Kavi had the 2nd birthday. Lots of two-years old getting funky with the cake. I did some partying of my own in Madison at some bar that had a giant fake tree in it for unexplained reasons. Here are a few things to keep you going through the Sunday night.
- Everyone is talking about the chilling profile of Our Fearless Leader in the NYT Magazine. Juan Cole uses the piece to compare Bush to Mao. All I can say is, let's just get him out of the White House and worry about history later.
- Also from NYT, comes a fairly disturbing image about veiling. I think I know what I will be for Halloween.
- Over in Bangladesh, there is some uproar on whether the Prophet was called a war-monger by a German historian, Hans Kippenberg. Same point came up in my class. Crazy historians, eh?
- Spencer laid down the law about another historian and controversy in Maharashtra. Here is a review from Asia Times of James Laine's Shiva Ji. Prof. Laine cannot ever travel to India on account of charges brought up against him. Spencer kicked ass in his appraisal of the culpability of media and state against Laine.
- From the Guardian, a story about the rise in Rumi appreciation in Iran. Why? Because Rumi is love and spirituality and what the fundamentalists have to offer to Muslims ain't that. Speaking of Rumi: Hey! Dani! Can we get started on the book?
- Lastly, this will make a lot more sense if you have seen Sholay or know who Amitabh is...still, it is a funny desi take on the presidential debates.
COMMENTS
desesperanto | October 18, 2004
I think you forgot a link to http://www.badmash.org/dishoom.php ... I thought it was the most hilarious swf ever, but I've seen Sholay a hundred times.
Cheeni | October 18, 2004
Thanks for the blog, it enables me to live the life and share the intellect of a person who feels just like me, yet so differently talented :-)
sepoy | October 18, 2004
desesperanto: thanks for the catch. Have u heard of this crazy plan to remake Sholay? What say ye? cheeni: thanks for appreciating. I don't know about the differently talented part, though. I could decipher the geek code without the glossary ;)
cheeni | October 18, 2004
sepoy: hmm...you didn't even bother with the inline decoder did you, hmm...scary! Differently talented? Are you also a qualified bean counter then? :-) Your travels into the dark recesses of the sub-continent's history fascinate me. My formal education never took me too deep or accurately in any context of history, and I'm left to gather the missing subtext when possible. My perception of history is, and I paraphrase Bruce Sterling here - "History is a form of science fiction. The future is history that hasn't happened yet. History is the sensibility of one time, assessing another time, that it cannot possibly know." I'm entertained!