Watching a Felony

I watched a felony the other day, I did nothing to stop it, and I’m not ashamed.  I was standing in line at the supermarket generally bored like everybody else when I noticed a guy come up to a girl in the line.  They were both in their early twenties, he was drinking a big soda through a straw and acting very nonchalant, he talked to her for a minute and they both looked around, then he walked off.  But he didn’t walk off like he had anything to do, he just kind of kept walking around the front of the store. 

They were both acting suspiciously un-suspicious so they caught my attention.

The girlfriend kept looking around, and over at him, but I noticed she didn’t have any groceries.  I thought that was a bit odd, but sometimes people just buy cigarettes.  When she got to the checker she asked for BART tickets.  I didn’t know you could buy BART tickets at supermarkets.  Then she surprised me by handing the clerk a bright shiny $100 bill.

Nobody but me carries cash anymore and these folks didn’t look like the kind of people who walk around with $100 bills in their pockets.  I was about 10-15 feet away, but the color of the bill caught my eye.

“That’s a counterfeit bill”, I thought.  This will be interesting.

The checker took the bill and ran a gold pen over it.  The bill passed and she gave the girl $100 in BART tickets.

I was still suspicious but figured the checker had done her store approved counterfeit test so I didn’t say anything.  The girl joined her boyfriend and they quickly walked out together.

Then I put 2+2+2 together.  The pen only checks if the paper is good.  Currency is printed on linen, not paper.  What they had done was ‘wash’ a $1 bill and then use a really good printer to print a $100 bill on top.  The clerk needed to look for the $100 stripe in the paper. No wonder the guy was avoiding being around her, he could run back to the apartment and destroy the evidence if something went wrong.  The reason they bought BART tickets is they are as good as cash.  Smart move.

I thought of turning them in, but then I remembered the Federal Reserve is printing $85 billion per month and handing it to rich people.  It’s called ‘Quantitative Easing’, it’s sold to Americans as a cure for the perpetual recession we’ve found ourselves in.  It’s the height of trickle down economics, hand the money to the rich and it will trickle down to the poor.  Except the rich are just pocketing the money.

They try and confuse people with Central Bank terminology and claim people just aren’t smart enough to understand what they’re talking about. 

“We’re just adding reserves, and buying bonds, we’re not really printing money”. 

Here’s their own confession that they’re printing money:

http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/series/BASE/

What’s really happening is the Fed is printing money, buying bonds far above market rates (i.e. paying more than they should), essentially handing $85 billion per month to Goldman Sachs and 20 other monster banks and saying “Trickle this down”.  Goldman’s goal is not to help the economy, it’s to get big bonuses for themselves and to help their allies.  So they don’t loan it to the Joe America, he’s already up to his eyeballs in debt and doesn’t want any more, Goldman buys stocks and loans the remainder to their hedge fund buddies.  The hedge funds then take that money and buy stocks with it too, they know another $85 billion is coming next month and stocks will go up again, so they can’t lose.

Sometimes the hedge funds, like Blackrock, take that free money and go out and buy homes defaulted on by Joe America, and then rent these homes back to him.  So they’re buying up all the real estate and the stocks and bonds with this flood of money, they own everything.

Meanwhile, Joe America who saved his hard earned money and one day hoped to buy a house, is in a bidding war he can’t win with the hedge funds and their dump trucks of money.  Joe America is also trying to start businesses, but if you’re a big corporation and your stock prices is getting goosed by the hedge funds, you cannot fail, and like a big fat tree who’s roots have wrapped around a broken water main, you crowd out all the sunlight for others.  To top it off they think they’re all geniuses and that their gains are coming by cutting even more wages and benefits, not from printing money.  The middle class can’t win.

The stock market is at all-time highs, the junk bond market is thriving, the real estate market is back bubbling again, but we still can’t create any jobs, everybody’s on food stamps, and young people are living at home with their parents. The head of the largest bond fund in the world who understands what’s going on says "The new American dream is to move out of your parent’s basement and rent a house from Blackrock".

We have been taught since the 1930’s that the worst thing in the world is a Depression.  Deflation, where prices keep dropping.  But really it’s just the stupid people who've made bad investments failing and defaulting their debts.  It has a cascading effect where everybody defaults and it levels out the playing field again.  Finally the wise and prudent are rewarded and the economy can grow again.

There’s nothing wrong with defaulting your debts.  People like to say ‘You made a deal, you have to pay your debts’.  But what about the other side of the deal, if a rich person is stupid enough to loan money to illegal aliens to buy big houses and big pickups, shouldn’t he lose out when the guy just gives up and disappears?  After all, that’s a free market, right?

“No”, said George Bush and Barack Obama, the rich should not pay for their mistakes, we need them to trickle down on the rest of us.  So they’ve bailed out the rich and distract everyone with tax cuts and tax increases and health care drama.

A myth was created about the Great Depression, that it was solved by Roosevelt or that it was solved by WWII.  But really it was solved by the last person defaulting on their debts and then the economy could grow again.  Roosevelt’s actions may have actually extended the Depression by slowing down the defaults.  WWII just happened to coincide with the last person defaulting and huge inflation from the war.

What’s happening now is that debt to GDP levels today (360%) are higher than they were in 1929 (270%) and the economy can’t take anymore.  The Federal Reserve is trying to inflate away the debt by buying it all up, but there so much they can’t, they probably need to print another few trillion dollars before we see meaningful inflation.

But here’s the thing, everybody didn’t die in the Depression.  Every American has seen this famous Depression era picture of the mother with her children in a migrant workers camp worried to about what the future holds. 

You might be shocked to learn that woman has a name, Florence Owens Thompson, and not only didn’t her family starve to death, she lived to be 80 years old, and those kids survived too, in sunny California no less.  The Depression steeled what was rightfully called ‘The Greatest Generation’ for the future.  They knew how to work hard and appreciate what they had.  The Banksters don’t work at all and act like they’re doing the rest of us a favor by stealing our money and our homes.

So what’s wrong with Joe and Jane America printing a little of their own money and getting $100 worth of BART tickets from a big corporation who’s CEO makes millions of dollars from hedge fund driven stock gains?

Go in peace Joe and Jane America. 

Oh, and by the way, you’re going to need to print eight-hundred and fifty million more of those every month just to stay even.

The Drunk

The other night we had a business dinner at a swanky place in Palo Alto on Sand Hill Rd.  The first thing they did was move us outside on the back porch bragging about the view overlooking the Santa Cruz Mountains.  Yes, the mountains were there, but so was Interstate-280.  Only in America can you brag about a view that overlooks the white noise of an interstate freeway.

We later realized they moved us out back because we were dressed like typical Silicon Valley slobs.  Everybody else in the place was dressed to the nines.  Dressing sharp is not allowed at the newer high tech companies, it’s a sign you’re part of ‘The Establishment’.  The Silicon Valley establishment all dress like slobs.  Purple hair and tattoos are symbols of rebellion.  Except they’re so common these days they strike me as establishment.

I’m the only one with no tattoos, wearing an Italian shirt and tie, sporting sharp three tone wingtips I picked up in Florence.  But I’m considered a conformist in the Valley.

Johnny is a colleague over from Ireland.  Really smart and hard working, but like me, you can tell underneath it all he has a temper.  He  regaled us with some stories about his temper and how he just would never tolerate anybody hitting him; or for that matter, anybody weak getting picked on by the strong.  Little did any of us realize he'd prove it within the hour.

Anyway, when we were leaving I stepped out in front of the restaurant and was waiting for others to catch up when this drunk guy fixates on me wearing my old banged up Australian cowboy hat and announces, “I’m not sure whether I like that hat or not!”  He’s wobbling about just like Homer Simpson drunk off his ass. 

He’s a really big guy with easily a hundred pounds on me.  I just look at him blankly, he’s a drunk looking for a fight.  I’m not going to give it to him, you can never win a fight with a drunk, but if he comes for me I’ve already timed my knee to the crotch, duck to the side, and push off to send him sprawling.  As a short skinny kid, all the bullies loved to pick on me, I know how to handle myself.  Just ask the two I sent to the hospital.

The drunk’s friend is trying to keep him separated from me, pushing him back and trying to get his attention focused on leaving.  His friend looks at me desperately, his eyes begging me to not to do anything to engage this fool.

The drunk is still eyeing me, wobbling, continuing his challenge, “I don’t know how I feel about that hat!”  This is all getting rather amusing, there’s easily a dozen people around right now, most not paying attention to what’s going on, but a few attuned to the danger lurking.  “That hat!  I just don’t know how I feel about that hat!”

Then out of the restaurant pour some more of the drunk’s friends.  In the middle is obviously his brother, they have the same build and look alike, and guess what, he’s drunk too.  He’d been inside and didn’t know anything of what had transpired, but you’d never know it.

Now the brother fixes on me, points his finger at me accusingly, and growls menacingly as he passes, “That’s a weird hat!  That’s a really weird hat!”  Oh lord, now his brother wants a fight over my hat too?  What is it, do these guys have a genetic disposition against hats?  Did their Germanic tribesman ancestors despise the helmets of the Roman Legion and that has stuck in their DNA ever since?

Following right on the heels of the brother is Johnny, he can tell there’s a fight a brewing and his back is up.  He doesn’t directly challenge anybody, but his blood is boiling and he is cussing a storm of expletives that would make Lenny Bruce blush.   He’s not going to tolerate any of this crap from these overage bullies.

I now have an ally.  Instead of teaming with the standard Silicon Valley geeks horrified at the sight of violence not under their control on a video screen, I’ve got a full blooded Irishman whose idea of a good time is a respectable fisticuffs on my side.

These guys have about 150 pounds on the two of us.  I quickly time it out.  The brother is closest; I figure he’s going to go for Johnny, who’s now between us, I’m sure Johnny can hold his own for a few seconds while I get the brother’s left flank.  Between the two of us he should be down in about three seconds.  But then I’ll have to whirl around quickly for the first drunk and that will have to be more of a catch-as-catch-can as Johnny will be behind me at that point and a lot can happen in that crucial second before he can bring some firepower to bear.  I figure we can take them in their inebriated state, however their friends are another problem.  If their friends join in we’ll be pavement dust.

I’m not sure how it all passed so quickly.  The drunks got moved along by their wiser friends and we went to our cars.  I half expected another encounter out by the cars.

I pondered that it had been twenty years since I had to deal with violent drunks, and I had to go to this swanky restaurant to do it, not to a roadside bar like last time.

Johnny himself said the next day that it could have been a disaster; he could have been arrested and barred from entry to the U.S.  Without entry to the U.S. it meant he really couldn’t work for an American company again and that would severely limit his employment opportunities.  He’d dodged a bullet.

All because of two drunk Americans who don’t like hats. 

But thanks anyway Johnny, it would have been a good fight.

The Baptism from Hell

This is an incident that occurred while I was living in England many years ago, and returned to the U.S. for Christmas. Everything I tell you is true, I have proof because it is all on videotape.

First a bit of background. My plane ticket back to the U.S. had me stopping in New York (old York being located about 200 miles north of here). My cousin's were having a baptism for their daughter and my dad was attending so I thought I'd stop by and visit.

Now you're probably wondering why I would willingly attend a family function, especially one with religious connotations. The reason is that my cousins are not related by blood. The baby is technically my father's step-mother's nephew's granddaughter. I think that due to the fact that there is no blood relation we get along great.

So let me introduce the cast of characters and set the scene. For simplicity sake I call them Uncle Bobby, Aunt Ilene, and my cousins Andy, Maribeth, Matthew and Jennifer. The baby in question is Maribeth's and her husband Charlie. Jennifer was the Godmother and their friend Chris was the Godfather.

Now Maribeth and Charlie are not particularly religious, but they had been raised Catholic, and with the child's grandparents of Italian, Irish, and Polish heritage, there was going to be a Catholic Christening, no questions asked.

So first of all Maribeth and Charlie had to go and have a meeting with the priest to discuss what I presume to be the meaning of the ceremony. The priest wanted to know if they practiced formal prayer and attended services regularly. Maribeth is not your traditional Pat Buchanan Catholic. In fact she is an ardent articulate liberal feminist type. She believes her daughter is also a feminist as she refuses to be breast fed, considering it to be a perpetuation of the enslavement of women. This is really too bad, because Mairbeth has quite a set of hooters.

So anyway, she told the priest that she thought it was more imortant that the child be brought up to perform Christ like acts (you know, mercy, love, giving, etc.). The priest was not impressed or amused. They were not off to a good start with this priest.

The day of the Baptism everybody showed up at the church. I should now mention that the cermony was to be held in a church in Riverhead on Long Island. Riverhead is a nice place, but it is at the far end of Long Island from New York City. Actually, all of Long Island is nice, but as my Uncle Bobby says it's only downside is that you can't get off the island without going through New York City. Long Island is really long, about 150 miles or so (thus it's name, 'Long Island'), so Riverhead is kind of at the end of the world.

The church was traditional Polish Catholic, they must even still conduct services in Polish, because there was a Polish hymnal. I wandered around and marveled at the idols all over the church. I've read the bible about 5 times, but I still can't find the part where Jesus revoked the 2nd commandment about making graven images. Being brought up spartan German Lutheran, we were always secretly a bit jealous of the pomp and circumstance the Catholics got away with. They always had such cool robes and glittery sparkely objects. We were always so dour and boring.

So anyway, out walked the priest to light the candles. He was about 70 years old, but easily looked 90. He had some fancy automatic candle lighter, but couldn't get the candle to light. I took it upon myself to make a joke, I quiped, "All this modern technology can't even light a candle". The priest was not amused. In fact he shot me a glare which was clearly designed to whither me in my tracks. Humorless priest, hmmm.

So now it was time to begin. Unusually there was only one batism to perform, so it was just the family and friends standing around talking. Luckily for me the service wasn't going to be a full mass. The priest gently tried to get things going by snapping, "Can we get started?!" Everyone took their seats and Andy began filming the ceremony.

The priest began speaking, but I was sitting in the second row and couldn't understand what he was saying. I then realized he must be doing the Latin ceremony! I was proved wrong after a couple of minutes when I recognized a few English words. I still couldn't figure out what was being said or what was going on. Bobby later told me that he was following along in the book, and the priest was only reading about every third word. Later it became clear to me that there were three people who didn't want to be there that day, me, the baby, and the priest. After all it was Sunday, and there was football.

When the priest said "Emilie Kulesa", Maribeth interrupted, "That's Emilie Ilene Kulesa". Then a struggle for supremacy at the alter ensued that went something like this:

Priest: "It says Emilie Kulesa on the baptismal certificate".

Maribeth: "Well that's wrong. Her name is Emilie Ilene Kulesa".

Priest: "We'll use Emilie Kulesa"

Maribeth: "No, She's Emilie Ilene Kulesa, you need to change the certificate."

Priest: "O.K. I'll just white this out and insert Ilene"

Maribeth: "No, you'll retype up another certificate"

The priest relented and was making some sort of note.  After all a Christening is supposed to be naming the baby, the least he could do was get the name right.  Maribeth turned to look at somebody in the crowd, I assume her mother, and gave that kind of look of those who are amazed, angered, and confused all at the same time. The look said, "Can you believe this?"

After this Charlie must have made some sort of comment because Maribeth kicked him, right in front of everybody.  Granted, it was just a side kick, she smacked her ankle against his shin, but a kick is a kick in my book.  The priest paid no mind.

The priest quickly finished the service in record time with the crowd struggling to keep up with the "Hail's" and "Let it be done" at the right places. Everybody was still standing at the alter kind of wondering what to do next when Maribeth's mother, Ilene, stood up and announced he'd forgotten the thus and such ceremony.  The priest said he didn't know that one. Whereupon Ilene took him into the office off to the side of the alter with the whole party in tow (Exit stage left). Chris tried to keep the crowd entertained while we all wondered what was going on. Inside the room, Ilene found the liturgy book, opened it to the correct section, and pointed out to the priest extactly what she was talking about.

The crowd shuffled back onstage (Enter from stage left) in front of the alter, and the priest, with book in hand, began the thus and such ceremony. Ilene, back in her pew, then stood up and interrupted again, "Not at the alter. In front of the Mother Mary". There was a shrine to Mary to the right of the alter. So the crowd now shuffled down to the shrine (Exit stage right) and the priest, again in record time, conducted the thus and such ceremony. When he was finished the priest looked at Ilene to make sure there was nothing else.

No wonder they don't alow female Priests.

So everything was finished and people exited the church in a sort of semi-shock and headed over to the reception. Bobby and Ilene rode with my dad and I and we all marveled at what had occurred. Bobby said he had never seen anything which so lacked spirituality. "No wonder the Babtists are doing so well!"

My idea was to take the child out before sunrise to a small meadow in some woods, lay her on the dewey grass and stand in a circle chanting her name while 7 white timber wolves sat outside the circle and howled a welcome to the sunrise. But my idea was considered far fetched.

Ilene proceded to tell us a story about how when she was pregnant with Maribeth in 1961(?), she was in church back in Smithfield (which is only a few miles from New York City)with her one year old Andy and a priest was giving a sermon. The sermon was about the starving children in Africa. He was very passionate about this and Andy clued into his emotion. Everytime this priest mentioned the starving children in Africa, Andy would let out a moan, "Ohhhhhh".

"The starving children in Africa!"

"Ohhhhhh!"

This happened a few times and the Priest was quite perturbed. Finally he halted his sermon and spake thus,"Will you please remove that child from the church? He's causing a disturbance!"

Ilene being the good obedient Catholic, akwardly (being great with child) grabbed Andy, waddled to the front of the church, genuflected, and exited. I forget, but I think it was really hot and humid that day just to add to her discomfort.

Well after the service the parishiners were outraged. They told the Bishop, "How dare he treat that poor pregnant woman like that!" The priest was never to conduct services there again. From that day forward he was banished to a church way out on the end of Long Island in Riverhead; never to be seen again until 34 years later when he would seek his revenge at the Christening of the family who had forced his exile, oh, so long ago.

The Golden Temple

This is just to check in your shoes

Mandatory foot bath

First glimpse of the Golden Temple

Baddest dude in India

Guards relaxing and chatting between skewering unruly tourists

People bathing

Download this one and zoom in on the artwork

Everybody eats for free

But it takes a lot of volunteers to feed them all

Baba Deep Singh Ji

Sikh Pope's House

Entrance to the temple. Download and zoom in to see the detail. Look how thick the gold is.

One last look

We arrived at Amritsar, parked, and the four of us piled into a couple of rickshaws and took off for the Golden Temple.

Once there I realized this place was far larger than I expected. So many people visit that they have a special place across the street to check your shoes. Also again we had to cover our heads so I had to buy a special gold scarf that says ‘Golden Temple’ on it. Somehow I didn’t feel very holy.

At the entrance you literally have to walk through water in order to clean your feet and properly respect the Temple. That’s pretty cool, as long as they keep refreshing the water.

We entered the Gurdwara and this vast square pond surrounded by large walls opened before us. It’s about a square mile in size and surrounded by high walled buildings. On one side is an isthmus which juts out onto an island in the center of the pond. On this island sits a temple covered inside and out in gold. This is the Golden Temple proper, the Harmandir Sahib. Now it’s not built OF gold, it’s gold sheeting, about three tons worth. Three freaking tons. And it’s not like the cute gold leaf you get in most churches, it’s more like an eighth of an inch thick. I’ve never heard of a Sikh taking a vow of poverty.

Right after us walked in a small, fierce, badass looking dude in a very fancy getup with a beautiful black hat and a sword about one third his size. He wasn’t big by any means, but his countenance was quite severe, this mofo was not to be trifled with. Rajeev told me he was from a special warrior clan of the Sikhs and dressed traditionally. I asked Rajeev if I could take the guy’s picture or would he get mad and run me through with that sword. After all, when you’re in someobody else’s holy place you’d best confirm before discovering you’ve made a faux paux that could cost you your life. “Another stupid tourist took a picture of a Sikh warrior, toss his body with all the other infidels on the other side of the wall”. I doubt I’d even make the news.

Rajeev said it was okay to take his picture, but I still kind of pretended I was just taking a bunch of pictures around the temple and only got one of the warrior. While he wasn’t very big, I’d still pick him in a fight with a Crip anyday.

Most of what Americans know about the Golden Temple is that this is the central place of Sikh worship. Okay most Americans don’t know jack about the Golden Temple, but a few are old enough to remember a religious zealot named Bhindranwale had taken over the Gurdwara in 1984 and hundreds of people were there. India’s Prime Minister, Indira Ghandi, had sent in the army to root him out, killed a few hundred people, and destroyed some buildings, including the Akal Takhat, the seat of government/religion for the Sikhs and home to what I incorrectly call their Pope (I can’t find his proper title). The Golden Temple itself sustained some damage from gunfire but was not destroyed.

What’s really amazing is that I can find no reliable sources of information about what really happened or how extensive the damage was. I ask again and again why it happened and I receive vague answers about how ‘complicated’ and ‘political’ it was, this from both Sikhs and Hindus. It would take hours to explain the politics involved they tell me.

The nearest I can make out is that Bhindranwale was a Sikh fundamentalist who would preach/hassle/attack (again depending on your point of view) against those who did not live up to the purity he wanted from Sikhs. He was definitely used by Indira Ghandi to strike at another troublesome Sikh group at one point and was implicated in a murder. The Sikh’s tell me he became a megalomaniac and decided to challenge Ghandi in the Golden Temple. He never openly declared for an independent Khalistan (Sikh homeland of the Punjab), he was probably too smart for that, but the implication was there. Indira Ghandi felt she couldn’t allow this and ordered the military operation.

But so many questions remain. Why in the world would she do something so obviously fraught with peril? Her own Sikh military commander resigned rather than approve the military action against the temple. Did Bhindranwale take pilgrims hostage or were they supporters? I can find no mention of hostages, even the government didn’t claim there were hostages, so they must have been supporters. Why did the Sikh Pope in the Gurdwara allow Bhindranwale to set up shop there? The Sikh Pope (I can’t find his name anywhere) has no problems with weapons in the complex as separating Sikhism and weapons is like separating Christianity and the Cross, but what was the ultimate goal?

To make matters worse, while there is a free press in India, I’m told there are 27,000 daily papers, they all are just different versions of Fox News, spreading lies and disinformation rather than rooting out facts and truth. It’s obvious the Indian government is hiding something and just wants the issue to go away. But the Sikhs have created their own campaign to downplay Bhidranwale’s fanaticism. I have a well educated Sikh friend who told me that Bhidranwale wanted to restore respect for the Golden Temple because people were leaving cigarette butts and trash in the pond. Automatic weapons are needed to fight cigarette butts.

I’ve only been to two Sikh Gurdwaras now, but I can say without hesitation that they were very clean. Gopi says all the Sikh gurdwaras are spotless, the Hindu temples are dirty. Considering he’s a Hindu that says something about what to expect. I can’t imagine anybody smoking in the Golden Temple or anybody leaving any trash around. I didn’t so much as see a candy wrapper in the pond. But then again, maybe Bhindranwale’s made his point.

This proved to be a huge miscalculation for Ghandi and it cost her her life when her two Sikh bodyguards assassinated her a few months later. The Sikhs smile proudly when they tell me that the Golden Temple has only been attacked three times in history and all three leaders who ordered the attacks were killed within six months.

While I don’t see any sign of Sikh’s seeking independence, whenever a discussion of the Golden Temple comes up, no matter how non-existent their English, the Sikhs make sure I understand their repulsion to the attack on their sacred shrine.

We ate at the Gurdwara first before going to the Golden Temple. At least 1500 people were being fed there. A sign hangs at the entranceway that I find to be very spirtitual. Remember this is a translation, I’m told the original language is very poetic.

The Lord himself is the farm
Himself is the farmer
Himself he grows and grinds the corn
Himself he cooks
Himself he places in on a platter
And Himself he eats too
Himself is the water
Himself the toothpick
Himself he offers a handful of water
Himself he calls the men to eat
Himself he bids them off
The Lord is merciful
He makes him walk in his will

This was eating on an industrial scale without industrial machines. Just hundreds of people pitching in. Tons of food being cooked, handed out, and platters being cleaned. All for free of course. It was a chaotic well oiled machine.

We walked around the Gurdwara and came to a place showing the story of a Sikh warrior named Baba Deep Singh Ji who had been fighting off enemies outside the Gurdwara. In the fighting his head was cut off but he held his head in one hand while continuing to fight with the other. He was determined to fight his way inside the Gurdwara before he died and he succeeded.

Rajeev looked at me, “This is possible you know”.

That’s nothing, the Christians popped a guy out of his grave after three days.

Up in the visitor’s center was more information about the Sikh Gurus, there were ten of them, and paintings of damage done to the Golden Temple. Hmmm, I bet the Indian government didn’t allow any pictures taken of the damage. In today’s YouTube world, that is now an impossibility.

But also, as befits a warrior religion, there are a dozens of large macabre photos of Sikh’s who have been killed in defense of their religion. The corpses are all cleaned and dressed with garlands around their necks, most I believe are from the 1984 battle. They died as holy warriors.

We got in line to get to the Golden Temple and it was packed. Indian’s believe that unless you can feel their nipples in your shoulder blades there’s too much space between you. What I didn’t find out until later is that most of the people were not Sikh pilgrims, most were Hindu tourists.

The Golden Temple is exactly what it looks like except up close the gold is all beautifully inscribed. Can you imagine being the guy writing in this gold? The gold is in sheets about three feet across. Odd corners and rounded edges are all covered with writing, every inch. St. Peter’s has some fantastic stuff, but nothing like this. Benedict should make a visit.

Inside, the Sikh’s holy book, called the Eleventh Guru, lies under a beautiful blue blanket while a bunch of guys play instruments and read from their scriptures. I’m told this is broadcast on the internet, but I couldn’t find it. People were throwing money on the floor, something about all that gold makes you feel rich and like giving more.

Upstairs there is another smaller room where people, Hindu, Sikh, and even some Western tourists, sit and soak up the atmosphere. All poshly laid out with brightly colored rugs and pillows. Up on the roof you can look out over the whole Gurdwara and touch the golden plastered domes.

“How about that!” Gopi stroked one of the gold domes. There’s something about touching gold to make you think that prosperity will rub off on you. He motioned with his hand at all the gold and the fantastic view of the entire Gurdwara, “Pretty impressive isn’t it?”

I looked out and had to agree, this was dang impressive, and worth a trip to India.

Luck of the Irish

Guinness Workers Housing



“Will you marry me?” I asked.

I was at the Dublin airport and trying to find the bus to the hotel. There to assist me was an Irish angel. Flame red hair, striking green eyes, alabaster skin, and rosy cheeks. A perfect model of Irish beauty topped off by a lilting Irish accent that just melted my heart.

The girl giggled, even her giggle had a lilt to it.

I shook my head, “No, no, I’m serious. I do this all the time.”

For some reason she laughed even harder.

Ireland, the home country, where one third of Americans originated. Jeez, I lived in England, you’d think I could have taken a weekend trip or something. But somehow I never got around to it. I regret it now, not because Dublin is great and I’ve missed something special all these years, it’s not, I think ‘Dublin’ is the ancient Celtic word for ‘boring’. It’s just that it is obvious the place has transformed like a, well, transformer. All the buildings here are either 100+ years old or 10- years old, without a never-you-mind in between to link them together. I missed seeing history before modernity altered it permanently.

New buildings and old warehouses. Bank building stopped mid construction.


Don’t get me wrong, the new buildings are sharp and sleek, but they sit all around these older buildings. I’m not sure Frank Lloyd Wright could make it all fit together, but it certainly doesn’t work here. And not to mention that due to the Great Recession, many of these buildings, like the one across from my hotel, lie empty, begging for occupants like forgotten ghosts of better days gone past.

I took the city tour bus and ended up at one of my lifelong goals, the Guinness Storehouse. This was their factory for over 200 years and now they’ve revamped it for tours. As it turns out making beer is very boring, when you have to throw in ‘water’ as one of your four ingredients you hype it shows you’re grasping. Yes, yes, yes, I know, it’s special water from some local hills they call mountains.




Still, they managed to make a nice presentation. My favorite part was the advertising. I also found out that John Gilroy (I used to live in Gilroy, CA) was the guy who did all their advertising drawings years ago. You gotta hand it I to them, they learned from their American cousins, the gift shop you have to pass by twice, once on your way in, and once on your way out. I mean, how can anyone turn down Guinness spiked chocolate truffles?



Of course there’s the free pint at the end of the tour, but to top it off it’s served on the seventh floor in a round glass room with a 360 degree view of Dublin. The view is amazing and absolutly beauti…no, strike that, I mean the view is boring and absolutely dreary. Dublin was an industrial city until Ireland’s tax laws turned it into a tax mecca and businesses started rolling in. But it still has that industrial feel. If Dublin has a sister city it’s probably Hamburg or Cleveland. I’m told they asked Rio de Janeiro for sister city status and were informed they should try Lima.



Aaaak! They serve Budweiser at the Guinness plant!

There’s no skyline to speak of. A few nameless boring churches dot the horizon, but who cares really, it’s not like anything interesting ever happened here except for the continuous failed bloody uprisings. Why were the Irish so desperate for the English to leave? If they were smart they would have proposed a trade.

“Listen, you take Ireland, and we’ll go to one of those lovely Caribbean islands you have. Sure, we’ll still be English slaves, but we promise not to revolt. Why? Because at least it’ll be sunny and warm.”

The major attraction is the Dublin literary pub crawl where you can go to the same pubs that famous depressed Irish writers frequented. It dawned on me that I’ve never read any of these guys, I guess it’s because they remind me of the Russian writers, long winded and miserable.

Many years ago the IRA blew up a column to Nelson on their Main St. because it was put up by the British. During the boom Dublin decided to substitute a new monument, something to recognize the city by, something they could be proud of, something that would put them on the map, like the Eiffel Tower, or Corcovado. They had over two hundred entries. They chose ‘The Spire’ a non-descript 394 foot needle of steel. You don’t even notice it, and when you do you wonder, ‘WTF?’ At first I thought the thing was peeling at the base until I looked closely and realized it was done on purpose as ‘art’. Makes you wonder how bad the other entries were.

I saw a sign that showed a guy with a cell phone in his raised hand, head thrown back in victory. The caption read, “Finally, mobile betting”. Yes, Ireland finally has a use for all that technology Steve Jobs invented.

Last remnants of the old city wall


There are so many white people here it’s beginning to creep me out. And they all look the same to me. Even the cleaning ladies in the hotel are white and don’t speak a word of Spanish, I can’t communicate with them, maybe they’re Russian. Actually Dublin does have a large immigrant population, including Chinese and Africans. You gotta be really desperate to leave your country for Ireland, I guess nobody told them the Irish were Emmigrants, not Immigrants.

I have zero problem understanding people here, unlike England, where the English murder the language. It must be because so many Irish came to America. Or perhaps it was all those old movies with the Irish cops so I got used to the accent.

Actually I do have a problem understanding some people, there are a lot of people from other countries working here. I always pride myself on understanding people’s accents. If someone comes up to me and asks, “Zaaa Dwaaa”, I know to point them in the direction of Safeway. But it turns out that accents are three dimensional. I understand German, Russian, and Spanish accents, but now I have to understand German-Irish, Russian-Irish, and Spanish-Irish accents. And just think about Chinese-Irish!

It looks like they’re trying to revive the Celtic language. All signs seem to be in both English and Celtic. Good luck with that one, millions of Chinese are trying to learn English and you want to get everyone off English and back to your native language? If you want to spite the English why don’t you start driving on the right side of the road?

Cheers!

Kumar and the Cops

My friend, I’ll call him Kumar, his real name since he won’t deny it, has experience with both Indian and American cops. While reading this, remember that Kumar is one of the quietest geekiest Indians you’ll ever meet. Even among the quiet and geeky high-tech Indian set he stands out, or should I say, is unnoticed.

This is too bad, he often could warn me of trouble months in advance, but because he was a geek, nobody else listened. But I did, I always listened to Kumar.

One day at work he came into my office to discuss something, for some reason we got on the subject of police and he related this story.

Kumar’s friend Srini was moving from the East coast to the West coast back in the mid-nineties and asked Kumar to come with him. He’d rented a truck and was hauling his car on a car dolly behind the truck. They didn’t want to stop at a hotel so they were driving all night through Tennessee when Srini stopped at an all night gas station in the middle of nowhere. Not thinking clearly he pulled into a parking space, how was he going to back out with the dolly behind him?

They went inside and the service station lady was a bit taken aback. White and black men she was familiar with, but being all alone with brown men made her nervous at 2 A.M.

“Do you boys need any help?” she asked.

“Yes”, they replied. They didn’t know how they were going to get the truck out.

So she called the police. Seems like a reasonable response to two lost Indians in Tennessee.

A standard issue good ‘ol boy cop comes out and instead of saying, “Um, no crime has been committed here, perhaps I should be on my way”, decides he’s going to instruct these foreigners on how to handle trucks and cars. He has them back out a little bit, but of course that didn’t work. I think somehow the car was backed up a bit off the car dolly as well. But the point is that they unhooked the trailer as much as possible, but the car dolly was still caught on the ball of the trailer hitch because of the way they’d backed out earlier.

The cop stepped up to the junction of the T-bar and trailer hitch and tells Srini to move the truck forward. Kumar and Srini start talking in Tamil now.

“I don’t think you should do that with him there”, Kumar says.

“What can I do? He’s a police officer”, Srini answers.

Indians are terrible about questioning authority. That’s why it took them one hundred years to get their independence, they kept asking the British to leave nicely. If a cop or manager tells you to do the impossible, an Indian will keep trying, or pretending to try, but will never say, ‘You idiot, can’t you see this will never work?’

Sure enough Srini moves forward a bit, the tension is released, the hitch comes lose with a pop, and the T-bar flies up and hits the cop square under the jaw and sends him flying 20 feet.

“What did you do?” I asked Kumar in horror.

Kumar answered, “I thought the cop was dead. I looked at Srini in the side view mirror and his eyes were as wide as saucers.”

A brown man had just killed a white cop in Tennessee. He would be lucky if they read him his rights before the execution.

Then the cop moaned a little. Kumar went over to him and knelt down. The cop motioned for Kumar to hand him the electronic number pad strapped to his shoulder. Kumar did so and the cop slowly punched in a few numbers.

“And then within one minute all I could hear, from all directions, were sirens” Kumar said amazedly. The ‘Officer Down’ code gets other cops attention.

The police arrived to find a brown man kneeling over a wounded cop. They didn’t exactly draw their guns but they did have their hands on the holsters and were quite edgy in asking Kumar to back away.

They took the cop to the hospital, got their story, and held Kumar and Srini at the gas station for twelve hours until the cop was conscious enough to give a statement and verify their story. The cop must have been pretty embarrassed.

Then Kumar starts telling me another story, about how back in India he was riding a motorcycle without a license or registration. He entered an intersection where a cop was directing traffic and the cop sees him and knows he’s got Kumar dead to rights. He puts his hand out for Kumar to stop.

Kumar is torn between stopping and running away, so he chooses a middle ground and lays the bike down while skimming along on the ground with his jeans absorbing what could have been a nasty road rash.

The bike spins around and around and bowls the cop down. Before the cop can recover, Kumar gets up, hops on the motorcycle and rides away.

I looked at him severely holding up two fingers to make my point, “Wait a minute!”, my voice was raised, “Am I to understand you took down two cops in your life?!”

Geeky little Kumar’s smile said it all.

How to Bribe an Indian Cop

We bribed a cop today.

Wait a minute, just let that sink in a bit.

We…bribed…a…cop...today.

As a former Federal Officer I’m horrified. As a tourist in India it’s a charming peek into a different culture.

I won’t say who or where in order to protect the guilty, but here’s how it went down.

In India the cops just sit by the side of the road with a couple of small portable metal fences on wheels to kind of denote a traffic stop. They don’t pull everyone over however, only when they notice something wrong would they pull someone over.

Our infraction was that there was a problem with our license plate. It was a brand new car with a temporary plastic front plate. Someone had tried to steal the plate and instead had broken off the first two letters of it. These letters are merely the State designation, think of it as if all California plates started with CA.

We had realized this was a problem, but there was really nothing we could do about it, it was a temporary plate. We’d have metal permanent plates in a few days anyway. It wasn’t like they could issue us a temporary temporary plate. In the mean time we’d fashioned a temporary solution, a large paper sign in the front of the plate with the missing two first letters. This is India after all, you improvise.

So seeing the menace to society we were, as we rounded a corner the cop motions us to pull over. Now I don’t know what happens if you run from cops in India, but it seemed that it would take them an awfully long time to get in their car and chase you. They kind of reminded me of the old fat county cops we had in Maryland who were too lazy to get out of their car, if you run away on foot, they’d just give up the chase. Not that I had experience with that or anything.

Our cop, I’m told, was very nice about our situation, normally they can be absolute dicks, but there is the possibility that a Westerner sitting in the front seat may have had something to do with their demeanor. He asked for a license, which it turned out we did not have on us, and the registration which was just a temporary.

This left the cop in a quandary. In the U.S. the cop would normally issue a fix-it ticket for the license plate, a ticket for the missing driver’s license, and make somebody else drive you home. But this is India, there’s no really good way of tracking things. The cop has only a few things he can do, he can seize your driver’s license, which we didn’t have, seize your registration, which is temporary anyway we’ll get a permanent one in a few days, or seize the car, which is a whole lot of hassle. And God knows Indian cops don’t want a whole lot of hassle, they want to do the hassling, not be a participant.

So the cop asked the driver what he thought the solution might be. The driver answered that perhaps a ‘spot fine’ would do. Spot fines used to be common in India, you’d pay the cop your fine and go on about your business. But as you can imagine this left a lot of room for bribery, the world’s second oldest profession. Thus they did away with spot fines. But tradition is hard to give up.

I’ve never been able to bribe anybody. It’s a grave weakness of mine. I have a hard time tipping the valet, it seems like I’m paying him not to harm my car. I only tipped a maitre d’ once in my life in Las Vegas to get a better seat, and I still feel slimy for doing it. I understand that concierge’s get big tips, I’d love to use one sometime, but I wouldn’t know how much to tip them, therefore I just do everything myself.

My friend told me about going to the Indian Consulate in San Francisco to pick up a visa but she arrived five minutes after closing. Sorry.

Oh wait, she slipped the guard five dollars and was let in. Five dollars? Five dollars?! That’s it? The guy risked his livelihood, his future, possibly even jail time, for five dollars? This is a Consulate guard? If she could bribe him for $5, what will he be willing to do for $100? That’s why bribery is so heinous.

Graft and bribery, the scourge of the Earth. I’ve given a lot of thought lately as to what constitutes an ‘advanced’ country, and rule of law is at the top of my list. Yes, China has a booming economy, but the ones making a killing are the well connected and best at bribery. The rest of the country is subjected to their whims, destroyed thousand year old neighborhoods, destroyed food, destroyed water supplies, and destroyed air. Go live there for a few days and decide whether you really want your job back that was shipped over there if it means living like that.

Yes, we have our graft and corruption in the U.S., one need look no farther than Wall Street and Washington. But those guys really don’t like it at the local cop level and tend to enforce those laws a bit more stringently. If everybody in America started doing it, it wouldn’t be nearly as profitable for the guys on top.

One of the main reasons for ending Prohibition was graft. So many people wanted to drink alcohol that everybody was in on it, from cops, to politicians, to judges, the bootleggers were greasing so many palms the rule of law began to sag.

It’s also interesting that Prohibition is the only amendment added to the Constitution of the United States that restricted our rights, and look at what a flop that was. And now it seems all of the Amendments proposed from abortion, to government guided prayer in schools, to flag burning are all restrictive of rights. You never see any of our representatives proposing amendments demanding more rights to privacy from an intrusive government and corporations.

Oh, I’m sorry, I forgot, the Supreme Court did grant a new right, free speech for corporations, our new American citizens. According to Conservatives their philosophy is original intent, after 225 years we should divine the original intent of our Founding Fathers. The Roberts Court decided that this is was what the Founding Fathers fought and died for, the ability of massive corporations to give unlimited amounts of money to back politicians.

There’s only one problem with this ‘original intent’ philosophy, our Founding Fathers banned corporations. They were only allowed under strictly limited circumstances of time and scope. Why? Because they knew that corporations would become so large and powerful that they would threaten the freedom of Americans. And guess what, they were right.

The driver pointed out to the cop the predicament we were in, we’d done our best, fashioning a sign that clearly displayed the missing letters.

Ah yes, but the problem is the letters are too large. They were about a centimeter larger than the actual license plate letters.

It’s not like we had created the letters smaller than the license plate in order to try and hide ourselves from the hawk-like eyes of the police, they were bigger, and quite clear.

This sort of flouting of the sacrosanct laws of India would not stand. Who knows what manner of ill repute would spread if this infringement of the norms and mores of Indian society were allowed too stand. Chaos may ensue. Chaos!

Then again, who’s going to notice adding more chaos to the infinite chaos of India?

I wondered how close we had to be to the proper size of the lettering, for the cop to let us go? A half centimeter larger? A millimeter? A micron? Would the Lord Viceroy pull out his trusty caliper and measure this license plate to perfection to ensure the safety of all of those entrusted in his care?

In the mean time a family of five on a motorbike, the mother sitting side saddle, with her baby in her lap, passed us by. The police didn’t notice.

In the end the spot fine was…drum roll please….100 Rupes, two dollars.

Have a nice day Mr. petty, useless, pathetic, scum sucking, low life, plague on mankind, Policeman. Don’t spend it all in one place.