To my fellow Princess phobics

New York Times has an article called “What’s wrong With Cinderella?” that I read yesterday and if I could write as well, I am sure the first couple of paras myself.

I have to admit that I used to not care about my girls having dolls or princesses along with other toys but nowadays it seems to me that the only toys available to them are in pink and Barbie or Princess related.

And how do I explain a white blue eyed princess to a desi brown black eyed kid?

What especially caught my eye in the NY times article was

Playing princess is not the issue,” argues Lyn Mikel Brown, an author, with Sharon Lamb, of “Packaging Girlhood: Rescuing Our Daughters From Marketers’ Schemes.” “The issue is 25,000 Princess products,” says Brown, a professor of education and human development at Colby College. “When one thing is so dominant, then it’s no longer a choice: it’s a mandate, cannibalizing all other forms of play. There’s the illusion of more choices out there for girls, but if you look around, you’ll see their choices are steadily narrowing.”

I try to buy them other stuff but what do you do when friends, teachers and relatives insist on giving them pink glittery princess? Maybe it’s a genetic “girl” program that has my girls attracted to these glittery stuff.

Anybody have any tips to help wean my girls from this Princess phase? Please let me know…….

If my girls HAVE to go thru this princess phase, then atleast I hope they turn out to be like the girl in the article – be dressed up in a gown and a tiara and then climb trees and give the boys a run for their money

The (other) 10 commandments

Thou shall not worry, for worry is the most unproductive of all human activities. 

Thou shall not be fearful, for most of the things we fear never come to pass. 

Thou shall not cross bridges before you come to them, for no one yet has succeeded in accomplishing this. 

Thou shall face each problem as it comes. You can only handle one at a time anyway. 

Thou shall not take problems to bed with you, for they make very poor bedfellows. 

Thou shall not borrow other people’s problems. They can better care for them than you can. 

Thou shall not try to relive yesterday for good or ill, it is forever gone. Concentrate on what is happening in your life and be happy now! 

Thou shall be a good listener, for only when you listen do you hear different ideas from your own. It is hard to learn something new when you are talking, and some people do know more than you do. 

Thou shall not become “bogged down” by frustration, for ninety percent of it is rooted in self-pity and will only interfere with positive action. 

Thou shall count thy blessings, never overlooking the small ones, for a lot of small blessings add up to a big one

Would you please give your honest opinion about solutions to the food shortage in the rest of the world?

A worldwide survey was conducted by the UN. The only question asked was: “Would you please give your honest opinion about solutions to the food shortage in the rest of the world?”

The survey was a huge failure.

The reason:

In Africa they didn’t know what ‘food’ meant

In India they didn’t know what ‘honest’ meant

In Europe they didn’t know what ’shortage’ meant

In China they didn’t know what ‘opinion’ meant

In the Middle East they didn’t know what ’solution’ meant

In South America they didn’t know what ‘please’ meant

And in the USA they didn’t know what ‘please’ meant, And ALSO what ‘the rest of the world’ meant!!

An fun way to refresh your brain cells

..and maybe gain some new knowledge while you are it

Here is a link to a cool site that you can visit when you have some free time (if you are at work and work is slow with it being the holiday week or you are just at home and goofing off on the computer)

Keep going till you get

CONGRATULATIONS!

GREAT JOB!!

You have completely solved the FreeStuffHotDeals Hacker Puzzle! Be sure to to send a personal message to BinkelBop and tell him “Woody” to prove that you did it.

Or if you need help just holler to me in the comments section

Have fun !

I know everyone makes a mistake, but….

 this definitely takes the prize

The Tamil Tiger Rebels kidnapped 23 teenagers and 2 teachers but later freed them and suspended the guerillas involved

“It was a mistake by the field commanders” LTTE military spokesman Rasiah Ilanthiriyan said

He said the LTTE had already suspended the field commanders who had carried out the kidnappings.

Talk about a big OOPS !.

Imagine telling a teenager ” Sorry, I kidnapped you and scared you to death. It was just a dumb mistake. Go back and do whatever it was you were doing before in your life and forget that you got kidnapped”

What a life ! What a mistake !

Toys my kids are never going to have…

CNN-Money has a list of the top 10 most expensive toys which are the rage among the obscenely wealthy.

The gifts range from a giant playset called the TumblePost for $97,510 to the relatively cheap Home Pro Racing Video Game Simulation System for just $4000. Other toys that made it to the list include a Piggbank for $6,000 and a Robot for $50,000

Now I know that the parents can easily afford these gifts, but don’t they feel a slight twinge of wasting money when the kids discard these toys after just a couple of days of playing? Or would it be worse if the kids actually played with these toys and broke them?

Here’s the list :

1. Grand Victorian Mansion
2. Scallywag Sloop Pirate Themed Club House
3. The Genuine 7-foot Robby Robot
4. Home Pro Racing Video Game Simulation System
5. Zoltar (Fortune Teller) 
6. Lego Life-Sized Batman
7. Junior Off Roader Gasoline-Powered Vehicle for Two
8. Massive Wilbur Piggybank
9. Fantasy Coach
10. Tumble Outpost 

For more on these toys, check out CNN-Money

Indian American gifts $30 million

 Monte Ahuja who came from Chandigarh to Clevelan with $12 in his pocket has donated an unprecedented $30 million to University Hospitals, Cleveland, for the construction of a medical complex.

Ahuja said that he wanted to give back to a community where he found success after coming to the U.S. from India for graduate studies. Ahuja is a major benefactor of Cleveland State University, which named its college of business administration after him. But his gift to UH is his largest yet and the largest in the hospital’s 140-year history.

“I did not know a soul here, and it was cold, drab and snowing when I arrived. I felt very lonely, especially after just leaving a large family of seven sisters and a brother who all catered to me,” he later recalled in an interview. “I vowed never to ask my family for another dime and I would make my own way, and so I did with jobs around the university and working for a furnace making company south of Columbus.”

Ahuja adds: “One only has to be in another country, as I have, to know the greatness of America and the opportunity to get ahead,” says Ahuja.

Read more at Indian-American Monte Ahuja repays America a millionfold

Smita Patil

Today is the 20th anniversary of the day that this great actress was unexpectedly snatched away from us.

To me she was the greatest Indian actress . Yes, there were some bad masala movies she made in her later years but they were very very few compared to the classics that she’s acted in

She was the true queen of “parallel art” movies in the 1970s acting in “Manthan”, “Mirch Masala”, “Gaman” and “Chakra” to name a few.

She unexpectedly and tragically died of complications due to childbirth shocking the whole of India …Before then, I would never have even contemplated thinking of anyone dying of childbirth complications under the care of one of the best doctors in one of the best hospitals in India.

Hope some of her talent has been passed on to her son Prateek and he is a real “prateek” of her personality and talent.

Here’s the wikipedia entry on Smita Patil and Raj Babbar’s memories of her

Copying…the cheapest form of flattery?

Yesterday, I found out that a company listed on NASDAQ had been site scrapping Hindu Mommy and using it on their own site.

I was debating about whether to list the name of the company and get them more traffic from my site or not post the name and have decided to state the name of the company to increase awareness about their malpractices

The company is Web2 Corporation (NASDAQ OTCB: WBTO), which was recently acquired by perpetrators, ByIndia.

You can read more at Got Copy (This is where I first found out about it. Thanks, Manisha !)

I don’t claim to be special. I think they targeted many of the blogs created recently probably thinking that most of us new to the blogging community would be unaware of what’s going on.

My first reaction was disbelief that a big company which had a huge source of resources in terms of writers and programmers would actually sitescrape an unknown blog like mine

But then I thought “They can’t even do something like this properly…I don’t have any site scrape worthy content – Wouldn’t it be better for them if they site scrapped a better site?”

Manisha has been actively pursuing these cases of plagiarism with the CEO of the company who says

…The content providers for our blogs need to protect our content better….

What the ??????? . As she rightly points out, the nature of internet is to have content readily available and accesible by any browser or thru bots and feeds

Read more of the CEO’s response here

Yes, I have been also guilty in the past of posting forwarded emails without any idea of who the author(s) were but have been quick to give credit where due when I was made aware of it.

I think this is a different kind of beast – All my posts are there exactly in the order I posted them – word for word. I can understand maybe if one post is a copy of what’s here at Hindu Mommy. It could be a genuine mistake or  just great minds thinking alike

All my posts are copied word for word and presented by a company that wants to be the “next big internet company in India” . I wonder what kind of message the investors and the rest of the world are getting from this ..Definitely not the message that the CEO of the company wants them to get !

UPDATE – The posts are still there but not being displayed. They need to delete the blog and all the posts permanently

Manisha also has a link to a great resource – Dealing with Plagiarism - which I’ve realized is a must read for any blogger

And for anyone from Web2Corp or ByIndia reading this post – No – I am not at all flattered by all the site scrapping that has been done

Good Luck to A.R. Rahman

The songs being considered for an Oscar in Original Song Category have been released by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and three of A.R. Rahman’s songs feature in the list.

A.R. Rahman’s 3 songs have made it to the list of songs being considered”Chun, Chun” (Water), Khalbali and Luka Chuppi (Rang De Basanti)

I love how all these 3 songs have been picturized and used in their respective movies….I hope atleast one of them gets nominated – I would love for him to perform live at the Oscars

I’ve always loved his foot-tapping music even though most critics in recent years have been complaining that his music is not as creative and I’m glad that the international audience is finally recognizing his talent

This will not be his first recognition by Hollywood. The recent hit movie “Inside Man” featuring Denzel Washington had A.R. Rahman’s Chaiyya Chaiyya as the score for the opening and ending credits

For the complete list of 56 Songs visit the Oscars page

For more info on A.R. Rahman, here’s his wikipedia entry