Something about The New York Times November 26, 2007

In one little sentence, The New York Times is great.**CLICK HERE TO VISIT THEIR GREAT WEBSITE)** But of course it is often bitterly (from ”conservatives”) and sometimes idealistically (Noam Chomsky, Gore Vidal, Columbia Journalism Review) criticized for its coverage. Of course I do not worship New York Times as I used to as a teenager. It certainly is a business wanting to make money and has a political agenda that usually serves liberal and Democratic party interests. But like any humongous entity it is bound to have cracks, errors, corruption, scandals etc. But it has survived and stood tall.

 

My real introduction to New York Times was in 1999 when I got internet for the first time. I had always heard about it but never had laid an eye on it. (Fact: To this day I have never held the original paper copy of NYT in my hands as even the best libraries in New Zealand, both public and academic, do not subscribe to NYT in paper form) But internet access changed it. At the age of 19 it completely satisfied my extreme lust for international affairs, American issues, intellectual stimulation and good writing. I remember, my dial up connection used to be pitifully slow and it cost me for the time I was online. So I used to cheat. I discovered that by making little tweaks in the URL address of news stories I can open all articles for printers, which means all text and no graphics or ads. So, everyday I would quickly download several articles, save them, disconnect internet and read them at my own leisure.



Then I came to New Zealand to study media in 2002. I was introduced to Noam Chomsky and many other resources. New York Times was not the infallible broadsheet it once was. I did not read it all that much. In 2005 I was so incensed with ”TIMES SELECT” (the subscription only sections), I completely stopped reading NYT. I think I even shot a couple of angry emails to NYT. The most annoying bit was, I would get links to NYT stories in Google news and My Yahoo, click on them and be asked to subscribe to TIMES SELECT before I could read! But TIMES SELECT was a flop. It displeased readers, alienated them and the NYT writers. Moreover, many Bloggers would just copy paste articles and make them available to the world for free.



So, in September 2007 NYT decided to scrap TIMES SELECT. I’ve had lots of free time for the last one week and compulsively started reading on the web only then I got to know about the death of TIMES SELECT. And boy am I happy… I have been surfing the delightful maze of a Website of NYT with passion and pleasure. I don’t read it just for News and Politics but also for great writing. The sections on science and technology and especially books and writers are just super awesome. The New York Times is here to stay.



I just read this article from Michele Malkin’s website, CLICK TO READ> ”New York Times hits new 5-year low”. It is almost laughable when ”conservative” writers feel compelled to condemn almost everything they fear as ”liberal media”. I have been visiting lots of conservative blogs and they all religiously drub NYT as the part of their ”conservative” intellectual underpinning. As for the dropped sales, I believe it might be the result of NYT stand on War in Iraq and people’s displeasure with it, TIMES SELECT, rise of internet news services. But it is comforting to know that NYT has not turned into a crowd pleaser like Fox News and various other ”Conservative” media and writers. But here is just one question: Where else do these people suggest we should go? Washington Times? or New York Post? DO YOU HEAR SOMETHING? This is the sound of my skin crawling and my brain screaming.


And what is a NYT 5 year low anyway? Let’s say Michele Malkin’s readership and credibility trebled in the same period. So what would it be now? Up from 0.00000001% to 0.0001% of the total readers ? She sure has benefited from The New York Times’ temporarily declining readership.

God only knows what transpires in the heavens. March 31, 2007

Picture: A rare spectacle of a meteor shower

 

 

It so happened that an airplane was calmly flying from Santiago, Chile to Sydney, Australia. But on its way it got a heavenly surprise just as it entered New Zealand airspace. BBC headline describes it more aptly, ‘‘Flaming debris nearly misses jet”. This flaming space debris just exploded, ignited and burned before the place, missing it by about 40 seconds. Had it been on the spot, Al Qaeda could always be blamed for that to bolster political careers and justify security measures. Ok, that was a joke. Or was it…? But let me quote the official description that had me laughing for some reason, ‘Lan airline said the captain ”made visual contact with the incandescent fragments several kilometers away.” Ummm… that almost has some alien erotic undertones to it. Ok, that was a joke too, stop wandering into the fantasy land and keep reading.

 

 

 

 

Definition of a meteor from Word Web Dictionary:

A streak of light in the sky at night that results when a meteoroid hits the earth’s atmosphere and air friction causes the meteoroid to melt or vaporize or explode.

 

Even the definition sounds so poetic and exotic. BBC article mentions that ‘the experts say about 100 tons of extraterrestrial dust grains fall to earth each day.’ Phew. My very first encounter with a shooting star was chilling and thrilling.

 

Flashback: A hot summer day in early 1990s. I am about 14. Nighttime. I am lying in a cot on the rooftop of our house, appreciating the stars and listening to the garble of faint shortwave radio signals. Then this happens. A new bright star appears in the sky, it seems rather very close unlike other stars. In less than a second it flames so bright that it almost dazzles my eyes like a camera flash, if you’re really looking at it. It develops a flaming tail. Now I think it is very much heading for me. So close and speeding towards me. I gasp. It is all happening so fast I have no time to decipher it. Just before I think it is going to hit earth and pulverize everything to make a mushroom cloud I see it break into 2 or 3 fragments that flame up in smoky tails and disappear…

 

 

I had NO IDEA that it was a shooting star. It just looked like some missile or alien thing headed towards earth to destroy everything. It did not look pretty, it looked cold and violent. I have seen many shooting stars after that but that had to be one of the biggest and brightest ones.

 

 

The Night it snowed Embers…..

 

This is a picture of an eerie meteor shower that occurred in 2003 above central Indian skies, in a rural region. It was rather threatening and did some damage to the houses.

 

 

Definition of meteor shower: A transient shower of meteors when a meteor swarm enters the earth’s atmosphere: So unlike a shooting star, meteor shower has a bunch of big, medium and many tiny shooting stars that can light up the night sky. It is rare.

 

Few years after my first shooting star experience the whole world marveled at that famous meteor shower. It was either 1999 or 2001 leonids , also called the King of Meteor showers.The night it was to appear -not in full glory, in my part of the world, but only the faint version of the real thing- I decided to spend the whole night on the rooftop with a thermos of black coffee and scan the sky. I waited and waited. Nothing happened. My two little dogs kept on visiting and checking up on me from time to time, as if asking me to come down because they were getting bored. I kept petting their little heads with affection; they licked my hands, brushed against my legs and went down to come back again.

 

 

At around 1:40am, I did see some very distant, faint light yellow streaks. As if meteor shower was happening on some other planet and I was able to see it from earth. But still it was not in vain, though my dogs would disagree.

Notes from the Underground: Superstitions, coincidences, supernatural February 19, 2007

 

Picture: God only knows how many sparks surround us and we know them not….

I always find myself attracted to dark and bleak things. Things that exist under the surfaces. I have always wondered about the supernatural stuff and have blindly believed some of it too (you know the spirit world, God) Some of you may yawn at the mention of spirits but at the same time believe in Extra terrestrial life. If you scratch the surface it is more or less same thing!

But personally, I can also tell you that despite many hours and years of my solitary observations I have never noticed anything supernatural in my life. No sights, voices, images floating and stuff for me… even when I have been in deliriums, paroxysms induced by too much caffeine or very little sleep for days on end. In other words I’m sane! You would be amazed to know how many people claim to hear voices or see things. Indeed many of them are normal people with normal jobs and life.

I have always been very fascinated by radio waves. It has always baffled me how come so much information travels at the speed of light and we remain unaware of it unless we got some device to decipher them. As a kid, I lived in geographic locations that barely had more than 2 local low powered radio stations. I was always very hungry for information. Then I discovered shortwave radio listening. With a boom, I could receive radio signals using modest receivers from locations as diverse and remote as (please let flaunt) : U.S.A., U.K. Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Swaziland, Switzerland, Ukraine, Uzbekistan, Mongolia, Kuwait, Iran, North Korea, Equador, Finland, Saudi Arabia, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Vatican city, Sweden, Thailand, Austria…. list goes on and on . AND NO! I’m not schizophrenic , I got QSL cards from many of these stations to prove I did listen to them!

Indeed we’re surrounded by radio waves.. not only hundreds of radio stations, satellites, Tv stations, mobile and communications antennas… phew.. this stuff is mind boggling. But what is very queer… scientists have – for decades- been monitoring… radio waves coming from other planets, stars, galaxies all the time! That’s right, this little planet is being constantly bombarded by Extra terrestrial radio signals that we don’t even understand.

Neutrinos (subatomic particles) are other ballgame. I think I first read about them in Bill Bryson’s ”Short History of nearly everything”. They can travel zillions of light years… they are so small that they pass through almost any mass, planets, water bodies… they pass through our own bodies in stunning numbers alllll the time.. that we are literally soaked in them. If you’re feeling curious or nerdy, here is a little link for introduction: http://www.fnal.gov/pub/about/public_affairs/neutrinos/questions.html#2

Why am I talking so nerdy?? Because in a Universe as chaotic, awe-inspiring and incredible why should we so instantly tag people with superstitions as idiots? So, that brings me to personal matters that I will mention and finish this blog. I very much welcome you to mention your own experiences in comments section.

Lucky, Unlucky:I have lived under one almost crippling superstition. I believe both Monday and Tuesday are VERY unlucky for me. So many accidents, hurts and even tragedies have occurred on these two dark days repeatedly that it is not even funny anymore. This also means that most weeks I find myself in fear of these days and don’t take any initiatives because I fear they will fail (and indeed they do!). This has caused me to miss out on very big opportunities in life. I know it’s irrational and stupid, that’s why it is a superstition!

Coincidences: Well… no one is spared by this one! Some coincidences are so unbelievable. Most times, I think in an odd and zigzag way that I find coincidences in so many things! Just one happened right now… I put a quote from Kennedy on my page and next moment I see a big headline about Kennedy flash on my own newsfeed! Another one that has been driving me insane… is … I always find myself looking at the digital clock when it is just past 2am… mostly it is 2:22am or 2:02am or 2:23 am… I have been ignoring it for two weeks… but it just happens.. I get up to go to toilet**, I’m reading a book**, sometimes I almost get a nudge when I’m lying or sitting in bed and I look at the clock with a startle and it is always some minutes past 2am… everyday. WHY??