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Presidential election in the United States of America - should I care?

I have no idea what all the issues are, concerning the people living in a country located thousands of miles away which is locked between two oceans the Atlantic and the Pacific. However when one sees the candidates speak about things, which can be very surprising. For instance no public figure leave alone politicians would over dare, openly discuss whether gay marriages should be allowed or not, Because if anyone were to admit being gay , because of existing laws he would be confessing to a crime and will end up being thrown in jail; so the question of allowing gay marriages can never arise. With respect to the prevalence AIDS - no one knows how many people do suffer from this disease here and how many so far have died because of it, so far. The official policy is absolute denial and camouflage. Taking advantage of the ignorance of the people, doctors can attribute the cause of a patient's death to any number of diseases and no one would be any wiser. A doctor could know that ...

Planted letters

Newspapers, which apparently are influential - publish on a regular basis letters, which for all intents and purposes look - meant to restrict freedom as much as possible. People writing under a variety of names write about how TV cable operators are 'destroying the moral fibre' of society - by having 'lewd' channels. Invariably as a result of such letters, the premises of TV cable operators are raided and their equipment is taken away. Pakistan Electronic Media Authority (PEMRA) an extra-judicial organisation with powers which no one can challenge makes its own rules as it goes along. It is too much of a coincidence that no sooner are those letters published, certain TV cable operators are targetted. It looks more like some kind of vendetta. The 'writers' of such letters sound extremely helpess, as if they cannot switch channels using the remote. Perhaps these are people without limbs or are so paralysed or it could be, they are so enthralled while looking a...

Fake Medicine: Dracula

The symptoms of Dracula do not seem any different than someone suffering from rabies - his deadly fear of running water, sunlight. He would bite people - when he did they too would be infected with rabies. It is said he fought the Turkish army and was known as Vlad the Impaler. When he captured Turkish soldiers he force them to convert to Christianity and when they did not, he would impale the forehead to a tree. The cross was his guide but became his curse because he was bitten by some animal which was is a rabies a carrier, a dog or a fox. So when he saw the cross it reminded of the time he contracted rabies. His hate of the Turks was so much that even hated the food they ate, which had plenty of garlic in it. Dracula developed an aversion to garlic. Hence the myth grew that in order to keep Dracula away was to have garlic hanging around. Perhaps in the days of Dracula rabies manifested in some other form, it may result in madness but not death. Dracula would stay out of light and w...

Cars and motorcycles a luxury?

Commuting in a city the size of Karachi is very difficult. The policy of the junta as regards the price of fuel is inconsistent – because of this the owners of public transport – be they taxis or buses do not have fixed fares. Those who travel in buses are not sold bus tickets and taxis do not have meters – they justify this on the grounds that the price of petrol varies from one day to the next, so it is impossible for them fix the fare. When it comes to taxis (or rickshaws) one has ask the driver how much he will charge for going to a particular place. The shorter the distance the more the fare, the longer the distance the fare is comparatively less. If one wants to go to some residential area – the fare is higher, because in such places people usually have their private vehicles and rarely rely on public transport, so taxis go back without any passenger aboard. But if ones destination is a major shopping area, then the fare is great deal less, because the taxi driver will most lik...

Know nothing

Proud of my ignorance? Certainly not - but I must admit do not know much about anything - rather for the most part I am absolutely have no clue. If am told the world is round and it has been proven to be so - I must agree - but my personal experience tells me it is flat. Why do things fall it said I am told there is such thing as gravity then I am told there is nothing such as gravity it is the curvature of space - whatever that is supposed to mean. I wish scientists were to make up their minds. What are those tiny bright dots I see in the night sky? I have no idea - I am told they are stars and they are so far away no one will ever be able to reach them. Whatever the reasons for that I will never venture to ask, I have never had a telescope in my life so I can never see that far. Why does my mobile do the things it does? - I do not know. Why can see so many TV channels, when at one time I could only one - is beyond me. Why I can see TV is at all is even harder to explain. There ...

A stranger

Insinuations, euphemisms, gossip, superciliousness are make up his conversation. He always contradicts himself. He has proven that without the shadow of any doubt that he is a hypocrite. If it is possible he will try never to listen, but when he does – he likes to interrupt and starts arguing. Every conversation degrades into a pointless and meaningless argument. All sense of fun and levity has gone from him, perhaps it was never there. He derides anyone with a sense of homeliness, warmth and closeness. He finds it discomfiting to laugh out loud at something which is genuinely funny because he is so used to ridiculing and scoffing at everything. It is apparent his has all but lost his sense of humour. He cannot tell the difference between opinion and fact – he mixes both of them up. When gossip is not involved in any conversation – he starts an extensive interrogation seeking every tiny detail which is actually a desperate bid to find fault so that he can start an argument. He does n...

IDEAS by pinheads

For three days Karachi is suffering from another bout of traffic jams because of an every shady arms fare called IDEAS. No one knows who is selling what to whom. Several parts of the city have been cut off and the normal flow of traffic has been seriously affected. It is as if the people in Karachi are a major security risk. The people are not a security risk it’s the pinheads (none other than the over-rated military) who by exaggerating the importance of the arms deals fare. This only creates even more resentment, because the junta deliberately is alienating the people of Karachi from everything. Before Karachi was the country’s capital – Islamabad became the capital – but Karachi’s commercial and financial importance over the decades and it become the commercial capital of the country. The junta receives 75 per cent of all taxes from Karachi, yet the city and its citizens do not get return on the taxes paid. Now the pinheads that instead of finding an appropriate place to have th...