View from India: Election Day (in Thiruvanmaiyur District, Chennai)

By Parvathi

Last week Tamil Nadu (state) elections were held. I was beside myself because I had just received my ID card from the Election Commission. Of course, it was due a good two years ago.

2009 saw me running to and from the Corporation Office in my part of the city trying to get myself on the electoral rolls. My name had previously been registered at Mumbai-West, and I was determined to get myself moved to Chennai. My son, who was just back from Leeds, had set himself up all nice and cosy for voting in Mumbai and he did it through Jagore! I tried the same, but was not very successful.

General elections arrived in the summer of 2009 and I had no voter ID no slip from the electoral rolls, nada. I do not concede defeat very easily, an irritating aspect of my personality no doubt - almost a bulldog-like doggedness once something plants itself in my brain. So the 2009 elections saw me out checking the rolls for my name with my driving licence and passport as IDs. No luck. I came back furious at not being able to exercise my franchise. Yet another trip to the Corporation office!

I must add that the people in that office were extremely helpful and spent a whole lot of time checking the lists for my name. They told me that the new voters' list ran literally into ten of thousands of new names, and they found it physically impossible to deal with it. They assured me I would have it when the next elections rolled around. I made polite noises to them but grumbled inside.

Well, they were right and I was wrong. This time around I got it all; but hey! human error still showed its pesky face. My mother who was on the rolls these past two decades, did not receive her ID card, and neither was her name was there.

Well, anyway, I took off from work that day, and decided to get over there bright and early just in case I had to stand forever in the queue. I felt almost obnoxiously civic that morning of 13th April, as I went around asking my neighbors if anyone needed a lift to the polling booth. I was there around quarter to eight and the queue was not at all threatening.

Everything went quietly; smoothly, like a well oiled machine. Oh yes, the police were there, clutching very lethal looking guns. No, the Election Commission was not going to take any chances.

There were separate lines for men and women; there were volunteers who checked our slips and directed us to our booths; chairs were set out for the elderly who braved the heat and came out to vote.

There was such a wonderful cross section of people right there in the compound of that small Corporation school. Right behind me was a woman from the fishing village who could neither read nor write, and who wanted to know if she was in the right place. Next to her was a young woman talking on a cell phone. With me, of course, was this very old lady, a neighbor, who refused to sit down saying there were others who needed that seat more than she did.

In the line parallel to us, where the men stood, there was a sudden commotion; and the cause for it was the actor Ajith who is also a neighbor of mine (though we almost never see each other). He stood smiling in the blistering heat in his three-piece cotton suit, not heeding the milling press!

A pregnant woman was allowed in first; the volunteers were polite. My finger was marked with the notorious indelible ink; I cast my vote pressing the button on an electronic voting machine. I came out proud to be part of a system that ensured such efficiency (at least where I voted).

This is exactly what we need and want in this country: a fuss-free, efficient, corruption-free electoral system. Never mind the fact that the school badly needed a paint job; never mind that some of the benches were broken and windows needed replacing - all's forgiven.

We know the difficulty of volumes in this country. Generally everything gets blamed on the teeming millions, but this one time I saw our 'teeming millions' as our strength. They came out in droves to exercise their right, and did it with dignity and pride (of course I'm projecting). This is their country, they have had enough of people selling them down the river. They are not fools to be tempted by paper money and trivia. It is an awakening that I see, a true democratic awakening that is exciting and bodes good for this sovereign democratic republic.
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My comment: How will we view our civic duties in 2012. Note: Parvathi made no mention to party or politics. Results will be announced next month.

Sai Baba: Is He Man or God? Or, Does It Matter?

Sai Baba is fighting for his life in a hospital in India. Though he has shown some improvement in recent days, the 85-year old guru may be deep into his last days. He is considered by some to be a god. In Chennai, every Monday evening, just after sundown, there’s a group of his devotees that gathers just outside my window to chant and pray by flickering candlelight and the smell of incense.

Sai started out by performing magic tricks for audiences. He lost followers when he started calling himself ‘God’. They said, not even Jesus referred to himself as ‘God’. But, at the same time, his admirers only grew in number.

I love the Indian greeting: One brings one’s hands together and bows slightly. “Namaste”, one says. It means, “I recognize the God within you.” To me, it makes no sense to quantify God and to assign to it a specific place (within the body) in terms of ‘how much God’ and ‘where’ specifically. If there is God and He is within someone, that someone is essentially God. Let him (or her) be God, or not be God. It makes no difference. (I recommend R. K. Narayan’s delightful novel ‘The Guide’ for an insight into how a common man can become holy in India.)

An awareness of God – or transcendence – comes about when experiencing something that touches one – a U2 or Phil Collins concert; a good play; love; the birth of one’s child; a church service, complete with organ music …or silence.

When I write, I seek a responsive chord within you. When anyone writes, it is to give shape to a truth and putting a frame around it (even while recognizing that the truth cannot be captured by mere words). It’s called ‘inspiration’. It matters not whether you agree or disagree. If you should disagree, it simply means that you have found a better way of saying it - or not saying it at all. There is no sin in that. In fact, I would commend you. I am under no illusion that what I or anyone else says is necessarily the best way of saying anything. The best one can hope for is to remain consistent.

The point is that Sai Baba spoke to millions and they felt uplifted by it. And that, in my book, makes him a God.

http://pkoelliker.blogspot.com/

Liberals - 1; Conservatives - 0

January 8th, 2011

Urgent: Flash e-mail from the White House: A message from OFA (Organizing for America) national volunteer coordinators:

Dear Blogger: By now you’ve heard the news. Time to mobilize. What just happened in Arizona (where else?) is more than murder. This is our opportunity to invigorate some of our policy objectives. Target gun control and talk radio (Limbaugh, Beck, etc.). Target the internet and capital punishment. Target Palin. For suggestions, go to xxx@yyy.com for templates and suggestions.

Get busy. Support the cause. Support Democrats. Support your president. Prizes for the most e-mails sent.

Remember, never let a crisis go to waste.
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The above fiction is nevertheless believable. How else can we explain the current feeding frenzy in the press and on the blogs? Clearly, what happened was a personal tragedy for all those hurt and killed. Also clear is that it’s a stretch to involve people who had nothing whatsoever to do with it.

More than the wounding and murders themselves, the real tragedy is what immediately followed. I differ from Limbaugh in one important respect: Whereas he sees it as a one last-ditch desperate effort - a ‘Hail Mary pass', if you wish - by liberalism losing steam, I see it as only the beginning - the opening salvo of what we can expect for the next two years. The media and Democrats are scoring big.

This morning, ‘The Hindu’, Chennai’s hometown newspaper will carry Paul Krugman’s column entitled “Climate of Hate”. In it he implicates and smears everyone who does not agree with his radical views. Indians will read this and, hearing no other American voices, will shake their heads sadly. Some who have relatives abroad will send e-mails to caution them. They will warn them of the Tea Parties, talk radio, FOX, the GOP, Palin, Beck, O’Reilly, conservatives, etc. All this will be done out of genuine concern and in good faith.

Talk show hosts are feeling the need to defend themselves today. Their faithful - even if in the numerical majority of the population - agree with them. But as a part of the overall national narrative they remain marginalized. Their protestations sound somehow hollow as the ball continues to roll left.

Liberals - 1; conservatives - 0

http://pkoelliker.blogspot.com/

Butter On A Bagel

I swear, these jihadis are like women. I was newly married when my mother invited my wife and I out to dinner. My wife was pregnant and sullen. After we got home, she remarked that I never once turned to her to engage her in conversation. Ten years and two kids later, this little incident turned up in the divorce papers I was served. It was number two on a list of ten things she held against me. Which just goes to show that women and jihadis don’t need valid excuses. Any one will do to justify the mayhem they are intent on causing.

The cartoons must have polled well among these illiterates. They’ll use it till the cows come home. Meanwhile, we’ve all but forgotten 9/ll, the USS Cole, the Beirut barracks, Daniel Pearl and thousands of similar atrocities that they’ve committed and are continuing to commit. Our proverbial rug has ballooned into a virtual mountain.

We beat our own people into submission, lest they utter something that might offend the terrorists in the hope (we say) that they’ll stop being offended. I have news for you: They’ll never stop. The only thing that will satisfy them is if we were to bow down and lick their boots. And even then, they would think nothing of creasing our necks with their swords or sticking a knife in our backs.

I think our leaders know this. They’re using terrorists for their own purposes. They say they’re protecting us. We’ve been conditioned to depend on government for our safety. A collapse of government is deemed unthinkable. Immediately, we would find ourselves at the mercy of unspeakable terror.
I, for one, am beginning to doubt this premise. I think we’d probably be much better off without the heavy boot of government on our necks. Bloomberg, the mayor of New York, is the quintessential government (the sky is falling) nanny. He’s intent on taxing everything that reflects light. He’s taking his hits this week because New York’s streets weren’t plowed in a timely manner after this weekend‘s storm. He, who promises that government can do all things and more. Accordingly the people waited. They kept their shovels locked away. “We’re paying enough taxes,” they said. “Let the city take care of it.”

The city that taxes putting butter on a bagel couldn’t cut it. The streets remained unplowed; the airports remained closed; travelers were stranded. I dare say, if the people had been left alone to take care of their own business, they would have fared much better.

In Chennai, India, there is frequent flooding. The wells in many neighborhoods have run dry. Still the people manage and nothing ever comes to a standstill. There are thousands of businesses that open and close every day. If they provide a good service, word spreads and they survive. In New York it takes an act of Congress to hire a single person to do so much as carry a sandwich board. It’s no wonder people are moving out.

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Who's the Drone?

The little grocery around the corner in Chennai where we shop is a busy place. Often there’s not even enough room to enter. You have to make known what you want with hand signals above the heads of other customers like they do on the floor of the NYSE.

We generally get deliveries once a month. At that time we give the boy a list of the provisions we will need for the following month. In between we go there to pick up various sundry or forgotten items.

Chandamama handles thousands of items from eggs to fountain pens. They do not have a cash register and nothing is computerized. The man behind the counter knows where everything is. His partner makes his calculations in pencil amidst plenty of interruptions. At the end of the month, the boy brings over a hand-written bill. We check the arithmetic. It is always correct. Naturally, we think the two Tamil brothers at the grocery are very smart.

Me thinks that the robots are made to accommodate a workforce that is no longer educated to think. Picking up items that may have fallen off the shelf is not thinking. The thinking part is confined to the building, programming and maintenance of the bots. And who knows where on earth all this is done.

Your clip indicates that workers no longer have to remember where things are; neither do they have to go and get them. They simply reach and pack. Who exactly in this scheme of things is the drone?

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How Bad Can It Get?

Okay, I get it! Back in 2008, when Bush and Republicans were sent packing, we thought it couldn’t get any worse. We had hit bottom, we were told. We ignored all the signs - the storm clouds gathering in the distance: questions about the birth certificate, grades, allegiances, past associations, past affiliations - all the warnings. We accused those who counseled caution of alarmism or worse. A new day was dawning after all. The new administration would bring the economy back, heal racist divides, solve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, fix health care, lower the tides, etc. In fact, the new president was said to be able to walk on water. People would literally swoon in his presence. We referred to him as ‘the messiah'.

It didn’t take long for the veil to slip. We became concerned. We phoned and e-mailed our elected representatives in Washington. No response. We attended town hall events. No response. We marched en masse on Washington, hoping somebody would notice. No response. We voted…

At each juncture we were brimming with hope. Obama would hear us. He would change direction and pull us away from the brink. Instead America’s decline accelerated: jobs lost, inflation (though nobody is willing to admit it), mortgages underwater, ‘for sale’ signs sprouting like mushrooms, 401k’s drying up, dollar down.

Now we’re asking ourselves, “How bad can it get?” Plenty. Just look what’s happening over in Europe, in the Middle East, in S. America, in the Far East. Could all this be in anyway connected? I would have to say yes. All of it started right here at home. Anyone who fails to note the trench warfare aspect of what’s going on in Congress right now has their head buried in the sand. America is slipping.

And we’ve done it to ourselves. We haven’t done our homework. While we’re mindlessly humiliating grandmothers and cripples at our airports, we would never insist that our highest elected official produce all relevant papers.

Folks, we still don’t know who he is. And we’re growing increasingly suspicious. We leave things hanging to fester. Fact: North Korea and South Korea are literally - not technically - at war! China is at war with us. Iran is at war with us. Half the nations in South America are at war with us. The Left is at war with us. All have said so.

Which side is our president on? The answer gets murkier with each passing day. The implications are enormous. It’s the elephant in the room that everybody tries to ignore. It’s like trying to impose peace in the Middle East while one side refuses to recognize the other.

In a way I’m sorry that I shamed the Azulia Restaurant in Chennai into changing their menu that had a map of the Mediterranean region on its cover. It had left out the State of Israel. On my last visit there I noted that they had corrected the oversight. Now I realize it might well have been right in the first place. How much longer will they be printing maps with America on them?

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Eli's Comin'!

All posturing aside. I, for one, am growing increasingly uncomfortable with our political situation. Our deepest fears are never spoken. When in the past I have written of America devolving into some Venezuelan-type autocracy, I have done so as a warning of what may be in the mind of our president, keeping in mind that there is yet another side that may serve to counter it. Incredibly, what I have been saying about Obama’s Democrats has come true by degrees. Incredibly, the Dems have shown a willingness to go along with almost everything, progressives and Blue Dogs alike. Incredibly, the MSM has not yet turned against them. Incredibly, Republicans are still taking the bait.

It is all well and good that there is now a third party that seems to have some grip on reality. The Tea Party reflects the nation’s general unease. Yet the pundits dismiss it as a flash-in-the-pan; as either amusement or poison that has the real potential to split Obama’s opposition.

The continued criticism of our own is, frankly, disheartening. But, what is even more ominous is the unwillingness to realistically assess the man in The White House and to acknowledge that, no matter what happens in November, he will still hold all the cards.

Even the Dems are running from him this political season. Should not also Republicans be running? And yet I see no sign of it. They are happily snapping up the bait, taking good advantage of the voter’s mood.

I have previously spoken of the tsunami that hit the eastern coast of India some years ago. The water was said to have been sucked out to sea as far as the eye could see. The curious walked out there in blind wonder. I remember when Route 24 was first being built, the kids and I would go out there and innocently play ball and ride our bikes. Meanwhile, the deer already knew not to go there - like the beach dogs in Chennai, racing up our street en masse, away from the ocean. The people had a nasty surprise coming when the sea returned. Most didn’t survive it.

It’s the same with our Republican candidates. They don’t seem to have a clue about what they’re getting themselves into. They seem to think they’ll be going to the market for some normall horse trading. It never occurs to them to question how easy it was for them to get in(to the trap).

The Pledge to America was a naïve attempt to give some purpose to their mission. Haven’t they noticed that nobody paid much attention? That they had missed the mark? Horse trading is no longer the issue. The fuses are lit; the big tent is on fire. The Blue Dogs are howling and pulling on their chains. Eli’s comin‘!

http://pkoelliker.blogspot.com/

Too Many Hands Demand Greasing

Lou is not entirely wrong. He never is. Government Health Care as was proposed in the bill that was passed last term won’t work. It was never meant to work. It was to do two things only: (1) to project a show of political strength in an area that had never before been breached; and (2) to throw the entire system into a conniption à la Cloward and Piven.

That is why nobody who voted for it knew the least thing about it. The project was simply handed off to people who are well versed in the politics of confusion and disruption: the Apollo Alliance under the auspices of the Tides Center.

All lawmakers needed to know was that the project was in good, like-minded, left-leaning hands. The rest were strong-armed by party loyalty and procedure. The only defense available to them now is that they were naive and swayed by simple-minded rhetoric. We don’t need naïve lawmakers representing us. They will be removed.

Chennai has become the medical tourist capital of India. Any medical procedure, performed entirely in accordance with Western standards, can be had here for roughly 1/10 of what it would cost in America. This would also include round-trip airfare.

In my own case, I would need two sinus lifts, two bone grafts, two tooth implants and two crowns. All this would come to less than $2000.-. The reason is that here providers must vigorously compete. The business is entirely cash and carry. No interference from insurance companies, trial lawyers, and government red tape. It could be done so in America as well. It’s just that in America just too many hands demand greasing.

http://pkoelliker.blogspot.com/

POTUS Is Trying His Best

Obama is a big supporter of unions. This is hardly surprising in view of the fact that unions poured untold sums into his campaign. Now they expect something in return. POTUS is trying his best.

What no one seems to realize is that what you do to one, you’re also doing to the other. Favoring the union at the expense of all others will end up bankrupting both. Obama’s vision in this regard is extremely near-sighted. I think he feels that if he can fake it through the next election cycle, he’s home free.

From what I hear - as is the case in the country in general - there’s a split between the rank-and-file and the leadership. The former see their fortunes waning while seeing their leaders supporting policies they themselves oppose. Union membership, where it applies, is mandated; as is the withholding of union dues and all the rest.

Union members understand that if their salaries and benefit packages end up bankrupting the nation, they will find themselves out on the streets as well. At the same time, if their signed contracts are forced into renegotiation, a basic premise of American commerce begins to erode. If existing contracts can not be enforced, who will even bother to sign? Might as well have mob rule (which depends on how many knee caps can be broken), or shariah.

The point is, we’re still pretending that any of this can be saved, when we should be checking our survival equipment. To keep this illusion of ‘plenty’ going will from now on require an ever more intricate complex of smoke and mirrors. The time is long passed for simple solutions.

The stray dogs on Chennai’s Breezy Beach observe a different drummer. They pay no attention to humans, or to the dogs belonging to humans. They pay attention only to themselves. They exist in a parallel universe which one is privileged only to observe. The American public too must prepare for the inevitable break with its leadership. They will not be brutal as the French were in the aftermath of their revolution. They’ll be content to watch their self-proclaimed elite masters spin off into irrelevancy - a pod, crammed with polls, news media and professorial types, all jettisoned from the mother ship to tumble out into deep space has-been.

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Midterms: Pyrrhic Victory For Republicans

All this about the "Impossible Kick" by Brazilian Roberto Carlos in a 1997 match of Brazil vs France applies if you have two teams out on the field. In America you have only one team playing. Whatever split can be discerned is only between good players and bad players. There is no goalie guarding the opposition’s net. Even the bad players can make a goal (if the others will let them).

We still pretend we have a two-party system with checks and balances. We pretend we have something akin to a democracy - much as the Left pretends there is still ‘global warming’. The Left’s pretense succeeds precisely because there is no credible opposition.

Republicans winning overwhelmingly in the November congressional elections will not change this one-sided game. The Left will continue to win where it counts. Obama is the Left. He has already succeeded in reducing the legislative branches to ashes. Nothing either one can propose that differs from the official line can amount to more than spit in the wind.

These past two years, congress has broken all the rules of acceptable behavior. It is no longer viable as an institution. Obama has succeeded in essentially carving the guts out of it.

This leaves only Obama and the courts. Therein lies the last remaining friction. But even there Obama is rapidly gaining the edge. Must I remind that the Justice Department also is no longer independent? They don’t even try to hide it anymore.

The media, education, science - they’ve all aligned themselves with the hard Left. The Left is the only team playing. All the rest is BS.

Yesterday evening on returning from dinner in central Chennai, we passed a street along which every single shop sold furniture. Each one was brightly lit. The stop-and-go traffic gave me time to peer inside. The proprietors and their clerks seemed bored and were glued to the windows, idly staring at the steady stream of mechanized humanity streaming past their premises. From what I could see all of them were Muslim.

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EWR - MAA

Flew Jet Airways to India. When going to Chennai in particular, Jet flies there directly from Brussels. This saves a five-hour stop-over in Bombay. Still, it’s a long time to be up in the air. When you come back down, you’re happy to be just about anywhere.

The uncontested champ of the multiple forms of in-flight entertainments offered is the GPS screen that shows the plane’s progress. I, personally, can’t get enough of it. I watch for minute changes in outside temperature, speed and altitude. The screens rotate between maps and statistics in a multitude of languages.

I noted this time (and every other time) that Israel and any of its cities were not on the map. Meanwhile, all the countries and towns of the rest of the Middle East, including Mecca, were prominently represented. Apparently, Arabs are thought to fly into a rage whenever they hear or see any mention of Israel. And we all can count ourselves as enablers of that rage. This isn’t the first time I’ve seen maps without Israel on them.

If Arabs should succeed in wiping Israel off the map - as many are said to want to do - I can promise, there won’t be enough water on planet earth for anyone to get their hands back to clean.

Something Has Happened

The world’s economies are imploding. Not that it makes much difference now, but I ask myself, “Did it start with the housing bubble in the U.S.?” Did the insane policy by our government forcing the banks to lend to people who never had a prayer of paying it back result in generating of so much publicly traded toxic paper that it ended up compromising currencies world-wide?

If so, how long will it take for nations around the world to start pointing fingers stateside? Has their reluctance to do so been due to their own disregard of economic principles? Clearly, the integrity of the dollar has been hurt. So far, the banks have absorbed all the blame. At what point will banks drop the pretense and tell what really happened? That what they ended up doing was in response to existential threats from our political class who urged them: First, to continue lending; and, second, to deal with the fallout creatively in anyway they could - short of naming names, of course. As long as the current crop of political elites remained in power, banks were assured, they would be protected. And the banks played the game.

Market signals are oracles. Oracles have no reason to lie. Their integrity is impeccable. Only men can twist the veracity of said signals to suit their own designs – or to ignore them entirely. The rising price of gold, the instability of equity markets, and chronically high unemployment all expose the slight of human hands and the effort to achieve something outside the realm of possibility. Oracles are blunt. They scream the truth amidst the blizzard of whispered lies.

Incompetence? I hardly think so. The oracles are screaming louder. “Name the culprits!” they scream. “Understand their motives!” As the Obama administration (through its mouthpiece, The New York Times) continues to advocate a doubling down on failed policy, we can almost envision the pillow being lowered over the gasping head on the sickbed. Death panels. Rather than taking the screams as proof of potency; rather than taking the oracle’s screams as a warning; the screams must be stifled at all cost.

Last night there was an earthquake off the coast of India. At one thirty in the morning the birds awoke and went nuts. In Chennai, it was a pleasantly balmy night and air conditioners were for the most part turned off - windows open. It took most people till sun up to find out that something had happened.

The Whole Ball of Wax

There are really only two ways of looking at things – civilization, modernity, capitalism, politics, science and technology – in short, the whole ball of wax. In order to make a proper assessment, we must put it in perspective. Realize that this would apply only to humanity, a relatively small but, nevertheless, evolving part of what we regard as creation. Secondly, we must recognize all humanity as a single family, members of which are essentially predatory but each also painted with a broad streak of idealism that seeks to embrace eternity on his or her own terms.

The split (hence conflict) arises from a divergent premise: one, that assumes that such evolution has its limits and that we are rapidly approaching the end, that we must turn back at all costs; while the other rests secure in the faith that we can and must go forward by the grace of some higher being.

It came to mind last year, as I watched a bare-bodied Brahman man, dressed only in a loin cloth, rushing out of his gate and halfway into a Chennai street choked with vehicular traffic. There he stood bent but defiant, eyes wide, clearly confused and angry. He was soon driven back against the wall by the blaring horns of unyielding SUV’s and swerving motorbikes. I watched him as he gathered his rags and retreated beaten, back into his walled compound.

In India, where so many seek their sustenance on the top layer of multiple strata of (not yet cold) successive dynastical rule, the social tectonic plates sometimes shift to expose antiquity that is either struggling to catch up or that rejects any notion of what is termed ‘progress’ outright. The impulse is the same: feeling oneself out of sync with present day; spent and hopelessly inadequate, unable to cope.

In much of the world it turns to rage. The gap between rich and poor has grown too wide to be bridged by anything other than suspicion. The elders decide that the relentless bombardment of technological, political and social innovations must be stopped if the family is to survive. “We are being swamped,” they conclude. …and the source of all this evil inequity, of course, is always the lead horse: America.

Even within America itself, this divergence festers. Half the people advocate for free markets, free speech, freedom itself… while the other half is determined to shut it down. Interestingly, the reason given for the latter is to ‘save the planet’. Never mind that the science stinks. America leading the world over the cliff, they maintain, stinks as well. God is dead. We must save ourselves. We must at the very least allow time for the rest of the world to catch up. We must go back and find the lost sheep and bring back them into the fold.

With the whole world, and even with half of our own population, having lost faith in themselves, convinced that we have reached the end of the road, what chance do we - who still believe - have to forge ahead into new and exciting realms of discovery?

The state of our space program today is emblematic of the dilemma we face. The enthusiasm and imagination are still quite sufficient to conquer new frontiers. But it is being curbed by the faithless who insist on turning back. Eventually, even our spirit will yield to what defines the uninspired existence of animals.

Some claim that the human spirit will never extinguish. They point to art as being the next frontier. But even art is wholly dependent on an abundance of freedom and remains suspicious of the man with the plastic doggie bag stealthily following behind.

And the People Believe It...

Yesterday, there was a solar eclipse that could be seen from South India. Chennai, the capital of Tamil Nadu, only saw a partial, but the quality of the light was said to have changed perceptibly starting around 11 AM even there.

My wife tells me that all the eateries in the city had shuttered their establishments and kept their food away from the light. Where she works, the canteen was closed. She was told no food would be served that day. She was urged to eat the food she had brought from home well before 11 AM. Most of her co-workers fasted the entire day.

At home, the maid urged my wife’s mother to eat well before the eclipse was set to begin. Then she proceeded to gather up all the food in the house and keep it in dark places. Word had obviously gone out that the light during this particular eclipse would poison any food left out with radiation and make people sick. …and the people believed it.

This reminds me of the ‘global warming’ hoax that has advanced through to Gospel (truth), having been successfully forced across numerous farcical thresholds over the years. We are now at the point where big money and big egos hang in the balance. In India yesterday the effects of the ruse were confined to temporary hunger pangs. Whoever started it did it with the aim of demonstrating a facility to influence; to validate the potency of a presence. It’s the same idea that’s behind a blog or internet service that is distributed free of charge - to build up the numbers of a following to be used at a later date to potentially… (fill in the blank).

Initially, money is often the least of it. Raw influence may well be the primary motive. Once that has been achieved, money can be made to flow automatically. I still maintain that the media hatchet job on George W. Bush was no fluke. We all played along because we found it amusing (and, above all, non-threatening). On reflection, it was all based on nothing: oft repeated, transparent lies, perhaps. It brought us Obama. Now the coffers are wide open – bleeding our treasure. Would it be a stretch to surmise that today’s beneficiaries of our largesse were the same ones who orchestrated the whole thing in the first place with their (apparently harmless) opening gambits during Bush’s term?

Now the drive is on to demonize Obama. Every one of his ‘failures’ is blown out of all proportion, broadcast, paraded and celebrated on the internet and on talk radio. The man has grown gray hair under the never ending sh*t barrage. Is it a ruse like all the rest? I don’t think so. We’ve been way too smart by only half all along. We still behave as though we know what ‘failure’ actually signifies (to all concerned). We haven’t figured out yet that ‘failure’ to some means ‘success’ to America’s enemies. By some of us rooting for Obama to ‘succeed’, we are in effect rooting for our own destruction.