I am the master evil genius!

Monday, March 31, 2003

I went to a peace rally yesterday. My arms ache, I got red paint on me, was temporarily gassed by..er...a pungent orange-haired lady in a winter silk suit, had to wade through a squelchy marsh born of Liberty ka parking lot grass and gutter goo and stand at Hussain Chowk for ten minutes with a bigass anti-capitalism sign, but it was worth every second. I feel good. Actively doing something makes you feel a little less helpless.
We need to boycott U.S and foreign goods. Capitalism is what is feeding this war, supporting Israel- and the Third World is the world's biggest market. I don't want to sound like an Islami militant when I speak of Israel, but enough is enough. I'm fed up. I refuse to be exploited like this, to have my country's potential crushed and then be rained bombs upon because by buying their goods I'm helping some other country to bully the world just because nobody can stop it. I have more pride than that, I can live very well without Coke and KFC, thank you very much. What do you take me for, some hapless fool who doesn't know what's good for her? Nobody gives a flying rat's ass about us in the Third World, we're just there to be fed rejected medicines and gassed by their factories' effluents, and made truckloads of money upon. Are we so weak and stupid that we can't survive without Sprite? Are we so completely brain-washed that we act worse than sheep and never notice?
This is my nose-thumbing, my finger-flashing. If you think you're so smart and powerful, then you have another thing coming.

Mina at 8:02 AM

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Alice's Adventures In Wonderland and Through The Looking-Glass : two of the best things to ever come off a printing press. My all-time favourite part of the book, followed only by the White Knight's song and Tweedledum and Tweedledee's 'nohow!' and 'contrariwise!' *grin* And no, Carroll was NOT a paedophile.

The Cat only grinned when it saw Alice. It looked good- natured, she thought: still it had VERY long claws and a great many teeth, so she felt that it ought to be treated with respect.

`Cheshire Puss,' she began, rather timidly, as she did not at all know whether it would like the name: however, it only grinned a little wider. `Come, it's pleased so far,' thought Alice, and she went on. `Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?'

`That depends a good deal on where you want to get to,' said the Cat.

`I don't much care where--' said Alice.

`Then it doesn't matter which way you go,' said the Cat.

`--so long as I get SOMEWHERE,' Alice added as an explanation.

`Oh, you're sure to do that,' said the Cat, `if you only walk long enough.'

Alice felt that this could not be denied, so she tried another question. `What sort of people live about here?'

`In THAT direction,' the Cat said, waving its right paw round, `lives a Hatter: and in THAT direction,' waving the other paw, `lives a March Hare. Visit either you like: they're both mad.'

`But I don't want to go among mad people,' Alice remarked.

`Oh, you can't help that,' said the Cat: `we're all mad here. I'm mad. You're mad.'

`How do you know I'm mad?' said Alice.

`You must be,' said the Cat, `or you wouldn't have come here.'

Alice didn't think that proved it at all; however, she went on `And how do you know that you're mad?'

`To begin with,' said the Cat, `a dog's not mad. You grant that?'

`I suppose so,' said Alice.

`Well, then,' the Cat went on, `you see, a dog growls when it's angry, and wags its tail when it's pleased. Now I growl when I'm pleased, and wag my tail when I'm angry. Therefore I'm mad.'

`I call it purring, not growling,' said Alice.

`Call it what you like,' said the Cat. `Do you play croquet with the Queen to-day?'

`I should like it very much,' said Alice, `but I haven't been invited yet.'

`You'll see me there,' said the Cat, and vanished.

Mina at 7:17 AM

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Saturday, March 29, 2003

Iraq again. Looking at the paper every morning is making me sick. I don’t even have the heart to turn to the crossword; it seems too trite for words (ergh, puns creep in everywhere). What the hell is going on? I keep thinking of the people living in Basra, in Baghdad, anywhere in Iraq. Keep thinking of them living with their lives hanging on a string, never knowing when the heavens will rain death upon them. Today's paper spoke of a young mother and her four children, incinerated in their car when a bomb tried to destroy Basra's communication centres. Nights of bombing, huddling in bomb shelters if you’re lucky enough to have one; waiting in the darkness, watching everything you’ve grown up with, your once-safe world go up in flames. Wondering how long until you’re the next one. I wonder if they have any parks left, any trees. No flowers this spring.
Half the world is rioting against this senselessness; tomorrow I’m going to a peace rally. I feel helpless, is nobody listening? I’ve stopped drinking Sprite and Pepsi; bazaar chukkers had me parched but I held out till I got home. I felt good about doing that, a personal nose-thumbing. Sometimes I wonder how God can let things like this happen- the lives of countless people is a price too precious to pay for learning tolerance, justice and the importance of standing up for the truth. It’s scary. Life is becoming precarious, the safe little cocoon we insulate ourselves in porous. Tell the people who are yours you love them, rebuild bridges you burnt, smell the flowers, lift your face up to the rain and stand there. Don’t be afraid to smile at people, laugh at yourself, wear all the colours of the rainbow. If I’m next, I don’t want to go without a fight, without getting the most out of my life, with any regrets.
Is nineteen too young to feel closer to death than ever before?

Mina at 1:30 PM

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Friday, March 28, 2003

Star-Crossed
Gule Sethi
28 March, 2003, 3:15 a.m

to be unsuccessful in love,
to pine and be consumed
by a want so intense
it controls, assumes and
permeates all levels of consciousness,
is a state of affairs accompanied
by a bevy of words
so apt, they cause a pain
that's near physical
unrequited, unrealised
you're a romantic fancy
a history all in yourself,
an artifact on display
priceless, but cracked,
a poignancy
that gives rise to imagination
a muse in the closet.
you are the potential for inspiration,
that the intellect craves
the unencumbered oddity
that makes for awkward guest lists,
ill-fated,
the star-crossed benificiary
of a star that falls.

Mina at 12:07 PM

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Yesterday the U.S bombed civilians, on the outskirts of Baghdad.
Ethics class day before discussed whether people are equal, and hence similar; or different, and thus not equal. It's a strange condition. We all run to the window at the first patter of rain after a long, dry, HOT summer. We all coo at babies.We all yell bad words at cricketers and people who don't flash their indicators before abruptly turning left. At the same time, we react differently to things. I wear red, all my girl friends love it. My guy friends run for their sunglasses. I have issues with cheating,or running red lights; other people hide booty in their knickers and whiz away with no great moral qualms. I'm not trying to be preachy, or sententious.I just want to know one thing: aren't every one of the 5 million people in Baghdad human beings? What happened to the Rights of Man, or all the rubbish the U.N churns out about equality, of basic human rights? Turning this war into another episode of reality T.V will not detract from the fact that these are people; people with lives, loves, families and hopes- not just Iraqis, but also the soldiers, the men and women being sent into battle whether they agree with their superiors or not. The CIA creates monsters it can't handle, how is that the fault of millions of innocent civilians, trying to rebuild their lives every time you feel afraid? Saddam, bin Laden, even Aimal Kasi. It's easy, isn't it? ' With great power comes great responsibility'. Even a cruddy Spiderman movie has more sense than Mr. Monkey President.

Mina at 8:05 AM

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"Be a scribe! Your body will be sleek, your hand will be soft....You are one who sits grandly in your house; your servants answer speedily; beer is poured copiously; all who see you rejoice in good cheer. Happy is the heart of him who writes; he is young each day." -- Ptahotpe, c. 2350 B.C.

( I should kick off my site with one of my favourite quotes, thought Mina, as she sat in front of her PC early one March morning. Even if it does mention prodigious amounts of beer.)

Mina at 7:28 AM

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