Jokingly

A bit of humour? Passable for normal readers. Differ? - please comment

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The word "politics" is derived from the word "poly", meaning "many", and the

word "ticks", meaning "blood sucking parasites."

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The celebrants were impressed with the centenarian's agility and good health, and asked how he managed to keep up his rigorous fitness regime.

“Gentlemen, I will tell you the secret of my success,” he cackled. “I have been in the open air day after day for some 75 years now.”

“Well, you see my wife and I were married 75 years ago. On our wedding night, we made a solemn pledge. Whenever we had a fight, the one who was proved wrong would go outside and take a walk.”

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Two attorneys went into a diner and ordered two drinks. Then they produced sandwiches from their briefcases and started to eat.

The owner became quite concerned and marched over and told them, "You can't eat your own sandwiches in here!"

The attorneys looked at each other, shrugged their shoulders and then exchanged sandwiches.

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"So let me get this straight," the prosecutor says to the defendant, "you came home from work early and found your wife in bed with a strange man."

"That's correct," says the defendant.

"Upon which," continues the prosecutor, "you take out a pistol and shoot your wife, killing her."

"That's correct," says the defendant.

"Then my question to you is, why did you shoot your wife and not her lover?" asked the prosecutor.

"It seemed easier," replied the defendant, "than shooting a different man every day!"

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Quote : Marriage is not a word but a sentence.

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There was this virgin that was going out on a date for the first time and she told her grandmother about it. So, the grandmother says sit here and let me tell you about those young boys.

He is going to try to kiss you, you are going to like that but, don't let him do that. He is going to try to feel your breast, you are going to like that but, don't let him do that.

He is going to try to put his hand between your legs, you are going to like that but, don't let him do that.

But most important, he is going to try to get on top of you and have his way with you. You are going to like that but, don't let him do that, it will disgrace the family.

With that bit of advise, the granddaughter went on her date and could not wait to tell her grandmother about it.

So, the next day she told her grandmother that her date went just like she had said. But, she said, “grandmother, I didn't let him disgrace the family”. When he tried that I turned him over, got on top of him and disgraced his family.

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The secretary came in late for work the third day in a row. The boss called her into his office and said, “Now look Sharon, I know we had a wild fling for a while, but that’s over. I expect you to conduct yourself like any other employee around here. Who told you, you could come and go as you please around here?”

Sharon simply smiled, lit up a cigarette, and while exhaling said, “My lawyer.”

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“Ever since we got married, my wife has tried to change me. She got me to stop drinking, smoking and running around until all hours of the night. She taught me how to dress well, enjoy the fine arts, gourmet cooking, classical music, even how to invest in the stock market.”

“Sounds like you may be bitter because she changed you so drastically,” remarked his friend.

“I’m not bitter. Now that I’m so improved, she just isn’t good enough for me.”

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Freedom of thought

The Internet was created by a few visionaries, who wanted a world of free thought and expression, ideas, dreams and vision, a world beyond boundaries - a freedom of a different dimension, away from  all controls, and unrestricted by the world governed by the political kind. It was a wonderful dream. Sadly, the creators of the internet envisaged only in the goodness of men and they were proved wrong. So, as the internet spread into new horizons as it was meant to, the dream did not last very long.

The first assault on that was the world of commerce and consumerism. Along with it came the crackers  and other lunatics and logically followed by the "undesired" government controls. There were protests, loud and clear - but, it was only from a few, so it was drowned in the, cacophony of coloured dangers and good intentions.

However, that did not stifle or stop the power and reach of internet as it was an open ended idea - only limited by mans imagination. Internet took everything in it's stride - growing as a platform and integrating every new idea and invention into and within it.

Every day, as the internet connectivity took new strides and advanced, it gave more power, more information and far more reach to the individual. Many good people used this vehicle to create a better world for themselves and humanity in general. The same tool in others' hands were used for nefarious purposes - to satiate their greed and lust or their personal or collective agendas. This called for more laws and more controls by the government. By now the stifled protests remained just that. In fact, as some groups started terrorising the world people started voluntarily surrendering their liberties to their government - because, "liberty" in a sense has been lost for ever!

Today, governments are dictating how internet will be used. They are perforce invited to stifle it in order to protect themselves from that one invisible enemy at a tremendous cost to the personal liberties and the freedom envisaged by their creators. While Blackberry is being forced by the Indian government to reveal their codes of their intellectual properties, the US is mulling over laws to force design changes in software for emails, other normally used voice communication tools and social networking sites.

Yet, internet will grow. Most men will use it to realise their dreams - mostly good. Few will thwart and misuse it for their evil designs. We can only hope the evil will stop. If it doesn't, there will come a day when you can never be sure the email that you sent will reach their intended destination or not at all.

Then, we can switch to snail mail?

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A manifestation of that freedom is enjoyed by Priya today in Spain, as expressed in her post :

"Day 11,12,13 - Valdelavilla: a tiny tiny Spanish village. The sun shines differently here, everything is golden, everything is warm. Something changed inside me. I´m discovering who I am as I´m talking to the Spaniards about myself. I came here to teach them English but instead I´m the one learning about life."

 Thought of adding some quotes related to freedom, that come to mind in the current environment :

There may be times when we are powerless to prevent injustice, but there must never be a time when we fail to protest.  - Elie Wiesel (A holocaust survivor)

 

When the Nazis came for the communists,
I remained silent;
I was not a communist.
When they locked up the social democrats,
I remained silent;
I was not a social democrat.
When they came for the trade unionists,
I did not speak out,
I was not a trade unionists.
When they came for the Jews,
I remained silent,
I was not a Jew.
When they came for me,
There was no one left to speak out.
- Martin Niemoller

We must not permit our respect for the dead or our sympathy for the living to lead us into an act of injustice to the balance of the living. - Davy Crockett

True patriotism hates injustice in its own land more than anywhere else.  - Clarence Darrow

There is no flag large enough to cover the shame of killing innocent people. - Howard Zinn

There is no calamity which a great nation can invite which equals that which follows a supine submission to wrong and injustice and the consequent loss of national self-respect and honor, beneath which are shielded and defended a people's safety and greatness.  - Eldridge Cleaver

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Change you desire

The progress India has made in the last two decades have been exemplary. Much of this has been foreseen by experts based on the trends in the late eighties. The forecast and the achievement has been basically driven the private sector, and they have certainly delivered. This has given us a lot of financial clout in the international arena. Needless to say, in the present state, when an Indian acquires some financial clout it is but natural that the muscles twitch. So, we have seen, in the recent past, true to our culture, there has been instances where India has not shied away from flexing it's financial muscle, much to the exasperation of few other countries!

Still, there are areas where a lot remain to be done. None of those economic benefits have reached a third of our population - which is living in abject poverty. Our infrastructure is dismally third world. We have problems of very serious nature in half the number of states of our country. A third of our country is more or less, beyond the governance of our polity. Worse, corruption and apathy at all levels is visible clearly in every facet of our life and governance.

Very good suggestions have been given by many great people on how to remedy the situation. In fact, most people agree that few of these suggestions, if implemented, can get us on the road to greatness as a nation, in a very short time. Yet, nothing is done. Things are getting worse every day. We have the financial resources to do many things - but the fruits of that is not enjoyed by the average citizen least of all, the poor, who actually need it badly.

Development is not all about becoming a financial superpower. It also should ensure the spiritual development of the individual and community. Education and literacy is one part of it. The moral and ethical development is the other essential. Though we boast about our "age old culture" no one will dispute that it has either seen a lot of erosion, or more realistically it never existed. We can not fault anyone for making such a comment today, if we go around observing the news and events round the country.

"If you want to civilize a man, you have to start from the grandmother" - is a very common quote. We are in somewhat of a similar situation. The remedy has not yet started, but this generation has the responsibility to take the "grandmother's" station, so that it can help the future generation to attain some degree of moral and ethical civility. When I see some kids of today, it appears their parents have been very successful in keeping that "good part of our ancient culture" well hidden from their children. Maybe, in the mad rush for  gold they did not have the time, or the inclination to inculcate those qualities - or, they realized that these qualities are only a hindrance in this race for the pot of gold.

Whatever the reason, if you need to brush up on some things that need to be done to see future generations in a better position - a small article by Chetan Bhagat in today's Times of India, will help everyone. It is a very simple and well written article - and will not give you a headache. In fact, you may well enjoy reading it. I would go so far as to suggest that everyone educated in English should read it, and if possible - translate it into their own language and essentially into thier lifestyle!

Please read the article which you can access by clicking on this - or by copying and pasting the link below into your browser address bar :

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/6629214.cms

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Quotes

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Aristotle Bacon F Butler S Carlyle T Carver G W Confucius Disraeli Dryden J Emerson RW Franklin B Fuller T Gandhi Horace Hugo V Ibsen H Jefferson T Johnson S Lao-tse Montaigne Napoleon

Q U O T E S Categorised by Authors To see the quotes by the various authors given in the right and left panels, click the corresponding radio buttons! Adapted by CR on the Script by Sandeep Gangadharan.

Nietzsche F Ovid Parker D Pascal Quarles F Quintilian Rogers W Roosevelt F Russell B Seneca Shakespeare Shaw G B Syrus P Thoreau Twain M Virgil Voltaire Wilde O X Malcolm Zimmerman

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Cricket Humour

"Bomber" Wells, a spin bowler and great character, played for Gloucestershire and Nottinghamshire. He used to bat at No.11 since one couldn't bat any lower. Of him, they used to paraphrase Denis Compton's famous words describing an equally inept runner:

"When he shouts 'YES" for a run, it is merely the basis for further negotiations!"

Incidentally, Compton was no better. John Warr said, of Compton " He was the only person who would call you for a run and wish you luck at the same time."

Anyway, when Wells played for Gloucestershire, he had an equally horrendous runner as the No.10. During a county match, horror of horrors - both got injured.

*Both* opted for runners when it was their turn to bat. Bomber played a ball on the off, called for a run, forgot he had a runner and ran himself. Ditto at the other end. In the melee, someone decided that a second run was on. Now we had *all four* running. Due to the confusion and constant shouts of "YES" "NO", eventually, *all* of them ran to the same end.

Note - at this point in time, the entire ground is rolling on the floor laughing their behinds out. One of the fielders - brave lad - stops laughing for a minute, picks the ball and throws down the wicket at the other end. Umpire Alec Skelding looks very seriously at the four and calmly informs them " One of you buggers is out. I don't know which. *You* decide and inform the bloody scorers!"

(Incident described in "From the Pavilion End" by Harold "Dickie" Bird)

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UN Poverty Index

On one hand we are proud of the progress India has made in a few select areas. On the other hand, there is great concern in areas where India has failed miserably.

One area of deep concern is that we have not been able to provide proper food to 238 million of our own people, even after 63 years of independence. These figures as per the UN statistics - so, we can safely trust that the actual figures will be higher - given our bureaucrats natural propensity to fudge. Now, this was made out to look like an insurmountable problem by our politicians - but it is not. Actually, if we had passed on the food grains that rotted in the rain due to lack of proper storage, it would have fed many of these people for a few months! Further, it is not very comforting to know that next year is going to be a bumper year as far as food grains are concerned - and our storage go-downs are full.

The accompanying picture shows how we compare with the world on "Poverty trends". Does it give any of us much pride to know that China is placed far better than us? If that is understandable, even Pakistan has a better standing than us - thanks to all the American aid. But what is worse is, vast tracts of Africa also shames us. So, whither progress?

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Tweet

Kashmir Solution?

Dr Amitabh Mattoo's ten commandments for saving Kashmir.

(5 for the centre, 3 for the state government and 2 for the people of Kashmir)

For New Delhi

1. Do not live in Denial: accept that there is an uprising, and admit your mistakes!
2. Understand what the youth want: conduct a stakeholder analysis and build trust
3. Create the conditions for an uninterrupted sustained dialogue
4. Recognize that autonomy or self governance in J&K will not balkanize India
5. Create a Truth and Reconciliation Commission

For the state government

1. Recognize your own failures, do not always blame Delhi
2. Reach out to the opposition, mainstream and separatist
3. Create the conditions for an internal reconciliation

For the people of Kashmir

1. Recognize the limits of the possible
2. Discover the other India beyond security forces and corrupt politicans and make use of the opportunity it offers.

Above is Dr Mattoo's solution to the Kashmir crisis. This appears very reasonable, in fact, too reasonable. If this is what the youth wants, then why are they getting killed? They already have it. Let them use their energy to make a corruption free state. Then there will be prosperity for all - and all India will thank them and perhaps, follow them too.

Dr Mattoo also exposes on the unfettered freedom that this democracy offers by that one last statement. Remember, a nobody in Jarkhand became a minister when the new state was formed. In five years time, he exploited and sold off mines of the state for personal gains, and made thousands of crores - and did not know what to do with it and his ignorance landed him in jail. He will soone come out of it "rule" Jarkhand again even as the Enforcement Department is struggling to count the thousands of crores he made in five years. He will come out because of the power of the money he has stashed away, and because of the whole system (political, judicial and all other democratic institution - all have great affinity to wealth!) will bend backward to accomodate him in part exchange. Unfortunately. That is the unfettered opportunity this democracy offers - at one end of the spectrum.

I only hope you guys will choose the other end.

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The Shame of India - 3

Talking about "Swiss Bank Accounts", today I tweeted (in two parts), "Offshore banking is a 11 trillion dollar industry. It encourages massive tax evasion and instead of investment into development ... it creates avenues for money laundering, terrorism, drug trade, weapons dealing, sex trafficking, and other international crimes".

These facts and figures are sourced from Financial Taskforce, and are put out by researchers who have done their homework very well. Since they go by available records, we can safely assume that the actual figures could be more but, certainly not less.

A figure of 1 trillion is difficult to visualise. Here are some other ways to think about it :

• $1 trillion was a little less than half of the entire developing worlds’ government revenue in 2007 ($2.5 trillion), which means that for every $2.50 those governments earned, $1 crept out of their countries.

• $1 trillion was about 8% of the entire developing worlds’ income or $181 per person.  This is particularly significant given the fact that the average annual income of the developing world is only $2,366 per year.

• $181 per person is more than the developing world’s total health spending per person ($114 per person)

• $1 trillion is 500 times what the World Bank will spend on emergency food aid in the next two years

• If the $1 trillion had been taxed, it would have generated an additional $144.5-$170 billion in government revenue for the developing world, in 2006 alone (assumes an average 17% tax rate).

1 trillion dollars is not very easy to put into perspective. Especially for us Indians. Our reach only goes just over a billion in population - and that too is very hard to visualise, isn't it? So, let us put our Indian caps and see what a trillion dollar mean.

As I said, India's population crossed 1 billion over a decade back. Now what is 1 billion? It is one thousand million - and each million is thousand thousand or 10 Lakhs. Now reverting to US$ @ Rs.50 for convenience (actual is approx. 46), we have $1 million as Rs. 500 lakhs - or 5 crores. And, 1 billion is 5000 crores, and a trillion is thousand times 5000 crores.

Our Government does not want to know, but we are told that corrupt Indians own at least US$1.4 Trillion of that 11 Trillion - if not more! These are figures till 2007. Remember these figures does not include the massive moneys siphoned in the 2G Spectrum scam, CWG scam and other's yet to be reported scams including hundreds of smaller scams.

Just imagine what India could have done if all that money was available for development?  

(Rajeev Gandhi, as a politician, speaking the truth on a rare occasion,  had said, "out of every Rs.100 spent for development, only Rs.15 reached the people")

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The Shame of India-2

NEW DELHI: Former Law minister Shanti Bhushan has submitted a list of 16 former Chief Justices of India saying that 8 of them were definitely corrupt. Bhushan has also dared the apex court to send him to jail for contempt of court. 

Bhusan, who was Law minister in the Morarji Desai government, claimed six of the CJIs were honest and he could not comment on the remaining two judges. He submitted the name of eight "corrupt judges" to the Supreme Court. 

Bhushan had written an article in 'Tehelka' magazine about the corrupt judges in Supreme Court after which the apex court started a contempt proceeding against him.

Read more: The eight allegedly corrupt CJIs feature among a list of 16 prepared by Bhushan—comprising Justices Ranganath Mishra, K N Singh, M H Kania, L M Sharma, M N Venkatachalliah, A M Ahmadi, J S Verma, M M Punchhi, A S Anand, S P Bharucha, B N Kirpal, G B Patnaik, Rajendra Babu, R C Lahoti, V N Khare and Y K Sabharwal. Terming eight among the list as "definitely corrupt", Bhushan put their names in a sealed cover and submitted it to the Supreme Court and virtually dared it to open it and read out the contents.

He said of the 16 on his list, "six were definitely honest and about the remaining two, a definite opinion cannot be expressed whether they were honest or corrupt"

Classic case of the fence eating the garden? (Just confirms my earlier blog)

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The Indian Dream Tablet

You must surely remember the Rs.1500 Indian laptop/tablet for students that was announced with much fanfare by the HRD ministry more than a month back. At first, the tech community was rightfully skeptical, anyone would doubt such claims, after the Rs.500 laptop debacle which had shamed the Indian Govt before. "In 2011, the Sun, will rise for the children of India”, proclaimed HRD Minister, Kapil Sibal at the launch of the tablet. The minister has also promised that million of units of the laptop/tablet will be produced soon though there was no fixed date as to when it would be unveiled in the retail market.

A company called HiVision had shown off a new Android tablet at this years CeBIT, and whilst the specifications aren’t all that impressive, the price is as the company expects to sell their new Android tablet for under $100. So what do you get for your $100?

The HiVision SpeedPad features a Samsung 6410, 800MHz (ARM 11) processor, 2GB of storage and 256MB of DDR 2 RAM, there is also integrated 802.11 b/g WiFi. Other specifications include support for external 3G, Bluetooth, GPS connections via USB, and it will come with a range of software built in which will include a web browser, email, Google Maps, a clock, camera, video camera and messaging.

It looks like the HiVision SpeedPad will give you around six hours of usage on the built in 4200mAh battery, not bad for under $100, there are no details as yet on when it will hit the stores though.

Apparently, the HRD ministry was just planning to buy the tablets from China in bulk, subsidize them to reach the $35 target price and was hoping that no one would notice. The contract awarded to HCL was just for testing the tablets, not for manufacturing them!

Hope this sees the light of the day though - because, the product is well worth it - whatever the source!

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The Shame of India

Pratyush Sinha, Chief Vigilance Commissioner, retired last week. Very few people are aware of what he did while in office, or more precisely what he was allowed to do while in office. Not many people care either, because there is very less hope of correcting this setup, as it exists.

After coming out of office, after a lifetime spent in babudom, he made an interesting observation. In a speech, he said that one-third of Indians were "utterly corrupt" and half were "borderline" while a fifth cannot be corrupted under any circumstance.

To put it in proper order, it means :

20% of Indians are not corrupt, meaning they cannot be easily lured.
50% are borderline, meaning they don't mind being corrupt "if the price is good" while
30% are utterly corrupt, meaning they will steel from their mother's corpse, even while people are looking.

To an average Indian, this is something that he has always known. It is no secret that India is 84th in the "Transparency International Index" - which rates us as one of the most corrupt countries of the world. So, I don't know anyone who can dispute the statement of the ex-CVC. Some may want to upgrade the figures - as per their own experiences. But remember, this is from a babu who has been in the thick of things within the system and was appointed to be vigilant about it! I must say he has been vigilant, so he should be an authority on this.

Yesterday, speaking at a national convention of Central Information Commission, Veerappa Moily, one of the ministers overseeing corruption in the present cabinet, was very critical of the ex-CVC. He called for action to be taken against the ex-CVC for this "travesty of truth" and said the official owed an apology to the nation, because he has "shamed" the nation!

Now, Moily believes that he and his colleagues can live in eternal corruption, supporting each other. He is not bothered of what the world thinks of us - because on every index we fail. Only, he doesn't want the truth to be told loudly - because that shames the nation. It does not shame him and his colleagues nor are they willing to do anything to eradicate corruption! Easier to eradicate people like the ex-CVC? And so, in blissful ignorance, life goes on for the corrupt in this shamed nation!

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The Mallu Brigade.

The who's who of bureaucratic power elite in India is a breathtaking constellation of Malayalees yet the present Kerala Govt blames everything on Delhi instead of taking advantage of the situation!

In the national pantheon of the influential and the powerful, Kerala rules; quite disproportionate to its size and standing in national affairs.

The roll call of the Malayalees in Delhi reads like a who's who of the Indian bureaucracy.

The immediate and the latest to ascend the stairway to power in the national capital from Kerala is P J Thomas, who has just taken over the critical position of the Chief Vigilance Commissioner.

He is unlikely to feel home sick in Delhi. He may even think the capital too crowded with denizens from God's Own Country. For keeping him company in the sanctum sanctorum of bureaucratic elite in India is a whole gaggle of them. The list is indeed a breathtaking constellation of Malayalees.

Take a look:

K M Chandrasekhar, Cabinet Secretary

Shiv Shankar Menon, National Security Advisor (NSA)
Nirupama Rao, Foreign Secretary
P J Thomas, Chief Vigilance Commissioner
T K A Nair, Prinicipal Secretary to the Prime Minister

Madhavan Nambiar, Aviation Secretary

G K Pillai, Home Secretary

The list is further extended if you include those who were not born in Kerala, but belong to the Kerala cadre of the Indian civil service. For instance, Vinod Rai, Comptroller and Auditor General of India and Sudha Pillai, Planning Commission Secretary. And the list gets even heavier if you add the relatively unknown but important functionaries like P P Madhavan Namboodiri, one of the private secretaries of Congress party president Sonia Gandhi, whose son's wedding Rahul Gandhi graced recently at Thrissur.

However, Kerala's tryst with the bureaucracy is nothing new. It was V P Menon who led the way - he graduated from a one-finger typist to become the most important Indian in Viceroy Mountbatten's staff - and can be said to be the first and original Malayalee bureaucrat to reach the top of the power chart.

Many have followed in his wake, since Independence. Most through the 'steelframe of the Raj' - the vaunted Indian Administrative Service. And, the Indian Foreign Service. The current NSA's family history is a testimony to the Malayalee penchant for babudom - his father P N Menon was an IFS alumni and retired as India's ambassador to Yugoslavia. His grandfather K P S Menon (senior) was India's first foreign secretary, while his uncle K P S Menon (Jr), was the former Indian ambassador to China.

This is apart from hundreds other Malayalees from the various other All India services and, not to forget, the thousands of the Malayalees in the national capital who are less venerated but do their bit in the various government offices as junior and middle-level staff with that peculiar Malayalee obsessions for 'rules' and going by the book. Of course, Politicians are excluded from this list even though there are quite a few of them in Delhi.

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The Pastor and the Imam

The Christian pastor in Florida has finally given up the idea of burning the Quran. His insistence of going ahead with his plan in spite of international condemnation was baffling to everyone, except perhaps, to himself and his congregation. Better sense has prevailed and he has decided to do the world a favour, after basking in the sun for a few days.

However bizarre the whole episode, it should make all right thinking people to pause and think. There are many factors in this matter that should worry every rational person because this brings to the fore many of the inadequacies in society that is cause for many of the current social turbulence that we are unwittingly subjected to.  

We have seen the interplay of religious fundamentalism and cultural insecurity, both feeding from one another out of ignorant and false misinterpretations of the unworthy religious leaders. These leaders, not unlike most of our politicians, are eager to widen their reach and influence. They come out with "populist" interpretation of religion and culture which the ignorant cultural “have-nots” gobble up. The very fact that this non-entity of a pastor has now basked in the limelight of international attention for a brief moment, must have given many a lunatic fringe-man great ideas to grab humanity by it's neck and shake it up!

Now that this guy has relented, and there is a collective sigh from the world at large, let us examine some of the social debris this has brought to the surface.

·        An Imam wants to build a community centre near “ground-zero” to which there is widespread opposition from a large cross-section of people. What should this Imam, being the custodian of a great religion which claims “peace” to be central to its ideology do? Either, he should try and convince and win the community’s consent or he should give up his idea and relocate the centre to a more congenial environment. This will surely earn him and the religion more respect and tolerance from the society he is living in.

·        By being adamant and stubborn, he has not only compromised the ideals of his own faith, he has antagonized a wider section of people not only to the idea of the community center – but to the tenets of Islam.

·        Another religious man, from across the land, a pastor seizes this opportunity to take the world stage and announce the burning of the most holy book of Islam. “Jesus would approve his plan”, he announces – as if, he is earning approval ratings from Jesus!

·        The world took notice, because this was an unthinkable act. An act that could snowball and evoke a lot of passion and violence. If some crank wanted to burn the bible symbolically, perhaps nobody would have actually cared. That should have been the reaction, but the media whipped up passions and made it a burning issue. Where there are ready-made guys who are willing to blow themselves and his fellowmen up in the name of Jihad, then everyone and their dogs and governments take notice.

·        So, some started sharpening knives. Few got ready to watch the fun and profit from it. Many were concerned and helpless.  It was the fodder the media thrives on. Every world leader and many other worthies added their own sound bites to this din. Every one, from Obama to Salman, and Tom to Lalu Prasad condemned the act obviously. However, the underlying fear expressed was “retaliation” from the Islamic world, in terms of escalated violence from the extremists. One fearing for the American citizen, the other eying the vote bank!

·        This, in effect, demolished the very theory that Islam is a religion of “Peace” and gives credence to the perception that Islam is a religion of reactionaries.

·        While canceling his plans to burn the Quran in his obscure Church the “good” Pastor said that he is relenting as the Imam has agreed to relocate the community center. Right or wrong, if this was a step-down platform the pastor had created to save face, the Imam could have used the same pedestal to take a moral high ground to make a very significant and telling statement.

·        Instead, the Imam was quick to issue a rebuttal.  “We are not going to toy with our religion or any other. Nor are we going to barter. We are here to extend our hands to build peace and harmony," he said – meaning the plans for the community center stays as scheduled.

·        By saying this, he has again compromised not only his position, or his community’s but he is showing his own faith in a bad light. By taking a stubborn position, he is all out to shatter the very peace and harmony he professes.

·        History is behind us. We cannot alter what has happened, nor can we ever completely compensate the victims of real or perceived historic injustices. What is possible is to ensure that we do not do anything to vitiate the present to such an extent that future generations will reap the fruits of mistrust and hatred we sow.

·        Let not the religious and communal fervor climb such heights that it isolates and marginalizes the community as a whole – especially in a democratic country that is honor bound to protect everyone’s rights, and grants everyone equal opportunities. The only way forward is to live in peace and harmony – and do everything to promote it, without going into contentious issues that can only satiate individual egos.

This whole episode highlights the stark truth in the quote "With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion."  — Steven Weinberg

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