OCTOBER 23, 2009 3:43PM

Health reform - big elephants in the room

With the health reform debate being front and center for the last few months, as a culture, we have  pretty much settled on the meme that the insurance companies are the villains. Another meme is that the villains  are American consumers and agribusiness because they are complicit in the cr… Read full post »

2 Comments
OCTOBER 17, 2009 3:17PM

Festival of lights - Diwali

Today is Diwali, the Hindu festival of lights. Separated as I am, from the "mother" culture, and the community that observes such holidays here, I realized that the day is near only about a week ago.

There are many web sites out there that describe the religious, cultural, and business significance… Read full post »

2 Comments
OCTOBER 16, 2009 4:25PM

Guns and Barbies

Note: The following was written about 6 years ago. 

 

A couple of weeks back I bought my 13-year-old son a toy gun. I know, I know... how could I?! I suppose the short answer is that I decided to "go with the flow."

As most parents know, kids have

… Read full post »
3 Comments
SEPTEMBER 29, 2009 7:48AM

The founding fathers did not go far enough

This post is inspired by this one by Heather Michon.

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 In the 2003 book, "Empire of Tea", the authors Alan Macfarlane and his mother Iris Macfarlane have written an engaging account of the remarkable history of tea, "the plant that took over the world." The book opens with a c… Read full post »

5 Comments
SEPTEMBER 27, 2009 9:26AM

Future of self-publishing

This post is my submission to a writing contest on Backword Books about the future of self-publishing. 

Having just self-published an anthology, I have some personal experience about the issue, and also an interest in its future.

Like most authors, I came to self-publish… Read full post »

8 Comments
SEPTEMBER 16, 2009 6:32AM

Black pride

Note: The following is a work of fiction. The story is told from the point of view of an Indian woman who moved to America after getting married. It is about her journey to this place and having gotten here, her journey in this place.

The word desi has emerged as the word… Read full post »

4 Comments
Editor’s Pick
SEPTEMBER 1, 2009 11:20AM

Letting go - an immigrant mom's perspective

About four years ago when she was a college freshman home on winter break, my daughter went on a skiing trip to Vermont with a few of her high school friends. They planned to leave after dark. The 4-5 hour drive was on increasingly snow-covered roads, and they were driving to… Read full post »

7 Comments
Editor’s Pick
JANUARY 15, 2009 2:04PM

Make election day a national holiday

We are faced with many complex problems. The problems are made all the more intractable by the hardened positions of the various stakeholders.

I want to take this opportunity to lobby for something that will be relatively easy to adopt and implement.

Make election day a national holiday - like Thanks… Read full post »

9 Comments
NOVEMBER 16, 2008 7:53AM

Women in Computer Science

As a woman who has worked in IT (poor cousin of Computer Science) for the last two decades, I was curious to see how the article in today's NYT would cover the issue of why there are so few women in CS, and why their numbers are declining.

The reasons explored… Read full post »

3 Comments