Darymple writes about the possibilies of Pakistan in the NY review of books:
As you travel around Pakistan today you can see the effects of the boom everywhere: in vast new shopping malls and smart roadside filling stations, in the cranes of the building sites and the smokestacks of factories, in the expensive new cars jamming the roads and in the ubiquitous cell-phone stores. In 2003 the country had fewer than three million cell phones; today apparently there are 50 million, while car ownership has been increasing at roughly 40 percent a year since 2001. At the same time foreign direct investment has risen from $322 million in 2002 to $3.5 billion in 2006.
This article on cricinfo actually does a good job of summarising my discussion with Atomsmasher on the decline of traditional disciplines in the arts. The following paragraph is particularly insightful in drawing out the similarities between classical training in music and cricket.
People frequently say of Indian playback singers that this singer or that was classically trained. It is generally meant as a compliment. Lata Mangeshkar’s virtuosity and longevity were attributed to her classical training. But over time it has become clear that classical training is an optional extra for the successful playback singer because there have been so many who never had any, starting with Kishore Kumar. In the same way, Twenty20 tournaments like the World Cup and the IPL have thrown up players like Yusuf Pathan who have achieved great success and recognition via this upstart form of the game without any sort of track record at the Test level.
What do you guys think about the qualities of say opera. Is a lot of it pretentious and elitist or should I not blind my classist sentiments from appreciating the beauty of the art? I’m inclined to think that its somewhere in between. That while a lot of people are part of the ’scene’ or are patrons of the arts in order to gain social status, i shouldn’t let that cloud my judgement in trying to appreciate art in all its forms.
The full family name is Darvishsefad. Yu’s grandfather was a travel agent in Iran who encouraged Yu’s father to explore the world, partially by finishing his high school education in the United States. Farsad did and went on to college in Florida, where he played soccer — or at least he did until 1979, when Iranian students stormed the U.S. embassy in Tehran, kidnapped 52 embassy workers, changed the course of American politics, launched Ted Koppel’s career into orbit and instantly made things rather unpleasant for young Iranians studying in America.
Is it just me or have either of you noticed that mixed race kids are better looking and more athletic than the average single raced kid.
Why indeed? Pizza* here tends to be abysmal, and if you care even half as much as these people do - this discussion (which routinely uses words such as vulgarian to describe people who eat at Pizza Hut) will be absolutely riveting.
I’ve never been to naples, but i remember a tiny shack called ‘tom and jerry’ in a decidedly unfashionable part of rome that made pizzas that brought torrents of tears to my eyes. Pizza express does that to me too, but for entirely different reasons..
14 May 2008 is Israel’s 60th. It’s difficult to imagine an anniversary that’s as divisive. And where else do politics, religion, and ethnicity conflict so violently? Have you been to Israel or the West Bank/Gaza Strip? I’d like to go sometime.
The story of Israel and Palestine is one our generation has grown up with. This is from before Kosovo, before Rwanda, before war was declared on terror. Is it really that unimportant? If there is a god, we’ll all be damned for watching two peoples massacre themselves. I’ll say it again: humans are foolish beyond our own comprehension.
On a related note, what do you think of the use of the term in the title? Al-Nakba — The Catastrophe. I hear that’s how Palestinians, and their supporters, refer to the creation of Israel. Should its use be discouraged? Or is it useful?
Miss Johannson’s debut album is shaping up to be the most polarising album of the year. Mainly because its made up of a bunch of Tom Waits covers. I actually like the few songs I’ve heard. I say kudos for trying to interpret a critically acclaimed albeit not that popular artist rather than doing some terrible, self-indulgent trash. Anyways, 3 questions.
1) Can you guess who does the backing vocals
2) Who produced the album (difficult but Al might get it) and finally
3) Spot ScarJo’s special friend who fleetingly pops up in the video.
Al, perhaps, this is one career you may wish to discount?
Hello,
ABOUT YOU:
You are a young and good-looking girl. The parental abuse that you incurred as a child has left you emotionally distant and sexually repressed. You are able to sustain months (years?) of loneliness because you shudder at the thought of human interaction. You have a constant feeling of inadequacy leading to excessive hours on the elliptical machine (and, accordingly, a nicely toned bum). I might do stuff to you while you are sleeping at 4AM (when I finally get home from the office), but, other than that, our sex-life will be nonexistent. Naive girls who have been in long-distance relationships and have had their hearts broken by guys who perpetually cheated are more than welcome to email me; I promise that I’m different.
ABOUT ME:
I am a first year analyst at a bulge-bracket investment bank; this means that I’m either Jewish, Asian, or from old-money (and, therefore, connected up the wazoo). Given that this post is (hopefully) grammatically correct, coherently legible, and satirically palatable, I’d like to think that I got into banking based on merits associated with my intelligence; therefore, I’m probably not from old money and am not connected up the wazoo (sorry).
I got into banking as a result of an overwhelming abundance of insecurities. I went to a top-tiered and prestigious undergraduate university, yet, have always felt inferior to the Harvardites and Princetonians that surround me. I’m likely either short and socially outcasted (with excellent kung-fu skills) or schnoz-nosed and unable to date, as every girl I meet in Manhattan is a UES slut that reminds me of my mother.
I go to the gym every morning, as my unnecessarily ambitious and secretively compensating type-A personality forces me to always strive for the best. That, and also the endorphins released from the exercise keep me elated enough to prevent attempting suicide for at least 24 hours.
I approach dating as I do anything else; as a strict meritocracy where I compete to win. At bars, I won’t tell girls that I’m a banker; I feel that it would be unfair to take a girl home by playing the pity card (”Oh, you work in banking? I feel so bad for you. Fine, I guess I’ll sleep with you.”). I’ll likely say that I’m a math teacher at the Dalton School (my Jewish/Asian heritage helps me here) so that girls realize that I’m piss-poor (as are all my other analyst buddies, despite what we tell our family and friends back home) but have Epstein potential.
My interests include playing brickbreaker on my blackberry, romantic dinners expensed to my firm, and finding novel ways to entertain myself during late-night hours (posting personal ads on Craigslist at 3AM - FUN; getting head from you while you hide under my desk - PROBABLY FUNNER).
If you fit my description (and God help you if you do…) feel free to email me. Pictures of boobs (yours or random ones you find on the internet) would be helpful to include in the email. As I’m posting this with my work email address, I’m hoping to get lucky enough that some back-office rat finds the inappropriate content during a routine inbox sweep, so that I can finally be liberated from this relentless world of superficial elitism. I’m talking about the old-money guys.
ears?) of loneliness because you shudder at the thought of human interaction. You have a constant feeling of inadequacy leading to excessive hours on the elliptical machine (and, accordingly, a nicely toned bum). I might do stuff to you while you are sleeping at 4AM (when I finally get home from the office), but, other than that, our sex-life will be nonexistent. Naive girls who have been in long-distance relationships and have had their hearts broken by guys who perpetually cheated are more than welcome to email me; I promise that I’m different.