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April 24, 2006

Two wars

Today's NYT article Young Officers Join the Debate Over Rumsfeld ties together two key thoughts: despite the overwhelming amount of money we spend on defense, there’s only so much money to go around, and there are two fundamental views on how a war can be fought – smart bombs and boots on the ground.

Here’s the central idea:

[There are] "two visions of warfare — one that envisions near-perfect situational awareness and technology dominance, and the other that sees future war as grubby, dirty and chaotic," the major said [unidentified]. "These visions require vastly different forces. The tension comes when we only have the money to build one of these forces. Who gets the cash?"

When you couple the idea that you can make war efficient through technology based weapons, and the Bush administrations’ “faith based” intelligence gathering, war planning and execution, you get the disaster we call Iraq, with all the collateral damage to our military, economy and national prestige. (PS: If you have any question about the Bush administration’s lying and cover-up in their march to war, check out this.).

I don’t know if technology-based weapons make sense in the future, given the third-world adversaries we face. My feeling is we need an army of solders who are also trained social workers (check you local police recruiter for details). But my motto right now is "smart bombs make dumb wars".

At this point it’s no longer a question of deciding that Emperor Bush has no cloths – my central question in 2008 will be who can put our military and economy back together after 8 years of incompetent, crony based leadership. The good news is that there are intelligent, thoughtful young (and old) leaders out there. I’ve met a few – there is hope.

Posted by pgutwin at 12:06 AM | Comments (0)

April 20, 2006

Barefoot in Bangalore

I wasn’t really worried about my health while traveling to India, that was until I talked with the folks at the travel clinic at the hospital. I guess I was sort of expecting some sort of recommended inoculations, but when she said “and take this if you get dysentery” I started to worry. I’ve traveled a lot, and having dysentery bad enough to take something has never even crossed my mind. Perhaps I’m just naive.

I’m pretty relaxed about “germs” (generic term for all things bad that might attack the body), but having to remember to take Malarone every day to ward off malaria, and having my backup dose of stuff (can’t remember what) for dysentery, I have a lightened sense of awareness.

I had a small adventure Wednesday evening – Nandeesh from the office suggested I go to a famous temple in Bangalore after we got done with work. What I was expecting was to walk around the temple – I thought it would be similar to a cathedral. It wasn’t.

Krishna Temple Bangalore Mind you, I’ve always been slightly uncomfortable about touring religious landmarks. These things are sacred for someone – it seems irreverent to gawk at something others believe are holy. So it was only after being urged by several people from Bangalore to see this particular temple that I decided to go to the Sri Sri Radha Krishna Chandra temple.

There were a couple of key, interlocking facts that made this a very notable experience: First, there’s only one way through the temple, and it’s the way of the faithful, i.e. one is compelled to participate in the worship. Second, all worshipers (and tourists) can only enter the temple barefoot.

The temple is constructed primarily out of marble blocks, and is quite impressive both in size and construction. The tour first began by processing through the area in front of, and then up a set of steps chanting “Hare Krishna Hare Krishna …”. The procession area was marked by square marble steps, raised up from the floor by 2 inches. The entire chant of 8 lines was recited on each step, and then one proceeded forward. The voice of a priest chanting was heard, and there were signs everywhere admonishing the worshipers to cant audibly so others around could hear.

Following that, the tour/worship service led through a series of gradually larger shrines, culminating in a very large hall containing a number of icons. (NB: These were fantastic pieces of art - I was very impressed.) There were so many worshipers (included me at this point) that we were all pressed together – no personal space here. It’s difficult to describe the sensation – chanting walking up the steps, then pressed together with others as we walked (more like oozed) through the temple.

I'll be honest – I was pretty baffled by the whole thing, and even now, doing a little research on Hindu worship, I’m not sure of the significance of what I saw.

At the end of the tour, there was a smaller area where you could purchase treats (baked goods and candy). Following that, there was a pretty large hall (I think it was underneath the large hall containing all the shrines) where one could purchase religious schwag. Neither of these last two areas seemed particularly sacred – it actually seemed pretty mercantile.

While the whole thing was very interested and I enjoyed it immensely, it did cross my mind that I was wandering around barefoot in this area where people were munching on their sweet treats. The flow was sticky. And then finally I had to walk through the parking lot outside to find my car.

Posted by pgutwin at 9:47 PM | Comments (0)

April 18, 2006

Update from Bangalore

Work has been (in a word) extremely busy, and despite good intentions, I’ve been too exhausted at the end of the day to get out and about, but here are some general observations:


I should have some more time to tour on Thursday afternoon – perhaps I can be more specific then.

Posted by pgutwin at 11:28 PM | Comments (0)

April 16, 2006

Around Town

My intention today was to take a “snapshot” of Bangalor (my only really “free” day), and while I did get a wonderful sense of life here, the things that really make this place – the smells and sounds, the people’s smiles, and the odd frustrations don’t show up in the camera viewfinder. While that’s too bad, maybe you’ll come and see for yourself some day…

Bangalore StreetThe morning agenda was getting some personal details sorted out and then go exploring. After a quick review of the many (many) options, I decided to visit Lalbagh Botanical Garden and the Vishweshuara Art Museum. A conversation with the Concierge produced a car and driver, and I was off to Lalbagh.

Driving in Bangalore is fascinating – I would love to give it a try some day, but it’s a treat to be driven around. The traffic going to Lalbagh was pretty light, and while I got a couple of shots, they really don’t do justice to the scene on the street (besides they are really lousy shots). Family Outing

My first taste of “real” Bangalore life was on driving into the Lalbagh garden. The driver stopped at the gate to purchase a ticket for me (4 Rp). The smallest bill I had was 50 Rp, so I gave him that. He quickly came back with a ticket and handed me the “change”, my 50 Rp note. While this was all going on, a man came over to the car, opened the driver’s door, stuck his head in the car and announced he was an “official” tour guide (this was vacuously true as there are no such things) and would show me the good spots in the park. My driver had warned me about this shtick, so when he announced that he was going to guide me and started to get into the front passenger seat, the driver politely asked me if I wanted a guide. I said no, and the “guide” exited quietly.

LalbaghThe garden is quite old, being established in the 1700’s. Wide winding paths take you through trees which are hundreds of years old. Families strolled among the trees, and vendors sold fruits and other treats.

The feeling within the park is similar to other places in the city, sans motorized vehicles. I felt “inside” – the trees spread out overhead and gave me a feeling of being inside/outside. The little walking on the street I did produced the same feeling (with the exception of worrying about getting run over).

I had a wonderful experience while in the park. I was taking a picture, and I heard footsteps close behind me. They stopped. I turned around to see a small girl maybe 8-10 years old. She stood 3 feet directly behind me. She beemed at me with a wonderful smile and we exchanged “hellos”. At that point I didn’t know exactly what to do, so I did a dumb thing – I just walked away. 30 seconds later I was kicking myself for not taking her picture (which is probably what she wanted anyway). Too bad I was nervous or whatever – that was a chance for a spontaneous friendship.

The park, as well as the vast majority of the rest of Bangalore is pretty dilapidated. I was going to take a couple of pictures of the broken, disconnected and dirty things I saw, but I didn’t have the heart. There is something raw and organic about the way things are maintained here. It would be easy to allow my Germanic sensibilities to keep me from seeing the beautiful here – I didn’t even want to get started down that path. I can’t say I “like” the mess – it’s awfully inconvenient – but this country is not wealthy, and they have to concentrate their resources where it makes the most difference. A tidy botanical garden doesn’t teach people to read...

The next stop was the Vishweshuara Art Museum. I was completely caught of guard by what I found. First, I went through the “no change” thing, but then I started my tour. The collection was kind of interesting, but completely uncared for. There were water stains running down the back of the display cases, the electric lights in some of the cases didn’t work, the case glass was dirty and virtually no description of what the significance of the items were. Putting aside my initial frustration, I was able to pick up a few interesting tidbits, but I'll need to do a little more digging. Most of the collection was either religious art or weapons. That’s a really dominate theme here in India – faith and fighting. I was pleased to note that the religious art objects outnumbered the war objects 10 to 1. Don’t get me wrong – India’s history is filled with conflict. The point is that the museum and country in general has a huge undercurrent of faith.

After the museum, I returned to the hotel to get some lunch and plan my afternoon adventure. The lunch happened, but the afternoon adventure did not. I was a little tired after eating, and so I decided to lay down for a bit. I thought I would take a quick nap, but I woke up two and a half hours later. By then it was hot and steamy, and my adventurous spirit flagged. I decided to catch up on some work, finish this blog entry and wait for Rahul (my co-worker) for dinner.

More as it happens…

OK, the 1Mb limit on pictures is keeping some good pics off the page. Someone needs to do something.

Posted by pgutwin at 9:55 AM | Comments (0)

April 15, 2006

Passage to India

Beth left the house early on Friday, the day I left for India. She was going to NYC to celebrate her friends birthday and shop for furniture for our new house. I was strange being in the house by myself, preparing for such a long journey. Beth was up at (!!) 2:30AM to pack and get to the airport by 4:30AM. I woke up a few minutes before she left, and watched her steam around the bedroom finishing her packing and then dashing for the airport in her car. Not much time for tearful good-bye’s.

Mom and Dad gave me a lift to the airport around 12:30 – I was pretty early so I had a few minutes to grab lunch at the restaurant at the airport. It was surprisingly good – but it’s not like I'll be eating there without travel involved. The flight from Burlington to Washington Dulles was completely uneventful, but there were a few interesting moments leaving Dulles for Frankfurt. We were supposed to push back at 5:15PM, but by 5:25 we were still at the gate. The captain got on and explained that some bit in the cockpit wasn’t working properly, and (!!) they didn’t have a replacement part. “Stand by” he says like we had a lot of choice. An hour later he gets back on the intercom and tells us all is well and we’ll only be 30 minutes late getting into Frankfurt. Sure beats rearranging all my travel plans…

Frankfurt Frankfurt was interesting. I was surprised to learn that so many of the connections in Frankfurt were really tight, and arriving late put a number of people off their schedule. My flight of course was not tight at all (I had three hours to kill), so I went over to the Red Carpet Club. The Frankfurt club was MUCH better than the ones in the US. They had a full, (self serve) bar, snacks and light fare (rolls, meat, cheese). It was hard to find a power outlet to recharge my laptop, but I finally located on. All in, it was a pleasant stay.

The flight from Frankfurt to Bangalore was packed. However, flying with a flight packed with educated Indian’s (more on the whole class thing later) is more like flying with a couple of hundred of your soon-to-be-close friends. It seemed to be a bit of a contest of who could be more helpful, the cabin crew of the passengers. There was however a surprising amount of “call button” usage – not something you see in the US. I got the feeling (from my seat-mate) that this was viewed more as the correct way of doing thing rather than a control thing. There were about 10 white people on the flight – the rest were Indians.

I expressed a lot of concern about being in the air for 20+ hours, mainly because I simply can’t sleep on airplanes. This is really exacerbated by whatever is wrong with my back. Beth observed that “you’ll sleep when you get tired enough”. Well, I didn’t sleep at all on the Washington – Frankfurt flight, and I think I dozed off for 30 minutes on the Frankfurt to Bangalore flight. So, while I still can’t say conclusively I can’t sleep on planes, my need for sleep kicks in after 20+ hours…

I know this is going to sound a little strange, but I really enjoyed the Frankfurt to Bangalore. It was 9+ hours (some horsing around leaving and then trying to land), but Lufthansa has excellent service all things considered. There were a couple of movies, a couple of meals and a lot of time to sit and read.

The Bangalore airport was pretty much what I expected – brand new construction side-by-side with stuff that was falling apart. The general impression was very similar to Taiwan: new and old side by side. However, the scene outside the airport was nothing like in Taiwan – it was mass confusion. Mahatma Gandhi Road outside room The hotel had arranged a ride from the airport for me – I scanned the crowd (100+) of drivers-with-signs and found mine. We walked (which is a euphemism for “pushed way through teeming masses”) to the street (which is a euphemism for “part of pavement used more often by cars/trucks than people”) and was asked to wait. After being almost run over by one bus and some sort of oil/gas truck, by ride appeared. Finally – space, quite, ahhhhhhh.

A couple of things to note: Mosquitoes and driving on the left. The first I had been warned about, and wondered how bad they were. There aren’t that many of them, it’s just that they are everywhere. The second surprised me, but in retrospect shouldn’t have.

I’m staying at the Oberoi Hotel. The hotel situation in India is a bit odd – there’s nothing comparable to say the Ramada – it’s either a flop house or 5 star hotel. All business travel is to the latter. The hotel is on MG Road which is very noisy and busy. The hotel room has a set of double doors that block out most of the noise, and the room faces a beautiful garden. I’m writing this at breakfast (quite the elegant affair) so I haven’t had any time to explore. That’s next on the agenda. Stay tuned…

(Post Script: I tried (and tried and tried) to upload several other pictures, but I finally figured out that there's a limit of 1Mb for pictures upload. If anyone knows how to get around this by either reducing the quality of the picture or getting rid of the upload limit, could you please email me? )

Posted by pgutwin at 11:30 PM | Comments (0)

April 12, 2006

Life as Art

Becca showed us her mandala painting over the weekend. Class mandala at the library Actually, this is the one made of sand that the class is doing in the library. Her own personal one is smaller, but a lot more personal. However, the new camera we got took a better picture of the class/sand one than her personal one. Sorry – you’ll just have to deal with my choice here.

Speaking of the new camera – I’m having some trouble adjusting. The camera is sort of an oppressive force. I feel I have to carry it everywhere I go, and be ready to snap pictures at a moments notice. Worse than that, I feel like I have to do something with the pictures I take – put them on the web, or I don’t know – do something with them. It’s like the camera is a task master, and doesn’t really care about what I’m thinking or feeling – it’s all about the picture. I like the camera, but it seems to have more control than I do.

Venerable Tenzin Yignyen has been teaching Becca something about compassion. OK, that’s just a little play on words – the mandala she’s painting is the one for compassion. We spent a lot of timing talking about her (quite positive) experience with the painting and Tenzin – maybe just because I’m fascinated by it, but she seems quite interested herself. I think Becca is lucky to have a chance to get to know Tenzin and his art.

So if my camera obsession/issue won’t go away, I think I'll have to have a little chat with Tanzin myself. Or maybe I should just drop the camera (just kidding Beth). Anyway – I'll keep the darn thing around until after my trip to India. (Oh – Tenzin is from India – is there a connection???)

Posted by pgutwin at 7:25 AM | Comments (0)

April 11, 2006

The Explosion

Roughly 2 Billion years ago, there was an explosion. The explosion lasted about 10-20 million years, and represented the single largest expansion of life on our planet, but we (apparently) call it an explosion (sometimes). I think it’s going to be tough to turn that whole thing into an action thriller – I wonder how you would do character development when the leading “actor” is bacteria.

Beth, Becca and I spent a wonderfully interesting afternoon last Saturday at the Museum of the Earth in Ithaca. We chose it as a diversion (OK, we were killing time until our appointment (a.k.a. dinner) with Anna), but at least for me, it had a much deeper impact.

timeline.jpgAfter purchasing our tickets, we walked past this wonderful timeline of the last 500 Million years, 544 panels each representing 1 million years. All three of us sort of did a double take – we walked past the descriptive plaque (each panel 1 million years, blah, blah), stared at this wall of panels, and then I walked back to the descriptive plaque to check – yep, each panel is 1 million years. It took me quite a while to take in the temporal scale of the exhibits – my days are consumed by schedules measured in days, weeks and sometimes years, so taking a step back and thinking in terms of millions of years required an adjustment.

To be honest, it’s tough to feel very significant when you realize your life span isn’t long enough to see anything really cool happen, like two continents colliding, or a completely new species emerging. I'll only live long enough to see some species killed off, and that’s the same thing as environmental vandalism (and not something I’m particularly happy about being associated with). The “history” of the United States is kind of a joke – 200 years – like that’s going to matter long term.

skull.jpgThe other thing that really amazed me was the number of times that there have been significant declines in the biodiversity of the earth. That’s a really fancy way of saying that (almost) everything died off. The museum was laid out along a timeline, and as you walked through the halls, they had these very iconic markers featuring a skull and crossbones to indicate when the collapse happened. (At then end they had all of them lined up for effect).

But the truly fascinating thing to me was that every time life died off in a major way, it rebounded, smarter, more efficient, more productive. We understand so many forces of nature – gravity, light, the urge to survive and reproduce, etc.. But what force of nature makes animals and plants successively smarter, harder working and more complex? (Becca – would you get on that problem?)

Posted by pgutwin at 6:38 PM | Comments (0)

April 2, 2006

Um - Is this smart?

We apparently now have a White House PR campaign of "The President as Average Joe". It seems to me that the leader of the most powerful nation in the world should have a bit more to offer.

Posted by pgutwin at 9:57 PM | Comments (0)