True liberals

I watched the democratic debate last week. I mostly watched to hear what the front-runners had to say, but to my utter disbelief was let down by my favorite candidate when he claimed that lethal force needs to be used on countries that violate the NPT. I was also pleasantly surprised by two men who made so much more sense and proved that they are true liberals. Congressman Dennis Kucinich and Senator Mike Gravel. Kucinich is my man, anti-war, pro-choice, he won the Mahatma Gandhi peace prize, is VEGAN and it just gets better, he thinks of drugs as a medical issue and not a criminal issue and seems like he is for making pot LEGAL!! My God, finally someone who thinks that if smoking can be justified (by doing which you are actually forcing tobacco smoke down other peoples throats), then what's the logic in preventing drugs!!! He represents the true liberals, is a man of conscience. I have begun to respect him and pray to God that he wins the primaries. Senator Mike Gravel is a lot like Kucinich in his views and thoughts but seemed to be annoyed with everyone and everything happening around him. I don't blame him, I feel that way too. Sometimes, by being too vocal, I think I get offensive. My intolerance for conservatives seems to be turning me into the person I so don't want to be; a preacher. Mike Gravel is anti-war, is pro-choice and I love the things he said during the debate. I only wish the media would give him more air-time. Like he himself mentioned, he did look like a potted plant standing in the corner and was probably asked like 5 questions on the whole. I really want to get to know him and wish him all the best for the primaries. If you wish to hear the debate, visit http://www.msnbc.msn.com/ .

Code monkeys!!!!!

Been crazy busy the last few weeks. Pouring over thousands of lines of Perl code. Man, it sucks to debug amateur programmer's silly experiments. Some people write line after line without a single comment. They do things in the most obscure way and have no concern for those who have the unpleasant task of modifying the crap. Their code does not deserve any server space and they should be banned from writing anything whatsoever. I so wish people would stop hiring monkeys to write programs, code monkeys!!!!!

Color of God

Color of God
Today, I was reading this book on a religion founded in America. A religion that actually states that "polygamy is the will of God" and people who do not follow it are sinners and will never see heaven.

As I read this book, I thought of all the stupid and insane things that people do in the name of religion and under the pretext of these "holy" texts that were written thousands and thousands of years ago. Some of these scriptures even go so far as saying that the earth is only 7000 years old and man was born as he is today without evolution and that Darwin's theory is a farce. How many of us actually think about why we are Christian or Muslim or Hindu? There are so many, many good things about these religions and yet, people choose to follow only those they find convenient.

Take Hinduism for example, there are so many Gods; Brahma, Vishnu, Shiva and many more. Only a year or so ago was I able to come up with a satisfying answer to why there were so many. One of my American friends, looking at a picture of Lord Krishna, asked me last month, "Hey, I see that Krishna is blue in color, does it represent anything?" And I replied "Yes Brenda, this is how I think of it. God comes in different colors. He can be dark like Shiva or fair like Brahma. He can be fat with a tummy, like Lord Ganesha or he can be handsome like Lord Vishnu. He doesn't have a single face." Why else would they choose to color a God blue. If Krishna were fair, the dark people would be discriminated against. And if he were dark, the white people would be discriminated against.

I feel so happy when I think of the good things our ancestors tried to convey and sorry when we so successfully manage to convolute even the purest of thoughts. In some religions, this is probably why they don't believe in idol worship. They don't want to think of God as possessing one single form. And this is exactly what I will teach my children, that God lives in each one of us, black or white.

Santa Fe

Just returned last week, after a 3 week vacation and
ofcourse there was a pile of work waiting for me :(

Did some interesting things on saturday though, visited Santa Fe with a couple of friends. Santa Fe is the best city I have ever been to.
Beautiful and artsy with its adobe architecture and galleries of famous artists including New Mexico's own Georgia O Keefe. It was a sunny day and we visited quite a few galleries with water color paintings. For those of you that love art, this is the place. People who visit the grand canyon always talk about Sedona being a beautiful town. If you think Sedona is beautiful, wait till you see Santa Fe!!

After gallery hopping, we went to a friend's place for dinner and ended up discussing politics as usual!!!

School related chagrin

1:
MANY of my friends from high-school agree when I say that studies was and is more important than anything else in our school. But some teachers seriously din't know where to draw the line. If a child did badly in school, they would stop smiling at her. We would wish them enthusiastically "Namaste ma'm" only to be glared at. I don't know if this is true only of the school I went to, I haven't heard similar stories from others. We were kids for heavens-sake, its not like we did badly because we were mean people. I was NEVER a good student at high-school, needless to say I was one of those unlucky few. I always ended up pondering "Am I a mean person?"

2:
OK, seriously, what's with the science is better than commerce and computer-science is better than biology attitude, especially in an educational institution. Shouldn't the teachers know better? This is how it worked where I studied and am sure in lots of other institutions.

math + science % >95% - Computer science
math + science % >90% - Engineering drawing(BTW this wasn't available for girls)
math + science % >85% - Biology
math + science % < 85% - Commerce

Now, how ridiculous can things get? Does this mean people who are incapable of memorizing a few formulae should be forced into commerce? Or that commerce is inferior in some convoluted way? Oh and if you secure low grades and if you want to be in science, too bad, you have to change schools, this institution is prestigious. Some would argue, "oh there is so much competition, how else do they select students?" A schools job is not to select the best few and churn good results. What's the schools contribution then, apart from conducting routine exams? You don't need schools to do that, you can get that from a coaching class. And the sad part is most students in such institutions including myself attended classes outside in order to perform well. Please let the students decide what they want to do. They shouldn't have to give up dreams of becoming doctors and engineers because they did badly in a stupid 10th grade exam.

I do have friends who went to other schools and while there are some with similar experiences, there are also those who love their alma mater and are proud of the kind of academic freedom they had and the kind of rapport they shared with their teachers. And these are not students who were at the top of their class. But they are just as successful now. Every single time I hear one of their stories, I feel sad and envious. Doesn't this say something about their schools?

More to follow in my future posts ...............