The Politics of Fear

I am writing with Grover playing in the background. Needed some calming tunes after watching a Fox News Special (“Radical Islam: Terror In Its Own Words”) earlier. The right wing blogs and sites had been salivating all last week as they waited in anticipation for the programme to air last night and again today. As I expected (it is Fox after all), a load of sensationalist diatribe and propaganda aimed at demonising the “other”, keeping the populace in a constant state of fear and justifying foreign policy. I would write a long article dissecting and destroying each argument in the programme but I don’t think my employers would be very happy. Diplomatic life is very restrictive when it comes to voicing personal opinions on issues like this.

Food has always been an interest of mine, whether it’s eating, cooking or talking about it and while I definitely will not be going back to my days of gluttony, my obsession with food will always be ever present. I like watching cooking shows and have spent lots of my time home watching a number of them. Besides having to suffer as chefs prepare mouth watering dishes, I have been picking up many useful tips. For example, using the twigs of rosemary with the leaves still attached at the top as a skewer when grilling fish. This imparts the flavours right into the pieces of fish.

I came across this December feature on the BBC website. It is an interview of a Barbadian called Laurie Daniels, one of the thousands of West Indians recruited in the 1950s by the British to work on their buses and trains. It’s presented as an audio slideshow. Check it out: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/6164665.stm

While you are doing that, also check this: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/6310685.stm It’s an audio slideshow about the Festival in the Desert which is held every year in Essakane, Mali. I actually saw the link to the interview of the Bajan transport worker while I was watching the feature on the Desert Festival.

Lazy Weekend

I went to sleep around 4:30 am on Saturday morning- I was up watching tv, talking on the phone and then online mostly reading. The sort of material one can be labelled a dissenter for merely glancing at :) McCarthyism is alive and well.

I ended up waking up around 2:30 pm because I went to sleep so late. A friend came and visited me and was kind enough to take out my garbage, put away some clothes and go to the shop to pick up a few items. Obviously a female can’t stop there, so she proceeded to clean my kitchen (which was not dirty!) and tidy up the rest of the place. Compared to most men I am quite good when it comes to tidiness, keeping a place clean etc (comes from having four older sisters) but obviously the standards are never high enough for the female species!

I went to sleep around 5 am this morning (Sunday) and woke up around 2:30 again, had lunch, watched a bit of tv and talked on the phone. That has been my day. I think I have watched more tv in the last few days that I have done in the last year. I have mostly been watching National Geographic, Discovery, Travel Channel, Food Network, Thirteen etc. but also some sprinklings of other stuff.

West Indies finally won a game on their short tour of India. If I was a betting man, I would put my money on them losing the final one-day. I mean it’s too much to expect them to go into the World Cup on a winning streak. Not to mention, their losing record over the last seven or eight games is more realistic and in keeping with the last ten years of heartache they have caused us. Serena won the Australian Open- take that all of you who wrote her off- so sports wise it was an ok weekend. It would have been much better if Pakistan had beaten South Africa, but then what can you expect from the most inconsistent team in world cricket after the West Indies.