Life in North American society embodies a basic contradiction between capitalism - the luminous bourgeois ideals of peace, freedom, opportunity, love, and community and the harsh, brutal realities of the irrational economic system which encourages these ideals and feeds off their unobtainability. The whole function of trade and commerce is to exacerbate this disjunction.
Business destroys the coveted bourgeois values and the familial structures set up to secure and nurture those values. Social mobility, success, depends on brutality; this is the primary law of capitalism. Capitalist competition severely limits the ability of most people to become very close to any other people.
Religion is an important prop of bourgeois ideology, the Church represents a community of sorts. And in it's inability to comfort anyone the church shows its impotence. It is one more bourgeois ideal that does not work.
Family ties, social mobility, quest for security, companionship, and even religious values all relate and correspond to real universal human needs for community, love, respect, support, appreciation.
Social institutions which function in four levels of familial affiliations — the nuclear family, the extended family, the ethnic community, and the Church — upon which the we rely to provide and protect these values, wither before the irrational, destructive forces of capitalism, the main goal of which is profit, not the meeting of human needs.
Each institution strives unsuccessfully to create an ideal community. In all cases, the needs of business destroy whatever communal aspects these associations might provide. In fact, it is the very effort to conserve and support these families that becomes corrupted by business and destroys them.
Capitalism, at its best, must destroy human life and associations to exist. Thus, the more vigorously bourgeois society strives to achieve the ideals it has set for itself, the more destructive and corrupt it becomes.
Economic dependence is a debilitating experience for anyone in this society.
Afterthought: May the new year bring light to more people. From their own personal darkness, may each one be emancipated by his/her own free will.
Saturday, December 31, 2005
Saturday, December 24, 2005
The Capitalist Who Stole Christmas
Hope you have a "Merry You-Know-What" and enjoy your "Christmas vacation"; oops I mean winter closure.
In a desperate cry to escape the tortures inflicted upon me this side of the wall of separation between church and state. I cry for help. This is not a rant about the gumming up of civilized discourse in a phlegm of hateful resentment of everything secular.
Christmas today is an exuberant display of human ingenuity, capitalist productivity, and the enjoyment of life. I'd actually prefer if people saw what it was they were celebrating and called it just that. In this case why bother with the terminology call it what it is - 'Winter Shopping Festival.'
It is not just on religious issues that the media and the intelligentsia seem determined to suppress, it's an ongoing symptom that plagues the entire passive aggressive global society. In the international jungle, made more dangerous by terrorist networks that circle the globe, anything that it is not defended is in jeopardy.
And if we let liberal ideals govern the nature of holidays, we'll learn that the best customs of Christmas, from carols to trees to spectacular decorations, have their root in pagan ideas and practices. These customs were greatly amplified by American culture, as the product of reason, science, business, worldliness, and egoism, i.e., the pursuit of happiness.
Undermining a sense of the worthiness of a society undermines that allegiance -- and, without allegiance, there is no defense. No society can survive in the long run without the allegiance of its people.
Christmas shopping is like pornography -- nobody wants to admit they've seen it, yet everybody seems to know what it looks like.
The majority of the population take part in the tradition of commercialized, secular Christmas. Why? Because it's fun, especially for the kids in the family. What kid doesn’t like candy canes, snowman cookies, Santa Claus, parties and toys?
It’s almost impossible to be a kid in North America or Western Europe and not get enraptured by the “magic” of the Christmas season. We all know that the stores we got our loved ones gifts from and the reatil sales associates who served us were referring to the commercialized, secular Christmas—the one that fattens their profits while raising credit card debt.
Essentially, Christmas has been captured by capitalism. The Grinch hasn’t stolen Christmas. Capitalism has.
Christmas is gradually being secularized into a season of general merrymaking and loads of money making. It is in transition from religious “holy day” to secular holiday.
The retail industry's main goal is for you to buy something. They will jump on any excuse you might have, to not only excite you to shop, but woo you into their establishments.
Capitalism doesn’t care. The market doesn’t care. All that matters is how to make the best profit possible from selling products to the public.
One reason you might shop is to buy a present for someone. In the very late fall, a majority of the population is not only buying one present for someone, but many presents for many people, to the delight of the retail stores (and hopefully the delight of the recipients).
Life requires reason, selfishness, capitalism; that is what Christmas should celebrate -- and really, underneath all the pretense, that is what it does celebrate. It is time to take the Christ out of Christmas, and turn the holiday into a guiltlessly egoistic, pro-reason, this-worldly, commercial celebration.
And -- before it becomes taboo -- a Happy New Year. Oh wait! It's the beginning of a new tax year, and the next five or six months will be spent working for the government.
In a desperate cry to escape the tortures inflicted upon me this side of the wall of separation between church and state. I cry for help. This is not a rant about the gumming up of civilized discourse in a phlegm of hateful resentment of everything secular.
Christmas today is an exuberant display of human ingenuity, capitalist productivity, and the enjoyment of life. I'd actually prefer if people saw what it was they were celebrating and called it just that. In this case why bother with the terminology call it what it is - 'Winter Shopping Festival.'
It is not just on religious issues that the media and the intelligentsia seem determined to suppress, it's an ongoing symptom that plagues the entire passive aggressive global society. In the international jungle, made more dangerous by terrorist networks that circle the globe, anything that it is not defended is in jeopardy.
And if we let liberal ideals govern the nature of holidays, we'll learn that the best customs of Christmas, from carols to trees to spectacular decorations, have their root in pagan ideas and practices. These customs were greatly amplified by American culture, as the product of reason, science, business, worldliness, and egoism, i.e., the pursuit of happiness.
Undermining a sense of the worthiness of a society undermines that allegiance -- and, without allegiance, there is no defense. No society can survive in the long run without the allegiance of its people.
Christmas shopping is like pornography -- nobody wants to admit they've seen it, yet everybody seems to know what it looks like.
The majority of the population take part in the tradition of commercialized, secular Christmas. Why? Because it's fun, especially for the kids in the family. What kid doesn’t like candy canes, snowman cookies, Santa Claus, parties and toys?
It’s almost impossible to be a kid in North America or Western Europe and not get enraptured by the “magic” of the Christmas season. We all know that the stores we got our loved ones gifts from and the reatil sales associates who served us were referring to the commercialized, secular Christmas—the one that fattens their profits while raising credit card debt.
Essentially, Christmas has been captured by capitalism. The Grinch hasn’t stolen Christmas. Capitalism has.
Christmas is gradually being secularized into a season of general merrymaking and loads of money making. It is in transition from religious “holy day” to secular holiday.
The retail industry's main goal is for you to buy something. They will jump on any excuse you might have, to not only excite you to shop, but woo you into their establishments.
Capitalism doesn’t care. The market doesn’t care. All that matters is how to make the best profit possible from selling products to the public.
One reason you might shop is to buy a present for someone. In the very late fall, a majority of the population is not only buying one present for someone, but many presents for many people, to the delight of the retail stores (and hopefully the delight of the recipients).
Life requires reason, selfishness, capitalism; that is what Christmas should celebrate -- and really, underneath all the pretense, that is what it does celebrate. It is time to take the Christ out of Christmas, and turn the holiday into a guiltlessly egoistic, pro-reason, this-worldly, commercial celebration.
And -- before it becomes taboo -- a Happy New Year. Oh wait! It's the beginning of a new tax year, and the next five or six months will be spent working for the government.
Monday, December 19, 2005
Are you a Macaulayalee?
Thomas Babington Macaulay's speech of Feb 2,1835, to the British Parliament speaks volumes of where we as a nation stood. Then his Minute on Indian Education, delivered in 1835 again spoke volumes of us and what was expected of us, "...a class who may be interpreters between us and the millions whom we govern; a class of persons, Indian in blood and colour, but English in taste, in opinions, in morals, and in intellect..."
Suggested Reading:
http://www.hindu.org/publications/fgautier/selfdenial.html
http://www.geocities.com/ifihhome/articles/sk001.html
Suggested Reading:
http://www.hindu.org/publications/fgautier/selfdenial.html
http://www.geocities.com/ifihhome/articles/sk001.html
Thursday, December 08, 2005
The Second Slice of the Chinese Melon
About 200 years ago, Napoleon Bonaparte returned from China and said, "That is a sleeping dragon. Let him sleep! If he wakes, he will shake the world."
Well, China is wide awake today, economically and strategically. The fastest growing region on the global landscape with an economy that came out unscathed out of the East-Asian Currency Crisis and the SARS epidemic just to bolster its place as the 6th largest GDP in the world. As of 2003, China was the world’s second largest economy—only surpassed by the U.S.—and had the highest growth rate of any major country. And not to mention an open arm welcome into the WTO General Council with a makeover from the World's Factory as the World's Market.
What baffles North American Economists the most is the Chinese economic engagement came with a learning curve so steep its continuing development poses a threat to them? China challenging North America's strong holds of industry & manufacturing comes with a lot of political ‘shock’ and wee bit of economic ‘awe’.
China’s economy opening up to the outside world worries those who fear that country’s huge pool of low-cost labor will drain jobs from the North American shores, and less expensive goods will spark trade problems. China’s untapped market present huge opportunities for North American businesses that would surely outweigh any loss of jobs, but the sort of jobs that had left to China a long time ago were the low-wage, low-skill jobs. Will the day when higher-wage, high-skill jobs are outsourced to China mark the epic struggle pitting the American eagle and the Chinese dragon?
There is a distinction to be made between deepening economic ties, fostering multinational trade and global manipulation by companies for their own vested interests. Outsourcing might be distressing to the system prevailing, unwilling to accept the pace of change. But unlike ever before, North America's impotency to produce timely innovative cutting-edge technologies, ideas and industries is hurting its image.
The real question is how many consumers of the 'Welfare Capitalist Economy' actually see the effects of 'Neo-Imperialist Globalization'.
The achievements on the economic plane of life in North America outstrip progress on the political plane to such an extent that economics and politics have lost their synchronicity. The flattening of the global economic playing field, in cohesion with a bastardized global political plane leaves a fertile ground for the gutters of the world to pool together.
Capitalist ruling classes in North America, have an attitude toward government economic policy that needs to be checked. This should ensure the operations of the Chinese marketers do not impede our ability to create jobs in North America and protect the working people of North America from the tremulous changes of supply and demand.
It should come as no surprise that China, of all the bureaucratized and degenerating workers states, has been able to make the greatest progress toward capitalist restoration. The strategic vision of the Chinese bureaucracy to align themselves with the neo-capitalist entrepreneurs of the globe are responsible in their getting rich and morphing into capitalists while the great majority in China, are suffering a decline in their living standards.
The People’s Republic of China (PRC) has embarked on a pragmatic and outward-looking program of economic development that focuses primarily on exports, foreign investment, technology and closer ties with the West.
The Chinese leadership clearly realizes that domestic development and sound trade expansion rely on stable international economic conditions. China is rapidly becoming the world's biggest "low-cost" manufacturer, flooding the global marketplace with relatively cheap electronics and appliances.
The domestic market in China is rapidly developing, showing every indication of becoming, within as little as another generation, at least as important as the United States as a mass market for global suppliers of everything from computers, cell phones, and other electronic goods to automobiles, refrigerators and other consumer durables. China is already at least as important as the United States in terms of incremental growth in imports.
The Made-In-China world we live exists mainly thanks to the manufacturing plants on the mainland, that take advantage of low wages and high productivity (very high rates of exploitation) and a substantial percentage of China's exports are the fruits of foreign firm production in China (rather than indigenous Chinese firms).
China-"the world's sweatshop" has long been lusted after by multinationals eager to gain customers in the world's most populous domestic economy and to exploit China's natural resources and relatively low cost (and abundant) workforce.
In a world where China's emergence as a major base for foreign firms to assemble manufactured goods;
• Where its influence over the free flow of capital, goods and executive talent across the globe is rocking the delicate balance between economic and military carrot and sticks.
• Where ever-closer political ties have blurred the lines between friend and foe.
• Where North American corporations are willing to sacrifice manufacturing jobs, technology and military security in pursuit of quick profits.
• Where multinational affiliates, these outposts of American capitalism are used by the Chinese to manufacture products exported back to the US thereby creating a trade imbalance.
One begins to wonder the role of China in the North American economy is it one of a ‘strategic competitor’ or is it one of a ‘strategic partner’. Bureaucrats and capitalists on both sides of the mutually incompatible social systems are counter posed to the working class of the world. Be it the world's capitalist countries or the degenerating workers states they outsource to.
East Asian efforts to penetrate the North American industry, to gather innovative technology and sensitive business information, have made headlines in the past. Today the world is changing before our very eyes. Some old rivalries are fading while others are coming to the forefront. Today's friend may become tomorrow enemy and visa versa. This is especially true in the rapidly changing world of shifting political alliances and changing boundaries for economic competition.
Neither China nor North America will ever be a paradise for workers. But workers, like institutional investors, must have the confidence in financial institutions, stock markets and government regulators for an economy to grow.
China is an economy undergoing rapid transformation. Its rapid growth has brought great opportunities and challenges—both for China and for the rest of the world. Some producers see Chinese competition as a threat. They worry about losing market share, about the impact on their markets from highly competitive Chinese exports. That's as familiar a refrain as it is an understandable one.
But China's growth has brought immense new opportunities for exporters—of primary commodities, of manufacturing inputs and of finished goods. China is contributing to the growth of world trade, not displacing it from elsewhere.
And competition from Chinese exports has benefited consumers across the world as well. Let us not forget that competition is one of the great benefits that freer trade brings, even when it forces some painful restructuring for those firms unused to it.
But China, too, is undergoing major and sometimes painful restructuring. It is a large and populous country. It has a cumbersome and inefficient bureaucracy, especially at the local level and in state-owned enterprises. Many of its citizens still live in abject poverty, and the gap between rich and poor has widened. It faces enormous demographic challenges as its population ages rapidly over the next few decades. Its banking system is saddled with bad debts that will, ultimately, have to be written off.
Chinese policymakers are seeking to maintain economic growth at levels that can have an impact on poverty while avoiding inflationary pressures that would ultimately hamper growth. And they are often relying on policy instruments that are at best unreliable in what is increasingly functioning like a market economy.
The challenges for China are not new, of course. The transition we are witnessing today started more than two decades ago. Adjustment is a relatively slow process even in small simple economies—and China is neither small nor simple.
What has changed is the extent to which all our economic fortunes are now linked with those of China. Its sheer size and its dynamism make it increasingly important for global economic growth. With Japan's economy largely stagnant for much of the 1990s, China played a crucial part in sustaining and helping to fuel Asian economic growth. With European growth still lackluster, the opportunities offered by Chinese growth are increasingly important for North America. It is in all our interests that the Chinese economic miracle is sustained.
Well, China is wide awake today, economically and strategically. The fastest growing region on the global landscape with an economy that came out unscathed out of the East-Asian Currency Crisis and the SARS epidemic just to bolster its place as the 6th largest GDP in the world. As of 2003, China was the world’s second largest economy—only surpassed by the U.S.—and had the highest growth rate of any major country. And not to mention an open arm welcome into the WTO General Council with a makeover from the World's Factory as the World's Market.
What baffles North American Economists the most is the Chinese economic engagement came with a learning curve so steep its continuing development poses a threat to them? China challenging North America's strong holds of industry & manufacturing comes with a lot of political ‘shock’ and wee bit of economic ‘awe’.
China’s economy opening up to the outside world worries those who fear that country’s huge pool of low-cost labor will drain jobs from the North American shores, and less expensive goods will spark trade problems. China’s untapped market present huge opportunities for North American businesses that would surely outweigh any loss of jobs, but the sort of jobs that had left to China a long time ago were the low-wage, low-skill jobs. Will the day when higher-wage, high-skill jobs are outsourced to China mark the epic struggle pitting the American eagle and the Chinese dragon?
There is a distinction to be made between deepening economic ties, fostering multinational trade and global manipulation by companies for their own vested interests. Outsourcing might be distressing to the system prevailing, unwilling to accept the pace of change. But unlike ever before, North America's impotency to produce timely innovative cutting-edge technologies, ideas and industries is hurting its image.
The real question is how many consumers of the 'Welfare Capitalist Economy' actually see the effects of 'Neo-Imperialist Globalization'.
The achievements on the economic plane of life in North America outstrip progress on the political plane to such an extent that economics and politics have lost their synchronicity. The flattening of the global economic playing field, in cohesion with a bastardized global political plane leaves a fertile ground for the gutters of the world to pool together.
Capitalist ruling classes in North America, have an attitude toward government economic policy that needs to be checked. This should ensure the operations of the Chinese marketers do not impede our ability to create jobs in North America and protect the working people of North America from the tremulous changes of supply and demand.
It should come as no surprise that China, of all the bureaucratized and degenerating workers states, has been able to make the greatest progress toward capitalist restoration. The strategic vision of the Chinese bureaucracy to align themselves with the neo-capitalist entrepreneurs of the globe are responsible in their getting rich and morphing into capitalists while the great majority in China, are suffering a decline in their living standards.
The People’s Republic of China (PRC) has embarked on a pragmatic and outward-looking program of economic development that focuses primarily on exports, foreign investment, technology and closer ties with the West.
The Chinese leadership clearly realizes that domestic development and sound trade expansion rely on stable international economic conditions. China is rapidly becoming the world's biggest "low-cost" manufacturer, flooding the global marketplace with relatively cheap electronics and appliances.
The domestic market in China is rapidly developing, showing every indication of becoming, within as little as another generation, at least as important as the United States as a mass market for global suppliers of everything from computers, cell phones, and other electronic goods to automobiles, refrigerators and other consumer durables. China is already at least as important as the United States in terms of incremental growth in imports.
The Made-In-China world we live exists mainly thanks to the manufacturing plants on the mainland, that take advantage of low wages and high productivity (very high rates of exploitation) and a substantial percentage of China's exports are the fruits of foreign firm production in China (rather than indigenous Chinese firms).
China-"the world's sweatshop" has long been lusted after by multinationals eager to gain customers in the world's most populous domestic economy and to exploit China's natural resources and relatively low cost (and abundant) workforce.
In a world where China's emergence as a major base for foreign firms to assemble manufactured goods;
• Where its influence over the free flow of capital, goods and executive talent across the globe is rocking the delicate balance between economic and military carrot and sticks.
• Where ever-closer political ties have blurred the lines between friend and foe.
• Where North American corporations are willing to sacrifice manufacturing jobs, technology and military security in pursuit of quick profits.
• Where multinational affiliates, these outposts of American capitalism are used by the Chinese to manufacture products exported back to the US thereby creating a trade imbalance.
One begins to wonder the role of China in the North American economy is it one of a ‘strategic competitor’ or is it one of a ‘strategic partner’. Bureaucrats and capitalists on both sides of the mutually incompatible social systems are counter posed to the working class of the world. Be it the world's capitalist countries or the degenerating workers states they outsource to.
East Asian efforts to penetrate the North American industry, to gather innovative technology and sensitive business information, have made headlines in the past. Today the world is changing before our very eyes. Some old rivalries are fading while others are coming to the forefront. Today's friend may become tomorrow enemy and visa versa. This is especially true in the rapidly changing world of shifting political alliances and changing boundaries for economic competition.
Neither China nor North America will ever be a paradise for workers. But workers, like institutional investors, must have the confidence in financial institutions, stock markets and government regulators for an economy to grow.
China is an economy undergoing rapid transformation. Its rapid growth has brought great opportunities and challenges—both for China and for the rest of the world. Some producers see Chinese competition as a threat. They worry about losing market share, about the impact on their markets from highly competitive Chinese exports. That's as familiar a refrain as it is an understandable one.
But China's growth has brought immense new opportunities for exporters—of primary commodities, of manufacturing inputs and of finished goods. China is contributing to the growth of world trade, not displacing it from elsewhere.
And competition from Chinese exports has benefited consumers across the world as well. Let us not forget that competition is one of the great benefits that freer trade brings, even when it forces some painful restructuring for those firms unused to it.
But China, too, is undergoing major and sometimes painful restructuring. It is a large and populous country. It has a cumbersome and inefficient bureaucracy, especially at the local level and in state-owned enterprises. Many of its citizens still live in abject poverty, and the gap between rich and poor has widened. It faces enormous demographic challenges as its population ages rapidly over the next few decades. Its banking system is saddled with bad debts that will, ultimately, have to be written off.
Chinese policymakers are seeking to maintain economic growth at levels that can have an impact on poverty while avoiding inflationary pressures that would ultimately hamper growth. And they are often relying on policy instruments that are at best unreliable in what is increasingly functioning like a market economy.
The challenges for China are not new, of course. The transition we are witnessing today started more than two decades ago. Adjustment is a relatively slow process even in small simple economies—and China is neither small nor simple.
What has changed is the extent to which all our economic fortunes are now linked with those of China. Its sheer size and its dynamism make it increasingly important for global economic growth. With Japan's economy largely stagnant for much of the 1990s, China played a crucial part in sustaining and helping to fuel Asian economic growth. With European growth still lackluster, the opportunities offered by Chinese growth are increasingly important for North America. It is in all our interests that the Chinese economic miracle is sustained.
Sunday, December 04, 2005
Outsourcing
Outsourcing: a.k.a. Industrial prostitution - To whore out work to less fortunate, less informed, more vulnerable workers who will do the labor because they need the work, the money and the security of having a job.
If that's not what outsourcing is what is?
Outsourcing: Manufacturers cutting corners by exploiting workers on some other corner of the globe today for their own personal profits, reducing productions costs.
I thought that was what Imperialist conquests were all about. I thought those days were over. I thought the world was a better place today in comparison to the world described in my dilapidated old history books. I guess I was wrong to come oot of those classrooms feeling it was a better place we lived in today.
Its just too many people dont care to see through it all. Its just too many people intend to live the American pipe dream; to make it being in the capitalist heart land of the world but more often get hit by the realities of the Welfare capitalist economy that they live in. Factory workers are great ... they hardly ever save any money they blow it all away... in booze, food, mortgage. the service industry workers are even better they talk the talk ... but can hardly get anywhere close to walking the walk.
And with all those war monging inbred plaid clad bible thumping red necks, taking advantage of every immigrant that sets foot on the land, with all those political hang ups, socio-economic hiccups. What's it going to take to tear down these walls of mistrust... These walls of hatred .. these walls of racial prejudices, of religious hegimony, of social inequalities...
maybe a whole lotta love...
If that's not what outsourcing is what is?
Outsourcing: Manufacturers cutting corners by exploiting workers on some other corner of the globe today for their own personal profits, reducing productions costs.
I thought that was what Imperialist conquests were all about. I thought those days were over. I thought the world was a better place today in comparison to the world described in my dilapidated old history books. I guess I was wrong to come oot of those classrooms feeling it was a better place we lived in today.
Its just too many people dont care to see through it all. Its just too many people intend to live the American pipe dream; to make it being in the capitalist heart land of the world but more often get hit by the realities of the Welfare capitalist economy that they live in. Factory workers are great ... they hardly ever save any money they blow it all away... in booze, food, mortgage. the service industry workers are even better they talk the talk ... but can hardly get anywhere close to walking the walk.
And with all those war monging inbred plaid clad bible thumping red necks, taking advantage of every immigrant that sets foot on the land, with all those political hang ups, socio-economic hiccups. What's it going to take to tear down these walls of mistrust... These walls of hatred .. these walls of racial prejudices, of religious hegimony, of social inequalities...
maybe a whole lotta love...
Tuesday, November 22, 2005
Why do Engineering Students Whine So Much ?
If there is a singular commonality in every technology course taught through out the Engineering College system it's this un-deviated classroom style from the following pattern:
1) Greet class.
2) Ask if there were any questions about the previous day's problem set.
3) If so, work out the problem in question on the chalkboard, without further explanation.
4) Repeat step 3) as needed.
5) Announce the pages in the textbook from which the next problem set would be derived.
6) Perform a sample problem from the new problem set.
7) Ask if anyone has any questions.
8) Give the problem set assignment.
9) Dismiss the class.
Going through the above described scenario for the past couple of semesters I have begun to feel like I am on a Star Trek episode. "Captain, I think I understand… these creatures communicate through multivariable calculus problems!"
Through the course of all the harried teaching I saw and experienced that took place there would be the rare occasion where actually the occasional concept would be explained. But for most of the time it's a Whine and Cheese affair. These complaints that I speak of, well are they really serious or are they more of a routine need to vent, that's for you to decide...
"If you get a 60% below on ANY quiz," You would get the "YOU ARE NOT STUDYING HARD ENOUGH." remarks. I have wondered what would happen if you got a 30% on a quiz. Were you branded forever? Expelled? Excommunicated?
The social-life-killing workload is the stuff geeky nerd humor among the 3rd year technology students is comprised of. Often heard slogans include, “Sleep is for the weak!" & "Your underwear has two sides."
First-Year students rarely pose questions that challenge teachers enough. They bail out before they get a chance to learn to think. I don’t blame them; instructors need to re-evaluate how they are teaching students because the stress is showing in students today. Somebody's got to have a look at their blended families, their IM hot wired SNAFU life styles. Students today are consumers and technology education must change to meet that reality.
Health Sciences & Business have changed the way they work with students, using problem based approaches, putting students into small groups where they have to decide what they need to know and how they should solve a problem. That’s the way technology works in the real world, but the college system has been slow to embrace these strategies probably because they require a lot of skill on the part of faculty.
Compose in your mind a montage of quizzes covered in red ink, classes wasted in the stupor of incomprehension, and frowning instructors muttering strange spells in their eerie scientific jargon. And as time passes there grows a void between you and the instructor that seems increasingly unbridgeable as the days go by.
The Technology streams regularly get good students and if they are not successful, it can’t be entirely their fault. It might just be that faculty have to move out of “we’ve covered it; it’s done” operating model to a “knowing how it is that students actually learn their technology courses approach.” I guess it’s time for the college to tell faculty members that they need training in speech.
I honestly believe there are a finite number of smart people who enroll into Mohawk College's Technology Programs who chose this as a viable career option. But if we are to live up to the provincial need for technically qualified people of a certain stature it's high time we find a way to retain students smart enough to do the math and motivated enough to at least take a bite at the technology apple, but who are turned off by the overwhelming coursework, low grades, and abysmal teaching.
Find a way to teach engineering technology to verbally oriented students who can't learn math by sense of smell. Demand from (and give to) students an actual mastery of the material, rather than relying on bogus on-the-curve pseudo-grades that hinge upon the amount of credit a fatigued instructor wants to dole out. Use textbooks that are more than just glorified problem set manuals. Give grades that will make engineering technology graduates get to be competitive in a grade-inflated environment.
None of these things will happen, of course. Our professors are perfectly happy weeding out undesirables with absurd boot-camp courses that conceal the inability of said professors to communicate with words. Fewer students will pursue engineering technology majors, and Canada will grow ever more reliant upon foreign brainpower to design our scientific and manufacturing endeavors.
1) Greet class.
2) Ask if there were any questions about the previous day's problem set.
3) If so, work out the problem in question on the chalkboard, without further explanation.
4) Repeat step 3) as needed.
5) Announce the pages in the textbook from which the next problem set would be derived.
6) Perform a sample problem from the new problem set.
7) Ask if anyone has any questions.
8) Give the problem set assignment.
9) Dismiss the class.
Going through the above described scenario for the past couple of semesters I have begun to feel like I am on a Star Trek episode. "Captain, I think I understand… these creatures communicate through multivariable calculus problems!"
Through the course of all the harried teaching I saw and experienced that took place there would be the rare occasion where actually the occasional concept would be explained. But for most of the time it's a Whine and Cheese affair. These complaints that I speak of, well are they really serious or are they more of a routine need to vent, that's for you to decide...
"If you get a 60% below on ANY quiz," You would get the "YOU ARE NOT STUDYING HARD ENOUGH." remarks. I have wondered what would happen if you got a 30% on a quiz. Were you branded forever? Expelled? Excommunicated?
The social-life-killing workload is the stuff geeky nerd humor among the 3rd year technology students is comprised of. Often heard slogans include, “Sleep is for the weak!" & "Your underwear has two sides."
First-Year students rarely pose questions that challenge teachers enough. They bail out before they get a chance to learn to think. I don’t blame them; instructors need to re-evaluate how they are teaching students because the stress is showing in students today. Somebody's got to have a look at their blended families, their IM hot wired SNAFU life styles. Students today are consumers and technology education must change to meet that reality.
Health Sciences & Business have changed the way they work with students, using problem based approaches, putting students into small groups where they have to decide what they need to know and how they should solve a problem. That’s the way technology works in the real world, but the college system has been slow to embrace these strategies probably because they require a lot of skill on the part of faculty.
Compose in your mind a montage of quizzes covered in red ink, classes wasted in the stupor of incomprehension, and frowning instructors muttering strange spells in their eerie scientific jargon. And as time passes there grows a void between you and the instructor that seems increasingly unbridgeable as the days go by.
The Technology streams regularly get good students and if they are not successful, it can’t be entirely their fault. It might just be that faculty have to move out of “we’ve covered it; it’s done” operating model to a “knowing how it is that students actually learn their technology courses approach.” I guess it’s time for the college to tell faculty members that they need training in speech.
I honestly believe there are a finite number of smart people who enroll into Mohawk College's Technology Programs who chose this as a viable career option. But if we are to live up to the provincial need for technically qualified people of a certain stature it's high time we find a way to retain students smart enough to do the math and motivated enough to at least take a bite at the technology apple, but who are turned off by the overwhelming coursework, low grades, and abysmal teaching.
Find a way to teach engineering technology to verbally oriented students who can't learn math by sense of smell. Demand from (and give to) students an actual mastery of the material, rather than relying on bogus on-the-curve pseudo-grades that hinge upon the amount of credit a fatigued instructor wants to dole out. Use textbooks that are more than just glorified problem set manuals. Give grades that will make engineering technology graduates get to be competitive in a grade-inflated environment.
None of these things will happen, of course. Our professors are perfectly happy weeding out undesirables with absurd boot-camp courses that conceal the inability of said professors to communicate with words. Fewer students will pursue engineering technology majors, and Canada will grow ever more reliant upon foreign brainpower to design our scientific and manufacturing endeavors.
Friday, October 28, 2005
The Revenge of the von Trapp Family
When I think about revenge, I think about The Sound of Music. After everything the Nazis put that plucky von Trapp family through, they all end up on the top of that mountain, singing, with Julie Andrews spinning around them like a deranged wind-up toy. They seem utterly at peace. What a perfect final image, as they climb up from the valley of their former lives, perching for a moment on the high border between the past and future before they descend into their new home.
WARNING: I haven't actually seen The Sound of Music in years, and I hardly paid attention to it anyway because I thought it was a girls' movie and I was mad because we had to watch it instead of the show about hyenas.
But think about how bitter the von Trapps must have felt about leaving their home behind, in the hands of the Nazis, even if it was to go to a new, safer place. Their relief at being liberated from their oppressors probably kept them from thinking too much about revenge for at least a few months. Eventually, their human desire for Justice must have reared its head. Captain von Trapp would heave the ax fiercely into the firewood and asked himself how anyone could get away with all that Evil, and why God was showing no sign striking back and reasserting the superior power of Good.
Sure, the Nuremberg trials provided the von Trapps and the rest of us w ith the sense that there was at least a measure of Justice in the world. But as they grew numb and familiar to their new homes, the von Trapps lay in their beds and considered that the overwhelming majority of shitty human behavior goes completely unpunished. Everybody noticed that Julie Andrews didn't lead the family in musical rounds the way she used to. Her and the Captain began to feel secretly, shamefully repulsed by each other, and tried frantically to hide their flagging desires. And that little kid stopped doing that really cute thing he kept doing in the movie. That thing about milking cows or buffing his lederhosen or something.
The valley where they now lived, that had seemed so fresh and alive with promise when they saw it from the mountaintop, was growing cramped, as if squeezing and contracting to expel them. Or possibly, their need for revenge was growing so large that nothing could contain it. That girl who was in love with the Nazi boy began a series of sexual relationships with obnoxious, grabby boys who could never help her reconstruct her shattered belief in the existence of love. When at last she befriended a young man who treated her with respect, Julie Andrews finally broke her heart by seducing him on the family's clavichord. Discovering Julie Andrews helping the gawky, virginal boy to undo her underthings, the Captain flew into a rage and fetched the ax. Everyone in the von Trapp's adopted town was treated to the shameful sight of the tearful and naked young man, running from the enraged Captain, with his still-erect penis bobbing frantically before him.
Another member of the traumatized von Trapp clan took out his pent-up anger by laying out poison for small farm animals. The Captain caught him hiding in the bushes beside a neighbor's field, watching the baby goats go wobbly-legged and collapse into tiny heaving mounds moments after eating the snacks he had left for them. The Captain beat him soundly, venting his helpless fury at the dawning realization that his family was disintegrating around him and he could do nothing to save them. He had led them here to safety, and yet they were each somehow still trapped in the merciless grip of a brutal regime.
WARNING: In the interests of avoiding legal action, this would be an appropriate time to point out that as plausible as this scenario may sound, I made it up.
Every day, millions of men, women, and children beg their gods for Justice, for some small redress of their grievances, and get the cold shoulder in return. To them, the line between Justice and revenge becomes as insignificant as the lines on a sidewalk. When you were a kid, you taunted yourself with the idea that stepping on that line would break your mother's back. You still half-believed in the cosmic consequences of even the most insignificant act. Now that you're older and acquainted with injustice, you walk unafraid over the lines and toward wherever you're headed.
WARNING: I haven't actually seen The Sound of Music in years, and I hardly paid attention to it anyway because I thought it was a girls' movie and I was mad because we had to watch it instead of the show about hyenas.
But think about how bitter the von Trapps must have felt about leaving their home behind, in the hands of the Nazis, even if it was to go to a new, safer place. Their relief at being liberated from their oppressors probably kept them from thinking too much about revenge for at least a few months. Eventually, their human desire for Justice must have reared its head. Captain von Trapp would heave the ax fiercely into the firewood and asked himself how anyone could get away with all that Evil, and why God was showing no sign striking back and reasserting the superior power of Good.
Sure, the Nuremberg trials provided the von Trapps and the rest of us w ith the sense that there was at least a measure of Justice in the world. But as they grew numb and familiar to their new homes, the von Trapps lay in their beds and considered that the overwhelming majority of shitty human behavior goes completely unpunished. Everybody noticed that Julie Andrews didn't lead the family in musical rounds the way she used to. Her and the Captain began to feel secretly, shamefully repulsed by each other, and tried frantically to hide their flagging desires. And that little kid stopped doing that really cute thing he kept doing in the movie. That thing about milking cows or buffing his lederhosen or something.
The valley where they now lived, that had seemed so fresh and alive with promise when they saw it from the mountaintop, was growing cramped, as if squeezing and contracting to expel them. Or possibly, their need for revenge was growing so large that nothing could contain it. That girl who was in love with the Nazi boy began a series of sexual relationships with obnoxious, grabby boys who could never help her reconstruct her shattered belief in the existence of love. When at last she befriended a young man who treated her with respect, Julie Andrews finally broke her heart by seducing him on the family's clavichord. Discovering Julie Andrews helping the gawky, virginal boy to undo her underthings, the Captain flew into a rage and fetched the ax. Everyone in the von Trapp's adopted town was treated to the shameful sight of the tearful and naked young man, running from the enraged Captain, with his still-erect penis bobbing frantically before him.
Another member of the traumatized von Trapp clan took out his pent-up anger by laying out poison for small farm animals. The Captain caught him hiding in the bushes beside a neighbor's field, watching the baby goats go wobbly-legged and collapse into tiny heaving mounds moments after eating the snacks he had left for them. The Captain beat him soundly, venting his helpless fury at the dawning realization that his family was disintegrating around him and he could do nothing to save them. He had led them here to safety, and yet they were each somehow still trapped in the merciless grip of a brutal regime.
WARNING: In the interests of avoiding legal action, this would be an appropriate time to point out that as plausible as this scenario may sound, I made it up.
Every day, millions of men, women, and children beg their gods for Justice, for some small redress of their grievances, and get the cold shoulder in return. To them, the line between Justice and revenge becomes as insignificant as the lines on a sidewalk. When you were a kid, you taunted yourself with the idea that stepping on that line would break your mother's back. You still half-believed in the cosmic consequences of even the most insignificant act. Now that you're older and acquainted with injustice, you walk unafraid over the lines and toward wherever you're headed.
Friday, October 21, 2005
Fear & Loathing in Professional College
What is the freshman experience? If we follow that question seriously it will lead us past the zone of academic bullshit, where dedicated teachers pass their knowledge on to a new generation, and into the nitty-gritty of human needs and hang-ups.
First, let's see what's happening now. Let's look at the role students play in what we like to call education. College is where we let the dying society inject its venom into us. They exploit and enslave students, they petrify society and they make democracy unlikely. And it's not what we are taught that does the harm but instead how we are taught.
College freshmen are pushed around, their will is stolen, they are turned into timid square apathetic slaves --authority addicts. A student is expected to know his place. The faculty tells us what courses to take, what to read, what to write, and frequently, where to set the margins on his word processed document. They tell us what's true and what isn't. Some teachers insist that they encourage dissent but they're almost always just teasing and every student knows it.
In fact, for the freshman student, it doesn't make that much difference which program you're in. The real lesson is the method. The medium in college truly is the message. And the medium is, above all, coercive. You're forced to attend. The subjects are required. You have to do homework. You must observe college rules. And throughout, you're bullied into docility and submissiveness. They may pad the handcuffs--but the handcuffs stay on.
It's how you're taught that does the harm. You may only study geometry for a semester-- or Calculus for two years. But doing what you're told, whether or not it makes sense, is a lesson you get every blessed school day for twelve years or more. You know how malleable we humans are. And you know what good learners we are--how little time it takes us to learn to drive a car or a plane or to play passable guitar. So imagine what the effect must be upon our apt and impressionable minds of a twelve-year course in servility.
Twelve years pitted against your classmates in a daily Roman circus. The game is Doing What You're Told. The winners get gold stars, affection & envy. They get A's, honours, awards and college scholarships. The losers get humiliation and degradation. The fear of losing the game is a great fear: it's the fear of swats, of the principal's office, and above all the fear of failing. What if you fail and have to watch your friends move past you to glory? And, of course, the worst could happen: you could be expelled. Not very many kids get swats or fail or are expelled. But it doesn't take many for the message to be heard. These few heavy losers are like severed heads displayed at the city gates to keep the populace in line.
The unwritten law of the land when it comes to instructors is: Tell the man what he wants to hear or he'll fail your ass out of the course! When a teacher says "jump", students jump. Even more discouraging than this master-slave approach to education is the fact that the students take it. They haven't gone through twelve years of schooling for no reason. They've learned one thing and perhaps only one thing during those twelve years. They've forgotten their algebra. They've grown to fear and resent literature. They write like they've been lobotomized. But, Wow, can they follow orders!
Students don't ask that the orders they are given make sense. They've given up expecting things to make sense long before they leave elementary school. Things are true because the teacher says they're true. Your english teacher tells you a noun is a person, place or thing. So let it be. The important thing is to please her. Back in kindergarten, you found out teachers only love children who’d stand in nice straight lines. And that's where it's been at ever since.
What could possibly explain what we see in a freshman class? Is it a slave mentality? We are obliging on the surface but hostile and resistant underneath. Students vary in their awareness of what's going on. Some recognize their own put-on for what it is worth and even let their rebellion break through to the surface now and then. Others -- including most of the "good students" -- have been more deeply brainwashed. They swallow the crap with greedy mouths. They honest-to-God believe in grades, in busy work, in General Education requirements.
College entrance requirements tend to screen out the rebels. Not entirely, of course. Some students are expert con artists who know perfectly well what's happening. They want the diploma and spend their years in the penitentiary alternately laughing and cursing as they play the game. If their egos are strong enough, they cheat a lot. And, of course, even when they are angry down deep somewhere, it comes out in passive rather than active aggression. Frequent spells of laziness makes them misread simple questions. They spend their night mechanically outlining and highlighting chapters while meticulously failing to comprehend a single word of what's in front of them.
My question here would be; Why does the medium of education affect the freshmen so deeply while its purported content--the subject matter--so often slips their minds? I believe this is partly because the content varies from year to year while the form remains more or less the same. But also, the form--a structure of rules, punishments, rewards--affects us directly in a real way, while the subject matter may have no such immediate grasp on our lives. After all, don't we tend to learn best what matters most? Under a coercive system it isn't really the subject that matters. What matters is pleasing the authorities. These two are far from being one in the same.
Finally, there's the darkest reason of all for the master-slave approach to education. For one thing, damn little education takes place in colleges. How could it? You can't educate slaves, you can only train them. Or, to use an even uglier and more timely word, you can only program them.
Students don't get emancipated when they graduate. As a matter of fact, we don't let them graduate until they've demonstrated their willingness -- over 16 years -- to remain slaves. And for important jobs, like teaching, we make them go through more years just to make sure.
Educational oppression is trickier to fight than any other form of oppression. If you're a terrorist, they can't exile you. They either have to intimidate you or kill you. But in high school or college they can just bounce you out of the fold. And they do. Rebel students and renegade faculty members get smothered or shot down with devastating accuracy. Others get tired of fighting and voluntarily leave the system.
Students have immense unused power. They could, theoretically, insist on participating in their own education. They could make academic freedom bilateral. They could teach their teachers to thrive on love and admiration, rather than fear and respect, and to lay down their weapons. Students could discover community. And they could learn to dance by dancing on the scantron cards. They could raze one set of walls and let life come blowing into the classroom. They could raze another set of walls and let education flow out and flood the streets. They could turn the classroom into where it's at -- a field of action. And believe it or not, they could study eagerly and learn prodigiously for the best of all possible reasons -- their own reasons.
They could, Theoretically. They have the power. If history has taught us one thing, for students, as for any oppressed group of people, the hardest battle isn't with the enemy, It's with what enemy has done to your mind
First, let's see what's happening now. Let's look at the role students play in what we like to call education. College is where we let the dying society inject its venom into us. They exploit and enslave students, they petrify society and they make democracy unlikely. And it's not what we are taught that does the harm but instead how we are taught.
College freshmen are pushed around, their will is stolen, they are turned into timid square apathetic slaves --authority addicts. A student is expected to know his place. The faculty tells us what courses to take, what to read, what to write, and frequently, where to set the margins on his word processed document. They tell us what's true and what isn't. Some teachers insist that they encourage dissent but they're almost always just teasing and every student knows it.
In fact, for the freshman student, it doesn't make that much difference which program you're in. The real lesson is the method. The medium in college truly is the message. And the medium is, above all, coercive. You're forced to attend. The subjects are required. You have to do homework. You must observe college rules. And throughout, you're bullied into docility and submissiveness. They may pad the handcuffs--but the handcuffs stay on.
It's how you're taught that does the harm. You may only study geometry for a semester-- or Calculus for two years. But doing what you're told, whether or not it makes sense, is a lesson you get every blessed school day for twelve years or more. You know how malleable we humans are. And you know what good learners we are--how little time it takes us to learn to drive a car or a plane or to play passable guitar. So imagine what the effect must be upon our apt and impressionable minds of a twelve-year course in servility.
Twelve years pitted against your classmates in a daily Roman circus. The game is Doing What You're Told. The winners get gold stars, affection & envy. They get A's, honours, awards and college scholarships. The losers get humiliation and degradation. The fear of losing the game is a great fear: it's the fear of swats, of the principal's office, and above all the fear of failing. What if you fail and have to watch your friends move past you to glory? And, of course, the worst could happen: you could be expelled. Not very many kids get swats or fail or are expelled. But it doesn't take many for the message to be heard. These few heavy losers are like severed heads displayed at the city gates to keep the populace in line.
The unwritten law of the land when it comes to instructors is: Tell the man what he wants to hear or he'll fail your ass out of the course! When a teacher says "jump", students jump. Even more discouraging than this master-slave approach to education is the fact that the students take it. They haven't gone through twelve years of schooling for no reason. They've learned one thing and perhaps only one thing during those twelve years. They've forgotten their algebra. They've grown to fear and resent literature. They write like they've been lobotomized. But, Wow, can they follow orders!
Students don't ask that the orders they are given make sense. They've given up expecting things to make sense long before they leave elementary school. Things are true because the teacher says they're true. Your english teacher tells you a noun is a person, place or thing. So let it be. The important thing is to please her. Back in kindergarten, you found out teachers only love children who’d stand in nice straight lines. And that's where it's been at ever since.
What could possibly explain what we see in a freshman class? Is it a slave mentality? We are obliging on the surface but hostile and resistant underneath. Students vary in their awareness of what's going on. Some recognize their own put-on for what it is worth and even let their rebellion break through to the surface now and then. Others -- including most of the "good students" -- have been more deeply brainwashed. They swallow the crap with greedy mouths. They honest-to-God believe in grades, in busy work, in General Education requirements.
College entrance requirements tend to screen out the rebels. Not entirely, of course. Some students are expert con artists who know perfectly well what's happening. They want the diploma and spend their years in the penitentiary alternately laughing and cursing as they play the game. If their egos are strong enough, they cheat a lot. And, of course, even when they are angry down deep somewhere, it comes out in passive rather than active aggression. Frequent spells of laziness makes them misread simple questions. They spend their night mechanically outlining and highlighting chapters while meticulously failing to comprehend a single word of what's in front of them.
My question here would be; Why does the medium of education affect the freshmen so deeply while its purported content--the subject matter--so often slips their minds? I believe this is partly because the content varies from year to year while the form remains more or less the same. But also, the form--a structure of rules, punishments, rewards--affects us directly in a real way, while the subject matter may have no such immediate grasp on our lives. After all, don't we tend to learn best what matters most? Under a coercive system it isn't really the subject that matters. What matters is pleasing the authorities. These two are far from being one in the same.
Finally, there's the darkest reason of all for the master-slave approach to education. For one thing, damn little education takes place in colleges. How could it? You can't educate slaves, you can only train them. Or, to use an even uglier and more timely word, you can only program them.
Students don't get emancipated when they graduate. As a matter of fact, we don't let them graduate until they've demonstrated their willingness -- over 16 years -- to remain slaves. And for important jobs, like teaching, we make them go through more years just to make sure.
Educational oppression is trickier to fight than any other form of oppression. If you're a terrorist, they can't exile you. They either have to intimidate you or kill you. But in high school or college they can just bounce you out of the fold. And they do. Rebel students and renegade faculty members get smothered or shot down with devastating accuracy. Others get tired of fighting and voluntarily leave the system.
Students have immense unused power. They could, theoretically, insist on participating in their own education. They could make academic freedom bilateral. They could teach their teachers to thrive on love and admiration, rather than fear and respect, and to lay down their weapons. Students could discover community. And they could learn to dance by dancing on the scantron cards. They could raze one set of walls and let life come blowing into the classroom. They could raze another set of walls and let education flow out and flood the streets. They could turn the classroom into where it's at -- a field of action. And believe it or not, they could study eagerly and learn prodigiously for the best of all possible reasons -- their own reasons.
They could, Theoretically. They have the power. If history has taught us one thing, for students, as for any oppressed group of people, the hardest battle isn't with the enemy, It's with what enemy has done to your mind
Tuesday, October 04, 2005
Schrodinger's Solipsistic Student
Concerts tend to bring out the best in musical performers. For some reason uncomprehendible to the most of us, there is sense of connection that you can feel at a really charged up concert. We barely get a glimpse of it and never truely last in that euphoric moment forever.
In a classroom, we're neither looking for a concert like experience, nor are we want a Seinfeld-esque personality.
When I walk into that class room, what I'm secretly hoping for is somebody who can engages the intellect of the class, making them feel good they're alive. Yet there have been several an occasion, you are made to feel like yet another formless boring data dump by someone who not only hasn’t figured out how to connect with the class, he hasn’t even realized he needs to.
Students have accepted the fact of the matter that most of their teachers simply launch into their own work as if
• they have read and thoroughly assimilated all previous work in the field;
• they can absorb, in real time, all of the material about to be verbally inflicted on them; and
• they can accurately extract all the important conclusions from this spiel with little or no help from the teacher.
It takes quite a bit of effort to stay awake at the best of times to figure out the context, if not surmise that deep down within somewhere hidden away is a logical flow of ideas.
The greatest trick Microsoft ever pulled was convincing the world that PowerPoint was not Evil. "Bullet Oriented" visual aids establish a military relationship between the student and the instructor. Powerpoint has this way of efficiently bulldozing subtlety replacing it with ambiguous phrases and lowering the student's IQ by 20 points.
Very soon one finds the presentation has taken on a rather gonzo element. Moderately promising data morphs itself into chartjunk poking it's finger into the eye of thought.
Well how did these visual aids that were supposed to get the main points across maintaining a logical flow of ideas come to the point of driving students up the wall. Powerpoint allows speakers to pretend that they are giving a real talk, and audiences to pretend that they are really listening.
When the time comes to open your text books to page N, and it's kind of like story time but when the contents of the book are read aloud to the entire class, and you get this eerie feeling you know less about the subject that when he started reading trust me it's bad.
This is when it comes to mind, hey if JFK had powerpoint would he have been a better speaker. Would "I have a dream" sounded any better if we saw it with some animation....
Is it too much to walk into a lecture hall and find someone who's
• Kind without being a pushover
• Knowledgeable without being condescending
• Clearly expressive without being boring
In a classroom, we're neither looking for a concert like experience, nor are we want a Seinfeld-esque personality.
When I walk into that class room, what I'm secretly hoping for is somebody who can engages the intellect of the class, making them feel good they're alive. Yet there have been several an occasion, you are made to feel like yet another formless boring data dump by someone who not only hasn’t figured out how to connect with the class, he hasn’t even realized he needs to.
Students have accepted the fact of the matter that most of their teachers simply launch into their own work as if
• they have read and thoroughly assimilated all previous work in the field;
• they can absorb, in real time, all of the material about to be verbally inflicted on them; and
• they can accurately extract all the important conclusions from this spiel with little or no help from the teacher.
It takes quite a bit of effort to stay awake at the best of times to figure out the context, if not surmise that deep down within somewhere hidden away is a logical flow of ideas.
The greatest trick Microsoft ever pulled was convincing the world that PowerPoint was not Evil. "Bullet Oriented" visual aids establish a military relationship between the student and the instructor. Powerpoint has this way of efficiently bulldozing subtlety replacing it with ambiguous phrases and lowering the student's IQ by 20 points.
Very soon one finds the presentation has taken on a rather gonzo element. Moderately promising data morphs itself into chartjunk poking it's finger into the eye of thought.
Well how did these visual aids that were supposed to get the main points across maintaining a logical flow of ideas come to the point of driving students up the wall. Powerpoint allows speakers to pretend that they are giving a real talk, and audiences to pretend that they are really listening.
When the time comes to open your text books to page N, and it's kind of like story time but when the contents of the book are read aloud to the entire class, and you get this eerie feeling you know less about the subject that when he started reading trust me it's bad.
This is when it comes to mind, hey if JFK had powerpoint would he have been a better speaker. Would "I have a dream" sounded any better if we saw it with some animation....
Is it too much to walk into a lecture hall and find someone who's
• Kind without being a pushover
• Knowledgeable without being condescending
• Clearly expressive without being boring
Thursday, September 15, 2005
Freaky-No-Mix: A Rogue Explores The Hidden Side of Almost Something
The following document is thanks to Freakonomics... If there's one thing I detest it's having to create the same kinda stuff over and over again.. I can relate to God .. i mean he did the original patented creation himself and left man with the pleasurable unoriginal procreation mass manufacturing part..
Well back to my original idea of righting the write stuff.. [sic] well this book got me thinking .. it rekindled my thought process and shed new light on already existing preconcieved notions about life in general... it was actually the very first time i read a piece of non-fiction and said to myself ... this guy better come out with his sequel pretty quick...
as for the piece of literature i intend to write... compared to the original book this is going to be a joke of an effort .. but hey it's just me flexing my grey cells ...
ahem.. ahem... testing grey matter ...well let's wind the clocks back to the year 1991... the year the narishimha rao congress I regime came ot power in india... manmohan singh opened the floodgates to international inverstors and the trade markets openned up... we in india saw a huge influx of trade and commerce... the harshad mehta stock market incident ... the Rajan Pillai East-West Airlines scandal; i mean the lil factoids you can gather from the era are gigantormous...But let's just stray away from all that and have a look at something totally irrelevent ...
The year is 1995 and both Aishwarya Rai and Sushmitha Sen won the respective beauty contests that they participated in ... .My pondering in this case is ...what did these women have that their predecessors didnt have.. was it that in the couple of years [91-95] they were able to acquire int'l beauty consultants and we adopted a new strategy in training these girls .... or were their vested interest in choosing these women to be winners in the contest...
Let's speak in numbers ... a country of nearly a billion people ... half of them, are women let's say... and half of em are in the 18-35 age bracket... and half of em are urbanites ... and half of em are in the economic bracket to take full advantage of this economic boom that we have spoken of...
In this case study, when there is a new born market of customers and in india's case such a large majority of people with purchasing power .. in the cummulative numbers have made up for what japan and the US do in pure GDP.. so we have this market place with people ready to buy and markets openning up every day.. so what do the marketters need to do mass promote their goods ...and what better way than to do so other than with the media ..
back to the beauty market ... 1995 ... india has posted it's flag in the international beauty market ... guys are oggling ... girls are getting self concsious ... u have awakenned a slumberring marketting .. and guess what those baby boomers did for us .. they left us with a massive number of urbanite hip youngsters who are soaking up this phenomenon right before your eyes...
within the next 5 years we will have seen lara dutta, priyanka chopra and a lot more of those chicks walking down those ramps and and fluttering feathers as they walk by....
"Femina Miss India" has a category for Miss Perfect Left Butt Cheek and Miss Most Moist G spot...
the market has soaked up this phenomenon and if there's one thing that Newton got right when that freaking apple smashed his skull in was "momentum" ... and with the beauty product growing every minute ... somebody did something right...
well.. the chain of thought has been broken thanks to a lunch break never the less that isnt a problem with our predicament ... well we have figured out that there were ulterior motives behind all those beauty queens being pumped out of india.. i mean think about it ... up until the 90s the world didnt give two shits about the kind of beaty that Indian women had.. and now all of a sudden...OHHH... AHH... they are exotic beauties .. my ass... the capitalist the wolrd over just saw
they could naw their way into ur pockets ...
now let's stray away from that chain of thought and look at the socio-political aspect of it .. let's just say that these girls of the 90s were concieved in the 70s... so that makes the parents those bell bottom flower power folks who were smoking pot and listening to some really cool music .... so what abt those ppl... did they send these girls to the right school ... give em some kinda sensibility that wasnt around earlier... did they take them to the right movies... the right fairs... the right family events ...
Let's have a look at their biology ... were they the product of the green revolutions bio-engineered milk and wheat..or were they picky eaters as kids ... did they opt out of certain kinds of foods .. what kind of foods didd they totally avoid.. what was their exercise routine like as kids ... were they bullied by the boys in school .. or were they used to being oggled at all thru school...
Now how about have a look at really miscellanous aspects: Were they the first borns, where they born in the same kinda of astrological/astronomical star alignments ... did they have pets ? Did they mastrubate regularly? how about sexual escapades... were the involved in lesbian trysts ???
Enough said, There's a lot more I'd like to look into... Cricket Players, the Hawala Scam, The amount of Gulfees, The Mallu brain drain phenomenon...
Well back to my original idea of righting the write stuff.. [sic] well this book got me thinking .. it rekindled my thought process and shed new light on already existing preconcieved notions about life in general... it was actually the very first time i read a piece of non-fiction and said to myself ... this guy better come out with his sequel pretty quick...
as for the piece of literature i intend to write... compared to the original book this is going to be a joke of an effort .. but hey it's just me flexing my grey cells ...
ahem.. ahem... testing grey matter ...well let's wind the clocks back to the year 1991... the year the narishimha rao congress I regime came ot power in india... manmohan singh opened the floodgates to international inverstors and the trade markets openned up... we in india saw a huge influx of trade and commerce... the harshad mehta stock market incident ... the Rajan Pillai East-West Airlines scandal; i mean the lil factoids you can gather from the era are gigantormous...But let's just stray away from all that and have a look at something totally irrelevent ...
The year is 1995 and both Aishwarya Rai and Sushmitha Sen won the respective beauty contests that they participated in ... .My pondering in this case is ...what did these women have that their predecessors didnt have.. was it that in the couple of years [91-95] they were able to acquire int'l beauty consultants and we adopted a new strategy in training these girls .... or were their vested interest in choosing these women to be winners in the contest...
Let's speak in numbers ... a country of nearly a billion people ... half of them, are women let's say... and half of em are in the 18-35 age bracket... and half of em are urbanites ... and half of em are in the economic bracket to take full advantage of this economic boom that we have spoken of...
In this case study, when there is a new born market of customers and in india's case such a large majority of people with purchasing power .. in the cummulative numbers have made up for what japan and the US do in pure GDP.. so we have this market place with people ready to buy and markets openning up every day.. so what do the marketters need to do mass promote their goods ...and what better way than to do so other than with the media ..
back to the beauty market ... 1995 ... india has posted it's flag in the international beauty market ... guys are oggling ... girls are getting self concsious ... u have awakenned a slumberring marketting .. and guess what those baby boomers did for us .. they left us with a massive number of urbanite hip youngsters who are soaking up this phenomenon right before your eyes...
within the next 5 years we will have seen lara dutta, priyanka chopra and a lot more of those chicks walking down those ramps and and fluttering feathers as they walk by....
"Femina Miss India" has a category for Miss Perfect Left Butt Cheek and Miss Most Moist G spot...
the market has soaked up this phenomenon and if there's one thing that Newton got right when that freaking apple smashed his skull in was "momentum" ... and with the beauty product growing every minute ... somebody did something right...
well.. the chain of thought has been broken thanks to a lunch break never the less that isnt a problem with our predicament ... well we have figured out that there were ulterior motives behind all those beauty queens being pumped out of india.. i mean think about it ... up until the 90s the world didnt give two shits about the kind of beaty that Indian women had.. and now all of a sudden...OHHH... AHH... they are exotic beauties .. my ass... the capitalist the wolrd over just saw
they could naw their way into ur pockets ...
now let's stray away from that chain of thought and look at the socio-political aspect of it .. let's just say that these girls of the 90s were concieved in the 70s... so that makes the parents those bell bottom flower power folks who were smoking pot and listening to some really cool music .... so what abt those ppl... did they send these girls to the right school ... give em some kinda sensibility that wasnt around earlier... did they take them to the right movies... the right fairs... the right family events ...
Let's have a look at their biology ... were they the product of the green revolutions bio-engineered milk and wheat..or were they picky eaters as kids ... did they opt out of certain kinds of foods .. what kind of foods didd they totally avoid.. what was their exercise routine like as kids ... were they bullied by the boys in school .. or were they used to being oggled at all thru school...
Now how about have a look at really miscellanous aspects: Were they the first borns, where they born in the same kinda of astrological/astronomical star alignments ... did they have pets ? Did they mastrubate regularly? how about sexual escapades... were the involved in lesbian trysts ???
Enough said, There's a lot more I'd like to look into... Cricket Players, the Hawala Scam, The amount of Gulfees, The Mallu brain drain phenomenon...
Monday, September 05, 2005
Partir, c'est mourir un peu
The first time I tried writing a love letter for myself [I'd mastered the art, and authored several a letter for a fair price in alcoholic beverages by the time...]; it never got sent to the girl... Instead I modified it and included parts of it in a Kalari article [Kairali's in-house mag]...
" I do not know for what deed of mine in my last life I have been rewarded with so many laurels, of which having the good fortune to be acquainted with you becomes the icing on the cake. At times I feel that you are not just human but rather an angel sent from above, perhaps an incarnation of some divine godly form, let's put it as the God of small things, blessed with these gifts which you bestow upon me as I arrive.
The small things that you do that makes me happy in not just small measures but very large heaps. The little parties you throw, the little songs you sing, the little dances you perform, the little advices you give, the little games we play, the little chats we have. The little things that make this life a little, no, a lot worth living.
If I compare each person I have met in this miniscule lifetime of mine to a star, I would call you a shooting star. Few and far between do you come by to emblazon me with your celestial presence. You were not there when just a few stars inhabited my skies, and will not be there when my skies are to be peopled by so many. But when you are around, you just light up my sky, you make all the stars just stop and look on at you.
When I'm with you I feel I'm dancing with the angels in the sky, I see snowfall in the summertime, feel the healing powers of the one above, see the world from the highest mountain, taste love from the purest fountain. With you I saw the sun make love to the sea. You lift me up when I'm feeling low, I see my tears disappear, and I feel my pain pass away. You do the things I've never done; I've sailed in a perfect dream but still haven't seen anything that amazes me quite like you do. "
Today after all these years I'm still being asked to write ... I couldn't help but look back ...
" I do not know for what deed of mine in my last life I have been rewarded with so many laurels, of which having the good fortune to be acquainted with you becomes the icing on the cake. At times I feel that you are not just human but rather an angel sent from above, perhaps an incarnation of some divine godly form, let's put it as the God of small things, blessed with these gifts which you bestow upon me as I arrive.
The small things that you do that makes me happy in not just small measures but very large heaps. The little parties you throw, the little songs you sing, the little dances you perform, the little advices you give, the little games we play, the little chats we have. The little things that make this life a little, no, a lot worth living.
If I compare each person I have met in this miniscule lifetime of mine to a star, I would call you a shooting star. Few and far between do you come by to emblazon me with your celestial presence. You were not there when just a few stars inhabited my skies, and will not be there when my skies are to be peopled by so many. But when you are around, you just light up my sky, you make all the stars just stop and look on at you.
When I'm with you I feel I'm dancing with the angels in the sky, I see snowfall in the summertime, feel the healing powers of the one above, see the world from the highest mountain, taste love from the purest fountain. With you I saw the sun make love to the sea. You lift me up when I'm feeling low, I see my tears disappear, and I feel my pain pass away. You do the things I've never done; I've sailed in a perfect dream but still haven't seen anything that amazes me quite like you do. "
Today after all these years I'm still being asked to write ... I couldn't help but look back ...
Friday, August 26, 2005
Les Indespensables De Arun Jacob
I have come to accept the true penetration of confusion, Confusion that dwells within.. Confusion that finds place within the deepest darkest corners of the human psyche.. One that resides amoung th e loftiest of you and me...
Confusion, the horror of this pain it brings, a pains that stings... a stinging we dwell on ... we accept because a narcisstic streak within us calls for this paiin to keep on inflicting it self upon us... the claves knaw into us sucking the life force of our very existance away from us... but there isnt a fear in our minds which ios a vacous entity now for fear and confusion have taken hostage of what used to be afeasible thinking faculty now home to this weird sensation that we have come to hate but havent had the courage to uproot from within...
So who feeds this demon that grows and gathers allies and gets stronger with each passing day ... the priests within have lost their pwoers to conduct the required ceremonies of exorcism which might have been the last hope of rekindling the past .. but we have come to terms that the past will never be back ..and this wild being that has taken control of the realms of the mind, we have to accomodate this being..for it holds divine powers .. the likes of which we have never seen before.. an entity that gains strength in a given instant... a whiff of the slightest fragrance, a bright color ..a melodious tune...this enemy is turning out way too strong for mere mortals to combat...rather it would be better to ally ourselves with this embodiment of all things undescribable
where is this fear coming from ... is it a generalized fear of all things alien and new ... am i afraid of this new entity that i havent been able to figure out yet... is it my ego that cant handle the fact that this might be it's waterloo... this might be an enemy i cant subdue ... who am i dealing with... and why is it that as much i want kill this nemesis .. i'dn't mind dying in his arms ...
how much pain and suffering must one amass, be inflicted upon before one finds the courage to stand up before this fiend or is he/she a friend..
Why do you do this to me 'Love'?
Confusion, the horror of this pain it brings, a pains that stings... a stinging we dwell on ... we accept because a narcisstic streak within us calls for this paiin to keep on inflicting it self upon us... the claves knaw into us sucking the life force of our very existance away from us... but there isnt a fear in our minds which ios a vacous entity now for fear and confusion have taken hostage of what used to be afeasible thinking faculty now home to this weird sensation that we have come to hate but havent had the courage to uproot from within...
So who feeds this demon that grows and gathers allies and gets stronger with each passing day ... the priests within have lost their pwoers to conduct the required ceremonies of exorcism which might have been the last hope of rekindling the past .. but we have come to terms that the past will never be back ..and this wild being that has taken control of the realms of the mind, we have to accomodate this being..for it holds divine powers .. the likes of which we have never seen before.. an entity that gains strength in a given instant... a whiff of the slightest fragrance, a bright color ..a melodious tune...this enemy is turning out way too strong for mere mortals to combat...rather it would be better to ally ourselves with this embodiment of all things undescribable
where is this fear coming from ... is it a generalized fear of all things alien and new ... am i afraid of this new entity that i havent been able to figure out yet... is it my ego that cant handle the fact that this might be it's waterloo... this might be an enemy i cant subdue ... who am i dealing with... and why is it that as much i want kill this nemesis .. i'dn't mind dying in his arms ...
how much pain and suffering must one amass, be inflicted upon before one finds the courage to stand up before this fiend or is he/she a friend..
Why do you do this to me 'Love'?
Thursday, August 25, 2005
KUNDI-MAN [PBUH; place bum upon him]
I take great pride in posting this piece here... My hearty congrats to the author for the first episode of the Kundiman Project :"Kundiman Begins"...This happens in a galaxy far far away...and has been happening for way to long ..
KUNDIMAN’S LIFESTORY
BAD BUT GOOD DAY
One day there was a boy named Jamie. He loved cycling. He used to go to school on his cycle everyday. One day he saw the three meanest bully’s of the school. Andy, Axel & Joe. They saw him & came towards him. He wanted to escape but he couldn’t go away because he was already late for school and there was no place to hide. By This time they had already reached him. “Watcha doing wimp” asked Ax. He didn’t answer. He tried to ignore them & started walking when Andy blocked him. “Wait there Jam I have a little present for you on Christmas”. Jamie replied “I know that your gift will be stupid you jerk”. Andy got angry. “I know how to take care of this problem”. He pushed Jamie right into puddle of mud & they went away laughing. Ax said “Take this as your X’mas gift wimp”. He was covered with mud. He was so angry. How could he go to school like this? He thought. He ran fast & reached the school gate. He went right in & reached his class right on time. He got into his class without looking at anyone. His teacher Mrs.Pimpleweed saw him & asked him “Where were you Jamie?” He replied “I got bullied on the way” She thought for a while. Then she said “That’s not my problem, it is your responsibility to look after yourself.” “That’s detention for you.” Some children started giggling. It was not his fault he got bullied he thought. After a horrible day of school he had to go to detention & the worst part was he had to stay at school with the teacher watching his every move. He never knew how detention was as it was his first time and he really did hate cuz Andy, Axel & Joe were there too. He tried to think of an excuse to get out of there. The only thing he could think of was the toilet. He asked her “Madam, may I go to the toilet” asking it in a very kind manner to make sure she would fall for the trick. “Well…………ok.” in a rather annoying way. “But I’m warning you if you don’t come back in 10 minutes you will get detention for the rest of the week.” Detention for the rest of the week! That would be the worst thing that could happen. He came out of the room quite disappointed. His plan had worked at the same time failed. Anyway now that there was no use trying to escape detention he thought there was no use but to go to the toilet cuz he felt like going to the toilet now. He liked almost all the superheroes and sat shiting on “thee seat” and thinking how life would be if he was a superhero. He was so much into it that he forgot the time fly by. He quickly got up (after cleaning his butt) and went to wash his hands. Just when he was going to leave he remembered to flush (which usually happens to me) and then something very strange happened right out the “thee seat”.
KUNDIMAN’S LIFESTORY
BAD BUT GOOD DAY
One day there was a boy named Jamie. He loved cycling. He used to go to school on his cycle everyday. One day he saw the three meanest bully’s of the school. Andy, Axel & Joe. They saw him & came towards him. He wanted to escape but he couldn’t go away because he was already late for school and there was no place to hide. By This time they had already reached him. “Watcha doing wimp” asked Ax. He didn’t answer. He tried to ignore them & started walking when Andy blocked him. “Wait there Jam I have a little present for you on Christmas”. Jamie replied “I know that your gift will be stupid you jerk”. Andy got angry. “I know how to take care of this problem”. He pushed Jamie right into puddle of mud & they went away laughing. Ax said “Take this as your X’mas gift wimp”. He was covered with mud. He was so angry. How could he go to school like this? He thought. He ran fast & reached the school gate. He went right in & reached his class right on time. He got into his class without looking at anyone. His teacher Mrs.Pimpleweed saw him & asked him “Where were you Jamie?” He replied “I got bullied on the way” She thought for a while. Then she said “That’s not my problem, it is your responsibility to look after yourself.” “That’s detention for you.” Some children started giggling. It was not his fault he got bullied he thought. After a horrible day of school he had to go to detention & the worst part was he had to stay at school with the teacher watching his every move. He never knew how detention was as it was his first time and he really did hate cuz Andy, Axel & Joe were there too. He tried to think of an excuse to get out of there. The only thing he could think of was the toilet. He asked her “Madam, may I go to the toilet” asking it in a very kind manner to make sure she would fall for the trick. “Well…………ok.” in a rather annoying way. “But I’m warning you if you don’t come back in 10 minutes you will get detention for the rest of the week.” Detention for the rest of the week! That would be the worst thing that could happen. He came out of the room quite disappointed. His plan had worked at the same time failed. Anyway now that there was no use trying to escape detention he thought there was no use but to go to the toilet cuz he felt like going to the toilet now. He liked almost all the superheroes and sat shiting on “thee seat” and thinking how life would be if he was a superhero. He was so much into it that he forgot the time fly by. He quickly got up (after cleaning his butt) and went to wash his hands. Just when he was going to leave he remembered to flush (which usually happens to me) and then something very strange happened right out the “thee seat”.
Friday, August 19, 2005
I'm the Demon Seed, Satisfaction Guaranteed
The kinda ecstatcy one kinda develops is pretty enormous ..when it's a personal victory... of the sorts i might try to explain .. but i'd rather not ... coz it's the best possible i can rollick in laughter... the pure pleasure of the sinister minds...i get it now..have u ever noticed there are some conversations u wanna go over... coz they are like chess games... u wanna study the moves.. coz that's how they were executed....
The sheer brilliance of certains acts are best left unadmired by the general and admired by the creator and an elite few... coz vanity is the underlying theme behind it ... I can relate to Dr. Frankenstein... I can relate to Dr.Jekyl ... the virtuosity of this creation of yours isnt for the world to find flaw in ...rather for u to cherish vanquish and encapsulate into a moment ... that can be replayed ...where u can bask in the glory of...
What am I talking abt ? does it matter.... well i guess it does.. the premise is non-possessive intimacy... and how a certain somebody was trying to comprehend it..well... finding something out that you already knew ... is kinda like finding something else right... that too..
I had set out to say way too many things ... but i'm yet to find the perfect platform to latch onto ... falling flat and doing something without conviction isnt what i'm up for tonight... this will have to do..
I Love You...[couldn't come up with a better closing line...]
The sheer brilliance of certains acts are best left unadmired by the general and admired by the creator and an elite few... coz vanity is the underlying theme behind it ... I can relate to Dr. Frankenstein... I can relate to Dr.Jekyl ... the virtuosity of this creation of yours isnt for the world to find flaw in ...rather for u to cherish vanquish and encapsulate into a moment ... that can be replayed ...where u can bask in the glory of...
What am I talking abt ? does it matter.... well i guess it does.. the premise is non-possessive intimacy... and how a certain somebody was trying to comprehend it..well... finding something out that you already knew ... is kinda like finding something else right... that too..
I had set out to say way too many things ... but i'm yet to find the perfect platform to latch onto ... falling flat and doing something without conviction isnt what i'm up for tonight... this will have to do..
I Love You...[couldn't come up with a better closing line...]
Thursday, August 11, 2005
Nagumomo
Why have I engaged in a sabbatical... Well the answer would be rather plain and simple... There's this polish proverb I heard recently that makes absolute sense... "You know what they say about families; they look best in portraits" Truly I say onto you ... there are times I question myself ...is it rage sympathy or a bit of both that runs through me ... How irrational people tend to be can sometimes be bewildering... i almost endangered the delicate balance of coexistance on this planet ..while trying to divulge in the inner depths of rationality... a man on a mission is a rather dangerous proposition ... and ppl try to feel your integrity to succumb to their fancies... well emotional battering is another forte one has to flex your muscles in ...this incoherent piece of literature is a creation or loads of confusion empathy pity anger and rage.... if only i could channel it somewhere else and get something out of it .... as for now folks .... bah... who and what am i trying to console..... well... gimme a lil more while ...i'll sort this out ....
Friday, July 22, 2005
R-COONa
RIF - "Reich Center for Industrial Fat Provisioning" ("Reichsstelle für Industrielle Fettversorgung")
RJF - "Pure Jewish Fat" ("Rein jüdisches Fett")
A source of major controversy, I don't wish to to type out the details of the acronyms mentioned above.
The War of 1857 - Cow Fat used in lubricating, loading the cartridges of rifles used by the Hindu Soldiers.
Fight Club - Tyler Durden, manages to acquire fat from liposuction clinics, to use in his soap factory.
What I would like to share with you, is look at the manipulation technics employed in wartime Germany to instill fear among the victims and sicken them at the time.
And how the same technic was used by the war mongers against the British to disgustipate the mercenary that fought under the union jack.
Why did I include Fight Club on the list, just a tangent of thought. Did Chuck Palahniuk employ this literary device to disgust you at face value. Or were there deeper connotations?
RJF - "Pure Jewish Fat" ("Rein jüdisches Fett")
A source of major controversy, I don't wish to to type out the details of the acronyms mentioned above.
The War of 1857 - Cow Fat used in lubricating, loading the cartridges of rifles used by the Hindu Soldiers.
Fight Club - Tyler Durden, manages to acquire fat from liposuction clinics, to use in his soap factory.
What I would like to share with you, is look at the manipulation technics employed in wartime Germany to instill fear among the victims and sicken them at the time.
And how the same technic was used by the war mongers against the British to disgustipate the mercenary that fought under the union jack.
Why did I include Fight Club on the list, just a tangent of thought. Did Chuck Palahniuk employ this literary device to disgust you at face value. Or were there deeper connotations?
Monday, July 11, 2005
September 13th, 1752
There is this distinctive element of pleasure that is to be derived from orchestrating an event. To have mastered the whole situation and all the variables that is to be an encountered in the system. It's quite invariably pleasurable to master this artform.
Through history myth and legend alike have amassed, plundered and pilaged through with knowledge of this artform; the Chankya Sutra, The Art of War, The whole Shakuni escapade, we have Shikhandi as the front man in the fight against Bhishma. Through every mythology, you find this elite event coordinator.
Now the beauty of this individual is how well laid out thought out are his/her operations. And it is in the occurence of the event itself that they take pride in and not the egoistic pleasure of having to be accountable to it. I'm sure the ppl behind JFK's assasination would grail. The folks who got the Bush elections to be a success will agree.
The people who control what happens in front of you, where the average joe blow is quite unaware of the calculations that took place to make it happen. that is sheer brilliance... War monging soldiers well never know the intricate delicacies that espionage can serve.
Through history myth and legend alike have amassed, plundered and pilaged through with knowledge of this artform; the Chankya Sutra, The Art of War, The whole Shakuni escapade, we have Shikhandi as the front man in the fight against Bhishma. Through every mythology, you find this elite event coordinator.
Now the beauty of this individual is how well laid out thought out are his/her operations. And it is in the occurence of the event itself that they take pride in and not the egoistic pleasure of having to be accountable to it. I'm sure the ppl behind JFK's assasination would grail. The folks who got the Bush elections to be a success will agree.
The people who control what happens in front of you, where the average joe blow is quite unaware of the calculations that took place to make it happen. that is sheer brilliance... War monging soldiers well never know the intricate delicacies that espionage can serve.
Sunday, July 03, 2005
Vera... Vera... What Has Become Of You?
Isnt It Ironic?
Shankar Mahadevan; trained to be computer engineer...turned out to be a singer....
Arundhathi Roy; qualified to be an architect ... ...Booker prize in her first book....
Manoj Night Shyamalan; his folks insisted he be doctor ... but he preferred his 8mm camera instead...
do u see a common streak, ppl or is it just me... what's the deal... hey folks ... so he/she aint a doctor or enggr... doesnt look like their lives went down the drain now did it? so why dont u give em a chance...
"the narrow domestic walls" are yet to meet the fate of their Berlin counterparts...
so what is the root cause of this social dilemma as i'd like to call it now.. is it the insecurity faced by a generation ..and that is being superimposed on this new generation to circumvent the anger and frustration that generation had to face as they realized a non-technical education has it's limitations in the social strata... and is this so called higher education a ticket to all of life's pleasures and are these ppl truly trying to elevate their social status by thrusting upon their children the divinity of these professions..
so does one's profession define who u r ... or was it that worldly pleasures that can be assured the vortex of this school of thought... would they turn around to call the younger generation ungrateful for they never made them have to suffer the sufferings that were forced upon them... the shame anger and frustration of an entire genreation is that what this spew of doctors and engineers are supposed to mean...
but wait a minute.... how abt the flipside of the coin ... the anguish, the retribution, the sheer anonymity of a human life form ... pushing me to exist for the sake of fulfilling your dreams and not mine... what abt my dreams what abt what i want to become .. what abt the little castles i have .. what abt them... am i just ur demon seed for not obeying ...am i to scummb to ur desires or be forsaken for an eternity... do i not get a chance to do what i want to do... why do u create this barrier... and route all communication thru this one channel... why does every conversation we have always have to be about how much i have upset u .. abt how much i never lived up to ur aspirations .. why is it never a positive note... why is never abt what i have attained... why does every conversation we have turn into a confrontation ... is this so called generation gap that u speak off.. actually ur not willing to accept the truth ...ur utopian fantasies being fulfilled is what my life is supposed to be to u....isnt it... u want tobe a ventriliquist forever... dont u ... with ur hands shoved up my arse .... making me say and do what u want me to ...
let's cut it the strings ...it's abt time...
PS. Nikhil Chinappa; engg college drop out ... MTV India Veejay... has a pet goldfish named karup kundi
Shankar Mahadevan; trained to be computer engineer...turned out to be a singer....
Arundhathi Roy; qualified to be an architect ... ...Booker prize in her first book....
Manoj Night Shyamalan; his folks insisted he be doctor ... but he preferred his 8mm camera instead...
do u see a common streak, ppl or is it just me... what's the deal... hey folks ... so he/she aint a doctor or enggr... doesnt look like their lives went down the drain now did it? so why dont u give em a chance...
"the narrow domestic walls" are yet to meet the fate of their Berlin counterparts...
so what is the root cause of this social dilemma as i'd like to call it now.. is it the insecurity faced by a generation ..and that is being superimposed on this new generation to circumvent the anger and frustration that generation had to face as they realized a non-technical education has it's limitations in the social strata... and is this so called higher education a ticket to all of life's pleasures and are these ppl truly trying to elevate their social status by thrusting upon their children the divinity of these professions..
so does one's profession define who u r ... or was it that worldly pleasures that can be assured the vortex of this school of thought... would they turn around to call the younger generation ungrateful for they never made them have to suffer the sufferings that were forced upon them... the shame anger and frustration of an entire genreation is that what this spew of doctors and engineers are supposed to mean...
but wait a minute.... how abt the flipside of the coin ... the anguish, the retribution, the sheer anonymity of a human life form ... pushing me to exist for the sake of fulfilling your dreams and not mine... what abt my dreams what abt what i want to become .. what abt the little castles i have .. what abt them... am i just ur demon seed for not obeying ...am i to scummb to ur desires or be forsaken for an eternity... do i not get a chance to do what i want to do... why do u create this barrier... and route all communication thru this one channel... why does every conversation we have always have to be about how much i have upset u .. abt how much i never lived up to ur aspirations .. why is it never a positive note... why is never abt what i have attained... why does every conversation we have turn into a confrontation ... is this so called generation gap that u speak off.. actually ur not willing to accept the truth ...ur utopian fantasies being fulfilled is what my life is supposed to be to u....isnt it... u want tobe a ventriliquist forever... dont u ... with ur hands shoved up my arse .... making me say and do what u want me to ...
let's cut it the strings ...it's abt time...
PS. Nikhil Chinappa; engg college drop out ... MTV India Veejay... has a pet goldfish named karup kundi
Saturday, July 02, 2005
Being dIsS_FuNk_sHuN-aLi ImPeRfeCt
a slump is the last thing we should get our selves into .. coz the thing with inertia is .. u tend to make ur selfcomfortable doing what u do.. and if u r rdiing high on the go get em tiger attitude and u get a break... better plan to have the day filled with break neck speed activities coz otherwise ...it can be a shocker... how udr body and mind just shuts down on u ... experience has told me time and again not to do this ... but never do i learn ...
so here u have it ladies and gentlemen in a dire effort to try to cook up something worth while to read or write for that matter i figured randomly punching out my thought s on the key board should account for some form of the creative thought process to crank out a viable form of literature little did i know i was to find my self rotting away at the inside of creative thought centre.. better yet looks like microsoft has taken over...and cnn is covering it on prime time tv... hbo has te movie rights for the tv production wait, wb just heard abt it .. and they wanna turn it into a major motion picture.....yess... who are they going to cast s arun's lost creative epicenter is the question that media moghuls have to anticaipate... i've heard it's a new face but with the mgm take over by sony ...even they dont want to try a new face with bond... hummm so since tom hanks is playing robert langdon and pierce brosnan is playing bond ..who does play me.... i havent the clue ... but wait i hear the exective producer talking abt the apt female to play his better half... ah... see now i knew it was getting to inetersting ...so i perk up my ears and evesdrop into their conversation as to who they have instore to play my better half...
exec#1; "look ... the guy's love life is an absolute enigma... do we really know what he wants and what he's looking forward to ... i mean he could be an ed gein or ted bundy in the making for all i care ...."
exec#2: "no.. the freaking mad erratic behaviour andthe total unpredicatbility i say we can get away with something bigger better... look liz hurley and brendan frasier .. we pulled that of right... and liz wouldnt mind after all her hubby's name's the same one he's got right..."
exec#3: "i dont know guys ... maybe we'll haveto take the iamsam look at things .. i dont know it's mt personal take on it ..."
exec#4: "guy's the bruised emmigrant the perfect tony montana angle i tell u michelle's too old to play it off let's get that keira chick... i kinda got the hots for her..."
exec#5: "personally i think we can give it a good company spin off, and get that scarlett johnason chick on board i think she's got the potential to pull it off"
exec#6: "wait a sec... u think we can sell an ashton kutcher off with this guy... i like it .. if we get working on it fast enough we can get amanda peet on board and make it bigger than a lot like love "
exec#7: "u guys can freaking talk abt who u wann cast till the cows come home .. but i'm telling u it's all abt the product placements... and as long as i see his face in burger king meals and ppl are singing the title track to the soundtrack and music inspired from ... i'm good or i'll make it my life's personal karmic duty to flush down each of ur testicles downt he drain"
that kinda brought a pregnant silence in the room .. which wasw followed by more discussion of the plot line of my life... if these werethe guys in charge of my life... lemme tell u they had no clue what they were doing... and before i barged into a columbine moment ... i made an exit stage left...
so here u have it ladies and gentlemen in a dire effort to try to cook up something worth while to read or write for that matter i figured randomly punching out my thought s on the key board should account for some form of the creative thought process to crank out a viable form of literature little did i know i was to find my self rotting away at the inside of creative thought centre.. better yet looks like microsoft has taken over...and cnn is covering it on prime time tv... hbo has te movie rights for the tv production wait, wb just heard abt it .. and they wanna turn it into a major motion picture.....yess... who are they going to cast s arun's lost creative epicenter is the question that media moghuls have to anticaipate... i've heard it's a new face but with the mgm take over by sony ...even they dont want to try a new face with bond... hummm so since tom hanks is playing robert langdon and pierce brosnan is playing bond ..who does play me.... i havent the clue ... but wait i hear the exective producer talking abt the apt female to play his better half... ah... see now i knew it was getting to inetersting ...so i perk up my ears and evesdrop into their conversation as to who they have instore to play my better half...
exec#1; "look ... the guy's love life is an absolute enigma... do we really know what he wants and what he's looking forward to ... i mean he could be an ed gein or ted bundy in the making for all i care ...."
exec#2: "no.. the freaking mad erratic behaviour andthe total unpredicatbility i say we can get away with something bigger better... look liz hurley and brendan frasier .. we pulled that of right... and liz wouldnt mind after all her hubby's name's the same one he's got right..."
exec#3: "i dont know guys ... maybe we'll haveto take the iamsam look at things .. i dont know it's mt personal take on it ..."
exec#4: "guy's the bruised emmigrant the perfect tony montana angle i tell u michelle's too old to play it off let's get that keira chick... i kinda got the hots for her..."
exec#5: "personally i think we can give it a good company spin off, and get that scarlett johnason chick on board i think she's got the potential to pull it off"
exec#6: "wait a sec... u think we can sell an ashton kutcher off with this guy... i like it .. if we get working on it fast enough we can get amanda peet on board and make it bigger than a lot like love "
exec#7: "u guys can freaking talk abt who u wann cast till the cows come home .. but i'm telling u it's all abt the product placements... and as long as i see his face in burger king meals and ppl are singing the title track to the soundtrack and music inspired from ... i'm good or i'll make it my life's personal karmic duty to flush down each of ur testicles downt he drain"
that kinda brought a pregnant silence in the room .. which wasw followed by more discussion of the plot line of my life... if these werethe guys in charge of my life... lemme tell u they had no clue what they were doing... and before i barged into a columbine moment ... i made an exit stage left...
Monday, June 27, 2005
I am Payable On Death
Dear Readers,
[The following message contains encoded details to an unearthing in the north american continent in the Golden Horse Shoe region; if the message has been deciphered, your are adviced to leave your reply to state your hypothesis as to what the message may have to offer, This applies only till the end of the month]
The brust of extra terrestrial dust that burst forth from the trans galactic pod was not short of breath taking... it shot off at unbelievable speed of close to 60km/sec.... the massive amount of details that was was being emanated from the space craft was absolutely astounding... 65,536 residents of the area came out to see this blitzreig of color... the detailed body work of the craft itself left close to 15000 people perpetually dazed and confused... it was when the telekinetic energy emanated highly dense thermodynamic impulses thru a media much hotter than the average blue flame of fire we get to see on the planet ... what came to happen after that a true display of Sonar power..the gushing sound of audio waves from 20Hz to 20kHz left people amazed ... the dazzling performances ranged for close to 15 hours...
[The following message contains encoded details to an unearthing in the north american continent in the Golden Horse Shoe region; if the message has been deciphered, your are adviced to leave your reply to state your hypothesis as to what the message may have to offer, This applies only till the end of the month]
The brust of extra terrestrial dust that burst forth from the trans galactic pod was not short of breath taking... it shot off at unbelievable speed of close to 60km/sec.... the massive amount of details that was was being emanated from the space craft was absolutely astounding... 65,536 residents of the area came out to see this blitzreig of color... the detailed body work of the craft itself left close to 15000 people perpetually dazed and confused... it was when the telekinetic energy emanated highly dense thermodynamic impulses thru a media much hotter than the average blue flame of fire we get to see on the planet ... what came to happen after that a true display of Sonar power..the gushing sound of audio waves from 20Hz to 20kHz left people amazed ... the dazzling performances ranged for close to 15 hours...
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