Looking Cool vs. Taking Shit!

As we all know, it's easy to look cool, but really tough to be able to take shit from others, and not retaliate, thereby keeping one's cool. Very few people in the whole of World History have been able to stand clam and cool inspite of having been bombarded with shit.

However, the issue under discussion today is different:

The other day, I went to buy a roll of toilet tissues, which cost me $2.50 (+ taxes). On my way out, I noticed that there were also some sunglasses of $9.99, on sale for just $1.99. I, being what I'm, immediately bought a pair, though I absolutely had no neccesity of a pair, having already a couple of pairs of glasses. Now does that not tell us what philosophers and intellectuals spend their lives preaching?: It's easy to look cool, but not so easy to take (a) shit.

Don't you agree?

On Mother and Friendship*

He told me things books may not teach:
......he taught me from the book of life;
.............he gave me the working definition of friendship,
..................and that of the relationship of a son to his mother.
___________________________________________________________________
Mamma said:
==========

'When I was pregnant in jail, I thought I was gonna have a baby and the baby would never be with me but I was acquitted a month and three days before he (sic) was born, I was real happy, because I had a son...'
___________________________________________________________________

On Mother
========
"I ain't guilty 'cause even though I sell rocks
It feels good puttin money in yo mailbox
I love payin rent when the rent's due
I hope you got the diamond necklace that I sent to ya
'cause when I was low you was there for me
You never left me alone because you care for me
And I can see you comin' home after work late
Ya in the kitchen tryin to fix us a hot plate
You jus' workin with the scraps you was given
And momma made miracles every Thanksgivin'
But now the road got rough you're alone
Ya tryin' to raise two bad kids on your own"

*******************************************
"And there's no way I could pay you back
But my plan is to show you that I understand.
You are appreciated
Dear Momma
You are appreciated"
******************************************
On Friendship:
==========
"I hung around with the thugs,
And even though they sold drugs,
They showed a young brotha love.
I moved out and started really hangin'
I need money of my own so I started slangin'......"
___________________________________________________________________

"Books are worthless", Abrenuncio said in good humor, "life has helped me to cure diseases that other doctors cause with their medicines." - from, "Del Amor y Otros Demonios (Of Love And Other Demons)"

*In memorium: Tupac Shakur (1971-1996)

Story of a Foul-mouthed Paedophile(?)

Prologue:
_________

Dataset 1: Everytime I say people that I'm impressed with the smile and the acting of Dakota Fanning, I'm automatically bombarded with, "But, she's just a kid.".

Dataset 2: Calling someone "Ho" (Whore) could put you in real trouble.

Dataset 3: Renowned movie-maker Roman Polanski fled USA in 1978 to avoid prison, after his conviction for the statutory rape of a 13-year old girl.

Dataset 4: Paedophiles lure kids by giving them goodies.

The Question:
_____________

What would you call a guy, who fled from Europe, changed him name after he arrived in the USA, who greets everyone with a "Ho" and gives goodies to kids? A fouth-mouthed paedophile?

Epilogue:
_________
Any suggestions?

A Simple Confusion!

We all know that white is the combination of all seven colors in the sunlight, whereas black means the absence of any of these. How come then a white cloth never loses color, wheheas a black one does?

Any suggestion?

Let's Imagine a President! Or an Opposition Leader!

Let's imagine a President
-------------------------

Let's imagine a President who didn't have any security cover, and people could straight walk into him bedroom, and this when he was trying to get his reign over a civil war in his country.

Let's imagine a President, who would return to his residence after a day of hectic schedule and tour, to find that a farmer from a remote village had been waiting for long hours to meet him, and then finding that neither his chopper nor his chaufeur was available that night, would drive his jeep 200 kms to meet the farmer, and to listen to the farmer!

Let's imagine that such a president existed, and was not assassinated?

We all know this cannot happen: no crazy guy, however crazy he may be, would ever do this; it's even more unlikely to happen, if the guy's a President!

We all know, this is all fantasy, and I'm hellucinationg; but please please, just for the fun of it, let's imagine this!

******************************************
Let's now imagine an opposition leader
--------------------------------------

Let's imagine another crackpot, an opposition leader, who ran out of his country, because he knew he would be assassinated if he stayed within his country. To be more articulate, let's suppose, he had been imprisoned on charges of murder and subversion, and had then been sentenced to death. This had then been commuted into exile.

Let's imagine: he returned to his country three years later.

Let's imagine: he wished to return to suffer alongside his people and to appeal directly to the then ruling dictator to step down and seek a peaceful regime change and reformation.

Let's imagine: he wrote: "I have returned on my free will to join the ranks of those struggling to restore our rights and freedoms through non-violence.I seek no confrontation. I only pray and will strive for a genuine national reconciliation founded on justice."

Let's imagine: this fella then decides to return to his country because of various reasons and he knows this could well be his last trip back home.

Let's imagine: he knew that he would perhaps be killed by Government Agents.

Let's imagine: he's in a plane, next to a TIME reporter, and then he slips a bulle-proof vest uder his shirt and says, "If they're going to shoot me on my chest, I'll be alive; but if instead they shoot at my head, I'm dead." (sic).

Let's imagine: within minutes of his boarding down at the airport, he was shot and killed by government special agents, on the tarmac.

********************************************

Let's now imagine that both of these happened NOT in the Civilized, Western world, but rather in the Third World, that too in a single Country.

What the hell am I talking? Am I high on dope or LSD? Or some other crazy stuff? I bet, you all agree with me that such things can NEVER happen!

Well, actually all of these DID HAPPEN!!

The Q That Quacks!

What's so great about something that quacks, right?

No, Wrong! Everything is important about something that quacks, because we all know,"If it looks like a duck, walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck; it must be a duck." and if it does so, we should give the guy who's having the duck with him, 48 hours time to leave his country and go away, or else, we should drop millions of bombs that weigh 1 ton (that is 1000 multipled by 2.2 lbs, because 1 ton = 1000 kilograms, and 1 kilogram = 2.2 lbs, 1 lb being 454 gms) in his homeland to make the free world safer and to establish democracy in the land where the duck was supposed to be!

So far so good! Simple logic, flawless planning, effective implementation.

But what was the real nature of the duck?

In my opinion (and as always, I'm sure, I'm correct, mainly because I think so!) the duck that quacks is nothing but the Quarks. Why so?

Firstly, notice the similarity between the spelling of quack and quark.

Secondly, quacks constitute atoms/nucleus, and we now know (from the couple of test runs, carried out in August, 1945 in what's-it's-name that country), how devastating an atomic or a nucular, err, nuclear bomb could be! The quarks hide themselves inside atoms and come out "at a time of its choosing" and devastate humanity. Hit and run policy. And we're familar with this policy since say, Oct 7th, 2001. And although we would like to "smoke them out of their foxholes", we seem not to succeed in doing so, be it Quarks or Al Qaeda.

I'm sure the wise guy at Pentagon was surely referring to Quarks, which got misspelled as quacks, just like Buddy Holley's name was misspelled as Buddy Holly. And the guys at the Pentagon never say things that they're not sure about; example: WMD.

So, what do all these mean?
It means that the Free World must go after the Quarks now! Yeah, Quebec can wait; let's get them Quarks first!

Stephen (How)King: The Man who Eluded the Nobel Prize!

Yeah, I'm going to talk about the man, whom the Nobel Prize has missed. And that, in spite of his making seminal contribution to two independent and important fields/subjects, namely: Physics and Literature. The man is none other than Stephen King, who is also known (mainly to the physicists) as Stephen Hawking!

Now I bet, this statement of mine would make many of you think that I've gone all insane. But that is not the case. I made this statement ofter a lot of research and analysis, and my conclusion is based on evidence, not Tarrot Card Reading. And in the next few pages, I will try to establish my line of argument.

Let's just take the example of the movie, The Shawshank Redemption, based on a novel by Stephen King, whose central character, played by Tim Robbins, escapes an extremely brutal and high security prison. You think I'm going to talk pulp fiction, right? The main theme of the Shwashank Redemption is the indominable human will and its tirumph over injustice.

Do I mean to say that that proves that King is Hawking? No sir, no! But what I want to say is the folliwing:

Recently, physicist Stephen Hawking has acccepted the fact that contrary to his earlier theory/belief that no energy quanta could escape black holes, he is now more and more convinced that actually some quanta of energy always escapes the black hole. This just proves the indominable will of the quanta, or the vitory of natue's spirit, similar to what Shawshank Redemption told us years ago.

But that's not all. If we look back, we can also mention the movie, The Shining, based again on a Stephen King novel, where a non-suspecting guy becomes the caretaker of a hotel, never to leave the place alive. Does this theme not have a paraller with the all-absorbing black-holes, the foremost formulation of Stephen Hawking?

I rest my case!

Note: The following is just my theory as to the origin of the name Hawking; at the moment, I don't have enough evidence to claim this to be the truth:

Perhaps Stephen King got the "Haw" in his name from the way he used to work in both Physics and Literature, and fool the whole world into believing that they were two different persons. It could be that someone close to him expressed his surprise to find the fact, by asking "How" could Stephen King do it, which turned into a joke "How-King", and later got corrupted to Howking!

Happy Birthday, Agent Starling!

Agreed, I dig smart people. Agreed, I'm going to sound like a sycophant. I know, what I will say is simple snobbery. But then, "Norma Jean, I never knew you at all", and so perhaps my offense is forgiveable!

Unfortunately, I'm no Elton John, and so the only thing I can do is bullshit around here, and that's what I'm going to do. Now you listen, and listen real good.

Do you agree that one does not every other day meet someone, who had been mauled by a lion and was carried in its mouth, only to later top her class in school, graduate summa-cum-laude from an Ivy League University, and then to win two Oscars before she turned 30? Or that one does not often meet someone, to impress whom somebody would go to the extent of even killing the President?

I wish, I knew about more people like you; the truth is: I don't!

Happy Birthday, Jodie!

War, Hollywood and Conspiracy!

The other day I commented on the contribution of the Egyptian Civilization to Hollywood. Today I'm going to throw some light on a different issue as mentioned in the title of this posting.

Now, before I start anything, let me vouche for my love of Hollywood movies. I would watch every piece of shit Hollywood churns out and clap, because -- being from a non-English speaking country -- that's the in-thing to do ("Are you in?"). I love movies where big, good guys like Arnie "Fuck you asshole" carry big guns, and punish "them motherfuckers/assholes", or benevolent American Special Agents, such as Stallone, help the religious guys somwhere in Asia (or was it "Afgenistan"?) to screw them "Commies" and call them "infidels" (It's a different issue that reality changes in less that decade; but then, like 2Pac said, "Reality is wrong. Dreams are for real."; so why bother?). And where can you see more "real" action that in Hollywood War Movies?

Needless to say, Hollywood has always been greatly interested in wars and conflicts. Now, I must say that I've nothing against war; nor am I fool not to realize that everyone cannot be "Matma Ghendi" and take a beating everytime. And so Hollywwod continues doing what it's best at: making war movies.

Starting from making a movie based on a fella, whose name has been mentioned, in passing, only once -- or was it twice? -- in the Holy Bible (Ben Hur), to Armageddon Hollywood has, over the years, churned out innumerable movies, some of them even mildly tolerable, but almost all biased, ignorant and arrogant views, which seems to be the Hollywood signature.

It's invigorating to see the portrayal of, and the reference to, "them bastards" meaning thereby the enemies (the evil incarnate) in those movies, be it in the 1970-80s, when they project the Viet Kongs as animals ("The Deer Hunter") or in the 1990s, when the Iraqis are referred to as "those fuckers" ("Courage Under Fire", where these words come from a common soldier, and who then apologizes, to be assured by his boss, Denzel Washington, that he has been correct the first time with his way of refering to the Iraqis. However, Denzel's stroke of genius belongs to the 2000s, when while teaching Dakota Fanning, he insists that Bhutan was the country where there was recently some turmoil that involved the Royal family ("Man on Fire") .).

But the issue to be discussed here is not Hollywood Wisdom, but rather a more serious one; namely: Hollywood conspiracy to bring Wars to the World!

You may laugh off at my idea, but I believe, at least I deserve a patient hearing.

Each time a War breaks out somewhere, the two things that rush there ahead of all are: the US media, and the Hollywood. Be it World War II, Vietnam War, or the Gulf War, the Hollywood eventually makes many movies (for the next 50 years) based on that war. One will perhaps be able to name in total a hundred movies made by Hollywood based on these wars.

Now why do they do that? Simple: because the thousands of people associated with it must survive. And survival in Hollywood does not mean food, clothes and a place to live. It means Lincoln cars, Condo in Beverly Hills, Armani/Versace designer clothing, Gucci/Prada handbags, Diamonds, Champagne and all...

Can you imagine what would many of the big moviemakers and stars be doing today if there were no wars, and thus no movies based on them? Can you imagine, for example, Arnie, acting as a personal trainer/gym instructor at the Staples Center near Downtown LA? "I dare you, I double dare you, motherfucker", you can't!!!!

If that's the case, is it hard to surmise for a moment that it must be Hollywood who has been planning and executing the wars al the time? I'm sure, it's not that hard. And I'm sure, nothing could be truer than this.

But they are not happy with that alone. For decades, Hollywood has been consistenetly instigating the Universe to fight against us through movies like E.T., Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Aliens vs. Predators and Star Wars. Why this?

Why cannot they just leave us alone? Why cannot just make movies based on us and not them? Why? Shall we have to be kidnapped by aliens, like what happened to The King (Elvis)?

But then who knows: maybe the Hollywood is ruled by Aliens. Maybe what we think to be humans are actually all Robots. Who can tell?

Disclaimer: Some of the words used here belong to Verizon Wireless, Quentin Tarantino, and others.

Cat and God (No, I didn't mean to say, Cat and Dog!)*

As they say, the world is divided into two groups of people: Cat people and Dog people. I, for myself, am a Cat person; but that's beside the point, and has nothing to do with this posting. Nor is this posting in defense of Cats, or is defending the mischief of some naughty cat, but rather, it's an attempt to show the connection of Cat with Religion and God.

The Egyptian civilization, whose major contribution to the Western civilization, in retrospect, seems to be a series of crappy Hollywood movies, worshipped Cats. They were supposed to represent the goddess Bastet. (Male Cats were also supposed to be connected to Ra, the Sun God.). Cats were raised in and around temples dedicated to Bestet, and dead cats were mummified, and buried in huge cemeteries.

In the middle ages, during the inquisition era, when washing your undies on Sabbath could lead to death (Source: "Candide" by Voltaire), the life of the black cats were in supreme peril; they, and their owners, were burned, as they were supposedly the instruments of Devil. Many kids and women lost their life, because they possessed a black cat (In the "civilized" world of the 20th century, a guy named Saloth Sar, or Pol Pot, followed the same procedure to identify the intellectuals; only this time the instrument was a pair of spectacles, but that's another story.). However, the "Modern", 21st century World rectified this unfortunate affair; Scotland issued a blanket amnesty to all Witches on the Halloween's Day . What a wise thought!

Now back to Cats! ... The Holy Land, from where three major religions of the world originated, and where wars have been going on for thousands of years now on religious grounds, has innumerable cats. Almost all cities of the holy land is inhabited by thousands of stray cats.

Not only that: even the great Leonardo De Caprio, I mean, Da Vinci, recently made famous by Dan Brown in his monumental piece of work, "Da Vinci Code" (which, incidently, seems to contain lots of fantastic, imaginary "facts" and a claim to that effect), said, "Even the smallest feline is a masterpiece."

If all these do not convince you of the greatness of cats, then I don't know what can. Maybe the fact that there's a cute kitten in Houston, who loves to drink Champagne, and eat white chocolate, would! But then, he's the Don of the Cats, and he owns my good friend Jen.

============================================================
Dedicated to: Don Cervantes de Vito Escobar y Macondo, the Don of the Cats.

Condolences: Abu Ammar (1929-2004)

As someone, who -- for nearly two and half years -- had lived just 15 kms away from where Mr. Arafat's office was, someone whose life had indirectly been affected by the consequences of the Middle-East conflict, and as one who had the chance to partly witness/listen to both sides of the argument first hand, I hereby express my condolences at the death of Yasser Arafat, a person much loved by many and hated by many others, who was nevertheless an Icon.

The world will surely miss the most prominent Kaffiyeh in the coming years!

The Q Factor!

First thing first. The world is full of bad guys, and they're all out there to destroy the good guys. Of course, the good guys must defend themselves and save the world, but that's another story!

Now, how do the bad guys destroy the world? Obviously, using WMDs. And where do they keep them? To be honest, we don't know. Not at this moment, at least! They could be in Syria, Iran, North Korea, Tunisia, Chechnya, Ghaza or Afghanistan.....the possibilies go on.

Now, if we don't know where the WMDs are, how do we know that these exist?

The answer is very simple and obvious! Philosophers agree that before thought can begin, there must be something to think about. The same can be applied to prove that if one thinks about something, it means that that "something" exists. Simple, isn't it?

Where could then the WMDs be?

Between you and me, the most probable place is Quebec!

Shocked? You won't be, once I'm done with my reasoning, just hold on!

The country that was attacked because it was suppossed to have links with Al-Qaeda, and also to possess WMDs, apprently does not possess these. As far as its link with al-Qaeda goes, nothing except the letter "Q" connects both, speaking as of now. And Quebec has the same Devilish "Q" in it!

But that's not all. Quebec is a province, where they speak Freedom (Note: see Freedom Fries), and any country which speaks Freedom must be on the Devil's side. It was the land of Freedom speakers, who vehemently opposed attacking the country with a "Q" in it. This proves the case in point even more.

We all know, hard days are ahead; but the victory of good over evil, and the uplifting of democracy is something for which sensible, civilized world won't hesitate to give anything!

Gay Marriage: A Non-Gay Personal Perspective

Of late, there have been lots of heated discussions and arguments for and against the legality of Gay Marriage. And all these discussions have left me totally and permanently confused. I accept that this blog is just a collection of my rumblings, nothing else.

At the very beginning, I must confess that my views in this regard are that of a layman, mainly because though I'm totally confused with all these discussions, I must also confess that I've never seen a gay person myself. I mean, going by some of the intensely emotional arguments against gay marriage, I suppose that the gays are a species with tail, horn and all other accessories; but to be honest, I've never met one such person. So my comments are that of a novice.

Supporters of gay marriage often talk about equality in civil rights and other such issues, whereas the opponents argue that gay marriage cannot be made legal, because marriage in an institution between "a man and a woman" and that the Scriptures forbid same-sex union.

To have some insight, I started reading the Scriptures (no, I didn't buy the Lord's words, but rather someone once had given me a free copy of the Holy Scriptures) and I found that the punishment for a man sleeping with a man is death by stoning.

Now, I must say that I cannot decide whether I would support or oppose, if tomorrow a law is passed quoting the relevant passages from the scriptures, and thus stipulating death by stoning for gay couple. But what I can foresee is the following:

Someone would perhaps some up with a design of the stones to be used for such purpose, and patent it. There would also be patenting on its specific details, such as size, shape and color etc. Then there would be various brands of such stones, costing a fortune or just as low as 99 cents (+ taxes). Next will come the machines where you will able to pelt stones just by pressing a button. But that's not all: soon there would be remote-controlled such machines.

While this may lead to lots of new business opportunities, there could also be serious problems. For example, what if one of the companies decides to outsource their customer support to a place, where people don't speak fluent English. If the guy there misunderstands your query and advices you wrongly, this may lead to the breaking of your 42" Plasma TV set by accidental stoning. While this is just an example, the real-time damage could be much more extensive and thus expensive. However, this would anyhow be considered "collateral damage" for a good cause.

There is also an environmental aspect involved. Stones, when broken, turn into sand, and that leads to environmental pollution, though we know that our major concern is "NOT pollution, but the matters hanging in the air and water". But then: Are the Lord's words lighter than some sand? NO Sir, no.! The Lord's words are the heaviest things.

Really, believe me, I cannot decide. I'm totally confused...

But what confuses me most is that the Lord almighty chose to make a man before making any woman. While I will never dare to imply anything, I just cannot surmise why the Lord did not opt for a woman to be made first. Was the Lord a female Lord? A Wolord?

Acknowledgements: ex U.S. Vice-president Dan Quayle, whose words have been used here.

God, Religion and Social Progress (An Intellectual Discourse)

Needless is to emphasise that Religion is the most important issue for the Mankind. Cynics may argue that food, cloth and home/shelter are the most important things for mankind, but we strongly disagree. If 1/3 of the total Global population can live without food, and 1/2 without water, how could food possibly be an important issue? Similar line of argument can also easily establish the fact that clothing is not a fundamentally important issue either. The issue of home/shleter is a bit more involved, but there's an easy remedy for that, which is known as Phil Collins.

Religion has, however, always remained the most important issue ever since the dawn of the first civilization. To be honest, many older, and thus obsolete, civilizations were wiped out by new civilizations, and it was on the basis of religion that such transformations were made possible.

Religion has helped us progress; it has helped population control through wars. Since most religious wars mainly destroy the poor, religion has directly helped in the overall improvement of economic conditions of societies.

But, where all religions have failed is in deciding on the religion of God! And that's where my profound wisdom and insight should be of service to mankind. I don't promise that I will give you the answer, but at least with my thorough analysis, I will try help you all understand the deeper truths.

There are some places in the world, where a person's religious affiliation is decided by that of his mother's. Since God seems not to have any known mother, He cannot belong to any of those religions.

In some other parts of the world, there are so many gods, and also the whole geneology of gods is so entwined and confusing that one cannot arive at a definite conclusion regarding His religion.

Under such circumstances, where God's religion is not established beyond doubt, how can one decide what is the "true" religion?

The solution to this problem is clear and simple: people belonging to each religion must kill/destroy other religions, and try to annihilate all peoples belonging to religions other than their own. Wars and destructions must be encouraged, and civil wars provoked. This will lead to large decrease in the global population, and will also lead to elimination of most of the religions.

Thus, finally when a single religion would remain, God, having no other choice, would be forced to embrace that remaining religion, and that religion would theereafter become the "true" religion of the world.

Disclaimer: This article was not influenced by global arms dealers, such as Adnan Khassougi at any stage, and in any way.

I, Robot! (Experiences of an Outsider)

Do you know what No.3 is? Do you know what a Robot is?

When I go to order my food (No. 3: chicken and vegetables with rice; you can opt for either salad or kimchi.) at the Korean Eatery near my workplace, the three questions I eventually face are: 1) Which number?, 2) For here or to go?, and 3) Salad or kimchi?....and rest assured, I face the same questions, though I always reply with, "3 please" to Q1, "here" for Q2, and "neither" for Q3, and although I've been going to the same place at least two times a week for over eleven months now. I cannot decide if I would ever meet another, better example of a human robot.

The same applies when the girl at the liquor shop looks at my face to decide if I'm older than the stipulated 21, and satisfied decides to give me the beers or the wine and I say jokingly, "Maybe I'm younger." at which point she replies, "Then I have to see your ID." And mind you, I played the same joke with her about half a dozen times over less than a dozen months!

And then the other day my friend in Texas told me about his plight when he went to the nearby fast food joint and was asked, "for here or to go?" after he ordered 11 burgers! Thank heavens, I never get 11 friends home at a time.

(Not to mention the way I feel when I mention that I like a particular child actress very much, to be encountered with the exclamatory, "But she's just a small girl!!". What they imply perhaps is that I'm a paedophile!)

Everyone working in a shop programmed to ask certain questions, interpret things in a certain way!!

I, Robot? Or, We, Robots!
=============================================================

Quantum Mechanics and Schrodinger's Cat (A Non-quantized Approach)

Let's begin at the beginning.

For those of you who don't know what Quantum Mechanics is: It's kind of Kamasutra or Tantra stuff (that helps you to have better sex), but it also proves that Bigfoots travel in UFO, the Aliens kidnapped Elvis, and Astrology is the most important branch of Science.

Now Quantum Mechanics being a bit of a mythological stuff, it talks of a fella named Schrodinger's Cat. Though nobody knows who or what Schrodinger is, one thing is sure: This Cat of his is a tough guy, and he is not dead even when he's dead. That means, if you're not looking, you cannot tell if he's dead or alive; but even when you're looking at him, and actively trying to kill him, he is, at best, half-dead and half-alive.

This morning, after going through CNN (Cable News Network), Guardian, Times of India, Haaretz and what not, I think finally I know who this Cat is!

This Cat has been a tough guy for many decades now, leading a revolution (terrorism, if you're on the other side of the fence...again the same Schrodinger's Cat situation, see!) and right now, he's undergoing treatment somewhere in Europe. And the best we can conclude is: he's either dead or alive. If he's alive, he's half-dead; if he's dead instead, he's half-alive. Long live Schrodinger's cat!
=============================================================
Note: Mr. Catgunhome of the CNN (Cat News Network) Contributed to this article.