Dear Mr Chauhan,
I am choosing to address you personally after listening to you respond on several TV news debates about the recent opposition against your appointment as Chairman at FTII. I am a student of FTII and part of the protest.
When we first heard about your appointment we knew little about you except those of us who had grown up on ‘Mahabharata’ the B.R. Chopra serial. We then began to look for more information to get to know your background and work profile. When we did, we saw a huge anomaly in your body of work and the very principles and aesthetic, FTII stands for. We began to smell a rat. Given your political affiliations and given the fact that the ruling party is becoming notorious for making completely irrational and high-handed appointments since it has come to...
Lifestyle
Dear students:
Many of you, especially those from outside the U.S., have asked me over time to explain the American system of politics and government as it really is; not as it is written in the books. Last week’s events in Charleston, South Carolina and the Supreme Court’s decision on marriage equality have generated particular interest.
Below is my attempt explain.
But first, a couple of quick personal notes, for context.
Like you, I am from somewhere else. I am an immigrant; an American by choice. I am a naturalized citizen, and have been active in American culture and society most of my life. I could live elsewhere, but I choose to be an American. Politically I am progressive, the word we now use for liberal. But that word has become complicated. I’m not...
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Dear Ones,
It has been almost 2 years since the structures of our shared Utopian experiment collapsed so violently and so completely. It’s also been almost that long that I have dropped out of sight. As most of you already know, I was asked to step down, which I reluctantly agreed to. Ever since that moment, I have wanted to find out what happened. I have understandably been desperate to find out why this has all occurred. Why did this terrible destruction have to happen?
To be honest, for a long time I have simply not been able to take in the unbearable truth that I somehow actually caused this collapse to occur. How could this be the case? I have dedicated the last 28 years of my life to the Spiritual upliftment of humanity, to the evolution of consciousness and culture. For so...
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Dear Jerry Seinfeld,
Recently, I've heard about your reluctance to perform on college campuses because of how "politically correct" college students are. You also further made remarks that college students are quick to use the words "racist," "sexist," and "prejudice" with little reverence for what those words really mean (which you felt was proven by a remark made by your 14-year old daughter.)
As a college student that loves and appreciates offensive, provocative comedy, I'm disheartened by these comments.
While I do agree with you that college students today are more sensitive to issues of race and gender politics, it's simply because that's our job as learners. As college students who are engaged in a myriad of social, economic, and political issues, it's our duty to be...
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Dear EIWO Canadian executive,
Unfortunately, it has become necessary that I express my and my family’s displeasure with the way your company has been treating us as customers. Our recent interactions with the management indicated that your company puts negligible importance on the past six years of our business partnership. Although we have been paying rent every month for the past six years without any issues, your staff assumed that the best way to communicate a late payment for the previous month is an N4 eviction notice. The N4 notice states in large bold and underlined font that “this is a legal notice that could lead to you being evicted from your home.” This eviction notice was accompanied by a letter that “asks that in the future you (meaning my wife and I) make more of an...
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Dear Mr President,
I am writing you this open letter in the hope that you will read it and act on it. Regarding me, I am just a private citizen with very keen eyes, and have made some observations which I would like to bring to your notice.
Before I make my points, I would like to congratulate you on winning the election petition appeal. Our democracy has gained one extra feather in its cap as a result of the matured way the election petition was dealt with. I hope that you work assiduously to improve the country socially and economically so that you can be re-elected in 2016. There is no reason why you cannot win if you work to improve the lot of ordinary Ghanaians.
I like what you are doing to tackle corruption in the country. I fervently hope that you mean what you are doing and...
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Dear Canadian libertarians:
I begin this essay of mine, which is an attempt to promote the libertarian philosophy in Canada, with a quote from this editorial: Why Canada needs more election debates from the April 23, 2015 edition of Maclean’s Magazine; Editorial: Its time for civic-minded organizations to start proposing all kinds of debates. Maclean’s would be happy to host the first one.
Scarcity causes conflict. The October federal election is half a year away and already the feuding over televised leaders debates has begun. Should Green Party Leader Elizabeth May be invited? The Conservatives dont want her there, claiming she is a Liberal in disguise. Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau, on the other hand, is eager to have May show up. There’s precedent both ways: The Greens...
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Dear World Leaders:
The Winter of 2008-2009 will prove to be the winter of global economic discontent that marks the rejection of the flawed ideology that unregulated global financial markets promote financial innovation, market efficiency, unhampered growth and endless prosperity while mitigating risk by spreading it system wide. For more than three decades mainstream neoliberal economists have preached, and regulators have accepted, the myth of the efficiency of unregulated markets, ignoring the critical lesson provided by John Maynard Keynes’s analysis of interconnection of financial markets and the international payments system.
Those who do not learn the lessons of history are bound to repeat its tragedy. Neoliberal economists in the last three decades have denied the...
2,657
Dear UP Hooligans,
First of all, let me say that as a UP alumnus, and a former UPLB faculty member, I have every right to make as my business what happened on that fateful day when you shamed Butch Abad.
News of your act has spread like wildfire in both social and traditional media. It has evoked a strong reaction to a point that even the President found time in his busy schedule while on official travel to condemn your act. He was so hurt by you disrespecting his alter ego that it rattled him more than the floods that hit many parts of the country due to Typhoon Mario and the monsoon rains it spawned.
For some, your act was so abominable to a point that 23 members of the faculty of the School of Economics of your University, my Alma Mater, rushed to defend Abad and condemn...
2,271
Dear Premier Clark,
Your government has not spoken out for or against the Northern Gateway pipeline proposed by Enbridge Inc., rather preferring to wait until the National Energy Review Board process is complete. I am writing to you today to explain that unfortunately the current Northern Gateway environmental and public interest process is flawed, and as a result the public interest of B.C. is not protected.
The federal government, as I am sure you are aware, has publicly endorsed the project, stated it is in the national interest of Canada, and has systematically demonized individuals and groups who oppose the project. This behaviour has made a travesty of the necessary arm's length relationship between government and an independent regulatory body.
As long as there was some...
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