Category Archives: Issues

Not Short, Just “Orthopaedically Handicapped”

Posted on by

Just about any way you slice it, life presents us all with some pretty heavy challenges.  Especially in India.  Especially in Kerala.  And especially if you’re, uh, short.   The Beeb reports –

Dwarfs in the southern Indian state of Kerala have come together to fight for their rights.

The Kerala Small Men Association has 300 members across the state and is demanding what it calls “special recognition” from the government.

Why the crisis?   Well, apparently a former, primary avenue of employment has been beat down due to shifting consumer tastes and globalization –

“Earlier, we were getting opportunities to work in the circus but that industry has collapsed and most of us are out of a job.”

The universe finds ways to create balance.   And politics always finds ways to create conflicting special interests –

The [small men] association’s height limit is 135cm (54 inches – [4′ 6″])…The state also has a Tall Men of Kerala association with 600 members over six feet (1.82) metres.

6 feet qualifies you as a Tall Man in Kerala?   Dang, the Punjabi’s are gonna kick our butts.

Continue reading →

Anarchy in the US?

Posted on by

Sri Lanka is a tiny place. Maybe that’s given us a Napoleonic Complex, maybe we’re tired of being compared to snot. Throw in the war, the tsunami, the suicide rates…we know we can’t play with the big boys. Ain’t no way we can show them up.

sepiaNOhurricane.jpg Until now:

President Chandrika Bandaranaike of Sri Lanka, in China on a state visit, sent messages of sympathy to Washington while her government contributed $25,000 through the American Red Cross.

So sure, it might not seem like much to our corporate-dough-raking readers. (coughmyannualsalarycough.) But that would be missing the point:

In a turnabout, the United States is now on the receiving end of help from around the world as some two dozen countries offer post-hurricane assistance. Venezuela, a target of frequent criticism by the Bush administration, offered humanitarian aid and fuel. [link]

But Condi, FEMA and the Prez seem to have differing views on accepting the aid:

sepiaNOrefugees.jpg

With offers from the four corners of the globe pouring in, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has decided “no offer that can help alleviate the suffering of the people in the afflicted area will be refused,” State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said Thursday.

However, in Moscow, a Russian official said the U.S. Federal Emergency Management Agency had rejected a Russian offer to dispatch rescue teams and other aid.

Still, Bush told ABC-TV: “I’m not expecting much from foreign nations because we hadn’t asked for it. I do expect a lot of sympathy and perhaps some will send cash dollars. But this country’s going to rise up and take care of it.”

“You know,” he said, “we would love help, but we’re going to take care of our own business as well, and there’s no doubt in my mind we’ll succeed. And there’s no doubt in my mind, as I sit here talking to you, that New Orleans is going to rise up again as a great city.”

As the news reports and first-person accounts roll in, it looks increasingly, incredibly clear that we have not been taking care of our own business well. Not well at all.

New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin (who crossed party lines to support Bobby Jindal for Governor) exploded with frustration in a local radio interview last Thursday:

I told him [the President] we had an incredible crisis here and that his flying over in Air Force One does not do it justice.[link]

Continue reading →

Mad Cow’s Desi Origins?

Posted on by

Now here’s a topic that’s guaranteed to make folks squirm.   A group of Brit scientists think they’ve discovered the root cause of their country’s recent bout with Mad Cow disease.   Cynics, upon hearing the proposed theory, might argue that this whole thing amounts to a massive deflection of blame to the brown nether world –

LONDON – Mad cow disease may have originated from animal feed contaminated with human remains washed ashore after being floated downriver in Indian funerals, British scientists said on Friday.

…Professor Alan Colchester of the University of Kent in England says it may have been caused by the tons of animal bones and other tissue imported from India for animal feed which also may have contained the remains of humans infected with Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD).

…In a report in the Lancet medical journal, Colchester and his daughter Nancy, of the University of Edinburgh, explained that many human and animal corpses were disposed of in rivers in India in accordance with Hindu custom.

The remains washed ashore in poor areas where bone collectors work.

“We are aware of a considerable risk of the incorporation of human remains with the animal remains that are collected. They are processed locally and some have been exported. In 10 years, more than a third of a million tons of material from these areas was imported into the UK,” Colchester said.

Needless to say, other scientists advise that these are waters upon which one should tread lightly –

“Scientists must proceed cautiously when hypothesizing about a disease that has such wide geographic, cultural and religious implications,” Shankar said.

Your old, crazy aunty from back in da homeland may have found yet another way to haunt her Western son from beyond the grave.    

Continue reading →

South Africa out of Sunali’s Nose! (slightly updated)

Posted on by

Philadelphia, September of 2002.

“OhMyGod”, was the greeting my mummy blurted out instead of her customary, “Hi, mone”. “When did THAT happen?”

“Two weeks ago, Ma.”

“But…why?”

I shrugged. “Felt like it.”

“You know that’s not something a Christian girl should do,” she replied, eyebrows undulating with disapproval and consternation.

“Only Hindu girls can get their noses pierced?”

“Only Hindu girls SHOULD get their noses pierced.”

“Pashu tatti. It’s a cultural thing, Ma. Not religious.”

My mother snorted before telling me where I could store my opinions on culture and religion. “It IS a Hindu tradition. Maybe even a Muslim one. Try it with someone dumber than your Mother, edi.”

Anne Martin, the principal of Durban Girls High School in South Africa should have called my mom when she needed an expert opinion on whether piercing one’s nose is a “culturally-based rather than religious” practice. 😉

Who is Anne Martin? Why should she defer to my almighty Mom? Read on:

Sunali Pillay, 16, took her case to the Durban Equality Court claiming that she was being unfairly discriminated against by her Durban Girls High School which was not allowing her to wear a nose ring in accordance with her religious beliefs.

Continue reading →

Birth tax

Posted on by

SM tipster Olinda (followed by several others) sent us this depressing article from the New York Times highlighting corruption at its worst.  Behold:

Just as the painful ordeal of childbirth finally ended and Nesam Velankanni waited for a nurse to lay her squalling newborn on her chest, the maternity hospital’s ritual of extortion began.

Before she even glimpsed her baby, she said, a nurse whisked the infant away and an attendant demanded a bribe. If you want to see your child, families are told, the price is $12 for a boy and $7 for a girl, a lot of money for slum dwellers scraping by on a dollar a day. The practice is common here in the city, surveys confirm.

Mrs. Velankanni was penniless, and her mother-in-law had to pawn gold earrings that had been a precious marriage gift so she could give the money to the attendant, or ayah. Mrs. Velankanni, a migrant to Bangalore who had been unprepared for the demand, wept in frustration.

“The ayah told my mother-in-law to pay up fast because the night duty doctor was leaving at 8 a.m. and wanted a share,” she recalled.

Cynic that I am, I could actually imagine a man whisking a kid away and demanding a bribe.  When a woman (who may have children of her own) does it, all hope seems lost.  The article goes on to describe the fact that this sort of corruption has infected basic services that stretch from the cradle to the grave.  The following quote also caught my eye because it sounds like a thing you sometimes hear about the U.S. healthcare system:

“The poor not only are paying much more of their incomes to get the same medical services as the middle and richer classes, but they are also discouraged from seeking basic medical care because they can’t afford it,” said Daniel Kaufmann, director of global programs at the institute.

Continue reading →

We are not the enemy.

Posted on by

Well, ain’t this some fabulous reporting from the New York Post (Thanks, Nina):

If you were in Manhattan yesterday, you might have thought an enemy force had taken over the island and severed the East Side from the West.
The invaders were not al Qaeda, but the Pakistani Parade and Festival, which stormed Madison Avenue from 23rd to 41st streets; the Daytop Village Street Festival on Madison from 42nd to 57th; and the Church of the Good Shepherd street fair on Third Avenue from 23rd to 34th.
The occupying armies ate up 45 blocks in the city’s heart from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., plus time before and after to set up and take down.

LittleGirl.jpgI’m consumed by a wrath which makes me want to kick something. An enemy force? A festival which STORMED Madison Ave? Are you kidding me?

This little bit of ignorant commentary is all yours thanks to a Real Estate/Opinion writer named Steve Cuozzo. The title he chose for his piece is awesome:

SLEAZY, STINKY, CHINTZY STREET FESTS ARE MORE FOUL THAN ‘FAIR’

Granted, Cuozzo was referring to three different events while frothing-at-the-ass, but to mindlessly lump in another culture’s Independence Day with a mere street festival wasn’t very bright, considering the purpose of the lumping. Celebrating Pakistani Independence is sleazy, stinky and chintzy? Foul? I’ll tell you what’s foul: sloppy writing, ignorant thinking and pure disrespect. Continue reading →

Radio killed the video star

Posted on by

A de Menezes update: police and military radios both were on different frequencies and apparently didn’t work underground. It’s shades of 9/11.

Police marksmen and army surveillance teams following Jean Charles de Menezes onto a Tube train could not receive orders in the vital moments before he was shot dead because their radios did not work underground… The undercover officers sitting alongside Mr de Menezes are understood to have decided he was not a threat, but they could not get this message back to Gold Command at the Yard nor relay it to the marksmen.

As the firearms officers ran into the station they are believed to have been out of touch with everyone else involved in the operation. It has been disclosed that the two groups involved — one from Scotland Yard and the other from the Army — were using different radio networks as they trailed the innocent electrician from his home on July 22. Officers on the train are understood to have decided that from the way Mr de Menezes was dressed, and that he was not carrying a bag, he was not about to blow himself up. [Link]

Active suspects should never have been let onto the tube in the first place:

One of the troops who accompanied the Yard marksmen on to the tube also reportedly told military chiefs that the armed police arrived far too late and should have intercepted their target outside Stockwell Underground station, in South London. [Link]

Continue reading →

My eyes “gleam” when I think about being arranged

Posted on by

Okay.  This one is for you dozen tipsters who are jonesing for our take on this article about “”love-cum-arranged,” marriages that appears in today’s NYTimes. 

Yawn.  Haven’t I read this article like a dozen times before?  It’s always half of an article where they drum up the angle that they wanted to write in the first place instead of doing any real reporting. 

These young people may have come of age in an America of “Moonstruck” and “Dawson’s Creek,” but in many cases they have not completely accepted the Western model of romantic attachment. Indeed, some of the impetus for assisted marriage is coming from young people themselves – men and women who have delayed marriage into their late 20’s and early 30’s, said Ayesha Hakki, the editor of Bibi, a South Asian bridal and fashion magazine based in New Jersey.

“That has been the most remarkable trend,” Ms. Hakki said, citing the example of a male acquaintance, who, after dating on his own, turned to his parents for guidance.

As Madhulika Khandelwal, a historian who has studied Indians here, said, “Young people don’t want to make individual decisions alone.”

[cough]-bullshit-[cough].  It’s not that young people don’t want to make “individual decisions alone” and have decided that their parent’s “guidance” is best.  No.  It’s that they are giving up and no longer want to fight “the system.”  Ladies in their late twenties can only pursue self-absorbed or commitment-phobic guys (and there is nothing wrong with being commitment phobic ) for so long before they throw in the towel and opt for “traditional,” by default.  Likewise, guys are forced to deal with women who are too neurotic to date mostly because their parents are breathing down their necks to get married.  We (Indians raised in this country) turn to our families for the exact same reason as someone of another culture would turn to their’s, except for the fact that there is more pressure to turn to them. This article and others like it always seem to dodge the truth in order to accentuate the exotic “embrace” of our culture.  What the article describes is more than just being set up on a “blind date,” which it compares it to.  Lots of cultures practice the art of the blind date, whether through family or friends, and it isn’t particularly newsworthy.  When journalists single out Indians they do so with the implication that the family’s fingerprints are all over the entire courtship process.  If that is the case then explaining it away as a willing “return to tradition” makes my eyes roll.  Here is some more bullshit:

The embrace of more traditional habits is apparent in other ways. Weddings are often elaborate and last three or four days. Families of the betrothed often still consult a Hindu astrologer who schedules wedding ceremonies according to the stars. When Anamika Tavathia, 24, was engaged to a young Indian she met in college, his family visited hers to propose on his behalf and the priest determined they should marry on June 26 of this year between 10:30 and 11 a.m.

This fall is expected to be an unusually busy wedding season in Indian communities, because many couples postponed weddings last year when many days were deemed inauspicious.

Continue reading →

Spy vs. spy

Posted on by

The de Menezes case has turned murkier: the stakeout guys now blame the shooters for the mistake. The surveillance team noted that de Menezes did not look Ethiopian like their suspect. And the police say the undercover cops who trailed de Menezes onto the train would not have been there if they thought he was packing heat. So it’s still baffling why the shooters pulled the trigger.

… members of the surveillance team who followed de Menezes into Stockwell underground station in London felt that he was not about to detonate a bomb, was not armed and was not acting suspiciously… The two teams have fallen out over the circumstances surrounding the incident, raising fresh questions about how the operation was handled. A police source said: ‘There is no way those three guys would have been on the train carriage with him [de Menezes] if they believed he was carrying a bomb. Nothing he did gave the surveillance team the impression that he was carrying a device…’

For the firearms officers involved in the death to avoid any legal action, they will have to state that they believed their lives and those of the passengers were in immediate danger. Such a view is unlikely to be supported by members of the surveillance unit. [Link]

When filling out your biodata, remember to replace ‘wheatish’ with ‘IC3’:

The first man who was supposed to identify the suspect admits that he was relieving himself behind a tree but saw enough of Mr de Menezes to tell commanders that he was an “IC1” — the description used for a white North European and nothing like Hussain Osman, the suspected Ethiopian-born bomb suspect awaiting extradition from Rome. [Link]

Continue reading →

Leaks, lies and videotape

Posted on by

Documents leaked last night from the police investigation contradict almost everything the London cops have said about the de Menezes shooting (thanks, Vijay). The current London shoot-to-kill policy now seems like a loose cannon.

The docs say that de Menezes was captured on tape walking into the tube station at a normal pace, picking up a free newspaper, using a tube card to enter and only breaking into a jog at the platform to catch a train. He was wearing a lightweight blue denim jacket (see photo) and was not carrying a backpack. Before getting onto the tube, he took a leisurely, 15-minute bus ride from his apartment to the station, not noticing that he was being tailed by cops. He did not look at all South Asian. Witness statements corroborate the tape.

It’s not clear whether the cops even identified themselves to de Menezes and warned him not to enter the tube. If the leaked docs are accurate, it appears that the only reason the cops killed him is that he emerged from the wrong apartment building. But it’s easy to understand the mistake:

The documents… suggest that the intelligence operation may have been botched because an officer watching a flat… was “relieving himself”. [Link]

One officer reportedly said he “checked the photographs” and “thought it would be worth someone else having a look”. However, he was unable to video the man for subsequent confirmation because he was “relieving” himself at the time. [Link]

Smells like a coverup. What it all means for people with brown skin living under an ill-defined shoot-to-kill policy:

“… he was just unfortunate to be living in a block of flats that was under surveillance and to look slightly brown-skinned…” [Link]

Be careful out there. Details below. Continue reading →