Busy Week!

Courtesy of Cousin Ajay:



Off to Toronto. Friday night, I will be speaking to/with the University of Toronto writers' co-op. Next week Friday, I'll be giving a workshop in Montreal at the WHO Simulation, and the next night I'll once more be giving the keynote address at the University of Ottawa's Residents' Ball, to be held at the National Arts Centre.

Whew! Busy week.

As always, my appearances schedule is updated here.

Mr. Jindal's Neighbourhood

Okay, okay, I will write about Cuba soon enough! But first, let's get to something a bit more topical...

Slumdog Millionaire won the Oscar. So what? Who cares? Well, it is sort of important. I enjoyed the movie, but it wasn't great. It was no Chariots of Fire or Citizen Kane or American Beauty. It's a just a well-filmed, colourful romp through Mumbai. The characters were shallow, the plot predictable and the "message" --if there was one-- was tagged on and superficial. Like all tiresome Danny Boyle movies, it has way too many scenes of people running. And running. And running. And of course a scene of someone diving into shit, 'cause that appears to be one of Mr. Boyle's obsessions.

But that's not why this matters. It matters because it further solidifies the arrival of all things South Asian into the Western (and thus global) mainstream. If you haven't figured it out already, India is the future. Ironic for a nation so steeped in the past, no?

Now, how's this for a segue? Further indication of the arrival of Indians was the US Republicans' choice this past week of who would deliver the rebuttal to President Obama (praise be upon him) after his first televised speech to Congress. They chose --drum roll, please-- that doofus from Louisiana, Bobby Jindal, a 37 year old American of South Asian origin.

I don't like Jindal. I wrote about him briefly here. He's a freakin' Creationist with a science degree. I know his type all too well, the kind of self-serving South Asian who got into politics, not because he wants to serve, but because it's a good career move. Enough with those cookie cutter bastards!

Even with how much I dislike the man, I was braced for the racist comments. On cue, here was Ann Coulter:

"Even Gov. Bobby Jindal, whom I suppose I should note was the first Indian-American to give the Republican response to a president's speech, began with an encomium to the first black president. (Wasn't Bobby great in Slumdog Millionaire?)"

Really, Ann? Weren't you great in The Machinist and TransAmerica? Is your only cultural reference for Indians a pop movie made by an Irishman and starring a Brit? You have no other historical or political reference or connection to make? This is it? This is what your vaunted Ivy League education and personal media empire have wrought for you?

But back to Jindal. Well, we all know now that he tanked. Even those who are supposed to support him, like the National Post, gave him a fail. This, my friends, is officially the nadir of the US Republican party. Their choice of Jindal showed the baseness of their thinking: "Well they've got a darkie, so we should counter with our darkie!" Because that's the only reason I can see for selecting the clearly out-of-his-league Jindal for this task.

Take a look at his pathetic 3rd grade performance:



As one of the commenters put it, how out of touch are these idiots? The frakking Governor of Louisiana is criticizing the new President for spending money on disaster preparedness. Katrina, anyone? Idiots.


PS, Apropos of nothing, R.I.P. Philip Jose Farmer, one of the finest and most underrated American science fiction writers in history.

Cuba

Greetings from Cuba, miles from the town of Remedios, with no internet access. This post sent via sms. See y'all Monday!
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<This message was sent using Fido's e-mail service. http://www.fido.ca >

Cuba Bound

Wow, the rate of blog posting has really slowed down lately! Well, it's going to get a tad slower. I'm off to Cuba later today for a week. I will try to post while away, but I'm not sure of either my internet or mobile phone access. So, just in case I don't have access to any such high tech communications, see you in a week!

The Best Martial Arts Clip EVER

"Jujitsu For The Weaker Sex"


That is all. Except to say that GSP did not cheat!

And We Wonder How They Elected Bush... Twice

Ahhh, stoned on Benadryl. Another slow blogging day, so you get these pics of stupidity, sent to me as an email chain letter from R von E:

In Guyana

Courtesy of our field commander Bekkie Vineberg, here's a pictorial representation of last November's mission to Guyana:


It's eerily accurate.

It's also a nice segue into this story.

Ah, The Thirties

Kim H. sends us the following advertising images that supposedly originate from the 1930s. Frankly, they could be from anytime prior to 1970. But who cares; they're neat.

Shanker Deonandan

Google image search result for "Shanker". What the hell is it? Who knows.

For those of you who don't know (and care), my full name is Raywat Shanker Deonandan. Only the absolutely cleverest people in my youth were able to mock me for having a middle name that was a homonym for "chancre". And only the absolute least clever among you will mock me for using the word "homonym".

Now, few of you know that, due to complicated political shenanigans in Guyana (that I will not get into today), Deonandan is not my true paternal lineage name. Deonandan was actually my father's original given name, and for a number of reasons he chose to make it his surname long before marrying my mother and producing a brood of children who, too, would adopt this surname.

There are other families --all Indian, mostly Indo-Caribbean-- with Deonandan as a surname, but not very many.

Raywat, on the other hand, is indeed my original given name. If you Google it, you will find many mentions of me and a few mentions of people with this name.... almost all of whom are of Thai extraction.

I am not Thai. I wouldn't mind being Thai. I loved my time in Thailand 17 years ago, and I really enjoyed the spirit and beauty of the Thai people. But I am not Thai. I am Indian, of pretty much exclusively Indian descent. (I know this because of genetic testing.) Likely, Raywat is a bastardization of Ravat or a similar sounding Hindi name.

So, while Deonandan is rare but not exclusive, and Raywat is rare but not exclusive, I defy anyone to find another Raywat Deonandan.

The name Shanker, on the other hand, is not particularly rare. Google it and you will find many references to people, gods and whatever that thing in the image above is. But its spelling is certainly unorthodox. Most people with this name spell it Shankar. Thus, I would have bet that the name, Shanker Deonandan would be pretty much unique, as well.

All this is to say that I was a bit surprised when one of my regular 'bots, who patrol the Interwebs looking for references to me, returned with the following hit: Shanker Deonandan, Admin Director of North Shore University Hospital in New York.

There is a photo of him there, which I will not reproduce, in respect of the privacy of someone who shares my name. The dude, naturally, is good looking enough to be a relative.... and I would bet money that he is of Caribbean extraction, like me.

In any case, good to meet you, Mr. Shanker Deonandan. (Even though I haven't actually met you, just Googled you). I'm sorry that, due to your name, you are now associated with all the nonsense that I produce for this website. But we all have our crosses to bear.

HSS1101E

I just finished proctoring an exam for my beloved first year class, "Determinants of Health". The course code for this Health Sciences class is "HSS1101E".

I wrote the course code on the black board at the beginning of class:



One of my TAs, who shall remain nameless, snickered a bit and pointed out that it looked like "something". I immediately caught on.

See, if you add three simple horizontal lines (which I immediately did), you get this:



It's the little things that make me happy :-)

Oh That Darned Bus Strike

We've had a bus strike here in Ottawa for over a month now, I think. I hear something to the extent that back-to-work legislation has been tabled. Maybe. I dunno. Can't keep up.

The strike has coincided, of course, with global economic hardship and, here in Ottawa, the coldest days ever. In the past few weeks, evenings of -40 degrees Celsius have been the norm. For those of you in warmer climes, let's just say that more than 20 minutes exposed to such low temperatures, without suitable subarctic gear, results in death. That's how cold it's been in Ottawa.

I arrived by train from Toronto earlier this evening to find a line-up at the train station's taxi stand literally 120 people deep. That's right. At 8:30pm in the evening, outside in the coldest capital city in the world, 120 people waited impatiently for taxis that were slow to arrive. I waited a total of 40 minutes before getting into a cab and getting a 10 minute ride home.

It's obviously not the cab drivers' fault. They get to where they're needed when they can. The demand is just out of control, even on a Sunday evening.

While waiting in line, it occurred to me that the process could be sped up substantially if more people offered to share taxis. As it was, cars were leaving with a single passenger in each, meaning that 119 cars would have to arrive before I could go home. So I decided that, when my turn came at the front of the line, I would turn around and offer to share my taxi with the person behind me.

Now, I had a lot of time to think this through. I turned around and saw that the person behind me was a petite woman traveling alone. Well, if a strange man in black leather, ill-fitting jeans, a big furry hat, and no luggage suddenly offered to share a vehicle with her, would it not be perceived as somewhat sketchy and menacing? How then to carry out my plan of efficiency without making others uncomfortable?

Well, I decided that if, when I got to the front of the line, there was only one taxi available, I would offer to share with the woman behind me. If, on the other hand, two or more vehicles were present, I would not bother. Sure enough, there were three taxis empty when I had my turn. So I decided to get into one alone, and sped to my apartment.

I arrived, paid my fare, then exited the cab.... just in time to open the front door of my apartment building for the very same woman who was behind me in line. That's right: we live in the same place, and had taken separate cabs to go the same distance from the same origin.

What's the lesson here? I don't know if there is one. All I know is that this transit strike has caused me to rethink my position on compelling public dependency on public transportation. So long as a city can be held hostage by such strikes, there is no incentive for us to ever be completely free of personal vehicles.