What would you stand up for?

Thats a rhetorical question that most people would ask themselves atleast once in their life. This question is given the utmost consideration, when the decision affects a lot of people or the society in general. But in most real life mundane situations nobody even spares a thought. Is there a double standard in standing up for your principles? Do you only stand up for it when it will make people look up to you? Or would you stand up when most would call it frivolous ?

From experience I have found that it is easier to stand up in the open than behind closed doors among friends and family. Am I the only one?

Strange bedfellows

Its an often quoted phrase when it comes to politics, but I think its money more than politics that brings stranger bedfellows together. The above picture is a prime example. ICD is the catholic Church in my area and as you can see they are having their picnic sponsored by a beer company. This would be termed as sacrilege where I come from

Odyssey - Book 2 - Chapter iv - the South African

Why the South African?? My friend Kyle (who got married over the weekend to my friend Shannon) is from SA .. duh! Anyhoo, a long trip after a long time, added another 2000 miles to my car and met a lot of old friends and generally had a blast.

The trip was primarily to attend my friend's wedding at Tallahassee turned into a sort of whirlwind visiting trip.

It's almost like everybody one day decided that they got to get married this year and add on the peer pressure for happy single people like me! This is the fifth wedding in ninth months for me and there are four more that I am going to this year. You would think that my friends would be gracious enough to find me somebody at all these weddings, but no such luck ... haha ... I think I need to stop making my mom jump with all these statements!

The first leg of the journey to Tallahassee was a stop at Atlanta to meet Katie and her family. They were gracious enough to play host to me ... and you guys know how finicky I am. It is always a pleasure to have a good well informed political banter with them, everytime I meet them.

Day two of my trip saw me in Tally at Koshy annan's place and having dinner at two different places, I cannot be responsible if they decided to have a Indian birthday party when I am there. Dinner with old friends is always good, and trust me I spoke more than I ate for once!

Day three and it was time to take a trip down memory lane around FSU, meet more friends for breakfast and lunch and make a trip to Perry. Starbucks has arrived in Tally and looks like it's got the town hooked on to its brand of opium.

Trips to Perry are always wonderful and this time was no different either. What with Whit getting her Chudi and Mrs. Owens getting a crash course on Indian weddings and customs from me. Ofcourse it was heavily dosed with my prejudice. Also on the agenda was what Indian dress I should wear to Meagan's wedding. It was also time for me to claim my Christmas cake and cookies from Whit ... six months after the event and as expected I wasn't complaining about it. Give me a sec let me grab another piece of that cake, oh did I mention it is delicious??

No trip to Tally would be complete without me visiting Stetsons and showing the kids how it was down. This time it was Whitney's initiation into line dancing at Stetsons, and my perennial dance partner Amy didn't let me down. I might have put on thirty pounds from the last time I did it but my legs didn't give up. It was no time before they knew who owned the dance floor!(down boy!) The line dancing with a small dose of karaoke is definitely my drug. I stayed till the end and helped them close the place at 2:30.

Saturday was the big day and it was wonderful wedding, maybe a tad hot, a mixture of American and south African customs under huge trees. Followed by a huge feast and more dancing. I also learnt the lesson on why not to wear a woolen shirt in 90+F weather. Next time I pack for such a trip, I am going to make sure I don't forget my suit!

Sunday was more laid back and lots of food. It was aunty's birthday and visit to Olive Garden. The trip to snookerd with Koshy and Adriaan was the last thing I did before trying to forget how much more fun Tally is than O'Fallon!

The trip back was 845 miles in 12 hours straight with just two pit stops. Also learned to eat Briyani while driving ... a very important survival skill!

The Pictures are here under two different folders. http://public.fotki.com/falcus007/

The triumph of democracy

I don't know how many of you followed the Moussaoui trial, for the uninformed, he was only 9/11 conspirer that was caught. He has been sentenced to life in prisonment without the chance for parole.

If this had been a theocracy, he would have been publicly hung or if this had been a authoritarian* regime he would have been in the line of a firing squad. I can't be glad enough that I live in a democracy. I know enough paper and webspace have been spent on all the taunts of Moussaoui during before and after the trial, but that only speaks of his ideology not ours. I think in this era of cynical extremism, this was a much needed short in the arm for democracy. Want to be informed check this out.

*Bush Bashers (I am on the fence), this is still a democracy as much as you would want to believe otherwise. The fact that you are not in jail is the clinching evidence.

How the prince found his prince

Soon that's what the kids in America are going to learn. A school district in Boston has issued gay themed story books to kids in second grade. The school district says its not done anything illegal by doing. I am glad I got to read about Cinderella and snow white and rapunzel and thumbalina, and not about how the prince kissed the frog and got himself a prince. The very thought .... yikes!

This phenomenon could be explained by certain asinine actions like the catholic school in Wisconsin who fired a teacher for using in vitro fertilization. People who preach about Jesus don't even know what Jesus would do. I guess this action can be blamed on the church's long held opposition to condom and other forms of birth control. They don't have to care because all the kids that the fathers need are probably safe (That was meant to be below the belt) .

Odyssey - Book 2 - Chapter iii - The Doughnut

I can change my car's tire now! All because of flat tire on the way to Dayton for Ravi's graduation. Which brings us to the word Doughnut... no not the edible one ... the one that is tire but not a tire. And because of this tire (which is not a tire) the maximum speed I could go was 55 MPH and the normally 5.5 hour drive (At my speeds!!) took more than 10 hours.

Other than the sleep driving and having even ancient cars overtake you, driving at such a low speed on the interstate was not bad. I only had to break twice on the way back and that helped almost double my mileage to 37 mpg (Normal being 21/22 mpg).

This year my car has eaten up a lot of money!! And now it threatens to take some more.

Anyhoo this was a straight up trip other than the small incident of a flat tire ... and maybe also for the fact that the flat tire was caused by a wood long on the middle off the road. I got of easy with having only one wheel broken while a beamer (BMW) had two of its front wheels blown up by it. So much for American roads! And what is this with restaurants in the middle of nowhere not accepting credit cards. This is America how can you not accept cards ... there needs to be a law against it (among other things) and I think Bush is the right person to do it!

Violence - The cowards last stand

Another day another bombing in Iraq, in Kashmir ... another massacre in Sudan, in Congo. The list seems to be endless, and mostly against the innocent. In the fight between the various factions in different parts of the world, its the bystanders that are bearing the brunt of the violence.

The latest massacre in Kashmir of 19 Hindu villagers by some Pakistan supported terrorists, only goes to show what kind of cowards these people are. They believe their strength comes from holding the gun, what they don't realise is that violence only begets more violence.

I have an issue with people who seem to think that violence is the only way to a revolution... Free India is a anti-example to it. The freedom fighters didn't have to resort to killing innocent civilians to attain freedom.

The Jihadis in Iraq claim they are fighting for the people ... by killing their own people. Its the same in Sudan and Chad and many other parts of the world. That's why I call them cowards, because without their arms they are nothing, they have no moral standing worth a crap!

I am not here to make vain rhetoric ... the solution? Is for normal people like you and me to take a stand without fear of consequences. Enough of our half hearted attempts to speak up, its now or this will never end!

As any big event this has to start with the individual, in our own lives when we decide to give in to the hate and prejudice of our forefathers but look to the future with hope; when we decide that we will suffer other's prejudices and not offer them our own!

American "Geography"

I finally have proof for what I already knew, the war in Iraq is not helping increase American's geographical knowledge! According to latest studies two thirds of Americans in the 18 to 24 age group still cannot pinpoint Iraq. Worse one third don't even know where Louisiana is.

Its not even funny when almost don't even know where New York or Ohio was. My grandma would know that, inspite of the fact that she has never been to the US of A. The only 'positive note' of the study was that 70% of the respondents could pin point China. 33% also thought that the US-Mexico border was the most fortified in the world ... helloo... shut down that reality show and watch some news for a change.

On a more 'serious' note, a 104 year old lady just married a 33 year old man as her 21st husband in Indonesia. Some people never learn!

"War is God's way of teaching Americans geography"
-Ambrose Bierce

P.S: We just proved that wrong!

The electoral farce

It's an age ol' ploy employed my politicians everywhere, dole out ill-founded largesee at election time with no forethought about how it would be implemented or what the repurcussions would be.

The elections in my state of tamil nadu is a case in point. The main opposition party promised rice for 2rupees(4 cents)/Kilogram and a free colour TV. The rice I can understand but the colour TV??? How stupid do the politicians think the people are. The ruling party who made fun of it for a few days came back with one of their own: 10 kilograms of free rice to each person, in addition to this the various parties have also promised gold jewelary and marriage expenses ... to add insult to injury this list of absurdities is the main election plank of these parties!

I know we Indian's are proud of being the biggest working democracy on earth ... but one can only wonder what the real meaning of 'working' is!

"Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way into the dreary desert sand of dead habit; ... Into that heaven of freedom, my Father, let my country awake."