Where is GWB?

GWB seems to have gone missing much like old Tamil TV actresses!

Eight years of prime time and then he is not there to defend things like this or this.

The whole thing is depressing.

So many people are losing their jobs here and we all work our tails off trying to make ends meet. A significant part of tax money goes into fighting unnecessary wars instead of ensuring a decent future for us or our kids..

Is it possible that GWB is now a part of the rendition program?

Is it possible that he is in some unnamed eastern European country going through interrogation on how he let all this happen and for what?

Every time I used to see or hear Bush speak about "war on terror" or "winning" the image of Dhritarashtra from the Amar Chitra Katha's flashed in my head!

There were so many ministers in his court who were wise but none wanted to speak up and let the blind king know how Draupathi was being humiliated and wronged in front of everyone..

Looks like the Iraqi vasthra haran was done in front of 100 senators as they all watched as Cheyneyodhana and Rumshasana did their thing.. even the wise Vidhura types like Powell watched out of loyalty for the blind King?!

For the longest time my thought was that the dark complexioned Krishna.. err Obama will finally come to rescue Draupathi.. He is a long time coming!

I do not want to go further with the analogy. Tharoor already did this context switch with the Great Indian Novel!

Strongly recommend Rajaji's Mahabharatha (or even the Amar Chitra Katha version for that matter) to American readers who want to see how the Mahabharata ends.

Tragic really!

One thing is for sure. No point in recapping the Vastra Haran or having to watch reruns of it. So Censoring the images is a good move.

Will try to do our best as a family when it comes to doing some kind of Prayachitam by raising two American kids who believe in peace and not in War, who believe it is possible to serve your country loyally and sincerely without picking up a weapon!

There are people out here who are proud to be American and associate being American with speaking our minds, being able to believe in "the American dream" and be able to speak up. It is a crying shame that we are all tacitly complicit in the Iraq war, because we didn't push our representatives to reason enough before going to war, pay good tax money to fund the war and the troops or not help take this up when the American press failed to do their job!

We are now the Kauravas!

Somehow that does not have a nice ring to it..

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Guns anyone ?

Over the last few years, every now and then a news piece comes along that does not have Iraq or George W. Bush on the headline. The sad fact is that such news has almost always been associated with a severe tragedy, either in terms of numbers and magnitude like the asian Tsunami or the utter hopelessness and despair in the situation like todays University Shooting.

This steals the joy of Iraq and GWB not being the number one headline day after day and instead plunges you to new depths of sadness. On an average we are losing tens of lives (American) and probably hundreds of lives every day in the middle east. These are guys who signed up to fight for what they believe in, or people who believe in following orders. People who wake up knowing that they might face a bullet that day. If wartime casualties are depressing, University kids attending class dying no reason, is simply gut wrenching.

During my India trip, an anonymous blogger wanted me to take responsibility for the Gun Culture in the US. I wrote a strongly worded post(the only post I think I have retracted) saying "not every american owns a gun, or at least no one I know or interact with goes around with a gun!". I also stated that I vote against this gun culture every chance I get. In retrospect, this is a losing battle. Lets face it. I cannot do diddly squat to keep guns away from the killers.

Apparently guns don't kill people. People kill people. (This, according to the National Rifle Association, which is usually credited with keeping up the access to guns active in the USA). My interpretation? People with guns kill people. Somehow the guns always have a way of finding themselves in the hands of these people who have an intent to kill! This seems to be one of those things where you say "Duh ?!". What is the probability that a person who owns a gun intends to use it? Why would that person own a gun in the first place?

At the end of the day, you cannot argue with these guys because there could be this one bloke who holds on to the gun with the intent of self defense. This is like saying we should take all candy away from all kids because they cause cavities. In the process we could be killing some kid who has low blood sugar and relies on the candy for his very life. Better have a thousand kids with cavities and have a pediatric dentistry business flourish and improve the economy than have that one kid die. I do accept that logic, in spite of all the sarcasm.

In a country plagued by teenage drinking, highly stressed out kids, peer pressure that runs rampant, high instance of drug use in college, etc., the last thing you need is for college going kids to have access to guns! So many people smoke and kill themselves and others in the process of smoking, knowing that there is a warning label on the box of Cigarettes. So many drink and drive. So many make accessing guns easy for others who plan to take innocent lives. How do you make these people responsible for their actions? Sometimes I just think "it is just the luck of the draw" and keep going and at other times I feel :
angry at what happened which
instantly changes to frustration by the fact that the anger does not help, then
panic that I am going to be raising my kids here and finally
console myself saying "nah. this won't happen where I live!" and fear takes over again saying "what if I am wrong ?".

If a guy who is so far removed from the events today at the University can go through this rollercoaster of emotions, I just cannot imagine what the people at V.Tech must be going through. My heart goes out to all those affected by what happened today.

I really wish there will be a news story tomorrow with GWB in the headlines where he does something about people shooting people!

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