It's only TV, Parky.

Michael Parkinson: "Jade Goody has her own place in the history of television and, while it’s significant, it’s nothing to be proud of. Her death is as sad as the death of any young person, but it’s not the passing of a martyr or a saint or, God help us, Princess Di. When we clear the media smoke screen from around her death, what we’re left with is a woman who came to represent all that’s paltry and wretched about Britain today. She was brought up on a sink estate, as a child came to know drugs and crime, was barely educated, ignorant and puerile. Then she was projected to celebrity by Big Brother and became a media chattel to be exploited till the day she died.” Max Clifford rides to her defence: “What Michael forgets to mention is that Jade already has saved countless lives of young women through her battle with cervical cancer. And she has provided the best possible education for her boys and stressed the importance of that.”What neither the prosecution nor the defence can bring themselves to mention is the fact that Jade Goody was just a TV star. TV stars tend not to be a noble breed. Like all TV stars her fame was, by the standards of the wider world, undeserved. She was as fortunate as the next bozo who woke up to find they were the kind of person the camera happened to like. Along with her producers she arrived at a shorthand version of her actual personality and milked it for all it was worth. Pretty much like Michael Parkinson - a man who has spent forty years in the public eye playing upon his "roots" as if they were a banjo and as far as I can recall not doing or saying much that's been surprising or remarkable - has done. I don't mean that in a bitchy way. It's that very dullness and puppyish willingness to slavishly go along with the expectations of the audience that makes for long careers in TV. You'd have thought he would have known that and kept his counsel.

Spend Some Time Between Dodridge and Lane

Dudes,Hey, Columbus! It's really, really bumming me out the way the city is driving half of North-of-Campus out of business with the High Street construction. I'm hearing rumblings of lots of closings, and it's no good. It's really annoying to go anywhere between Dodridge and Lane. I know all about it. Do it anyway. This construction isn't gonna be done for another YEAR, and all those little local shops are suffering, even institutions like the Dube. It would make you sad if these places closed. Reasons to Take Your Ass to the Construction ZoneI'm already sad because I heard a rumor that Black Market is going under. Guys! Kelly Martin is our local fashion hero! Why aren't we buying all her dresses? She was just on freaking Project Runway! Go to her shop. Go there. Buy dresses. She's a cool girl and it's a cool shop.There's that new little restaurant, Sage, which is really good! And Clintonville needs restaurants. But they're going to die if we don't brave the construction and eat there. Did you know Taj Mahal has a bar in it? It's open til 1. Here's my review of Taj Mahal: Food: pretty good. Patio: excellent. Weird, unexpected lounge: RAD. You don't think about going there. It doesn't occur to you. But you should. I think no one is going there, so maybe you and your friends should. We went there Sunday night (Sunday is karaoke and ladies night in the Taj Mahal lounge. The ladies night drink specials are nuts--I got both KT and myself DRUNK for 12 bucks, girls. THEY'RE CRAZY FOR LOW PRICES. Take your titties in there and get some cheap drinks.) It's cool in there. It feels kind of like Inarra's whorin' shuttle on Firefly. I'm sort of obsessed with Firefly right now, though, so maybe it's just me. But it's all red and there's couches and stuff. It's like you're having drink in someone's really cool living room. We parked on Oakland. It was easy!You can go to our local hardware store, Schriener Hardware, where once the man who worked there gave me a huge discount on a knife because I told him I wanted to carry it for self defense. (Then this partially reformed Mexican gangbanger that I used to know (Where did you go, Isaac? Hope you're ok.) taught me all these knife tricks.)You can rent, like, any movie at North Campus Video, and yes, that old man with the pierced cheeks will be mean to you, but isn't that part of the charm? He's been being mean to me since I was 18. It's sort of comforting at this point. And Smoker's Haven! It smells so good in there, and even though I don't smoke I spent something like 20 minutes looking at cool pipes and smelling tobacco and talking to the nice man who worked there. He told me that it is cheaper to smoke a pipe than a cigarrette, and it's not addictive because you don't inhale on a pipe. Maybe I should smoke a pipe.I don't need to remind you about the Dube, right?Dick's Den. Why Not?Cazuela's! It's open AFTER THE BARS CLOSE on the weekends. You can go there for fourthmeal. A lot of places down there have parking lots. It's not so bad, it's just unpleasant on High. You can handle it. You do unpleasant things every day. Come on!

What's the name of this flower?

Nokia Maps on my N73

Inspired by Pradeep B V's comment on my earlier post, I went on to check if Nokia has any (updated) Maps for my Nokia Phone (N73). My phone does not have GPS like the Nokia Navigator, but nevertheless, Maps on mobile (with GPRS for Search) can still come in very handy. Also, my phone came pre packaged with a dumb local application (with maps), but it only used to show the outline of India. Now, I have seen that many times in my sixth class Geography and that level of map is not useful for any god damn thing, let alone Local Search.So, I started from here , downloaded and installed the "Nokia Maps" application over to my phone and then downloaded and installed a windows only (Infact, you won't even find the download link on firefox on windows. Visit the link on IE) application over to my PC. And then, after a few glitches, I downloaded the India data pack.The map data is from Navteq. And we all already know Navteq does not have the best data set for India. For instance, the data pack for China was about 190 MB whereas the India one was 21MB. (India is about a third in size compared to China).I was checking in and around Bangalore and they have all the major roads named and searchable. But more importantly, because you can download the data pack into your mobile, you don't need a network connection to search or view the Map. That is cool, because GPRS (or EDGE, 2.5 G) is real slow for Maps. Also, there is no connectivity in places where you generally tend to get lost.Now, the technology is also different when you compare this with Google Maps Mobile or Yahoo! Go. Nokia Maps is a vector map application. What that means is, the maps are rendered by an engine that understands shapes rather than showing images that have maps pre-rendered (aka raster maps ).So, the application is smaller, renders what needs to be rendered and ignores layers and shapes when it needs to, It is probably a bit slower because of all the bits it needs to flip/flop before rendering the shape. I may be wrong here, that is just my guess.I don't have GPS on my phone. Earlier, I tried to buy a bluetooth GPS receiver that I can hook up with my phone. But the pieces that I tried never worked with my phone and I gave up. So, I couldn't check if GPS worked well with the application and if the map is, infact, accurate.Anyway, If you have a Nokia big smart phone, go download the maps. It will come in handy.

Tapping into the generosity

What we need in this world are waves of generosity. And artful living. And making things with our own sweet tiny hands. I saw this posted tonight on my friend Elizabeth's blog and knew immediately that I wanted to participate, to be swept into the simplicity of making and giving. Here's what Elizabeth wrote:It’s a generosity meme in which you make stuff for five people. Check it out... The first five (cinq) (cinco) (5) people to respond to this post in the comments will get something made by me. This offer does have some restrictions and limitations so please read carefully… I make no guarantees that you will like what I make. (No refunds… no exchanges!!!!) What I create will be just for you, with love from me. It’ll be done this calendar year (2009) and when you get it, you have to let me know it arrived. I will not give you any clue what it’s going to be. It will be something made in the real world and not something cyber. It may be weird or beautiful. I may even create something totally unbelievable and surprise you!! It will be handmade and may be any medium I choose. Who knows? Not you, that’s for sure! I reserve the right to do something painterly or whatever - it may be just weird! The original meme requires you to post this text into a note/post of your own and make 5 things for the first 5 to respond to it. I’m not going to require that of you. If you would like to do it, great. I encourage you to do it but it’s not a requirement.I am already plotting and planning what I will make. This isn't just for artists--it's for human beings. We're all artists, all able to create something precious for another human being. Yes, yes we are. One of the most gorgeous things I've ever received was a small box of precious stones from a child I met once--she made it for me, assembling it, cherishing it, giving it. You can do the same.So, if you are interested, leave a comment below. I'll draw five names from those submitted by 5 p.m. Eastern tomorrow, Saturday, May 9 (in a departure from Elizabeth's "first five" plan) and will let you know if you're on my list of five!Whether your name is drawn or not, I hope you'll play, participate, make, and give. Post this on your blog, tweet it, put a sign up in your office, find a way to be involved in it. Let's hold up five people this year, creating beauty for them. Yes, let's.

Balcony garden

plant eat meat

plant eat meat

Seen few

Hand bone silver decoration

Lineage II anniversary event runs into snag

5 years of operation for a massively multiplayer online game is cause for celebration. The sad fact is that many games never live that long, and not all titles that run for 5 years have a lot of steam left by that point. This doesn't seem to be the case with Lineage II which still appears to be going strong in both Korea and in the West. Massively recently interviewed the Lineage II developers about the 5-year milestone they've just hit with the game, and we also mentioned the anniversary celebration was about to get underway.Unfortunately, there were some technical issues that affected the commencement of the event. NCsoft has decided to make it up to the players. Originally slated to end on May 5, the 5th anniversary event has now been extended to May 12. The Lineage II team clarified: "The letters that dropped from monsters in Aden and Gracia will begin dropping again by 2:00 PM Central Time Friday, May 8th and will continue until maintenance begins on Tuesday, May 12th. The Event NPC's will still be removed from the game during maintenance on Tuesday, May 12th, so be sure you exchange all of the words you've collected before the servers are brought down."

Sudan leader denies Darfur crimes

Sudan's President Omar al-Bashir has denied that his armed forces have targeted civilians in Darfur, in an exclusive interview with the BBC.
"I challenge anybody to bring me evidence that proves the Sudanese armed forces attacked and killed citizens in Darfur," he told the BBC's HARDtalk.

Interview with Simutronics CEO David Whatley

The MMO Gamer have interviewed David Whatley, the President and CEO of Simutronics, who are making HeroEngine and their upcoming MMO called Hero's Journey. HeroEngine is billed as a streamlined engine for creating MMOs with development taking place inside the games themselves so that all of the development team can work together in a live environment with changes being seen by the entire team immediately. So far the highest profile game to use HeroEngine is Star Wars: The Old Republic.The interview covers their design philosophy of bring their experience with MUDs into MMO development, how they became a middleware company after people started to want to use their engine and how they're hoping that their technology will reduce development times and costs for any games that use it. Whatley also points out that until a AAA game, he suggests Star Wars: The Old Republic, released there won't be any empirical data on how much time using their engine will save a developer but he believes that it will mean games can be developed in about half the time. This saving can either be used to produce a game twice as quickly, or to develop twice the game that you would normally be able to produce.You can check out the full interview over at The MMO Gamer.

AVERAGE WHITE BAND

AVERAGE WHITE BAND - CATALOGUE TO BE AVAILABLE DIGITALLY FOR THE FIRST TIME - 27th April 2009Demon Digital is proud to announce the acquisition of the licence to issue the complete Average White Band catalogue of albums released from 1973 to 1982. Eleven classic albums will be available digitally for the first time in the UK from Monday 27th April 2009.As well as being available individually, Demon Digital will be issuing all eleven albums in four deluxe digital sets, which have all been overseen by Average White Band’s Alan Gorrie, Hamish Stuart and, Onnie McIntyre. The fully annotated special digital booklets will feature memorabilia from their own personal collections, including brand new interviews. In addition to the eleven original albums being released Demon Digital will also be releasing a digital only Best Of Album “Let’s Go Round Again” and a special 5 track digital EP. The four deluxe digital (and deluxe 2CD sets)Show Your Hand + How Sweet Can You Get + Average White Band [Digital: VEXEDSD2030 / 2CD: EDSD 2030]Cut The Cake + Soul Searching + Benny & Us [Digital: VEXEDSD2031 / 2CD: EDSD 2031]Person To Person + Warmer Communications [Digital: VEXEDSD2032 / 2CD: EDSD 2032]Feel No Fret + Volume VIII + Shine + Cupid’s In Fashion [Digital: VEXEDSD2033 / 2CD: EDSD 2033]Playing their own brand of soul, Scotland’s Average White Band rocketed to fame and fortune in late 1974 with their absolute classic eponymous second album, usually known as the 'White Album', and the accompanying single ‘Pick Up The Pieces’, an instantly recognizable and perennial classic, and a staple of ‘gold’ radio stations around the world. Both the album and single reached No. 1 on the US pop charts – in the UK, both reached No. 6. Full Digital Catalogue available from 27th April 2009 from all download stores iTunes, eMusic, Amazon, 7 Digital and mobile. The Individual single albums available (only digitally)Show Your Hand (1973)Average White Band (1974) Cut The Cake (1975)Soul Searching (1976)Person To Person (1976)Benny and Us (1977)Warmer Communications (1978)Feel No Fret (1979)Volume VIII (1980)Shine (1980)Cupid's In Fashion (1982) Average White Band - Top FactsAll AWB’s original members knew each other on the Scottish music scene in the late 60s, but only came together as a band in London in late 1971.The band's lucky break came when they were picked as the support act at Eric Clapton's legendary comeback concert at The Rainbow in 1973.MCA released their first album “Show Your Hand”, but rejected the follow-up album. Atlantic Records’ co-founder Jerry Wexler heard the songs, signed the band, and legendary producer Arif Mardin re-recorded virtually the entire album in New York.The resultant album “Average White Band” (aka “The White Album”) reached # 1 on both the US Pop and R&B charts, in late 1974. "Pick Up The Pieces" reached # 1 in the US Pop chart and # 5 on the R&B chart. In the UK the album and single both reached # 6.“Pick Up The Pieces” was originally the B-Side of the single but the US DJ reaction to the track quickly saw it being given A-side status.Band founder, bassist and co-lead vocalist Alan Gorrie came up with the original idea for the band’s instantly recognisable and distinctive logo.Average White Band is the 15th most sampled band of all time. Their songs have been sampled on over 100 Hip Hop and R&B songs.The band was named after a phrase spoken by a diplomat friend who would refer to the habits of the “average white man” abroad.AWB scored seven Top 40 US singles, eight Top 40 US albums and fourteen R&B chart singles and were nominated for three Grammy™ Awards. They also had four Top 40 UK singles and five Top 40 UK albums.Over 40 AWB songs have been featured on movies and TV shows.The band, featuring Alan Gorrie and guitarist Onnie McIntyre, still play concerts around the world and will be touring in the UK in Autumn 2009.Guitarist and co-lead vocalist Hamish Stuart was not only a member of Paul McCartney's touring and recording band through the early 90s, but was also a member of Ringo Starr’s All-Starr Band in 2006 and 2008.Hamish also owns and runs a gastropub in Kent, and plays frequent concerts in London.Chaka Khan (for whom Hamish Stuart wrote the # 1 hit “What’cha Gonna Do For Me”), Luther Vandross, and the Brecker Brothers have all sung or played on the AWB albums.Of the eleven original albums DMG is releasing exclusively on digital on 27th April, in the US “Soul Searching” went Platinum (1 million+ sales), another three achieved Gold status (500,000+), and one went Silver.

Manhunt

How a Nazi fugitive was captured, tried and hangedBRINGING old Nazis to justice was not a priority in the immediate aftermath of 1945. The three Western powers wanted to turn their zones of Germany into the Federal Republic, a functioning cold-war ally. Justice was delayed, denied or tied up in bureaucratic knots. But did that shabby, perhaps shameful compromise justify Israels action in kidnapping Adolf Eichmann from Argentina in 1960 and putting him on trial in a country that did not exist at the time when he was planning and executing the Holocaust?The unspoken assumption of Neal Bascombs book is that the Israeli secret services daring and risky plan was not only heroic and skilful, but also justified. It starts by retelling the long and frustrating hunt for Eichmann, whom sympathisers had helped flee to Argentina after the war (a shocking tale in itself). It was a chance remark by one of his sons to a girlfriend who, unknown to him, was half-Jewish, that gave the first clue. Even so, it took years to follow up.

Summer flower

Watchmen Writer to Adapt Battling Boy Comic

Alex Tse had the unenviable task of co-adapting Alan Moore's classic Watchman comic for the big screen. The film prompted fiercely divided response from fans of the graphic novel but mustered $177 million and counting in international box office. Watchmen also evidently convinced Brad Pitt to give Tse a whack at Battling Boy (pictured right). According to The Hollywood Reporter, Paramount Pictures and Pitt's Plan B company have hired Tse to adapt Paul Pope's forthcoming comic book about a mountain boy who journeys into the city of Monstropolis to eradicate a swarm of mutants. First Second Books will publish Battling Boy next spring. In the meantime, Tse has another classic sci-tale to conquer: He's adapting Ray Bradbury's story collection The Illustrated Man for Watchmen director Zack Snyder. See also: Long-Term Watchmen Box Office Still Looks Solid Cult Status, Comic Sales Could Boost Watchmen Box Office Review: Watchmen Film Straddles Line Between Loyalty, Heresy Watchmen's Clockwork Origins Span Comics, Quantum Physics Watchmen Soundtrack Merges History, Money Legendary Comics Writer Alan Moore on Superheroes, The League and Making Magic Archaeologizing Watchmen: An Interview With Dave Gibbons

Grow crazy,my young pumpkin young

Pumpkin's growing fast

Monica Seles Battled Binge Eating

Filed under: Food and Nutrition, Celebrities and EntertainmentAnorexia nervosa and bulimia might be the conditions that first come to mind when you think of eating disorders. But tennis great Monica Seles fought a nine-year battle with a lesser-known issue, binge eating disorder. Seles turned to food as a way to cope through two tragic incidents -- the death of her father and being stabbed in the back by a Steffi Graf fan while competing in 1993. Seles said, "Food became my best friend. I was lonely and I would just eat. It was my coping mechanism. Food was how I dealt with stress."In time, Seles' unhealthy relationship with food caught up to her and she packed on 35 pounds. Seles talks about her battle with binge eating disorder in her book, "Getting a Grip." She says she finally realized she had beaten her disorder when she competed on "Dancing With the Stars" and was able to take harsh criticism without turning to food.

Pumpkin luffa cucumber's flower

The 10th anniversary

opening card, flowers

The 10th anniversary of the bombed of the Chinese embassy in Yugoslavia .

Benefits Payroll Review Manager

SERVICE EMPLOYEES INTERNATIONAL UNION (SEIU), the nation's fastest growing labor organization representing more than 1.9 million workers, is seeking a Benefits Payroll Review Manager for its Pension & Inudustries Fund. This position, based in Washington, is responsible for overseeing and coordinating the activities of the Field Auditors ensuring that participating employers are in compliance with contribution requirements of the funds, ERISA, the collective bargaining agreement, and/or other governing documents. Duties include but are not limited to the following: • Oversees the scheduling and execution of field audits of employer contributions to the SEIU National Industry Pension Plan, and the SEIU Health and Welfare Fund. Responsible for the preparation of billings following the audits as necessary ensuring compliance with the funds’ collection policies. Responsible for follow up communication to employers concerning these billings where appropriate and necessary. • Works with Secretary-Treasurer’s office as Local Union audits are performed in regards to the SEIU Affiliates Officers and Employees Pension Fund. Oversees related billings and other correspondence to communicate with Local Unions regarding corrective action required to be in compliance with the reporting requirements of the Affiliates’ Fund. • Maintains information regarding reviews performed including easily accessible pertinent data such as employer name, review date, review period, findings, status, etc. Work with outside auditing firm providing required work papers, data, access to files, etc., to assist them in the audit of the funds for payroll review purposes. • Sees that files are maintained containing work papers and correspondence related to all payroll reviews. • Works with Fund Counsel throughout the collection procedure of delinquent amounts found during payroll reviews performed. Also works with Fund Counsel during the payroll review process if questions concerning contract interpretation or other issues arise. • Assists the Administrative Director in the ADP/ACP testing process for the SEIU Staff 401(k) Plan and the SEIU Affiliates 401(k) Plan. • Prepares reports to the Board of Trustees regarding audits conducted, billings, and amounts collected. • Performs other duties as assigned in support of the work of the department.

What's the name of this flower?

Obama hails unity over al-Qaeda

US President Barack Obama has said after meeting his Afghan and Pakistani counterparts that they are united in the goal of defeating al-Qaeda.

Welcome

What's it all about Alfie? I was thinking the other night about a new type of blog. Nothing earth shattering, just something to get me interested in blogging again. I've lost my mojo. One of the contributing factors being that my office is freezing and I don't like spending hours hidden away from the rest of the family. The other factor being that I'm just plumb out of ideas, so I came up with this.The idea is that MG and I will pick a topic, could be anything, and then we'll draw straws or toss a coin to decide who will take the affirmative and who will take the negative. This could mean arguing for a point of view we don't believe in. What type of topics will be covered. Well it's my intention to cover many aspects. I don't particularly want to focus on the same issues all the time.Example: The Tour De France is an exciting event. That was a penalty! Abu Bakir Bashir should still be in jail. Energy concerns, will Nuclear solve all?Get it?Hopefully it'll read ok, possibly generate some discussion. Let's see how it goes. Format: We will post the topic for discussion, which side of the argument we will take and then we will argue out points via the comments section of each post and only allow viewer comments after we've completed the topic. Ideally we'll post a new topic on weekends and close the topic mid week.In addition, if you would like to suggest a topic for discussion, leave us a comment or send an email to "opinionfreezone @ gmail.com". * * remove the spaces around the @ symbol.

Are you a Summer person??

it can be so very hot in the summer. I love all of the summer activities, the beach, pool, shorts! After the long winter, I am always ready to get outside and enjoy spring and summer. It is great here right now, 60 mornings and high of 79, awesome! I really dread the real GA summer though; it can be unbearable. The humidity can raise the temp 15+ degrees and 100 is very common in late June on until end of August. We do have occasional breaks, but it mostly is too hot to be outside at all. Not to mention the electic bill from all that cool, wonderful air. Overall, it is a fun season, just trying to go outside a lot right now and enjoy the breeze while it last:)

Two Months of Pain

So You’ll notice I’ve been slack on the updates. There’s good and bad reasons for this. Shortly after WHTCon, I picked up Ursula’s Crud. That was two weeks of Misery. I mean, cough, nasal crud, soreness, tiredness. Just BLECK. By the time we were over that, it was the week before StellarCon in High Point. That week, I got my shin tattooed. I’d like to say, that shin tattoos are by far the worst pain I’ve had yet getting any mods done. And it takes a LOT longer to heal than any of my arms did. StellarCon was a BLAST. We got to hang out with some great friends (at least, I think they are) - Mur Lafferty, Cmar & Laura, and SusanZ & Tim. And the usual con crowd. Got home, got the kids, and settled into what was supposed to be a normal week - only to be hit with a kidney stone on that Thurday. HOLY SHIT, that’s some pain right there. Ended up having Ursula drive me to the emergency room after dropping the kids off with their mom. They doped me up, checked me out with a CT scan, and sent me home with good painkillers. I spent the next four days basically doped to the gills, that is, until it dropped to my bladder, and the pain stopped. I passed it sometime Wednesday night. So, to make up for the prior weekend, I picked the kids up a day early. We saw Monsters vs. Aliens - a fun flick, but nothing to write home about. Loved B.O.B. - as with so many Dreamworks animated bits, it’s the supporting cast that makes the film. And then this past week, which was uneventful. Saturday we hit the Ren Faire, and I’m sore from all the walking. Well, that and mowing the lawn for the first time this spring earlier today. My legs muscles are ache-y, but it was worth it, and nothing a martini of Gin Fizz can’t fix. After all that, I’m just hoping this week is uneventful.

The White Tiger

I enjoyed this book without finding it a masterpiece. Perhaps because of the Booker Prize, I was expecting too much. The novel is a first person narrative by Balram Halwai who was a poor kid from “the Darkness” (rural, undeveloped parts of India) who wangled a job as driver in Dehli for one of the landlord class from his village. He’s supposedly writing memos to the Premier of China, Wen Jiabao, who, it’s been reported in the Bangelore (where Balram currently lives) newspaper, will shortly visit India. Balram writes to “advise” on things Indian and to express his solidarity with an important leader of the yellow and brown peoples who are destined next to run the world. The Chinese premier never replies.Apparently, sir, you Chinese are far ahead of us in every respect, except that you don’t have entrepreneurs. And our nation though it has no drinking water, electricity, sewage system, public transportation, sense of hygiene, discipline, courtesy or punctuality, does have entrepreneurs.Balram is clever and amusing and calls himself an entrepreneur. He always write his memors in the middle of the night. The reader suspects he’s running some company that provides technical or customer support for US companies in the middle of the night in Bangelore. Which is correct, but not exactly what the reader is initially led to believe. Relatively uneducated, from a school where the teacher embezzles the money for uniforms, food and books, Balram was supposed to be the son who lifts the family out of the darkness into the light. His skipping school seems to put an end to that. He’s put to work, with his brother, in the tea shop. There, though, he uses the ambiance provided by the customers to begin understanding the “light” world (that of the educated Indians living in cities) and finagling a job for himself as a driver for the son of a land owner who has just returned from the US. Throughout, Balram refers to Indians from the poverty-stricken rural places as from the “darkness” and those middle class Indians from the city as from the “light”. The dichotomy is frequently also expressed in terms of those with big bellies and those with small bellies. Social mobility does exist for the fortunate—or ruthless enough—few and Balram not only yearns, but feels it his duty to his dead father (who died in a government hospital waiting for a doctor who didn’t come), to move up.Balram’s is a sordid tale, as becomes apparent even before we learn that he’s killed his former boss, but his charm—and his social criticism—keeps us reading and reassures us that author and narrator are not the same. In Balram’s world, servants lie, cheat and steal to get and keep jobs and to assert themselves, however pathetically, in the face of appalling condescension on the part of their employers, and the employers are involved in bribery and corruption the like of which Ashok, Balram’s boss who returned to India with his American wife, finds distasteful and degrading—at least at first.The problem with the novel is that while the charming tone is sustained to the last, Balram leads us into some pretty dicey situations. He’s proud of the wanted poster on which he appears looking like just about every other Indian and about the fact that it’s unlikely he’ll ever be caught, but evidently 17 members of his family have been killed in retaliation and he muses that he may eventually have to kill the nephew who lives with him—when he finds out. There’s a limit to how much violence his charm will allow us to swallow, even when we know his social criticism is justified.Jan 5th:I had a hard time with the book because although I sympathized with Balram initially and even managed to hang on through his confession that he killed Ashok, by the time he described how he actually did it and certainly when he told us (indirectly) that 17 members of his family were killed for what he did and that he may have to kill his nephew, I've turned against him. I felt the author couldn't sustain sympathy to the end, but as I've mulled it over in my mind, I'm thinking that my reaction is just what Adiga wanted. HIS goal is to highlight the corruption that runs India and show how it perpetuates itself.