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Here’s what I saw on the Yahoo! homepage a short while ago:
On clicking on the Arnie story, I came across a blurb that said, “Watch as Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger interrupts a speech to help a fainting girl.” I think they should just make a reality show around him now, with SMS voting on what noble task he should perform next week. Such fun will come.
Posted by Amit Varma on 31 March, 2007 in
Miscellaneous
Devangshu Datta writes in Business Standard that India has begun a cricketing decline similar to the one it began in hockey. He writes:
The debacle against Sri Lanka re-emphasised that India is a cricketing generation behind in its approach. The Lankans planned the batting better and they bowled and fielded with far more sense as well as heart.
At least five teams—Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Australia, South Africa and New Zealand—are now a clear generation ahead in terms of understanding cricket. Skill is not the issue—skill plus brains will beat skill almost every time. Will the intellectual gap ever narrow? The example of hockey leaves me feeling less than optimistic. Twenty years later, just as in hockey, India could be a fringe cricket outfit.
On one hand, I fear that the Ganguly-Wright years, with Dravid the best Test batsman in the world and Sehwag and Kumble and Harbhajan and Laxman all having their moments, might turn out in retrospect to be the pinnacle of India’s cricketing achievement. Once the Dravid-Tendulkar-Ganguly-Laxman generation is gone, we’ll be left with the likes of Yuvraj and Raina and Kaif in the middle order. I’m not looking forward to that.
On the other hand our younger players, brought up in an age of satellite television, might just turn out to have the values that Devangshu refers to embedded in their DNA. Our younger guys all field superbly and run well between wickets and are fitter than the past generation. Maybe the future isn’t so dark after all.
What do you think? Do read Devangshu’s column, and leave your thoughts here. Comments are open.
Posted by Amit Varma on 31 March, 2007 in
Sport
After reading my piece, ”Don’t Punish Victimless Crimes,” and the follow-up post to it, my friend Devangshu Datta was kind enough to send me an old article of his on legalising betting. It’s a wonderful piece, and was first published in Business Standard, though they don’t have it online anywhere. With Devangshu’s permission, I’m reproducing some paras below the fold. Note that it was written in January 2001, but though the absolute numbers would have changed, the arguments and the macro percentages probably remain valid:
Posted by Amit Varma on 31 March, 2007 in
Economics |
Freedom |
India |
Sport
After reading this, I have a question: is there something called non-coital tristesse?
(Link via email from MadMan. Why??)
Posted by Amit Varma on 31 March, 2007 in
Small thoughts
I’m not sure one should be so flippant. Unspeakable horrors may await.
(Link via email from Sanjeev Naik.
Previous posts on Eldritch horror: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11.)
Posted by Amit Varma on 31 March, 2007 in
Arts and entertainment
Jimmy Wales is asked, in Time Magazine’s “10 Questions” section, why people contribute to Wikipedia. Is it altruism? He replies:
It’s realizing that doing intellectual things socially is a lot of fun--it makes sense. We don’t plan on paying people, either, to contribute. People don’t ask, “Gosh, why are all these people playing basketball for fun? Some people get paid a lot of money to do that.”
Bang on. Also, please stop asking me if I make any money through this website. Bounce bounce bounce.
Posted by Amit Varma on 31 March, 2007 in
Blogging |
Personal
Time Magazine has a feature they’re promoting as ”51 ways to save the environment.” I have an addition:
52nd way to save the environment: Die.
Yes, I’m in a good mood today. How’d you guess?
Posted by Amit Varma on 31 March, 2007 in
Small thoughts
Ian Chappell thinks Sachin Tendulkar should retire. Sigh. Such comments will fly back and forth in the next few days. I hope Sunil Gavaskar will be in the thick of it, just for fun.
In my view, there are only two questions that need to be asked as far as Tendulkar’s retirement is concerned:
1. Is he still good enough to be in the Indian side?
2. Does he have the desire to play international cricket?
As long as the answers to both these questions are “yes”—and I believe they are at the moment—I don’t see why Tendulkar should retire. Comparing him to Brian Lara, as Chappell does, is pointless. Comparing him to his own past self, as Chappell also does, is equally pointless. If he’s good enough to be in the current side and wants to play, he should carry on.
If only Sachin’s brother would now write a piece on Greg Chappell. Fun, no?
(Comments open.)
Posted by Amit Varma on 30 March, 2007 in
Sport
Check out this report:
A student has been suspended from school in America for coming to class dressed as a pirate.
But the disciplinary action has provoked controversy – because the student says that the ban violates his rights, as the pirate costume is part of his religion.
The religion in question, of course, is Pastafarianism. As a devotee of the Flying Spaghetti Monster myself, I feel the child’s pain. In this particular instance, of course, I am with the school—as perhaps that cunning young man intends us all to be.
We all have a right to religion, but the rights that we have do not extend to other people’s private property. For example, I have a right to fart, but if you have set a “No Farting” rule in your house, I don’t have any right to impose my farting on you. I can fart all I want in the public domain and in my own space, but not in your house.
Similarly, the school has a right to ban pirate costumes—or turbans and veils, other such religious objects of controversy—on its property. Anyone who feels offended is welcome to take their business elsewhere. You do have a right to religion, but not a right to impose your religion on spaces that belong to other people.
That goes for free speech as well. Your right to free speech applies to the public domain and to your own property, but it is immensely silly when you invoke free speech to ask a blogger to open comments on his blog, his private property, or not monitor them when they are open. (Manish tells me that Sepia Mutiny gets that argument all the time.) It conflates private property and the public domain, and without the sanctity of the first, all other rights would be meaningless.
Pastafarianism illustrates the absurdity of many religious claims beautifully. The next time you hear of someone insisting on taking a kirpan into a plane or wearing a veil to a school that does not allow it, do remember this pirate boy.
(Link via separate emails from Sharath Rao and Gautam John.)
Posted by Amit Varma on 30 March, 2007 in
Freedom
I’d written in my column yesterday, ”Don’t Punish Victimless Crimes,” of how legalising betting would reduce match-fixing in cricket. Andy Mukherjee has an excellent column in Bloomberg today, ”Woolmer’s Murder Shows India Must Allow Betting,” that expands on that point. Do read.
A couple of readers wrote in to say that they weren’t quite clear about how it would work. I reproduce my answer to one of them below:
If betting was legal, and as a punter you could choose from a) an HDFC subsidiary offering betting facilities, b) a Taj Group company and c) some shady outlet like the ones you can choose from now, you’d obviously choose one of the more legit ones. Being public companies, and part of bigger brands, they would be far less prone to fix matches. That would reduce bookie-led match-fixing.
As for punter-led match-fixing, consider that paper trails would exist of all bets and transactions, and suspicious activity would be far easier to ferret out.
Of course there will still be scams, for we are human, but they will be lesser in number. Consumers would have more choice and, because of greater transparency, more control. The cops would find it easier to catch suspicious activity.
Heh again!
By Sanjeev Naik in Miscellaneous
Heh. (Via Arvind Krishnaswamy.)
By Amit Varma in Miscellaneous
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Sample clues
9 across: Van Morrison classic from Moondance (7)
6 down: Order beginning with ‘A’ (12)
