These women look ready for action

I love this photograph of six new women members of Congress. They look like a team of crime fighters or superheroes ready to go into action to fight wrongs and bring justice.

To add to that image that some of these new members are ready to buck the old order, another new member Palestinian-American Rashida Tlaib (who is not in the photograph) was sworn in on Thomas Jefferson’s Koran, as did Keith Ellison before her when he was sworn in back in 2007. That caused a controversy back then, fueled by those who sought to give the impression that the US was founded on explicitly Christian foundations. Since these bigots tend tp have very short memories, you can predict that they will boil over in outrage again and argue she is committing an unprecedented act of disrespect.

But clearly Tlaib was unfazed by that prospect and she even wore a traditional Palestinian dress called a thobe for the occasion.

Hasan Minhaj’s critique of Saudi Arabia censored by Netflix

I have been praising Hasan Minhaj’s new weekly show on Netflix for its hard-hitting exposes of important news items wrapped up in comedy. But he seems to have been a little too tough on Saudi Arabia’s leadership and crown prince Mohammed bin Salman following its murder of reporter Jamal Khashogi for that government’s taste. Minhaj’s sponsor Netflix seems to be too weak-kneed and cowardly because it has removed that particular episode from its Saudi Arabian service..
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A word to avoid

On my local neighborhood website, someone asked for recommendations for someone to clean their house on a ‘biweekly’ schedule.

That is a word that I avoid using because it has never been clear to me whether the user means once every two weeks or twice a week. I looked up Merriam-Webster’s dictionary and it gives both definitions. The Cambridge dictionary says that it means every two weeks in American English and “every two weeks or twice a week” for just English, which is not much help.

Clearly people who use it think it means only one or the other and have never encountered it being used with the alternative meaning. The less common word ‘fortnightly’ clearly means every two weeks and so perhaps that should be used when we want to say that and reserve ‘biweekly’ for twice a week.

But perhaps the best option is to simply say ‘twice a week’ or ‘once every two weeks’ and avoid any confusion.

Impressive demonstration by women in India protesting temple ban

The southern Indian state of Kerala has been roiled with turmoil for three months ever since the Indian Supreme Court ruled that a major Hindu temple’s ban on women of menstruating age entering it was unconstitutional. Because of that rule, women between the ages of 10-50 had been barred. The temple leaders and their male supporters have resisted the decision and stopped women from entering and as a result there have been clashes between them and the police trying to enforce the ruling, the latest occurring when two women entered the temple under police protection.


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Film review: Crazy Rich Asians (2018)

This film and the book it was based on has received quite a bit of buzz about being one of the few films that feature an all Asian cast. In this case ‘Asian’ is used in a highly restricted sense of being just Singaporeans of Chinese ethnicity. No other groups made an appearance other than in bit parts.

The first half of the film can be categorized as ‘wealth porn’ where we are regaled with the lifestyles of exceedingly rich Singapore Chinese families who show that they can be as obnoxiously ostentatious about flaunting their wealth as any gauche Westerner. At that point I was going to give up on the film but the sunk-cost effect kicked in and I thought I might as well watch a bit more.
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Why do people think this is funny?

I am not a fan of practical jokes in general because they tend to have an underlying mean streak that finds humor in unsettling, upsetting, or even frightening the targeted person. Perhaps among close friends practical jokes are marginally acceptable though if I had a friend who was a regular practical joker, they would not be my friend for long. I like to take people at face value and having to always second-guess the actions of someone else would get old very soon.
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Ruining national treasures

The national parks in the US are truly wonderful, a tribute to many generations of the public that have seen the value in protecting lands for their beauty and historical value and have supported government attempts to preserve their pristine nature. Hence it is sad that some people are trashing the parks simply because there are few or no rangers on duty due to the Trump shutdown of the federal government.
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The strange fascination with New Year’s Eve celebrations

When I was young, we would as a family go to church at 11:00 pm on New Year’s Eve. The minister Rev. Arnold Cooper had an excellent sense of timing and the service would reach a climax right at midnight and he would pause while fireworks went off all over town and then briefly resume to give us an uplifting final blessing and send us on our way. During that pause, my father would slip a large denomination currency note into my hand, a tradition that I continued with my own children until they grew up and moved away. Then all the parishioners would mingle outside for awhile wishing each other all the best for the coming year. (This was Sri Lanka so it was warm and we could hang out outside indefinitely.) The family would then go home and eat and drink something before going to bed. It was low-key but nice.
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The real Louis C. K. reveals himself

After the blizzard of revelations about sexual harassment and abuse by a whole slew of famous people, it was only a matter of time before many of them started to plan their comebacks into the public’s favor by various levels of statements and acts of contrition. One of those is comedian Louis C. K. who has used the mechanism of turning up unannounced at the Comedy Cellar venue for stand-up comics to try out new material as part of his road back, though the reaction has been mixed to say the least.
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