Under the cringe inducing headline “ Study links lesbianism to career” ,   the TOI quotes a dubious study from un-named NGOs in Chandigarh that : ( I am not making this shit up – this is a direct quote!)

A study by two NGOs to understand the nature of lesbian behaviour in the city has found that most women take to this alternative sexuality while staying in hostels of educational institutions or working at call centres and marketing companies

Apart from personal choice, the reasons for these women’s (sic) turning lesbian were found to be an abusive childhood or being widowed or divorced.

There is zero mention of genetic predisposition and makes the whole issue of homosexuality sound like a lifestyle choice as opposed to a congenital orientation.

This sounds like it was dictated by the far right – defense of marriage act types in the US …

Anyways, I matched their “checklist” against my personal history and:

- Stayed at hostel of educational institution : Check

- Working at call centers or marketing companies : Check

- Abusive childhood : No

- Widowed or Divorced : No

Does this mean there is a 50 % chance I am going to play for the other team ? But, but …I love Bruce Willis ..so that can’t be true? Can it ? Can it?

Who writes this crap?

© Runa for Über Desi, 2011. | Permalink | 2 comments | Add to del.icio.us
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* Community in this instance, could stand for caste, sub-caste, “gothra”, clan, other sub-categories or combination thereof.

© Santosh for Über Desi, 2011. | Permalink | One comment | Add to del.icio.us
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NPR has terminated its contract with Juan Williams, one of its senior news analysts, after he made comments about Muslims on the Fox News Channel.
NPR said in a statement that it gave Mr. Williams notice of his termination on Wednesday night.
The move came after Mr. Williams, who is also a Fox News political analyst, appeared on the “The O’Reilly Factor” on Monday.
He continued: “I mean, look, Bill, I’m not a bigot. You know the kind of books I’ve written about the civil rights movement in this country. But when I get on the plane, I got to tell you, if I see people who are in Muslim garb and I think, you know, they are identifying themselves first and foremost as Muslims, I get worried. I get nervous.”

**** time off for #facepalm moment ****

My question to the decision makers at NPR is how did they hire Juan Williams in the first place or why was he not terminated (for ignorance/stupidity) after confusing Indian-Americans with Native-Americans (which we tweeted about here). [WSJ Blog]

Nikki Haley ran far ahead of all other contenders for South Carolina’s Republican gubernatorial nomination, though the official returns give her 48.9%, just shy of a majority, which sets up a runoff against Rep. Gresham Barrett, who got 21.8%. Haley is a woman. She is 38. She is Indian-American, which by some lights makes her nonwhite (although South Asians are “Caucasian” in the traditional racial taxonomy.) We witnessed an amusing moment on Fox News Channel last night when Juan Williams observed that Haley would be “the first native American governor.” It was left to host Bret Baier to explain the difference between Indian-Americans and American Indians, and also to point out that Louisiana’s Gov. Bobby Jindal (also a 38-year-old Republican, albeit a man–hey nobody’s perfect) is in fact the first Indian-American governor.

Who hauuun Williams is now full time with Faux News. We wait with bated breath for Who hauuun Williams to confuse Nikki Haley’r origins, for Muslim instead of Sikh.

© Santosh for Über Desi, 2010. | Permalink | 3 comments | Add to del.icio.us
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The second was when I saw NOW’s press release on the much vaunted , so -called historical health care reform bill. The Dems agreed to the “Stupak amendment” which if incorporated in the final version that passes through the senate will:

* Prevent women receiving tax subsidies from using their own money to purchase private insurance that covers abortion;
* Prevent women participating in the public health insurance exchange, administered by private insurance companies, from using 100 percent of their own money to purchase private insurance that covers abortion;
* Prevent low-income women from accessing abortion entirely, in many cases.

In other words our democratically elected government has just thrown women under the bus in an all out attempt to get healthcare reform passed. What the Stupak amendment does is what the conservatives have wanted all along : reducing access to abortion almost completely , especially for low income women – those who need it the most. The amendment effectively will result in no coverage of any kind for abortion. Our female speaker of the house has just sold all of us out. Meanwhile, we celebrate “hope”, “change” and unbelievable Nobel Prize and the fact that this country is a beacon of liberty in an increasingly fundamentalist world. Welcome to the madness that is America!

Two democracies : one developing , the other developed.

One constituency that no one gives a shit cares about.

There is an old Chinese proverb that “Women hold up half the sky”. I don’t know about that – I’ll settle for dignity on earth.

© Runa for Über Desi, 2009. | Permalink | 2 comments | Add to del.icio.us
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This story seems to have garnered worldwide attention as Harry Connick Jr was one of the judges on the show and ended up protesting the performance and rating it a zero. The offender, Dr. Deva expressed surprise over the controversy and made a rather weak argument trying to justify it.

“I am an Indian, and five of the six of us are from multicultural backgrounds and to be called a racist … I don’t think I have ever been called that ever in my life before,” he said. Anyone who knows us as a group, we are intelligent people, we are all from different racial backgrounds so I am really truly surprised,”

I disagree with him, racist acts are exactly that, whatever color your skin is. Judge for yourself from the video below.

© Santosh for Über Desi, 2009. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
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