Those that have been encountered recently are examples of such. An anomaly is one who requires of themselves constant expression.

Even if that expression is esoteric and ultimately futile.

But, for [...]]]> Those who are one of us, are different from others and those that seem similar are more different still.

Those that have been encountered recently are examples of such. An anomaly is one who requires of themselves constant expression.

Even if that expression is esoteric and ultimately futile.

But, for those who have real physical reactions because of thoughts unexpressed will understand the sheer pain that comes from leaving things unsaid.

Expressions left unsaid cause actual real physical pain. For some, it can be a simple inflammatory reaction. For others it could be indigestion or even the sudden manifestation of a severe psychological problem. So we put something down, on paper or on drawing board or on computer screens.

Emotions hit us from every directions, mostly negative, predatory.

For those who are surrounded by kind people on the outside, these predatory emotions can be a shocking contrast. To them, these emotions must be hidden and can only appear on paper; plain white, soiled by swirling letters, conveying deep stirring thoughts.

But some of us must express otherwise we will lose our very humanity. Otherwise, there is nothing left for us but simple oblivion, living oblivion, when death and life are not that different.

The lone wolf howls his chaos to his brothers.

Hear me howl…and respond.

Note: This is a freeform writing piece where grammar rules have been stretched. Grammar Nazi’s beware.

And depending on his level of experience, he may choose to engage in courtship with an entity that is new on the [...]]]> To a male equity investor in his 20s or 30s, the stock market game is like the game of love – the hunt – the sowing of oats.

And depending on his level of experience, he may choose to engage in courtship with an entity that is new on the scene or maybe one that is about to come into her prime or he may choose to quietly invest in a nice stable blue chip. If he picks the young debutante, he is taking a high risk and this game is fraught with peril.

You see, the debutante is young and prone to flitting about in jagged peaks and troughs. He must keep his eyes on her constantly. There is no telling when she’ll be ready to blow. If he is lucky, he would have found a real keeper, but most of the time these potential interests belong in the pink sheets as most of them are not worth more than a couple of pennies.

Then there is the slightly more mature organization. Well settled in life, she is looking for investors. As a suitor, our hero understands that she will not require constant babysitting and monitoring. He also appreciates that this company will not redefine the relationship at a moment’s notice. She is good at what she does for a living and will spend most of her energy on the job. But since she is prone to prudence, she will not excite the young investor much either. Nice, stable and homely, that is what she is.

Then there are the cougar stocks. Companies that have been around the block many times and are well entrenched in their industries. These companies do not make hasty emotional decisions and are not prone to the unpredictability to which the younger ones fall prey. Conservative and classy, they grow at a steady pace, providing much needed security and direction to the young investor.

But seldom does our risk-taking hero invest in any one deal at a given time. The investor is well advised by older pimps and players that he should diversify his catch; build a harem of stocks. This way he can be fulfilled by the positives of each type of commitment and offset the negatives. And if one or two don’t work out, it is easy for him to dump them and take on a few more thereby maintaining his stable of stocks and keeping his lustful greed well sated.

But the number one rule of such a ‘player’ is that he needs to be able to get in and get out without becoming emotionally attached to his investment. You see, the player cannot afford to continually invest his time, energy and money on a volatile investment. It can get pretty stressful, as you can imagine. Sometimes, you just have to cut her loose. You cannot let your emotions get in the way. Not if you want to win!

Recently, we witnessed many Northeasterners leaving various large Indian cities and returning home. We were told that this massive exodus occurred because of rumours that were [...]]]>  
I guess I must be an idiot. At least, that is what the government thinks of me, you and the rest of us.

Recently, we witnessed many Northeasterners leaving various large Indian cities and returning home. We were told that this massive exodus occurred because of rumours that were not only malicious, but also coming from across the border.

So, many Northeastern Indians fled cities like Bangalore, Delhi and Bombay to go back to their native states.

Of course, someone had to be blamed for this, and other than the usual malicious and bad elements, the long fingers of the law also pointed at the evil social networking sites.

Twitter and Facebook, by not censoring mean spirited, anti-national and bigoted opinions, are now under investigation. According to this article in the Times of India, Twitter may come under investigation for not properly policing its websites from people who want to spread propaganda, which, by the way, is still considered a public sector undertaking.

But of course, like most other such knee jerk reactions to a large crisis, this move is simply meant to distract the public from the real culprits – the inept administration.

As long as there are opinions, they will find a media in which to be expressed. Social networking sites are a tool that can be used for various purposes depending on the motives of the user.

Why Did They Flee?

My friends from Assam did not flee because of Twitter. They fled because of the lack of faith!

They left, because in the face of threats and a real attack, they knew that the police would be unable to assist them. They were also well aware that the courts would do nothing against any potential perpetrators and that most of the people caught engaging in violence would eventually be let off after a few decades in court. They knew that most people would get bail and they also understood that the government would not seek to protect them for fear of denting their majority voter base.

Those poor people would not have left their jobs, lives and colleges if they did not absolutely feel that they were in mortal danger. This is the justified sense of insecurity that occurs because of mistrust in the ability of the security agencies to do their jobs.

To cover up this very failure to uphold the Constitution of India and the Five Fundamental Rights enshrined in the Preamble, the government found a good old-fashioned scapegoat – Twitter. In their absurd logic, it is the messenger, the medium that is at fault, especially if the wielders of that medium are outside their jurisdiction.

As long as you don’t pay attention to their incompetence and inability to provide the right to live to the people of this country by enforcing a basic deterrent to commit public disturbance by proper police work and prosecution, they will be all too happy to push the blame on the media.

We Are Animals

Most liberal democracies do not insult their voting citizens by claiming that they are animals easily outraged and whipped up into violent frenzy and in need of the chains of censorship “for their own good.”

But why is it that Indians are animals, and not others who live in liberal democratic societies? Could it be that they are less concerned with online trolls because they know that if push came to shove, they could always rely on the police and the justice system to mete out adequate punishment to deter those who would think about harming anyone?

Other democracies allow for free expression and cover the other end by providing basic security to their citizens.

Simply monitoring obscene and inflammatory comments on social media and taking appropriate action to arrest and detain those that were looking to carry them out would have been enough if a basic level of competence existed in the agencies concerned. It is a lack of deterrence for crimes committed that makes it so easy for certain elements to cause problems.

Counter propaganda methods could also have been used to balance out hateful messages. But the government has never been used to competition.

Two Birds…

By blaming Twitter, the government can accomplish two goals at the same time. Those of us with our eyes open have witnessed many attempts by various powers to control online information and expression. The last couple of years alone have given rise to many crackdowns and calls to censor the Internet.

Interestingly, the last two years have also seen popular uprisings against dictators and oppressive governments in many countries. As Dictatorships and Democracies alike start to feel threatened by the Internet to be a force for good as well as evil (it is a tool, remember?), they are looking for various excuses to censor or control the flow of information.

Whereas censoring derogatory and inflammatory content may seem like a good idea to the average citizen right now, it also gives the ability to those in charge to censor legitimate content that may threaten their ability to stay in power, and that is a dangerous thing.

I was watching an interview of Roxana Shirazi who has written a book called “The Last Living Slut: Born in Iran, Bred Backstage”, and it re-enforced a long standing belief that sluts are like gold dust. I don’t necessarily agree with [...]]]>

Hippolyte-Joseph Cuvelier [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

I was watching an interview of Roxana Shirazi who has written a book called “The Last Living Slut: Born in Iran, Bred Backstage”, and it re-enforced a long standing belief that sluts are like gold dust. I don’t necessarily agree with the title of Ms. Shirazi’s book because I think that there still are sluts in this world, albeit like all good things, they can be hard to come by.

Ms. Shirazi seems like the best kind of feminist. From her interview, I was impressed by her acceptance and celebration of her sexuality. She is non apologetic in owning up to one of the most negative adjectives that exist to describe the female kind. I have not yet read her book, but her interview was enough to goad me into probing my own understanding about the thought processes of others and performing an in depth analysis about the world “slut” and all its meanings and connotations.

So, I advocate in this short piece that we all open our eyes and look inside ourselves (use fingers if you have to), that we all love sex and we would all be sluts if it was socially acceptable. The only reason to not have lots of sex is disease. But one can have safe sex. One can also indulge in provocative behavior that is not quite sex but almost as fun because even that “less than sex” activity beats the pants off anything else we do for entertainment and pleasure.

I think it is next to worthless to look into a dictionary to find the official definition of the word “slut.” The word itself has been used very liberally to describe many different kinds of behavior. The real use of the word lies in describing females and any application to the other gender is derivative from the original purpose.

In every day usage, the word is used to describe someone who seeks attention from others by means of dressing and behaving in a sexually provocative way. Sluts are negative characters because they are seen as attention seeking people who are highly sexual and of loose moral character.

In order to understand the use of the word “slut” when describing women, it is useful to also think about what women are expected to be. Because a slut is considered a deviant from normal civil society, it is important to first benchmark what normal civil behavior entails. For most women, and I am generalizing for the sake of conciseness and clarity, it is generally not considered proper to go about fucking random people.

Women are seen to be in possession of something that men desire: Vaginas. This “precious possession” is to be traded for something that women need: security. So in normal societies, women are not expected to give up the pussy to just anyone, but to save it for someone who will, in return give them a roof over their head and food to eat. This idea of course comes from the infancy of mankind and has been refined to ridiculous proportions in conservative cultures worldwide.

Men, on the other hand, do not possess any biological attributes that are in danger of being “used up”. Men can be found anywhere for the purpose of sex and most will always be willing and ready. However, their attractiveness stems out of an ability to provide security and raise a family. Men who are rich and physically able are seen as potential mates for women who are in possession of the hidden treasure.

In modern society, where women are independent and do not require a man for economic security, the purpose of this distinction is moot. The reason why it still persists is purely traditional. Biologically, women are just as sexual as men and find utmost pleasure in sleeping with a variety of partners. But human conditioning has dulled that sense of free sexuality over the passage of time.

Women (and even men) today, love to use the word “slut” in reference to another woman. If they encounter someone who is highly flirtatious, they might label her a slut. This need to degrade another human being comes from a sense of jealousy and lack of confidence in the person doing the labeling.

Yet, someone who dresses or behaves a certain way purely to seek attention has insecurity issues and may not technically be a “slut”. There is no difference in a person who yells, cries, slits their wrists or wears a tight leather miniskirt if their motivation is only to get someone else’s attention. In the context of this article, a slut is someone who is sexually expressive. If a woman admits to loving sex with a variety of partners and dresses minimalistically in order to pursue that goal, then she is a slut in the most positive sense of the word.

Being a slut, therefore, is not such a bad thing provided that you have gotten over certain mental blocks. If you are a woman who sees to her own economic security and has rejected obscure and obsolete social traditions, there is really no reason for you NOT to express your sexuality. You do not need anyone’s approval anymore.

If you live in a large and modern city, you will always be able to find and be part of a social group that shares your lifestyle and way of thinking. Given that life is finite, as a rational person you should be expected to express your every desire and need.

But even in modern society, finding a true slut can be extremely difficult because in order for people to make sense of the world, they have to live by handed-down morals and traditions. Most people do not think about their morality. Instead of weighing each idea and discarding the obsolete; people tend to take everything that they have been taught as accepted truth.

This acceptance then allows them to focus on their mundane everyday life. Many highly sexual people will either eventually come out of the closet or forever stifle their true selves to remain socially accepted.

So when you find a real slut, it can be a huge blessing because you have an opportunity to meet a truly unique individual who openly embraces their sexuality. There is something incredibly magnetic and pure about such a personality and more likely than not, having such a person in your life can change your worldview and make you into a more balanced and open minded person.

This blog post is not about Kim Kardashian. This is about you! I posted this up with that specific title to pull you in. Think of this like an intervention of sorts.

I tricked you! This is NOT going to be about how the Kardashians are ruining [...]]]>  

This blog post is not about Kim Kardashian. This is about you! I posted this up with that specific title to pull you in. Think of this like an intervention of sorts.

I tricked you! This is NOT going to be about how the Kardashians are ruining television. There are many worse things in the world and Kim Kardashian is the least of my concerns.

This is about YOU and only YOU. Who are you? And why are you here?

Did you think you would find something juicy about some celebrity so you would have something to talk about with your coworkers or your friends?

So you could forget your own existence for a few minutes and live someone else’s fabricated life?

So you could forget that you drag yourself out of bed every morning to work a repetitive job?

You know all of this already. So why am I bringing it up? This is not to make you feel bad in anyway but to make you feel good.

“How is reminding me of my own boring life supposed to make me feel good?”

Your life, your job and your whole setup are products of your society. You have been made to work and produce and Hollywood sells you dreams to make you forget.

This is not much different than a factory worker who gets a quota of free opium every day so they can forget their humanity for the greater good of society.

I am writing to unmask the world of its pretensions, if only for a few moments.  So you can have a short glimpse into reality and see the puppet strings for the first time. So you can see how you are sold a dream that is forever just one step away.

You are sold fashion and trends to make you question your own self.

I know you look at yourself and you cry.

I know how much pressure you put on yourself every day to do, what you think, is a little bit better in life.

I know you wake up and tell yourself that you must belong to an idea.

The idea of a better body, nicer clothes, sexier car or better job.

You are sold on the lifestyle. But Kim shits like you do and she cries like you do and she feels like you do. She is being used like you are and she is just as oblivious as you.

Would Kim Kardashian be as popular in the 80’s? When fashion’s idea of an ideal female body was anything other than the curvy posterior she is so famous for?

Is she not lucky that she was born at a time when the trends changed to suit her? And are you not, then unlucky that you were born at a time when being accepted is forever elusive?

Why should you change your body? Why should you buy those clothes or those shoes or that house or that car?

So you can rub it in their faces!

Whose faces?

Everyone’s!

Why?

Her life is manufactured and you know it full well. Yet, the voyeurism is what makes it so exciting.

Imagine if you were free of these compulsions.

Imagine if, for one day, you gave yourself a break from constantly pushing yourself to achieve some trifling goal.

Then none of this would matter! She wouldn’t matter! They wouldn’t matter! Only you would matter!

And then you wouldn’t be happy but you wouldn’t be sad either. You would stop biting your nails and grinding your teeth.

You would stop pushing yourself into an early grave.

Go out and do something entirely unexpected of you! Do something to celebrate your own existence. And do it for you! Disconnect from the world for a short time, and view it from afar.

And then you will see the superficial absurdity of what you used to think were important things.

You are comfortable, I know.

You have problems, I know, but there is a boundary in your life. Unexpected problems are the enemy. Known issues can be addressed by cursing at yourself once in a while.

You have the illusion of control when, in reality, you have about as much control over your own life as a mosquito in a room full of frogs.

So fly high! Higher than mosquitos are supposed to fly. And see all the flowers on the earth and visit all the stars in the sky.

Nicholas Roerich

Liberalism and conservatism have gone through many changes in terms of definition over the years. It is now widely understood that pinning these terms down is meaningless as these ideas are a derivative of national context. When it comes to Economy, Classic liberalism would equate to [...]]]>

Nicholas Roerich

Liberalism and conservatism have gone through many changes in terms of definition over the years. It is now widely understood that pinning these terms down is meaningless as these ideas are a derivative of national context. When it comes to Economy, Classic liberalism would equate to today’s Western brand of conservatism and is more akin to what is considered ‘liberalization’ in many old welfare states.

Semantics

The economic sense of these definitions are constantly changing and are more dependent on a comparison against the current policy in any particular economy. But the social definition is, at least directionally, more or less consistent. Social conservatism is about control of personal behavior to make it more in tune with collectivist morality.

Republicans and conservatives in America who  claim to be for individual freedoms and personal responsibility (which is a more classical liberal trait) routinely change their tune when it comes to social issues where they seek to control and regulate personal behavior to make it fall in line with their collectivist agendas.

As a side note, there are socially conservative liberals as well. By this I mean, those people who claim to be liberal and frown upon people who do not have the same morality as themselves.

A true social liberal is one who respects the personal choices and morality of others as long as they do not infringe upon the personal rights of anyone else. Your hipster neighbor who boycotts and pickets the local supermarket for stocking non-fair-trade goods is just as socially conservative as your average tea-partier.

Control and the Conservative Trend

Conservatism is about control and sticking to what you know. It is against the evolution of the social order. One of the greatest catalysts of social evolution in the world is a free Internet. In the last few years, we have seen many attacks on the freedom of information and expression online.

I don’t even have to mention the various ironically titled bills that have been introduced in various law making bodies around the world. In America, by introducing laws such as ACTA and SOPA, politicians are trying very hard to control thought in the name of copyright protection.

In other countries, ignorant courts and politicians are summoning websites like Google and Facebook to answer for the behavior of people online and, in some cases, even forcing these sites to censor any dissident comments in the name of blasphemy, defamation or hurting community sentiments.

The UN, in 2010, passed its very own blasphemy law and like every other blasphemy law in the world, this one is open to interpretation and seeks to fight religious ‘intolerance.’

They are running scared because change is being inflicted upon them. The question is: can they do anything about it?

They only way to freeze social evolution is by a full and comprehensive control of free expression. Countries like North Korea and China, who control expression on the internet, are successful because their methods are robust.  It’s an all or nothing deal and these countries give their citizens nothing at all.

Other more democratic countries like to pass laws that try to control thought in a more wishy-washy kind of way. But as long as there is an Internet, there will be ways to get around these absurd laws that are put in place simply as a means for getting votes from imbeciles and money from desperate corporations wishing to protect their obsolete business models.

As long as there is an Internet, we shall be free and, although it helps, we don’t need large Internet companies to facilitate or curate our expression.

It is not so unexpected for governments to pass laws that limit expression. Truly disturbing are the intellectually neutered masses that let it go on unnoticed. And most appalling is the media whose lifeblood, in advertising, depends on the preservation of the stable status-quo.

Many more laws are likely to come and the trend is moving disturbingly towards a more religious, more right wing and more conservative Internet where your expression is subject to the approval of the state and the corporate actors behind it.

Those were the days when life was easier for the typical webmaster. All you had to do to rank a page was [...]]]> Remember the good old days of link farms, monogamous link exchanges, sidebar top comments, keyword stuffing at the end of the page and, of course, pre-no-follow blog commenting?

Those were the days when life was easier for the typical webmaster. All you had to do to rank a page was to bang out a couple of paragraphs of content (all while owning noobs on WoW) and use any combination of the above mentioned ‘tactics’ to get ranked and noticed by Google.

In the last two years, these practices have become devalued and in some cases utterly counterproductive to SEO efforts. One by one, the mighty have fallen at the hands of the ‘big daddy’ Matt Cutts and his brigade of anti-SEO warriors as Google realizes that noble idea of emulating the democratic process to run a business is not only unviable, but downright risky.

Resemblance to Democracy

The original Google ranking model was based on democratic values. Each link was like a vote and the more votes you got, the higher you ranked. If website A and website B both wrote about tiddlywinks and website A received more backlinks, then they would be ranked higher than website B for tiddlywinks. Simple! And in its simplicity lay its robustness.

The idealists over at Google, with their “Don’t be evil” motto thought that this was the best way to index a free and fair internet.

But, alas, it seems like the boys grew up and learned that the world is full of people willing to cheat their way to higher profits, forever finding loopholes in the system in order to get their rankings so they can sell the next big shady affiliate product.

In an Internet full of marketing Gurus and copywriters willing to use weasel words and underhanded social engineering tactics to part the fool with his money, this simplistic democratic method was doomed to fail.

Freedom Ain’t for Everybody

So they brought out Matt and his team of swashbuckling mercenaries to do some dirty work and take out this mafia of blackhatters who had made the Internet a dangerous place for stay at home moms and Melvin bloggers – and this brings us to the present time.

Unless this power is used on a case by case basis and only against the worst fake Viagra type offenders, it will end up hurting a lot of innocent people. As we are already seeing, good honest bloggers are bearing the brunt of this war on spam.

This has an eerie resemblance to the real life erosion of civil liberties to make life safe for citizens in a democracy.  Algorithm wide changes are being used as an excuse to make the Internet safe for content addicts.

The problem comes when there are so many tweaks to the original idea that the idea ceases to be what it was originally intended. Democracy and free society do not exist as they did in the past. The excuses provided are that it is just too dangerous to let people go unsupervised and there is an eerie similarity between what is going on in the real world and what we are seeing online today.

Democracy fails because of the following reasons

1. Idiots can vote and are counted equally with intellectuals
2. Criminals continually subvert the system using underhanded vote rigging techniques
3. Corporations buy politicians to undermine the will of the people and influence policy
4. The system is rigged to favor the rich and successful
5. If you have a budget, you have a voice.

Search Engine Algorithms based on Democracy failed because

1. Idiots could post links in blog comments and were counted equally with people who made good content but didn’t have the time or money to build links
2. Blackhatters subvert the system using software and loopholes
3. Large corporations buy links and hire PR agencies to get their names and links into news outlet websites and can run huge social media campaigns.
4. The system is rigged to favor the rich and successful
5. If you have a budget, you have a voice.

Google seems to be doing all it can to change this and fix these problems in order to create a level playing field but the tactics they employ are so broad that they end up mowing down legitimate small businesses.

At the end of the day, the sum total of Google’s efforts have only caused those with huge budgets to gain a significant advantage over those who are just starting out and the only answer that Google has to this problem is social media.

Social Media is the Answer? Bitch Please!

They seem to think that Social media is the way for small time guys to get their voices heard. Unfortunately, social media is itself a tool in the hands of large PR agencies and even on places like Facebook and Twitter, those with large budgets can drown out everyone else.

Google has a weird ‘Ivory Tower’ understanding of social media. They seem to believe that if you create good content, you will magically get backlinks. No one gives out backlinks anymore on their high PR sites, and even if they do, they make sure to neuter them with ‘nofollow’ beforehand.

Not to mention the fact that social media marketing is more conducive to certain niches than others. With this push towards social media, Google is basically telling small time bloggers that they should focus their blogs on topics like cats and crocheting and leave the big money keywords like Finance and Real Estate to the establishment.

As time goes on, Google will start going after every single method of backlinking and external SEO. Blog commenting is all but dead because of  ’nofollow.’ Panda killed article marketing and the recent updates that go after paid linking schemes have taken out most ‘syndication’ outfits. So, all we are left with is social media where budget is king.

If you are thinking of starting a blog in this day and age and you think you will make money with Adsense, please think again! Blogging used to be for the everyday Joe but now it is nothing more than a tool for a corporation to show its human face by using social engineering tactics to get people to buy more shit – Becky over at Target Corp loves cats and recommends the new cat chow. Buy one get one free online by using the coupon code ‘ Becky loves pussy’

You would be better off spending your time learning how to code some php or javascript and freelancing your way to a more secure future.

Coming Soon  – The Impending Death of Adsense