American beauty

                           Some movies are made and some movies happen, “American beauty” is one such movie which just happens once in a while but leave’s you agape for the rest of your life. The movie wonderfully captures the superficial nature of human emotions which is put to use, to make life look as dogmatic and congruous as it has seemingly ever been to the taste of the society.  Kevin spacey as the protagonist in the movie wonderfully portrays the frustration that arises in a person who put’s up with too much of superficiality to make everything look normal, whether it be his relationship with his wife or his attitude towards his job, Kevin spacey has pulled out a splendid performance in portraying a man who is fed up of trying to be what others want him to be.

 

                                Sometimes life seems like it is not what it used to be and we might not be sure of how it ended up that way or what went wrong or what is that we are really missing; there is always a sense of loss lurking in the mind. All along one feel’s like something is missing which has always been a part of ones life and it just takes one spark to make one realize and remember all the things which added more sense to ones life and “American Beauty” captures that wonderful moment in the life of the Lester Burnham. The crush that Lester (Kevin spacey) has on his teenager daughters’ friend makes him to take control over his life again and helps him to tear away the superficiality which made him to live his life like a dead man. Every scene in which Lester is shown dreaming about Angela there are rose petals all over the screen, I would call those scenes stunningly intelligent because the director has tried to capture the mind of a faithful husband who loves his wife Carolyn, and Carolyn loves roses and her rose garden, the director has wonderfully captured the confused mind of a man who saw the beauty of life through a teenagers face but dint realize it up until the last moment when he goes to bed with her, when Angela says this is her first time Lester is completely overtaken by a completely different emotion which reveals him to the reality of what he saw in that girl.

                                 

                       The movie amazingly captures the emotions and frustrations that one goes through because of the friction that happens between ones pursuit to be some one else and their real self, through the characters of Angela and Carolyn (Lester’s wife). “American beauty” on the whole is an amazing portrayal of real moments in people’s lives which unwraps them to savor the pure essence of life and its beauty, for Lester it just happened to be the beauty of a teenager, and for Ricky it was a plastic bag dancing to the tunes of a beautiful breeze, and for Lester’s daughter Jane it was the beauty of Ricky’s admiration for life’s beauty, and for Angela it was coming to terms with her superficiality…… "American beauty" is in itself that spark which the movie has been successful in giving an expression to.

Al Pacino.

                                         To start with, I don’t really know from when I started to appreciate the movies which made sense in other words I don’t really know from when I started to appreciate the pure pleasure that one derives out of a cinematic experience as only celluloid could offer. I had seen many movies belonging to different genre, I have seen many actors at their best but of all there is one actor I don’t mind watching million times over and over again and that actor is none other than Al Pacino. Every now and then I tend to get lucky and I watch a movie which could be termed nothing less than a master piece, I watched one such movie the other day called “Scent of a Woman”, though it’s a pretty old movie I got to watch it all alone only recently, and man Al Pacino was at his best. I had seen him in God Father series and never the less he was stunning but his class act in the movie Scent Of Woman just bowled me over. Al Pacino is a treat to watch no matter what kind of role he does, I equally enjoyed watching him play the bad boy in The Recruit and as the irritated film maker in Simone, but Lt.Col. Frank Slade stands tall above all. 

My thoughts about communalism.

                                      There might be many definitions about religion and communalism but here is my definition, "Religion is a concept theorized in a way to make it pragmatic and utilitarian, what matters is the concept but people tend to gain their identities out of its pragmatism and get stuck with it and more so many fail to move beyond it to reach the core of it or the heart of it “The concept”, people’s failure in moving forward to the heart of religion is what I call as communalism". And to tell you more there is something fundamentally wrong with our country's policy towards the concept called religion, religion is the boundary within which humanity suffers. 

                                     The word secular attains a different meaning when it is used to define our nation. We call ourselves as a secular nation by doing so we acknowledge the fact that we are different, we have carried the differences along with us through all these years and it has already become 61 odd years, its high time now that we abolish the practice of religion being considered as the primary identity of a citizen of this country. I am Prasanna Kumar and I am an Indian that should be the end of my identity, its not necessary for the government to know the religion that I practice.Well if I say that you are a true Hindu does that make you any better than what you are now as an Indian or if I say you are not a true Hindu does that make any difference at all ?

                                            I think it’s because of this fundamental fallacy that we see arguments happening even between the secularist Hindus, secularist Muslims, and secularists Christians. People who get into such argument's just have command over their will alone but they try to represent their entire community and that’s where the entire thing gets beyond the national interest. when a Muslim tries to prove that “not all the Muslims are like that” what is he trying to prove, that Muslims are generally good but its just a few people who don’t get along or when the Hindus or the Hindustanis when they try to argue that mullahas are pro pakistan what are they trying to prove?, are they trying to prove that they are more Indian just because they are against pakistan or a few indian muslims who show hatred towards our country or Christians for that matter who think Christianity is the only solution for all the chaos that’s happening around the world. If at all these people want to show their patriotism why don’t they show their anger against the root cause of all these chaos "religion". Why don’t they stop looking people through the eyes of religion.  

What I feel about America and its fall !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

"I personally believe" ooops when ever I try to use these words it just makes me laugh, have you people seen the beauty pageant contest where in an American beauty says that I personally believe US Americans are unable to do so because “samma” people out there don't have maps. God just thinking about it makes me roll over on the floor . If you haven't seen the video, check it out its there in the you tube but before that go thru my views…

 Ok enough of the breezy talks now to some serious talk

 I personally believe America's fall will give a new lease of life to many poverty stricken nations. Americas GDP as on 2007 was $ 13.84 trillion which is the largest among all the nations in the world. To put it simply America is the world's largest consumer in the world, so people might ask me this question, so isn't that a good thing we have some one to whom we can sell our products to ? Before you come to such a conclusion you need to know another truth, America's debt is three times higher than their GDP which makes them the world's biggest borrower and that to my knowledge and to the knowledge of many economist or financial expert is not a good economics.

 America is a highly leveraged country and their policies on their energy security and home land security and their policies on external trading especially with the developing nations and the under developed nations are designed in such a way to maintain that leverage edge. As I said earlier the subsidies that America is giving to its farmers has ruined the African nations whose GDP entirely depends on agriculture, and it is just one example. Americans are spending more than what they are supposed to at the cost of the so called third world nation's and the developing nations.

Let me give you another example on how their economic policies are not good to the rest of the world. Americas food industry is $ 700 billion and their weight and fab(WAF) loss industry is around $ 50 billions dollars. WAF loss industry is in itself 10 times more than the GDP of most African nations, in simple terms an average American is consuming more than what he is supposed to, which otherwise if he dint would have allowed the supply shift to other places where there is a huge demand and possible economic feasibility could have been achieved to meet those demands .

"Everybody has enough for their needs but not for their greed" Their credit policies encourage an average Joe to spend more than what he earns, they have purposefully inflated themselves to make most of the nations if not the entire world depend on them. In simple words Americas fall would make it to deleverage it self in that case the money which has helped America to keep itself inflated will find its way where its needed most to the third world nations and developing nations and this change will help to create real jobs in these nations allowing them to prosper as well.

  Its true that this fall of America from its financial super power status will affect India and most of the countries which has economic ties with it. I get very infuriated when some one says that America is a developed country and everybody should follow its foot steps, America is a developed nation "my foot", America is developed at the cost of the so called third world countries, the subsidies that America is giving to its farmers has ruined the African nations whose GDP entirely depends on agriculture. Their consumeristic attitude has created havoc in the Middle East, innocent people are getting killed and many peoples lives are made miserable for big fat uncle sams oil needs.

 The arms and ammunitions that get made in America is keeping the civil war alive in many African nations. Thanks to America and its media Islam has been tainted in the eyes of people so much that people have started to see every Islamite with suspicion.

America’s financial crisis and the bail out plan…. (2)

                       As far as the bail out is concerned, I would like to believe that an Average American is not that stupid enough of not being able to see through things. Its sad that some self professed IVY educated jerk seems to think that he is more intelligent than most other Americans and using that Greek invention of sophistry is trying to recast what this Bailout is all about using thinly veiled rhetoric (in other words, its disgusting that, they’re trying to make people blind by pulling over a piece of cloth over their eyes). This is the fundamental problem with Wall Street – it thinks that an average American can’t possibly understand what they are doing so they call what they work in: instruments, vehicles, esoteric instruments, derivatives, exotic derivatives and what not. Then they say you need Calculus to understand it and you send everyone for the hills. Come on guys --- call a spade a spade --- those concepts are not that complex. At some point it’s called “GAMBLING.” And this is a BAILOUT.

                         If the system was working properly, an average American should be able to get a loan for federal rate + whatever premium his bank pays + a risk premium associated with him. But he cant, not because of him or the Fed but because banks are broken. Why are the banks broken, because they traded in junk derivatives that some 26 year old MIT math guy said had value using the integral sign’s (throw calculus at Wall Street and their eyes go cross eyed). So, the banks (Wall street) ARE broken or their credit is frozen because nobody can value the junk on their books.

                The banks extended loans to people probably it shouldn’t have. If the Fed makes available a facility for Financial institutions to "park" bad instruments, there is ZERO guarantee that those instruments will ever be purchased back.It's like me making a loan to you and saying, "sure dude, give me pieces of paper and I'll give you money which I might sell back to you tomorrow if you want to buy the little pieces of paper you gave me." Hhmmmmm  Are you going to come back for those pieces of paper that you can't value now? Who knows? Uhmmmm...that's a BAILOUT. Paint it however you want, put lipstick on it (no offence to the Vice presidential nominee plain), sugar coat it, call it whatever you want. ITS A BAILOUT.

America’s financial crisis and the bail out plan….

“Wall Street thinks that an average American is a “stupid””. The proof is all over the place, in every news paper , in every news channel, which could very well stand as a vindication to my claim that American government and Wall Street thinks an average American to be a stupid. “BAIL OUT PLAN” the way in which it has been camouflaged as a solution if not a better solution to the impending national crisis and the efforts made to sell it to an Average American doesn’t leave any doubt in my mind that wall street thinks that an ‘Average American is a stupid’.

 American President George 'the' W Bush was very much clear about what he had to achieve when he set out to give his speech on the impending financial crisis, this is not the first time that he had done something like this but this time he did it with much ease as compared to his propaganda on “War on Terror” – “Rule by creating panic", yes that’s what he did,. His words like "America could slip into a financial panic and a distressing scenario would unfold. More banks could fail, including some in your community. The stock market would drop even more, which would reduce the value of your retirement account. The value of your home could plummet. Foreclosures would rise dramatically. And if you own a business or a farm, you would find it harder and more expensive to get credit. More businesses would close their doors, and millions of Americans could lose their jobs. Even if you have good credit history, it would be more difficult for you to get the loans you need to buy a car or send your children to college. And, ultimately, our country could experience a long and painful recession."

       This Financial bail out is nothing but an effort to keep the rich RICH at the cost of an ordinary taxpayers money. Why should the tax payer take the burden of someone's wrong choices, when the very same tax payer might go out of job because of the cost cutting policy followed by these major corporate giants? 

                                            Well for people who have been advocating growth at all cost and people who have been advocating this bail out plan need to understand one thing " a continuous and unchecked growth becomes cancerous" and that's what we are seeing now, America’s Top financial institutions have become cancerous enough to affect the entire American economy and the world economy. America's debt is three times its GDP. So you know the truth now. No one can keep himself prosperous for ever by borrowing and someday things have to fall and when it does it will be as worse as what we are seeing now.

                                                To me this looks more like an effort trying to inflate a balloon which has too many holes, More over the present financial crisis is the cumulative effect of the 1990’s financial crisis which saw many banks becoming insolvent and the 2000 dotcom burst. This $ 700 billion that’s going to be injected into the economy will bring in a much greater disaster in January next year.