Chronosynclastic Infundibulum

Hoysala construction techniques in Halebidu

Until recently my plans of seeing Halebidu seemed jinxed. I always started with the temple in Belur and by the time I was done with Belur it was too late to see Halebidu properly. I was told that Halebidu was much more impressive than Belur, but I hadn’t had a chance to see it well until a few days ago.

A few days ago I visited the ruins of the temples in Halebidu. It was quite a sight to behold. And this, despite the fact that the temple was, in fact, incomplete, and had been vandalized by the Muslim invaders first, and the British later. Much like Belur, each carving in the temple tells a story. Each carving or sculpture deserves its own post. So I won’t even attempt to describe my entire visit in this post. I might write up separate posts for select sculptures later, but for now, I’d like to focus on the techniques used by the Hoysalas to build the temples. Continue reading…

Big Banyan Tree near Bangalore

My month long vacation back home in Bangalore began on the 10th of this month. It started with a visit to the Big Banyan Tree. It is a 400 year old Banyan Tree (that’s Strangler Fig, for you Yankees ) that spans over 2 acres.

It was quite a sight to see with aerial prop roots all over the place.

View of the Big Banyan Tree upon entering the premises

I am not in Costa Rica because I am not Muslim

Delta Airlines

I was supposed to be in Costa Rica this week. Instead, I am still in College Station, Texas. Mostly because I am not Muslim. Sounds weird? Read on.

My flight on Delta Airlines was supposed to leave on Friday at 5:45 AM from Houston International Airport. I got there about an hour before departure and they stuck me on a self check-in line. I tried getting the staff’s attention but they didn’t seem interested in helping anyone. During my time there, I saw stretches of as long as 10 minutes during which the check-in counter was completely unmanned with a line of over 10 groups of passengers waiting.

After about 20 minutes of waiting on the self check-in I finally managed to get to the check-in kiosk. When I try to check-in it says it can’t do the check-in because I don’t have an US passport and I have to get to the manned check-in counter. Now they stick me at the end of the manned check-in counter which is taking 10 minutes or more to check-in each passenger. As I inch closer to the front of the line a new guy shows up to take over the counter, and simply leave the counter and starts walking around the line of people waiting for check-in.

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U.S. may embrace Obama, Aggie racism marches on, yet

This happened on the evening of Nov. 4th. After Obama was pronounced as the new president of USA, a bunch of us decided to hit a near by bar for a few drinks. When we got there, we saw a bunch of Aggies with T-shirts that said “Beat the hell outta Obama”. Before I go any further, the message on the T-shirt is not to be taken literally, or as a racist comment. It’s an old Ag tradition that started with “Beat the hell outta (University of) Texas”, and now they just change the last word to anything they want. So don’t associate this with the lynching to black men in the southern slave states.

So yeah, when I saw those T-shirts, I knew they were Aggies and they were Republicans. As Obama was giving his acceptence speech we started hearing comments that went something like this:

He made it because the pussy liberals wanted to vote for a Muslim…

Looks like gold teeth and fried chicken will now be tax exempt…

We now have an Arab for a president. Looks like the terrorists won…

And I am not making any of this up! The Aggies are notorious for their racist views, hate, and bias anyway. Patrix’s post on Egg tossing at Obama (an incident which made it to the national news) should give you an idea of how antiquated (almost pre-integration) the Aggies’ ideology is. In fact, my earlier post about Aggie racism suggests an institutional investment in fostering such an environment.

In other news: Here’s what a (University of) Texas football player Buck Brunette had to say about Obama’s election “All the hunters gather up, we have a [nigger] in the White House.” That’s what he said on his Facebook page and was promptly kicked off the team.

Collision on I-35

It has been a couple of days now, and I have been able to internalize what happened and actually build the story of my accident on the Interstate I-35 near Hillsboro, Texas.

I started from Denton early in the afternoon towards College Station. After a long dry spell, it has been raining since noon. I knew that the roads would be wet and my Mustang would have less traction than usual. So I started cautiously. By about 3PM I was past the city of Dallas on I-35E South and was about to merge into I-35 South. Thanks to construction around there, there were 2-feet concrete separators along the sides of the highway.

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Anil Kumble retires from Test cricket

I woke up this working to the news of Kumble’s retirement. While it did come as a surprise, it wasn’t entirely unexpected. What surprised me was the timing, in the middle of a test series. However, one can’t help but admire everything that he has given to the game and to the team. One event that stands out, for me, in Kunble’s illustrious career is the Antigua test in 2002 where he bowled with a broken jaw. Haven’t really been able to respect him less since then.

Kumble bowling with a fractured jaw in the fourth test match at Antigua in 2002. Pic Source: The Hindu

So Darwin and God are finally cool

The pope said that evolution is ok by him. So I guess that means that the Catholics can down become evolutionary biologists/anthropologists and such. I wonder what happened in 150 years that changed Vatican’s mind? Given that Catholics assume that Pope has God’s mandate over Christiandom, Pope must have been talking to god on a fairly regular basis. My best guess is that the Pope got a call from God and it went something like this:

“Hey Benedict! Wassaap? Its your old man here. Howz my favorite catholic doin’?…”

“Oh yeah, by the way, Darwin and I had a long chat some time back. He’s a really nice fella. He’s got an awesome beard too. Nothing like mine, but hey, gotta give props where its due right? Anywayz, so Darwin and I were chillin’ out smoking some reefer and stuff… hey, now don’t be judging, I created it remember? So yeah, I realized Darwin’s a cool dude after all. We play checkers all the time now. He’s awesome, he always let me win! So I’ve decided to let him into heaven….”

“What’s that? Oh, the evolution thing? Yeah… well… tell ya what, we are still vetting Einstein to be let into heaven. All the Democratic angels want him in, but the Republican angels are giving him a tough time, with he being a Jew and not believing in my Son and all, but we’ll get there….”

“Why Einstein? Dude! I am sick and tired of there harps all over the place, I need something different, and Einstein’s awesome on the violin. Anywayz, coming back, here’s what you can do, you can tell everyone that evolution is now cool with Me, and that the whole creating the universe in 7 days.. well Einstein here tells me that if I said that I was going at the speed of light when I created the universe, then somehow my watch slows down, and so my 7 days is really billions of years on earth. And that fits nicely with evolution and everything….”

“What?! Me come down and say that myself? The last time I tried doing something like that they nailed my Son to a tree! No way pal! Fool me once shame on you, fool me twice shame on me!…”

“Look, I know its not going to be easy convincing everyone, but hey, its not the first time! Remember Galileo? Yeah, we managed to get people to be cool with him after 300 years, and this is just half that time. It’ll work out Benedict… tell ya what, you do this for me and I’ll throw in a couple of extra virgins when you get here. How about that?…”

“Sweet! Gotta go pal. The whole global warming crap that people are into is keepin’ me busy.. I got a few more hurricanes to create in the Atlantic, and yeah, I was tardy on the whole ice-sheet melting thing. Apparently it wasn’t as drastic as last year. Gotta make up for that! Jeez, I need a vacation! Anywayz, gotta go, ciao.”

Image source: http://www.markvernon.com/friendshiponline/images/Jesus&Darwin.jpg

The United States of socialism

The nationalization of Freddie Mac and Fanny May marks a major shift in the US policy of free-market, deregulated economy (to a more socialist policy), or does it? With my rant against the the bailout out of the way, lets see if this really is something different that the US government has had to do to save its skin.

The answer is actually “No”! The US has a noteworthy history of socialistic policies:

1. Agricultural subsidy: Since 1933, the US government has been subsidizing its agriculture. Even though it marginalizes small farmers and mostly serves the agri-business gaints [source], has adverse impact on developing nations economy [source], and many economists see it as a waste of resources [source]. The subsidy still remains, and is still antithetical to free-market capitalism.
2. Social security: Social security was introduced in the US in the 1930s to help recover from the great depression (yet another spectacular collapse of free-market economy). On a side note, it is interesting to see how every time free-market economy falters, the government steps in with a socialist solution and yet feels insulted when called out on it. Its a program that is still in practice, and is arguably one of the largest socialist program in existence in the world. Despite several criticisms of the program, the White House is steadfast in its commitment to this socialistic program, and will not have anyone saying anything otherwise.
3. S&L Crisis: The Savings and Loans Crisis of the 80s and 90s demonstrated the socialist tendencies of the US yet again. The of the chief causes for this crisis, among others, was the rampant deregulation of the economy (allowing greater influence of free-market forces). When the fit hit the shan, guess what the US government did? Yup, it bailed the parties out, much like Freddie mac and Fanny May. In fact of the total loss of about $160 Billion, the US government, and hence the tax payers, paid for over $124 Billion! They just couldn’t let the market heal itself, a socialist relief simply had to be provided. On a side note, its ironic that the Financial Institutions Reform, Recovery, and Enforcement Act (FIRREA) of 1989 which was enacted in response to the S&L crisis put Freddie Mac and Fanny May in charge of supporting mortgages for low- and moderate-income families. Guess who needs saving in the new free-market precipitated crisis now? That’s right! Freddie Mac and Fanny May!
4. Public Education: Yet another (expensive) example of socialism in the US is that public education system. This includes federal (soft) loans, education grants, the public school system, etc. With the US spending over $11,000 per student per year, the public school system in the US is one of the most expensive in the world, and with a 100% of it being provided for free to the students out of the tax payers pocket, this is yet another example of America’s socialist policies.
5. Unemployment benefits: Uncle Sam pays any unemployed citizen a fixed amount as.. well… a hand out, a give-away. Its called unemployment benefit. There are similar welfare programs for other disadvantaged demographic in the society to equalize the opportunities available to them. Now if that isn’t socialist, I don’t know what is.
6. The Arts: The US government support for the arts through the National Endowment for Arts is yet another use of the tax payers money to fund a ‘greater social good’. And not everyone is happy about it. be anything other than a socialist program. Why? Because if free-market were to drive arts, then you’d have private buyers/parties funding the arts, and not the government, as simple as that.

There probably are many more such examples, but I cant think of any more off the top of my head. But I guess six are sufficient to make my point. Despite all the rhetoric of the glories of capitalism, free-market, and the spiteful opposition to socialism, there are many US policies that are strictly socialist, and yeah, Freddie Mac and Fanny may bailout is not in the least bit unprecedented (remember the S&L crisis bailouts), or a marked jump towards socialism. Its simply business as usual in the US of A. So the next time someone says US was always capitalistic and socialism is an evil that needs to be uprooted, you’ll know better than to waste your time arguing with them.

Image Source: http://www.clas.ufl.edu/users/wbeal/images/socialism.gif

Paying for someone else’s mortgage

Last week, the US government took control over Freddie Mac and Fanny May, the financial gaints of the US martage industry (and the crisis). Now this puts the US government in control of nearly half of the $12tn mortgage debt in the US (The two companies have lent or underwritten about $5.3 trillion mortgage debt in the United States). There have been several justifications for why such a bail out was necessary, and how it will keep the US economy from collapse, blah, blah, blah…This is not what this post is about. This post is about personal and ideological consequences of this action.

Just to put things in perspective, the $5.3tn bailout has effectively doubled the US national debt over a weekend! Worse, the actual cost of the bailout is yet to be ascertained, simply because nobody knows how much of the $5.3tn debt will be defaulted and/or foreclosed, and not to mention that ensuing expense for when the companies dispose off the foreclosed property. If the actions of the Republican VP pick — Sarah Palin — with respect to selling off state property is any indication of government attitude towards it, then looks like the US government will be losing a lot of money in the near future.

Now the question is, where is all this money going to come from? Answer: the tax payers. So suddenly some third party’s unwise decision to give a sub-prime loan to thousands of unqualified individuals, a decision that I had no control over, is now going to cost ME money?!?! And again, I have no control over that decision! Am I the only one who thinks its a wee bit backwards?

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