Accidental Blogger
A general interest blog
Category: Educational, Cultural & Social Matters
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I noted in my post yesterday that the whole world was watching to see if the United States of America, a country with a majority white population, could bring itself to elect a dark skinned president of mixed race. The US voters came through for Barack Obama, confronting and overcoming a cultural challenge as old as…
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The upcoming presidential election will pit against each other two contenders who differ vastly in their philosophies and temperaments. During the lengthy presidential campaign season, the world has had ample time and opportunity to observe the message, organizational skill, judgement, rhetorical tenor and demeanor of each candidate. At the end of that process Barack Obama…
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The ubiquitous Indian call centers, the source of numerous Indian jobs and American outsourcing have permeated the Indian popular culture. As India’s $64 billion outsourcing industry grows, the curious world of call centers has become the stuff of Indian pop culture. Their all-night working hours, made-up names, adopted accents and geeky global troubleshooting are becoming…
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Nicholas Kristoff of the New York Times thinks so. Despite the Reverend Wright controversy and his own declaration of how he came to embrace the Chirstian faith, a substantial percentage of American voters, many of them Democrats, persist in their belief that Obama is a Muslim. Kristoff suspects that this is stubbornness on the part of…
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Yesterday was day nine without electricity in our home. Only four houses on our street remain unplugged. All the other neighbors had their power restored the Sunday after the storm. As I have mentioned in previous posts and comments, although not having our own electricity is proving to be very cumbersome, we have until now…
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"I just loathe the way Palin is using her kids, especially the baby, as a sort of shield. Conservatives cut funding, always, consistently…so just popping out children left and right does not make someone a good advocate for them. I don’t think people are realizing how disastrous she could be for social services," writes Matt…
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An apt rejoinder to the "elitist" put down of Barack Obama by Sarah Palin and other Republicans. (link) Another Biblically correct shirt maker takes the slogan one step further; Democrats are having fun too.
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And of course, Republican politics. Jon Stewart of the Daily Show has a compilation of right wing pundits and pols weighing in on small town mayors, teen pregnancy, media misogyny …. and whining. (via The Presidential Candidates) http://www.thedailyshow.com/sitewide/video_player/view/default/swf.jhtml And here is someone who knows Sarah Palin. (link: Namit Arora)
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Should we? Perhaps. The game plan of the Democrats has to be radically overhauled. This is no longer going to be a campaign only about "issues" or the State of the Union. It is also about cultural divisiveness and pushing voters into their "zone of discomfort" many of whom are now likely to cast the…
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An article in the New York Times describes the views of an Indian activist and an MIT economist who believe that India’s economic boom could be the realistic vehicle for the dismantling of the millennia old repressive and backward Hindu caste system. Chandra Bhan Prasad, a member of the Dalit community and a social motivator, encourages…
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I first brought up the Beloit College Mindset List, published annually around the start of each school year, in the context of Pluto losing its planetary status. To keep up that blogging tradition at A.B. From this year’s list of sixty, I am posting a dozen cultural mindset items that an eighteen year old today…
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Conservative school administrators and state legislators in Texas have gained plenty of notoriety for attempting (without success) to ban the teaching of evolution, using laughable misinformation and spurious threats. Some school districts have repeatedly tried to introduce Christian prayer in public schools. Having failed to drag God into the class room, at least one Texas…
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Here is one topic on which most people have a strong opinion. My own take on the matter is a bit mixed and the older and more cynical I grow, I seem to be leaning away from what I once fervently believed as a youthful sports fan. I have had some heated debates with others…
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Viewers were outraged enough to register some annoyance at the revelation that the fantastic fireworks for the Olympics Opening ceremony were pre-recorded and added in. But Chinese officials have taken the fakery to new levels, with their using a lip-synching ‘pretty model’ Lin Miaoke aged 9 (in the red dress) to move her lips to…
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Namit Arora at Shunya’s Notes describes his journey through Dholavira, the remains of a 5000 years old metropolis in the Rann of Kutch, an environmentally inhospitable region in western India. Excavation has uncovered a sophisticated urban development whose inhabitants, it is clear, were very much obsessed with channeling and preserving fresh water within their city.…
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