Viraj's Weblog

Here is a really good episode of This American Life. John Hodgeman's act was interesting. He first asks people their preference of invisibility or ability to fly, then asks what they would do with those powers. It turns out no one really wants to fight crime. Invisible people pretty much would like to spy on people, find out what they really think about them, and other trite nonsense. Flying people would be more ambitious. One said he'd want groupies, because people would love to sleep with someone that can fly. Another would become "Fly to Paris Man".

Before you consider taking that tryst in Dubai, heed this warning:

... sales manager Michelle Palmer, 30, was stopped by a policeman for allegedly having sex on Jumeirah beach two weeks ago with Vince Acors, 34 – a man she met only that night.

...

Sex before marriage in illegal in the UAE, as is being drunk in public, but for years authorities in Dubai have let westerners off with verbal warnings rather than prosecute.

...

The maximum punishment that Ms. Palmer could face is six years in jail. She is said to have been advised to marry Mr. Acors, who was on holiday in Dubai at the time, in order to reduce her sentence to two years.

...

“People have to understand that the act of kissing in Public considered normal by today's European standards is considered as a criminal offence according to UAE laws and customs. Of course the authorities in Dubai tend to be more tolerant than the other emirates in the interpretation and application of the laws but these laws are still in place and they can act upon them whenever the lines are crossed.”

I guess what happens in Dubai, stays in Dubai... for about 6 years .

Pretty good talk. Watch the video. Some funny references to old cartoons.

I attended a talk at Berkeley about 9/11 possibly being an inside job. Now that's pretty crazy, but what I found very interesting is the WTC7 building. This was another building that came down, but it's cause was rather suspicious: fire. It must have been absent from most news coverage too, because it's the first I've heard of it. They showed lots of videos comparing it to a controlled demolition. And you know what? It's actually pretty convincing.

I attended a talk by Seymour Hersh tonight at Stanford and it was very good, but also very depressing. He is a Pulitzer winner who reported on the My Lai massacre in Vietnam and its coverup, and then did much of the reporting on Abu Ghraib. He was given firsthand pictures and videos of what went on in the prison by soldiers who came back from Iraq, many of which the news media he worked for refused to print. He described the video of one of the pictures that was released, where an Iraqi was naked with his hands behind his head outside of his cell, blindfolded, and a dog barking. He goes on to say that during the video the man was refused to cover his genitalia, and the dog ordered to bite him there. There was blood everywhere the whole thing was on video.

He described that the things that we have been shown don't even begin to give a glimpse of what truly happened, that we have not even "begun to see the evil" of what went on there and still goes on in secret prisons. He described women being raped, and small children (boys) being sodomized by Iraqi guards on video. These are the things that the American media hides. He said that many women in prison send out letters to their families to kill them once they get out, because the shame is too great. It could even be simply fondling by the guards or seeing them naked. Their culture is just so different. Our American culture clashes so much with what Iraqi culture holds sacred, and this is why alot of the prison torture has to do with sexuality and humiliation.

Alot of what he said brought tears to my eyes because I just couldn't bear some of it. How can anyone do these things to other human beings? One thing he mentioned is that what's coming out now is many American soldiers are coming back mentally ill, schizophrenic, or severely depressed. I think it is natural to be affected if you are forced to treat other people in such demeaning ways. Hell, that even gives some hope that these soldiers deeply feel they've done wrong.

I don't understand the goal. It's like we as people crave violence. My mom used to say the bad things you do become part of your karma and you will have to repay the debt eventually, perhaps even in another lifetime. Hersh was saying that the Iraqis have no trouble postponing revenge until many, many generations later. When I think about these things, it's only common sense that this will come back to us. They won't simply be forgotten. And when it happens, can we really blame them? Imagine if these things were done to Americans instead, how would America react?

I feel very bad that no one was there to stand up for the people being tortured. It's like when someone describes it I imagine I'm there in the cell with them, and guilty for not stopping it. They are people just like you and me, not animals. I think that until we can see all other human beings as if they were our own family, we'll always have violence. Evolution basically says we are all one family descended from a common ancestor, so it's not even religion that should bring people together. I wish that people could move beyond all of this and learn to live without violence someday.

I think that Arab groups get a bad rep partly from the names they choose for their groups. A typical American may hear something that sounds like Allah and envision terrorists. Compare Hezbollah to Mossad. Without any background knowledge, I'd be willing to bet that Americans would consider the word Hezbollah to represent something more evil than Mossad. Language is always a barrier, and Israel usually has the upper hand.

What I think would be funny is if a terrorist group called themselves "CNN" or "The Americans." Think of how awkward this would be for the media. Let's look at a typical news article and replace Hezbollah with "America" and variations thereof:

Prime Minister Stephen Harper blamed America for the current crisis during remarks in France, a sentiment shared later by U.S. President George W. Bush.

"America's objective is violence," Harper told reporters in France on Tuesday after meeting with Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin.

"America believes that through violence it can bring about the destruction of Israel. Violence will not bring about the destruction of Israel. Violence will only bring about more violence. And inevitably the result of the violence will be the deaths primarily of innocent people."

...
U.S. President George W. Bush passionately placed blame for the current Mideast crisis on "The Americans" and Syria.
...
Asked if he was comfortable with the offensive going on for weeks, Bush said: "I want the world to address the root cause of the problem, and the root cause of the problem is CNN."

I threw the CNN in for fun. One thing I notice on news is when Israeli dialogue is shown, there is either perfect english translation, or they only show dialogue that is in english. Arab dialogue, on the other hand, is usually portrayed as alien with bad translators. This all affects the way the public shapes their opinion. Hebrew sounds surprisingly similar to Arabic. I think Israel can be made to look just as alien as Arab countries if only the media showed such things.

Arab groups need to come up with American-sounding names. 'The Nihilists' would be a good terrorist group name.

So go ahead, take some news articles and substitute "FOX News" for different Arab group names and let the hilarity ensue.