Holy Courtyard

Courtyard of Jama Masjid

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Summer is here

The power of Lassi: With mercury rising its business time for them.

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Naxal Network Expanding Reach

The expanding reach of Naxals in India is evident, even as Governments at the state and centre grapple emerging problems of security, law and order and communal strife each day. Chhattisgarh saw Maoists carry out an IED attack killing a Deputy Superintendent of Police and three others, on the day of the visit of President Pratibha Patil. In another attack three CRPF personnel and a policeman were killed and six injured in a landmine blast triggered by the Maoists in Balrampur district bordering Jharkhand. Police personnel were recently suspended for not reporting for duty in Maoist affected Bastar area of Chattisgarh. A Union Home ministry report indicates that Left-wing extremists are spreading their presence to as many as 22 states with Maoists approaching banned groups like LTTE and ULFA for arms procurement. The aim of Naxalism as per Union Home Ministry is to liberate 35 percent of the territory by end of 2009. There are 39 groups operating in the country with armed cadres active in 15 states. There are 20,000 underground Maoist activists in the country and nearly 50,000 over ground members, more than a lakh Naxal sympathizers and supporters working in various frontal organizations.Naxalites have, of late, come out in strong support of the banned outfit Students Islamic Movement of India (SIMI). CPM spokesperson Azad third in the hierarchy of the central committee — in the statement said: “On the 23rd of August, our People’s Liberation Guerrilla Army (PLGA) had carried out a daring attack on the ashram of the most notorious Hindu fascist leader of Orissa, Lakshmananda Saraswati, who called himself a swami but is actually a Satan.” Militant groups are known to frequently make common cause though ideologically they may have different aims and notions. Thus the support by the Maoists to SIMI is natural. The Maoists have also supported the Kashmiri cause and therefore it appears that there is a general coalition building up against the Indian state. 21 groups are reportedly involved in the Singur agitation with many as the People’s Secular Democratic Front. The physical manifestation of this is still not clear and there is a need to ensure that measures taken to counter the same address the possibility of the terrorists uniting on an anti state cause.

While so far there has been no overt link between the Maoists and the ISI, the vocal support that Maoists have given to the SIMI and to the separatists in Kashmir needs to be analysed and any linkages to the ubiquitous ISI exposed. It is quite expected of an external intelligence agency to dabble in internal issues of a country, but it is up to the Indian security establishment to ensure that the links are discovered and effectively targeted.

The networked nature of militancy in the country is only now becoming evident to security and intelligence apparatus. There was limited appreciation of threats emanating from large number of divisive elements who are having commonality only in terms of opposition to the state and have a totally different ideology. Thus groups of different ideologies but common support mechanisms such as financial, arms and information networks have been working in tandem.

On the contrary states follow a standard hierarchical approach. Generally a new government which comes to power offers talks with the rebels. The same approach has been adopted by the new Chief Minister who very well knows that even if talks are offered, the rebels are not likely to come to the table given that they are holding sway in many tribal and forested areas in the state. More over it is also evident that UPA government has now adopted a policy of not having talks separately with Naxals by any states.

The problem in Jharkhand as per Human rights activist, Gladson Dungdung is of Adivasis and Moolvasis who have not been benefited by modern development and industrialization. The pace of development in the state of Jharkhand which has very poor administration and governance structures needs some consideration. There have been no major efforts in improving the method of delivery of governance to the masses in these areas, thereby providing the Naxal enough issues to wage their wars. More over land and tribal rights are also major issues which have remained unaddressed for long by many political parties over the years. All these factors add to the sustenance of militancy in these areas over a period.

The Malkangiri district in Orissa is becoming a key area of Naxal influence with dense forests and hilly tracts connected by a very poor road network. The tough terrain can be seen by River Sileru separates which separates it from Andhra Pradesh while River Saberi splits it from Chhattisgarh. ''It is really getting difficult on our part to complete the developmental work, especially that which can harm the interests of the Naxals like roads, bridges, culverts and all," said Nitin B Jawle, Collector, Malkangiri. 280 incidents of Naxal violence in the state since 1991, 120 have taken place here. In these tribal villages there is no mobile connectivity, no road, no telephone, no electricity and no familiar signs of authority providing the Naxals ideal environment for extending their influence.

Naxals are increasingly targeting children in their early teens as there are many youth who are disgruntled in Indian country side who fall prey to Naxal designs. While it is not possible to eliminate all grievances as roots of dissatisfaction touch as much the family as society, there have to be measures undertaken to ensure that lack of social security does not lead to societal insecurity and for this purpose expansion of the social security base and diversification of sources through which relief can be provided to the large number of needy in the country needs some consideration.

A COBRA force is being set up at a cost of Rs 1,389.47 crore out of which Rs 898.12 crore will be spent on land and infrastructure while Rs 491.35 crore will be used for manpower training over a period of three years. Two COBRA battalions will be raised in 2008-09, 4 in 2009-10 and another 2 in the ensuing year. Chhattisgarh will get three battalions (nearly 3000 personnel), Jharkhand and Uttar Pradesh will get two each and Orissa, Maharashtra and Bihar will get one battalion each of the new force. Andhra Pradesh already has a well knit counter Naxal force, the Grey Hounds. The Central government has prepared Rs 800-crore package for enhancement of capability for anti Naxal operations. States affected with Left-wing extremism are also likely to get special infrastructure projects. It is quite apparent that the government is planning an expenditure driven approach to tackle the Naxal issue without addressing the underlying problems of land reform and equity of rights to tribal and the marginal farming communities in the affected states. Till these issues are addressed the Maoists will continue to obtain support from the population and have sufficient basis for rebellion in the days ahead.

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Lessons

The graphic videos and photographs of what has happened in Mumbai in last few days should be a wakeup call to all Indians. It has shown again a total failure of our system on all fronts – the intelligence, political leadership and even our military leadership. That it took us 3 full days to deal with a handful of terrorists says a lot about the way our brave commandos were deployed.It is also a sad situation that the attention of the media and through it that of India was riveted on the Mumbai mayhem because Taj and Oberoi Hotels were involved. Bigger tragedies have taken place in India elsewhere where many more people have been killed but the media does not focus on it. Only when the lives of the rich and famous are involved does the media get worked-up. Thousands of suicides of farmers, deaths in rural areas and bigger atrocities committed in these areas do not get into the vision field of the media.Nevertheless it is a good sign that at least this event seemed to have stirred the country and we hope some good will come out of it.
One of the main reasons I think why this has happened is the corruption that has seeped very deeply into our society. Everything has a price and is a purchasable commodity. One of the first casualties of corruption is governance. We see all around us the signs of lack of governance and an attitude of “chalta hai”. The Mumbai carnage is a shining example of this state of affairs and people have correctly identified that the root cause are the politicians and the people who govern us. As we have seen on the TV, read in the newspapers and from the general feedback from common man – the stock of politicians is at an all time low. Naturally all corruption starts from top and unless and until the rulers become sincere, there is very little hope for the country.

How do we change this state of affairs and elect politicians who are sincere and not corrupt? Generally, whenever concerned citizens sit and discuss these issues either in their homes, on TV, or in any other fora, the first reaction is to tell good people to join politics. For most of the young people who are successful in their chosen profession, joining politics is an anathema and waste of time and talent. Only a very successful industrialist, professional or any other person who has excelled in his or her chosen profession for a long time can afford to do it and that time sometimes comes when a person is nearly 60 or 70 years old. By this time it is too late to get into the rough and tumble of politics and that is the reason why some of these people become MPs of Rajya Sabha or MLCs in state upper houses. Besides at this ripe age most have passed their prime and do not have the energy or the ideas needed to take this country forward rapidly.

I think a better answer would be for local citizens to select a talented and sincere young person and support him or her to the hilt both financially and otherwise. Identifying such persons is a real challenge but there are thousands such people all over this country. I also feel that young IAS officers will also be suitable for this challenge. Politics is a full time profession and a person dedicated to it right from a young age can do much more than somebody coming to it later in life. In a parliamentary democracy that India is, one can not hope to gain politically unless and until one belongs to a party. Starting a party is one way of doing it but there are quite a number of roadblocks to make it an all India entity. A simpler thing is to stand for election as an independent candidate and once like-minded people get elected as independents in different states then a party can be formed nationally. That will be true democracy.

The advantage of this system will be that most of the professionals, who while doing their business, can still be actively involved in the local and national affairs through the candidate. Also there will be a group or body of citizens who will act as watchdogs on the candidate. Such a mechanism is not available presently since the candidate is only beholden to the party bosses and his or her selection is done for some consideration other than the welfare of the local people or the country.

Naturally the corporate world, professionals and other concerned citizens will have to be very actively involved in this exercise. There is a lot of cynicism in the minds of most people who say that such things are not feasible. However, we will have to start somewhere. I think it is a doable goal and unless we all start being involved in the affairs of our country we will see balkanization and mafia rule. Similar cynicism also existed before Mahatma Gandhi came. So either we wait for another Mahatma Gandhi or start this rivulet and let a Gandhi or Obama join a large number of them to make them into a mighty river.

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Corporate Moves and Decorating Grooves

If you are a corporate executive, chances are that you pack your bags and move to a new city every couple of years. In a frequent-flyer world, you have to be willing to relocate and explore the growth opportunities it offers. This often means moving your belongings to a new place every now and then and setting up a home, albeit a temporary one. Being well traveled and in touch with trends, you would perhaps want a home that makes a statement about who you are.Having said that, anyone who has moved more than a couple of times is well aware of the fact that it isn’t all that easy to get rid of the things one accumulates and selling them for a pittance dampens the spirit of the ‘move’. So, while you may desire the luxury of being able to upgrade your living space, it is not always possible to leave your material possessions behind every time fortune comes calling. Decorating rented spaces is a challenge as you need to think long-term while given the space you have here and now. When you sign the lease for a new apartment, you could ask the landlord if painting the walls in colors and textures of your choice is a viable option. That’s the first step towards creating a space that mirrors your individuality. Colors and wall treatments are relatively easy on the pocket and quite high on style and effect.

If your professional endeavour entails frequent transfers, it will make sense to buy furniture that is not too bulky and does not place a restriction on decorating styles. Ensuring that all the furniture designated for a particular area is in one wood finish also allows you more freedom with other elements of décor. In the living room, keep the sofa design simple and change the fabric and cushions every time you move into a new home to give it a completely new look. You could even consider re-modeling the shape. Coffee tables need to be elegant and yet allow for maneuver in terms of their placement.

As a rule, buy good area rugs — you generally live with them a lot longer than you anticipate and if you can rotate them in different rooms every time you shift residence, that in itself throws up new possibilities. You also have to bear in mind that you will rarely, if ever, change the flooring of the home you rent.

When you buy furniture, cater for size configurations which allow flexibility and stick to a general style that you would be comfortable with for a few years. The dining table is a piece of furniture that you keep for a long time and also needs to fit into different spaces if you tend to move a lot. Always cater for a coordinating hutch as crockery and glassware need a place.

Lighting is a key element of re-inventing your decor. Collect lamps of different shapes and styles. They bring in a lot of warmth and just changing the shade every once in a while gives a whole new look to a room. It may be a worthwhile exercise to pick up interesting light fixtures as well. You then do not have to settle for the ones the landlord put on the walls and every room has the stamp of your individuality. The bonus being that you could easily pack them and take them with you when you leave !!!

When you get curtains and blinds made for a new home, providing ample margin in the seams would be a good idea. As would buying extra fabric. This would ensure that when you move in to a new home, you can tailor them to the dimensions and re-do them with borders and accents. You might want to use them in another room this time and complement an entirely different setting. Keep the base fabrics in simple tones and textures and focus instead on borders and embellishments that you could change at will.

Invest in good art. It does not have to be expensive but it should be something you can live with a relatively long time. We tend not to trash what goes on our walls. It does not just adorn our walls but also reveals a lot about who we are. Decide what you want it to say. Go shopping for artefacts and curios. They do not restrict you and change the décor of a room.

Consoles and chests of drawers are easy to accommodate in any home. They are useful to have and allow for a lot of permutations in terms of placement. A console does not necessarily have to go with a mirror or against a wall. It can be used as an effective space divider and keeping it free standing gives you more options. A screen with panels that can be changed is something else that works beautifully in any kind of space. You can create a new effect by changing the panels and also use it as a room divider.Bookshelves and display cabinets should have adjustable shelves and preferably need not go against a wall. Consider queen size beds instead of the standard double as they work very well in small homes, especially if you move from an apartment in a place like Delhi to one in Mumbai! Paying attention to sheets, coordinated bedspreads, drapes and the area rug would make for a far more aesthetically pleasing environment. You could perhaps opt for a contemporary bed which is upholstered as opposed to one that is in a particular wood finish. This way, whether your new home has the wardrobes in beech or teak becomes irrelevant. Bathrooms can be given a shot of aesthetic management by picking up a whole new set of accessories and linen.

For those on the move, a faithful companion is usually a sofa-bed. It comes handy when you have guests but allows you the luxury of using the guest room as a TV/family room the rest of the time. If your lifestyle entails frequent entertaining, a portable home bar would be a good investment. You need to be able to put it just about anywhere and deliver that daiquiri on request.At the end of that day, when you have packed and unpacked and you find comfort in the familiarity of what you brought with you and derive pleasure at the thought of how you might make your new home look ‘different’; you would have gone a long way in settling in and the transfer would not seem as daunting a task. Happy at home necessarily translates into a lot more energy at work

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The pH Nutrition / Alkaline Balance

The basic chemistry of pH balance
Back in high school chemistry, we learned about pH: acids had low numbers, alkalines had high numbers, and a pH of 7.0 was neutral. And it all meant absolutely nothing in terms of day-to-day life.It now turns out that we have a better shot at long-term health if our body's pH is neutral or slightly alkaline. When we tilt toward greater acidity, which can be measured easily, we have a greater risk of developing osteoporosis, weak muscles, heart disease, diabetes, kidney disease, and a host of other health problems.

The solution, according to scientists who have researched "chronic low-grade metabolic acidosis," is eating a diet that yields more alkaline and less acid. Just what kind of diet is that? One that's high in fruits and vegetables. That might not seem like a big surprise, except for a few unexpected twists and turns. Acid-yielding foods deplete minerals If the idea of balancing acid and alkaline foods seems a bit off the wall, it does have a somewhat checkered past. Most people, including physicians, aren't familiar with the dangers of acidosis, except in the most extreme situations. Those include lactic acidosis, from overexercise; ketoacidosis, when diabetes start burning their own fat; and renal acidosis, which can be a sign of kidney failure. The original scientific research on acid-yielding and alkaline-yielding foods dates back to 1914 and was remarkably accurate, according to Loren Cordain, Ph.D., a professor and researcher in the department of health and exercise science at Colorado State University, Fort Collins. Then, in the 1930s and 1940s, the acid-alkaline concept was hijacked by early health food "nuts." Among them, William Hay, M.D., proposed an almost ritualistic eating habit based on food acidity or alkalinity. Since then, most doctors have viewed any discussion of acid and alkaline diets with a skeptical eye.

But the problem with acid-producing eating habits is very real, contends Cordain, a leading expert on the Paleolithic, or Stone Age diet. "After digestion, all foods report to the kidneys as being either acidic or alkaline," he says. "The kidneys are responsible for fluid balance and maintaining a relatively neutral pH in the body." That's where things get interesting. When acid-yielding foods lower the body's pH, the kidneys coordinate efforts to buffer that acidity. Bones release calcium and magnesium to reestablish alkalinity, and muscles are broken down to produce ammonia, which is strongly alkaline. By the time the response is all over, your bone minerals and broken down muscle get excreted in urine. Long term, excess acidity leads to thinner bones and lower muscle mass, points out Anthony Sebastian, M.D., of the University of California, San Francisco. These problems are compounded by normal aging, which increases acidosis, bone loss, and muscle wasting. Along the way, calcium and magnesium losses can equate to deficiencies, with many ramifications. Both minerals play essential roles in bone formation and normal heart rhythm. Low magnesium levels can cause muscle cramps, arrhythmias, and anxiety.
The four cases of dietary acidosis Sebastian, regarded at the top researcher in the field of diet-related acidosis, admits that some of the science, at first glance, appears counter-intuitive. For example, acidic and alkaline foods don't usually translate into acid- and alkaline-yielding foods. The distinction is subtle but significant. An acid-yielding food is one that creates a lower, or more acidic, pH. Citrus fruits and tomatoes are acidic, but they have a net alkaline yield once their constituents get to the kidneys.

So if acid foods don't necessarily make for an acid pH, what then happens? Sebastian points to four big issues.• First, fruits and vegetables are rich in potassium salts, a natural buffer. Eating few of these foods deprives us of potassium, a mineral that protects against hypertension and stroke. According to Cordain's research, humans evolved eating a 10:1 ratio of potassium to sodium, and he regards this ratio as our biological baseline. Today, because of heavily salted processed and fast foods, combined with a low intake of fruits and vegetables, the ratio is now 3:1 in favor of sodium. That reversal, he says, wreaks havoc with pH and our dependency on potassium.

• Second, there has also been a similar reversal in the consumption of naturally occurring bicarbonate (such as potassium bicarbonate) in foods and added chloride (mostly in the form of sodium chloride, or table salt). Bicarbonate is alkaline, where as chloride is acid-yielding. Chloride also constricts blood vessels, and narrows blood vessels reduce circulation, Sebastian says. Because the whole body depends on healthy circulation, vasoconstriction contributes to heart disease, stroke, dementia, and probably every other degenerative disease.

• Third, eating large amounts of animal protein (including meat, fowl, and seafood) releases sulfuric acid though the metabolism of sulfur-containing amino acids, also contributing to greater acidity. This acidic shift can be offset with greater consumption of fruits and vegetables (rich in potassium bicarbonate), but again, most Americans eat these foods sparingly.

• Fourth, grains, such as wheat, rye, and corn, have a net acid-yielding effect, regardless of whether they are in the form of white bread, breakfast cereal, pasta or whole grains. "Grains are the most frequently consumed plant food in the United States," says Sebastian, and account for 65 percent of the plant foods eaten by Americans. "In addition to their acid yield, grains displace more nutritious fruits and vegetables," he adds.

"The real problem is one of alkaline deficiency, more than one of too much acid," says Sebastian. People eat plenty of acid-yielding animal protein, dairy products, and grains. The missing piece is an appreciate amount of fruits and vegetables, to produce an alkaline yield. Study after study has shown that most Americans -- 68 to 91 percent -- don't eat the five recommended daily servings of fruits and vegetables.


pH, acidosis and osteoporosis
The strongest evidence in support of maintaining an acid-alkaline balance relates to osteoporosis. "Consider that Americans consume more calcium-rich dairy foods than almost every other nation, and we have one of the highest rates of osteoporosis," says Cordain. "There's a disconnect here. Dairy may be rich in calcium, but most dairy foods also produce an acid yield."

Susan Brown, Ph.D., who heads the nonprofit Osteoporosis Education Project in East Syracuse, N.Y., frames the acid-alkaline issue as one of mineral adequacy and depletion. "It's a little like over-farming and depleting mineral levels in soil," she says. "If we eat foods that create an acidic pH in the body, we will deplete our bones of minerals and our muscles of protein.

Brown described a client named Janet whose doctor diagnosed her at age 52 with osteopenia, a demineralizing of bone that often foreshadows osteoporosis. At 55, Janet began following Brown's recommendations for eating more fruits and vegetables, taking supplements, and exercising. Three years later, Janet was clearly building bone mass in her spine and hip, even while going through menopause.

Meanwhile, Sebastian acknowledges that he may have only scratched the surface when it comes to the health problems related to mild life-long acidosis. He says low-grade acidosis increases insulin resistance, the hallmark of both prediabetes and full-blown type-2 diabetes. It increases the risk of kidney stones and kidney failure. And one study suggests that it might even alter gene activity and raise the risk of breast cancer. He admits that no one yet knows all the consequences of a fundamental shift in the body's acid-alkaline balance, but he suspects it's far reaching.


Can supplements help?
Millions of women dutifully take calcium supplements to help maintain their bone mass and reduce their chances of developing severe osteoporosis with age. But do supplements have any real benefit in alkalizing the body?

Brown does see a benefit from supplements, but she says it's important to stem calcium and magnesium losses from acid-yielding eating habits. "Acid-alkaline balance is overwhelmingly a food issue," she emphasizes. "Your pH is really a sign of how your body is managing your mineral reserves."

Potassium has turned out to be a crucial mineral for maintaining bone. High-potassium diets -- that is, those rich in fruits and vegetables -- slow bone loss, mainly by promoting alkalinity. So do supplements, such as potassium citrate and bicarbonate. While potassium citrate is commonly sold, the bicarbonate form is available only on prescription. Still, it's hard for supplements to compete with the potassium in foods. A handful of raisins, two dates, or a small banana each provide more than 300 mg of potassium.

If you take supplements, opt for the citrate form, such as calcium citrate and magnesium citrate. (Potassium supplements must by law be under 99 mg because of a risk of arrhythmias at high doses.) Fumarate, aspartate, and succinate forms of minerals also have an alkalizing effect, and all get Brown's blessing. In one study, Sebastian found that potassium citrate supplements protected against calcium losses, even when people ate a high salt diet. Buffered vitamin C, which is ascorbic acid formulated with the carbonate forms of calcium, magnesium, and potassium, might also have a slight alkalizing effect.

Some supplements, such as coral calcium, have been promoted as a way to restore an alkaline pH. But coral calcium is largely calcium carbonate, which is far less expensive as a generic supplement. It's also not as well absorbed as the citrate form.

What should you eat for proper pH levels?
Nutritional recommendations are as varied as political and religious beliefs and, sometimes, held to just as stridently. Cordain tries to rise about the controversies by looking to our biological and genetic heritage.

He points out that people, until relatively recently, were hunter-gatherers whose diets consisted of a combination of lean animal foods (including fish) and uncultivated vegetables and fruits. Based on his analyses of the diets of 229 pre-modern cultures, Cordain has calculated that the "average" ancient diet consisted of 55 percent animal foods and 45 percent plant foods. The animal foods included healthy fats as well as protein, and the plant foods consisted of leaves, stalks, fruit, seeds, tubers, and roots. Grains and cow's milk didn't enter the picture until about 7,000 to 10,000 years ago, too short a time for genetic adaptation.

Cordain's recommendations, found in The Paleo Diet and The Paleo Diet for Athletes include too many veggies to be a knockoff of the Atkins' high-protein diet. (Eating very lean meats, he adds, reduces saturated fats amount to only 10 percent of calories.) Nor do you have to be a vegetarian to gain the alkalizing benefits of fruits and vegetables. "It takes about 35 percent of total calories as fruits and veggies to produce a net alkaline load," he explains. "What's so hard about one-third of your plate being veggies?"

Still, if you have visions of veggies coming out of your ears, the answer is really simple. Cordain, Sebastian, and Brown suggest cutting back on breads, pastas, and other grain-based foods, as well as "high-glycemic" foods such as potatoes. They're all nutrient-poor foods, compared with protein and veggies.

"It's all another scientific justification for what your mother always told you," notes Brown. "Eat your fruits and veggies."


How to test your own pH
You can test your own pH simply and inexpensively. All you need are some pH test strips. Tear off two three-inch strips. As you as you awaken, before you drink or eat anything, put some saliva on the test strip. Compare the color to a pH color chart that comes with the test strips. Next, measure the pH of your second urination of the morning. To do this, urinate on the strip or collect the urine in a plastic or glass (not paper) cup and dip the test strip. Again, compare the color to the pH color chart.

Decker Weiss, N.M.D., of Scottsdale, Arizona, recommends doing the saliva and urine tests for 10 mornings in a row. "Ignore the top three and bottom three tests because they're extremes. Average the remaining four to determine your pH," he says. Weiss aims for a pH of 6.8 to 7 in his heart patients, and 7.2 to 7.4 in his osteoporosis patients. You can retest a few weeks after changing your eating habits.

You can order the test strips from www.alkalineforlife.com or by calling 888.206.7119. One roll, which is good for a few dozen tests, is $13.95.

The pH of common substances
14.0 Sodium Hydroxide: Alkaline
13.0 Lye
11.0 Ammonia
10.5 Milk of Magnesia
8.3 Baking Soda
7.4 Human Blood

7.0 Pure Water: Neutral

6.6 Milk: Acid
4.5 Tomatoes
4.0 Wine and Beer
3.0 Apples
2.2 Vinegar
2.0 Lemon Juice
1.0 Battery Acid
0.0 Hydrochloric acid

Acid-Yielding Foods
Spaghetti
Corn flakes
While rice
Rye bread
White bread
Whole milk
Lentils
Beef
Pork

Very Acid-Yielding Foods
Parmesan cheese
Processed (soft) cheeses
Hard cheeses
Gouda cheese
Cottage cheese
Brown rice
Rolled oats
Whole wheat bread
Peanuts
Walnuts
Salami
Luncheon meat, canned
Liver sausage
Chicken
Cod
Herring
Trout
Eggs

Alkaline-Yielding Foods
Apricots
Kiwifruit
Cherries
Bananas
Strawberries
Peaches
Oranges
Lemon juice
Pears
Pineapple
Peaches
Apples
Watermelon
Celery
Carrots
Zucchini
Cauliflower
Broccoli
Green peppers
Cucumber
Tomatoes
Eggplant
Lettuce
Green beans
Onions
Mushrooms
Mineral water

Very Alkaline-Yielding Foods
Spinach
Raisins
Dates

Note: All fruits and vegetables are alkaline yielding, unless they have been pickled or marinatedScientific Citations
Rylander R, Remer T, Berkemeyer S, et al. Acid-base status affects renal magnesium losses in healthy, elderly persons. Journal of Nutrition, 2006;136:2374-2377.

Frassetto L, Morris RC, Sellmeyer DE, et al. Diet, evolution and aging. The pathophysiologic effects of the post-agricultural inversion of the potassium-to-sodium and base-to-chloride ratios in the human diet. European Journal of Nutrition, 2001;40:200-213.

Sebastian A, Frassetto LA, Morris RC. The acid-base effects of the contemporary Western diet: an evolutionary perspective. Eds: Alpern RJ and Heber SC, in The Kidney: Physiology and Pathophysiology, 9th edition. In press.

Patterson BH, Block G, Rosenberger WF, et al. Fruit and vegetables in the American diet: data from the NHANES II survey. American Journal of Public Health, 1990;80:1443-9.

Li R, Serdula M, Bland S, et al. Trends in fruit and vegetable consumption among adults in 16 US states: behavioral risk factor surveillance system, 1990-1996.

Menendez JA, Decker JP, Lupu R. In support of fatty acid synthase (FAS) as a metabolic oncogene: extracellular acidosis acts in an epigenetic fashion activating FAS gene expression in cancer cells. Journal of Cell Biochemistry, 2005;94:1-4.

Macdonald HM, New SA, Fraser WD, et al. Low dietary potassium intakes and high dietary estimates of net endogenous acid production are associated with low bone mineral density in premenopausal women and increased markers of bone resorption in post menopausal women. American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, 2005;81:923-933.

Sebastian A, Harris ST, Ottaway JH, et al. Improved mineral balance and skeletal metabolism in postmenopausal women treated with potassium bicarbonate. New England Journal of Medicine, 1994;330:1776-1781.

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Human intelligence can only be emulated by technology

I've been reading news reports about how technology is advancing so rapidly that by the year 2050, we're supposed to be able to download our entire consciousness into our laptop computers. That right, just plug in your brain, and apparently you can download your memories and all the data in your head. Now, what's wrong with this? First of all, the brain does not store information in bits and bytes. The brain is not a digital storage system. The brain, and more importantly, the mind, is holographic in the way that it stores and retrieves information. And, by the way, the information that the brain stores isn't even really stored with perfectly accuracy anyway.Peoples' perceptions are distorted; peoples' memories are distorted. They're fuzzy. They waver in and out. They can be created on the fly, so it's not like you have a databank in your head that's just sitting there waiting to be downloaded. All the memories and perceptions in your head are shifting around all the time. What you think you remember today may not have happened that way at all. In fact, very little of what you remember actually happened that way.
In other words, we don't see reality. We experience a very tiny interpretation of the world around us. The universe out there, and what's encoded in our head, is really just an experience; a holographic representation of various sensory inputs, emotions and experiences at that time. This it not just some data, and this is not like a zip file. You can't just download it into a computer or slap it onto a flash drive.Human intelligence can only be emulated by technologySo, I don't care how advanced computing technology gets, you're never going to be able to just download your memory like a giant storage file, because it's not stored that way. Your brain is not a giant flash chip.Now, what's really important about this, and what's worth discussing about this news, is that there continues to be this great tendency by scientists, especially those in the fields of artificial intelligence and computer science, to think of the human brain as being just some really advanced computer. They think that if computers keep getting more and more advanced, at the pace that it's going today, if Moore's law holds up, and they can keep cramming more transistors onto computer chips at ever increasing rates -- they figure sooner or later, these computers will achieve consciousness. completely disagree. I think that computers could someday be able to emulate intelligence. There is no question in my mind that there will be artificial intelligence. But consciousness? That's another matter completely. We don't even really know what the nature of consciousness is. We don't really even know ourselves yet. Even our best scientists really have no clue how consciousness comes into being. How many people sit down and truly explore the meaning of self? How many people even know themselves? How many people understand consciousness even at a basic level? Very few, I think. The people who do are not scientists, by the way. They tend to be spiritual people who meditate and are in touch with themselves and the universe, and who don't have any technical training in the sciences.
But technicians out there love to look at the human body and the human mind as nothing but a collection of parts. This is not only true in the fields of intelligence and AI; it's also true, of course, in medicine. Doctors and surgeons, especially, tend to look at the human body as a collection of parts; they think that if we just understand all the parts, then we'll understand the organism. They think if you can x-ray and image and categorize and name all the individual components of the human body, then you understand all the biochemistry that's taking place. And then you understand the person. I completely disagree with that.
You can get lost by looking at the little components, all these little parts. You can only understand a person by taking a step back and looking at the whole person with a holistic view of health and consciousness. So, what does all this have to do with downloading your brain into a computer? We have to look at the holistic or holographic view of what human consciousness is, and even just what a basic human memory is.
"Reality" definedIn fact, if you get down to it, what is the nature of our reality, and how is it that we perceive this reality when much of it, frankly, isn't even there? Think about it. If you know anything about physics, especially quantum physics, you know that all of this so-called stuff that we think is around us is almost entirely not there from a technical point of view.
For example, consider a wall. A wall is made of certain elements made up of atoms. If you look inside those atoms, you can potentially name electrons, neutrons and protons. If you look in those, you find out it's nothing but vibrations. It's just probability waves that appear as reality, that appear to be substance, but is really not there at all. It's almost all empty space. The closer you look at it, the more it disappears, so even the stuff we think is real isn't real.
Even our memories aren't real; our memories are just holographic interpretations of our experience of this so-called real world, which isn't real anyway. Our memoirs are based only on those things that we can perceive. And our perception is very, very limited. If you look at the entire electromagnetic spectrum, and then you take a look at the tiny sliver of that spectrum that's visible light, that is what we see. What we see is just a small fraction of what's available in the electromagnetic spectrum. Even honeybees see more then we do. Other animals hear at much higher frequencies than we do. What we feel, touch and taste are basically just very crude representations of what's going on around us. It's all interpreted in our heads through a system of filters, beliefs and distortions, and then it becomes a memory. So, memory is not at all a representation of what's going on in the world.
Artificial Intelligence is about to take a quantum leap forwardNow, I don't discount the idea that computing power is going to take a quantum leap forward, and I use "quantum" deliberately in this case. If we have quantum computers and they become practical, then watch out, because there are going to be some real questions about what is reality at that point. Because if a computer can effectively solve problems by sending little qubits into other dimensions and calculate problems in an infinite number of dimensions and bring the solutions back in this world and hand it over to us, that's mind blowing.
Yet that's happening right now at the National Institute of Standards and Technology, in Boulder, Colorado. They're doing this stuff; they have computers that reach into other dimensions and bring solutions back into this dimension. They're doing this today. If they can make this practical and increase the number of bits, this thing will really, again, cause us to question the whole nature of reality.
So I don't discount the fact there is really some amazing technology out there, and that artificial intelligence will certainly become a very important factor in the ongoing march of technology and how it affects society. What I'm questioning is that we'll be able to interface this digital world of computers with the world of the human mind and consciousness. I don't think these connect very well. It's not like we have a VGA connection in the back of our heads, and if we plug it into our computer monitor while we're sleeping, we could view our dreams. It would be cool, but it's not going to work that way; it's going to take a lot more than just raw computer power to even come close to figuring out how to interface with our minds.
I am very interested in the impact of emerging technology on our civilization, especially those that can enhance the quality of life on this planet -- so, even though I'm a futurist, I'm also very skeptical of other futurists. I think a lot of times when people talk about these emerging technologies, it's just a lot of hyping, someone trying to get a lot of grant money, or somebody just trying to attract some attention talking about something that really isn't practical.
You see this with nanotechnology all the time. "Nanotech, nanotech." It's nanotech all the time. Why? Because that's what gets you grant money in the scientific community these days. If you look at the statistics today, and you think about how many researchers and scientists are working on "nanotechnology," you think, "Gee, this field is exploding." It's not true. It's just that everybody who used to work on less glamorous projects just renamed all their stuff to be nanotechnology. So, now they call it nanotech, and they're getting grant money, and the statistics show that there's all this nanotech research going on. It's the same research; it's just been renamed.
Now, there is some new nanotech research going on, but I'm skeptical about this, as well. They say they'll be able to build an army of nanotechnology robots, little molecular-scaled robots that will run around your body and cure cancer. That's right, these little robots are going to snip away at cancer tumors, and I've said this before, but we already have such a system. It's in our bodies right now. It's called the immune system, and it's the most advanced nanotechnology in the world. This stuff is amazing. It cures cancer every single day in every single human being who's alive right now. It takes care of the job for us. We don't need microscopic robots to take care of it, we just need to take care of the immune system we have right now.
Social and political implications of emerging technologySo getting back to the original item here, what if we were able to download our brains into computers? It sounds great in terms of technology, but what about the social and political implications of this? What would it mean? Would it mean that if you were suspected of committing a crime, the courts would force a download of your brain? Would it mean that your memories and thoughts were no longer your own?
If it did mean that, then, of course, we'd have an era of thought crimes -- an era where it could be criminal to think the wrong thoughts or have the wrong memories, or just to have the wrong imagination. If you happen to have the wrong images pop up into your head, and it gets downloaded onto the computer, all of a sudden, you're a criminal. You're an enemy of the state. Why? Because you don't fit the norm. Because you have ideas that they consider to be a threat to their stranglehold on power. You've got to think about these things. Technologies can be promising, but they can also be very threatening, not only to our sense of who we are, but also to our security and privacy as individuals and our very freedoms.
Today in the United States, we have a federal government that is spying on millions of U.S. citizens. Our Dept. of Homeland Security is reading your international mail, digitally filtering all your international phone calls for audible keywords, scanning virtually all internet traffic, and even tracking citizens by their cell phone transponders. All of this is blatantly illegal, by the way. Do you have any doubt that this police state government would hesitate to download and scan your memories and thoughts if the technology were available? All this stuff was considered science fiction by most Americans until recently, when the mainstream press finally woke up to the realities of the NSA spying on American citizens (but those of us "in the know" have been writing about these Police State tactics for years. Just check the archives on www.Rense.com to see for yourself. Or search Google for the "echelon project.")
Ultimately, what I'm trying to say is that technology is not the solution to uplifting our civilization. It is not the answer to the problems in our world. They say we have hunger and starvation in Africa. We have the technology to grow all the food we need. We have an abundance of food right here in the United States, that is somehow not getting to the mouths of the people over there who need it. We're paying farmers to not grow crops, so how can there be a food shortage? It's not a food problem. It's not a farming technology problem. It's a political problem. It's an issue of control. Who's controlling those people? Who benefits from scarcity? Who benefits from having a population that's always at war?
More technology is not the answer. It sounds cool, and all those new electronic gadgets look cool. But technology is not the answer to solving the problems of our civilization. So what is the answer, you might ask? Well, look; I'm no master of this. I'm still a student of all of it. But I've got some ideas that the answers are in the world of consciousness, spirituality, ethics and empathy. I think the answers are in things like being able to actually care about fellow human beings and act on that care, and making efforts to end the suffering in the world, rather than trying to maintain control over people all the time. The answers are found through spiritualism, meditation and self-introspection. The answers are essentially found by looking inward, not by examining the physical stuff of the world around us and coming up with more and more clever ways to alter it or control it.
We have to look inward, and stop thinking that the answers can be found in technology, chemistry, gene therapy and medical science. These are not the answers; these are just distractions from the real answers. You can have the best technology in the world, but you will still not solve the problems of this planet unless you can act with integrity, ethics, honesty, empathy, humility and compassion. These are the issues that really matter.
Frankly, if we mastered those as a world, we wouldn't need much technology. We really wouldn't. We have plenty of technology today to take care of all the basic needs of everyone; enough to put a home over people's heads, to feed the population and to cover basic health. What we're lacking is that sense of awareness, ethics, spirituality and a higher level of operation and thinking, or rather, experiencing a higher level of being. Ultimately, I don't want a world where a bunch of computers are looking into our heads. I hope to see a world where individuals examine their own minds. That, to me, would be the most amazing breakthrough of all.

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Whispers of Night

Listen To The Winds Soft Cry

Of A Lady Singing Her Lullaby

Whispers Of The Night So Long

Wishing For That Famous Love Song
You Are My Light When Darkness Falls

You Are My Sight In My Darkened Halls
Hear The Joy Of An Angel's Glee

When The People Around Her Now See

With Eyes So Clear And Pure

All Now Really Can Be Sure

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What Is Wrong With Our Culture?

The present age is one of confused non-understanding, of incoherent reflection, totally devoid of passion, a decadent age which flies into a rage of swirling enthusiasm for a moment only to decline back into its carefully chosen state of natural indolence. No one who wants to commit suicide does not do away with himself out of desperation. He carefully weighs and considers the act so long and so deliberately, that he often kills himself with his self-chosen torture of thinking. One could barely call it suicide since it is tortuous thinking which takes his life. He does not kill himself 'with' deliberation but rather kills himself 'because of' deliberation. Therefore, one can not really prosecute this generation, for its art, its understanding, its virtuosity and good sense lies in reaching a judgement or a decision, not in taking action. This deliberative non-luminous passion for total inaction pervades our governance, our society and our culture today. The most clever thing to do in our culture is 'not to do anything at all'.
Weapons were freely given out during Revolutionary Ages, but in the present age everyone is given clever rules and calculators in order to aid one's non-thinking! If any generation had the diplomatic task of postponing action so that it might appear that something were about to happen, even though it would never happen, then one would have to say that our age has achieved as mightily as Revolutionary Ages.

Someone should try an experiment with himself: he should forget everything he knows about the times and its relativity amplified by its familiarity, and then come into this age as if he were from another planet, and read some book, or some article in the newspaper: he will have this impression: 'Something is going to happen tonight, or else something happened last night!'

I cannot help quoting Soren Kierkegaard's words which mock at time:

'A Revolutionary Age is an age of action; the present age is an age of advertisement, or an age of publicity: nothing happens, but there is instant publicity about it. A revolt in the present age is the most unthinkable act of all; such a display of strength would confuse the calculating cleverness of the times. Nevertheless, some political virtuoso might achieve something nearly as great. He would write some manifesto or other which calls for a General Assembly in order to decide on a revolution, and he would write it so carefully that even the Censor himself would pass on it; and at the General Assembly he would manage to bring it about that the audience believed that it had actually rebelled, and then everyone would placidly go home- after they had spent a very nice evening out.'

An enormous grounding in scholarship is alien to the youth of today, in fact, they would find it laughable. Nevertheless, some scientific virtuoso might achieve something even greater. He would draw up some prospectus outlining systematically some all-embracing, all-explaining system that he was about to write, and he would manage to achieve the feat of convincing the reader (of the prospectus) that he had in fact read the entire system. The Age of Encyclopaedists is gone, when with great pains men wrote large Folios; now we have an age of intellectual tourists, small little encyclopaedists, who, here and there, deal with all sciences and all existence. The age of great achievers is gone and the present age is an age of anticipators.

I have come across many youths who plan very carefully to study from 1 February for an examination, and in order to solidify their resolve take a holiday for the entire month of January, such is our generation which has decided resolutely that the next generation will work very hard, and in order not to interfere with or delay the next generation, this generation diligently - goes to parties. However, there is one difference in this comparison: the youth understands that he is light-hearted, the present age is on the contrary very serious - even at their parties. Action and passion are not noticeable in the present age. Action is devoid of every peril, even as peril is absent from swimming in shallow waters. The best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity.

Men only passionately desire money, and money is an abstraction, a form of reflection. Men do not envy the gifts of others, their skill, or the love of their women; they only envy each others' money. These men would die with nothing to repent of, believing that if only they had the money, they might have truly lived and truly achieved something. Thus the established order continues and all the members of the public seek their satisfaction in an insoluble ambiguity.

No person wants to destroy the power of the king, but if little by little it can be reduced to nothing but a fiction, then everyone would cheer the king. No person wishes to pull down the pre-eminent, but if at the same time pre-eminence could be demonstrated to be a fiction, then everyone would be happy. No person wishes to abandon religious terminology, but they can secretly change it so that it doesn't require decision or action. And so they are unrepentant, since they have not pulled down anything. People do not desire any more to have a strong king than they do in regard to a hero-liberator or a religious authority. The ever present public wish is that the established order should continue. At the same time, the tragedy is that, in a sort of reflective way, they more or less know with helpless anguish that the established order no longer continues.

The un-stated purpose of reflection, as it were, is envy, and envy is therefore twofold: it is selfish in the individual and in the society around him. The envy of reflection in the individual hinders any passionate decision he might make; and if he wishes to free himself from that kind of reflection, the reflection of society around him re-captures him and puts him into a trap of indecision and impotence. Overweening Envy constitutes the principle of character-lessness of institutions, men and women, society and culture today.

Envy in our passionless age only stifles and hinders - it only levels in a mindless manner. This levelling is a silent, mathematical, abstract process which avoids upheavals. Levelling at its maximum is like the stillness of death, where one can hear one's own heartbeat, a stillness like death, into which nothing can penetrate, in which everything sinks, powerless.

During ancient times in classical Rome or Greece or India, the mass of individuals had this value: 'that it made valuable the outstanding individual'. They adored their heroes. In ancient times, the single individual in the masses signified nothing; only the outstanding individual signified them all. In the present age, the tendency is towards a mathematical equality which is devoid of any soul or theme or purpose - excepting for the electoral gains of petty and unscrupulous politicians.

How does this mathematical equality come about? In order for levelling really to occur, first it is necessary to bring a phantom into existence, a spirit of levelling, a huge abstraction, an all-embracing something that is nothing, an illusion - 'the phantom of the public'. The public is the real Levelling-Master, rather than the leveller itself, for levelling is done by something, and the public is a huge nothing.

The public is not a people, it is not a generation, it is not a simultaneity, it is not a community, it is not a society, it is not an association, it is not those particular men over there, because all these exist because they are concrete and real; however, no single individual who belongs to the public has any real commitment; some times during the day he belongs to the public, namely, in those times in which he is nothing; in those times that he is a particular person, he does not belong to the public. Consisting of such individuals, who as individuals are nothing, the public becomes a huge something, a nothing, an abstract desert and emptiness, which is everything and nothing.

To conclude in the matchless words of Soren Kierkegaard:

'Media is an abstraction (because a newspaper is not concrete and only in an abstract sense can be considered an individual), which in association with the passion-lessness and reflection of the times creates that abstract phantom, the public, which is the actual leveller. ...This lazy mass of third parties, which understands nothing and does nothing, this public gallery seeks some distraction, and soon gives itself over to the idea that everything which someone does, or achieves, has been done to provide the public something to gossip about. The public has a dog for its amusement. That dog is the Media. If there is someone better than the public, someone who distinguishes himself, the public sets the dog on him and all the amusement begins. This biting dog tears up his coat-tails, and takes all sort of vulgar liberties with his leg - until the public bores of it all and calls the dog off. That is how the public levels.'

The pseudo-secular mafia of mass media - all our English Newspapers of National and International fame, all our television channels - derive their inspiration for indulging in disgraceful acts of national perversion or national sabotage from this phantom of the public and its hunger for cheap publicity and satisfaction.

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Risks of Belief

With about five decades of worldly experience, I can state with utmost certainty that those who do not believe in anything will never achieve anything substantial in their lives. This is true in every phase of life. Those who do not believe in parents will never grow up properly and those who do not believe in spouses face the same consequence in married life. While those who do not believe in teachers shall never learn properly, those who do not believe in children will never lead a peaceful retired life. Belief in anything is like a catalyst that would accelerate our efforts towards its benefits. The chemistry of belief and efforts is something that can only be experienced. It can never be explained nor imposed on anyone. Quite often it is this peculiarity of belief that poses as the secret behind repeated successes of a select few and failures of some others.
The question of belief and unconditional surrender is central to all religions and ideologies. Death of any religious or ideological institution is guaranteed if atleast the top 25% of the hierarchy do not have absolute and genuine belief in it. There are numerous examples for this in our long history and it is still happening around us even today. The death of many religions, Soviet Union and so many local establishments in our own neighbourhood are nothing but classic examples of this natural phenomenon. Belief of followers is the ultimate fuel for the growth of any collective movement. But for belief, none of the major religious orders and their colossal monuments would have come up. Does it mean that tendency to believe is a desirable quality for all human being? Yes it is, but it is full of danger if the belief turns out to be for a false one ultimately. It requires a high degree of discretion and luck to finalise on something to believe in and then proceed to reap the benefits out of it.

Belief in Ideologies

All the religious and social ideologies have progressed thanks to the efforts of a minority who believed fully in them in the initial phase. Socialism, Communism and the various religious ideologies have developed only because there were a committed few who found complete identification with them at different phases. All the political and social ideologies originate in the fertile minds of a few individuals. And then the ideologies begin to flourish when these individuals come together and find ways and means to convince others as well. The dark side any ideology begins here. If in the first phase it is getting others to their side by conquering minds, it becomes much more aggressive by forcible conversion in subsequent phases. The proponents of competing ideologies are always forced to devise dubious methods to get people to their side. The game of numbers forces many positive ideologies into negative paths of coercive methods and eventually to certain demise.

The risk of belief to followers from ideologies is very common sight in the world today. There are millions of followers in various ideologies who do not really believe in them. Most of them are forced to live their lives within these ideologies by birth for the fear of facing the consequences of leaving them. In the highly connected world of today, it is very difficult to convince one’s own conscience so easily of the beliefs each of us inherit by virtue of our birth in a particular religion or community. To understand and comprehend any ideology it definitely takes years of learning and only a few among us get the time and facility to do so. What most of us do is to blindly follow the footsteps of our parents who were following theirs and so on. The situation is all the more pathetic in the case of social ideologies like Communism and Socialism. Invariably most of the virulent comrades realise the hollowness of their ideology late in their lives. It is too late then to do anything. Many of them go into the silent mode, but some others continue hypocritically with the ideology which has become a burden.

Belief in Individuals

Individual attaining the status of institution is a common phenomenon in many of the populous countries, especially in the developing world. In most cases it is because of immense attraction of public to the ideological thoughts initiated by certain individuals in their own lifetimes. Original innovators of extremely appealing ideas find huge following and the institutions set up by them develop in leaps and bounds. Identification of institution with the individual becomes so strong that it would become difficult to differentiate one from another. Individual becoming institution is no doubt something noble, but there is downside as well. The risk of belief becomes too much if such individual turns out to be an unworthy role model in later life.

The ordinary men and women flocking towards elevated individuals is a very common sight in third world countries. Almost all philosophical ideologies originating from Asia prescribe a teacher to guide us in life. Unavoidable difficulties in everyday life and promise of assured relief by easy techniques also provide reasons for so many men and women reposing their full belief in such elevated individuals. There is absolutely no doubt that many of them achieve what they want by doing so. The power of belief and catalytic acceleration it provides drive many people towards their goals without they being aware of it. But in the present day world of competition the believers can only trust in God that their role model survive the lure of evil unleashed by unscrupulous adversaries. Consequences of their icon of total belief falling from grace can be disastrous for many ordinary believers.

It is always prudent to be cautious in everything we do. God has given us the power to think and think we must before we decide to believe in anything. Our scriptures are cent percent right in saying that a noble teacher and absolute belief are must if we want to achieve anything in life. Each of us must definitely strive for both, but very cautiously. Do not fall into the pitfalls of publicity and public opinion while zeroing in on our own guru and ideology. Tread cautiously and find someone with whom we can interact directly as our guru. And our chosen ideology must be something that is cent percent rational and practical for each of us as individuals. Expectation and compromise should have no place in fixing our beliefs.

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Literature's Antidote to Hate

The literary world can encourage understanding between bitter enemies.If you buy a ticket and travel to another country, you are likely to see the monuments, the palaces and the squares, the museums and the landscapes and the historical sites. If you are lucky, you may have a chance to conduct some conversations with the local people. Then you will travel back home, carrying a bunch of photographs or postcards. But if you read a novel, you obtain a ticket into the most intimate recesses of another country and of another people. Reading a foreign novel is an invitation to visit other people's homes and other country's private quarters. If you are a mere tourist, you might stand on a street and look up at an old house, in the old part of town, and see a woman staring out of her window. Then you will walk on.But if you are a reader, you can see that woman staring out of her window, but you are there with her, inside her room, inside her head. As you read a foreign novel, you are actually invited into other people's living rooms, into their nurseries and studies, into their bedrooms. You are invited into their secret sorrows, into their family joys, into their dreams.
Which is why I believe in literature as a bridge between peoples. I believe curiosity can be a moral quality. I believe imagining the other can be an antidote to fanaticism. Imagining the other will make you not only a better businessperson or a better lover but even a better person. Part of the tragedy between Jew and Arab is the inability of so many of us, Jews and Arabs, to imagine each other. Really imagine each other: the loves, the terrible fears, the anger, the passion. There is too much hostility between us, too little curiosity. Jews and Arabs have something essential in common: They have both been handled, coarsely and brutally, by Europe's violent hand in the past. The Arabs through imperialism, colonialism, exploitation and humiliations. The Jews through discrimination, persecution, expulsion and ultimately mass murder on an unprecedented scale.

One would have thought that two victims, and especially two victims of the same oppressor, would develop between them a sense of solidarity. Alas, this is not the way it works, neither in novels nor in life.Some of the worst conflicts are indeed between two victims of the same oppressor -- two children of the same violent parent don't necessarily like each other. Often they see in each other the image of the abusive parent. Which is exactly the case between Jews and Arabs in the Middle East. While the Arabs regard Israelis as latter-day Crusaders, an extension of the white, colonizing Europe, many Israelis, for their part, regard the Arabs as the new incarnation of our past oppressors, pogrom makers and Nazis. This situation charges Europe with a particular responsibility for the solution of the Israeli-Arab conflict: Instead of wagging their fingers at either side, Europeans should extend empathy, understanding and help to both sides. You no longer have to choose between being pro-Israel and being pro-Palestine. You have to be pro-peace. The woman in the window might be a Palestinian woman in Nablus. She might be a Jewish Israeli woman in Tel Aviv. If you want to help make peace between these two women in the two windows, you had better read more about them. Read novels, dear friends. They will tell you much. It is even time for each of these women to read about each other. To learn, at last, what makes the other woman in the window frightened, angry or hopeful. I am not suggesting that reading novels can change the world. I do suggest, and I do believe, that reading novels is one of the best possible ways to understand that all the women, in all the windows, are, at the end of the day, in urgent need of peace.

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Socially Starved Individuals and the Act of Killing

The rampage on Virginia Tech university campus reminds us of some pessimistic predictions about future of modern society social scientists had offered. To top them all, sociologist Max Weber grimly spoke of the disenchantment of people in the ‘iron cage of rationality’. If we are wise and sensitive, we would not be able to brush those predictions aside considering them only a result of intellectual senility gripped by some kind of dooms-day prophecy. Any underestimation of such prediction would also have to ignore the fact that killings on Virginia Tech is prefixed by innumerable precedents. Shooting in Columbine high school in 1999 by students was not less shocking. In 2002, Germany mourned on two such incidents of killing by students in the months of February and April subsequently. It is a recurrent mishap in some or other part of the world almost every year. In India we almost every year read news of youths committing suicide- killing of the self on some or other pretext of failure. The frequency underlines a pattern rooted in and supported by society, as Sociological imagination would help us comprehend. Hence, it is absurd to have the student Cho Seung-Hui, who gunned down people on Virginia Tech, reduced into a mere individual and incident to be attributed to some kind of psychic disorder.
Absurdity of post incident Analysis In the aftermath of Virginia Tech we had ourselves busy discovering a thing or two which could prove the killer an outright psychopath, lovelorn and thus the incident as an aberration due to an abnormal individual. We tend to trick ourselves into believing that Cho was an autistic as he was always found quiet and self-indulged. That he was visiting Psychiatrist and therefore it must be his mental disorder that wreaked this havoc, are related to age-old reduction of sociological problem into a simple psychological one, as a reading of Emile Durkheim’s work ‘Suicide’ can suggest us. Hence, in the popular discourse it ended with a simple but ludicrous suggestion of psychiatric counselling for any such student who exhibit predilection for quietness. Such clinical conclusion is quite absurd in the face of details ferreted out by the investigators.

After first round of shooting, the gunman goes to the post office to mail the package of writings and videos, which he had prepared with meaningful intent. Days before the fateful incident Cho is said to have practiced with the weapons in the nearby shooting range. Moreover, Cho spews hatred for all those he knew and poses with gun and knife in the video. As Cho was quoted from the video by all the national dailies on 20th April, 2007, “you had a hundred billion chances and ways to have avoided today. But you decided to spill my blood. You forced me into a corner and gave me only one option”. I have italicized the self-explanatory and analytically important portion of Cho’s words. Everything that Cho offers, in letter and deed, speak loud and clear about the troubled relationship between individual and society, grueling expectations from individual in a fast changing socio-cultural and economic conditions, and off course the worsening complications of individual mind. I am afraid the incident can not be narrowed into a mere problem of individual mind?

Interpreting the action

The killing of others and self is more like a helpless resistance to the ruthlessness of a dysfunctional society. When individuals are marred by the sense of insignificance of the self and superiority of a popular notion of rationality, they repress themselves every now and then. Eventually individuals are susceptible to two possible results of such repressions. They undergo the process Franz Kafka described in ‘Metamorphosis’ and become a weird conformist creature who everybody only leer about. Second possibility is that they might just revolt against all the self-repressing mechanism. Killing one’s own self and others underscores a last ditch effort to sense significance of self as well expression of no faith in self as well as society.

Youths, thus, end up as Arjunas. Whenever faced with a situation like moral battle of Kurukshetra, they are all only helpless. Our new age society perhaps need to gear up for evolving a pertinent mechanism toward youths.

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Foolish American Voters Mugged Again,

Woodrow Wilson, who was elected on the promise to keep America out of WW1, deliberately followed a policy of sending American non-military ships, sailors and passengers into the war zone. They were naturally sunk by the Germans. Wilson generated this caucus belli to engulf the US into a costly war with casualties in the hundreds of thousands to ensure the British debt payment to American financiers. If the British had lost, the loan debt would be uncollectible and would have to be written off. Franklin Delano Roosevelt used a similar ruse to involve the US in WW2. He supplied Britain with arms, ammunition, military hardware and supplies and denied the Japanese petroleum and scrap metal that they needed, compelling them in their delusions of grandeur to match European colonies, to attack America. FDR had also promised to keep the US out of war but like most elected officials, he lied. The current president and vice president lied repeatedly to take us to war in Iraq, likely to cost three trillion dollars by the estimate of Nobel Prize winning economist Joseph Stiglitz. In addition Bush Jr.’s stupidity has cost the US and the world an extra three trillion dollars in higher oil prices over five years.


With these facts, it is absurd to pretend that a candidate for the presidency or vice presidency needs any experience. A brain damaged monkey would have handled the US presidency better than the current incumbent. It would have the same speech capability as the current duo, but would have been unable to give a direct comprehensible order to start the conflict despite a rubber stamping zombie Congress that functions on the sole principle of abdicating responsibility. So even if one calls a candidate a pit bull or a pig with lipstick, it should be taken as a well deserved compliment and not a put down. The fact that a candidate for the vice presidency has not heard of the current president’s policy of preemptive war to intimidate other nations for an imagined threat or any other lie, and to use nuclear weapons on a non-nuclear nation or to prevent any nation on earth to equal or surpass America’s military might (that’s the Bush Doctrine publicly promulgated in 2002) is no barrier to running, as long as she is willing to go to war with Russia, the only comparable nuclear power for the sake of Georgia, Iran or Ukraine. Why the candidate masquerading on the Democratic ticket under the slogan of change, with his warmonger windbag vice presidential running mate has threatened Iran with similar measures to ensure the support of the AIPAC lobby and funding from rich donors.

Obama, while denying acceptance of PAC funds, has received large amounts of money from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac executives and had initially appointed one of them the chief vetter of his vice presidential choice, until it was discovered that the executive had obtained sweetheart loans at below market interest rates through connections. McCain has received even more money from Freddie and Fannie executives (Jackie Calmes article in the NYTimes) and his top campaign officials are lobbyists for Fannie, Freddie and even foreign agents of the country of Georgia. He has the audacity to call himself a straight talking maverick. He is nothing but an unprincipled opportunist who dumped his decent first wife and would take money and do anything for anybody to become the president. His lying TV ads reveal his true character as Paul Krugman wrote in the New York Times. He is an older chip of the same blockheads Bush, Cheney and Rice who publicly stated that in the twenty-first century civilized nations don’t attack other nations. The senile bunch, Who I suspect advanced not on merit but by by affirmative, alumni or money connections, either forgot that the US attacked Iraq and Afghanistan in the same century or believe that the US is not a civilized nation.

Reagan used the Iranian hostage crisis to defeat the inept Carter. He used smooth talk to escape any consequences of his unlawful trade of arms with enemy Iran, in the Iran Contra fiasco for which two his cronies were convicted. It was a repeat of Nixon’s criminal conduct without any adverse effects. Unprincipled and probably equally involved Bush Sr., his successor then pardoned them. Reagan repeatedly appealed to the electorate to think if they were better off after the Carter presidency and vote accordingly. Without being repeatedly reminded, the American public is incapable of any such thought. Reagan then appointed his cronies who were corporate lobbyists or executives as regulatory heads of Federal agencies as foxes to guard the chicken coop. He eviscerated labor unions by firing the air traffic controllers and deregulated the savings and loan institutions to make wild gambling bets with federally insured deposits, leading to the 200+ billion dollar debacle which taxpayers had to foot. It enriched Neil Bush, the brother of the current president and involved McCain in an ethics scandal called “Keating Five” for lobbying by senators in return for campaign contributions.

Bill Clinton who gained the presidency with Labor support betrayed them and the nation by passing NAFTA that continued the impoverishment and de-industrialization of America. He, like Reagan allowed Wall Street and the Banks to make imprudent loans to Mexico, whose president and his family were involved in dealing drugs and monetary embezzlement and used taxpayer funds to make his financiers whole at the behest of their Trojan horse Robert Rubin, who was the mole of Wall Street and Banks just as Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson is in the current administration. Hilary Clinton opposed the bankruptcy bill modification as the first lady and spoke up for a Palestinian state, but made a hundred and eighty degree turnaround when she ran for the Senate from New York.

Bush Jr., the retarded was fed some idea about promoting home ownership by his backers and parroted it often enough to start the housing crisis. The mortgage brokers, mortgage finance subsidiaries, banks, investment banks and rating agencies colluded in approving liar loans without documentation or due diligence from a duped non-affording populace sold on the idea of ever rising home prices and dreams of quick riches. This toxic waste like the proverbial Love Canal was allowed to seep into the balance sheets of foreign banks flush with dollars from a burgeoning trade deficit which they recycled to balance the current account deficit by returning it to the US. Low treasury interest rates made it tempting to buy Fannie and Freddie bonds and other mortgage backed securities with slightly higher interest rates. Pension funds, hedge funds, insurance companies and individuals succumbed to the same temptation. The falling home prices stopped the music and exploded the package being passed around. Banks, investment banks, brokerages took the first hits and like the proverbial iceberg there is still more of this debt to be written off, beneath the surface.

The reported 500 billion dollar writeoffs led to a credit and liquidity crisis and forced de-leveraging by the players through a single narrow exit with other doors closing. Once again the planted financial Benedict Arnolds sounding like Nathan Hale opened up the public spigots to rescue their partners in sin, whose greed for commissions and bonuses of fifty to hundred billion dollars (5 to 10% skimmed off from a trillion dollar subprime and alt-A mortgage pool that they sanctioned, securitized and sold to gullible fools by sanitizing them through the rating agencies, Fannie and Freddie). This embalming fluid injected in the live body of the nation will not stop its deleterious effects till the nation becomes a corpse. It is seeping into prime mortgages, asset backed securities, automobile loans and credit card debt securities and will lead to debacles of the FDIC and Pension Benefit Guarantee Corporation. The profligate deficits, round the clock dollar printing presses, Helicopter Ben dropping money from the sky while accepting the toxic waste on to Fed’s balance sheet, off budget liabilities, are driving the nation to bankruptcy, wrecking the economy, increasing unemployment and inflation, as the automobile manufacturers, airlines, FDIC and PGBC all line up for tens of billions of handouts which the average Americans and future generations will have to repay.

Thirty-five billion were spent to rescue Bear Stearns, 250 billion or more will be spent to rescue Fannie and Freddie, 50 billion for the automobile companies, who knows how much for Lehman, Merrill, AIG, Citibank etc.If the American public had knowledge instead of ignorance and could think without losing attention, they would have voted for either Ron Paul or Dennis Kucinich in the primaries (depending on being on the right or left) and now would vote for independent or third party candidates instead of Republicans, who for ten years did nothing to rein in the GSEs while they controlled both the house and senate or Democrats, who promised to stop the Iraq war but will not cut off funding. Both parties divvied up the nearly 200 million dollars that the GSEs spent on lobbying to muddy their balance sheets to earn millions in remuneration for their irresponsible executives without a modicum of decency or integrity, just like their colleagues at the banks, mortgage brokers, rating agencies, federal regulators and elected officials. I guess it is foolish of me to expect scum-bags to behave honestly and decently. As they say in another language, if my aunt had a mustache and cojones, she wouldn’t be an aunt, but an uncle. As Diogenes and Plato tried and failed in search of an honest guardian, it is futile to look for an honest

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India Deeply Divided after Sixty Years of “Political Secularism”

India after sixty years of “political secularism” practiced by the Congress Party and its regional casteist political allies today stands dismally divided because of a fundamental flaw that these political parties did not accord importance to incorporating Hinduism as the majority religion its due political space in their scheme of “political secularism”. It stands pointed out in this Columnist’s earlier Columns that “existential secularism” for centuries prevailed in India before 1947 and there was no need to invent a new breed of ‘political secularism” by Nehru and the Congress Party. .
It was done for political gains by a contrived projection that the millions of Indian Muslims who elected to stay back in India on Partition could be safe only behind this new political contrivation of the Congress Party.Implicit in this new political contrivation was that somehow in the new Indian Republic the majority Hindu population could emerge as a source of concern for minorities. .
Not only this was a negation of the centuries old “existential secularism” that provided the mainstay of the social fabric of India for centuries but the past sixty years of the political history of the Indian Republic also negates the ‘political secularism”
precept aimed at creating captive vote-banks.This Columnist does not need any lessons or sermons from any “political secularist” that abound in India’s rotten polity or from Indian media secular sermonists or secular pseudo-intellectuals preaching secularism. In this Columnist’s family every Indian religion stands represented by ties of marriage. When I write this I write out of pain and anguish as to how India stands deeply divided by sixty years of “political secularism”India stands nearly poised today to acquire a global power status not because of its political leaders but by a global recognition that India’s national attributes of power as commonly endorsed in international relations equip her for this role. In the national attributes of power, one on which I shall only dwell today is “National Cohesion”“National Cohesion” implies national unity and national sense of purpose emerging from a strong sense of national pride. In a multi-ethnic and multi-religious nation like India it also implies that all the disparate groups combine together and subsume their respective identities into a greater Indian national identity.India’s “political secularism” regrettably, instead of fostering a greater Indian national identity has by virtue of its inherent disabilities has resulted in India today standing dismally divided on grounds of religion, regions, castes and sub-castes for reasons of vote-banks politics. Even in non-casteist religions of the Indian Muslims and the Indian Christians political divides have now surfaced on terms of reservations based on backward segmentation which basically boils down to their earlier castes.India’s protagonists of “political secularism” have gone steps ahead in dividing India between “We’s “ and “They’s” By ‘We’s’ they imply the political secularists along with their handful of regional casteist political leaders , the Leftists and media camp followers depending upon a combined vote-bank of 30% of India . By ‘They’ these political secularists imply the rest of 70% India predominantly Hindu majority and whom the Congress Party and its allies like to dub as “communal forces”, “Right-wing fundamentalists”, “Hindu Fundamentalists” and now the latest coinage in their vocabulary “Hindu Terrorism”The battle today in India is basically political with the “political secularists” trying their best to retain their captive vote-banks against the rising tide of dissatisfaction within those vote-banks for having been taken for a ride all these last sixty years and who would not be averse for a political switchover. O the other side of the battle is the main Opposition Party which probably senses that the mood in the Hindu majority population is changing after sixty years of being short-changed by the “political secularist” parties with their Indian Muslim vote bank politics and the politics of backward classes reservations.Having crossed into the seventies in terms of age and keenly studying India’s political trends so long I would not be too wrong in asserting that “Political Secularism” has not only failed in India but has resulted in India being deeply divided. The Indian Christians and the Sikhs as the other sizeable minorities of India got assimilated in mainstream India whereas the Indian Muslims as the largest Indian minority could not do likewise because the Indian “political secularists” fostered and encouraged their separateness for narrow political gains. If rabidity in public debates is the hallmark of religious demagogues and fundamentalists then how does one brand and label the political secularists on TV debates and interviews going wild with their diatribes against those who want to assert their Hinduness?India’s national security interests demand that India’s national security not be compromised by India’s political leaders with their contemptible divisive policies to sustain themselves in political power. The minorities and the majority must not be pitted against each other for narrow political gains. India would be better served not by hollow and rhetorical self-professions of “political secularism” but by following the centuries old “existential secularism” which fostered peace and harmony without any political fiats and where the minorities and the majorities recognized each others respective social and political space without political slogans and political labeling.

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Silence is loudest scream

Silence is the only thing I hear
Silence is what I fear
Silence tells me that nothing remains
Silence tells ne that its the end of your game
As silence fills the air
I begin to wish he was there
I wish I didn't let him walk out that door
And I hate that there's nothing I can do anymore
To make him mine again
I love him more than anything but I didn't know it then
And now silence is all that's left
Silence because of an unnecessary bereft
The silence rings in my ears
Because I let go of what I should have kept near
The tears pour out of my eyes
As I lay there in silence - but that's no surprise

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In Defense of Dupatta

On the question of many westerners, some sophisticated Asians and even Indian expatriates as to why Indian women still cling to the “outdated, unsteady and always-slipping-off-the shoulders” garment resembling a shawl worn backwards, one tends to feel either defensive or fall into the trap of assertion of false modernity and new concepts of modesty.Jyothirllata Girija addressing the issue of dress code for college girls in India in an article for The Hindu writes “One should never deride and discard certain good things just for the reason they are age-old customs or accept and glorify anything solely because it is new and modern, without delving deeply into the pros and cons of it”. We don’t really know the exact origin of a narrow scarf or veil commonly known as Dupatta, however an over garment, resembling it, seems to be present in the Vedic times. The upper part of the body of both men and women was covered by a long and ample scarf of light texture. One can claim that today Dupatta remains only a fashion garment, the one which adds grace and breaks the monotony of a dress, but try asking a woman and you will be amazed of its various purposes and lasting importance.
Apart from being worn over the head as a mark of respect while going to worship or talking to elders, Dupatta has multiple uses in day-to-day life. Dupatta is draped over the head to avoid burning sun of summer’s heat or pouring rain if caught by a sudden outburst of monsoon shower. Dupatta protects you from the freezing cold of foggy night and is to make yourself comfortable on the rough floor of a railway platform or overcrowded government hospital. But don’t be enchanted by the picturesque images of a lofty life a decently clad Indian woman leads. Other usages bring one back to the age of Kalyug and to modern day India.Will a girl be able to face her numerous relatives if shown on major TV channels in Meerut’s Gandhi Park caught in the rage of “Operation Majnu” without the protective cover of Dupatta? Will she manage to uphold her dignity in a country where such social evils as eve-teasing and molestation in public have been long since accepted? Regardless of admitting it to be a misconception, it is ground reality in India that people believe that woman's indecent attire invites harassment. It is enough to observe the way general public, including elderly females comment on rape cases, wondering whether the girl was “provocatively dressed” or “asked for it”. Again Dupatta comes as a savior. However not a panacea it gives a girl an inner feeling of being protected and covered from ever lusting eyes.The only usage of a Dupatta, one can neither be defensive nor proud of is that of Nafisa Joseph, Kuljeet Randhawa* and hundreds of others, their personalities not considered famous enough for the cases to be reported. One can only hope that it won’t become the most widespread adoption of an “old-fashioned” garment for a modern India of the 21st Century. * Both former miss India Nafisa Joseph and actress Kuljeet Randhawa hanged themselves from the ceiling fan with a “dupatta”

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Economic Crisis: Cold markets, sizzling properties

Property prices are melting. If you are waiting for them to fall neatly into your budget, prepare for a very long wait. Not that there is no correction, but the extent is limited. When the real estate party was on for the past 4 years, property prices rose by over 100%. Will they drop as much? Not likely. So how do you invest in real estate when home loan rates are so high and prices refuse to drop? By looking for little-known locations where prices are still low or where they have shrunk by a chunky 20-25%. These untapped locations hold out maximum promise of appreciation as the real estate market of the metros, Tier I cities and popular IT destinations at the Tier II level are becoming saturated. The real bargains are available in small towns targeted by big developers. In an Ernst and Young survey, almost 56% developers said that they will foray into Tier II cities and 20% find Tier III cities attractive. One such set of locations is “spokes”—cities that derive prosperity from nearby real estate hubs while offering affordable cost of living. Also watch out for big city suburbs. “Poorly connected locations that fall on major planned roads are a good bet,” says Ambar Maheshwari, director, DTZ Debenham Tie Leung. Sanjay Dutt of Cushman & Wakefield, a real estate consultancy, says that property prices in small cities are still lower compared to those of big cities. Tracking the IT industry’s movement to smaller towns is a good way to identify which ones will witness appreciating property prices. Look out for better infrastructure, proximity or connectivity to established real estate markets and creation of sustainable jobs. Even in bigger cities, pick areas where a major infrastructure project is being planned and give priority to investment corridors over micro locations. For example, if real estate development is taking place along a highway, locations along the same road will also benefit. But don’t invest blindly just because prices are low. Deals in upcoming suburbs and smaller cities can be messy. “Many developers are booking flats in small towns without government clearances,” warns Maheshwari. So do your homework well before buying property there. We have made your work easier though. After some digging around, here’s a list of 8 small cities that may become property hotspots tomorrow.

Land a good deal Is this the right time to buy a house? It’s a question being asked across the country by thousands of potential investors in real estate. Before you even attempt to answer it, just consider the situation in the real estate market. Property prices are falling, interest rates are rising and demand is so low that even big builders are finding it difficult to sell projects. Demand for housing has come down steeply, pulling down property rates in the past year. Prices in some areas have corrected by as much as 25%. The incessant rise in interest rates has made matters worse. With home loan rates touching 12%, investors don’t see real estate as a viable investment anymore.According to investment banker Credit Suisse, sales volumes in Mumbai in the first six months of 2008-9 are down 14% compared to the same period in the last year. The steepest fall in a month this year was in August 2008 when sales were down 27% compared to last year. So why would anybody want to invest in real estate at this juncture? However, reality can be very different from perception. True, the property market is having a rough time and a turnaround isn’t likely in the near term. But these worst of times also present the best of opportunities for buyers. Even the most pessimistic industry observers feel that the correction in real estate is over. They expect residential property prices to “drift” by 3-5% rather than “crash” further. There are some positive spin-offs because of the drop in demand in the luxury segment. It has forced realtors to focus on the mid and lower ends of the market. This means no frill houses at reasonable prices.

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