Dec/090
A 2009 Year-End Rant
(Swans - December 14, 2009) I have received more threats from my cantankerous, yet admirable editor than Salman Rushdie or Geert Wilders have received for their perceived "transgressions." I have been "requested" by the honorable editor, Gilles d'Aymery, to write a year-end-review without ranting, something that I loathe putting my [...] Continue Reading...
Nov/090
The Monuments Of Civilization: Petra
(Swans - November 16, 2009) The trouble with me: This is how twenty-three years ago my friendship dissolved following my paroxysmal pillory on his attitude after visiting historical places. It so happened that this trust-fund friend of mine was lucky to have the means to travel every year to [...] Continue Reading...
Oct/090
We Are a Fat Country!
(Swans - October 5, 2009) I want to begin this essay by tendering my earnest apologies at the outset to all you obese folks who suffer this malady congenitally or due to a pre-existing medical condition, and that is invariably beyond your control. This writing is on those corpulent [...] Continue Reading...
Sep/090
All Our Rough Rides
(Swans - September 7, 2009) Cars represent our terrestrial freedom, arresting our life in a metaphoric sphere -- it is the reason why unflinching amounts are paid for cars that are certifiable repositories of great personal memories. The proliferation of auto auctions like the Mecum, Christie's Sotheby's, and [...] Continue Reading...
Aug/090
The Empire of Goodwill
The Empire of Goodwill : The Free Market System trumps everything under the sun
“The free market punishes irresponsibility, Government rewards it.” –Harry Browne
"There is no kind of freedom and liberty other than the kind which the market economy brings about. In a totalitarian hegemonic society the only freedom that is left to the individual, because it cannot be denied to him, is the freedom to commit suicide."
-- Ludwig von Mises, Human Action
At a time when every other political science, economics and philosophy academician, from the east to the west coast point their condescending leftist finger at their own nation and snicker at the “empire’s” apparent collapse, I will go against this orgiastic opinion hayride and make a case for it. [...] Continue Reading...
Aug/090
Is The NFL Losing Its Game?
(Swans - August 24, 2009) I was not looking for an angle to write about the National Football League. As I watched the game over the years, this angle surfaced like a tumor in former NFL commissioner Paul Tagliabue's regime in the early 1990s and grew irreversibly acute. [...] Continue Reading...
Jul/090
The Conversion To Intolerance
(Swans - July 27, 2009) Despite the decades that slipped by, I distinctly remember the smells and sounds of the remote south Indian villages. In the innocent years dissolved, you could hear mothers calling out to their kids to come home for supper at sunset. Sunsets demarcated life from [...] Continue Reading...
Jul/090
Trip To Nowhere
(Swans - July 13, 2009)
We are but passengers on life train
With destinations and riders in pre-destiny,
In love & attachments going against the grain
We all will get off and indulge in mutiny
(Continue Reading)
Nov/090
The Monuments of Civilization: Analysis of Classics -The Decameron by Giovanni Boccaccio
(Swans - November 2, 2009) The first time I came to know about the Boccaccio masterpiece was in the mid '70s, watching the 1970 Pier Paolo Pasolini choppy and eponymous film The Decameron. Then it disappeared into a thicket of memories among other films, books, and pursuits. It resurfaced [...] Continue Reading...