Tuesday, October 19, 2004
Musafir's Musings
Re: Odds and Ends, the original title of my blog
Liked the title but I found more than 200,000 "Odds and Ends" in Yahoo's list of blogs! So,to avoid being lost in the vast ocean of "Odds and Ends", I decided to change the title. I hope that those of you who had been reading my posts in "Odds and Ends" would continue to follow my musings.
Musafir means pilgirm or traveler. A pilgrim I am not, but I have seen quite a bit of the world. Used "musafir" as one of my e-mail IDs for many years. As a traveler I found more pleasure in people, customs, and foods of the countries I visited than in monuments and such. In other words, a glorious past and its relics had their place but I did not consider them to be more interesting, or important, than the present age.
The following explains my feelings.
"To see the world. To meet people other than my own."
----Gavin Young,Slow Boats to China
The rains
The first major storm of the season arrived last night.The weather forecasters were right about this one. Woke up to the sound of howling wind and heavy rain.The gingko trees on my street lost some leaves. It would not be long before the foothills begin to look green. The fire season is over.
"The winds that blow--
ask them,which leaf of the tree
will be next to go!"
----Soseki (translated by Harold Henderson)
Election 2004 (November 2nd)
Fourteen more days to go. So many different polls and comments by pundits.
Bush ahead by 4%
Bush and Kerry in dead heat
Too close to all
The polling procedures and systems are not uniform, and are vulnerable to manipulations. The reports about the possibility of frauds are especially disturbing. One scenario mentioned a tie in Electoral College count and the winner being nominated by the Speaker and Majority Leader of the House----Dennis Hastert of Illinois and Tom DeLay of Texas!!! Just the thought of it makes me want to puke. When the framers of our magnificent Constitution included this provision they couldn't foresee the situation that exists today. A perfect example of 'ad absurdum' (to the point of absurdity). Are we going to re-live the experience of the 2000 Presidential Election, or worse?
"When men are pure, laws are useless; when men are corrupt, laws are broken."
----Benjamin Disraeli
Liked the title but I found more than 200,000 "Odds and Ends" in Yahoo's list of blogs! So,to avoid being lost in the vast ocean of "Odds and Ends", I decided to change the title. I hope that those of you who had been reading my posts in "Odds and Ends" would continue to follow my musings.
Musafir means pilgirm or traveler. A pilgrim I am not, but I have seen quite a bit of the world. Used "musafir" as one of my e-mail IDs for many years. As a traveler I found more pleasure in people, customs, and foods of the countries I visited than in monuments and such. In other words, a glorious past and its relics had their place but I did not consider them to be more interesting, or important, than the present age.
The following explains my feelings.
"To see the world. To meet people other than my own."
----Gavin Young,Slow Boats to China
The rains
The first major storm of the season arrived last night.The weather forecasters were right about this one. Woke up to the sound of howling wind and heavy rain.The gingko trees on my street lost some leaves. It would not be long before the foothills begin to look green. The fire season is over.
"The winds that blow--
ask them,which leaf of the tree
will be next to go!"
----Soseki (translated by Harold Henderson)
Election 2004 (November 2nd)
Fourteen more days to go. So many different polls and comments by pundits.
Bush ahead by 4%
Bush and Kerry in dead heat
Too close to all
The polling procedures and systems are not uniform, and are vulnerable to manipulations. The reports about the possibility of frauds are especially disturbing. One scenario mentioned a tie in Electoral College count and the winner being nominated by the Speaker and Majority Leader of the House----Dennis Hastert of Illinois and Tom DeLay of Texas!!! Just the thought of it makes me want to puke. When the framers of our magnificent Constitution included this provision they couldn't foresee the situation that exists today. A perfect example of 'ad absurdum' (to the point of absurdity). Are we going to re-live the experience of the 2000 Presidential Election, or worse?
"When men are pure, laws are useless; when men are corrupt, laws are broken."
----Benjamin Disraeli
