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Showing posts from December, 2010

Rudolf and Lola

I sang Rudolf with 7 yr old Lola this Christmas Eve.  She knew the song, and i have a hunch, she knew the meaning, and the many meanings.  As she sang she kept looking at her brightly lit christmas tree in her cozy living room, maybe trying to fathom what the excluded Rudolf may have felt till Santa came to its rescue! Her dad looked on with pride an d sang along in reindeer tune ;-)

The Draconian State and the Doctor

Dr Binayak Sen in police custody  Suddenly the word 'draconian' has come alive for me. Dictionary meaning 'of or relating to Draco, 7th-century Athenian statesman and lawmaker, or his code of laws, which prescribed  death  for almost every offence'.  Dr Binayak Sen meets Draco, in 21st century India. Are they discussing judicial reform? Does a bad judgement have no other reprimand than a better judgement on appeal in a higher court? In every job there are rewards and punishments, but seems like judges are beyond this framework!  A bad pilot can kill people and gets punished for it. A bad engineer can kill people and can be punished for it.  An incompetent judge (the competence of a judge includes his/her capaicty to maintain integrity) can kill people, can kill hope, can kill sanity, can kill justice, can kill dignity, can kill faith in human compassion, can kill the fundamental premise of democracy, can in fact waste everyone's time wit...