Facebook killed the Blogger star?

...for me. Atleast for a while. Maybe I'm not so good at multi-tasking online, what with the limited time I get to be online for leisure and pleasure.

Am visiting my blog space after a long time and was perplexed to find that my Twitter widget was showing up updates of some other person with the same handle as mine. Tried logging into Twitter to find that I don't exist in Twitter land anymore. My account has disappeared! Like me from blogging. Have written to the them Twitter Help folks. Let's see how this pans out.

So I'm alive, and around. Lurking around my favourite blogs. Have a happy weekend folks!

Thank you JKR

Dear JK Rowling,

Thank you for writing "Tales of Beedle The Bard". Thank you for giving us back Albus Dumbledore through this book. I am not jesting when I say that my hands were quivering with excitement when I held the book in the store.

I remain forever your most loyal fan.

Signed,

Kiddult Aqua.

P.S. I read the book in one sitting. And I now hope and wait for Volume II. Please!!!!

Jai Jawan! It's war in Mumbai.

'Stay safe', I messaged my friends in Mumbai, 'Please stay indoors', I told them on the phone. With the comfort of knowing that people I care for were within the safety of their homes, I settled in to watch the news on TV. The Mumbai Police, the ATS, the NSG, Marine Commandos - I watched these brave brave men take up arms and go into battle. With outdated firearms and flimsy protection gear...but with a lot of courage. Watching them I felt ashamed. We are quick to pick faults with the police and the whole system, but will we be as quick to go into the line of fire. As these men did?

I would like to pay a tribute to all the brave soldiers martyred in the Mumbai War. Yes, I call it a war because it can't be anything else. It is unprecedented anywhere and it is a very unfair war.

We need to thank those brave men who are still battling it out in Mumbai as I type. And it angers me when people point out how unprepared the security forces were and how ill-trained they are for this. I would like to point them to Broom's post on this same topic. Why waste words when she has said it so much better:

"When push came to shove, when our country needed them the most, they put on those flimsy, laughable bullet proof jackets, loaded their antique weapons and took a bullet (and a grenade) for us. For us GODAMMIT. A nation that will, in a few weeks from now, forget all about this incident and move on. A nation that will not care whether their next of kin will get the care and support that should come to them for having given this nation a martyr. A nation that will obsess about cricketers and Bollywood stars but will cuss it’s soldiers at every given opportunity."

Jai Jawan! Jai Hind!

Award - Shaward time.

Rohini has very graciously given me the famous "pixelated, multihued diamond" logo bearing "Brilliante Blog" award. I am touched that she has given the award to me for my posts on Tibet. Thanks Ro!

This is the objective of the award: "The Brilliant Weblog award is a prize given to sites and blogs that are smart and brilliant both in their content and their design. The purpose of the prize is to promote as many blogs as possible in the blogosphere".

I am passing on this award to some of my favourite bloggers, old and new! (in no particular order):

1. Jamyang Norbu @ Shadow Tibet: To the Tibetan community Jamyang Norbu-la needs no introduction. For the rest, i think it will suffice to say that he is a prominent Tibetan writer and political activist, most famous for his book 'The Mandala of Sherlock Holmes'. He started his blog in March this year and I couldn't be more delighted about it. He is a strong proponent of a "Free Tibet", as opposed to His Holiness the Dalai Lama's 'Middle Way Approach'. I strongly feel we need more thinkers and people like him to lead the Tibetan Freedom Struggle. Each and every post on his blog is a gem - a must read for all.

2. Kima @ Illusionaire : I enjoy reading his short stories. He is quite the talented story teller and he also scores highly on his blog design.

3. Alpha's 'Pieces of the Puzzle': She makes me laugh. Gosh, I've been reading her blog since God knows when. Her posts are funny, witty and humorous and I could go on and on.

4. Anita @ 'Just A Little Something': An exceptional photographer and writer. I love her travelogues and reviews.

5. Pallavi @ 'Point Of Reflection': Her blog has it all - her travel stories, recipes, restaurant reviews and spiritual sprinklings. And she keeps reinventing her blog avatar!

6. Dechen of 'Notes on Tibet': She's the first Tibetan blogger I've interacted with. I love her writing style - direct, no-nonsense and succinct. Her thoughts on Tibet and Buddhism mirror mine - only she says it so much better!

7. Agam's Gecko: His areas of interest are politics, society, culture, freedom, democracy, Tibet, Thailand, Indonesia, Aceh, Southeast Asia, China, human rights. He truly walks the talk and I'm amazed by his support for Tibet. His blog is the one I turn to for the latest updates and observations on the latest developments on the Tibetan issue.

If you'd like to pass on the award, here are the rules :

1. When you receive the prize you must write a post showing it, together with the name of who has given it to you, and link them back.
2. Choose a minimum of 7 blogs (or even more) that you find brilliant in their content or design.
3. Show their names and links and leave them a comment informing they were prized with ‘Brilliant Weblog’.
4. Show a picture of those who awarded you and those you give the prize (optional).
   

And then we pass it on!

It's International Delurking Week...

here at Aqua's Dreamscapes. What this means is that all of ye who visit my blog this week must leave a comment. Whether you are a loyal reader, or an irregular reader, or a blog friend who has just passed by to see if I have anything new - please, leave a comment telling me that you were here. Yes, even those of you who land up on my blog via google looking for "hot coorgi men".

I'm especially curious to know who my readers from LA, Portland and Jamaica, New York are. You visit me quite often, but never leave a comment. So, c'mon, log your visit here. Tell me who you are. Do I know you in real life? I have some school friends who live in LA and Oregon. Are you who I think you are?

Do delurk and say "Hi"!

The blood Olympics? How about the fake Olympics...

There is something unholy about China hosting the Olympics. Swaminathan A Iyer commented aptly on a news channel that China was hosting the Olympics in a state of internal emergency. In an unnatural state. Not only did China evict all the migrant labourers from Beijing, it has also closed down all the factories temporarily in a bid to bring down the pollution. It has done everything in its power to ensure that its "coming out party" is flawless - an event that China has been planning for for the last seven years or more.

For me, personally, the Opening ceremony was rather scary. You had these 15000+ performers who peformed with robotic precision. You had the PRC Military personnel hoist the Chinese and Olympic flags which was rather intimidating, a reminder to the world of China's military might. It set me wondering when was the last time I last saw the Indian army in a sports stadium. Never.

As expected, you had the world media and our very own Indian news channels falling over each other in declaring China the new Super Power based on the "spectacular" show they put up - the best Olympic Opening ceremony in the history of Olympics. Now that the party is over and the hangover has waned a bit, some not-so-pretty details about the ceremony are slowing coming out. Facts which don't really paint China in a very flattering light.

Now let's do a round up of the Chinese Olympics related deception items, shall we?

- Fake Item #1: Footage of the fireworks exploding across China's capital during the ceremony was digitally inserted into television coverage, apparently over concerns that not all of the 29 blasts could be captured on camera. When it comes to China, nothing is what it seems.

- Fake Item #2: 9 year old Lin Miaoke who wowed an international audience by appearing on the stage during the Olympic Games opening ceremonies to sing "Ode to the Motherland" was actually lip synching, while the voice actually belonged to another girl, 7 year old Yang Peiyi. Yang Peiyi was deemed unfit to perform in the Olympic Ceremony because of her uneven teeth. "The national interest requires that the girl should have good looks and a good grasp of the song and look good on screen," the musical director of the ceremonies, Chen Qigang said. Another example of China's ruthless action to present a "flawless" ceremony.

-Fake Item #3: Games organisers had claimed the 56 children who carried out the national flag in the ceremony in a moment meant to showcase national unity were from each official ethnic group in China. It now turns out that the children were all from the Han Chinese majority. This may seem like a harmless lie in isolation, but viewed in conjuction with the other events, it only serves to highlight the indifference of China to the world and world opinion. China has failed miserably when it comes to honouring the promises it made to win the bid to host the Olymics.

Fake Item #4: "Volunteers" fill Olympics Stadiums posing as "fans" and cheerleaders. I can probably add China's false claim of having sold 6.8 million tickets to this.

Fake Item #5: China fudges age of woman gymnasts, in their quest to win a gold in the Women's Gymnastics.

-Fake (or rather WTF!) Item # 6: It has been revealed that the 900 soldiers who took part in the spectacular Olympic opening ceremony had to wear adult diapers because they were not allowed lavatory breaks . These soldiers who operated the huge scroll forming the centrepiece of the ceremony were unable to leave their posts beneath the machinery for up to seven hours. Soldiers in nappies, imagine that! All in the national interest. *snigger*

-Fake Item #n: *watch this space*

*******************************

In other related news, a Nepal blog - Blogdai - is claiming that the Chinese mountaineers faked Everest Olympic flame climb . The blog says that incidents preceding the climb are pointer to this.

The story has caught on and here is an excerpt from Jack Marx's blog on this : "According to Nepalese blog, Blogdai, rumours that something wasn’t right about the Chinese summit first came from “friends who were among the first to summit Everest after the climbing ban was lifted”, who claimed they saw “no new flags, momentos or any evidence that the olympic torch ever reached the summit”. But the most compelling evidence of all would seem to come from the official footage of the alleged summit, as released to the western media. Not only is there “no apparent evidence of the old, faded prayer flags that mark the summit and have been known to stay in place for a few seasons or more”, but there appear to be some visible anomolies when one compares the footage to visual documents from previous summits.

“I’d be very suprised if they had to fake it,” says Andrew Lock, who successfully summitted Everest in 2000 and 2004. “When you’ve got that much support behind you, and the desire to do it, I can’t see why you wouldn’t succeed. Why would the Chinese risk faking it?”

The answer to that question could be found, perhaps, in the equally baffling Chinese fixation with media control and their apparent nonchalance towards international criticism it yields.

To the Chinese, its seems, being caught cheating is nowhere near as embarassing as failure."

Leaving Fear Behind....

is what some brave Tibetans inside Tibet have done, by coming out in the open and telling the truth to the world about the reality in Tibet as it stands today, and not what China would like the world to believe. As China readies to throw her coming-out party, what must not be forgotten is that behind the false gaiety of the Beijing Olympics lies the sordid truth that China would like to hide. That of opression of minorities in China and brutalities in Tibet.

"Leaving Fear Behind" (in Tibetan, Jigdrel) is a heroic film shot by Tibetans from inside Tibet, who longed to bring Tibetan voices to the Beijing Olympic Games. With the global spotlight on China as it rises to host the XXIX Olympics, Tibetans wish to tell the world of their plight and their heartfelt grievances against Chinese rule. The footage was smuggled out of Tibet under extraordinary circumstances. The filmmakers were detained soon after sending their tapes out, and remain in detention today.

The filmmakers (Dhondup Wangchen & Golog Jigme) traversed thousands of miles, asking ordinary Tibetans what they really feel about the Dalai Lama, China, and the Olympic Games. The filmmakers gave their subjects the option of covering their faces, but almost all of the 108 people interviewed agreed to have their faces shown on film, so strong was their desire to express themselves to the world. Excerpts from twenty of the interviews, including a self-recorded interview of the filmmaker himself, are included in the 25 minute film.

The film featured a series of interviews with Tibetans talking about how their culture had been trampled on, how they still loved exiled spiritual leader the Dalai Lama, and how they viewed the Olympics as having done little to improve their lives.

"Outsiders may think that the Tibetans are treated very well and that they are happy. But the truth is that Tibetans are not free to speak of their suffering," one Tibetan said on the film. "Even if I had to sacrifice my life for this message to be seen by the Dalai Lama, I agree and welcome this chance," said another.

The footage reveals with stark clarity that Tibetans are frustrated and embittered by the deterioration and marginalization of Tibetan language and culture; the destruction of the lifestyle of Tibetan nomads through Chinese forced settlement policies; the lack of religious freedom and the vilification of the Dalai Lama; and the broken promises made by the Chinese government to improve conditions in Tibet in the run up to the Olympic games. All are united in their reverence for the Dalai Lama and long for him to return, and as some even dream, to attend the Olympic Games.

Both Dhondup Wangchen and Golog Jigme are now in detention. They were detained shortly after concluding filming in March 2008. Please visit their website and take action to publicize their cases and secure their release."

So when you watch the Olympics opening ceremonies on your TV screens, amidst all the pomp and grandeur, do spare a thought for those who have paid a heavy price for this party inside China and in Tibet.