My getting drunk tonight I thus excuse

"Thy babe, unweaned, did it die today?!"
No. Nor its Memory's milk will dry for aye
For, if the Saqi drinks, she draws ireful abuse
My drunken tonight, in advance, excuse.

Spivak and the Genesis of the Post Colonial Subject-

'Spivak, like Sen, is no leaden doctrinaire pundit but, being engaged in mere maidenly fending off of a historically inevitable Marxist deflowering, actually quite nimble and inoffensive in her affectation of meretricious Methodenstreit which might intimately seductive seem- as to a Jock a cheery cheerleader's mime of sucking Satan's cock, while Satan choose to remain unseen - so to excite that drunken old Noah, detritus of Capitalism's deluge, thus bringing to birth the episteme of the dark skinned Post Colonial Subject- by means, the Talmud tells us, of his own sodomy and (by reason of too rough a reach-around) castration at Ham's ham-fisted hands. '

Discuss.

Frankly, I think this sample of the sort of question they're asking at Common Entrance (Religious Studies) is just Political Correctness gone mad! I blame David Cameron. Well him and that other bloke. You know the one I mean. Kept going on about Sheffield during the debates. Whatever happened to him? Shifty looking feller. Probably ponced off to Australia or someplace they still have an Economy to ruin. Good riddance is what I say. They're all bum-boys you know.

Bhoodan, Bihardan and other achievements of Vinobha Bhave/

Mahatma Gandhi's greatest disciple was Acharya Vinobha Bhave. He initiated the bhoodan (gift of land) programme in 1951 under which over 4 million acres, some of which actually existed, was offered up gratis for redistribution, often to its original owners. One step up from bhoodan was gramdan (gift of the entire village) which was even less successful though, in its watered down, 'sulabh' form, more openly fraudulent. Finally, in August 1969, Acharya Vinobha Bhave (who had vowed not to leave Bihar till the problem of land re-distribution was solved) gained the most spectacular success of any Saint in World History when the entire state of Bihar (98% at any rate) was offered up as 'Bihardan'.

Over the next three decades, Bihar went from being considered one of the best administered States in the Union to becoming a byword for Backwardness, Crime and Corruption.

Vinobha Bhave has a written a book about the true meaning of the Bhagvad Gita. This gift of his is worth as much as his Bhoodan, Gramdan and Bihardan.

Freedom as Development?

What is Freedom? It's what we have- as subjects/devotees of a State/Faith- and what everybody else conspicuously lacks.
What is Development? Well it's about the place of an economy on a time-line w.r.t adoption and innovation involving technological advances.
Combine the 2 notions- speak of Freedom as Development, or 'good' Development as being about more Freedom- and you have a teleology based on some overt or covert historicist essentialism.

Is it licit to speak of Freedom as Development? No, because Development does not arise from more Freedom nor more Development lead to Freedom- unless you cook the books after the fact.
What is the point of cooking books when, at this moment, hundreds of thousands are literally starving, hundreds of millions seriously malnourished and billions all over the world are too stoned to do the washing up?

Vikram Akula vs. Muhammad Yunus

Everybody has heard about Nobel Laureate, the truly noble, Muhammad Yunus's Grameen bank.
McKinsey wunderkinder, Vikram Akula's SKS Micro finance has also garnered a lot of publicity.
Akula, backed by savvy investors like Vinod Khosla, has tapped the capital market very successfully pointing to Micro-finance as a highly profitable venture.
However, the question Yunus asks is whether for-profit Micro-finance might not tarnish the whole movement and render it a source of exploitation rather than empowerment for poor women.

Since Akula has a PhD from Chicago, we should respectfully refer to him as Dr. Akula - and not just any old blood sucker fastening his fangs on the necks of poor women.

DrAkula is locked in a custody battle with his wife- a lawyer in the U.S. She alleges domestic violence- it appears DrAkula has a conviction for this- and a sort of kidnapping by fraud of her son.
In piteous terms she contrasts the millionaire life-style the father can offer their son in India in contrast to the middle class life-style of her own home in the States where, however, the child can at least be brought up a proper Catholic. (His mother converted from Hinduism some years ago because Catholicism is known to be the most successful religion in fighting off Vampires)
This noble and courageous woman has launched her own non-profit Domestic Violence N.G.O. (to be clear, she is against it- not for it) which, perhaps in the fullness of time, may work productively with DrAkula's own Company which focuses on very poor and marginalized women. It is important that these females not be beaten domestically due to habituation to pain makes the job of the Micro-finance recovery agent/goons more taxing and time consuming thus negatively impacting profitability and p/e ratio.
In divorce we should always put the child first. Maximizing the value of his inheritance should be the priority.
We hope that if the husband and wife can not be reconciled then at least the organizations they have founded will be able to work hand in hand. This would be a beautiful example of symbiosis between the non-profit and for-profit sectors of the Poverty Relief industry.
True, Yunus Sahib has expressed some reservations. This due to his old fashioned ideas and failure to keep up with the spirit of the times. To paraphrase, P.M Manmohan Singh- kya karen? these Muslims are like totally backward yaar. Govt. sponsored Reservations is the only way to deal with Indians of that stripe- except Yunus escapes that fate being from Bangladesh.

more marvels of mystic poesy

My spirit, amongst books, I squandered so
Too late, my knock, upon her brothel door
& for that Salome's veils the Word baptize
Death drowns in my Jordan eyes.

The Trojan War as a allegory of mystic Love.

Conscripts to what her Creed demands, for War is a glorious game

Unflinching we, as Love commands, at our own hearts take aim

Which, beating but in Beauty's breast, our Achillean Arts defame

Till our pitiless necrophilias attest Penthesilea's nuptial claim

The parable of the Hermit and the priest

Once upon a time a learned priest, seeking knowledge of the highest mysteries of Holy Scripture, retired to a hermitage in the forest. Pious folk from a small village in a clearing nearby came to to seek his blessings and see to his simple needs.
A strange, solitary boy, who delighted in killing birds with stones and whacking bush rats with a stick, haunted the vicinity.
The old hermit chanted aloud chapters of the sacred text. The boy, drawn by the melodious sound, would abandon his cruel sport to come and listen to the holy man.
One day, while chanting the last verse of the last chapter, the hermit died. When the villagers came to bring food for the hermit they were amazed to find that the boy was chanting the holy book in place of the hermit.
Believing this a miraculous occurrence, the villagers showed the boy the same reverence they had shown the hermit. In time, he grew old, and it was as though the old hermit was still alive, chanting the sacred text in his accustomed manner.
Meanwhile the village had become prosperous for, believing themselves especially favored by proximity to the hermitage, the villagers had grown confident and enterprising.
At this time a young graduate of a prestigious seminary thought it worthwhile to set up house and institute congregational worship in the village.
The villagers showed the ambitious young priest every mark of veneration and built a splendid house where he could lodge students and acolytes of his own.
However, the villagers did not discontinue their practice of seeking the hermit's blessing and this galled upon the learned priest.
He hinted to the villagers that there was nothing very marvelous in an idiot boy learning to repeat, parrot fashion, verses of the sacred text. The point about holy Scripture is to understand it and to be able to draw correct inferences from it.
Finally, the priest and his acolytes decided to challenge the hermit to a scholarly debate.
At first, the hermit appeared to be holding his own for no sooner did the priest quote a verse of Holy Writ than the hermit proceeded to recite the entire chapter from memory.
However, when the priest began to display his knowledge of the syntax and vocabulary and hermeneutics of the sacred language, the hermit fell silent.
The priest said, 'the learned jurists disagree as to the exact meaning of this verse. I have related what the commentators have said and the manner in which the theologians have erected radically opposed philosophies based on rival interpretations of the text. Perhaps you, oh holy hermit!, can resolve the battle of the schools and dispel the confusion of the seminaries by granting us your insight into the true meaning of the piece of Holy Writ?"
Without a word, the hermit rose swiftly from his seat and beat the priest to death with a stick.
'Why such violence?' the villagers cried out.
'I like killing things with a stick,' the hermit replied grinning happily, 'It is most enjoyable. Mom discouraged me from playing with the other kids only for this reason. However, when the strange words that the old Holy man used to utter became lodged in my mind, my taste for beating things to death departed from me. Today, since this man was kind enough to explain the meaning of that nonsense, its hold on me has been broken and so I can resume my favorite pastime.'
The priest's acolytes then spoke up- 'In truth, this is a miracle! The highest mystery of Holy Scripture has been revealed!'
After everybody had run away from the village- those, that is, not nimble enough to avoid the Holy Man's stick- they spread far and wide as Evangelists of the True Gospel and also Media Personalities with a side-line in Pizza delivery.