SH!T

Some of you may have seen this episode of South Park where they say the word, Shit. Of course, you cannot say the word, Shit on basic cable TV in the U.S. It gets bleeped. Its one of the 7 words, made famous by the late comedian George Carlin. These days the FCC in the US has gotten so high and mighty, that anything they consider remotely offensive, crude, explicit... they bleep the shit out of it.

Anyway, When I was in Montreal, Canada last week on business, I was watching TV and it was some random talk show. The guy was interviewing James Cameron, the famed director of Terminator, Titanic, Alien etc. Apparently, he has got a star in the Canadian Walk of Fame. They have one up there as well, similar to the Hollywood Walk of Fame. So, durin the course of the interview, the host drops the "shit" word and since I have been conditioned the past few years of living the U.S. of A, my ears perked up pretty quickly. I saw few more shit droppings on other shows as well. Then, it dawned on me that its okay to say Shit on Canadian TV. Now, India has something in common with Canada. I was reminded of the times in India where you could say Shit!

During the business meeting, the consultant also mentioned the word a few time, with the word bull thrown around generally in front of it bunch more times. He even dropped the F-bomb once. Now, I am aware even in Canada, you can't say the F-word on TV. But for a business consultant to do it in a professional setting and no one react adversely to it, it was an interesting sight for me. I wonder how it would have been received in the U.S. I work in a place where things are pretty informal but we still don't curse very much.

I have always considered these rules by FCC extremely stupid. I understand you shouldn't swear on TV because little kids mght be watching and/or its just plain offensive to people. But, there definitely is a time and place, where no other word could substitute for a good curse word. I hope someday the people that work in the FCC get to their senses and get down from their snooty positions and provide some wiggleroom for cursing on TV and other media! Its about fucking time.

Update 1: Funny.. I uploaded this post and went home, only to see the aforementioned South Park episode come on TV. Weird!

Update 2: You know how the Canadians in South Park episodes always say 'aboot' and have 'flopping heads'. Only one of the two is actually correct.

O Canah-duh!!

I am traveling today to Montreal with my boss and my colleague on a strategic business planning meeting. We will be meeting with our sister company north of the border and discuss the present and future of the company. Some sort of business consultant will be helping us in sharpening the focus of the company, I suppose. Whatever. Its all mumbo-jumbo for me. I am supposed to make a presentation on "Knowledge Capture". All I know is to send Mithun Chakraborty in a police/military officer uniform, he can capture anything! (I suggest you watch the hindi movie "Cheetah" to really understand what I mean by this).

Hypocrisy

As an Indian, the stance taken by the U.S. and a lot of the western world regarding the "response" taken by Israel on Gaza smacks of double standards and plain ol' hypocrisy. When elements that originated from Pakistan held Mumbai under siege for 3 days (beyond any doubt has been proven, except for the fact that the Pakistan government refuses to accept it, even when the father of the only living attacker corroborated that it was his son), everyone including the U.S. through Condaleeza Rice's visit to India and Pakistan, urged restraint and let things cool down.

I understand that any rash decision by the Indian government to attack training camps within Pakistan (there was tremendous support for that from the people of India, no doubt, similar to post 9/11 in the U.S.) would have pitted two nuclear-armed neighbors in a battle that could have very quickly escalated. So, I was a supporter of letting cooler heads prevail before any decision was taken, putting sustained pressure on the Pakistani government to come clean and lead up to closing of the training camps within their territory. 

However, with the charade that the Pakistan government does, of detaining a few "leaders" (that previously didn't exist on their soil, by the way), and placing them under house arrest till the dust settles and be back to its own merry ways, really pisses me off. I am actually glad this time, there is at the least, a sustained media and diplomatic pressure on the Government of Pakistan by the Indian government. 

Coming back to the original point about American hypocrisy diplomacy, There are many talking heads from both the Republicans and Democrats, justifying Israel's response to mortar shelling from across their border. That's fair enough. One of them said, "Listen, wouldn't we (The U.S.) react if Canada were to lob bombs across the border on to Seattle?" and the other said, "Hey, How do you think We'd react if Mexico were to drop shells from Tijuana on to San Diego" and so went all the metaphors. Very fair, I think. Every sovereign country reserves their rights to protect their soil against any external attacks. 

However, If India were to actually launch a military offensive on Pakistan with the goal of destroying the terrorist training camps and taking out a bunch of their leaders etc, 1) It could easily escalate in to a full scale war that might go beyond conventional weapons 2) pakistan will have to redeploy its troops from its western border with Afghanistan to resisit India. Point #2 severely disadvantages the U.S. in their fight against Al-Qaeda in Afghanistan. I think I have a working understanding of geo-politics and I see why nations make decisions that they do. But when I see the Bush administration come out and flat out support Israel on their response and tell India to simmer it down, is bullshit. I am glad when Mr. Obama responded - on the heels of the Mumbai attacks whether he thinks India should respond to it the way U.S. did after the September 11 attacks - "Every Sovereign country reserves their right to defend it, on their own way of choosing, and I'll leave it at that". Thanks Mr. Obama for calling it like you see it.