Impressions of Switzerland

Last week I took up on the generous and hospitable offer from Jeyanthi, Dinakar, Pallavi and Sruthi to spend a short, yet sweet mini-vacation to Switzerland. Thank you all very much! The Panyams currently live in Vevey, the home city of the international food giant, Nestlé. During the course of the trip, I managed to visit Lausanne, Geneva, parts of the Swiss Alps and the beautiful almost-Mediterranean town of Montreux that is internationally renowned for its Jazz festival. I also managed to squeeze in some typical Swiss foods like Roesti, Raclette, fondue and Rivella.

I will not bore you with the history, geography etc. about Switzerland. You can read all relevant information here. Needless to say it's a beautiful country, no matter what time of the year. It's impressive that the lack of natural resources, with the exception of the Alps of course hasn't stopped the Swiss from doing quite well economically. What makes the country tick (cue in the Swiss watches here)? It's the people and their perseverance that permits them to enjoy one of the highest standards of living anywhere in the world. Most Swiss are well educated, well informed, environmentally conscious, fiercely patriotic and hard working. They have made a judicious habit of avoiding wars with neighboring countries over the past 100 or so years, and oddly enough maintain a standing army that can be called into action at a short notice. (As an aside, this was the first time in my life I saw anyone carry guns openly -- actually two well-scrubbed Swiss youths while taking a train en route to Vevey.) Incidentally, of course, they profited from both sides during World War II -- so that can't hurt their economy either.

I thought I would not have any problems conversing with the locals there, given my language background, but I was in for a rude surprise. Speaking French was relatively easy, because it doesn't differ that much from standard French. However, Swiss German gave me all sorts of trouble. The many dialects of German (variously spelled as Schweizerdeutsch, Schwyzerdütsch, Schwiizerdütsch, Schwyzertütsch, Schwizertitsch) spoken in Switzerland are not easy for someone used to Hochdeutsch or standard German. It's a lot more guttural and it varies from town-to-town and village-to-village. Unlike the Germans, however, the Swiss use their dialect in all situations. The written language, on the other hand, is only mildly different than the German used in Germany or Austria, and therefore, reading the newspapers and directions was no problem at all. I tried to converse with many Swiss Germans during my trip to Zermatt and I can honestly say, I understood 50% of what they were saying. Maybe if I spent 5 years there!

In Geneva, of course, they speak French and I had no problems whatsoever. An interesting aspect of Genevans is that they freely mix English words with their French and it's humorously known as Swinglish. Their French confrères resist the preponderant English language in everyday life. It's also very weird to hear about many people who live in France, but commute daily to their jobs in Switzerland. Imagine their tax situation! English is widely used in advertising and you can see billboards that will be quite familiar to most English speakers. Most Swiss people I spoke to, did speak English quite well and it is in fact the lingua franca of Nestlé.

The public transport system is fantastic and everything works with a Swiss watch-like precision. Their attention to timeliness must give the Germans a fit I imagine and that -- is not easy. How expensive is Switzerland, you ask? Simple, very. Food, public transportion, gasoline, dining, shopping -- everything. The only thing that's free is the air. I wouldn't be surprised if they find some way of charging for that too!

Most Swiss I met were cordial, if not friendly in their disposition -- perhaps due to their dependence on tourism and Gastfreundlichkeit. Most Swiss believe that their products are superior to everyone else's and are often right. Just go to a grocery store and see the natives buy Swiss produce in spite of their cost. As I mentioned earlier they are environmentally conscious and you can see proof of that in their daily newspaper reports, where air quality is a major discussion area. But, man do they smoke! Everywhere. I understand that only in the past couple of years have they made more public areas smoke-free. This is the surprising part though -- no fat people! Given their predilection for outdoor activities and use of public transportation, they are generally very fit and fit looking. And I thought San Francisco was a very healthy city!

If you need to see wealthy folks, go to Geneva. I did, and never have I seen so many Ferraris, Maybachs, Lamborghinis and Aston Martins in one single day! The Genevans are truly loaded. As an aside, you see very few SUVs on the roads or even on the mountain roads inspite of deep snow accumulations and steep streets. You would assume it has something to do with gas prices or "safety", but I doubt it. They already lead expensive lifestyles and a paltry $5.00 per US gallon at the pumps is not going to deter them from buying gas guzzlers. I could go on, but that would only bore you to death. Ciao and merci vielmal!

PS. For a more humorous and enlightened treatment of the Swiss, try to get a hold of a book called "Laughing Along with the Swiss", by Paul Bilton. You will not be disappointed.

The Emperor Has No Clothes; And The Democrats Have No Balls

Looking at my location and profile, it's not hard to figure out where I fall on the political spectrum. Just this past week the U.S Congress extended the provisions under the Patriot Act, and this riles me to no end. The Bush administration has yet to please me - economics, politics, international policy, environment, labor, utilities, R&D, healthcare, Hurricane Katrina and just about any issue. What I wanted to mention here is the lack of Democrat leadership in the Congress.

I know that this administration has displeased many, many people over the years and you only have to look at the ratings GWB has been getting recently. The sad thing is that it's taken more than 4 years after 9/11 to figure out the emperor has no clothes. This is the worst administration ever in the history of this nation - no doubt about that. I really don't know where to even begin with my criticisms of GWB! In all these missteps and fiascos, I've to ask myself, where have the Democrats been? It seems that after 9/11, the Democratic Senators and Congressmen have been complicit in the mistakes of this government having signed away their right to say anything against GWB under the guise of patriotism.

To my mind, there are very few Democrats I would even imagining supporting during the upcoming elections in 2006 or 2008 for that matter. The only people I can remotely consider are Russ Feingold, John Murtha, Al Gore (despite having snatched defeat from the jaws of victory in 2000), Howard Dean (I am one of the Deaniacs), Barack Obama and Dennis Kucinich. Hillary Clinton? Please! She has repeatedly supported this government in this war in Iraq despite ample evidence to the contrary. She and many others are just Republican-lite and I have no intention of helping them.

Both Democrats and Republican politicians feed from the same trough and each just wears a different suit. The political action committees have both parties in their pockets and no amount of hand wringing will distract from this fact. While the Republicans don't seem to have a problem speaking to their base and core demographics, whom do the Democrats represent and whom do they speak to? Why are the Democrats running for office so ineffectual in their campaigns? It's not that they are any less stupid than the Republican counterparts. Is it then a lack of communication, fear of offending a few people, political correctness, dissipated strategy, lack of power, lack of conviction, or any other reason? Maybe they just don't care! Who gives a flying fuck to average people crying out for politican representation, right? As long as me and my family make do (like the rich Republicans), the hoi polloi can go to hell.

I am really, really distressed at the direction this country is heading. I fear for Democratic prospects in 2008. I can foresee nominating someone ostensibly smart as the Democratic nominee only to throw away the goodwill garnered during the runup to the elections due to some silly, trivial reason such as a misplaced scream, smoking and not inhaling, being "weak on crime", not being photogenic enough for television etc. Bleeecch! What then is the solution? I would really like to see publicly financed elections so we can have some substantial debates on what the real issues are -- education, environment, continued prosperity, jobs, healthcare and so on. Until then I have to console myself with reading books, keeping my job and hoping that things will somehow turn out all right. Oh well!

Why Music Sales Are Down?

Yesterday (Feb 02, 2006), there was an interesting article in arstechnica dealing with surveys of music listeners who more or less said it "music costs too much, and it sucks" and there are several references to this topic on www.digg.com and elsewhere. The article and its discussion were equally interesting. I have been wondering about this phenomenon myself and I completely agree with that sentiment (not that anyone cares) of the majority of music listeners.

Back in the day, cassette tapes used to cost $6-8 depending on the artist and when CDs came out, they were the "new, new thing" and were hence priced a few dollars more for the novelty. The prices for manufacturing and stamping out CDs were quite high relative to cassette tapes and we all remember how expensive blank CDs and CD burners were. Today, the cost of manufacturing CDs (and DVDs) have plummeted to ridiculously low prices, and yet, we are paying $12-16 bucks a pop. There's no reason why they should be expensive. The greedy music companies continue to gouge the consumer and are suddenly surprised when people are "stealing" music! If making and selling CDs is so expensive, how come DVDs are priced a couple of bucks more than the CDs and people continue to buy them.

I admit that during the original Napster days, I too downloaded a bunch of music, but that did not prevent me from actually buying CDs. I own a lot of CDs and I appreciate a good product when I see/hear it. I have purchased a lot of SACD recordings too, although the market for them seems to be restricted to classical music. No matter, I like them and I will continue to buy them. However, today the popular music business is more of marketing and re-packaging. There's not a whole lot of new music going around. Most albums have one or two good tunes and the rest are throwaway tracks. The same goes for the bland radio play we hear. The same 15-50 tracks are played repeatedly. Why then should I spend my hard-earned money on the useless CDs or listen to boring, predictable radio? I would rather buy them from iTunes with an interesting pricing model of $0.99 per track and listen to them on my iPod.

That said, I think the iTunes pricing model from Apple is still too expensive. Granted, Apple has to re-process all the music, store them on a central server, create a payment mechanism, pay the royalties to the artists etc. However, my gripe is that in as far as the electronic medium is concerned, once an MP3 is available, the marginal cost of selling and additional song is negligible. I would certainly purchase more MP3s say at a price of $0.49-0.69. This would make the price of an entire album roughly the same as that of the cassette tape.

The record companies have always faced new technologies in the past. For example, vinyl records, CDs, mini discs, cassette tapes and recorders, VCPs (you remember them, don't you?) and VCRs, AM radio, FM radio, satellite radio, cable companies, DVRs and DVDs. What makes the advent of the internet and/or iTunes any different than the changes in the past? The companies have always found a way to make money, and this time around it's no different. Here's what they should be doing -- encourage newer technologies, price the products appropriately, encourage new artists, and market it well. Don't tell me that the problem is stealing. If that's the case, why do you think people go to concerts? Concerts sure are raking in the cash. It's no secret that most artists today make a bulk of their money touring. Do it right you record companies, and I will be lining up to buy new products. It's that simple!

Political Cartoonists: An Evening With Plantu and Mark Fiore

Yesterday, January 28, 2006, was a rain-soaked day in San Francisco and what better way to spend a miserable, depressing day than to attend a presentation at the Alliance Française that featured the world-renowned political cartoonist Plantu of Le Monde fame (www.plantu.net) and Mark Fiore of San Francisco Chronicle? The event was recommended by my conversation class instructor, Elisabeth, and to her go my deepest thanks. (Merci Elisabeth, pour ta recommendation!)

The presentation was held in the Alliance Française auditorium in English and French and the audience was packed to overflowing with a predominantly French speakers. I was lucky enough to be near the top of the waiting list and got in! Plantu's brief summary from Alliance Française's website says: Jean Plantureux (aka Plantu) was born in Paris in 1951. In 1971, he quit school to study drawing in Brussels. A year later, Le Monde published his first drawing dealing with the Vietnam War. His editorial cartoons have graced the front page since 1985, in an effort to "acknowledge the French tradition of political cartoons." Mark Fiore, on the other hand, is well known at least in San Francisco circles.

Among other things, the cartoonists talked about their craft, the economics of it and the leitmotiv of the presentation -- why political cartoonists are important. The takeaway for me at least was that dissent to popular opinion regardless of the medium is not only required in a democratic society but vital to its existence. To illustrate, the European editorials and political cartooons tend to be more critical and incisive of the current political establishment, whereas the American cartoonists are less subversive and generally toe the line. This does not mean that the American cartoonists have fewer important things to say, but that they have to answer to the editorial staff and in turn, the corporations that control their purse strings. And what are the only things sacred to large corporations in the USA? Well, you guessed right, revenues and marketshare!

Mark Fiore explained this very eloquently to a question from an audience member regarding his stint at San Jose Mercury News, whose parent company, Knight Ridder, did not allow any cartoons too critical of the Bush Government after September 11, 2001 -- at least in the print version. This was mainly done to not invite any undue attention from the most secretive, controlling, mistrusting U.S. administration ever. This is as near as we get to Fascism. Could you imagine an American newspaper posting something like this soon after 9/11/2001? (Note: I have linked this image to Plantu's website without his permission. I shall remove it if it violates any copyrighted laws.)

American newspaper cartoonists tend to be very America-centric in their work, more likely to incite humor than critical thinking. The Europeans, on the other hand, deal with a multitude of geographies and in my opinion, more well-informed. They also tend to be more frank and do not shy away from sexual connotations. An interesting phenomenon is that there's more pointed criticism of the current government in America, albeit online. At any rate, newspaper journalism (and television journalism) is so tainted in the United States that I have almost completely stopping following either of the media and I prefer to get my news and opinions online.

Some of my favorite sites for political opinions are Get Your War On!, www.jibjab.com, Salon magazine, Common Dreams, Dailykos, Crooks and Liars, and Ruthless Reviews. Give them a shot when you have time. Cheers!

Bangalore by any other name sucks!

There has been a lot of talk recently about renaming Bangalore to Bengaluru, due in part to the rising prominence of this city in international circles, Silicon Valley of India is one moniker that comes to mind. You can read all about the history of the city in Wikipedia. I will not dwell over the minutiae about this phenomenon. I'll get straight to the point. I HATE this, and other movements to rename cities such as Bombay to Mumbai, Madras to Chennai, Calcutta to Kolkatta etc. Why, you ask? Read on.

India has multitudes of languages and each has its own charm, beauty and idiosyncracies. I do not have a problem with languages themselves, being that I can speak about seven (English, Hindi, Telugu, Tamil, Kannada, German, French) and a smattering of Spanish as well. What I do have a problem with is the rewriting of history or revisionistic look back at history. The name Bangalore, to be sure, is an anglicized version of Bengaluru. What is wrong to call the city Bangalore in English, I ask? Yeah, yeah, I know, there will be many comments to the effect of pride in one's city and heritage, and "taking back our city from the British Raj days".

As the name itself is anglicized, there is no way the name can be exactly pronounced as in Kannada. Phonetically too, do you write it as Bengaluru or Bengalooru? Again, can you really replicate the sounds of the letter "l" as pronounced in Kannada? I don't think so. For that matter, there are many letters in Hindi (the anglicized "na" sound has at least two different pronunciations), Tamil (the anglicized "la" sound has at least three variants) and so on. Indian languages have way more consonants and vowels, and half consonants too. So can you really, really transcribe an Indian word into English? Think of the way people spell the name Murthy (Moorthy, Murti, Murthi, Moorty)! So I say leave the name Bangalore as is. Bengaluru would never have become what it is today, if not for the English language.

How do other European languages deal with spellings and/or pronunciations of other foreign names? Very simple, each place name is written differently in different language. (Note: Examples that follow are close approximations of pronunciations, actual phonetic notations are missing.) Examples include, Munich (Muenchen), London (Londres), New York (Nueva York), Germany (Allemagne), Belgium (Belgique), Greece (Griechenland, Grèce) and Japan (Japon). On a similar note, Bangalore is called बैंगलोर (bungllor) in Hindi, benglur in Tamil (actually if you didn't know it penglur).

Leave it as Bangalore! Getting Bengalurued or Bengalooroed is not quite as catchy as getting Bangalored!