Benazir Bhutto

The commentary about Benazir's assassination has been mainly about what a dangerous place Pakistan is. That is true. But all that geopolitical risk is obscuring is the poignancy of Benazir's life...the intense, shy, awkward, intellectual, ambitious young woman...wounded and humiliated by the hanging of the father she hero worshipped...who chose to marry to a hard-drinking, extravagantly mustachioed polo player, who swears like a wounded pirate and is nicknamed Mr. Five Percent the size of the bribes he routinely took...the big pile of Mills and Boon novels at her bedside...the pristine white head scarf and the scarlet lipstick...her uneasy truce with the mullahs who murdered her father...her cynical betrayal of the peace process with India...her heartfelt tears at the grave of her brother, a brother she once was close to, whose murder she had allegedly commissioned...her returning to Pakistan even when she could see in Musharraf's eye the shadow of Zia-ul-Haq, the man who murdered her father...

The British still take pride in the dramatic lives of Queen Elizabeth I and Mary Queen of Scots. The subcontinent still has royalty whose lives are similarly dramatic.

My wife spotted this great piece in the Asian Age.

http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/12/28/opinion/edyusef.php

House Prices

Enjoyed Robert Samuelson's take on housing in America.

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2008/01/can_we_cure_our_house_lust.html

Run, Fat Boy, Run

The ideal in-flight film for a guy running his first marathon. Watch the trailer here.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lTrfuX1Pb-k

The Strange Rise of Modern India

I have rapidly gone from being delighted with this book - because this is a non-Indian writer who clearly gets India like it is - to being bored stiff - because it is telling me nothing that I don't already know. I'm not going to bother ploughing through the rest of the book. But it probably is a nice introduction to modern India for someone who isn't already immersed in the culture.

I sympathize with Dubya

CIA Asks Bush To Discontinue Blog

WASHINGTON, DC-In the interest of national security, President Bush has been asked to stop posting entries on his personal web log.

Tom and Jerry

Having successfully avoided Tom and Jerry through my childhood, I'm now consuming it at a rate that feels like 90 minutes per day. My impressions:

- The music is superb, and under-appreciated

- I'm surprised that my children enjoy this. They generally dislike violence on TV...even in Disney films. The probably get that the violence here is stylized

- I'm surprised the violence, stylized or otherwise, hasn't worried the censors or the morality police

- I find it a lot easier to identify with the predator (Tom) than the prey. That might be part of the reason I don't enjoy the violence

Attack of the Thermo-Nuclear Mosquitoes

Marathon training is really not happening here in Madras. I started off training outdoors. The heat and humidity sound manageable: 22C and 88% humidity. Just did not work out. I was dripping sweat, struggling to concentrate and was ready to drop after just 2 miles.

Have given up on road running for now. Did 5 comfortable and satisfying miles on the treadmill in an air-conditioned gym this morning.

The first unexpected hazard is the mosquitoes. They hang in the air in swarms thick enough to be opaque. They are able to bite even under my t-shirt.

The more interesting unexpected hazard is the culture. Road running is so counter-cultural in Madras, I almost expect the scrawny urchins loitering around on the pavements to break out into hoots or whistles as I pass. I was running in the Boat Club area partly because the roads are clean enough for a run to be possible, but also because it is an unambiguously posh area. Urchins just seem less likely to hoot at rich people in posh surroundings. The only other people running on the Boat Club roads were white. It's weird being a foreigner in my home town.