March 01, 2021
The extremely right-wing Sessions
He has felt free, though, to rail at his attorney-general, Jeff Sessions, describing him as "weak" and "beleaguered" in presidential tweets, and apparently hoping the first senior Republican legislator sufficiently misguided to endorse him would simply walk away.Back in 1973, when the Nobel Committee co-awarded its peace prize to Henry Kissinger, the relentlessly acerbic singer-songwriter Tom Lehrer abandoned his musical career, deciding that satire had been surpassed by reality.
The extremely right-wing Sessions, though, has an ideological agenda of his own, and evidently intends to stay the course. Trump seems keen to follow in his footsteps but, semi-aware of the possible consequences, he is holding back from yelling "You’re fired!" at Robert Mueller, the former FBI chief in charge of the inquiry into the Trump campaign’s alleged collusion with Russia. Could Stephen Colbert possibly match the foul-mouthedness of Anthony Scaramucci, the White House’s short-lived director of communications? It’s a tough call.The activist and filmmaker Michael Moore, whose Broadway show The Terms of My Surrender opens this week, appears to believe that satire is the ideal weapon against this absurd presidency. Trump tends to admire military men, though, and former four-star Marine, general John Kelly, was this week inducted into the White House as chief of staff — fresh from his stint as head of Homeland Security, in which capacity he, like Sessions, focused his energies in a frequently inhumane crackdown on illegal immigrants. This could, potentially, occur before next year’s midterm elections. He also has a film in the works, tentatively titled "Fahrenheit 11/9" — and it’s more than likely that date from last year will go down in 21st-century American history as a considerably more crucial turning point than 9/11.
It also remains to be seen whether Kelly can succeed in his unenviable task of introducing military discipline in the West Wing, particularly when it comes to controlling the chief executive.The supposed grown-ups in the administration, defence secretary James "Mad Dog" Mattis and Rex Tillerson, are either on stress leave or have gone AWOL. The Republican majority in both houses of Congress has hitherto not sufficed to advance Trump’s legislative agenda, notably including a repeal of Barack Obama’s Affordable Care Act, which would deprive millions of Americans of health insurance. They are regularly being trumped by the West Spring making machine Wing reality show, with its frequently refreshed cast of characters. Around the same time, another prodigiously talented performer, Phil Ochs, updated a song from a decade earlier to come up with Here’s to the State of Richard Nixon, which contained a line that was arguably even more applicable to some of Nixon’s successors — Ronald Reagan and George W.The advent of Kelly led to Scaramucci’s exit 10 days after his entrance — which in turn had led to presidential spokesman Sean Spicer’s exit and the ouster of previous chief of staff Reince Preibus, both of whom have close connections with the Republican Party establishment. The President, who prizes personal loyalty far above constitutionality and other mundane concerns, took this as an affront. Bush spring to mind — but perhaps never more so than now: "And the speeches of the president are the ravings of a clown…"Nixon memorably sealed his own fate with what has gone down in history as the Saturday Night Massacre, sparked by the dismissal of Watergate special prosecutor Archibald Cox.Back in the early 1970s, when Pakistani television audiences relied on a single channel, one of PTV’s staples was the satirical American spy series Get Smart, in which the forces of CONTROL invariably, and usually inadvertently, got the better of the agents of KAOS.By arrangement with Dawn. Trump has no quarrel with his ideology, but can’t get over the fact that Sessions was more or less obliged to recuse himself from the Russia investigation.Who would have thought that less than half a century later, the latter would be in charge of the seat of executive power in America?
Could there be any other explanation for the unending White House follies?Not surprisingly, American TV talk-show hosts are looking a bit distraught these days. Trump has yet to sign the almost unanimously passed congressional bill on further sanctions against Russia (alongside Iran and North Korea), or to Vladimir Putin’s retaliatory expulsion of 755 US diplomats. It’s easy enough, though, to respond to Trump’s "A great day at the White House!" tweet on Monday night: Mr President, may you have many more.On most counts, Republican congressional leaders have been loath to take up arms against Trump, but that could begin to change once the voters carried away by Trump’s crass campaign rhetoric realise that he is not going to live up to their expectations.
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February 22, 2021
Floods are a recurring experience
I recall one year when the monsoons were delayed, but later came with a vengeance.The monsoons are also a time for hot cups of tea and garam-garam pakoras and the whiff of bhuttas being roasted on a makeshift fire along the roadside.In more recent times, who can ever erase from memory the song Zindagi bhar nahin bhoolegi ye barsaat ki raat, from the eponymous film Barsaat Ki Raat, where the ethereal Madhubala meets Bharat Bhushan in a rain-filled night? Or, Raj Kapoor and Nargis, singing Pyaar hua ikrar hua, in the 1955 film Shree 420, the rain cascading around them as they come closer to share an umbrella? Perhaps, for the younger generation, these films are much too old, and there are as many rain-drenched songs from more contemporary films.
Floods are a recurring experience. The change of seasons — from winter to the short-lived spring of north India, to the monsoons, to the clear autumnal nights of October and November, and then the winter again — tug at your heart strings, a curious mix of elation and nostalgia, for one such year that passes by means one year less to witness this great pageantry of nature. Or, if you are inclined to poetry, recall the lines of the poet:Yun barastin hai tasawwur Spring making machine pe purani yaadeinJaise barsaat mein rimjhin ka sama hota hai(Like a drizzle in the monsoonsOld memories rain down on me)There is, alas, the ugly underbelly of the monsoons too.
If, in the West, a beautiful day has to be sunny, for us a romantic day is when the clouds have hidden the sun, and there is the promise of rain. I took my colleague to be someone who was entirely a prisoner of the humdrum routine of office, weighed down with the pedestrian burdens of life, far removed from poetry and the magical seductions of the monsoons. Chanakya would readily agree that while politics may be a 24x7 preoccupation, there must also be a little time kept aside for poetry and music and a hot cup of tea with pakoras on the side as a humble offering to the Rain Gods. But, here he was, shyly reciting to me the sublime poetry of Bihari, as much — if not more — a participant in joyously welcoming the rains. In Bihar, for instance, floods are an annual occurrence, given the silt depositions in the Ganga, and the rivers coming in from Nepal.Would Chanakya have paused for a moment from his relentless pursuit of politics and political theory, when the first raindrops of the monsoon drenched the parched earth, and the irresistible smell of wet earth filled his nostrils? I would think yes, for human beings as talented as he was cannot — and indeed should not — be monochromatic. How can a raga so wonderfully correspond to the mood of the monsoons? As the sky begins to darken, listen first to the slow elaboration of the raga, and reach the fast-paced drut, as it begins to pour. But whatever the downsides, the monsoons are awaited with great anticipation by all Indians, and most of all by the farmer. So, as the skies darken, and a sheet of water surrounds you quenching the thirst of the land, pause for a moment, and salute the miracle of nature. People are rendered homeless, crops are destroyed, landslides occur and lives are lost. In fifth century CE, Kalidasa, in his play Meghdoot, immortalised such a cloud by making him the bearer of the exiled Yaksha’s message to his wife, Alaka in the Himalayas. I was then a bureaucrat, entombed in one of the rooms of ministry of external affairs in South Block. Such poetry is not only about the fulfilment of love but also of birha, the pangs of separation if the beloved is away when the skies become grey and the moist winds of saawan blow. I was dictating a note to my private secretary, but I left my work to run to the corridor from where I could see the sky open up in all its splendour. Suddenly, the light outside my window darkened, and the first big drop hit the pane.. Every time I listen to Malhar during the monsoons I wonder at the genius of our musical legacy. It is quite an unforgettable experience.
The problems created by the monsoons need institutional and enduring responses as urgently as possible. But these black and white tributes to the romance of the monsoons are, in my view, quite unmatched. In cities, roads become rivers, traffic jams last for hours and electrical lines snap.After the intense heat of summer, the monsoons in India have always stood for release, relief and romance. So much of our folklore and classical poetry are linked to the rains.
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February 03, 2021
The administration said it needed
"They are going to miss that money."We are talking about people who have created new lives and have done everything within the legal system to stay here," said Julio Calderon, an immigration activist from Honduras who lives in South Florida and whose parents have TPS.The program covers only people who were in the US, legally or otherwise, at the time their countries were included by presidential decree. "There are many of us here and we do a lot for this country. "This is why I’m scared."The head of DHS recently commented on the fact that the gangs are like terrorist organisations," said Anne Pilsbury, director of Central American Legal Assistance in New York. El Salvador was added in 2001 after a series of earthquakes. "
This idea that they should be indefinitely strung along is absurd," Krikorian said."Immigrant advocates also say those sent back to Honduras and El Salvador could be exposed to horrific gang violence, which has driven recent waves of migrants who aren’t covered by TPS. "Back home, there is nothing for me."The biggest negative impact would be for our countries because of those remittances," said Vasquez, a 47-year-old who originally came to the US on a tourist visa in 1999 and stayed when she got TPS.As it stands now, the system is haphazard and has created the expectation that people will be allowed to stay, said Mark Krikorian, executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies. "We would be left with no protection. Their status has been renewed every 18 months as other countries, including Rwanda, Kuwait and Lebanon, have come and gone from the list.Critics argue that renewal has come to seem automatic, encouraging illegal immigration and violating the spirit of what was originally a temporary program to protect people fleeing Central America’s civil wars of past decades. Citizens of those three countries now make up 80 percent of the 435,000 people from 10 nations with TPS. After some interruptions, it was renewed and extended to cover natural disasters."Noe Duarte, a 40-year-old Salvadoran landscaper in the Washington area, said he recently cancelled a trip home for a family reunion because he wasn’t sure he would be able to get back to the US and worries he would have to be a subsistence farmer back home.".Duarte, a stocky man who came to the US through the Arizona desert in 2000, said the program has enabled him to earn as much as $39 an hour."
Cecilia Menjvar, a University of Kansas sociology professor who has conducted surveys of people with the status, said 90 percent of people on TPS are in the labour force and many have started businesses."People in TPS aren’t eligible for public benefits, must pay taxes and undergo background checks when they submit renewal applications.Immigrants and their supporters fear President Donald Trump’s scepticism about immigration means he will take a harder line than his predecessors on a program that began as a humanitarian gesture to temporarily defer deportations of people from countries that were considered too fragile to take them back _ especially Central American nations devastated by war or natural disasters.Immigrants from Honduras and Nicaragua were covered in 1999 due to the destruction from Hurricane Mitch a year earlier.A bill introduced in Congress would require the Senate and House of Representatives to approve any extensions of TPS, meaning it would no longer be a unilateral decision by the executive branch.But the seemingly stable life that Vasquez and several hundred thousand others have built under that legal residency program now appears to be on shaky ground. We would be totally defenceless.Many see an ominous sign in the Department of Homeland Security’s May 22 decision to grant only a six-month extension of "temporary protected status" for nearly 60,000 Haitians instead of the standard 18 months."Advocates of extending the program say it would be cruel to disrupt families that are now firmly established in the US while conditions in their homelands remain troubled."Governments of nations covered spring bending machine by the plan devote much of their relationship with Washington lobbying to extend it. Both they and previous policymakers in Washington have feared that a mass return of citizens would cause economic and social chaos by hitting a crucial source of foreign income, remittances from workers abroad while flooding impoverished countries with jobless people.As for Central Americans, the department said, Homeland Security Secretary John F. "So one would hope that they wouldn’t want to send people back to a country with terrorists.Taking the status away from Haitians, even as conditions there remain difficult, would set a precedent, he said. "It’s no way to run an immigration system.
They want to show that they are contributing.Vasquez said she is thinking about how she would sell her property and move back home. "They will find ways to pay taxes even if they are self-employed. Those who arrived after the TPS decrees aren’t protected. I would have to go back to farming," he said at a McDonald’s in Silver Spring, Maryland, after a day planting trees. "If they don’t renew it, everything will come crashing down," he said. "They will do whatever they can to pay taxes because that shows the government that they are good people," she said. "Each country is considered individually, on a case-by-case basis," it said in a written statement. But officials suggested Haitians in the program should get their affairs in order so they would be ready to return home."Imagine what would happen," she said in an interview in Rockville, Maryland, after a day of driving her food truck to construction sites. That’s about 10 percent of the Central American-born population in the US now.Washington: Nancy Vasquez left the turmoil in her native El Salvador behind and moved to the US, where she was able to support her family, buy a house and start a food-truck business catering to workers on the outskirts of Washington thanks to a "temporary" residency permit that has lasted for nearly 20 years. Kelly would review conditions and consult with appropriate agencies as the expiration date approaches next year.
The administration said it needed more time to decide whether Haiti had sufficiently recovered from its devastating 2010 earthquake. She also wonders what she would do with her 11-year-old daughter, a US citizen by birth.Vasquez said that if sent home, she would find a way to make it, but thinks the US would be better off to let her family stay.
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January 13, 2021
Stir fry chilli paste with garlic
Stir fry chilli paste with garlic and shallot for 5 minutes, add tomato ketchup and water. Using a ladle, pour the laksa broth and a few pieces of tofu puffs on top of the noodles. Add chicken broth, water, lemon grass, kaffir lime leaves, tofu puffs and bring stock to boil. Add coconut milk and evaporated milk. To serve, wrap popiah skin with the filling, garnish with spring onion, and serve with chili sauce.MethodTo cook the filling, add oil into a wok.
The Singapore Festival is on till April 30. Lower the heat to simmer. Simmer stock.Singapore Chilli CrabIngredientsCrab 10 nos, chilli paste 1,000 gm, tomato ketchup 800 gm, garlic 250 gm, shallots 200 gm, eggs 5 nosMethod Steam crab for 10 minutes.LaksaIngredientsCurry Paste 2,000 gm, water, 2,000 gm, chicken stock 500 gm, garlic 500 gm, lemon grass 3 sprigs, evaporated milk 3 cans, coconut milk 1,000 gm, noodles, bean sprouts, shrimp and egg as toppings.MethodIn a stockpot, add oil and sauté instant curry paste until aromatic. Soak dry vermicelli with some warm water until soft, drained and set aside.
Top noodles with two to three shrimp and 1-2 egg quarters. Drain the noodles and transfer to a serving bowl. Rinse the yellow noodles, drain and set aside. Cook for 5 minutes. Lastly add eggs and cook till a creamy consistency,PopiahIngredientsPopiah skins 200 pieces, Jicama, 1,000 gm, garlic 100 gm, shallots 100 gm, shrimp 50 nos, eggs 20 nos, grounded peanut 100 gm.Chef So Chai Huan,visiting chef at Sheraton Grand Bangalore Hotel at Brigade Gateway. Stir fry chopped garlic and shallots until light brown. Add shrimp, jicama, and carrot and season with salt, pepper and oyster sauce. Add salt to taste.To assemble a bowl of laksa, bring to boil Spring machine some yellow noodles, vermicelli, and a handful of bean sprouts. Season with salt, chicken powder, after boiling, and add corn flour to make the sauce become thicker.
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