Friday, November 17, 2006

A Minnesota Republican's letter of concession

Here's part of a letter of concession (via PZ) which a Minnesota State Senatorial candidate sent her victorious opponent after the election. What makes this letter interesting is that the candidate Rae Hart Anderson, a Republican, uses it to try and convert her opponent, Satveer Chaudhary, a practising Hindu to Christianity. It's actually quite hilarious if you think religious fundamentalism is funny.

Congratulations on winning the District 50 senate race. Your phone is "busy"...no doubt with good wishes!

I've enjoyed much of this race, especially the people I've met...even you! I see your deficits--not all of them, and your potential--but not all of it. Only your Creator knows the real potential He's put in you. Get to know Him and know yourself...you'll be more interesting even to you!

The race of your life is more important than this one--and it is my sincere wish that you'll get to know Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior. He died for the sins of the world, yours and mine--and especially for those who accept His forgiveness. His kingdom will come and His will be done--on earth as it is in heaven. There's more....I love belonging to the family of God. Jesus is the way, the truth and offers His life to you and each human being. Pay attention...this is very important, Satveer. Have you noticed Jesus for yourself...at some moment in time, yet???

The rest of the letter is a collection of biblical quotes and sermonizing babble any of us could write quite easily after downing a few. But I just don't understand how people can arrogantly foist some vague concept like Jesus Christ on people who clearly have their own vaguer concepts to uphold. Ordering a Hindu to believe in Jesus is akin to a South Indian denouncing a Punjabi guy for eating sarson da saag instead of idli sambar.

Wednesday, November 08, 2006

US midterm election results

Democrats will take over the US House of representatives, could quite possibly take over the Senate as well if they manage to snag Montana and Virginia. Macacas (both taxi-driving and non) all over the country have been observed holding their breaths in anticipation.

Democrat Nancy Pelosi will be the first ever female Speaker of the US House and number 3 in the Presidential line of succession after the Vice President in case the quail were to ever fight back.

Most Philadelphia suburbs kicked out the Republican Congressional incumbent including Sen. Rick Santorum who will now have more time to obsess over homosexuality and man-on-dog sex in the comfort and privacy of his own home. In addition, Democratic PA Governor Ed Rendell was re-elected. Rendell did a lot of good things including completing the modernization of the Amtrak Keystone corridor, which will hopefully be a precursor for others to follow in ushering American rail travel into the 18th century. Still a long way to go, but good job nevertheless, PA citizens.

South Dakota rejected the strict anti-abortion bill which would deny abortions to anyone except, in the words of Republican state Senator Bill Napoli, the highly special case of a "rape victim, brutally raped, savaged" who happened to be "a virgin", but more to the point, "a religious virgin", who had "planned on saving her virginity until she was married" and who "was brutalized and raped, sodomized as bad as you can possibly make it, and is impregnated".

The rejection of this bill will now allow religious virgins who were raped, brutalized and impregnated but sadly, managed to not get sodomized, to still obtain an abortion nevertheless.

Missouri elected Democrat Claire McCaskill as US Senator, also approving a constitutional amendment permitting embryonic stem cell research. Ms. McCaskill was helped in her campaign by Michael J Fox, who starred in a campaign commercial asking Missouri voters to consider the implications of stem cell research in overcoming debilitating diseases and vote for McCaskill, a pro-stem cell candidate. Actor Jim Caviezel, who appeared in a counter-ad protesting stem cell research, is still trying to come to terms with the fact that he isn't really Jesus Christ.

Glenn Reynolds, that highly acclaimed political analyst, despite mountains of evidence to the contrary, continues to pretend that the election was predicated by everything except the Iraq war.

Gays who are not pedophiles won seats.

Gays who are pedophiles lost seats.

Heterosexuals who tried to strangle their mistresses lost seats.

And finally, Democratic control of the House might pave the way for the comprehensive immigration reform (CIR) bill to be passed into law, thus allowing numerous Macacas to not spend entire lifetimes in the US waiting to get a green card.

Tuesday, November 07, 2006

Vote

Life is short. If you want to continue to live through your kids, please vote Democrat today.

Thursday, November 02, 2006

The pictures

(updated below)

I usually do not participate in the partisan slugfests that keep occurring at regularly scheduled intervals in the Indian blogosphere. Not because I am against alienating people from either side 'cause seriously, I couldn't give a fuck, but because I do not owe allegiance to any ideology in particular, and so, I find it hard to agree with anybody's views in their entirety on any particular issue.

But not this time. This is what happened. Shivam Vij posted pictures of the Kherlanji massacre of a Dalit family on his blog. The pictures included a graphic photograph of the raped and murdered girl containing partial nudity (or so they say, it has since been removed). This led to a number of people writing horror-stricken blog posts condemning Shivam's "lack of respect for the dignity of the dead" in posting these pictures and accusing him of trying to attract hits and attention through this medium.

Confused claims that pictures need not be shown and that wisely selected words should be enough to make people realize the horror of the crime. I disagree. Pictures are everything. Pictures put a face to the victim who would otherwise have just been a statistic. The actual sight of violence and bloodshed perpetrated by man on his brother / sister makes all the difference in overcoming the sterility of the printed word. The tremendous power of pictures in shaking people from their apathetic stupor is the reason why the Bush administration has banned pictures of coffins arriving from Iraq. It is also the reason why each time the American media depicts the violence and death occurring over in that blighted nation on screen, it causes the warmongering community consisting of Glenn Reynolds and his band of Bush cultists to protest about "liberal media bias". And it was the poignant sight of a Michael J Fox swaying uncontrollably on television as he pled for public support towards stem cell research that caused people to take notice and changed a whole lot of minds. Pictures are much more powerful than words and that is a fact.

Enter Gaurav Sabnis. He embarks on a blogpost with a couple of assumptions he peddles as fact with everything that follows in his post depending upon those "facts" for their meaning. Fact number 1 : Shivam is an attention-seeking journalist-whore. Fact number 2 : Shivam merely fakes his concern for Dalits and given a choice, he would not think twice before selling their mutilated bodies on the internet. No evidence is provided to back up these "facts". Once these "facts" have been reported as fact, whatever he says later becomes impenetrable to refutation because of his fundamental preconceived assumptions regarding Shivam's character.

However, the fact (without the air-quotes) is that there exists considerable evidence that contradicts them. Anyone who is remotely familiar with the Indian blogosphere should know that Shivam has been an activist for the Dalit cause for quite some time, as he explains on his blog. Which is why unless someone actually provides me with some evidence to the contrary, I would give Shivam the benefit of doubt in this respect.

Secondly, Sabnis, as well as other members of the anti-picture brigade claim that posting these pictures strip the dead of their dignity and that we should respect the privacy of the dead.

What does that even mean? What dignity? Dignity is a quality that lives and dies with a living being. Once you die, along with your clothes, wealth and silicon implants, you also leave your dignity behind. Whose dignity are we then protecting?

And let's say, if you actually did continue to possess dignity after you were dead, wouldn't your dignity be better served by raising awareness about the crime that was perpetrated on you, about the people who raped and murdered you who might get away scot free in the absence of a public outcry against their deeds? Wouldn't you feel that way, if it were you who were the victim?

Why, then, is Gaurav Sabnis foisting his own ideas about post mortem dignity on the dead? Isn't he kind of, you know, stripping away their dignity by doing that?

And before Sabnis asks me that question, yes, if it were my mother or sister who were raped and killed in that manner, if the government were not to come to my assistance, if my story were to be killed by the media, yes, fuck, yes, I would like their pictures to be plastered all over the media, over the blogosphere, dignity and privacy be damned. In fact, I would even be willing to pay for people to spread the word, just to raise awareness, just to get justice. And I would like my prime minister and every member of his cabinet to wake up and see those pictures first thing in the morning. I would like the nation to be ashamed of what its citizens are capable of. And that is me speaking for myself, not for the family of the dead, unlike Sabnis.

Sabnis then writes a follow up post defending his earlier post, which he nonchalantly begins with the sentence : "Shivam Vij has removed the naked picture." Nice job missing the point. That single sentence does more to illustrate the problem at the core of this business, namely, confusing violence with pornography. Sabnis sees the picture as that of a dead naked woman whereas the entire purpose of putting up the picture was clearly to showcase the savagery inflicted upon the woman and not the fact that she was missing her fucking top. Bizarre.

Lastly, I want to point out Sabnis' sentence in his later post where he says

"I found Shivam Vij's post distasteful, and conforming to the cheap attention-seeking, shock-inducing standards that seem to prevail in the Indian media nowadays."

Contrast this with Sabnis' attitude a couple of weeks ago towards a brother of the so-called Cartel who wrote a post containing the following literary gem :

"I think Tejal should set an example for the rest of us in ‘depreviledging’ systems by opening access to her arsehole. Everyone from Thakurs to Dalits to whites to blacks to barnyard animals to illegal Bangladeshi immigrants should be able to enter it at will. I see no reason why everyone should be a have-not when it comes to anal sex with Tejal, especially when she herself has the ability to make everyone a have."

And Sabnis' comment on this post?

"This is the best post ever. It is a splendid illustration of the sanctity of the owner’s rights over his private property. Unfortunately, many people do not have the capacity, willingness or maturity to grasp the succinctness of Aadisht’s argument."

So, to recap, Shivam's posting of a picture of a raped woman on his blog in a post condemning the rape equals a manifestation of the "distasteful, and conforming to the cheap attention-seeking, shock-inducing standards" prevailing in the media. Aadisht.net's post, critiquing a commentator using penetration of her arsehole as a prop, on the other hand, equals the best post ever written and anyone who would criticize all that talk about arsehole penetration (a living person's arsehole, by the way, talk about being a pro-dignity crusader) lacks the maturity to grasp the intricate argument that nestles underneath. Oh, the hilarity.

Note that I am not offering any opinion about utilizing shock value to raise awareness on an issue 'cause God knows I have indulged in it myself. However, I do find someone objecting to "attention seeking" and "shock-inducing" in one case while glorifying it in another kinda strange.

But ultimately, all this ongoing bullshit will continue to be bullshit. People will continue to get offended by controversial pictures while losing the actual point that was being made. Other people will continue to lose sight of the point themselves while getting diverted into defending those pictures. And meanwhile, atrocities will continue to be committed, reported upon and forgotten.

Update : It appears to me that anyone who has an opinion on this issue needs to first ask himself the following three questions :

1.> Do you hate Shivam?

2.> Do you doubt Shivam's motives in posting the pictures?

3.> How do you feel about posting such pictures in general?

If you answered yes to the first two questions, you should probably not bother asking yourself the third question, which actually happens to be the most important question of all. Unfortunately, most of who have commented on this issue so far have concentrated on answering yes to the first two questions and assumed that this automatically answers the third question. That is kind of stupid.

Update II : Here's Shivam's entire article for Tehelka of which the pictures were a precursor.

Wednesday, November 01, 2006

Quote of the day

Republican Florida Congressional gubernatorial candidate Charlie Crist, explaining his opposition to gay marriage (via maru) :

"Marriage is a sacred relationship — like I had, before I got divorced."