Desi In Toronto

I am really glad that Elizabeth May was chosen as the new leader of The Green Party of Canada. Not because her oppponent David Chernushenko, the deputy leader of the Green Party, was bad. But what the Green party really needs right now is a PR boost. With 4.5% votes won last year, they finally are getting a fedral grant of $1 million but with zero representation in the parliament, they were going nowhere. With the glamour that Ms. May brings into the party, the number of voters will definetly cross 4.5%.

Good Luck Ms. May. I am one voter who would definetly help out as much as I can.

I have always believed the United States citizens to be the best people in the world. They showed the world how important it is for the leaders to recoganise the power of the individual over the state and religion and any other organised form of repression. But having showed the way, are the Americans becoming what we all were?

I think it’s safe to say the last two weeks have been less than kind when it comes to conservatives and race relations.

* Sen. George Allen’s (R-Va.) “macaca” scandal.

* Sen. Conrad Burns (R-Mont.) joked about how a “nice little Guatemalan man” fixing up his house might be an illegal immigrant.

* A leading congressional candidate in Florida said he knows, “from my own experience, that blacks are not the greatest swimmers, and may not even know how to swim.”

* Two congressional candidates and a gubernatorial candidate believe people who “appear” to be Arab or Muslim should be subjected to racial profiling at airports.

* Pat Buchanan’s new book argues for “an immediate moratorium on all immigration,” in order to preserve the dominance of the white race in America.

And in one you may not have heard about, a Baptist church in Mississippi voted out a 12-year-old boy who “asked Jesus to live in his heart” — because the child is biracial and church members didn’t want the black side of his family attending with him.

And these are just from the last two weeks.

Back in India a few years back I was at a friend’s house when suddenly the lights went out. Initially we thought it was a power failure but soon noticed that the lights in the next house were still on. The friend’s mother said

“Oh, I will be right back”.

I saw her walk into the kitchen (this was during the day time) and she came out with a heavy stick in her hand. She walked to the fuse box and WHAAAACK. She hit the box as hard as she could. Nothing happened. WHAAAACK. And the light was back on!!!

My friend said this is what she does with everything. If the TV is giving her trouble, she whacks it with a newspaper and it usually works, If the refrigarator is giving her trouble she whacks it with the broom.

It was the funniest thing I ever saw and have not thought much about the woman who whacks electronics into starting again. But, it looks like she was on to something :

For the first time, you can hit your computer and get a meaningful response! Using Linux® and the Hard Drive Active Protection System (HDAPS) kernel drivers, you can access the embedded accelerometers on Lenovo (formerly IBM®) ThinkPads, then process the accelerometer data to read specific sequences of “knocking” events — literally rapping on the laptop case with your knuckles — and run commands based on those knocks. Double tap to lock the screen, and knock in your secret code to unlock. Tap the display lid once to move your mp3 player to the next track. The possibilities are endless.

Is this the first of many pardons?

By granting absolution to a convicted moonshiner, George W. Bush also earned the unique distinction of becoming the first president to pardon a cast member of the 1972 Academy Award-nominated movie “Deliverance.”

Randall Leece Deal of Clayton, Georgia, had a small role in the film about four Atlanta businessmen who have unpleasant encounters with locals during a north Georgia canoe trip.

For the last 16 years, Deal, 66, has worked at the Rabun County Sheriff’s Department, a far cry from his life in the early 1960s when he was convicted on two counts of violating liquor laws and one count of conspiring to violate liquor laws.

Link.

John Mark Karr gave authorities graphic details about the condition of JonBenet Ramsey’s body that have been kept secret for nearly a decade, a U.S. law enforcement source told CNN on Friday.

Those details were known only to the medical examiner and the investigators investigating the December 26, 1996 slaying of the 6-year-old beauty pageant competitor, the law enforcement official said.

If you cannot find news, create your own !!

KOLKATA, India, Aug 17 (Reuters) - A group of Indian television journalists gave a man matches and diesel to help him commit suicide in order to get dramatic footage which was later broadcast on the news, police said on Thursday.

The man died from severe burns to his body in hospital in Gaya town in the eastern state of Bihar on August 15, India’s Independence Day.

Footage of the man, screaming and writhing in pain as he ran with his back on fire, was aired on several television channels. Police identified the man as Manoj Mishra.

“We have seized footage clearly showing a group of journalists handing over matches and some inflammable substance — which we later verified to be diesel — to the victim,” acting Gaya police chief P.K. Sinha told Reuters by telephone.

Even though there is clear evidence of murder, these journalists will be out of jail in no time with the backing of the media corporations. Bastards.

At about 11am I and my wife took the oath of allegiance and became Canadian citizens. It suddenly dawned on me that now when someone asks where I am from, I will say Ontario, Canada and not Punjab, India.

The ceremony itself was quite nice . The judge said something that I really liked. He said that the Canadian society in general is not a violent society and then proceeded to explain why he thought it was so. He said that all around the world it is very easy to identify yourself as “them” and “us” which in turn leads to conflicts. It’s only natural. But here in Canada, especially in province of Ontario with it’s diversity of people, conflicts tend not to happen because everyone from all the corners of the world are now “us”. So all animosities generated in other parts of the world are left at the door.

Don’t know if I put it as well the judge but I really like that explaination. What about you?

Thank god for Vishal Bharadwaj.

I am the first to admit that I am not really proud of bollywood. The sob fests, the slap sticks that make you want to cry, the melodramas that make you go to sleep and last not the least the movies with “message” that go nowhere were too much to handle in the last 20 years of so.

Having said that, every now and then a movie comes that restores your faith in the Bollywood. And I cannot help but tell myself that we will return to the glory days of 1960s and 1970s.

And one of the people to show us the way is Vishal Bharadwaj. The movies Maqbool and Omkara are truely guiding lights for current and future directors.

The movie Omkara stayed true to Shakerspeare’s Othello. Thank god Vishal Bharadwaj did not opt for a bollywood ending. The most amazing thing that I found about the movie was the sets and the language. The sets depicted by Vishal Bharadwaj were so true to the point you could be sure that the characters were living in their house for the time that the movie claimed it did. And the language was as it really is in UP, India. I have spent a few months in that part of the world and believe me, this is how everyone talks.

Saif Ali Khan and Ajay Devgan were the stars of the movie. They depited their characters (especially Saif Ali Khan, who has matured into an exceptional actor since his divorce. Coicidence? I don’t want to go there) as Shakespeare would probably have wanted to.

Now the few things that put me off about the movie.

1) Too long. It could easily have been a 1 and half to 2 hour movie but no, Vishal Bharadwaj opted for the full 3 hours. I guess he wanted to show all the nuances of the play by Shakespeare so he can be forgiven for it.

2) The focus of the movie was on Omkara (Othello) when in the play the focus is actually on Langara (Iago). This was my only bone of contention with Vishal Bharadwaj’s depiction of the play. But again he can be forgiven for it.

3) Naseeruddin Shah was really under used.

4) The ending was not as convincing as it was in the play.

All said and done. I am going to root for Vishal Bharadwaj’s projects, always.

I just heard over the radio that Israel are preparing to invade Lebanon in a major way soon. They intend to go in at least 30 KM into South Lebanon to mop up Hezbollah. What the hell is going on? They first desperately want the UN to put up a border force (to help them continue their mop up operations in the name of “defence”) and now they want go into Lebanon to “destroy” Hezbollah. They are trying to achieve the unachievable here. I mean the most powerful country in the world went into Afghanistan to “mop up” Taliban and Al Qeida. And 4 years later we all know how much of the terrorists were “destroyed”. Can we expect the Israeli forces to do what the US and NATO forces could not do?

This is how you market a shitty product. Not by improving it, but rather by funneling it elsewhere.

Movie attendance has declined in the United States over the last decade, forcing studios to cultivate a wider audience. And combined with the increasing cost to make and market films, many here agree that having an overseas strategy is more important than ever.

Industry analysts predict an increase in worldwide movie attendance over the next five years, with Asia and Central and Eastern Europe the fastest-growing regions. According to PricewaterhouseCoopers, global spending on film entertainment from 2006 to 2010, including movie tickets and DVD’s, is projected to grow at an annual rate of 5.3 percent.

How many more deaths will it take before you will clearly explain to the citizens of Canada of what the hell is expected out of their sons and daughters in Afghanistan? Can we please have some clearer goals than “bring peace” to Afghanistan?

Personal Note : Had to take a leave of absence from blogging on account of huge input of work. There is nothing like a lot of work to kill every inspiration thought in you. Am back now.

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I imagine there is no way this can happen here?

BRUSSELS — Companies in the European Union may legally refuse to hire smokers because EU anti-discrimination laws do not protect them, the European Commission said.

“The commission is not against recruiting workers who smoke, but we have to stick to European legislation. Our anti-discrimination legislation for the workplace covers four areas – age, disability, religion or belief and sexual orientation. Then in general the rules cover gender and race, and that’s it,” said Ms. von Schnurbein, spokeswoman for Employment and Social Affairs Commissioner Vladimir Spidla.

So what’s next? People who spit? Or who wear heavy perfumes? Or those who chew food with their mouths open? This is so stupid on so many levels that I won’t even begin to understand it. The Europeans sometimes exhibit insane ideas which smacks them on their faces and they seem to enjoy it.