Iftekhar's Blog

Steve Jobs is dead. Long live Steve Jobs.

2011-10-07T05:17:00.001+08:00

He was a polarizing figure; a lot of people loved him like a seer, a lot loathed his ability to make others love him like a seer. Most admired him from a safe distance.

Apparently, he was a mercurial, highly unsentimental man. One of his first acts as CEO was to empty out displays of old products on company premises. He never believed in looking back, he considered it baggage, an anathema to be shunned. He went to great lengths to say the great products of Apple were not made by him alone, but by an army of talented people, doing difficult work.

Despite the 300 or so patents to his name, anybody that has been involved in the making of anything non-trivial knows the many pairs of hands and eyes something has to go through, to make something great. The fact that none of his patents are solely under his own name, bears witness to this fact.

What will really live on is the story of his life. He was born a child out of wedlock, given up for adoption after his birth to relatively poor parents, who could not even finance his education. When success came, he was kicked out of his own company, betrayed. And the final setback that ultimately took his life, contracting a rare form of pancreatic cancer.

Despite all this, he oversaw some of the greatest successes of our time. We love turnaround stories, and Steve Jobs, and by extension, the company he founded, is one of the greatest turnaround stories of our time.

He achieved it not through luck, but through sheer determination of will, faith in himself, and the vision to realize that the times, they are-a changin'.

That will be his legacy. And it won't be just his legacy, but of many unassuming men and women before him, who overcame similar odds to achieve similarly lofty goals.

Mr. Jobs will live longer than most of his mourners. Some of them will rise to the occasion, and live the lessons he espoused. Most will fail, some will succeed. But all of them will be happier for it. And we will all be better off for it.

May he journey well, to whatever lies beyond.

Awesome Tool to Justify Text: Par

2011-07-17T18:39:00.000+08:00

I recently came across a problem: I wanted to format text in my favorite text editor (vim) in a very specific format. Lines should have a maximum of n number of characters on them, and it should justify properly, nice and pretty, and I shouldn't have to think about it. It should be automagic.

I came across a utility called par. It's a very powerful utility that can process a block of text into an organized format, and I think not enough is being said about it!

http://jmcpherson.org/par.html

It's an open-source project, and it adopts one of the core tenets of the Unix philosophy: do one thing, and do it well.

All I can say is when I use it, it does all the magic I need it to do, and in a sense, the technology 'disappears.' It's a funny thing to say that since it is a tool designed by a technical person, for technical people (very few non-techies use vim). But it's true, even at this relatively deep level of technology, the really good tools... simply disappear.

It's coming across gems like these that make me wonder why we put up day in and day out with all the poorly written, poorly designed software out there. From the cruft of Microsoft Word, to the sluggishness of Firefox, we have to put up with these things regularly.

A lot of it has to do with the fact that writing good software is actually quite hard. But most of it is really to do with our intransigence. We get used to a toolchain and refuse to be flexible and move around.

I think a bit more toolchain promiscuity would make us all a little happier.

How to Make Simple White Rice

2011-06-30T02:51:00.001+08:00

Rice is a staple crop in vast swathes of the world. It is said to have been domesticated on the flood plains of Iraq at the dawn of civilization, and is one of the cornerstone crops that allowed for agriculture, dense population structures, and the resultant technological, and economic development of modern civilization.

Rice is kind of a big deal. It gets a bad reputation nowadays, because carbohydrates have been demonized. I know better, though.

This is a simple recipe on how to cook white rice.

Ingredients:

Rice
Water
Salt

Instructions:

Put whatever amount of rice you want to eat into a pot (usually, it's about 1 cup for 1 person)
Put your index finger on the surface of the rice, and fill it with water till the surface of the water reaches the first knuckle of that finger
Add salt to taste
Let it boil
Take it off the cooker once the water has evaporated

You don't need to drain the starch from this recipe. The amount of water to put in is always one knuckle's distance, from the surface of the rice, to the surface of the water. It's an old standard used for white rice, no matter how much rice you have. This works best with long grain white rice, but should hold for all kinds of white rice.

Note that for health reasons, sometimes it's good to add water "in excess" (i.e., a lot more than you need), note when the rice is cooked, and then drain the rice. This reduces the amount of starch you ingest, which isn't so bad a thing. Choose your poison, if you'll pardon the phrase.

Whatever works for you. This is an easy recipe, and rice (white or brown) is an awesomely delicious thing to eat.

Amsterdam: First Glance, Part II

2011-06-22T04:44:00.001+08:00

Public Transport

Public transport in Amsterdam is, on the whole, quite good. Arrival times are published on a per-station basis. In Singapore, they only publish bus frequencies, which are really rough guidelines. Sometimes the frequency metric is meaningful, often-times, it's complete bollocks.

Here, they have ETA's (estimated time of arrival) for each train throughout the day, published in a very nice format. This is extremely handy, and I much prefer it to Singapore's unwieldy, non-committal, and of-times plain inaccurate approach.

But public transport here is extremely heterogenous.

There are trains, there are metros (which are basically trains, but if you call them that you'll completely confuse people), and then there are trams, which run on metro tracks (and often have overlapping routes), and are, in essence, a subset of the metro, but with the exception that they ply downtown streets, which neither the metro nor the trains do.

Confused yet?

The word train is used to connote inter-city trains. So you don't take a train to Amstelveen (a satellite city of Amsterdam), you take a metro. You take a train to Utrecth (a neighbouring city), but you can also take a metro, because some metros actually go to neighbouring cities. They metro and trains run on the same gauge, they look similar, have overlapping routes, but are, at least in terms of nomenclature, completely different.

The trams ply city roads within Amsterdam-proper. They have tracks laid down major roads in the city, and they merrily roll by with a quiet electric hum.

The metro links far corners of the city, and basically link up the disparate parts of metropolitan Amsterdam. They also sometimes go to neighbouring cities, like in the example above. But they're not trains.

Confusing enough for you?

They try, though. There's a unified RFID prepaid payment mechanism called OV-chipkaart. You top it up with money, and spend it through your tram/train/metro rides. The only thing is, not all the stations are closed off. Some train stations won't allow you to exit if you don't tap. Some don't seem to care, with permanently open gantries. So you can forget to tap in, then be on your merry way out of one of the stations that are secured, and then get stuck.

It's just asking for people to take free rides, and I did that initially when I didn't know how to make sense of any of it, even though I was wielding a bona fide OV-chipkaart. Even when you have made sense of it, they have different sets of tapping machines, some for inter-city, some for metro, and tapping the wrong one can be very punitive in terms of the money they deduct from your card.

It's all over the place. Just remember, when in doubt, don't pay.

Amsterdam: First Glance, Part I

2011-06-19T04:23:00.001+08:00

I've been in Amsterdam for about 4 months now. I've had some time to settle in and soak up the atmosphere, the language, and local attitudes. In many ways, it's still too soon to form real opinions, so this isn't a definitive snapshot of life in Europe for a brown outsider. But I think it's a pretty close indicator.

Opening Hours

Everything closes at 6. If you need to fix your bicycle, you need to take time off work to get it done. Supermarkets open till 8pm, which is a small mercy. Thursdays are special, some shops (note: some, not all) are open till 8pm.

To an Asian, this is the weirdest thing ever. In Asia, even stationery stores are open till 9 or 10pm. The city doesn't even begin to sleep until about 11pm.

Over here, by 8pm, most stores are shuttered, and only food and beverage, and entertainment facilities are open.

Food

I'm a South Asian, and I've lived a goodly portion of my life in South-East Asia. I come from a heritage of North Indian, and Thai food, arguably some of the best food ever invented. I have high standards for food.

Unfortunately, the Dutch don't know how to eat.

It's a little disappointing because their southern neighbours the Italians have made an art-form of the thing, and their near neighbours the French have a good taste for the stuff.

Honestly, though, it's okay. Amsterdam is awesome in so many other ways, and is home to so many visible minorities that finding good food isn't hard at all. The only thing is, it won't be Dutch.

Banks

Tellers at banks don't take cash.

I needed to pay my deposit and first month's rent to move into my new apartment. I had applied for an account, got an account number, but I hadn't received my ATM card, which comes in the post. My putative landlord wanted a bank transfer, it's easier for tax purposes, he told me.

The tellers were behind the counter, serving customers. But they wouldn't take cash. I did a double-take when I heard it the first time. I politely asked the young lady from ABN AMRO to repeat herself. Yup. Those people there? Inside the bank? Behind the counter? Your money is no good with them.

I talked my landlord into accepting cash.

Bash Color Prompt Problems With Reverse-I-Search in Terminal.app

2011-06-15T04:07:00.008+08:00

I recently colorized my bash prompt. It's a nice touch, and with a bit of taste, it's good design. Makes visual parsing very quick.

Gone are the days of souped up command-line prompts that look like they're about to lift off into orbit. For a trip down memory lane, check this out. I stumbled across it while Google'ing this problem. Good fun. :-)

No, my prompt is very Spartan:

shaque@marius is user@host (so you know what computer you're on), ~/git_tree/users is the present working directory, and ihaque/vim-tweaks is my git branch.

All of this is awesome. The colors are awesome too (Solarized), they're specially picked colors for a low contrast delta between the foreground and the background, while maintaining excellent readability over prolonged periods. Prevents tired eyes. Go to Ethan Schoonover's website I've linked to, and integrate it into your environment. Srsly.

The problem: once you have colors, and if you use bash's builtin reverse-i-search for previously typed commands, things get fudged. Terminal.app doesn't write the characters properly on-screen so if you reverse-i-search for a previous command, then scroll backward or forward to edit it, it doesn't display correctly.

I spent a lot of hours tinkering with my bash prompt to make this work. It was awful, because bash syntax is very un-pretty. Look at the code for my prompt:

export PS1="\[\e[0;36m\]\u@\h\[\e[m\] \[\e[0;34m\]\w\[\e[m\] \[\e[0;33m\]\$(parse_git_branch)\[\e[m\]\$ "

Uffffff.

The fix: use iTerm.app. Terminal.app doesn't render color properly, apparently. I don't have an explanation for this yet, but iTerm.app will gladly handle your colorized prompt and finicky interactive shell features with barely a sweat.

It's also an actively maintained open source project with a shorter release cycle (read: one that is not pinned to that of OS X's).

Bless the folks at Apple, I think they did a pretty good job with Terminal.app. It's miles and miles better than any stock CLI shell Microsoft ever shipped with their operating systems, and the anti-aliasing and opacity control is better than anything I've seen on Linux (though Terminal.app is not nearly as feature rich, or as responsive as anything on Linux).

Credit goes to Terminal.app, I stuck with it for a long time, but I'm switching to iTerm.app now. It's just better.

Installing ack with Macports

2011-06-06T23:43:00.000+08:00

Macports is awesome. Also, ack is awesome. ack is made to replace 99% of the use-cases of grep, and it's customizable with an runtime configuration too (~/.ackrc). To install one awesome thing with another awesome thing:

user@host $ sudo port install p5-app-ack

Not a very intuitive name for ack, but this is the naming convention for CPAN modules on Macports.

I was having a spot of trouble finding the package name for ack (port search ack returns way too many results to be meaningful, thank goodness for Google), and came across this blog post that complains about Macports deciding as soon as you want to install ack that the stock perl in OS X isn't good enough, and summarily takes over your computer by downloading and installing a more recent perl on your box.

This made me think. That's not nice.

But then I thought some more, and I decided, no, that is nice. In fact, it's awesome.

OS X ships once every couple of years (which is considered a pretty sprightly clip in the world of operating systems) and stock installations of OS X ship with obsolete versions of perl for the majority of the product's life-cycle.

I'm glad Macports takes over and updates my perl for me. It saves me the trouble of doing it, and worrying about dependencies. I don't want to worry about dependencies. That's why I installed Macports. If I wanted to "roll my own," I'd download tarballs and roll up my sleeves (right after I cut myself with shards of glass).

The first thing I'm going to do when I get a new Mac is install Macports. It's really so convenient.

I like to think of these package management systems as open-source App Stores, which they basically are, except you never have to pay. And to consider open source developers had mature implementations of these so many years before App Stores ever entered the mainstream.

Whatever those guys are doin', they're doin' it right.

Basic Usage of launchctl (with MySQL)

2011-06-06T01:42:00.001+08:00

Macports is awesome. I've installed Vim 7.3, Emacs 23.3, mutt, and mysql5-server, and it has been as smooth as apt on Debian (a very high compliment!). Dependencies, download sources, building, linking, it's all taken care of.

You need to have developments tools installed on OS X, though, because it uses gcc, and from what I can tell, it compiles everything.

Macports Just Works.™ I recommend. I am a fan.

I needed to install MySQL on my local machine, but I didn't want mysql5 running all the time; I want to start it up whenever I need it, and shut it down when I'm done. When Macports finished the install, it told me to run a command to make it run on start-up, which I ran.

I wanted to undo it, because I wanted to know how to.

launchctl (short for "launch control"), controls what launches on startup on OS X. Very basic usage is:

user@host $ launchctl load -w com.your.daemon.plist

To make sure it starts up on login. Or:

user@host $ launchctl unload -w com.your.daemon.plist

To make it not start up on login.

It does magicks in the background you don't need (immediately) to know about. Just use it to control what goes on startup and what doesn't.

If you're worried things are starting up that you don't know about, go to /Library/LaunchDaemons/, and do an ls -l (-l is important, because they're all symlinks).

It's basically a directory of symlinks to plist files that are read to get details on daemons to start up for you. If you don't like something (I noticed some Microsoft registration thingy there), just launchctl unload it.

Simple Cooking

2011-06-06T00:35:00.001+08:00

Cooking is good fun. At it's core, it's simple chemistry and physics. At it's most flamboyant, it is art and a form of expression.

The problem I find, though, is that I'm not looking for art. I just want to eat. I have the BBC on, I just got back from work, and I'm at my kitchen counter, and I want to make food.

I had trouble finding good websites online that give you simple recipes. Most of them:

Have too many ingredients
Have too detailed and lengthy protocols
Often express key ingredients in grams (impossible to visualize since density is difficult to intuit), which makes the rest of the ingredients expressed in more easy terms (like teaspoons or pinches) impossible to follow, since your base assumption is suspect (what does 250 grams of chicken really look like?)

You can work around these, certainly. Estimate the weight. A normal chicken weighs about a kilo, so 250 grams is about a quarter of that. None of these are major roadblocks.

But it's annoying. Simple things should be simple.

Which is why I'm publishing a few of the basic recipes I've picked up in my very brief time cooking. My recipes will:

Express ancillary ingredients as percentages by volume of your primary ingredient
Express time as percentages of completion rather than minutes (since cooking styles, timeframes, electric or gas stove, all constrain the pace at which you can move)
Have a clearly defined core
Be extensible

Points 3 and 4 need some explanation.

By "clearly defined core," I mean that there are a few things in the protocol that absolutely have to be done. If any of these break, you're breaking the recipe. Everything beyond those core points are negotiable, and variable.

Most people don't like eating the same thing everyday. So this is an important part of cooking. The assumption here is that you are looking to use the same recipes, but vary certain parameters. Mixing and matching should be a foregone conclusion.

"Extensible" is a continuation of the point on "clearly defined core," as it is a step further than merely tweaking certain parameters. It connotes modularity. One recipe should easily be the precursor for further recipes, and one should be able to swap certain key ingredients in a recipe for something completely different, but keep the basic principles the same. For example, a recipe on chicken curry should be just as applicable to mutton or beef, with only slight variations unique to the ingredient.

I'll publish them as I get better at them. Till then, goedenavond!

How To Make Simple Chicken Curry

2011-06-05T18:21:00.001+08:00

Ingredients:

Some chicken (skin or no skin, whatever is good for you)
Some onions (~10% the mass of chicken)
Tomatoes (or tomato puree, about 10% the mass of chicken)
Garlic, and ginger (preferably as paste, but finely cut will do, about 2% of the mass of chicken)
Curry powder mix (availably freely, usually a blend of spices, about 5% the mass of chicken)
Cooking oil (about 2% the mass of chicken)
Salt to taste

Instructions:

Put it all into a pot (don't add water).
Turn the heat on low, and mix things up a little best you can (doesn't have to perfect, it's just the beginning)
Cover it, and keep mixing. The lack of water may make the chicken stick to the bottom, so just shake things up every few minutes.
After a while, chicken broth will develop (guaranteed to happen with raw chicken), which is why you don't need to add water. This is what you're waiting for.
Mix it more thoroughly now, and make sure the spices are evenly distributed (easier to do now that there's a medium)
Cover it, and let it cook. You can turn the heat up a bit more, now that there's water.
When it's done, feast, preferably with rice. Flatbread, pita bread, sliced bread, or tortillas work just as well, though.

Variations:

I love vegetables, and adding them to this recipe is very simple. The main parameter to consider here is timing. Too soon, and your vegetables become mush. Too late, and they're totally raw (not necessarily a bad thing, but not always ideal, like with potatoes).

Just go crazy with the vegetables being cognizant of the timing. For potatoes, pop them in at about 40% completion. Your mileage may vary depending on the kind of potatoes you use, and how finely you cut them. Finely cut potatoes have a higher surface area-to-volume ratio, and so cook faster.
Sometimes you want gravy, sometime you don't want much gravy (depending on if you're eating it with rice, or with bread, or with vegetables, or on its own). You vary this by varying how much you cover your pot. If you cover it more, you'll have more gravy (more water is retained in the system). If you cover it less, it will be drier.
Minimize the amount of oil you put in. Oil isn't the best thing to eat, and it makes cleaning up harder. But oil is an oft-abused ingredient. Think about it, too much oil doesn't ruin a dish the same way too much salt ruins it. So a lot of people become chronic abusers of it.

The reason for that is simple: oil is a good heat buffer, so adding extra oil delays food from burning. But oil is not meant as a cover for bad cooking, it's meant as a flavor enhancer, and a cooking medium.

Minimize the amount of oil you add, and monitor and regulate the amount of heat you apply. This isn't possible on first try, but do your best and refine your protocol as you go along.
Salt. If you're eating the chicken with rice, too much salt is okay (rice dilutes the salt, so you have some leeway). If you're eating it with bread, it could mean the difference between an edible and inedible meal. Be careful with salt, and err on the side of caution. Add less to start with, and refine the amount later on in the cooking. I usually add some salt initially, and refine it at about the 70% completion mark by tasting it.
This simple recipe can be varied by varying the spice blend. Go crazy with it. You can't go wrong so long as you have the core spices: turmeric and coriander. After that, your imagination and taste palate are the only limitations.

My Cat Is Up For Adoption

2011-01-17T17:38:00.002+08:00

*** UPDATE *** 04/02/2011 Kasey has been adopted by a friend. His new home is nicer than I could have ever imagined. I'm happy. :-)

I'm moving out of Singapore and I'm looking for a friendly place where I can put up Kasey, my adorable little kitty cat, and best friend forever.

Kasey can also be KC, short for Kitty Cat. Very clever, yes?

Kasey is a tabby-white domestic shorthair (shorthairs are convenient as indoor cats because they don't get furballs in their throats as much). He's a rescue kitty, I found him as a week-old, malnourished little kitten near Eunos MRT in May 2009. I had no intention of adopting a cat, but I wasn't confident he'd survive if I let him back out on the streets, so I took him in.

He's very friendly and playful, but is also super-shy and easily scared. He's had all his shots, he's been spayed, and he's fully potty-trained. In my 2 years of knowing him, he has never vomitted, sprayed, or done anything overtly disgusting or spiteful, except when he is under the severest of stress.

At about 2 years old now, he's really just a very awesome cat with a gentle soul and heaps of personality, and I'm sad to have to leave him behind.

Kasey is about 2 years old.

I've been training him to poop and pee into a toilet (like in the movies, yes!). He's very far along in his training and he's just a few stages away from completing it. So if you're interested but are finding that you don't have space for a litter box, he's almost there in not needing one (and all the germs, maintenance, and expense that a litter box comes with). Once his training is complete, all you have to do is flush twice a day, and scrub your toilet bowl a bit more frequently than you normally would. Very low-maintenance, ideal for apartments and condos.

I'd love to take him with me to see the world, but as a working bachelor who travels frequently, I think Kasey would do well in an environment with more stimuli, and a pet human who is around a bit more to do his kitty bidding.

I always wanted to keep a cat since I was a child, but never did as my mom was a firm believer that animals belong outside the house, and not inside. Keeping a cat, though, is a big responsibility as I have discovered. It needs patience, and lots of love, and is by no means easy. You need to be kind and loving, but also firm and at times strict and unforgiving to establish rules and boundaries that cannot be crossed.

For example, we have no scratch poles in our apartment, but there is some furniture that is old enough that me and my flat-mates don't care if he scratches them. Kasey has spent more than a year sleeping within kitty-arm distance of my PVC leather computer chair, and hasn't scratched it, but has been scratching with particular glee my flat-mate's bed frame, and our old mattresses set up in the living room as an impromptu sitting area. To establish that kind of an understanding between you and an animal, you need to serve up a proper balance of love and approval, and discipline and firmness.

Discipline! Discipline is the thing! Builds character, and all
that sort of thing, you know?

I'm going to miss him a lot, but I'd like to know that he's having fun wherever he is, making new friends, and living life to the fullest.

If you're interested, please e-mail me at iftekharul dot haque at gmail dot com.

Cricket Spot-Fixing Trio Should Face Maximum Penalty, If Found Guilty

2011-01-11T10:07:00.004+08:00

If Pakistani cricketers Salman Butt, Mohammed Asif, and Mohammed Amir are found guilty by the ICC of spot-fixing, I believe they should face the maximum penalty of a lifelong ban.

Mohammed Amir, a particularly talented young man, is attempting to make a plea that he is young (18 years old) and has no prior disciplinary record, and should be let off easy. This plea has a lot of support from both Pakistanis and non-Pakistanis, as Amir's magnificent bowling is a match-winner for a deteriorating Pakistani cricket team at the highest levels of the game, and at 18 years of age with 51 Test scalps to his name, this young man is a legend in the making.

As much as Mr. Amir is an asset to the game, I feel leniency by the ICC would be entirely inappropriate if indeed wrongdoing is established. Competing at the international level, the apex of the game, comes with perks and responsibilities, neither of which are mitigated by a tenderness of age.

Pakistan recently demolished New Zealand by 10 wickets in a Test match at Hamilton, bowling the hosts out twice in 3 days, and finding time to put up a very respectable 388 runs in between. Beset by controversy and chronic structural problems in Pakistan Cricket, the team continues to punch above its weight category in the international arena, and the country seems to be drawing from a fairly rich pool of talent (see article). These cricketers will be replaced soon enough by new, hopefully more ethically compliant, athletes.

This is the first corruption case to be handled by the newly assembled, centralized anti-corruption apparatus of the ICC. A clear message should be sent, both to players and to spectators, that corruption, however small, will not be tolerated from anyone, however young and promising.

A verdict is expected later today.

***Update*** They've deferred judgement to the 5th of February. Anti-climactic, but wholly appropriate that they want to give the issue full consideration before considering an outcome.

Looking Back, Starting Again

2011-01-10T17:45:00.000+08:00

Looking back on this blog, more than 6 years after my first blog post, I flirted with the idea of jettisoning this baggage of the past and starting a new blog.

A new blog, for a new sense of purpose, and a new sense of myself in the world. One in which I took myself a little less seriously, and perhaps didn't impose a sleep-inducing 2,000-word minimum to merely state the obvious.

The temptation to delete everything and start anew is one I've decided not to flirt with any longer, though. It's the temptation of the idealistic perfectionist, and though both qualities are to be celebrated, neither are to be humored for too long. This blog, in all its rambling rhetoric, and self-absorbed glory, is me. It plots my course, as a confused, idealistic nativist, to an equally confused working professional with way too much time on his hands.

I think this journey should continue. Let's see where it goes.

Snow Leopard and the Beginning of an Era

2009-08-29T00:38:00.003+08:00

Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard is out!

I don't remember the last time I was so excited about an operating system release. From my pre-Apple years, it would have to be Windows 98. Indeed, that was the last non-Mac operating system that I was last genuinely excited about getting to use.

Right-click menus would slide now, and there was this weird thing called "Screen Font Smoothing" (from Plus! 98) which made me just want to fire up MS Word and type things into it for no reason.

It was everything I knew and loved before, but that little bit cooler. Old things felt new. That is such a cool feeling. Incremental updates.

Car-makers work by incremental improvements. Facebook works that way. GMail works that way. It makes sense: stand on your previous achievements.

Even fast-food outlets work that way! You like the McDonalds' Filet-O-Fish? Well, here's the Double Filet-O-Fish! They have those in Singapore now; I haven't tried them. But "[they're] lovin' it!"

My core point: revolutions should only be made when they're absolutely necessary. Revolutions for the sake of it is, frankly, too much democracy.

It's like that cardinal rule of movie remakes: never remake a good movie, no matter how old it is. Nobody is ever going to remake of Lawrence of Arabia, or Terminator 2.

Snow Leopard is an incremental update. A lot of PC users wonder why the Mac community gets so excited about "service packs." Well, a service pack isn't some fundamental law of the universe, friends, it's just a phrase coined by Microsoft which arbitrarily means possibly a speed-bump, better security, bugfixes, and minor feature updates.

Well, OS X updates are arguably not service packs for a few reasons. It is true, OS X updates represent very few significant user-land updates. Off the top of my head, the only headline grabbers were Expose (introduced in OS X 10.3 Panther), Dashboard (introduced in OS X 10.4 Tiger), and Time Machine and Spaces (introduced in OS X 10.5 Leopard). Apart from that, the biennial "300+" features is mostly marketing fluff.

But despite relatively few user-land updates OS X changes extensively under-the-hood between releases. New APIs and frameworks, much of which had been very fluid up until OS X 10.4 Tiger, have been the real changes in OS X updates. An operating system is only as good as the software that is developed for it, so Apple has been targeting the developer market very aggressively since OS X debuted, and you can plot the quality of third-party software for OS X with each subsequent release.

OS X, at 10 years old, is still a fairly young operating system and only really matured at the user and developer level OS X 10.4 Tiger. Not unlike how KDE 4.0, 4.1, and 4.2 are memories I'm trying to block, and how Microsoft is trying to forget Vista ever happened, the transition to the point of Snow Leopard's maturity has been a long one.

Snow Leopard marks the beginning of an era, even though it is, from the user perspective, a service pack. And Mac-lovers will gladly pay, while PC people think its mass-hysteria. But it's not, really. It's not.

You know there's something wrong with your theory when it implies multitudes of people are crazy. Between you being right about everyone being mad and you being wrong because you missed something, statistically, chances are you've missed something.

The explanation is simple: Apple maintains a momentum in its release cycle, and doesn't charge an arm and a leg for it, which is why people gladly pay them for these kinds of upgrades.

At USD 499 (Vista Ultimate's original price), you darn right better not be paying for service packs. Apple charges less per release (steady at USD 129, Snow Leopard has been their first release to break that pattern at USD 29), and releases it more frequently.

It's the community, stupid!

It's a once-in-two-years event now, the operating system release. It's something users have now come to expect. It is a steady, incremental, predictable release cycle, which doesn't reinvent the wheel, or throw users off-balance every time. Once every two years, the Mac community wakes up from its torpor and everyone is abuzz about their "paid service pack."

Microsoft, however, is anything but steady. I don't say this with contempt, but with sadness: I wish they didn't drop the ball so badly. I waited till the cows came home for Longhorn after the disappointment that was Windows XP.

For all the love Windows XP gets now, let's not forget that Windows XP was a disappointment until SP2. The only thing it was, was stable, and that's only relative to their previous releases which is setting the bar quite low (and arguably what they did to make everyone fawn over Windows 7, including myself).

XP was insecure and slow, and came with those awful message pop-ups that made life very difficult for an everyday user out of the box. After using commodity hardware to "locally assemble" my own machines to consistently horrible results, they started losing my mindshare by that point.

By the time SP2 came out and things started settling down to some semblance of sanity, I had moved into the loving arms of OS X 10.2 Jaguar. An operating system which also happened to be border-line unusable, but in my books was a step-up from Windows XP pre-service packs. Not because it was stable, because Windows XP was actually quite stable, despite being slow as molasses. No, not because it was fast, because it wasn't all that much faster than XP.

OS X 10.2 Jaguar had one killer feature: it wasn't Windows.

I hated the PC world so much at that point, I'd have settled with an abacus.

I had lost all faith in computers by that point. I think to this day, I never quite figured out how to install a modem driver in Windows 9x properly. Yes, I might be an idiot, but I’m an otherwise functioning adult who could install other drivers, so why not this one?! I had to take my PC to the workshop for them to take a look at my himem.sys to make my Transport Tycoon work. Randomly failing commodity parts was the bane of my existence, and was touted as the most compelling feature of the PC “ecosystem.”

You can keep your ecosystem.

When I came to the National University of Singapore in June of 2003, and I went to the laptop fair, I made a beeline to the Apple store, and didn't look any other way. I bought a 13.1" iBook G3 at 900 MHz: an underpowered, over-priced machine that only ideologues and die-hard fans would buy, but a machine I loved to bits and used for a good 4 and a half years.

I was just glad to be rid of that damned "Personal Computer."

It was only with the introduction to Linux in 2004, and a steady observation of its internals that I slowly started regaining some faith in the world of computing. I think it was only until very recently that I've started thinking (once again) hey! Computers are kinda cool!

Everything was so neat and clean in the Linux world, it really made an impression on me. Directories for configuration files, clean scripts with consistent interfaces to start and stop services, different ways of interacting with the computer (the CLI or the GUI), solutions to operating system problems which aren't "do a reinstall." What a breath of fresh air! This stuff actually works.

And Linux didn't (and doesn't, to this day) do everything. But whatever it claimed it did, it did well. The rules were simple and elegant, and the philosophy facilitated the process, it didn't get in the way.

So, no thanks to Microsoft for that.

But that's okay. Let by-gones be by-gones. I switched loyalties, Longhorn became Vista, which crashed and burned spectacularly, Apple has been massively successful since, Firefox nudged IE out of cryonic hibernation, and Google has woken Microsoft up from its dominance-induced coma, and Windows 7 is coming about, and it's something even I'm a bit excited about.

And yes, Windows 7 is Vista SP2 and with ripped off ideas from the Mac OS X. And that’s perfectly fine.

I don't mind that OS X steals from Windows or that Window steals from OS X. That's what this is all about, it's a discourse, it’s competition, it’s an arms race. Going “me too!” is not only perfectly fine, but encouraged. Microsoft in the 2000s was so technically inept that Apple had the chance to implement a feature they announced as MBA-driven marketing hype before Microsoft themselves could do it (fast desktop search, now called Spotlight, released first in OS X 10.4 Tiger, well ahead of Vista's release).

I'd probably buy Windows 7 it if it was priced a bit cheaper. It's still too expensive after what they charged customers for Vista. Hopefully they'll slash prices, but I'm glad Microsoft is about to come back in the game again. Nothing is set in stone yet, we have to wait till the fat lady sings on this one, and its classic Microsoft to set the bar so low that even a whiff of “not-a-massive-failure” gets people excited, but the outlook is favourable.

The late 90s and most of the 2000s has been a period of stagnation in the computer world with Microsoft's unchallenged domination, which its competitors are to blame as much as Microsoft's predatory market practices.

Now, with competition returning in the browser world with the Phoenix-like comeback of Firefox from the ashes of Netscape, the second-coming of Apple thanks entirely to Steve Jobs, Google's steadily increasing boldness and earthy common sense, and Microsoft's (still-hyped and as of yet unsubstantiated) comeback with (the incremental update that is) Windows 7, we, the customer, have everything to gain. Competition is returning, and users clinging on to 9-year-old operating systems will hopefully be a thing of the past.

Interesting times are ahead.

Perl as Glue, and the Ebbing of Mindshare

2009-08-06T17:26:00.001+08:00

People have lovely things to say about Perl, and one of the first things you'll hear is that it's great glue. It's good for stringing things together, and making them work.

The problem with glue is that it doesn't constitute a "good solution" in the mind. We know of glue as something we apply on our shoe when it comes apart, just as a stop gap until we can finally get a new one. The Tata Nano is held together with glue to cut costs. Make no mistake, this is a technical achievement and an innovation, but we all know what people would rather have used: steel rivets, like what they use on the space shuttle.

Well, that's what the rich people get. Poor people get glue.

This is, of course, technically inaccurate: industrial strength glue holds everything from our iPods to our vehicles together. But the crisis has always been one of perception, not of reality.

Perl is a lot more than "handyman glue". It's like saying steel is good for nails and that's all it's good for. No, you can make ships out of steel as well.

This perception of Perl as that special, weird-looking wrench which fits into corners other wrenches can't fit into is what's holding it back as a serious language. People will only use it when their "normal" tools don't work, so they don't appreciate it's greater applicability.

But it's a difficult problem to solve. Because Perl is great glue. It's Soviet-gymnast-like flexibility is what makes it so powerful, as nails that holds your chair together, and as the stuff that makes up the hull of the USS Enterprise.

Perl has a long, varied, and continuing history in web applications, so it's really quite sad to see it having lost so much of its mindshare after having come so far. It's "sad" for me, because I'm only now at the cusp of my career as a web application developer; I wasn't around for the first 2 acts. So I have very little idea of what "mistakes" Perl must have committed in the past to now be relegated to the rusty toolbox of the IT world, but I'm sure there must have been some.

The company I work at is now seriously reconsidering continuing with Perl. We want to move to Java, and partly, even I'm convinced that a solution in Java is a more sustainable one. In fact, my only argument for sticking with Perl is a not exactly a shining vindication of Perl (although it is ultimately correct): we have too much momentum and expertise in Perl to drop it like a bad habit just yet. If we're going to do it, we have to plot a methodical and gradual migration away from it.

But in this current round of technical naval-gazing within my organization, even if I get everything I ask for, the next few years will see the end of Perl in yet another enterprise environment as we slowly transition to the suited and booted Java Enterprise Edition.

Recursive Dependency on CPAN

2009-08-06T11:15:00.005+08:00

Trouble's a-brewin':

Recursive dependency detected:
Bundle::CPAN
=> Test::Harness
=> A/AN/ANDYA/Test-Harness-3.17.tar.gz
=> File::Spec
=> S/SM/SMUELLER/PathTools-3.30.tar.gz
=> Scalar::Util
=> G/GB/GBARR/Scalar-List-Utils-1.21.tar.gz
=> Test::More
=> M/MS/MSCHWERN/Test-Simple-0.88.tar.gz
=> Test::Harness.

Cannot continue.

This is the output from a CPAN shell. This is a fresh install of perl on Ubuntu Hardy Heron (LTS). The CPAN that comes built-in is obsolete, and an install Bundle::CPAN is in order at the CPAN shell after you've initialized it at the first run.

This problem can be fixed by manually installed the "offending" module, which in this case is Test::Harness. It needs to be installed but needs itself to install itself, which makes no sense (even for perl).

Exit CPAN, and go into your cpan directory:

cd ~/.cpan/Build/
cd Test-Harness[tab]*
perl Makefile.PL
make test
make install

Manually installing the module will break the recursive dependency. So fire up CPAN and breathe normally.

Hopefully this will come in handy to someone.

* CPAN distributes modules with the version number appended after the module name. So the build directory for Test::Harness v3.17 is called Test-Harness-3.17/. Sometimes it appends random strings at the end, so that a more recent download of the same Test::Harness v3.17 doesn't overwrite the old download. So press tab to let your shell take care of the details. Tab completion is your friend.

Perl Is Coming Back

2009-07-11T18:01:00.001+08:00

You read it here first.

Okay, if you did read it here first, you need to read this as well (it's a bit lengthy). No rush, when you get a moment.

Perl?!

Yes, Perl!

Perl is the oldest of the web scripting languages. Perl 1.0 was released in 1987, which makes Perl 22 years old today, with 4 major releases since then. Perl 5, the latest version, is a good 15 years old now with 10 major releases of its own. It is older than PHP (1995), Visual Basic (1991), Python (1991), or Ruby (1995) all of which were heavily influenced by Perl.

Google uses it. FedEx uses it. The BBC uses it, and they're by and large one of the largest, most pervasive web presences on the internet today (thanks to Firefox and excellent content). Amazon uses it, and by extension, IMDb uses it.

The company I work for uses a custom Perl framework written in the early 2000s, from the dot-com era (and I blame my receding hairline on it; we're moving away from it now).

Everyone uses Perl, just nobody talks about it.

It's mature, it's pervasive, it's user-friendly (how many programming languages can you use that word on?) and it can be a pleasure to write.

It can be hell to read, but flexibility is a double-edged sword. If you're out to cut things, two edges is better than one, so long as you know how to use it.

A few sites that are doing some really good work with regards to Perl as of this writing:

Modern Perl Books

This is a blog by a gentleman aliased "chromatic." This guy sounds like he's been around for ever and he speaks a lot of sense. I'm officially a fan, and this is my Friday afternoon leisure reading.

It's fun to read even if you don't have a clue as to what he's saying. Some of the things he says are just general wisdoms. Plenty of insight available here.

Catalyst Framework

Catalyst is a Perl framework for rapid web application development. It's modeled against Ruby-on-Rails, while maintaining a sense of aplomb about it all, giving the user a tremendous amount of flexibility to leverage the tremendous power (and potential quality) of the CPAN to your advantage.

Non-Perl people will have no idea what I just said. But if you're a non-Perl person, you probably haven't read this far either.

So in case you do know what I'm talking about: wicked, isn't it? And if you don't know what I'm talking about, just know this: Catalyst is cool.

Perl Is Alive!

I was once on irc.freenode.net/#perl and I asked if Perl was dead. Someone directed me to isperldead.com, jokingly.

Well, looks like someone caught on and made a little website called perlisalive.org.

This site is a lot about "raising awareness." A certain Matt Trout, author and maintainer of the very excellent DBIC tools in Perl insists we needn't bandy words, it's "marketing."

Yes, it is about marketing (some of it not very good), so I find it largely a boring and insubstantial resource, but it has an excellent interview with Tom Doran on Catalyst 5.8.

It's like when you see a really great song by an artiste, and you really love it, you buy an album of his (or hers) and then find out that was the only good song in it? That's kind of how I feel about perlisalive.org so far.

But the Tom Doran interview was fascinating enough that I still check back here.

Perl Monks

Perl Monks is one ugly website. Mmm-mmm, my breakfast quickly reconsiders coming out for some air when I fire up this site. It looks like it was designed in the 90s and never got updated, and I'm pretty sure that's exactly what happened.

And yet, it is quite an excellent resource. These guys do some very good work, and their bad-marketing-but-depth-of-substance is somewhat emblematic of the humble competency that is endemic within the silent majority of users of Perl.

Moose

"Moose" is the new object system in Perl.

The current object system in Perl is hacky and bolted on, but Moose makes it all pretty and neat.

What exactly is so cool about it? I really don't have a clue, I haven't seriously started using it yet. But "chromatic" (mentioned above) talks about it to no end. He calls it the "state of the art" in object orientation. Now I haven't heard that phrase used in a long time, and it's certainly a toy I want to get my hands on soon.

Catalyst (also mentioned above) uses Moose extensively now.

So Watch Out...

From the depths of irrelevance and quick-hack sysadmin scripts, Perl is undergoing a renaissance.

Microsoft's "embrace, extend, exterminate" attitude toward standards is slowly petering out. The IT market today is getting more and more heterogenous, and that is good. It makes infrastructure more resilient, and encourages standards-compliance.

Combined with Perl's internal renaissance, Perl has everything to gain from this trend.

We're on our way back.

On Running

2009-06-25T22:28:00.005+08:00

From experience, I have learned that the best students don't always make the best teachers. Someone who is a little slow in the uptake appreciates the finer points a little more than someone who just "gets it."

I've been running since I can honestly remember. And I have never ever been good at it. According to Google Earth's distance calculator, the first distance I can honestly remember running was a whopping 200 metres. I think I was about 10 or 11 years old.

So although I was never good at it, I did do it a whole lot, and over a very long time (if my 11 years old estimate is correct, a good 14 years on and off at the time of this writing). So that, at least, gives me the right to offer a pedestrian perspective.

First, though, I need to clear out a few well-spread misconceptions about "exercise."

Everybody thinks:

1. Exercise is good for you

2. Exercise makes you burn calories

Exercise is Good for you

Actually, no. In the short term, exercise is fundamentally damage, and nothing more. Good exercise is merely controlled damage.

The only thing that makes exercise "good" is the healthy body's capacity to heal from the damage, over time.

The karate masters who break blocks of wood with their fists develop stronger bones with gradual practice. Their bones incur microfractures, small hairline cracks. When they heal, they come back stronger.

The human body is a self-healing machine, and it's the process of recovery after exercise that makes it so good for you.

Exercise Makes you Burn Calories

Actually, no. Well, yes, it does, but it doesn't really matter all that much when you look at the big picture. The number of calories exercise burns is really just a fraction of the number of calories you burn throughout the day, just to stay alive and functioning.

The body burns calories even while sleeping: the heart still has to pump blood a good 1-point-something metres around the body, which is no mean feat. The lungs still have to continue pumping air in and out. The liver still has to detoxify that McDonalds you just had for dinner, and goodness knows the kidneys are still filtering our blood.

For the body, there's always work to do. And that work requires energy.

Where exercise really helps is raising your metabolism, the amount of energy your body burns just to keep itself going. And when that rate goes up, it goes up 24/7, which really adds up over time.

Unlike the human mind, the human body will never invest in something it doesn't need. If it doesn't need muscle (which is a huge, energy-consuming machine that requires resources to not only build, but to maintain day to day), it won't keep it. It will slowly be eaten away (and is excreted through the urine, as it so happens), until it reaches equilibrium at the point at which you utilize it.

So it's the overall level of activity that dictates how much muscle your body has invested in.

Now, Back to Running...

From what I've seen (and painfully felt), running depends on three things: solids, liquids, and gases. Bones (solids), muscles (liquids)**, and breath (gases).

During an honest run, either of these three things will give way before you have to stop. The chain is only as strong as it's weakest link. When the weakest link breaks, it doesn't matter how much stronger the other links were. There's no A for effort here, this is the real world.

Whichever one you push to the limit, will probably not hurt as much the next time you go back out, provided you've given yourself enough time to heal.

And that's really all I wanted to say on the matter. I've discovered this through personal experience: bones can hurt quite badly the first time you start running. I started running as a child, and I remember my legs used to keep me awake at nights when I first started out.

Muscle pains are more easily manageable, especially the muscles in the legs, which are big and can take the hit.

Breathing is also quite painful, but less so in sheer magnitude. It is just as debilitating, though, which is what we're measuring here. The diaphragm, the muscle-controlled pull-valve that expands the lungs forcing air in, has a big role to play in it. It needs to be strong to be able to continuously push and pull air in and out so the lungs can quickly oxygenate the blood and get pumped back around the body.

Running is Hard

Well, nobody said it was going to be easy. In most of the things that are really worth having, there are no shortcuts.

Humans are optimized for running, though. Over generations, we have evolved to be very efficient runners.

Of all terrestrial mammals, humans run the longest distances voluntarily. We can outrun even horses, who will never go as far unless pushed. Cheetahs and big cats will overheat very quickly because of their fur and lack of sweat glands. After a certain point, they simply will not run. And although they run very fast, they can't stay that fast for long, so they don't get too far.

Humans on the other hand, are relatively hairless, and sweaty, so we can cool down more easily. We have a fleshy bottom, which is connected via thick muscles to long legs which gives them power. We have a tendon that goes from our heels up our legs that we don't seem to really need for walking, but helps add spring to a run by allowing us to powerfully push our feet. We have a chord (called the nuchal chord) that runs down the back of our heads, which allows us to keep our heads upright while we run, a feature shared only by running mammals. Since humans are upright, we have a smaller base area, which makes it easier to topple over if the centre of gravity shifts during long strides (Why does a bottle turned upside down topple over more easily than one standing on the base? The area of contact with the surface decreases when it is upside down). To cope for that, we have independent shoulder motion relative to the head, so we can adjust our centre of gravity and keep our balance when making long strides. This is something no other primate has, and something that makes humans an order of magnitude more mobile.

And so it is! So lets get to it. Like Darth Vader said... it is... our destiny.

** Muscles are technically not liquid. They are what physicist Eric Drexler calls "machine-phase," neither solid nor liquid, but still a cohesive, functioning unit. But lets not split hairs.

Who Speaks for Islam?

2009-06-07T15:10:00.000+08:00

I know who doesn't speak for Islam. Saudi Arabia.

So who does?

If you ask me: nobody. And everybody.

Nobody

As a "divinely inspired" religion, Islam needs no followers. Fundamentally, followers need it. Muslims believe in an omniscient, omnipotent God that needs nothing.

So, if nobody in the world followed Islam, nothing would have changed.

But of course, religion doesn't exist in a vacuum: the sacred laws set forth were done so to enrich our lives.

But mankind is imperfect, and God (and by extension, His religion), by Muslim reckoning, is perfect. Using an imperfect metric to measure something perfect will, at best, be merely indicative, but ultimately incorrect.

Everybody

But the problem with that answer is that it evades the question.

So the nuance that I like to add to the response is that although nobody can really speak for Islam, in reality, everybody does.

In all corners of the world, Muslims have integrated Islam into a massive tapestry of colours, flavours and interpretations. From the Shiites and the Sunnies from Europe to Asia, and even Native American Muslims who are on record when European settlers first moved to the Americas.

As a proselytizing religion, Islam has done a good a job (or bad a job, depending on who you ask) as Christianity to spread its word far and wide to the world.

And that word has been adopted, and mutated, and watered down, and concentrated, and beautified, and mutilated in every possible way imaginable. What results, in effect, is representative of the faith.

It is, and always will be, inextricably bound to the human condition which it was sent to enrich.

I'll Get Down From My Soapbox Now...

I just want people to step away from the idea that Saudi Arabia, in any way, speaks for Islam. Just because it houses the Two Holy Shrines in Mecca and Madinah doesn't mean it's a standard-bearer of 1.5 billion people from almost every nationality and language conceivable.

It's a subliminal conclusion drawn way too easily.

Saudi Arabia speaks for Saudi Arabia. Nobody can truly "represent" Islam. But ultimately, we all do.

Muslims are religious, and irreligious. We are liberal and conservative, left-leaning or right-leaning. We are black, white, brown and yellow. We are ignorant, educated and illiterate, mean-spirited, friendly, helpful, racist, and egalitarian. We are deluded and informed, we lie and we steal and we are helpful and we smile, for even a smile is charity. We love, we hate, we hurt, we bleed, we kill, and we die.

In that sense Muslims, and by extension Islam, are not very different from any of the other peoples and faiths.

We occupy this world among equals.

Now Wait Just A Second...

Oh, so you noticed: all that is a very complex non-answer.

But the question is really a non-question. "Islam" is not a tangible entity, and even by abstract standards, it is amorphous to the extent that you couldn't put an abstract finger on it. My Islam is different from someone else's Islam, based on economic situation, geographical location, personal disposition, age, outlook, etc. So when you ask it questions, you'll wonder whose Islam is actually answering the question?

But that's not really the point. Does anybody ever ask, "Who speaks for Christianity?"

I didn't think so.

This Is Where I Draw The Line

I realize there is a lot of negative backlash against Islam and Muslims because of the pervasive terrorism we tend to breed.

But I'm done apologizing for Muslim terrorists. I am no more associated to Islamic extremists than a Jew in New York is associated to an Israeli soldier sniping an old woman in the Gaza Strip.

I don't need to apologize for them to dissociate myself from them. I am separate from them by definition, from the get-go: I am a law-abiding, peaceful person, and their grievances are political, veiled very thinly with religiosity. And this veil is very easily seen through now that George W. Bush is no longer the leader of the free world, and its moral compass.

"Fixing Islam"

I grow weary of articles and books on "How to Fix Islam," many of which are written by non-Muslims. As if the religion needs an oil change (and that by someone who is not a mechanic).

The discourse that actually matters in Islam, will always remain among the learned Muslims, who will, through the gradual evolution of thought, adapt it, localize it and contextualize it as Muslims have been doing for the millenium and a half past.

In this, Muslims can probably help by encouraging discourse through allowing freedom of expression and not stigmatize dissent with accusations of heresy, violent suppression, and summary judgement. We need to be more tolerant amongst ourselves, something we have never excelled at.

Which is why you can "fix Islam" all you like, but without actually changing cultures, attitudes, and outlooks, all the religious legislation/interpretation in the world won't change a single thing.

Islam doesn't speak, and you can't fix Islam while evading deep prejudices within yourself. It's always easy to look outward when you think something is wrong, not inward.

So, really. Islam doesn't have much to say. If there is anything to say, Muslims will say it, and hopefully it will be through actions and not just words.

Fringe

2009-02-07T14:47:00.005+08:00

The Story

Fringe is a tv-show so steeped in pseudo-science and half-baked scientific concepts, that it's remarkable that I would grow so fond of it. If the X-Files were made in the 21st century, this is what it would probably look like.

The story goes of an FBI agent (Anna Torv) Olivia Dunham, who is hired into a secret branch of the FBI studying paranormal crimes. She recruits unwilling associate Peter Bishop (Joshua Jackson), to look after his father Walter Bishop (the great John Noble), a brilliant scientist who engaged in questionable research on human subjects but was eventually put away in a mental institute for 17 years on manslaughter charges.

The usual suspects are all there: evil corporation with questionable allegiances that has infiltrated the government, unwilling sidekicks, over-bearing, annoying and gung-ho bureaucrats who always get in the way, and a tough-guy boss who, at the end of the day, just wants to be hugged (the black Yul Brinner, Lance Reddick, playing Agent Phillip Boyles, Olivia Dunham's boss).

The Writing

Fringe is generally well-written. The pseudo-science explaining sequences where otherwise intelligent characters ask stupid questions for the benefit of the audience are a bit jarring, though. Peter Bishop, an engineer, really needs an FBI agent to explain to him what the Caesar cipher is? I don't think so!

But I appreciate why these sequences are there. People need to know.

The sweet spots of most writing, of course, is in everything that goes unwritten. The growing attraction between Olivia Dunham and Peter Bishop is, of course, very cliche, and like the Great Wall of China, could be seen from space.

The spin on the huge cliche that this show is so far, though, is John Noble (Walter Bishop). The character is a lunatic, nothing less, but an adorable one, and played by none other than John Noble.

The Actors

Did I mention I liked John Noble? John Noble could make Youtube comments sound like Shakespeare.

Peter Jackson, when he hired John Noble as Denethor, the mad Steward of Gondor in the Lord of the Rings, quantified why exactly he liked the man as an actor. Mr. Noble's background is in theatre, which is why we have been denied his presence on the silver screen until now. When he was auditioning for Denethor in the Lord of the Rings, Peter Jackson, Fran Walsh and Philippa Boyens immediately saw his insight into dialogue. He put inflections and emphasis in all the right places when saying his lines, and he was an immediate hire.

John Noble carries this show. Without him, Fringe would be just another pseudo science fiction television show. John Noble is the twist, and although he has the least screen time, second, perhaps, only to Kirk Acevedo (the muted Charles Francis, Olivia Dunham's loyal confidante, also the Man Who Forgot How To Smile, and an actor who I am very fond of because of his lovely portrayal of Joe Toye in Band of Brothers), he's the main attraction of this show, and the only reason why I will be coming back to it.

I don't know if this is a trend, but it's a trend that I'm very glad American tv producers are adopting. Senior, tent-pole actors in TV shows geared toward younger audiences. Battlestar Galactica had Edward James Olmos, and Dexter has James Remar.

Anna Torv, the actress playing the main character Olivia Dunham, is attractive without letting her good looks compromise her character's gravitas. The character has a soft, sympathetic streak to her, but is unrelenting in her pursuit, and unwavering in her ideals.

Let's put it this way: Olivia Dunham is the kind of girl that will fight her way out of an industrial complex after being kidnapped, drugged and operated on, but then cry about it for a bit.

Conclusion

Fringe is produced by JJ Abrams, the writer of the Bruce Willis extravaganza that was Armageddon, and producer of several other TV shows, most of which I haven't watched (Lost, Alias, and the upcoming Star Trek). I don't entirely trust Mr. Abrams, to be honest. Lost sounds like one of those TV shows producers just try to milk. Much like when I audibly groaned when I heard Prison Break went into a third season. Season 1 was excellent, but, hey. Prison Break is produced by Brett Rattner, the man who single-handedly desecrated X-Men.

But Fringe is a good show. It is excellent "filler" (TV shows which are entertaining, and possibly even touching, but ultimately hollow).

Within that category, Fringe is as good as it gets.

The End of the Bush Era: Free Trade

2009-01-28T06:29:00.000+08:00

This is the fourth in a series of essays, "The End of the Bush Era." It is a list of what I believe are the most prominent successes and failures of this prolific politician who, for better or ill, is going to become an indelible part of history.

Thinking of something that George W. Bush did right is something of a brainteaser, but there are things he did right.

Bush signed more free trade agreements in his 8 years in power than any other president before him.

Free trade allows for the transfer of wealth between the rich and the poor through the means of commerce, and I find that fundamentally something very agreeable.

It has lifted millions out of poverty and has created a new international middle class all over the world, and holds more promise yet. In principle, it is noble without wanting to be noble. Fundamentally, it is mercantilism which is amoral but not necessarily immoral.

George W. Bush was a great proponent of it. Speaking at Lima, Peru at the APEC summit in November 2008, he summarized his thoughts on the matter: "free trade, free markets, and free people."

Of course, free trade isn't the panacea that's going to solve poverty around the world.

Bush's dogmatic adherence to free-market ideology partly sparked the global credit crisis in 2008, but it wasn't all his fault.

He was merely running with the baton Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher started in the 80s: the trend of government deregulation and privatization. Smaller government, controlled spending, more power to the market to make its own decisions.

Every president in the US has been carrying on that mantra since, and not just in the US. Deregulation and trade liberalization is what brought China out of the doldrums to face a brave new world. India's "Hindu rate of growth" of 2% is now a distant memory. These economies now "slow down" at 6 to 9 percent GDP growth.

As far as the promise of alleviating poverty goes, it fairs decidedly mediocre. Despite almost three decades of this ideology slowly spreading, the only country in the world that can boast an absolute reduction in the number of people living in poverty is China.

India has a decreased proportion of people living in poverty, but it has a swelling population and so roughly the same number of people are suffering this scourge.

In addition, a lot of the countries with whom a country may trade freely with may not truly be "free" themselves. It is no small thing that China keeps its currency the Yuan, artificially weak compared to other currencies, or that it has lax rules on compensation for employees, or that it generates most of its energy from cheap and dirty coal power or dammed rivers at the expense of local ecology.

But it is part of the solution. Free trade encourages people-to-people contact. It encourages engaging with people, even if you may differ with them. It opens new horizons and business opportunities, and offers new perspectives. And last but not least, it offers people a good chance to make some moola.

In this George W. Bush was where it's at. It is truly unfortunate he wasn't right more often.

The Awami League's First Broken Election Pledge

2009-01-27T12:53:00.004+08:00

We all knew it was coming.

The Awami League broke a key election pledge in the inaugural session of the 9th Bangladeshi Parliament.

They said if they were elected to power, they would appoint a deputy speaker from the opposition, and require the speaker and deputy speaker of the house to resign from their party positions. The reason for this was to make parliament effective. Opposition support is important when legislating, to make sure everyone's interests are met.

The Awami League-led parliament appointed loyalists for both positions, though, and made no such requirement on resignation from party posts.

After doing this, they then announced that they would amend the constitution, to allow for two deputy speakers. The second one will be from the opposition. With reassurances, that the two deputy speakers would have equal rights and privileges.

Bangladeshi taxpayers, who can barely afford to pay for half of the annual development plan to build infrastructure in the country (foreign aid pays for the other half), will now be paying for salaries, and extensive government benefits for two deputy speakers where only one was sufficient.

The first rule of government spending: why pay for one, when you can have two for twice the price?

If there's anything a corrupt third-world democracy loves to do, it's breaking election pledges, and amending the constitution. Mmm-mmm, nothing like the smell of amended constitution in the morning.

IT in Bangladesh Will Suffer Without English

2009-01-27T01:32:00.002+08:00

BASIS (Bangladesh Association of Software and Information Services) is the national trade body representing the software and IT sectors in Bangladesh, and is holdings its annual event, the BASIS Soft Expo 2009 over the next few days.

They hope to capture 1% of the USD 300 billion software outsourcing market in 5 years.

Bangladesh is very firmly behind most of the outsourcing powerhouses of Asia: India, the Philippines, and Pakistan.

The main reason is the most important language in IT. Not Java, C++ or Perl, but English.

Barring Bangladesh and Nepal, most of the SAARC countries (India, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka) have outstanding level of English education.

Apart from the select private schools in the major cities, which in all fairness produce students with excellent levels of English, most education in Bangladesh is in Bangla, and English language training is grossly insufficient for international standards. Many Higher-Secondary students with high grades in English have trouble putting together a complete sentence in the language. Testing in the country-wide standardized tests is based on rote memorization.

The domestic market is very well-versed in IT, though. I needed to fax some documents when I went to Bangladesh in the summer of 2007, and went to a store in Mohammedpur, in a grimy, grungy back-alley, with piles of garbage by the roadside, open drains, and walls that had long seen any paint.

I saw a young man very adeptly using Adobe Photoshop to forge what looked like tax documents. I dare say he did a very good job of fudging those numbers.

The market in Bangladesh is poised to produce and consume very high level IT services.

This remarkably deep and broad pool of talent, though, will remain stinted if quality education in the English language is not made more broadly available.

Strides are being made, and most of the men and women of my generation are catching on, and making the effort to learn and master the language. Some of them are arguably competitive with the Indians, Pakistanis and Filipinos, seeing as how the Bengali English accent (in my biased opinion) is not as strongly inflected as the Indian accent.

But government intervention and good policies would go a long way in giving our enterprising youth a leg-up in competing internationally.

More specifically, the government could:

Begin general reforms within the Ministry of Education (increase teachers' salaries to retain quality staff, more progressive and accountable human resource management, retraining teachers and principles in education)
Directly train teachers in the English language. Many of them are simply not comfortable with the language. I know firsthand graduates of government universities with Masters Degrees in English Language & Literature who could not for the life of them write a coherent paragraph in English. Their entire degrees have revolved around rote memorization.
Reform of English language testing in the government board exams (strides have already been made on this front under the BNP government with the reform of the SSC and HSC examination system) to de-emphasize rote memorization
Improve two vital infrastructural needs of the country: energy and connectivity, so that more people have ready access to computers, can go online and interact with other people worldwide informally in English
Repeal archaic laws demanding all government paperwork be in Bangla and move to a bilingual system. This will encourage foreign businesses to operate since the language barrier to engaging in commerce is much lowered, and will require all government employees to be adept in English to process said paperwork, while not compromising on the use of Bangla
Slowly enact laws and bring into practice the system of making public signboards and vehicle license plates have both English and Bengali rather than the current setup of consistent inconsistency: some highways have signs in English and Bengali while some streets in Dhaka and smaller highways don't, and some license plates are in English and some aren't

Maybe then we could think of a lot more than just 1% of the global market.

Give KDE4 a Chance

2009-01-25T12:34:00.004+08:00

KDE4 has received a lot of flak from the OSS community because they took the policy of "release early, release often" really to heart. They released it extremely early: KDE 4.0 was barely an alpha in January 2008, when it was released. Old features didn't work properly or were simply gone, things looked marginally prettier without adding any functionality at all, and it was extremely unstable.

KDE 4.0 is unanimously a train-wreck as a product. If you needed a solid desktop environment, you ought to have stayed away from it. But the developers never pretended otherwise. They said from the get-go that anyone looking for a stable desktop environment were better off with their current ones, and that KDE 4.0 was still very much in active development. Releasing it out in the wild gave it exposure it wasn't having while the developers were working on it in on their own. The influx of bug reports, and the flurry of discussion have only strengthened KDE's featureset and codebase.

The KDE developers committed to a bugfix-release once every month, and a major point release once every 6 months. This is development at a fairly fast and steady clip, and with KDE 4.2 at the cusp of release in January 27th, I'm sure further refinements are on their way.

From my experience with KDE4, it is extremely pretty as desktop environments go, but not nearly as functional as either KDE 3.5.x or Gnome. Basic tasks like unzipping and zipping is not possible from contextual menus on the desktop, and the "K Menu" (analogous to the Windows Start Menu) was horrendously unusable (in fact, the new Windows Start Menu in Vista is quite excellent).

These are pretty fundamental problems with KDE4, but the groundwork is being laid for the future. KDE 4 will, some day, become a good product.

KDE4 is based on the Qt4 GUI framework from Trolltech. Developing on Qt4 basically means a single application can be ported for Windows and OS X with much ease. With the mobile version of Qt4 coming out, and Nokia adopting it for future smartphones (Nokia purchased Trolltech), it will also be portable to handheld devices.

This means it is on the verge of mass-market exposure (mass-market acceptance is another matter entirely). This is the first time that open-source software being developed for the Linux operating system will be usable by people in other operating systems at such a scale.

This would be comparable to Apple's "trojan horse" technique with the iPod + iTunes tie-in. People bought the iPod because it was a good product, and had to use iTunes to run it, and got an idea of how Apple's native OS X software operates. This drew attention to them, increased brand awareness, and created future clientele, as is evident from Apple's almost recession-proof sales data.

Some of the tools available from the K-world would be really handy in the Windows and OS X world. I would love to have the Konsole (KDE's command-line shell), for example, in OS X. Terminal.app in OS X 10.4 Tiger doesn't allow tabbing of console windows, which Konsole does. And the Windows (XP or Vista) cmd.exe is barely useable; I honestly dread to use it.

Konqueror is a very decent, light-weight web browser, and it handles the SFTP and SMB protocols very handily. Very useful for OS X users who don't want to use Terminal.app and look up the man page for "scp" ("secure copy", the command-line tool used for SFTP), or use the horrendous Finder.app to navigate a directory, or for Windows users looking for a decent, no-frills, browser-like SFTP client (Firefox doesn't talk SFTP).

KDE has a lot to contribute to the software ecosystem. Profits-driven, proprietary solution-providers (like Microsoft and Apple) do not have it all covered, and this is where open source software's vital function comes in. Filling niche requirements in older systems where it doesn't make sense to pay for an upgrade, for what may not have been fundamental features at the time of release (like SFTP clients or tabbed console windows), but have become since. What's life without tabs?

In the meantime, Gnome or KDE 3.5.x are perfectly usable, mature, stable products for those of us who need a working desktop environment. From a consumer standpoint, it's always about using the best tool for the job. Until KDE 4 matures, it makes sense to just wait it out with whatever we're currently using (in my case, KDE 3.5).

KDE 3.5, by the way, is still being actively maintained. Bugs are being found and squashed, and it is a tremendously mature and stable desktop environment.

The story of KDE4 is like that of OS X. OS X 10.0 was unanimously a bad operating system. Slow, buggy, and unstable, most of the Mac community initially spurned it. Apple offered OS X 10.1 as a free upgrade to customers, but they didn't abandon it. They continued to refine it and upgrade it.

OS X 10.2 Jaguar was the first version of OS X that Apple charged for, and in my opinion was still terrible. The first version of OS X that worth its salt was OS X 10.3 Panther, after Exposé was introduced.

Since then, the price of OS X has remained the same, with three subsequent updates over the years. Each update delivered additional features, and under-the-hood enhancements, setting the groundwork for future enhancements.

Arguably, Microsoft is undergoing something similar with Windows Vista.

A transition from one system to another is a long and painful task. But it is most certainly worth it when it has become obvious the old system is merely creaking along.

One hopes the outcry from the open source community does not deter others from taking similarly bold courses of action.

Some Dead Are Worth More Than Others

2009-01-25T11:31:00.003+08:00

Israel used white phosphorus munitions, in violation of United Nations protocol which prohibits their use in civilian areas.

United Nations compounds in Gaza were hit with such munitions, according to the BBC, but the IDF says all attacks were in accordance with international law, and an internal investigation is being started.

In the meantime, (yet unsubstantiated) claims are coming from a mother describing how her children "melted" in front of their eyes when hit with such munitions. Unexploded white phosphorus bombs leak the corrosive substance into the streets and buildings of the Gaza Strip.

It seems not enough that their children are being decapitated in front of their eyes by conventional weapons.

It is evident that some dead are worth more than others.

The End of the Bush Era: The Israeli-Palestinian Conflict

2009-01-24T14:57:00.007+08:00

This is the third in a series of essays, "The End of the Bush Era." It is a list of what I believe are the most prominent successes and failures of this prolific politician who, for better or ill, is going to become an indelible part of history.

The Israeli-Palestinian problem is the world's longest-running high profile conflict.

It was in 2000, under the stewardship of Bill Clinton that Yasser Arafat and the then Prime Minister Ehud Barak were on the verge of a political agreement. Clinton, ever the diplomat, hashed out some good solutions on Jerusalem, control of religious sites, and Israeli settlements, that were workable on the ground. As is typical in politics, "painful concessions" were on the table, but the reality is that 2000 was a turning point for the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, where they simply failed to turn.

Yasser Arafat eventually backed down saying the solution was untenable with the Palestinians, the talks broke down, the Second Intifada began, and George W. Bush stepped into the Whitehouse in 2001.

The Second Intifada started just a few months before he stepped into office in September 2000, so he was, in all fairness, inheriting a very difficult problem.

His 8 subsequent years in office saw the bloodiest attacks by Israel on the Palestinian territories during 9/11, then subsequently upon Lebanon, and then more recently the Gaza Strip.

Granted, Israel was consistently provoked during this time, but these completely disproportional "outbreaks of violence" are representative of the blank cheque handed to Israel by the US government to basically do as it pleased.

As they bombed Lebanon with extreme prejudice, the cries around the world for moderation were nearly unanimous, barring the US. When they bombed the Gaza Strip, the cries again were nearly unanimous, barring the US who eventually relented by abstaining from the UN Security Council vote.

Let's be fair, though: Israel had legitimate enemies and targets in both the Gaza Strip and Lebanon. Iran has been fuelling both these fires and has a big hand in destabilizing the region and continuously provoking Israel.

That being said, 1,300 civilian casualties in the Gaza Strip, of which a third are children, and the 1,200 civilian casualties in Lebanon, is simply unacceptable.

Consider for a moment Israel's casualties: 44 civilians in the 2006 Israeli-Lebanese War, and 3 in the 2008-2009 Gaza Strip Attacks.

When asked about the disproportionality of the numbers, we're told not to play the "numbers game." But really, we would see who would play the numbers game if, let's say 1,300 Israelis were killed, a third of which were Jewish children.

And all this happened while Israel's special partner, the United States, stood idly by. And that really was the hallmark of the Bush presidency when it came to Israel and Palestine. A policy of muted disengagement, but stalwart support, while actually doing nothing on the ground to help either the Israelis or the Palestinians.

When you think of the Middle East conflict during the Clinton years, you remember the historic meeting of Yitzhak Rabin, Yasser Arafat and Bill Clinton during the Oslo Accords in 1993. You remember the 2000 Camp David Summit with Ehud Barak. It's a history of engagement.

Bush, however, undertook no such personal diplomatic drives during his term. Instead, he insisted the Palestinians have elections out of no better reason than blind ideology ("spreading freedom"), and voters overwhelmingly voted for Hamas and sidelined the secular, moderate, yet corrupt, America-backed Fatah, sowing the seeds of the recent Gaza Attacks.

Is Israel better off today than it was in 2000 when Clinton handed over the reins to Bush? Arguably, no.

Palestinians are more numerous today than they were in 2000, and the conflict has made no steps forward, and has rather made negative progress. Israel underwent two wars, one of which it lost to the Lebanon, and has lost a lot of face to the international community for its heavy-handed tactics. There were protests in London and New York against the recent Gaza Strip bombings, and people are tired of hearing about the Middle East. Public sentiments are slowly turning against Israel as reports of their bombing schools and hospitals spread. Just a few years ago, criticisms of Israel were silenced with accusations of anti-Semitism.

It's nice to finally see the world acquire a more nuanced worldview.

Arguably, the best thing that happened to Israel in the era of Bush was Ariel Sharon's unilateralism.

The Palestinian response is and always has been impotent, as is evident from Israeli casualty numbers. Oh no, I do play the numbers game, as do most rational people. A lower overall casualty rate means lower risks, which means a lower threat level. The numbers don't lie: if you're a Palestinian, you're far more likely to die than if you were an Israeli.

These wars weren't cheap for Israel, and in the face of massive balance of trade deficits, the Israeli economy is kept alive on the life support of American aid. This is as sustainable as the Gulf-Arab countries' economies are dependent on oil. Today it's there, tomorrow it isn't. Granted, the US will support Israel with its dying breath, but that's not exactly a ringing endorsement of such an arrangement or the confidence the world now has in America's capacity to handle such expensive "special arrangements" with two wars and a recession on its plate.

In all fairness, the failure of the Bush administration isn't a direct failure. Nobody disputes how much of a colossal mess the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is, how sticky a problem it is, and how difficult and painful the resolution will be for both the Israelis and the Palestinians. Their tack on the Middle East was almost a perverse extension of their laissez-faire, market-driven economics: letting the "market forces" of massive American military and economic subsidy for Israel fight it out with the Irani-backed Palestinian and Lebanese militants, with innocent Israelis, and a lot more innocent Palestinians stuck, and dead, in the middle.

An indirect failure, and a failure he shares with his predecessor, and will in all likelihood share with his successor, but a failure nonetheless.

But hope, as they say, springs eternal.

An Appeal for Empathy for Israel and Palestine

2009-01-22T00:05:00.006+08:00

Very few problems are as complex as that of Israel and Palestine. Even assuming that the politicians on either side are actually sincere in achieving peace (something that is strongly suspect), it combines elements of politics, history, religion, economics, demographics, and the most prized possession of mortal man, land. So it isn't straightforward at all.

But we must learn to separate the problem from the people.

The only thing that stops the Palestinians from "disappearing" and "solving" this problem (for the Israelis) is that history has taught us that you cannot wipe a people off the face of the map due to the sheer physical challenge of such a task. They're hanging on by a thread not dissimilar to the one the Native Americans, Jews, and Australian aboriginees held on to, in history.

There was a comic strip regarding this in the newspaper last week: a lone Israeli and a lone Palestinian burying their dead in their respective graveyards, "The Last Israeli/Palestinian" written on their shirts. When they're done, they look at each other for a moment, and then charge at each other with their shovels.

Not exactly very comic. But this is indicative of the fatigue the world feels when it comes to the Middle East. "Oh no, not the Middle East again!"

We should be empathetic to the plights of common people in the region. Consider for a moment what it's like to be a Palestinian living in the Gaza Strip, or an Israeli under rocket fire.

And I say this regardless of what opinions these people may hold and whoever may have the upper hand, Israel or Palestine. Most Israelis supported the offensive against Gaza, and most Palestinians voted for Hamas.

But pain is pain, and an Israeli getting killed on her way back from the gym from Hamas rockets is as tragic as the Palestinian child dying from an Israeli bomb while taking out the garbage, no matter what they think, or who they voted for. To me, both of these are incalculable losses. They are both, to me, inextricably family.

We should seggregate our emotions. Let us reserve our consternation for the politicians and experts, upon whom we depend to solve the most critical of our problems, and who have so thoroughly and consistently let us all down.

And let us reserve our empathy, good will and prayers for the common people on the ground.

All they really want to do is get on with their lives, just like us.

The End of the Bush Era: Iraq

2009-01-19T10:29:00.013+08:00

This is the second in a series of essays, "The End of the Bush Era." It is a list of what I believe are the most prominent successes and failures of this prolific politician who, for better or ill, is going to become an indelible part of history.

The reasons for why the Bush-Blair coalition went into Iraq for Gulf War 2 is going to remain one of the great mysteries of our generation.

A lot of answers are on offer, but they are at best only a piece of the puzzle, and at worst, dismissive of exactly how convinced these gentlemen were (and remain to this day) that we needed to bomb Iraq.

Oil is not a good enough a reason. Iraq was a net importer of oil for years after the invasion in 2003, and it couldn't have been expected to be any different. Oil is a capital-intensive venture, and most of the infrastructure was crumbling in Iraq, after more than 12 years of sanctions. Today, after 5 years, Iraq's contribution to global oil production is still nothing to write home about.

It may be a combination of oil and one-upping his father, who very prudently went in with certain objectives, achieved them, then moved out, but then subsequently lost his re-election in 1991.

It could have been the Cookie Monster, I don't know. The truth is, nobody does. Despite the numerous books that have come out on the Bush presidency, the real inner core of interactions are covered in a fog of war, and subject to conjecture. Everyone's got a guess, and an opinion, but nobody really knows.

If you ask Bush and Blair about it, they go into moral platitudes about how they "believed" it was right, as if you're asking them if they believed in Jesus or Buddha, and then fall back to the ridiculous argument that the world is a better place without Saddam Hussein.

Well, it would be a better place without Robert Mugabe, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Kim Jong Il, and my annoying university roommate in 2006. Invade them too, why don't you, and make the world a "better place"? It's a cop-out.

It is a decision perplexing in its stupidity and awe-inspiring in the scale of disaster it has rained down upon Iraq and the world.

I still remember watching "Operation Shock and Awe" on CNN from Abu Dhabi in March 2003. It indeed was both shocking and awful.

The skyline of Baghdad was glowing orange in the night time as it rained fire. The domes and palm trees, such a familiar site for me, (having lived and grown up in the Middle East myself) silhouetted against the flames. To see it burn like that, it touched me really deeply. People shouldn't be allowed to do things like that without due cause.

Everyone outside of the Western intelligentsia informally knew there were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. Iraq was under weapons inspections, stricter sanctions or bombings for the past 12 years at that point, and this combination of UN-administered soft and hard diplomacy was doing a pretty decent job of containing the Iraqi threat. Al Qaeda loathed Iraq and wouldn't touch it with a ten-foot pole, and Saddam Hussein had absolutely nothing to do with 9/11.

Hans Blix, the UN Weapons Inspector, a diplomat and academic, made the most logical observation: we don't have enough information to draw a conclusion safely, and more inspections are required. The US and the UK ran an unsuccessful smear campaign to completely destroy the man's reputation in a bid to overturn his opinions so they could start bombing Iraq back to the Stone Age.

I interviewed a certain Dr. Joseph Nye (a Distinguished Service Professor at the Kennedy School of Public Policy in Harvard) while I was in NUS in 2004 for my university publication, after it had become obvious that there were no weapons. In true academic humility, the man admitted in all honesty he was very surprised Saddam Hussein didn't have any weapons, because, and I remember his exact words, "we knew he had them."

This has to be one of the world's biggest "Oops!" Billions of dollars wasted, tens of thousands of Iraqi civilians dead, thousands of coalition casualties, a resurgence of localized Al Qaeda (where previously there was none), and an eruption of brutal, horrific sectarian violence resulted.

They underestimated so completely how difficult it would be to tackle a country so diverse and violently communal, that it genuinely baffles the mind as to what exactly they were expecting. "To be greeted as liberators" is part of the refrain they had stuck to, another indicator of how blinded by ideology and an over-simplistic worldview the Bush administration had to be.

Mr. Blair, in the meantime, had nought say in the failing strategies being implemented by the Bush administration. Iraq is a blemish on Tony Blair's record; he has arguably been one of Britain's most successful Prime Ministers since Winston Churchill, but how can one not give him the unfortunate moniker of "a poodle" after so submissively allowing George Bush to first spear-head a campaign against Iraq on such flimsy evidence, and then completely botch up the ground operations?

The post-invasion failures are summed up by the one very stupid thing they did: they went on and completely disbanded Iraq's security forces.

So they released men trained in handling arms and the arts of war to fend for themselves in their ethnic enclaves in a deeply schismatic region of the world that had suffered many years of painful dictatorship, and liberated only after war and bombings. Were they expecting grace and sensibility?

But the world collectively drank the kool-aid. The press was so sparing in their criticism and scepticism of their campaign against Iraq, one wondered if they were complicit. Honestly, where were the "analysts" and "experts" when the drums of war were being beaten for no apparent reason?

Most of the American senate voted for the war in Iraq, Democrats and Republicans alike. Most of the Americans supported the war, even after it was found to be under false pretence, much to the world's dismay when they re-elected George Bush for a second term in 2004, vindicating him that he was on the right path.

It was only in the last 2 years of Bush's presidency that people started losing complete faith in the man.

So it only took 6 years for them to catch on that this man had no clue what he was doing. It is remarkable how enduringly short-sighted and over-simplistic the American people are when it comes to matters of foreign policy. Instead of looking inward after the attacks of 9/11, they looked outward for something to bomb. And one country wasn't enough, they had to find a second one to empty their ordinances in.

The troop surge in 2007 eventually worked, something Bushites claim is a great victory, because he did it when everyone was against the idea, and it actually worked (much to everyone's surprise).

But even then, this success cannot be credit to him. It's like saying, I'm sorry I axed your fingers clean off your hand, but look, I managed to sew a couple of them back on again. I'm great, aren't I?

The thought that went into the troop surge and its associated policies under David Petraeus should have been the name of the game from the get-go. In fact, what game? There shouldn't have even been a war!

I don't see why he should claim the credit for ameliorating a planetesimal problem that he created. Iraq today has only "tolerable" levels of violence, where "only" 20 or so people die in bombings everyday, where previously it was 10 times as much. He set the bar of expectation so low that a success like this looks like a defining moment in his presidency.

Iraq is an epic, unprecedented failure that George W. Bush and his complicit allies are entirely responsible for. It outsizes all of his other failures, of which there are many, by at least an order of magnitude.

Despite what minor successes he may have had in his time, the scale of human and capital loss the world has incurred under this man's leadership, it would be small justice for Iraq to define his presidency, and for him to be remembered as one of the worst American presidents in recent history.

The End of the Bush Era: Afghanistan

2009-01-18T12:44:00.009+08:00

This is the first in a series of essays, "The End of the Bush Era." It is a list of what I believe are the most prominent successes and failures of this prolific politician who, for better or ill, is going to become an indelible part of history.

Afghanistan

It surprises me how much the war in Afghanistan is still supported by Americans.

I understand it was UN-approved, but the US lobbied very hard for it, and nobody wanted to question them at the time. They had many allies in its totally preposterous war in Iraq, so I can see why many naysayers may have bended the American way in 2001, after being shocked by 9/11 and then shivering in fear at what the sleeping giant would do now that it awoke. Other countries, perhaps legitimately, also saw the scale of the attacks and didn't want to fall prey to anything similar.

For my part, though, I still think the invasion of Afghanistan was wrong, both morally and strategically.

What has come of it? Tens of thousands of civilian lives have been lost. What little infrastructure Afghanistan had was pommeled. A country in need of rehabilitation after generations of warfare is seeing yet another war. Drug production has increased many-fold and the black market for opium is flooded with Afghan produce. Osama bin Laden and Ayman al Zawahiri are still blogging from their mountain hills, and the Hamid Karzai government has no implementation capacity to distribute and spend the billions of dollars it is receiving in foreign aid.

The Taleban are now back, and the government is now considering negotiating with them.

Why could they not have negotiated with the Taleban back then? Before the lives were lost, before you emptied billions of dollars of missiles and ammunition onto a poor patch of mountainous dirt that's seen enough violence already? Before the Taleban was radicalized any further, like they weren't already radical enough?

The Taleban offered to try Osama bin Laden in their own courts in 2001. The religious council actually politely asked Osama bin Laden to leave Afghanistan before the invasion, because as much as Osama bin Laden was their guest, they didn't want to get bombed for him.

Don't tell me there was no room for negotiation with those people. They may not have been the paragon of progressive thinking, but violence was not a foregone conclusion.

There were senior, aged members of the Taleban who would see some inkling of reason back then. Most of them are now dead or sidelined by the new hardline extremists who don't have a moral problem in selling drugs to make money like the pre-invasion Taleban did. They will be much harder to negotiate with, if they want to negotiate at all.

Yes, these are the same people that blew up Buddhas out of spite, and wouldn't let girls go to school, but they are also the same people who offered their own forces in support of the operations to free Air India hostages that landed in a hijacked plane in Kandahar in 1999.

They are the same people that destroyed 95% of Afghanistan's poppy culture, on nothing more than the principle of the thing (a fatwa was issued that said taking drugs was forbidden in Islam.)

Consider, for a moment, that the illegal drug trade in Afghanistan was one of their only sources of income. It brought in billions of dollars in informal revenue to an otherwise impoverished country under chronic and crippling sanctions for many years. The worldwide supply of Afghan-made drugs was destroyed almost literally overnight.

The hatred for the Taleban in progressive circles is very strong, the term "Talebanization" is a cuss, representing prudishness on an astronomical scale and the curtailment of individual freedoms. Rightly so. And I must say this: I'm not defending the Taleban. I'm defending empathy, the sanctity of human life, the willingness to negotiate even with someone you have deep differences with, and the use of force only as a last resort.

When the Taleban removed the Northern Alliance from control over Afghanistan, many Afghans breathed a sigh of relief. They didn't like the Taleban any, but they sure were a whole lot better than the warlords of the Northern Alliance. The men were forced to wear beards, and women were barred from many public engagements, but they were still better than the random injustice of the warlords. There was a semblance of order in the country.

Afghanistan has no precedent for an organized government in its recent history (something Iraq has, and so is cause for very cautious optimism there). It is still living in the Dark Ages socially, with feudal lords roaming the countryside, and unaccompanied women in public at genuine risk of grievous harm. Building any kind of civil institution in a region like Afghanistan is going to be difficult.

I wish it the very best. I still remember CNN's Nic Robertson reporting from Afghanistan in 2001 before the invasion, taking great pains to point out that the Afghans have a rich tradition of chivalry, to a fault, in seeing Osama bin Laden as their guest in remembering the aid he rendered them during the Soviet invasion.

Looking forward, though, from my vantage point, all the data points toward one very likely eventuality: the continuation of hostilities. I do very much want to be proven wrong, though.

America was looking for something to bomb after 9/11, and that's a stupid reason to go to war. But this is emblematic of the Bush presidency: twisted, belligerent, and arrogant ideology, mixed with a complete divorce from reality.

The End of the Bush Era

2009-01-18T11:25:00.008+08:00

This is a series of essays, "The End of the Bush Era." It is a list of what I believe are the most prominent successes and failures of this prolific politician who, for better or ill, is going to become an indelible part of history.

I still remember when George W. Bush got elected president in 2000. There was a big hullabaloo around the Florida recount that I didn't pay much attention to (I was only 16!), but we were just waiting for when he would win. This is no big secret: Bush got the Muslim backing in 2000.

Al Gore was drab, uncharismatic, indistinguishable from Bush, and represented the status quo, and his pick of Joe Lieberman for Vice President didn't sit well with Muslims, who, for better or ill, saw in Mr. Lieberman someone who may not bode well for Middle East peace, being a Jew.

"Our candidate" won in 2000, so we got our way. Christian conservatism has a lot in common with Muslim conservatism, so socially, we swing generally the same way. The backing for John Kerry in 2004 and Barack Obama in 2008 by the Muslims is largely because we've decided gay marriage is a far less significant issue than say, prisoner abuse, or illegal invasion.

Bush very quickly lost Muslim and (for slightly different reasons) other Americans' backing, and I remember in 2004, there was a campaign out called "ABB." Anybody But Bush. Not really a clear endorsement of John Kerry who was on the Democratic ticket, but representative of how quickly and deeply his support evaporated.

I was in university at the time, in Singapore, and I watched the elections very closely. I was working for the school paper at the time, so me and a friend of mine arranged for a non-scientific poll: we approached people at the bus stops in NUS and asked them questions about the election. Most people didn't really care about the elections, thinking they're untouched by them.

How wrong they were. Bush got the popular vote that year, and set the world on a course to further disaster.

The American elections affects everyone. They are the world's largest economy by far, and they are truly a superpower. This is both hard power (military) and soft power (economic and diplomatic). They are also a source of innovation and (despite what may have happened these past 8 years), I still believe, generally a source of good in the world.

Most of the game-changing innovations come from the United States, and they still take the majority of Nobel Prizes in the sciences. As recently as last year, they dominated the Nobel Prizes, bagging the awards for Economics, Chemistry and Physics.

It's American companies like Microsoft, Apple and IBM that fuelled the IT revolution which has created millions of jobs and incomes worldwide, and it's an American company that has made the first fully viable electric car. We use American ingenuity and know-how in every facet of our lives today.

Let's be fair: the world rides on America's innovative coat tails.

If the Nazis won in World War 2, or Soviet Russia during the Cold War, we'd be in a very different world, and, I think, not a better one.

The fact that I even have to consider what the world would be like had the Nazis or the Soviets won is indicative of how badly the past 8 years under George W. Bush has been. The world is left reeling from failure after failure after failure of the Bush administration, and we're soul-searching. What just happened? How did it come to this?

How can one man be so brazenly incompetent, yet so enduringly popular among his people, and manage to remain in power so long, and do so much damage?

Far better politicians have failed for far fewer and graver faults.

What follows is a series of posts on all the things I believe Bush did right, and all the things I believe he did wrong. One of these lists, I get the feeling, is going to be longer than the other.

Israeli Attacks on the Gaza Strip 2008

2009-01-03T11:02:00.005+08:00

When I first read reports of bombing breaking out in the Gaza Strip, I audibly groaned. I honestly didn't follow the news for the first few days of the air raids, because it would just be more of the same.

A "free" democracy is generally good at expunging the extreme elements from its society, for good or for ill. Two Muslim-majority countries very recently rejected Islamic extremism wholesale: Pakistan and Bangladesh. Islamist parties saw their support base decrease significantly in what, give or take, can be seen as accurate gauges of public opinion. These, in countries that have deeply entrenched conservative Muslim streaks.

Religious or not, Muslim or Jewish, you can depend on people to look out for their own interests.

None of this serves Israel's long-term interests.

A few very nice articles and essays on the matter:

Johann Hari: The true story behind this war is not the one Israel is telling 29th Dec. 2008

The Gaza Strip is smaller than the Isle of Wight but it is crammed with 1.5 million people who can never leave. They live out their lives on top of each other, jobless and hungry, in vast, sagging tower blocks. From the top floor, you can often see the borders of their world: the Mediterranean, and Israeli barbed wire. When bombs begin to fall – as they are doing now with more deadly force than at any time since 1967 – there is nowhere to hide.

Robert Fisk: Why bombing Ashkelon is the most tragic irony 30th Dec. 2008

[...] [T]he Palestinians who lived in Ashkelon and the fields around it – Askalaan in Arabic – were dispossessed from their lands in 1948 when Israel was created and ended up on the beaches of Gaza. They – or their children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren – are among the one and a half million Palestinian refugees crammed into the cesspool of Gaza, 80 per cent of whose families once lived in what is now Israel. This, historically, is the real story: most of the people of Gaza don't come from Gaza.

But watching the news shows, you'd think that history began yesterday, that a bunch of bearded anti-Semitic Islamist lunatics suddenly popped up in the slums of Gaza – a rubbish dump of destitute people of no origin – and began firing missiles into peace-loving, democratic Israel, only to meet with the righteous vengeance of the Israeli air force. The fact that the five sisters killed in Jabalya camp had grandparents who came from the very land whose more recent owners have now bombed them to death simply does not appear in the story.

Yossi Sarid: If you (or I) were Palestinian 2nd Jan. 2009

There are no good and bad peoples; there are only leaderships that behave responsibly or insanely. And now we are fighting those whom a goodly number of us would be like, had we been in their place for 41 and a half years.

Thanks, JJ, for the links.

The Awami League Win: Flawless Victory

2008-12-30T23:29:00.005+08:00

My predictions scored 1/3. At 33%, that's a fail. :P

The Victory

The Awami League won not by a landslide, but by an avalanche. They now control 87% of parliament at 263 seats out of 299.

This is unprecedented. In 2001, where allegations of some voter fraud were substantiated by local and international observers, the Awami League did not lose by this big a margin.

In 1996, the BNP did not lose by this big a margin.

The only other party in Bangladesh's history to undergo such a dramatic reversal of fortunes was the party of H.M. Ershad, the Jatiya Party (People's Party). He was a former dictator and president discredited for rampant corruption, and the Jatiya Party today is a shadow of its former self, relegated to its stronghold in North Bengal.

I genuinely hope a similar fate does not await the BNP; without a functioning opposition, a democratic government cannot be expected to function.

Is This Good or Bad?

The standard answer to a question like that is: a bit of both.

It's bad because we all know power corrupts. And in the world's most corrupt country, power corrupts absolutely. Without a functioning opposition, the Awami League will think it has a carte blanche, and attempt to do whatever it pleases.

You'll notice that in press briefings, Sheikh Hasina (or Khaleda Zia for that matter) is very limited in her praise for the elecotorate, the people who actually voted for her.

There is a disconnect in South Asian politics between the governed and the government. Those who come into power feel as though it was their right all along, and that this has simply been "restored" to them.

A bad side-effect, perhaps, of dynastic politics.

So yes, this is bad. The Awami League won a bit too much.

But it's really not all that bad, within the context of just the election.

This is a "known bug" within democracy. Yes, the common will can't always be depended upon to take the nuanced, correct route. People don't go protesting in the streets shouting "BE REASONABLE!"

But in bad economic times and incompetent governance, this is the rule, not the exception. In the US elections of 1928, Herbert Hoover and the Republicans came into power with 84% of the popular vote, a landslide. 4 years and a Great Depression later, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, a Democrat, won 88% of the vote.

Barack Obama won by a small margin in absolute terms, but he defeated John McCain very handily as US elections go. In bad times, people make large political moves toward "change", whether it be substantiated change or merely rhetorical change.

One should look at this huge shift in Bangladeshi politics less as a slight upon the institution, and more as a massive reprobation against the BNP-Jamaat.

Votes are binary, you either vote for someone or you don't. It doesn't measure the fact that according to a pre-election poll by the Pew Research Center, more than 70% of the electorate in Bangladesh is completely jaded by politics and have resigned themselves to more of the same no matter who comes into power. The high voter turnout is not a credit to the campaigns that were run by the Awami League or the BNP, but a credit to the enduring spirit of democracy among the people of Bangladesh.

Many people voted for the Awami League not because they liked them, but because they hated the BNP more.

Let's not forget, of the 4 years Bangladesh appeared as the most corrupt country in the world, the last year of Awami League rule in 2001 was the first, and set the precedent. The BNP-Jamaat merely ran with the baton for an additional few years until Nigeria and Afghanistan caught up.

Jamaat-e-Islaami

They contested in 32 constituencies and won only 2 of them. Their party leader, Motiur Rahman Nizami lost his own constituency.

Quite frankly, I didn't expect this. I was under the impression that the Jamaat-e-Islaami had an entrenched voter base that would vote for them no matter what, and this now seems untrue. Well, you live and you learn.

It seems what most people really want is food in their stomachs and a roof over their heads. The failed anti-corruption drive of 2007 by the interim government discovered huge amounts of foreign aid stashed away in party leaders' homes, and this must have left a lasting impression in people's minds; it was, after all, stealing from the poor. Accompanied with massive inflation that, admittedly, they weren't responsible for, this must have been a concern.

What I found most amusing was that in Khulna-5, the Jamaat-e-Islaami candidate Miah Golam Parwar was running against the Awami League's Hindu candidate, Narayan Chandra Chanda. He was running a negative fear campaign, telling people to choose to vote between "the Quran and Narayan," no doubt using the rhyme to good end.

He lost by 35 thousand votes in a Muslim-majority area.

Fiery sermons and bigotry are the hallmarks of the Jamaat-e-Islaami in Bangladesh. These people colluded with criminal elements in the Pakistani army during 1971 war, and aided and abetted in atrocities against people they considered subhuman (the Hindus) or invalidly Muslim.

I'm ashamed that their party bears the name of my faith. Intolerant and hateful, they should be spurned and turned away, and I'm left wondering now how they even won 2 seats.

Well, that's democracy for you!

Give Credit Where Credit is Due

The quasi-military caretaker government (CTG) failed miserably at its anti-corruption drive. After separating the judiciary from the executive in 2007 (after the BNP promised it for 5 years without delivering), they pressured the judiciary into releasing all the candidates on bail in 2008, staying their cases so that they can contest in the elections.

They only caught a handful of bigwigs of corruption, and corruption is as much an institution in third-world Bangladesh today as it was in January 2007 when the CTG came into power.

The few that they jailed may serve as a deterrent for future politicians, but in reality, they are so few that it's more attributable toward random bad luck than people getting their just deserts. It's still uncertain which precedent will have a more lasting effect.

That being said, the CTG promised elections in calendar 2008. And they delivered.

This election campaign has been one of the least disruptive campaigns in the history of the country. Walls were not defaced with posters, banners and leaflets were suspended on ropes across the street giving it a festive feel.

The practice of "Mic'ing" (pronounced Mike'ing, where rickshaw-wallahs retrofitted with loudspeakers ride around town with a gruff voice blaring at high volume and high speed for people to vote a certain way) was limited to certain hours of the day so as not to disrupt or distract trade or commerce.

Campaign gatherings were limited to certain gathering points so as not to block traffic, and the street prosessions politely gave way to oncoming traffic.

The photo essay of the BBC shows an election atmosphere much like that of Eid, a festival, with people talking to each other while standing in line and sharing laughs.

Roughly 15% of the population is urban. Of these, most are from the villages, where they probably registered to vote. At 80% turnout, that means many people from the village actually travelled home to vote.

The enthusiasm and well-executed nature of this election is unprecedented. That's an achievement of the CTG, and something to be proud of.

Despite their massive failures in the anti-corruption drive and their "Minus Two" policy, this achievement alone is enough to redeem them.

Lets not forget, the very political parties that got voted into power in these elections couldn't make this happen.

The Future

I'm deeply concerned that the free and fair elections of 2008 will be the last piece of good news that's going to come out of Bangladesh for at least the next 5 years.

I'm not a betting man, but even if I was, all bets would be off. I'm hopeful and optimistic, but I'm going to prepare for the worst. The Awami League did a bad job between 1996 and 2001, and I have seen little to no indication that they'll change for the better.

The onus right now, though, is actually on the BNP. As most foreign media outlets put it, it really doesn't matter who wins, since policy-wise, both these parties are pretty much identical. What matters more is who loses, because it's the sore losers who agitate and paralyse the country.

But a man's got to hope.

Elections: Bangladesh Decides

2008-12-28T23:09:00.004+08:00

Hell, it's about time!

This is the culmination of a very long wait. The elections were supposed to have been held in 2006, after a 5-year term by the Bangladesh National Party (BNP)-Jamaat-e-Islaami alliance. They delayed it until the very end of 2006, and by attempting to doctor the Election Commission, sparked nationwide protests and violence which cost lives.

Never a dull day in Bangladeshi politics.

The caretaker government took over in Jan. 2007, and promised free and fair elections by the end of calendar year 2008. And by golly gee, they delivered. Elections on Dec. 29th, 2008. Cutting it a little close, hey?

A lot has been achieved in the past year. A digitized national voter list, which is supposed to, in theory, lessen the impact of vote fraud, and new election campaigning rules which has made life a lot easier for businesses and commerce to continue in the midst of the changeover.

I have a few predictions. These are casual, by-stander predictions, and are at best, guesstimates. I'm not an analyst, but I feel the winds on the ground, and if I see the clouds on the horizon, it's reasonable for me to think there's rain a-comin'.

1. The Awami League will win.

5 years of the BNP-Jamaat's hardline right-wing politics has left people a bit angry, so I imagine a lot of people will sway the Awami League way, just to spite the BNP-Jamaat.

But the Awami League is left-leaning, so I'm not sure what to make of their victory, if they do win. But in today's world, it doesn't matter which way you lean. India and China has shown the developing world which way works best, and when it comes right down to it, the policies of increased trade liberalization, deregulation and decentralization will continue no matter who comes into power.

The Awami League has been in power in the late 90s, and they did a terrible job of it. But people remember with more clarity the mess-ups of the BNP right now, so I think the negative sentiment will buoy the Awami League.

In 2001, the BNP-Jamaat alliance got a very strong mandate from the people. There probably was lots of vote rigging and vote buying at the time (I can't say for sure, I didn't follow it that much at the time), but you can't rig your way to a win of the magnitude that was recorded. So the Awami League is certainly no panacea.

But I still think they'll win. That's the way the wind is blowing now.

2. Lots of people will vote blank votes.

That is actually allowed this time, the no-confidence vote. I think a lot of people will, and that will indicate very powerfully how jaded a lot of people have become about politics in Bangladesh. Neither of these parties have delivered sufficient results, and the steady clip of 6% GDP growth over the past few years has been despite the government, not because of.

3. Jamaat-e-Islaami will possibly lose a bit of their votes, or gain a little bit, but not move much on the electoral map.

For the record, I'm not a fan.

They have a terrible human rights record when it comes to ethnic minorities (the Hindus and the Ahmediyyas in particular), they're holding back the emancipation of women in Bangladesh, a very important facet of social and economic reform, and I feel that they are complicit in some of the terrorism in Bangladesh with vitriolic sermon rhetoric.

But their support base is deeply entrenched, people who believe it is their duty to "save Islam" as Khaleda Zia put it in one of her speeches. As if Islam somehow needs to be saved.

Do I wish I were wrong?

If I had a wish, then I'd wish the Jamaat-e-Islaam voter base decreases in size dramatically. It would prompt them to do some soul-searching, and maybe some young'uns can come forward with a better strategy for a new age. Chances of that happening? Very, very little. Arguably many of the young'uns coming out of the Jamaat are as extreme, if not more extreme than their aged counterparts. And religious sentiments run deep and strong, and you can't reason someone out of an opinion they came to through emotion.

Since I'm wishing, I also hope the no-vote category is very large this time around, and that the Awami League still win. A large no-vote would signal to the political parties a large bank of potential votes that they may try to woo through proper social, political and economic progress.

And I'm not into ponies, so really, I wish for a warp-10 Galaxy-class starship with transporter and holodeck capabilities.

World of Goo

2008-12-22T13:12:00.005+08:00

I'm not a gamer, and I don't do game reviews. So this is more evangelism than anything else.

World of Goo was developed by independent game writers 2D Boy ("I love you 2D Boy!"), using lots of open source components brought together to make a delightful little game.

Gameplay

The story is really a backdrop to the gameplay, which consists of taking little goo balls and assembling goo-ey structures like towers and bridges that oscillate and undulate under the cumulative weight of the goo balls you attach onto them. Attach too many, and it will buckle. Attach too few, and you won't be able to make it to your target.

Every level has a start and an end point, and you're given a certain number of goo balls to assemble a structure to get there. You're supposed to have a few goo balls as surplus at the end of it, and the challenge is to have enough goo balls free, i.e. not used as part of the structure, to win the level. They get sucked up into a big vacuum machine and put away.

The story has something to do with the "Goo Corporation" and some corporate conspiracy. The goo balls are self-aware and extremely adorable, but not aware that they were designed by the Goo Corporation, are used in "industry", and that they are incredibly tasty.

The Technology

The core of this game is its physics engine, which was used from an open source software library. The goo-ey structures oscillate and undulate under the weight of the additional goo balls you attach onto them, and obey the laws of physics much how you would expect them to, (with sufficient suspension of disbelief). The engine seems to have integrated variables of mass, center of mass, moment of inertia, friction, and joint strength (something I never studied in high school enough to name), where structures that are too heavy buckle under the weight and become mere attachments instead of rigid support.

A host of other open technologies were used to assemble the game, and the core development team was extremely small. But they have done a superb job of integrating these technologies into a cohesive, wholesome product that is fun to use, play, and share.

Re-playability and Value

The game is tremendously replayable. Once you've finished all the levels you can go back and play them and see how you could solve the levels differently, assembling the goo balls in weird ways to achieve your goal.

Also you can play the game under "OCD" rules. Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder sets a higher standard for you to finish the levels, with almost double the number of surplus goo balls you need at the end of the final structure to qualify as having finished it under "OCD" rules. You have to really maximize every goo ball you use, pushing the structure to its very limits and depending on environmental factors to maximize your use of goo balls. Some real "out-of-the-box" thinking goes into this!

You can also upload your scores and structures to the web, and share with others. And all the surplus goo balls you collect at the end of every level is accumulated in a very large, open level where you can build pretty much anything you like. A "carte blanche" for your goo-building needs. The highest point of your structure is represented by a small whiff of cloud with your name and country on it. It bobs up and down, and rises and falls as your structure goes higher and higher, and you can compare with others.

The only very minor downside I found to this game was the menu system, before the actual game starts. It seems a bit neglected and rushed, with the bulk of developer attention going into the gameplay mechanics, no doubt. This product was delayed by almost 6 months (their interview with X-Play had them naming a release date at around Jun. 2008, and it was only released in Dec. 2008). I'm not complaining, though, because the game works where it counts: in the game. This is just a nitpick.

I'd give this game 5 stars out of 5, if I had stars to give. It costs only 20 USD, making it very cheap for the hours of fun you'll have with it.

My Ideological Pitch

I encourage people to support independent game developers, people writing great code in their backyards, people with common sense and will power to use computers to make good, wholesome magic. In a world of re-hashed first-person shooters with gratuitous guts, gore and ample bosom for pimple-faced teenage males, this is a very welcome change. We should support a good product by buying it, especially if it's made by "the little guy." I voted with my dollar on this one, and you should too!

The Awami League Campaign 2008

2008-12-19T12:17:00.005+08:00

If wishes were wings...

From The Daily Star:

"If we are voted to power, we shall bring down the price of essentials, increase power generation, make education up to degree level free, give agricultural subsidies and ensure community health care facilities," Hasina said.

"Besides, more schools and colleges will be set up, allowances for freedom fighters, widows and elderly people will be doubled, fertiliser will be sold on open market and loans will be given to shrimp traders and unemployed youths," she said.

"We want to give something to the country. Give us a chance to serve you and the country. We shall build a developed Bangladesh where none will starve or live without clothes, education, housing and healthcare facilities," the former premier said.

Reality calls:

1. Bring Down the Price of Essentials

It's the economy, stupid! The world is already going into a deflationary spiral, although it probably won't last for long. They'll probably claim it as their doing, although they have no control over this. The quasi-military caretaker government also had no control over the inflation of 2007 and 2008, so it's tough for anyone to take blame either.

Whoever comes into power, though, will take credit for the deflation. Welcome to democracy!

2. Increase Power Generation

I've actually read a bit more about the planned policy changes the Awami League is looking for. This includes sanctioning new power projects as well as refurbishing old power plants. Refurbishment is, as far as my limited knowledge goes, a new promise: I've never heard any political party talk about refurbishment or the expansion of existing infrastructure in the past.

Refurbishment is not as profitable as new power plant projects. The tenders from new projects are far larger (more bang per corrupt buck, you may say), and come from outside bidders, some of who are either new to Bangladesh and so can be "educated" as to how things work here, or old players who have established contacts and can facilitate the "speed money" through established channels.

This is an understood fact of Bangladeshi government. Ask anyone in Bangladesh, and they'll give you the "don't be naive" frown.

The rallies Hasina is holding now costs money. This isn't the US where campaign donations from the masses can fund Barack Obama's 600-million-dollar campaign. Apart from key stakeholders in industry who contribute to secure their interests, the politicians invest their own money into their campaigns, and have to make this money back when they get back into power. And this can only be done through corruption.

3. Make Education Up to Degree Level Free

The taxation rate in Bangladesh is still extremely low, despite the BNP's efforts to increase the tax net (and in all fairness, they have arguably done a good job of it), and depending on loans from the ADB (which comes with the accompanying slow hemorrhaging of interest payments) or foreign aid (with its strings attached) won't cut it for long. We're aiming to become a Newly Industrialized Country by 2020, but we've shown that public spending has thus far been very irresponsible. The Annual Development Plan (ADP) has been set at more and more ambitious levels every year with double-digit year-on-year growths in ADP spending, but with consistently failing levels of implementation.

4. Agricultural Subsidies

Agricultural subsidies are the lifeblood of Bangladesh. Even the United States and the European Union are loathe to remove their agricultural subsidies, a very contentious point in the Doha Round of Free Trade Talks (what actually caused its collapse). Agricultural subsidies serve a very crucial function. This is money being invested in food, and it's a policy that's proven to work.

Whether the Awami League or the BNP comes into power, agricultural subsidies are here to stay. This is a mainstay and a staple of Bangladeshi government, and provides a crucial service to the economy.

5. More schools, colleges

The problem here isn't building the brick-and-mortar structures. The problem is in expanding the Education Ministry's capacity. Hiring more quality teachers at competitive pay rates (government wages in Bangladesh are infamously low) to attract proper talent, bringing in consultants from the private sector to train and equip these teachers, and hiring new and effective administrators and bureaucrats in the ministries to oversee these operations, that's where the challenge lies.

As an indication of the challenges ahead, the most corrupt sectors in Bangladesh are the Education and Healthcare sectors.

The education system in Bangladesh is nothing short of crumbling. One of the downsides of the fervent Bengali language movement (the "bhasha andolon") pre- and post-independence has been the overzealous banishment of English from the public sphere. Public schools today have an appalling standard of English education, which sets back most of the students from these schools significantly when competing in the global arena.

This is one of the reasons why maturing (and increasingly expensive) India is exporting its call centers to Pakistan and the Philippines (both countries with excellent standards of English), but not to Bangladesh.

Japan and Europe can afford not to adopt English, because Japan has been the world's second largest economy (until China squeezed it out very recently), and Europe has been a key player in innovation and engineering for centuries and they have a rich colonial history of theft to buoy them. Witnesses and the prime beneficiaries and drivers of the industrial revolution, they are not playing catch-up like we are. This irrational attachment to Bengali has cost us billions of dollars in potential GDP, jobs, industries and opportunities for our youth.

That being said, even in Bengali, the education system is crumbling. We are bad at being bad. Education comes to a virtual standstill after A-Levels (what we call "Intermediate"). The best schools in Bangladesh: Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology, and Dhaka University, are frequently beset by political wrangling and fighting among the student chapters of the main political parties. This is affectionately and euphemistically called "session jam." 4-year degrees take 6 years to complete.

Students in university are supposed to be debating the finer points of capitalism versus socialism, or the ethical dilemmas posed by modernity to the pre-modern legal precepts of our culture. But instead, our university students fight with each other in the streets.

A university student from Dhaka University once put it to me very simply: it was either beat, or be beaten, and he wasn't about to take hits from anyone.

Professors are politically aligned and engage in partisan bickering in and out of the class. The Vice Chancellors in university are actually publicized political appointees. How do you expect an education system to function?

So building more schools is really not going to help. Deep institutional and cultural reform is needed in the education ministry.

5. Allowances for freedom fighters, widows and elderly people will be doubled

I was thinking "how would you fund this?" Well, 0 multiplied by 2 is 0, so it might not be that hard.

Freedom fighters, I think, have an allowance. A pittance though it may be, I think it hasn't been adjusted for inflation for decades, and the list of freedom fighters in Bangladesh is extremely flawed with many low-level soldiers totally omitted from the list (there have been reports in the Daily Star on this).

This has been an election promise since the 90s. We had a Bangladeshi painter back in Abu Dhabi, an elderly, hard-working chap with a very colourful personality. He cared enough about politics to actually schedule his annual leave around elections. Sheikh Hasina promised elderly benefits back then as well, and I remember him mentioning it with much skepticism and good-hearted cheer.

This must have been a good 10 to 12 years ago.

Here. Have a pinch of salt.

An Outsider's Perceptions of Malaysia

2008-12-10T13:12:00.005+08:00

I was in Malaysia for only 2 days and a night. Most of my knowledge of the country comes from the Singaporean Straits Times, an otherwise anti-Malaysian (and I would argue somewhat anti-Muslim) organization that has an agenda in showing Malaysia in a bad light.

Here's what I know: Malaysia is a former British colony, and has been independent for about 50 years or so now. Blessed with a small but steady supply of oil and gas, a steadily growing population, fertile land, and a background of mature British common law, it has evolved into a robust economy, is a regional player in South-East Asia and has a decisively Muslim identity.

Industrially, Malaysia's doing very well. It manufactures its own cars, the Proton; the engine is Japanese, but they design the chassis, assemble it, and market it under their own brand. Although the butt of many jokes, it's still something to be proud of, and reflects the industrial and entrepreneurial spirit in the country.

Politically, Malaysian democracy is beginning to show signs of maturing. The opposition party has been making in-roads despite government interference with the media and the political process. Mahathir Mohammed set the precedent for this with the Anwar Ibrahim fiasco. Not surprisingly, most of the Malaysians I spoke to about politics had a deep-rooted aversion for it. The political landscape is dominated by dirt.

Socially, their racist, pro-Malay, affirmative action policy, known as the Bhumiputra (literally, "children of the soil") laws are being publicly challenged, their vibrant ethnic minority communities of Buddhist Chinese and Hindu Indians are getting a greater voice in the goings-on of their country (and have actually allied with the hard-line Islamic groups, obviously a marriage of convenience at this point) and the ruling party coalition that has been in power unquestioningly since inception, the Barisan Nasional (BN) is showing signs of cracking. Some parties and politicians are defecting for the opposition that is running on a wave of populist support against the establishment.

But it faces lots of tricky challenges. A wave of political religious conservatism has put in jeopardy some of the freedoms ethnic minorities used to claim. A case came up on a recently deceased individual who was officially non-Muslim, but some individuals claimed he had secretly professed his Muslim faith. Though their evidence was flimsy, the case was handed over to a Shariah court, and the remains were laid to rest according to Muslim rites, much to the dismay of his family.

Recently some quarters have suggested shutting down vernacular schools, i.e., the Chinese and the Tamil schools in Malaysia, and unifying it under the dominant Malay school system. Thankfully, the ruling party disregarded it, as did the Malaysian royal family. The French can afford bigotry in the name of secularism, and the Singaporeans can afford marginalization in the name of unity, but a Muslim country doesn't have such a luxury. And in all honesty, they're all the better for it. It's the right thing to do. Diversity is a blessing.

A controversial ruling was the recent religious ban on yoga for Muslims. Something clearly silly and actually targeted toward Muslim women who were taking it up in the droves (yoga generally appeals to women more than men). The basis was that the Hindu chanting that came along with the yoga was deemed un-Islamic, although the fact of the matter is that only a minority of yoga schools do religious chanting, and these would most probably be reserved for an exclusively, or majority Hindu crowd. Religiosity in general is on the wane in the world today, and most common, everyday activities have been secularized for easy consumption by a wider audience, so I doubt this was ever really a pressing issue.

Speaking of pressing issues, where are the fatwas speaking out against poverty, denying women education, abuse, and human rights? Why is it these issues are ignored for novels and cartoons all the time?

The Malaysian flag has the distinctive red, white and blue of the American flag, with the stripes representing the states in the federation, but with the exception of an astronomically feasible depiction of the crescent and star (as opposed to the Pakistani impossibility of a star inside a moon, something many Indians get a good laugh out of).

Speaking to Malaysians, they are certainly proud of their country's achievements. Malaysians are proud of it as one of the few majority Muslim countries that have built a robust, stable infrastructure of education, healthcare, and democracy, something probably no other medium- to high-profile Muslim country can claim. And this is to the credit of the minorities within Malaysia as much as the Muslim-majority Malays.

Its national identity is a complex beast. The architecture in Malaysia is uniquely South-East Asian, while being modern, and faithful to Islamic roots. Many people have criticized the overly Islamic slant Malaysian architecture has taken, and to a limited extent I concede that. Some buildings in Putrajaya looked like pseudo baked-mud houses of North Africa or the Middle East, complete with wind towers, an innovation made for desert climes, not the tropics.

Barring a few exceptions, on the whole, it's really not so bad.

If American public architecture traces its roots to European influences, honestly I don't see why Malaysia should apologize for its Islamic-influenced architecture. A lot of it is well-integrated into the local vernacular, and they have clearly chosen it as an integral part of their national identity. All they need now is to repeal discriminatory laws against ethnic minorities.

Kuala Lumpur is a vibrant city, and full of life. Although crumbling around the edges, and like most urban centers, it has its fair share of inhospitable, uncooperative denizens. It is, however, a very well-rounded, modern city that's bustling with life, and I could imagine living there (my metric for a city I like or dislike). Anybody looking for something, no matter what it is, will probably find it.

I, for one, found their road signs very amusing, though. The Malay language has been Latinized to fit the times, having been written using the Arabic script previously (what Malays call Jawi). So taxi, for example is called "teksi." An executive cab is "teksi eksekutif." A bus is a "bas," a university is "universiti" and science is "sains." Good fun!

See the good in foreign countries, and the bad in your own. The Sufi practice of dropping a bad habit and replacing it with a good habit applies to matters of public service as well.

Malaysia looks a lot like what Bangladesh might look like, I imagine, when we become a newly industrialized country in a few decades.

And I, for one, like it.

C25K Completed!

2008-12-05T11:10:00.002+08:00

Nailed it! (Sort of)

It took me 38 minutes, and it hurt in places it never hurt before. But I got it! Average pace of ~ 7 minutes, 30 seconds per kilometre. That's a speed of about roughly 7.9 kmph. That can certainly improve.

I started at week 3 of the C25K program, and by that standard, I ended at week 7 of the program, 2 weeks ahead of schedule!

Needless to say I didn't follow the plan to the letter, and took many liberties. At the point where I should have been on week 6, lesson 1, which is a run-walk alternation aimed at aerobic capacity building, I ran a straight 22 minutes. The week 6 goal was a 20-minute run without breaks so I was well ahead at that point.

Haven't done a run-walk alternations since. 22 minutes, then 23 minutes, and now 38 minutes.

Although I'm a day early, I'm still a dollar short, though.

The actual goal is to run 5K in 30 minutes.

That's an average velocity of 10 kmph, at about 6 minutes per kilometre. That's unprecedented for me, because my fastest pace yet has been a meagre 6 minutes 59 seconds per kilometer, roughly 8.5kmph, and I managed to keep that pace up for only 24 minutes.

I'm going to need an average pace of 10 kmph, which means every time I recoup at 8 kmph, a comfortable trot, I need to be able to go at 12 kmph for exactly the same time to make sure I can make the cut.

Apportioning Blame in the Mumbai Attacks

2008-12-02T17:43:00.003+08:00

The dust has settled. The dead are being put to rest, and collectively, we mourn. As people start to move on, we can name our heroes, our villains, and everything in between.

The Heroes.

1. The victims.

They did no wrong, didn't ask to be heroes, and given the choice, I think they'd choose to continue with their dinners. Yet here we are. These innocent souls now join the many hundreds of thousands of victims throughout India and the world, now, and in history, who were guilty only of being at the wrong place at the wrong time.

And though the victims may have found peace in their eternal slumber, the emptiness they leave behind with their loved ones must be unimaginable.

I am truly sorry for their enormous loss.

2. The policemen.

They were ill-equipped, and under-trained. The gunmen had night-vision goggles, and they didn't. The gunmen had better guns, and had actually trained with their weapons, but the police didn't. They were late in getting to the scene, and they wasted the critical moments when lives could have been saved. They didn't know what to do, they didn't know the layout of the hotel, and nobody bothered to teach them or tell them.

But they went in anyway. When they were needed the most, they were there. And many of them died.

"When they lay us down to rest,
Tell our moms we done our best."

That they didn't know what to do wasn't their fault. They are, unequivocally, heroes.

3. The commandos.

The famed Indian Black Cats. They were trained, and equipped, but they were all the way in New Delhi and couldn't catch a plane because there wasn't any, and couldn't catch the ones that were available because the bureaucracy didn't account for that. But they eventually got the job done, after 60-something hours. Could it have been done sooner? Perhaps. But Indian commandos cleaned up an Indian mess, and that's something to be proud of. The Israelis, apparently, offered help, but India said they had it covered.

Arguably, they didn't have it covered. But it's good to take responsibility.

4. The people of Mumbai. They have suffered many wrongs, and yet they prod on. Like the people of Islamabad, Baghdad, Kabul, and Grozny. What else can one do. You pick up the pieces, and you move on. Common folk are incredibly resilient.

The Villains

In most cases, the hero-villain dichotomy is a false one. But these crimes were so horrific, that the perpetrators of this crime really are villains.

But what devilry is this? Suicide bombing, though I do not condone, I understand. It is the terrorist equivalent of blind rage. A lack of control in your life can lead to suicidal tendencies; it is one of the things you actually can control.

But what is it that these people have suffered that would push them to this controlled burst of terror? The gut reaction is to dismiss them as evil, and perhaps to a certain extent that's true. But most of the deeply messed up things in the world make sense to a level. This doesn't make much sense yet.

No statement was made as to what they wanted, a no-name organization was put forward, the Deccan Mujahideen, and goodness knows why they targeted Americans, Britons and Israelis if they were indeed homegrown terrorists, which the consensus is starting to suggest. What was their goal?

There's more thinking and soul-searching to be done. Questions. Questions that need answers.
___________________________

These are the only two categories that (approximately) fall into the category of white and black. Right and wrong. Good and evil.

Now come the shades of grey.

India

India is no stranger to terrorism. They've been wrangling with it since independence, arguably before. If the Indian civil service traces its roots to the British civil service, that represents a long line of bureaucrats, administrators, and politicians that have dealt with criminal malcontents, rebels, terrorists, anarchists and freedom fighters (from an administrator's perspective, these all fall into the same basket).

And yet look at the pitiable excuse for a response. Their policemen were carrying obsolete weaponry they had previously never used before. Mumbai, a city of 13 million people, doesn't have its own commandos or national guard on stand-by. This, after a truck filled with almost a tonne of explosives laced with aluminium, blew up in the front yard of their neighbour's capital in Islamabad. You think they would have gotten the hint?

The helicopter dropping the commandos off in Nariman House circled overhead three times before dropping them off. So much for the element of surprise! It was almost a perverse comedy, like a Bollywood movie, where the hero takes down a dozen chicken-legged policemen in shorts.

Such a long history of terrorism and insurgency movements, and India still doesn't have a central terrorism database. They don't have a singular authority that handles these kinds of issues, a country with more than a billion people, and numerous separatist and insurgent movements.

In all fairness, India alone doesn't suffer from this. All the sub-continent countries display this level of incompetence. When will they realize that their laziness costs lives?

But to give India's democracy some credit, there is a tradition of taking responsibility for gross negligence. The Home Minister resigned in the face of these attacks, and I remember a few years back, a terrible railway accident sparked the resignation of the Railway Minister.

Though these resignations, strictly speaking, don't serve an immediate purpose in improving the situation, the culture of taking responsibility, at least, is there. I say at least, because it is, literally, the least, that could be done.

The terrorists hijacked a boat, took a dinghy to the shore, verbally abused fishermen on the way who asked what they were doing, walked into Mumbai, spraying bullets in the train station along the way, entered the hotels, took the time to ask people their nationalities, searched the hotel, and then kept the authorities at bay for over 60 hours. If that isn't a systemic failure at every level of the intelligence and civil defence administration, I don't know what is.

In short: the government botched this one up really bad.

Pakistan

Pakistan is now getting blamed for it. The Indian foreign minister, before any of the dust even settled, pointed his finger to "elements" in Pakistan. Summary: meaningless.

It's like a night guard asleep at his post hears an explosion which wakes him up, and the first thing he does upon waking is accuse the guy next to him.

People died on their watch, and they're looking for scapegoats, so obviously the last thing on their minds is their sworn responsibility as civil servants.

That being said, is Pakistan blameless? Fareed Zakaria (I'm a fan) said it in a piece soon after the bombings: Pakistan needs to stop choosing between "good terrorists" and "bad terrorists." Terrorists that destabilize India and Afghanistan are the good kind, and those that destabilize Pakistan are the bad kind.

That there are sympathetic elements within the Pakistani ISI is without a doubt. The evidence continues to mount that the attacks were staged from Pakistan. If that is the case, then the Pakistani government shoulders a sizeable burden, comparable to that of the Indian government: why weren't the terrorists on their soil stopped? The Pakistani authorities are, at best, incompetent, and at worst, complicit.

An attack of this scale does not serve any Pakistani agenda. Undermining local interests that stay out of the news media are the kind that would serve a hostile Pakistan's agenda. As the saying goes "Do not attribute to malice that which can easily be explained by stupidity."

The terrorism problem within South Asia is localized and indigenous, and the South Asian countries need to combine forces on this.

I, however, remain sceptical the Pakistanis, Bangladeshis and Indians can work together on anything.

Islam

No doubt this will push those that hate Islam and Muslims to hate them even more.

I am not a subscriber to the thought that "you cannot judge a religion by the actions of its followers." No, you can, you should, and everyone does.

But Muslims died in these attacks. Muslims have died in almost every major terorrist attack by Muslim extremists, and pretty much all of the minor ones in Iraq and Afghanistan.

As the major perpetrators of terrorism (the Buddhists are a distant second in the religious extremism rankings), Muslims account for most of its victims by number. Mind you, this includes the "collateral damage" suffered by Muslims during coalition air raids.

If you count the casualties in the "War on Terror" (which for all intents and purposes basically means Afghanistan and Iraq), Muslim civilian and combatant casualties outnumber any other casualties in these conflicts, be they civilian, Indian, Israeli, American, or coalition forces. Be they casualties in the numerous suicide bombings in Tel Aviv, New York, Mumbai, or Madrid.

So we suffer as much if not more than anyone else does, it's just that when an Afghan or Iraqi civilian dies, or a Pakistani or an Arab, their government usually lacks the organization, infrastructure, news agencies, public relations apparatus, or diplomatic and political will to make an issue out of it.

In every one of the BBC articles on the Mumbai attacks, they've listed the dead. And at the very end, they take by name the single Briton that died. It's an honourable thing to do, to look out for your own.

Since most Muslim countries are poor and under-developed, our dead don't have a public voice. We bury our numerous, uncounted, innocent dead in Chechnya, the Gaza Strip, and Somalia privately, and the Earth is soaked in our tears. And neither our own governments, nor other governments look to see our pain.

Why don't people realize that our suffering and our grievances is the world's suffering too? It's only when people get pushed to the very brink, when they lose their humanity and like a child, break the vase to get some attention, does the world look at us. With a frown of irritation on its face. Like it would be so much easier if we all just... disappeared.

If you prick us, do we not bleed?

Wait A Minute...

Muslims are not a single, monolithic entity. Muslims in America are different from Muslims in the UK, who are different from Muslims in India. That there may be some elements shared within common extremist ideologies does not mean that Muslims in general are a problem case.

The Muslim faith's enduring egalitarianism allows for a Muslim in the Philippines to feel for his brother in Palestine, but that does not mean we speak with one voice.

With the exception of a few high-profile cases, the United States is largely immune from the scourge of indigenous Muslim extremism. The Muslim diaspora in the United States (and North America) is among the most well-settled, integrated, and successful of all the Muslim diaspora in the world.

Muslims in Europe have their own grievances by way of Europe's collective social backwardness in integrating immigrant populations into the common fold. That has nothing to do with Islam, but the root problems are socio-economic.

Europe for all its progressiveness has never had an indigenous, enduring Muslim population from pre-modern times. All Muslims in Europe today are modern immigrants. In the Middle East, there are still native Jews and Christians, descendants from the time of the Prophets of yore. This is an indicator of Europe's history of integration.

In Palestine, large swathes of Muslims have been living in refugee camps for generations now, internally displaced, without an identity, continuously intimidated by the Israelis, neglected by the Arabs and the Palestinian Authority, and unwanted everywhere.

Everyone has their problems. Yes, religion may be a catalyst in the process of radicalizing people, once you've hammered into their brains that the gardens of paradise are worth whatever political agenda you may be preaching. But I'm a Muslim, and technically, I'm looking forward to the same gardens as many of the suicide bombers. But I'm not rushing to do anything untoward.

These people are hopeless, and uneducated, and many have lost their families, their dignity, and have nothing to live for. Hate the sin, not the sinner. We have to pull these people out of that rut. If for nothing else, than to save our own skins.

Every region which finds terrorism as an intractable problem is riddled with poverty, corruption, instability, lack of education, and general hopelessness. Palestine. Afghanistan. Sudan.

And let me be clear: As a Muslim, I have nothing to apologize for because the perpetrators were Muslim. I condemn their attacks along with the rest of the world. By saying "Muslims need to speak out more" that's indirectly casting some of the blame of these terrorists on me. I share none of the blame of any of these terrorists, and I never will be. I am not of them, and they are not of me.

But to have a clear conscience and to actually try to identify how to solve the problem, I have to note that the root problem of a lot of terrorism lies within political solutions to non-fictional grievances in Kashmir, Palestine, and Africa. I'm not condoning violence by highlighting the shades of grey, but I'm looking at the root cause as well as the symptoms. Shouldn't everyone be doing that?

By using a faith as a scapegoat, we're not addressing the problem. It is dismissive, and a disservice to the issue. The problem lies within people, and within people lies the solution.

To the Muslims: there's an African saying, "A fool at forty, is a fool for ever." Most post-colonial Muslim countries are nearing 40, it's about time they started to show some progress, because very soon, blaming the thieving white people of half a century ago just isn't going to cut it.

Good governance, education, healthcare, a good economy, free speech. And terrorism will become a much more manageable problem.

Ask a bum in New York (someone who is arguably good-for-nothing and reasonably hopeless) to blow himself up. You think he'll do it? No, because he knows he's not just a bum, but he's a bum in New York, man. He shares in that pride. Don't underestimate the poor and the hopeless. They're very aware of their surroundings.

The Mumbai Blasts

2008-11-30T02:21:00.003+08:00

The time to soul-search and apportion blame will come. Now, we must stand in solidarity with our brothers and sisters in India, for they have suffered a deep and grievous wrong.

First, we must wash our dead, and lay them to rest.

Layman's Perspective: Lolitics in Bangladesh

2008-11-23T09:05:00.005+08:00

Looking at it at face value, we've had a handful of leaders over the years. H.M. Ershad (who was a president), K. Zia, S. Hasina, (who were prime ministers) and now F. Ahmed (who is a chief adviser; not a politician, but a bureaucrat).

Personally, I will look upon the 2 years of F. Ahmed's premiership with somewhat fond memories. Okay, not exactly fond, but memories accompanied with less dread. He brought some measure of control back to a country on the brink of losing it, he managed a powerful cyclone excellently (just look at how a comparable cyclone that hit Myanmar a few months later caused human suffering an order of magnitude higher than Bangladesh's), coordinated a nation-wide food response which helped the people of Bangladesh cope with hunger where other countries at a similar level of development (like Haiti or Pakistan) suffered much more than we did. And he was erudite, and spoke good English.

K. Zia speaks terrible English, and somewhat faltering Bengali. More seriously, though, she has no personal credentials apart from being the wife of a former dictator (who engaged in wanton political assassinations during his regime and then was eventually assassinated himself). She is only barely educated, and that may be okay for the United States of America, but it shouldn't be for us! (Okay, after suffering 8 years of Dubya, we have a right to poke fun at this. Electing Barack doesn't exonerate you people all of a sudden!)

S. Hasina, though, goes around as an opposition party leader around the world, to the United States, and accuses the incumbents of terrorism. This reflects the psychology of Bangladeshi politics: whatever it takes to win, even if it means blackening the name of your country to others. Even as an opposition party leader, you're still representing Bangladesh when you go abroad. She, however, didn't get the memo.

In all fairness, though, the BNP-Jamaat alliance has engaged in terrorism. And S. Hasina has been a victim of them. The 5-year BNP-Jamaat term has set a dangerous precedent for subsequent elected governments: winning an election gives you the right to attempt to systematically eradicate the opposition.

These two women, though, are two sides of the same coin. In all their time in power, they've enacted many laws for the protection of women's rights, but very little by way of real empowerment has come to women. A woman construction worker, today, in Bangladesh, earns half what a man earns. For the same, back-breaking work.

Acid attacks continue, and very little by way of resolution of these cases ever occur in courts, with few proper public trials to serve as proper deterrents, although these cases cannot be that difficult to solve. The friends of the perpetrators would no doubt be privy to the details of the relationship between the young lady and the criminal in question. We're a country of romantics, after all. It's all poetry, flowers, hugs and kisses until the aqueous hydrogen-sulfate hits the wall.

In the three terms these two women have exchanged the seat of power, the issue of young beggar girls in the streets of Dhaka, sexually, physically, emotionally abused by callous passers-by, by drug-peddlers, by the elements of the variable summer-winter weather, have all largely been ignored.

The last time I went to Bangladesh, I saw with my very own eyes a young girl carrying a baby in a posture in which any other baby would not be able to keep quiet, much less sleep. It was very obviously drugged to sleep, begging in the streets. In the rain. And these two women have done nothing for them.

So we may be able to claim that we elected a woman as a premiere, but it's really not done much at all for people on the ground.

F. Ahmed, on the other hand, is well-spoken and very presentable, but he sounds like an autocrat in all his speeches abroad, by highlighting the pitfalls of an "imperfect union" like his address at the UN General Assembly last year. I think he's a little bit flustered at the negative response of a military-backed caretaker government having to take power in Bangladesh, so when he is abroad, his agenda is dominated by why the military has to settle matters in a country that has been making inroads in consistent civilian rule. All the Western countries collectively went *gasp* when the civilians couldn't settle the issues amicably. But that's not his fault. Politically-speaking, nothing is ever his fault; he's a career bureaucrat, for goodness sake, and he wasn't elected. He deserves some slack, and although he has decidedly underperformed, he has been less bad than the others.

Even a shallow analysis will give the following grade to Bangladeshi politics: fail. This "state of emergency" is the longest running imposition of martial law in a South Asian country since partition. It's unacceptable, but it's not the CTG's (Caretake Government) fault. It's S. Hasina's fault, and K. Zia's fault, because they were too busy inciting riots and fixing elections, that the military had to take over. They were only filling a vacuum created by the incompetent civilians. The CTG has been a force of stability in some ways, like how the Taleban was before they got bombed back to the Stone Age. Not exactly an ideal solution, but at least you can go to and from work to feed the family.

But we really do take things too personally in the sub-continent (and Asia in general). If an employee hands in his resignation, it's all cuss words and "you ingrate" and "how could you stab me in the back." Seriously, boss. It's nothing personal, this is just business. After these politicians cuss each other up in parliament, they should be able to go home, chillax with their families and watch Bohu Brihi. But no, they're in this fight to annihilate each other with ridiculous ideological banter and hyperbole.

Our devotion to our political parties is almost religious, anybody that changes parties is labeled a turncoat, an unacceptable apostasy. Well, I think for a democracy to function, the electorate has to be swingers. It's like Keynes famously noted (roughly paraphrased): "If the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do?"

W's worldview is wrong. (paraphrased) "This is a president that believes on Wednesday, what he believed on Monday, no matter what happened on Tuesday," said Stephen Colbert at the White House Correspondents Dinner. We need to foster more rational thought in our country, through education and free speech. And then, perhaps, we will be able to achieve "a more perfect union."

C25K Runner's Program

2008-11-20T23:13:00.002+08:00

C25K means Couch Potato '2' 5 Kilometres. It's a program of gradually increasing the endurance of a couch potato (comparable to the endurance of just a potato) to the level of a normal adult Homo sapien: able to run either 5 kilometres or for a half hour, at a stretch, without a break.

I started from week 3 because I'm about 2 weeks fitter than a couch potato. Oh yeah, I'm ripped!

So I Google'ed around for blogs of people who have done the C25K program. None of them go beyond 4 weeks. I think, oh, one of them ended at Week 6. Not a good sign at all, I don't think. Well, here I am telling you. I am now on week 4, week 3 was too easy (I'm ripped!).

Bangladeshi Election Turmoil

2008-11-18T23:44:00.003+08:00

The Bangladesh National Party's (BNP) 4-Party Alliance is making a list of 4 demands of the Election Commission (EC). In summary, they are:

1. Lift the State of Emergency

2. Remove some clauses in the amended Representation of the People Order (RPO)

3. Defer Upazila (municipal) elections for a month after the parliamentary polls

4. Reschedule polls to ensure Hajis can cast their votes

Lift the State of Emergency

This makes sense and warrants consideration, and the Caretaker Government is already considering this. The Caretaker Government has reason to be skeptical. The two parties have a penchant for street protests that turn ugly very frequently, and none of these parties have signed off on any common agreement to stop economically disruptive protests (hartal). But an election under what is effectively martial law isn't exactly what I would call ideal.

The State of Emergency has been a Godsend for these 2 years for many people on the ground. The streets haven't been all that much safer, and although the military has come in with its fair share of heavy-handedness, businesses have generally functioned without let or hindrance. Perhaps I'm damning it with faint praise but it could've been a lot worse.

Remove some clauses in the amended RPO

The RPO, first enacted in 1972 is generally a good piece of legislation from what I understand. The legislators from our "founding fathers" were a competent bunch, from the rich tradition of the Pakistan Civil Service and before that, the British Civil Service. 3 parliamentary elections have been held under it so far, as well as a few military dictatorships thrown into the mix (we are a sub-continental country, after all). And some of the amendments made to it this year by the Caretaker Government have also been good, like barring anyone who hasn't paid their utility bills from contesting (you'd think that was obvious).

But as usual, the military's heavy-handedness has to eventually cut through. It's like they get a sense that they're doing well, then suddenly get over-enthusiastic and overshoot. I'm fuzzy on the details here, but it seems like they've added a clause barring teachers from running for public office. I think their intention may be to separate the universities from politics, but this policy sounds heavy-handed (my favorite word for this post).

Let's not forget, the Caretaker Government was the one that tried to put price controls in the telecommunication industry, probably the only sector in Bangladesh that is working perfectly well and serving the population for the collective good, under free-market capitalism.

Defer Municipal Elections for a Month after Parliamentary Polls

I'm not exactly sure as to the reasoning for this, but it's possible they're trying not to over-extend the Election Commission. But with proper management it's possible to vote on more than one thing at a time. Americans in the recent presidential elections very controversially voted for a black president, and voted against gay marriage rights, among other things. This was all on the same ballot.

The big caveat here is that it needs organization and management.

Reschedule Polls to Ensure Hajis Can Cast Their Votes

This is simply preposterous. The BNP and her Jamaat allies have become masters at playing the religion card.

There are no more than 50,000 pilgrims going on the Hajj from Bangladesh according to revised, lower Saudi quotas this year for Bangladeshis. Out of an approximately 80 million-strong voter roll. That's 0.06% of the electorate, and that fraction is probably smaller when you factor in voter turnout.

If their vote is so crucial (which I don't think it is), then the 4-party alliance should have raised this before. After all, we've known elections would be held at the end of 2008 for more than 18 months now. The Election Commission would have evaluated accepting absentee ballots (something I would very much like) for the pilgrims, in that case. If we don't have the capacity to handle absentee ballots, which the Election Commission has already announced, then I don't see a way out.

I don't think this request should be entertained. But then, what do I know about politics in a country I never lived in. The BNP is a monolith in the political landscape, outsized only by its counterpart, the Awami League. If they sneeze, everybody gets wet.

Why I Think Opera is the Best Browser Available

2007-10-20T13:12:00.000+08:00

To me, Opera is the OS X of the browser world. Compared to its competitors, it is polished, fast, quick-loading, powerful, feature-rich, well-thought-out and manages to do all that without getting in your face.

Well-thought-out. That's the key.

I'm not going to go into detail. This isn't a technical or academic opinion. It's a very pedestrian opinion. Why do I like Opera? It comes down to a few features that I just fell in love with when I saw them.

Username and password completion

Opera frames username/password forms that it knows the information to in an unobtrusive brown-yellow colour. If you want to put in information that you know, go ahead and do it, it's not in your way. However, if you want Opera to fill it in for you, just press CTRL+ENTER, and Opera fills it in for you, and submits the form.

It's unobtrusive, it gives you the information you need to know via easy-to-understand visual cues that are not distracting, and it's much better than any other implementation I've seen in Safari when it comes to multiple known usernames and passwords.

In Safari, it auto-completes it for you while you type, akin to someone finishing your sentences for you. It's sweet, but not always fun.

Speed Dial

All that empty space when you press CTRL+T for a new tab. The first implementation of tabs, inherited from Firefox and now implemented in all browsers, focuses your text cursor on the URL bar, so you type in things from there. Shortcuts even, can be put in through there through Firefox and Safari add-ons. Well, the guys at Opera are way above their game by putting in this feature called Speed Dial.

It uses the empty space of a new tab to show you 9 boxes with window previews that you can click on to navigate to. Each box will contain a cached thumbnail of a version of the website you visited. If you want to see what's the latest on them, just click refresh, at this window, and Opera will give you the latest thumbnails by reloading the page.

9 large buttons (taking up a lot of screen real-estate that was formerly unused), so your mouse movement need not be very fine (as opposed to navigating to the correct button on your bookmarks bar). You can use your mouse and keyboard in excellent synchronization. Left hand for CTRL+T, with the right hand still on the mouse, move quickly to a button, click, you're there.

These 2 features alone make me like Opera. The fact that it loads webpages fast, has fun visual indicators while loading pages, launches fast, and has, in my opinion, the best user-interface of any application I've used in Ubuntu Linux (running KDE) so far are still secondary concerns.

I'm sure there's more, but nothing worth me writing about. The guys at Opera have their heads in the right place from my analysis of the application so far.

Personal Note

I use Opera at work, where I work on Ubuntu Feisty Fawn. At home I still use Safari, because Safari is still more widely supported than Opera, and Opera's user-interface still isn't up to Mac standards.

I generally stay away from Firefox. A lumbering beast of an application, it takes for ever to launch, it's memory footprint is huge and it's really become persona non grata in my browsing experience.

Jhumpa Lahiri's "The Namesake": My Review

2007-10-06T10:48:00.000+08:00

I just finished reading a book last night. My first in a long... very long time. I've been reading sleepy paperbacks in between all this, but never a book as an experience. But in the past weeks, I did it.

The book is Jhumpa Lahiri's, The Namesake. Popularized by a movie of the same name, with some Hollywood and Bollywood bigwigs involved. That's probably why I heard of it and bothered to get my paws on it. Alas. The Metatron from Dogma (1999) was right: it's not worth knowing anymore if they haven't made a movie on it.

The Story

Story goes of the Gangulis, from Calcutta, West Bengal, India. Ashima and Ashoke Ganguli travel to a far away land, America, to make a new life. Ashoke, the husband, has chosen to define himself by a train accident he nearly died in, in India, where he survived by the skin of his teeth, with nothing but a tattered copy of Nikolai Gogol's "The Overcoat", and a lifelong limp to show for it. Sick of his life in India, he travels across the world to make a new beginning.

After their arrival in America, having settled and made a life, Ashima has a child, who is to be named by her grandmother. Unfortunately, the letter her grandmother mails them is lost, and her grandmother becomes gravely ill and loses all her higher faculties. It becomes impossible for them to find out the name she chose for him.

In a spur of the moment, compelled, and against tradition, the Gangulis name their son themselves. Not having put much thought into it, having deferred good judgement to Ashima's grandmother, Ashoke pulls out the first name in his head. Gogol, after Nikolai Gogol, of whom Ashoke is a fan of a deeply spiritual nature, becomes the name of their son. What follows is Gogol Ganguli's uneventful American childhood, adolescence and adulthood, with but one unique characteristic: his name is Gogol.

He is unique among his friends, and as he eventually realizes, among people around the world, since Gogol was a surname turned first name. Not even in Russia, where Nikolai Gogol was from, was anyone named Gogol. And he resents it. Eventually changing his name, and inwardly, part of his own identity, he goes through turmoil in his personal life. Courting women from America-proper, and immigrant Bengalis not unlike himself, towards the end, he comes to realize the dreary and momentary nature of life itself.

Dislikes

My dislike first, of which there is only one. I'd like to leave off this book review on a good note, so bad news first, good news later.

I didn't like how Lahiri describes everybody from Calcutta as so educated! Gosh, Gogol is an accomplished architect, his friends and significant others are PhDs and professors and intellectuals. Is that really how Bengalis are in New York? Are there no philistines in Calcutta? Where are the grocer and restaurant Bengalis?

If Bengalis really are that well off, well, wow! You guys are doing well! If not, this book tastes of nasty Bollywood'ness, where everyone's a romanticized bigshot. And, by the way, why are all the Bangladeshis in the book cab drivers and busboys? Actually... no, I think she hit the nail right on the head there. Can't gripe about it if it's true!

Likes

Now my likes. Thinking about the story, and putting it into words in writing this review, I now truly realize exactly how much I love this book. It touches upon many of my own sensitivities.

First of all, the book is about Bengalis. These guys are from Calcutta, West Bengal in India, but Bengalis will be Bengalis. We are essentially, and truly the same for good or for worse.

I loved the Bengali culture that was describe in romantic detail in this book. How Ashima never addresses her husband by name, but calls him by (roughly translated) "Are you listening to me?". How the intimacy between them is so rigorous and deep, that even they themselves are unaware of its reality. How Bengalis give their children two names, one for home and one for the world. How they have their compatriots over for dinners regularly on the weekends, with loud, boisterous Bengali ringing through the household while the children play or watch television on their own upstairs. Of foster-uncles and foster-aunts that become their family in a far away land. Of unwanted and bothersome visits to an inhospitable Calcutta every few years. Of Gogol's irritation at having a name he shares with nobody, of having to spell it out, or having to hear it mispronounced.

I loved it because I lived it. I am Gogol. I never changed my name, but I fell back to my Arabic name, something slightly more common in the sub-continent than my Bengali name, which I never quite liked.

But I've now found respect in my Bengali name, and in my parents, who lived the life of Ashima and Ashoke described in such intimate detail in this book. I especially realized what my mother went through in raising three children, on her own, in a faraway land. The story of Ashima in this book is a story of my mother.

Truly, mothers hold debts no mortal being can repay.

I'd give this book 5 stars out of 5. If I had stars to give.

The Amman Message

2007-10-06T10:06:00.000+08:00

Wikipedia is a dangerous thing. Navigate to it to find out a quick fact, and before you know it, you're completely engrossed in a very large article on something completely unrelated. Like what happened to me yesterday.

Here's a link I found out yesterday, perhaps a year or so too late:

The Amman Message

From the Introduction:

It [The Amman Message] sought to declare what Islam is and what it is not, and what actions represent it and what actions do not. Its goal was to clarify to the modern world the true nature of Islam and the nature of true Islam.

A worthy goal indeed!

One of the things about Islam is that its largely decentralized. We don't have a pope, and we really don't have a central body regulating religious activities of Muslims around the world.

Typically, governments and private or non-profit organizations fill the void, of their own volition, to keep things organized, but it's not mandated. Despite all the hoo-haa about Islam being a polity, and it being the antithesis of secularism, and therefore, automatically incompatible with anything "civilized", at the root of it, it's all very personal... and yet impersonal.

A standing principle of the spiritual gnostics has been: nothing is personal in the universe, except your relationship with God.

And this perhaps has been Islam's bane in the modern world. People could pick up tattered, neglected old books, and where nationalism had previously failed to deliver, they hit where the heart is soft: faith. The despots told the people do this, and God will love you, and the people loved the despots.

And so perhaps things like the Amman Message are slowly arising. Standards bodies, that define terms, good practices, and fundamental concepts. Much like the IEEE standards or the RFC internet standards. These are the protocols, the concepts. Now implement them as you wish.

(I'm very sorry for the geek reference. I had to do it.)

The Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan has an advantage I think that most of the other Muslim countries don't have.

It's relatively unimportant, so there's not much Western meddling going on.
It's king was educated in the West, but with deep roots in the Middle East.
And the pox that is the United States's war on terror in Iraq has meant millenia's worth of handed down knowledge and wisdom, embodied in rare, skilled professionals in trades we no longer know about, like calligraphy and traditional Islamic scholarship, are making their way there to make a new life.

Last I heard, they were undergoing slow democratic reforms in Jordan. Here's to wishing them the best.

Is the Problem Technical or Managerial?

2007-09-22T13:17:00.000+08:00

I was invited to a very distant relation's home for Iftari yesterday. Apart from a lovely traditional Iftari with chick peas, butter milk, dates, and fruit, I enjoyed pleasant company, and a family environment.

I met a fellow by the name of Mustafa, who was working in alternative energy in Bangladesh, particularly in biogas. It was heart-warming to hear people on the ground realizing what I read about on the internet so much. It's the common folk such as him who make the realities of solving our social problems a reality.

As usual, in our five-minute conversation, the topic veered toward the state of Bangladesh. Systemic corruption has crippled the country, and Mustafa suggested a sentiment shared by many Bengalis: all we needed was one good leader. Malaysia had Mahathir, Oman had Sultan Qaboos.

It's a common enough sentiment among the common folk, but that, of course, doesn't mean its necessarily true. Pakistan had General Musharraf, who, at the time, was welcomed almost unanimously. Power does corrupt, and politics will be politics.

But there is truth behind it. I wouldn't fully agree with "just one person" being sufficient. One person need not be the be-all and end-all; I think South Asians are too quick through the door into hero-worship, and just as fast to put a bullet in him. But the spirit behind the sentiment is the same as mine: the problem is, and always has been, leadership.

This belief was vindicated by the newspaper headlines just today. In Bangladesh, power load shedding has decreased from a 1,200 megawatt nationwide energy deficit, to a 200 megawatt deficit. The solution? Good management.

27 power plants last year generated 2,800 megawatts of energy, against a demand of (approximately) 4,000 megawatts. Those same 27 plants today, with the exception of one additional 70 megawatt plant that was installed earlier this year, are generating 4,100 megawatts of power, reducing the national shortfall of energy to a mere 100 to 200 megawatts.

The problem wasn't technical. The gas and oil was there to be burned, the transducers were there. It was managerial.

Solutions involved staggering holidays in industrial zones, stricter controls on bill collection, decentralized decision-making. With that, they fixed a problem that had threatened the economic development, the sacrosanct goal of any developing nation, of a 150 million people.

Like the Bengali saying goes: obhab na; shobhab. It's not poverty. It's attitude.

Twenty20 Cricket: My Thoughts

2007-09-20T22:19:00.000+08:00

Cricket was never really my forte; Bangladesh never had a team while I was young, and the India-Pakistan animosity/competition never really trickled down to me, and so cricket was never in my mental map of "things to note."

I learnt as much about the technicalities and mechanics of the game in the World Cup earlier this year as I had learned in all my time watching the Sharjah Cup on television on lazy Friday afternoons in Abu Dhabi.

But I'm still a (potential) customer to the ICC. So my opinion ought to count for something, I hope!

In short: I quite like the game. I have a penchant for structure, skill, and sophistication, and cricket has all three in truckloads. I quite especially relish the commentary, especially if someone intelligent is doing the talking, like John Wright (such a nice guy!), Ian Chappell, or Tony Greig (very opinionated!). I love their insight into the game, and really, it's folks like these that stand testament to the elegance of the game.

But I think it's the faux bourgeoisie that irk me. I think they're trying to put up barriers for casually interested folk like me to take an interest in the game.

The current Twenty20 World Cup has provoked a lot of ire from players and commentators alike. Players are saying they don't like the format, because it doesn't give them enough time to think, and devise action strategies. Commentators, though they won't say it, strongly suggest shortening the game cheapens it. Other commentators are suggesting (again, very subtle-like) that Twenty20 is somehow inferior, because it seems to level the playing field between teams of highly differing skill levels.

Perhaps it was the (deserved) surprise win of Zimbabwe over Australia in the South Africa Twenty20 that has turned heads, or the fact that they feel they're being robbed, since what they believed only them and a limited circle of enlightened gnostics enjoyed is being usurped by the fickle adoration of the unwashed masses.

I don't know what it is, but I don't like that attitude!

Let's call a spade a spade. Cricket is a sport, and honestly, I'm not willing to spend five days watching a game before I know its outcome (the bona-fide format of Test cricket). It's not because I have an attention span deficit, but because it's simply not the amount of time I'm willing to devote to it.

I'm a wage slave, not unlike most folk out there. I simply don't have the emotional and mental manna at the end of a 45-hour work week to offer the sport, or almost any other activity, some of which are far more important than sport. And let's face it, for a sport to survive you need spectators.

The players should suck it up, I'm afraid. Soccer players do much more in much shorter time than cricketers do, and despite the deceptive simplicity of soccer, a lot of strategy goes into it, as much on-the-spot, thinking-on-your-feet sort of stuff as preparation. The spontaneity gives it beauty, and sometimes produces strokes of genius.

And if Twenty20 levels the playing field a bit more, so be it! I've yet to hear of a match that a team was about to win, but lost because of the format of the game. Australia lost to Zimbabwe earlier this year, because Zimbabwe played better cricket. Upsets are fun, and honestly, Australia's domination in the sphere of cricket for the past 7 or so years is probably the strongest argument not to care about the game. It's almost become a no-brainer as to who'll win the World Cup, or who the best team is, since Australia hasn't lost a single World Cup game in three World Cups! That's no fun!

The commentators will lament the Cricket of Old. I can see how it must have been fun, I really can. Old men spending five days in the sun, their women and children sipping tea and playing in the grass while other people (the colonials, perhaps?) cooked, cleaned and tilled the earth. I really don't share their nostalgia.

I like cricket. I like the fact that every spot in the cricket ground has a name, every stroke of the bat has a name, every technique of throwing the ball and each speed of throwing it has a name. Typical English bureaucratic thinking, and quite sophisticated at the end of the day. I just don't like the arrogance senior aficionados of the sport in the media seem to have for it.

Let it go, let Twenty20 grow, because the fans are the future of the sport, and we want something we can enjoy, and something we don't have to dedicate significant portions of our time on Earth to experience.

Rendezvous with Rama; FINALLY!

2006-04-27T01:57:00.000+08:00

FINALLY! Enfin! Schließlich! Infine! Finalmente!

Rendezvous with Rama has begun pre-production.

I loved the book! Classic Clarke!

An Inconvenient Truth; Only Convenient Names

2006-04-11T18:30:00.000+08:00

A documentary called "An Inconvenient Truth" is being released, spearheaded by Al Gore's vocal fight against global warming and its effects. Rising sea-levels, stronger storms, hotter weather.

While outlining countries that will be most direly affected by sea-level rise, he cites Florida, Shanghai, and "the area around Calcutta."

Well, hello! The area around Calcutta is historically known as Bengal, and is now called Bangladesh! They show an animated map of a region of Eastern India, and it's *all Bangladesh*! Just call it Bangladesh! We're over here, we're over here!

Bangladesh is at the forefront of almost every major environmental disaster. We suffer cyclones, we have annual flooding, we are suffering from desertification, we have extensive deforestation, increasing urbanisation, water-depletion that is soon going to pull us into a huge crisis, naturally-occuring arsenic which is poisoning our existing water supply, what little of it we have, we have energy shortages, river salination, river silting and rivers drying up.

We have serious issues there! In fact, heck! We deserve our own documentary!

Carrots and Sticks: The New India

2006-03-05T16:08:00.000+08:00

The Manmohan Doctrine is a very forward-looking and well-written article on India's economic progress.

The subcontinent has more bad news for India than the rest of the world put together. Official relations with Pakistan are somewhere between freezing and tepid. There has been no chemistry, not even a mild fizz, between Pervez Musharraf, the ex-commando and Singh, the ex-Oxford don. Musharraf is unimpressed with Singh’s insistence that he needs five years in office before he can consider a Kashmir settlement. So Islamabad keeps the terrorism pot boiling.

The news is almost as bad in Nepal and Bangladesh. Sri Lanka merely teeters on the brink of war while the Maldives struggles to transit to democracy.

Singh has spent the past year waggling carrots before India’s neighbours. Settle the security concerns of India and you can share in the world’s second-fastest growing economy, says Foreign Secretary Shyam Saran repeatedly. This has little traction with the likes of Musharraf or King Gyanendra, critics say, as they better understand sticks.

Singh’s fall back policy: Stay calm so long as the neighbours don’t get in the way of the 10 per cent solution. As India shines, some light will eventually get through the blinkers. The Indo-US nuclear deal has only reinforced the view among Pakistanis of their future —“In 50 years, you will be the US and we will be Mexico.”

My $0.02 on the Danish Cartoons

2006-02-11T14:39:00.000+08:00

2 weeks after the Danish cartoon controversy began, I'm going to pitch in my 2 cents. Since the Muslim world has flooded the West with their loose change, here are my pennies.

First of all, let me rank the things I like, and the things that I don't like about the controversy, in order of importance.

The things I don't like:

1. The violence and deaths. Put a mindless caricature of our beloved Prophet (peace be upon him) on the left end of a scale, and the loss of a single life on the other end, and the balance will fall through floor on the right. This is our tradition.

I can't imagine that Muslims protesting over something they found offensive will result in their own deaths. For those who have eyes, please, see how fragile and sensitive we are, and deal with us with care.

2. The caricature. I have not seen any of the cartoons. If I got a penny for every link to the cartoons I stroked over with my mouse, I'd have a few dollars now. I saw a glimpse of the one of the Prophet (peace be upon him) with the turban, but it was a thumbnail, and I was quick to close.

Let me be clear. I only found that cartoon distasteful, and quite thoroughly so. I've heard of a few of the other cartoons, and I think they weren't that bad; in fact, I might go as far as saying, they had a point. One of them had men at the gates of heaven, yelling, (paraphrased) "We've run out of virgins!" and another one had a cartoonist nervously drawing pictures with bloodthirsty terrorists watching over his shoulder. Some of these might even have warranted a giggle from me.

But you can fill a sermon with all the wisdom of the world, and end it on an extreme note, and completely lose your audience. It is the same with us, why is it not the same for the Danish media, I wonder. Osama bin Laden's tapes are replete with historical references and kind words to the American people. "Leave us alone, and we will leave you alone," he says. How appealing, don't you think? And yet nobody listens. Why? Because when his face fades away from the screen, we remember what he did to two very beautiful buildings in New York. Maybe we can do without his wisdom, we think.

3. The reprints. They say the reprints are there because of freedom of speech. I say, no. They're there to make us angry. This example has been cited, but let me say it again. If the Jews were targeted in this manner, in some obscure newspaper in Iran, and the Jews (rightly) took offense, nobody would defend that newspaper's right to free speech. When Mahmoud Ahmedinejad made stupid remarks about relocating Israel to Europe, none of his peers in the West defended his right to free speech by reproducing his act when universally condemned by world leaders. The question to ask is why. Why didn't they defend his right? Beause the things he said were stupid.

The reprints are not to defend freedom of speech. When I was little, I found out a cousin of mine was ticklish, and tickling him would make his face go red, and he'd have trouble breathing. That's why I did it again. And again. Until my mother came and pulled me away. Our tickle spot has been found, it seems.

Now, a newspaper in Iran is having a competition on drawing a cartoon about the holocaust. Well, even if every newspaper in the world reprints them, that would not change my opinion, or make me say, "Oh, what a silly person I've been! This is all about free speech." It would have no meaning, because had the Danish incident not happened, they would not have done any reprints. This is a, "Oh, yeah? You're saying we wouldn't? Well, watch this!" dare by an emotionally immature media.

4. I also must say, I don't like the state of Muslims in Europe. Whatever the reasons that they haven't managed to get integrated into the cultures of their host nations, it is sad that they are in such a state. Yes, we have some issues. But we're really not that bad.

5. Boycott of Danish products, burning their flags, and attacking their ambassadors. I've had the pleasure of meeting some very nice Danes in Singapore; exchange students. They're not all bad, just like Muslims are not all good (which is rather the wrong way round; we should be saying we're not all that bad, since we cause so much trouble around the world).

I'm not sure boycotting their products is a wise thing to do. Sure, we can do without those delicious Danish butter-cookies my mother used to buy us back home, and that I bought as recently as last winter. Lots of other people make them now. Sure, Lego is an amazing Danish brand which I link to some of the most fun toys I've ever owned. I still own a huge Lego set of pirates that I played with as recent as my last trip to Bangladesh earlier last month. But I'm not sure about the message we are sending with the boycott.

I think by grouping people into countries, we are doing what we are asking our oppressors in the West to stop doing. Stop thinking that just because I'm Muslim, and some Muslims blow things up along with themselves, that I'm going to blow something up. Just because some irresponsible newspaper printed something stupid doesn't mean they're all bad. The boycotts have caused some people to go out of work, which is sad. Getting into the job market myself soon, I feel for those who are affected.

I'm also sad that the ambassadors and embassy-workers in Muslim countries are spending their days in fear. The famed hospitality of the Arabs has turned to dust, along with most of their civilization.

What I like.

1. How the Muslims responded. I was offended when I read about the cartoons on Google News. I remain offended, and I'm glad that all Muslims have reacted. It's a worldwide response, and I think it's beautiful. Looking at how divided we have become, it seems love of the Prophet (peace be upon him) has united us, which I find to be extremely powerful and at times, simply overwhelming. I'm glad we responded.

2. The United States decided by and large, not to reprint them. Thank you for your unending sense of political correctness, Yanks. Now just leave us the hell alone. No? Well, okay.

3. Some of the cartoons had a point. Satirical cartoons have their place in media. They make excellent points in entertaining ways. They reflect a better part of the dark human psyche, bloodthirsty and evil-prone as it is. They show the complexity of thought that is possible. The good that can be done with this powerful tool that we call our mind. I'm sure Sheikh Abdul Hakim Murad will agree with me here.

Anyway. I don't know what kind of publication Jyllands-Posten is, but they have shown bad judgement and simply bad journalism. I don't know what they were taught in school, but my informal understanding of the role of the media in society is that they are the glue between the people and the government, and sometimes the people and themselves. They are the left hand, watching the right hand. They are the voice of reason, the light when all lights go out. Their role is not to inflame but to douse.

Freedom of speech is precious to me, though I have lived in countries that do not endorse them in any way my whole life (United Arab Emirates and Singapore). Freedom of speech has done much for us in Bangladesh. People speak what they want, and do what they want. This is not always a good thing, and has done some harm in the short run, but that's because we're in a transitional period. Like a man traveling the desert for days and nights, and coming upon water, drinks his fill and then lies on the ground convulsing in stomach cramps, we're just getting over the taste of water. We'll grow out of it, eventually, and we'll get better, it's just a matter of time.

I'd like to conclude this rather long entry with my thought on something that's a little lacking in Western cultures: sanctity. Sanctity to the West seems something archaic shed long ago. That an object may hold intrinsic value, or that a mountain known to have turned to wax considered holy, or a simple patch of land called precious for it holds in its bosom a man of great worth. Too much knowledge may have done modern man as much bad as too much freedom has done Bangladesh. Explaining away things with science do not belittle them, for science doesn't seek to ask the questions that really matter.

This on-going incident may have proven to do one very good thing. It's come to show those who wish to see, what each side in this conflict holds sacred. For us, the Prophet (peace be upon him) and his memory. And for the West, I guess it is freedom of speech. We're not threatening freedom of speech with our protests. We're demanding freedom of thought, the acceptance of responsibility, and the sincere desire to help the world become a better place.

Difficult Times Lie Ahead

2006-02-07T03:37:00.001+08:00

Alas! Google has but two spots for major international news. On the one hand, we're burning and blowing things up because of cartoons, and on the other hand, we're doing nuclear energy research in an oil- and gas-rich country.

Afraid of us? I think they should be.

Comedy... in the Muslim World? Laughable!

2005-12-11T18:04:00.000+08:00

From development-hell.com:

Title: Looking For Comedy in the Muslim World
Director: Albert Brooks

"Albert Brooks may very well be the funniest man alive. All the movies he has written and directed (except maybe “The Muse”) have been unqualified gems. The yuppie couple buying a motor home and dropping out of society in “Lost in America”. His unorthodox vision of the hereafter in “Defending Your Life”. His middle-aged guy moving back in with his mother in, uh, “Mother”. All classics. This is his first new film in 7 years, and like his debut feature “Real Life” has him playing himself as a comedian embarking on an important research study for the government to see what makes the Muslim people laugh. During his trip through India and Pakistan he manages to make a total jackass of himself and practically starts World War III. Just the title alone shows that this is not going to be a typical comedy... you know, typical, like Ben Stiller getting kicked in the balls or something. Early word from sneak peaks say the film is hilarious and possibly the most incendiary comedy since “Dr. Strangelove”. I only hope the Muslim people can take a joke and not get all Salmon Rushdie on poor Albert."

Watch the trailer.

I hope we can take the joke too! The trailer shows sufficient Western humour, but it is, after all, marketed for a Western audience. Considering our history with them, it's gratifying to see they can still make jokes about it; our deviant brothers haven't exactly been at their best behaviour with them, now have they.

There is something about the apparent stringency of our tradition that diffuses into our psyches and pushes us to strive toward an immunity to humour, even if this "severe" tradition doesn't specify it. Being religious seems to intuitively lead to a lack of a sense of humour in some people. "Allah Made Me Funny"-Man Azhar Usman pokes at this point enough, I think.

Did anyone notice he spelt Salman Rushdie as Salmon Rushdie? Heh heh. That's funny.

From Chicken Run:

[Nick and Fetcher, two sneaky, cockney rats are telling Rocky, the American cockerel, about a caper they pulled with a farmer]

Nick: We slipped into the farmer's room, all quiet like.
Fetcher: Like a fish.
Nick: Yeah, and we..."Like a fish"? You stupid Norbert.

It's funny if you've seen Chicken Run. If you haven't, you should!

The Chronicles of Narnia: At Last!

2005-12-03T16:31:00.000+08:00

Well, it's been about a year since my post about the screen adaptation of the Chronicles of Narnia. It's scheduled to be released on the 14th of December, and I'm actually quite excited about it. I'm actually considering going to the theater to watch it.

The books are written in the order of "The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe," "The Horse and His Boy," "Prince Caspian," "The Voyage of the Dawn Treader," "The Silver Chair," and the "Last Battle," as well as a prequel to the entire series, "The Magician's Nephew."

Wikipedia has a comprehensive article regarding the series, criticisms directed toward it, and their corresponding defenses.

I'm a little sad I hadn't read the books earlier, when I was young; I'm quite sure that with a much younger imagination, I would have enjoyed the books much more. I'm also very sure, that with a far less developed perception of Christian mythology, the heavy Christian symbolism wouldn't have ruined the experience for me.

The story revolves around a group of children who travel to a magical land via a portal, a wardrobe. They are referred to as the "sons" and "daughters of Adam" by the inhabitants of the land, and have a riveting adventure rescuing it from a permanent winter enforced by the White Witch of the West. One of the boys fall prey to the villain's wiles, but later realizes his mistake, but cannot be freed without a price. Aslan pays the price of the boy's freedom from the White Witch, and gives himself up to die, only to rise again.

The Christian themes were too much for me, and, it seems, I'm not alone. Some people are also saying that they were quite blaring:

"Is the world created by British author C.S. Lewis a rip-roaring piece of fantasy — or a fairy tale suffused with Christian imagery?

The book has long charmed children of any or no religion. The movie is, in many ways, faithful to the book — and faithful to the faithful — without sounding the horn of religious orthodoxy. Johnson says you will find Christian symbolism in the movie only if you found it in the book. That's fair enough, though you will find it if you look closely enough — or are told to."

This article on USAtoday.com is an interesting read. In any case, I hope the movie does well, so that they can make the sequel. Apparently, the sequel will go straight to "Prince Caspian," since "The Horse and His Boy" deviates from the central storyline of the children from "The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe" somewhat.

For the fun of it, here is the link to the "Book-A-Minute" version of the first Chronicles installment. "Book-A-Minute," by the way, is only fun if you've read the books.

Rooftop Gardens, Toyota and Japan

2005-10-16T13:21:00.000+08:00

This is an interesting article regarding rooftop gardens.

I thought of this last summer when I was at home in Bangladesh. The greenery that is being displaced when a building is being constructed can be easily replaced by shifting that to the roof. Fundamentally, it isn't the same, since the soil underneath is still being robbed of the rainwater it would normally receive, but it would contribute toward cooling the area, and prevent urban heating.

Another interesting article I got off slashdot. Toyota is venturing into biotechnology. The Japanese car maker is apparently researching GM crops and other kinds of plants to help alleviate a possible food and water crisis in Asia.

The Japanese continue to impress me. Not with their mostly awful anime, but through their tech-savvy, environmentally responsible ways. The Japanese People. I salute you.

Bukrah, Insha Allah ([I Will Pay You] Tomorrow, God Willing)

2005-09-19T18:29:00.000+08:00

Striking Workers Block Shaikh Zayed Road [gulf-news.com]

Hundreds of construction workers blocked Shaikh Zayed Road in Dubai early Monday morning demanding months of unpaid wages and no clean drinking water, or water in their bathrooms.

A senior administrator in the company, who declined to be named, said the labour camp had clean drinking water. “We will pay May’s salary this week and June’s salary next week. But the workers do have clean water and modern bathrooms.”

At 63 dollars a barrel, I wonder why it's going to take them two weeks to arrange their backpay. Old habits die hard.

Time Leaps and Us

2005-07-31T00:47:00.000+08:00

The path on which we are on, this absolute dependence on science and technology to cure all our ills, divorces us from nature, and enslaves us to the technology that was conceived to liberate us.

Why the US wants to end link between time and sun

Open Source Film

2005-05-26T04:59:00.000+08:00

Open source software is a term used in common parlance nowadays, with the advent of the Linux operating system and the related evangelism citing the imminent death of Microsoft. Although that is yet to be seen (and how much we wish to see it!), the general concepts and ideology of open source seems to be spreading its wings.

In a very peculiar entry on Slashdot, the Open Source geeks' hang-out zone, a group in Amsterdam is getting together an open-source animation, made purely on open-source software. The film itself is to be released under an open license. The link here.

As far as 3D animation goes, I suppose Pixar Animation Studios stands at the forefront of our perception, though they are, in many ways, the epitome of 3D animation creativity. Although they are among the best, they certainly aren't alone. Dreamworks Animation with the Shrek franchise under its belt (and the offshoot Puss In Boots in production) is up there with them. Not to forget the Oscar-winning minds behind Ice Age, Blue Sky Studios.

Something different about Pixar, however, is that their story development process is unique. Script ideas are actually developed and written in-house. Their relationship with Disney, markedly rocky over the past few years, is actually Disney not involved in any of the creativity, but in distribution and casting of voice talent. The Pixar-Disney coalition has been cited as one of the most successful business relationships in cinema history.

A Kingdom of Conscience: Movie Review

2005-05-10T01:13:00.000+08:00

It is a rarity that sees me at the cinema. I do not easily fork out 7 dollars to watch a movie at the theatre, and so I restrict myself to films that interest me personally. These usually include filming projects I have been tracking from inception to release, and Kingdom of Heaven is one of them.

In this review on IMDb.com, it cites both negative and positive aspects of the reaction of the public. Apparently, a muted hue is being raised by both Muslims and Christians on inaccuracies in the film, and Roger Ebert cites this as a clear sign that Sir Ridley Scott, of Gladiator and Aliens fame, got something right. Although I see no logic in that kind of reasoning, even if it comes from a critic as respected as Mr. Ebert, it is indeed my opinion, that anybody from either the Muslim or Christian camp that cites discrepancies to affect in any significant way their experience of this film, is simply being over-critical.

Orlando Bloom, playing the lead character Balian of Ibelin, is the newest pretty boy in Hollywood. Although I concede that his Elvish charm on Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring did catch my eyes, it would be unfair to the art of acting to call him a good practitioner of it. He has consistently been the weakest link in all the films he has appeared in, and though I believe he will some day hone his skill to the level of the peers in his film (Jeremy Irons, Brendan Gleeson, Marton Csokas, David Thewlis, and Liam Neeson), he was drowned by their charisma and fluidity.

Forgiveness for Mr. Bloom's rigidity, however, comes from the script. If the script was indeed written for Mr. Bloom, it compensated well for his inadequacies as a thespian. The character design of Balian of Ibelin was of a man of a stoic disposition and intense concision. Therefore, although he has more screen-time than any other of the main characters, he probably has the lowest word-count per sentence, and the highest "gaze-time," time spent just looking at people's faces.

Even rookie actor, Ghassan Massoud, who has very little screen-time as the great Salahuddin Ayyubi, does a better job at the art of acting than Mr. Bloom. In fact, apparently, Mr. Massoud is a scholar! Sheikh Massoud?

The look and feel of this great Muslim hero and legend was extremely well-executed. The rugged Arab handsomeness shines through Mr. Massoud's general stature. His facial and bodily build is of what I perceive as a classical Yemenite Arab, (not dissimilar to Osama bin Laden, who is in fact Yemeni): wiry, a long, thin face, a complete lack of cheek tissue, a very Semitic, aquiline nose, intense dark eyes, and a beard greying majestically at the edges. However, we will recall, this is the nitpicking section, and I am not done yet: Salahuddin Ayyubi was a Kurd!

It is in Mr. Scott's good fortune that the vast majority of people are not familiar with Kurds, because if they were, I assume they would be aware that Kurds are not too distant from Arabs in appearance and stature. Therefore, this is not an issue of much significance to grapple with.

Salahuddin Ayyubi's sister, whose appearance in the film is both sudden and fleeting, was, I must admit, very impressive. Surprisingly portrayed by Puerto Rican Giannina Facio, her likeness was that of a romantic and classically beautiful Arab woman. Dark eyes to drown in, and the hawkish features that gives Arab women a certain aura of rugged, untamed earthliness, as opposed to the palpably angelic grace of European women.

Hollywood's record in portraying the Muslim prayer has not been a good one. From Antonio Banderas's awkward genuflections in The Thirteenth Warrior, to the fleeting view of debasing, repetitive earth-kissing in the Animatrix, it has consistently been done by people who find the entire concept alien to the very core, clumsily bolted on as a token to an ethnic minority than anything else.

Although the editing of the film dictated the most "dramatic" portions of the Muslim prayer were shown (the prostration and bowing), it was done well. There was no reason for it not to be, since Moroccan soldiers were recruited as extras for the film. I was disappointed, however, because I thought from the trailer, they would feature the Prayer of Fear, a system of prayer employed by the Muslims to fulfill the duty of the five daily prayers even under the risk of attack. Its organized elegance has been one I have secretly wished for a very long time to be portrayed on-screen.

In addition, it is noted in one scene that Muslims were praying in congregation during the Adhaan, or the call to prayer, an oddity to most Muslims. I forgive wholeheartedly, however, because the Adhaan and prostration are both very "dramatic," and the post-production team just couldn't help but couple them.

When I saw the trailer, I thought it was going to be one that glorified knights, and was somewhat disgruntled. The knights of the Crusades were not consistent in their chivalry, and are known to be infamously inhumane to many of their extra-faith victims. However, the movie does not glorify knights, and in fact belittles the majority of those who call themselves knights, for which I am grateful.

The script focuses on men of moderation: King Baldwin, Balian of Ibelin, his father Godfrey and his friend Hospitaler, Tiberias, Salahuddin Ayyubi and his assistant Naser. Contrasted to them are warmongers, Guy de Lusignan, Reynald de Chatillon, and Khaled Nabawy of the Muslim camp.

If I counted the number of jabs at Christian extremism to the number of jabs at Muslim extremism, the former would outnumber the latter in the ratio of (all of the jabs at Christian extremism) to 1. That's right, there was only one jab at Muslim extremism in the entire film that I noticed, primarily because Muslims had less screen-time.

The Arabic dialogue was in classical Arabic, and I actually understood a great deal of it, which was very gratifying.

In the end, it was a very good film, and I respect Mr. Scott for his efforts. He executed this touchy topic adeptly and admirably, and for that, he deserves our praise and appreciation as Muslims. The amount of respect shown toward Muslims borders on romanticism, and considering Hollywood's long-standing record at insensitivity and ineptitude at handling this significant minority, I am honored by his efforts.

Update: Seems some people are happy.

South Asia: The Politics of Partition

2005-05-08T19:23:00.000+08:00

An overdue look at a Gulf News Opinion piece on South Asian trade politics. The article dates back to March 2005, but the basic points remain valid, since the issues go as far back as 1947. Some fascinating realities to be garnered from this article.

Intensified pipeline diplomacy between India and its neighbours promises to transform the geopolitics of the subcontinent.

The single biggest consequence of this pipeline diplomacy could be an end to the economic partition of the subcontinent, a little over 57 years ago. Until 1947, the subcontinent was a single economic space.

Indeed, opponents of the partition have cited this very fact as a potential problem. The restriction on distribution of resources puts a strain on populations. A flood that ravages one part of the country could formerly be compensated by produce from another, but now, borders and deeply ingrained political savagery block such efforts.

Bangladesh is a classic victim of such a problem. Global warming is causing rising sea levels (a currently observed phenomenon in Bangladesh) and people will soon have to relocate to higher land. But the border with India, which surrounds Bangladesh to the East, North and West (the Bay of Bengal to the South), limits all that. If global warming is even half the reality that scientists predict, either we will have to go the Netherlands way, or we will have to invade India.

As the logic of globalisation sweeps across south Asia, Pakistan and Bangladesh could eventually become land bridges between the subcontinent and the regions beyond.

The logic of globalisation does compensate for the movement of capital. But people are left out to dry. Capitalism's most fundamental problem.

The region, however, continues to mature. In fifty years, the government's of South Asia will be more organised, separated by about 5 generations from the traumatic partition and the antagonistic baggage inherited thereof, and people will finally be able to talk issues.

The Apple of My Eye

2005-05-04T22:15:00.000+08:00

I use an Apple Macintosh computer for my personal uses. When the choice came to me at the laptop fair as a dazed freshman in late July 2003, that one issue for me had no contention. I didn't go to the HP stall, the IBM stall or considered for even the briefest moment, any Windows-based notebook. I made a beeline for the Apple stall.

Five minutes of conversation with a very good salesman, and he finally figured out I had been reading the Apple website for the past year and knew more Apple propaganda than even he did. "You know your stuff, man," he said and handed me the form.

Two years later, I am a proud owner of my laptop, a series infamous for logic board errors, but which has served me reasonably well, Masha Allah.

However, the Cult of the Mac is no myth. Mac loyalists clump together like bacteria in a bad broth culture, Steve Jobs their Luke Skywalker, and Bill Gates their Darth Vader. Communalism rears its ugly head in a new form of tribalism. Groping and grasping in the dark, in a globalized world bereft of identity, these people worship their new heroes with unstinted loyalty.

But when it comes down to it all, I have discovered that Apple computer, though technically superior, is headed by a man I just don't like. Steve Jobs's ego is probably one of the largest objects known to man, second to perhaps Tom Cruise's. This article excerpts a little bit of an interview with him on the release of his new operating system, OS X 10.4 Tiger.

Apple co-founder and Chief Executive Steve Jobs has long said that Windows, which runs on nine out of 10 PCs worldwide, has copied Apple.

"They're shamelessly trying to follow us," Jobs said at Apple's annual stockholder meeting two weeks ago, noting that Longhorn has yet to appear. "They can't even copy fast."

Very brave for a man whose company recovered from virtual bankruptcy in 1997. Of course, Apple's recovery from its crisis in 1997 (helped to great effect by Microsoft who owns half the company, ironically) has been consistently called the biggest industry turnaround of a tech-company in history, something that might have something to do with Jobs's attitude.

Bill Gates, software architect, richest man in the world, gracious benefactor and general nice guy, had this to say about Apple's release:

On positive coverage of rival Apple's new Mac OS X Tiger operating system, which has features Microsoft won't have until 2006 in the next Windows: "Because they're the super-small-market share guy, they get all these statements about them. But I actually thought that was great -- there it was, the general press writing about operating systems."

This article is another example of the bully being bullied. The biggest guy is always a target, and Bill Gates takes a lot of flack for it. Oft-times, rightfully so.

But in the end, Bill Gates is a nicer guy than Steve Jobs. But I need a product that works, not a nice guy. And so, I'm typing this blog entry with the Apple of my eye.

"The Return of Saladin"?

2005-04-27T01:36:00.000+08:00

They say even a drowning man will clutch at a straw. Will the honour and bravery of Saladin bring back our honour? Bring back a hero of the old world, so we can embrace the new one?

Seems a contradiction. History teaches us many things about who and what we are. But it cannot plot our course for the future. Is mass-market reserruction of an age-old hero going to solve our problems? The solutions to our problems today must come from within, not from without. Saladin's perspective and insight came from within. As must a contemporary leader's, should a child borne by one of our Great Family ever bear such qualities.

Farish Noor from the Daily Times in Pakistan calls for a Return of Saladin through the new Iraqi president, Jalal Talabaani. A misleading title to a good argument.

One thing that we must have learned in our time here, it is that there is no return. Be it a gap of a moment or a thousand years, one moment lost is one lost to eternity. Where we were a second ago, we will never be again. There is no such thing as habit. That is the beauty of mortality and time: there is never a return.

But what any wise leader can do (and has done), is internalize the lessons of history and apply them in their modern contexts. As eras and ages and seconds and flashes differ from moment to moment, so does political intrigue. And therein lies the hallmark of a true leader and a scholar of decisions: the insight to look at actions and their ramifications through "the lens of eternity." That is the heirloom of the Righteous Caliphs.

Of course, nothing is ever so simple. The problems facing Iraq are many. We live in interesting times, and we pay for them with the lives of our brothers.

Over and Above

2005-04-26T14:50:00.000+08:00

Yet another opinion piece on Gulf News on the ineptitude of Arab politics. I am no longer impressed; these articles are just fluff to fill up the pages. Written by armchair politicists in universities, read by armchair politicists at the dinner table.

This persistence on vagueness on what exactly the problem is with the Arab world and its leaders bothers me. Everything is broad and sweeping. A shout into a crowd, drowned by every member of the crowd thinking it was addressed to the person beside them. No responsibility. Convenient vagueness. For to speak in specifics is to enrage the incompetent. And the best fighters know, it is more dangerous to combat an inexperienced adversary than a veteran, since fools are unpredictable.

Neil Gaiman on Creative Writing

2005-04-18T21:39:00.000+08:00

A very nice, down-to-earth lowdown on what it takes to be a creative write from author Neil Gaiman.

Being a writer is a very peculiar sort of a job: it's always you versus a blank sheet of paper (or a blank screen) and quite often the blank piece of paper wins. It has no job security of any kind, and depends mostly on whether or not you can, like Scheherazade, tell the stories each night that'll keep you alive until tomorrow. There are undoubtedly hundreds of easier, less stressful, more straightforward jobs in the world.

No glammer, no glitz. Nice, earthly advice.

Another nice piece on the fourteen steps to get your manuscript accepted. Written by an editor of a slush-publisher. An entertaining read, if nothing else!

Brave Editorial in Gulf News

2005-04-15T20:24:00.000+08:00

Well, the Editorials in Gulf News are certainly getting brasher.

UNDP’s Arab Human Development Report identifies serious political failings

Rights: denied. Freedoms: denied. Good governance: denied. People's aspirations: denied. The Arab world lives in a "black hole" where "nothing moves and nothing escapes". All matters are static. Nothing changes and nothing advances. This is the stark but accurate state of affairs in the Arab world as reported in the third part of the Arab Human Development Report, released by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) [...]

Brave indeed. But yes, (cleverly?) hidden in a sweeping indictment of one and all. Specifics: denied. Why? Because if Specifics: granted, then Residence Visa: Denied.

Reminds me of Moammar Gaddafi's recent lecture to the Arab League (and this very interesting article I dug up from Google).It's one step forward. At least they're cussing each other up now. Now, just another few centuries till they turn their eyes one hundred and eighty degrees, and look at something of comparable filth.

The Reading Factor

2005-04-15T19:49:00.000+08:00

Everything we make reflects the essences with which we ourselves are made. The Internet seems such, with both our darkest and most illuminated aspects streaked across it, the complexity of the human condition sprayed over such a vast entity. I recently stumbled upon a very nice online magazine, Recreation Services.

There is a theory in biology called convergent evolution. That is, a mammal and a bird (sufficiently different organisms, taxonomically for there not to be any striking morphological similarities), evolve similar limb systems for the mechanics needed to navigate in aquatic environments.

Common solutions to common problems always confront us. This nice article from the magazine linked above explains quite nicely how reading to your children can help them.

Most magazines of this breed quote so-called experts and such, who more often than not spend their careers contradicting themself with each new set of data, but I still think there's a lot to learn from them. I can't see how reading to children can be harmful, and there's really nothing to lose, and a whole lot to gain, even if it doesn't suddenly make them geniuses.

I still remember many of my English teachers spending classes reading to us. I can still remember Mr. Keith, a wonderful, tall, black-haired English gentleman reading Roald Dahl's BFG to us. Did it make me a genius? Considering my recent exploits in carving a career for myself in science, I don't think so. But I still thoroughly enjoyed it; enough so to remember it more than 10 years later.

The Holy Doomsday Weapon

2005-04-11T11:23:00.000+08:00

This detailed article from ABC News relates the epic struggle facing the latest efforts by Israel and Palestine to begin approaching a resolution to this age-old conflict.

At the center of the drama is the most sensitive and hotly disputed holy site in the Holy Land a hilltop known as the Temple Mount to Jews and Noble Sanctuary to Muslims. It is where the Al Aqsa Mosque compound, including the shrine marking the spot where Muslims believe Mohammed ascended to heaven, is built over the ruins of the biblical Jewish Temples.

Clashes at the site could ignite violence across the region, explaining the presence of 3,000 riot-ready Israeli police around the walled Old City, preparing to confront a handful of demonstrators.

Extremist Jews who make up a new group called "Revava," a biblical word that means 10,000, stated openly that their goal is to storm the sensitive site in July, when thousands of Israeli police and soldiers are in Gaza to evacuate 9,000 settlers forcing Israel's leaders to pull the forces from Gaza, send them to Jerusalem and, in that way, stop the pullout. The Sunday protest, they said, was just a test.

Although 10,000 protesters were promised by Revava, only a few dozen showed up, but if nothing, they demonstrated how easy it would be to disrupt the functioning of the Gaza pullout by diverting troop attention to their agitation.

Outside the Old City walls, hundreds of young Palestinians scuffled with baton-wielding police, who kept them away from the shrine. Two Palestinians were hurt, with one suffering a head injury after being hit by a club. Eventually, the Palestinians knelt in orderly lines on the road ringing to Old City to perform Muslim prayers.

In the West Bank, thousands of Palestinians took to the streets. In Nablus, some 3,000 Palestinians, including dozens of armed men who fired in the air, marched through the streets. In Hebron, about 1,000 Palestinians marched and chanted slogans about protecting the mosque.

Israel has stepped up security in Jerusalem recent days. Security officials say they fear hard-liners will attack the hilltop shrine.

Carmi Gilon, former head of the Shin Bet security service, said that if there is such an attack, Israel would find itself at war with the entire Muslim world.

"Of all the means … of stopping disengagement, no doubt the Temple Mount is the doomsday weapon," he told Israel Radio.

Sad, but true.

"Arab-League is Long Past its Use-By Date"

2005-04-09T16:05:00.000+08:00

Hatred, scorn and disdain for Arab leaders run deep in the communities of the Middle East and North Africa. The first President of the Middle East, Jalal Talabani, of Iraq just got elected in a deeply troubled country, and any political maturity seems a far cry right now. Other Gulf-Arab states stand on the edge of a blade, trying their best to keep the US pleased and pacified, and simultaneously trying to keep their publics subdued despite their outright incompetence.

Every Arab League summit screams out at the top of its lungs at how much of a farce the Pan Arab political situation is. It's as embarrassing as it can ever get, and it seems people are starting to grow weary, with political demonstrations in most parts of the region, and even Saudi Arabia jumping on the bandwagon and holding token municipal elections (registration required to read the article).

Moammar Gaddafi's eccentric exhibitionism doesn't help the Arab League's credibility. In fact, in the most recent summit on the 22nd of March, Gaddafi declared himself a philosopher and proceeded to lecture all the other Arab leaders on wrong social systems. (Gulf News Article)

The sieve tells the needle, "you have a hole in your butt." It must be extremely embarrassing to attend these summits, so perhaps we should congratulate Arab leaders on a remarkable lack of shame.

Meanwhile, their societies are held in the Dark Ages, their armies impotent, and terrorism and extremism consume them like a flesh-eating disease.

The World's Poor and Sustainable Development; Gulf News Article

2005-04-09T15:46:00.000+08:00

There's a saying I once read on a pulp internet website. "If you don't have the solutions to the world's problems when you're 20, you don't have a heart. If you have them when you're 30, you don't have a brain."

Experiencing it as I am now, I see that it is very true. Reality breaks a man. A child is separated from the world in its virginity. The union of man and world kills off idealism, ambition and in many cases can leave people disillusioned and confused. Luckily, some people in the world scene have worked their whole lives in some of these common pursuits that we dream about as youngesters.

Mike Moore's article in Gulf News was an interesting read on his take on what could help the world's poor, a subject that touches very close to home for me. In essence, his argument is that governments are key players in ensuring that the poor get empowered, and that the poor are eager, resourceful, intelligent people with great potential as productive citizens and as a business market.

The book he cites is "Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid: Eradicating Poverty Through Profits," by C.K. Prahalad. It deals with the issues of sustainable development, a very big issue today, since, apparently, we're using up the world's resources faster than we can replenish them.

Another book on my reading list!

"Untitled Short Story," Author's Commentary

2005-03-30T16:58:00.000+08:00

First of all, all credit goes to Islamic Voice.com for publishing this story. The original version of the story was extremely well-written, and packed the punches in all the right places, but I've always had a penchant for adaptations. I thought I would adapt this into a story, and thus was born my first short story.

Of course, strictly speaking, by the length of the narrative I constructed, it isn't really a story. The word count is too low and if the story was portrayed in real-time, it would probably span 10 to 15 minutes. With the general guidelines of what sort of narrative density a short story should be, it should be noted that a short story is actually something that can at least be adapted into a 2-hour movie. Several good examples of short stories on the big screen is the award-winning Shawshank Redemption, a short story by Stephen King, and Minority Report, a short story by Philip K. Dick.

Therefore, all apologies for the misnomer. It's up there now, and I don't think it right to change it. "Untitled Short Story" it remains.

The inspiration, like I said, was from Islamic Voice.com, but the drive was actually an external one. Having been involved in the campus magazine for the past 2 years, I was approached by a particularly intelligent young man who wanted to work for me. It being the middle of the semester, and the magazine not recruiting anybody till the next year, I had to turn him down, but I had seen some of his work in a "teen magazine" in Bangladesh, The Daily Star's "Rising Stars" feature. As such, I approached him if I could contribute to the magazine.

Once confirmed that my contributions were welcome, I was adamant that my short stories had to reflect well on the people who were reading them. I had realized early on that it was a "teen magazine," and having read several thousands words of drivel passing off as "stories" in the Rising Stars, I wanted to make my mark by having a story rich in not only language and narrative, but in a message, a hidden ideal that I might brush off on the unwary reader. I had read everything from SWAT-team sieges of banks to the most awfully mass-produced, tacky, tasteless romantic literature on that magazine, and I wanted to offer something different.

As such, true to the Hollywood spirit, I proceeded to tear apart the characters in the story skeleton I took from Islamic Voice.com. Everything would be different, save the main story, and the message intended in the original. Firstly, I changed the setting from the Masjid Al Haraam in Makkah, to a local mosque in some other country, so readers can relate more immediately. Secondly, I changed the African sister to a little girl, to represent innocence. Thirdly, I changed the main character who was a rich Saudi in the original story, to a bleeding-heart fool with a decent head on his shoulders, named Fareed. Fourthly, lastly and most importantly, I changed the beggar, from a run-of-the-mill beggar to an introspective, slightly exaggerated old sap.

The extremity of the character of the beggar was pointed out to me by a friend, but I have to maintain that stories, at times, tend to have exaggerated characters. The storyteller does this on purpose, to get a point across. Subtlety is an important thing, but even a sledgehammer is a useful tool at times.

It was a tremendous experience crafting all these elements into a story. It is indeed most surprising, that a lot of the creativity involved in such work comes spontaneously, almost out of the blue, as if my hand were forced. As my first story, I had a good deal of fun writing it, and even more fun reading it afterward. Many of the changes, for example, the little girl, were spontaneous. Many others, for example Fareed's unwillingness to pay, but his inner desire to, was not, and it had to be beaten into shape at the smithy.

So as it evolved, and I added a few more elements here, some thoughts to the self there, subtleties in Fareed's unwillingness to pay with his stiff jaw and terse reply, subtely acknowledging his desire to give in to the emotions this beggar is inciting, things started working more and more, the tones began to resonate, and constructively interfere.

Then, after I had finished my final draft, I let it sit for a few days, and then read it again another day. I noted things I had not noticed before. For example, Fareed, the emotional sap he is, is a direct reflection of me. He also happens to be the only person in the story with a name. None of the other characters have any, and the only person that I can relate to most personally, is the only person with a name. A subconscious stroking of the ego, perhaps. Then I noticed, for all the love that went behind constructing Fareed, the true main character of the story is actually the unnamed little girl, because it is in the actions of the girl that the message of the story lies! What that message is, of course, I'll leave it to the reader to think about, because that's where the real fun lies.

Then I realized, perhaps the subtelties I note in many authors isn't something that they consciously put into their stories, but something that their subconscious puts into the narrative, without their necessarily knowing it. Perhaps the way we think and the way we look at the world affects us at every level, even when we are moulding a story to make it work with an audience. Maybe hidden messages we try to reveal in our stories, be they short stories on a blog, or ghost stories by a campfire, or small anecdotes of what happened to you at the immigration office, is a reflection of our own larger perceptions of the world around us.

Although the story was very nice, it wasn't mine. As far as the messages are concerned, although they may be practical and noble and praiseworthy, I didn't explicitly put all those messages into the story; some of them just found their way there. As far as the telling of the story goes, I'm a little disappointed by it, and I think it could use a rewrite. I will, however, not indulge, and leave it as it is, in all its imperfection. As such, all good in that story didn't really come from me, and all bad did.

Gulf Terror Wave Spreads

2005-03-21T00:44:00.000+08:00

Before it was Saudi Arabia. Then it was Kuwait. Now it's Qatar. And the ripples spread.

Bob Newman, director of international security and counter-terrorism services with GeoScope Group, told AFP that the terrorism threat confronted mostly Saudi Arabia, followed by Kuwait and then Qatar.

The UAE government "has been very discreet in its counter-terrorism fight," said Newman.

Who's next? Could be you. Could be me.

Global Warming

2005-03-20T11:54:00.000+08:00

After reading at least 2 entries in Google News Sci/Tech section about new reports on global warming almost everyday, I suppose it was about time the Daily Star finally caught up. In this rather well-written report, Md. Asadullah Khan of BUET puts it very aptly:

"Sooner or later, the Earth's human inhabitants so used to adapting the environment to suit their needs will be forced to adapt themselves to the environment's demands."

As more reports come out, it seems that global warming is no longer an academic issue as some people will have you believe. Whether or not there is any warming isn't academic; the real issue is how much. If I may quote the halfwits in Washington and Downing Street on this, "It's not a question of whether we will attack Iraq, it's a question of when." The same goes for global warming now: "It's not a question of whether there is global warming, it's a question of when we will begin to feel its effects full-swing."

Of course, Bangladesh is on the frontlines on this one as well. We will be the first to go, and we have already begun feeling the effects of global warming.

"The water in most of the ponds in villages of Satkhira, Bagerhat, Khulna, and Barisal has turned into saline, while tubewells now fail to yield drinkable water. The saline water has affected cultivation of vegetables, crops, and sweet-water fish. [...] Traditional sweet-water fish are almost extinct due to inundation and saline intrusion in local ponds and wet lands."

This, of course, doesn't mean we're the only one facing the music. Heat waves in Europe are killing people, the United States is experiencing record numbers of twisters, flooding in New Zealand (if you've seen the making-of documentaries of Lord of the Rings) and Europe. It's everywhere, and there seems to be no escaping it.

In any case. Whether the halfwits realise this or not, all the reports share one thing in common now: global warming is inevitable now, even if we stop dead in our tracks tomorrow. But everyone knows we won't.

What a Coincidence

2005-03-17T23:07:00.000+08:00

Sidi Faraz Rabbani, in his blog Seeker's Digest posted up the link on Stephen King's writing advice today, the one I blogged about last month! Nice.

Underaged Camel Jockeys

2005-03-14T22:35:00.000+08:00

UAE bans camel jockeys under 16 years of age, 14/2/2005

The hideous affair of the use of underaged, foreign children in the terribly dangerous sport of camel racing has finally been addressed by the apparently reforming UAE government, that's putting a lid, bit by bit, on the gross human rights violations that go on within its borders.

Stories of such a trade have been disseminating in the unofficial media for a long time. Even when I was young, we would hear of stories of young children, usually from Bangladesh, dying in camel races by falling off their animals. Apparently, Bangladeshi children make better jockeys because of their light, malnourished physiques and tendency toward short statures.

I have clear memories of such stories in the middle of the 90s. 10 years. As helpless observers of the policies of the UAE, having been viciously subject to them myself not too long ago, all I can say is, better late than never.

The Old Souq

2005-03-05T00:47:00.000+08:00

The Old Souq in Abu Dhabi was a place we visited often. In fact, as I type this, I can still smell the small walkways and paths between the shops in the Old Souq. It was a smell of plastic packaging material mixed with that of sunflower seeds, nuts and roasted chicken and lamb from the shawarma stalls. The tiles of the floor were coated with a dark layer of black grit, now chemically united with the brick itself by the pressure of countless shoes of young and old.

Young and old. That was a thing to notice about the Old Souq. It was usually a family gathering, contrasted from the bachelors selling their wares, and the most common sight there would be a woman, clad in a dark-coloured jilbab and a contrasting white scarf walking, her husband pushing a troller with a baby in it. Every once in a while a couple came with a troller with a year-old baby in it being pushed by the father, a baby in the arms of the mother and a 4-year-old toddler trying to keep up.

The shawarmas from the Old Souq were the best I've ever had anywhere. I've had them from Al Ibrahimi Restaurant, the kind Pakistani establishment near Madinat Zayed, I've had them from the school canteen, I've had them from Marroush in Hamdan, from everywhere. Nothing compares to those from the Old Souq. They came with some special vegetables and pickles which I think were not available anywhere else, or were hand-made by some old man who had been doing it his whole life, probably.

Most of the sellers were Irani. Short, stocky men with hairy chests and bushy moustaches, shouting an entire conversation across the central square, bargaining, yelling "do riyal, do riyal, do riyal," meaning "2 riyals," too used to trading in Saudi Arabia that they didn't bother with the currency change from Riyal to Dirham between the Kingdom and the Emirates. Some were skinny, small, dark Indian men, clad in the classic post-colonialist, watered down English-ware, the dark trousers and plain-coloured full-sleeved shirt, untucked, sleeves rolled up to the forearms. They would speed up and down the paths, going from store to store, or sit on a stool, one leg propped up on an object, sipping their tea, trying their best to reel in any human that came within 20 feet of their store.

Loud, tacky, Chinese toys would render the "Lambada" or "It's a Small World" in some mass-produced digital synthesizer, and planes hanging from neon signboards would spin round and round, spilling colors and sounds, attracting the attention of children. Yells of crying children, held on a parent's hip, reaching out to a toy that the parent is trying very hard to bargain over carry across the central square. The parent, distressed by the fact that the shopkeeper obviously perceives the leverage he has in the fact that his child would be in hysterics for the rest of the evening without this toy, tries his best to get a good deal on it, pulling every trick in the bargaining hat to get a deal which he knows will be exorbitantly profitable to the seller.

Pathaans would sit idly, in the typical wooden shoe shops decorated floor to ceiling with classic Afghan sandles, laces for qameezes and an assortment of kufis, prayer beads and branches of Neem tree used as miswak, a Prophetic tradition of impeccable mouth care. Dressed in a grimy grey shalwar qameez and a majestic but girtty white turban with a long tail, stroking their beards, squatting in their little store, they would argue over one thing or another with a friend in the rough, craggy Pushto that they spoke, occassionally reaching over and pushing his friend in jest, cracking jokes, speaking of things unintelligible, completely ignoring customers who idly fingered their wares before moving on.

Well, all this is going to be history very soon. 3rd March was the last day of the Old Souq, as everyone packed their stuff up and made way for the glittering new multibillion-dirham complex that is to be built in its place. Almost as a harbinger of its fall, a fire destroyed a section of the Souq some time in early 2003, and now the final nail has been hammered onto its coffin.

There's something romantic about the past that we grew up in. There's something fundamentally about us, as humans, that resists change. Attending a tutorial a few days ago regarding information that can be gathered from art pieces and the dubiousness of such sources because of artistic embellishment and even more dangerous, omission, it was apparent that landscape painters exhibit this fundamental desire to resist change very poignantly by leaving out modern structures as much as possible in their works.

It is very true, though. I feel that globalization is ruining all sense of originality from the world; cultures are being consumed. Very little is surviving. Maybe many generations from today, people will look back at this era and look at it as one of mass-homogenization.

Disney's "The Hunchback of Notre Dame" Opening Sequence

2005-03-04T19:04:00.000+08:00

Most Disney adaptations are eyesores compared to their source materials. Replete with fundamental story differences and childish embellishments, complete with the almost-mandatory comic-relief sidekick, it may have been a good thing they finally dissolved their traditional animation division last year.

However, elements of these adaptations do shine through the commercial money-making machine that Disney animations had become. One such masterpieces was found, I believe, in the opening sequence of "The Hunchback of Notre Dame." I think it has to be one of the most powerful musical introductions I've ever seen on screen, up there with Tim Burton's "The Nightmare Before Christmas".

It's not just the style of the telling of the story in music that I enjoyed very much, but the heavy cultural themes they put in. Traditional choral elements rang heavy through the entire sequence, adulterated to good effect by Hollywood-typecast heavy instruments. What I especially liked was the choral Latin lyrics, whose meaning I discovered only after a brief Google.

Sheikh Hamza Yusuf mentions such a thing about ancient languages, how they ring in the ear and "feel" more powerful than modern languages. I completely agree, and I find such languages as Latin and Hebrew and Classical Arabic absolutely astounding in their beauty and tremendous ability to resonate with the soul, even when one barely understands what it says.

As such, I paste here, what I believe to be among the best opening musical sequences dedicated to storytelling I have ever seen. It would be through great inspiration and talent that any individual can reproduce such an effect on a listener, should one ever wish to embark upon such a task:

Clopin:
Morning in Paris, the city awakes
To the bells of Notre Dame
The fisherman fishes, the bakerman bakes
To the bells of Notre Dame
To the big bells as loud as the thunder
To the little bells soft as a psalm
And some say the soul of the city's
The toll of the bells
The bells of Notre Dame

Listen, they're beautiful, no?
So many colors of sound, so many changing moods
Because you know, they don't ring all by themselves
- They don't? -
No, silly boy.
Up there, high, high in the dark bell tower
lives the mysterious bell ringer.
Who is this creature - Who? -
What is he? - What? -
How did he come to be there - How? -
Hush, and Clopin will tell you
It is a tale, a tale of a man and a monster.

Dark was the night when our tale was begun
On the docks near Notre Dame

Man #1:
Shup it up, will you!

Man #2:
We'll be spotted!

Gypsy:
Hush, little one.

Clopin:
Four frightened gypsies slid silently under
The docks near Notre Dame

Man #3:
Four guilders for safe passage into Paris

Clopin:
But a trap had been laid for the gypsies
And they gazed up in fear and alarm
At a figure whose clutches
Were iron as much as the bells

Man #4:
Judge Claude Frollo

Clopin:
The bells of Notre Dame

Chorus:
Kyrie Eleison (Latin: Lord have mercy)

Clopin:
Judge Claude Frollo longed
To purge the world
Of vice and sin

Chorus:
Kyrie Eleison (Lord have mercy)

Clopin:
And he saw corruption
Ev'rywhere
Except within

Frollo:
Bring these gypsy vermin to the palace of justice

Guard:
You there, what are you hiding?

Frollo:
Stolen goods, no doubt. Take them from her

Clopin:
She ran

Chorus:
Dies irae, dies illa (Day of wrath, that day)
Solvet saeclum in favilla (Shall consume the world in ashes)
Teste David cum sibylla (As prophesied by David and the sibyl)
Quantus tremor est futurus (What trembling is to be)
Quando Judex est venturus (When the Judge is come)

Gypsy:
Sanctuary, please give us sanctuary

Frollo:
A baby? A monster!

Archdeacon:
Stop!

Clopin:
Cried the Archdeacon

Frollo:
This is an unholy deamon.
I'm sending it back to hell, where it belongs.

Archdeacon:
See there the innocent blood you have spilt
On the steps of Notre Dame

Frollo:
I am guiltless. She ran, I pursued.

Archdeacon:
Now you would add this child's blood to your guilt
On the steps of Notre Dame

Frollo:
My conscience is clear

Archdeacon:
You can lie to yourself and your minions
You can claim that you haven't a qualm
But you never can run from
Nor hide what you've done from the eyes
The very eyes of Notre Dame

Chorus:
Kyrie Eleison (Lord have mercy)

Clopin:
And for one time in his live
Of power and control

Chorus:
Kyrie Eleison (Lord have mercy)

Clopin:
Frollo felt a twinge of fear
For his immortal soul

Frollo:
What must I do?

Archdeacon:
Care for the child, and raise it as your own

Frollo:
What? I'd be settled with this misshapen ..?
Very well. Let him live with you, in your church.

Archdeacon:
Live here? Where?

Frollo:
Anywhere
Just so he's kept locked away
Where no one else can see
The bell tower, perhaps
And who knows, our Lord works in mysterious ways
Even this foul creature may
Yet prove one day to be
Of use to me

Clopin:
And Frollo gave the child a cruel name
A name that means half-formed, Quasimodo
Now here is a riddle to guess if you can
Sing the bells of Notre Dame
Who is the monster and who is the man?

Clopin and Chorus:
Sing the bells, bells, bells, bells
Bells, bells, bells, bells
Bells of Notre Dame

A minor note: the voice of the archdeacon is actually David Ogden-Stiers. Don't remember him? Major Charles Emerson Winchester, from M*A*S*H!

"No!" to the Mechanization of Education

2005-02-27T21:55:00.000+08:00

My nostalgia for my old school years runs very deep, reflected very poignantly by a weblog dedicated to that very topic: My Years In Choueifat. Very obvious from the contents of the weblog, my experiences there were rather traumatic. Despite this, our famous regional director, Mr. Germanos (who I renamed in that blog as Mr. Hollandos) insisted that once we went to university, we would be grateful for everything the school did for us.

I've had more than one friend who has done exactly that: they told me that everything the school did for us helped us a lot. Yes, it is true, actually, that I can recall the equation for power as a function of electric current and resistance at will, although I cannot recall to any considerable extent the fundamental concepts of the Michaelis-Menton equation from first-year Biochemistry. However, I still insist, I don't think I have the school to thank for that. No, I wouldn't thank the school at all.

There's something intrinsically learnable, if there is such a word, about a setting where a class of maximum 30 people who all know each other, sit together and put on freeze all social relations and for almost an hour, without talking to each other, sit and listen to someone draw on a blackboard and construct from scratch seminal theories of mathematics, science or whatever topic. Literally, from a blank green board, everything from Einstein's Special Theory of Relativity to allegorical analyses of Shakespeare's Macbeth comes to life.

The traditional blackboard method introduces information from a logical progression. It starts from a clean slate, and progresses as quickly as is needed to teach fundamental topics and advanced constructs in a very effective way. As such, after 2 years of university education, I am sick to death of endless powerpoint slides, ridiculously distracting speaker systems and class sizes of upwards of 350 people.

I say no to powerpoint slides, to microphones and lecture theatres with capacities of anything above 40. This impersonal and dessecated version of teaching and acquiring knowledge and information is destroying what passion there is to be had in such a pursuit. It is to downgrade ourselves from milk and meat, to the mundanity of bread and butter.

I am now moving well into the end of my second year at university, and not only do I not know any of my teachers, I know but a handful of my classmates, and I can barely remember anything I learnt in first year.

The mass-production of university graduates in my field (Life Sciences) at our university (National University of Singapore) is an unfortunate black hole into which I am now irreversibly committed. Increasingly, as time goes by, I find myself growing fonder and fonder of the thought of being under the nose of a cantankerous Chemistry teacher, ready to pounce on my illiterate self like a lioness upon her prey.

In conclusion, this reflects greatly the confusion between means and ends. These technologies are but means to serve the end of education, and there are but many means. To consign oneself without thought or hindsight to any mean is to make it an end. My school was such a one, forcing us to learn kinematics via webcast, from a teacher who was in Dubai, over the internet. I never liked it, and struggled through it, and here I find myself back in the same pit. All over again.

Stephen King: His Stories, His Success, and His Advice

2005-02-24T18:12:00.000+08:00

Stephen King doesn't count among my popularly rated authors. In fact, he's down there with absolutely nobody else, because I enjoy the works of all the other authors I have read (except, perhaps, for Robert Jordan). Reading is more a holistic experience than a linear task. Keeping that in mind, Stephen King's wonderful stories continue to astound me in their genius, and his endings continue to incense me.

His writing style has nothing spectacular in it, he uses common parlance, which is probably a good thing, because he's a bestselling author God knows how many times. It's not usually his writing style that I have a qualm with anyway, despite its mediocrity, but his endings. I've read two of his books: The Stand, Complete and Uncut, and The Eyes of the Dragon. I have also watched three of his stories adapted to movies: The Shining, directed by Stanley Kubrik, The Green Mile, directed by Frank Darabont, and Dreamcatcher, directed by Lawrence Kasdan.

Needless to say his stories are scary, and they are also very nicely developed. The Stand, all 1200 pages of which I read with great ease was a wonderfully gripping novel about a post-apocalyptic Earth (something I had been fanasizing about a lot since childhood), populated by a select but polarised (between good and evil) population that survived a genetically-enhanced disease outbreak by random selection. All the evil people go to the West Coast of the United States, and all the good people go to the East Coast (there's no point moaning about taking the United States to be the centre of the world, he's an American novelist, let's cut him some slack).

The story itself was brilliantly developed, if I may say so myself. In "The Stand," he introduces minor characters halfway through the story for several pages at a time, and then kills them in a most untimely manner, which offers a level of realism and tragedy to the whole post-apocalyptic scenario. He also develops some of the greatest and finest protagonists and anti-heroes I have come across in stories. My one qualm, however, are his endings. He seems insistent on not letting his villains die proper deaths.

Spoilers Ahead. At the end of the Stand, the story effectively ends by one of Randal Flagg's (the villain) own cronies, who happens to be a pyromaniac, blowing him up with a nuclear weapon that Flagg assigns him to find, for the final showdown with the GoodGuys. However, it seemed the ending wasn't sufficient for King, and the story terminates with a scene with Randal Flagg somewhere in the Caribbean or some African island with torn clothes, and black people worshipping him. This ridiculous and anti-climactic ending is consummated, to no good effect, with an illustration.

I figured I would give Stephen King a second chance, and so I read “The Eyes of the Dragon.” Well, what do you know? It's a villain with uncannily the same characteristics as Flagg, and again the villain does not die, but gets recycled into another realm, where the main characters go for a final showdown.

I have been informed by a Stephen King aficionado that apparently, that particular villain appears in several of Stephen King's novels, and that he plays a much grander role than what is implied in the two books of his that I read. I suppose I can respect the concept of having a character that seems to transcend between a modern-era, 20th century novel (The Stand) and a fantasy-style, almost Tolkien-esque prehistoric, mythological setting in the Eyes of the Dragon. However, to add such an ingredient into your storytelling at the expense of the finality a reader is to experience by finishing a book is not very wise.

In addition to not liking the endings of his stories, despite liking their story development, the movies adapted in his name are also sorry excuses for films. Stanley Kubrik's "The Shining" is counted among the top scariest films ever created, but I must absolutely and completely disagree. The film itself is missing something very fundamental: a story. Of course my main beef here is with Stanley Kubrik and not with Stephen King, so I will leave it at that. Dreamcatcher, another film adaptation was also a complete disappointment.

The problem I have with Stephen King is actually his talent. He has an uncanny ability at developing characters that are such marvelous pieces of fiction, you can't help but fall in love with them. The potency of his character design is so strong, I believe it blooms through, even in the sorry excuses for movies that come out in his name, like Dreamcatcher. Here is a movie with a beginning so grand, you expect something you will remember for years. Yet, by the end of the film, you find yourself lamenting the waste of 2 hours of your life to watch a story that has no deeper meaning beyond parasitic aliens killing their human hosts and crawling out of their anal pores. I find that not only unacceptable, but unforgivable!

One adaptation I find very much redeeming to Stephen King is The Green Mile, which I believe is a brilliant and touching movie about a big, seemingly mentally retarded Black slave, accused of raping and murdering two young girls. Although the message he was hitting for is somewhat lost on my Muslim psyche, the movie was well-executed, and it managed to pull the Hollywood trick of making you feel deeply for something that could be seen as somewhat superficial.

A recurring theme I find in Stephen King's books is one of holding secrets within mentally retarded people or children. In "The Shining," it was Danny, the child with his little finger friend who seemed to somehow know his father would go mad and attack him and his mother. In "The Stand," it was Thomas, who is one of the main heroes and one of the few that survive till the end, and he was completely mentally retarded. In "Dreamcatcher," it was Duddits, the one who saves the day by killing the aliens, and in "The Green Mile" it was John Coffey, the imposing gentle giant with a magical ability to heal and read minds. Quite interesting, really, but it gets old.

In any case, regardless of the misgivings I may have with his style of storytelling (and the fact that my familiarity with his works rest on two books and three movie adaptations), he is counted as probably the most successful American author in history. As such, when I came across an article titled "Everything You Need to Know About Writing Successfully: in Ten Minutes," I took notice.

He gives some nice pointers. The fact that his stories don't agree with me should, I guess, in no way interfere with what he perceives to be how he got where he got, since nobody can deny, he's a bestselling author.

As for me, I've given up on reading what Stephen King calls "the literary equivalent of a Big Mac and fries": Stephen King, Tom Clancy, Sidney Sheldon, et alii.

Home Sweet Home

2005-02-24T14:27:00.001+08:00

An all-encompassing digital beep woke him. "Cabin crew, landing in five minutes," a muffled voice said incredibly fast. He was surprised he could understand what it said at all.

He looked at his watch: 2.30am. Rather late. Mentally, he corrected himself. No, it's only 12.30am, his watch was fast by exactly 2 hours. Ah, the wonders of the modern age, the world is round, and so it isn't the same time everywhere.

Inwardly, he thanked God for getting him this far. Two days ago, it seemed an utter impossibility that he would be here. A room, worn-in by 4 months of habitation to be packed, a set of muscles atrophied by a month of exams, unfit for physical labor to be used to carry cartons full of books to storage, and a mind ravaged by the stress of studies, to be relaxed by the imminent joy, it seemed an insurmountable task for him to have come this far. It seemed the adrenaline of possibility was made all the more potent by the inherent fear of unfulfilment of expectations harbored for so long.

Slowly, he reached under his seat to find his seat belt, as the Fasten Your Seat Belt sign went up, punctuated by a muffled beep. He looked around him. Everyone seemed tired, yet expectant. He lay back and closed his eyes; this was a cakewalk. He had done it so many times before, it had become a matter of routine.

Yet in all the 4 months between leaving and returning, this moment, as clichéd as it had become by repetition over the years, held special meaning. The feeling of anticipation was a special one, and he knew it. He opened his eyes slowly, and turned his head toward the small porthole in the cabin, his head firmly set on the headrest. He looked out at absolute blackness.

The aircraft banked to the right, and a star of artificial lights filled the view of the small porthole. Silently, he praised God, for
teaching man that which he knew not, that they may illuminate the darkness, make day of that which was night. He marveled at what he thought was humanity's greatest accomplishment and possibly its undoing: technology.

His reverie was broken by the anticipation that swelled up within him, fighting for his attention. Now is not the time to admire or introspect, now is the time to palpitate. With all his might, he tried to hold that thought, the anticipation. The expectance of something greater, the desire for something bigger overwhelmed him as he closed back his eyes and shut out the world around him. If he were given a choice to hold a moment, and to be held in that moment for the longest time, he would choose this one. The uncertainty of expectation and possibility, and the certainty of past record and experience bubbled within him, fighting for supremacy.

After what seemed a long while, the plane jumped up and down as she touched her mother's bosom; land at last! He closed his eyes again, as a man looked at him. "Look hard, dear friend," he thought to himself. "Not everyday do you see a man sleep through a landing as rough as today's." The engines went on reverse thrust, and all sense of hearing was bleached with the bass rumble of the mighty engines that propelled this steel beast that carried him across the sea. Mentally he made a note to remember this awful excuse for a pilot for landing so harshly.

A ripple of clicks filled the air as passengers unbuckled their seatbelts, almost in unison. Again, he wondered at the marvels of herd behaviour. Despite his efforts, he could never recall unbuckling his seat belt so noisily or so soon after the engines stopped the unbearable reverse-thrust, yet every time when the plane landed, he heard them. He cleared this thought from his head, inwardly chastising himself on over-analysis of the world.

The airhostess proceeded to recite the instructions pertaining to ticket reconfirmation and the decorum of staying seated until the aircraft came to a complete standstill. First in beautiful Bengali, then in mangled English.

Shortly, he noticed people standing up, retrieving their luggage from the overhead racks. He sat still. From the view outside, the aircraft was still only halfway through taxi. The terminal was a far way off according to his calculations.

A mind-numbing hour went by as he disembarked from the plane, got his passport stamped by manically depressed, disgruntled immigration officers, and retrieved his luggage. Retrieving luggage from this airport was always a charm. Yelps and screams cut through the late night air as corrupt officers told off equally corrupt laborers to go easy on the baggage, and the conveyor belt squeaked its futile squeak, unheard by whatever semblance of maintenance engineers walked the hallowed terminals of this airport.

His heart beat like the drum of a Dragon Boat, rhythmic, intense and unforgiving, as he approached the automatic doors opening up to the humid air of Bangladesh. A whiff of particulates and noxious gases from natural-gas and petrol engines assaulted his olfactory senses as he looked upon a familiar sight: his mother, craning her neck, looking right past him. She was looking for someone plumper, more clean-shaved and with shorter hair. How he loved this part.

His father recognized him, though. Being the engineer he always was, he always anticipated the longer hair and acute weight-loss. Putting the trolley aside, the boy knowingly smiled back at his father, and ambushed his mother with a bearhug before she could properly lay eyes on this sorry excuse for a man she once bore for 9 straight months so many years ago.

She protested, but he refused to let go. He looked up behind his mother where his brother stood, only one of two precious gems for siblings that he had. "Not the whole set tonight," he thought to himself, "but this will have to do…" as he praised God with every drop of his soul. He was home.

A Cowardly New World

2005-02-13T13:50:00.000+08:00

Idex stands for International Defence Exhibition, and the United Arab Emirates hosts one such exhibition every year. This year's exhibition is said to be the largest of its kind in the world, according to this article titled "Idex is 'testimony to our capabilities'" in Gulf News. Capabilities, eh?

Capabilities, perhaps, to organize meetings after major terrorist events and beg the United States not to invade you? To stand around and scratch your beards and say "Hmm, no, don't invade Iraq, it's better if you don't..." and then let them invade anyway? Impressive!

Well, some situations are better understood if one takes into consideration the context. Well, here's the context: Curtain Falls on Shopping Festival. Yup, that sure flashes a floodlight on the issue. Smack on the dot.

Meanwhile, the rest of the world says the Arab and Muslim world lacks leadership, time and time again. It's a hard and fast rule: Muslims are a decapitated community. Refer to Link TV - Who Speaks for Islam? - with Shaykh Hamza Yusuf... - Streams. As this is discussed, editorials couldn't be more insightful!

In the editorial of 13th February, 2005, the editor, while frothing at the mouth praising General Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al Maktoum, says finally and once again a brilliant and prolific Arab leader, spearheading the cause of the moderate world at large, points out what nobody before has known: bringing about a solution to Palestine should put a dent into terrorism. Absolutely mind-boggling.

General Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid is famous (infamous) for hiring dirt-cheap labour from the Indian sub-continent to work on risky projects like his famed Burj Al Arab, the tallest 7-star hotel on the planet (something to boast about for the desert Arab), where worker death tolls were unacceptably high and compensation unacceptably non-existent. Yes, the same General Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid whose legendary "vision" and influence in the UAE Supreme Council oversees systematic discrimination against people of third-world origin for people of first-world origin, regardless of degree or experience ("Forget the Experience. It's the Passport that Counts!").

Untitled Short Story

2005-01-31T15:10:00.000+08:00

This short story was adapted from Islamic Voice.com's Children's Page. The original version can be found here under the title "Charity Never Decreases a Person's Wealth."

Fareed stepped out of the mosque and recited the remembrance of departure: "O Lord, I ask You for Your favor, O Lord, guard me from Satan the Outcast," a century and a half-old tradition of the faithful.

As he put on his sandles, he saw a beggar by his car, badgering passers-by. The beggar was bald and sported a lengthy beard. He was clad in haggard and dirty attire, and Fareed wondered for a moment how he could wear such unseemly clothes. From his face, Fareed could tell the man was no more than 40, yet he was hunched over and quivering. "A professional," he thought to himself.

As he approached the car, the beggar intercepted him. "Please, my son. For the sake of God!" the beggar recited with a quivering voice. Fareed walked past without flinching, and the beggar matched him stride for stride despite his hunch and quiver.

Fareed unlocked the car and paused for a moment. As though restraining himself, with a stiff jaw he said the first thing that came into his mind: "God will provide."

On hearing this, the beggar stopped shaking. Fareed got into the car and pulled down the window for a breath of air.

The beggar frowned, his eyes downcast. He spoke softly, almost to himself: "I did not take you as my Provider. I have never denied God..." His voice trailed off.

Fareed looked at the beggar through the windshield as he backed off. The man's quivering had stopped, and from what Fareed could see, his eyes seemed dark, as deep pools of red. Fareed quickly changed gears and drove away.

The beggar stood there, motionless on the sidewalk. For many years he went about his business, but never once did he think of how his actions reflected on himself. He never questioned his faith for he never dug that deep, but upon having to assert his faith in defense, he felt a sickly sense of dishonesty in his soul, as a layer of oil on a clear pool of water. His words of defense came as mere prattling of his tongue; his heart did not resonate, and he felt an aching emptiness within. He realized then, that all his life he had taken as Lord those who were slaves. He could not honestly say that he hadn't denied God.

As the beggar stood there thinking, a little girl, minding her father's biscuit shop by the parking lot saw what happened. Digging into her pocket, she took out a dirham coin and handed it to the beggar as he passed by, walking stiffly. The beggar held the money and paused for a moment. Hints of a smile crossed his face as he put his hand on her head.

"You pay me, yet I did not ask," he said. The little girl smiled up at him. The beggar was too ashamed for prayer, but he cast concern for himself aside for once, and made a most private and hearty supplication for the girl as he turned the corner. It was his sincerest request in years.

As Fareed was about to turn into the main road, he was introspective. "I did not pay the man," he thought to himself, "because he was a professional beggar. He is young, yet he shivers with age. What hypocrisy!" He was trying to reconcile what he thought to be an awful thing to do, to refuse a beggar.

Fareed made it a point never to pay professional beggars, and he maintained this with great difficulty. He was a very sentimental and charitable young man, but he decided not to as a matter of principle, for to patronize their trade is to encourage it, and they are a hindrance and an unseemly sight, feeding on the pity of others.

Despite the cold, hard facts, he could not forget the man's eyes now, and he knew he would have trouble coming to terms with ignoring him like that. "Oh, just this once,"he thought to himself. He parked the car in front of a house by the road, and walked back to the parking lot a short distance away as he pulled out a ten-dirham note from his wallet.

When he got there, the lot was empty. The mosque too was abandoned, for prayer time was over. Soft melodies of recitations of the Qur'an emanated from within the mosque, but from without, it was desolate. His eyes came upon a little girl minding a small biscuit shop on the sidewalk.

Not willing to put the money back in his pocket once he had decided on giving it to charity, he gave the ten-dirham note to the little girl who had just paid the beggar one dirham, and quietly walked away.

An Encounter with Sheikh Abdul Hakim Murad

2005-01-27T23:57:00.000+08:00

The following is a retelling of an incident that happened in Singapore, circa August, 2003.

Everything felt different. The sites and sounds were different. The smells were different. People looked different. They dressed different, they talked different. I had an embarrassing time conversing with them, for their English was mutilated almost to a point of incomprehension.

This was Singapore. Yet among the chaos of contrast and novelty, there were glimmers of familiarity. An extremely helpful Malay Singaporean senior, and some supremely brilliant young Pakistani gentlemen, one of whom was from Sharjah; a common background at last!

So they told me a man came to Singapore. A scholar of particular eminence. It was but the second week of classes, and all the freshmen (except myself) were giddy from orientation and other such activities I chose not to partake in. I had nothing to do and was perfectly healthy, so I was game.

Rashid, a friend of my heart who hailed from Sharjah, gave me his wireless SBS transit card, which I still haven't returned. Him and Babar, a Lahore'i Pakistani senior, an astoundingly hospitable and friendly chap for whom I have only the utmost respect and praises, accompanied me. Rather, I accompanied them. We went, us merry band of Mawzlim fundamentalists to a talk at a place called Darul Arqam, somewhere in the depths of Singapore.

Darul Arqam is a place of shelter and education for Muslim converts in Singapore. It has been praised by Sheikh Nuh Keller himself, as he remarked, to the best of my memory:

"I have the utmost respect for this institution and anyone attached to it, because I can relate personally. When I became a Muslim, there was nothing like this in Los Angeles... and there still isn't."

Steps at the outer entrance lead to a glass door, revealing a grand, wooden entrance hall with a stairway at the centre leading to the second floor. Beyond the stairway were chairs and a projector screen set up at the far end; they had been anticipating a crowd of exceptional numbers. On both sides, fogged glass and wood decorated the walls.

We sat at the bottom of the stairs, us merry band. That lasted for about five minutes when we decided perhaps we could sit on the floor just ahead of the first row, not to disturb anyone else but still garner the best seats in the house. An up-close and impersonal view at a projector screen beaming a saturated, over-contrasted image, with a speaker that shrilled and shrieked.

An emaciated, tall man with a cream-colored shirt confronted us on the projector screen. I was a bit disappointed, since I thought this was going to be a "live" talk. I wanted to see a man, and it seemed I had come all this way to watch television.

He had a small goatee and was wearing a tie, along with a Muslim skull cap. It seemed a rather strange combination at first, but I thought let's give him a listen before judging his sense in fashion.

He spoke with a most refined British accent, but after getting the drift of his talk, his accent was the last thing I could pay attention to.

I have grown weary over the years of frothing-at-the-mouth scholars, their hearts riddled with hatred and bitterness, offering challenges to our "enemies" in all lands across the world, yelling into the microphone as if we were deaf, disrespecting our women and shielding their perversion behind Prophetic candidness by quoting Ahadith pertaining to matters more suited to private discussion, so I wasn't expecting much. I was, at first, reluctant to come at all, but something in me told me that I had nothing to do, so I might as well go.

My heart did not betray me that day. This man in his strange combination of skull cap, goatee and tie began speaking in Arabic. He quoted beautiful verses from the Qur'an, first in Arabic and then their on-the-spot translation. This man was learned; he knew what he was talking about, although he was clearly a white Englishman. But then he spoke Farsi. My ears shot up. He spoke of Mevlana Jalaluddin Rumi as insightful and intelligent. He spoke of love and of unity with the Divine. He spoke of a world I had long since forgotten, a world of both good and evil, but one of beauty and affection, amidst the sorrow and pain.

The talk ended, and my eyes were radiating with noor, such was the insight he offered. A young man with a thick Singaporean accent went on to mutilate/summarize the talk, and offer people a chance for Q&A.

"Thank you Sheikh Abdul Hakim Murad..."

"What?" I said to myself. "That was Sheikh Abdul Hakim Murad? The Abdul Hakim Murad? They have a videotape of him here?!"

I told Rashid that I knew of this man. I had read his writings for years now. But disctracted, Rashid lead me away. He wanted to get a better view. One of the wooden panels on the walls opened up to a very small hallway with an elevated recording studio, and then what seemed like an auditorium through a door on the right. I thought to myself, "Yet another projector, but they probably had better speakers than we did."

Rashid went in, but I stayed in the small hallway, choosing not to venture into the small auditorium, which sounded like it was packed. Someone asked a question, and Sheikh Murad answered satisfactorily, no doubt. By this point, I had totally forgotten the contents and subject matter of his talk and was trying to come to grips with the fact that the man I had been listening to for the last hour was Sheikh Abdul Hakim Murad, of Cambridge University!

Just as I began to realise what had just happened, I heard Rashid on the loudspeaker. "What?" I told myself. I peered into the auditorium, and there sitting on a table, a bottle of mineral water and a glass in front of him, sat Sheikh Abdul Hakim Murad, in the flesh, Rashid at the microphone, asking a really good question, no doubt.

I wouldn't know, of course, because I immediately withdrew, such was my astonishment. Biting my knuckles and suppressing a great yawp of childish fervor, I focused on coming to grips with the fact that I was almost in the same room with Sheikh Murad. Sheikh Abdul Hakim Murad! I was breathing the same air he was breathing! By God in Heaven, what fate!

Fan-boy excitement coursed through me and I marveled at the experience while trying to come to grips with the facts that confronted me. "So this is what it's like to be in the presence of a celebrity!"

Viciously, I suppressed myself. "What are you doing, you pubescent fool! This is a Sheikh, not a movie star!" I stood there, in the small hallway with the adjacent recording centre, gasping for breath. I dared not look back into that auditorium and feast on the view that would be Sheikh Murad in the flesh. I did so a few times, however, while biting down on my knuckles after I withdrew, to control the fresh flow of energy that coursed through me.

He exited the auditorium into the entrance hall where we watched the video broadcast, and a bunch of Malay youth, trained in the refineries of Sufi reverence, shook and kissed his hand. I stood from a distance, shaking my friend Rashid at regular intervals when the reality of the situation dawned on me anew for the umpteenth time. He irked me to go and meet him, and offer my Salaam. But I did not, for I saw he was surrounded from every direction. I would give this brilliant man some respite from my fan fervor, which might well overwhelm all my senses of propriety should I stand in his presence, or perhaps cause my legs to give way.

Sheikh Abdul Hakim Murad, whose articles I read over and over for their genius, whose URLs I passed to friends and family, whose wisdom and linguistic prowess I couldn't aspire to if I studied ten lifetimes! I was in the same building as him! It took me the entirety of the bus ride back to campus to come to terms with what had just unfolded.

Skull cap, goatee and tie indeed. Sheikh Murad can wear whatever he likes!

Education in the GCC Region

2005-01-23T20:38:00.000+08:00

Most new states come from very humble beginnings, but they usually do have centres of learning that date back to colonial times. Whether good or bad, it does give an institute a foundation to work from, but the Middle East (i.e., GCC states: Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar, Oman, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates) doesn't seem to have many universities that date back to any time before the 70s.

One look at the Yahoo! Directory for colleges and universities in the GCC reveals a rather emaciated list of universities. All GCC states combined yield 50 entries in the Yahoo! Directory, of which 31 are in the United Arab Emirates. Bangladesh has more entries than Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar, Oman and Saudi Arabia combined, and Pakistan has more than all of the GCC, source of almost half of the world's oil.

Most research today is pushed forward by funding, and most institutes make their presence felt in the form of publications. Although pioneers of centuries past of most modern sciences, the Arabs have fallen behind miserably when it comes to education and knowledge, there is no question.

The universities that span the Middle East nowadays are not only immature in their age, but the majority that have been established in the past decade are focused almost entirely on the secular science of engineering. Particular attention seems to have been given to petroleum and chemical engineering, their life force, and to computer engineering, the current educational "fad." A fad in which they've also fallen behind, because the "in" thing nowadays is biotechnology. They can't even keep up with fads in the undergraduate scientific community, it seems. Nothing is given, even to the pure sciences! Not to Physics, Mathematics, Chemistry or Biology.

The disturbing trend is that not only are they doing a poor job of studying the sciences, no attention whatsoever is given to philosophy, literature or art. What courses they have in language is for vernacular Arabic to English translation, and not for academic purposes. The hospitability the Arab has been famous for over the ages is now exclusively for the Western passport holder, while his brothers wallow in poverty across Asia, their talents squandered no less than his own oil wealth. Stories remain untold, artists live unappreciated, books lay unread and forgotten, as an entire people, whose contribution was so crucial in the development of the world, remain grossly misunderstood.

They have ignored completely the broader sense of education, and have narrowed it down to a cash-machine; something in which you put money in, and after some time, it spits money back out. Everything has to be profitable in accounting terms, everything worth it's while on the calculator. Their desert frugality seems sorely misplaced.

Of Miracles and Corruption: The Indian Ocean Tsunami

2005-01-23T18:51:00.000+08:00

Thanks to brother Pathawi, who offered his editorial insights to refine this article.

The massive tsunami in the Indian Ocean has shaken the world in more than one way. The tremendous loss of human life is literally incomprehensible. It is difficult to come to terms with one death. Extend the grief to ten, the size of a family and some close relatives. Extend it to 175,000, and the imagination is stretched to a point where it throws in the towel. The number no longer registers and media desensitization kicks in.

In these moments of grieving and sadness, shimmers of light shine upon the afflicted and the homeless. The vagaries and pettiness of politics are discarded for a brief moment, and billions in food and aid money has at least averted deaths from starvation.

And from among the rubble, fantastic tales of survival and hope emerge. From children holding on to palm trees to old men lying under rubble for days to be rescued at the eleventh hour. Though it is difficult to find consolation from these stories despite the thousands dead, these tales, marred as they are with tragedy and gloom, offer hope. It is in the apparent randomness and selectivity of fate that veterans of war, and survivors of calamities in the face of insurmountable odds, become superstitious or attribute their survival to higher forces.

But rationalism, although inadequate on its own, aids a lot in gleaning insights into the prevailing human condition during times of disaster. Consider, for example, that although ancient structures such as statues of Buddhas in Sri Lanka and mosques in Aceh remain standing, many modern structures have been swept away. Some here will argue that although some ancient structures remain, many were indeed destroyed, and although some modern structures were razed, many do stand.

That may be true, but one must pose the question: surely no ancient structure can outlast a modern structure in technical proficiency, yet there are cases where the exception in devastation is a single mosque, standing in the midst of rubble and desolation. Something is amiss.

The religious will attribute it to divine origin, and say that God is angry, and though sparing His own houses, has sent down destruction upon the astray, to teach them a lesson. But what does it all mean?

The systematic blasting of coral reefs in the Indian Ocean and the Bay of Bengal did not mitigate in the least the tsunami’s fury. They were effectively dynamited through to allow large ships to pass and allow for the trade of scrap and clothes on which the region survives. Coral reefs, apart from being cradles of life far greater in number than the entire human race combined, have been known to alleviate the effects of tsunamis and tidal waves. The damage of this natural force was further compounded by the destruction of mangroves that used to line the coastlines, now cleared for residential areas bearing the people that so tragically perished.

What is more tragic is that Tsunami Warning Centre in Hawaii could not warn the countries nearest to the tsunami because bureaucracies had not yet established proper protocols for the dissemination of such information. It did, however, warn the Pacific Islands, where disaster warning systems were in place, but those regions were barely affected. Had it been a cyclone instead of a tsunami the protocols were established for Indian Ocean nations to be warned, and a warning would have been sent out. Solely because it was a tsunami, the lines were silent, and the absurdity of bureaucracy bloomed in all its glory that fateful day. If God is truly angry, perhaps we can’t quite blame Him.

The red-tape and corruption in these countries, apart from preventing warnings to come through, also causes structures to be built on flimsy foundations, not in line with proper specifications. Turkey became infamous for this, when in August of 1999 in Izmit, an earthquake killed 17,000 people. Had construction guidelines been followed, many lives would have been saved, but corrupt construction practices killed people in the thousands.

So when statues of Buddha or mosques and temples stay standing, perhaps their builders knew more about their land than we do. Perhaps they didn’t skim off the top in building materials to make a quick buck. And despite two millennia of progress, here we are, numb with grief, mourning the death of so many we can no longer comprehend the loss.

Finally, after the worst tsunami in recorded history (topped not even by the tsunami of 1400 BC that historical texts say killed 100,000), the United Nations is finally putting its foot down on the corrupt, graft-ridden, red tape-laden governments of the Indian Ocean region. A proper warning system should be up and running by June of 2006.

Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events

2004-12-29T01:06:00.000+08:00

Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events is a series of books, (11 books so far; 13 are planned all-in-all) about the Baudelaire children, three rich siblings heir to a sizeable inheritance after their parents die in a mysterious arson attack at their mansion.

The first three books of the series have been adapted by screenwriter Robert Gordon of Men In Black II fame, starring Jim Carrey as the villain, the beastly Count Olaf, a distant relative of the Baudelaires who, in the story, is an actor by profession.

The author, Lemony Snicket, is a pseudonym of Jewish author Daniel Handler. He graduated from Wesleyan University in Worchester, majoring in English and American Studies, and is now a fulltime author.

The Series of Unfortunate Events is distressingly true to its title. It is indeed, a series of extremely unfortunate events that come tumbling down ruthlessly on the Baudelaire orphans almost at a regular interval of 10 pages. Dark and depressing, important characters are brutally murdered, and the cruelty the orphans face almost brings tears to your eyes.

In an interview on sfgate.com, he says:

"I think you learn something from any good book, and I think that one's education comes largely from literature. But over and over, the message of children's books is, 'If you behave well, you'll be rewarded.' Which is not a very Jewish message. It is just not an interesting message to me, and not a true one."

"Judaism doesn't really promise any reward, they just emphasize that good behavior is more or less its own reward,"

Amid the terrible circumstances faced by the orphans, they remain tremendously resolute, never despairing and always doing the right thing. And so, Handler introduces humour in the dark and dreary context of the story, never forgetting to keep at least one sympathetic character in every book.

Handler talks to the reader in a conversational first-person tone, and describes and explains "difficult" phrases and words in the context of the story. As such, after reading the first 6 books in the series, I would suggest these books to any adult or child, because there is actually much to learn from Handler's narration.

The Chronicles of Narnia on the Silver Screen

2004-12-15T01:13:00.000+08:00

After the sweeping success of the screen adaptation of the Lord of the Rings, by JRR Tolkien, I learnt somewhere on the internet that the Chronicles of Narnia, by CS Lewis, were also being adapted for the silver screen. Having not been much of a reader for most of my childhood, my only experience at fantasy was Raymond E. Feist who took for his own much of the concepts introduced by the fantasy of Tolkien.

So, upon seeing a single-volume version of the Chronicles of Narnia, I immediately picked it up, without hesitation and took it with me to Bangladesh, to read over the vacation. After having read the first four books of the Chronicles, including the prequel "The Magician's Nephew," I feel that adapting these books to the silver screen should be immensely difficult.

Lewis unabashedly includes talking animals in his narration, which may be wonderful for the mind's eye but I believe quite difficult for a cinematic treatment. Whether chosen to be fully actor-driven or the more technically demanding computer graphics-driven, the talking animals of Disney will no doubt haunt whatever semblance of awe and reverence a director may try to endow upon a talking lion, Lewis's deity figure, Aslan.

Speaking of deities, I also find the religious themes quite blaring and bluntly presented, when the White Witch kills (crucifies) Aslan and Aslan rises up again (is resurrected) in "The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe," and how the lion makes Shasta and his friends feel for his whiskers and nose when they disbelieve he is indeed a lion, much in the great Christian tradition of insisting on Jesus's diophysitism, his simultaneous humanity and divinity.

In addition to that, Lewis doesn't do as good a job as many of his latter-day heirs like Raymond E. Feist and Robert Jordan when relating battle scenes. His narrative, at least in "The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe" seemed to purposefully omit a refined treatment of the melée in the battle scenes, which left me somewhat disappointed.

The film adaptation of the Chronicles of Narnia are being undertaken by director Andrew Adamson who has both Shrek movies in his directorial resume, and the special effects are being helmed by the genius of Weta Workshop, owned by Peter Jackson and the magic behind the Lord of the Rings. Seeing the featurette they released recently on the creatures of Narnia, however, I just might give the movie a fighting chance now.

Suffering of Minorities in Bangladesh

2004-12-11T02:23:00.000+08:00

In the December 10th issue of the Daily Star Weekend Magazine, they put up a cover story on the plight of Hindus in Muslim-majority rural Bangladesh.

"[...] the community that was subjected to merciless beating, humiliation and [continuous] persecution by a group of miscreants out to grab their land, saw no signs of empathy from the local authorities. [...] I ask her how old she is. 'Four kuri and five,' a villager chips in. This means four into twenty, plus five; which makes her 85. At this age she has enough reason to worry over the safety of her community. The land the usurpers are out to grab is the sacred cremation ground that has been a part of this village for as long as she remembers.

"[...] during the atrocious attack, the whole community found itself at the receiving end of a premeditated aggression. Some received severe beating and some ended up with near-fatal injuries. Gouri Das, around fifty, was brutally attacked. On the palm of her right hand, she bears the deep gash of being struck by a sharp weapon. There is another cut on the right side of her head. As she speaks it becomes clear that there is little she remembers of the mayhem, as she was knocked unconscious from the first few blows [...]. She does however, remember her first attacker. "It was Kader, son of Mafizuddin, who struck me on the head with a sharp weapon," she asserts. She cannot tell "who else beat her up later". As she gained consciousness, she found her sari missing.

"Hari Dasi, another 40 year-old villager, found herself in the same predicament. She was literally trampled by a bunch of men, men who knew no mercy. [...]

"The patch of land, the main cause of the atrocity, lies [beside] a pond. [...] For the Hindus of this region it is a sacred ground, as it is their final resting-place. Broken earthenware is scattered all over the ground, signs of cremation punctuated by mounds of earth, under which the remains of the dear ones are buried. [...]

"[The] girls of the Hindu community at Gopalpur village have stopped going out of the house in fear of these miscreants who openly harass them on the streets.

"Malati Rani [is] a seventeen-year-old girl. [...] Faced with the question of why she stopped going to school from which she received a stipend, Malati is hesitant. Her answer to why she quit school is short: 'they swear at me.'

"In the face of the worst attack on the Hindu community by the group of land-grabbers and their henchmen, not much has been done by the authority to mitigate the victims.

"Lakhshan recalls the previous year's incident. 'When they scooped out all the fishes out of the pond beside the cremation ground and the temple, a case was filed. Even the newspapers took it up. At first the law enforcing agency seemed very active, but soon everything died down,' laments Lakhshan.

"[...] a group of people installed a water pump to siphon out the water from the pond next to the cremation ground. The ground is only 27 acres, but it has been a source of a lot troubles since the day the land grabbers targetted it as the next piece of land for usurpation. The miscreants consisting of Lal Miah , Ibrahim, Jahangir, Kader, Mojibor, Zohurul, Ziaur, Malek [and] Hashem [...]. There was a string of women who stood in a circle, guarding the water pump. When the people of the community rushed to put a stop to the siphoning, one of the men said, 'charaler po (son of a commoner), don't cross the limit; if you do, we will file a case for repression against women and will throw you out of this country.'

"They waved off the threats [...]. 'If we cannot protect our own religion what's the use in keeping on living. This small patch of land has been our cremation ground, it has been so since the time of our ancestors.'

"What followed after that was something no one from Subhash's community ever anticipated. The band of men, who installed the water pump and were trying to siphon the pond, rushed toward the paddy field, where they kept their weapons hidden. Armed with machete, sticks and lances, they swooped on the community that had little protection from the authority, let alone any influential group or men.

"The invading men went looking for women and children. They scrambled inside their houses. They beat them up, slashed them and plundered their homes [...].

"Sixty-five families have categorically being victimised by this 'land-grabbing clique.' It is more a case of wresting properties from the weak than of religious persecution. As Hindus of the locality are the weakest, they keep losing their lands to aggressors who reign the localities with their muscle as well as social and political clout. This is the reality of Bangladesh, and the village of Gopalpur is no exception."

I find little solace in recognising this as not so much a religious issue as it is merely an issue of victimisation because of one's locus on some pecking order. If being weak is tantamount to welcoming oppression, then we are no better than animals.

Bangladesh's human rights records has plumetted in the past few years and chronic lawlessness fanned by gusts of misrule and irresponsibility has become the law of the land.

All of the names of the perpetrators were Muslim names.

"Do not oppress and do not be oppressed."

- The Prophet Mohammed, peace and blessings of Allah be upon him.

Patriotism and Objectivity

2004-11-21T01:55:00.000+08:00

The Daily Star has done it again! Some time in October, I stumbled across a "Letter to the Editor" on the main page of the Daily Star, a newspaper I check daily (except during Eid, because, hear this, the newspaper stops publishing during Eid! Wow, only in Bangladesh).

In this very interesting "Letter to the Editor," a man laments the "international conspiracies" hatched against Bangladesh, one such accusation levelled at Bangladesh that basically says Bangladesh is "Asia's most dysfunctional country." I believe he was referring to Time magazine's infamous article, "State of Disgrace." Although, I think the article was a bit harsh, I think it hits the mark close enough.

Rather vexed by the argument that patriotism dictates being blinded to realities that may be harsh, I wrote a reply, which I thought never got published. But apparently, it did, and I discovered it in the Daily Star's archives just tonight! Almost a month after they published it!

"In response to Md Shahidul Islam's letter to the Editor on 27 October, I couldn't help but chip in my opinion on this matter of patriotism and reality.

"I believe the common man should make it a point not to believe in "conspiracies" like the "international conspiracies" Md. Shahidul Islam quotes to "stop [Bangladesh's] progress." It is extremely naive to think that in this world, with problems as deep as looming water shortages, global warming, energy crises, genocide and wars initiated for purely political and economic ends, anybody would care about a small country in South Asia that most people have never heard of. It is indeed true that truth is stranger than fiction, and on most occasions, conspiracies are very easily mistaken for stupidity. The two are divided by a very fine line. The harsh reality about Bangladesh is that nobody really cares what happens in this far corner of the world, and no international conspiracy is out to get us. Disregarding the vast majority of our politicians that come from the lowest crust of our society and academy, if notable intellectuals say something, it's time to listen. If intellectuals say Bangladesh is a den of terrorism, it's time to give the situation a look.

"People, however learned, are always subject to their ego [sic], and it is possible that some intellectuals are known for their verbosity and over-emphasis, the academic equivalent of making a mountain out of a mole hill. As such, I would agree that to say Bangladesh is a den of terrorism like, say, Afghanistan was, is libellous. But to say that our patriotism dictates that such a claim, or any other claim that potentially reflects on our nation negatively, is an international conspiracy to hamper the progress of a fledgling, immature democracy, is no less than sheer denial.

"The fact that our bureaucracy is viciously corrupt is undeniable. Whether we are the world's most corrupt is debatable, but the fact that corruption is a part of life is as true as the sun rises from the East.

"To be patriotic is admirable. To be blind to your own mistakes is blameworthy and will harm nobody but yourself."

In response to my response, another fellow wrote a Letter to the Editor.

Maybe I should write a reply.

So much for my Blog Hiatus.

The Tech Support Generation

2004-11-20T22:07:00.000+08:00

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6522314/site/newsweek/

"Next week, millions of college students and young professionals will head home for the [...] holidays. We’ll sit with our families in warm, [...] dining rooms [...], reminiscing over old photographs, [...] and … Please. Let’s be frank. We are going home to fix our parents' computers."

"We are the Tech-Support Generation. Our job is to troubleshoot the complex but imperfect technology that befuddle mom and dad, veterans of the rotary phone, the record player and the black-and-white cabinet television set."

"For our parents, the lingo is foreign and indecipherable. IP address? Why should they even have to know what that means? The worst part is that they know it should and can work—if they can just crack the alien code. When they can’t get it to work, they make preposterous compromises they never would accept with a new car or household appliance."

Story of my life.

Blog Hiatus

2004-11-17T23:10:00.000+08:00

I'm on Blog Hiatus until the 27th of November.

Sheikh Zayed Expires

2004-11-03T21:02:00.000+08:00

Inna lillahi wa inna ilayhi raji'oon.

Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan al Nahyan, 33-year ruler of the United Arab Emirates, my birthplace, passed away yesterday.

Whatever the merits or demerits of his rule, this unlettered Yemeni has made his mark in history.

Osama, The Return

2004-10-31T17:33:00.000+08:00

As the new Osama bin Laden tape appears just in time for the US elections in 2004 and the repercussions of such a tape being spoken primarily in the election context, insurgents in Iraq are growing bolder, and rasher.

The spate of kidnappings is getting worse with every subsequent headline. What is strange, however, that the kidnappings don't make much sense. By kidnapping an Irishwoman that lived and worked in Iraq for so many years as a humanitarian and married an Iraqi, I have no clue what they hope to achieve except enrage their own brothers.

Now, they have kidnapped a man from the world's third most populous Muslim country, Bangladesh. 42-year-old Abul Kashem, along with a Dinesh Rajaratnam of Sri Lanka, were kidnapped last week, though kidnappers are still strangely silent on their demands.

I think the general trend of declining popularity of the terrorists and insurgents should only be accelerated by recent events.

Osama bin Laden has enjoyed popularity, to a limited extent (and, I believe, now waning), in countries like Pakistan and most of the Arab states. The insurgents, however never got as much screentime as Osama, and so never had much of a chance to garner a following among the simpleton Muslims of the world. Whatever caliber of adoration they may have had to start with, it can only be declining considering their lowly tactics and sheer lack of taste.

The popularity of these groups should be severely declining in the Arab and other Muslim states. Moderate Muslims have always condemned the Wahhabi attitute of indiscriminate killing, but now I daresay even the Wahhabis are starting to get a little unnerved.

Bangladesh has a strong Saudi-backed Wahhabi movement. All fundamentalist issues in Bangladesh arise from Al Qaeda, the standard-bearer of Wahhabi fundamentalist activism while the Saudis fund fertile hatching grounds for Al Qaeda in their mosques and numerous madrasahs.

I've seen the kidnappings in a revolting light, always. But I'm wondering what the fundamentalists in Bangladesh, once open backers, now cornered into latent support of Osama bin Laden because of the success of the liberal Bangladeshi media, are thinking now.

There are several ways to look at it, I imagine. Al Qaeda doesn't depend so chiefly on popularity per se on their activities. No doubt, as a lethal activist movement, they're not out to win any popularity contests, but their main source of manpower is from the madrasahs that they fund in and around the Muslim world who are not subject to the opinions of the educated and opinionated middle-class.

With as much open negative publicity they're getting by kidnapping and killing what the normal man would perceive as standard, everyday people, not even sparing Muslims, their recruitment grounds, I would imagine, should be growing thin.

I wouldn't be so brash as to think that the end of Al Qaeda is anywhere on the horizon because of negative Western publicity. The Wahhabis have tremedously powerful machines of propaganda. I do find it difficult to imagine with all that has been happening with car bombs killing Iraqi civilians and tales of grizzly night-time murders of rookie Iraqi policemen splattered in the front news, how they can possibly enjoy any support at all, even from within.

Anybody that still supports Osama bin Laden, after he made the strongest references to his involvement in the September 11th attacks in his recent tape, must be ill in some form or another.

The days of conspiracy theories are over.

Afghans in Middle Earth

2004-10-29T14:46:00.000+08:00

http://www.gulf-news.com/Articles/World2.asp?ArticleID=137659

"A New Zealand court was considering whether to order two Muslim women to remove their burqa veils when they testify in a fraud case an issue that has sparked a debate about how much immigrants should change to fit into society here."

"The two, both Afghan [...] refugees, have refused to remove their all-encompassing burqas in court while giving evidence for the prosecution."

"But defence lawyers have insisted on seeing their faces when they testify, saying 'we need to see the body language' of witnesses."

"If the women are ordered to remove their veils and they refuse, they could be held in contempt of court and face penalties that include imprisonment."

"Defence lawyer Colin Amery told the radio station that people who come from outside New Zealand 'cannot expect to impose an alien culture, clothes and so on, upon a system of law which has always had openness,' [...] adding that migrants when in Rome (must) do as the Romans.'"

Boy, do I hate that phrase.

The loyalty of these women is admirable, Masha Allah, and understandable that the superior thing to do is to fight for what one believes in, that it is superior to cover the face as was the practice, although the face does not qualify by Sacred Law as awrah (part of the body that must be covered for basic decency). However, to say that one would be in trouble with God for taking off the niqab would be incorrect, since traditional Hanafi jurists (Afghans are primarily Hanafis) have said that maintaining niqab is difficult in the West and there is no blame in removing it.

However, the women are confronted with a situation of conditioning, just like normal people. Not used to exposing their faces in front of men, they have grown accustomed to the personal freedom that they perceive in being covered from head to toe, not dissimilar to the personal freedom other women feel by not covering.

This judgemental attitude of believing oneself to be "open" and another to be "closed" must be abandoned. All societies have norms and unwritten restrictions that are easily circumvented over time. That the Muslims choose to document them to preserve their perception of decency is, if anything, to their credit. Since "open" Western culture chooses not to have any such standardized moral code, they are open to integrate foreign elements of culture and norms, and by taking in refugees and immigrants, must be prepared to handle these elements in a manner that is mutually beneficial.

These immigrants come from distant and foreign lands where they grew up, and have known nothing else. They leave behind their families and possessions not out of will but out of need. A more compassionate and understanding stance needs to be taken, to reason with them and help them integrate rather than cornering them by judging them for being different and impoverished.

Like most immigrants, they have much to offer.

The Arab Problem: A Fear of Expression?

2004-10-26T22:58:00.000+08:00

According to Youssef M. Ibrahim, a former correspondent for the New York Times now residing in Dubai and writing for UAE-based Gulf News, the biggest "gene" in the Arab psyche is fear of expression.

After reading his article, I saw a little advertisement where the Gulf News asked for responses from readers, albeit crippled (understandably) to only a hundred words. And so I wrote the following:

"Mr. Yousef is mistaken. First, he states the Arab problem is fear. This is wrong, it is ignorance and complacency. Second, he mentions 'hordes of enemies [...] poised at the gates.' I see no enemy but the Arab himself.

In addition, he calls for "reform" of "what is left" of Arab civilization. I cannot differ more. Islam, the standard-bearer of Arab civilization for more than a millenium thrives at full bloom, and needs no reformation, but a wholesale abandonment of "reformation," namely Wahhabism.

Finally, his statement that the US is a robust democracy is highly debateable; the candidates are as different as Coke and Pepsi, and it has the lowest and most class-skewed voter turnout of any Western democracy."

I summarized Mr. Youssef's arguments and put in my thoughts on the ones I found most pertinent within the 100-word limit. But I had much more to say.

Indeed, the Arab problem is not fear of expression. After living in the United Arab Emirates for the first eighteen years of my life, most of the Imaratis I ever met had little to express. Limited in their faculties of expression and thinking, the few that were intellectually inclined gave their loyalty wholesale to the dictator Sheikh Zayed, regardless of his numerous wrongs and misdeeds, simply because he was, I quote, "a good leader."

The intellectuals who had the courage to be vociferous were summarily silenced, but their primary audience and source material during their short tenures were expatriates, "foreigners" like myself.

I refuse to believe the Arab problem is fear of expression. The expression, for the few who have the taste for it, is there. Like I mentioned in my feedback, it's ignorance and complacency. They are vastly ignorant of their rights and the rights of others by common human standards, and unforgiveably complacent with their wealth. The vast majority of Imaratis are whole-heartedly fond of Sheikh Zayed, and those that are dissatisfied (and trust me, there are) are few and far between.

Youssef M. Ibrahim says:

"It even affects expatriates and visitors who come and go, so much that many of the foreigners who live among us in this Arab world become a version of Lawrence of Arabia, striving to be more Arab than the Arabs."

I have absolutely no idea where Mr. Ibrahim draws this conclusion from. The heart of Arabia in which T. E. Lawrence lived was primitive, barbaric and had little or no foreigners in them. Lawrence went to Arabia because his passion was Arabia.

Today, Arabs are no longer primitive, endowed with as much technology as money can buy, and their governments are barbaric only when nobody is looking. Modern Arab culture is exclusive and grossly adulterated by "Counter Strike" and "Friends," only "open" to Westerners, who enjoy a cup of Qahwah, sitting uncomfortably in a tent considering the possibility of a belly-dancer.

People like my family, educated professionals from Muslim India, lived there for 26 years without the name of a single local Arab family we were close with, and children of the United Arab Emirates like me and my brothers, learn Arabic and discover Islam only after leaving our desert abodes.

Society in the United Arab Emirates exists in pockets, each pocket neatly containing a single ethnicity. Arabic is not popularized as a language and no effort made to make it a more widely used. The language of taxi drivers is what goes, effectively Urdu or what forms of it exist from the majority Afghan taxi drivers. Arabs themselves take to learning Urdu, as is widely seen in places like Dubai, where marketability has a higher premium than in oil-rich, laid-back Abu Dhabi where I grew up.

There is no drive for integration whatsoever, and I have not seen any such versions of T.E. Lawrence in my time.

He then says:

"Hordes of enemies are poised at the gates, and huge internal pressure for change lies within."

By enemies, I can only infer countries like the United States, and the specific case of Iraq, as he himself mentions later in the article.

I see no enemy in the United States. The only enemy I perceive is the Arab himself. Endowed with wealth beyond imagining for over half a century, he has accomplished little but his own destruction, alienation and abandonment of his brothers in Palestine and consummate moral and spiritual impotence, that a vicious secularist and murderer as Saddam enjoyed popular support among the Arabs before the Americans swooped in on him.

I daresay, the enemy the Arab faces is much more menacing than any father of civilian carpet-bombing, or any Daisy-cutter that fell upon the innocents of Iraq.

"And if we cannot reform what is left of Arab civilisation will evaporate making place for a new agenda set by someone else."

The mindset of "If it doesn't work, reform it" has become so deep-rooted, that all other possibilities (like returning to a millenium of successful, pluralist tradition) is ruled out. This comes from a desire to be accepted not through integration, but through assimilation. The only "reform" I can visualize is the undisputed import of unlimited democracy where the will of the mob rules all, and unlimited freedom of speech, both unlimitedly Western in their inception and application.

Reform has been the bane of the Muslims, inciting violence and murder within the pluralist Muslims of old. Reform is not the solution, but revival.

In conclusion, despite the harsh poverties facing not only Arabs, but all Muslims alike, we must maintain the Prophetic tradition of optimism; no matter what "agenda set by someoene else" should befall us, we are fully aware of Who has set the Ultimate Agenda.

"Airport Wahhabis"

2004-10-20T18:40:00.000+08:00

Stephen Schwartz is a Jewish writer and journalist. He is a vociferous opponent of Wahhabi fundamentalism (and many other things). The following passage reminded me of one of Ahmed Deedat's talks where Sheikh Deedat mentioned so-called Saudi "petrodollars."

"The vast mafia of princely parasites, over some 70 years, further exacerbated the clash between Wahhabi claims of fundamentalist puritanism and the real character of their rule. Previously known for mixing religious piety and political opportunism, the Saudis introduced the new and even more outrageous problem of their private immorality. The Saudi aristocracy would become known as 'Airport Wahhabis'--once their private jets left the runways, bottles of whisky appeared, women's veils disappeared, and a high time was had by all. The 'Saudi oil prince' became an unparalleled symbol of debauchery, ostentation, and waste, as well as ignorance, prejudice, and brutality. Expenditures to clothe and bejewel their women, indulge in their children, build and decorate their palaces, and otherwise satisfy their appetities became legendary. Their tastes led them to taverns, casinos, brothels, and similar establishments. They bought fleets of automobiles, private jets, and yachts the size of warships. They invested in valuable Western art they did not understand or like and which often offended the sensitivies of the Wahhabi clerics. [...] Yet at the same time, they dedicated a large portion of their wealth to the promotion of international Wahhabi radicalism, in a desperate attempt to bridge the gulf between pretense and reality.

"How was it that the grotesque duplicity of the Saudi regime--fostering official puritanism and unofficial degeneracy, proclaiming loyalty to Islam while rooting out its traditions, and agitating for the wholesale destruction of Israel while proclaiming loyalty to the United States--was ignored for so long by Western leaders and public opinion?"

- Schwartz, Stephen. The Two Faces of Islam: The House of Sa'ud from Tradition to Terror. Doubleday, 2002.

US Presidential Debates, 2004: Points to Note

2004-10-16T22:42:00.000+08:00

I'm glad they only plan three presidential debates and not more. The repetitiveness really gets to you toward the end. The same points were repeated over and over again: 95% of crates uninspected (why doesn't anybody do anything about that, Kerry's said it on public television like four times already), 75% of Al Qaida brought to justice (Bush was smart enough to actually paraphrase that to "three quarters;" hats off to his trainers), 90% of the cost of the war borne by American taxpayers, Kerry's consistent inconsistency, X-ray the cargo but not the cargo hold (any airport authority people listening?), 125,000 Iraqis trained, spread "freedom" and "liberty," et cetera.

A few points to note. First and foremost, Dubya improved markedly on the second and third debates. I bet he had to do a lot of homework for it, but he did a good job. The first debate was a joke, I think he was surprised John Kerry actually opposed him. He had a look on his face that spelled "Is this guy with me or against me?" But he improved in the second and third debates. He even used a long word in the third debate: he said the word "exaggeration," albeit after a dramatic (no doubt preparatory) pause. It's a miracle he didn't get a standing ovation from the audience that very moment, though I suppose the audience agreed to stay silent (where's the fun in that?).

Secondly, I don't know about other viewers, but Dubya's smirking was getting decidedly vexatious as the debate wore on. I have no clue what it is he finds semi-humorous enough to get him to smirk through the entire debate. I tried doing it myself, and I figured if I kept this up, I'd get face cramps by the first half hour.

At one point during the third debate, the questioner asked the President about homosexuality. He asked whether he thought it was a matter of choice or birth. George W. Bush's answer was a good one: he didn't know. His ambivalence reflects that of the scientific community, where definitive evidence for a genetic basis to homosexuality is yet to be found.

When John Kerry was asked about it, he mentioned Dick Cheney's daughter as a strong "it is a matter of birth" response. I winced when he did that, because I didn't think taking Cheney's daughter's name was a wise thing to do. Of course, that's just me and my naivete. The truth is the Cheney's have used their daughter to show their "compassionate conservative" outlook during their campaign for a while now. Although George W. Bush didn't mention anything about it after John Kerry made his response, there has been a public outcry after the debate.

I don't think anybody's going to raise the issue that George W. Bush didn't mention anything during the debate. Now, Dubya's come up with an official position on it. I don't see why he didn't make it clear during the debate, I'm sure many people would have liked that. I think this is a case in point: Dubya's plain slow. He's the pretty little doll, the ever-smirking simpleton. If anything needs a response, you can count on his speech-writers to include that in his next speech, or his trainers to teach him to make the point at a later date, but saying something on his own? Nuh-uh. This matches with Paul O'Neil's vicious indictment of the President's complete lack of participation in cabinet meetings.

One more point to note. Considering how much of a mess the United States is in, or any country for that matter, the sheer enormity of such a responsibility, how can anyone actually campaign for such a job? I wouldn't want such a job even if people begged me to take it and I knew I had the ability to carry it out properly.

In conclusion, I'd like to say that Comedy Central's "The Daily Show" was the highlight of these debates. I found myself intently looking forward to the 5-minute video clips they put up at their website after every debate. Jon Stewart, the host, is an absolute riot. It's a shame we don't have these back in Bangladesh. We have much more material than the Americans do.

Which reminds me of one of Sheikh Abdul Hakim Murad's "Religion & Ethics: Thought for the Day" that the BBC features. In his 8th July entry, he reminds us that jokesters offer a "healthy disillusionment [of] institutions that have grown cruel, or complacent, or corrupt."

As Sheikh Murad puts it, "by pulling our legs, they keep us on our toes."