I notice a logical inconsistency here. Someone please help me out:

There are people who say:
“The US should not try to be a global policeman”

The same people also whine:
“The US is adopting double standards in its war against global terrorism. It attacks those who terrorise its own citizens, but turns a blind eye towards those who attack India.”

Surely, the second criticism is valid only if they accept the US as a global cop and are accusing it of not doing its duty?

In a civilized state, when someone attacks you, you do not retaliate on your own? You complain to the police who investigate, arrest your assailants, try them in court, and punish them if found guilty.

In an anarchy, you can’t do any of those things, because the law-enforcement apparatus does not exist. You’d have to take steps to defend yourself. You’d have to barricade your homes and arm yourself to the teeth. When attacked, you’d have to retaliate on your own. This is an unpleasant state of affairs, but if you are in one such situation, what else can you do?

The world is the second type of place. There is no police to file an FIR with. Every country has to act for itself. The US has no apriori duty to tackle Pakistani terrorism any more than we have an obligation to intervene in the Ethiopia-Eritrea conflict. If we want the US to help us, we’d have to point out that Pakistani terrorism is an integral part of the threat that the US faces. But that is an appeal to self-interest, not to the principle of fairness.

Are humans “naturally” vegetarians or non-vegetarians? As
this explains, the truth is too complicated to generalize.

My secret mission has tired me out. My two observant readers will probably notice that I am taking the easy way out by quoting extensively from other sites so that I am spared the effort of typing and thinking.
Anyway, I found this funny, and it is an example of the writing style which makes me keep going back to this blog,

Dear Mr Branson.
re; Virgin trains; disorganisation to the point of high comedy and low humour.

First of all, Mr Branson, I feel I must take this opportunity to congratulate you upon your beard. It is a fine beard. We live in a world where many men of business would shrink away from the idea of ‘ginger beard’ as trademark, and I truly believe that your dogged commitment to facial hair displays a businessman unafraid of individuality, of taking risks, of going out on a limb, and not minding how the world might perceive him. All these can only be applauded.

As can the unstoppable rise of the Virgin empire. From Virgin Records, to Virgin Trains, Virgin Airlines, Virgin Vodka, Virgin banking, Virgin insurance and Virgin Condoms (only pipped in the irony stakes by your rumoured chain of Virgin Abortion Clinics), your empire has gone from strength to strength, even though you insist on wearing wooly jumpers and a ginger beard, and I feel that no letter of complaint can begin without making reference to these remarkable achievements.

This is, however, a letter of complaint.

Perhaps, by diversifying in your business interests quite so much, you may have lost touch with the fact that each of them needs as much attention as the others. You may, in fact have forgotten that some of them exist at all.
They may just seem like one big crowd of ‘Virgins’ with no individual faces, obeying your every command.
And in that respect, your life is probably much like Mick Jagger’s, apart from the fact that Mick Jagger doesn’t run a train company, with thousands of people each day trying to travel somewhere with the ‘help’ of his company’s resources.
Maybe he should.

So let me introduce you to Virgin Trains. You own it. And it’s not very good.

A couple of years ago, I was walking past the newsagent’s on Manchester Piccadilly station, where, for want of space, they were cheerfully displaying the new Virgin Timetable on the rack labelled “Puzzles and Humour”.
And I think that sums it all up pretty accurately.

I do not ask that your trains run exactly to time – I realise that there are a million factors that go into not making that happen, and I realise that some of those million, perhaps 8, are not your fault, so we’ll not speak of that in this letter.
So I do not ask that your trains run exactly to time, I’m understanding about that.
Many of your customers I’m sure, would ask that very thing, I do not.

I do not ask that your reservation system be understandable to mortals.
I do not ask that, if you book me into coach ‘N’, that you should actually have a coach ‘N’.
Or anything above coach ‘D’, in fact.
I realise that true visionary business skills run outside the constraints of common logic.

I do not ask that you lower the price of your coffee, I am sure that the price of employing branded Brazilian Virgins to sit in the buffet car and squeeze each bean individually to get the most of the flavour is a necessary, if somewhat expensive, marketing tool.
Nor do I ask that you request that your employees actually fill the cups of coffee that they serve.
I am sure that to fill more than a quarter full would be in disregard of the Health and Safety laws.
So well done on that one.

I simply ask that, for helpfulness sake,
you would sell tickets on trains that actually exist.
That you would inform your agent, thetrainline, that it takes not 3 hours, but a mere hour and a quarter to travel between Glasgow and Carlisle, and to suggest otherwise can lead to confused travel plans and frostbite.

I would also like to complain that the coffee on Carlisle Station is too hot, and that cups too flimsy.
I realise that this is not entirely your jurisdiction, but it is an additional factor to a bad journey, for which I blame you entirely.

Incidentally, I apologise for the spillage of said station coffee over your technical equipment, company furniture, and employee.
Although I would like to complain that your employee was pretty clueless.

And wet.
Although for that, I take slight responsibility. (Although the responsibility really lies in the lap of the coffee provider. Just as the coffee lay in the lap of the travel provider. Anyway.)

In conclusion, I would like to say that although I hold all respect for your hard work and business acumen,
your train service sucks shit.

Thank you.
Your passenger (on occasion, ?hen the trains exist at all),

Anna Pickard.

People keep wanting me to pick up a fight with the Praire Dog. This time it is Lakshmi who wants to know what I think of the post by her that starts off with:

Globalisation’s cheerleader, The Economist, really hates Naomi Klein. I was very surprised at the language used to denounce her …very unlike anything I’ve ever read in the economist before

For one, the Praire Dog is wrong about the Economist. Its opinion pieces are, well… opinionated. The easiest way to make it violate its own style guide is to criticize free trade.
The harshest piece I have read was titled Clueless in Seattle (Link requires subscription) which was on the WTO summit that was disrupted by protesters:

It is hard to say which was worse-watching the militant dunces parade their ignorance through the streets of Seattle, or listening to their lame-brained governments respond to the “arguments”. No, take that back: the second was worse. At least the rioters had a good time. It was the politicians who made the biggest hash of things. Bill Clinton wants to invite the protesters indoors. France’s trade minister says here is the proof that economics and politics cannot be kept apart: statism lives! Britain’s trade minister doubtfully insists that “free trade can be fair trade”, as if to concur that it quite often isn’t (but never fear, he is on the look-out for any sign of unfairness). God help us.

Placid, even-tempered liberals (among whom we would normally count ourselves) will deplore our exasperation. Governments must live in the real world, they point out. Concerns about trade and globalisation are real, and can be legitimate: they deserve to be addressed. Indeed they do. So here’s an idea: let governments start addressing them. Let them explain that trade is first and foremost a matter of freedom-that if a government forbids its citizens to buy goods from another country it has infringed their liberty. (Why were there no anarchists among all those “anarchists”, by the way?) Let them explain that trade makes people better off, especially the poorest people in the poorest countries. Let them explain that trade improves the environment, because it raises incomes, and the richer people are, the more willing they are to devote resources to cleaning up their living space…

It is hard to stay placid when Arundhati Roy says with a straight face “The only thing worth globalizing is dissent”, by which she presumably means that only she has the right to write stupid articles in the Guardian and get paid for it in pound sterling, while an ordinary Indian should be prohibited from buying Diwali lamps from China.

I haven’t read “No logo”, so I can’t comment, but the same Economist has mounted a powerful defence (Once again, Link requires subscription) of brands. Excerpt:

Now a change is taking place in the role of brands. Increasingly, customers pay more for a brand because it seems to represent a way of life or a set of ideas. Companies exploit people’s emotional needs as well as their desires to consume. Hence Nike’s “just-do-it” attempt to persuade runners that it is selling personal achievement, or Coca-Cola’s relentless effort to associate its fizzy drink with carefree fun. Companies deliberately concoct a story around their service or product, trying to turn a run-of-the-mill purchase (think of H?agen-Dazs ice cream) into something more thrilling.

This peddling of superior lifestyles is something that irritates many consumers. They disapprove of the vapid notion that spending more on a soft drink or ice cream can bring happiness or social cachet. Fair enough: and yet people in every age and culture have always hunted for ways to acquire social cachet. For medieval European grandees, it was the details of dress, and sumptuary laws sought to stamp out imitations by the lower orders; now the poorest African country has its clothing markets where second-hand designer labels command a premium over pre-worn No Logo.

The flip side of the power and importance of a brand is its growing vulnerability. Because it is so valuable to a company, a brand must be cosseted, sustained and protected. A failed advertising campaign, a drop-off in quality or a hint of scandal can all quickly send customers fleeing. Indeed, protesters, including Ms Klein’s anti-globalisation supporters, can use the power of the brand against companies by drumming up evidence of workers ill-treated or rivers polluted. Thanks, ironically enough, to globalisation, they can do this all round the world. The more companies promote the value of their brands, the more they will need to seem ethically robust and environmentally pure. Whether protesters will actually succeed in advancing the interests of those they claim to champion is another question. The fact remains that brands give them far more power over companies than they would otherwise have. Companies may grumble about that, but it is hard to see why the enemies of brand “fascism” are complaining.

I posted my own take on ads long back

But I wish I wasn’t.
I know that my two fans are dying to know about my secret mission. It can now be revealed that the mission objective was to warn a cousin of the pitfalls of marriage. Of course I failed in the mission (as I have failed with every one of my friends) and he plunged head-long into wedded life. Fortunately, I had a Plan B, which I immediately put into effect- I took part in the festivities and had a nice time.

The mission was carried out in the strategically located port town of Mangalore, the prettiest place on earth, whose main exports are cashewnut, religion and smart people (like me).

My poetic mind was very reluctant to let me leave that lush green idyll of coconut groves and laid-back lives. But now I am back. Which brings me back to my original point. I wish I wasn’t.

Starting tomorrow, I am off to an undisclosed location on a top secret mission.
So there won’t be any blogs till friday, 16th 15th November A D 2002.
My 2 regular readers are requested to take note.

Management consulting isn’t doing well

The past 12 months have been an annus horribilis for strategy consultants-the sort that advise top bosses on the bigger issues facing their firms. McKinsey, the most patrician of the lot, has been mocked for its advice to Enron, Global Crossing and Swissair, all of which have gone bust. The elite strategists at Bain face a continuing lawsuit in Boston over claims that, in the late 1990s, they provided two distinct reports, one for a former boss of Club Med and another for some board members who tried to oust him. Earlier this year, Arthur D. Little, arguably the first strategy-consulting firm, collapsed after management had let costs in its research and development projects soar out of control

Also because…

Strategy has now become almost a commodity. A boom in business-school graduates means that every new manager is well-versed in the latest academic ideas. Top strategy firms’ alumni have been very successful in bringing, say, the “BCG way” with them to their new employers. The advice of a management consultant has lost its mystery. Thanks to all this, says Robert Bontempo of Columbia Business School, management consultants may no longer have a profitable business model.

The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man.
-George Bernard Shaw.

In other words, all progress depends on Arun Shourie

Someone came to my site looking for a depressing blog!. I just hope he didn’t find what he was looking for.
Another one came here looking for info on Arundhati Roy’s Life. My site was the first result.
Someone who wanted to know about leisure in early twentieth century Britain was also here.
And I am still Ravikiran the second. But now the more famous Ravikiran is on top.
Of course, the eternal quest to find the average heights of men and women continues…

Every year around this time, I invite my father over for lunch. He arrives accompanied by my grandfather and my great-grandfather. The lunch is an elaborate and strange ritual, involving my symbolic washing of all their feet and offering lumps of rice for them amidst chanting of mantras by the purohit.

My father died long back. I do not believe in a soul independent of the physical body. I believe that my aforesaid ancestors haven’t gone to heaven. They haven’t gone to hell. They have ceased to exist.
And yet I perform the ritual, for the past exists – in my memory.

The movie “Utsav” has a touching scene – atleast it touched me, if no one else. The protagonist Charudatta is about to be executed. Just before the executioner’s axe falls, he remembers a duty that he hasn’t performed. He stops the executioner, calls his son over, takes off his own sacred thread and puts it on his son. For those who are unaware, the upanayana ceremony is supposed to be the start of the person’s education, where the father symbolically passes on his store of knowledge to his son.

The scene touched me because it reminded me of a son I don’t yet have. It reminded me of an obligation I have to this non-existent son – to have something to pass on.
The scene touched me because future exists – in my imagination.

People say that they believe in God, but dislike the sundry rituals that seem to accompany their practice of religion. I belong to that strange breed that does not believe in God, but believes in the power of rituals. I agree with the shayer who said:

Terri dua se kaza to badal nahi sakti
magar hai is se yeh mumkin ke tu badal jaye.– Iqbal

Your destiny won’t change by the invocations you make to God,
But chances are that you will.

So this Diwali, I shall light a lamp and worship Lakshmi, that fickle Goddess of wealth. While I do so, I shall keep in mind my mother’s advice that to ensure constancy in Lakshmi, I’d have to make Her jealous by wooing Saraswati.

I cannot do without these symbols that my religion provides me with. Which is why though I do not believe in God, I pretend to.

Zambia slams door shut on GM relief food
Synopsis: Zambians face starvation. US is offering them Genetically modified food, which Americans have themselves eaten for years with no ill-effects.
Zambia has rejected this food, because it may cause as yet unknown harm to its citizens’ health.
Well at least they will die healthy.
Greenpeace is applauding Zambia’s leaders for standing up to US pressure.

Swaminomics takes on the mighty Amartya Sen over primary education. Specifically for saying that private tuitions should be abolished. Do read.