Im just saying

So today I was hit by a car.  I was in my car, driving through a parking lot, when a guy pulled out of his spot and hit me square on my driver's side door.  I am OK, but my car is not.  But anyways, so I went to the hospital to ge X-rays to make sure nothing was broken.  The doctor was pretty cute.  In fact, the last time I was at the Arlington County Hospital my doctor was pretty cute too.  I've been in DC for 2 years and to that hospital ER 3 times.  I think all the times I had to wear the gown and get my legs X-rayed, and all the times I really wished I had shaved my legs that morning.  But enough about my stubbly embarassment.

In the end I was put on prescription pain killers and some muscle relaxants.  I took my first dose in the hospital, and with the medicine they gave me some water to wash it down with.  The cup of water I was given was filled with THE BEST ICE I HAVE EVER HAD.  Ok so what is it with hospital ice?  I am an ice muncher, and seriously, theArlington Co. Hospital has fantastic ice.  It's not cube ice; it's closer to what you get from a fridge door.  But while the fridge-door ice comes in smaller pellets, the fridge-door pellets are still as hard as cube ice.  And chewing that hard ice is bad for you.  But hospital ice....well that is a totally different story.  While the hospital ice is small, about the size of two tic tacs, it's the consistency of this ice that makes it so great.  It's hard enough to crunch when you chew on it, but gives way easily so you can chew with your teeth exclusively and not involve any jaw action.  It's hard enough to make a sound when crunched by teeth, but will not give way if you just mush it with your tongue.  The perfect combination of strength and give, this ice is truly spectacular.

Also, afterwards I went to Wendy's with Neha.   My combo meal came to $5.66.  I asked Neha if she had any change, and the girl had exactly 66 cents in change.  My friend Jockitch from William and Mary believes that God speaks to him through clocks.  I am serious.  Legend has it that right before he took the LSATs he looked at a clock and it said, like 11:11.  As any sane person knows, any time a clock has a time where all the digits displayed are the exact same numeral, God is speaking in his mysterious way to you.  Apparently the fact that the clock was digital, therefore making the message clearer, only added to the strength of the luck.  Interestingly, Jockitch rocked his LSATs. 

Anyways, Neha had exactly 66 cents.  How often is it that, using EVERY piece of change in the entire vehicle, you make the exact change being asked for by a fast food attendant?  I'm guessing almost never.  I immediately thought of Jockitch and wondered if this was God trying to speak to me except this time instead of via a clock, in my hour of need God had decided to channel himself to me in the form of pocket change.  In fact the 6 cents out of the 66 cents were all in pennies.  Does the all-penny 6 cents make the message stronger, similar to the digital clock read?  And if this is God trying to speak to me, what is he saying?  Maybe since today was the worst day I've had due to multiple  circumstances (the car accident is only one of the many things that went wrong today) that I had no control over (so we can effectively rule out hang-over days from college), or atleast that I can recall, God was trying to let me know that everything was going to work out well.

Then I realized that 66 cents is just one numeral short of the dreaded 666.  Therefore maybe God's message was not so uplifting.  Or maybe it wasn't God trying to speak to me...

Then I remembered I was a Hindu and 66, 666, or any other random numbers mean nothing to me.  And I remembered that I wasn't crazy. And therefore no one/supernatural/heavenly being was trying to speak to me through inanimate objects, be it clocks or change!  And I started to realize that my muscle relaxers were kicking in.

Oh my God, I just looked at my cell phone and it's 1:11 AM.  Is there any way a higher being could consider this blog, and me mocking attempts to contact his earthly subjects, as blasphemous?

I just had a recent conversation with a good friend of mine.  Let's call him Nick.  During this conversation, I think I stumbled across an area of relationship therapy that has so far been underutilized.  It's a GREAT idea, seriously.  And before those of you who have heard some of my other "great" ideas put on your "this is one of those crazy schemes Dipti comes up with to amuse herself" hat on, let me just tell you, I'm serious about this.  I think i could really make millions off of this idea.   I'll tell you but you have to PROMISE not to steal it, promise?

Ok, so if you've read this far, I'm assuming you have agreed.  Ok so here's the deal, so you know how there are all these marital/relationship communication experts?  And how psychiatry and all is getting more popular in India, and the world, in general rt?  Soo how about I become a psychologist but all of my advice comes in the form of lines from Bollywood movies?  (Insert peels of laughter at this point of the conversation from the peanut gallery, ie. Nick.)  Seriously, i have a huge reportiore of bollywood songs committed to memory that cover a whole range of emotion.  Dude this could totally work.  Here's are some perfect examples from the life of Nick.

Perfect Example #1:  Nick and his girlfriend get into a fight and come to me for relationship advice And i'm like, soo what seems to be the problem?   And she says blah blah blah Nick flirts with other girls.    So i now have to make him understand her problem, Bollywood style.   So i turn to him and say, "What she basically means is,

Madhuban mein jo Kanhaiya kisi gopi se mile,
Kabhi muskaaye, kabhi chhede, kabhi baat kare,
Radha kaise na jale, Radha kaise na jale".

(Insert more laughter from Nick here, mixed in with a few "WAH WAH WHAAA", which I suspect were sarcastic.)   Now the response to this situation would be Nick saying, "dude that's not true!  i only have eyes for her, why is she saying that?" OR:

Gopiyaan aani jaani hain,
Radha to mann ki rani hai
Saanjh sakhaare, Jamna kinaare
Radha Radha hi Kaanha pukaare

See!  it works perfectly.  Why speak in English when you communicate most matters of the heart via Bollywood lyrics?

Perfect Example #2:  The girlfriend is like, hey Nick, let's get married soon.  NIck ofcourse stares back blankly, not comprehending what's she is saying to him.  So i translate bollywood style and say:

Yeh Ishq Ishq Chilaatein Hai
Oooh Yeah
Yeh Gali Gali Mand Raatein Hai
Oooh Yeah
Shaadi Ki Degar Na Jaaye Magar
Yeh Gore Gore Se Chore
Yeh Gore Gore Se Chore
(Movie, Hum Tum)

to which Nick is like, "Dipti, that's not true, make her understand!"  So ofcourse, I have to pull out:

Jo nahin samjhe ki hum kiske hain deewane
Vo hamari aashiqui ka rang kya jaane
Arre haan aa ha samjho na meri jaan
from the movie Jo Jeeta Wohi Sikander. 

Perfect Example #3:  My friend Nick is dating a girl from Bombay.  Not only is he from a small town and she's from a huge city, they speak Hindi differently!  Like he speaks actually Hindi and she is always using her Hinglish.  So sometimes he suspect she is not understanding stuff bc she's from Bombay and those Bombay girls, well you know, their communication style is just plain different.  So he's like, please explain it to her Dipti, Super Bollywood Psychologist, in a language she understands, like in her Bombay talk. So i pull out the bad Bombay hindi-english with

Apun bola tu meri laila
Vo boli fekta hai saala
Apun jab bhi sachi bolta hai
Aye usko jhooth kaiko lagta hai re

See!  Bollywood has lines for any problem in your life.  This analysis has earned me the title of Dr. Dip BoollyLogist from Mr Nick.  I am assuming that this is a compliment.  In fact, I think it's the best title ever.  So if you are in a relationship with communication problems, and you enjoy Bollywood movies, this might be the solution for you.  Let me know, as of the moment my expertise comes free. 

On September 9th, 2005 Kanye West spoke out against president Bush during an NBC telethon.  His comments included:

"I hate the way they portray us in the media," West said. "If you see a black family, it says they're looting. See a white family, it says they're looking for food. ... They've given them permission to go down and shoot us." and "George Bush doesn't care about black people--"

 NBC cut of his comments and switched to comedian Chris Tucker.  They then proceeded to cut out the ENTIRE segment when the telethon was aired on the West coast and almost immediately came out with statements distancing themselves from Kanye's speech.

First of all, so much for the liberal media!  If the media is so liberal, why are they censoring Kanye West?  Which brings me to my second point which is, why are they censoring anybody who is making a political comment, left or right-leaning, to begin with?  Isn't it through listening to the news and opinions from diverse viewpoints  how citizens form well-thought ideas?  I know I WANT to know what other people are thinking from across political, economic, geographical, age, race spectrums.  So conservatives, liberals, Baby Boomers, college students, Midwesterners, News Yorkers, black, white, immigrant, etc--  understanding what people are going through and listening to what they have to say is the only way to really be able to have the background information necessary to begin to process and resolve problems that affect our country.

And maybe this sounds pretty standard to you.  Ever since elementary civics classes, it's been drilled in the head of every American that free speech is a right, not a privilege, for ALL Americans.  But these recent events have caused me to question this.  Why did NBC censor Kanye?  My libertarian lawyer friend pointed out that as a private company NBC has the right to air, or not air, what they want and the point is well-taken.  Sure I think the media should air as many diverse opinions as they can, but they are totally within their rights to air what they want.  (Yet this event definitely makes me wonder, where is this liberal media that conservatives are always always complaining about.  Sure reporters may be idealistic- it seems a natural fit to their job description.  But the media corporation heads, who in the end have the decision making power, definitely seems to lean to the right.  But this is another rant.)  But how do they decide what to air and what not to air?  In this case specifically, why did they decide Kanye West's comments were beyond their tolerance for free speech threshold?  Off of the top of my head, I thought of several reasons.  First, maybe the comments by West were actually way out of the norm of what the media normally airs.  Second, maybe in volatile situations the media loses backbone and elects not to air anything other than innocuous, feel-good, politically-safe drivel, basically halting any ability for most Americans to hear any real criticism from major media outlets, the main source of information.  Third, and most sinister, maybe had less to do with what Kanye West was saying and more to do with who was saying, in this case a politically aware young black man with the ability to reach a wide audience of not only his music fans who cut across racial lines but also, with his recent Time magazine cover, middle America in general.

So let's look at the first point, that Kanye's comments were beyond the norm of what is usually aired.  This is pretty easy to refute because Kanye's comments were NOTHING compared to Michael Moore's speech two years earlier.  In 2003 Michael Moore won an Oscar for his documentary, Bowling for Columbine.  His acceptance speech included the following diatribe:

Whether it's the fictition of duct tape or fictition of orange alerts we are against this war, Mr Bush. Shame on you, Mr Bush, shame on you. And any time you got the Pope and the Dixie Chicks against you, your time is up."

Pretty strong words.  I mean, he says "[George Bush] your time is up".  Pretty direct.  I know what you're thinking.  "Holy crap!  This is not some crazy country like the United Kingdom where ALL free speech, including that which questions the leaders of our government, is protected and perhaps even encouraged!  He said this to a president routinely has protestors arrested or removed from his travel routes!  (Pretty effective right?  Hmm are you trying to protest?  Great, why don't you do that somewhere where no one, especially not me, the person whom your protest is aimed at, can see.)  What happened to this Michael Moore character?"  Fortunately, or unfortunately depending on your political slant, pretty much nothing happened to Michael Moore.  Some of the audience cheered and some booed which seems pretty fair since while Moore had the right to say his opinion, audience members had the right to their feedback.  Loud, provoking, and potentially impolite, both the speech and the audience response this seemed to be the markings of a free society exercising our first amendment.  Not only that this speech was broadcast on all coasts by ABC, showing a willingness of the privately owned media to air comments much more provocative than anything West had to say.

The second idea that came to mind was that in volatile situations the media loses backbone and elects not to air anything with actual criticism.  There are actually quite a few examples of this.  Bill Maher's show on ABC was cancelled in 2002 when he said ""We have been the cowards lobbing cruise missiles from 2,000 miles away. That's cowardly. Staying in the airplane when it hits the building, say what you want about it, it's not cowardly."  Ironically, the name of this show was "Politically Incorrect".  I guess what ABC meant was "Politically Correct But Maybe a Little Sassy"? 

Which brings us to the third reason, that it is not as much WHAT Kanye said, but who he is and how his [far-reaching] audience may potentially view a message coming from him.  The portrayal of black America, especially young black men, in the media has always been dismal.  You can find examples of racism in the the way black Americans are portrayed all the way back to the beginnings of American cinematography with movies such as The Birth of a Nation (which was originally called The Clansman and is used as Klan recruitment material even today). 

But let's look at some more modern examples of media portrayal of black Americans, and limit the type of media to solely television.  Name some top rated shows, not shows you like necessarily, but shows that you know have done extremely well.  The first three that come to mind for me are Seinfeld, Friends, Everybody Loves Raymond, and Sex in the City.  None of the main characters on any of these shows were black!  In fact, forget racial diversity, geographically none of these shows depict people outside of New York City, unless you count Long Island.  (Perhaps they could rename these shows as "Non-Christian White People Hanging out in NYC", "Aryans in NYC", "My Crazy Aryan Family in NYC", and "White Girls Do It in NYC".)  So maybe it's more accurate to say the media often just doesn't portray African Americans period, much less portray them positively.

But again I come to Michael Moore's comments.  Michael Moore is a man who provokes strong emotions from conservatives, usually those emotions include hate and anger.  And many many people have come out in front of the media and talked about inequality and race relations in America.  So what is so unsettling about a young black man articulating an opinion?  Don't we want people in general to speak out when they see in justice and tell us what they are thinking?  Isn't it a matter of national pride that in a country where as recently as the 1960s civil rights were not guaranteed for African Americans, that less than 50 years later there is a plethora of articulate, politically active black Americans?  Forgetting that Kanye West is black, isn't it great that someone who is tied into the youth culture of America is actively analyzing the policies and actions of our government?  Isn't this what that civics class we took talked about-- being an active participant in our democracy?

I am pretty sure that as intelligent as Kanye West may be, his speech is probably less original and more a reflection of a sentiment shared by many African Americans.  And that's what makes this Kanye West episode so interesting.  Here is a black man getting on TV and sharing with mainstream America an opinion that we normally are not privy to.  I mean most political shows are limited to banter amongst college-educated white males with the one token female they always have.  Do these commentators have access to, much less understand and accurately convey, the issues and opinions held by poor Americans, blue collar Americans, or black Americans?  In the aftermath of Katrina, when we see that those affected the most are poor and often black, maybe instead of censoring Kanye we should be looking more closely at his comments and be thankful to him for giving us access to opinions that are normally suppressed by the media.