The real terrorists

Last year, this month, we witnessed the wrongful hanging of Saddam Hussein under a sham of a trial. This year, same month, we have seen the assassination of Benazir Bhutto. This latter death causes me to feel a shade of the grief I felt at the former death. But I do not want to get in to such comparisons at this moment. What I do want to talk about is the fucked up state of affairs in Pakistan for which the lone "superpower" of the world deserves to share the blame.

The Bush administration has, under the rubric of support for the war on terror, supported the military dictatorship in Pakistan while forcefully bringing democracy to another country, whose above-mentioned dictator was hanged (disrespectfully, as some who watched the videos on YouTube would say). It has provided billions of US$ to the country for it to spend on armament, while also providing the army with ammunition and weaponry. The Pakistani Army still complains that the US has not supplied it enough war machinery to tackle "terrorists" and "extremists".

It was only the recent imposition of Emergency in Pakistan that the US was forced into making at least some noise about the state of things in the country, and Bush called upon Gen Mush to put "democracy" back on track by lifting the state of Emergency. Of course, it seemed quite content with the fact that the "restoration of democracy" involved suspension and replacement of almost the entire bench of the Pakistan Supreme Court judges, tinkering with the Constitution, and other such "democratic" measures that ensured Gen Mush staying in the Presidential seat. I guess its only fair for one militant President to give such concessions to another.

Militants and terrorists killed Bhutto? When it was Gen Mush who had the most to fear from her performance in the soon to be held "free and fair elections"? Actually, how much of a difference is there anyway between Gen Mush and a terrorist? A terrorist, in layman terms, is someone who uses terror tactics to achieve his/her ends, and as a military dictator, what else did Mush do? Of course, the self-appointed custodian of democracy throughout the world, that ape called Bush, lauded the General for his unflinching support in the war against terror and gave him more arms.

The Emergency had been imposed under the excuse of controlling the terrorists and militants that were running free through the country. If that really were the case, then it only goes to show the ineptness of the Mush administration, since it is now freely ascribing the killing of Bhutto to the very elements the Emergency was supposedly meant to tackle. Yeah, right.

I am sure I am hardly the only one who sees these things to be the way I do. And yet, no one in any position of authority, who can actually influence such matters, will even bat a fucking eyelid. This world is such a fucked up place, makes me want to take up arms myself and systematically assassinate many of these world leaders. We will see which terrorists they blame then.

Pirates and prices

I feel strangely elated every time I hear of someone saying a big FUCK YOU to the organised capitalist world in general, and even more so when it is said with a measure of panache. I am, in this instance, referring to the owners of PirateBay, an Internet portal that hosts torrents. For those of you who don't know, torrents is another peer-to-peer file sharing technology, and the only one that I would recommend in terms of safety from viruses etc.

So this company is based in Sweden, where the fine for copyright infringement (which is what peer-to-peer softwares usually get hauled up for) is either US$ 200, or 200 Swedish Kroner. Either ways, the few instances that the company does get hauled up, they don't mind paying the fine which they consider trivial. But of course, they are sick of it now, and have announced their plan to raise money to buy an island, declare it a micro-nation where piracy is legal, and move their servers to the island.

Now before you start lecturing me about the importance of copyrights and the artists who suffer due to piracy and all this amounting to theft and blah blah blah, let me assure you that I know all that. But do you know of Radiohead? Or to be specific, do you know that Radiohead (its a band, they make music, some of it very good) released their new album earlier this year, and you could download it off the Internet and choose how much you wanted to pay for it? And yes, you could choose 0.00 (in whatever currency you like) if you wanted. And that was official. Isn't that how it should work? I mean, who decides how much something creative is worth, the record label?

If a band was performing live, and charged a lot for the tickets (like 125 fucking pounds for the recent Led Zep show), it could make some sense since it is a unique performance and only so many people can be accommodated, bringing in the age old idea of supply and demand, etc etc. But for a standard copy of a CD, why should anyone be forced to pay whatever amount is dictated? If someone wants to live a rockstar life, let them earn it the hard way. (No, I am not implying that its easy in any way.)

So yeah, my point is that if things like music, movies, games, even software, you know, entertainment in general, was not so obscenely priced, maybe there would be much lesser piracy. If more people could afford it, lesser would want to steal it. But since capitalist morons who run big companies seem to not understand that (partly because there are so many other rich morons who are only too happy to spend whatever is demanded of them), it ain't going to happen. Hence, long live the pirates!

For the complete lack of anything to do...

I figured I will waste some time writing another post. Wow, talk about living a boring life. I mean, on a Friday evening, I have nothing better to do than sit at my computer and write a random blog entry for the lack of anything else to do. But why the hell is it being Friday evening a big deal?

Personally, its not. And I have often wondered why it is such a rage among almost everyone in this city. People start planning for this Friday two Fridays ago! It is as much a part of London culture as is getting drunk, eating cheap shit kebabs, or saying "Cheers mate" for anything and everything. The peer pressure to go out on a Friday evening is almost as much it is for things like owning interesting pencil boxes when you are in grade 2. Week after week, people travel in crowded tubes and buses, and if you merely smile at someone for any reason or for no reason, they look at you like you just stabbed them or something, like you are a psycho freak on the loose. And come Friday evening, they will be shit-faced, inebriated all the way to oblivion, and will be actively looking to snog with strangers. Once they are done, they probably say "Cheers mate".

I wonder what such behaviour says about the state of human society, or at least its London bits. What kind of "civilised" behaviour is this? Is intoxication a necessity for people to simply interact with each other? Is it only behind the cloak of alcohol that people can be themselves? Has sobriety reached that much of a nadir? And what does a teetotaller do then, not have any social interaction? Or perhaps pretend to have a good time in a room full of rolling drunkards?

Don't get me wrong, I have nothing against getting completely trashed. What I am ranting against is the link between drunkenness and the supposed lowering of inhibitions. Why have all these fucked up inhibitions in the first place that you actively seek to lower every fucking weekend with an unhealthy overdose of alcohol? Talk of hypocrisy, double standards and all that similar jazz. I mean, its not like you don't know what you do under the influence of alcohol. Its just convenient to blame it on the alcohol, that's about it.

Oh shit, I just realised its almost 8pm! And its Friday evening!! I have other things to do, you know. Need to get ready to go out, I hate to keep people waiting. Especially when they are planning to get drunk!

I am a racist! Hahahahahahahahahaha

It is with much amusement that I take to being called a racist, which I have sometimes been called. And usually, such mislabelling follows a "racist" joke I would either make myself, or would laugh at, were it to be made by someone else. (The label is usually worse, and quicker, when I make a joke about gas-chambers and a swastika tattoo.) But that is as stupid as calling Iran an anti-Semitic nation for hosting an international conference to discuss the Holocaust.

The problem with such quick-to-label-someone-racist people is that when they hear a racist joke, they hear the racist bit more than the joke bit, and assume that everyone else does the same and then go on to assume that the elicited laughter was focussed at the racist bit rather than the joke bit. And if the laughter was aimed at the racist bit, its still a fucking joke, right? I mean, how dis-similar is it from making jokes about any stereotype? The trouble is to make a good joke, in fact, since there are too many trite ones now which have been heard hundreds of times.

In the same way, discussing the Holocaust does not condone the atrocities committed against the Jews by the Nazis, or any other atrocity anywhere at any time. All it does is try to understand the actual extent and nature of what happened at the time without involving the usual history that the victors always write. (And lest anyone have any doubts, the victors in this case were very pliable by the Jew lobby which supplied more-than-significant sums of money to finance the machinations to halt the Nazi world takeover bid.)

A joke some of you may have heard from me, in another form though:

A big fat white American (bfwA), a humongous nosed Jew (hnJ) and a pants-hanging-off-the-knees black man (p-h-o-t-k bm) are all taking a piss in a john somewhere. bfwA finishes, zips up, rolls over to the washbasin, pumps out a handful of soap, washes off with a gallon of water, and as is drying his hands with a whole box of tissue, says, "In my people, they teach us to be hygienic."
hnJ finishes, zips up, ambles over to the sink, takes a squirt of soap, only as much water as he needed (which wasn't much) and while handling his single paper-towel, says, "In my people, they teach us to be frugal."
p-h-o-t-k bm finishes, zips up, puts his hands in his pockets and as he is swaggering towards the door, says, "In my people, they teach us not to piss on our hands."

So how racist was that?

Kids with guns

I was perturbed, to say the least, by the news of two 14 years olds shooting dead one of their classmates in their school premises. The reports are still a bit hazy, what with the accused being juveniles and the law about maintaining their anonymity and such. But apparently, one of them shot the deceased 4 times before handing over the gun to the other who shot him once more to finish the job. According to the killer kids, they did it because the killed kid regularly bullied them a lot and supposedly even threatened to kill them.

Last time I checked, there was a big, BIG difference between bullying and the threat to kill, especially when it came from a 14 year old. And I knew that even when I was 14. I was bullied a fuck load, my school life consisted of many many beatings, more than I care to recount, and they were merciless. And while my lot was worse (in this one regard) than many others in my school, I was not the only one. But I do not recall anyone (from among the 500 or so) harbouring a death-wish for anyone else, even while vocalising many violent threats (mostly empty, and rarely openly). Anyway, much as I hold human life in low regard, if any, this still seems quite unacceptable.

And since when did kids in India get access to guns? The gun belonged to the father of one the killers, but is there no such thing as a safe place to keep things in the house? More importantly, where the fuck from did these kids get this "shooting to settle scores" idea? Is it a spill-over from the media coverage given to similar incidents (which are usually not such directly pointedly revenge-based) in the gun-mad USA? Or is it an independent incident, fuelled by the new lifestyle changes in urban India brought on by the ranks of nouveau riche and the explosion of technology?

I am tempted to blame television more than anything else. But since its only my conjecture, I will refrain. But man oh man, the damage television has wrecked on humanity in general! (And here, I can speak authoritatively, for I am an anthropologist of media after all.)

A novel way to tackle the AIDS epidemic

This will probably not sit well with some people, and is slightly (but only slightly, for where there is a will, there is a way and so on) impractical to implement, but hey, at least I had an idea! What have you done, eh? So read on.

The deal with AIDS is that we don't have a cure for it, and there is no real cure in sight as yet either. The epidemic, of course, is growing every year despite all the governments of the world supposedly warning their citizens to take precautions etc. It is my belief that it is not a part of fundamental human nature to only have one sexual partner in a lifetime, and we all know that "unsafe" sex with multiple partners is a potential way for HIV to enter the system. As for safe sex, personally, I hate, HATE condoms. They are such a fucking kill-joy (quite literally). Furthermore, even as the quality of condoms has improved over the decades, instances of them rupturing during the act are still not uncommon. And please, anyone who is going to suggest wearing two condoms or something equally stupid, shut up and shove it. Anyway, the virus also spreads through other human pleasures such as injection of drugs, and there is no point telling the junkies to sterilise their needles.

Too much digression. What I am suggesting is, everyone on the planet, every last one, should be tested for the virus. And all those who are infected should be quarantined. Build communes, nice big, modern self-contained ones. And send them there. They will keep their occupations, albeit in a new locale. They will even keep their families, if their families wish to go with them. Make it as "democratic" as possible, and as humane. Think of the greatest good for the greatest numbers. After all, why should the rest of us be forced to keep the libido in check, under the HIV-laced sword of Damocles? I am sure all the fucking Catholic puritans (they are just an easy target, the same holds true for many other religious zealots) probably think of this as a punishment dealt by the ever-generous and merciful god to the human race for its non-monogamous ways.

Again digression. If we manage to carry out this quarantine effectively, we would have isolated all the carriers and hence also eliminated the chance of the virus spreading. We will have to then wait for the next time a man fucks an infected monkey (the stupid theory about the origin of the disease) for the virus to run rampant again. I must stress that the communes built for this purpose will be like any other place. Completely normal in every which way, since people who are HIV+ are also normal in every which way except having a useless immune system.

How many of you think it could work? For those of you who are going to lash out, please frame a proper cohesive response.

What a fucking bummer

I did as I said I would. Went to the O2 hoping to catch the biggest concert yet of the new century. Man, that place is not bum-friendly at all. The stage etc is all the way indoors, not just beyond physical reach (which I was not planning anyway) but even beyond aural reach. All I could hear once every few seconds was the dull faint sound of bass. There are huge screens there that were playing everything but the concert. Fucking shyt. And since the doors to the venue had opened 3 hours before I got there, there was no mad crowds milling around either, since all the other ticket-less losers like me must have left long ago. But there were still about 50 people hanging around, perhaps too disappointed to even leave. Sure enough, after about 7 minutes there, to make sure that there was ABSOLUTELY no way to hear anything, I left with a heavy heart. Only to reach home and to read on the news that it was a completely smashing concert, completely unlike their previous feeble re-union shows. Made me feel SOOOO much better, wow.

But while I was there, something else I noticed. Of the 50 odd losers hanging around there, not a single black person. (Actually, has anyone ever seen a person who is truly black? I mean, if you know what the colour black looks like...) So I was saying, not a single Negro there. Not necessarily an accurate marker for the population inside the venue, but perhaps a decent sample anyway. Why is it that every Negro I know likes hip-hop and rap, or at least those? Why is it that you will see only a couple of black faces among thousands at a Metallica concert? How defined are we by the colour of our skin, or more precisely, how much do we define ourselves unknowingly based on the colour of our skin?

And on another tangent, why do youngsters from the Indian subcontinent try to behave like black people? I have noticed this both here in London, where it is much worse, and back in the streets of New Delhi. It leaves me a tad bit disgusted, not because I have a low opinion of black culture but because I have at least some regard for my own (I am referring to that of the subcontinent, not my personal one) and I see no good reason why kids in such large numbers should give it up in favour of some trash they see on television. I don't even know if its television that is to blame. I honestly don't understand this phenomenon. And it seems that Asians pick up the worst of black culture usually, you know, the bling jewellery and the terrible slang, the unnecessary swagger and the (non)sense of fashionable clothing.

I don't know if there are any such Asians reading this post, and I am hoping that at least one black person is. Your views, as always, are welcome.

Hopes for tonight

Led Zeppelin is playing tonight at a venue that's about 3 km from my house. Of course I don't have a ticket, which were only being sold through a lottery, and then at a prohibitive price of 125 pounds! I had been bold and registered for the lottery anyway, but my luck, like always, did not fail to let me down. (Keep in mind that I like to sometimes say "If it weren't for bad luck, I would have had no luck at all.") I had also been keeping track of ticket sales on eBay and well, the price was 750 pounds when I last checked. As of now, I don't spend that much over a whole month, hell, I don't even make that much in a month!

I have managed to find out that the gates to the venue open at 6:30pm. Now I am hoping that what with all the other bands playing etc, Led Zep don't come on till about 9:30 or so, giving me enough time to get to the venue from my work, from where I will get free at 9:00pm. Then, I am hoping that the sound is loud enough to carry all the way to outside the venue, which is where I will be huddling like a bum, hoping to catch all the great music I can. I am pretty sure I will not be the only one there in the cold windy outdoors (the forecast is about 3 degrees with about 15mph winds, but no rain). Now if only I had money to get hold of some thing to smoke... but I guess I will have to make do with some cheap alcohol to brave the elements.

I am no die-hard fan of Led Zep, or any other band. I don't even have a favourite band, for that matter. But if I had to choose one, I would choose them. So I figure I owe myself this much. If nothing else, it will make for some cheap kicks at the very least.

Older, not wiser

On the 3rd of this month, I turned 26. It is a rather unreal, surreal feeling. Just saying it feels almost like a lie, it gives me a strange sensation of being disconnected with myself, like an out of body experience. But a fact is a fact, and the fact is that I am getting old(er). And please don't ask me what I did to celebrate. I don't think birthdays are big deals (likewise for New Year's Eve and religious festivals), and so I don't care about celebrating. Of course, if anyone wants to send any gifts my way, I will happily accept! :)

And for reasons that have nothing to do with age, life is being a little fucked up too. I am sick of going for job interviews, getting through, and then being shown the door (the metaphoric one) on account of my current visa status. And even though it will surely change in the coming 4-5 weeks, it doesn't make me feel any better in the present. And of course, I have to also make ends meet, even if it is only for a hand-to-mouth type of existence. My present shit job is taking its toll on me, with its brain-dead monotone and close to minimum wage pay scale. Maybe this is the right time to feature in a pornographic production and make some quick cash. Anyone got any leads for me?

Before I move on from this age issue though, I must mention the strange feeling evoked by the news of an old friend getting married. Most of my old friends are all the same age as me, and even though the first one got married some 3 years ago, it seems that an increasingly greater number is tying the knot. It just makes everything a lot worse in my mind (in regards to how old I am versus how old I feel) and a lot scarier in my life (the prospect of marriage is perhaps one of the few things that scares me, and no, it has nothing to do with commitment-phobia, as it is called).

So an empty mind is the devil's workshop, or so the saying goes. My mind is quite empty these days for the most part, but I don't have many devilish thoughts. In fact, I find it devoid of the delicious naughty (and no, I don't mean sexual, or at least not just sexual) thoughts that so entertain me usually. I am bored of discussing politics and religion with people, as also with dispensing advice to them about solutions to the myriad of problems they seem always have, most common of which deal with relationships. And no, I do not offer unsolicited advice, but only when specifically asked for it. About time I advised myself, eh?