The dad, the brother and schizophrenia

The Bandra magistrate’s court has awarded the custody of Faisal Khan to his father Tahir Hussain. For those unfamiliar with the case, Faisal had approached the court a month ago accusing his brother Aamir Khan of forcible confinement. He had been made a prisoner, he said, and he would rather be alone or with his [...]

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“For every animal you don’t eat, I’m going to eat three”

This is an awesome site, one of the funniest I’ve ever come across.

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The lullaby of Pan’s Labyrinth

The soundtrack of Pan’s Labyrinth has an transcendent, almost eternal quality that I cannot adequately describe. Every time I hear it, I feel elevated. It makes me sad and happy at the same time. If Long, long time ago does not give you goose-bumps, I don’t know what will. And the film itself is one for the [...]

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The libertarian’s libertarian

Clive Crook is an excellent essayist and this passage -from his sterling tribute to Milton Friedman- is particularly close to my heart. There is no great mystery about the reason for this double standard. Freedoms that express themselves through market relations—the freedom to buy and sell—are widely regarded as ethically compromised. This is the freedom [...]

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Speed and the law

The speed limits in this country are a joke. Take for instance the 210, the main freeeway that serves the Pasadena area. Like most freeways, it is wide, well-maintained and has no sharp curves. The posted speed limit is 65 miles an hour. On the 210 – for that matter on virtually every freeway I have taken [...]

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A Bobby trap

Bobby Jindal has been elected the governor of Louisiana. He is the first Indian American governor in US history. He also supports the teaching of creationism in American schools, favours a blanket ban on abortion, opposes stem cell research and is one of the staunchest supporters of the Iraq war. Sigh..

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An unfathomable position

It was inevitable, after all. No one really expected the peaceful demonstrations of unarmed monks- no matter how many- to overthrow a miltary dictatorship. Yet, in this age of false propaganda, it is rare to have a genuine public movement for democracy, and Myanmar was perhaps the most genuine of them all. When such a [...]

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“The consequences of empire”

Chalmers Johnson says in an interview to Pasadena Weekly: But in the macro, I would say above all the fact that we were so flummoxed by 9/11. We were so surprised by a non-state actor bringing such enormous damage to us that we reverted to old ways of thinking. We had to go back and [...]

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Morning colours

I entered my kitchen lethargically and lit the stove. The flame flickered uncertainly, then became a strong bluish-white as I turned up the gas. I poured some water in a steel saucepan and put it on to boil. It was early and my housemate wasn’t yet up. I walked over to the veranda and stood there for a [...]

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Offended feelings

DJ in Delhi makes an innocuous joke about Gorkhas, feelings in Darjeeling and Siliguri are duly offended, violence erupts. The government, instead of prosecuting those who caused the violence in North Bengal, bans the radio channel for a week. I don’t know what to say. Each time such a thing happens it makes me so [...]

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Mathiness

This term looks rather busy. I am taking two (possibly three) classes and teaching one. Blogging is likely to suffer as a result. I am excited about the class I am teaching. It’s called “How to solve it” and teaches techniques for solving mathematical problems. It also doubles up as a training program for the [...]

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