New Office, New Post

It’s not that I didn’t have anything to write about, it’s just that I …didn’t write anything. For 3 months. There’s just something about an office environment that is conducive to blogging…what did you say? Boredom? Nah, it’s too early in the new job to be claiming that already. Things are quiet here, though. It’s holiday season, half of my would-be team is on vacation, and the new manager is in and out of meetings.

The office has beautiful views. We’re on the 48th floor down on Water Street, and man, does the Statue of Liberty seem tiny from up here! I can see out the window behind me when they leave the conference door open; otherwise, I have to get up and walk up to the room to gawk around.

I sit around the corner from the CEO. And I’m writing a blog post. Hmm.

They gave me a laptop, but it looks exactly like the one I have – Dell 2004. And I don’t know how to take it out of the dock. Hmm.

I might get sent up to Boston soon, yay!

Better posts to come, and more often. I hope.

Update: I am now the proud owner of the company laptop bag and fleece. And I have a badge so I can get in and out of the building without lying down on an x-ray conveyor belt.

What will it take to get our elected leaders to do their job?

While I think it's unfair that General Petraeus has become a scapegoat for the Iraq quagmire, this is a flagrant waste of time and an insult to this country's collective sensibility. But I suppose it makes sense - after all, going after an ad is much easier than dealing with the actual problem.

Sign here if you agree.

"It's not about liberal. It's not about conservative. It's about the Constitution." - Rick Perlstein

VICTORY!

Effective at midnight tonight!

Let's take down the WSJ next. Or will Rupert Murdoch take care of business himself?

No Child Left Behind

Oh, Miss Teen South Carolina. Surely you’ve seen the video by now. But is it all really that bad?

Okay, so she can’t form a coherent sentence, but still manages to burst out into some spontaneous exclamations (our education here! In the US!). Actually, it’s much funnier if you write out the response word for word with no punctuation:

I personally believe the U.S. Americans are unable to do so because some people out there in our nation don't have maps and I believe that our education like such as in South Africa and the Iraq everywhere like such as and I believe they should our education over here in the U.S. should help the U.S. or should help South Africa or should help the Iraq and Asian countries so we will be able to build up our future for us.

Hilarity aside, the people that are targeting Miss Upton as “what’s wrong with America today” seriously need to come off the high horses. First off, I don’t believe that statistic is right, and The Machinist backs me up on that one. My clever friend Brian, who first showed me the YouTube clip and has a useful post on his own blog, says “Never underestimate the stupidity of the American people.” I’m not normally one to engage in such underestimation, but I find it very difficult to believe that 20% of Americans above a certain age cannot locate the US on a map. I don’t know if this survey even took age into account, but in any case, I’ve found no conclusive research that proves it.

Secondly, this girl is a beauty pageant contestant, for fuck’s sake. Most people I know are fairly quick to judge the intelligence levels of beauty queens. So is the fact that she gave a dumb answer to an unresearched question really any basis for serious cultural introspection? Personally, I think we should just laugh - which I’m still doing every time I come across the phrase “everywhere like such as”, by the way.

You can tell me to stop talking to judgmental people, but it ain’t gonna happen.

If you need a comparable example that is relevant to our national psyche, then consider the following. In 2002, National Geographic released the results of a geographic literacy survey that showed only 13% of Americans between 18-35 could locate Iraq on a map (a statistic I can easily believe). A few weeks later, Gary Trudeau (cartoonist of Doonesbury fame) drew a strip with an Iraqi official asking “Is it true only 13% of American kids can find Iraq on a map?” The American reporter to whom the question was posed then retorted “Yeah, but all 13% are Marines.”

After the strip was published, the quotation somehow got attributed to Gen. Colin Powell, then Secretary of State, and made the rounds around many proud Americans. Now that, in my mind, is a much bigger cause for concern.

“Never mind our own ignorance; we got the whip, we got a better bomb. We will use brute force to get our way.” Rhetoric that’s become dangerously commonplace over the past 6 years.

And cheers to you if you know where that lyric was from.

Anarchy in the U.S.

Every now and again, I find myself astounded afresh that a Connecticut-born Yale alum with a summer home in Maine managed to re-invent himself as a Texan cowboy. And given a very long list of possible criticisms the press can choose to thrust on Mr. Bush, at the end of the day, they will still revert to that folksy-guy image that has proved to be such a lasting PR success.

The Economist published an interesting briefing of the “American right” a couple of weeks ago. It was suggested that more Americans happily label themselves as “conservative” than “liberal” (roughly 33% versus 20%). Of course, when you define conservatives as “God-fearing patriots who dislike big government and are tough on crime and national security,” it’s very easy to classify yourself as such: even I would do so. Maybe minus the “God-fearing” part. So that leaves liberals to be amoral atheists who love red tape and getting attacked by terrorists? That’s interesting.

It seems that very few Americans remember that conservatism used to equate to small government. Neither side of the spectrum appeals to the “bureaucracy is the problem, not the solution” school of thought nowadays. Strange, because there are countless examples to prove that axiom to be true, and not just during the reign of Bush junior. George Washington said over 200 years ago to avoid “entangling alliances” at all costs; today, that advice is neglected both US foreign and domestic policy.

Libertarians who choose to vote Republican often like to label liberals as “emotional” and “irrational.” But the fact of the matter is, Republicans don’t spend a lot of their time pandering to fiscal conservatives – those votes aren’t the ones that give them the edge. Instead, they spend their time on the campaign trail talking about gay marriage and abortion ruining American society. It’s the putative moral rhetoric that delivers the votes. Show me a socially liberal fiscal conservative that gets elected president by talking about letting free markets solve our problems, and then I might start to think otherwise. Until that day, both elephant and donkey are equally emotional and irrational in my book.

Top Trumps

Big news. I have a new favourite columnist.

The honour goes to Robert J. Samuelson of the Post.

Nick Kristof didn’t do himself any favours by first ignoring the human rights factor (which, accompanied by the persistent moral pleas, is what essentially drew me to his writing in the first place) in his comparison of China and India. Even worse was his assumption that if couples were given a choice, sexism would significantly impact the number of male versus female births in those countries, but not in America. He even stuck to this claim in his response to the comments on that particular column:

And in these troublesome ethical areas, I have a strong bias toward letting parents decide. That also explains why I would let parents use PGD to choose a boy or girl (in this country, though not in China or India because of the son preference in those countries).

As if the “son preference” is archaic in American culture.

In comparison, Samuelson mostly does an excellent job of balancing journalistic accountability with moral high ground, as evidenced by the column I referenced on Tuesday. This piece on climate change also attempts a reconciliation.

But the icing on the cake is this column. I absolutely love it.

Yeah, I’m a major nerd. But if you’re reading this, I’m going to go ahead and make the assumption that you like me because of – or in spite of – that fact.

Jana Gana Mana

Happy Swatantra Divas.

In honour of our Indian offshore teams who are doing on-site training, our desks have been decorated with miniature Indian flags! I’ll post pictures soon. Some of them have green on top. :-/ Still, it was a nice thought.

Also on the bulletin board: Balloons in the colours of the triranga along with a brief history and the Indian national anthem in Hindi, Bengali and English, complete with translation. Aw, I’m feeling a bit senti.

Upon observing all the festivity, one of my Indian friends, Swati, commented that “I think they’re feeling guilty about the tyranny.” Imagine a stampede of Indians, fuelled by a sudden jingoistic fever in the spirit of Independence Day, storming out screaming “DOWN WITH THE OPPRESSORS! WHY ARE WE HELPING THEM?”

Swati’s answer: “They pay better.”

Ah, of course. Silly me.

Antitrust!

Already not doing a good job of the consistent posting. Anyway…

I’m so upset that the NY Times has taken over the Freakonomics blog!

Sure, it’s great publicity for Levitt, Dubner and company, but they had such a cute and individualistic web space on their own. What was wrong with just mentioning the old site in the extremely exhaustive blog roll that the Times already touts?

There’s been much commentary on news conglomerates lately what with Mr. Murdoch’s acquisition of the WSJ. While I’m not one to have the knee-jerk reaction of “He’s going to turn the paper into the briefcase-friendly arm of Fox News”, I still find the merger and white-knight business disturbing when it has such profound effects on our news culture. Some time ago, I posted a link to a column where the author pondered whether it’s possible to reconcile business with journalistic integrity, and whether standards today are any lower than they were forty years ago. This particular writer concluded that the landscape is much the same as it used to be in terms of news content, despite transformations in the ways in which we receive our information. The gap between big business and quality journalism, however, was reduced to something of a myth due to snobbishness on the part of the press.

Is it, though? Maybe I have a rose-coloured view of American journalistic history as a child of immigrants who, in their youth, greatly admired the freedom of the American press. This is, of course, in comparison to a post-partition South Asian society struggling with the challenges of newfound independence. Still, allowing business principles to overwhelm our journalism just seems like bad news (please excuse the pun), and this time it’s not an issue of economic monopolization – though you could certainly make that case as well.

Instead, the important issue should be encouraging outlets for free thought through journalistic integrity, and trend of news conglomerates could significantly undermine that. I don’t think the Sulzbergers are necessarily poring over every line of Freakonomics looking to strike anything that they find disagreeable, but my fear is that the American news landscape will ultimately begin to mimic its political landscape: two giants, both polarizing, neither of which captures the whole story. They may change their slogans to adapt to the times, but at the end of the day, we are forced to choose one side or the other.

What can be done to make the mold more malleable, I wonder?

SIR -

It would seem that I’m incapable of writing more than 10 posts/month. That’s no good. I’ll change that this month.

So I found myself getting up on the feminist soapbox yet again earlier this week. Note the following passage from this week’s Economist, discussing the problems posed by a falling population:

States should not be in the business of pushing people to have babies. If women decide to spend their 20s clubbing rather than child-rearing, and their cash on handbags rather than nappies, that's up to them.

Also note the accompanying image, this week’s cover:

That’s a bit besides the point, but it does have a certain “WTF?” effect to it.

My first reaction to the above statement was to laugh. But after re-reading it, I thought, “Wait…that’s not so funny.” It paints twentysomething women as shallow and frivolous, and fails to recognize the fact that women often have those options as a result of increased independence. I realize that the article is about demography and not women’s life choices and what triggers them, but there was no need to throw that stereotypical rhetoric in there.

And so I wrote a letter to the editor:

“SIR –

I was disappointed that you chose to attribute the falling number of births among women in their twenties to the desire for nightlife and handbags. What about the women who choose to delay child-rearing to pursue higher education and successful careers? You’ve failed to acknowledge the fact that women’s increased financial independence is often what makes those handbag purchases possible in the first place. As a woman in her early twenties, I’d be most appreciative if an astute and influential newspaper such as yours moved away from the stigma that so many already thrust upon my demographic.”

Probably sounds familiar. I don’t know that it’s worthy of publication, but I’m satisfied nonetheless. Ciao, bella.

I am not a Luddite.

Ok, I may have to take that stupid Feedburner ticker off my page. It lies! Seriously, no ego there – I know for a fact that my number of readers is greater than (okay, fine, maybe equal to) my shoe size.

My UK shoe size.

I think the issue is that it tracks who accesses the Feedburner feed rather than the Blogger/Atom or whatever feed. Blogger recently posted some information on how to integrate the two, but I think it does so by redirecting Blogger traffic to Feedburner. But I don’t want to do that, because the Feedburner page is ugly! Hmmph.

Apparently Microsoft offers something similar, but Feedburner is owned by Google and Google >>> Microsoft.

I don’t know where I’m going with this, except maybe to suggest that maybe Sho and RSS don’t mix… “Really Simple” my left foot.

Oxymorons

I’m constantly surprised at people’s disbelief when they find out I’m American, accent notwithstanding. A year ago I would’ve jumped up and down with glee at that fact. Now I just find it mildly interesting.

The thing is, I’ve drawn an important conclusion after living in London for nearly a year. I used to think I had more in common with the average Brit than the average American– reserved, slightly passive-aggressive, with a sense of humour that needs to be washed down with a pint (dry, in case that wasn’t clear). Actually, those things are still largely true of me. But the conclusion I’ve made is this: being around people so similar to myself kind of, well, sucks.

There’s something to be said for friendliness, and I noticed the difference in cultures even when I travelled up to Edinburgh. As annoyed as I can get by people, I’m finding that it’s far more pleasant to be around a gregarious crowd. I met more interesting people during a weekend in Scotland than the entire month of May in London. I would’ve chalked it up to the novelty factor, but even seasoned Londoners will largely agree (while still looking down their noses).

That said, get a Brit drunk and he/she will likely be sloppier than an Irish or Scottish counterpart. And the impropriety of the English workplace – be it dress code, language, or flirtations – continues to confound me. Interesting.

Flummoxed.

Two and a half months since Madeleine McCann went missing.

A few co-workers of mine were discussing how tragic the situation is just a couple of days ago. And of course it is tragic. No parent should have to go through that kind of torture, and I sincerely hope, futile as it may be, that no harm has come to her.

Now J.K. Rowling is using the launch of Harry Potter VII to raise awareness about the plight of missing children worldwide, with Madeleine as the poster child. It’s admirable that she felt moved to the point where she’s using her considerable influence to promote a worthy cause.

What’s incomprehensible, though, is the mass outpouring of sorrow for the Madeleines and the Natalees of the world, and the indifference towards Darfur, Congo, or Iraq. Nicholas Kristof actually wrote a column on this strange phenomenon entitled “Save the Darfur Puppy,” which you can find here. It reminds me of a story a friend of mine once told me – how one man, in an incident of particularly destructive road rage, threw another driver’s dog into traffic. People went absolutely mental over the incident. I probably would too, as I adore dogs. But what kind of sense does it make that people are so moved by Fido, and not at all by scores of civilian deaths – oh, sorry, “collateral damage” – in a single instance in Iraq? Why does no one care that no one is keeping a bona fide count of civilian casualties Iraq, or that the means to do so does not even exist?

I guess the only explanation, as stated in the column above, is that our capacity to feel and empathize is severely limited. And that will probably serve as our best evolutionary advantage, given the state of the world we live in.

Not all 5-year plans are stifling.

I need to tell you how much I love Marks & Spencer.

How many high street retailers do you see massively promoting initiatives such as this?

“Because there is no Plan B.” I absolutely love it.

Any prepared meal you buy from M&S carries a label detailing how to dispose of each part of the product: Film recycled through plastics, sleeve recycled through papers, tray recycled through plastics. Common sense? Sure. But the extra effort is commendable.

Factoring in environmental concerns invariably raises the price of products. The most impressive part is that M&S has undertaken this scheme while it’s still in a relatively delicate situation following recent financial woes. Its profits have increased measurably over the past couple of years, but it’s still in no position to compete with the Evil Empire. Nor should it try. M&S has been so successful at pushing its green campaign that it’s forced Tesco to commit to its own line of fair trade products. In doing so, they’ve helped to change the rules of the game. It’s quite possible to argue, somewhat cynically, that the green initiative was conceived solely to establish a trendy campaign with universal appeal. But it’s raising awareness regardless, and that counts for something.

Not all liberals hate corporations. Many would simply like to see a greater amount of corporate accountability accepted by a greater number of successful firms. Thanks, M&S, for being a pacesetter.

For the micromanagers

Dear Economist...
Published: July 13 2007 09:04 Last updated: July 13 2007 09:04

Dear Economist,

My diary is back-to-back meetings from 9am to 6pm almost every day. These are not meetings I can avoid, and often I am double and triple booked. As well as this, I have real work to do. Having delegated everything I can to my team, I still find it difficult to leave the office before 8pm most days. This has gone on long enough! What should I do to get back control of my diary?
PM, via e-mail

Dear PM,

Your diary displays communist tendencies. Your delight in Stakhanovite posing shows the old communist confusion between input and output. This reached an extreme in Mao’s great leap forward, where kitchen utensils were melted down in order to produce...more kitchen utensils.

You are also making the classic central-planner’s error, trying to run a team without giving anybody else real decision-making authority. You say you are delegating all you can, but are evidently not doing it. And with you booked to attend more meetings than there are hours in the day, I am willing to bet your subordinates know a lot more about what needs to be done than you do.

You simply need to introduce the price system into your little politburo. Charge by the hour, as do lawyers or psychiatrists. Better, auction off spaces in your diary to the highest bidder. The bidders could include clients, superiors, or subordinates. If they want your attention, they’ll have to find the cash.

If the total sum raised exceeds your salary, many congratulations! You will have justified your existence and at the same time cut out all those time-wasting, low-value activities. However, I fear that you may find less demand for your unique talents than you anticipate. Stand ready to offer a discount.

source

Aggravation

Damn vending machines!

It hadn’t happened to me in awhile, so I guess it only makes sense that my NutriGrain bar got stuck in the machine today. But the worst part is, it seemed I couldn’t wail on the machine hard enough to free the wrapper from its grasp.

At first I thought that the people watching me would barely take notice and walk away without a word, as is the British way. But one nice girl tried to enlist the help of a prissy British boy, who was hesitant to even give the thing a tap for fear of hurting himself because “Waaah, the machine’s so much bigger than me!” Um, hello? I guess if he’d seen me palming and side kicking the thing he might’ve been slightly ashamed.

I actually did palm strike and side kick the machine several times.

I felt a little better when two boys decidedly stronger than me (and therefore obviously stronger than the prissy British boy) teamed up and still failed to get the stupid NutriGrain bar out. I don’t even like NutriGrain bars that much, but I needed something to sustain me for later in the afternoon. It was just so profoundly disappointing that my TKD skills failed to solve a problem that I thought I’d never have to face again. I was so proud that time before an Econometrics exam when my tropical Skittles got stuck in the Q-level vending machine and I made it pay with a single palm strike. Those were the days...

Forbidden questions

When I went to India in April, everyone on my father’s side of the family asked me one main question: some variation of “When are you getting married?” Everyone on my mother’s side of the family also asked just one main question: “When are you going back to school?”

At least one side of the family is progressive…but only relatively speaking. When anyone on my mom’s side claims that they favour their daughters getting married “at a later age,” that translates to 26, maybe 27 years old. Do they not realise that we’re living in a country where average life expectancy for women is around 80 years old? 50+ years is a freaking long time to spend with someone, and I don’t understand the rush. There’s substantial evidence that women who marry later and therefore have children later raise children who are more socially and economically successful than women who start having kids earlier (read Freakonomics). And it makes perfect sense, as it allows for women to pursue further education and better careers that provide increased financial stability and independence. Call me crazy, but I think that’s worthy of more admiration and celebration than getting married young and cranking out babies straight away. Yes, it means a shortened time frame for having kids, but that’s not such a bad thing. No one needs to be having ten kids in this day and age.

Maybe part of the appeal lies in the fact that we have fewer and fewer legitimate reasons to celebrate ourselves as we get older, and so everyone gets starry-eyed over an event that brings them attention, gifts, and an excuse to dress up. And hey, if it doesn’t work out, you can always have a do-over with spouse # whatever to celebrate yourself all over again!

My new computer background

I could stare at this picture all day. Which is why it's on my personal computer, and not the work one...

Are you effing kidding me?

No. NO. NOOOOOOO!

How are these people even serious?

And what's next?

"Hmm...algebra is way too hard for kids to learn. Let's make a whole new, easier set of rules, beginning with that quadratic formula. [-b + and - sqrt (b^2-4ac)]/2a is now simply b + and - 2. All roots will universally be accepted as b + and - 2 going forward. Now we'll have lots of kids doing better at algebra."

Yeah, I remembered that formula off the top of my head, and yeah, that was me showing off just a tad.

Seriously, though, what kind of sense does it make to change an entire language because some people are too dumb to learn it properly? Seems like a scary precedent to me. I'd love to watch advocates of changing "learn" to "lern" try to learn Mandarin, where in addition to spelling, they'd have worry about roughly eight different intonations per syllable. Spelling "anyone" properly doesn't seem so bad now, does it?

fvck fvck fvck

Busy few days in the UK.

Car bombs defused outside Tiger Tiger.

Burning car rams Glasgow Airport.

Suspect package at Stansted Airport.

Terminal 4 at Heathrow, which I'm due to fly out of in 18 hours, evacuated due to bomb threat.

Awesome timing. When I moved out here in August, the liquid attack had been foiled just days earlier, and passengers could only bring clear pastic bags of non-liquid toiletries on board. I miss the good old days when flying was fun.

Well, to be fair, I've never found flying particularly fun. So, I miss the good old days when you could get to the airport 20 minutes before your departure time and still have a chance of making the plane, when security and immigration queues weren't overloaded and understaffed, and when the whole experience wasn't tainted by logic-numbing paranoia.

Re: the below post

I'd highly recommend reading the comments posted on this topic through the link provided, as they're really fascinating.

Also, I didn't intend for that post to be quite so long. I always start a post thinking "This'll be a relatively short one." As it turns out, I have a lot to say...pretty much all the time. Who'd have thought?

;)

More belated commentary

I suddenly like Nicholas Kristof a little less.

I’ll let go of the fact that his voice is nothing short of squeaky and I was so profoundly disappointed when I heard it for the first time. I was expecting a mysterious-stranger-in-a-trench-coat-and-fedora-smoking-a-cigar-
while-leaning-against-a-lamppost-in-the-dark-of-the-night kind of voice. A voice – to steal a description from Dan Brown – that is like “chocolate for the ears”. Anyway, not the point.

Mr. Kristof (yeah, no more informal “Nick” – at least not for awhile) wrote a column and filmed a video a couple months ago comparing the relative growth and potential of India versus China, asking readers to place their bets on which country will be on top in 2100. Kristof, predictably, picks China. I’m not surprised by that fact, as he’s more invested in China than he is in India, and not just because he’s married to a Chinese-American. What bothers me, though, is that the idealistic and moral appeal that Kristof usually applies to his writing is absent from this particular column.

Though he has brought up China’s human rights and free speech failures in recent weeks, these factors are strangely absent while he’s weighing the strengths and shortcomings of both countries. It’s easy to dismiss India’s democracy by calling it corrupt and chaotic – or “functioning anarchy” as one enlightened [sarcasm] poster dubbed it – but the fact remains, and it matters. I’m aware that I’m not completely objective here, but neither is Kristof. That said, I’ll try to make my point as objectively as possible.

Kristof pinpoints the fact that India has a long way to go in terms of making the most of its human capital and widening the base of people that reap the benefits of the economic boom. Fair enough. We all know that the Indian system reeks of corruption, lack of discipline and overall inefficacy. Social conduct values that are conducive to efficiency (e.g. punctuality) are seriously lacking in the overall cultural consciousness. Still – the story of India over the past sixty years is a gripping one, and it’s full of successes.

If you’re a young student in China, you can’t Google the truth about what your government did in Tiananmen Square in 1989, or to the Falun Gong throughout the last decade. You can’t get full access to BBC News. You can’t find out what Buddhism really is, or what the Dalai Lama is really about. You can’t have a sense of humour about your people, because sites that mock anything near and dear to the hearts of the Chinese are censored. That. Is. BAD. And I’m pretty disappointed that none of this came up in Kristof’s speculation. The Indians may have issues with sex toys, but as far as I’m aware, there are no comparable instances of censorship. Call me idealistic or what you will, but I value an open society and I take it as a sign that a community or a country is doing well. We have enough problems at the moment with the US government being secretive (DOWN WITH DICK/KARL/ALBERTO) – we don’t need to condone it in other societies as well.

In a different vein, India’s recent history has been ignored in this account. If you’re going to make this sort of comparison, that’s something that you can’t neglect. India came out of imperialism with a fierce dedication to democracy, a truth stranger than fiction, when you consider that democracy had no foundation there previously. The panchayat system hardly counts as a predecessor. It also managed to bounce back from the 1970s Emergency, an event that could've easily destabilised many other post-colonial nation-states. These facts are indicative of how absorbent Indian society is when it comes to outside influence (sometimes annoyingly so, when it comes to Bollywood and pop culture in general). It’s the reason that Indians have maintained a strong sense of identity even after centuries of foreign rule. China, by comparison, retreats further into its introverted and autocratic regime and states for the official record that it is 100% atheist. By deduction, India’s more likely to be a trustworthy ally, either to the US or whoever else is a major player in 2100.

I’m well aware of how idealistic all of this sounds, and I don’t necessarily believe that it’ll be India on top in 2100 for the reasons outlined by Kristof and several bloggers. I just think that the issues outlined above are wrongly overlooked by many when making this comparison.

Much of this can be summarised using Olympic athletes as an example. The Chinese hand-pick young children who show athletic prowess and breed them into successful Olympians through rigorous single-minded training. The Indians, despite all their genuine interest, always fall short of the Olympic dream. So it’s really a question of priorities – do you want to create a society of clones that still bring home the gold, or do want your society to value personal freedom of choice above a superficial, though somewhat glamorous, gauge of success? I think I've made it clear where I stand.

Has Feministing heard about this?

Yesterday, rather than making the trek out to Southall to get my eyebrows threaded, I wandered around my neighbourhood looking for something similar. I found a salon owned and operated by a bunch of Arab men, but I realised too late that I was the only female in sight. They were well-behaved, and my initial apprehension subsided. But I didn’t really want the threading done by a dude. Is that sexist? Anyway, I had already walked in and asked how much they charged, so I decided to give it a try since I already felt invested. It turned out well enough- not as good as the girls in Southall, but everything’s a trade-off.

Speaking of sexism, though, I’m reminded of a book I came across while browsing in Soho over the weekend. I don’t often find myself getting up on the feminist soapbox, but the title of this book, along with the credentials of the authors versus its content, distressed me. It’s called “Skinny Bitch,” and it’s something of a guide to healthy eating written by a former model and a modelling agent (insert hysterical laughter here). I didn’t think too much of it at first glance, but after picking it up and reading something to the effect of “The authors might be bitches, but at least they’re skinny bitches” on the back cover, I got a little ticked off.

Why does being skinny mitigate bitchiness? Why is it necessary to use a title like that to draw people to your cause? If anything, I’m repulsed. That title validates anyone who believes that women have a tendency to be more petty and shallow (not to mention anyone that judges LA on its ostensible superficiality).

As far as the actual content of the book is concerned, I’ve come across some contradictory reviews after some cursory research. It’s worth noting that the authors are vegan, and therefore dish out some of the typical “If slaughterhouses had glass walls, everyone would be a vegetarian” rhetoric. I think that quotation is from Linda McCartney, if anyone cares. The negative review focused on some of the things that caught my attention – the stupid title and the authors’ complacency, or even pride, after dubbing themselves “skinny bitches” – in addition to the gratuitously graphic accounts of slaughterhouses and the folly of veganism in principle. The positive review, sourced from the objective site www.vegparadise.com, praised the book for constructing a “thoughtful argument for adopting a vegan diet and lifestyle” and goes on to say “Rory Freedman and Kim Barnouin are to be commended for their unique approach in bringing the vegan message to young women.” The review brushes off the stigma inherent in the title as plain and simple “attitude” – convenient, since they’re primarily concerned with the vegetarian/vegan agenda.

The most pathetic thing is that the authors confess in the end that they “conceived the title ‘to get attention and sell books,’" that they don’t advocate bitchiness, that they realise that kindness is important, blah blah blah. Hilarious. Seems quite typical of the bitchy persona – a two-faced approach that’s really just a publicity ploy to get ahead. It’s pretty obvious that these model types aren’t interested in helping young women with their self-esteem if 1) they’re equating skinny with healthy, and 2) they’re playing off stereotypical female insecurities so they can make a buck.

Utter ramblish

Man, I had hastily jotted down a list of things I wanted to write about. As it turns out, I can’t read my own handwriting and my short-term memory sucks.

Actually, I can still think of a couple of things worth writing about. But they’re incredibly profound topics, and I’m not in the mood for profundity.

That was meant to be taken with a grain of salt and a dash of irony.

“Jow”? WTF did I mean when I scribbled down “jow”? This is grinding on my nerves.

It seems I’ve picked up a base of loyal readers who yell at me when I don’t post for days on end. I find this simultaneously flattering and disturbing…don’t you lot have anything better to do with your time? Kidding. Cheers to you- you know who you are and so do I, even if you aren’t leaving comments :)

This is ridiculous and it pisses me off.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men, no matter their creed, colour or native continent, will inevitably pick out the most trivial aspects of their societies to wax moralistic about.

And then this old related article. I love how the dude at the end of the article jumps to his desi brothers’ defense by citing India’s population growth.

That’s not the point, buddy. It’s time to stop pretending that successful procreation is the only factor to consider.

Crazy Indians. At least no one can ever say we’re boring.

On the Obama kerfuffle.

Does Obama hate Indians?

Does it matter?

No, it really doesn’t. That title is ridiculous, and to the people that started when they read it: you’re taking the bait and playing into the sleazy side of politics. Don’t waste your time.

For the record, it was Hillary’s campaign that started the negative campaigning by targeting Obama’s relative inexperience and alleged “ambivalence about Iraq.” The Obama camp had the upper hand for a minute, because their candidate responded to his more seasoned competitors with exceptional grace- something that’s pretty much unheard of in this business. But then some of his idiotic junior staffers decided that they wanted to fight fire with fire, and voilà, “Punjabgate” was born.

“[The memo] severely contradicts the tone that Obama has tried to set in his speeches of a unified America.” Hypocrisy in politics. Shock of my life, that is. This strategy is geared to appeal to the emotions of those who don’t bother to think about the issues that matter. No sensible person actually buys into the “content” of the memo. People who do use their logical faculties to consider the big picture shouldn’t get bogged down in this tripe.

Did people really expect the Obama camp, with its efforts to tout its candidate as a breath of fresh air in American politics, to be immune to lowly mud-slinging? That just seems a bit naïve to me.

As an aside- Indian-Americans are hardly in a position to play the victim card. From the FT:

Alienating Indian-Americans is an increasingly expensive prospect in US politics. With a median income of $61,000 (£31,700, €45,500) compared with a national median of $41,000 according to the US census bureau, Indians are the richest ethnic group in America. More than 300,000 Indians work in Silicon Valley, where their average income is $200,000.

Can you honestly blame people if they are a little jealous? ;)

Please excuse the gratuitous profanity.

British accents.

Not hot, contrary to popular belief. Ask a Brit to pronounce the word “momentarily” and you’ll see (hear) what I mean. It’s so ridiculously accented that they have no ability to spread the emphasis across a word evenly. Which is why they SUCK SO MUCH at pronouncing Indian (Asian) names, even more so than their American counterparts. What’s worse is that UK born and bred Indians are consequently incapable of pronouncing their own names and shorten seemingly easy names to “Dal,” “Sanj”etc. Most second generation Indian-Americans are at least able to pronounce their own names properly, and most Americans I know are perfectly capable of shortening the vowel to say “sun-jiv.” Brits, though, will inevitably say something to the effect of “SAN-jeeeev.”

Yes, I know I often tell people to shorten my name as well. I’m so sick of hearing people butcher the fuck out of it. I like my name when it’s pronounced the Bengali way. Very few people are able to pronounce it the Bengali way. Which brings me to another dilemma: what do you do when senior people at work completely fuck up your name, and by the time they’ve finished talking, it’s too late to do anything about it? This isn’t a rhetorical question, by the way- I’m genuinely pondering. Ideally, these people should ask how to pronounce an unusual name rather than assume they got it right/know they’re fucking it up but continue to do so regardless. Sometimes they do, but more often, they don’t. At which point you (I) pretty much suck it up and try not to care.

“Yeah…my name is actually Sony Batterycharger. Yeah, my parents really were that cruel.”

People I work with directly have it down tolerably well by now, but they seem to get confused all over again whenever they hear someone else fuck it up. Then it’s back to square one. I give up. I’ll answer to anything by now. Some guy said “shaky” earlier and I looked over my shoulder to see if he was talking to me. True story.

I love pocket-size apple pies.

Oh my god, it’s such a Monday.

Dreary grey weather? Check.
Disastrous tube journey? Check.
Spilled all over a crisp white shirt? Check.
Angry e-mails from all sides that I was totally unprepared for? Check.
Existential crisis re: where my life is going? Check…but that’s every day lately.

For some reason, I got it into my head that a McDonald’s lunch would make me feel better. I did enjoy the chicken nuggets quite a lot- and they’re all white meat, which makes them perfectly nutritious.

I don’t indulge in McD’s all that often, but lately, I’m overcome by a tidal wave of guilt whenever I do so. Actually, I can trace it back to when I moved back to the UK. It might not be all that healthy. Whatever, everything in moderation.

But more than that small fact, it’s the assumption that I’m somehow promoting American soft imperialism that seems to trigger the judgemental looks. Yes, I’m paranoid, but there’s no doubt that people are more snobbish about Big Macs and the like on this side of the pond. It’s irritating, and frankly, these people are fighting a losing battle when they whine about the golden arches blighting their neighbourhood charm. For every food snob you find, I’d guess there are at least 5 people waiting to get their McDonald’s fix at any given time. And it’s not because these people have particularly bad taste; it’s just so damn convenient…and satisfying.

This is not unlike the mainstream media. I realise I still haven’t posted my thoughts on integrity in journalism. It’s because I have too much to say.

Why did I just write “not unlike”? That’s pretty Brit.

Anyway. Yeah, same goes for Starbucks- only it’s not particularly cheap. Coffee snobs shudder and run around with petitions when they get wind of a Starbucks moving in (as some of the boho residents of Baltimore did when the plans for Charles Commons were released - you can imagine how much worse it is here). Does anyone think that will change the course of the extremely successful franchise that is Starbucks? Hate it all you want, but it’s going to continue to attract customers with its solidly established brand. Imperialism, hard or soft, happens for a reason. In the case of these companies, someone provides a product/service in a novel and convenient way, and no one can compete straight away. If you don’t like it, treat it as incentive to come up with a better idea. No one likes a hegemonic power.

I was suddenly reminded of that movie “You’ve Got Mail” when Tom Hanks puts Meg Ryan’s antique bookshop out of business with his huge conglomerate. Yeah, that kinda sucks. In an ideal world, these two would co-exist through marketing to a specific type of consumer. I know that’s not always the case. I just want to eat my McNuggets in peace.

A Stain on Savile Row

The new UK Abercrombie & Fitch store on Savile Row has been open for over a month now. I was doing a pretty good job at ignoring the huge adverts on the sides of double-decker buses, but I got a wake-up call today when I ran into a fellow coming out of the lift. He was wearing a lurid blue polo shirt with that evil moose logo on it. I promptly decided that this made him a perfect target on which to practice my black belt vital strikes and proceeded to disable all his limbs in a matter of seconds. Then I ducked into the lift and made a quick escape- I’m stealth like that.

I can’t, however, continue to do that to every Brit that chooses to wear Abercrombie. I can only hope that most of them have the good sense not to do such a thing. After all, the name “Savile Row” evokes a proud tradition of bespoke tailoring. The name “Abercrombie & Fitch” evokes a less-than-proud tradition of mass producing rubbish. Oh, and maintaining discriminatory policies while promoting mass-produced rubbish.

Let me just say that this is not moral high ground. If Abercrombie made nice stuff, I would probably buy it irrespective of their penchant for exclusion. But they don't. Their clothes are fucking fugly. Yes, I needed the repetition for emphasis. The brand reeks of threadbare, uncreative crap that is probably quite similar to the wardrobes of the workers manufacturing on its behalf in third-world countries. Oops, I mean developing countries.

The models are hot, though. Thought I'd give credit where credit is due.

Good people of Britain, please do what you do best and turn up your noses, this time at Abercrombie & Fitch and its attempt to make a mockery of Savile Row. Keep up the tradition of macs, caps and brollies and continue on down the road to Henry Poole.

Shut up.

I don't like when people misinterpret my facetious belligerence as hostility and consequently tell me to relax.

I also don't like when people start conversations with me while my back is turned. Inevitably, when I do turn around, it's someone I didn't want to speak to in the first place. And by then the effectiveness of scowling is greatly reduced.

That is all.

A Delayed Reaction to the Gawande Column

My trail of thought following the Atul Gawande column.

First off, claiming that Africans won't be able to administer medicine properly because the majority of them don't own watches? Aaaarrrrgh!

It's refreshing to hear this perspective from someone with as much experience and success as Gawande. Certain professions do come with moral obligations, and medicine is undoubtedly one such profession. Journalism is another. More on that later.

So I'm thinking as far as drugs are concerned, we're facing some simple economic problems that get increasingly complicated by legal issues. Basically, there is a limited supply and lack of competition. The biggest issues that result tend to be (a) a shit product, e.g. Microsoft, and/or (b) more relevant to this case: right of the producer to charge whatever they bloody well feel like charging, e.g. Merck. Throw in issues of intellectual property and patent law and you have the big fucking mess that is the pharmaceutical industry.

This leads me believe that it makes very little sense to treat potentially life-saving drugs in the same manner as a Slinky. Were the industry structured along the investment bank model, employees would move freely between competitors bringing industry knowledge with them. Firms would be forced to rely on their ability to innovate and penetrate new markets for their profits, rather than a bullshit patent. But following the twisted path we've chosen, people now support the idea of gene patents.

Is the example above oversimplified? Sure. No one is denying the fact that it takes an enormous amount of human capital - graduates with highly specialized university degrees - to develop a new drug. Intellectual property surely has its place, but not when it begins to stifle much-needed innovation and competition within a market that needs it desperately. And certainly not when it begins to violate principles of basic human decency, as Abbott did with its blackmail of those who reproduced its HIV regimen.

I'll let you chew on that and get to the journalism bit later on. In the meantime, do your homework and read this.

Google and Facebook Can Read Your Mind

Go ahead and call me paranoid. Chances are, if you’re reading this, you know me and have already done so at some point. But seriously, am I the only person worried about this? It’s bad enough that the powers that be know how many times I’ve typed ‘fuck’ in the last hour…I don’t need them to know that I’m doing Google Image searches for James Franco as well.

Google defends its personalized services by saying that usage of iGoogle etc. is at the discretion of the user. Listen, just because I want Pacman on my Google screen doesn’t mean I want people to be able to screen and “customize” my searches.

I feel compelled to say that I don’t actually have Pacman on my homescreen; it was just an example. The most creative section of my iGoogle is the horoscope blurb.

Anyway, the defense goes something like this: if I have a history of having searched for the Eiffel Tower, when I subsequently enter “Paris” into the search engine, I will get results related to the city in France rather than a certain notorious home video. Seems practical enough. Still, I got to thinking- remember that scene in 1984 where they use Winston’s greatest fear (cockroaches) to torture him? Where did they get that information from, anyway? This philosophy seems like it’d make that job a whole lot easier…

Clearly this is all an exaggeration. I’m sure our friends at Google have honorable intentions…for now. Who would think to blame them, anyway, with that cute kid-friendly logo? But look at Facebook: these fun applications that are popping up were all developed by third parties. Everyone wants a piece of Facebook, and who can blame them? They’ve already brushed off $1 billion, not to mention it’s a fantastic way to break into the 18-25 demographic.

Too bad no one’s been able to successfully advocate the importance of voting within that age bracket. Hmmmph.

Going back to the point, there are nearly 700 members on the Facebook network (i.e. people who are employed by Facebook). The New York Times site has single-click functionality to allow you to post articles on your Facebook profile. On the train from Edinburgh to London, I heard three different people talking about posting pictures onto Facebook. It’s inescapable, and believe me, I tried to escape it for…I don’t even know, nearly three years? With this enormous base tied up in a “social utility” that is built up from personal information that so many people want (and so many are willing to post!), I find it hard to believe that privacy rights are given priority here. People will do anything if the price is right- upwards of a billion dollars, the promise of nubile virgins in paradise…you get the picture.

Maybe I’d be less paranoid if our government respected civil liberties. But as long as the mere mention of another 9/11 prompts people to forgo privacy in favor of ostensible security, the market will be ripe for firms willing to exploit that fear. And I doubt that every single one of the (nearly) 9,000 individuals working for Google and Facebook is exclusively motivated by his or her desire to maintain company integrity.

Right…I’m off to install the ‘Extended Info’ application to my Facebook profile.

Atul Gawande in the NY Times

Doctors, Drugs and the Poor

By ATUL GAWANDE

Published: May 17, 2007

It’s one of those questions no one tells you about when you enter medical practice. What do you do when patients come who can’t pay? Some doctors decline to see them. I have expenses to pay and a family to feed, they’ll argue.

But I grew up in a rural part of Ohio where an inordinate number of poor people live. My mother is a pediatrician there, and from the start, she could not imagine turning children away. Up to 20 percent of her patients have been without insurance, and more than half were on Medicaid, which paid terribly and was refused by other doctors. Some patients were not very grateful. Some were not as poor as they claimed. But we could count on my father’s better-paying urology practice to cross-subsidize. So that’s what she did.

The message from my parents was straightforward: We are in medicine and that comes with certain moral obligations. So I’ve understood that part of my job is to see those who can’t pay — even if sometimes it hurts.

I’ve been thinking about this as I’ve watched the arguments unfold about what pharmaceutical companies should charge in the developing world. The history of H.I.V. drugs has not been pretty. First, for almost a decade, we in the West ignored the possibility that antiretroviral drugs could be used in the developing world. (Remember the 2001 claim of U.S. government officials that Africans couldn’t learn to take the drugs on time because they didn’t have watches?) Then, under international pressure, drug companies made some discounts, but they were not deep enough. (A year’s supply was still more than $1,000 per patient.) Only when an Indian generic manufacturer provided a copycat three-drug regimen for $150 per year and major donors stepped forward did distribution effectively reach poor countries.

We’re now in the throes of another round of H.I.V. drug battles, this time over advanced, but even more expensive drug regimens from Merck and Abbott Laboratories. Last week, the Clinton Foundation endorsed decisions by Thailand and Brazil to break the companies’ patents and purchase cheaper, copycat versions of the drugs. Abbott retaliated by withholding seven new drugs from Thailand, including an antibiotic, a painkiller, and a medication for high-blood pressure. The fight has become vicious.

In a way, it’s hard to see how the confrontation could be avoided. The cost of developing a new drug now approaches $1 billion, and companies do need profit margins to recoup that cost and encourage new innovation. Yet, once a life-saving discovery is made, it is clearly grotesque to make millions suffer or die while waiting for a 20-year patent to expire.

The experience with H.I.V. drugs is oddly heartening, though. There is, in fact, a spectrum of behavior among pharmaceutical companies — just like with doctors. Gilead Sciences has granted licenses to generic manufacturers to supply its blockbuster H.I.V. drug, Viread, to the world’s hundred poorest countries at the reasonable royalty rate of 5 percent of sales. Bristol-Meyers Squibb licensed its second-line drug, Reyataz, completely free of royalties to generic manufacturers for India and southern Africa. And through the World Health Organization’s bulk vaccine purchasing arrangements, manufacturers have been able to make significant profits selling vaccines at low cost but large volumes. This is the progress we want to build upon.

Pressure to broaden these efforts will grow, and it should. Agreement on regional pricing tiers and distribution networks for H.I.V. drugs show likelihood of solidifying in ways that make drugs available and support innovation, but we have nothing like it for drugs for heart disease, lung disease, or cancer. Meanwhile, the world is changing. The No. 1 cause of death in India, China, and Vietnam is not H.I.V. It’s heart disease. Cancer is in the top 10. Their people need clot-busting drugs, chemotherapies, and EKG machines just like everyone else. Manufacturers need to show the same willingness to make these life-saving technologies available to the poor.

Some will argue, hey, companies just invent this stuff; it isn’t their job to make sure every country gets some. But that’s not right. As Arthur Caplan, the bioethicist, points out, “You aren’t manufacturing pantyhose when you’re in health care. There are special moral duties attached.”

And one of them is: If you’re building a lifeboat, you have to think about how many you can get inside.

Atul Gawande, a surgeon at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston and a New Yorker staff writer, is the author of the new book “Better.” He is a guest columnist this month.

Campaign for Fair Trade

Yes, free trade is a good thing...in theory. Oxfam International has a great site detailing what's wrong with trade today, complete with animation:

Dumping, patent laws and more

And, a site for getting involved in the US:

Transfair USA

No T-shirts on the US site, though :(

Ruminations: Top 3 Moments on the Tube

All of the incidents below occurred during evening commutes on the Circle/Hammersmith Lines.

3. Screaming Racaille

I thought that was an appropriate title given Sarkozy’s ascension to the Elysee Palace.

A Zone 1 single cash fare has now risen to the astronomical price of £4.00/ride. By today’s conversion rate, that’s $7.92 to travel a distance that may well be less than a mile. So if you were homeless and/or otherwise desperate, would you want to spend that money trying your luck on a crowd of largely unsympathetic City workers?

That’s what I wanted to ask the guy who got on a westbound route from Liverpool Street Station to shout at commuters about how desperate he was. Maybe he would’ve netted positive had he got on a more student-friendly route, because it seems quite common that a person’s generosity is inversely proportional to the size of his or her funds. I think I saw one person on that train toss a silver coin in his direction; the others kept their newspapers held up firmly to their faces.

I should say that I’m not considering myself a typical City worker here, as I get paid significantly less than your average City worker. I kept my nose in my book simply because I don’t like being harassed by people with no common sense.

I sound like a Republican.

Seriously, though, I’m not a (total) asshole. I always give money to buskers (street musicians) because I think they, for the most part, are providing a pleasant service. I value the fact that they’re cultivating a skill, even if a lot of people have their earbuds so permanently fixed in place that they could miss something like this. Most folks don’t like to be accosted, but I think they do appreciate being inspired to take action. I do, anyway.

This could easily turn into a much more serious debate about those who lack even the basic resources to learn a skill, and are therefore in dire need of redistribution in some form, blah blah blah (again, then why are they spending £4 on a tube journey?). Anyway, that’s fair enough, but this post was meant to be a bit more light-hearted than all that. So that’s #3 on the list.

2. Fluorescent Green Eyeliner Bag Lady

I get on the Tube at Liverpool Street, so I’m usually lucky enough to get a seat before the trains get massively packed. On this particular occasion, I was a few stops into my journey and the seats had all filled when a short and stout woman got on the train with a ridiculous number of grocery bags. Oh yeah, and she was wearing hideous fluorescent green eyeliner. After scoping out the lack of available seats, she brought all her crap over close to where I was sitting, in the middle aisle. Why she would choose that spot instead of the more spacious one by the partitions, I don’t know; people seem to deal well enough when others leave their oversized luggage there. Seems to me that’s what a normal person would’ve done. Actually, I take that back: a normal person wouldn’t have gone grocery shopping during the evening rush with the intent of getting on the tube with that many bags afterward. Mistake #1.

Mistake #2: As the train got more and more packed, this lady decided to place a number of her plastic bags on my knees. At first I gave her the benefit of the doubt and shifted my stance so the bags would slide off. But no, she was determined to keep those bags planted firmly on my knees.

At this point, I decided that I’d been targeted by this seemingly harmless (and poorly made up) woman as the seated tube customer most likely to give up my spot when faced with this subtle assault. I wasn’t having it. I proceeded to draw up my legs so that the bags fell off entirely. She, as a result, made a huge (false) show of nearly falling into my lap.

Now I just sound passive-aggressive. But hey, that’s another trait people in this country are known for. And so is unexpected chivalry, which is why the man sitting across the aisle from me eventually offered his seat to that silly bat. I’m not sure whether he was observing her fake distress or my authentic distress, but I suppose it doesn’t matter. I stood my goddamn ground. Never trust someone with dodgy eye makeup.

1. Boozy Old Bugger

Again on the evening commute. It must’ve been just after 6 pm, and I was sporting a fab new coat purchased on a recent weekend jaunt. The train was more crowded than usual, but I did spot one open seat and made a beeline for it.

It didn’t take me very long to notice that the sleeping man seated next to me smelled really strongly of booze. He also moved around like a sack of bricks whenever the train took a curve. He woke up when the train gave a particularly forceful jolt, and proceeded to make these strange little noises. It took me a second to realize that he was trying to conceal a couple of dry heaves.

This was a dilemma: you really can’t make a scene in such situations if you don’t want to be perceived as a loud/obnoxious/unworldly foreigner. That goes double if you’re American. After all, it could’ve been that this old drunk was just trying to clear his throat. In the end, though, it was my coat that decided for me. I decided to get up and move to the other end of the car to spare it from an unthinkable fate.

Not a second too soon- as soon as I’d done so, this sloppy 70 year old lush puked all over the floor. And rather than leaning over, he looked up instead, so he ended up covered with a substantial amount of his own vomit. Luckily, it didn’t have enough velocity to projectile.

This is disgusting in and of itself, but it’s still not the weirdest part. Out of everyone in that car (and it was a packed car), the only people who made a move towards relative safety were myself and another girl. The girl let out a little shriek, and I was proud of myself for making my move deftly and quietly. At least that’s how I like to think of it. In any case, the other passengers looked up from their evening papers for maybe a second, and then promptly went back to reading. The lush continued to sit in his own vomit, similarly unperturbed. I know the Brits are famous (notorious?) for their ability to keep a stiff upper lip, but…this was just weird. Impressive, though, don’t you think?

When the train pulled into the next station, I ran out of that car and into the next one. The other girl followed suit, and we exchanged a quick glance of disbelief before going back to our own reading. See what joy and camaraderie public transportation can bring into your life?

Damages? Really?

So check this out.

If you were a star footballer, would you complain? I don't know . . . maybe they got offended because the size wasn't quite right.

They should've just called a spade a spade: a £34,000 endorsement.

This post may have lost its direction, just a tad

I cannot think of an expense that pains me more than dry cleaning.

I love spending money. The amount of pleasure I get from a new pair of shoes, or a new book, even something practical for the house (new closet organizer anyone?) is, maybe, not quite normal. But dry cleaning as a regular expense is just something I cannot get on board with. Finding myself consistently out about 50 quid for something I should be able to take care of for a fraction of the price at home (but can’t, because our 2 in 1 machine treats clothes in a manner not unlike the dhobis do back in the homeland) really ruins my day when I check my bank balance online.

Here’s the worst part:

Cost of dry cleaning one (1) man’s “shirt” = £1.50 at the local shop.
Cost of dry cleaning one (1) woman’s “blouse” = £5.00 at the local shop.

WTF?

Both of these are your standard 100% cotton collared shirts that you wear to the office. And, in 9 cases out of 10, the woman’s blouse will be smaller than the man’s shirt. Not that I think it’s practical to charge per square centimeter of fabric, but I think you get my point. To rub it in a bit more, all the dry cleaning shops boast their low prices for men’s shirts in the window display. Is this the case in the States, as well? If so, I think this issue needs to be at the forefront of the feminist platform. I don’t think I need to go into how much more expensive it is to be girl in the first place. Again, that's 9 cases out of 10; I can think of a few exceptional males. All of them are Indian. But that’s a story for another day…

HSBC Campaign in France

I had posted this on Facebook, but I think the link has since expired, so here it is again! Travel + history = clever.

A good ad is hard to find. What? What do you mean, that's not how the saying goes...

Welcome to Ramblish.

So. My only prior experience with blogging dates back to a history course sophomore year, when we were asked to post reactions to that week's reading before coming in to lecture. I didn't bother to post very often; I wasn't particularly concerned with padding my participation grade, and I realize in retrospect that I often took those discussions for granted. I miss them now that the majority of my work day revolves around analyzing statistics.

Today I fought with MS Word to insert a table of contents into a document. They provide you with a template to make it easier, but secretly, they're trying to frustrate all your attempts to line up a few titles and numbers. Once the template is set, the processor suddenly forgets all the things it used to know how to do without the template. After some futile attempts to cut and paste, you let loose a string of profanity and expose your grief to a colleague. He, of course, solves the problem in roughly 3 seconds.

That doesn't change the fact that Microsoft Office is crap, and will continue to be crap until it's flooded by competitors and forced to raise its game. Monopoly sucks. Say what you want about capitalism; you can't deny the fact that it forces better quality products/services.

Is it already obvious that I really like semicolons?

Hmm, I feel a bit guilty about slagging off Microsoft, what with Bill and Melinda Gates being the philanthropists that they are. Props to them for that; it's not nearly as prevalent as it needs to be among those in that financial echelon. They should start up a microfinance scheme for people with techie aspirations that grows and develops a worthy competitor to abysmal MS Office. That would definitely qualify as combating pure evil in my book. Isn't that philanthropy at its best?