I have no words. Head over here.
Labels: movies
From: Bangalore, Karnataka, India
About me: Life is either a daring adventure or nothing at all. I choose the former.
Once upon a time,
when the universe was mine..
Sunday, February 25, 2007
posted by Anamika Anyone at 4:09 pm
I saw Mungaru Male today. Its rarely that I watch Kannda movies in the theatre, mainly because of the dwindling quality of films made, but this movie was worth the 120 bucks. It boosted my faith in the Kannada movie industry.
Mungaru male, meaning Monsoon rain, is basically your run-of-the-mill, boy-meets-girl love story. I've seen hundreds of those and if it wasn't for the subtlety and relaistic nature of this film, I wouldn't have bothered watching. This movie ends with the boy not getting the girl, and, get this, the boy does not commit suicide. He moves on instead. Doesn't happen much in Indian films and hence, a refreshing touch.
The script is poor, cliched. The film is literally carried on the able shoulders of the debutante actor Ganesh, the one with the quippy quotes and the always-arched eyebrows. Everybody else just about fits their role. These are some drawbacks of the film. But there are three main reasons for watching this movie. They are:
1)Veteren actor Anant Nag who plays a deaf colonel and the girl's father. You have to watch him, its a real treat.
2)The cinematography and the scenery. Have you seen Coorg? Gawd, its beautiful. Now I'm kicking my butt for not going to Coorg with my friends last fortnight. Seventy five percent of the film is shot in rain, that relentless, malnad rain that practically screams "Visit the Western Ghats!". And Oooh, that waterfall!
3) The songs. Good words, good singing, easy on the ears and hummable. I already know the lyrics from listening to them so many times.
I can tell you the ending. The rabbit dies in the end. This will not in the least affect the enjoyment process of the movie. Its funny, all through the cheesy, sentimental lines about love and sacrifice (jeez!) I was stonyfaced, but when the rabbit dies, I was hit by an inexplicable sorrow. Not for the rabbit. For the protagonist. Hmmm...
Anyway, I've put up a song. Its called Kunidu bare (come dancing). Tell me if you like it.
Here's another review with the full story and all.
Labels: movies
Saturday, February 24, 2007
posted by Anamika Anyone at 2:33 pm
I'm feeling a little narcissistic today, so I'm going to post a long time due tag, again from Kartik's place.
Ahem!
9 things about me that are weird:
1. I can sleep for 24 hours straight.
2. I am oddly fond of looking at lizards. Don't laugh.
3. I am the hitler of cockroaches. Don't chastise.
4. I can't eat when certain vegetables are cut in a certain way, and remind me too much of certain things.
5. I go crazy over two things; cheap books and cheaper earrings.
6. I find Shiney Ahuja good looking, which is weird according to my friends.
7. I cut my own hair once. It was horribly uneven, but I didn't even it out. I carried my hair around until it grew and evened itself out. Freaky, huh?
8. I name inanimate objects which I use and thus, get attached to them.
9. A dozen cups of tea cannot make an insomniac out of me. Coffee, though is another thing. Sorry, beverage.
I tag the next person who is not afraid to spell out his eccentricities and guilty pleasures for the whole blogosphere to read. Enjoy!
Ahem!
9 things about me that are weird:
1. I can sleep for 24 hours straight.
2. I am oddly fond of looking at lizards. Don't laugh.
3. I am the hitler of cockroaches. Don't chastise.
4. I can't eat when certain vegetables are cut in a certain way, and remind me too much of certain things.
5. I go crazy over two things; cheap books and cheaper earrings.
6. I find Shiney Ahuja good looking, which is weird according to my friends.
7. I cut my own hair once. It was horribly uneven, but I didn't even it out. I carried my hair around until it grew and evened itself out. Freaky, huh?
8. I name inanimate objects which I use and thus, get attached to them.
9. A dozen cups of tea cannot make an insomniac out of me. Coffee, though is another thing. Sorry, beverage.
I tag the next person who is not afraid to spell out his eccentricities and guilty pleasures for the whole blogosphere to read. Enjoy!
Labels: tag
posted by Anamika Anyone at 2:09 pm
Its been a long time since my last tag, isn't it? This new short tag is from Kartik.
Here are the rules:
1. Grab the nearest book. Its got be more than a hundred pages, so don't grab a Lemony Snicket or a shopping catalogue.
2. Turn to page 123.
3. Go to the fifth sentence.
4. Type the next three sentences.
5. Tag 5 people.
6. Done!
I opened a book on VHDL (Matthew Perry) lying on my desk. Here's what I hit upon:
The value H compared with the value z returns value H. The function therefore returns the value H as the resolved value of the signal. Another case is shown in figure 5.3.
Feel free to consider yourself tagged. Pick a book and maybe you'll find something amazing in page 123.
Here are the rules:
1. Grab the nearest book. Its got be more than a hundred pages, so don't grab a Lemony Snicket or a shopping catalogue.
2. Turn to page 123.
3. Go to the fifth sentence.
4. Type the next three sentences.
5. Tag 5 people.
6. Done!
I opened a book on VHDL (Matthew Perry) lying on my desk. Here's what I hit upon:
The value H compared with the value z returns value H. The function therefore returns the value H as the resolved value of the signal. Another case is shown in figure 5.3.
Feel free to consider yourself tagged. Pick a book and maybe you'll find something amazing in page 123.
Labels: tag
Thursday, February 22, 2007
posted by Anamika Anyone at 5:48 pm
I am in a tournament people! Check out Ookami's place. Good luck to all contestants, including me.
Labels: tournament
posted by Anamika Anyone at 5:46 pm
| Your Blogging Type is Pensive and Philosophical |
 You blog like no one else is reading... You tend to use your blog to explore ideas - often in long winded prose. Easy going and flexible, you tend to befriend other bloggers easily. But if they disagree with once too much, you'll pull them from your blogroll! |
Labels: blogthings
posted by Anamika Anyone at 5:42 pm
| You Are A Good Friend |
 You're always willing to listen Or lend a shoulder to cry on You're there through thick and thin Many people consider you their "best friend"! |
I feel good now.
Labels: blogthings
Tuesday, February 20, 2007
posted by Anamika Anyone at 3:38 pm
"I will cross the endless sea,
I will die in ecstasy,
but I'll be a vagabond,
driving down the road alone."
- Norah Jones, 'Don't know why'
I don't really know what these lines mean. Its like art. When I look at this painting, I don't understand it but I love it. Not because its a masterpiece, which I don't think it is. Because.
Lyrics define the rise and fall of a song. Some songs do well without lyrics or with bad lyrics. For example, the la-da-di-dah bit in pump it can be summed up to say "Hey this music is good, so lets all dance!". But the music makes me forget bad wording. Some songs don't exactly have super lyrics, but I find their words oddly endearing. "Nobody got none on us". "Chivalry is dead but you're still kinda cute"."Now she's back from the atmosphere,drops of Jupiter on her hair". Cute.
Once an acquaintance of mine heard this song(hit play button) and said,"What nonsense! Why does everything have to be golmaal?"
I explained to her that not all songs have meaningful, sane and inoffensive words. Lots of f***, b**** and @#$%^%&&whatnot thrown around nowadays. "If you wanna be rich, you have to be a bitch". Could anyone be more distastefully direct?
Having said all this, I bring forth this gem of a song which has currently stolen my heart. The lyrics are right here. Hit the play button, sing along, and enjoy!
"We Didn't Start The Fire" by Billy Joel
Harry Truman, Doris Day, Red China, Johnnie Ray
South Pacific, Walter Winchell, Joe DiMaggio
Joe McCarthy, Richard Nixon, Studebaker, television
North Korea, South Korea, Marilyn Monroe
Rosenbergs, H-Bomb, Sugar Ray, Panmunjom
Brando, "The King and I", and "The Catcher in the Rye"
Eisenhower, vaccine, England's got a new queen
Marciano, Liberace, Santayana goodbye
CHORUS
We didn't start the fire
It was always burning
Since the world's been turning
We didn't start the fire
No we didn't light it
But we tried to fight it
Josef Stalin, Malenkov, Nasser and Prokofiev
Rockefeller, Campanella, Communist Bloc
Roy Cohn, Juan Peron, Toscanini, dacron
Dien Bien Phu Falls, "Rock Around the Clock"
Einstein, James Dean, Brooklyn's got a winning team
Davy Crockett, "Peter Pan", Elvis Presley, Disneyland
Bardot, Budapest, Alabama, Khrushchev
Princess Grace, "Peyton Place", trouble in the Suez
CHORUS
Little Rock, Pasternak, Mickey Mantle, Kerouac
Sputnik, Chou En-Lai, "Bridge on the River Kwai"
Lebanon, Charles de Gaulle, California baseball
Starkweather, homicide, children of thalidomide
Buddy Holly, "Ben-Hur", space monkey, Mafia
hula hoops, Castro, Edsel is a no go
U2, Syngman Rhee, payola and Kennedy
Chubby Checker, "Psycho", Belgians in the Congo
CHORUS
Hemingway, Eichmann, "Stranger in a Strange Land"
Dylan, Berlin, Bay of Pigs Invasion
"Lawrence of Arabia", British Beatlemania
Ole Miss, John Glenn, Liston beats Patterson
Pope Paul, Malcolm X, British politician sex
JFK, blown away, what else do I have to say
CHORUS
Birth control, Ho Chi Minh, Richard Nixon, back again
Moonshot, Woodstock, Watergate, punk rock
Begin, Reagan, Palestine, terror on the airline
Ayatollolah's in Iran, Russians in Afghanistan
"Wheel of Fortune" , Sally Ride, heavy metal, suicide
Foreign debts, homeless vets, AIDS, Crack, Bernie Goetz
Hypodermics on the shores, China's under martial law
Rock and Roller Cola Wars, I can't take it anymore
CHORUS
We didn't start the fire
But when we are gone
Will it still burn on, and on, and on, and on...
I will die in ecstasy,
but I'll be a vagabond,
driving down the road alone."
- Norah Jones, 'Don't know why'
I don't really know what these lines mean. Its like art. When I look at this painting, I don't understand it but I love it. Not because its a masterpiece, which I don't think it is. Because.
Lyrics define the rise and fall of a song. Some songs do well without lyrics or with bad lyrics. For example, the la-da-di-dah bit in pump it can be summed up to say "Hey this music is good, so lets all dance!". But the music makes me forget bad wording. Some songs don't exactly have super lyrics, but I find their words oddly endearing. "Nobody got none on us". "Chivalry is dead but you're still kinda cute"."Now she's back from the atmosphere,drops of Jupiter on her hair". Cute.
Once an acquaintance of mine heard this song(hit play button) and said,"What nonsense! Why does everything have to be golmaal?"
I explained to her that not all songs have meaningful, sane and inoffensive words. Lots of f***, b**** and @#$%^%&&whatnot thrown around nowadays. "If you wanna be rich, you have to be a bitch". Could anyone be more distastefully direct?
Having said all this, I bring forth this gem of a song which has currently stolen my heart. The lyrics are right here. Hit the play button, sing along, and enjoy!
"We Didn't Start The Fire" by Billy Joel
Harry Truman, Doris Day, Red China, Johnnie Ray
South Pacific, Walter Winchell, Joe DiMaggio
Joe McCarthy, Richard Nixon, Studebaker, television
North Korea, South Korea, Marilyn Monroe
Rosenbergs, H-Bomb, Sugar Ray, Panmunjom
Brando, "The King and I", and "The Catcher in the Rye"
Eisenhower, vaccine, England's got a new queen
Marciano, Liberace, Santayana goodbye
CHORUS
We didn't start the fire
It was always burning
Since the world's been turning
We didn't start the fire
No we didn't light it
But we tried to fight it
Josef Stalin, Malenkov, Nasser and Prokofiev
Rockefeller, Campanella, Communist Bloc
Roy Cohn, Juan Peron, Toscanini, dacron
Dien Bien Phu Falls, "Rock Around the Clock"
Einstein, James Dean, Brooklyn's got a winning team
Davy Crockett, "Peter Pan", Elvis Presley, Disneyland
Bardot, Budapest, Alabama, Khrushchev
Princess Grace, "Peyton Place", trouble in the Suez
CHORUS
Little Rock, Pasternak, Mickey Mantle, Kerouac
Sputnik, Chou En-Lai, "Bridge on the River Kwai"
Lebanon, Charles de Gaulle, California baseball
Starkweather, homicide, children of thalidomide
Buddy Holly, "Ben-Hur", space monkey, Mafia
hula hoops, Castro, Edsel is a no go
U2, Syngman Rhee, payola and Kennedy
Chubby Checker, "Psycho", Belgians in the Congo
CHORUS
Hemingway, Eichmann, "Stranger in a Strange Land"
Dylan, Berlin, Bay of Pigs Invasion
"Lawrence of Arabia", British Beatlemania
Ole Miss, John Glenn, Liston beats Patterson
Pope Paul, Malcolm X, British politician sex
JFK, blown away, what else do I have to say
CHORUS
Birth control, Ho Chi Minh, Richard Nixon, back again
Moonshot, Woodstock, Watergate, punk rock
Begin, Reagan, Palestine, terror on the airline
Ayatollolah's in Iran, Russians in Afghanistan
"Wheel of Fortune" , Sally Ride, heavy metal, suicide
Foreign debts, homeless vets, AIDS, Crack, Bernie Goetz
Hypodermics on the shores, China's under martial law
Rock and Roller Cola Wars, I can't take it anymore
CHORUS
We didn't start the fire
But when we are gone
Will it still burn on, and on, and on, and on...
Labels: words
Saturday, February 17, 2007
posted by Anamika Anyone at 11:14 pm
I had a look at my family tree today. Turns out we're quite exciting, what with lost religious idols, accidental deaths, runaway uncles, and family split-ups. More about at all later, but for now, I leave you with this family tidbit:
The house where my Dad was born is atleast 350 years old!
The house where my Dad was born is atleast 350 years old!
Labels: family
Monday, February 12, 2007
posted by Anamika Anyone at 10:59 pm
Wikipedia defines Eugenics as a "social philosophy which advocates the improvement of human hereditary traits through various forms of intervention."
I just finished reading State of Fear by Micheal Chrichton. Immediately upon finishing the book I wanted to blog about various topics; global warming, cannibalism, etc. I chose eugenics. The following excerpt is taken from the official site of the author. I reminds me a little of the witchcraft craze during the medieval times.
Why Politicized Science is Dangerous
(Excerpted from State of Fear)
Imagine that there is a new scientific theory that warns of an impending crisis, and points to a way out.
This theory quickly draws support from leading scientists, politicians and celebrities around the world. Research is funded by distinguished philanthropies, and carried out at prestigious universities. The crisis is reported frequently in the media. The science is taught in college and high school classrooms.
I don't mean global warming. I'm talking about another theory, which rose to prominence a century ago.
Its supporters included Theodore Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, and Winston Churchill. It was approved by Supreme Court justices Oliver Wendell Holmes and Louis Brandeis, who ruled in its favor. The famous names who supported it included Alexander Graham Bell, inventor of the telephone; activist Margaret Sanger; botanist Luther Burbank; Leland Stanford, founder of Stanford University; the novelist H. G. Wells; the playwright George Bernard Shaw; and hundreds of others. Nobel Prize winners gave support. Research was backed by the Carnegie and Rockefeller Foundations. The Cold Springs Harbor Institute was built to carry out this research, but important work was also done at Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Stanford and Johns Hopkins. Legislation to address the crisis was passed in states from New York to California.
These efforts had the support of the National Academy of Sciences, the American Medical Association, and the National Research Council. It was said that if Jesus were alive, he would have supported this effort.
All in all, the research, legislation and molding of public opinion surrounding the theory went on for almost half a century. Those who opposed the theory were shouted down and called reactionary, blind to reality, or just plain ignorant. But in hindsight, what is surprising is that so few people objected.
Today, we know that this famous theory that gained so much support was actually pseudoscience. The crisis it claimed was nonexistent. And the actions taken in the name of theory were morally and criminally wrong. Ultimately, they led to the deaths of millions of people.
The theory was eugenics, and its history is so dreadful --- and, to those who were caught up in it, so embarrassing --- that it is now rarely discussed. But it is a story that should be well know to every citizen, so that its horrors are not repeated.
The theory of eugenics postulated a crisis of the gene pool leading to the deterioration of the human race. The best human beings were not breeding as rapidly as the inferior ones --- the foreigners, immigrants, Jews, degenerates, the unfit, and the "feeble minded." Francis Galton, a respected British scientist, first speculated about this area, but his ideas were taken far beyond anything he intended. They were adopted by science-minded Americans, as well as those who had no interest in science but who were worried about the immigration of inferior races early in the twentieth century --- "dangerous human pests" who represented "the rising tide of imbeciles" and who were polluting the best of the human race.
The eugenicists and the immigrationists joined forces to put a stop to this. The plan was to identify individuals who were feeble-minded --- Jews were agreed to be largely feeble-minded, but so were many foreigners, as well as blacks --- and stop them from breeding by isolation in institutions or by sterilization.
As Margaret Sanger said, "Fostering the good-for-nothing at the expense of the good is an extreme cruelty … there is not greater curse to posterity than that of bequeathing them an increasing population of imbeciles." She spoke of the burden of caring for "this dead weight of human waste."
Such views were widely shared. H.G. Wells spoke against "ill-trained swarms of inferior citizens." Theodore Roosevelt said that "Society has no business to permit degenerates to reproduce their kind." Luther Burbank" "Stop permitting criminals and weaklings to reproduce." George Bernard Shaw said that only eugenics could save mankind.
There was overt racism in this movement, exemplified by texts such as "The Rising Tide of Color Against White World Supremacy" by American author Lothrop Stoddard. But, at the time, racism was considered an unremarkable aspect of the effort to attain a marvelous goal --- the improvement of humankind in the future. It was this avant-garde notion that attracted the most liberal and progressive minds of a generation. California was one of twenty-nine American states to pass laws allowing sterilization, but it proved the most-forward-looking and enthusiastic --- more sterilizations were carried out in California than anywhere else in America.
Eugenics research was funded by the Carnegie Foundation, and later by the Rockefeller Foundation. The latter was so enthusiastic that even after the center of the eugenics effort moved to Germany, and involved the gassing of individuals from mental institutions, the Rockefeller Foundation continued to finance German researchers at a very high level. (The foundation was quiet about it, but they were still funding research in 1939, only months before the onset of World War II.)
Since the 1920s, American eugenicists had been jealous because the Germans had taken leadership of the movement away from them. The Germans were admirably progressive. They set up ordinary-looking houses where "mental defectives" were brought and interviewed one at a time, before being led into a back room, which was, in fact, a gas chamber. There, they were gassed with carbon monoxide, and their bodies disposed of in a crematorium located on the property.
Eventually, this program was expanded into a vast network of concentration camps located near railroad lines, enabling the efficient transport and of killing ten million undesirables.
After World War II, nobody was a eugenicist, and nobody had ever been a eugenicist. Biographers of the celebrated and the powerful did not dwell on the attractions of this philosophy to their subjects, and sometimes did not mention it at all. Eugenics ceased to be a subject for college classrooms, although some argue that its ideas continue to have currency in disguised form.
But in retrospect, three points stand out. First, despite the construction of Cold Springs Harbor Laboratory, despite the efforts of universities and the pleadings of lawyers, there was no scientific basis for eugenics. In fact, nobody at that time knew what a gene really was. The movement was able to proceed because it employed vague terms never rigorously defined. "Feeble-mindedness" could mean anything from poverty to illiteracy to epilepsy. Similarly, there was no clear definition of "degenerate" or "unfit."
Second, the eugenics movement was really a social program masquerading as a scientific one. What drove it was concern about immigration and racism and undesirable people moving into one's neighborhood or country. Once again, vague terminology helped conceal what was really going on.
Third, and most distressing, the scientific establishment in both the United States and Germany did not mount any sustained protest. Quite the contrary. In Germany scientists quickly fell into line with the program. Modern German researchers have gone back to review Nazi documents from the 1930s. They expected to find directives telling scientists what research should be done. But none were necessary. In the words of Ute Deichman, "Scientists, including those who were not members of the [Nazi] party, helped to get funding for their work through their modified behavior and direct cooperation with the state." Deichman speaks of the "active role of scientists themselves in regard to Nazi race policy … where [research] was aimed at confirming the racial doctrine … no external pressure can be documented." German scientists adjusted their research interests to the new policies. And those few who did not adjust disappeared.
I just finished reading State of Fear by Micheal Chrichton. Immediately upon finishing the book I wanted to blog about various topics; global warming, cannibalism, etc. I chose eugenics. The following excerpt is taken from the official site of the author. I reminds me a little of the witchcraft craze during the medieval times.
Why Politicized Science is Dangerous
(Excerpted from State of Fear)
Imagine that there is a new scientific theory that warns of an impending crisis, and points to a way out.
This theory quickly draws support from leading scientists, politicians and celebrities around the world. Research is funded by distinguished philanthropies, and carried out at prestigious universities. The crisis is reported frequently in the media. The science is taught in college and high school classrooms.
I don't mean global warming. I'm talking about another theory, which rose to prominence a century ago.
Its supporters included Theodore Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, and Winston Churchill. It was approved by Supreme Court justices Oliver Wendell Holmes and Louis Brandeis, who ruled in its favor. The famous names who supported it included Alexander Graham Bell, inventor of the telephone; activist Margaret Sanger; botanist Luther Burbank; Leland Stanford, founder of Stanford University; the novelist H. G. Wells; the playwright George Bernard Shaw; and hundreds of others. Nobel Prize winners gave support. Research was backed by the Carnegie and Rockefeller Foundations. The Cold Springs Harbor Institute was built to carry out this research, but important work was also done at Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Stanford and Johns Hopkins. Legislation to address the crisis was passed in states from New York to California.
These efforts had the support of the National Academy of Sciences, the American Medical Association, and the National Research Council. It was said that if Jesus were alive, he would have supported this effort.
All in all, the research, legislation and molding of public opinion surrounding the theory went on for almost half a century. Those who opposed the theory were shouted down and called reactionary, blind to reality, or just plain ignorant. But in hindsight, what is surprising is that so few people objected.
Today, we know that this famous theory that gained so much support was actually pseudoscience. The crisis it claimed was nonexistent. And the actions taken in the name of theory were morally and criminally wrong. Ultimately, they led to the deaths of millions of people.
The theory was eugenics, and its history is so dreadful --- and, to those who were caught up in it, so embarrassing --- that it is now rarely discussed. But it is a story that should be well know to every citizen, so that its horrors are not repeated.
The theory of eugenics postulated a crisis of the gene pool leading to the deterioration of the human race. The best human beings were not breeding as rapidly as the inferior ones --- the foreigners, immigrants, Jews, degenerates, the unfit, and the "feeble minded." Francis Galton, a respected British scientist, first speculated about this area, but his ideas were taken far beyond anything he intended. They were adopted by science-minded Americans, as well as those who had no interest in science but who were worried about the immigration of inferior races early in the twentieth century --- "dangerous human pests" who represented "the rising tide of imbeciles" and who were polluting the best of the human race.
The eugenicists and the immigrationists joined forces to put a stop to this. The plan was to identify individuals who were feeble-minded --- Jews were agreed to be largely feeble-minded, but so were many foreigners, as well as blacks --- and stop them from breeding by isolation in institutions or by sterilization.
As Margaret Sanger said, "Fostering the good-for-nothing at the expense of the good is an extreme cruelty … there is not greater curse to posterity than that of bequeathing them an increasing population of imbeciles." She spoke of the burden of caring for "this dead weight of human waste."
Such views were widely shared. H.G. Wells spoke against "ill-trained swarms of inferior citizens." Theodore Roosevelt said that "Society has no business to permit degenerates to reproduce their kind." Luther Burbank" "Stop permitting criminals and weaklings to reproduce." George Bernard Shaw said that only eugenics could save mankind.
There was overt racism in this movement, exemplified by texts such as "The Rising Tide of Color Against White World Supremacy" by American author Lothrop Stoddard. But, at the time, racism was considered an unremarkable aspect of the effort to attain a marvelous goal --- the improvement of humankind in the future. It was this avant-garde notion that attracted the most liberal and progressive minds of a generation. California was one of twenty-nine American states to pass laws allowing sterilization, but it proved the most-forward-looking and enthusiastic --- more sterilizations were carried out in California than anywhere else in America.
Eugenics research was funded by the Carnegie Foundation, and later by the Rockefeller Foundation. The latter was so enthusiastic that even after the center of the eugenics effort moved to Germany, and involved the gassing of individuals from mental institutions, the Rockefeller Foundation continued to finance German researchers at a very high level. (The foundation was quiet about it, but they were still funding research in 1939, only months before the onset of World War II.)
Since the 1920s, American eugenicists had been jealous because the Germans had taken leadership of the movement away from them. The Germans were admirably progressive. They set up ordinary-looking houses where "mental defectives" were brought and interviewed one at a time, before being led into a back room, which was, in fact, a gas chamber. There, they were gassed with carbon monoxide, and their bodies disposed of in a crematorium located on the property.
Eventually, this program was expanded into a vast network of concentration camps located near railroad lines, enabling the efficient transport and of killing ten million undesirables.
After World War II, nobody was a eugenicist, and nobody had ever been a eugenicist. Biographers of the celebrated and the powerful did not dwell on the attractions of this philosophy to their subjects, and sometimes did not mention it at all. Eugenics ceased to be a subject for college classrooms, although some argue that its ideas continue to have currency in disguised form.
But in retrospect, three points stand out. First, despite the construction of Cold Springs Harbor Laboratory, despite the efforts of universities and the pleadings of lawyers, there was no scientific basis for eugenics. In fact, nobody at that time knew what a gene really was. The movement was able to proceed because it employed vague terms never rigorously defined. "Feeble-mindedness" could mean anything from poverty to illiteracy to epilepsy. Similarly, there was no clear definition of "degenerate" or "unfit."
Second, the eugenics movement was really a social program masquerading as a scientific one. What drove it was concern about immigration and racism and undesirable people moving into one's neighborhood or country. Once again, vague terminology helped conceal what was really going on.
Third, and most distressing, the scientific establishment in both the United States and Germany did not mount any sustained protest. Quite the contrary. In Germany scientists quickly fell into line with the program. Modern German researchers have gone back to review Nazi documents from the 1930s. They expected to find directives telling scientists what research should be done. But none were necessary. In the words of Ute Deichman, "Scientists, including those who were not members of the [Nazi] party, helped to get funding for their work through their modified behavior and direct cooperation with the state." Deichman speaks of the "active role of scientists themselves in regard to Nazi race policy … where [research] was aimed at confirming the racial doctrine … no external pressure can be documented." German scientists adjusted their research interests to the new policies. And those few who did not adjust disappeared.
There' s on thing I don't get. There was a time in the past when I made a casual comment on Adolf Hitler being a brilliant guy. A murdering maniac and a global scourge, but a brilliant one nevertheless. This comment elicited strange quiet looks from those around me. What is she talking about?
Why is it that when I talk of Hitler's smartness I get chastising looks, but yet nobody gives a damn about the fact that there were other famous and noble people who once felt the same way, who actually acted on that principle? Just because they publicly denounced it the moment it fell out of favour with the masses?
I never liked Lucious Malfoy.
posted by Anamika Anyone at 7:45 pm
I just burned an audio CD that has the following songs in the following order:
Beep by The pussycat Dolls
All I want for Christmas by Mariah Carey
Dirty little secret by The all American rejects
Walk like an Egyption by The Bangles
Buttons by The pussycat dolls
Cinderella Ost The cheetah girls
Irreplaceable by Beyonce
I'm alive by Celine Dion
Promiscious girl by Nelly Furtado
London Bridge by Fergie
Uptown girl by Billy Joel
Hollaback girl by Gwen Stefani
Wind it up by Gwen Stefani
Superstar by Jamelia
We didn't start the fire by Billy Joel
Pump it by The black eyed peas
Smack that by Akon
Rich girl by Gwen Stefani
Walk away by Kelly Clarkson
Don't cha by The pussycat dolls
Beep by The pussycat Dolls
All I want for Christmas by Mariah Carey
Dirty little secret by The all American rejects
Walk like an Egyption by The Bangles
Buttons by The pussycat dolls
Cinderella Ost The cheetah girls
Irreplaceable by Beyonce
I'm alive by Celine Dion
Promiscious girl by Nelly Furtado
London Bridge by Fergie
Uptown girl by Billy Joel
Hollaback girl by Gwen Stefani
Wind it up by Gwen Stefani
Superstar by Jamelia
We didn't start the fire by Billy Joel
Pump it by The black eyed peas
Smack that by Akon
Rich girl by Gwen Stefani
Walk away by Kelly Clarkson
Don't cha by The pussycat dolls
Labels: songs
Sunday, February 11, 2007
posted by Anamika Anyone at 12:37 am
I have just become a huge fan of Billy Joel.
Labels: Billy Joel
posted by Anamika Anyone at 12:10 am
This is what I posted on Feb 2005. Its the translated lyrics of a Hindi song. Anyone who can find out the song gets good karma!
I am a stranger to myself,
I don't know my own soul,
Tell me,
what do your eyes see in me?
Do you see two eyes?
what do they reflect?
is it a face?
then whose face is it?
Do i have to ask my heart,do i have to question the winds?
I was lost,enchanted by the ways of the world,
When i met you,i got lost in your eyes...
Labels: past
Thursday, February 08, 2007
posted by Anamika Anyone at 10:51 pm
So, the nominations are out. You know, filmfare usually doesn't give credit where its due, but this year's nominations were ridiculous and sinister enough to bring out all indignation in me. Check it out:
1)All, read ALL categories have KANK as atleast one nomination. Whats up with that?
(For the people going "heh?", KanK is a movie starring Bollywood's best but it turned out horrible, possibly with the evil intention of making you want to eat your own hair in despair. Don't try watching it.)
2)Movies like Dor didn't receive a single nomination. Dor was not filled with "Abhiashhrithik" gyrating in skimpy outfits, but even the hardcore masala loving bloke will say it was definitely better than Dhoom. Come on!
3)99.9% of nominated people belong to the Yash Johar-Adi Chopra mafia. Some of you will, at this point, admonish me. "Anamika, you silly, naive girl, don't you know the Filmfares are nonsensical doodahs run by the same mafia?". Agreed. But still, come on! Its this obvious!
1)All, read ALL categories have KANK as atleast one nomination. Whats up with that?
(For the people going "heh?", KanK is a movie starring Bollywood's best but it turned out horrible, possibly with the evil intention of making you want to eat your own hair in despair. Don't try watching it.)
2)Movies like Dor didn't receive a single nomination. Dor was not filled with "Abhiashhrithik" gyrating in skimpy outfits, but even the hardcore masala loving bloke will say it was definitely better than Dhoom. Come on!
3)99.9% of nominated people belong to the Yash Johar-Adi Chopra mafia. Some of you will, at this point, admonish me. "Anamika, you silly, naive girl, don't you know the Filmfares are nonsensical doodahs run by the same mafia?". Agreed. But still, come on! Its this obvious!
Sunday, February 04, 2007
posted by Anamika Anyone at 8:52 am
"I can well imagine an athiest's last words: "White, white L-L-Love! My God!" and the deathbed leap of faith. Whereas the agnostic ... might try to explain the warm light bathing him by saying "Possibly f-failing oxygenation of the b-brain" and to the very end, lack imagination and miss the better story."
- Yann Martel, 'Life of Pi'
Miss the better story you will, if you don't read this Booker prize winner. The sheer depth of imagination the author shows in this novel is enough to make a believer out of all of us.
This is the story of Piscine (pronounced Pea-seen) Molitor Patel, named after a French swimming pool, known by the self-appointed nickname "Pi"(pronounced Pie). The only thing he hates about his nickname is how it goes on and on as 3.141--- blah-blah. All things must end properly, he says.
The story starts with some facts about two and three toed sloths, surprisingly interesting to me because I couldn't care less about sloths. Throughout the book, Pi talks about our misunderstanding about zoos and wild animals. Whats more is that he brings the two diverse fields of theology and zoology together by narrating his experiences. He is a truly secular being (By secular I don't mean the disturbingly distorted versions our politicans use). He is born a Hindu, but the stories of his discovery of the joys of Christianity and Islam left me spellbound.
If you're wondering why I've not come to the storyline yet, its because I have no intentions of telling the story. Its all here if you want it, in a condensed way, but I must warn you; if you ever want to read the book you'd want to keep the suspense intact. Especially that pertaining to Richard Parker and the Mysterious Green Island and of course, the final True Story. I was genuinely thrilled when I discovered the truth about all these things and its that thrill I don't want you to lose.
The book is mainly a tribute to survival and how all of us are equipped with that instinct and show it all the time, without knowing about it. Its about how, if, had we been in the same dire straits as Pi, we too would have made it without the shadow of a doubt. Its about God and animals, prayers in the Pacific, and of course, sloths and humans.
Labels: Books