Terry Schiavo and America

Terry Schiavo case has been in headline of every major newspaper for over a week now. Almost immediately after the case of Ashley Smith, the lady who was held hostage overnight and was able to convince the murderer and kidnapper, Brian Nicholas, to surrender; Terry Schiavo case has touched the whole of America in a way unprecedented for the American people and for the world. The fact that a law concerning only 1 person was passed overnight by the federal government of a big country like America and signed by the President should really inspire the legislatures of this world and should make them think about the people they are serving. President George W. Bush's words that the 'laws of our society should have a presumption for life', in supporting the case of parents of Terry Schiavo, should go down in history as the basic ideology behind any law that any society deems to abide. I have never considered George Bush as a person with the respect that his position demands. Now, with words like these, I feel that he looks capable of leading a country as great as America.

Unfortunately for Terry Schiavo and her family, the federal judges of the America have not considered the new law as a right for Terry Schiavo's parents to start a new trial for saving her life. The federal case was considered in continuum with the Florida state court case by the federal judges. The purpose behind the law was to extend the life of Terry Schiavo by couple of more months or years using the long and exhaustive federal court trials. I do not know the judiciary system of America very well, but there is one thing that I do not understand. I do not know whether all the state court trials are transferred in similar way to federal courts, or if the cases are tried afresh in federal courts, or there can not be any transfer between two judiciaries and that this particular case is really an exception. If all the cases are transferred this way only, then why were the law makers not aware of it? Also, if the transferred cases should be tried afresh, then why is judiciary not considering an appeal for reinserting tube till the case is discussed? If this case is really an exception and does not fit in any of the two types, then is there any communication gap between what law makers wanted of the law and what law keepers understood of the law? I will have to wait and see if the answers to these questions come out in news.

As reader might have guessed, I am in favor of saving the life of Terry Schiavo. She got into paralysis 15 years ago. What she had said 15 years ago might not be what she wants after 15 years? Our hopes and desires change almost every year. What if after getting into this state, she had realized that this state is not really bad, only that she is not able to convey it to others, and that if she gathers her every strength, she could come out of it, if she is given enough time? We take years to gather our strengths and fight weaknesses, can't a paralyzed person take more time? The decision that she did not want to live in a vegetative state was made by her when she was conscious. If she is in now a persistent vegetative state and can not think at all as claimed by the doctors, what difference does it make to her that her will is not followed and that the will of her parents is followed? If she is currently suffering from pain and humiliation of living in this state, then it means she can feel and is not in exactly persistent state. We can surely assume that she would not complain, if she ever recovers back to her normal life, that why was she not killed before. If her medical cost had been a burden on the family, killing her could have been remotely justified.

I used to love my biology classes. I know that every life has a natural tendency to survive and find a way. Even a single cell amoeba, with no brain and a constant vegetative state, has a will and ability to survive and grow in this world.

A sham called hi5

Yesterday, I was going through one of the many orkut-kind of sites, hi5 (www.hi5.com). This site is almost same as Google's orkut in its interface (if not worse) and is trying to expand its network. Such websites are increasing in popularity and even Yahoo is launching one, codenamed 360. I think these websites do not offer much after their initial euphoria. Consider orkut with more than 2 million members now. There was a time when I used to go to orkut every day just to check messages and look at new people's profiles. I have watched orkut grow when it was less than a million network. But now, they are just very slow in opening up the pages, not many messages are sent in the network and its just not interesting anymore.

Anyway, this post is not about orkut or alikes. It is about the cheap practices done by this website hi5. For expanding the network, it provides users with an interface of pulling out contacts from hotmail, yahoo and aol address books. I wanted to look at my hotmail contacts and see who is inside hi5. So, I gave my hotmail login and password to them. The next page shows it is ready to send an invite to everybody that I have ever known in my whole life! All the checkboxes of all contacts are checked and there is one big 'Send' button at the bottom with nothing else on the webpage. No unselect all option. Of course, I do not want to send an invite to everybody. Some of them I have not talked with for years. To cut the long story short, I accidently pressed the "Send" button (maybe because there was no other button to press and move forward and I was in a hurry) and with in a second it showed me that it has sent the invitations to everybody. EVERYBODY. I am not an extrovert kind of guy and maintains some degree of distance with everybody in my real life. Now, I am not sure what each of my contact would think of my virtual life after receiving my such friendly invitation after years.

My grouse with this website are for two things. First of all, why is every contact checked in the first page. It is very cheap to expect that a user would like to send an invite to their (immature) network to everybody. Secondly, there was no confirmation button. Any decent website would ask for confirmation for any step that is taken. Users can unwittingly press 'Enters' on their websites and should therefore be confirmed if they had.

Well, I received acceptances of invites from some of my friends. I also received a response from my PhD advisor that she is no more into these kinds of network after orkut and that she is thankful for getting an invitation. I could not fathom what each of those persons would think. Well, I could only hope that they like that. Atleast, that I remembered them (though admittingly, I did not).

Suicide of Yuri Kravchenko and Godfather Part III

A former Ukranian minister, Yuri Kravchenko, was found dead in his home and authorities believe that it is a case of suicide. Well, the guy used his own gun and wrote a suicide note found in his pocket. I (and many others) found this very strange that the guy shot himself in head TWICE. I dont think anyone can 'think' of shooting his head again after he has shot himself once. The minister was to give details that day about the involvement of former President of Ukraine, Viktor Yushchenko, in a murder of journalist (who was, in turn, investigating the case against the Prez). The Prez (or his aides) was also responsible of giving slow poison to the current Prime Minister of Ukraine. Sounds like a pretty screwed up country to me. It reminds of old kingdoms where kings were poisoned and reminds me of Hollywood movies. Another strange thing is that this former President was supported by Russia. I know Russia is now a democracy and the current Prime Minister of Ukraine is a socialist. But, giving support to a guy like that, IMHO, undermines the sincerity and goodness of principles behind democracy. Is Russia afraid of turning back to socialism from a small country like Ukraine or does Russia wants a control over Ukraine by supporting an unscrupulous person and holding the strings of that person in its own hands? Second sounds possible. Unscrupulous people are easily susceptible to fears for outsiders who are powerful and would do things for powerful people at the cost of the people whom they control. Its fun (for Russia) to play with those fearful guys.

Meanwhile, I watched Godfather III in the night. I have already seen it a couple of times and always look at the Godfather movies to gain something. I dont know what I would gain but know that I will notice something new in the movie this time and will try to learn from it. All good movies make me think like that. I can watch Gladiator, Braveheart, Godfather, SPR any number of times.

I tried to make a connection between the suicide of Ukranian minister and Godfather movie. I could only go so far that a good pope was killed in the end of the movie but was made to look like it was an heart attack. Well, not that close.

Strangely, Dell

I woke up today in the morning. When I connected with internet (the first thing I do after brushing my teeth); somehow, I decided that I should purchase some RAM for my laptop. My laptop is 5 months old but I am bored with its laziness in opening many windows. So, I went to Dell's website and purchased a 512 MB RAM for $139.99. It looked costly but I thought it is better for my laptop.

In the afternoon, I talked to my labmate Siddharth about my decision to upgrade my laptop
's RAM. I did not tell him that I have purchased it. He asked me to go crucial.com. In that very moment, I felt that I have made a big mistake purchasing it from Dell and that when I will go to crucial.com, I will not be happy to see but will see a RAM much cheaper. And so I went there and found a RAM for my laptop for $93! That's $50 LESS. My heart was beating faster.

I am new to America but still 25. And I think I have to learn a lot about this place. Somehow, I feel that you can not trust anybody. Dell which brought a revolution of cheap pcs and notebooks could be sometimes so expensive. And that one has to be careful for what one purchases from where. Meanwhile, I purchased Crucial memory. And I cancelled my Dell memory order in every possible way Dell allows = by making couple of calls to their customer support - waiting for 15-20 minutes during each call and looking at its website - trying to chat with customer support guy, sending mails, registering at Customer support forum, and what not . Though it took a lot of time, but it was pleasure to see that all these channels provided by Dell do work.
Today was a day with mixed but strong feelings for Dell. I will loose my 12 bucks in taxes but should get money back for my RAM.

After I purchased memory from crucial.com, Sid asked me whether I looked for the coupons for Crucial in google. I decided I will not.

First post

Hi All,

I have started this page to write about myself, and about anything that I want to talk about. I hope you find the content of this blogger interesting.

-insideout