Barkha Dutt calls the IPL cheerleaders "faceless bimbettes"

These are bimbettes
(image source)

this is not?

Barkha Dutt, the Christiane Amanpour of India, calls the cheerleaders of IPL "faceless bimbettes".

A curiosity-
how does she know they are 'bimbettes', any or all of them?
Or is cheerleading by definition something that only(or mostly) 'bimbettes' do?
Does anybody find this tarring of a whole profession offensive, not to say demeaning of the dignity of women?

What if we said that TV 'news' media is full of arrogant scoundrels?
Tempted as we might, we won't say it for, unlike Ms.Dutt, we do not wish to put down a whole a profession even if it gives great rewards to the dishonest purveyor of information and to the sensationalist(see my post below). The cheerleaders on the other hand have to make a honest living by the dint of their efforts and I doubt if they are paid a fraction of what Ms.Dutt rakes in for, among other things, showing a contempt for them.

Indian media -poison in the air

CPI(M)'s hero Stalin knew a few things about food scarcity.Only 6-7 miilion killed in the Ukrainian famine caused by his policies

We are trapped.
We have a callous, highly corrupt and predatory state. We have an atrocious police system, brutal, inefficient and indifferent at the same time. We have a judiciary where one can go bankrupt and grow old or die before one gets justice, if at all. So for a straw to grasp at we put a lot of faith our free media- and what do we get? An imperial journalism steeped in arrogance,the muck of it's own biases and making a fortune spreading superstition, blind faith and constant sensationalism based on half-truths and pure lies.In one word, poison.

One of the pet hates of our 'objective' journalists is George W. Bush. Mention Bush and like pavlovian dogs kicked in the balls they begin to scream and howl in rabid anger. Just examine Bush's recent statement on food prices and the reaction in India over it-

(I am translating from Hindi some of the ticker running across the screen on the Hindi 'news' channels)
Bush doesn't like Indians to eat better
Bush unhappy with India's prosperity.
Bush childish and pathetic.
Another gaffe from Bush.

And this is merely the ticker.The actuals reports were soaked in boorishly expressed contempt .
And so on and on ad nauseum for the whole day long, the wolf pack of Indian media and intelligentsia(an unfortunate name for such a brain-dead group) went after Bush.

The communists seemed to be among the most offended.Understandable, as their hero, Stalin knew a thing or two about food scarcity and it's causes. His Ukrainian famine, caused deliberately, killed an estimated six million to seven million.Stalin's famine and terror are described in the seminal book The Harvest of Sorrow by Robert Conquest-

The death toll resulting from the actions described in this book was an estimated 14.5 million--more than the total number of deaths for all countries in World War I.

The brainless and highly anti-American crew of aaj-tak seemed to be as angry and offended as the commies. In their narrative Bush is no different from the ogre who tortures kittens for fun and eats babies for breakfast.But again, this is understandable- this is the same channel that went into a hysterical fit when Saddam was hanged.Sympathizing with a genocidal mass murderer while bashing Bush at every non-opportunity - all in a day's job for this bunch and many others at other news media.

And what did Bush say actually?

Here is the full transcript.The relevant excerpt(what Bush said was in response to a question)-

Q That's right. Good point. (Applause.) And I ask this partly because I'm hungry, but your thoughts on rising food prices?

THE PRESIDENT: Yes, thank you. (Laughter.) By the way, that's a polite way of saying, hey, man, how about cutting it short. (Laughter.) You know, it's a very interesting debate that's taking place. There's two aspects of rising food prices; one, how it affects our own citizens. And again, we're spending billions of dollars on people who can't afford food, and that's good. We don't have a scarcity issue in America, interestingly enough; we got a price issue. Our shelves aren't going empty, it's just costing more money. And it's why, for example, we've expanded Women and Infants with Children Program, to make sure we help the poor.

Secondly, there is scarcity in the world, and I happen to believe, when we find people who can't find food, we ought to help them find it. I just told you why: There's nothing more hopeless than to be a mom wondering whether or not their child is going to get food the next day. And so I announced a major initiative.

By the way, just so you know, America is by far the most generous nation when it comes to helping the hungry. No contest. We're an unbelievably compassionate nation. And so I asked Congress to put some more money out. It will be over -- it's about $5 billion, over a two-year period of time, of food. Keep in mind, we're spending about $19 billion here at home.

Secondly, I think we ought to change our food policy in Africa and other developing countries. I think we ought to be buying food directly from farmers, as opposed to giving people food. I think we ought to be saying, why don't we help you be able to deal with scarcity by encouraging your farmers to grow and be efficient growers. Otherwise we're going to be in this cycle forever.

Now let me talk about price. As you know, I'm a ethanol person. I believe, as I told you, the interim step to getting away from oil and gas is to go to ethanol and battery technologies for your automobiles. I think it makes sense for America to be growing energy. I'd much rather be paying our farmers when we go to the gas pump than paying some nation that may not like us.

And so -- but most of ethanol now -- or nearly all of ethanol now -- is produced as a result of corn. And the price of corn is real high now. And so people say, well, it's your renewable fuels policy that is causing the price of food to go up. I've looked at this issue a lot. Actually, the reason why food prices are high now is because, one, energy costs are high. And if you're a farmer, you're going to pass on your cost of energy in the product you sell; otherwise you go broke. And when you're paying more for your diesel, paying more for your fertilizer because it's got a lot of natural gas in it -- in other words, when your basic costs are going up, so does the cost of food.

Worldwide there is increasing demand. There turns out to be prosperity in developing world, which is good. It's going to be good for you because you'll be selling products into countries -- big countries perhaps -- and it's hard to sell products into countries that aren't prosperous. In other words, the more prosperous the world is, the more opportunity there is.

It also, however, increases demand. So, for example, just as an interesting thought for you, there are 350 million people in India who are classified as middle class. That's bigger than America. Their middle class is larger than our entire population. And when you start getting wealth, you start demanding better nutrition and better food. And so demand is high, and that causes the price to go up.

And finally, there's been weather-related problems. Some of the major producers of food have had drought. That's what happens. Weather patterns change. And so there's a lot of reasons why the price of food is high. And no question that ethanol has had a part of it, but I simply do not subscribe to the notion that it is the main cost-driver for your food going up.

Anyway, good question. You don't look hungry. (Laughter.)

Yes.

Nowhere does Bush come across as someone who resents Indians now consuming and enjoying more food than the meagre morsels to which the Nehruvian socialism had condemned them. I challenge those jumping up and down over this to point out the 'offensive' part and explain how it is much (or at all) different from what many others have said including the United Nations and such Bush haters like Paul Krugman, Jeffrey Sachs and several others.

Here is what the UN says-

India, China pushing up food prices: UN

--------------------
With the major exporters, including India, banning rice exports, shortages are expected to be felt around the world.

Soaring food prices- up 55 per cent from June 2007 to February 2008, and dwindling global food stocks due to more world food consumption than production are seriously threatening the United Nations ability to keep millions from starvation.

Growing demand for bio-fuels, needs of rising population, growing middle class in India and China with increasing purchasing power and erratic weather are among the reasons that have pushed the food prices up to the level where 100 million people are being pushed into extreme poverty needing international help at a time when international donors are signs of fatigue.

(Hat tip-Rohit)


Here is favorite economist of the trendy left, Jeffrey Sachs, who is no friend of Bush or capitalism-

The most basic reason for the rise in natural resource prices is strong growth, especially in China and India, which is hitting against the physical limits of land, timber, oil and gas reserves, and water supplies.

Paul Krugman, another Bush hater gives a decent rundown of the causes of price rise.One of his causes-

First, there’s the march of the meat-eating Chinese — that is, the growing number of people in emerging economies who are, for the first time, rich enough to start eating like Westerners. Since it takes about 700 calories’ worth of animal feed to produce a 100-calorie piece of beef, this change in diet increases the overall demand for grains.
---------------
The rise of China and other emerging economies is the main force driving oil prices

One can google and find any number of experts who hold the same or similar views on the causes of global price rise in food- a combination of high oil price,the rise of China and other emerging economies(which itself is also one of the causes of high oil price), diversion of land to growing bio-fuels instead of food(which has been a pet cause of the environmental left), and bad weather. There is of course debate about which factor is more important (and Bush mentioned all of these) but Bush has echoed what is now the popularly held opinion among the 'expert' class. Let's say a broad scientific consensus exists over the issue.

Clearly those in the Indian media who keep on bashing Bush over this cannot be so ignorant.As Rohit points out in his excellent post-

That it wasn’t an inadverent error is clear from another story the Times of India ran a few days back on the United Nations attributing rising food prices to the demands of the growing middle class in India and China. In fact, Bush’s speech sounds like a recycled version of the U.N statement. Notice the entirely different treatment to essentially similar issues: While Bush was ”blaming” India and China, the U.N was ”raising alarm!” Apparently, a mundane UN agency isn’t sexy enough to be sensationalized.

The Times of India probably calculated that Indian politicians and policymakers would not even bother reading the speech before racing to express outrage. Unfortunately, the newspaper has been proved exactly right. In a rare show of political unanimity, politicians from Left and Right have criticized Bush for a crime which he did not even commit! Of course, it afforded them an opportunity to advance their own agenda with B.J.P criticizing the government’s failure to control inflation while the Communists blamed ”neo-liberal” agenda forced on the Indian government by the Bush administration!

No Rohit, this is not dumbness but malice.
I accuse the persons responsible for these misleading(no, lying) reports of practicing not jounalism but fraud, of reporting not facts but their own biases, of whipping up emotions for a media equivalent of a 'high' and to stay competitive with other media in the ratings . You sirs(and ladies) are not honest journalists but scoundrels.



(emphasis mine)

Charlton Heston-not God but almost.

If one can imagine a Greek god's face -then one can imagine Charlton Heston's screen presence(this is for those who have not seen him on a 70mm screen).
















Judah Ben-Hur, I shall miss you.Rest in peace.

crossposted at What the Heck is Art?

"I never knew she cared"

Robert Spencer finds errors in Benazir Bhutto's book Reconciliation: Islam, Democracy, and the West.

No contest

Robert Tracinski on Obama's speech-

''In a contest between a man who sat in the pews Sunday after Sunday while his pastor bad-mouthed America, versus a war hero who endured torture for his country, no one on the right will even regard this as a choice.''

Indian cricket team disses environment

Has the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) never heard of global warming? Or do they not care?

The (Indian)team landed in Mumbai at around 10.30 a.m. The players were scheduled to fly to Delhi in a chartered flight. From the airport, they will be taken to the Inter Continental Hotel from where they will be brought to the Kotla for the function.
source

So all that CO2 goes into the atmosphere to satisfy a national ego-trip. In fact if the world takes global warming seriously then there might not be any Indian victories over Australia in Australia -there won't even be any matches between the two (unless the Indian team decides to take a sailing ship to Australia)-

The warnings come from Associate Professor Damon Honnery and Dr Patrick Moriarty ...
"The car is doomed,” Associate Professor Honnery says. “Ultimately, we are going to have to move to a decentralised society where most people need to travel far less. People are going to have to fundamentally change the way they think about travel and make much more use of non-motorised travel such as cycling and walking."
--------------------------------------------

Dr Moriarty said big reductions in air travel were also needed. “An overseas trip might become a once in a life time experience rather than an annual event,” he said.

Imagine that -only one series against Australia in a lifetime might be allowed in the new green future. Imagine the drama then!

(emphasis mine)

Whatever happened to calling spade a spade?

The trouble with the tyranny of politicallycorrectspeak is that the a journalists' job is no longer to describe the world as it is.He is under intense pressure to right by all the 'right' concerns -racism, environment, community-cohesion, 'Islamophobia', global warming and other innumerable causes and concerns whose rightness a typical mainstream mediaperson takes for granted.

There are so many concerns to look out for that the media is filled with journalists who can't report straight.

Charles Johnson cuts to the chase-

If you’ve wondered why so many mainstream media stories about Islamic issues omit important details and draw spurious morally equivalent conclusions, wonder no more. They’re doing it on purpose.

This was apparently released by the Society of Professional Journalists shortly after the 9/11 attacks: Guidelines for Countering Racial, Ethnic and Religious Profiling.

On Oct. 6 at its National Convention in Seattle, the Society of Professional Journalists passed a resolution urging members and fellow journalists to take steps against racial profiling in their coverage of the war on terrorism and to reaffirm their commitment to:

— Use language that is informative and not inflammatory;

— Portray Muslims, Arabs and Middle Eastern and South Asian Americans in the richness of their diverse experiences;
------------------------------------

Visual images

— Seek out people from a variety of ethnic and religious backgrounds when photographing Americans mourning those lost in New York, Washington and Pennsylvania.

— Seek out people from a variety of ethnic and religious backgrounds when photographing rescue and other public service workers and military personnel.
-------------------------------------

— Use photos and features to demystify veils, turbans and other cultural articles and customs.

Stories

— Seek out and include Arabs and Arab Americans, Muslims, South Asians and men and women of Middle Eastern descent in all stories about the war, not just those about Arab and Muslim communities or racial profiling.

— Cover the victims of harassment, murder and other hate crimes as thoroughly as you cover the victims of overt terrorist attacks.

— Make an extra effort to include olive-complexioned and darker men and women, Sikhs, Muslims and devout religious people of all types in arts, business, society columns and all other news and feature coverage, not just stories about the crisis.

— Seek out experts on military strategies, public safety, diplomacy, economics and other pertinent topics who run the spectrum of race, class, gender and geography.

— When writing about terrorism, remember to include white supremacist, radical anti-abortionists and other groups with a history of such activity.
-------------------------------

— When describing Islam, keep in mind there are large populations of Muslims around the world, including in Africa, Asia, Canada, Europe, India and the United States. Distinguish between various Muslim states; do not lump them together as in constructions such as “the fury of the Muslim world.”

— Avoid using word combinations such as “Islamic terrorist” or “Muslim extremist” that are misleading because they link whole religions to criminal activity. Be specific: Alternate choices, depending on context, include “Al Qaeda terrorists” or, to describe the broad range of groups involved in Islamic politics, “political Islamists.” Do not use religious characterizations as shorthand when geographic, political, socioeconomic or other distinctions might be more accurate.

— Avoid using terms such as “jihad” unless you are certain of their precise meaning and include the context when they are used in quotations. The basic meaning of “jihad” is to exert oneself for the good of Islam and to better oneself.

— Consult the Library of Congress guide for transliteration of Arabic names and Muslim or Arab words to the Roman alphabet. Use spellings preferred by the American Muslim Council, including “Muhammad,” “Quran,” and “Makkah,” not “Mecca.”

— Regularly seek out a variety of perspectives for your opinion pieces. Check your coverage against the five Maynard Institute for Journalism Education fault lines of race and ethnicity, class, geography, gender and generation.
----------------------------------

Notice that among the suggestions there is not one about reporting facts as they are and no more or no less.
Read the whole thing.
(emphasis mine)

From the LNC quotes corner

"Tragedy is a small price to pay for bowing to trendy leftist talking points ."
-Paul Mirengoff

Finally, some courage from the artist community

Looking forward to getting my hands on this-"Matamoros - the first comic book focusing on the U.S. military’s fight against radical Islamists."

As long as the moral dunces who rule us don't decide to ban it in order to again appease the eternal lovers of peace and harmony.

Another good reason to buy the "300" DVD-Sudhir Mishra hates the film

There are good reasons to watch "300"-

Spartacus and Ben-Hur, 300 is about bravery, freedom, honor, and country. These are universal themes. But universal themes that will offend liberals(i.e. leftists -ed) because they’re not defended in a PC fashion.
---------------------------------
It’s impossible not to compare the enemy in 300 to the current Islamofascists. The Persians are ruled by a theocracy; a king, Xerxes, who looks like a Culture Club refugee, fancies himself a god, and demands to be worshipped. The Persian ambition is to conquer those willing to convert, and butcher those who refuse. To convert some, Xerxes promises them paradise — especially a lot of hot women. Maybe not seventy-two. Certainly not virgins. But it’s all pretty familiar.
-------------------------------------------------

But story is everything. And the biggest reason 300’s successful is because its central story is exciting and well plotted.
-------------------------------------------------

I’ve no doubt critics (I don’t read them until I post my own review) are calling 300 old-fashioned, and worse. But they’re wrong. After forty years of liberal rule in Hollywood it is nihilism that’s old-fashioned. It is moral relativism that is tired. It is political correctness, the always-noble people of color, the always-evil white guy, and the metrosexual that is cliched. A film with a clear divide between good and evil is something new. A film that celebrates patriotism, heroism, sacrifice, freedom, and honor is something revolutionary. In 1955 300 would be old-fashioned. In 2007 it makes a counter-culture statement as strong as Easy Rider in its day.

(emphasis mine)
(go read the whole wonderful review of 300 by Dirty Harry)

Now there is another good reason to go buy that "300" DVD-
trendy leftist director Sudhir Mishra hates it.

Update- to be fair to Mishra, he is the writer of one the best Indian comedy films Jaane Bhi Do Yaaro and I thought his Yeh Woh Manzil To Nahin was interesting. His only recent film I have seen was Chameli, which I found predictable and pretentiously yawn inducing.

Also to his credit, he defends the right of others to show 'offensive' films. If only other leftists were like that.

Alfred Che Newman

Pursuant to the series of 'Che' posts at this blog, including one on the alternate Che images, here is one that is bitingly appropriate-



(via the Newsbusters)

Consensual intercourse can never ever be rape

Can a committee of experts change fundamental nature of reality just by a fiat?
If they willed that an apple instead of falling to earth flies up in the space-that would not happen. But they can get away with calling consensual sex as rape-

Having sex with a girl or a wife under 16 years of age would amount to rape even if she voluntarily joins her partner in love-making.

The Law Commission has recommended that the age for sexual consent should be raised from 15 years to 16 years for girls, regardless of marriage.

Thus, even in cases where an under-16 girl elopes, marries a lover and has sex with her "husband," the girl's "husband" cannot escape punishment by claiming that he made love with his "wife."

Consensual intercourse can never ever be rape no matter what the 'experts' might say.
If the state wishes to outlaw sex under a certain age, it should say so clearly -just say 'sex under 16 is banned'-and not pretend that is a horrible crime they are protecting us against.

Hear all ye wise 'experts' of the law commission-
Rape is forced, unwanted sexual intercourse.
Anything consensual cannot be rape.

The plight of Bilkis Bano is way too horrific to be put in the same category as of a couple of teenagers having a nice time on the sly.

The law commission is getting away with an egregious violation of concepts that the words in a language refer to. Shall we say, rape of the language?

PS -interestingly in the case of our furtive teenagers above, only the male could be accused of rape even if it was the girl who might have initiated the.....ahem, proceedings. Talk about gender justice. All law, little justice -which actually perfectly encapsulates the Indian reality.

Indian artists in support of a murderer, part 3 -alternative Che images

Continued from part 1 and part 2 below.

Here are some alternative Che images one would like to see more of-


Communism killed 100 million but-



source


World's greatest T-shirt salesman-


source

More images below the fold

Victims of Che Guevara-


source


Somewhere in hell, the revolution goes on-

source


Fight leftist indoctrination at campus-


source



Useful idiots supporting Che(Yes, I am thinking of the artists who took part in Suneet Chopra's Che lovefest)-

source



Evolution of the Che myth-

source



I wonder how many lefties have become rich selling the Che t-shirt-


source



Don't get us wrong, we love revolution too-


source


source




No Ch(e)moking-

source




Finally, Che one can love-


source



Note- Kindly limit hate-mail to 100 words each.

Part 1 here
Part 2- Che myths here.

Indian artists in support of a murderer, part 2 -Che myths

Continued from part 1 below-

What is it about the Che iconography that is so resistant to facts? Alvaro Vargas Llosa takes apart the Che myths-

1. HE WAS AGAINST CAPITALISM. In fact, Guevara was for state capitalism. He opposed the wage labor system of 'appropriating surplus value' (in Marxist jargon) only when it came to private corporations. But he turned the appropriation of the workers 'surplus value' into a state system. One example of this is the forced labor camps he supported, starting with Guanahacabibes in 1961.

2. HE MADE CUBA INDEPENDENT. In fact, he engineered the colonization
of Cuba by a foreign power. He was instrumental in turning Cuba into a temporary beachhead of Soviet nuclear power (he sealed the deal in Yalta). As the person responsible for the 'industrialization' of Cuba he failed to end the country's dependency on sugar.

3. HE STOOD FOR SOCIAL JUSTICE. In fact, he helped ruin the economy by diverting resources to industries that ended up in failure and reduced the sugar harvest, Cuba's mainstay, by half in two years. Rationing started under his stewardship of the island's economy.

4. HE STOOD UP TO MOSCOW. In fact, he obeyed Moscow until Moscow
decided to ask for something in return for its massive transfers of money to Havana. In 1965 he criticized the Kremlin because it had adopted what he termed the 'law of value'. He then turned to China on the eve of the Cultural Revolution, one of the horror stories of the twentieth century. He simply switched allegiances within the totalitarian camp.

5. HE CONNECTED WITH THE PEASANTS. In fact, he died precisely because he never connected with them. "The peasant masses don't help us at all," he wrote in his Bolivian diary before he was captured, an apt way to describe his journey through the Bolivian countryside trying to stir up a revolution that could not even enlist the help of Bolivian Communists (who were realistic enough to note that
peasants did not want revolution in 1967; they had already had one in 1952).

6. HE WAS A GUERRILLA GENIUS. With the exception of Cuba, every guerrilla effort he helped set up failed pitifully. After the triumph of the Cuban revolution, Guevara set up revolutionary armies in Nicaragua, the Dominican Republic, Panama, and Haiti, all of which were crushed. He later persuaded Jorge Ricardo Masetti to lead a fatal incursion into that country from Bolivia. Guevara's role in the Congo in 1965 was both tragic and comical. He allied himself with Pierre Mulele and Laurent Kabila, two butchers, but got entangled in so many disagreements with the latter and relations between Cuban and Congolese fighters were so strained that he had to flee. Finally, his incursion in Bolivia ended up in his death, which his followers are commemorating this Sunday.

7. HE RESPECTED HUMAN DIGNITY. In fact, he had a habit of taking other people's property. He told his followers to rob banks ('the struggling masses agree to rob banks because none of them has a penny in them') and as soon as the Batista regime collapsed he occupied a mansion and made it his own, a case of expeditious revolutionary eminent domain.

8. HIS ADVENTURES WERE A CELEBRATION OF LIFE. Instead, they were an
orgy of death. He executed many innocent people in Santa Clara, in central Cuba, where his column was based in the last stage of the armed struggle. After the triumph of the revolution, he was in charge of 'La Cabaña' prison for half a year. He ordered the execution of hundreds of prisoners, former Batista men, journalists,businessmen, and others. A few witnesses, including Javier Arzuaga, who was the chaplain of 'La Cabaña', and José Vilasuso, who was a
member of the body in charge of the summary judicial process, recently gave me their painful testimonies.

9. HE WAS A VISIONARY. His vision of Latin America was actually quite blurred. Take, for instance, his view that the guerrillas had to take to the countryside because that is where the struggling masses lived. In fact, since the 1960s, most peasants have peacefully deserted the countryside in part because of the failure of land reform, which has hindered the development of a property-based agriculture and economies of scale with absurd regulations forbidding all sorts of private arrangements.

10. HE WAS RIGHT ABOUT THE UNITED STATES. He predicted Cuba would
surpass the GDP per capita of the U.S. by 1980. Today, Cuba's economy can barely survive thanks to Venezuela's oil subsidy (about 100,000 barrels a day), a form of international alms that does not speak too well of the regime's dignity.

Humberto Fontova (linked in part 1) has an excellent article on how the myth of Che is maintained and propagated in popular media. Excerpts-

The History Channel Shills For Che Guevara

[Humberto Fontova is the author of Exposing the Real Che Guevara and the
Useful Idiots Who Idolize Him.]

The regime Che Guevara co-founded stole the savings and property of 6.4 million citizens, made refugees of 20 per cent of the population from a nation formerly deluged with immigrants and whose citizens had achieved a higher standard of living than those residing in half of Europe. Che Guevara's regime also shattered through executions, jailings, mass larceny and exile virtually every family on the island of Cuba. Many opponents of the Cuban regime qualify as the longest-suffering political prisoners in modern history, having suffered prison camps, forced labor and torture chambers for a period THREE TIMES as long in Che Guevara's Gulag as Alexander Solzhenytzin suffered in Stalin's Gulag.

----------------------------------------------------------

One signed his name "Stalin II," professed that "the solutions to the world's problems lie behind the Iron curtain," and boasted that "if the nuclear missiles had remained we would have fired them against the heart of the U.S. including New York City." He also professed that the victory of socialism was well worth "millions of atomic victims."

----------------------------------------------------

Immediately upon entering Havana Che Guevara stole and moved into what
was probably the most luxurious mansion in Cuba. The rightful owner fled
the country barely ahead of a firing squad and a reporter who wrote of Che's new house in a Cuban newspaper was himself threatened with the firing squad. A year later thousands of Cubans were sent to forced-labor camps on Che's orders, based on his whim to fashion "a new man,"

----------------------------------------------------

During a 1961 speech in Cuba, Che Guevara denounced the very "spirit of
rebellion" as "reprehensible." Earlier he had cheered the Soviet
invasion of Hungary and the concurrent slaughter of thousands of
Hungarians who resisted Russian Imperialism. According to Guevara, these
freedom-fighters were all "fascists and CIA agents."

--------------------------------------

On his second to last day alive Che Guevara ordered his guerrilla charges to give no quarter, to fight to the last breath and to the last bullet. With his men doing just that, a slightly wounded Che snuck away from the firefight and surrendered with a full clip in his pistol, while whimpering to his captors: "Don't Shoot! I'm Che! I'm worth more to you alive than dead!" He then groveled shamelessly, desperate to ingratiate himself. "What's your name, young man?" Che asked one of his captors.
"Why what a lovely name for a Bolivian soldier!"

"So what will they do with me?" Che asked Bolivian Captain Gary Prado. "I don't suppose you will kill me. I'm surely more valuable alive....And you Captain Prado," Che commended his captor. "You are a very special person ...I have been talking to some of your men. They think very highly of you, captain! And don't worry, this whole thing is over. We have failed." Then to further ingratiate himself, "your army has pursued us very tenaciously....now, could you please find out what they plan to
do with me?"
----------------------------------------

So far, subjective matters. Now on to more objective ones.

Despite numerous attempts, nobody has managed to locate any record of
Ernesto Guevara's medical degree. Shortly after his capture Che admitted to his captor's commander, Captain Gary Prado, that he (Che) was not a doctor but "had some knowledge of medicine."

Nonetheless The History Channel refers to Ernesto Guevara as a "newly
qualified Doctor."
------------------------

"The Black Book of Communism," written by French scholars and published in English by Harvard University Press (neither an outpost of the vast right-wing conspiracy, much less of "Miami maniacs!") estimates 14,000 firing squad executions in Cuba by the end of the 1960's. "The facts and figures are irrefutable," wrote the New York Times (no less!) about "The Black Book of Communism." A Cuban prosecutor of the time who quickly defected in horror and disgust named Jose Vilasuso estimates that Che signed 400 death warrants the first few months of his command in La Cabana. A Basque priest named Iaki de Aspiazu, who was often on hand to perform confessions and last rites, says Che personally ordered 700 executions by firing squad during the period. Cuban journalist Luis Ortega, who knew Che as early as 1954, writes in his book "Yo Soy El
Che!" that Guevara sent 1,892 men to the firing squad.

Read the whole thing.

Is the terrible state of modern/post-modern art, the utter irrationalism and lunatic-asylum quality about it -I wonder if that because it is people like Suneet Chopra who are it's thekedars *. Historically, the descent of art into irrationalism has followed the descent of intellectuals into the embrace of utopian totalitarianism.

(emphasis mine)

*The colorful Indian language translator-
thekedar - One who decides and sits over judgment(literally- someone who has been given a contract to do something)

Next- in part 3: tired of that 'iconic' image of mass-murderer staring from trendy t-shirts.Here are some Che images we would like to see more of.

See part 1 here

Indian artists in support of a murderer, part 1

• Well known Indian artists and other arty-sharties pay homage to Che Guevara.

Now why am I not surprised.


“The Victims of Che Guevera” poster, produced by the Young America’s Foundation, a collage that uses tiny photos of those killed by Cuba’s communist regime to compose the face of the Marxist icon, Che Guevara.
Larger image here.



First some facts which for some reason are not well publicized or are completely unknown to most(media bias?)-

Ernesto "Che" Guevara was second in command, chief executioner, and chief KGB liaison for a regime that outlawed elections and private property. This regime's KGB-supervised police, employing the midnight knock and the dawn raid among other devices, rounded up and jailed more political prisoners as a percentage of population than Stalin's and executed more people (out of a population of 6.4 million) in its first three years in power than Hitler's executed (out of a population of 70 million) in it's first six.
--------------------------------------
One week into power the regime Che Guevara co-founded abolished Habeas Corpus. Guevara commanded his regime's prosecutorial goons to "always
interrogate our prisoners at night. A man's resistance is always lower
at night." He boasted that, "we execute from revolutionary conviction!"
and that "judicial evidence is an archaic bourgeois detail." Edwin
Tetlow, Havana correspondent for London's Daily Telegraph, reported on a
mass "trial" orchestrated by Che Guevara where Tetlow noticed the death
sentences posted on a board before the trial had started.

So who loves this creep?

Famous(why?) communist art-critic, Suneet Chopra, well known artists-Arpana Caur, Krishen Khanna, Vijendra Sharma, Dharmendra Rathore, Anoop Kamath, Mohan Singh, Saba Hasan, Vijayata Bhamri, art critics Vinod Bharadwaj and Nuzhat Kazmi, writer Uma Vasudev film persons Arun Vasudev and M K Raina and a large number of intellectuals, artists, writers and leading gallery owners of the capital.


The occasion for all this roses and love was an exhibition dedicated to this lover of freedom in Delhi opened by the ambassador of that paradise of freedom, human rights, free press, free elections and prosperity known by it's shorter name -Cuba.

Suneet Chopra seemed to be in a grumbling mood-

Today imperialism has invented far worse weapons(than atom bombs) that they have tested on the civilian populations Iraq, Afghanistan and Lebanon. In the name of regime change, the elected president of the Chilean people, Salvador Allende, was murdered in an army coup that proceeded to murder thousands after that, including the Nobel Prize winning poet, Pablo Neruda. In 1991 the USSR was dismantled, and dismembered, Grenada was invaded, Nicaragua was destabilised and Yugoslavia with its proud anti-fascist record and one of the founders of the non-aligned movement was torn to bits as was Czechoslovakia, and states that Hitler had created have once more emerged in the Balkans, not as a natural process, but with the armed might of NATO behind them. “Democracy” was being imposed on the barrel of a gun with the help of generals like Pinochet, Sucharto and the like. And it was Che who told us that such a global oppression could only be stopped with a global resistance to it, by creating “twenty Vietnams” all over the world.

Warmonger! Calling for more Vietnams. Does he love war or what. Read the whole thing. Chopra is almost cartoonish in his rage against 'imperialism', a fine caricature of a fuming communist, now fuming more than ever since the collapse of the USSR (result of an evil plot, no doubt, though the liberated countries of the eastern Europe love their freedom from the Stalinist nightmare). Communism and socialism have never produced a free and prosperous society anywhere despite a century of experimentation.Misery, poverty, oppression, totalitarianism, midnight knocks, entrenched rule by a vicious elite, slave labor, 'reeducation' camps, gulags, death of tens and tens of millions-yes; happiness and freedom-no. And this is the 'vision' that Suneet Chopra and countless other intellectuals have supported and defended. One of the consistent themes of the last hundred or so years has been the love affair of the intellectuals with totalitarianism- be it that of the Nazis, of Stalin, Mao, Khmer Rouge, Castro or any other power-seeker who mouths the right cliches against 'imperialism'.

But what about the artists who participated in the Che lovefest?
Artistic freedom is one of the first casualties of the kind of regime that Che wanted to establish all over Latin America and elsewhere and helped to bring about in Cuba(Quick-How free are the artists to criticize Fidel in his land of milk and honey?).
So what explains their participation? True conviction? Or pulling the right social levers and supporting the 'right' causes to further their careers?
Or what?

I think it is legitimate to call them 'Artists against freedom'.

To prevent this post from becoming too long, I am breaking it into parts. See the rest of the article here-
Part 2- Che Myths
Part 3- Alternative Che images one would like to see more of

(emphasis mine)

Crossposted at What the Heck is Art?

Iraq is a quagmire, Bush is a moron, tra la la la

General Petraeus-Person of the Year

Belly dancers, revelers and young people in snakeskin boots. Baghdad celebrates the new year-

"I haven't seen a happy place like this in so long. I wanted to see if I could maybe meet a few girls!" he said. "I only hope the Iraqi people can enjoy more happy times like this."

Salah al-Lami, 27, the singer who performed at the Palestine ballroom and then for another New Year's Eve crowd at the Sheraton Hotel across the street, said it was the first time he had sung before a live audience in four years.

"This will be the year that we take our freedom!" he told Reuters after singing through a boisterous set in front of a packed dancefloor.

"When I went up on the stage and started singing I felt like I was performing for my family."

Belly dancers also took the stage, and revelers showered a female singer with dinar notes, the Iraqi audience's ultimate sign of approval.

But hush, don't tell it to the editors of the Hindustan Times. They are quagmired too deep down in their narrative-

No glad tidings in Iraq
If there were prizes for the most die-hard optimist of 2007, Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Maliki would probably have won it, edging out US President George W. Bush. The Iraqi premier was quoted as saying last week that al-Qaeda and terrorism in Iraq will be defeated in the New Year, followed by reconstruction and development of the country.

Although-

there has been an improvement in the security situation in many troubled areas in Iraq, including Baghdad.

But those lying Americans must not be allowed to take credit-

US generals claim that the American ‘troop surge’, which increased the number of troops and “embedded” more American advisers in Iraqi units, was responsible for bringing down the violence.

The editor's vote goes to Moqtada Sadr-

But then so would the Shia cleric Moqtada Sadr, whose order last August to his Mehdi Army militia to halt hostilities for six months made a bigger difference on the ground.

Now the real meat- whether Iraq is a disaster or on the road to recovery, let's all feel good by blaming Bush for the billionth time-

Whichever way it happened, the people of Iraq would welcome this “lull”, which curiously also gives Mr Bush an opportunity to publicly admit that Washington has failed to achieve its original mission in Iraq.

So the editors admit grudgingly to an improvement in Iraq, while not being able to psychologically admit to it's cause -the so far successful strategy of General Petraeus, recently named Person of the Year by the Sunday Telegraph.They would rather be confined to a looney bin than give credit to Bush who against all the wailing of the pundits went ahead with the surge. Incidentally, the editors of the Hindustan Times were vehemently against the surge.

According to the Sunday Telegraph-

To appreciate the scale of the task Gen Petraeus took on, it is necessary to go back to February 22, 2006. Or, as Iraqis now refer to it, their own September 11. That was when Sunni-led terrorists from al-Qaeda blew up the Shia shrine in the city of Samarra, an act of provocation that finally achieved their goal of igniting sectarian civil war.

A year on, an estimated 34,000 people had been killed on either side - some of them members of the warring Sunni and Shia militias, but most innocents tortured and killed at random. US casualties continued to rise, too, but increasingly American troops became the bystanders in a religious conflict that many believed they could no longer tame.
----------------------------
Nine months on, things do seem to have improved, thanks largely to Petraeus's extraordinary coup of turning Sunni insurgents against their extremist allies in al-Qaeda.

With the chief accelerant in the civil war gone, Shia militias such as the Mehdi Army have also been deprived of their main raison d'être, and with extra US troops on the streets, Iraqis who had previously felt vulnerable to the gunmen now feel safe enough to return home.
[Notice how the editors of the Hindustan Times make Moqtada Sadr's decision appear as if it just happened, without any doing from the Americans -ed]

Also notice that the Sunday Telegraph is not without it's doubts, which is quite a reasonable thing to have on the the subject of Iraq -but they do not flinch from giving credit where due-

Iraq's Shia-dominated government is not alone in worrying that the most controversial of Gen Petraeus's policies - the co-opting of former Sunni insurgents into "concerned local citizens" schemes to fend off Shia militias - may create new, better-organised forces for a renewed civil war once the US finally departs.

Many coalition officials fear such a scenario. Were it to occur, it would confirm the charges of Petraeus's critics that at best he has secured only a hiatus in the collapse of Iraq.
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Ultimately, that may prove to be the case.

But it should not overshadow his achievement this year: he has given another last chance to a country that had long since ceased to expect one. And for that, Gen Petraeus is Person of the Year.

And to rub it in, Bill Kristol writes-

One additional point: Petraeus's counterinsurgency stands out not just for its conceptual ambition and the skill of its execution but for its humanity. There were those who argued that the U.S. military could not succeed in counterinsurgency because Americans were not tough and bloodthirsty enough. They said that brutality was essential in subduing insurgents and our humanity would be our downfall.

They were wrong. The counterinsurgency campaign of 2007 was probably the most precise, discriminate, and humane military operation ever undertaken on such a scale. Our soldiers and Marines worked hard--and took risks and even casualties--to ensure, as much as possible, that they hurt only enemies. Compared with any previous military operations of this size, they were astonishingly successful. The measure of their success lies in the fact that so many Iraqis now see American troops as friends and protectors. Petraeus and his generals have shown that Americans can fight insurgencies and win--and still be Americans. For that and so much else, he is the man of the year.

Now that is something the groupthink prevalent at most of our media offices will never let the Indian public hear.They are stuck too deep down in their own mental muck to admit that they, with all their fancy journalism degrees and other qualifications from elite institutions were wrong. They are behaving like a monkey who has learnt an amusing action -like putting on and taking off a cap-and keeps repeating it ad nauseam:

Iraq is a quagmire, Bush is a moron, tra la la la!

(emphasis mine)


On the other hand, General Petraeus is not so good for the blogosphere.

A mole changes name

Offered without any comment except the cartoon above-

Mohammed the mole digs author into a risky hole

A BRITISH children’s author who named a mole Mohammed to promote multiculturalism has renamed it Morgan for fear of offending Muslims.

Kes Gray, a former advertising executive, first decided on his gesture of cross-cultural solidarity after meeting Muslims in Egypt.

The character, Mohammed the Mole, appeared in Who’s Poorly Too, an illustrated children’s book, which also included Dipak Dalmatian and Pedro Penguin, in an effort to be “inclusive”.

This weekend Gray said he had decided to postpone a reprint and rename the character Morgan the Mole even though there had been no complaints.



“I had no idea at all of the sensitivities of the name Mohammed until seeing this case in Sudan,” said Gray. “As soon as I saw the news I thought, oh gosh, I’ve got a mole called Mohammed this is not good.

“I feel incredibly sorry for that teacher,” added Gray. “Luckily for me, I’m in a position where I can avoid this.” The book has sold 40,000 copies in Britain and abroad since 1999.

Gray said he tried “hard to embrace other cultures and I had no idea it would backfire like this. I was in Egypt this year and everyone was called Mohammed. I just thought it was a popular name”.

(emphasis mine)
read the whole thing.
Quick, buy the book before it's original print runs out and Morgan steps in for Muhammad.

Okay, okay, can't help it, just one comment-
Where are the all the Dipaks of the world?How come they are not offended on having a dog named Dipak?Has the flame of Dipakism died out?

Normal programming to resume shortly

Blogging interrupted due to various and never ending trials and tribulations.I wish it was all roses and applause.




But what the heck!
Normal programming to resume shortly.


Note- I am unable, due to lack of information, to credit the image above but thank the unknown(to me!) creator for the wonderful image.

A holy immersion in black waters.

On the banks of the Yamuna, the river that flows through the city of Delhi.
Occassion- immersion of something called 'khetri', or "or the earthen pot in which grass is grown during the holy Navratri for praying to Goddess Vaishno".

The water is very dark, almost black.



Here the river catches the fading evening light. The children who live in settlements near the bank are eager to make some money. They usually ask 15 or 20 rupees to take the plant some way into the river and dive into the dirty water and let the plant go.


River children. Interestingly, while this is a Hindu tradition, the children doing the immersion seemed to be mostly muslims.


Note-The above link takes you to someone not pleased with this custom or the state of the river.

All the art in the world will not reduce poverty one bit

It seems that there is going to be an arty-sharty event under the holy blessings of a famous guru, with rock concerts, art shows and a parade of page 3 bimbettes like Nafisa Ali and Nandita Das. The cause- we live in a time where the elites have a deep seated psychological need of a 'cause' to salve their consciences- is to "participate and raise our voices against poverty and a peaceful world" in the support of 'United Nations Millennium Development Goals'.
(Are they really going to raise their voices against a peaceful world?-ed)

As if 'Make Poverty History' was a great success.
Of course, this is just another excuse for the rich and the guilty to feel good as they drive to the event in their Mercedes and Skodas, or fly in first class from another city. As for the artists and artistes, an occassion to ingratiate themselves with the 'happening' crowd and another step on the ladder of their careers.In short, everyone happy.

As for the actual poor, none are likely to attend the event( and if they tried they would run the risk of being chased away from the gates of the IHC, an uber-elite complex of the rich and the famous)


Those who are crazy to be part of something associated with the United Nations are often unaware (or don't care) that the programs of the UN are run by a bureaucracy that like all bureaucracies all over the world is inefficient, self-serving, unaccountable,venal and corrupt. In the case of the United Nations, the unaccountability has plumbed to great depths.It's corruption and venality takes on a global scale by the very nature of the institution. Who gave us the far reaching corruption of oil-for-food? The utter unaccountability of UNDP in North Korea? The raping, looting and child prostitution conducted by it's soldiers (the sex-for-food scandal)?

The 'United Nations Millennium Development Goals' is the planet scale version of Indira Gandhi's garibi-hatao(remove poverty) and is as likely to fail. Indian economy began to take off only when the deathgrip of state socialism was loosened beginning 1991. We all know what works, although several are reluctant to admit it. There is a very, very hysterically vocal section of society everywhere which opposes that which will (and has proved to) reduce poverty anywhere it has been tried. Ironically, that section, made up of powerful coalitions of left-leaning NGO's , 'civil society' groups and various members of the media-arts elites are highly influential at the UN. An ambitious planet-wide project under their aegis means only one thing-

"...a sort of utopian central planning by global bureaucrats, a crash program like a Great Leap Forward for poor countries," ........ "This will not work any better than central planning by bureaucrats has worked anywhere else, which is to say not at all."

and-

For example, the long section on aid shoves right past the realities to rattle the cup for more money flowing through the gullies of UN plans and bureaucracy, where so much has already vanished, or been diverted into support of bad governments that create precisely the conditions that inflict poverty. Someone needs to remind Mr. Annan that every dollar taxed away from the citizens of the rich nations of the world is a dollar less that's available for these same private citizens to buy goods for which there is genuine market-driven demand--that being the real engine of development.

Mr. Annan wants every poor country to produce--get ready for the mouthful--a "Millennium Development Goals-based" national strategy (meaning, in line with U.N. plans). By September he wants donor countries to produce "timetables and monitorable targets" to align aid delivery with all these strategies. Then, the U.N. will baste this all together into a plan even bigger than Oil for Food, which sounds like an unfortunate idea. Mr. Annan gets it partly right about the need for free trade, but he urges such openness only for the richest nations, not for the poorest--a vision that will make the rich richer, but do far less for the poor. Meanwhile, he deplores a growing income gap between rich and poor nations.

Some sections are almost comic, such as Mr. Annan's chiding the Security Council and General Assembly that when they assign tasks to the Secretariat, they must take care "that they also provide resources adequate for the task." Yes, but as Oil for Food illustrated, even $1.4 billion in administrative funding was not enough to provide honesty and competence. The glitch was the abysmal, secretive and conflict-of-interest-ridden management of Mr. Annan's Secretariat, not lack of money. Mr. Annan notes that he wants more transparency and accountability, but he suggests this come from more reshuffling inside the U.N. itself, not from outside oversight. We have been here before.

(emphasis mine)

I left a comment for one of the participants-

Ashok Nayak, you must be joking. All the art shows and rock concerts in the world, even if under the blessing of some holy man, will not do one whit to reduce poverty.

When it comes to reducing poverty, only one thing has shown to work- free markets(a.k.a capitalism). Strangely, the art world elites are mostly hostile to this solution.

Originally posted at -What the heck is art?

"There's something sick about, about our culture when we don't acknowledge genuine heroes"

As if to confirm what I said in the last post, Bill Kristol-

I think there's something about this wonderfully moving narrative about Al Gore that Juan(Williams) likes to compare to Mother Teresa. I haven't noticed Al Gore taking a vow of poverty recently. You know, there's something sick really about taking the whole thing seriously. The day before the Nobel Peace Prize was announced, President Bush signed off on the third Medal, Congressional Medal of Honor in the current global war on terror. The first for anyone who served in Afghanistan, for Navy seal Lt. Michael Murphy.

This got about one-one thousandth the coverage of the Nobel Peace Prize which as Charles says is an entirely political gesture. There are fewer Congressional Medals of Honor awarded than Nobel Peace Prizes. The New York Times, this is, Mike Murphy, the 29-year-old who died in 2005, from Long Island. The New York Times, the local newspaper for this genuine American hero, hasn't mentioned it. Huge stories, Al Gore, what a narrative, what sacrifices he's made to produce this movie and to become a multi-zillionaire as he makes himself so famous touting the cause of global warming.

Michael Murphy gets the Congressional Medal of Honor, and the New York Times, our leading newspaper and the local newspaper in this case, can't notice it. There's something sick about, about our culture when we don't acknowledge genuine heroes, and, as I say, give a prize, make such a big deal about some guy who's made a movie.

(emphasis mine)

Read the whole thing.

Oh, by the did I mention that Bill Kristol is considered a neocon. You won't be hearing much from him in our MSM.