Mass Media = Masses of Money

Find out who is paying for the junk that you are reading or viewing in the name of news. Read this and ponder.

GDP by Purchasing Power Parity

Found this interesting map on wikipedia -

Here is a link to interesting set of maps, to which this one belongs.

Buy More Stuff!!

On Black Friday there were many people in downtown Seattle standing with placards saying "BUY MORE STUFF!!" Shot a picture of that in my cell phone.

I am reading Ramayana

I am reading C Rajagopalachari's translation of Ramayana. I admire C Rajaogopalachari not only as a freedom fighter, a scholar, a liberalist, an extraordinary intellectual, and one of the foremost politicians of independent India, but also as a one of the prominent statesmen who opposed personal hegemony perpetuated by Nehru after independence.

Look, it's going ot rain ... no, no, it is raining

I have never known any job easier than being the weatherman of Seattle. From October to June, the forecast for Seattle is one of the two possibilities - overcast or rain. And more often than not, it's the latter. For instance, here's the forecast for the next ten days. This is a bit better than the forecast we had ten days ago - this time there is one day when it's not going to rain!

The Last Emperor

Yesterday I saw The Last Emperor. It is no wonder that the movie won 9 Oscars, including the Best Picture Award. It's an amazing movie. It's a long movie (more than three hours long) on a serious topic, and yet it keeps you glued to your seat. The way Bernardo Bertolucci has recreated early twentieth century China is definitely admirable. It is very interesting narration of the life of the last emperor of China, Puyi, who was crowned emperor when he was just 3 years old, lost his seat when he was just a teenager and ended up in prison after the Communist revolution of 1949.

After watching the movie a thought crossed my mind. Is it because of the constant fighting between different warlords that Chinese people finally thought that the best option available to them was single party rule and Communism. Is that why Communism has survived sixty years and is seeing no threat in near future?

Crouching Tiger ...

Yesterday I saw Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. It's a movie I always wanted to see. When the movie won the Oscar for best foreign language film, it evoked mixed response from people. Many people told me that it is an excellent movie, whie others condemned it for being nonsensical.

My reaction after seing the movie was that it's a good movie. The cinematography is great. The plot is interesting. Acting is good. Pleople flying in air and jumping over rooftops can be tolerated and is compensated by some great photography of martial arts. On the whole, it was not a bad movie at all. Worth watching once.

Some interesting news

Here are links to some interesting news articles I came across in last few weeks:

First one is about the extent of corruption in Indian media. Almost all the news printed before elections are published by bribing journalists.

As yet, only The Hindu has written about rampant corruption that exists in Indian media. Hindu followed it up with an editorial titled Journalism for sale. Of the political parties, only the CPI(M) has openly spoken about the corruption in the media.

Second one is from The Times of India: RSS service projects multiply ten fold. Number of RSS run social development projects now number 1,57,776; up from 15,063 ten years ago.

Finally, today is the twentieth anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. We can only imagine what that moment it would have been for Germans.

Fall Colours

As promised, some pictures of fall colours in Bellevue. This year, Seattle area is witnessing extraordinary display of fall colours.

ab teraa kyaa hogaa k k k

Bellevue Maharashtra Mandal's Diwali celebration took place this weekend with a big bang! Two extraordinary plays - ab teraa kyaa hogaa k k k, written and directed by Subhag Oak, and (pu la deshpande's) mahees, directed by Jayant Bhopatkar - were performed in Portland (yesterday) and Bellevue (today).

Poornima played the role of te ra koTee's sister in ab teraa kyaa hogaa k k k. The play was a humourous murder mystery. It was an excellent play; very well-written. The play turned out to be terrific, and everyone acted really well including Poornima. Hence it was a very exciting weekend for us.