Pavansut: The Monkey God

Former Harvard quarterback Vin Ferrara, now a medical doctor and an entrepreneur, has developed a new helmet to help save the players from concussions they get in football. While this is a good development, what this game really needs is a change in the rules that helps protect the players from excessive force based hits. No amount of protective gear is going to help the players - in fact it may be having the exact opposite effect - because players have a false sense of security, they may be taking greater undue risk.

It may be macho to think of a rough hit as being part of the game, but the damage from these concussions acccumulates over time and has a long term detrimental effect on the players health.

NY Times has published a great primer on the current situation in Pakistan. The article describes the various ethnic minorities that make up Pakistan, and how the Military-fudal lordism nexus has exploited it in their quest for power.


However the article is incomplete without a discussion around the military-mullah nexus. this nexus, which is the source of current and past troubles that have bedeviled Pakistan since its birth, is best described in a book published first in the eighties, and since then reprinted many many time. The book is "India, The Seige Within".

The book is rare and not easily available in the US, but M J Akbar has a blogger page, where he describes the book a bit.

Congratulations to Bobby Jindal, who trounced three opponents in the Louisiana primary to become the first Indian-American Governor of any state of the United States. Young Mr. Jindal (he is 36 years old) will have his hands full trying to reignite the economy of New Orleans, and keep the African American population with him. The African-Americans stuck to their constituency and voted mostly Democratic.

Wish you the very best of luck Mr. Jindal. The revolution has just began!