మనసు కవి ఆత్రేయ

I really want to take a break from my endless rants about society and injustice and share my thoughts about my other favorite pastime - listening to music.

In Telugu music, Aathreya is my fav lyricist. I might not've listened to all his lyrics but I remember many lyrics which makes us think or leave us in awe with his words. He was aptly titled as మనసు కవి (Manasu Kavi)

Whenever I read or see anything about Aathreya, the first thing I remember is Prem Nagar movie. All the songs from that movie are really awesome in all the possible genres. Romance, pathos, promiscuity, metaphor, alcoholism. You name it, he got it. My personal favorites are మనసు గతి ఇంతే, ఎవరి కోసం, ఎవరో రావాలి..

Few of my other favorites are from maro charitra, aakali rajyam et al

My new fav songs are from Abhinandana. I listened to them since my, childhood but never paid attention to the charanams. (As a kid, I was only interested in action movies. I didn't have enough maturity to understand these lines either). Lately abhinandhana songs started popping up on my random playlist more often. So I paid more attention to charanams and I'm really amazed.

Here're few lines from 'ఎదుటా నీవే' lyric which really mesmerized me
స్వప్నాలన్నీ క్షణికాలేగా
సత్యాలన్నీ నరకాలేగా..

స్వప్నం సత్యం అయితే వింత
సత్యం స్వప్నం అయ్యేదుందా..


For one thing, every bit of those lines are true. And the other thing is his amazing play on words. Of course, I'm short of words in Telugu and English to describe this.

Abhinandana's music is one of the greatest albums in Telugu. It wouldn't have attained that kinda immortality without the contribution of Ilayaraja and SPB. Either Ilayaraja's melodious music or SPB's soulful rendering of the songs , we can't praise them enough.

All the three deserve claim for this gem of Telugu music.

Peace.

I started practicing Telugu writing through Lekhini.org and gmail. One of these days, I want to write a whole blog in telugu, but I'm not skilled enough yet. And I'm highly doubtful of my ability to use Telugu words aptly.

Attractive Blonde Lady

Here's an SNL opening sketch spoofing faux news Greta Van Susteren. I don't know the exact airing date, but I guess it's from the last few months.



The video is spot on about Don't ask, don't tell. As ironical as it can be, I found this video on the webpage of the news pundit S.E.Cupp, who might be the subject of 'Attractive Blond Lady' character. I try to restrain from taking shots at the easy targets, but I couldn't resist.

In retrospect I blogged too much about Sarah Palin, but retrospect always makes me feel dumb.

This Woman S.E.Cupp is a atheist conservative. Yes, you read that right. Atheist Conservative, isn't that an oxymoron. But hey, she has to sell some books to middle America and get some bookings on Cable news shows .

This is about her atheism beliefs on Wikipedia "I like to think I adhere to the same Judeo-Christian values that most of religious America does. It's an understanding of and a respect for these values that keeps me moral." And then she wrote a book by name Losing Our Religion: The Liberal Media's Attack on Christianity. And also she stated that she does not believe in God today, but is open to possible conversion in the future.

If you fail to read between the lines, it's a marketing ploy and carefully built image. Gullible people will be interested to read an atheist point of view. Oh, and she also has a masters degree in Religion. Really?! I thought I read enough already, but she's an atheist Conservative with master's degree in Religion. My head will blow away if she starts telling how Darwin was wrong?

I respect both Christianity and Atheism. But what I fail to comprehend is an atheist writing about supposedly liberal media's attack on Christianity. Isn't that self contradictory. Most probably her next book would be How an atheist found her God. (Quoting Bill Maher)

Here's another video of this woman on Hannity show. She's outraged that Letterman made fun of Sarah Palin. S.E.Cupp mentioned that Obama and his campaign is behind this. Letterman made jokes almost 8 months after Obama won the election. Why would she even pull Obama into this. Oh yeah, she has to feign anger (In her own words)



The point I want to raise is how annoying these cable news shows became. 90% of these news pundits have neither credibility nor knowledge. And no body in the media calls out these people except people like Jon Stewart. And it's a whole new game if you're young female with good looks. Look at her website. (I've to say good Search Engine Optimization though) She got everything for an aspiring news pundit. A new book with good head shot, Check! Fake reading glasses, check! Lots of pictures in revealing outfits. check! Oh yes, lots and lots of videos from Faux News.

This post is very similar to my last post. It almost feels like redundant. But the mediocrity of the television news and the end less self promotion of these narcissist TV people made me do this.

Peace.

P.S. I wish she comes on Jon Stewart show to promote her book. Few times, he'll be merciless to these kool-aid people. But it'll be a delight.

Supply Side Economist or a Snakeoil Salesman

Here's a video from CNN dated Aug 04, 2009. It's an old video, but it's never too old for a good laugh.



Here's a Supply side economist Arthur Laffer, talking about how bad Medicare and Medicaid will be if they're run by Government. Say what? For starters Medicare and Medicaid are govt run programs. They're started like that and they remain the same.

We see all these fake pundits on TV every day, particularly on CNN, Faux news and MSNBC. No body questions their credibility or what makes them knowledgeable on any topic. No example stands out like Sarah Palin.

And of course the same thing goes with TV news anchors. This woman here in this video didn't even correct him that medicare is indeed a govt run program. I wouldn't be surprised if she's also ignorant of that fact. And faux news, you'll be confused whether you're a watching a news channel or a bimbo parade.

I want to take this opportunity to write about Supply Side Economics. I didn't study economics in college, so I'm no authority on economics to write opinions. But still I'm gonna voice my opinions about it. Supply side economics states that lower taxes for rich and capital gain tax cuts spurs economic growth. That's an over-simplified statement, but again there's not much actual economics in that. Whenever some one says Supply Side Economics, I'll break into laughter. I want to show them Larry Kudlow on CNBC and ask them why he's such an epic fail. Trickle down economics is one of the greatest lies ever told to America. Still there're so many people out there drinking that kool aid.


W implemented few of these supply side economics theories. Tax cuts for rich and lower taxes on capital gain taxes. Federal Deficit increased and (not surprising for a 'Fiscally conservative') Federal spending also increased. Rich became richer and wealth didn't really trickle down. Even now, once in a while I see few conservative boneheads on TV telling how tax cuts and limited government are the silver bullets for every issue.

And you know, Obama is the cause for all the bad things...

Peace

See the actual media matters article here

Catholic Church Sex Abuse; why is church getting away with it ..?

Is it just me or did the whole society lost all its sanity and stopped worrying about catholic church sex abuse victims.

Imagine a registered sex offender moving into your community. And think about it from a parent's perspective. Yeah, we'll be worried. There are many laws restricting the housing opportunities for these sex offenders. It's understandable that there're laws restricting their location, movement et al.

What's really bothering me or making me angry is, why's not society treating these child molesting priests with the same law. Why didn't District Attorneys arrest these priests yet? Why's is Catholic church is getting away with this? Is it cause of the religion? We don't even let an average sex offender move into your community, how can you let these priests get away who had molested many kids for many years at multiple churches.

Could you imagine any other Business establishment get away with this kind of child abuse and sexual abuse? No. Any person who had attended HR training about Sexual Harassment would know how law can be used against them even if they're not guilty. But why can't the same law be used on these child molesting priests and church Cardinals who had failed to report them to police?

Here's a hypothetical scenario. Few kids're abused at a Day care center and once the news goes out, Police and Human Services will crack down on the facility and close it down. I don't anticipate that kids will be sent back to that school unless it's run by different people. But after all these years of child abuse, these churches are in operation and no arrests were made. (as much as I recall from reading)

I understand that all these victims who came out for justice in the last decade were kids when sex abuse happened. These abuse complaints go back to 1950s also. what I failed to understand is, why're these not reported to police at that time? Why're chruch bishops and cardinals looking for Vatican approval or action to move forward on these issues. You don't need to hear from God or superior voice to tell you that any sexual act committed on a child is a grave sin and heinous crime. And when the job you took is to pass the God's message to the people, aren't you committing crimes by not stopping these crimes?

Putting the Law Enforcement part aside, catholic church didn't take any action to prevent these repeat offender priest from interacting with kids. If a priest was get caught abusing kids he was sent to some therapy program and wasn't posted near to kids. But that's just for time being. Umpteen times these priest were sent to another archdiocese where they started interacting with kids again.

Now to the role of Vatican. Forget about punishing these Priests or reporting them to local authorities. Vatican even refused to defrock few accused priests. Vatican mostly remained silent about all the allegations that present Pope didn't act on complaints from churches in USA. Pope isn't responding to the issue. I'd short stop of advising Vatican on this. But if the whole catholic faith in the world looks for his word on religion, he better stand up to it and clean up this mess.

If you're not feeling angry and disturbed yet, read about this priest from Wisconsin who got away. He sexually abused deaf kids for almost 25 years. And he died as a priest. How heinous human being are you, if you had abused innocent deaf children for 25 years. And I wonder how did his superiors sleep every night with knowledge of him being around children.

Being a theist, this is a very uncomfortable position to be in. All these priests and fake Sadhus in India are escaping. This ain't good for Society or religion.

Here's wikipedia article.

Peace.

P.S
It's a strange society, we live in today. Circa Feb'09 whole USA got outraged and angered that Chris Brown assaulted and wounded his girl friend Rihanna. Facebook and social media decided. "Chris Brown is a douchebag". But every day hundreds of domestic violence incidents happen all around us. Hundreds of ordinary females get assaulted by abusive partners. No body gives shit about them. Most likely, society wouldn't really care about this scandal until a child celebrity come out as a victim or something similar happens. I hope I'm wrong.

Warning went unheeded

The more we look back into our lack of oversight and regulation, it becomes more clear how many warnings we missed and how much our leaders, economists pushed us into this turmoil. After all, hindsight is 20 20.

I watched this Frontline Documentary, and it clearly showed us a whistleblower who wanted to regulate derivatives trading. Like many whistleblowers, she was crushed. She got pummeled in senate hearings. Since she couldn't pass the reform she resigned from her office. Exactly after 10 years, wall street crashed burning away the savings and retirement money of millions of Americans.



for those who couldn't watch the whole 55 mins, here's the overview.

Brooksley Born was the chairwoman of CFTC in Clinton administration. In 1998 she looked at the lack of regulation on OTC derivative trading and tried to put a leash on it. She was pushed back by the trio of Alan Greenspan, Robin Rubin and Larry Summers. After senate and congress committee hearings Free market proponents prevailed. Brooksley left her job.

Soon, a big Hedgefund LTCM went under and Fed orchestrated a bailout with the help of big banks. This is the exact scenario which Broosley warned the congress about. Policy makers missed this big warning. And we all know the rest of the story.

But if we had acted on this warning we could've avoided (wishful thinking) this implosion. But trio didn't want our free markets hindered by regulation just for the sake of regulation.

Actually, except the tail end of last decade, Laissez-faire worked flawlessly. Atleast seemingly. Greenspan's low interest rates, Housing bubble kept everybody happy. Larry kudlow said that there's no such thing called hosuing bubble. (He's an Epic failure, I wonder why he's still employed) And then the Bear Sterns bankruptcy, Lehman's brothers bankruptcy. Financial system fell into fear and Panic. I wonder, what's the Free Market's proponent's response for this.

Being a fan boy of Frontline, I can go on and on about their Journalistic virtues and how they're the torch bearers' of the Fair journalism. But I've to appreciate their story telling style one more time. I liked the way they end their story.

Robin Ruben went to lead Citibank and it got 100Billion Tax payer money as a bailout. Alan Greenspan is every where from Senate hearings and Think tank meetings defending his tenure as Fed chairman. Some how people are not buying it.

What bothers me is the same people who caused this meltdown are in Obama administration. Larry summers is chief advisor for Obama and Tim Geithner is the Treasury secretary. These two are the proteges of Robin Ruben and now these are the people who're gonna protect us from another meltdown. Hmm, I guess this isn't the Change we're expecting.

Alan Greenspan got too much credit for the last two decades. He's called as wizard, maestro, rockstar for the booming 90s and 2000s. Bush even presented him with Presidential Medal of honor. But now truth is slowly emerging and his legacy is at risk now. He agreed that he's partly to blame for this meltdown but also blamed greed of bankers for this. But hey, Regulation is used to control greed and prevent people from doing stupid things.

I have some beef with Ayn Rand philosophy which I'm dying to write for the last few months. I didn't read any of her books yet but I got the gist of her work. She's a libertarian and wouldn't want a bit of regulation on Market. For all those ardent worshipers of Ayn Rand, this is my question. Last two decades of US Market is what Ayn Rand asked for, and we ended up in this Abyss. How exactly are they gonna defend her objectivism.

Ayn Rand's work gained popularity and creed cause of the times she lived. Fear of communism made Libertarianism glamorous. But all good things will come to an end, same with the Ayn Rand's Libertarianism influence. No follower of'er is more powerful/influential than Alan Greenspan. And he couldn't prove that her principles actually work.

Anything is moderation is good, either free market or Regulation.

Now, how can we prevent another turmoil? Even today Wall st is minting billions with derivatives trading. And here's the kicker. This time they're using TARP funds for that. That's tax payers money. Some thing is seriously wrong.

Chris Dodd, since you decided not to run for another term of senate, please pay back to American public at least once. Try to pass a real financial regulation reform. Not a toothless one which is before Congress now.

And yes, please bring back Glass-Steagall act.

Peace.

P.S. As economists and historians are questioning Greenspan's Legacy now, could they also question Milton Friedman's theories. It wouldn't hurt.