India wins it FIRST ever individual Gold medal in Olympics!!

Congrats Abhinav Bindra !!! You have made us proud.

He has won FIRST ever individual Olympic gold for India. He won gold in men's 10-metre Air Rifle event in Beijing 2008. It's only a beginning, I am sure. We are coming... may be bit behind China.. may be 10 - 20 yrs.. We'll be there!!

WYD and the Colonial hang-over

One of the beautiful parts of World Youth Day final Mass was the gospel procession by the Pacific Islanders. I was there, right beside. It was really beautiful, touching (watch it here) . But,... that's a BIG BUT!

The end of the gospel precession really tasted bitter.. The symbolism! The Pacific Islanders 'entrust the Gospel' to a European convoy (at least all looked like Europeans). Then they takes it to the alter, as the Islanders passively look at it! Black and White!

Just reminded everybody of the new Cadbury ad on the TV. The Pacific Islanders wage war over coffee and the Emperor wins, only to see that European colonials came to take the throne.

Dont think that I am too critical. But there are things to be fixed up. In God, there's no race. When we do a liturgy for WYD, which is supposed to celebrate the universality of Church, these things should get right. The powerful symbolism could have all changed, if we had, at least a black or brown person among the convoy who received Gospel from the Pacific Islanders.

Tail piece: During the Saturday vigil, one of the Indian young pilgrims told me. "Look father they pray in almost every language on earth. But why not in any of Indian languages?". He was right. The representation of Indian subcontinental languages were almost nil, except for one of the prayers of the faithful during the final Mass in SriLankan Sinhalees.

I want to answer RIGHT to my fellow young pilgrims from Asia next time. After all Jesus was an Asian and Asia is the cradle of Christianity!

On US, Oil and Obama!

I got a mail from Mr John D of Carnegie as a reply to my post "There's a Silver-lining everywhere man".. I post his mails and my replies with his permission.
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Jaison, I disagree with your views on uncle sam taking possession of Iraqi oil. The truth is that right now Iraq needs American expertise to modernise and fully develop oil production but once this is achieved you should expect that this expertise will be transferred to the Iraqis themselves. There is no 'uncle sam' in Saudi Arabia, the Saudis nationalised their oil industry decades ago when the likes of Getty and Texaco were invited to leave the country. There in no 'uncle sam' in Iran, or Kuwait or the UAE and we know only too well what that caring intelligent socialist Hugo Chavez of Venezuela thinks of dear old uncle sam. Russia, which almost certainly holds the world's largest reserves of oil, is steadily squeezing out every multinational - the American were never there (what a surprise) but now Shell and BP are on the verge of throwing in the towel as the Russians move to take full control. Contrary to the popular view America's principal interest is there needs to be an unfettered world oil market and one which is not threatened by idiotic mullahs and other crazy dictators such as Libya's Kaddafi who has just banned oil exports to Switzerland because that country threw his son, Hannibal, (true) out of the country for assaulting his Filipino servants. See what I mean?

John D

Carnegie

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Hi John,

Good to hear from you.

I'm not pessimistic.

I do agree with you that " right now Iraq needs American expertise". But the RIGHT NOW (The situation that is been created in Iraq) seems to sit perfect into a BIG picture, which could have been very well created! This wouldn't be not only my perception. Most of the world agrees with me, in this regard (aka, Iraq war was for oil).

"There is no 'uncle sam' in Saudi Arabia".. well, something very similar to 'banana republic'!

And regarding the other big stuffs you told about Chavez of Venezuela or Russia or Libya.. I must say, I am not in a position to comment at the moment.. coz I havent really put my mind into it.

Look, I think, you have been offended (I dont know whether, you are a US citizen or hails from US, etc).. I never meant any offense. There's a lot of good things about Uncle Sam. May be the best thing happening at the moment would be "Barak Obama". And much much more.. But every one, whether persons or nations need to be refined. And I am sure that 'Uncle Sam' will also take the lead in this regard(they are always at the forefront of everything!). Let's pray for that and hope for that.

Jaison CMI

PS: If you dont mind shall I post your reply in my blog? It's a good comment.
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Please go ahead and post my reply, if it stimulates others to join the debate so much the better.

You may be disappointed at the end of the day because, if I'm right, and I do believe I am, John McCain will win the election. I draw as a parallel the year of 1960 when the youthful charismatic John F Kennedy on just managed to defeat the dour uninspiring Richard Nixon. Why? Because Kennedy had to overcome a silent but deep-seated antipathy towards catholics and I do recall at the time catholics everywhere rejoicing that their man had managed to crawl over line.

Barack Obama has a far more daunting hurdle to clear - he is a black man, and despite current polls suggesting he is leading McCain (only just) I keep thinking of 1960 and that 'silent deep-seated antipathy'. The problem for Obama is this malaise has a habit of finally revealing itself only within the enclosed anonymity of the voting booth.

We shall see....

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It's okay John... It's upto Americans to decide what they want, what image they want to give to the rest of the world.

I have published them in my Blog.

Jaison CMI