On the Devotion of Suspect X

The following post is an analysis of The Devotion of Suspect X by Higashino Keigo- I'm writing the name the same way it's pronounced in Japan, regardless of how it's spelt out on the book cover. So if you haven't read this book already, SKIP this post and choose from any of our other posts because this post contains spoilers.

A long time ago, being the young naive boy that I was, I believed implicitly in the authority of author blurbs and in the power of numbers. If a book was a New York Times bestseller, I believed that the thick paperback with the weak spine, dog-eared pages and embossed gold colored fonts was indeed a book worthy of its price and its praise. Youth led way to clearer thinking and to disillusionment in blurbs and sale numbers and that finally allowed me to confront the "a million readers can't be wrong!" premise (Thank you, Chetan Bhagat for proving to me that print sales don't reflect the ability of the author). So when The Devotion of Suspect X was devoured by over 2 million Japanese and was causing ripples aboard, I found it difficult to believe and was afraid of high expectations being dashed. However my fears were assuaged and I was proved wrong; the read was a beautiful one and a sad, poignant tale of blind devotion and perhaps misguided love. Higashino's novel is not a classic who-dunnit. The murder of Hanaoka Yasuko's abusive ex-husband, Togashi occurs in a fit of rage at Yasuko's modest apartment, when Togashi comes hounding around for cash and perhaps a chance to get back together with his estranged wife. A few minutes later, Hanaoka Misato beats her step-father over the head with a heavy object with an objective to kill him. In an effort to stop Togashi from killing her daughter for her violent outburst, Yasuko fishes out the wire of the electric heater and garrotes him to death as Misato assists her. Then as the doorbell rings, the tragic story is unfolded with the intervention of neighbor and misanthropic mathematics prodigy Ishigami "The Buddha" Tetsuya. Then as the pages turn, it is a deadly game of cat and mouse as Ishigami tries to outwit the detectives assigned to the case and the brainchild assisting the detectives behind the official investigation, Yukawa Manabu. Ishigami risks incarceration and ostracism from society, solely to keep the mother and daughter duo from harm and to preserve their happiness. The ultimate sacrifice to display the ultimate devotion.

Due praise must be awarded to Higashino for maintaining the balance between character development and pace of the plot. The plot is completely unhurried; the conversations between Detective Kusanagi and Assistant Professor Yukawa (dubbed Galileo) as they mull over theories about the crime is an art of melding male bonding and creative genius, as one helps the other in modifying their theories about who the killer and their accomplice was. The leitmotif in the novel is a mathematical theory P=NP, which posits the question of what is easier: to deduce a solution for a problem you've set up yourself or to analyze a second party's solution. Higashino does a wonderful job of steering us away from the actual nature of the crime and leads us down a rabbit hole of deception until Yukawa realizes otherwise.

The novel is not without its flaws. Yukawa comes to suspect his friend simply by ascertaining a look of jealousy when Ishigami encounters Kudo at the Bento store and also when Ishigami talks about his thinning hair. To suspect love for a woman from simply those two observations is a little silly if you ask me. For a man like Yukawa nothing short of a testimony of spurned love or evidence of stalking should ring alarm bells. Another disappointment comes towards the end, where Ishigami's sacrifice is made for naught. Kusanagi insists that he will launch an investigation looking into Yasuko's involvement in the murder even at the cost of his friendship with Yukawa. So when Togashi's maimed body is ultimately found, DNA evidence will link the corpse to his identity and Yasuko will be under fire. And finally, the guilt ridden Yasuko begs Ishigami to let her share the blame when Misato attempts to take her life. The novel ends with Ishigami's plans of a perfect mathematical solution to protect his loved ones shattered, all because of the stochastic actions of a known variable- Hanaoka Yasuko herself. Higashino fully deserves the Naoki Prize for best novel with this work and one can hope that he can produce more books of crime fiction and continue the trend of taut storytelling and minimalism.

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Installing Thunderbird 11 on Mint 12

The Mozilla Thunderbird Stable PPA does not have a release for Oneiric, so adding that to the software repository via a terminal isn't going to help. It will simply give you a Http 404 error and substitute for an old package instead.

First uninstall your existing Thunderbird installation using the Software Manager in the Mint Menu.

Visit Thunderbird website and download the tar ball. Save it to your Downloads folder on your home folder and unzip the tar ball's contents.
Here's how to install:

Copy the tar ball contents from the Downloads folder to the /usr/local folder on your file sytem. To do this, fire up a terminal and type out the following:

sudo cp -r ~/Downloads/thunderbird/  /usr/local

Enter the root password when prompted and if no error message is shown, it's assumed that the files were copied. To ensure files are copied, navigate to the /usr/local folder and check if the files are copied.

Next, we need to create a link in the Mint Menu under "Internet" for easy access.

To make this easier to do we can install "alacarte" program by typing into a terminal:

sudo apt-get install alacarte

Enter the root password when prompted.

Then boot up alacarte from the Mint Menu or open up a terminal and type in alacarte and hit enter.

When alacarte loads, go to the Internet menu-->click New Item

Add the following details:

Name: Thunderbird

Command: hit browse and navigate to the Thunderbird file in /usr/local

Comment: Email Client.

Hit ok.

Now Thunderbird 11 should appear in your Mint Menu and ready for use.

Note: I'm a newbie to Linux and therefore this may not work for you. Please be careful when following this tutorial and back up your stuff always!

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Delicate Balances

The biological world are full of majins. Please refer to our previous post for the definition of the word.
Like I said the biological world are full of majins; all interconnected to one another in the strangest of ways. Autoimmunity is a subject that thrills me. For those of you are unfamiliar to the concept, it's quite simply put. It's when your immune system- that which guards you from bacteria, viruses and worms- loses its ability to distinguish friend from foe and goes on a wild rampage attacking the body cells and causing tissue damage in the long run. Imagine a situation of friendly fire and you get the idea.Examples range from multiple sclerosis, systemic lupus, Graves Disease and Type I diabetes. So to give you a very, very general outline, it's like this: there are two types of cells called the B and T cells which mature in the bone marrow and the thymus respectively. The T-cells can potentially detect millions of different antigens , but they need help. Cells called dendritic cells (a part of the antigen-presenting cell milleu) can process antigens and "present" them to the T-cells for analysis. If the T-cell recognizes the antigen, it makes clones of itself and then it interacts with B-cells to produce antibodies via plasma cells. So APC present the foreign antigens to T-cells, T-cells activated, they interact with B cells to make the B-cells differentiate into plasma cells that in turn produce antibodies.
These antibodies then take care of the infection by blocking their adhering to the cell surfaces, "coats" them and targets them for destruction via phagocytosis (cell- eating!).
With me so far?
Right.
Now there are these cell signaling protein molecules called cytokines that are produced and that also facilitate the above processes. There are loads of them: IFN-Gamma, Interleukin-1 (IL-1), IL-6,IL-17,IL-22, TGF-Beta and so on. Now some of them cause inflammation and some of them ameliorate them.
The interesting part now comes up...The TGF-Beta inhibits the activation of the APC, presentation of antigen to T-cell is stopped and thus T-cell activation is inhibited and so further immune responses are stopped. This is very useful if the T-cell recognizes an antigen from the body and starts mounting an immune response ("the friendly fire" analogy that leads to autoimmunity). It also gives way to the development of a subset of T-regulator cells that step in to stop further reactions against self antigens. So that's done neatly right?

Strangely enough, the very same cytokine, TGF-Beta, plays a role in developing another subset of T-cells called Th-17 that produce pro-inflammatory cytokines.
Thus an anti-inflammatory cytokine TGF-Beta in the presence of other cytokines can drive the development of pro-inflammatory cytokine- producing T-cell subsets, that might invariably contribute to autoimmunity! The solution and problem are connected through the same elaborate network. Majin!

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Majin

I find somethings in physics insanely provocative. Lets call them majins.

majin(n): A majin is that which gains value proportional to the thought invested in it.

Majins can make me drop game-pads in the middle of an assassination, unplug my earphones while listening to Cream and sometimes even walk out from a game of football.

Physics is full of majins. It is in fact Majin-Central!

Here's a majin: The principle of least action. Nature can transit from state A to state B in an infinite number of ways. But she chooses the path that minimizes her action. The action is a quantity which takes everything physically relevant into account, like mass,speed,etc.. It is also path dependent, which means that no two actions are the same because no two paths are the same. The path nature chooses to tread is that which minimizes her action. It is why throwing a ball makes it traverse a parabolic path. It is why Earth goes around the Sun. It is why light reflects off mirrors and refracts off lenses. It is why we see auroras near the poles and why fire happens.

Please note that when I say "why" something happens, it henceforth implies that I'm addressing the limit of our understanding through observation. So no more "why"s can follow. They are surely very interesting "why"s, but that isn't the subject of this post. Note: Making conclusions about the origins of your majin deprecates its value, often passing it on to a superior majin. This is often a good thing as it leads to exciting discoveries and more robust and versatile majins. But sometimes, to one's disappointment, this receiving majin might not be superior at all but simply an adhoc means to instate one absolute majin, ruler of all majins. Such a majin has not been verified with observation and if you think it does, you're a crazy person.

Here's another majin: The law of increasing entropy. Entropy is simply our net ignorance of the universe. Ignorance here refers to our lack of knowledge of the positions and momenta of the particles that constitute the universe." But we had no idea about the universe to begin with!", you ask? In physics, one often tends to take a word in existing vocabulary and modify it to suit the idea one is attempting to encapsulate. In this case, the word "universe" simply refers to something thermodynamically isolated meaning no information can escape or enter. Then we're still losing information? Yes! Because things get mixed up. Suppose you knew 2 numbers say 3 and 4. We then mix them up to get 7. There is no way we can recover those 2 numbers. The process of addition kills previous information. One can think of nature as constantly adding things up.

And if those majins weren't entertaining enough, try bringing them together. How is it that when we have such a powerful law like the principle of least action, we're confounded by the equally impressive law of increasing entropy? Is there some cosmic disharmony between these 2 majins? Perhaps one majin is more powerful than the other? Maybe both majins are plain wrong and there is a 3rd more superior less ambiguous majin somewhere? I'll leave this to your imajination.

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Fading colors

It was a dog's day in May. The mercury literally boiled off from the thermometer I kid you not. And since the schools can't possibly run in such torrid conditions, the school administration's hand was pressed into letting its prisoners have two months of reprieve. We simply called it summer vacations.
Coming back to that hot May day, my friend was over at my place and we hooked up the NES to our brand new Sony television and we booted up Super Contra and played like our lives depended on it. We were two kids high on adrenaline; jumping up and down; the controller wires whipping in all directions. At some point we were shouting obscenities both at each other and at the screen.
It was an age before the word fuck had permeated the greater consciousness and made itself part and parcel of our lingo; a sort of cuckoo's egg in a nest of innocence.
"Idiot!"
The accusation sprang forth from me as my partner in gun crime was trapped at the corner of the screen, barring me access to the rest of the level. We had to work as a team and the idea was to keep moving or else we would ganged up on by the endless siege of 2D henchmen. Alas one shot sealed the deal for me and that left my inept buddy well on his own. A grim smile on his face, he sprang forth like a flower from a bud and started a killing spree on screen. Realizing that his plan was to off me and then rule free, I let loose a sigh and headed out to the divan to watch the pavement sizzle in the blistering heat. And then the distinct sound of a bell in the distance caught our attention and held it. The unmistakable bell of an ice cream vendor's cycle. He paused outside my gate and gave me a smile and a wink. I rushed in and reached for my wallet and extracted two crisp ten rupee notes, slipped on a pair of sandals and purchased two "Joy" ice-creams. One for me and one for Attila the Hun inside. Ice-cream, video games, unsupervised and not a care in the world, save for summer homework. We truly lived in those days.



****
I finished up a bit of work and was walking home when I saw the ice-cream man with his purple shorts and shabby white full-sleeved shirt. It was another May day and I stopped him and asked him in my most innocent voice for a "Joy" ice-cream. Without batting an eyelid, completely unfazed by the absurdity of the question, he told me,
"They don't make them no more. That was ten years back. All I have now is the W____ brand."
I searched deep into his eyes to see if the sparkle was to be found. The fun loving ice cream man of yesteryear no longer knew who I was and his eyes weren't the same that made the playful wink.



Memory is indeed a strange thing. Like beauty is in the eye of the beholder, memory works differently for different people. I still remember vividly the exams that left me cold afterward, the lunches under the trees at the parking lot at school, the kid with the foul mouth and the girl that set everyone's pulse racing and let loose imaginations. However like a fading mural, some colors are lost: the name of the kid who borrowed and lost my first ever Archie comic book, the little girl who lent me her eraser on my final exam and the reason why I hated my Hindi language teacher so much.
When I think about it, all I can do-no, what we can all do- is to marvel in the colors that stand the test of time; preserve what we have and enjoy the grandeur of the incomplete mural before the tides of time wipe it all away. To the ice cream man, that summer day a decade ago and the joy he brought to a young child with his “Joy” ice creams was a color that was washed away.

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On book reviews

I spend a good portion of the evening on the Internet and I come across a lot of book reviews by young Indian bloggers and it warms my heart that the youth of this country read so widely across many genres. These individuals then share their opinion of the book on their blog and if their followers like the review, they might loosen the purse-strings or let their wallets see the light of day and purchase a copy of the book. Thus marketers depend on the bloggers to get word on their books out to the masses and hope the books start selling. Didn't Harry Potter catch on by word of mouth?
Anyway, before this post changes direction to an analysis of the Tipping Point theory, let me say that the latest trend is for publishers to give away a few complimentary copies of the book to bloggers and let them put up reviews on their blogs within a week after signing for the door-delivered book. Then it's the blogger's responsibility to put up a well articulated, analyzed opinion of the book and let people know if the book is worth the money and more importantly, the time to read it.
But this is where things go awry. Some of the reviews I've read offer sincere opinions, a break up of the chapters and what to expect overall. All-in-all a good review. But some people act irresponsibly: they buy the book and do a sloppy review that offers no real critique.

Here are some things I saw covered in such reviews:
- The entire blurb of the book is shamelessly copy-pasted. Every online store offers the blurb right beneath the product description. Why pray tell would we need you to just copy the same thing? Atleast a good paraphrase would be appreciated.
- Completely inane things like the look of the cover, the feel of the jacket and the quality of the pages are discussed. Really? So much for judging a book by its cover.
-Giving away the ending. Yes, some people actually do a summary of the story and give away major spoilers.
-Never being critical or honest. Every book isn't a Pulitzer Prize winner and there are plenty I'm sure that doesn't deserve a second glance after an unfortunate first encounter. Be honest and lay out what's great and what isn't. Misguiding people into spending money on a crappy book is tantamount to slap on the face.
-Background about the author and the themes covered!  Every book has hidden gems by means of metaphors, beautiful quotes and solid characters and plots. Reviewers don't discuss what they felt about those elements.

To wrap up this post, I would implore the bloggers out there to show that they've done their homework. I want to see beautiful posts that really dissect the book and lays bare the themes it covers. Show us, the readers, what you think of the book. Give us a quote; a taste of what's to come. Show us what you've seen yourself. And yeah, if a book's poorly written, just come out and say it.

Have you read any book reviews by Indian bloggers that you really appreciated or that made you facepalm yourselves repeatedly? Share in the comments.

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Burning the Midnight Oil

You're either a morning person or an owl. The famous lark and owl dichotomy estimates when we are at our most productive. At some in your life, you will cross the line and step into the shoes of your alter-ego. The lark will inevitably oversleep for nights in a row- upsetting the circadian rhythm- and thus cross over into owl territory. Usually this happens at University, when you're up partying too hard with the roommates, watching one Matrix movie after another or just marathon watching seasons of 30 Rock.
With the advent of the personal computer (or Mac, for you Apple fans) and ultrafast Internet, burning the midnight oil has changed completely. No more are you stuck at the library's reference section, afraid to take a pee break lest someone up and offs with your textbook on Biochemistry. No more will the librarian bother you to put away your iPod, even though it isn't audible to anyone but you. And yes, there is so much information out there that studying becomes no longer a headache, but sometimes a pleasure.

During the day, I do little of educational worth. I do chores around the house, clean and dust up and do quick runs to the bank, check my email and watch reruns of The Big Bang Theory on television.
Then the government mandated 2 hour blackout occurs, during which there is plenty of sunshine but no electricity to escape the heat of the late afternoon. These two hours, I use to read up on my novels (Stieg Larsson's trilogy and a primer on the American Political system) and also on my Japanese. After the power returns, the next couple of hours are spent on coffee, TV and the loyal iPod. Then as evening arrives, the textbooks are opened up and the journals are opened and I read up on immunology. Each time I brush up on the basics, I learn something new and the prospect of being a tad more knowledgeable than ten minutes back is a real thrill. I split the week between boning up on basics and looking for PhD's. And more often than once, I have a question or am doubtful on the definition of a certain word. Open up Google and hey presto, done!
And Youtube is a rich treasure trove of information on biology and immunology. There are many lectures and demonstration videos covering everything from immunology to basics like 2D electrophoresis! Never again will you be building up on weak foundations or faulty assumptions.

The day ends for me at 2 am when my brain finally stops listening to me and shuts down. I plop down and before I know it it's late morning again. There are a few disadvantages to being an owl: You can't go for a morning walk; can't see the old uncles "jogging" in their shorts; you miss the extra Vitamin D that you get only at sunrise, but hey- you wake up just late enough to justify brushing your teeth and avoid being judged by the neighbours. Hey, atleast you're getting some work done, yeah?

Are you an owl or a lark? Hope to hear in the comments.
 

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Romanticism

I perhaps might be considered as a traitor to the literary establishment if I were to even entertain the notion of the superiority of e-books over that of the traditional printed word. There is, in general, a lot of romanticism over the printed word- the weight of the book in the reader's hands, the act of turning over the crisp white pages as he gets lost in the plot, the distinct aroma of a new book straight out from the bookstore, the nostalgic aroma of the browning pages of a steal from the garage sale and the pleasure of reading on a long train journey and dozing off as the book gently falls into your lap.

There are obviously some merits to the printed medium; some are aesthetic and others are more practical. A printed book, if sufficiently cared for, can stand the test of time; a book of poetry awarded to a little girl in Edinburgh in 1898 now rests safely in my collection. But the environmental aspects are to be wondered about. What might be the environmental impact of printed media be in the modern day world?

The utilitarian soul cares not for the aesthetics and the subtle pleasures surrounding the act of reading but rather reading itself. The words, the plot and the characters are all the same regardless of whether they originate from the bound volumes of print or from the screens of e-readers. With the latest e-ink technology, reading itself has taken a digital turn and allows us unheard of portability and ease of use. For under a hundred dollars, an e-reader in the United States can hold up to 1400 books, boasts of a long battery life and gives the readers access to even newspapers and online magazines. I am a serious reader, but often I just don't have the space for storing the books I've bought and I end lending most of them to the library or disposing off the truly horrendous ones. Not anymore. I can store away all my books in a digital format and keep a print copy of only some truly cherished books. But e-books are sometimes riddled with spelling errors; don't work on the e-reader of your choice; comes with a file extension that your reader doesn't support and finally turns out into a jumbled mess when you've tried converting it. Also piracy is also a major concern as it's easy to file share them over the Internet. But the true nail in the coffin is the plethora of proprietary file formats that e-books come in. This could spell trouble for transferring files between e-book readers. And this can also be a bit troublesome for independent publishers who are trying to get their work online to be recognized and purchased.

The future seems somewhat grim for printed media, but it will certainly be a long, long while before the vast majority of us have a slim e-book reader to substitute that voluminous Lord of the Rings trilogy.

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Sea of Fertility

It was Haruki Murakami that turned me to Yukio Mishima's works. I decided upon the The Sea of Fertility tetralogy back in September 2011 and six months and 4 masterful works of literature later, here I am writing this post. How does this differ from Murakami? Murakami's prose largely deals with Japan's Lost Decade; the looming sense of a loss of individualism, losing the essence of what it is to be Japanese. Japan as we must understand had modernity foisted upon it unwillingly by the arrival of the American ships at its shores back in the late nineteenth century. Bakumatsu, or the opening of Japan signaled the drop of the curtain that kept Japan from technological and economic advancement. This also kick started a troubled love-hate relationship between the Japanese and the Americans. The Americans forced a speedy evolution on behalf of the Japanese by bringing with them technological marvels from the West. This ultimately led to an identity crisis: mass volumes of literature were written by poets and writers dubbed nihonjinron that begged the question- what defined Japaneseness?
The masses have always been split between the opinion that Western culture has brought about a modern Japan or whether it has soiled the pristine nature of Japanese spirit, soul and identity. While Murakami muses over the alienation and identity crisis issues and allows the readers to understand and interpret the metaphors, Mishima adopted a more direct approach of his discontent for the direction Japan was heading in. Each of the novels in the tetralogy was set in a different era: Spring Snow in the Taisho era, Runaway Horses in the ultra nationalistic decades of the early 1900's, Temple of Dawn in the '40s and The Decay of the Angel  in the '70s.

The premise of these four novels deal with the idea of the protagonist's reincarnation and a lot of Buddhist and Hindu philosophies are thrown at the reader;  Temple of Dawn pulls out all the stops to bring the case for transmigration of Kiyoaki Matsugae's soul into Isao Iinuma and then into the Thai princess Ying Chan of the lustful flesh. The fourth reincarnation, Toru, seems to be a faux one and Mishima hints at his waning interest in the idea of reincarnation; the idea merely being a plot device to discuss the Japanese socio-economic landscape.
That is however not to discard the work in itself; although the prose often chokes on its own complex philosophies and long winded descriptions of ships, azure skies and the nightmarish material and spiritual filth of Benares, it is studded with gems like:

"I have been self-reliant to the point of sadness. I wonder when I first fell into the habit of washing my hands after each brush with humanity, lest I be contaminated. People have diagnosed the habit as uncommon fastidiousness."

" Desiring to search out the truth, and yet to deny it, wanting to deny the truth, yet seeking only salvation in it. Such emotion went forever around in circles, just as the stray traveler on a mountain road, intending to go forward, somehow always returned to the point he started from." 

All in all, both authors are linked in a way that is easy to analyze. Mishima disdainfully regrets the loss of Japanese identity while Murakami grapples with the ramifications of that perceived loss. The former participates by voicing thoughts and opinions in his works while the latter is a silent observer of the cultural fallout and acts vicariously through his characters.

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Passing Grade

I have successfully passed the Japanese Language Proficiency Test N5! It's not exactly an extraordinary feat, but it's worth celebrating since I studied for the test without any classes or any assistance. Just the Internet and dozens of audio clips to listen from! Yeah, 128 days to the N4. Hope I can cram away.

Summary: Can understand classroom phrases with hiragana and very simple kanji. Can understand patterned phrases and glean needed information.

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On Nostalgia

To be honest, there is no easy way to describe the bittersweet emotions that one experiences as they relive a reasonable facsimile of their past life in the present. To be back in the school yard where you played your first game of basketball; the classroom on the second floor where your heart first felt the pangs of a budding infatuation for the girl, your feelings forever unexpressed; the canteen at the university where  meals were hastily scarfed down; the hostel rooms where many a lazy afternoon were whiled away with a good book or by a visit from Morpheus, all bring about a rapture that can only be delineated by memories and never by words.

But as much as nostalgia appears to be a healthy longing for the past, it can pose hazards as well. One can become disillusioned with the present as the past becomes more and more of a sturdy reality. The revulsion to change becomes a classic highlight in several individuals. This is understandable because often memories are attached to not only people, but also places. Alumni have often struggled to come to terms with the fact that the wing that they were educated in for nearly a decade is no longer standing on their visit from higher education abroad. Or that the canopy-covered quadrangle no longer plays host to the school's cultural events; the university where we became young thinkers has so many new buildings and made so many changes that the life we lived there seems non-existent. There is yet another way that nostalgia can skewer the heart. Your friends are no longer at University, your teachers have long retired. One might almost hope that he bumps into his friend at the food-court or just around the corridor when he's fully cognizant of the fact that they are halfway around the world in countries with mild summers and frigid winters. This ultimately leads to a paradoxical sense of belonging and alienation: he belongs here by virtue of his experiences, yet he realizes there is nothing for him here now.


*This post is incomplete, but I couldn't bear the thought of the blog going stagnant, so bear with the abrupt end. I will make suitable edits later.

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Colbert discloses Super PAC donations

Courtesy: Arylien

You just gotta love Stephen Colbert and his television persona, Stephen Colbert. Back in September 2011, he talked about Political Action Committees (PAC) on his show, The Colbert Report (T's silent) and how they could throw their weight behind a presidential candidate.
But then PACs must reveal how much they've received and name the donors to the F.E.C in a duly filled out report. However, with the formation of a 501 C(4), they need not divulge the donor's details and furthermore they can reroute the amount from that "Super PAC" back into the PAC and say that it was donated by the Super PAC, with no further questions asked.
And  thus it happened to pass that Colbert got his own Super PAC (Americans for a better tomorrow, tomorrow) and started taking in donations from fans across the US (foreign national donations are not accepted).

And today at midnight Stephen revealed in true class, the million dollar (ahem) answer to the question of how much his Super PAC raised.

One million one hundred twenty three thousand one hundred twenty one dollars and twenty four cents.

Stephen commented on this amount

,"Yeah! How you like me now, F.E.C? I'm rolling seven digits deep! I got 99 problems but a non-connected independent-expenditure only committee ain't one!"

And fellow comedian John Stewart was the owner of the Super PAC while Stephen was trying his hand at running for "President of the United States of South Carolina"- the reason for the transfer of ownership was because you cannot run a Super PAC while you're running for office and you can't co-ordinate directly with your Super PAC to influence or direct them.  But after failing to get on the South Carolina primary ballot, Stephen hunted down John Stewart, strung him upside down backstage and absorbed the Super PAC from John, thus becoming the owner once more. Confused? You should be. Watch this!

The Colbert Report	Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
Colbert Super PAC - The Chase
www.colbertnation.com
Colbert Report Full Episodes Political Humor & Satire Blog Video Archive

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Examining our commitment towards liberty - John Stuart Mill revisited

India celebrates its 63^rd Republic Day this year on 26 January, marking the anniversary of the implementation of the Indian Constitution. As citizens we must reflect upon the constitutional rights and liberties guaranteed to us by the law of the land. The Preamble to the Constitution states clearly that India will secure “LIBERTY of thought, expression, belief, faith and worship”. But one must beg the question if the country is still true to these foundational institutions. We are now living in uncertain times where the promises of free speech are steadily but surely violated: our voices on the Internet is being stifled and any opinion that is deemed “inflammatory” or “offensive” are hastily shut up with the clumsy explanation that the very fabric of national integration may be destroyed. Difference of opinions, especially in a theological context, is feared to be a harbinger of unrest and invites threats of terrorism. The recent controversy of Salman Rushdie’s freedom of speech rights being vulgarly gagged shows how the threat of violence pervades even the most fundamental rights of expressing one’s opinions; even if they are polar in nature to that held by the majority (or a minority). It is in this context that an essay written by British philosopher John Stuart Mill in 1859 is worth revisiting. This brilliant essay examines the extent of society’s hold over the individual and assesses the important, but not often discussed ideals of social and civil liberty. Although these liberties can be considered as forever present in societies both ancient and present, it has to be constantly reviewed and discussed, even at the risk of splitting opinion amongst the populace. This essay illustrates how words penned nearly a century and a half ago still holds such relevance to societies and democratic governments of present.

Liberty as a means of fending off despotism

Liberty means the protection of the people from the tyranny of those who rule over them. In ancient times, the people were ruled by one individual or several individuals who were bestowed the position by virtue of being conquerors or by hereditary right (save for the Greeks). The rulers were in essence, double-edged swords: their power could be used to fend off enemies or could be directed at the proletariat. Thus to prevent such machinations, the people sought to limit the power exercised over them by the aforementioned rulers in two chief ways: political liberties were granted and if these were violated, retaliation was justified and by the means of constitutional checks and balances (introduced subsequently as democratic frameworks replaced existing regimes).

But as the ages passed, the ruler no longer occupied a position antagonistic to the position of the people who he ruled over. Rather the people wished their masters be appointed and removed solely at their pleasure and so the above concepts of liberty had to be suitably revised. A democratic set-up assumed that the people needn’t be protected from themselves, but over time the individuals who assume power may no longer be representative of the individuals who elected them to office and may come to represent only a majority rather than being all encompassing. Therefore among other societal evils, the tyranny of the majority is one to be wary of.

Social tyranny and its influence on liberty

However society itself- the collective rather than the individual- can tend towards tyranny and manifest it in manners besides elected political officials. Social mandates can be imposed on society with negative consequences because it will try to penalize the individual whose ideas and rules of conduct deviate from those deemed acceptable by the majority. Thus social tyranny can be equally formidable or more so than political tyranny as the former seeps into the finer details of daily life. A limit must therefore be discussed and drawn such that collective opinion does not encroach upon individual opinions and preferences.

But what exactly is this is limit and how is it drawn up? The author believes that the question is yet to be correctly addressed. He then says that guidelines that deal with human conduct are often dictated by personal opinions rather than by hard reasoning. Indeed, one’s own opinion is often the golden standard of judgment and one sympathizes with beings who share that worldview. But if these individuals decide the rulers, do they not also impose on individual liberties, vicariously, through the government they create? The author simply states that the interference of the government is “improperly invoked and improperly condemned”.

The essay tries to point out that the reason for imposing control and coercing the individual or in essence interfering by means of physical force, legal penalties or the like is for self-protection. The only occasion where power can be exercised forcefully against the wishes of a member of a civilized community is in order to prevent harm from befalling others. The author however has a different opinion for societies that are still ruled by barbarians and opines that the principles of liberty do not apply in a time when free and equal discussion is nonexistent. But once such a society comes of age (even if it was guided by the hands of a despot), compulsion is no longer viewed favorably, save in the case of protection of others.

Freedom to be yourself

The introductory is concluded with what liberties are granted for the individual. They include the liberty of thought and sentiment, the absolute freedom of opinion on all areas including moral or theological, the liberty of living one’s lives as one sees fit without impeding the lives of others and also the freedom to unite with other individuals for any purpose (whilst adhering to the caveat of not inflicting harm upon others).

To truly summarize the essence of the introductory and to whet the reader’s appetite to pursue the remainder of the work (available freely online), I quote Mill:

“No society in which these liberties are not, on the whole, respected, is free, whatever may be its form of government; and none is completely free in which they do not exist absolute and unqualified. The only freedom which deserves the name is that of pursuing our own good in our own way, so long as we do not attempt to deprive others of theirs, or impede their efforts to obtain it. Each is the proper guardian of his own health, whether bodily, or mental and spiritual. Mankind are greater gainers by suffering each other to live as seems good to themselves, than by compelling each to live as seems good to the rest.”

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5th Winter School of Immunology

The Gods will offer you chances,

Know them, take them. 

....

you are marvellous
 the Gods wait to delight
in you.

- Charles Bukowski, The Laughing Heart

Indeed they did.
Imagine being invited to scenic Jodhpur to meet 49 other immunologists from all across India to discuss your work and to get to know one another. Now add to the mix that there will be seminars on cutting edge science that's being done in labs as we speak.

The labs of Harvard and Yale Medical School and UCSF, I mean.
Now as the icing on the cake, the faculty from these institutions themselves arrive to teach us a thing or two about immunology and take our questions and sit with us at the dinner tables to laugh and talk the night away.
It seems surreal, but it's true. I just came back in a daze of disbelief, wonderment and inspiration that I've met some of the best immunologists in the world today and also that I got the chance to meet and talk to some of our country's future stars in the field.

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What Christmas is all about

Tony Piro, the comic’s artist is donating a dollar to Doctors Without Borders for every 500 views that this comic gets on his website. That’s between now and the New Year. So in the spirit of helping those less fortunate than us, let’s all pitch in and share this comic around. The whole Internet divided by 500 is sure to amount to a lot of dollars!

Click the pic to see it in full-size.

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200

Everything begins with an idea or a powerful suggestion. The invitation to co-author on Archaeopteryx87 came in the same way, when I visited Vyaas after the conclusion of our mutual weekend tuition classes. We made a pact: I would introduce a light, playful facet to the blog and occasionally post a rant or two about things that grind my gears, while Vyaas would handle everything from the origins of the Universe, the seemingly strange phenomenon of  quantum mechanics and the rare introspection on social issues. In other words, we would be two opposing entities in terms of concept and thereby bring to the blog a fresh perspective and continually inspire the other to keep the effort going. Now trust me, co-authoring is not as easy as you think it is. You are given a chance to collaborate and by that, you can make or break the blogger’s reputation and risk undermining his/her writing trend. You have to be careful about the topics that you post about. Politics, religion and essays about sexuality are taboo but can be accommodated if they are well thought out and well argued. But as constraining on creative and writing freedom as this may seem, it gives you a chance to share the blogging responsibility and explore ideas and areas never ventured into.
Sometimes Fate (visualized the same way as the Eternal Footman, only with additional malice and contempt for human existence) tosses you an inspirational bone. Somewhere into the third year of my undergraduate degree, I happened to subscribe to Ashwin Bala’s “The Untitled Stories”. A fellow classmate in the Chemical Engineering Department, Ashwin wrote poignant (and sometimes so maddeningly cryptic that its meaning had to be teasingly extracted after multiple readings) pieces of flash fiction, that it inspired me to follow suit. Since then I’ve written a handful of flash fiction pieces that have received praise from close friends and family. Then one fine day, I stumbled upon Metazen- an online magazine that published short fiction and poetry by imminent and upcoming authors. The storytelling style was convoluted and the ending was unpredictable. Some of the stories followed me for days. This inspired me to write better, improve my vocabulary and try brave new styles. I have been turned down several times, but an encouraging e-mail from their editor has kept me going. However, I did manage to have a minor victory or two: a piece has been published each on Wufniks, Nanoism and most recently on Dfuse. Blogging also brought me an opportunity to see my work in print and I thank the publishing companies for their kind consideration. 
But that is where we part way with the other bloggers. I note that some bloggers are slaves to page views and search engine hits. They abandon a constrained writing style or ideology and write about everything under the sun with the intent to crawl up the Google search list’s top pages . Current news, polemic about politics and the acting world form the primary fodder for these individuals and they target the readers who share the same opinion regarding the above. They advertise tirelessly; filling up social networks and micro blogging services with their Bit.ly links. They goad you  to read and to re-tweet their posts. Perhaps this is a way to boost readership,but I’d rather my blog be spread through word of mouth and be pleasantly stumbled upon rather than tripping up people. Then there is an obsession with website ranks. People flaunt their Indiblogger and BlogAdda scores like they’ve aced the Board exams. They fail to read and understand the writing on the wall: your blog can be quite awful and still score an 80+ because we aren’t allowed a glimpse into the inner workings of the ranking system. So while it’s indicative of your writing prowess, it shouldn’t be hailed as the golden standard of judging writing skills.  The simple reason I write is because it’s liberating; it serves as an outlet for words and ideas. While it’s definitely a human need for people to want others to read and comment on their work, that shouldn’t shape the way you write or the reason why you write what you do.
We’ve had just under 21,000 views from our inception and just 21 or so subscribers to our blog feed. This achievement is paling in comparison to the views that other bloggers receive, but we like to write and allow readers to find us instead of the other way around.
Thanks for reading our 200th post.

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Christopher Hitchens 1949-2011

Our lives are the sum of experiences: personal and vicarious. Our existence is a complex pastiche of memories and achievements; a beautiful portrait guided by the hands of our parents, our teachers, mentors and strangely enough, by our arch nemeses too. However, we always learn and seek wisdom and inspiration from those we have never met; or are desperate to meet. Perhaps they have answered a burning question we’ve had since as long as we can remember; or have put effortlessly into words that which always remained a foggy,mercurial Will’o-the-Wisp in our heads or simply confirmed in writing what we’ve felt all along and too afraid to say.
That individual to me was Christopher Hitchens and he passed away today from complications of oesophageal cancer. A brave journalist; his reporting has touched upon subjects who in conventional media have held a lofty reserve of immunity. One such individual to face the journalist’s camera was “Mother” Teresa. An brilliant investigation led by Hitchens as showcased by uploaders on Youtube, it shows the pathetic conditions inside the houses of supposed healing at Calcutta. The elderly and the infirm were brought there to be paraded to outsiders; the latter witnessing the merciful nuns bringing solace and comfort in the former’s grim last days. But Hitchens blew that illusion to hell and revealed the healing houses were really Teresa’s warped theological interpretation: God’s love had to be earned by suffering.                                          

“I personally want to ‘do’ death in the active and not the passive, and to be there to look it in the eye and be doing something when it comes for me.”               - Christopher Hitchens.

Hitchens was also an antitheist and one of the Four Horsemen of the New Atheism movement- a movement rooted in the conviction that religion is detrimental to the progression of rational thought and that everyone deserved a chance to look objectively at evidence and learn for themselves the wonders of science instead of being blindly herded with the rest of the flock. Hitchens had many a lively debate regarding the evils of organized religion and debated many apologetics including Dinesh D’Souza and even the odd politician (Tony Blair) at the Munk Debate. He compared Heaven to the dictatorial regime of North Korea: where everyone must sing praise and hail a holy father figure for all eternity without daring to complain.
“Hitch” as he was called by his friends and admirers, was a walking compendium. His library at home is covered from wall to wall with books ranging from American history, classics and religious texts (the better to debate apologetics with). He was a great admirer of George Orwell and any fan of Hitchens can see Animal' Farm’s and 1984’s influence in many of his essays. Hitchens was a masterful orator, an extremely learned and skilled writer and his razor sharp wry British wit charmed his friends and stunned his opponents. His death is a severe blow to most of us, but surely his peerless legacy is preserved and immortalized in every printed word and in every word he has uttered. It may seem to be the night’s darkest hour, but we must take solace in the fact that his legacy will help inspire millions to pick up their pens, question their Gods and ultimately emerge into the daylight of clarity.
Thank you Hitch, for everything.

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