I think, therefore I have thought

There is pain and suffering everywhere - around us and within us. This is not so because it has been thus designed. It is so due to ignorance. Ignorance is certainly in the design but it is our choice that makes us weave it into the fabric of our lives or discard it like an ill-fitting piece of clothing.

Ultimately, WE are the architects of our own bondage.

Heart to Heart

The following is a transcript of a late breaking news segment from CBS, a US TV channel (For explanation of the acronyms used in this sentence, please see the end of this post):

The war is on. And it is being televised live. Please tune in every day right after Sex and the City to follow the latest developments in this battle between good and evil. Highlights from the previous day are broadcast evey afternoon from 1300-1330 hours.

It has recently come to our attention that the hearts and minds of the Iraqi people have been largely won by the forces of democracy: America and its allies. There is much rejoicing all around Iraq and around the world. Iraqis have been so happy that they have started blowing up their own cars in which they were travelling to their relatives homes, killing themselves and other rejoicing pedestrians on the street. Of course the Americans have to teach them that it is not advisable to do so particularly when the explosives they use have been made in America and other technologically advanced western countries. It is not the same as buying firecrackers from Abdul's shop in their neighbourhood.

Moreover our explosives are all marked with 'Dangerous: Only to be used on the enemy' and 'We are Sorry to have hurt anyone's feelings as a result of the use of this device' signs as required by American law. But of course these signs are in english and most Iraqis have difficulty understanding it. Even if some literate people were to use these bombs, they wouldn't be able to read it as the tears of joy and happiness running down their eyes and cheeks would make their vision fuzzy. Plans are on war-footing to make Arabic audio tapes advising of the dangers of using explosives accessible to the ordinary Iraqi.

Nevertheless this is just another indication of Iraqis growing sense of relief and self-confidence and the Americans have been instrumental in this sea change in the Iraqis' lives.

Sketchy reports have just been received from Haditha that a large number of people's hearts and minds have been won in that district. These reports have mainly been received in the form of songs and videos by our soldiers stationed in Iraq. Soldiers have been advised to use the formal means of communication to relay information about the battlefield but the president has given a special concession to them on account of the exemplary work they have been doing. Just this morning a young kid came running towards an American Humvee, shouting and with a parcel in his hand and a big backpack on his shoulders. The kid was overrun by the Humvee as the commander suspected him to be a suicide bomber targeting the Americans. On inspecting the load that the suspected suicide bomber was carrying, it was found that the bags were full of Toblerone chocolates. A note was found on the young kid thanking the Americans for winning over the hearts and minds of his family members.

Just that morning he had woken up to find his father, mother and little sister sprawled in the bedroom with red marks all around on the walls and the house in a messy state. The kid had been listening to the news and had heard about our 'Win the hearts and minds' campaign and came to the conclusion that his family's hearts and minds were won by the Americans and his parents and sister were so happy over this that they had probably slaughtered a goat and had a great romp all night. This, the kid wrote, explained the red marks on the walls and the messy state of the house. Moreover he tried to wake them up but they were possibly passed out from all the physical strain of celebrating.

The kid wrote that he was disappointed and he even kicked his little sister for not waking him up to enjoy the celebrations. He mentioned that he was soon overcome by feelings of gratitude towards the Americans and had collected all his Toblerone chocolates that he was given on his birthday and also the chocolates that were presented to his sister as she wouldn't be needing them soon, being already full from the goat she ate and had brought them for the Americans.

Soldiers on the ground have been told to be more careful in the future if they see kids running towards them with backpacks for they might miss out on some chocolates. They have been supplied with a new laser which they must first aim at such kids' backpacks and the heat of the laser would melt the chocolate if it was there and they would see a brown liquid oozing out of the backpack. If this doesn't happen, they must assume danger and shoot at the kids' legs to stop them well short of themselves and then ask them in Arabic if they had chocolates with them. This way we can avoid unnecessary casualties and our soldiers can give themselves the much needed sugar boost to win the heart and minds of other Iraqis a la Haditha.

The president has stated that Americans regret this deeply and apologise to the kid's parents for any inconvenience this may have caused. The stars of Sex and the City have offered to lend moral support to the residents of Haditha in these testing times.

To explain this good work we have to understand how we have reached here and why we sent our dear sons and daughters on the path of danger and sacrifice. The Americans have been trying very hard to bring democracy to Iraq (pronounced 'I-Wreck' by US Americans). We have succeedeed in removing (synonym: 'sodomising', from the free peoples vocabulary) Sodom Whosevain, a tyrant and the principal opponent of democracy from his bunker and hole. Hell, we even toppled his statue and draped the American flag over it, which was meant to democratise the statue and had no sinister undertones as Al-Jazeera would have you believe. The statue, after being fully democratised, is now collecting dust in some warehose and is resigned to its fate. I told you we democratised it! And this is what democratisation does to people and statues alike.

I acknowledge this is old news but this is the only good thing we have been able to do so far and good deeds need to be talked about over and over again when humanity desperately needs hope and courage which have been sucked out from people's lives by the world-affecting tragedies of the Queen Mother's and the Pope's death and the horrific evening when the earth stood still when our president almost died when he choked on a pretzel while trying to say the word 'nuclear' at the same time. At that moment the president heard God talking to him and inspired him to bring democracy to the dark corners of this earth. And God said to him...

Woof...Woof...

and then licked him in his ear.

Don't believe Al-Jazeera if they tell you that it was his pooch who did this. Al-Jazeera doesn't tell the truth and even if you think it was his pooch, well you know what, God works in mysterious ways through his creatures. That evening it dawned upon the president that he was the chosen one (before this there were doubts about him being the chosen one in people's minds, what with the hanging chads in Florida and some black guys not being able to vote for Al Gore because they had gangrene in their legs and they had no fingers which they could have used to vote anyway).

I-Wreck is much safer now. In fact it has been made as safe as it could ever be by the Americans who introduced democracy there. Now anybody can kill anybody there, at any time and in any manner they please. Just like in America. And this is what democracy is all about. Solving our differences in a peaceful way and what could be more peaceful than death? Now that we have sown the seeds of democracy in I-Wreck, it would be nurtured by the sweet blood-red waters of the Tigris and the rain of bullets which fall down in each and every city of I-Wreck every day and more so on Fridays because thats when the muslins pray and boy, has God heard their prayer or what? Note: 'muslins' is not an incorrect word, it is part of our drive to re-educate the world. Moreover we have been advised by the British, the inventors of english, that it is the correct spelling for this word.

Due to this peace and prosperity that has been brought to their country, the Iraqis celebrate every day with loud explosions and much shouting. They even blow up their own cars, so happy they are. Well, we still have a long way to go and we will have to teach them the ways of the civilsed world.

Blowing up your own cars is not civilised. In America, it makes our pet dogs and cats jumpy and they run away from their homes, never to be found again. This can lead to the untimely deaths of 90+ year old geriatrics who become heart-broken and grief-stricken over the loss of their only companion. Thats why Americans don't do it in their own country and if they have such an urge they do it in some other country and the other country gets democracy in the bargain. Thats all for this night's special bulletin. Please stick around as Sex and the city is up next followed by the live telecast of the latest developments in the theater of war in I-Wreck.

Acronyms used in the first sentence:
US: US. As in the example: US against THEM. Or another example: They hate US.

Father, help me! SOS, kill me!

I'm not being alarmist/sensationalist. The post title is just a selection of some monologues from the movie Johnny got his gun by Dalton Trumbo. I'll talk about this later, but first...

I haven't blogged in the recent past because I've been relatively content. Lots of things have been happening in the world which can be dissected and blame can be apportioned to somebody for making them happen. But I find it bit taxing to employ logic to comment on illogical and even logical events.

This is because logic fails at the elementary, atomic level. Logic can provide a reason for almost everything but it cannot serve as a reason for its own deductions. For example logic can satisfactorily give a reason for a father's avowal that "This child is mine because I saw him emerge from his mother's, my wife's, womb". But why should this logic be accepted as a fait accompli cannot be explained by another logical statement, if somebody did doubt it and wanted further logical reasoning. Such doubt would be met by an incredulous stare and some choice words being used by the father. So, the first reaction to a logical explanation being sought might be an illogical rebuff.

You might think that such a doubt as I have raised is incongruous with the direct sensory perception of the birth that the father had and on which he based his assertion of the kid's parentage. But how do you know it was this man's pollen that had fertilised the mother's ovum? Or further still, how can you be sure that it is not immaculate conception that has bypassed the need of the male and female agents altogether for its origin?

You can say that it can be settled by DNA testing? But how can you be sure that the results would be the "truth" and not be based on contaminated samples or have not been inadvertently the product of a 'mix-up' with the DNA test results of a poor carpenter's son submitted to the laboratory by three contemporary 'wise' men?

What I am saying is that at some point in our quest we have to suspend logic and attach ourselves to trust or faith.

We, for all our scientific ways have similarily suspended logic at its farthest reach and placed our doubts in the lap of trust and faith. There is no original thought or discovery in the scientific repertoire of humans. What is considered scientific and logical is just some baffled mind stopping in their quest well before the origin of the entity that created their doubt because logic failed to proceed beyond its territory and what it found on its farthest edges was accepted as the "truth" by the baffled mind and similarily stymied seekers.

Thats one of the reasons why reason (logic) hasn't been able to comprehend the true unalloyed reality because that is elementary and non-relative and logic is a compound structure that is composed of inter-dependent elementary units to give meaning. Logic then cannot expose the true nature of an elementary, atomic, non-relative entity because it would pollute its nature by employing other relative elementary building blocks to build the corpus delicti, if you like.

Another example: Logic can explain what is number 3 or any other number for that matter because they exist in an inter-dependent set of numbers. Number 3 is three positive shifts from zero. But note that another 'three' and 'zero' have crept in to explain the '3' of the original question. If '3' was the only number that existed, would it be able to be explained by logic? In my opinion, most certainly not. To accept and explain '3' then, we would make it a God if we were so inclined in our hearts (read, having faith) or we would deny its existence vehemently if we were not so inclined in our hearts.

Returning to my post title, I find it strangely linked to what Omar Khayyam said:

The moving finger writes; and, having writ,
Moves on; nor all your piety nor wit
Shall lure it back to cancel half a line,
Nor all your tears wash out a word of it.

If you have a chance, see this good movie.

Reason drives men to war, faith to liberation.

Next Please

I walk into the bank - the one that takes the common man's money and turns it into wealth for its directors (people downunder will know which bank i'm talking about) - and look for a deposit form. There is none around. I scan the uninspiring deskspace to look for clues. I see some signs, "We have taken away the forms. Simply present your card at the counter with your money and we will do a deposit without forms".

"Great", say the little brain cells darting back and forth in swirling eddies of riotous hope. I walk up to the counter. Not quite. I've appended myself to the back of a queue of upright apes eager to part with their crispy notes in exchange for a number to be bumped up against their names. Magical, isn't it? The physical estimate of your toil that you hold in your hands (or have stuffed in your wallet) mutated to bit blobs, stuffed into spaces narrower than a politician's vision.

"Next please", the monochrome voice breaks my reverie. I advance towards the roboteller behind the counter, pulled forward by the irresistible force of her staccato oral discharge.

"I want to deposit my money and I haven't got a form with me", I say.

"That's alright, we can do that with just your card". It almost knocks me off my feet with its helpfulness. I wasn't aware that the robotellers had advanced to be almost human like in my lifetime. It swiped my card and then it had a conversation with the monitor which was staring at it. It looked puzzled. Even more astounding! But then it quickly reset its state machine to morph into its original plasticine visage and turned to me.

"We can't do it, its an ezy banking card and you would have to deposit your money at the grocery store"

"But I was able to deposit it here when I had to fill in the form. Now with the more streamlined system, I can't do it here anymore!"

It turns to the roboteller next to it. The next one is an older version and doesn't have much control over its state machine. It asks me whether the card is attached to an account with the bank or the grocery store. The bank. The first roboteller swipes the card again and regurgitates its previous line. I am adamant that I want to deposit my money here as I don't want to walk to the other end of the shopping centre where the grocery store is. I am rebellious. It seems that the listlessness that has afflicted the other humans hasn't engulfed me completely and I can still exhibit some dissatisfaction with my condition. Waves of fear wash over me at the same time, I hope my rebellion is not being witnessed by the conformist Stasi tasked with keeping the collective brainwaves oscillating between a tightly regulated range.

Vowels and consonants are scrambling out of my mouth in a mad rush to wrap my anger in a comprehensible sequence of gramatically correct formations. I feel elated. It feels like I'm floating in a bubble.

Another roboteller walks in. It takes the card from the first roboteller, asks me a few questions and swipes the card again while punching a few numbers in. It tells me that I can't make the deposit and I would have to deposit...The bubble is broken.

But this new robo- goes further and tells me that I was able to deposit at the bank previously as the paper forms had a different number filled in which wouldn't have alerted the robotellers to refuse the deposit. But now with the formless method, the machine reads a different number from the card which tells the robos that the deposit should be made with the grocery store. It doesn't appear to be just a standard roboteller, it looks like it is the head robototellitarian. It certainly has more powers.

But it too repeats the same sentences to me three times. Maybe it is not that fancy after all. Somebody was a bit sloppy and didn't program its loop condition very well.

It should have been like this always, it says. Seems like the original roboteller forgot to tell me the full story or it may be that I forgot what I was told. The realization that my memory might be failing me makes me accede to their reasoning and give up my ground. It is quickly taken up by the next ape in the queue.

The next day I walk into the grocery store and hand over my money and card to the cheerful girl behind the counter. The deposit goes through smoothly. I feel lighter. Maybe after all depositing your money with a grocery store is not as out of place as it sounds in a world increasingly being taken over humanoid mannequins and robotellers.

As I walk out I make a mental note to...damn, I forgot.

Outsourcing: pleasure or pain?

it is a very contentious issue, yes...

there is a big kerfuffle in the west amongst right wing (unbalanced as they don't have a left wing) trade unionists, mealy mouthed politicians, ideological whores and such about the shunting off of their work to sweatshops infested by hunched over, faceless, verminesque human automatons who ought to rot in the shadows of their despicable fate and should instead look much more fashionable crawling on their bellies, importuning before trucks laden with free aid to be exchanged for their continuing servitude. At least that makes for good photos in Time magazine, evoking unrestrained pity and the opportunity for the readers to feel human by helping the poor, poor wretches. And for photographer of the year awards for those who have managed to capture human misery in a subdued and hauntingly evocative pose.

So what solution do these indignant patriots propose? Are they willing to accept lower pay to help their industries stay competitive in a globalized free market. No, they would say. Why should we have to lower our standards of living by forsaking our luxuries and entitlements that our money buys? Of course, it is fair isn't it?

So did they seriously think that globalization was a one way street? That the free trade agreements would allow them to push their surplus produce to the unsuspecting ignoramuses in the untapped populous markets but they wouldn't have to contend with the tide of cheap and quality products surging back towards their shores and come down like acid rain on them?

How could they allow children as young as 6 or 7 work in smoky, hypoxic environs? They fume. Indignation is the privilege of the rich indeed. The indigent can't afford to be indignant. So, what be the solution? Indignation offers no solutions, it only creates pity for the wretched and more free aid.

The US has now even outsourced torture to Egypt and Turkey. Why aren't we hearing the same indignation from their patriots now? Wouldn't it hurt their torture experts who have lost out on a hugely satisfying and lucrative career to some unprofessional and savage bedouin?

I can hear their politicians rising to their feet, hissing through clenched teeth in barely repressed indignation, "How dare the government sell out American jobs to this rabble? Americans have a long and proud history of torturing the blacks, the Red Indians and the communists with effortless ease at no great cost and at no great discomfort to our conscience, thanks to our reptilian politicans, for yonks. Where will this outrage stop? Next thing we know, they will be outsourcing even our thinking to dial-for-a-thought call centres in India. My head is hurting at even the thought of such a prospect".

Hold that head senator and stay away from Dick Cheney. Otherwise when Dick sees a head, he will shoot his load right at your head and you won't be able to do any thinking. And you will be out sore seeing.

The Psalm of Abu Ghraib, Babylonia

Oh Thank God for the civilised folk of America who have sent forth their noble warriors to civilise the brutes in the deserts of Babylonia. Preserve and propagate the mighty ideals of this nation under God, O cavemen of the world, where kids have the absolute freedom to kill their classmates on differences of opinion, where couples freely swap partners for society’s greater good and where money flows freely like unbridled lust.

Flinch not if you or your brethren are disciplined and lovingly stripped, chided and neutralised by their noble soldiers of peace for it is the mission of the modern messiahs Bush, Dick, Donald and Wolfowitz to carry out the work that their God whispered in their ears on 911.

For God said unto them, "this earth is your playground, as it is mine. Create more noble souls in your own likeness and smite those who are different. Fear not the dissenting crows, ignore them and they shall die in the fullness of time while your noble deeds create a new heaven on earth for ever and anon".

Now come on people, sing with me:

I welcome thee, my yankee, come in my country and give me liberty.
Oh gentle and loving soldier, Oh harbinger of liberty.
Come and trample, abuse and eviscerate me.
make me into your likeness, in return for our oil which I offer to ye.
With folded hands I welcome thee, my yankee.

Amen.

An attempted explanation of the growth of Indian and Chinese economies

I don't think that we need to envelope the reality in some form of theory or bind it to some equation to make it progress our understanding when it comes to explaining the befuddling contemporaneous supernova like expansion of Indian and Chinese economies.

Circumstances have presented India and China with ripe conditions that have combined with readily available inputs in these countries to produce certain synergistic effects, for both these countries as well as other economies.

What seems to be happening is the application of the concept of core competencies actuated by the downward pressure on prices and increased competition brought about by loosening of trade barriers, particularly in the western economies. It is something similar to the tectonic shift brought about in the US car industry by the smaller, cheaper, better engineered and more fuel efficient cars produced by the Japanese.

Western countries are experiencing negative population growth rates or population growth which is more or less levelling out. As a consequence, labour market in these countries is suffering from the gaping yawn in supply and demand which has pushed labour rates up. This dynamic combined with cheaper and better quality products flooding into their markets, thanks to globalization, from poorer and more populous economies resulted in offshoring certain stages of production to locations where they could be done cheaply and efficiently.

This has seen China become the manufacturing hub for the world and India become the darling of BPO and IT cost cutting evangelists in the west. China doesn't have the advantage of a large english speaking workforce as India and has by natural selection come to don the mantle of the behemoth of manufacturing which by its nature is a back room, customer contact deprived phase of production.

India by its long and negative symbiotic association with the British has a very sophisticated english speaking workforce compared to China and has become the natural choice for the offshored customer contact rich stages of production wherein it has now built a critical mass of experience and expertise.

Western economies are facing the unpalatable dilemma of choosing between either letting more and more immigrants from poorer countries to plug the divide between their supply and demand of labor or to jettison cost intensive functions to places where they can be done cheaper.
Political and self preservation motives of the original inhabitants of these countries have seen these economies walk the tight rope trying to balance their ethnic mix and assuage the fears of its natives of being overrun on one side with the economic imperative of staying competitive in a globalized market without boundaries on the other side.

Needless to say that India and China have emerged as beneficiaries in this circus even though their growth is fuelled by feeding off the scraps that have been thrown to them by the
hemmed in western economies.

However this growth will not last for long as other hungry and developing countries snap at the heels of India and China helped as they are by uncertain and fortuitous advantages of language and population. These countries need to build centers of excellence in research and innovation to keep the mad dogs of economic opportunism at bay.