Kolam, Stray dogs, odds and ends

There is a kolam outside most hindu homes (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kolam) a pattern made using rice powder mixed with water ... A few days ago, my mom complained that the kolam was disappearing rather quickly - it is supposed to be done in the morning (or late night) and stay throughout the day ... Turns out, a squirrel was coming by almost every day and using the "kolam" for food - rice/water - so why not? What is interesting is that she places a small amount of cooked rice outside a window sill every morning for squirrels or crows that appear - So to fix the "kolam" problem with rice/water, she went and bought some white powder that is NOT food - and hope that the squirrels eat the food on the sill and not in the "kolam"

I notice stray dogs a lot - they seem to mind their own business - and in the morning, I see several people walk with small bags filled with crackers or cookies - they drop pieces every so often where some of the dogs congregate - I am guessing the dogs know who will come when and drop off food ...

The TV here is off a satellite turns out - there is a dish on the top of the building - and apparently there is some problem with the dish orientation - they called someone - cancelled it - and tried to reschedule it - but turns out someone living in the top most floor apparently is very uncooperative and trashes the place where the dish is located - This sort of unsocial behavior seems to happen a lot apparently - people simply do not care about what happens outside their own apartment - even though they do have to navigate the areas outside - My brother had to have some repairs done to the apartment - and one item that needed attention was some water leakage coming from the apartment above - the neighbors there did not care and refused to do anything about it - so he had to pay for THEIR repairs and then do my parents repairs so there will not be leakage - petty or non petty behavior is fairly common - each tenant is supposed to pay some nominal amount for building upkeep every month - there are many who simply refuse to pay and there is not much that can be done, apparently - In some things, India remains mired in negative and backward thinking and unless people improve, things will get worse

Poverty in the Condescension of (the)(some) Rich

I could have titled this "Paul Ehrlich is alive" or perhaps "Tom Friedman is Stupid and Ignorant" or "How Liberals like Friedman are Condescending" or "Stupid is as stupid does" (and on and on ...)

OK - what am I talking about? The revival (it seems) of the doctrine that the world is becoming too crowded, too hot - there are too many people and there is not enough food and enough fuel and enough this and that - As McGurn wrote in the Wall Street journal, when these self appointed elites like Friedman and Ehrlich talk about "too many people" - they are NOT talking about too many swedes or norwegians or any such - they are referring to the peoples of Africa, India ... they are happy about the totalitarians in China who turn on their on quickly - kill as needed or throw them in jail for violating whatever policies the thugs in Beijing want ... Tom Friedman, who lives in a Mansion in Bethesda Maryland - consuming perhaps 10 ot 50 times as much energy (fossil fuels) as some typical family and flies all around the world in jets (that use fossil fuels) - talks glowingly about the totalitarian Chinese regime - since they can do whatever they want - So, Friedman believes that democracies are useless and we ought to replace it with what China has ... No kidding.

Who in the HELL has appointed these rich people as guardians of the world? How dare they go on TV or write about how the world will be better if there were fewer people? That the world cannot support anymore than we have? Are they that stupid that they forgot what Ehrlich wrote? Paul Ehrlich, who was sure (I MEAN SURE) that the world cannot sustain populations greater than a billion - that there would be widespread starvation - and blah and blah and blah - and he had a McCarthur Genius prize to prove it That Ehrlich was UTTERLY WRONG does not seem to matter to idiots like Friedman - I mean, can not Friedman read? Ehrlich was proved so, so wrong by events that transpired - Norman Borlaugh's revolution in agriculture changed everything - Julian Simon reminded us that there is no such thing as "natural resource" - that everything we enjoy/use is because of the critical human input/innovation - I mean, when the black gook called petroleum started oozing out of the ground, people were annoyed - they were drilling for WATER - and all they got was this gook - Ofcourse, this "gook" is what now gives us gasoline, diesel, plastics, coatings for roads, fuel for planes etc etc etc ...

I have taken to going for walks in the morning - My parents live in Wadala (technicallly within the City of Mumbai and about a mile or so south of "Suburbs" such as Sion and Mahim) (Wadala is INSIDE the city where 3 wheelers (autos as they are called) are NOT allowed ... I guess to relieve traffic congestion in the city?). My walk typically takes me through "Five Gardens" and "Dadar" and "Kings Circle" and "Matunga" and passing by several schools and colleges - including of course my own school "St Joseph's High School" (it celebrated it's 50th Anniversary in 1967 and I remember that well) - The Church on school grounds is perhaps 100+ years old and is called the "Church of our Lady of Dolours" - I still remember when I was in "elementary" school (grades 1, 2, 3,4) my mom used to bring us lunch - and we ate it on the steps of the church - many kids did ... Hot meal, right on time and on location - we lived about a 7 or 8 minute walk from school - but were not allowed to walk home for lunch till we entered High School (from what I recall).

I see people everywhere - the diversity is incredible - yes, appalling material poverty for sure - but also residents with Walkmans and ipods - Nike Shoes and T Shirts - buildings that look dilapidated - you wonder how people can live there - and skyscrapers that look like they were built very recently - with cars parked nicely inside - every so often I will see what looks like a hospital (they are called "nursing homes") - and clinics - physicians with long degrees that start with M.B.B.S and have M.D. and FAACP and FRS and whatnot (In India, the basic medical degree is an M.B.B.S. and once someone gets through that - he/she can get certified to practice family medicine - and many do ... Earning an M.D. degree requires 2 (or 3?) more years of study and some specialization - The kids in the US get that M.D. degree rather quickly and then spend years after in specialization - i see store fronts - large and small - in many cases, a few square feet of merchandise with one person - food stalls interspersed at random - ofcourse car and bus and truck traffic in the mix alongside - people crossing roads seemingly at random without waiting for signals - cars honk seemingly all the time to remind other cars and pedestrians ...

In the midst of material poverty, I see a wealth of ideas at work - I see the human supply chain at work - I see a bicyclist carrying milk in aluminum containers - he may have picked the milk from somewhere closeby and delivering that to local residents - that milk itself may have come from a dairy plant in Mumbai - or perhaps another city close by and transported by train or truck - and if we go follow the links - we may discover more human activity that has contributed to making sure that the milk got to the residents at the right time every day - I saw people walking with large bags that had smaller plastic bags with milk - pasteurised using the latest in milk processing technology - yes, even in India, technology has helped improve the lives of people - Obama's view that technology like the ATM machines are one reason our economy has a problem with jobs is assinine - he truly has NO idea what role technology has played in our economy and around the world - I imagine left to Obama, he would ban the use of tractors for agriculture and demand that more people be employed to grow our food - never mind that even as fewer people are in agriculture, our food production has increased and gotten better ... there are some people who are so dense that there is not much we can do about their ignorance and stupidity - Obama is certainly a prime example of that - We can understand why the US economy is in trouble ... And no, it was not Bush's fault as their 2012 theme seems to indicate. OK, I digress ... lt me get back to the theme here

Yes, India's population has increased steadily - people from rural areas move to Bombay and other big cities - looking for ways to survive - and thrive - and they do ... I can sense a huge change in the population density in Mumbai for sure - yet I see roads where the traffic DOES move - and people go about whatever they are doing - there is clearly more wealth - more cars, more three wheelers, more things being sold - more people buying things - more colleges - more universities - I'd say things ARE getting better - and yet, ofcourse, people complain "too many people" etc etc etc - that is, everyone other than their own selves is the problem - The question that people do not seem to ask is about what the cause is and the what the effect is - Is economic growth the cause for increased population - OR is it the other way around? I contend that the growth in India is BECAUSE of the growth in population that is coupled to the opening of the Indian economy to private enterprise ... Without people to do things - create - make - distribute - transport - repair - etc etc there would be no growth - Julian Simon was the economist who recognized that the ultimate resource is Human Ingenuity - I dare say that India is growing because the people are being allowed to do what they can do best ...
OK _ What about China? If all you do is listen to Friedman, you may think that China is paradise.

Is China growing because of it's people? Oh yes ... no doubt. What many refuse to see though are fundamental differences between China and India - one is a totalitarian system that does not think twice about murdering their own people (and has) - While India has the "messy Democratic system" that Tom Friedman hates. The trade warriors in the US are always upset about China and trade balances etc etc - One can go back about 20 years or so and see that they were talking about Japan in the same way - that unless we do this/that - Japan will overtake us and we will be subservient to Japan and so on and so on - Japan still holds MORE US treasuries than Japan (from what I remember) - We all know what happened to Japan - a fate that will surely hit China in a few years -

India has problems to solve - so do other countries. It is possible that India has far more problems to solve than other countries - corruption remains a problem at many levels - but we know that wherever there are humans, there will be liars and cheats and rascals and criminals - what saves countries from the rapacity of such low lives is the system that is in place - that functions inspite of such people - that on the average, things work - that one does not need "connections" to exist and prosper and grow - India is far from such an ideal state - but things are getting better for sure. I cannot imagine anyone who has travelled to and watched India over the years deny that things have gotten much, much better in India - even with the many problems yet to be solved.

The world has about 6 billion people - the people of India and China are hungry for growth - for the many things that we in the US and other Western Countries take for granted - simple or not so simple things for the home, for travel, for enjoyment, for life in general - How dare do the rich in the US and self appointed elites declare that the world is now full and so countries like India and China and many in Africa simply stop growing their own and getting better - the condescension expressed is sickening. The day that Tom Friedman moves into a hut without electricity and indoor plumbing and refrigeration and all of the modern conveniences that he takes for granted will be the day that I ... Never mind, the probability of that happening is equal to the probability of water freezing in hell.

WSJ/Notable (March 28, 2011)

Notable & Quotable

Walter Russell Mead on African-Americans fleeing blue states.

Walter Russell Mead at the American Interest website, March 27:

The Census reported that waves of blue state Blacks fled the stagnant job opportunities, high taxes and rotten social conditions of the mostly blue northern states to seek better lives for themselves in the south. . . .

[T]he three states Blacks left in largest numbers don't just include snake-bit Michigan; the other two are Illinois and New York. Within those states, Chicago and the city of the New York (widely considered among the most successful cities in the country) are the places Blacks are deserting. 17 percent of the Black flight from Big Blue is from the Empire State; after almost a century of trailblazing social policy, New York State has succeeded in creating the most hostile environment for Blacks in the country. . . .

The failure of blue social policy to create an environment which works for Blacks is the most devastating possible indictment of the 20th century liberal enterprise in the United States. Helping Blacks achieve the kind of equality and opportunity long denied them was more than one of many justifications for blue social policy: it was the defining moral task that has challenged and shaped American liberalism for the last fifty years.

The Census tells us that in the eyes of those who know best, these well intentioned efforts failed. Instead of heaven, we have hell across America's inner cities. Blue economic policy has cut the creation of new private sector jobs to a trickle in our great cities, while the high costs of public union urban services (and policies that favor government employees over the citizenry at large) impose crippling taxes and contribute to the ruinously high costs that blight opportunity. All the social welfare bureaucracies, diversity counselors and minority set-asides can't make up for the colossal failure of blue social policy to create sustainable lower middle class prosperity in our cities.