From: ghosh@sp1.csrd.uiuc.edu (Sanjoy Ghosh)
Subject: Re: (misleading) Indian Express Advertisement re: RJB
Organization: Univ of Illinois, Center for Supercomputing R&D, Urbana, IL
Date: Thu, 28 Jan 93 18:08:12 GMT

(Samit Banerjee) writes:

>Actually your bucolic fawning coupled with your servile attitude is
>wholly undeserving of any divine benefaction. As for my own self imposed
>abstinence from flaming, it may not last very long. Patience has never
>been a hinderance in my dealings with the inane, arcane or asinine displays 
>of downright ignorance. Now that you have been warned, save the "I told you
>so" smug cliche for another time.

The reason for the above is the bengali saying "pagole ki na bole,
chagole ki na khae", which translates as "a lunatic will say anything,
a goat will eat anything".  And if bucolic fawning was the only way
to keep you from flaming like a lunatic so be it.  I thought I would
wean you from your addiction to needlessly insulting people by humouring
you.  But if that does not work, get stuffed.

>Ok, but only if you insist. Let it not be said by posterity, that I stiffled
>your creativity by making disparaging remarks about your intelligence.

Please.  Posterity doesn't give two hoots for what you said or did.
Please do not labour under the misapprehension that your obnoxiousness
on the net is making a mark on posterity.  And I have enough confidence
in my intelligence not to worry about remarks from you, disparaging
or otherwise.  So can that line of patter, if you really wish to have
an interesting discussion, as you later say.  Because I do not equate
creativity with boorishness.

>Wonderful, my dear Watson. How did you guess I was getting tired of an
>bantering, frivolous, substanceless, argumentative and unproductive 
>discussion? You would have to be quite clairvoyant to pick up such 
>subtle signs.

And what is using 5 multisyllable words to describe nothing?  But please
do carry on in the same vein, because the pomposity of the above words
is truly entertaining.

>Secularism in the Indian context refers to the seperation of church and
>state or simply means that the Govt. is equally indifferent to all
>religions. Calling a country Hindu or Muslim does not refer to what the
>majority religion may be in that country....it refers to the fact that
>the Government is run according to Hindu or Muslim or Christian tenets.
>The two may or may not be the same and the distinction as far as I am 
>concerned is quite important.

Aren't you talking a bit like Alice.  Words mean what you want them to
mean.  When you talk about K, it is okay to say Hindus can't buy prop
there, when you talk about India it is not okay to say that India is
a H country.  If as you yourself say, the distinction is important,
why is it not important in the case of buying prop in K?

>No, please expostulate on your views, O 'Learned One. Tell us why or why
>not Assam can go the Kashmiri way. Since I hold a somewhat dissimilar 
>view, this might make for an interesting discussion, afterall.

So its your turn for some bucolic fawning?  I don't mind.  Its difficult 
to have an interesting discussion with someone who doesn't hear what I 
say.  I did not comment on why K can or can not go A's way.  I said I 
would not like K to go A's way.  An important difference there.

>Laws are made based on statistics and cases are argued based on precedent.
>That is legal jargon for statistics. What has happened in the past 
>influences a judge or jury as much as the merits of the actual case.

Loose terminology, on my part.  Sorry for the same.  The fundamental
principles of the constitution are based on morals, not statistics.
Otherwise, using your line of reasoning, it would merely codify hindu 
laws.  And sati would still be legal.

>My, my what flights of fancy. Next you would have us believe that the 
>average Shiv Sainik reads SCI after his morning ablutions, puts in his
>fair share of posts and flames, attempts to conserve bandwidth and the
>environment and then after having satiated his thirst for the standard
>liberal messages floating around, dons his trishul and calmly kills 
>a couple of muslims/tamils/or whatever else that is on the menu for that 
>day. 

If you are simply going to takeoff, without any regard to what was
actually said, why wait for a response from me.  Just keep posting
flames, or whatever you please about anybody you dislike every half-hour 
or so.  I prefaced my remark with the clause, if you plan to be in 
Bombay anytime soon.  I thought one of the rewards of higher education 
was the ability to talk and reason about things at a distance.

>Phu-lease, get real. And while you are at it, you are excused from SCI.

I wasn't aware that I was on SCI with your permission.

>Actually a poor example but nonetheless serves to illustrate what 
>education is not about. It is not about the lack of choice, the teching
>of dogma, and inability to think and analyze, except when confronted
>with the barrel of a gun. The CR actually changed little educationally
>in China other than the killing of intellectuals who were branded 
>enemies of the people. "Red star over China" by Adam White who happened
>to be with Mao during his Long March and  afterwards details this purging
>of the "bourgeois intelligensia" even as history books were changed to
>obliterate references to Chiang-ki-shek.

Again, Alice-like semantics here.  Education is what you think is good
stuff.  By your reckoning then when a person goes through a learning
process it is not known whether they are receiving an education or not
until the results are known.  If the endproduct meets with your approval
then the person received an education, otherwise they did not.  

In fact to take each of the points you raised as not being education.
Poor children in Chicago schools are not getting an education because
they have no choice.  Students of divinity schools are not getting an
education because they are taught some kind of dogma.  A lot of Indians
are not getting an education because rote-learning crimps their ability
to think and analyze except when confronted by an examination.  A lot 
of people would disagree with such a definition of education.

>Am I missing something here, or is your circuitry malfunctioning and
>spewing forth the same irrelevant one liner, each time. Maybe it's time 
>for that yearly overhaul.

Yes you are missing something.  Namely, that none of this is an attempt 
to paint you into any particular corner of the political spectrum.  Or 
a thinly veiled attempt to paint a political identity on you, was the 
phrase you used.  And that is because, believe me, nobody in this huge 
big world cares what you think.  Or to take your advice and taking that 
yearly overhaul, I don't give a damn what your political inclination is.

Sanjoy Ghosh
Newsgroups: soc.culture.indian