It's boring!

Someone joked in the Friday gathering which I usually attend, "America is like a black and white TV. It's boring!." While I can try to understand such sentiments, I find them quite devoid of any substance. First of all, there are Hispanics and Americans Indians who have been living in the United States for a very very long time. And then there are Asians and Indians from India who have come here mostly in the twentieth century onwards.

There are so many wonderful things in this country and I would encourage the people all over the world to come and live among peaceful and freedom loving people that Americans are.  The policies of the American politicians should not be confused with the attitude of the common folks.

The best part of the United States is the constitution that was truly revolutionary for its time. After all who said, "All man are created equal" in an age of kings and aristocrats and noblemen. How can a society like India which is so far apart from the concept of egalitarianism, could have understood such difficult concepts in the eighteenth century. It took a leader like Mahatma Gandhi to point out to Indians that untouchability is a crime against men and God.

Fidel Castro Obituary

Salute to Comrade Fidel Castro. What a brave leader in a world of capitalistic vaginas. They do not produce leaders like Castro anymore, now we get pussy grabbers and cheapos who bow down at the alter of money!

This is a direct quote from
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-20121342

"Despite what his enemies say, Cuba under Castro built one of the most impressive public health systems and achieved educational results that are the envy of the developing world.
The statistics prove that Cuba, with a fraction of the per capita income, has infant mortality and longevity rates that rival those of Western Europe. Thousands of medical practitioners graduate in Cuba every year and Cuba sends them to more than 60 countries across the globe to provide aid and assistance. 

Cuba has a world class biotech industry that is saving millions of lives through dispensing vaccines and drugs to needy countries at a fraction of the cost that large multinationals would charge."

When I read this I remembered a discussion with an American woman who I had the unfortunate pleasure of interacting with outside a pub some 5 years ago, she was vehemently arguing against Obama's healthcare plan. "Why should I pay for someone else's healthcare."

Much ado about nothing

The elections in the U.S. are the case of much ado about nothing. One thing is sure, whether Democrats win or Republicans win, Goldman Sachs will make money. But the media and the people who cover these events have to keep the common folks hooked on to all kinds of useless junk. They know that the normal humans are gossip oriented. Yahoo.com front page looks like national enquirer or the front page of some cheap tabloid. Most of the page is devoted to frivolous news. Once you start reading it, it is a slippery slope, the loose talk can be very addictive and you will find a substantial part of your life is being wasted on these activities. The fact is very few topics, leaving aside healthcare, have these parties diverging on their approach. And healthcare is always a big topic in the U.S. only, among major developed countries, because some people have decided to have it all, while talking about Jesus christ as their role model. Amazingly small hearted some people in the U.S. I feel sorry for these wretched pieces of garbage who calls themselves humans. Spending 600 billion dollar on defence budget is alright but having a universal health care is not. Sad, sad.

2017

As he lay on his bed, his mind buzzed with marijuana. He thought of everything that was going around him. The country had just elected a buffoon for the post of the prime minister; marijuana had been legalized and his life was ebbing away. It was not particularly a hopeful time to be around. The world was mired in foolishness, narrowmindedness, violence and stupidity of all kinds. At least that is the way it seemed if you read the news. It was easy to use broad strokes and paint an ugly unreal picture of the world; a picture that was wrong and did not do justice to one's inner conscience.

He wanted to have a reason to live: something that touched his soul and gave him inner peace. But where was this inner peace? What should he do before he parted away from this world that would make him not regret his life in his dying moments? This question was gnawing away at him every day and there seemed no light at the end of the proverbial tunnel that his life had become.

Buy now!

Modern Capitalism depends on addicted people. Addicted people want more things. More things wanted means more money transacted. More money changing hands means more goods and services being sold and bought, which in turn means more GDP. And GDP growth rates are the cornerstones of modern stock markets and industrialized economies.

That is why one sees addictions of various kinds being promoted in the world. There is addiction to cigarettes, alcohol, marijuana, porn, web surfing, phone activities (being glued to your phone all the time), and many others.

Companies want to sell more. They have to always keep marketing the new and upcoming features in their products. Buy now or you will miss out!

A country of .....

First of all, let me apologize for putting profanity in a blog title. But after I read the Wells Fargo bank story, I just could not come up with a better title. The bank was using fraud to swindle money from its customers by opening fake accounts and causing people to give lot of unnecessary fees. Now, this problem is not peculiar to Wells Fargo, I believe all big banks in the U.S. engage in these practices. The Citi bank was charging $12 per month to my account because it was below some arbitrary limit that they had before you could get "free" banking. Basically, they had 500 dollars of mine with them, and they were charging me $12 per month because according to them, the account must have $5000 in it before no fee is charged. Where in the world can you have such a great business model?  Would you not want to be in a business where you get people to deposit money with you and charge them for that. This is the perfect business model. It is not like $500 is a large piece of bag filled with sand that they have to carry around with them and thus they are charging you $12 for that every month. The whole business model depends on aggressive sales tactics and fees and selling people shady products without their knowledge.

Because of the nationalization of their banking sector, countries like India escaped the 2008 financial crisis caused by these evil private banks. Agreed that when you walk in an Indian bank, nobody tries to kiss your ass. But the flip side is that they are also not trying to sell you some shady products while shaking hands and smiling profusely. As usual, there are trade-offs in life.

Why such an egregious title for this post? While I was reading this whole - nothing to be shocked about if you understand the system -  Wells Fargo fiasco, I came across news items like how much money "poor" Warren Buffet lost because of Wells Fargo stock taking a temporary hit and then I thought of this moron who goes to Omaha every year to see his deity up-close. And how this dude described to me that he saw his deity in the annual Berkshire Hathaway meeting. Every country has its holy men, the U.S. has its holy men too.

Why Indian Education System is Flawed?

India's education system is a mixture of the ancient past and the British contributed curriculum. It was designed to make IAS officers during the British Raj. It was not designed to make engineers and scientists.

There is a heavy emphasis on rote and memorization in the Indian Education System. Even now the parents ask their little kids in elementary school to repeat something from a book. The skills of analysis and observations are not taught or encouraged.

The science is taught as a subject with lots of facts. The students learn to memorize scientific facts, but the philosophy of science or the scientific method - based on curiosity and experiments - is not taught. When I was in the school, there was no class on the scientific method or the philosophy of science. We memorized rules and equations and laws without understanding 90% of them. The fact that science is not linear and happens in small steps after going through the series of trials and errors was never emphasized. There were elements of Indian mysticism blended into the science teaching. For example, Kekulé came to the circular structure of Benzene because God made him see a snake in the dream. Without intervention from God, Kekulé would have had hard time figuring out things on his own.

What can be done to improve the Indian Education System? We need to overhaul the complete curriculum. There should be entrance exams for teachers. I think this is more important than having entrance exams for engineers. The scientific method and reasoning should be the top agenda at the schools and useless historical facts and fatalistic medieval philosophy should be consigned to where it belongs - at home and for those who are fascinated by history.

The White Trash

I met the white-trash, henceforth referred as WT, in one of the innumerable  shared co-working spaces that dot the Silicon Valley. The WT was not easily discernible for a long time. He used to bring alcohol to the co-working space. Probably during one of these Wednesday lunch gatherings I would have met this dude in the break room.  Later I came to know that this guy was also responsible for putting all the images from India's mission to Mars in the co-working space. In the beginning I was intrigued why would a white guy put images from India's space research program. I automatically assumed it must have been a 'patriotic' Indian who would have put those images.

Later I came to know more about this WT dude. Once he was trying to prove in one of those Friday gatherings how stupid Indians are in trying to put a bane on the slaughter of cows. That episode folded something like this:

'I saw an you-tube video of some people in Bombay sneakily eating Beef in a restaurant.' the WT said. The conversation then shifted to how stupid it is on the part of Indians to bane cow slaughter.

'Do you know Koreans eat dogs,' I interjected.
"Why don't you folks have dog meat in the restaurants around here," I added further.

The fellow said that he can find it some Asian restaurants here.

I said but why is it generally banned. There is no logical reason for that, if Koreans can eat dog meat why should it be banned to kill dogs for meat consumption in this country.

'People put the photos of their dogs in cubicles here. They clean the dog crap. They take their dogs to vets. They cry when their beloved dog dies. From all evidence and based on the actions, it can be inferred that people worship dogs in your culture.'

'Why is it so hard for you to imagine that just as your culture worships dogs. Another culture somewhere else on this planet may be worshiping cows,' I added further.

I said. 'This guy is full of shit,' pointing toward our soon to be found WT.

At this point another Indian from the state of Punjab used f-word for me, He was peeved why I had said so pointblank to a white dude that he was full of shit.

After this for a long time I stayed away from this white dude. Apart from one incident when this dude was walking in the isle and I asked this guy jokingly, 'I want dog meat', not much happened in the way of interaction between me and this dude.

Then after a few months I happened to interact with this dude again. He told me how he made his money setting up a bodyshop and supplying engineers to the Silicon Valley companies. And how he used to hire them from China mostly. His engineers used to be mostly Chinese, Indians, and old white guys. He also liked Asian women a lot and how he bragged about the stories of his exploits with Asian women. Then the conversation shifted to Hindu gods and he kept on watching photos of Hindu gods on Internet and kept showing them to people in the gathering. And he said how one of the photos of Shiva looked like a lady boy. I told him that he seemed to me a avid consumer of porn. He looked haggard and unkempt generally; a big hulk of a man; like the character of Kurtz from Conrad's heart of darkness. There were many such self-assured super confident self proclaimed alpha males in this country. And then he boasted how his bodyshopping company sponsored so many green cards. Basically he wanted to show how he amassed his fortunes exploiting Asians for both his money making and lust making operations.

I showed him a picture of an Iranian woman I used to hang out with. He said I did not deserve her. I asked him why he said I did not deserve her. Then he said, "Well then you deserve her."
I don't know what this WT was trying to hint or what part of my insecurities he was trying to get at.

I asked him why he had been projecting himself as a astrophysicist all along when he was just a slave trader or a body shopper. Previously this guy had once talked about the famous astrophysicist Chandra.  I said what right you have got to talk about Chandra, a famous astrophysicist of Indian origin, when in fact you are just a slave trader. He got infuriated at this direct accusation from me. The fingers were shown from both sides. And the conversation ended there.