Seem Familiar?

Read about Fascist America, in 10 Easy Steps here.



Sting channels off air in Ahmedabad

Saturday, October 27, 2007
08:52 IST




Ahmedabad: The state government on Friday stopped cable TV operators in many parts of the state from beaming Aaj Tak and Headlines Today.


These channels had, since Thursday evening, been showing excerpts from a sting operation which claimed to reveal chief minister Narendra Modi’s connivance with the rioters in the February 2002 carnage.


In Ahmedabad, cable operators received written orders from District Collector Dhananjay Dwivedi to block these channels.


The order said the channels were “depicting visuals and statements” which did not conform to “the programming code” and thus violating ‘Clause V of the Cable TV Network Regulation Act, 1995.’ In most other parts of the state, the police verbally directed cable operators to stop telecasting the channels.

The Clouds

"Choose a job you love, and you will never have to work a day in your life."
- Confucius

Wikipedia informs me Confucius worked as a shepherd, cowherd, clerk and book-keeper.Also, as a child, Confucius was said to have enjoyed putting ritual vases on the sacrifice table.

Kinky.

Interesting digressions deserve another blog.


Returning to the matter at hand - I'm not sure which of these jobs it was that Confucius loved so dearly, but I think I see the man's point.
Technically of course, academics isn't a job...however to paraphrase the eloquent Justin Timberlake:

"You see these shackles baby...
I'm your slave"

The past four years have witnessed the systematic destabilization of my entire being.

The seemingly solid edifice of "truths" taken for granted, crumbles to the ground in a cloud of dust upon the feather-touch of a closer glance. The effort required to let your self be decimated, and to then recreate a skeletal system of thought is colossal. Even as you take your first shaky steps towards a deeper understanding, the everydayness of the world constantly threatens to swallow you whole. Technicolour panoramic views of a glossy, unexamined (and thus flawless) reality seduce you with their naivete.
Pop art, pop wisdom, pop spirituality...when information parading as knowledge is just a few taps on the keyboard away, why bother to delve any deeper, right?

And then there are other minor glitches along the way...the top accusations hurled at philosophy students in particular and pretty much anyone who is - for the lack of a better word - possessed by their area of study, are :

1. "Pseudo Intellectual" - Although I've never understood the blurry line that divides the realm of "pseudos" from the "genuinely" intellectual. Grey hair, perhaps? Or balding heads (even better)? Surely our worthy detractors wouldn't make such an obviously ridiculous generalisation?

2. "Pretentious" - Ugh.

3. "Aloof" and / or "Snobbish" - Honestly, there might be some truth in the aloof bit. But rather than being produced by the notion that one is better than the rest of the world, it's produced by a conviction that one is sorely out of place in a world which after a point simply ceased to make sense.

4. And finally, if you're really lucky..."Crazy" - I'm partial to this one. Every one I love and respect is a loon in their own right. (No, that doesn't translate to "I love all you crazy people out there". If you're a psychostalker and are planning to contact me after this reading this, don't bother. I won't find you oddly charming and want to exchange neuroses over a glass of wine.)


The exact reason why I signed up for this lifetime of mental contorting to begin with is a bit hazy, but I have to say it was the best decision I ever made.



Of course there is the unlikeliness of ever getting an actual job.


Hmmm.

Screw you, you and you. (You however, are kind of okay)

There's nothing quite like releasing inner rage to motivate yourself into producing results.


That Eminem dude has a point.

Eros Turannos

("Tyrannic Love")

- Edwin A. Robinson


"She fears him, and will always ask
What fated her to choose him;
She meets in his engaging mask
All reasons to refuse him;
But what she meets and what she fears
Are less than are the downward years,
Drawn slowly to the foamless weirs
Of age, were she to lose him.


Between a blurred sagacity
That once had power to sound him,
And Love, that will not let him be
The Judas that she found him,
Her pride assuages her almost,
As if it were alone the cost. --
He sees that he will not be lost,
And waits and looks around him.


A sense of ocean and old trees
Envelops and allures him;
Tradition, touching all he sees,
Beguiles and reassures him;
And all her doubts of what he says
Are dimmed of what she knows of days --
Till even prejudice delays
And fades, and she secures him.


The falling leaf inaugurates
The reign of her confusion;
The pounding wave reverberates
The dirge of her illusion;
And home, where passion lived and died,
Becomes a place where she can hide,
While all the town and harbor side
Vibrate with her seclusion.


We tell you, tapping on our brows,
The story as it should be, --
As if the story of a house
Were told, or ever could be;
We'll have no kindly veil between
Her visions and those we have seen, --
As if we guessed what hers have been,
Or what they are or would be.


Meanwhile we do no harm; for they
That with a god have striven,
Not hearing much of what we say,
Take what the god has given;
Though like waves breaking it may be,
Or like a changed familiar tree,
Or like a stairway to the sea
Where down the blind are driven."



Freaking brilliant, this.