Ridiculing Religious Insanity

Religious insanity should be ridiculed as strenuously and as frequently as one can. Here I am talking about the recent demand by the Pastafarians that since their religion forbids the eating of pasta without meatballs, all vegetarian pasta dishes be banned. It offends the Pastafarians that people can even contemplate the eating of pasta without the required half a dozen meatballs.
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Religious Affiliation in the US

A NY Times report by Neela Banerjee refers to a new survey of religious affiliation by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life.

The report shows, for example, that every religion is losing and gaining members, but that the Roman Catholic Church “has experienced the greatest net losses as a result of affiliation changes.” The survey also indicates that the group that had the greatest net gain was the unaffiliated. More than 16 percent of American adults say they are not part of any organized faith, which makes the unaffiliated the country’s fourth largest “religious group.”

The money quote for me is:

Muslims rival Mormons for having the largest families. And Hindus are the best-educated and among the richest religious groups, the survey found. [emphasis added.]

Now that is what I call globalization: India importing the Indian rate of growth from the US. Notice that the socialistic Nehru rate of growth of 2 percent per year was prevalent for nearly forty years after India’s independence. Only in the mid 1990’s did the pace pick up — around the same time that Indians started making it big in the US.

Breathes there the man . . .

Breathes there the man, with soul so dead,
Who never to himself hath said,
“This is my own, my native land!”
Whose heart hath ne’er within him burned,
As home his footsteps he hath turned,
From wandering on a foreign strand!
If such there breathe, go, mark him well;
For him no Minstrel raptures swell;
High though his titles, proud his name,
Boundless his wealth as wish can claim;
Despite those titles, power, and pelf,
The wretch, concentred all in self,
Living, shall forfeit fair renown,
And, doubly dying, shall go down
To the vile dust, from whence he sprung,
Unwept, unhonoured, and unsung.

From The Lay of the Last Minstrel by Sir Walter Scott.

On Writing Well

This is meta-writing: writing about writing.

Ankan wrote:

You write extremely well. You have very good ideas, but your posts are a joy to read even when I do not agree completely with the ideas.

They say good writing comes as a result of clarity of thought. Is it just that, or can one do something more to improve one’s written ability? Is there any advice you would like to give to someone who wishes to write well?

Thanks for the generous comment.

I am not qualified to give advice on how to write well. Attempting to do so would be presumptuous, as it would imply that I myself know how to write well. By definition, only a few of us can do something well. Much of the time it is a combination of innate talent and years of practice. Little can be done about talent except to accept what one is endowed with gracefully. What one can do is practice enough to become better at something – and perhaps do it well. So what follows is briefly what I believe it takes to become a better writer.
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Jago (revisited)

In response to the post on Jago Party, Mr Denson Joseph, one of the founder members of the party, took the trouble to post a comment. This is a response to that comment.

I maintain that it is a always a good sign that people are seriously making an attempt at forming political parties. The marketplace, so to speak, has to expand. With some luck, the good ones will take root and flourish. But the creation of a good party is not just a matter of luck. It has to be the result of some deep thinking. Impassioned calls to “WORK TOGETHER & TAKE ACTION BEFORE IT IS TOO LATE” by “the literate noble thinkers, bloggers & critics” is a bit premature if the hard thinking has not been done.
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The World is Flat

If you ever wondered where Tom Friedman got the idea, here is a wild conjecture. Friedman thought that invading Iraq was a good idea. So they went and bombed Iraq and flattened it. Little surprise then that some Iraqis think that the earth is flat and Tom wrote a book that the world is flat. QED.

The Earth is Flat: Debate on Iraqi TV.
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Rajesh Jain “On Turning 40”

Go read Rajesh’s mini-autobiography “On Turning 40,” which he did last year on August 15th (but posted it only today because he was on break from blogging.) Please to note that the “Atanu Dey” he mentions in there is indeed yours truly 🙂

I will take this opportunity to publicly recognize that it is an honor working with him. The other day when I was bitching and moaning about how I was dissatisfied with what I was accomplishing, a friend asked me why I don’t just get back to California where I was personally a lot happier. I would do that in a heartbeat. The only problem is that I will never get a chance to work with someone with the vision and integrity of Rajesh.

Alan Watts: The Vegetable Root Discourses

[Here is a transcript from one of the scores of Alan Watts’ talks I have in mp3 format.]

[Begin transcript of Alan’s talk.]

I’m not really a musician but it just so happens that I have in front of me a fabulous instrument which the Japanese call koto. I suppose it would be best described as a table harp. Long instrument stringed with bridges – horizontal harp.

It was customary among Chinese poets in the old days to read poetry and strum on the lute or table harp at the same time. And I have got here a curious old text called Ts’ai-ken T’an – which means the “Vegetable Root Discourses” – written by Koji Tse (sp?) somewhere around 1624.
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