A Futile Attempt

And yet another loss at the hands of what may perhaps be the most imminent threat to the global amity, what we refer to as 'terrorism', but what a fierceful minority refers to as 'jihad'. Yesterday, yet again this minority proved to the whole world that no matter what the political demagogues across the globe are conferencing about, these cold-hearted warm blooded animals will soon be writing laws and 'constitutions' for the fastest growing religion in the world, which already has a fifth of the population in its arms. Never before in Pakistan sports history has such a despicable act taken place like yesterday. Shocking! but though not surprising. So I think about the attack on Lankan sportsmen. And then I think about the Mumbai attacks. Hostages held at gunpoint in Taj and Oberoi Trident, later shot to death. Then somehow, no clue how, the first thought that strikes me is the ominous September of 1972, Munich.

However absurd it might appear to most of the readers, I still could'nt overlook the striking similarities between these two recent events combined and the Munich masaccre. Perhaps my thoughts are reinforced by the biggest dissimilarity, ironically, which I will mention below.

11 Israelis were slaughtered while the Olympic games were still on on the other side of the village housing the ill-fated players. 7 shot to death. 4 shot and incinerated in a helicopter blown up by a hand granade. Among those murdered was Moshe Weinberg, the wrestling coach. The Black September group put forward a few demands. When the German officials tried to negotiate with them, in a hope to mellow down their flamboyant wishes, the hostage-takers threw the deadbody of Weinberg out of the door, to demonstrate their peremptoriness. Israel's response was immediate and absolute: there will be no negotiation.

Not even a week had passed, on 9th September, Israeli planes bombed Palestinian targets in Libya and Lebanon. But that was just the beginning. It took Israel nearly 20 years to seek their vengeance, when in 1992, the Head of Intelligence of PLO was brutally assassinated in Paris. And even today Israel has maintained its policies, rigid though highly criticized, but lets not forget, the only Jewish nation surrounded by the most chaotic Arabic states has made its statement to the world: quid pro quo.

But I wonder will our prime minister and defence minister ever orchestrate a secret strategy to eliminate those 10 gunmen who defied all laws in Mumbai and now Lahore like Golda Meir, the then Prime Minister of Isreal did?. Is our government ready to face criticisms for secretly tracking down and killing those allegedly responsible for these attacks like Israel has been facing for past decades? Is our government capable enough to launch an operation similar to Israel's immediate response 'Operation Wrath of God' and 'Operation Spring of Youth'? However desperately we might want an affirmative response, it will nevertheless end in a sarkari 'NO'. Instead, our officials are adept in holding press conferences and blabbing out those cliched statements 'We will bring them to justice'. Inspite of having complete profiles of those accused, we hand over the dossier to the whole world and wait for their responses. Its like when a kid is slapped by a bully, he cries, complains to his mommy and spends time searching for reasons and alibis to consolidate the allegation. As he is not equipped enough to meet the bully with equal force, he waits and waits with no self respect, untill finally one moment, he is given a candy and he forgets the whole story. The 'candy' here being anything like Slumdog Millionaire's Oscar streak, after which the media and the parties forget the grave tasks ahead of us and then India again becomes a 'great nation'.

Even today, Israel is in bad books of the human right activists and the UNO. They still have pending cases against them in the so called 'International court'. But they have always proved that nothing is strong enough to destabalize their national intergrity and no force however ferocious should dare to spill their children's blood, or it will be met with heavy and brutal force. I wondered if our reputed policy makers will ever learn something from what Bill Gates refered to as the world's high tech superpower, Israel. But then all the wrath and hope for a reprisal was vanquished when I realised the very essence of our doctrine. I just remembered that we offer our right cheek in return to a slap on left.

Finally, its best to simply quote General Aharon Yariv, the general overseer of the secret operation of Israel, who said that they had no other option but to exact justice.

"We had no choice. We had to make them stop, and there was no other way… we are not very proud about it. But it was question of sheer necessity. We went back to the old biblical rule of an eye for an eye… I approach these problems not from a moral point of view, but, hard as it may sound, from a cost-benefit point of view. If I’m very hard-headed, I can say, what is the political benefit in killing this person? Will it bring us nearer to peace? Will it bring us nearer to an understanding with the Palestinians or not? In most cases I don’t think it will. But in the case of Black September we had no other choice and it worked. Is it morally acceptable? One can debate that question. Is it politically vital? It was."

I wonder how many options we have that we are just 'talking' about it.

The Unconventional Wisdom : A Smoker's Lobby

"There is a new Marlboro land, not of lonesome cowboys, but of social-spirited urbanites, united against the perceived strictures of public health"
- Matthew Hilton, in his legendary book 'Smoking and Sociability'

This blog contains no heavy sounding words, no oxford-compliant grammer. :-) . Please compromise.

I have been willing to write something on this for a long time now. And truly speaking I have no clue how should I begin this. But one thing that I know for sure is, there is too much deception everywhere. There are too many theories all around us. Now I find most people ignorant, and that is a blunt understatement.Period. And why I say so, I will try a bit to justify, and if you dont get it, its ok, you are eligible to file your nomination for being the Union Health Minister of India next time. I would like to mention here that none of the data written henceforth is fictional, but is based on research papers and theories, some that were burried, forever.

I firmly believe in the concept of 'possibility'. Perhaps, the reason why I loved the Matrix Trilogy. Perhaps the reason why Quantum mechanics amuse me ( not that I get it, not that I am a scholar ).

Did we land on moon? Was 9/11 orchestrated by the US government? Had Mr. Roosevelt deciphered the Japenese 'purple code' long before Pearl Harbour happened? Was J.P. Morgan the greatest financier of all times, or one of the greatest conspirators in American history? Who killed Kurt Cobain? Is 'Global Warming' a conspiracy?

You see, there is so much chaos everywhere. So I chose to view and weigh all the options and possibilities and theories. And I dont want to be a worthless,brainless dog who believes in X just because the whole world is singing poems about it ( No offence, I see such people everywhere). Call me an arrogant bastard but now lets talk like adults, lets talk abt Y:

The common myth about smoking assert that the lungs of smokers become brown or black (hahaha) from years of accumulation of tar. CRAP!. Let me introduce you to this gentleman, Wray Kephart, working in a hospital, performing autopsies. Mr. Kephart has performed some 1560 autopsies till date, and he insists that it is normally impossible to tell, from autopsy, whether the deceased was or was not a smoker. Upon resection, the lungs are always clear, unless the deceased lived in a large city where there was significant industrial pollution. In that event, carbon deposits may be found, but these are unrelated to smoking. So the "brown lungs" myth is exactly that: a myth.

Don't believe Mr. Kephart? ( right, logical, since it can be a fabricated story as well! ). Fine, here is a medical fact :

"Its hard to tell if the deceased were a tobacco smoker or not by the appearance of the lungs. The absence of any black pigment suggests that the person was either a nonsmoker or a very light smoker. Heavy black pigmentation suggests that the person was either a heavy smoker, or lived in a city with heavy particulate air pollution, or was a coal miner, or some combination of the three. The black pigment in question is elemental carbon, which most investigators believe to be inert in its effects on the lungs"
-----Ed Uthman, A renowned Pathologist.

Soon after this satement in 1999, The US media, which almost completely is governed by the US government, made sure to eradicate this statement and study. Many such studies were lost in oblivion after this.

Now I dont blame you for a typical 3rd grade response from you- 'But I have seen pictures of smoker's lungs in dentists' clinics, in my text book in class 4th, and those photographs were just horrible and gross.'

Sirjee, please grow up. Those are phonies. The problem is simply that the photograph of the smoker's lung is a photograph of a lung ravaged by lung cancer; it is not a photograph of the lung of some smoker who died from some other disease. Which simply proves nothing except that the cancerous lungs look different from the non-cancerous lungs. HA!

There is another hilarious fact. The photographs show the outside surface of the lungs. The outside surfaces of lungs are not exposed to either air or smoke; therefore, it would be impossible for smoke to stain those surfaces. So next time you see such a photograph..smile nd light one of those little peacemakers and smoke out that magical stream off your nostrils right 'in the face'.

Another myth, propagated by the anti-smoking crowd, is the notion that lung cancer was a rare disease in US (because all these theories originate from the States) until some time in the 1930's, when it began to raise its ugly head as the result of smoking. The fact is that, the story being true proves nothing. Because in early part of the century, the diagnosis of lung cancer was complicated by "consumption factor". "consumption" refered to a group of inflictions characterised by emaciation,wasting away, coughing , which undoubtedly included tuberculosis along with other diseases. Unfortunately a rigid medical definition was not available, however many of the symptoms described were applicable to lung cancer and, in 1912, most people were treated by family physicians who made house calls, and probably diagnosed most diseases from the symptoms, rather than from any sort of laboratory analysis. The researchers concluded that there was a detection bias; that doctors were very ready to diagnose lung cancer in a smoker; very reluctant to make the diagnosis in a non-smoker.

Few more copy-paste facts :

In 1976, Dr. Doll R. and Dr. Peto R. issued a paper in which they reported that daily cigarette consumption by the British doctors who had been studied in connection with the 1964 SG's report had declined from 9.1 in 1951 to 3.6 in 1971. Doll and Peto claimed that, as a result there was a 38% reduction in lung cancer death rates amongst the doctors. In a paper27 , however, late Philip R. J. Burch, a professor of Medical Physics at the University of Leeds showed that Doll and Peto had compared the lung cancer death rates among the doctors with the lung cancer death rates for the entire British male population. Burch re-plotted the data to compare the doctors with themselves and showed that, on that basis, the risk for lung cancer amongst the doctors had actually increased by 31%.

BTW: Burch was a non-smoker, whose principal life work was an attempt to develop a unified theory of cancer.

In the same paper, Burch plotted cigarette consumption for women and men in England and Wales against lung cancer death rates, during the period 1890 to 1971. He showed that the largest increases in LCDR's in both sexes came during the time periods 1916- 1920 and 1931-35, when at a time when cigarette consumption among women in England and Wales was very small. From this Burch concluded that the rise in lung cancer was due to improved diagnosis, not smoking.

So now to sum up everything, this is Y :

In words of Lauren A. Colby,- 'actually the case for a smoking/lung cancer connection is by no means proven.Certainly, there is no case whatever for a connection between ETS (second hand smoke) and any disease, nor is there are any case for a connection between cigar and pipe smoking and lung cancer. The case for a connection between cigarette smoking and lung cancer rests on the slim reed of a science called epidemiology. But all epidemiological studies, predicated as they are on statistics, are subject to so many co-factors and confounding factors as to be subject to innumerable different interpretations.'

If I have been taught to believe in Newton's Laws, and at the same time believe in Quantum mechanics, then its time to learn about the truth behind smoking ( specially since now our Mr. Ra-MAD-oss has shown his joblessness ).

Its too much to hope that this article will be completely read by non-smokers, but its a pity that even the educated individuals are so engrossed in the preceived notions of the society and so blinded by their prejudices that their rigid mental barriers are unshakable. I simply hope that my fellow smokers will read it and begin arming themselves with facts to refute the propaganda. A lot more to come in this blog, for all the smokers....

A friend asked me 'why do you smoke?'.

I answered 'I enjoy it'

I am afraid he just didnt "get it". :-).