this and that

Today (April 10th), Nepal is having elections unlike any election she has had before. 17.6 million voters are voting to elect a special assembly that will rewrite the constitution, which is very likely to write out the monarchy. Many people see this as a true opportunity for Nepal to start anew. On the other hand, the people running in the elections are the same people who over the past 18 years or so made a mockery of democracy, so unless the system changes radically, one cannot be too sure. It’s them, with the addition of Maoist candidates, who appear to be ready to do more than anything to get people to vote for them. This apparently includes a ridiculous claim that they have a “special telescope which can tell them who has voted for whom.” Also, with an almost religious following of its leaders, helped further by the foreign media’s singular attention on them, I fail to see how a president would be any different from a monarch.

The absence of proxy voting means that people like me living abroad cannot participate, so, to be honest, the election has seemed like a somewhat distant affair to me. Nevertheless, the country is where it is, and one can only hope for the best.

Further reading:

• A flurry of articles from the New York Times, including this op-ed from Manjushree Thapa
• Nepali Times’ live coverage
• Nepal News
• Kantipur

Stephen Colbert has been in the news a lot lately, especially with his new book I am America (and so can you!) (currently #1 on the New York best sellers’ list, as he just pointed out himself on TV), and with his attempt at running for the president only in South Carolina, on both the Republic and Democratic ballots.

I’ve been watching The Colbert Report on and off almost since it started and while there are some segments such as Better know a district and The Word that I’ve always liked, there was also a period when I found many other parts of it somewhat repetitive and pointless. I’ve started finding it more engaging recently (partly because I actually have a TV and time to watch it now). His supposed run at the president has also been drawing all sorts of opinions, including concerns about the legality of calling on corporate sponsors. I personally think it was really funny and made for great TV, and if nothing else, it at least made us aware that in South Carolina, to run on the Democratic ballot, you need either 2500 dollars or 3500 signatures, while to run as a Republican, you need thirty-five thousand dollars.

Unfortunately, as I write this, he just said on his show that he did not make it on the Democratic ballot. (He decided earlier to not try to get on the Republican ballot.)

Ah well, it would’ve been fun.

Anyway, most of Colbert’s recent media appearances are easily found through Google, including this appearance on Larry King, on which Larry King makes his irrelevance pretty obvious, like he has done before. I thought I would point out a couple of recent interviews with Stephen Colbert on NPR, one of which features the not-too-common appearance of Stephen Colbert the comedian (as opposed to Stephen Colbert the character):

• Interview on All Things Considered with Stephen Colbert the character; includes an interesting discussion on how NPR differs from other radio: “[NPR program] Morning Edition has a measured barbituate vibe….Where’s the craziness? Where is the Mike and the Mad Dog? Where’s Consuela and the Cheetah?” (I really like NPR, by the way. Maybe I’ll post a list of my favorite programs some day.)
• Interview on Fresh Air with Stephen Colbert the comedian; Stephen Colbert talks about his show as himself, and it’s pretty interesting to hear what goes on behind what is basically his facade

And then, there was mention of Colbert’s campaign in one episode of the Wall Street journal morning edition. I really like listening to this podcast, but the anchors are somewhat out of touch sometimes; in this episode, anchors Gordon Deal and Gina Cervetti wonder if Stephen Colbert will ever appear in the media as himself.

Apparently they prefer Consuela and the Cheetah to NPR.

Here is a pretty good, honest and down-to-earth primer to Nepal’s Maoist insurgency by National Geographic, devoid of the usual hyperbole that accompanies Western media reports about Nepal. And two beautiful videos from a documentary on Nepal: Video 1 Video 2 (thanks to Jeshica Baral’s Facebook profile.)

And some others:

• www.blog.com.np: “United We Blog! for a democratic Nepal”: Nepalese journalists blog (mostly from the Kantipur camp)
• nepalnow.blogspot.com: Mostly pro-royal blog from a mysterious, probably American, “blogdai”
• www.samudaya.org: “Pseudo-intellectuals. Just like you” As far as I know, this site cannot be accessed in Nepal, but there is a mirror at everybodybreed.com.

Many of you probably heard of George W.’s latest bike accident, which resulted in ankle injury for the Scottish policeman that President Bush ran into, and minor scrapes for President Bush. Yesterday, there was an interesting conversation on Minnesota Public Radio about the crash. The program (I think it was All Things Considered but I’m not sure) invited a bike expert to comment on the accident. Part of the conversation was something to the effect of:

Expert: …so what happens sometimes is that on hot days, the asphalt on the road melts, and it gets slippery…

Presenter: So you are saying that global warming might actually have had something to do with this accident?

Expert: (laughter) As far as my knowledge in this goes, yes.