Zen and the making of ... rava dosai!

Author : Sriram Khé      Blog : Every profession is a conspiracy against the laity      Date : 5/25/2013 4:04:00 PM

'Not a shopper by any means, during the rare visit to anything other than a grocery store, I make sure to scan the clearance shelves.  Works with my restricted budget status over the past few years.At 50% off was a packet of MTR Rava Dosa mix.  At a non-grocery store. What a globalized world in which we live now!I read through the instructions there.  Seemed like work, but not that difficult.  A wonderful way to kill time too--better than passively watching t(...)'

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Men lost their charm ... maybe we never had it?

Author : Sriram Khé      Blog : Every profession is a conspiracy against the laity      Date : 5/24/2013 5:41:00 PM

'Easy there, before you draw your weapons.  Calm down.  Don't jump to conclusions, yet.First, consider this excerpt:Most men hold charm in vague suspicion: few cultivate it; still fewer respond to it; hardly any know whether they have it; and almost none can even identify it. Women commonly complain about the difficulty in gaining any conversational purchase when, say, trying to engage the fathers of their children’s classmates or the husbands of their tennis partners. The (...)'

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Must be raindrops, for a man ain't supposed to cry!

Author : Sriram Khé      Blog : Every profession is a conspiracy against the laity      Date : 5/24/2013 3:20:00 AM

'When I saw the seashells chocolates box on the dining table, I remembered, yet again, my daughter.  The image of her, from years ago, as a teenager having those chocolates while watching Grease for the nth time.I walked back upstairs to grab the Grease CD, to play during the drive to work.  Next to that was the Simon-Garfunkel CD.  I hadn't listened to it for a while and I grabbed that too.It was a cool and rainy morning drive and I plugged in Grease.  I was all (...)'

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On the Latin American Indians. The "East Indians" that is!

Author : Sriram Khé      Blog : Every profession is a conspiracy against the laity      Date : 5/23/2013 9:36:00 PM

'In commenting on this post on the multinational existence of my extended family, Chris wonders about the Indian migration to Latin America, which then provides me, in a Bill Cosby-like rambling fashion, to recall old stories!About this time of the year, 25 years ago, I went to Venezuela with a few other graduate schoolmates, on a three-week study trip. One of the very few photos from my Venezuela tripIn the initial couple of days, we were helped by a local guy Carlos.  Right fr(...)'

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On our Africa-less multinational existence

Author : Sriram Khé      Blog : Every profession is a conspiracy against the laity      Date : 5/23/2013 12:13:00 AM

'I doubt whether my parents would have ever imagined in the early years of their married life how multinational our family would later become: I am a US citizen, my sister lives in India, and my brother is an Australian citizen. Three siblings in three countries on three different continents!Such a multinational existence is obvious when I visit India.  Among the extended family, and even my parents’ neighbors, rare is one without a son or daughter settled somewhe(...)'

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Like youth, money and education are also wasted on the young?

Author : Sriram Khé      Blog : Every profession is a conspiracy against the laity      Date : 5/21/2013 4:56:00 PM

'There were a number of reasons why I hated--yes, that strong an emotion--the college where I did my undergraduate studies. One of them was this: the pathetic library it had.Now, maybe my expectations coming out of high school were unrealistic.  But, I had assumed that a college would have a library that would be way more than what my college offered.  Thus, whenever I went to Chennai, where my parents lived, I then spent quite some time at the libraries at the USIS (thank (...)'

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How many will support a petition to end petitions?

Author : Sriram Khé      Blog : Every profession is a conspiracy against the laity      Date : 5/20/2013 9:28:00 PM

'A few years ago, I had included in the syllabus a reading on the crisis in Darfur--this was back when it was a major problem.  I provided students with a map of Africa, with the outline of the political boundaries of countries without their names, and asked them to identify Sudan and a few other countries.  One student later wrote in an assignment how she had passionately signed up to Save Darfur campaigns without ever caring to find out where exactly that place called Dar(...)'

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What does it mean to be human?

Author : Sriram Khé      Blog : Every profession is a conspiracy against the laity      Date : 5/20/2013 1:10:00 AM

'In the introductory class that I am teaching this term, I help students understand the dynamically changing geography of economic activities.  We discussed the economic rationale behind why anything that can be outsourced will be outsourced, and why activities that can be automated will be automated.I have noticed over the past couple of years that this topic gets students' attention far more than others do.  It is understandable--students immediately see the link between (...)'

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What else do you do after a 100-day hunger strike?

Author : Sriram Khé      Blog : Every profession is a conspiracy against the laity      Date : 5/19/2013 7:13:00 PM

'When we were kids, my brother and I once were upset with something--the details I have forgotten now, and I am sure it was something absolutely trivial--and we decided that we would go on a hunger strike. I couldn't have been even at a double-digit age, and my brother is two years younger, and there we were refusing to eat my mother's tasty cooking.What shocked me was this: my mother didn't get angry but was hurt.  It was almost like we had punched her awfully bad.  Yes, I(...)'

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Don't wish me sweet dreams, please!

Author : Sriram Khé      Blog : Every profession is a conspiracy against the laity      Date : 5/18/2013 7:59:00 PM

'Paging Dr. Freud.It is related to an important organ of mine for which he might have some answers.No, not that organ.  The brain.I want Dr. Freud to analyze why I had an awesome dream about a carrot halva.It was a wonderful dream.  Some fuzzy face brought me a bowl of the reddish carrot halva.  The halva made from the red carrots that are available during the winter months in northern India.  In the dream, the sweet was at just the right temperature.  I(...)'

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A toast to Pakistan: here is to hoping that democracy won't be toast!

Author : Sriram Khé      Blog : Every profession is a conspiracy against the laity      Date : 5/18/2013 3:08:00 AM

'As unfair as it might seem, one-term US presidents simply cannot ever return as presidential candidates to give the presidency another shot.  Thus, Jimmy Carter and George H.W. Bush didn't need anyone telling them that their political days ended with their respective defeats.  Further, the constitution compels the re-elected President to pack up and leave the White House after eight years.  The presidency is the ultimate act in American politics.This is not the case i(...)'

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Aha! This is why pedagogy is paid so little. It is slave labor!

Author : Sriram Khé      Blog : Every profession is a conspiracy against the laity      Date : 5/17/2013 8:09:00 PM

'One student in an online class remarked something complimentary (I hope so, at least) about me bringing in readings and other materials from so many different places that are not necessarily academic in nature.  But then, that is what I have signed up for by opting for the teaching profession.  Teaching is not merely repeating  the same thing over and over to different batches of students, but to explore along with students the subjects that fascinate us.  Every (...)'

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All animals are created equal. Some are more equal than others!

Author : Sriram Khé      Blog : Every profession is a conspiracy against the laity      Date : 5/16/2013 6:18:00 AM

'A few months ago, one day I saw a couple of ants in the kitchen.  I went on a red alert after killing them--I was sure that the two meant that more were on their way.Sure enough, they came. In increasing numbers.  After a few more days of spot and kill, when I saw a long line of them marching, I called up the exterminator.  I wrote him a check, and he sprayed chemicals inside the home, and on the periphery outside.The ants are gone.  So long, suckers!A few years (...)'

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More on the Bangladesh factory catastrophe ... clothes cheaper than food!

Author : Sriram Khé      Blog : Every profession is a conspiracy against the laity      Date : 5/14/2013 4:35:00 AM

'In an earlier post, I noted the logic that if we as consumers want to pay nothing more than $14 a shirt, then it can happen only with the kind of conditions that led to the catastrophe in Bangladesh.  The New Yorker's James Surowiecki's point is the same: The problem isn’t so much evil factory owners as a system that’s great at getting Western consumers what they want but leaves developing-world workers toiling in misery.How much have American consumers benefited from textile m(...)'

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Students ignore their debts as long as their athletic teams win?

Author : Sriram Khé      Blog : Every profession is a conspiracy against the laity      Date : 5/13/2013 2:40:00 AM

'This blog post on the tax we are effectively imposing on the younger generation attracted quite a few visits, according the site traffic data.  I commented there, rather sarcastically, that:The youth are paying big time for all our irresponsible decisions. But, youth being youth, their focus might not be in the metaphorical screw but in the literal one, and it will be a while before they will realize how much we have messed them up!I should have noted there that jingoistic athl(...)'

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On Mothers ... wisdom from the old country

Author : Sriram Khé      Blog : Every profession is a conspiracy against the laity      Date : 5/12/2013 2:09:00 PM

'A continuation of sorts of the posts over the years.Growing up in India, there was no concept of a special day for mothers.  Or fathers.In my initial years in the US, the concept of wishing mother or father seemed strange.  Very odd.  The idea of wishing on a designated day is the strange part that is, not the idea of recognizing the mother's importance in life.I would imagine that mothers were way up high in pretty much every culture's list of important people, and t(...)'

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We should rethink bump in salary for master's degrees

Author : Sriram Khé      Blog : Every profession is a conspiracy against the laity      Date : 5/12/2013 3:46:00 AM

'Am re-posting here an op-ed of mine that was published in the Statesman Journal back in October 2011.  It is a follow-up to the comment that Mike Thissel posted in response to this post.************************One can easily imagine that many school districts in Oregon will be in situations similar to the Salem-Keizer School District, which is about $20 million short in its budget. We can expect education budgets to further tighten up because economic conditions (...)'

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What if I am outed for who I am: an intellectual empty shell?

Author : Sriram Khé      Blog : Every profession is a conspiracy against the laity      Date : 5/8/2013 3:01:00 AM

'I started reading Cass Sunstein's essay in the New York Review of Books because it was about one of my all time favorites--Albert Hirschman.In that essay, Sunstein writes:Hirschman sought, in his early twenties and long before becoming a writer, to “prove Hamlet wrong.” In Shakespeare’s account, Hamlet is immobilized and defeated by doubt. Hirschman was a great believer in doubt—he never doubted it—and he certainly doubted his own convictions. At a conference designed to celebrate t(...)'

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Making nuclear power double-D sexy!

Author : Sriram Khé      Blog : Every profession is a conspiracy against the laity      Date : 5/7/2013 4:50:00 AM

'In what seems like eons ago, when I had started teaching in California, we were discussing nuclear energy in the economic geography class.  One student, whose name I have forgotten all these years later, with a track record of wisecracks, raised his hand.  I should have known better than to recognize his hand, but I did anyway.  He had a question, which went something like this:"That is a nuclear power plant, right, by I-5 on the way to San Diego?"  I said yes, n(...)'

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Why strange European music sounds right on warm days?

Author : Sriram Khé      Blog : Every profession is a conspiracy against the laity      Date : 5/7/2013 1:24:00 AM

'It feels like hotter than hell, and the high was only 82 degrees.  Yesterday it was even hotter--89 degrees, and about 20 degrees higher than normal.  Damn this global warming!Eleven years in the mild conditions of Oregon have spoilt me. Completely.When the temperature goes more than 72, maybe 75, I feel like I might as well quit doing anything and take a long siesta.  My brain doesn't want to work, and my body feels uncomfortable.  I hate the thought of cooking (...)'

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