This blog is sleeping, for now. November 5, 2009

I figure blogging is for celebrities or for those who want ’social networking’ (they almost always seem to be women)

As I am neither a celebrity nor am I looking for ‘online friends’, I am not motivated to blog. Nor do I read blogs anymore, because I can hardly keep up with the books I own, occasional news and then there is Public Library that I have rediscovered, and am utterly amazed to notice how much old and latest fiction and non fiction collections it has.

Oh, and I also note that most of my favorites authors of fiction and non fiction: Saul Bellow, Philip Roth, P.J. O’ Rourke, Bill Bryson (and many more) have neither blogged nor read blogs, even as some of them lived through the golden age of internet.

On the other hand, I respect what I have written in the past though some of it looks like scribbles, and as thoughts evolve I don’t really support everything I have written in the past… yet I respect it. If someone, may indeed wander in here and may find something useful, do leave a comment. I shall try to get back to you.

Love, peace and pinches on your butts,

You take care, readers.

What June already? June 14, 2009

Time surely goes fast.  I am glad that my last post was in April, which I didn’t even remember writing. I thought I haven’t written anything on here for months.  I am fine, and alive.

I am very determined to publish as a writer. I have been writing and making submissions for at least 2 years. So far I have had dozens (if not hundreds) of rejections. First time writers must persist, I have been told.  Guess what???…. my first article is being published in an American magazine, albeit a small magazine.  I am not going to mention when and where because I want to see it in print first and then let you know. Yes, fucking superstitions and all. Ho ho ho. Did I write Fuck? I’m really sorry, I’m not supposed to write Fuck words. Some people maybe offended by Fuck words. Sorry about writing FUCK. Sorry.

In praise of Truman Capote and Stephen King November 2, 2008

I think I can safely say that I like Stephen King much better as a person than his writing. I mean I really liked the guy whenever I heard his interviews or listened to his audio commentaries.

Doubtlessly, as a long time student and lover of Literature I was taught to dislike anything that is not classic or ‘good’ literature that ‘critics’ admire. Anyway, most of the premises of horror fiction are silly and very implausible. If you ask me what is my favorite horror piece of literature Truman Capote’s true crime (In Cold Blood) laced with his literary coloring got to be somewhere at the top. In cold blood is scary, haunting, disturbing.

It is really devastating how Capote first makes us fall in love with the whole clutter family and then vividly and gradually leads us to their slaughter at the hands of some petty criminals. I think the scariest part of the novel is where Perry Smith actually describes the crime scene, the way they drive their car up to the clutter property in a moonlit night. They quibble whether they should rob that household and then finally jump into it and finally almost out of frustration and anger of not getting what they wanted they decided to kill all members of Clutter family, one by one while all this time in his Christian naivety Mr. Clutter is being polite to them and begging them to leave. I guess I like psychological horror (Like American Psycho : Click to read my review)and not really spiritual horror though TheExorcist would be a good Exception.

Warning: A few spoilers—Just this week I decided to give Stephen King’s short story collection, Night Shift
a go. I really liked some of the short stories, especially ones where there are no evil spirits, monsters lurking around. I also found to my surprise that Stephen King mostly uses New England as his setting. I am a sucker for cold, snow, fog. And Mr. King’s works are full of those descriptions. I absolutely loved the Children of Corn but hated its ending. I loved the story up to the point the guy enters that ancient church. I’ve rarely read something that got my juices flowing that well. The descriptions of their fighting while driving in a car through the never-never land of Nebraskan wilderness, full of never ending corn fields, the sudden crash with a small boy, their stopping in the middle of nowhere to inspect the boy, the realization that the boy was actually killed before he hit the speeding car and the tension that follows later while they are in the car again. Cool stuff.

Another story that I really loved was The Last Rung. It was a perfect mix of adventure, thrill, childhood nostalgia, emotions, horror, sibling love and one big perfect heart break at the end. Go read it.

I am not sure if I want to read more of Stephen King straight away. I tried Bag of Bones once but lost interest. But I will be more open to reading some more of Stephen King’s work that display his ability to scare psychologically, instead of spiritual horror. But anyway, I kind of understand why people call him the King of Horror. It is a title that he rightfully deserves.

Is Honesty always the best policy? September 13, 2008

The title of this post is the cosmic and philosophical question that has been ringing in my mind after this incident. I would mention to you events of this Saturday morning. You can decide what to make of it.

Friday night I went to bed quite late after watching Woody Allen’s Melinda and Melinda. I thought it was a very entertaining movie especially because of Will Farrel who is a wonderful comedian. Also loved his acting in another romantic comedy Stranger than Fiction. After the movie was over I listened to BBC World Service. After sentencing myself to the usual bad news of war, starvation, corruption, uncertainty, I went to uneasy and disturbed sleep at around 3:30am.

Saturday morning, I got up at 10:30am, tired and weary. A hot cup of instant black coffee assured me I was still alive. Being a nerd, I always order my little weekly grocery online. I had to pick my order before midday when the online pick up service closes. I drove to be there at 11:30am, rang the door bell that is connected to someone’s pager, a minute later the shutter opened, a tall well built man smiled at me. ‘Hey, How are you today?’’ I blinked through the haze of my insomnia but caffeine helped me respond, ‘Yeah good. I have an order to pick up for …..’’

He genially proceeded to my tray and lifted plastic bags and took them to my car. I thought of helping him and picked the last two bags. He went inside and brought out another small bag saying ‘Oh and this is also for you, it also has your invoice in it.’’ He asked me where I lived and commented that the online grocery pick up was a really good service. I agreed. He said goodbye by shaking my hand.

I drove to library and picked the audio book for John Updike’s Witches of Eastwick. I got home and took my groceries to my room. I was so glad to have the whole weekend to myself now. I just needed to kick off my shoes, get out of my jeans, pour me another coffee, lie back in chair, look at the cool cloudy gray day outside my window, and listen to the audio book.

But soon, I found that the last little grocery bag handed by the store guy had ‘oven gloves’ in it. I thought it might be some of those freebees they throw in occasionally. But then I also read the invoice. It belonged to some Jacqueline. The gloves cost about $8. I had no use for them so I thought I would throw them out. No, I thought later, I should return them, but I will do so next week. Then I thought of Jacqueline, maybe a young girl or a house wife, needing those things for her weekend cooking. Maybe she was having some guests over, I imagined things like that. My conscience convicted me. I could not sit down and relax until I had her stuff with me!

I drove back to the grocery store. They close at midday and now it was 12:15pm. I pushed the button that is connected to the pager the person on duty is wearing. No one came at the shutter but round the corner of the building that same guy- looking annoyed- spoke out, ‘Hey, I am taking some deliveries here. I can be with you only after that!’’

He turned back and started to walk off my sight. I stopped him, ‘Hang on! I just needed to return this bag, it does not belong to me,’’ I ran towards him and handed him the bag, ‘It belongs to someone called Jacqueline, not mine.’’ He inspected the invoice with a frown and grumbled in an accusing tone, ‘Well, it wasn’t in your tray, was it? Anyway thanks’’ He turned around impatiently and walked away. I thought I would tell him that it was the last bag he handed to me with a smile and a handshake. But then I thought it was all my fault that I wanted to play the good Samaritan.

I am not blaming that man at all. He was apparently a very nice guy. And by the time I got to him second time, he might have been stressed taking deliveries, maybe arguing with someone behind the building. My visit after closing time was unexpected and would have added to his annoyance. I am definitely not dealing with that man’s reaction. The purpose of this post was to deal with the question I put at the beginning. Is honesty always the best policy? Are there situations in life when we just need to shrug our shoulders and let it go? My day would have been much better and easy if I had not bothered to return that bag. But well, sometimes conscience can be a bitch.

3 Steps to kill most Computer Viruses and Spywares September 6, 2008

I have a feeling that many people who come across this post will benefit greatly! I was recently infected by very nasty looking and stubborn Adware that flashes a red Warning Sign as your Desktop Background! This nasty message reads like this:

“WARNING! Spyware detected on your computer! Install an antivirus or spyware remover to clean your computer.
Warning! Win32/Adware.Virtumonde
Warning! Win32/privacyremover.M64.”

This looks scary enough when this message has replaced your desktop picture or background! Usually I was able to kill most bugs and adwares (that other major free softwares failed to remove) with this very effective yet simple software called SmitfraudFIX. (If you download this, just make sure to run it in Safe mode otherwise it might change a few settings, nothing harmful though)

Anyhow, I spent whole Saturday searching for softwares and actually ended up buying one! I bought Malwarebytes which is actually free! Paying for it just gives you free extras (which are useful though) but with the Free Version you can both search and remove all Malwares on your computer.

I just wish to give you 3 softwares that will make your computer almost totally bug free and protected in future. You will notice that your computer runs a lot faster and internet speed is noticeably increased! So, here are 3 FREE steps to a happy, healthy and protected computer.

1.) Download Avast anti Virus program from Download.com– Another free anti-virus program is AVG but I have used Avast for over a year now and it is absolutely wonderful. It not only scans and removes bugs but also provides real time live protection. Almost every day, while surfing the internet it flashes warning signals for me and asks me to abort or delete some bug it has found. This is indispensable. Download it and run it once, restart and let it run again (second time) if it wants to, after your computer boots. In case you have a paid anti virus installed you may skip this but still I highly recommend it. Avast, in my opinion much better than many paid anti Virus programs!

2.) Download Spybot- Search and Destroy 1.6 from Download.com– I always had reservations about free anti- Spyware softwares as I think they’re not effective enough. But today, as I downloaded and ran this it just surprised me by the number of bugs it searched and destroyed, being true to its name. And my computer ran a lot faster after I’d done that. After you’re done with step 1, as with Avast, run it and then delete all the bugs it has scanned. Then on prompt restart your computer and let it run again as your computer boots. (This might take upto one hour!) But once your computer comes to life it will be a very happy, healthy and agile machine. Spybot may run everytime you start your computer but you can skip this anytime. Just let it run maybe once a week or fortnight for a great maintainence.

But guess what? After running SmitfraudFix and these two great programs I still could not get rid of the Adware I had on my computer. Most sites refer to as only Scareware that only sends you into panic to buy some other rogue anti-Spyware program. Others said that this particular Aware gets nastier with time and starts pop ups, key loggers (tracks whatever you type!) etc. So, I thought of buying an Anti- Spyware. Even the best Anti- Spywares are not 100% effective and they often don’t fix new bugs. I read some reviews of Malwarebytes that were very good. Some people swore that it fixed bugs that no other program could! So, I bought it (but later realized it would do the main job even for free!) But I guess for a program as good as this EVERYONE should buy it and support this wonderful project. So, anyway here is the third step.

3.) Download Malwarebyte’s Anti- Malware software from Download.com– AND YES! It works like a charm. It also takes a lot less time than other softwares. But make sure you do a FULL SCAN and not just the QUICK Scan. It fixed my bug, plus about 30 odd others and yet some other fake alerts etc. Just awesome.

So, again, go through these step 1, 2 and 3 by running these programs in chronological order and you bet you will come out a much happier person. Plus, Avast and Spybot provide real time protection which means malicious bugs will be prevented from entering your machine. Malwarebytes also provides live protection but I guess that’s only for paid version.

Oh and yes, I might mention that you must keep your firewall ON. I have XP and to check if you have your firewall on, Go to control panet, then ”Security Center” and then the screen will tell you if your firewall is on or not. If it’s not, you know what to do!

Good luck and please give your feedback in comments section to let me know if it solved your particular problem or just made your computer faster. Also, post comment on anything that you think novices like me or others can benefit from.

Cheers!

Comment on Catholic Muslim Dialogue August 29, 2008

I originally posted it as a private comment but after receiving a comment from another friend I think I should make it available to public. (Note added on 30th August)

Private Post: Comment could not be published as comments are closed on this post:

http://newsweek.washingtonpost.com/onfaith/eboo_patel/2008/04/salam_alaykum_pope_benedict/all_comments.html

Comment text as follows:

It might simplistic but here is one theory: as religious institutions both Catholics and Muslims are essentially the same on social topics: conservative male centric, claiming exclusivity, promising heaven, preaching ‘’sexual morality” in all situations. The only difference is the kind of mythology/Liturgy they subscribe to in order to preach same social/moral world view.

Now, can there be a dialog? Nope, they truly don’t want one. Their exclusive nature means that Catholics want to convert Muslims and vice versa. Eventually they’re competing for same human souls and resources that exist on our planet. I guess what this world really needs is not good dialog but good fences built on mutual understanding.

And Rick Faircloth, evil must be policed by us all as international human community. No race can assume the responsibility of policing its own. It doesn’t work anyway. When Europeans colonized the whole world and butchered, raped, plundered indigenous peoples all over the world, their folks never policed them, in fact they encouraged them.

In your own country slavery lasted for such a long time and no self policing did anything. In fact most White people strongly supported the institution of Slavery. They even quoted Bible to justify slavery just as Apartheid regime in South Africa did to justify their own crimes.

But human conscience guided by true and good religion or beliefs is the ultimate liberator of human race.

Abraham Lincoln said, ”As I would not be a slave, so I would not be a master.”

It is written in Galatians 3:28, ”There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus.”

This is good human conscience and good religion. And I say Amen to that!

Rick Flaircloth’s comment was:

Rick Faircloth:

Hi, Eboo…

Thanks for your thoughts.

As a long-time Christian and ordained minister,
I’d like to offer this perspective.

As the black community will never completely be respected
by the white community in America until it is willing to
“police” its own, so too, the Muslim community will never
be respected by the rest of the world until it is willing to
“police” its own, and insist that its own members value
truth, justice, and righteousness above its value of simply
being called a “muslim.”

The black community has the same problem. Many of that community
value their “blackness” above the values of fairness, appropriate tolerance,
and justice for all.

The black community, as well as the Muslim community, must be willing
to discipline its members who do wrong, such as with terrorist acts, and
stop the behavior before respect and acceptance can follow.

The basic concept is this: any community, white, black, Muslim, Christian must be willing to hold its members accountable for their actions and when members of that community do wrong, punish and stop them “from within the community.” In other words, the community must take responsibility for its own members. Members of various communities cannot always be defended in their actions simply because they are “my brothers.”

May it be so.

Rick

Rick Faircloth,
Hinesville, GA, USA

Below is the comment Received from Fish Hawk and my response:

FishHawk said…

Perhaps I am the one who is missing the point, but I’m getting the impression that this is being presented as a numbers game, as in regards unto one or the other trying to establish their superiority through size of membership, when that is missing the point entirely. Well, at least in regards unto what the point should be. For if it is indeed true that it is only through Christ that one can get unto Heaven after their time as a part in this world comes unto an end, it would be the most evil thing in the world for a Christian to neglect seeking to help convert every Muslim they come into contact with. The same applies unto Muslims with Christians if what they believe about Allah is true, of course.

Now, this is not to say that it is foolish to hope for a certain amount of mutual respect and cooperation in the hope of making this a better world to live in while we are still here. For that would not bring any glory unto either our Heavenly Father or Allah, but to present proselytizing as being akin unto poaching is foolishness.

August 30, 2008

Ember said…

Very good point my friend. Actually this was supposed to be an invisible comment that I originally posted at my wordpress mirror blog. But months later I hear a word from you and you end up posting your comment on this one!

But well, I will offer a little defense. First the tone of this piece was harsh, provoked by the tone of what I was responding to. Also, surfing through Washington Post’s blogs I got sick of seeing so many bloggers etc. claiming to be ”Interfaith dialog” proponents.

My point was to get very down and dirty and highlight that, yes, eventually it is a numbers game. Christians and Muslims have been slaughtering each other in Lebanon, Indonesia and in the Balkans (Serbia-Bosnia Herzegovina regions)etc. I was making this point from an earthly/ political point of view.

But you raise a very tricky point regarding deeper spiritual issues. Though I still profess to be a (liberal) Christian, I still am not sure how am I to treat Muslims who have well established culture and religion of their own. I have had a few Muslim friends who I have discussed their religion with and loved hearing about their faith, beliefs. But I am not sure that I can tell them they are false and Christianity is what they should convert to…

But as it is, proselytizing across these two faith- Christianity and Islam- goes on. Interestingly, I hear preachy imams on local TV, Radio here in New Zealand but you cannot even carry a Bible in-let’s say- Saudi Arabia. Probably that should be the first point of any interfaith dialog!

I will make my post on WordPress visible and post these comments there too. Many thanks for your valuable feedback.

August 30, 2008

The international compassion industry December 14, 2007

My blogging and writing brain cells have been quite uninspired lately though I had many things on my mind. I just did not have the will or inspiration to really put something in writing for others to read. But right now, I remembered something that I always wanted to blog about and it has fired my mind! It is the fakey fake Western/White/European compassion as carried out by some bored Western men and women who are just looking for some sort of escape to the poor parts of the world. I believe it has more to do with their own personal egotism and search for adventure, museums etc. than to really help the poorest of the poor. It all also reeks of fake sentimentality. I truly believe in the saying, “Give a man a fish; you have fed him for today. Teach a man to fish; and you have fed him for a lifetime.” This is even more true regarding international compassion, aid industries and organizations because even any ”fish” they do send to Third World is often stolen and eaten by the privileged, powerful and corrupt people in those countries.



But there is something even worse, these fake compassionate people often end up (intentionally or unintentionally) making heroes of themselves by going on TV and all. I can name any number of these people; Christopher Hitchens (In his book, ”The Missionary Position”) among many others have written much about Mother Teresa who loved to encourage and proliferate poverty than to reduce it, maybe because she needed the poor more than the poor needed her. Then there are these World Vision people (According to Wikipedia they have$2.6 Billion budget!!) who are often showing poor, hungry third world children, shedding tears on the camera. They have their ads on TV (and in newspapers) all the time, here in New Zealand and I am sure in other rich countries too. These ads are dripping with dramatic and affected Television sentimentality to ask people to write checks for them.



Today what reminded me to write a post on this issue was an Interview (Click to Hear) with Dominique Lapierre from Don Swain’s website. Dominique Lapierre is the French writer who, in the 1980s, made it some sort of crusade to depict poverty of India and get money for some poor children’s home that houses about.. hmmm… 250 children. My point is that it’s all a wasteful drama that only ends up bringing money and celebrity status to people who run it. For example, with all its power to put up glossy ads and do effective advocacy World Vision should be putting pressure on the governments of third world countries to stop horrendous corruption, human rights abuses that are the only reasons to blame for the horrible poverty in these countries. Sending money to feed, clothe, educate some kid every month is a wasteful solution when that kid will grow up into a corrupt, violent, diseased society and will eventually perish anyway. What’s the use of ”education” in a country like Rwanda or Sierra Leonne or say in Darfur region of Sudan? World Vision could also lobby the foreign affairs departments of Western countries to force the corrupt leaders in the Third World to fix their problems. But no, World Vision is busy showing sentimental stuff on TV and get checks. Because it is the easiest thing to do in this world, not to mention gainful.



Another thing that these individuals can do is to use some brain. If, let’s assume, they’re really interested in reducing poverty in these regions and give those people some resources to feed and clothe themselves, the compassion industry should be advocating Foreign Direct Investment into these countries that will give people some useful employment. If you listen to Dominique Lapierre’s interview he mentions once he noticed a very sweet little Indian girl in the slums of Calcutta who always walked off to some place very early every morning. And he wondered what she was up to. One morning he followed her to find out. She walked to the railway station and waited for the first train that came into the station. After that train stopped for a while and left the platform, it would leave chunks of half burnt coal (as most trains in Indian in the 1980s were powered by coal/steam engines) on the tracks. This little girl would pick them up, at the cost of burning her fingers. She would take them home; half of these would be used to cook the only meal they could afford in one day and the other half would be sold to buy some rice for another day. I found it utterly depressing.

 

 

But Dominique Lapierre is ecstatic and calls that girl the hero of her family. Maybe he would say the same thing if that girl sold sexual favors to other people. Anyway, Dominique clearly fails to notice the sheer desperation of these people to survive. What they need is useful employment. I am sure if Dominique Lapierre had invested some money to open some small scale businesses or cottage industry in those slum areas, the results would be dramatic, taking into account the availability of endless cheap labor and overwhelming desire of these people to make a living. The profits could be used to start more industries and employment projects. These people could earn their own living and bring more dignity to their life. But no, Dominique Lapierre (like others) was more interested in selling stories of their poverty to the rest of the world. Fucking Sad, Stupid and Hypocritical.

Class system is still rife in UK, reports Guardian November 28, 2007

This news story from The Guardian newspaper in London, ”Riven by class and no social mobility – Britain in 2007” is kind of disconcerting and even depressing to read. Rest of the world has very romantic notions about Britain including England, Wales, Scotland. Millions of people want to go to UK from all over the world to visit, holiday, study, work and immigrate permanently. This trend is seen among the developed countries like USA, Canada, Australia as well as the developing countries in Asia, Eastern Europe, Africa etc.

 

 

 

I don’t know what the fuss is all about? Lots of people say many British people leave UK and live in other countries as expats because life is not all that nice (weather being the prime subject to moan about) and taxes are too high.

 

 

 

 

Anyway, this report notes that 89% people in UK say they’re judged by their class. The trends are not so different in Wales and Scotland. Working class people are very much likely to stay working class. Same is true with the middle class. Here is what report mentions:

 

”But many class attitudes have survived economic change. That suggests people are still judged by where they come from rather than how much they earn.”


This above quote from the story must appear as quite an uncool truth about UK to many readers I suppose? Well, wherever you’re from, express your thoughts in the comments section. Cheers.

You can now Listen to my posts!!! November 24, 2007

This is a stunner indeed. I got this Odiogo plungin from www.Odiogo.com. It places a little logo on top left of every post. And if you click on it the software actually reads the whole post! Thus my blog posts also become Podcasts. This is just super awesome. But please note that at this moment you cannot use this on my WordPress blog but only Blogger. But since both of these are mirror blogs, if you happen to come across an entry at my WordPress and you would like to listen to it just go to http://freedom-cafe.blogspot.com and find the same entry there.

 

 

I have known text speech technologies for a long time. Most prominent one I knew about was from Microsoft Reader that allows you to download electronic books and also play them. The speech still sounded quite metallic and computerized but you could easily make it out and listen. More recently I noticed International Herald Tribune (www.iht.com) and some other publications have audio link to all their articles where a software reads the entire text in human manner. This trend is catching up.



But what sets Odiogo apart is its real clear and almost near natural speech. (please check and let me have your feedback as well) Although I certainly don’t support any unwarranted digitalization of our reading habits, I must accept how revolutionary these text speech technologies can be for people who cannot read for any number of reasons; ok illiteracy maybe one but there is blindness, other sight related problems that cause blurred vision or dyslexia.

As for my own blog, sometimes my posts can be real long as I like to pack as much information- or in some cases a complete yarn- as possible in a single post. In this case, some people who are not fond of reading long posts or cannot for some reason are welcome to use Odiogo service. I hope the readers of my blog will benefit from it. Once again, I welcome any feedback.

Cheers and Shalom,

Ember.

What is so special about Nights? November 10, 2007

Ok, this might be a temporary post. I hope many people can read it during this weekend and may try to give their opinion.Here I ask a very stupid question that a kid might ask. But then I also know that no question is really stupid. Besides I don’t seem to find any answers for this one.

 

Q- Why nights are always linked with parties and social events? Why there are always nights out, special dinners, events, concerts, going to movies, parties of all sorts at night? Why not day? I mean, weekend is free for everyone and, generally, people always love sun light and the brightness of daytime, whereas night is often (generally) associated with ‘’sin”, crime, death, gloom etc. But then why days pale before dark nights when people want to relax, have fun, be adventurous or just want a soiree?

 

Any answers? What are your thoughts or feelings about it? Enlighten me.