Gene Patenting - the Myriad Genetics case

Sorry guys,

Please take a look at http://socscilaw.blogspot.in/ to read my comments on this case.

Family, Marriage, Patriarchy and a whole bunch of useless things

Why do we need love?

What is this concept of monogamy, having to find one person to spend the rest of your life with? Why do we need marriage?

Owing to intense familial pressure on these matters, one can't help but think about these things.

Human beings have always been fascinated with having a better life. More is usually better. Would you like to eat two candies instead of one? Would you rather have the same pasta for breakfast, lunch and dinner? Variety, change and having more of a certain thing is something that is so natural for an average human being to aspire for.

All our other relationships are not limiting, I can have multiple friends. There might be some that I like more but I have a friend for each situation - if I need a girls night out, call the fun girls. If I need a serious talk, call the awesome agony aunt who solves all your problems. If I need some time to chill and unwind, call the dudes. Whatever.

Our romantic relationships, on the other hand, are meant to be singular, monogamous and sometimes 'commitment for life'. Why is it that we try to limit these relationships? Why is it not okay to date or have sex with more men than one? Why is there so much pressure to marry and settle with one mate?

Social conditioning has informed us that marriage and family are essential for everyone. Everyone should get married, have kids and what-not. Why? Because you need companionship. I can get that companionship from a friend! The only reason you may not get the companionship is because people shift focus after they have a family. So if you're the only single person wanting friends for companionship, you're most probably deprioritised. Secondly, they think that a male-female-marriage-family set up is ideal for child rearing. There is assignment of responsibility and that this will ensure that the children are cared for.

I'd like to challenge both these reasons that are used to justify marriage/family: The reason you even need a designated companion is because you started creating designated permanent companions for everyone and you'd be left out alone if you're the only one to make that choice. If everyone was just single or polygamous, you wouldn't need that shit.

Secondly, who said child rearing is better with just two people being assigned with that responsibility? If you had a community instead of a nuclear set up, trust me, those children will be brought up much better. Just like you have rule systems forcing two people to take care of their children, ensure that the community is assigned responsibility to foster children. The responsibility is shared - Jim takes care of child's financial needs, Kate takes care of assignments and academics, Kranti does the extra curricular work, Preeti takes them all to school and back, Vani gets them clean and ready, Rebecca, whatevs - you get the drift. It's no longer a fulltime job. Children are then exposed to a wide variety of individuals, opinions and views at a very young age. Decision making? Leave it to each person's domain. 

One last pointer - because of our obsession with ONE person, we expect that idiot to have everything. This perfect mofo does not exist, by the way. Super nice, must be able to dance, must be intelligent, successful and fun. People try to look for all of that in one person, are you kidding me, that's impossible unless I clone myself. Heehaha. Ok, it's also too much pressure for everyone. Isn't it a lot more awesome if you just had a dance-buddy, an intelligent conversation buddy, and whatever else buddy. You have an argument with one, you don't ruin the rest of your day because of excessive importance being placed on that one person.

My take: Don't marry. It's stupid. Think about it, if no one had to marry - Life is just one long party. Earn money, buy nice things, party, succeed in life, help society, date or build relationships when you want to. You can still have babies with just quarter of the responsibility (assuming society takes up this really wonderful community model). You can take on more if you want.

What does social conditioning do to relationships?

Because of the preset notion that you need to marry someone or be with someone, you try to find that someone.

Women are pressured at an earlier age to find someone. Families start insisting when you're in your early twenties that you get married. That's the bloody time you're supposed to be spending making your career better. Not clicking pretty pictures of yourself and sending it to your parents or trying to find potential partners. It's such a waste of time and mental energy.

Nevertheless, even if you don't do it the conventional (the Indian) way - and decide that you want to date - there's also this notion that 'oh, the guy should approach you, he will if he really wants you'.  It means that you're a 'prize' to be possessed and acquired. This is again stupid because it gives all the agency and control over your life to someone else. I am only allowed to pick from the lemons that are dealt to me and not go to the supermarket and take a nice Appy Fizz instead?!! Dafuq!

Hell, women want to acquire a prize too. By prize, I'm NOT talking about a sugar daddy or a rich guy. The so called potential, interesting person who you are attracted to as well. According to some, for women, it's like making a prospectus for other people to invest in you. You need to make yourself seem like a perfect investment destination and hope for the best investor. You're not supposed to invest in other ventures yourself or solicit investments or these ventures might think you're too needy. See how ridiculous that analogy sounds? Exactly my point.

If I was turned down, I can deal with it. What I can't deal with is the way women are shamed for attempting it. "Oh but you're so pretty, you don't really need to go ask a guy out". It's not a need. It's what you want. I'm not allowed to do go after what I want. If I did, subsequently, I'm considered to be 'too easy'. They want to acquire something, not just get it. Why don't you think about the fact that you probably got it because you're good? Are men really that insecure that they think they're worthless, that any woman who pursues them must be crazy and that they'd need to convince someone for several months to get them to want them?

Bah.

Creeps on Facebook

To all those creeps out there, hello, how are you? How's the creeping going yo?

These are the Average Joes of the world. You might've seen them in class. You might've met them at a social gathering. You then stupidly accept their friend requests or even proactively add them thinking 'oh-hey-i-know-this-guy' or 'maybe-i-should-network' (whatever, see my friend list, you'll know how stupid I am). They'd seem very benign at the beginning. You know those initial -new-facebook-friend-say-hi- chats? It seems normal, he seems ok. We're not even spending any mental energy on it.

Slowly but steadily, the creep surfaces.

Here are some signs and stages in the life of a typical facebook creep:

(1) Message-you-forever Stage: You notice that he starts pinging every other freaking day. He gets the notification 'seen' and I haven't replied, but he is unstoppable. The man will continue to write in every week. If there's one thing you must learn from these creeps - it's perseverence. You don't respond AT ALL over 2 months but he is still sending messages. You remove him from your chat list (using a genius thing called lists) but that doesn't stop him either. He still sends messages 'Heyyy, hw r uuu, y not replying yaaa?' 'Remembrr meee???' 'ssup' 'madam busy huh'.

(2) Googlesearch Newsfeed Stage: He realises, hmm, the hi, how are yous aren't working. He needs something to talk about. He needs something that she can't refuse to respond to. He GOOGLES YOU. Next conversations go like this:

'Oh were you an editor of blah blah journal?'
'Ohhh you won that debate competition in 12th standard?? So impressive'
'I saw all your dance videos on fb, you dance very well'
'I read your note on blah blah, I completely agree with your point on it'
'I saw your inteview on !@#! balah blah, so cool ya'

(SENT BACK TO BACK)

A truly golden one that actually guaranteed a response was because there was commercial intent --
C: 'When is that dance show!!?'
Me: 'Oh its on the 9th of x month, it's on the page I've shared, take a look at it, I can sell you the tickets'
C: LOLzzz too lazy haha
Me: (in-my-mind-why the-f-did-you-ask-then-retard) Ok.

Basically, he goes all creepominator.

(3) Creepominator Reloaded: He subsequently reaches higher levels of creepomination when he is tracking your comments on pages that you like, random profiles etc. GOD KNOWS how creepominators end up tracking your comments on someone else's status who is not on their list or on a photography page that they haven't liked but hey - they can do it. They will then send a message about it 'hey, if you're looking for a photographer, I am one.' 'who is getting married, why do you need a wedding photographer'.

Stupid people who believe in second chances, being kind to peolpe wait till (3) to remove them from their list. Smart people who learn from other people's experiences will remove at (1).

Be smart.

Save yourselves from the creepominators.

Also, DON'T BE A CREEPOMINATOR. If someone doesn't freaking respond to you, MOVE ON. Jeez. There are a gazillion people on this planet. God.  

And if you really had to do a Google search on someone and found stuff after that DONT EFFING TELL THEM YOU WERE GOOGLING THEM, DAMN IT.

If you're interested in someone just bloody well ask them out on a date so you'll know right then if they're interested or not, end of story. You don't have to creep on them for several months altogether, saves you time and saves your reputation. They wouldn't then put up notes about you and tag other people in it.

P.S: Creepominator derived from Creep-on-me-nator. Shortened for ease of usage.

P.P.S: Secondly, if I've ever done this to someone (doubt it), like messaging a lot - SORRY. I really didn't mean to creep. I am normally super freakishly shy if it's someone I like and I avoid voluntarily talking to them. If I kept pinging you, it's either fraanship or I want something from you.  Just sayin'. Chill out ye.

Subtle rape

Jokes about smelly vaginas; vaginal lightening creams; gang-stripping a person for no reason; violence against women for daring to ‘drink’ or being ‘modern’. What else do you want to throw at us?

The misogyny faced by an Indian woman is really hard to miss. It needn’t be physical violence or rape. Sometimes, it is subtle. The repeated portrayals in Tamil movies of women being ‘evil’ just for
‘making’ men fall in love with them. They are evil and annoying for not saying ‘yes’ to dating him or for changing their mind or for being angry or for even having ideas about an ideal man. The woman’s narrative in such scenarios is often left untold. Why? That’s because it doesn’t matter. That’s because we’re hormonal, crazy and will break into tears any moment. Also, what difference does it make? -- if you keep pursuing her, stalking her, being moronic to her by trying to put your arm around her repetitively though she doesn’t like it, she’ll eventually fall in love with you right? That's all there is to her side of the story. [Source: All Tamil Movies, specifically - OKOK, Vinnaithandi Varuvaya, Why this Kolaveri di and many more. Yes, men make all these movies.]

 What sparked this post? I heard this ridiculous song - Club-le Mabbu-le. This is a Tamil song that starts with a woman stating that she smokes, drinks and is in a live in relationship. The song proceeds to make fun of women like her. The genre is hip-hop/rap, set in a club and he bemoans the loss of cultural values in Tamil women. The song is quite derogatory and uses condescending/negative language with regard to women who choose to visit clubs, drink and wear clothes that are not ‘traditional’. The singer talks about how women should be wearing Kancheevaram sarees instead of wearing a hand-kerchief; about how women are awful to be dumping a guy after dating him for 10 months; about how their Tamil (the language) is terribly fake; how they shouldn’t be in live-in relationships or smoke and finally about how one must not forget ‘Tamil culture’. Ironically, he is wearing a pair of jeans, a tshirt and is in a club, rapping in English.

 A friend introduced me to this track. He still says, it’s a fun song, you don’t have to agree with the lyrics to like a song. My problem is not that I don’t ‘agree’ with the lyrics, my problem is that I find it downright offensive. How can it be fun after that? It is spreading hate and is antithetical to progress, women’s rights, equality and all that we’re supposed to believe in, as a society. The mere fact that such a song is popular really affects me deeply. There’s a simple phrase for this. Hate speech against a certain community. If the same song was made to make fun of a certain caste or religion or insult their practices, everybody would be up in arms. This song demeans women, that too women with loose morals. Who cares, right?

 A woman was made to give a public apology for making a response to that song. Apparently, it was ‘offensive’. There is tolerance for a song that demeans women but when a woman chooses to speak up against it, people find it offensive. There’s a disparity in the freedom of speech or at least, in the level of acceptance that the society has for the exercise of that right by a woman. Khushboo’s story is known to all. [I mean COME ON.]

 If you really feel that women should wear Kancheevarams and nothing else, why do you watch movies with Shriya or Trisha where they’re wearing itty bitty skirts? Why do you accept scenes where Trisha gets drunk? (what’s that scene again?) If drinking is immoral, then why is drinking acceptable when it is done by men? Why do you listen to tracks portrayed as being sung in an inebriated state? Censor it, dude, of course, it’s offensive to Tamil culture! [Shriya and Trisha are Tamil movie stars.]


 The double standards are also apparent in Sivaji, another Tamil movie (I know it’s a Rajinkanth movie, I am expecting cudgels soon). He speaks about finding a ‘Thamizh-thotta-pen’(Tamil-touched/infused-girl) and that he wouldn’t consider marrying a modern woman. Essentially, he is referring to a demure, innocent, gullible girl who dresses conservatively and speaks good Tamil. Interestingly, after he woos her, they break into song routines where, yes, you guessed it – short skirts, cleavage and what-not. There’s even a song where she sings in Tamil mixed with English. [* Main Movie Shriya * Song Sequence Shriya ]

 I’m also tired of these phrases -‘Tamil Culture’ and ‘Indian Culture’. Before prefixing adjectives to ‘culture’ and artificially imposing restrictions and vilifying a class of people who flout it – please understand what it means to be a civilized individual. If you’re basing your understanding of an ideal woman or how her conduct must be by reading the Silappadhikaram (well known literary work),  I’m sorry mate, it is FICTION and was written by a MAN in a DIFFERENT ERA. I also don’t understand how genocide by an angry woman to seek vengeance against one man is acceptable but a woman peacefully consuming alcohol isn’t.

 P.S: Sorry about the multiple links. Non-tamil readers may not get most of what is being said unless I explain, right?

Come as you are

There are times when you think that you shouldn't have done something. This day was one of them.

Some men, well, aren't that amazing.

Disrespect, not my favourite feeling.

Where were you when I needed you the most?

Fail Note on Nilgiris Women

As I haven't really been in any other hostel, I will refrain from defaming the other women.

So yes, coming back to where I was -

Dear Nilgiris Woman (NW),

You're an idiot. Okay, you're awesome, pretty and all that - but you're an idiot. You have been doing a lot of ..ahem.. bad deeds.. in this hostel. I will list a few events or evidence of a few events to elucidate my point.

1. Blue/Purple Ink/pigments on Toilet Seat

Well. Isn't that startling? How did ink turn up on the toilet seat? I was as befuddled as the person reading this. I subsequently decided to not go into the specifics. NW, this is a free world. You can do what you want. If you have a fetish for ink bottles, it's okay, really. No judgment there. However, you see, the rest of the world has to use the same space for poo-poo. We don't have the same ink-philia. So next time, take soap. Or use invisible ink (the kind that will never be seen)

2. Notice on the bathroom door

Ah, this one. Last time I heard, despite Prof. Japhet's requests to have it in Kannada, CLAT still happens in English. So when someone has put up a notice on the door saying "Flush does not work, Do not use" or "Flush leaking, Do not use" - what does it mean? No, it does NOT mean that you can have a holiday with it and leave it with your remnants. You use the next one. See what I just suggested? It's that simple.

3. Toilet seats on the floor/ Flush tank lids on the floor/Loose toilet seats

Seriously, what is up with you NW? I wonder what is so fascinating about the toilet seat and the flush tank. I really like people with a scientific temper who want to experiment and all that. So, let me make it easy, someone already did the research. There you go - http://home.howstuffworks.com/toilet1.htm. Read, rejoice, go home, experiment and you can even have your own Eureka moment!

Alternatively, if it is again one of those things where you like doing it with the toilet seat- well - We prefer going for poo-poo in a normal, functional lavatory without its parts strewn all over the place. Again, no judgment, its a free country. You do what you want to do. You go girl! Just, someplace else. Okay?

I have heard other incidents pertaining to something being stuffed into a flush tank. I will refrain from commenting on that in a public forum. NW, btw, that is downright evil.

4. Throwing liquids into the bin that has HOLES in it

It is physics, yaa. The architect had issues with straight lines as well. Again, physics yaa.

5. Flower Power

I know you have the force with you. You've got Girl power. But - don't break the only thing that protects us from the canine forces from attacking the you-know-what. So Babu or GWC finally decided that we had to switch over to modern technology and introduced a door knob. Now, even that is broken. We like the fact that you are healthy and strong. Use it on the Nagarbhavi Ninjas who almost kidnapped someone. Or maybe on people who vandalize our college property. Please? Not the door knob?

Sigh. You know what NW? Even though you keep indulging in such evil games, I will still miss you.

Also, switch off the Geyser once you are done. We end up getting hot water from the cold water tap as well. It is summer, you know? Or if that's your plan to take over the world by using hot water....then may the force be with you.

Love,
Tired fifth year
XOXO

The days of hypocrisy

Why do people behave like moronic grammar nazis when it comes to posting in one language (such as English)while if the language used changes (to Tamil), there is minimal or no adherence to spellings or grammar?

I also don't understand why people can't take an objective stand on the subject matter of an argument as opposed to siding with their sibling?

Really?

Why can't people also take criticism in a more civilized manner as opposed to saying "What the fuck are you blabbering, this is fucking gibberish"?

Observations on man-kind.