The dangerous sidewalk

Walking to work today was adventurous: A WWII German bike almost ran me down, a pooch chased me away. And I almost stepped on a homeless man camouflaged under some white cover.

Was I glad to get to the MUNI bus.

Maybe it was payback for the venom I spewed out at media in the previous blog entry. Or maybe it was Mom's curse -- she wasn't one bit happy about the filthy language I used in the entry. Mom being mom, she was perhaps worried that she didn't raise her children right.

It's family ethos to be nice, never to curse, to stay on one job and make plenty of $$ (not in my nomadic nature). My bank's run dry twice and I've landed up at my parents' doorstep for shelter. Mom's always been there, feeding me free chow and blabbering about how useless I am.

Mom's great and welcoming the first few days, then comes her request for a rent check. (read: you bum, hit the road, get to work.)

Not that she'll like the previous paragraph either. I'm kidding Mom, I love ya and how much you worry about me. And happy 21st birthday.

Bend that missile up yo ass

(Rated R for *extreme* profanity and indecent language)

A "Bend it like Beckham" quip keeps playing itself in my head like a broken record. It goes like this:

"Paula: Get your lesbian feet out of my shoes!

Wedding Guest (older woman): She's not Lebanese, she's Punjabi!"

(from IMDB)

So, this may be a sick way to find humor in the Lesbian-Israeli war. But what am I upset about in the first place? CNN's tacky war footage. It has put on line everything -- my reporting experience, my j-school theory, my granny's mattress, you name it.

The iceholes at CNN garbaged it all overnight with their dumbf*** coverage.

Point in case: the dickwads at Hezbollah treating journalists like their whores. Even I wasn't had this bad during my sloppy ground coverage. CNN's a sitting duck dishing out Hezb propaganda to the world.

Wanna walk? Follow Hezb PR. Wanna pee? Sorry, all bathrooms destroyed by Israelis. Hezbollah's taking CNN for a ride -- making people shed fake tears, simulating false sirens of empty ambulances to show the world how peace loving and innocent they are. Oh, did a missile just fly over my head?

Just like WW1 coverage. Studios created war scenes, with Hollywood artists became Rambo Jrs and destroying Commies without a casualty. Their acting was so bad, we needed the Vietnam War to regain trust in Hollywood.

Video cameras criss-crossed Vietnam shooting images depicting death and despair. Hippies, who needed an excuse to have dope and free sex, hit the street like it were some Bob Marley concert.

"This gizmo called camera is bad news for our propaganda effort," the US military realized, finally getting with the program.

And then came the "embedded journalist," the ultimate f***tard of a concept that rubbished my j-school knowledge. Reporter became military's bitch, sat in cool tank to see desert all day long.

And the Israelis? If they had more planes, they'd knock out all mediapeople in the world, period. If you're in the way, they'll stick a missile up your ass. A bit crude, but atleast they're being honest about their intentions.

Beirut, love it or not

Apparently Cynthia's connections with Beirut aren't disappearing, even after she escaped to Amman. (She should be in France soon.)

Today's NYT print edition carries her picture within a picture.

Confused? The NYT snap depicts tense Beirut residents chatting and sipping cuppas at a cafe. Cynthia's snap sits in the cafe -- of a lady in the Asian bicycle silhouette -- which she took in Beijing.

It's a beautiful shot, picked up by De Prague Cafe in Beirut where Cynthia hung out often, as she noted. It still lies there, many days after she left Beirut.

She noticed the photo she took being in NYT and suddenly e-mails started floating around. Now I'm holding multiple print editions of today's NYT to send to her and other friends.

For once, I don't have to burn down the NYT, which says only Beirut, Beirut, Beirut all day long. I am tired of Beirut. I'm tired of hearing American reports saying "Beirut," as if they were saying "Babe Ruth."

I'm tired of any footage about Lebanon, Israel and Palestine. Don't they get tired? Don't readers get tired? Am I the only one who finds Fox News a welcome respite these days?

So it's not only Cynthia. All of us will be connected to Beirut for a long, long time. Just like Ai-rack. Buckle up folks!

Running for cover in Beirut

An acquaintance, Cynthia, fled Beirut after Israeli bombing started and successfully crossed the border into Jordan. She is now in Amman from where she's going to France.

Is she going back? I'm assuming yes, considering she left most of her belongings in Beirut. A reply to her is due, so many questions to ask. She crossed into Jordan with one bag and a camera in her hand. She captured some telling pictures fleeing from Beirut. Here's what she had to say in her mass e-mail:

"When i was waiting for a way to get out, i took photos. When i was passing the border with my only bag (I left everything in beirut) I took photos. when i saw a smiling face on my road, i took a photo. When I found other evacuated people in Amman, i took a photo. Thanks to morning shots, i had something to do and to think about."

(Morning Shots is an image section of an Inner and Central Asia webzine Pomegranate House, started by a friend who works in Beijing. For now, it is his personal effort where we also share pictures. Check it out. Images taken without permission, I'll get busted!)

Over the last 10 days, I've asked 4 people worldwide if they were safe (Beirut, Israel, India and Indonesia). This is a first, just shows *how* bad the world is today.

Cutting through the crap

In mail today I received a copy of "Shop Smart," a new magazine launched by Consumer Reports, with an accompanying note saying it was targeted at women 30+.

Though a stick, I'm still a manly man, not a 30+ woman, I said after consulting a mirror, with a buff grunt thrown in. So out of all people, why did they send me a copy? Because they want me to trash it, and yes, I will with complete manly man pride.

The quarterly Shop Smart logo ends with a chatty ;) and it points out great buys by cutting through the crap they show in adverts.

Does sleeping on Tempur-pedic beds feel like sleeping on wet sand, as the ad claims? BS, Shop Smart says. They review a neat list of items from fitness products and vacuum cleaners to toasters and hula-hoops, pick your choice. Some are covered in detail, some in snapshots.

Women don't look for good HDTVs, but my roommate is, and that pointed out an issue -- it doesn't cover all products in one thin issue. Have to wait for another issue. Nor do they give a hint of products appearing in the next issue.

They focus on product quality, but don't care much about pricing. The ladies I know look for deals even more than I do as a Gujju, so this isn't the reference book for them. They listed Hewlett-Packard's PhotoSmart 335 printer at $130, though it's available at online shops for $55, according to PriceGrabber.com.

Of all print publications, every journalist expects only Consumer Reports to survive the blog hype, considering its encyclopaedic nature. Others will disappear, or move online. What challenges Shop Smart is the same question it poses - is it a smart magazine to buy?

Nada, just buy Consumer Reports. Or browse through it at a store. The 'Quick and Easy' guide Shop Smart claims to be isn't newsy or detailed enough. Their mish-mash of products covering different requirements is confusing. But again, I'm not a woman.

But yes, if I see detailed coverage of an HDTV, I will pick one up for guidance.

Loitering in Banda Aceh

Friend Melanie Mel just can't sit at home and enjoy a Rice Krispies.

The nomad is back on the road after her stint with CARE, this time with Oxfam trying to patch up tsunami-torn Banda Aceh, a town in the Indonesian island of Sumatra. She will be there for 4 months, and her blog should have some interesting write-ups about her adventures, the recovering town and the region.

It hasn't even been a week since she left, and I'm sending out notes asking if she's safe. A terrible tsunami today struck the neighboring island of Java, unfortunately killing 110. Trust her to fall into such adventures. It's been her dream to help nonprofits, empower women and curse Dubya.

In an e-mail a few days ago, she mentioned heading to Bangkok in October, wondering if I knew a tailor. I'm extending this question to blog readers: if you know a good and inexpensive tailor in Bangkok, please mail me. Thanks! (thanks for the leads P)

Sochi's road to greatness

The U.S. hosted the Winter Olympics a few years back, so can Russia be far behind? Last week Moscow backed Sochi's bid for the 2014 Winter Olympics.

So what is Sochi? I have no clue.

A Wikipedia visit revealed an amazing factoid: It's the second largest city in the world at 147 km, second to Honolulu. Honolulu the hugest city in the world?. Unbelievable!

Sochi's a resort where the Caucusus mountains meet the Black Sea, on the southern Russian border in Krasnodar Krai. (Russian borders are shaped weird, so the term "southern Russian border" is as vague as a Bush-ism.) Reading Krasnodar Krai was alarming, I took out my maps right away.

Just one glance at Sochi's geographic location to shout: "Aah, now this is *very* interesting!"

Sochi is *very* close to Georgian province of Abkhazia, which has been waging a war to breakaway from Georgia -- through militancy and diplomacy -- for years. Long story short, Russia wants Abkhazia, and its funding the rebels' small independence effort from Georgia.

Russia isn't shy about their desire to get Abkhazia, which isn't doing much for Georgia and won't do much for Russia than bring political problems. Technically, Russians insist they want to bring Abkhazians independence they've been fighting for, but the Georgians feel bullied.

With mininal power, Georgia has been resisting Russia's eye on Abkhazia for about 13 years now. It's also losing its control on Abkhazia with each passing day.

The desire for independence drove the Abkhaz people into a conflict with the Georgians in the early 90s. It was a brutal war - millions fled, many died. The CIS, and Russia, sent in peacekeepers, and the war turned into an independence struggle.

Unofficially, Russia supplied Abkhazian rebels with arms to counter the Georgians. As Georgia's control over the Abkhazia faded, Russia's increased. Now Russia literally controls the autonomous region, leading to massive tension between the two countries.

Trying to save every bit of land, the Georgians are telling the UN and world that the Russians have no business meddling in its internal affairs.

The UN recognizes Abkhazia as a Georgian province, not an independent state. Russia wants the UN to convince the Georgians to conduct an independence referendum in Abkhazia.

Technically, Abkhazia is considered a danger zone by the U.S. State Department, unless a person is Mad Max. The U.S. supports Georgia, unsurprisingly.

Sochi doesn't seem like a dangerous place, being a biosphere reserve and all. But, it is close to Abkhazia, and the International Olympic Committee (IOC) will certainly raise that as a concern for the 2014 Winter Olympics. It'll be up to Russia to put on the best face and convince the IOC that it is safe.

On the other hand, let's hope the world's most candid conflict ends. After Montenegro, I have a very strong feeling that Abkhazia could be the next country added to the world map. Russia is crushing Georgia on this one.

A Bombay dispatch: Luck of the draw

Luck played a part in saving my younger bro from the Bombay bombs that killed 190 people. A lot of tragedy came with the blasts, which was targeted and followed a pattern. Certainly the hand of a big militant group.

My younger brother, from New York, is in Bombay right now on a 3-month internship for a venture capital firm.

What follows is a dispatch from him about yesterday's events, initial reactions and Bombay's FM radio, which preferred to broadcast junk Bollywood songs instead of reporting this massive event.

--

8 blasts rocked the city this evening. I'm OK.

For some fortunate impulsive reason, I decided to drive to work this morning.

Around the time of the blasts, the cellular networks got jammed and the Internet went down. A colleague's dad managed to get through to his cell and relayed the shocking news that a bomb had gone off in the local trains.

We took it lightly and figured that it'll get cleared up in no time. Within minutes we heard about the other blasts. I had the car, so packed in the car with whoever was left at office and left.

We had no clue how bad the situation really was. Bombay's radio FM was completely clueless, still playing songs of the 'chunari chunari' [Bollywood] kind. We kept scanning the stations for some news, but none of these mirchi masale-daar FM stations felt that news was worth any air-time.

The traffic was completely insane. What normally is a 45-minute drive, took close to 3-1/2 hours. Cars were bumper-to-bumper from Andheri to Worli [Bombay suburbs, 15-20 miles apart]. The streets were packed with people, trying to figure out how to get home. This was peak rush hour, when Mumbai gets off work.

[Bombay's mapped like a V. Andheri falls in V's upper part, where bro works, close to the blasts' location. Worli is lower, where bro and a lot of Bombay-ites stay.]

Only when I got home and switched on the news did I realize how bad the situation really is. The blasts went off at stations that i cross twice every day, six times a week. The blasts went off at around the same time that I would be on the train going home. [Bro usually travels in one of the 'First Class' compartments of a train, in which the bombs went off.]

Had I not driven to work, I could've been in one of those first-class bogeys ..

Flying high in the Russian sky

I'm tracking news reports of an Airbus crash in Siberia a few hours back, killing 200 people. Tragic news, I'm so upset it's difficult for me to write a news digest about it. I'm angry in a way.

This is Siberian (Sibir) Airlines' 3rd major crash in 5 years. Repeat: 3rd crash. Maybe it was a terrorist attack, so Sibir gets a clean slate. But the other 2 Sibir tragedies were crashes, and nasty ones. After so many tragedies how can they still be in the air? All I can say: Avoid Sibir Air and save your life.

Maybe they are better than what I give them credit for. But for a major Russian airline, this is a sorry safety record. A black eye on their face.

Airbus takes a hit with this news. Just two months ago, an Airbus belonging to an Armenian airline crashed in Russia, killing 113 people. Before crashing this Airbus, Sibir crashed two Tupolev jets, a Boeing/Airbus alternative promoted by Russia.

Tupolevs may be safe, but Ilyushin and Antonov jets/turboprops still operated by airliners in Russia and other countries (mainly poor or ex-communist countries) are somewhat dangerous. These planes are old, shake while moving and feel generally unsafe. I've flown Russian flights and some feel like roller-coaster rides.

The Antonovs are especially bad. One AN-24 flight felt like a roller coaster ride. After landing at the destination, I kissed the ground and thanked god for being by my side.

Seven Antonov planes crashed in 2005, and 1 has gone down in 2006. The Mongolian national airline, MIAT, phased out the Antonov turboprops -- used for internal flights -- last year. A friend described MIAT turboprops as being like buses, crowded and passengers being treated like cows herded.

Though old, some dating back to the 50s, the Antonovs can be fixed easily, he said, like a jeep, which is why they were preferred. Boeings perhaps take a whole specialty technical staff. Mongolians have little money to buy new Boeings anyways, so they may keep the Antonovs until it completely runs into the ground.

Like MIAT did, money-sapped airliners may opt for Tupolevs. Though more robust than Antonovs and Ilyushins, a Tupolevs difference from, say, a Boeing can be felt right away. A Tupolev flight to Bishkek felt shakier and noisier, but it didn't feel unsafe.

Though Tupolev has a good safety record, the way the planes go down is disturbing. In 2001, A Sibir Airlines Tupolev plane exploded in the air and just disappeared. In 2004, two Tupolevs crashed simultaneously. The Russian gov't said the planes were attacked by terrorists, not yet proven.

Tupolev recently launched a new model -- the PSC -- which it says will be used for cargo. It is still pursuing a Concorde alternative. I hope it performs well, like the Boeing's Dreamliner or Airbus' superjumbo A380. Both planes attract lots of curiosity and I can't wait to sit in them.

Back to work...

Tea is like wine

During Dad's visit last week I took him to a restaurant called Modern Tea, located at the cusp of Hayes Valley (opposite Suppenkueche, for those familiar).

The menu items were limited and the food was decent fare. The real charm was the tea list, which had unique flavors from all continents.

This restaurant is the genius of a tea-freak couple. The wife loved quality tea; mentioning Bigelow or Earl Grey made her tummy churn. The husband looked like a hippie and spoke like one, he even called my Dad dude once or twice.

Dad isn't a gastronomic adventurer, so he asked for a good old Darjeeling. Unavailable. Curious, dad asked why. Hippie said: "The Darjeeling crop wasn't good this season. Try Nepal, it's like Darjeeling." Now even more curious and in professor mode, dad sought more knowledge about how a crop is related to a tea's taste.

Tea is like wine, hippie's wife said. Each year tea leaves turns out good or bad, just like wine. This year's Darjeeling crop wasn't good, but Nepal was excellent, which has a similar texture and taste. It's traditional to have a Darjeeling and Assam on tea menus, she said, and luckily the Nepal crop turned out excellent this year.

It's difficult maintaining a tea menu. They have to juggle their menu continuously depending on the quality of a tea crop. The Assam in India is good this year, but they don't expect a good crop next year, so it may not to be on the menu.

I had my best tea ever there -- the "Seven sisters"(or something similar, can't remember). The rare tea is found in certain parts of China. After it finishes growing, the tea is turned into a cake and kept in caves for a while so it can develop its acquired taste. So hardened is the tea that its taste never changes, Hippie said. Even after 45 minutes, the tea tasted light and fresh and not bitter. Cost $4 or something, well worth it in a world where we senselessly spend $3 for a coffee.

Whenever I need tea advice, I'll go to them. Quality tea needs to be sought out, they said. Tazo was rated as a decent brand by them.

In support of neighborhood restaurants, I hope this place succeeds. There's something San Francisco-ish about the place -- a tea-freak couple putting their full passion into an effort, hopefully, with some business acumen.

Giving Newark its rap

Newark gets thumbs up for its reputation as a highly accessible and convenient airport. I'm still trying to figure out how. I've had problems three straight times now:

- One for delayed baggage (trust Continental to always do that)

- One for entering the ladies bathroom by mistake (it was *really* by mistake!!)

- This time, for a tarmac full of planes that delayed my flight by 2-1/2 hours. After boarding the plane, the co-pilot said "Sorry, air traffic control says the tarmac is full of planes trying to take off at this time. we will take off in 45 minutes or so."

It took us 1-1/2 to start taxi, and another 1 hour on the tarmac before taking off.

Apparently this happens often at Newark, so take this from me: Buyer's beware flying from Newark between 8AM and 11:30AM. Either the queue is too large, or ATC is Continental's bitch for letting their planes take off before any other airlines'.

Anyways, if the problems are ironed out, it's a cool airport and the exteriors are slick. It's cheaper to get to Manhattan from Newark Liberty airport than from JFK. Considering Newark's rep as a crime haven, it actually seems safer outside the airport than JFK.