Nothing that a cold beer can’t solve

By now you must have heard about the incident where Professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. (an African American) was arrested by a white police officer, Sgt. James Crowley. Gates is a professor at Cambridge University, Mass. and stays in a house that belongs to the University. He went on a trip to China for making his documentary for PBS – “Faces of America” and returned home from his trip with his luggage, only to find out that his lock is jammed. So he asked the help of his driver of the cab, who is also a black man to push it open. Gates called the University at the same time to get his lock fixed and while he was in the process of making that call, a police officer was outside his door asking him to step outside of the house. The police had arrived there as a result of a 911 call from Gates neighbor, Whalen, who had mentioned that two black men were breaking in into the Professor’s house. With enough misunderstandings, the police officer arrested Gates and Gates passed on a remark about how a black man is treated in America. That is the gist of what had happened but you can Google it for more detailed information.


When this racially charged controversy was developing further, Our President had passed on a remark in a conference as to how Cambridge Police acted stupidly and if they acted smartly, this whole incident could have been avoided. Now the black racism event is compounded with President being anti-police. I don’t see what is wrong in what Obama said. Whether he is black or white, the incident calls for a statement from anyone who hears it and that statement would be ‘How stupid can a police act in that situation?’. When a police officer reaches a scene, does he not make enquiries to find out what is going on? In this case, Crowley did ask Gates of his identification which proved that he is a Professor in Cambridge University and his drivers license showed that the address is same as the address that he is in. If Crowley needed more information, he could have called Gates’ neighbors and have them testify that that man was Gates and he does reside in that house.


Crowley did not do any of that and he just arrested the man and put him in jail for four hours? Based on what? The 911 call? Whalen, who made the call, did what she did with good intentions, but did she not know that Gates was a black man and that he might have come back from the trip? All this happened in the middle of the day and not at night, where she would have poor lighting and a bad call. This reminds me of the old lady who said that she witnessed the robbery and attack in the movie, ‘My cousin Vinny’. Does Whalen in this event, need a visit to the eye Doctor?


Anyhow, Obama’s statement of ‘stupidity’ had caused some furor in the police community and in order to quell the situation and to address the racial differences, Obama had invited Gates and Crowley to discuss the matter over a beer. Now there is nothing that a drink can’t do. These guys will have beer and all of a sudden racism would disappear from the face of this earth. This beer drinking is more for photo ops and for Obama to cool the situation in the police community as a result of his remark. If things were to be solved by a beer, I would have cases of it stacked up in my garage. Oh, by the way, I do have it stacked up not for this reason though.

How much for a dollar?

With the sliding value for a dollar, instability in the job market and economic crisis, no one knows what one might get for a dollar. Gas prices seem to be rising every week as a result of summer and people travelling to their destinations for vacation. I wonder how one could afford a travel when they complain about job loses and recessions but there are a few who do travel for getaways whether they or someone books it. What is driving the price of fuel these days with a barrel of crude oil being $68?

OPEC had mentioned last year that they were going to cut back on oil production because they were not making enough money per barrel. How could that possibly be when the price of a barrel of oil is swinging between $65 and $70? OPEC wants their barrel price to be $74 as an ideal condition. Sure, they can stop production, which will increase demand as a result of less oil in the market and hence more cost per barrel. When OPEC will reach its goal where does that lead us to? Shelling out more dollars to get our tanks filled up every week.

The speculators, energy policy, global economy, foreign demand (especially from China and India) and the brokers working with clients who give big bucks to buy oil tend to raise the price. If we cut down on fuel consumption, maybe the oil prices will go down. Whatever happened to not driving the big fuel guzzlers to work or vacation trips, riding a bicycle to work day per week, carpooling, metro usage to get to work? Spending about $50 a week per car is scary in this recession. In January of 2009, the average fuel price was $1.77 and now it is about $2.56, driven in part by a falling dollar. I guess if we do a little bit on our side, we can bring down the price of fuel. I remember when the fuel price was $0.99 way back in the 90’s. If not that low, some drop in fuel price would not be a bad thing.

Words of Wisdom

Musings for the weekend...


Over five thousand years ago, Moses said to the children of Israel "pick up your shovel, mount your asses and camels, and I will lead you to the promised land".

Nearly 75 years ago, Roosevelt said, "Lay down your shovels, sit on your asses, and light up a camel, this is the promised land".

Now Obama has stolen your shovel, taxed your asses, raised the price of camels, and mortgaged the promised land.

Enjoy your weekend!

Once in a lifetime

Today was when the longest solar eclipse occurred in Asia and many viewers awed with excitement. The eclipse lasted for about six minutes and 39 seconds, which is near the theoretical maximum duration for a solar eclipse of seven minutes and 31 seconds. A solar eclipse is formed on a new moon day, when Sun, Moon and Earth come in a straight line. The eclipse occurs on the earth where shadow of moon falls on the earth. The next solar eclipse this long will occur only in the year 2132.


After an hour after sunrise, the sun was covered by the moon and it became dark. Many people in India and China were crowding to see the event with special sunglasses while many believe that watching solar or lunar eclipse is inauspicious and hence stayed inside to avoid seeing the occurrence. When I was a kid, I have seen a solar eclipse from my house and would watch it by taking a piece of bottle/glass and blackening with soot of smoke instead of this day’s fancy glasses. I did not think of it as inauspicious or scary but rather got more interested in the phenomena. I started reading more about space. No, I was not born with an interest in space science nor did I move my leg in circles looking at a ceiling fan, when being held by my grand parents or anybody for that matter. I was a normal kid, just like any one else.


This event is eerie in a way because of how it affected a lot of the animals in the areas where the eclipse was total. In China's Hangzhou City zoo, animals that were out feeding at 9.30am, started going inside their dorms without hesitation after dropping whatever they were eating. In a similar manner, animals that are used to being fed after sundown came out as soon as it became dark. This is a sign of more like a Pavlovian response (as in Pavlov's dog) rather than being time or hunger based. Thanks to my friend who pointed this out. What would have been the effect on humans because of sudden darkness for less than seven minutes? I think it is nothing. What would seven minutes of darkness in the morning do to humans? Of course, roads and work space have had to be lit to work and move around as usual for that day. In terms of time sense, nothing should be affected for humans. At least that is my opinion. You would never know if some humans would just drop dead sleep or start getting hungry when it became dark. I think we are a little better than the four legged ones in this regard.

Workout for your fingers

I am a firm believer that workout is the solution to be fit and healthy. While I push myself at the gym to get a full body workout, I did not realize that I would need to do a workout for my fingers. Now you all know that I am being sarcastic, right? Who ever gives a workout for their fingers, except the musicians? But kids and teens (or even adults) are so good with their fingers when it comes to texting on their cell phones. One could be driving on the highway at 70-80 mph and still be texting, and some can be texting to become the queen of texting. What I mean will be explained in the paragraphs to come.


I was watching Rachael Ray’s show one afternoon, when Rachael was interviewing a thirteen year old girl who had texted 14,000 texts in a month. That girl had come to the show with her father and a mound of bills from the phone company. Luckily, her father had said, that the family was on an unlimited texting plan which had saved them thousands of dollars in bills while his daughter was spending days and nights texting to her friends. She had said in that show that she would be texting all the time… unless she was asleep. How could someone be texting all the time during a day? Even if they do so, what or who would they be texting? Is it even a proud achievement that she was on the show to gloat about it?


In every profession, one has their own set of vocabulary or slang when they have to communicate and only people in that world can understand what is being said. This is true in the world of texting as well. In the 120 characters limit that one has in the texting world, one cannot embrace the fact that effective communication is the key to get the point across. Texters come up with their own codes to fit in their texts and to convey the message across. Do you even know some of the codes these texters use? SLAP – Sounds like a plan; TTFN – Tata for now and many more. But these are day-to-day usage in their world.


Apart from texting being a problem while driving or hiking the tab on your phone bill, texting has become a problem among teenagers since school kids use this as a means pull a fast one over their parents and to look cool among their friends. It is not that the kids are trying to hide things from their parents or plotting against their parents but just to have a little privacy and to be cool among their piers. But there is always a fine line between hiding and privacy. How many times, one hides the truth and says to their loved ones that they have not lied about anything. It is just that they did not tell the truth; not lied. People who want to lie or hide the truth will always find a way to do so. Kids these days take texting to the next level – sexting, which is scary. Try to find the meaning of some of the codes that these kids use while sexting like 8, IWSN or NIFOC. I can give the explanations here but I don’t want to cross the fine line of being civil here. All I would say is just keep an eye out on those kids of yours who are texting.

My elixir

Not a day begins without me getting up and going right into the kitchen to use the microwave to make myself a cup of hot coffee. There is something about having coffee first thing in the morning other than the fact that it has caffeine to keep us going for the day. Whether you want to feel refreshed or want to rid of that headache you have because of your work or your spouse nagging you to go to Shenandoah or Williamsburg or want to cajole someone by being a personalized barista, a cup of Joe is all that takes to bring you back to life. In any work environment you can see a coffee pot going but you seldom see tea bags made available for tea drinkers. For example, go to any mechanic shop or office kitchen, you would see a coffee pot in place to be used. So you get the idea, coffee is the number one elixir you can have to get yourself going on with your activities in life.


Studies have proved that coffee improves memory, cures bad breath (no wonder all dates start with having a cup of coffee together - I remember my friend having countless coffee episodes in Starbucks while dating) and reverses memory problems. Research suggests that having five cups of coffee a day reverses memory problems seen in Alzheimer’s disease. I would take the choice of five cups a day to brain booster capsules to improve my memory. That would be like killing two birds in one shot - get wired and improve memory at the same time.


Fifty-five mice were researched on to see if the memory improves with the dose of caffeine. I can already see the smile on your face or nodding your head because you think that conducting tests on mice is funny. For those who scorn or joke on the fact that research for human betterness is done on mice - since they are found in plenty and no one would shed a tear if mice were killed in the process and also that it is medically acceptable to do research on mice for something a human will use on a later stage. Mice are the guinea pig for researchers. What is astounding is that an 18-19 month old mouse exhibits the same behavior as a 70-year old man in terms on memory capacity. So after the tests, it was proved that mice with caffeine had an improvement in their memory power, which draws a parallel that if humans start having caffeine (does that mean any caffeine or caffeine from coffee? Hmm… not clear there), it would improve their memory as well.


Don’t be too surprised when you come to know that you are either constipated or having weight problems after a couple of months of helping yourself with this caffeine dose. Anything in excess is converted to fat and is stored in the body for later use (what parts of the body it is stored, only your body decides that) and a known problem of having too much coffee is constipation. You do not need another research documenting what I said before about coffee’s effect. So have your five cups of coffee with no sugar and have more water during the day. If you have five cups, see to it that other intakes are equally compensated to avoid the weight problems. Follow the simple rule that “input is less than the output” for your body.

Good Salesperson

I can forthrightly say that there are not a lot of people who visit this site or read what I have to say. Many bloggers would boast about how many visitors they have and how they keep checking their blogs in their time of absence or how visitors from different nations, place or creed bombard their mails with their comments or so on and so forth. But I can say that I have a few visitors by chance who stumble on to this site in their process of looking for something else. If you ask any of my friends or relatives or colleagues at work about my blogs, they would draw a blank. The reason being, I have not told any of them that that I maintain a blog site and portray my views on different happenings around the world or life in general.


I have not felt the need to tell anyone that I jot down my thoughts here for I write to satisfy myself, to improve my writing skills and to improve my comprehending power and more so, force myself to know the news either online or watch and hear on television and radio or take the time to actually hold the newspaper and sit in a corner undisturbed amidst my busy schedule. I do empathize with the fact that not everyone has time on their hands to spend it on reading blogs of others who regurgitate the news with their own touch or enhanced with their thoughts in a busy schedule. With the availability of blog space, many have taken the liberty to wad off their thoughts in the name of better communication. They would end up writing paragraphs after paragraph rehearsing the same point over and over again; but it is their space and they have the freedom to do so.


I have see many who maintain their blog site would mention about it in their mails (as a footnote whether in office or personal mails) or gloat about it to their kiths and kin, for they want to share their thoughts or boast about their immense writing skills or vocabulary power. Kudos to them! But the worst of it is not yet there. I have seen some who have their parents market their site to others. In any gatherings or phone conversation or meetings, their parents would pass on the information to others about their sons or daughters blog site and how well they express their thoughts intertwined with humor. I am not talking about kids or teens here; grown up adults who have the best salesperson working on their side so many will visit their blog site, only to gloat about it in their blogs. But in person, they would say that they don’t care who visits their site or not. In my case, even my parents don’t know about my site or my writings. Only if I had a good marketer on my side, many would be visiting here to see what I write and maybe I can say ‘Thanks to my visitors who flood my mailbox with your comments!’

Competitive eating

What is it with men and being the best even at mundane of things? From resisting to asking for directions when lost, to showing how fast they can drive on a windy road, to showing how many hot dogs they can eat in the least amount of time. Men never fail me in proving how daft they can be. Every year they have hot dog and hamburger eating contest. This past weekend, Joey Chestnut proved that he could eat 68 hotdogs in ten minutes in Nathan’s International Hot Dog Contest held in New York. He won the championship this year by dethroning Takeru Kobayashi from last year who could eat 64 ½ hotdogs in the same time.


For the ten minutes that Joey put in to eat those hotdogs, he walked home with $20,000 to eat hotdogs for the rest of the year. Competition that is upcoming this September will pay out as much as $100,000. Hamburger chains like Krystal and White Castle (remember this one from the movie ‘Harold and Kumar’?) put in a lot of money towards such contests. While their idea is to promote their food, it looks dumb, to have eating contests, where food is wasted a lot, while there are many who are hungry waiting to be fed.


There are many restaurants around the D.C. metro area and around the U.S. where if you finish a one-pound burger or more, they would take your picture and put it on their walls of fame. How sweet? One can go around and say that they are a champ at eating of all other things possible like what we witnessed this weekend in the tennis world. Is it then surprising to see a report on how US is leading in obesity? Only men can make a sport out of frivolous activities and then they nitpick as to why women carry big handbags only to search for their lipsticks in the ocean of materials inside their bags.

Movies – Fact or Fiction?

Whenever I hear about a movie being released, I would see if it is based on history or true events. If the movie is of that nature, I try to pick up the book that the movie is based on or any book that it relates to or any history book that talks about the event. I am not a movie buff and I watch movies very rarely. So the few I watch better be good ones, something that I can learn from. If the subject or the book is interesting enough, I would not even go to that movie as I know that movies never depict the history in its entirety.


I was seeing the ads for Public Enemies, which portrays the story and events of a bank robber, John Dillinger, (played by Jonny Depp) who is a gangster robbing banks in mid-‘30s in Midwest Indiana. Some of my friends who saw the movie this past weekend said that the movie was okay and that it had holes in the narration of John Dillinger's life. If it had to be a complete narration of his life, would that not become a documentary film? If a movie is based on true events or on history, the film producers try to capture the important facts and mix it with what I call 'masala' to make it passable for film watchers.


Any movie for that instance will not be a true depiction of the truth and will be made for the taste of the viewers and with the ultimate goal of making money at the box office. Take for instance, the movie 'Catch me if you can'. That movie depicted the life of Frank Abagnale Jr. (played by Leonardo DiCaprio) in 1940s, who was also robbing banks but not as a gangster but by working alone, forging checks and playing the banking routing rules. In the movie, it is shows that FBI agent, Carl Hanratty, played by Tom Hanks was a real person who ended up catching Frank. The movie also showed as Frank escaping from a VC10 jetliner by removing the toilet and climbing down beneath it. But if you read up on the history books than you would know that it is not true or that it is even impossible for it to happen. This is what I call 'adding masala' to pass the movie to the audience.


Even when the movies 'The DaVinci Code' or 'Angels and Demons' came out, the Christian group and the Roman Church protested against the movie being released because of some of the events that were shown. I am sure everyone knows that the author, Dan Brown (of both the movies) had mixed history and fiction; came out with a beautiful cocktail, that would make the readers (or watchers of the movies) to forget life for a while. Even after knowing this, why were their riots protesting the films? Movies’ ultimate goal is to provide a little bit of education on the subject but mostly to make money and entertain the viewers. If anyone is interested on the subject, read up more on it from the web or in the library. There is plethora of information out there and one should not depend just on the movies to get educated. That is like taking a ‘capsule’ and saying 'I know about the subject' without actually making a trip to your local library. If the library is closed, don’t pretend to be there, instead research on the web.

She did it, yet again

No one can talk about Alaska without talking about its Governor Sarah Palin. Can we? Time and again, she steps on the mine in the minefield of politics. It is either her or her kids in the limelight, being the talk of the nation. Starting in 2008, primetime to Vice-presidential debates, she was scorned upon for the knowledge she possessed on American history. I was hoping she would not win the election because if McCain had won and if god-forbid, something happened to McCain and Palin had to take over, America’s little hope of surviving the recession would cease with her saying ‘You betcha’


Case in point was her appearance with McCain in a meeting with Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili and Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko. When simple questions like ‘What have you learned from your meeting’ was directed at her, she simply smiled and leaned over to McCain for assistance and the aids intervened to get the reporters outside the room. Also, when she was answering questions that elementary school kids asked, she proved her lack of knowledge in the American history. This sure resulted in reams and reams of bad press and to even answer the most elementary questions in an uncontrolled environment was so dangerous that the McCain group was spending money to prevent such situations.


These events were compounded by her altercation when she was found spending $150,000 on designer wardrobe just for campaign. One would question the need of her wanting such expensive dresses when she was trying to portray a down-to-earth image in the campaign. She became a lame-duck and mocking figure (or figurine) in some talk shows and Democratic criticisms. She was even imitated by talented comedian Tina Fey of her folksy was of saying “You betcha”. Recently, her daughter Bristol’s name was brought in David Letterman’s show. But she brought it upon herself. Palin had her daughter’s presence in the campaign and wanted media’s attention but then when she was found pregnant, she wanted to be left alone and she accused media for focusing the lights on her. There is a saying in Hindi, that goes like ‘People in glass houses, should not be throwing stones at others’.


When things were quiet on her for a month or so, she threw the stone yet again. This past Friday, she announced that she was resigning as Governor by the end of this month for a ‘higher calling’. Does this mean that she would not be considered for Presidential post in 2012? Some politicians say that by her resigning from post, she would fade away from politics for ever, while others say that is was the best thing for her and the State. Many say that it was because of pending lawsuits and investigation that she has on her while Palin says that she does not want to be on the limelight anymore. She is done playing the lame duck. Whatever the reasons are, we have to wait and see if we can take the name of Alaska without bringing her name in the same sentence.

Suck it up... yet again

Just when you think that you can use the toll road to get to the place you want in Northern Virginia, despite the fact that you are paying to go from one parking lot to another, you hear the news that the toll price will be doubled. By 2012, the toll prices will be doubled on Dulles Toll Road. It is said by the officials that the increase in the toll will help fund the Metro rail’s $5 billion expansion in Northern Virginia and also for the 23-mile Silver line connecting East Falls Church Metro station to Dulles International Airport. If metro rail needs to be expanded, why does toll have to go higher and toll road users have to pay for something that they are not or won’t be using? I do not use the Metro rail ever and the few times I use the toll road (I resent using the toll road) I have to pay increased prices, so that I would be contributing towards the Metro project.


Airport Authority took control of the toll roads from the State, since 2005, so that they can assist the Metro project and had decided to increase the toll on main plaza from 75 cents to $1.50 and to increase by 25 cents on other exits. Instead of blindly saying that the toll will be increased to such amounts by 2012, they should have meetings or suffrage every year to decide whether such increase is required. When the toll roads were opened in the mid 80s’, authorities never intended to keep on collecting tolls from its users. They wanted to collect the money to pay for the costs and maintenance. After such a point was reached, they were going to stop collecting tolls. I guess such a point was never arrived at. The toll kept on increasing from 10 cents to 35 cents now on each exits. But if they are doing it to pay for maintenance or expansion of toll roads, it would justify the fact. But to fund for other projects is absurd.


To top this off, some states, especially Maryland is charging $1.50 a month for those E-Z pass transponders on toll road. Delaware and Virginia collect deposits, instead of charging monthly fees, but Delaware will not return the deposit at the end, when the transponders are returned. Then it is not a deposit, is it? I own that EZ pass transponder as well and the few times I have used it to get off from toll road to go to Tysons (thinking of it, the last time I ever used the toll road was in Jan 2008) and it had been a convenience. When the EZ pass was introduced in Virginia, people paid $35 to be on reserve to use the EZ pass along the East coast, so they don’t have to waste their time on the toll booth, trying to get the change out from their pockets. Paying in advance, guarantees the authorities, that one would use the toll road but having to pay a fee to use that transponder in ridiculous.


If toll keeps on increasing, nobody will build or rent office space in and around the Dulles corridor and no one would use the toll to get there either. Dulles toll road is strangled with the traffic and has become a parking lot of a kind. Why pay to be on a parking lot on toll Road, when you could be taking side roads to get to where you want for the same time and traffic? The purpose of the toll road was to get to a place quicker than other routes but if that purpose is not fulfilled, and then it becomes another normal road. Then why pay to be on a normal road? To borrow from Malcolm X, "NOVA, you've been had! You've been took! you've been bamboozled!"