On August 31, 2010 President Obama officially called to an end the war in Iraq. I use the word officially because of the US’s long standing tradition of adhering to the Hotel California principle of troop withdrawal. That is they may check out any time, but they will never leave. Which is why they still have a significant military presence in Europe, Japan, and Korea, decades after they ceased to be theaters of war. Now Iraq will be added to that long list with 50,000 US servicemen staying back, post-withdrawal, to “support” the Iraqi government.
So Mohammed Amir and Mohammed Asif bowl no-balls on demand and Salman Butt, as the captain, butts them a few buts. Big deal. I don’t get what the uproar is all about honestly. If you have a white tiger in your zoo, you don’t expect it to smell of fresh roses– now do you? Then why for crying out loud do you expect players of a country that siphons off relief money, a country whose entire team has been shown to be corrupt by Justice Qauyyum, where all the players (save those at the end of their careers and hence worthless) proven to be crooks by their own legal system were let go with minor raps on the knuckles, to be as honest as Manoj Kumar? Of course they are as bent as the proverbial fiddler’s elbow (or as they say in Pakistan as bent as Shoaib Akthar’s arm at moment of delivery) and we all love them for it. So I say well-done Amir-Asif for reminding us once again as to the gentle delights that Pakistan brings to the world of cricket.
What? You say they have cheated? I don’t think anyone can claim to have been defrauded here unless that person is Zardari (last in the news for not paying the government of Turkey USD 8000 for four female “guides” supplied to him for “educational” purpose). He is the only one who has been hard-done by, having been deprived of his ten-per-cent per-transaction cut. And he has realized that too, asking for a detailed probe into the whole incident [Link] showing the same alacrity and seriousness with which he investigated the 26/11 attacks.
And yet another final against Sri Lanka finishes with a 100 ball 67 runs from the world’s most highly paid cricketer, an innings where one would be forgiven for thinking that “captain aap ka pen to out (as per the ad I saw on Ten Sports)” was saving his ink for the really significant cricket ahead—-the T20 Championship League, significant in the monetary sense at least.
While the result of any tri-angular tournament involving Sri Lanka has as much effect on me as the news of an impending Emran Hasmi release (namely that of absolute couldn’t-care-less-ness) [the best moment of this series being the gigantic Happy Birthday Malinga pictures on the scoreboard with him dressed like Jeetendra in white], the cricket was significant in the sense that it should give us cricket fans some pause to think about the state of India’s team as we head into the last preparatory lap before the World Cup 2011.
Watching Dinesh Katrik walk all about trying to find the gap, something he could do very well once upon a time as evidenced by this famous picture [Link], one could see why still much of our World Cup hopes rest on Sachin Ramesh Tendulkar, his fitness and his form. Just like every World Cup from the 90s. Assuming Sachin is available and firing, our opening pair is formidable. Accepted. Number three slot is also pretty strong—-I stop short of calling it formidable because Gautam Gambhir has climbed down somewhat from the spectacular heights he had attained in 2008 and 2009, though I am sure his running around with a guy in the recent Karbon advertisement has nothing to do with the loss of his mo-jo.
The whole Ground Zero mosque/Islamic prayer center has been in the eye of heated debate in the US for the past few weeks, threatening to become yet another political fire-storm for a floundering Obama administration.
At the heart of the whole debate, it is a very straightforward issue. The US constitution guarantees freedom of religion and the right of free expression. Provided the proposed mosque meets city zoning laws, there is really nothing one can do to prevent it from being constructed. The US constitution, unlike the Indian one, very rightfully does not consider “not hurting of sentiments” to be a conditionality of constitutional rights, since “protected behavior”, by its very definition, is one that hurts someone or the other which is of course why it needs to be protected through constitutional guarantees in the first place. Given that, the legal rights of those constructing the mosque are absolutely supreme and those who have a problem with it (even though they be the majority) can either try to change the US constitution or suck it. Simple.
On August 20 2004, Random Thoughts of a Demented Mind was born. Now many of you readers, the regulars and definitely the drive-bys might consider this silly or borderline kooky that someone would consider the anniversary of a blog worth remembering and devoting a whole post to. But for me this entity made up of bits, suspended in the conceptual space called the Internet, populated by my thoughts and supported by technology has assumed a life of its own as I fuss over it, worry about how it looks, change its clothes from time to time, clean the dirt that trolls and advertisers leave behind, fret about illnesses brought about by server crashes and spend days, months and years just watching it grow. And so in this vein of anthropomorphizing, blog birthdays become significant events if only because they serve as an excuse to stop awhile, cut a cake and blow a candle. Or six.
R