I came across him quite by chance, while searching for something else, and was dazed by his stately rendition of Endaro Mahanubhavulu and his slow, loving rendition of Krishna Nee Begane Baro (have blogged about the story of Higgins singing this outside the Udupi Krishna Temple, because he wasn’t allowed inside here,-the story has a happy ending).

Higgins’ rendition of Endaro Mahanubhavulu was also my first proper introduction to this kriti (a kriti is a type of musical composition peculiar to Carnatic music, with three movements); I had just started listening to Carnatic music seriously and didn’t know much about the famous five kritis, i.e. the pancharatna kritis of Tyagaraja.

I listened to the music without much analysis and without knowing a word of Telugu. The way Higgins sang Endaro Mahanubhavulu, he conveyed the strong impression that it was a composition about greatness (see a translation here). Of course, “mahanu” was a clue in that “mahaan” means great in other Indian languages, but it was the singing that conveyed the quality behind that word and the composition, which is about great souls.

Youtube, that wonder, has produced a video of Govardhana Giridhara, titled Govardhana Giridhari. I would have directed the video differently (in not quite so literal a manner) but then I am not the director, and in this case it’s the music that matters!

Apparently a few had criticised Higgins for his pronunciation. But the very slight indication of his origins in the way he pronounced the words and the accent of his singing voice, is what adds, in my firm opinion, beauty to his music. Fortunately, people other than his critics knew better, and he was given the title of “Bhagavatar.”

Also see: Kanakadasa and Udupi

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Here is a special report on the Chagossians that John Pilger made, that is a must see. A better quality video is available on Veoh.

Link.
Chagos islanders evicted by the British government in the 1970s today lost their long-running battle to return to the Indian Ocean archipelago.

The islanders had previously won the right to return to all islands except Diego Garcia, the main island, where there is a US military base.

The 3-2 ruling today by the law lords overturns the islanders’ victory and is the final stage of a legal battle that started 10 years ago.

Lord Hoffmann ruled the government was entitled to legislate for a colony in the security interests of the United Kingdom.

The US state department had argued that the islands might be useful to terrorists.

Lord Hoffmann said: “Some of these scenarios might be regarded as fanciful speculations, but in the current state of uncertainty the government is entitled to take the concerns of its ally into account.”…..The Foreign Office argued that allowing the Chagossians to return would be a “precarious and costly” operation, and the United States had said that it would also present an unacceptable risk to its base….

….While there were “undeniably unattractive aspects” to what had happened to the islanders in the 1970s, that was no longer what the case was about, Jonathan Crow QC, for the foreign secretary, told the lords. “The Chagossians do not own any territory,” Crow said. “They have no property rights on the islands at all. What is being asserted is a right of mass trespass.”

Mass Trespass. Right.

The judgment of the law lords, is available in full here.

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***

I don’t understand economics always. But I can see that global capitalism is an unfair system. I can see that some people who do valuable work are remunerated very little for what they do. People like school teachers, nurses, cleaners, criminal lawyers ( I am not talking about the highly paid QCs but the vast majority of footsoldiers who get paid a pittance for doing a vital job) and charity workers. People who do the “real” work, in contrast to investment bankers who appear to deal in a world of make believe and abstractions.

Some bankers have, in the past few years, earned enormous amounts of money, beyond the realms of imagination while the cleaners in their office buildings were forced to stage protests to receive a fairer wage, receiving £5 and hour and working more than one job while their bosses lost track of how much money they had.

Now the markets are in meltdown, the future of investment banks is being questioned. And people are taking the opportunity to vent their spleen against bankers. 5,000 people lost their jobs in London when Lehman Brothers folded, and many are rubbing their hands in glee. The bankers deserve it, it is being said, for their unmitigated greed. Now they know what the rest of the world lives like.

The truth of the matter is, that while a few earned millions, the rest did not. They did earn good salaries, but that is no reason for the level of vituperation being directed their way. A lot of these bankers, do live in the “real” world, supporting families and doing things that other people on other jobs do.

Our resident banker has supported educations, provided shelter, put food on the table and enabled members of his family to perform voluntary work. Because of him, a cleaner earns a living wage, a musician is able to teach and I am able to learn music. Because of him someone was able to get their sick mother treated in hospital and several abandoned dogs have had better lives. The list goes on. The web of activities that this one person supports helps keep a lot of people going.

Everyone should be able to have the opportunity to support themselves and their families. Wealth really should not be concentrated in the hands of a very few, whether they are bankers or not. If something is wrong with the system, it does not mean we start attacking individuals willy-nilly.

We live in a capitalist world, and even if we don’t like it, some of us choose to work as part of the system, unlike what my parents did, because we want to survive and look after our families. Yes, a lot of bankers are greedy, but I see greedy people of all professions all around, who wouldn’t mind some millions for themselves.

I’m not arguing the banking system shouldn’t be reformed or regulated, or trying to defend investment banking-but a little less joy over people losing their jobs wouldn’t be remiss.

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Breakfast stopped being so pleasant.

http://mediamatters.org/items/200509280006: Addressing a caller’s suggestion that the “lost revenue from the people who have been aborted in the last 30 years” would be enough to preserve Social Security’s solvency, radio host and former Reagan administration Secretary of Education Bill Bennett dismissed such “far-reaching, extensive extrapolations” by declaring that if “you wanted to reduce crime … if that were your sole purpose, you could abort every black baby in this country, and your crime rate would go down.” Bennett conceded that aborting all African-American babies “would be an impossible, ridiculous, and morally reprehensible thing to do,” then added again, “but the crime rate would go down.”

Bennett’s remark was apparently inspired by the claim that legalized abortion has reduced crime rates, which was posited in the book Freakonomics (William Morrow, May 2005) by Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner. But Levitt and Dubner argued that aborted fetuses would have been more likely to grow up poor and in single-parent or teenage-parent households and therefore more likely to commit crimes; they did not put forth Bennett’s race-based argument.

This is is the guy who is the author of “morality” books such as The Book of Virtues.
His most recent books include, The Death of Outrage: Bill Clinton and the Assault on American Ideals; and Why We Fight: Moral Clarity and the War on Terrorism.

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