My Ramadan

Re: # 211
hamid mian
you seem to have daughter for every occasion i`m beginning to think they are all fiction.

The Power of Nightmares

The Slave2, after quaffing a few merlots with his joe2pack neighbor, belched out with satisfaction and caressed his pate (english) with one palm and his other pate(urdu) with the other simultaneously and mumbled....`` Things are really really going good, my daughter is dating now``

``Yeah...`` Joe 2pack said in a way which could be interpreted eaither as an enquiry, or explanation, a surprise or a disappointment. English language just is not capable to handle such a situation so it doesn`t have a word.

Slave2 stretched his legs as as as they could go; which meant they were touching Joe2packs toes..and he kind of tickled them..`` Just couldn`t have done it in Pindi Bhatiaan...it is not the gwhite skin I`m after..there are whiter people in our own frontier, and with blue eyes, but they are not goraas, my man, goraas! you understand goraa Joe? Can you imagine how much you are valued in my land. Our Prsident would serve you bed-tea if you`re there & here you buying me liquor...I witness there is no God but America, and Joe2pack is his messenger..``

Joe was really perplexed. No one had ever spoken to him in such highbrowed, pedantic and
scholarly manner before and he attributed it to no Slave2 but to his own merlot which ke not how much he had taken. He was thinking that it was Slave2 who had more than him...

So he brought back the subject which was more at home to him..`` So who is she dating?``

``Oh some guy guy from her prom last year...Would know more soon I hope``

``Uh Uh``

..................

and then he was told in no uncertain terms that she likes this guy whose dad through sheer hardwork has made a big name for himself in the food business.

``Must be that grandson of McDonalds, the guys who sold the chain to thay paper-cup guy``
.
..``No No Daddy, not Gary McDonald of my 9th grade...remenber the one you always called him goraa goraa McDonald when he was not around?...she chuckled

``Not him? then who?``

....Well Daddy please be not mad at me. I`ve found a real true goraa. More goraa than you can ever imagine. Now our generations would be able to goraa enough to looke like the massas & then we be slaves no more...`` she was looking not too far into the future

``So what is his name``?

.........Ollie, daddy Ollie. Ollie Bachs ....yeah that is his name.

`` But little one what is the surname``

Phajjaa, Daddy. They really really worked hard , they were really really poor but now they have this famous restaurant which is known around the world, Ollie has told me.

`` Phajja! PHAHJJA? you mean that guy from Lajore choonaa mandi--the Paaey-valaa?
Oh now I know that son Ollie ..he is no Ollie. He is Illahi Baksh Phajja; What are yopu mad are you insane are you out of your mind. Is is what I get after sending you to dance lessons
& encouraging you to go to the prom...to snare a Phajja?.... Bareen Barsaan khatan gaya... he found himself humming & despite the situation smiled at the cruel irony of fate

..........``but daddy he is the heartthrob of everyone, and he brings that real tasty meat dish to school for everyone...and EVERYONE loves his Payaas, which they think is meat-PIE``

#208 by hamidm2

the power of knowledge:...........i buy something for a 100 dollar, sell it for 200, make my 2% and i am happy `` ............. simple math .....

Hmmm .... Do you thinka a clarification, or a correction is required here? Or it wouldn`t be simple math I guess ... maybe magic.

Is Mills related to A.A.Milne of Winnie-the-pooh fame?

the philosophies of both seem so similar.....

how to join the power elite and other stories

.......... but sometimes you don`t make it - so what !

....... last year i was visiting a friend in the bay area who is working on his sixth start-up company and even though he has come close a couple of times, still no cuban cigar ........

.......... so as we sat on the deck of his modest home in palo alto smoking arturo fuentes from the dominican republic, i asked him if it had been worth working a hundred hours a week for the last 20 years ............ he looked at me like .... well like i was gay or something .... and said, ``what do you mean, it has been a great ride and it ain`t over yet - there are still people in this town who are willing to lend me a couple of million bucks ......... so what if we are not smoking real cubans and we have a view of someone`s untidy backyard instead of the ocean - if i had to do it all over again, i wouldn`t change a thing except not fall in love with an idea for too long ....... ideas are like women`` ........ i have no idea what he meant by that ............ he is an ivy league graduate but has never heard of wright mills .........

Re: # 209

If you would allow me to interrupt your monologues/dialogues and multilogues.....

mills would say, according to masadi, that the system has brainwashed your daughter into an unthinking robot. If only she had the right (and correct) knowledge, she would know her situation is hopeless. Mark of YouTube is a small gift to the macacas of this world, to tell them work hard you too can be rewarded......its the brainwashing thing at play here...

how to join the power elite and other stories

....... three mornings a week my 13 yr old gets up before six to be at school by 6:30 for her student council meeting; two evenings a week she gets home at eight thirty after dance classses and stays up past midnight to finish her homework; on saturdays she tutors a fifth grader and sundays is tennis lessons .......... when i asked her to slow down she looked at me like .... well , like i was crazy or something and said `` did mark zukerberg slow down ???? `` ............... i said, ``but..... but...... mills says that you shouldn`t work hard because the system is stacked against you``.......... i know she wanted to say `fuck mills`, but it being ramadan and all that, she simply said, `` mark is barely 20 and yahoo is going to give him a billion dollars - mills is so lame and gay !``

p.s.......... i too am perplexed with this usage of `gay` ...... last elections my other daughter, who is six years older, was actively campaigning to legalize gay mariages and thinks bush is a homophobic devil ......... it must be a generational thing .........

the power of knowledge:

...... after many years i ran into a iranian guy who had flunked out of engineering school, then flunked out of business school and finally flunked out of sociology school to start an electronics retail business ........... i asked him how things were going and he said: `` things are going great - i buy something for a 100 dollar, sell it for 200, make my 2% and i am happy `` ............. all you need to succeed in this country is simple math and a little hard work .........

Fiza Asr:
Just top keep the discussion relevant to your article.

Let us see what is happenning in the ``WEST`` during Ramadhan

---

First Published 2006-10-10, Last Updated 2006-10-10 09:10:30


A sociable atmosphere

Ramadan on the rise among France’s Muslims


Islamic holy month is encompassing more than just devout,
is especially prevalent among young adults.
By Amer Ouali - PARIS

Ramadan, the Islamic holy month of fasting currently underway, is being increasingly observed by France`s sizeable Muslim community, experts and media here said.

The trend is encompassing more than just the devout, and is especially prevalent among young adults, they noted.

According to a recent survey in a Catholic weekly, La Vie, 88 percent of all Muslim adults in the country fasted for Ramadan -- and 94 percent of those aged under 30 did.

France has Europe`s largest Muslim community, estimated at between four and six million. The total population of the country is 63 million, most of whom are considered Roman Catholic -- though, by one study, more than 40 percent declare themselves atheist.

While Ramadan has found greater favour among French Muslims, the other precepts of Islam are less respected.

According to La Vie`s survey, 56 percent of those questioned said they did not pray five times a day, and only four percent had made a piligrimage to Mecca.

A French anthropoligist who has written several books on Islam, Malek Chebel, said the surge in interest in Ramadan ``is a phenomenon we`ve been seeing for 15 or so years.

``Essentially, it`s a phenomenon of cultural identification -- French Muslims have the feeling of belonging to all other Muslims around the world,`` he said.

The two forces pushing the effect along, Chebel said, were Islamic proselytism and the political rhetoric in France that made non-observing Muslims feel guilty and less likely to signal their stance among the more faithful.

Another explanation, offered by an atheist and Communist Algerian writer who did not wish to be named, was simple nostalgia for the home countries of Muslim immigrants.

``It`s pure nostalgia. My wife says I`m crazy, but I don`t care,`` he said, referring to his non-Muslim French spouse.

Abderahmane Dahmane, the president of the Council of Democratic Muslims in France, one of several Muslim organisations in the country, said he had seen Ramadan observance increase markedly from the end of the 1980s on.

``It`s become a month of identification for all a community,`` he said, adding that it also underlined the failure of France`s attempt to assimilate immigrants by trying to make them adhere to its secular principles of nationality.

In the suburbs of Paris, the importance of Ramadan for young Muslims was easily seen -- but also for a few non-Muslims of ethnic French background.

``I do it sometimes to show my support for my Muslim friends,`` said Lorie, a schoolgirl in the eastern suburb of Montreuil.

Chebel said the physical rigour of observing daily fasting for a month also made Ramadan a sort of macho competition among boys and young men.

``It gives them a certain status and allows them to exclude people from their group who don`t fast,`` he said.

Anil writes to Hamid <<< Mian sahib, please allow me to treat you, your wife and lovely daughters to the best Indian dinner on San Franciso Bay, any time. Just let me know when at : anilkapuria@yahoo.com. I promise to be there with my daughter, the honor is entirely mine >>>

Hmmm, a mating ritual or a business deal, between hamid and anil, don`t know but you better give him some code (and supply a coolie) or tahmed might show up where he doesn`t belong, like the US in Iraq- they are kleptomanics you know, grabbing things that were never offered to them.

In addition to #203, Mills is merely taking the argument/belief of Hamid 2 pack to its logical conclusion, when he says, ``If you work hard, you will make it``, that implies that those who have ``made it the most`` i.e. the elite, have worked the hardest. I don`t see any exaggeration involved in that translation by Mills of Hamid 2 pack.

Re: # 200

Hamidm Mian:

You called you mian for the first time. I spent my childhood where calling mian to a Kashmiri Brahmin was an insult.

Honestly, I felt proud when you called me.

Mian sahib, please allow me to treat you, your wife and lovely daughters to the best Indian dinner on San Franciso Bay, any time. Just let me know when at : anilkapuria@yahoo.com. I promise to be there with my daughter, the honor is entirely mine.

In the mean time, let Allah, God, Bhagwan and Tahmad Sahib, and of course government cheese and Marx, take care of Massaddi Mian and his ilk. Life is too short for us mortals.

Anil

GT writes <<< I read the sentence differently. Even if your reading of Mills is right, then Joe six pack is saying that knowledge is necessary for power. But since there is no claim to sufficiency, it does not imply equivalence. And Mills is saying that Joe thinks of these two things as equivalent since he uses the word ``is``, i.e =. >>>

Hamid two pack, according to Mills, is not implying sufficiency regarding knowledge translating into power but he is implying necessity of those with power to have knowledge, and not just simple knowledge but the ``most`` knowledge. I think that is why he translates it the way he does, power= knowledge, since the purest form of knowledge is found with those in power, the leaders. In this sense he is right on. Read the context of that quote,


They assume also that knowledge always pays off in such ways, or surely ought to, and that the test of genuine knowledge is just such pay-offs. The powerful and the wealthy must be the men of most knowledge, otherwise how could they be where they are?


Regarding your <<< As far as the family and economics in the US and our region is concerned, let us disagree for now. We can talk about it later.>>> comment, what you are doing when you talk about people in our parts of the world having more concern for wealth than people in the US, is looking at the surface ``superficial`` symbolism and not how the society is organized. Of course people who do not see that much wealth will have more concern for every penny, and will be awe struck at its value while those for whom it is relatively more easy come easy go might not be so vocally awed by it, the blase` attitude sets in but this does not mean that their lives are not centered around it and much more so than those in our parts of the world.

Then you write <<< Regarding ``virtues``, how does Mills know that people are molding themselves on someone else`s desire? >>>

For that you have to study bureaucracy, which has that as an inherent quality, and the bureaucratic society.

Re: # 199 by masadi

``If knowledge (or ability or hard work) is held to be a necessary causation factor in reaching power, then reaching power IMPLIES knowledge and not knowledge implies power, that is what Mills said power= knowledge and not knowledge = power, same with wealth. He is translating what Hamid 2 pack holds to be the case.``

1. (Minor point) I think you mean implication when you write =.

2. I read the sentence differently. Even if your reading of Mills is right, then Joe six pack is saying that knowledge is necessary for power. But since there is no claim to sufficiency, it does not imply equivalence. And Mills is saying that Joe thinks of these two things as equivalent since he uses the word ``is``, i.e =. This is not correct and Mills is playing around with language. In simple words, Americans may think that powerful people are smart but will not in general say that all smart people are powerful. Give that much to the Americans. Yes, once in a while a smart Alec may ask a pompous teacher ``Why are you poor if you are so smart?`` ... but this is simple leg pulling.

3. As far as the family and economics in the US and our region is concerned, let us disagree for now. We can talk about it later.

4. Regarding ``virtues``, how does Mills know that people are molding themselves on someone else`s desire? Why can`t it be their own desire? I find such value judgements dangerous.

Hamid:

The contributions of Mills not only to sociology but also to economics is widely accepted. He talks a lot of sense, but like most social scientists (including me) is prone to exagerations. And by the way, I thought you were only afraid of the mullahs. Now I find that you are scared of gays too :-)

GT in #197, <<< ``Under such conditions of success, there is no virtue in starting out poor and becoming rich.``

Why not? Why should one adhere to Mill`s, Asadi`s or Hamid`s definition of ``virtue``? >>>

Actually if you read the entire section carefully, what he means is that when you mold yourself based on someone else`s desires, in this case the corporate economy and its associated higher immorality, there is no virtue regardless of where you started. You are not a ``self made`` man but a ``self used`` and abused man.

Re: # 196

masadi/gt,


i have no idea who this guy wright mills is, but both i and my thirteen year old daughter agree that he meets the criteria of a `loser`.......... as a matter of fact my daughter would say, `he is so gay !``..............

..... i will tell you why as soon as i have some time...... but i think you know the answer .... if henry ford and bill gates had been his disciples we would still be riding around in horse buggies and using an abacus ........... he is exactly the kind of person i want to stay away from my children ........ la holay wala quwat !