The following are actual statements found on insurance forms where car drivers attempted to summarize the details of an accident in the fewest words possible. The instances of faulty writing serve to confirm that even incompetent writing may be highly entertaining!
Coming home I drove into the wrong house and collided with a tree I didn't have.
The other car collided with mine without giving warning of it's intentions.
I thought my window was down, but I found out it was up when I put my head through it.
I collided with a stationary truck coming the other way.
A truck backed through my windshield into my wife's face.
A pedestrian hit me and went under my car.
The guy was all over the road. I had to swerve a number of times before I hit him.
I pulled away from the side of the road, glanced at my mother-in-law and headed over the embankment.
In an attempt to kill a fly, I drove into a telephone pole.
I had been shopping for plants all day and was on my way home. As I reached an intersection, a hedge sprang up, obscuring my vision and I did not see the other car.
I had been driving for 40 years when I fell asleep at the wheel and had an accident.
I was on my way to the doctor with rear end trouble when my universal joint gave way causing me to have an accident.
As I approached the intersection a sign suddenly appeared in a place where no stop sign had ever appeared before. I was unable to stop in time to avoid the accident.
To avoid hitting the bumper of the car in front, I struck the pedestrian.
My car was legally parked as it backed into the other vehicle.
An invisible car came out of nowhere, struck my car and vanished.
I told the police that I was not injured but on removing my hat, found that I had fractured my skull.
I was sure the old fellow would never make it to the other side of the road when I struck him.
The pedestrian had no idea which direction to run, so I ran over him.
I saw a slow moving, sad faced old gentleman as he bounced off the roof of my car.
The indirect cause of the accident was a little guy in a small car with a big mouth.
I was thrown from my car as it left the road. I was later found in a ditch by some stray cows.
The telephone pole was approaching, I was attempting to swerve out of it's way when it struck the front end.
Friday, September 30, 2005
Excuses
Excuse me
The following is a collection of "actual excuse notes from parents (including spelling)" from the Office of Educational Assessment at the University of Washington.
My son is under a doctor's care and should not take P.E. today. Please execute him.
Please excuse Lisa for being absent. She was sick and I had her shot.
Dear School: Please ekscuse John being absent on Jan. 28, 29, 30, 31,32, and also 33.
Please excuse Gloria from Jim today. She is administrating.
Please excuse Roland from P.E. for a few days. Yesterday he fell out of a tree and misplaced his hip.
John has been absent because he had two teeth taken out of his face.
Carlos was absent yesterday because he was playing football. He was hurt in the growing part.
Megan could not come to school today because she has been bothered by very close veins.
Please excuse Ray Friday from school. He has very loose vowels.
Please excuse Tommy for being absent yesterday. He had diarrhea and his boots leak.
Irving was absent yesterday because he missed his bust.
Please excuse Jimmy for being. It was his father's fault.
Please excuse Jennifer for missing school yesterday. We forgot to get the Sunday paper off the porch, and when we found it Monday, we thought it was Sunday.
Sally won't be in school a week from Friday. We have to attend her funeral.
My daughter was absent yesterday because she was tired. She spent a weekend with the Marines.
Please excuse Jason for being absent yesterday. He had a cold and could not breed well.
Please excuse Mary for being absent yesterday. She was in bed with gramps.
Gloria was absent yesterday as she was having a gangover.
Please excuse Burma, she has been sick and under the doctor.
Maryann was absent December 11-16, because she had a fever, sore throat, headache and upset stomach. Her sister was also sick, fever and sore throat, her brother had a low grade fever and ached all over. I wasn't the best either, sore throat and fever. There must be something going around, her father even got hot last night.
The following is a collection of "actual excuse notes from parents (including spelling)" from the Office of Educational Assessment at the University of Washington.
My son is under a doctor's care and should not take P.E. today. Please execute him.
Please excuse Lisa for being absent. She was sick and I had her shot.
Dear School: Please ekscuse John being absent on Jan. 28, 29, 30, 31,32, and also 33.
Please excuse Gloria from Jim today. She is administrating.
Please excuse Roland from P.E. for a few days. Yesterday he fell out of a tree and misplaced his hip.
John has been absent because he had two teeth taken out of his face.
Carlos was absent yesterday because he was playing football. He was hurt in the growing part.
Megan could not come to school today because she has been bothered by very close veins.
Please excuse Ray Friday from school. He has very loose vowels.
Please excuse Tommy for being absent yesterday. He had diarrhea and his boots leak.
Irving was absent yesterday because he missed his bust.
Please excuse Jimmy for being. It was his father's fault.
Please excuse Jennifer for missing school yesterday. We forgot to get the Sunday paper off the porch, and when we found it Monday, we thought it was Sunday.
Sally won't be in school a week from Friday. We have to attend her funeral.
My daughter was absent yesterday because she was tired. She spent a weekend with the Marines.
Please excuse Jason for being absent yesterday. He had a cold and could not breed well.
Please excuse Mary for being absent yesterday. She was in bed with gramps.
Gloria was absent yesterday as she was having a gangover.
Please excuse Burma, she has been sick and under the doctor.
Maryann was absent December 11-16, because she had a fever, sore throat, headache and upset stomach. Her sister was also sick, fever and sore throat, her brother had a low grade fever and ached all over. I wasn't the best either, sore throat and fever. There must be something going around, her father even got hot last night.
Monday, September 26, 2005
Saturday's Child (by Varsha Bhosle)
(By Rediff columnist Varsha Bhosle on her mother, singing legend Asha Bhosle)
At the time, I put it down to fate. The jubilation of having scored decent marks after a bare minimum attendance, the ensuing wrath of the hallowed Mrs Dossal who ran the political science department of Elphinstone College, the flaring tempers, the thinly-veiled threats -- it nearly brought my academic life to a stand-still. Her words still ring in my ears; and they bring with them the same blinding fury: "I can well imagine how you managed to get these marks. It's no big secret what can be bought and sold. I know what kind of a family you come from. Miss a single lecture, and we'll see." The comedy of it all was that it never was a big secret that Mrs Dossal's 'prepared notes' were almost verbatim from the Sabine textbook. Besides, it has never needed a genius to pass bona fide our university exams without attending lectures.
At that time, I found it hard to believe that her rage may have been goaded by envy, pettiness or prejudice. Against what, and against whom? I certainly couldn't picture her as a frustrated diva. It took me many more such instances to divine exactly what I was up against. From "what kind of family" do I come? A chosen family, a special family, a family gifted with music since three generations.
For people who -- after having ground away the stipulated years in university, higher studies, apprenticeships, etc -- trudge up and down the steep ladder of seniority, it must be extremely galling to see the seemingly uneducated, tasteless, loose-living, filthy-rich upstarts of the Indian film industry leave them yards behind in the rat-race. Predictably, the female singer was consigned to the bottom rung of their esteem. Depending upon the sensibilities of the person, and regardless of actualities, she was labelled bai-ji, gaayika, gaanewali, kothewali, devdasi, etc. The list is quite endless; I had to learn to cope with it.
The earliest memory I have of my mother, Mrs Asha Bhosle, is a fleeting montage of doorbells rung very late in the night, a sobbing woman hugging me back to sleep, the strains of strange, repetitive singing emanating from behind a closed door... I bang on the door wanting to go in, but am roughly pulled away by a man when the music threatens to cease. Later, I learned that that was a routine day in the life of my father: guarding Aai against all impediment which may have prevented her from singing for their supper. I have erased my father from my memory, and with him, some of my own childhood: a defence mechanism, people call it. From the sordid tales I hear from our old cook, I must have desperately needed to do it. Suffice to say that it is the stuff which has fed scriptwriters and novelists from time immemorial, of indignities heaped upon submissive womanhood.
Aai came into her own quite suddenly. One day it struck her that her third and advanced state of pregnancy may not be able to sustain the daily dose of bashing that was her lot. The next day, she left behind every single paisa she had earned, her bungalow, her car, even her clothes, and sought refuge with Mai Mangeshkar, the grand old materfamilias. (It's a sore point in my life that she found the courage to do so only when my younger brother Anand was to be born). Of course, there were instant theories in the industry about this 'desertion', and I'm sure that there were many who were disappointed when Anand grew up to be (fortunately, only in appearance) a replica of our father.
From now, I am on safe ground: I do not have to rely on hearsay. My memory miraculously returns with our surreptitious flight to the home of my grandmother, my three aunts and uncle. However, my memories of Aai are still not all that bright. Initially, there's just a smattering of her, for she has to work twice as hard, since she has to rebuild from scratch, and there is one more mouth to feed. Although she was always there to make our home, put us through school and spoil us with luxuries, I never had enough of her. How a single parent manages to merge the roles of provider and home-maker is still beyond my comprehension. Much later, I asked her, "Aai, you had the security of the roof of your own mother, your sisters -- what was the big rush to set up your own house? Instead, couldn't you have given us more time?" Without missing a beat, she replied, "Never again did I want to be at the mercy of anyone else. It would have been equally harmful for you three. You had to grow up in your own home, and with the freedom I alone could sanction". We did, we did.
After setting up independently, Aai rebelled a textbook kind of rebellion. Much more than today, the film industry -- like our society at large -- was saturated with prejudice, hypocrisy and factionism -- and Asha Bhosle had tacitly been branded a fallen woman. It certainly didn't help when the closest comparable rival was her own sister, the ethereal Miss Lata Mangeshkar. Soon, choice assignments were withdrawn, and a conspiracy of silence manifested itself into Aai's musical career... But, if anyone so much as suggested something to alleviate the situation, you could bank on Asha Bhosle to do the opposite. After more than a decade of suppression, and of keeping the shame of her squalid married life from her family and colleagues, she simply revelled in her absolute freedom. What still fascinates me is the total honesty and fearlessness with which she lived, as if to say, "My life is an open book, make of it what you will."
It's accepted that one needs to humanise a hero in order to understand and truly appreciate him; the corollary to which may be that an idol admitting to be made entirely of clay, as they all must be, is soon relegated to the tar-pits. Whatever others may say, I'm convinced that her being typecast by music directors as the perennial cabaret/ mujra/ qawwali singer is a fallout of her early life. I'm not quite qualified to comment on music, but one fact is undeniable -- like any other extraordinary singer, she excelled in all genres, but Hindi film-makers were ticklish about giving their on-screen epitomes of Indian womanhood the voice of this rather camp personality. If the character was 'westernised', her voice was that of Asha. And this label stuck just at the time when the most memorable music was being composed for the Indian heroine.
Curiously, the Marathi, Bengali and Gujarati music industries were totally unaffected by any of these tags: some of her best heroine-songs of that period are in these languages. Since being politically correct has never been my forte, I may as well say that it speaks volumes about regional cultures and sensitivities. Moreover, what a coincidence that just around the time of her marriage to R D Burman, the "cabaret singer" label was miraculously replaced by the respectable "versatile". I grit my teeth each time I hear it. Just another label signifying nothing.
If I were to sum up my mother in one word, it would have to be zidd: 'wilfulness' or 'obstinacy' doesn't connote the shades of determination and the readiness to toil that I associate with it and her. The more formidable the task, the harder she applies herself to it. Like her venture into the Western music world as a member of the pop-group The West India Company, formed with Steven Luscombe of Blancmange. One fine day, Anand casually informed her that he had finalised the deal and that, in a month, she would have to a) compose; b) sing; c) interact with British musicians and technicians; d) give live interviews on radio; e) appear on television... and all this in English, in England.
For a middle-aged woman who had never been to school, let alone spoken a complete English sentence, this, I thought, was an impossibility. I was appalled. What happened was, I had the stomach runs for a month, while she diligently rose at 4 am, donned her Walkman, and heard 'Spoken English' cassettes for hours. Well, she did it all: entered the Top-20 charts with her song Ave Maria,, appeared on British and German television, spoke lucidly on radio interviews, addressed the British press -- all with her usual unfazed panache.
Her spirit reaches dizzying heights during concert tours. In 1989, during the US tour, she underwent the most rigorous schedule ever devised. We had to play 13 cities in 20 days, which entailed cross-country red-eyes taken barely a few hours after the completion of each show. Every musician was sapped by the time we boarded the plane immediately after the last concert in Houston, Texas. But were we going home? No. We were on our way for yet another gig -- in Stockholm, Sweden. This journey was the proverbial last straw: Aai suffered a massive attack of colitis, together with fever, cough and weakness. The very first result of even one of these complaints is trembling of the voice, which then 'splits' into two, and Aai had 'em all.
At the pre-concert crisis meeting in Stockholm, it was decided by Anand and the sponsors that short of cancelling the gig, the only way out was that the orchestra should play umpteen instrumental tracks, the accompanying singers (Suresh Wadkar and yours truly) shoulder the load, and the billed star make a cursory appearance. Which would, no doubt, have led to a riot. Hereupon, my multiple visits to my favourite place commenced.
At the stage-wings that evening, our band conductor approached me with the news that Ashaji had rejected all such 'insane' proposals, that she would sing exactly what the audience had come to hear. I must add here that most of Asha's hits, like Dum maro dum, O mere sona re, Jaiye aap kahan jayenge, Duniyan mein logon ko, etc, sound 'frothy' and 'airy'. It's only when a lesser singer attempts them that one can gauge the tremendous breath-control and pitch modulation required for these non-classical, hence 'lightweight', songs. It's solely her mastery that makes them seem so easy to execute. Anyway, I had been clutching at the misguided belief that the turn-out in any city of continental Europe would be less than moderate. But, as it must happen at such times, that evening, the show was a sell-out...
The hall was packed with Indian and Pakistani expats when Aai started with her first set of six songs. I could recognise the strain in the moments when she suddenly dropped the volume or signalled the violinist to join in. All I could do was deliver glasses of glucose to the stage. At best, it was an indifferent performance; and I couldn't even blame the audience for its lack of response. Before the start of the second set of songs, a lone voice cried out from the audience, "Asha-taiiii, please sing a Marathi song. We've come a long way for it." Aai softly hummed, Naach-naachuni ati mi damale... the opening lines which roughly translate as "I'm so very tired of this endless dancing, oh Lord..."
I have yet to accept what happened in that flash. Perhaps, it was a case of putting mind over matter. Or, perhaps she heard, understood and experienced the words like never before. Or, maybe the Great Conductor in the sky decided that she had been tried enough. Her eyes closed, and both hands clenching the microphone, she crooned or belted out the stanzas as the mood gripped her. The notes and words seemed to swirl in a lazy vortex around the stage, gently eroding even the mildest defence in their path, till all was one pristine, homocentric entity. I remember crying unashamedly, and a moist-eyed Suresh hugging me whilst murmuring things like, "There will never be another like her; how can she conjure up such magic against such odds? How does she do it?"
There was absolute silence when the song finally ended. And then, very slowly, as if gradually awakening from a stupor, the claps and encores started, gradually building up to such a crescendo that the auditorium virtually erupted. I was in shock -- after all, it wasn't a predominantly Marathi audience. But, that's the power of music. It's the last remaining frontier where complete harmony exists amongst people of all religions, castes and languages. From that point of time, the concert gained a momentum all of its own: we could do nothing to curb it, and Asha Bhosle could do nothing wrong.
What did happen to the colitis, fever, etc? Back home, Aai was in bed for a full month, recuperating from overexertion. But that was afterwards... After ALL the commitments had been honourably discharged...
My mother is my entire family, Mrs Dossal. This is the family to which I proudly belong.
At the time, I put it down to fate. The jubilation of having scored decent marks after a bare minimum attendance, the ensuing wrath of the hallowed Mrs Dossal who ran the political science department of Elphinstone College, the flaring tempers, the thinly-veiled threats -- it nearly brought my academic life to a stand-still. Her words still ring in my ears; and they bring with them the same blinding fury: "I can well imagine how you managed to get these marks. It's no big secret what can be bought and sold. I know what kind of a family you come from. Miss a single lecture, and we'll see." The comedy of it all was that it never was a big secret that Mrs Dossal's 'prepared notes' were almost verbatim from the Sabine textbook. Besides, it has never needed a genius to pass bona fide our university exams without attending lectures.
At that time, I found it hard to believe that her rage may have been goaded by envy, pettiness or prejudice. Against what, and against whom? I certainly couldn't picture her as a frustrated diva. It took me many more such instances to divine exactly what I was up against. From "what kind of family" do I come? A chosen family, a special family, a family gifted with music since three generations.
For people who -- after having ground away the stipulated years in university, higher studies, apprenticeships, etc -- trudge up and down the steep ladder of seniority, it must be extremely galling to see the seemingly uneducated, tasteless, loose-living, filthy-rich upstarts of the Indian film industry leave them yards behind in the rat-race. Predictably, the female singer was consigned to the bottom rung of their esteem. Depending upon the sensibilities of the person, and regardless of actualities, she was labelled bai-ji, gaayika, gaanewali, kothewali, devdasi, etc. The list is quite endless; I had to learn to cope with it.
The earliest memory I have of my mother, Mrs Asha Bhosle, is a fleeting montage of doorbells rung very late in the night, a sobbing woman hugging me back to sleep, the strains of strange, repetitive singing emanating from behind a closed door... I bang on the door wanting to go in, but am roughly pulled away by a man when the music threatens to cease. Later, I learned that that was a routine day in the life of my father: guarding Aai against all impediment which may have prevented her from singing for their supper. I have erased my father from my memory, and with him, some of my own childhood: a defence mechanism, people call it. From the sordid tales I hear from our old cook, I must have desperately needed to do it. Suffice to say that it is the stuff which has fed scriptwriters and novelists from time immemorial, of indignities heaped upon submissive womanhood.
Aai came into her own quite suddenly. One day it struck her that her third and advanced state of pregnancy may not be able to sustain the daily dose of bashing that was her lot. The next day, she left behind every single paisa she had earned, her bungalow, her car, even her clothes, and sought refuge with Mai Mangeshkar, the grand old materfamilias. (It's a sore point in my life that she found the courage to do so only when my younger brother Anand was to be born). Of course, there were instant theories in the industry about this 'desertion', and I'm sure that there were many who were disappointed when Anand grew up to be (fortunately, only in appearance) a replica of our father.
From now, I am on safe ground: I do not have to rely on hearsay. My memory miraculously returns with our surreptitious flight to the home of my grandmother, my three aunts and uncle. However, my memories of Aai are still not all that bright. Initially, there's just a smattering of her, for she has to work twice as hard, since she has to rebuild from scratch, and there is one more mouth to feed. Although she was always there to make our home, put us through school and spoil us with luxuries, I never had enough of her. How a single parent manages to merge the roles of provider and home-maker is still beyond my comprehension. Much later, I asked her, "Aai, you had the security of the roof of your own mother, your sisters -- what was the big rush to set up your own house? Instead, couldn't you have given us more time?" Without missing a beat, she replied, "Never again did I want to be at the mercy of anyone else. It would have been equally harmful for you three. You had to grow up in your own home, and with the freedom I alone could sanction". We did, we did.
After setting up independently, Aai rebelled a textbook kind of rebellion. Much more than today, the film industry -- like our society at large -- was saturated with prejudice, hypocrisy and factionism -- and Asha Bhosle had tacitly been branded a fallen woman. It certainly didn't help when the closest comparable rival was her own sister, the ethereal Miss Lata Mangeshkar. Soon, choice assignments were withdrawn, and a conspiracy of silence manifested itself into Aai's musical career... But, if anyone so much as suggested something to alleviate the situation, you could bank on Asha Bhosle to do the opposite. After more than a decade of suppression, and of keeping the shame of her squalid married life from her family and colleagues, she simply revelled in her absolute freedom. What still fascinates me is the total honesty and fearlessness with which she lived, as if to say, "My life is an open book, make of it what you will."
It's accepted that one needs to humanise a hero in order to understand and truly appreciate him; the corollary to which may be that an idol admitting to be made entirely of clay, as they all must be, is soon relegated to the tar-pits. Whatever others may say, I'm convinced that her being typecast by music directors as the perennial cabaret/ mujra/ qawwali singer is a fallout of her early life. I'm not quite qualified to comment on music, but one fact is undeniable -- like any other extraordinary singer, she excelled in all genres, but Hindi film-makers were ticklish about giving their on-screen epitomes of Indian womanhood the voice of this rather camp personality. If the character was 'westernised', her voice was that of Asha. And this label stuck just at the time when the most memorable music was being composed for the Indian heroine.
Curiously, the Marathi, Bengali and Gujarati music industries were totally unaffected by any of these tags: some of her best heroine-songs of that period are in these languages. Since being politically correct has never been my forte, I may as well say that it speaks volumes about regional cultures and sensitivities. Moreover, what a coincidence that just around the time of her marriage to R D Burman, the "cabaret singer" label was miraculously replaced by the respectable "versatile". I grit my teeth each time I hear it. Just another label signifying nothing.
If I were to sum up my mother in one word, it would have to be zidd: 'wilfulness' or 'obstinacy' doesn't connote the shades of determination and the readiness to toil that I associate with it and her. The more formidable the task, the harder she applies herself to it. Like her venture into the Western music world as a member of the pop-group The West India Company, formed with Steven Luscombe of Blancmange. One fine day, Anand casually informed her that he had finalised the deal and that, in a month, she would have to a) compose; b) sing; c) interact with British musicians and technicians; d) give live interviews on radio; e) appear on television... and all this in English, in England.
For a middle-aged woman who had never been to school, let alone spoken a complete English sentence, this, I thought, was an impossibility. I was appalled. What happened was, I had the stomach runs for a month, while she diligently rose at 4 am, donned her Walkman, and heard 'Spoken English' cassettes for hours. Well, she did it all: entered the Top-20 charts with her song Ave Maria,, appeared on British and German television, spoke lucidly on radio interviews, addressed the British press -- all with her usual unfazed panache.
Her spirit reaches dizzying heights during concert tours. In 1989, during the US tour, she underwent the most rigorous schedule ever devised. We had to play 13 cities in 20 days, which entailed cross-country red-eyes taken barely a few hours after the completion of each show. Every musician was sapped by the time we boarded the plane immediately after the last concert in Houston, Texas. But were we going home? No. We were on our way for yet another gig -- in Stockholm, Sweden. This journey was the proverbial last straw: Aai suffered a massive attack of colitis, together with fever, cough and weakness. The very first result of even one of these complaints is trembling of the voice, which then 'splits' into two, and Aai had 'em all.
At the pre-concert crisis meeting in Stockholm, it was decided by Anand and the sponsors that short of cancelling the gig, the only way out was that the orchestra should play umpteen instrumental tracks, the accompanying singers (Suresh Wadkar and yours truly) shoulder the load, and the billed star make a cursory appearance. Which would, no doubt, have led to a riot. Hereupon, my multiple visits to my favourite place commenced.
At the stage-wings that evening, our band conductor approached me with the news that Ashaji had rejected all such 'insane' proposals, that she would sing exactly what the audience had come to hear. I must add here that most of Asha's hits, like Dum maro dum, O mere sona re, Jaiye aap kahan jayenge, Duniyan mein logon ko, etc, sound 'frothy' and 'airy'. It's only when a lesser singer attempts them that one can gauge the tremendous breath-control and pitch modulation required for these non-classical, hence 'lightweight', songs. It's solely her mastery that makes them seem so easy to execute. Anyway, I had been clutching at the misguided belief that the turn-out in any city of continental Europe would be less than moderate. But, as it must happen at such times, that evening, the show was a sell-out...
The hall was packed with Indian and Pakistani expats when Aai started with her first set of six songs. I could recognise the strain in the moments when she suddenly dropped the volume or signalled the violinist to join in. All I could do was deliver glasses of glucose to the stage. At best, it was an indifferent performance; and I couldn't even blame the audience for its lack of response. Before the start of the second set of songs, a lone voice cried out from the audience, "Asha-taiiii, please sing a Marathi song. We've come a long way for it." Aai softly hummed, Naach-naachuni ati mi damale... the opening lines which roughly translate as "I'm so very tired of this endless dancing, oh Lord..."
I have yet to accept what happened in that flash. Perhaps, it was a case of putting mind over matter. Or, perhaps she heard, understood and experienced the words like never before. Or, maybe the Great Conductor in the sky decided that she had been tried enough. Her eyes closed, and both hands clenching the microphone, she crooned or belted out the stanzas as the mood gripped her. The notes and words seemed to swirl in a lazy vortex around the stage, gently eroding even the mildest defence in their path, till all was one pristine, homocentric entity. I remember crying unashamedly, and a moist-eyed Suresh hugging me whilst murmuring things like, "There will never be another like her; how can she conjure up such magic against such odds? How does she do it?"
There was absolute silence when the song finally ended. And then, very slowly, as if gradually awakening from a stupor, the claps and encores started, gradually building up to such a crescendo that the auditorium virtually erupted. I was in shock -- after all, it wasn't a predominantly Marathi audience. But, that's the power of music. It's the last remaining frontier where complete harmony exists amongst people of all religions, castes and languages. From that point of time, the concert gained a momentum all of its own: we could do nothing to curb it, and Asha Bhosle could do nothing wrong.
What did happen to the colitis, fever, etc? Back home, Aai was in bed for a full month, recuperating from overexertion. But that was afterwards... After ALL the commitments had been honourably discharged...
My mother is my entire family, Mrs Dossal. This is the family to which I proudly belong.
Patton's speech to the 3rd army
One of the most memorable scenes in movie history is the beginning of the 1970 film "Patton". The scene starts off with a giant American flag as a backdrop. Patton played by George C. Scottenters that stage, salutes, and gives one helluva speech to the Third Army, on the eve of the Allied invasion of France.
It is so memorable because it is simple, yet powerful. It's just a general speaking exactly what is on his mind and not holding anything back.
It is so memorable because it is simple, yet powerful. It's just a general speaking exactly what is on his mind and not holding anything back.
(Warning: Contains profanity and strong language)
Now, I want you to remember that no bastard ever won a war by dying for his country. He won it by making the other poor dumb bastard die for his country. Men, all this stuff you’ve heard about America not wanting to fight, wanting to stay out of the war, is a lot of horse dung. Americans traditionally love to fight. All real Americans love the sting of battle. When you were kids, you all admired the champion marble shooter, the fastest runner, the big league ball player, the toughest boxer. Americans love a winner and will not tolerate a loser. Americans play to win all the time. I wouldn’t give a hoot in hell for a man who lost and laughed. That’s why Americans have never lost and will never lose a war. Because the very thought of losing is hateful to Americans.
Now, an Army is a team. It lives, eats, sleeps, fights as a team. This individuality stuff is a bunch of crap. The bilious bastards who wrote that stuff about individuality for the Saturday Evening Post don’t know anything more about real battle than they do about fornicating.
We have the finest food and equipment, the best spirit and the best men in the world. You know, by God I actually pity those poor bastards we’re going up against. By God, I do. We’re not just going to shoot the bastards, we’re going to cut out their living guts and use them to grease the treads of our tanks. We’re going to murder those lousy Hun bastards by the bushel.
Now, some of you boys, I know, are wondering whether or not you'll chicken out under fire. Don't worry about it. I can assure you that you will all do your duty. The Nazis are the enemy. Wade into them. Spill their blood. Shoot them in the belly. When you put your hand into a bunch of goo that a moment before was your best friend's face, you'll know what to do.
Now there’s another thing I want you to remember. I don’t want to get any messages saying that we are holding our position. We’re not holding anything. Let the Hun do that. We are advancing constantly and we’re not interested in holding onto anything except the enemy. We're going to hold onto him by the nose and we're going to kick him in the ass. We're going to kick the hell out of him all the time and we're gonna go through him like crap through a goose.
There’s one thing that you men will be able to say when you get back home. And you may thank God for it. Thirty years from now when you’re sitting around your fireside with your grandson on your knee and he asks you what did you do in the great World War II, you won’t have to say, "Well, I shoveled shit in Louisiana."
Alright now, you sons-of-bitches, you know how I feel. Oh, and I will be proud to lead you wonderful guys into battle – anytime, anywhere.
That’s all.
Friday, September 23, 2005
pasayadaan
pasayadan
aata vishwatmakay dayvay | yeNay vaagyadnay toshaavay
toshoni maj dyavay | pasayadaan hay ||
jay khaLaanchi vyankaTee saanDo | taya satkarmi rati vaaDho
bhoota parasparay paDo | maitra jeevanchay ||
dureetanchay timeera jaavo | viswha swadharmasuryay paaho
jo je vaansheel to tay laaho | praanijaata ||
varshata sakalamangaLi | eeshwarnisTHanchi maandiyaaLi
anavarata bhumanDali | bhayTatu bhoota ||
chala kalpataroonchay aarava | chetanachintaminchay gaava
bolatay jay arNava | piyushanchay ||
chandramay jay alanshana | martanDa jay taapaheena
tay sarvahi sada sajjana | soyaray hotu ||
kimbahuna sarva sukhi | purNa houni tihi lokee
bhajee jo aadi purukhi | akhanDeeta ||
aaNi granthopayjeeviyay | visheshi lokay eeyay
drushTadrushTavijayay | hovavay jee ||
yayth mhaNe shreevishveshwarao | aa hoeel daan pasaao
yeNe vare dnyaandevo | sukhiya zaala ||
"PasayaDaan" means "Prayers for the Universe"
Now, May the Supreme God who is the soul of all Universe be satisfied by this discourse and grant me grace.
May the wicked shed their sinister outlook and
May they develop liking for good deeds and
May all the individuals develop friendship with each other
May the Universe lose its darkness of sin and
May the dawn of righteous duties come and
May the desires of all creatures be fulfilled
May the assemblies of devotees of God who shower all that is auspicious on this earth meet all creatures.
These devotees are walking seeds of the wish trees (kalpavriksha), living communities of wish stones or talking oceans of nectar
May these saints who are like moon devoid of spots or sun without the scorching heat be friends and relatives to all creatures
Why ask for more?
May all creatures in the three worlds be perfect and happy and
May every creature desire of ceaseless devotion to the Primeval Supreme Being and
May those who live by the support of this book gain happiness in this world and next
On hearing this the Lord of the Universe said, "I have granted you this grace"
And by that boon Shri Dnyandeo was very happy.
Tenjewberrymuds!
The following is a telephone exchange between a hotel guest androom-service, at a hotel in Asia, which was recorded and published in the Far East Economic Review:
To get the full effect, this should be read aloud. You will understand what 'tenjewberrymuds' means by the end of the conversation.
Room Service (RS): "Morrin. Roon sirbees."
Guest (G): "Sorry, I thought I dialed room-service."
RS: " Rye..Roon sirbees..morrin! Jewish to oddor sunteen??"
G: "Uh..yes..I'd like some bacon and eggs."
RS: "Ow July den?"
G: "What??"
RS: "Ow July den?...pryed, boyud, poochd?"
G : "Oh, the eggs! How do I like them? Sorry, scrambled please."
RS: "Ow July dee baykem? Crease?"
G: "Crisp will be fine."
RS : "Hokay. An Sahn toes?"
G: "What?"
RS:"An toes. July Sahn toes?"
G: "I don't think so."
RS: "No? Judo wan sahn toes??"
G: "I feel really bad about this, but I don't know what 'judo wan sahn toes' means."
RS: "Toes! toes!...Why jew don juan toes? Ow bow Anglish moppin we bodder?"
G: "English muffin!! I've got it! You were saying 'Toast.' Fine. Yes, an English muffin will be fine."
RS: "We bodder?"
G: "No...just put the bodder on the side."
RS: "Wad?"
G: "I mean butter...just put it on the side."
RS: "Copy?"
G: "Excuse me?"
RS: "Copy...tea...meel?"
G: "Yes. Coffee, please, and that's all."
RS: "One Minnie. Scramah egg, crease baykem, Anglish moppin we bodder on sigh and copy....rye??"
G: "Whatever you say."
RS: "Tenjewberrymuds."
G : "You're very welcome."
To get the full effect, this should be read aloud. You will understand what 'tenjewberrymuds' means by the end of the conversation.
Room Service (RS): "Morrin. Roon sirbees."
Guest (G): "Sorry, I thought I dialed room-service."
RS: " Rye..Roon sirbees..morrin! Jewish to oddor sunteen??"
G: "Uh..yes..I'd like some bacon and eggs."
RS: "Ow July den?"
G: "What??"
RS: "Ow July den?...pryed, boyud, poochd?"
G : "Oh, the eggs! How do I like them? Sorry, scrambled please."
RS: "Ow July dee baykem? Crease?"
G: "Crisp will be fine."
RS : "Hokay. An Sahn toes?"
G: "What?"
RS:"An toes. July Sahn toes?"
G: "I don't think so."
RS: "No? Judo wan sahn toes??"
G: "I feel really bad about this, but I don't know what 'judo wan sahn toes' means."
RS: "Toes! toes!...Why jew don juan toes? Ow bow Anglish moppin we bodder?"
G: "English muffin!! I've got it! You were saying 'Toast.' Fine. Yes, an English muffin will be fine."
RS: "We bodder?"
G: "No...just put the bodder on the side."
RS: "Wad?"
G: "I mean butter...just put it on the side."
RS: "Copy?"
G: "Excuse me?"
RS: "Copy...tea...meel?"
G: "Yes. Coffee, please, and that's all."
RS: "One Minnie. Scramah egg, crease baykem, Anglish moppin we bodder on sigh and copy....rye??"
G: "Whatever you say."
RS: "Tenjewberrymuds."
G : "You're very welcome."
Wednesday, September 21, 2005
It's only soccer...
Airliner fakes emergency so passengers can watch soccer game
A chartered jet carrying 289 Gambian soccer fans pretended it needed to make an emergency landing so they could watch their team compete in the FIFA Under 17 World Championships, officials said Wednesday.
The plane, claiming to be low on fuel, landed Tuesday near the stadium in Peru's northern coast city of Piura.
"It truly was a scam," said Betty Maldonado, a spokeswoman for Peru's aviation authority, CORPAC. "They tricked the control tower, saying they were low on fuel."
Emergency crews were scrambled ahead of the unscheduled landing by the Lockhead L1011 Tri-Star, owned by Air Rum Ltd., Maldonado said.
The Air Rum plane, which she said was chartered by Gambian President Yahya Jammeh, should have made its approach to the capital, Lima, but instead flew directly to Piura, entering Peruvian air space "without permission."
The passengers were permitted to attend African team's 3-1 victory over Qatar on Tuesday night, she added, but the plane remained in Piura on Wednesday while authorities determined what penalty, if any, to levy against the airline.
Gambian newspaper Daily Observer reported on its Web page Wednesday that the group of fans had been delayed for a week in a hotel in the small West African nation and were forced Friday to watch their country's victory over Brazil on television.
Friday, September 16, 2005
Cricket dances to bar-girl's tunes
Tarannum, the crorepati dance girl, is in the headlines. She is accused of being a bookie and fixing cricket matches which earned her crores of rupees. The newspapers screamed that ace Sri Lankan off spinner Mutthiah Murlitharan was a regular patron of the dance bar where Tarannum danced / operated. Morparia's cartoon (Mid-Day) is worth a thousand words: Cricket dances to bar-girl's tunes
(More to come on this would be the bollywood - bookie nexus. Cant wait for that Morparia cartoon to come out)
Homeless wanderer in space.
A supermassive black hole appears to be homeless in the cosmos without a galaxy to nestle in, Hubble Space Telescope scientists reported on Wednesday.
Most monster black holes lurk at the heart of massive galaxies, slurping up matter from the galactic center with a pull so strong that nothing, not even light, can escape.
But a team of European astronomers reported in the journal Nature that a particular black hole some 5 billion light-years away has no evidence of a host galaxy. A light-year is about 6 trillion miles (10 trillion km), the distance light travels in a year.
The black hole was detected when the scientists went hunting for quasars -- extremely bright, small, distant objects that are strongly associated with black holes. Astronomers believe a quasar is produced by cosmic gas as it is drawn toward the edge of a supermassive black hole.
Most quasars and black holes are in the middle of supermassive galaxies and in their survey of 20 relatively nearby quasars, the scientists found 19 followed this expected pattern. But one showed no signs of having a galactic home.
The astronomers, using the Hubble telescope and the Very Large Telescope in Chile, reported that this rogue black hole may be the result of a rare collision between a seemingly normal spiral galaxy and an exotic object harboring a very massive black hole.
One problem in quasar-hunting is that they are so bright, they outshine most galaxies that surround them, just as the headlights from an oncoming vehicle can make the vehicle hard to see. So even if a surrounding galaxy is present, it can be difficult to detect.
The European astronomers used the two telescopes to overcome this problem by comparing the quasars they were watching with a reference star. This let them differentiate the light from the quasar from the light from any possible underlying galaxy.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
On Detecting Black Holes
To be sure that an object is a black hole, we should have some means of measuring its mass. In our own galaxy, several black hole candidates are all members of binary systems, where the other object is a usual star emitting visible radiation! This enables us to measure the mass of the 'invisible' companion. In most cases, their masses turn out to be several solar masses, beyond that for neutron stars. The black hole pulls out matter from its companion star; this matter forms an accretion disc around the hole and is slowly sucked in, the vast graviational energy is converted into intense X-ray and other forms of electromagnetic radiation. More matter is pulled in when the star is closer in orbit around the hole, so that the high energy radiation (Eg - X-Rays) exhibits a periodicity corresponding to the binary period. This is the signature for a black hole.
Doughnut Around a Black Hole
An international team of astronomers have found new evidence that massive black holes are surrounded by a torus (aka a doughnut) of gas and dust that can block our view if seen edge-on. The latest observations were made using the Integral and XMM-Newton space observatories, which looked at NGC 4388; and edge-on spiral galaxy located 65 million light years away. The team was able to determine the thickness and composition of the torus by looking through it at the radiation coming out of the supermassive black hole.
(Not your usual Krispy Kreme)
Using ESA’s Integral and XMM-Newton observatories, an international team of astronomers has found more evidence that massive black holes are surrounded by a doughnut-shaped gas cloud, called a torus. Depending on our line of sight, the torus can block the view of the black hole in the centre. The team looked `edge on’ into this doughnut to see features never before revealed in such a clarity.
Black holes are objects so compact and with gravity so strong that not even light can escape from them. Scientists think that `supermassive’ black holes are located in the cores of most galaxies, including our Milky Way galaxy. They can contain the mass of thousands of millions of suns, confined within a region no larger than our Solar System. They appear to be surrounded by a hot, thin disk of accreting gas and, farther out, the thick doughnut-shaped torus.
Depending on the inclination of the torus, it can hide the black hole and the hot accretion disc from the line of sight. Galaxies in which a torus blocks the light from the central accretion disc are called `Seyfert 2’ types and are usually faint to optical telescopes. Another theory, however, is that these galaxies appear rather faint because the central black hole is not actively accreting gas and the disc surrounding it is therefore faint.
An international team of astronomers led by Dr Volker Beckmann, Goddard Space Flight Center (Greenbelt, USA) has studied one of the nearest objects of this type, a spiral galaxy called NGC 4388, located 65 million light years away in the constellation Virgo. Since NGC 4388 is relatively close, and therefore unusually bright for its class, it is easier to study.
Astronomers often study black holes that are aligned face-on, thus avoiding the enshrouding torus. However, Beckmann's group took the path less trodden and studied the central black hole by peering through the torus. With XMM-Newton and Integral, they could detect some of the X-rays and gamma rays, emitted by the accretion disc, which partially penetrate the torus. "By peering right into the torus, we see the black hole phenomenon in a whole new light, or lack of light, as the case may be here," Beckmann said.
Beckmann's group saw how different processes around a black hole produce light at different wavelengths. For example, some of the gamma rays produced close to the black hole get absorbed by iron atoms in the torus and are re-emitted at a lower energy. This in fact is how the scientists knew they were seeing `reprocessed’ light farther out. Also, because of the line of sight towards NGC 4388, they knew this iron was from a torus on the same plane as the accretion disk, and not from gas clouds `above’ or `below’ the accretion disk.
This new view through the haze has provided valuable insight into the relationship between the black hole, its accretion disc and the doughnut, and supports the torus model in several ways.
Gas in the accretion disc close to the black hole reaches high speeds and temperatures (over 100 million degrees, hotter than the Sun) as it races toward the void. The gas radiates predominantly at high energies, in the X-ray wavelengths.
According to Beckmann, this light is able to escape the black hole because it is still outside of its border, but ultimately collides with matter in the torus. Some of it is absorbed; some of it is reflected at different wavelengths, like sunlight penetrating a cloud; and the very energetic gamma rays pierce through. "This torus is not as dense as a real doughnut or a true German Krapfen, but it is far hotter - up to a thousand degrees - and loaded with many more calories," Beckmann said.
The new observations also pinpoint the origin of the high-energy emission from NGC 4388. While the lower-energy X-rays seen by XMM-Newton appear to come from a diffuse emission, far away from the black hole, the higher-energy X-rays detected by Integral are directly related to the black hole activity.
The team could infer the doughnut’s structure and its distance from the black hole by virtue of light that was either reflected or completely absorbed. The torus itself appears to be several hundred light years from the black hole, although the observation could not gauge its diameter, from inside to outside.
The result marks the clearest observation of an obscured black hole in X-ray and gamma-ray `colours’, a span of energy nearly a million times wider than the window of visible light, from red to violet. Multi-wavelength studies are increasingly important to understanding black holes, as already demonstrated earlier this year. In May 2004, the European project known as the Astrophysical Virtual Observatory, in which ESA plays a major role, found 30 supermassive black holes that had previously escaped detection behind masking dust clouds.
Most monster black holes lurk at the heart of massive galaxies, slurping up matter from the galactic center with a pull so strong that nothing, not even light, can escape.
But a team of European astronomers reported in the journal Nature that a particular black hole some 5 billion light-years away has no evidence of a host galaxy. A light-year is about 6 trillion miles (10 trillion km), the distance light travels in a year.
The black hole was detected when the scientists went hunting for quasars -- extremely bright, small, distant objects that are strongly associated with black holes. Astronomers believe a quasar is produced by cosmic gas as it is drawn toward the edge of a supermassive black hole.
Most quasars and black holes are in the middle of supermassive galaxies and in their survey of 20 relatively nearby quasars, the scientists found 19 followed this expected pattern. But one showed no signs of having a galactic home.
The astronomers, using the Hubble telescope and the Very Large Telescope in Chile, reported that this rogue black hole may be the result of a rare collision between a seemingly normal spiral galaxy and an exotic object harboring a very massive black hole.
One problem in quasar-hunting is that they are so bright, they outshine most galaxies that surround them, just as the headlights from an oncoming vehicle can make the vehicle hard to see. So even if a surrounding galaxy is present, it can be difficult to detect.
The European astronomers used the two telescopes to overcome this problem by comparing the quasars they were watching with a reference star. This let them differentiate the light from the quasar from the light from any possible underlying galaxy.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
On Detecting Black Holes
To be sure that an object is a black hole, we should have some means of measuring its mass. In our own galaxy, several black hole candidates are all members of binary systems, where the other object is a usual star emitting visible radiation! This enables us to measure the mass of the 'invisible' companion. In most cases, their masses turn out to be several solar masses, beyond that for neutron stars. The black hole pulls out matter from its companion star; this matter forms an accretion disc around the hole and is slowly sucked in, the vast graviational energy is converted into intense X-ray and other forms of electromagnetic radiation. More matter is pulled in when the star is closer in orbit around the hole, so that the high energy radiation (Eg - X-Rays) exhibits a periodicity corresponding to the binary period. This is the signature for a black hole.
Doughnut Around a Black Hole
An international team of astronomers have found new evidence that massive black holes are surrounded by a torus (aka a doughnut) of gas and dust that can block our view if seen edge-on. The latest observations were made using the Integral and XMM-Newton space observatories, which looked at NGC 4388; and edge-on spiral galaxy located 65 million light years away. The team was able to determine the thickness and composition of the torus by looking through it at the radiation coming out of the supermassive black hole.
(Not your usual Krispy Kreme)
Using ESA’s Integral and XMM-Newton observatories, an international team of astronomers has found more evidence that massive black holes are surrounded by a doughnut-shaped gas cloud, called a torus. Depending on our line of sight, the torus can block the view of the black hole in the centre. The team looked `edge on’ into this doughnut to see features never before revealed in such a clarity.
Black holes are objects so compact and with gravity so strong that not even light can escape from them. Scientists think that `supermassive’ black holes are located in the cores of most galaxies, including our Milky Way galaxy. They can contain the mass of thousands of millions of suns, confined within a region no larger than our Solar System. They appear to be surrounded by a hot, thin disk of accreting gas and, farther out, the thick doughnut-shaped torus.
Depending on the inclination of the torus, it can hide the black hole and the hot accretion disc from the line of sight. Galaxies in which a torus blocks the light from the central accretion disc are called `Seyfert 2’ types and are usually faint to optical telescopes. Another theory, however, is that these galaxies appear rather faint because the central black hole is not actively accreting gas and the disc surrounding it is therefore faint.
An international team of astronomers led by Dr Volker Beckmann, Goddard Space Flight Center (Greenbelt, USA) has studied one of the nearest objects of this type, a spiral galaxy called NGC 4388, located 65 million light years away in the constellation Virgo. Since NGC 4388 is relatively close, and therefore unusually bright for its class, it is easier to study.
Astronomers often study black holes that are aligned face-on, thus avoiding the enshrouding torus. However, Beckmann's group took the path less trodden and studied the central black hole by peering through the torus. With XMM-Newton and Integral, they could detect some of the X-rays and gamma rays, emitted by the accretion disc, which partially penetrate the torus. "By peering right into the torus, we see the black hole phenomenon in a whole new light, or lack of light, as the case may be here," Beckmann said.
Beckmann's group saw how different processes around a black hole produce light at different wavelengths. For example, some of the gamma rays produced close to the black hole get absorbed by iron atoms in the torus and are re-emitted at a lower energy. This in fact is how the scientists knew they were seeing `reprocessed’ light farther out. Also, because of the line of sight towards NGC 4388, they knew this iron was from a torus on the same plane as the accretion disk, and not from gas clouds `above’ or `below’ the accretion disk.
This new view through the haze has provided valuable insight into the relationship between the black hole, its accretion disc and the doughnut, and supports the torus model in several ways.
Gas in the accretion disc close to the black hole reaches high speeds and temperatures (over 100 million degrees, hotter than the Sun) as it races toward the void. The gas radiates predominantly at high energies, in the X-ray wavelengths.
According to Beckmann, this light is able to escape the black hole because it is still outside of its border, but ultimately collides with matter in the torus. Some of it is absorbed; some of it is reflected at different wavelengths, like sunlight penetrating a cloud; and the very energetic gamma rays pierce through. "This torus is not as dense as a real doughnut or a true German Krapfen, but it is far hotter - up to a thousand degrees - and loaded with many more calories," Beckmann said.
The new observations also pinpoint the origin of the high-energy emission from NGC 4388. While the lower-energy X-rays seen by XMM-Newton appear to come from a diffuse emission, far away from the black hole, the higher-energy X-rays detected by Integral are directly related to the black hole activity.
The team could infer the doughnut’s structure and its distance from the black hole by virtue of light that was either reflected or completely absorbed. The torus itself appears to be several hundred light years from the black hole, although the observation could not gauge its diameter, from inside to outside.
The result marks the clearest observation of an obscured black hole in X-ray and gamma-ray `colours’, a span of energy nearly a million times wider than the window of visible light, from red to violet. Multi-wavelength studies are increasingly important to understanding black holes, as already demonstrated earlier this year. In May 2004, the European project known as the Astrophysical Virtual Observatory, in which ESA plays a major role, found 30 supermassive black holes that had previously escaped detection behind masking dust clouds.
Thursday, September 15, 2005
Pissed off!
(This was on the Tonight Show with Jay Leno. )
Jay went into the audience to find the most embarrassing first date that a woman ever had. The winner described her worst first date experience. There is absolutely no question as to why her tale took the prize!
She said it was midwinter ... snowing and quite cold...and her date had taken her skiing to Lake Arrowhead. It was just a day trip. They were strangers, after all, and truly had never met before. The outing was fun but relatively uneventful until they were headed home late that afternoon. They were driving back down the mountain, when she gradually began to realize that she should not have had that extra latte.
They were about an hour away from anywhere with a rest room and in the middle of nowhere! Her companion suggested she try to hold it, which she did for a while. Unfortunately, because of the heavy snow and slow going, there came a point where she told him that he had better stop and let her pee beside the road, or it would be the front seat of his car.
They stopped and she quickly crawled out beside the car, yanked her pants down and started. Unfortunately, in the deep snow she didn't have good footing, so leaned her butt to rest against the rear fender to steady herself. Her companion stood on the side of the car watching for traffic and indeed was a real gentleman and refrained from peeking. All she could think about was the relief she felt despite the rather embarrassing nature of the situation. Upon finishing however, she soon became aware of another sensation.
As she bent to pull up her pants, the young lady discovered her buttocks were firmly glued against the car's fender. Thoughts of tongues frozen to pump handles immediately came to mind as she attempted to disengage her behind from the icy metal. It was quickly apparent that she had a brand new problem due to the extreme cold.
Horrified by her plight and yet aware of the humor she answered her date's concerns about what is taking so long with a reply that she was indeed freezing her butt off and in need of some assistance. He came around the car as she tried to cover herself with her sweater and then, as she looked imploringly into his eyes, he burst out laughing. She too, got the giggles and when they finally managed to compose themselves, they assessed her dilemma.
Obviously, as hysterical as the situation was, they also were faced with a real problem. Both agreed it would take something hot to free her chilly cheeks from the grip of the icy metal! Thinking about what had gotten her into the predicament in the first place, both quickly realized that there was only one way to get her free. So, as she looked the other way, her first-time date proceeded to unzip his pants and pee on her butt to get it off the fender.
As for the Tonight Show ... she took the prize hands down ...or perhaps that should be pants down.
Jay Leno's comment: "This gives a whole new meaning to being pissed off"
Jay went into the audience to find the most embarrassing first date that a woman ever had. The winner described her worst first date experience. There is absolutely no question as to why her tale took the prize!
She said it was midwinter ... snowing and quite cold...and her date had taken her skiing to Lake Arrowhead. It was just a day trip. They were strangers, after all, and truly had never met before. The outing was fun but relatively uneventful until they were headed home late that afternoon. They were driving back down the mountain, when she gradually began to realize that she should not have had that extra latte.
They were about an hour away from anywhere with a rest room and in the middle of nowhere! Her companion suggested she try to hold it, which she did for a while. Unfortunately, because of the heavy snow and slow going, there came a point where she told him that he had better stop and let her pee beside the road, or it would be the front seat of his car.
They stopped and she quickly crawled out beside the car, yanked her pants down and started. Unfortunately, in the deep snow she didn't have good footing, so leaned her butt to rest against the rear fender to steady herself. Her companion stood on the side of the car watching for traffic and indeed was a real gentleman and refrained from peeking. All she could think about was the relief she felt despite the rather embarrassing nature of the situation. Upon finishing however, she soon became aware of another sensation.
As she bent to pull up her pants, the young lady discovered her buttocks were firmly glued against the car's fender. Thoughts of tongues frozen to pump handles immediately came to mind as she attempted to disengage her behind from the icy metal. It was quickly apparent that she had a brand new problem due to the extreme cold.
Horrified by her plight and yet aware of the humor she answered her date's concerns about what is taking so long with a reply that she was indeed freezing her butt off and in need of some assistance. He came around the car as she tried to cover herself with her sweater and then, as she looked imploringly into his eyes, he burst out laughing. She too, got the giggles and when they finally managed to compose themselves, they assessed her dilemma.
Obviously, as hysterical as the situation was, they also were faced with a real problem. Both agreed it would take something hot to free her chilly cheeks from the grip of the icy metal! Thinking about what had gotten her into the predicament in the first place, both quickly realized that there was only one way to get her free. So, as she looked the other way, her first-time date proceeded to unzip his pants and pee on her butt to get it off the fender.
As for the Tonight Show ... she took the prize hands down ...or perhaps that should be pants down.
Jay Leno's comment: "This gives a whole new meaning to being pissed off"
Wednesday, September 14, 2005
Death speaks.....
There was a merchant in Baghdad who sent his servant to market to buy provisions and in a little while the servant came back, white and trembling, and said, Master, just now when I was in the market-place I was jostled by a woman in the crowd and when I turned I saw it was death that jostled me. She looked at me and made a threatening gesture; now, lend me your horse, and I will ride away from this city and avoid my fate. I will go to Samarra and there death will not find me. The merchant lent him his horse, and the servant mounted it, and he dug his spurs in its flanks and as fast as the horse could gallop he went. Then the merchant went down to the market-place and he saw me standing in the crowd and he came to me and said, Why did you make a threatening gesture to my servant when you saw him this morning? That was not a threatening gesture, I said, it was only a start of surprise. I was astonished to see him in Baghdad for I had an appointment with him tonight in Samarra.
Everybody Hurts
This song is a particular favorite mine: Soft, sensitive, comforting and lyrics that seem to be made just for you. When things dont go your way, remember: Everybody hurts, sometimes
(wish I could put up an mp3 here....)
(wish I could put up an mp3 here....)
Everybody hurts - REM
When the day is long and the night, the night is yours alone,
When you're sure you've had enough of this life, well hang on
Don't let yourself go, 'cause everybody cries and everybody hurts sometimes
Sometimes everything is wrong. Now it's time to sing along
When your day is night alone, (hold on, hold on)
If you feel like letting go, (hold on)
When you think you've had too much of this life, well hang on
'Cause everybody hurts. Take comfort in your friends
Everybody hurts. Don't throw your hand. Oh, no. Don't throw your hand
If you feel like you're alone, no, no, no, you are not alone
If you're on your own in this life, the days and nights are long,
When you think you've had too much of this life to hang on
Well, everybody hurts sometimes,
Everybody cries. And everybody hurts sometimes
And everybody hurts sometimes. So, hold on, hold on
Hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on
Everybody hurts. You are not alone
Tuesday, September 13, 2005
Airbags on the Honda Goldwing
Honda motorcycles to sport airbags
Honda Goldwing
Honda Motor Co. on Thursday unveiled the world's first airbag system to be mounted on a production model motorcycle, with plans to offer it on the new Gold Wing touring bike to hit U.S. showrooms next spring.
The airbag module is built in between the bike's handles and activates when four crash sensors detect a severe frontal collision, creating a buffer as the rider is flung forward on impact.
Honda (Research), Japan's third-biggest car manufacturer and the world's top motorcycle maker, said the airbag would significantly reduce fatalities and serious injuries, citing data which shows most harm occurs during frontal collisions.
Honda will eventually offer the airbag option in Europe and Japan, Operating Officer Suguru Kanazawa told a news conference. The company declined to say how much the add-on would cost.
The 1800cc Gold Wing is Honda's biggest motorcycle and starts at $18,600 in the United States. It sold 12,000 units in North America last year, 1,600 in Europe and 270 in Japan.
Officials said Honda aimed to offer the airbag on more motorcycles in future, but acknowledged a number of hurdles.
Because the airbag works by absorbing kinetic energy from the forward-flying rider, the motorcycle itself needs to be heavy enough not to tip over, otherwise the driver would be thrown over the deployed airbag.
The airbag also needs enough space to blow up safely in front of the rider, meaning the system can't be mounted on a sporty bike where the driver leans forward into the handle.
Still, Chief Engineer Satoshi Iijima said having the airbag could mean the difference between life and death. While the system works best in a straight-angle frontal collision at up to 50 km (31 miles) an hour, the airbag can slow down the rider being thrown off at twice the speed, causing only a minor injury in an accident that would otherwise result in death.
Honda is at the forefront of vehicle safety technology, offering Japan's first airbag in 1987 on the Legend high-end sedan. It began research and development on motorcycle airbags in 1990.
As part of its safety drive, Honda has also developed technology to warn motorcyclists of oncoming cars that are hidden from the rider's view, and headlight designs that help others on the road better gauge the distance from the motorcycle.
Those technologies are not yet available on production models.
-
---
-----
The 2005 Gold Wing ABS is the 30th anniversary edition with the added technology of Anti-lock brakes.
Engine:
Type: 1832cc liquid-cooled horizontally opposed six-cylinder
Displacement: 1832cc
Bore and Stroke: 74.0mm x 71.0mm
Fuel System: Programmed Fuel Injection (PGM-FI) with automatic choke
Compression Ratio: 9.8:1
MPG: NA
Drivetrain:
Transmission: Five-speed including overdrive, plus electric reverse
Final Drive: Shaft
Brakes:
Front: Dual full-floating 296mm discs with LBS three-piston calipers with Anti-Lock Braking System (ABS)
Rear: Single ventilated 316mm disc with LBS three-piston caliper with Anti-Lock Braking System (ABS)
Suspension:
Front: 45.0mm cartridge fork with anti-dive system, 5.5-inch travel
Rear: Pro-Arm single-side swingarm with Pro-Link single shock with computer controlled spring-preload adjustment with two memory presets; 4.1-inch travel
Wheels and Tires:
Front: 130/70R-18 tire
Rear: 180/60R-16 tire
Dimensions:
Length: NA
Seat Height: 29.1 in.
Rake and Trail: 29.25 degrees / 4.3 in.
Wheelbase: 66.6 in.
Weight: 799 lbs. dry
Fuel Capacity: 6.6 gals.
Miscellaneous:
Colors: Metallic Silver, Pearl Yellow, Bright Blue Metallic, Candy Black Cherry, Dark Gray Metallic, White
Price: $19299
Warranty: 3-yr
Honda Goldwing
Honda Motor Co. on Thursday unveiled the world's first airbag system to be mounted on a production model motorcycle, with plans to offer it on the new Gold Wing touring bike to hit U.S. showrooms next spring.
The airbag module is built in between the bike's handles and activates when four crash sensors detect a severe frontal collision, creating a buffer as the rider is flung forward on impact.
Honda (Research), Japan's third-biggest car manufacturer and the world's top motorcycle maker, said the airbag would significantly reduce fatalities and serious injuries, citing data which shows most harm occurs during frontal collisions.
Honda will eventually offer the airbag option in Europe and Japan, Operating Officer Suguru Kanazawa told a news conference. The company declined to say how much the add-on would cost.
The 1800cc Gold Wing is Honda's biggest motorcycle and starts at $18,600 in the United States. It sold 12,000 units in North America last year, 1,600 in Europe and 270 in Japan.
Officials said Honda aimed to offer the airbag on more motorcycles in future, but acknowledged a number of hurdles.
Because the airbag works by absorbing kinetic energy from the forward-flying rider, the motorcycle itself needs to be heavy enough not to tip over, otherwise the driver would be thrown over the deployed airbag.
The airbag also needs enough space to blow up safely in front of the rider, meaning the system can't be mounted on a sporty bike where the driver leans forward into the handle.
Still, Chief Engineer Satoshi Iijima said having the airbag could mean the difference between life and death. While the system works best in a straight-angle frontal collision at up to 50 km (31 miles) an hour, the airbag can slow down the rider being thrown off at twice the speed, causing only a minor injury in an accident that would otherwise result in death.
Honda is at the forefront of vehicle safety technology, offering Japan's first airbag in 1987 on the Legend high-end sedan. It began research and development on motorcycle airbags in 1990.
As part of its safety drive, Honda has also developed technology to warn motorcyclists of oncoming cars that are hidden from the rider's view, and headlight designs that help others on the road better gauge the distance from the motorcycle.
Those technologies are not yet available on production models.
-
---
-----
The 2005 Gold Wing ABS is the 30th anniversary edition with the added technology of Anti-lock brakes.
Engine:
Type: 1832cc liquid-cooled horizontally opposed six-cylinder
Displacement: 1832cc
Bore and Stroke: 74.0mm x 71.0mm
Fuel System: Programmed Fuel Injection (PGM-FI) with automatic choke
Compression Ratio: 9.8:1
MPG: NA
Drivetrain:
Transmission: Five-speed including overdrive, plus electric reverse
Final Drive: Shaft
Brakes:
Front: Dual full-floating 296mm discs with LBS three-piston calipers with Anti-Lock Braking System (ABS)
Rear: Single ventilated 316mm disc with LBS three-piston caliper with Anti-Lock Braking System (ABS)
Suspension:
Front: 45.0mm cartridge fork with anti-dive system, 5.5-inch travel
Rear: Pro-Arm single-side swingarm with Pro-Link single shock with computer controlled spring-preload adjustment with two memory presets; 4.1-inch travel
Wheels and Tires:
Front: 130/70R-18 tire
Rear: 180/60R-16 tire
Dimensions:
Length: NA
Seat Height: 29.1 in.
Rake and Trail: 29.25 degrees / 4.3 in.
Wheelbase: 66.6 in.
Weight: 799 lbs. dry
Fuel Capacity: 6.6 gals.
Miscellaneous:
Colors: Metallic Silver, Pearl Yellow, Bright Blue Metallic, Candy Black Cherry, Dark Gray Metallic, White
Price: $19299
Warranty: 3-yr
Running 50 kms a day at age 3
From TOI:
He is yet to step into the shoes of a man but when he puts on his jogging shoes, not many athletes can catch up with him.
With a stamina to run for 10 hours and up to 48 km every day, three-and-a-halfyear-old Budhia Singh has one aim in life, to make it to the Guinness Book of World Records by running 90 km at a stretch.
To achieve his target, the wunderkind follows a tough schedule. He gets up at five in the morning and runs for seven hours.
After taking a siesta, he resumes his run from 4 pm to 7 pm. Budhia has had a tough life. His father died soon after he was born.
His mother, who looks after three of his younger sisters, gave him away to Biranchi Das when she was unable to fend for him.
Das, who was the Orissa Judo Association secretary, said, “Budhia’s mother gave the boy to us last year. Since then he has been living with us.’’
Das says he realised the child’s great stamina when Budhia won a 25-km marathon organised by the CRPF. “I initiated Budhia into athletics when I became aware of his incredible stamina,’’ he said. “I want to see him run the 90 km from Puri to Cuttack.”
He is yet to step into the shoes of a man but when he puts on his jogging shoes, not many athletes can catch up with him.
With a stamina to run for 10 hours and up to 48 km every day, three-and-a-halfyear-old Budhia Singh has one aim in life, to make it to the Guinness Book of World Records by running 90 km at a stretch.
To achieve his target, the wunderkind follows a tough schedule. He gets up at five in the morning and runs for seven hours.
After taking a siesta, he resumes his run from 4 pm to 7 pm. Budhia has had a tough life. His father died soon after he was born.
His mother, who looks after three of his younger sisters, gave him away to Biranchi Das when she was unable to fend for him.
Das, who was the Orissa Judo Association secretary, said, “Budhia’s mother gave the boy to us last year. Since then he has been living with us.’’
Das says he realised the child’s great stamina when Budhia won a 25-km marathon organised by the CRPF. “I initiated Budhia into athletics when I became aware of his incredible stamina,’’ he said. “I want to see him run the 90 km from Puri to Cuttack.”
Thursday, September 08, 2005
A brief explanation of Income Tax
You've heard the cry in the past "It's just a tax cut for the rich!" and it is accepted as fact. But what does that really mean? The following explanation may help.
Suppose that every day, 10 men go out for dinner. The bill for all 10 comes to $100. They decided to pay their bill the way we pay our taxes, and it went like this:
The first four men (the poorest) paid nothing.
The fifth paid $1.
The sixth $3.
The seventh $7.
The eighth $12.
The ninth $18.
The tenth man (the richest) paid $59.
All 10 were quite happy with the arrangement, until one day, the owner said: "Since you are all such good customers, I'm going to reduce the cost of your daily meal by $20."
So now dinner for the 10 only cost $80. The group still wanted to pay their bill the way we pay our taxes. The first four men were unaffected. They would still eat for free. But how should the other six, the paying customers, divvy up the $20 windfall so that everyone would get his "fair share"?
They realized that $20 divided by six is $3.33. But if they subtracted that from everybody's share, then the fifth and sixth men would each end up being paid to eat.
The restaurateur suggested reducing each man's bill by roughly the same percentage, thus:
The fifth man, like the first four, now paid nothing (100% saving).
The sixth paid $2 instead of $3 (33% saving).
The seventh paid $5 instead of $7 (28% saving).
The eighth paid $9 instead of $12 (25% saving).
The ninth paid $14 instead of $18 (22% saving).
The tenth paid $49 instead of $59 (16% saving).
Each of the six was better off, and the first four continued to eat for free, but outside the restaurant, the men began to compare their savings.
"I only got a dollar out of the $20," declared the sixth man. He pointed to the tenth man "but he got $10!". "That's right," exclaimed the fifth man. "I only saved a dollar too. It's unfair that he got ten times more than me!" "That's true!" shouted the seventh man. "Why should he get $10 back when I got only $2? The wealthy get all the breaks! "Wait a minute," yelled the first four men in unison. "We didn't get anything at all. The system exploits the poor!". The nine men surrounded the tenth and beat him up.
The next night the tenth man didn't show up for dinner. The nine sat down and ate without him, but when they came to pay the bill, they discovered that they didn't have enough money between all of them for even half of it.
That, boys and girls, is how our tax system works. The people who pay the highest taxes get the most benefit from a tax reduction. Tax them too much, attack them for being wealthy, and they just may not show up at the table anymore.
Suppose that every day, 10 men go out for dinner. The bill for all 10 comes to $100. They decided to pay their bill the way we pay our taxes, and it went like this:
The first four men (the poorest) paid nothing.
The fifth paid $1.
The sixth $3.
The seventh $7.
The eighth $12.
The ninth $18.
The tenth man (the richest) paid $59.
All 10 were quite happy with the arrangement, until one day, the owner said: "Since you are all such good customers, I'm going to reduce the cost of your daily meal by $20."
So now dinner for the 10 only cost $80. The group still wanted to pay their bill the way we pay our taxes. The first four men were unaffected. They would still eat for free. But how should the other six, the paying customers, divvy up the $20 windfall so that everyone would get his "fair share"?
They realized that $20 divided by six is $3.33. But if they subtracted that from everybody's share, then the fifth and sixth men would each end up being paid to eat.
The restaurateur suggested reducing each man's bill by roughly the same percentage, thus:
The fifth man, like the first four, now paid nothing (100% saving).
The sixth paid $2 instead of $3 (33% saving).
The seventh paid $5 instead of $7 (28% saving).
The eighth paid $9 instead of $12 (25% saving).
The ninth paid $14 instead of $18 (22% saving).
The tenth paid $49 instead of $59 (16% saving).
Each of the six was better off, and the first four continued to eat for free, but outside the restaurant, the men began to compare their savings.
"I only got a dollar out of the $20," declared the sixth man. He pointed to the tenth man "but he got $10!". "That's right," exclaimed the fifth man. "I only saved a dollar too. It's unfair that he got ten times more than me!" "That's true!" shouted the seventh man. "Why should he get $10 back when I got only $2? The wealthy get all the breaks! "Wait a minute," yelled the first four men in unison. "We didn't get anything at all. The system exploits the poor!". The nine men surrounded the tenth and beat him up.
The next night the tenth man didn't show up for dinner. The nine sat down and ate without him, but when they came to pay the bill, they discovered that they didn't have enough money between all of them for even half of it.
That, boys and girls, is how our tax system works. The people who pay the highest taxes get the most benefit from a tax reduction. Tax them too much, attack them for being wealthy, and they just may not show up at the table anymore.
Normal student vs GRE student
GRE STUDENT: Scintillate, scintillate, asteroid minim.
NORMAL PERSON: Twinkle, twinkle, little star
*******************************************************
GRE STUDENT: All articles that coruscate with resplendence are not truly auriferous.
NORMAL PERSON: All that glitters is not gold.
*******************************************************
GRE STUDENT: Sorting on the part of mendicants must be interdicted.
NORMAL PERSON: Beggars are not choosers
*******************************************************
GRE STUDENT: Male cadavers are incapable of rendering any testimony.
NORMAL PERSON: Dead men tell no tales
*******************************************************
GRE STUDENT: Neophyte's serendipity.
NORMAL PERSON: Beginner's luck
*******************************************************
GRE STUDENT: A revolving lithic conglomerate accumulates no congeries of small, green, biophytic plant.
NORMAL PERSON: A rolling stone gathers no moss
*******************************************************
GRE STUDENT: Members of an avian species of identical plumage tend to congregate.
NORMAL PERSON: Birds of a feather flock together
*******************************************************
GRE STUDENT: Pulchritude possesses solely cutaneous profundity.
NORMAL PERSON: Beauty is only skin deep
*******************************************************
GRE STUDENT: Freedom from incrustations of grime is contiguous to rectitude.
NORMAL PERSON: Cleanliness is godliness
*******************************************************
GRE STUDENT: It is fruitless to become lachrymose of precipitately departed lactile fluid.
NORMAL PERSON: There's no use crying over spilt milk
*******************************************************
GRE STUDENT: It is fruitless to attempt to indoctrinate a superannuated canine with innovative maneuvers.
NORMAL PERSON: You can't try to teach an old dog new tricks
*******************************************************
GRE STUDENT: Surveillance should precede saltation .
NORMAL PERSON: Look before you leap
*******************************************************
GRE STUDENT: The person presenting the ultimate cachinnation possesses thereby the optimal cachinnation.
NORMAL PERSON: He, who laughs last, laughs best
*******************************************************
GRE STUDENT: Exclusive dedication to necessitous chores without interludes of hedonistic diversion renders Jack a hebetudinous fellow.
NORMAL PERSON: All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.
*******************************************************
GRE STUDENT: Where there are visible vapors having their provenance in ignited carbonaceous materials, there is conflagration.
NORMAL PERSON: Where there's smoke, there's fire!
*******************************************************
NORMAL PERSON: Twinkle, twinkle, little star
*******************************************************
GRE STUDENT: All articles that coruscate with resplendence are not truly auriferous.
NORMAL PERSON: All that glitters is not gold.
*******************************************************
GRE STUDENT: Sorting on the part of mendicants must be interdicted.
NORMAL PERSON: Beggars are not choosers
*******************************************************
GRE STUDENT: Male cadavers are incapable of rendering any testimony.
NORMAL PERSON: Dead men tell no tales
*******************************************************
GRE STUDENT: Neophyte's serendipity.
NORMAL PERSON: Beginner's luck
*******************************************************
GRE STUDENT: A revolving lithic conglomerate accumulates no congeries of small, green, biophytic plant.
NORMAL PERSON: A rolling stone gathers no moss
*******************************************************
GRE STUDENT: Members of an avian species of identical plumage tend to congregate.
NORMAL PERSON: Birds of a feather flock together
*******************************************************
GRE STUDENT: Pulchritude possesses solely cutaneous profundity.
NORMAL PERSON: Beauty is only skin deep
*******************************************************
GRE STUDENT: Freedom from incrustations of grime is contiguous to rectitude.
NORMAL PERSON: Cleanliness is godliness
*******************************************************
GRE STUDENT: It is fruitless to become lachrymose of precipitately departed lactile fluid.
NORMAL PERSON: There's no use crying over spilt milk
*******************************************************
GRE STUDENT: It is fruitless to attempt to indoctrinate a superannuated canine with innovative maneuvers.
NORMAL PERSON: You can't try to teach an old dog new tricks
*******************************************************
GRE STUDENT: Surveillance should precede saltation .
NORMAL PERSON: Look before you leap
*******************************************************
GRE STUDENT: The person presenting the ultimate cachinnation possesses thereby the optimal cachinnation.
NORMAL PERSON: He, who laughs last, laughs best
*******************************************************
GRE STUDENT: Exclusive dedication to necessitous chores without interludes of hedonistic diversion renders Jack a hebetudinous fellow.
NORMAL PERSON: All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.
*******************************************************
GRE STUDENT: Where there are visible vapors having their provenance in ignited carbonaceous materials, there is conflagration.
NORMAL PERSON: Where there's smoke, there's fire!
*******************************************************
Hero
…And then a hero comes along
With the strength to carry on
And you cast your fears aside
And you know you can survive
So when you feel like hope is gone
Look inside you and be strong
And you'll finally see the truth
That a hero lies within you…
With the strength to carry on
And you cast your fears aside
And you know you can survive
So when you feel like hope is gone
Look inside you and be strong
And you'll finally see the truth
That a hero lies within you…
Wednesday, September 07, 2005
Red Bull: Bullish in Belgium....
Red Bull Cosworth heads to Spa Francorchamps track nestled in the Ardennes forest (remember The Battle Of The Bulge) in Belgium.
What follows is the ever-unique view from the Red Bull PR team on the Belgian Brand Prix.
There are three essentials you need to survive a weekend in the Ardennes, Belgium’s own Redneck Region:
1) a sense of humour
2) an umbrella
3) excellent bladder control
# 3 because of the seemingly endless queues for the toilets at the Spa-Francorchamps circuit. For a spa town famous as a place to “take the waters” it is terribly ill equipped for getting rid of them.
The weather is always the main talking point here and this is how to tell what the forecast will be:
If you stand in the Spa paddock and cannot see the trees, it is raining.
If you stand in the Spa paddock and can see the trees, it will start raining soon.
If the cows in the field near the circuit are standing up, then it might stay dry for half an hour.
If the cows are lying down it is raining.
If the cows are lying down with their legs in the air, they are dead cows.
Other interesting facts about Belgium ……… ……… ………… … ……………… ………… ……………… ……………… ……… ……………… ………………………… ……………… ………… ……… ……… ………… ……………… ……………… ……… ……………… ………………………… ……………… ………… ………… …………… ………… ……… ……… …………… ………………
What follows is the ever-unique view from the Red Bull PR team on the Belgian Brand Prix.
There are three essentials you need to survive a weekend in the Ardennes, Belgium’s own Redneck Region:
1) a sense of humour
2) an umbrella
3) excellent bladder control
# 3 because of the seemingly endless queues for the toilets at the Spa-Francorchamps circuit. For a spa town famous as a place to “take the waters” it is terribly ill equipped for getting rid of them.
The weather is always the main talking point here and this is how to tell what the forecast will be:
If you stand in the Spa paddock and cannot see the trees, it is raining.
If you stand in the Spa paddock and can see the trees, it will start raining soon.
If the cows in the field near the circuit are standing up, then it might stay dry for half an hour.
If the cows are lying down it is raining.
If the cows are lying down with their legs in the air, they are dead cows.
Other interesting facts about Belgium ……… ……… ………… … ……………… ………… ……………… ……………… ……… ……………… ………………………… ……………… ………… ……… ……… ………… ……………… ……………… ……… ……………… ………………………… ……………… ………… ………… …………… ………… ……… ……… …………… ………………
Tuesday, September 06, 2005
Vada-pav vs Katrina chaos
MUMBAI: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/1221241.cms
In New Orleans there was shooting and looting when the floods came last week. When a similar inundation struck Mumbai a month earlier, there was no violence, just free vada-pav.
Residents say street vendors passed out the vadapav to their fellow citizens wading through waist-high water is a sign that the disaster brought the city together rather than tearing it apart as appeared to happen in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina.
The response seems to symbolise what South Asians say is the region’s familiarity with, and resilience in the face of, numerous natural calamities.
"What we are seeing in USA is complete chaos," said Farida Lambe, vicepresident of the Nirmala Niketan
College of Social Work which helped in relief and rehabilitation work during the Mumbai floods.
"My assessment is that many of the problems arose as the people are not used to facing calamities. They expect complete efficiency and find it difficult to cope if it does not come about."
Mumbai police commissioner AN Roy confirmed there were no cases of looting, arson or violence when the floods hit.
"Even stray cases of robbery were not heard or reported," he said.
India has regularly faced natural disasters from earthquakes, storms and floods during monsoon. As a result, it has developed rapid responses for shelter and relief that while not wholly successful for long-term rehabilitation, have enabled them to handle immediate needs quickly.
In New Orleans there was shooting and looting when the floods came last week. When a similar inundation struck Mumbai a month earlier, there was no violence, just free vada-pav.
Residents say street vendors passed out the vadapav to their fellow citizens wading through waist-high water is a sign that the disaster brought the city together rather than tearing it apart as appeared to happen in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina.
The response seems to symbolise what South Asians say is the region’s familiarity with, and resilience in the face of, numerous natural calamities.
"What we are seeing in USA is complete chaos," said Farida Lambe, vicepresident of the Nirmala Niketan
College of Social Work which helped in relief and rehabilitation work during the Mumbai floods.
"My assessment is that many of the problems arose as the people are not used to facing calamities. They expect complete efficiency and find it difficult to cope if it does not come about."
Mumbai police commissioner AN Roy confirmed there were no cases of looting, arson or violence when the floods hit.
"Even stray cases of robbery were not heard or reported," he said.
India has regularly faced natural disasters from earthquakes, storms and floods during monsoon. As a result, it has developed rapid responses for shelter and relief that while not wholly successful for long-term rehabilitation, have enabled them to handle immediate needs quickly.
Lets pray that normality returns soon and wounds heal quickly in Mumbai and New Orleans.
Monday, September 05, 2005
Divorce !
If you thought the words on the back of the car read Ritesh weds Pratibha, check again. It says Ritesh vs Pratibha. In case you're wondering, the car was headed towards Bandra Divorce Court!
(from Mid-Day)
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