Give it to back the people...

Every time I walk past the Stars and Stripes blowing in the wind, I feel a sense of pride for my adopted home country. Adopted is a word I use reflexively, because not only have I adopted the country, the country has adopted me too. But I digress.

Walking, driving, commuting anywhere in America, you can see the flag being flown all over the place; in homes, malls, movie theaters, community halls, places of worship, and of course government buildings. It is a constant reminder that we are in America, and we are proud to be here. And maybe some are not proud of everything about their home country, but it is still a constant reminder that we are all part of this nation.

The flag in India unfortunately, does not belong to the people. You can only see it on government buildings other than on a select few days. Then for the few days after those days you see temporary paper flags strewn all over the streets being trampled by cars, bikes, people, and animals with no regard for it.

Why not give what belongs to the people, back to the people. Allow them to fly the flag anywhere they want as long as its dignity is preserved with a strict set of rules that are enforced, not just by the law, but also by citizens. Let the "तिरंगा" or the tricolor fly proud all over my other great country. Let it be a constant reminder to people that they are part of something bigger. Something they should be proud of, something that they are responsible for, something they have a stake in keeping great.

What are we afraid of?

Jason Chaffetz the Shameless Opportunist

Here we are, facing an incredible tragedy (Tuscon Arizona Shooting) with 6 people, including a 9 year old dead, and 13 injured in a gun violence incident and the congressman from the third district of Utah uses the opportunity to push the gun rights buttons of the extreme right wing by stating that he will now be using his Second Amendment rights and carry his weapon with him more often.

What a Shameless Opportunist...

This isn't the Middle East I am talking about...

Isn't it sad when misguided youth are provoked to violence by poisonous and loaded rhetoric from power hungry people in leadership positions.

Tuscon Arizona Shooting

Inspiration is hard...

I'm now on day 22 on my Haiku a Day streak and let me tell you, inspiration is hard. Some days it just pops right in, other days, you really have to work hard for it.

Like the day my daughter asked me in the car how Dragon tastes, or the day I stepped into our office to the smell of toast. Other days, like today, nothing wants to work and I ended up writing a little ode to Inspiration itself.

Still, I am thoroughly enjoying the challenge, and plan to keep working on this till I can't pull seventeen syllables out of my brain to save my life!

Wish me luck!

A poem a day?

So as a challenge to myself I have decided to write one poem a day.
Trying to keep it simple/real I decided that I'll try and write in the Haiku form. 17 syllables seems like a reachable goal for one day, every day.

So far I have managed to go 6 for 6 in the last few days. Woohoo!

Interested in reading my effort?
Here you go... Haiku from the Heart
Enjoy! And do let me know what you think.

Posting in Devnagri!

क्या हाल है?
This is really cool!
I should do this more often.

Aren't you DELL?

This morning I had one of those memorable moments you have when you are around little kids.
So I am teasing our 8 year old about something, and as is usual, our 4 year old jumps in to defend her big sister.

"Aren't you DELL?" she asks me, "that is not how it is!"
"Aren't you DELL?"

This leaves both me and my elder daughter really confused. "Aren't you DELL? What is that supposed to mean?" she wonders, I'm thinking the same thing.

The moment passes, but I was still trying to run a pattern match in my head about what she might have heard an adult say that she interpreted as "Aren't you DELL."

Then it strikes me! The pronounciation matched and the context was right on.

"Can't you tell," that is what she meant to say!

We all had a hearty laugh after I told her what she was trying to say.

Where's the Justice!

This last weekend 2/10/2007 another horrific drunk driving accident claimed the lives of a majority of a Utah family. This time two kids and a their pregnant mother were killed leaving a father and two children behind. This is following a similar tragedy a month or so ago, where a majority of another family was wiped out by a different drunk driver.

In an unbelievable travesty of justice, the two drunk drivers were completely unhurt in both these incidents.

Why is it that we have repeat offender drunk drivers who kill people and remain unharmed in each of their alcohol induced killing sprees?

Where is the karmic justice in these situations?

Morality... Bah! Humbug!

Morality is a term overused by the right wingers, for me it's just humbug!

Here's what Morality means to me:
Morality defines how people behave when they know someone is watching!

Conscience, another much loved and overused pseudo-virtue.
Conscience is how people behave when they think someone is watching.

To me all that matters is Character.
Character defines how people behave when they know NO ONE is watching.

One word...

... AVOID ...

...Buying Home Depot coupons on eBay, 99.99% of them are fakes!

I bought from two different sellers after much looking thru feedback, pictures, and listing info.

Both turned out to be selling forged junk printed on home printers.

So there, consider yourself warned.

What a Shameless Hypocrite!

Normally, you expect a politician to be a hypocrite. But I am appalled at the blatant and shameless hypocrisy of our Hypocrite-in-Chief, oops, Liar-in-Chief , oops again, Commander-in-Chief, Mr. George W. Bush.

For the six years that he has already been President of the USA fiscal discipline has never been an agenda item of his administration. He has run up the national debt and the budget deficit by large amounts and has significantly increased the size of the Federal Government while constantly talking about smaller government.

The nation finally woke up in 2006 and recognized the constant supply of lies from the White House and their nauseating repetitions from the echo-box of conservative talk-radio and put the Democrats back in control of both houses of Congress.

But the lying still has not stopped!

Just today he claimed in a Rose Garden speech that through spending cuts and tax reform his administration has cut the budget deficit in half. Half of what? And by not accounting for expenses of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq! Nice, take out the most expensive line item in the expense report and call the books in black. In the corporate world this is called "cooking the books" or fraud and is punishable with jail terms!

And now suddenly, earmarks and pork barrel projects have become a bad thing that must be fixed.

What a shameless hypocrite, makes me sick.

The Most Uncomfortable Arm Rest EVER!

It’s been over a year that we have a 2006 Toyota Sienna now. Overall I love it; just the other day, we managed to fit a big honkin’ snowblower in it, along with two kids.

But it has the most uncomfortable driver side right hand arm rest in any vehicle that I have driven.

For one, it is too short. This may be because my arms are shorter than the average American driver. Then it ends in (almost) a point and it is not padded enough.

The net effect is that the arm rest digs into the back of my elbow when I am driving. NOT GOOD!

Someone in the Toyota design group was not thinking when they put this together.

More about the TS’06 later...

I'm back!

It's been a long time since my first ever blog.

Now, I'm back... so look out for more Bulls**t from me.

Started a new blog as well, about books I've read and my reviews.
Check it out at http://readit-readit.blogspot.com

Jet Lag - Good for you!

For years I have been a night person, always finding it hard to wake up early and get the day started. Of course staying up all night doing anything (work/fun) was never a problem.

Now the fact that I have been 12 hours jet lagged for the last ten years, having moved from India to USA ten years ago, may have some thing to do with this.

Then a much planned and anticipated 15 day trip to Italy, a third of a day's worth of jet lag, and I am up at 6:00am each morning ready to go!

Who knew jet lag can actually be good for you!