Tuesday, May 24, 2005
Dinner by the Asian American Journalist Association (AAJA) on May 22, 2005
It is 4 p.m. and I can't decide if I should drive to San Francisco, take BART, or take Caltrain. I know that BART is more frequent, but I would have to drive all the way to Fremont to catch it. I look for BART schedule on the net--the train leaves Fremont every 20 minutes, and to go to the Embarcadero station I would have to change trains at Bay Fair. While I am making decisions about my commute my clothes are going through laundry. I look at the clock, it is 4:20; the dryer will run till 4:45; let me quickly take a shower, get ready, take the clothes out of the dryer, and then head to the Fremont BART station. I won't be able to catch the 5:12 train, but the 5:32 one looks more doable. I go through the program. It is 5:02 when I get in the car, but then another setback: I am out of gas. I stop at the neighborhood gas station; first thinking of buying enough gas to just make it to the Fremont station, but then deciding on filling up the tank--heck I am already late for the 5:32 train. MapQuest says it will take 28 minutes to drive to the Fremont station. While driving I wonder if MapQuest calculates driving times for really slow drivers, if I will be able to make it there in 15 minutes, just in time to catch the 5:32 train. Traffic slows down near the Dixon Landing exit on 880. I am not looking at the clock anymore. MapQuest told me to turn right on Mowry, then right on the Civic Center Drive, and then left on BART way. I keep driving on Mowry, but I don't find the Civic Center Drive. I wonder if I have missed it. I make a right turn at a signal to see if going down that way I will come across BART way. I stop at the next light. The car on my left has its window down. I ask the driver about the BART station. He tells me to go back to Mowry and keep driving in the direction I was driving; Civic Center Drive will be after Paseo Padre. I do what he told me. This being Sunday, there is plenty of parking available at the station. I walk to the station building and for the next couple of minutes fight with the ticket machine. It is not accepting my credit card. I feed dollar bills in the machine, it spits my $4.70 ticket to Embarcadero. There is a train at the station; I get in and take a seat. It is now 5:42. There is an announcement that the doors are about to close. Hooray! It is the 5:32 train running 10 minutes late, I tell myself. The doors close, but seconds later open back. My joy is short lived. It is the 5:52 train; the driver was just playing with the doors, and me. I hate her. The train leaves on time. The car I am sitting in is mostly empty. The commuter trains have their own unique culture. All the passengers sit very quietly, either reading something or looking out of the window. They are all aware of each other's presence but they pretend otherwise. And then there is always this instance when the doors joining your car to the other car open, a man enters, walks across, and leaves at the other end. Everybody checks him out and forms their own opinion about him.
Two stations later three young girls board our car and liven up the atmosphere. That's another organic part of the commuter train culture: young, good looking women will board the train and everybody will become interested in them. These three girls are talking rather loudly and all of us while pretending we are not paying any attention are keenly interested in their conversation. The girl wearing a black T-shirt bends to get something out of her bag. Her top lifts up and bares the lower portion of her back. You can see she is wearing a red underwear, a thong. It is taking her a while to find what she is looking for--nobody minds the delay. Take your time, Honey! But then she sits up and the show is over.
I get off at Bay Fair. There is a little wait at that station. During that time two trains carrying passengers unknown to me, living lives of complexities unrecognized by me, pass by.
By the time I reach Embercadero it is 6:42. I walk to 101 Spear Street. The dinner is at Yank Sing Restaurant. There are a bunch of people outside the restaurant; all dressed up, putting on their best behavior, enjoying drinks, talking passionately. I look for a registration table, there is none. I walk into the restaurant. It is full. Tables are numbered. I look for a table with all the South Asian journalists sitting at it; I don't find one. I am now looking for Julie Patel of San Jose Mercury News; I am here on her invitation. I find Julie at the far end of the room. I am glad I recognize her even when she is in a sari today--our last meeting took place many months ago. Julie tells me she wasn't sure I was coming, someone else has taken the seat at the table I was going to sit at. She says I can sit at the table we are standing it; there are two seats available there. I take a seat and get introduced to the people at that table. They are Jane Morrison of San Francisco Democratic County Central Committee, Gimmy Park Li of Susquehanna, Boyd Fung of Hong Kong Economic and Trade Office, Brenda Huang of Tracy Press, and Audrey Wong and Judith Sagami of Daily Republic. We talk about little things newly introduced people talk about. Jane tells me she is originally from Oklahoma and came to California in 1949. I wonder if that year California had a centennial celebration of the gold rush. I ask if being so late I have missed anything. Jane tells me I missed the Filipino dance. Brenda tells me the name of that dance, a name that slips off my mind very quickly. I'll Google it.
Then the speeches start. I am sitting behind a massive pillar. To see the speaker I have to turn my chair around and pull out a bit. It is an awkward position. Just then Julie shows up; she tells me there are seats at Table #18, in case I want to move. I mumble my excuse to the people at the table and head to #18. After I leave I wonder if my table-mates thought it was rude of me to leave like that. I am sorry, but don't know how to convey my sorry to them.
Table #18 is more centrally located. I can see the podium and the speakers. I get introduced to some of the people at that table. They are Virginia Mak of HP, Edward Iwata of USA Today, and Kai Aiyetoro of the National Federation of Community Broadcasters.
Speeches are made by important people while we carry on with our dinner. I feel very ignorant because I don't know any of the speakers--well, I know Lisa Chung of the Mercury News. The cliché of that night's speeches is civil rights: Asian Americans representation in media, diversity in Hollywood, same sex marriages, and all.
Yank Sing is famous for its many course dinner--this will be my first time to go beyond a 3-course affair (salad/soup, entree, and dessert). Multiple course dinner appropriately comes with smaller serving plates--you are supposed to take just a bit from every course. Salad and soup are followed by shrimp cocktail, then fish, then vegetables, then chicken, then I don't remember what. The business ends with rice. People are now getting up. Everyone has overeaten. A waiter comes and asks if any of us would like to pack anything to take home. We all ponder the merits and demerits of that proposition. Kai braves out; she tells the waiter she would like to have the remainder of the shrimp dish packed. I follow suit and ask for the leftover rice and fish.
The waiter comes back after a few minutes; he got two bags in his hand. I am given the big red plastic bag--the rice and fish are in there in a foam box; Kai gets the small paper bag. Kai comments on why she didn't get her paper bag in a bigger plastic bag like mine. I ask the waiter to get a plastic bag for Kai. He says they don't have anymore plastic bags. I don't know what to think of this. Kai says something to the young woman sitting next to her. I can't hear her but I wonder if Kai is commenting on this incidence to be some kind of discrimination. Was it sexism? That I being a man was treated better than a woman (Kai), or was it some kind of racism in which Asian Americans are provided better service than the Afro Americans?
I say goodbye to Kai and others and leave. I go back to the table I sat at earlier. Boyd, Brenda, and others are still there. I take leave from them and promise I will get in touch with them via email.
I now look for Julie; I want to talk to her before leaving. Julie is one of the organizers of today's program. Tonight she is a social butterfly gliding from one corner of the room to the other, giving smiles, saying hi to everyone she knows, which is basically everyone in the hall. I meet her and briefly speak to her. I tell her I need to send her my check for the dinner. She asks if I have my checkbook with me. I don't. I had this mental note that I would tear off one check from the checkbook and take it with me to the dinner. But then in the rush of things I completely forgot.
It is a little after 9 p.m. as I come out of the restaurant. The Spear Street is deserted. I walk towards the BART station; far behind me a homeless person yells something and I fight the urge to look back. The BART station is full of life. I am able to use my ATM card at the ticket machine. I now realize that at the Fremont station I was inserting my credit card backwards; that's why the machine failed to read it.
Sitting in the train I pull out a blank piece of paper. I have to become one with the commuter train culture. I must be absorbed in doing something. I start writing notes on today's program.
It is 4 p.m. and I can't decide if I should drive to San Francisco, take BART, or take Caltrain. I know that BART is more frequent, but I would have to drive all the way to Fremont to catch it. I look for BART schedule on the net--the train leaves Fremont every 20 minutes, and to go to the Embarcadero station I would have to change trains at Bay Fair. While I am making decisions about my commute my clothes are going through laundry. I look at the clock, it is 4:20; the dryer will run till 4:45; let me quickly take a shower, get ready, take the clothes out of the dryer, and then head to the Fremont BART station. I won't be able to catch the 5:12 train, but the 5:32 one looks more doable. I go through the program. It is 5:02 when I get in the car, but then another setback: I am out of gas. I stop at the neighborhood gas station; first thinking of buying enough gas to just make it to the Fremont station, but then deciding on filling up the tank--heck I am already late for the 5:32 train. MapQuest says it will take 28 minutes to drive to the Fremont station. While driving I wonder if MapQuest calculates driving times for really slow drivers, if I will be able to make it there in 15 minutes, just in time to catch the 5:32 train. Traffic slows down near the Dixon Landing exit on 880. I am not looking at the clock anymore. MapQuest told me to turn right on Mowry, then right on the Civic Center Drive, and then left on BART way. I keep driving on Mowry, but I don't find the Civic Center Drive. I wonder if I have missed it. I make a right turn at a signal to see if going down that way I will come across BART way. I stop at the next light. The car on my left has its window down. I ask the driver about the BART station. He tells me to go back to Mowry and keep driving in the direction I was driving; Civic Center Drive will be after Paseo Padre. I do what he told me. This being Sunday, there is plenty of parking available at the station. I walk to the station building and for the next couple of minutes fight with the ticket machine. It is not accepting my credit card. I feed dollar bills in the machine, it spits my $4.70 ticket to Embarcadero. There is a train at the station; I get in and take a seat. It is now 5:42. There is an announcement that the doors are about to close. Hooray! It is the 5:32 train running 10 minutes late, I tell myself. The doors close, but seconds later open back. My joy is short lived. It is the 5:52 train; the driver was just playing with the doors, and me. I hate her. The train leaves on time. The car I am sitting in is mostly empty. The commuter trains have their own unique culture. All the passengers sit very quietly, either reading something or looking out of the window. They are all aware of each other's presence but they pretend otherwise. And then there is always this instance when the doors joining your car to the other car open, a man enters, walks across, and leaves at the other end. Everybody checks him out and forms their own opinion about him.
Two stations later three young girls board our car and liven up the atmosphere. That's another organic part of the commuter train culture: young, good looking women will board the train and everybody will become interested in them. These three girls are talking rather loudly and all of us while pretending we are not paying any attention are keenly interested in their conversation. The girl wearing a black T-shirt bends to get something out of her bag. Her top lifts up and bares the lower portion of her back. You can see she is wearing a red underwear, a thong. It is taking her a while to find what she is looking for--nobody minds the delay. Take your time, Honey! But then she sits up and the show is over.
I get off at Bay Fair. There is a little wait at that station. During that time two trains carrying passengers unknown to me, living lives of complexities unrecognized by me, pass by.
By the time I reach Embercadero it is 6:42. I walk to 101 Spear Street. The dinner is at Yank Sing Restaurant. There are a bunch of people outside the restaurant; all dressed up, putting on their best behavior, enjoying drinks, talking passionately. I look for a registration table, there is none. I walk into the restaurant. It is full. Tables are numbered. I look for a table with all the South Asian journalists sitting at it; I don't find one. I am now looking for Julie Patel of San Jose Mercury News; I am here on her invitation. I find Julie at the far end of the room. I am glad I recognize her even when she is in a sari today--our last meeting took place many months ago. Julie tells me she wasn't sure I was coming, someone else has taken the seat at the table I was going to sit at. She says I can sit at the table we are standing it; there are two seats available there. I take a seat and get introduced to the people at that table. They are Jane Morrison of San Francisco Democratic County Central Committee, Gimmy Park Li of Susquehanna, Boyd Fung of Hong Kong Economic and Trade Office, Brenda Huang of Tracy Press, and Audrey Wong and Judith Sagami of Daily Republic. We talk about little things newly introduced people talk about. Jane tells me she is originally from Oklahoma and came to California in 1949. I wonder if that year California had a centennial celebration of the gold rush. I ask if being so late I have missed anything. Jane tells me I missed the Filipino dance. Brenda tells me the name of that dance, a name that slips off my mind very quickly. I'll Google it.
Then the speeches start. I am sitting behind a massive pillar. To see the speaker I have to turn my chair around and pull out a bit. It is an awkward position. Just then Julie shows up; she tells me there are seats at Table #18, in case I want to move. I mumble my excuse to the people at the table and head to #18. After I leave I wonder if my table-mates thought it was rude of me to leave like that. I am sorry, but don't know how to convey my sorry to them.
Table #18 is more centrally located. I can see the podium and the speakers. I get introduced to some of the people at that table. They are Virginia Mak of HP, Edward Iwata of USA Today, and Kai Aiyetoro of the National Federation of Community Broadcasters.
Speeches are made by important people while we carry on with our dinner. I feel very ignorant because I don't know any of the speakers--well, I know Lisa Chung of the Mercury News. The cliché of that night's speeches is civil rights: Asian Americans representation in media, diversity in Hollywood, same sex marriages, and all.
Yank Sing is famous for its many course dinner--this will be my first time to go beyond a 3-course affair (salad/soup, entree, and dessert). Multiple course dinner appropriately comes with smaller serving plates--you are supposed to take just a bit from every course. Salad and soup are followed by shrimp cocktail, then fish, then vegetables, then chicken, then I don't remember what. The business ends with rice. People are now getting up. Everyone has overeaten. A waiter comes and asks if any of us would like to pack anything to take home. We all ponder the merits and demerits of that proposition. Kai braves out; she tells the waiter she would like to have the remainder of the shrimp dish packed. I follow suit and ask for the leftover rice and fish.
The waiter comes back after a few minutes; he got two bags in his hand. I am given the big red plastic bag--the rice and fish are in there in a foam box; Kai gets the small paper bag. Kai comments on why she didn't get her paper bag in a bigger plastic bag like mine. I ask the waiter to get a plastic bag for Kai. He says they don't have anymore plastic bags. I don't know what to think of this. Kai says something to the young woman sitting next to her. I can't hear her but I wonder if Kai is commenting on this incidence to be some kind of discrimination. Was it sexism? That I being a man was treated better than a woman (Kai), or was it some kind of racism in which Asian Americans are provided better service than the Afro Americans?
I say goodbye to Kai and others and leave. I go back to the table I sat at earlier. Boyd, Brenda, and others are still there. I take leave from them and promise I will get in touch with them via email.
I now look for Julie; I want to talk to her before leaving. Julie is one of the organizers of today's program. Tonight she is a social butterfly gliding from one corner of the room to the other, giving smiles, saying hi to everyone she knows, which is basically everyone in the hall. I meet her and briefly speak to her. I tell her I need to send her my check for the dinner. She asks if I have my checkbook with me. I don't. I had this mental note that I would tear off one check from the checkbook and take it with me to the dinner. But then in the rush of things I completely forgot.
It is a little after 9 p.m. as I come out of the restaurant. The Spear Street is deserted. I walk towards the BART station; far behind me a homeless person yells something and I fight the urge to look back. The BART station is full of life. I am able to use my ATM card at the ticket machine. I now realize that at the Fremont station I was inserting my credit card backwards; that's why the machine failed to read it.
Sitting in the train I pull out a blank piece of paper. I have to become one with the commuter train culture. I must be absorbed in doing something. I start writing notes on today's program.
Monday, May 09, 2005
A visit to the plant
(after a gap of nearly a month)
It is unbelievably depressing. There is a stench of death around here. All these empty cubes! People are gone. But they are still here, roaming around, doing things they normally did when they were physically present. This little sign that someone has posted. It says: Nothing perishes, things change, but memories last forever. There is a printed message under the rectangular picture of the plant. The writer says he is leaving the plant with very fond memories--of having worked on projects that he felt so proud to work on, and working with people.
I read the message the second time and the pain with which it was written hits me. It is so overwhelming it gets to my soul. I persuade myself to not read it the third time; just move on. Move, 'cuz your sensitive chords are so easily struck, 'cuz like quicksand others' expressed sorrow can devour you. Move on because death isn't that far, and there is no point in being absorbed in melancholy.
(after a gap of nearly a month)
It is unbelievably depressing. There is a stench of death around here. All these empty cubes! People are gone. But they are still here, roaming around, doing things they normally did when they were physically present. This little sign that someone has posted. It says: Nothing perishes, things change, but memories last forever. There is a printed message under the rectangular picture of the plant. The writer says he is leaving the plant with very fond memories--of having worked on projects that he felt so proud to work on, and working with people.
I read the message the second time and the pain with which it was written hits me. It is so overwhelming it gets to my soul. I persuade myself to not read it the third time; just move on. Move, 'cuz your sensitive chords are so easily struck, 'cuz like quicksand others' expressed sorrow can devour you. Move on because death isn't that far, and there is no point in being absorbed in melancholy.
Tuesday, April 19, 2005
Time keeps on on slippin'
R called. He was stuck in the traffic on Georgia 400. [Isn't it nice to have friends who call you when they are stuck in traffic?] He told me all white folks of Atlanta want to live on Georgia 400.
"Doesn't everyone want to live in a good neighborhood?" I asked him, suppressing my urge to point out that he too had recently moved there.
At another occasion I had shocked a Desi friend by telling him my observation that most Desis want to live in a neighborhood where they are the only nonwhite people, they want their children to go to schools where their children are the only students with black hair.
Moving to this new place has situated R thirty-five miles from his work. It takes him 45-50 minutes to get to the work, and an hour or so on the way back, he told me. Was there any way he could utilize the time he spends in the commute? [That is, any other way besides using the time to call friends.] He had no clue. I told him about a recent conversation I had with another friend of mine while hiking in the Rancho San Antonio Park. I told him that most of the people we are in contact with in our social circles have similar education and they are all equally smart. So, the only way one person can have an edge over another is by having a better and more productive use of their time. Writing during your toilet time, reading while standing in a line, employing the concept of parallel processing, five minutes utilized here, ten minutes put to use there, that is what will make your 24 hours equal to 36 hours of others' time. R agreed with this philosophy. He said he would ask his wife to check out a few audio books from the local library.
R called. He was stuck in the traffic on Georgia 400. [Isn't it nice to have friends who call you when they are stuck in traffic?] He told me all white folks of Atlanta want to live on Georgia 400.
"Doesn't everyone want to live in a good neighborhood?" I asked him, suppressing my urge to point out that he too had recently moved there.
At another occasion I had shocked a Desi friend by telling him my observation that most Desis want to live in a neighborhood where they are the only nonwhite people, they want their children to go to schools where their children are the only students with black hair.
Moving to this new place has situated R thirty-five miles from his work. It takes him 45-50 minutes to get to the work, and an hour or so on the way back, he told me. Was there any way he could utilize the time he spends in the commute? [That is, any other way besides using the time to call friends.] He had no clue. I told him about a recent conversation I had with another friend of mine while hiking in the Rancho San Antonio Park. I told him that most of the people we are in contact with in our social circles have similar education and they are all equally smart. So, the only way one person can have an edge over another is by having a better and more productive use of their time. Writing during your toilet time, reading while standing in a line, employing the concept of parallel processing, five minutes utilized here, ten minutes put to use there, that is what will make your 24 hours equal to 36 hours of others' time. R agreed with this philosophy. He said he would ask his wife to check out a few audio books from the local library.
Monday, April 18, 2005
Thursday, March 31, 2005
F-16s to Pakistan, F-18s to India
(from a yahoogroup)
I was outraged by the news of the US's promised sale
of the F-16s to Pakistan, and the F-18s and the
civilian nuclear technology to India. It is shameful
that the world's wealthiest nation takes advantage of
regional animosities, and cheats the poor countries
through such exploitive deals. It is equally
heartbreaking to see both India and Pakistan fall in
this trap. These developments are especially
discouraging because both India and Pakistan are on
the verge of breaking into a new era of cooperation
and peace. This news is a slap on the face of the
group of people that has embarked on a long peace
march from Delhi to Multan, going village to village
and understanding the problems of the common
folks--problems that are the same on both sides of the
border.
I wish Pakistan had the courage to refuse to buy the
F-16s because this sale would put this already poor
country in heavy debt. I wish Pakistan had the
leadership that understood that strength is not gained
by buying military aircrafts, strength comes from
binding the nation together; a leadership that
understood that we are our own worst enemy; that doing
justice, sharing power with people, including all
groups in the decision making process ensure that no
external enemy would ever subdue the country.
I wish India too had the courage to cancel the
military deals with the US, and refuse to buy the
rejected nuclear technology that would generate tons
of radioactive waste every year. I wish the Indian
leadership had the wisdom to understand that a nation
doesn't become a 'major regional power' riding on
someone else's shoulders, that nations earn this
status walking on their own feet.
I wish the leaders of our region had the acumen to see
that in the sale of the F-16s to Pakistan, and the
F-18s to India, the only winner is the
military-industrial complex of the US; people who
understood that resolving conflicts through peaceful
means makes more economic sense than buying expensive
war
machines; and that regional cooperation brings
prosperity to all; that building a gas line from Iran
to India via Pakistan is in the economic interest of
all three countries.
I also wish that the leaders of the wealthy nations
understood that even when there are stupid leaders and
nations ready to be fooled, acquiring wealth at the
expense of such people is not only morally wrong, it
eventually
creates the inequalities that come back to haunt you
in the shape of a 9/11.
Cemendtaur
(from a yahoogroup)
I was outraged by the news of the US's promised sale
of the F-16s to Pakistan, and the F-18s and the
civilian nuclear technology to India. It is shameful
that the world's wealthiest nation takes advantage of
regional animosities, and cheats the poor countries
through such exploitive deals. It is equally
heartbreaking to see both India and Pakistan fall in
this trap. These developments are especially
discouraging because both India and Pakistan are on
the verge of breaking into a new era of cooperation
and peace. This news is a slap on the face of the
group of people that has embarked on a long peace
march from Delhi to Multan, going village to village
and understanding the problems of the common
folks--problems that are the same on both sides of the
border.
I wish Pakistan had the courage to refuse to buy the
F-16s because this sale would put this already poor
country in heavy debt. I wish Pakistan had the
leadership that understood that strength is not gained
by buying military aircrafts, strength comes from
binding the nation together; a leadership that
understood that we are our own worst enemy; that doing
justice, sharing power with people, including all
groups in the decision making process ensure that no
external enemy would ever subdue the country.
I wish India too had the courage to cancel the
military deals with the US, and refuse to buy the
rejected nuclear technology that would generate tons
of radioactive waste every year. I wish the Indian
leadership had the wisdom to understand that a nation
doesn't become a 'major regional power' riding on
someone else's shoulders, that nations earn this
status walking on their own feet.
I wish the leaders of our region had the acumen to see
that in the sale of the F-16s to Pakistan, and the
F-18s to India, the only winner is the
military-industrial complex of the US; people who
understood that resolving conflicts through peaceful
means makes more economic sense than buying expensive
war
machines; and that regional cooperation brings
prosperity to all; that building a gas line from Iran
to India via Pakistan is in the economic interest of
all three countries.
I also wish that the leaders of the wealthy nations
understood that even when there are stupid leaders and
nations ready to be fooled, acquiring wealth at the
expense of such people is not only morally wrong, it
eventually
creates the inequalities that come back to haunt you
in the shape of a 9/11.
Cemendtaur
Tuesday, January 18, 2005
How to make passport size pictures at home
If you have a digital camera at your disposal you can make your own passport pictures. Recently, using technical help from my Sabahat Ashraf I made excellent quality passport size photos at home. Later, I found out people have put information on the web on how to make your own passport pictures. But all these people used Photoshop--I didn’t have access to that software. This is how you can make passport size photos at home, using a digital camera and commonly used software:
1. Use a plain background and take a picture of the subject so that there is some room on top of the head, very little room on both sides of the shoulders, and the picture covers the subject all the way down to the waistline. These proportions are important because in your 2X2 picture you want the head measurement to be 1” to 1-3/16”--these are official guidelines. If you are using Photoshop you can measure the head in the picture and then accordingly decide how much area of the photo to cover to yield those head dimensions. But the free editing software I used didn’t have the capability to take measurements and hence I had to make sure I start with the right dimensions, when I take the picture.
2. Open the picture file (jpeg) in a photo editing software and make a square box around the subject’s head and shoulders. [I used Irfanview, a freeware you can easily download from the web--google it.] Now crop this selection and save it under a different name. The square picture ensures that in formatting the picture to 2 inch X 2 inch you won’t distort the image. Now open a blank MS Word document and use the Insert command to insert the new picture file. Depending on your camera’s resolution, the imported square picture in Word will come out to be bigger than 2 X 2. Select the picture by clicking on it, and then right click to see the options. Use the picture format option (use ‘size’ tab in it) to resize the picture to 2 in X 2in. There you have it! You can add a border to this picture (it is one of the options when you right click). Add a thin boxed border (say 1 pt) to create a white thin box around the picture. Now copy and paste this 2X2 many times. The thin border you made will come handy when you are ready to cut the pictures from the printed letter size page. With many 2X2 pictures present on your 8.5X11 sheet you are now ready for printing. Print on a heavy paper using a high quality printer. I didn’t have a high quality printer at home so I took my Word document to Kinko’s and had the page printed there. I had to physically take the Word file in a memory stick because the file was too big to be sent via email. At Kinko’s it costs $1.49 to print color on a heavy letter sized paper. You get 12 passport pictures for $1.49 + tax. What a bargain!
If you have a digital camera at your disposal you can make your own passport pictures. Recently, using technical help from my Sabahat Ashraf I made excellent quality passport size photos at home. Later, I found out people have put information on the web on how to make your own passport pictures. But all these people used Photoshop--I didn’t have access to that software. This is how you can make passport size photos at home, using a digital camera and commonly used software:
1. Use a plain background and take a picture of the subject so that there is some room on top of the head, very little room on both sides of the shoulders, and the picture covers the subject all the way down to the waistline. These proportions are important because in your 2X2 picture you want the head measurement to be 1” to 1-3/16”--these are official guidelines. If you are using Photoshop you can measure the head in the picture and then accordingly decide how much area of the photo to cover to yield those head dimensions. But the free editing software I used didn’t have the capability to take measurements and hence I had to make sure I start with the right dimensions, when I take the picture.
2. Open the picture file (jpeg) in a photo editing software and make a square box around the subject’s head and shoulders. [I used Irfanview, a freeware you can easily download from the web--google it.] Now crop this selection and save it under a different name. The square picture ensures that in formatting the picture to 2 inch X 2 inch you won’t distort the image. Now open a blank MS Word document and use the Insert command to insert the new picture file. Depending on your camera’s resolution, the imported square picture in Word will come out to be bigger than 2 X 2. Select the picture by clicking on it, and then right click to see the options. Use the picture format option (use ‘size’ tab in it) to resize the picture to 2 in X 2in. There you have it! You can add a border to this picture (it is one of the options when you right click). Add a thin boxed border (say 1 pt) to create a white thin box around the picture. Now copy and paste this 2X2 many times. The thin border you made will come handy when you are ready to cut the pictures from the printed letter size page. With many 2X2 pictures present on your 8.5X11 sheet you are now ready for printing. Print on a heavy paper using a high quality printer. I didn’t have a high quality printer at home so I took my Word document to Kinko’s and had the page printed there. I had to physically take the Word file in a memory stick because the file was too big to be sent via email. At Kinko’s it costs $1.49 to print color on a heavy letter sized paper. You get 12 passport pictures for $1.49 + tax. What a bargain!
Monday, November 29, 2004
It was after a long time that I went for a walk with MZ. We met in the parking lot of Rancho San Antonio Park. The sun was out, but it was still pretty cold. On our way to the Happy Hollow Farm MZ pulled a muscle in his right leg. Still, he insisted on carrying on with the hike. We took the same route we normally take: we go left from the farm and get on the narrow trail; we climb up all the way to the lookout point, and then loop back. It normally takes about two hours to do that hike. And two hours is a pretty good amount of time to talk about everything: from contemporary politics, to religions, to history, to analyses of societal currents. I’m not sure how we started talking about food, yesterday. I got MZ very excited when I put forth my thesis of the need for diversity in the food we eat. I told him that every food produces its own set of toxins in our bodies—broadly speaking each food is in a way a unique poison. If we frequently eat just one kind of food then we are stacking one type of poison in our bodies. We risk increasing that poison to a level of potency. The trick is to eat many different types of foods so that we get whole bunch of different poisons in minute amounts and none in the amount great enough to be detrimental to us. Most people’s diversity in food goes as far as rotating meat (beef, chicken, lamb, and goat) with vegetables. I believe we should go even farther. For example, why do we always eat chicken eggs? Why don’t we rotate chicken eggs with duck, ostrich, pigeon, and other bird’s eggs? When we eat beef we normally eat Hereford or Angus, why not other breeds? Why turkey only on the Thanksgiving? Have different types of turkeys all year round. Of course, this proposed food diversity is not readily available in common grocery stores. Popular grocery stores only stock food that has the most turnover, things that most people eat. You’d have to actively seek diverse food from groceries that stock exotic food. One way is to visit ethnic food stores and buy things that you don’t normally consume.
Wednesday, November 24, 2004
Tuesday, November 16, 2004
The Iraq Lessons
A.H. Cemendtaur
Allow me to put forth, in the spirit of perennial optimism, a few
valuable lessons we can all take from the Iraq debacle. And when I
say all of us I really mean all of us: the conquerors, the common
folks of the invading nation, the autocrats of the Third World, and
the masses living under despotic rules.
The lesson for the conquerors is very simple: That war is too risky an enterprise to have a predictable long-term result. That running over a smaller country may appear to be a cakewalk, but because of the intrinsicly chaotic nature of violence, this apparent runaway can easily go awry.
The populace of powerful nations should learn that in times of solicitude, con artists will try to fool them, and the tricksters have an excellent chance of getting away with it. That the way a nation can be duped into making unfavorable decisions when it is in a state of anxiety is not very different from the scenario when a pickpocket pushes you to make you lose your balance, making it easier for them to steal from you.
Whereas the idea of exporting democracy to the Middle East had been on the books for a long time, the tragedy of 9/11/2001 provided the necessary environment in which an ideological theory--blissfully accompanied by greed--could be put to the test. Americans were easily tricked by the Neocons into believing that Saddam Hussein was another face of Al Qaeda and that the invasion of Iraq was the only way to avoid the next 9/11. The Neocons, willingly duped by a group of Iraqi Americans, were sure that the Iraqis' gratitude for their liberators would be perpetual and
that during Iraq's transformation into the Japan of the Middle East, its oil will flow freely towards the West—-a win-win situation for all. Too bad the Iraqis refused to play along.
The lesson for the tyrants is obvious and they can see it on TV in the fate of Saddam Hussein. The Iraq fiasco must convince Third World dictators of their precarious hold on power. That they may fool themselves about their popularity and how they live in the hearts and minds of their countrymen, but only a popular vote through democracy is a true indicator of a nation's trust in its leader.
And the greatest Iraq lesson is for the people presently living under dictators and unrepresentative governments. Watching the misery of Iraqis, they need to understand that they have to be serious about their governments--they are responsible for the deeds of people governing them. That it is not OK for people to live a complacent life of neatly fitting in a niche, working one day at a time, and not worrying about the bigger system supporting them, their lives, their
jobs, and everything around them.
Following the ouster of Saddam Hussein, Iraq descended into chaos because all the power had been concentrated in the deposed leader. A long dictatorship had left Iraqi society hollow. There were no strong institutions that could pull the whole society together in the absence of central authority. People living under dictators must apprehend this hollowness and must work to correct this situation. Institutions live longer than people. That is why there is great merit in building
strong institutions. It is easy to kill a man but very hard to destroy an institution. A strong institution is capable of replenishing its human resources.
It is understandable that in trying situations, self-appointed reformists, especially those with military power, will try to take over a country, but people must put up stiff resistance to such aberrations, knowing that such shortcuts could have disastrous results down the road.
A decentralized democratic government supported by a generally educated public and run by a tolerant secular administration espousing laissez faire has proven to be the best prescription for a country to gain strength. This is the medicine one is inclined to write for everyone, at least until someone comes up with a better idea and demonstrates a working model of their theory.
A.H. Cemendtaur
Allow me to put forth, in the spirit of perennial optimism, a few
valuable lessons we can all take from the Iraq debacle. And when I
say all of us I really mean all of us: the conquerors, the common
folks of the invading nation, the autocrats of the Third World, and
the masses living under despotic rules.
The lesson for the conquerors is very simple: That war is too risky an enterprise to have a predictable long-term result. That running over a smaller country may appear to be a cakewalk, but because of the intrinsicly chaotic nature of violence, this apparent runaway can easily go awry.
The populace of powerful nations should learn that in times of solicitude, con artists will try to fool them, and the tricksters have an excellent chance of getting away with it. That the way a nation can be duped into making unfavorable decisions when it is in a state of anxiety is not very different from the scenario when a pickpocket pushes you to make you lose your balance, making it easier for them to steal from you.
Whereas the idea of exporting democracy to the Middle East had been on the books for a long time, the tragedy of 9/11/2001 provided the necessary environment in which an ideological theory--blissfully accompanied by greed--could be put to the test. Americans were easily tricked by the Neocons into believing that Saddam Hussein was another face of Al Qaeda and that the invasion of Iraq was the only way to avoid the next 9/11. The Neocons, willingly duped by a group of Iraqi Americans, were sure that the Iraqis' gratitude for their liberators would be perpetual and
that during Iraq's transformation into the Japan of the Middle East, its oil will flow freely towards the West—-a win-win situation for all. Too bad the Iraqis refused to play along.
The lesson for the tyrants is obvious and they can see it on TV in the fate of Saddam Hussein. The Iraq fiasco must convince Third World dictators of their precarious hold on power. That they may fool themselves about their popularity and how they live in the hearts and minds of their countrymen, but only a popular vote through democracy is a true indicator of a nation's trust in its leader.
And the greatest Iraq lesson is for the people presently living under dictators and unrepresentative governments. Watching the misery of Iraqis, they need to understand that they have to be serious about their governments--they are responsible for the deeds of people governing them. That it is not OK for people to live a complacent life of neatly fitting in a niche, working one day at a time, and not worrying about the bigger system supporting them, their lives, their
jobs, and everything around them.
Following the ouster of Saddam Hussein, Iraq descended into chaos because all the power had been concentrated in the deposed leader. A long dictatorship had left Iraqi society hollow. There were no strong institutions that could pull the whole society together in the absence of central authority. People living under dictators must apprehend this hollowness and must work to correct this situation. Institutions live longer than people. That is why there is great merit in building
strong institutions. It is easy to kill a man but very hard to destroy an institution. A strong institution is capable of replenishing its human resources.
It is understandable that in trying situations, self-appointed reformists, especially those with military power, will try to take over a country, but people must put up stiff resistance to such aberrations, knowing that such shortcuts could have disastrous results down the road.
A decentralized democratic government supported by a generally educated public and run by a tolerant secular administration espousing laissez faire has proven to be the best prescription for a country to gain strength. This is the medicine one is inclined to write for everyone, at least until someone comes up with a better idea and demonstrates a working model of their theory.
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