Hello everyone. I took off for a few weeks. You see I’ve been a busy person lately. Don’t ask me what, just sweet nothings of everyday. Plus nothing much has been happening, and my creative side has taken a walk, so I didn’t really know what to blog about. However, every now and then I make small observations as I watch TV or see someone, that makes me think – “I should blog about that”.
My husband has suddenly gotten this intense interest in the news. For one, who was only too happy to catch his news online, and just switch to a movie if I had the channel set on CNN, he has for the past week or so, been happily channel hopping between CNN and MSNBC, watching all the reactions to the bailout deal fail in Congress, the outcome of the first presidential debate, and the very entertaining gaffes by Gov. Sarah Palin. So all of these things made we want to say a few things.
I watched the bail-out deal unfold and felt for the first time, how american politicians were so similar to our own in India. They didn’t have the Bihari accent, spoke good english and weren’t dressed in dhothis and topis, but when a group of them came up to speak, it was so evident everyone there wanted to somehow be visible in that newscast. They would come out with sometimes as little informtion as “We are still working on it and hoping we will reach a deal”, but every time all 4 or 5 of them would have to add their own prefix and suffix to that same piece of news and get a few seconds of the mic for that. I also felt like there were a bunch of phrases that everyone in the media, congress and senate started using like “main street and wall street”, “golden parachute”. I wonder who actually came up with these and how they became the defacto terminology for what they described.
Then, the debate between Obama and McCain. I was reminded of the debates I had participated in when I was in school. How our team would prepare speeches, and learn them by heart, how we tried to add sarcasm and humor, how we tried hard to make a point, how we sat there with pen in hand, to jot down every small mistake the other team made, as we mentally prepared a fierce rebuttal. Of course, the difference is we were not really arguing each other’s personal record there, but arguing about such paltry things as “Beauty Contests – Boon or Bane” and “Honesty is but a seven letter word”. However, it was sad to note that the McCain Obama debate was void of sarcasm, humor and anything that was vaguely intersting. It was so boring, that even though I had been making a mental note every evening that I should watch it on Friday evening from a week before, about half way through I decided to go ahead and start making dinner anyway.
And then.. there was Sarah Palin. Haha.. huhu.. hehe.. She made up for all of the lack of humor in the other debate. Apparently she used to be a model of some kind and won a beauty contest in her younger years, but I really didn’t think she would continue to answer all interview questions in the same way one tries to answer questions at a beauty contest. I had a colleague who was an excellent salesperson, and her advice to me when she took me along as a presales person for her sales meeting was this – “Stay in the gray, don’t commit anything”. I used to call her “Queen of Gray” after meetings where she clearly deflected many risky questions without making them feel she had deflected it. I would have to say Sarah Palin is the “queen mother of Gray”, except everyone can see right through her. I am sure all of you have seen all of those interviews she did, and how pathetic she was. I think finally here is a person who can be in the vicinity of the white house and be worse than George W Bush.
Ok ok.. everyone is thinking.. where in the world did NRI maami disappear. I will be right back next week with my round up of my Navarathri Kolu. I am expecting close to 45 people all in a day, so I am going to take a while to regain strength after that.
Be right back.. Ciao.
NRI Maami 