ relevance for anyone who frequents the comment threads here (and if you are one of those happy souls who only reads Sepia Mutiny for the blog entries, feel free to skip this one, as I’m about to get a little parochial). But I noticed that today one of the most-emailed articles from the New York Times is an essay by Daniel Goleman on the scientific explanation for why people say, uh, intemperate things online that they would rarely say — or at least say the same way — in person. So if you’ve ever wondered what it is that causes folks on discussion boards to insult each other, call each other idiots or worse, flagrantly mis-characterize each other’s points in order to drive home some strident and ill-conceived argument of their own, and generally stink up the joint — and if you’ve perhaps caught yourself doing so, whether here on in any other online exchange — you need look no further for your answer than your orbitofrontal cortex. (I trust that one of y’all medical/scientific macacas can explain the details to the rest of us, or indeed, critique the article — politely, natch.)

The emerging field of social neuroscience, the study of what goes on in the brains and bodies of two interacting people, offers clues into the neural mechanics behind flaming.

This work points to a design flaw inherent in the interface between the brain’s social circuitry and the online world. In face-to-face interaction, the brain reads a continual cascade of emotional signs and social cues, instantaneously using them to guide our next move so that the encounter goes well. Much of this social guidance occurs in circuitry centered on the orbitofrontal cortex, a center for empathy. This cortex uses that social scan to help make sure that what we do next will keep the interaction on track. (…)

Socially artful responses emerge largely in the neural chatter between the orbitofrontal cortex and emotional centers like the amygdala that generate impulsivity. But the cortex needs social information — a change in tone of voice, say — to know how to select and channel our impulses. And in e-mail there are no channels for voice, facial expression or other cues from the person who will receive what we say.

But wait, what about 🙂 and 😛 and 😉 ???

True, there are those cute, if somewhat lame, emoticons that cleverly arrange punctuation marks to signify an emotion. The e-mail equivalent of a mood ring, they surely lack the neural impact of an actual smile or frown. Without the raised eyebrow that signals irony, say, or the tone of voice that signals delight, the orbitofrontal cortex has little to go on. Lacking real-time cues, we can easily misread the printed words in an e-mail message, taking them the wrong way.

And if we are typing while agitated, the absence of information on how the other person is responding makes the prefrontal circuitry for discretion more likely to fail.

TWA – Typing While Agitated. Never happens to me. No, sir. I keeps cool calm and collected. But just in case… Continue reading →

“Samjhauta” Thwarted: Another Senseless, Horrible Bombing

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It’s difficult to know what to say sometimes after terrorist attacks like the recent bombing of the Samjhauta Express. 68 innocent people lost their lives — and for what? If it turns out to be an attack planned by Kashmiri militants or other Islamists, this kind of attack seems particularly bizarre, as it appears that the majority of the people who died were in fact Pakistanis. (If another motive or ideological agenda was behind the attack, it’s not as if it would be any better.) And needless to say, if this follows the pattern of some other recent terrorist attacks in India, it’s entirely possible — likely, even — that weeks will go by without any satisfactory answers appearing. (I’m perfectly happy to be proven wrong if this turns out not to be true.)

Here are some of the issues I’ve seen people discussing with regards to this attack:

  • At Outlook, there is an interesting article that describes in depth the general lack of security on the Samjhauta Express train. Hopefully, both governments are going to seriously revamp this.
  • A big question that people are asking is, were the doors locked from the inside, preventing people who survived the original explosions from escaping the two burning cars? Some witnesses have claimed they were, but India has denied it. At Bharat-Rakshak, however, I came across a commenter who has a good explanation for why this might have been done:
    In north India, when travelling overight, train compartments are usually locked from inside to prevent entry of people who do not have reservations in that compartment. The TT opens them at stations to allow entry only the passengers that belong to that compartment.

    With intense heat, the locked door latches must have jammed. It is difficult to open these latches even otherwise. Women and kids have to ask other passengers to help then open the door.

    The windows in trains are barred to prevent ‘chain snatching’ and other types of burglaries. (link)
    Those sound like good reasons, but I hope after this tragedy officials are thinking about possible failsafe mechanisms, so nothing like this happens again.
  • Sketches have been released of the suspects. They were apparently speaking the “local Hindi language.” That doesn’t tell us much, however.
  • What was the explosive used? The bombs are being described as IEDs with kerosene and other “low intensity” fuels — in other words, not RDX or other material obtained through transnational networks. These sound like materials that are very easily available, but still incredibly deadly for people in a confined space. A witness at the BBC mentions that the explosions did not force the conductor to stop the train right away — indeed, he may not have known about them until several minutes after the fires started.

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