Vijay Narayanan on June 21st, 2008

Some people, in fact, most people delight themselves by employing confounding jargon from time to time. Legal-ese and business-ese rhyme with disease and not without reason! In a funny turn of events, British authorities have been warned against using words like synergies, stakeholders and sustainable communities because such terms confuse people. (To be honest, I [...]

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Vijay Narayanan on June 21st, 2008

A story I tell often. There was this old rabbi somewhere in Russia, who would visit a synagogue near the town square every morning. Not a day had he skipped this routine. A policeman patroling the square did not like Jews, and he hated the sight of the rabbi passing him each morning. He wanted [...]

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Vijay Narayanan on June 21st, 2008

A short while ago, I spotted a firefly (Tamil: minmini) outside my window. I don’t remember when last I saw a firefly; 15 years ago, maybe. Almost instinctively, I started humming “indha minminikku kaNNil oru minnal vandhadhu.” (video)

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Vijay Narayanan on June 19th, 2008

Yesterday, President Bush issued a statement that Congress should lift the ban on offshore oil drilling off the US coastline. The best reason he could think of for this was the 4-dollar-a-gallon gas. Immediately, Senator McCain, who is increasingly looking like George Dubya Bush the Third, concurred with the President and thought offshore drilling is [...]

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Vijay Narayanan on June 17th, 2008

… is a company sans pareil. (Here’s one reason why.)

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