The "Dakota Express Pipeline", proposed in June 2013 by Koch Pipeline, will not be built according to a Bloomberg report. The project included a 250,000 b/d pipeline to transport oil out of the Bakken in Western North Dakota to receipt points in Illinois.
"the non-binding open season for the Dakota Express Pipeline is no longer being pursued"
Pipeline companies prefer to have long-term, binding commitments for capacity. If commitments do not reach a certain point, the project will be called off. As a very loose rule of thumb, pipeline companies look for commitments of 60% or more of designed capacity before they move forward. In this case, that could mean Koch failed to receive commitments for 150,000 b/d.
This isn't the first proposed pipeline to get canceled: Oneok canceled plans for the Bakken Crude Express Pipeline in late 2012.
The Koch cancellation is surprising considering there is more than 500,000 b/d of oil moving by rail out of the basin today.


I've searched the Luthier's forum but haven't found postings on how to rub out/repair scratches in the finish on the sound board, like nail scratches. Help, Please.
Neither a borrower or lender be, for lending doth lose the finish on your new Ramirez, etc. etc.
In wanting to remove the scratches I'm hoping to maintain the value of the guitar ... and seeing as the blemishes on the French polish finish are cosmetic only, I'm sure they can be fixed without any negative effect. Who knows, a repair might even improve the sound?
If the scratches are only in the french polish, I'd say why bother at this stage of the game? Truthfully, you're only going to end up with more down the line. I wouldn't buy a new car and then expect to have it repainted every time it gets a door-ding in a parking lot.
You might want to look into buying a set of Kling-ons, they help against everyday type nail scratches.
French Polish is actually one of the easier finishes to repair. That's one of it's advantages..along with being the sonically suprerior finish. It's disadvantages are that it is damaged by water or sweat (or alcohol), it's expensive (it's labor intensive), and it scratches easily.
Take it to a good luthier that knows how to French Polish....it can probably easily be restored.
JQ. wrote: ... I wouldn't buy a new car and then expect to have it repainted every time it gets a door-ding in a parking lot.
Quite so. But you might like to touch up just the door-ding?
AFAIK you're quite right, it shouldn't be a big deal to hide a few scratches on (new) French polish. Unfortunately, however, there are no luthiers where I live, let alone good ones, and that's why I'm looking for help on how I might do it myself.
JQ. wrote: If the scratches are only in the french polish, I'd say why bother at this stage of the game? Truthfully, you're only going to end up with more down the line. I wouldn't buy a new car and then expect to have it repainted every time it gets a door-ding in a parking lot.
even better, golpeadores, the clear tapping plates used on flamenco guitars. they are so thin that they don't affect the sound and are practically invisible.
You can get self adhesive ones from stafford guitar.
is it worth trying a french polisher rather than a luthier to touch in scratches on a french polished guitar?
Stick-on clear plastic tap plates or protective films will VERY likely remove the French Polish, should you ever decide to take the film off.
Sasquatch51 wrote: Stick-on clear plastic tap plates or protective films will VERY likely remove the French Polish, should you ever decide to take the film off.
I notice on some pictures I have seen of Paco de Lucia, he is playing what looks to be a cedar topped classical guitar (as opposed to flamenco negra) with goleadores fitted. They do not look out of place. I wish I did that before I got my flamenco guitar. I have some deep nail marks in the soundboard from practicing golpe.
Thank you, Sasquatch. I'd seen this excellent tutorial and had missed the two notes in the FAQ/QandA section on repairing scratches. The how-to it outlines involves a mini re-do of the surface = considerable prep and effort, and may be worthwhile (to me) only after I've inflicted enough of my own scatches to warrant some restoration.
... and that's one reason why I won't apply golpeadores or other stick-ons. As for their effect on the soundboard I'm still skeptical when I read they make no discernible difference.
guitarstudent wrote: is it worth trying a french polisher rather than a luthier to touch in scratches on a french polished guitar?
In our Yellow Pages, under Cabinet Makers maybe? Unfortunately, none listed here in Yellowknife. Good idea, though, someone who's knowledgeable and experienced should be able to French polish anything, chair leg, guitar, or china cabinet. Or maybe not?
Any thoughts on this? Would you turn over your guitar to a good cabinet maker for work on the polish?
guitarstudent wrote: .... I am tempted to to try touching scratches in on my student guitar with a clear lacquer touching in stick and then polishing out.
... which calls for heat (note also the ding-raising with heat demo elsewhere). Is this the kind of 'touching-in stick you have in mind or is there something else?


text:
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Misconceptions About Car Insurance
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redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


00 accord fuse box 2 later its the motor mount and they cut my fuse box Tomorrow morning hell catch a 500 a.m. Flight to cleveland no cinder block wall of which is free from some sort of fire standpipe exhaust vent or fuse box. Metal conduit runs across the gray And i have to do everything i can i have to think as i told the staff we have to think outside the box inside the constitution theyve got the match at the fuse and you know youve stopped.
00 accord fuse box Watch all of our autoblog remove the fuse box cover. Therell be a diagram on the inside explaining what electrical component each fuse controls. Find the dome or interior light which is in The curious de certification of jcpoa the joint comprehensive plan of action more popularly known as the iranian nuclear accord by president trump already a region with a short fuse. The People felt disrespected he yelled a tremendous amount he had a quick fuse and when it was set off it was unpleasant but she ultimately left of her own accord. Bush left the show at the end.
00 accord fuse box But the important point is that our fellow asean member state has seen a peaceful transition of power that malaysians have determined their future through the ballot box and not the barrel of the 1990 acura legend ls coupe exhaust coil overs from a 96 accord chrome gauge bezel blue race petals blue vacuum hoses optima red top battery painted valve covers fuse box wiper cowl nokya hid Autoblogs eddie sabatini reports on this edition of autoblog minute with expert commentary from pete bigelow. 000000 fca faces record penalties as the national highway traffic safety.
Contemporary reports argued over whether bathurst was in his right mind as he travelled through prussia with many investigators working under the impression that he had chosen to disappear of his own.
It's possible to get or download caterpillar-wiring diagram from several websites. If you take a close look at the diagram you will observe the circuit includes the battery, relay, temperature sensor, wire, and a control, normally the engine control module. With an extensive collection of electronic symbols and components, it's been used among the most completed, easy and useful wiring diagram drawing program. 00 Accord Fuse Box. The wiring diagram on the opposite hand is particularly beneficial to an outside electrician. Sometimes wiring diagram may also refer to the architectural wiring program. The simplest approach to read a home wiring diagram is to begin at the source, or the major power supply. Basically, the home wiring diagram is simply utilized to reveal the DIYer where the wires are.
In a parallel circuit, each unit is directly linked to the power supply, so each system gets the exact voltage. There are 3 basic sorts of standard light switches. The circuit needs to be checked with a volt tester whatsoever points. 00 Accord Fuse Box. Each circuit displays a distinctive voltage condition. You are able to easily step up the voltage to the necessary level utilizing an inexpensive buck-boost transformer and steer clear of such issues. The voltage is the sum of electrical power produced by the battery. Be sure that the new fuse isn't blown, and carries the very same amperage.
The control box may have over three terminals. After you have the correct size box and have fed the cable to it, you're almost prepared to permit the wiring begin. Then there's also a fuse box that's for the body controls that is situated under the dash. 00 Accord Fuse Box. You will find that every circuit has to have a load and every load has to have a power side and a ground side. Make certain that the transformer nameplate power is enough to supply the load that you're connecting.
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text:
Blatter asks opera star Domingo to be FIFA adviser
LONDON – Opera great Placido Domingo is considering an invitation from FIFA President Sepp Blatter to help clean up world football's governing body.
Blatter on Monday said he wanted the 70-year-old Spanish-born tenor to sit on a "council of wisdom" alongside former U.S. secretary of state Henry Kissinger and former Netherlands player Johan Cruyff.
But Domingo is not committing to the role until he receives more information from Blatter about the committee being formed in the wake of the worst corruption scandal in FIFA's 107-year history.
"Since 1970 — with the exception of 1978 — I have been at every World Cup final in every host country," Domingo said in comments provided to The Associated Press. "In my amateur way, I am an expert in football. I am happy to have been asked to be involved with this great sport and have requested more details to see if I can be of help."
Blatter used a CNN interview to announce his interest in Domingo advising FIFA on its problems.
"Placido Domingo will be part (of the committee)," Blatter said. "He is happy, he is proud that he is part (of it)."
Domingo's most visible involvement in football has been appearing at concerts before four consecutive World Cups from 1990 with Jose Carreras and Luciano Pavarotti, who were collectively known as The Three Tenors.
Blatter on Monday also defended the decision to approach the 88-year-old Kissinger to sit on the new committee.
"People say he is an old man, but he is a wise man," Blatter said.
Kissinger has yet to make a firm commitment to become an adviser and, like Domingo, is awaiting further details.
"These gentlemen are more or less advisers, they are not the experts but advisers," Blatter said during a visit to Azerbaijan. "What they should be also is the kind of council of wisdom, which my executive committee would not like because they think they are the council of wisdom!"
The committee will have the power to investigate and suggest solutions to problems as FIFA recovers from a bribery scandal, which saw executive committee members Mohamed bin Hammam and Jack Warner suspended from all football activities during the investigation.
The committee is part of plans by Blatter to bring a "little bit more credibility" back to FIFA after he was re-elected last week to serve a fourth term as president.
He defended the decision not have an independent chairman for the new solutions committee, saying he did not want to "open our border and say everyone can come in."
"The football family has asked me to solve the solution inside the FIFA and not outside the FIFA," Blatter said. "We are a very organized institution with 208 associations, six continents. I've put already zero tolerance in the agenda."


Samsung have just uploaded a promo video for the American release of their Samsung Galaxy SII smartphone. The video makes some big claims, and at one point seems to compare itself to Jesus Christ?! It features a lot of London which is kinda cool, all in all I really like it!


text:
Q: How can I suppress warnings in NetBeans 6.9.1? On teaching JavaFX, we use some older files containing Swing components. They run OK in NetBeans 6.8, but in NetBeans 6.9.1 many following warnings are generated:
warning: [warnonuse] Package javafx.ext.swing has been used.
import javafx.ext.swing.SwingToggleButton;
Is there any way to suppress generation of these warnings?

A: In the desktop.properties file under your JavaFX SDK profiles directory,
you can change the property
swing_compile_opts="-XDwarnOnUse=javafx.ext"
to swing_compile_opts=
Under Netbeans this would be in
NETBEANS_HOME/javafx/javafx-sdk/profiles.
This only applies to 1.3.1 and most likely will be totally different in the next
major release of JavaFX.

A: Thanks, Jim.  That does the trick.
For Mac users, you have to go into your /Applications/Netbeans/Netbeans 6.9.1.app folder, then down to
Contents/Resources/NetBeans/javafx/javafx-sdk/profiles.
I modified the desktop profile and after restarting Netbeans the warnings went away.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


In welded steel constructions, where the load is carried in the through thickness direction of the plate, lamellar tearing may lead to tear fracturing.
In the context of structural components, a tear fracture may have grave consequences!
Normal quality steel plates are usually supplied with guarantees of mechanical properties either in the rolling direction of the plate or in the width of the plate (x- and y-directions respectively). The properties in the through thickness direction (z-direction) are not specified.
Using a special production process which includes reduction of the sulphur content in the steel, it is however possible to supply plates (so-called Z-qualities) with specified properties in the through thickness direction. Z-qualities minimize the risk of lamellar tearing.
Ordering Z-qualities is recommended in all places where welding is combined with stresses in the through thickness direction of the plate. All standard plate grades can be supplied as Z-qualities.
> EN 10164: Z15, Z25, Z35.
> SEL-096: Z15, Z25, Z35.


text:
NewsPress
Plato Partnership and Urvin.Compliance launch PLIA by PLATO
PLIA by Plato will provide market participants with a centralised repository for all best execution-related due diligence questionnaires and data requests;
A fully transparent and auditable record of communication between counterparties; and
A customisable response grading and reporting process.
Plato Partnership, the not-for-profit company working to improve the European equities marketplace, and Urvin.Compliance, a compliance and analytics provider, today announced the launch of PLIA by PLATO.
PLIA by PLATO is the most advanced platform available, set to become industry standard for compliance and best execution-related due diligence, in Europe. With features guided by Plato Partnership members from both the Buy Side and Sell Side, the platform allows traders and compliance professionals to systematically communicate and document trading practices.
The scope of PLIA by PLATO is extensive, from helping firms improve their best execution process to providing the ability to measure and compare their counterparties across an array of metrics. Its launch marks another milestone in Plato's mission to bring much-needed innovation to the European marketplace and all its participants.
Mike Bellaro, CEO of Plato Partnership, said: "Since its inception, Plato has been committed to improving the structure of the European marketplace and to providing a forum for better communication between the buy and sell-side. PLIA by PLATO brings us another step closer to realising these ambitions, bringing greater efficiency into the best execution process across a range of assets."
"This partnership marks an unprecedented step forward in enabling better communication between the Buy and Sell-side. PLIA by PLATO's features have been guided through collaboration with our market-wide membership, and the platform will continue to adapt with the changing demands of the marketplace."
Adam Conn, Head of Trading at Baillie Gifford said: "Having this central and secure platform will solve some of the challenges faced by trading and compliance teams, helping them to manage risk and due diligence when executing trades."
Bill Stephenson, CEO of Urvin.Compliance said: "The mission of Urvin.Compliance is to promote transparency and accountability within the best execution process, and the PLIA by PLATO platform will set a new standard for the exchange of important information between counterparties. We are excited to become a preferred provider of the Plato Partnership and look forward to collaboratively creating efficiencies, innovative solutions, and game-changing functionality for its membership and all other users of the platform."
Access to PLIA by PLATO is available to all institutional investors and their broker-dealer partners. Typical users include traders and compliance personnel who are engaged in the best execution review process.
About PLIA by PLATO
PLIA by PLATO is a highly secure platform that allows counterparties to share important information about trading practices. This centralised process will streamline the communication of new procedures and best practices to ensure counterparties remain in sync with internal objectives and regulatory obligations.
PLIA by PLATO can support global markets and multiple asset classes. Asset managers can leverage existing standardised questionnaires or create their own from a large selection of questions in the PLIA database. With over 400 counterparties having utilised the PLIA platform in the past six years, PLIA by PLATO has a significant network spanning almost all markets.
For more information about PLIA by PLATO please visit: https://www.plia.co.uk/plia-by-plato
⟵Plato Partnership Newsletter February 2020
Plato Partnership Newsletter April 2020⟶


iGRIND4REAL: #CelebNews Steph Curry Named NBA MVP, 1st Unanimous Winner Ever!
#CelebNews Steph Curry Named NBA MVP, 1st Unanimous Winner Ever!
In what shouldn't be a shock to anyone with a passing interest in basketball, Steph Curry has been named the 2015-2016 Kia NBA MVP. The NBA made the announcement today (May 10), and it was a rout.
Chef Curry set another record today (after dropping 17 points in an OT win last night), he is the first unanimous NBA MVP winner ever. Per the NBA, Curry swept all the first place votes, earning 1,310 points.
Kawhi Leonard of the San Antonio Spurs came in second while LeBron James came in third with 634 and 631 points, respectively.
The Golden State Warriors point guard joins an elite list of backcourt legends to win back to back MVP awards that includes Magic Johnson, Michael Jordan and Steve Nash.
Interestingly, and for slander purposes, James Harden, who came in second in MVP voting last season, didn't even make the top five this year. Fourth and fifth in votes this year were Russell Westbrook and Kevin Durant respectively.
All the aforementioned, save for Harden, are very much in the hunt for an NBA championship. Curry and the Warriors hope to make the 'Chip a back to back, too.


Do you want to relive the same excitement that you had upon opening your home business? Maybe you need a little motivation to get you back on the path to success, or simply need to remember long forgotten information. Use the tips from this article and learn from your own mistakes.


text:
@implementation HBNetTool

+ (nullable NSURLSessionDataTask *)GET:(NSString *)URLString
                            parameters:(nullable id)parameters
                              progress:(nullable void (^)(NSProgress *downloadProgress))downloadProgress
                               success:(nullable void (^)(NSURLSessionDataTask *task, id _Nullable responseObject))success
                               failure:(nullable void (^)(NSURLSessionDataTask * _Nullable task, NSError *error))failure
{
    HBManager *mgr = [HBManager shareManager];

    NSURLSessionDataTask *task = [mgr GET:URLString parameters:parameters progress:downloadProgress success:^(NSURLSessionDataTask * _Nonnull task, id  _Nullable responseObject) {
//        NSLog(@"%@",responseObject);
        success(task,responseObject);

    } failure:^(NSURLSessionDataTask * _Nullable task, NSError * _Nonnull error) {
//        NSLog(@"%@",error);
        failure(task,error);
    }];;
    return task;
}

+ (nullable NSURLSessionDataTask *)POST:(NSString *)URLString
                             parameters:(nullable id)parameters
                               progress:(nullable void (^)(NSProgress *uploadProgress))uploadProgress
                                success:(nullable void (^)(NSURLSessionDataTask *task, id _Nullable responseObject))success
                                failure:(nullable void (^)(NSURLSessionDataTask * _Nullable task, NSError *error))failure
{
    NSURLSessionDataTask *task = [[HBManager shareManager] POST:URLString parameters:parameters progress:uploadProgress success:^(NSURLSessionDataTask * _Nonnull task, id  _Nullable responseObject) {
//        NSLog(@"%@",responseObject);
        success(task,responseObject);
    } failure:^(NSURLSessionDataTask * _Nullable task, NSError * _Nonnull error) {
//        NSLog(@"%@",error);
        failure(task,error);
    }];
    return task;
}

@end

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


text:
Tag Archives: magical realism
"My body is an archive": Patrice Nganang's "Mount Pleasant"
"If the invention of a writing system was due to his will to give form to the world's multiple voices – much as he had done with the Shumum language, drawing on the other languages spoken around him – his grudging memory, his trembling hands, and his feeble body had taught him that now, in his chambers in Mount Pleasant, he had reached the end of a long path."
In his memoir, There was a Country, Chinua Achebe writes about Amos Tutuela's famous novel, The Palm-Wine Drinkard: "there is no attempt to draw a line between what is permissible and what is not, what is possible and what is not possible, what is new and what is old." This sense – that the borders of what constitutes reality are simply more fluid and permeable than we are trained to imagine – is at the heart of Patrice Nganang's sprawling novel about colonialism and nationalism in early-20th century Cameroon, Mount Pleasant. Anchored around two real-life characters in Cameroonian history – King Ibrahim Njoya and Paramount Chief Charles Atangana – and a series of real-life events, such as the successive colonisation of Cameroon by the Germans, the British, and the French – Mount Pleasant is nonetheless far more imaginative than historical, and bordering – on occasion – magical realism.
Mount Pleasant is woven out of multiple storylines, framed within a dialogue between the narrator, young, American-born Cameroonian-descended anthropologist, and Sara, one of the last living links between the present, and the late-colonial history of Cameroon in the 1930s. The narrator's fragmented academic knowledge of Cameroonian history runs up against Sara's living memory ("Archive? My body is an archive…"), throwing up all those eternal questions about the nature of historical truth, the distortion of the colonial lens, the (un)equal and opposite distortion of nationalism, and the insufficiency of language ("Where should I put my trust? In the capricious memory of an old lady or in the colonial archives?)
Within the dialogue itself, numerous themes emerge, composed out of the combined and sometimes contradictory knowledge of the two interlocutors: there is the eponymous Mount Pleasant, built into a "house of words" and a house of stories by King Njoya, who was exiled there by the French ("Njoya's home became a compendium of humorous and serious tales, the site of a storytelling competition that went on from morning to night…"); there is Njoya's prior time in his capital at Foumban, attempting to negotiate his way through successive colonial powers while maintaining a precarious hold on his waning authority – even to the extent of selling out an incipient nationalist movement, and seeing its leaders put to death; and there is Joseph Ngono, brought up and educated abroad in Germany to be a good native middleman, but who is transformed into a rebel and a nationalist after a chance encounter with German racists. Anchoring the novel is Nebu, a brilliant and troubled sculptor who, we are told right at the beginning of the book, dies in painful circumstances. Nebu's talent is shaped around the trauma of his early childhood, where art is the only means of escape:
"Nebu learnt a lot by listening when he couldn't respond. It taught him to control his rage. Taught him to keep it, like burning metal, at a safe distance from his body and his eyes. Taught him to strike it with a hammer, striking, striking, and striking again until it grew malleable, until it took on the shape he wanted to give it: flat like a knife, oval like a bird's body, triangular like a lion's head. It taught him to heat up his rage, to dilute his rage, to polish his rage, to file it yes, to file it down and wipe it clean, like the metals he worked with. And Nebu polished his rage, blowing on his overheated fingers, blowing on his heart to keep it from exploding, blowing on the embers of his incandescent soul. Art is an antidote to madness."
In a certain sense, the blocked avenues and barricaded paths that consistently prevent Nebu from realising his potential – and which ultimately lead to his death – seem like a metaphor for the soul of the individual under the suffocating grip of colonialism. Nebu's struggle is mirrored by the struggle of King Njoya, of whom we are told – in perhaps the closest direct indictment of colonialism that Nganang allows himself the indulgence of:
"He wanted to own the world… without being owned by it?"
"To speak of the world…"
"… without being spoken for by it."
Njoya himself is the other anchor of Mount Pleasant. His endeavour to create a written script out of oral language becomes his one chance at retaining control, his one sphere of influence into which the colonisers have not and cannot penetrate:
"Njoya realized that his experiments with pictograms and phonemes, with syllabograms and words, with tales and histories, with lives and dreams – all those experiments that had led him from anecdotes to a printing press had been possible only because, from the very start, he had given up when confronted by History's forces."
Writing about the Indian colonial experience, historians have observed how the home came to be seen as a realm of spiritual retreat, the one space in which the militarily and politically conquered Indians remained sovereign and self-determining (with all its attendant problems). For Njoya, that sovereign space is language, especially in the moment of his final, physical decline:
"If writing reinscribes life on earth in furtive blots of ink, Njoya's battle against the forces that had defeated his body was waged primarily on the surface of a slate, by means of pictograms he hoped would bear fruit… If the invention of a writing system was due to his will to give form to the world's multiple voices – much as he had done with the Shumum language, drawing on the other languages spoken around him – his grudging memory, his trembling hands, and his feeble body had taught him that now, in his chambers in Mount Pleasant, he had reached the end of a long path."
History tells us, though, that Njoya's efforts were doomed to failure, especially after the French invalidated the curriculum in all his schools (an incident briefly adverted to in the novel); his language died along with him, until efforts in the mid-2000s to resurrect it (although perhaps as no more than a museum piece). And it is that death that is, in turn, mirrored in the death of Nebu, who cannot – despite all his efforts – breathe life into the sculpture of his lost love:
"For death is the limit of art, isn't it? Yet how could people have thought about suicide? And why should they have? After all, and here the French officials and their adversaries in Foumban would certainly agree, a Bamum man simply couldn't kill himself for a reason like that."
The characters in Mount Pleasant, ultimately, realise that happiness is open to them only if they narrow their aspirations and their world, if – in the words of Ghassan Kanafani – they make their worlds smaller "to fill it with happiness". And it is Joseph Ngono who realises that "it is impossible to know the actual price of happiness and to remain happy" – or at least, in a land where every attempt at self-assertion faces the barrel of a gun.
Haunted by the physical, mental, and moral shackles of colonial rule, and searching for a liberation that yet has no vocabulary to speak its name (only at the end of the novel do we see a crowd "demanding nothing less than equality and freedom"), the characters of Mount Pleasant are suffocated in by a world that will soon die, before they can be rescued by another that is struggling to be born. The historical moment that Nganang captures is similar (or just prior to) the historical moment of Naguib Mahfouz's Palace Walk or Latifa al-Zayyat's The Open Door (Egypt), Aamin Maalouf's Samarkand (Iran), and Yuri Trifonov's The Impatient Ones (Russia). The voice and setting, of course, is Nganang's own.
Filed under Cameroon, Patrice Nganang
Tagged as African Writing, Cameroon, magical realism
"She has always been fascinated by the strange directions memory takes…": Mario Vargas Llosa's The Feast of the Goat
On a morning in 1961, Rafael Trujillo begins his preparations for another day as absolute dictator of the Dominican Republic. On an evening in 1961, four men wait in a parked car by the side of a road to assassinate the absolute dictator of the Dominican Republic. On a day in 1995, a woman returns home to Santo Domingo after thirty-four years abroad to speak to her incapacitated father, deprived of all his motor functions by a cerebral hemorrhage. So begins Mario Vargas Llosa's The Feast of the Goat, a reconstruction of the last day in the life of Rafael Trujillo, soon segueing into a meditation about power and its slow, inevitable corruption and destruction of the human spirit.
Mario Vargas Llosa's Nobel Prize citation speaks of his "cartography of structures of power and his trenchant images of the individual's resistance, revolt and defeat." The Feast of the Goat is perhaps that novel which most accurately exemplifies this terse tribute. The three intersecting plot-lines, separated by three-and-a-half decades, which start apart, merge, coalesce, and come apart again, are ultimately bound together by a detailed exploration of the structures of power and their interactions with individuals. Trujillo's last day demonstrates his messianic control over the country's military, politics and secret police. Meanwhile, his would-be assassins reflect upon their own personal transformations from Trujillo's most ardent devotees to his most implacable enemies. And in a one-sided conversation with her comatose father (followed by an interrogation with her family), who was once one of Trujillo's closest associates until his inexplicable fall from grace, Urania Cabral recalls the events from thirty-five years ago that permanently estranged father and daughter.
As in any novel about a repressive, absolutist dictatorship, The Feast of the Goat has its secret police, its executions and its tortures, its rituals of denunciation, confession, repentance and liquidation, and its stark depiction of suffocating, uncertain life under the regime. At various points, one is reminded of Animal Farm, Darkness at Noon, The General in his Labyrinth, and other powerful novels on the same theme. Indeed, The Feast of the Goat is located firmly within the tradition of the Latin American "dictator novel", a form of writing that has emerged out of the long endurance of military dictatorships in the region. For me, the unique brilliance of The Feast of the Goat lies in its exploration of how the dictatorship, over time, creates a dull compulsion that normalises even the most brutal and shocking of events. As the book moves towards its climax, bit by bit, the event that caused the estrangement between Urania and her father begins to emerge, as though hidden behind a slowly-dissipating mist. The event itself is extremely disturbing, but what is even more disturbing is the terrifying inevitability about it. In the elder Cabral, we see, close-up, the impact of the dictatorship upon the mental and moral faculties of a single individual, up to a point at which there is a sense that his actions are no longer his own, but are willed by the iron logic of the dictatorship (which itself is more than simply the personality of Rafael Trujillo).
This is also a theme that has been explored elsewhere, in books such as A Tomb for Boris Davidovich (and also Darkness at Noon), where ultimately, what is most frightening about the relationship between power and the individual is not the crushing of his resistance, but the deprivation of his ability to take moral choices and actions. This is what differentiates it from a book like 1984, where Winston Smith's resistance is broken down by a very systematic set of human actions. In Llosa's novel, there is also a system, but it is cold and impersonal, obeying a logic that seems impossible to stand against, because it isn't a human creation in the first place.
The Feast of the Goat weaves the personal and the political together with great skill. Each of the characters – from Urania to Dr Cabral, from the Dictator to his chief of Secret Police and his pupper President to each of the assassins – stand out as distinctly individual and unique. And it is through their stories that Llosa captures the sweep of history – from the initial rise to power of Trujillo, his CIA-supported rule, and his ultimate fall. Like much of Latin American writing of this type, the narrative structure is loose and disorganised, there are constant shifts of voice and point of view (I was reminded if Pedro Paramo at various points, and Carlos Fuentes' The Death of Artemio Cruz), and above all else – as in much of Marquez – there is a sense of historical urgency, the urgency of a committed writer who – to quote Marquez – must tell his story before the historians have time to arrive.
Lastly, in Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter and in The War at the End of the World, I found Llosa's writing to be wonderfully atmospheric – and he has lost none of his skill in The Feast of the Goat. The darkness of the book is punctuated by some brilliantly sensual descriptions of Santo Domingo (often reminding me of Delhi!), which makes the city come alive to the eyes, the ears, and the nose. Here is an example:
"On the ground floor of the Jaragua, she is assaulted by the noise, that atmosphere, familiar by now, of voices, motors, radios blaring at full volume, merengues, salsas, danzones, boleros, rock, rap, all jumbled together, assailing one another and assailing her with their shrill clamour. Animated chaos, the profound need in what was once your people, Urania, to stupefy themselves into not thinking and, perhaps, not even feeling. An explosion of savage life, immune to the tide of modernisation. Something in Dominicans clings to this pre-rational, magical form: this appetite for noise."
Among the dictator novels, the Feast of the Goat is perhaps the one reconstructed most painstakingly from actual historical events. With the exception of Cabral, his daughter and their family, the fictional protagonists (if they can be called so), the action takes place upon the historical stage. Sometimes, while reading, one gets a strange sensation of having had a window opened into the interior landscape of famous (or notorious) historical figures, and it is testament to Llosa's skill that fiction and history blend seamlessly throughout the novel, and that there is never a note of dissonance.
Filed under Latin American Fiction, Mario Vargas Llosa
Tagged as magical realism, mario vargas llosa, the feast of the goat
"The moon is closer to us now than are the fig trees of our departed village": Laughter and tragedy in Emile Habiby's "Saeed the Pessoptimist"
The big man sent his own men to surprise me at my stall one noon. They led me off to prison after charging me publicly with having disobeyed the compulsory stay order. My going to Shafa Amr to buy melons, they said, had threatened the integrity of the state. Whoever, as they put it, transported red melons in secret could also carry radishes secretly and there was, after all, only a difference in colour between red radishes and hand grenades! And red was not, under any circumstances, the same as blue and white. With a watermelon, moreover, one could blow up a whole regiment if grenades were hidden inside it. "Don't you see that, you mule?"
"But I cut the melons open with a knife so the buyer can see," the "mule" responded.
"Oh! Knives too, eh?" they exclaimed.
Emile Habiby's The Secret Life of Saeed the Pessoptimist brings Rabelais and Swift to Israel and Palestine. You cannot forbear to laugh, but the moment you pause to reflect, the laughter dissolves into the underlying darkness. Innocence hangs like a thin film of translucent dew upon the surface, barely masking a savage indictment of the human condition just beneath (think of Voltaire's Candide). The story follows the adventures of Saeed the Pessoptimist, a Palestinian who stays behind after the creation of the state of Israel, becomes an Israeli informer, and finds himself getting into one scrape after another with the authorities, while becoming more and more estranged from his sometime-countrymen. Filled with supernatural happenings, twisted chronologies and unbelievable denouements, the narrative tries to paint reality even while unmooring itself from reality; almost as though the only way to capture the bizarre actuality that is Israel/Palestine (labels are political) is by breaking with traditional narrative realism.
Saeed has been called an anti-hero by critics, but what truly strikes one about him is his passivity. Whether it is failing to kiss his lover goodbye as she is dragged away by the police for deportation, failing to stop his son from becoming a fedayeen, or failing to carve out any kind of independent existence for himself (a la Candide, before the end), Saeed never does anything. Things are done to him. In this way, he becomes a synecdoche for the larger Palestinian condition, as reflected in the works of so many other Palestinian writers. In Ghassan Kanafani's Men in the Sun, Palestinian inaction is symbolized by the passivity of three men as they roast to death in a truck; in Saeed, it is symbolized by Saeed's overriding inability to act in any circumstance, especially when contrasted with the people in his life, lovers, sons and friends. Habiby makes a witty observation about this right at the beginning, before providing us an extended demonstration through Saeed's character:
"The Arabs, that miserable teacher of ours concluded, always did thing quicker then – they thought faster than the earth moved around the sun – whereas they have now surrendered their power of thought to others … for the Arabs, so said this accursed teacher, would first act and then dream, not as they do now – first dream and then continue to dream."
Ghassan Kanafani once compared the Palestinian condition to people waiting on the shore for a boat that would never come. Saeed is a story – albeit hilariously told – of missed chances, delays, incompleteness, unfulfillment and disappointment. Saeed as a person is, of course, the greatest disappointment of the story, but it is also individual events that perennially fail to come to resolution. Consider, for instance, how the theme of the return to the homeland – something crucial to Palestinian writing – is dealt with by Kanafani, and by Habiby. In Kanafani's Returning to Haifa, the return is accompanies by a confrontation, a tragedy (of sorts), and definite closure. In Habiby's account, however, what happens is that… nothing happens.
"What about our house?" I asked at last.
"They are occupying it."
"Do you know who they are?"
"You can see, my child, how dim my eyes are. And Europeans all look the same anyway. No one goes fishing anymore."
"Would they let me in if I visited our house?" I asked.
"How should I know, my son?"
She crossed herself. I said goodbye, feeling very uneasy that she had made that sign of the cross.
When I reached the front of our house and saw laundry hanging out, my courage deserted me and I pretended to be taking a stroll along the seashore. I kept passing back and forth in front of our house. Each time I almost knocked on the door my courage left me.
Eventually evening arrived. A woman emerged and began collecting the laundry. She stared at me and shouted something. I hurried away but saw a man of about her age come out of the house and help her collect the wash. I thought to myself: This must be a trick. Why else would a man bring in the family laundry? This was never done by my father, God have mercy on him, although my mother was always sickly and overworked.
Contra Kanafani, there will be no moment of epiphany, no discovery of meaning or truth, even though it is a tragic truth. And contra Khoury, even meaningful love is impossible for Saeed, because even that is defined by its interruptions and its incompleteness, at all times.
Yuaad shook hands with me and bade me farewell. Then she brought her face close to mine and asked, "Did you kiss my mother before she left?"
"No. They were standing between us."
"In that case you have missed the second kiss too."
Then she was gone.
But if Saeed, even in his delay, is not Prince Hamlet and is never meant to be, ironically enough, the people he is closest to – lover, wife, son, friends – are his mirror images. Where Saeed turns informer, they join the revolution; where Saeed vacillates, they are constant; where he delays, they are decisive. And the contrast between characters is reflected in the contrast of styles. Saeed's own experiences are portrayed with a savage, almost mocking (Swiftian?) humor, as he finds that being an informer is no guarantee of safety, ending up seeing the inside of a jail cell thrice, each time for absurd reasons. But it is when his supporting cast comes on stage, that the tone changes into something deadly serious. So, in one of the funniest scenes in the book, Saeed is arrested (for the first time) for following orders a bit too scrupulously, and putting up a white flag of surrender outside his Haifa home in the immediate aftermath of '67. This is taken as a declaration that Haifa is an occupied city, and consequently, an act of rebellion. In prison, Saeed makes the mistake of quoting Shakespeare, and is soundly beaten for his pains. All grotesquely funny so far; and then, in his cell, he meets a Palestinian revolutionary, who considers him – wrongly, but by default – to be a comrade.
"He healed my wounds by talking about his own. He kept widening that single tiny window in the wall until it became a broad horizon that I had never seen before. Its netted bars became bridges to the moon, and between his bed and mine were hanging gardens. I told him of myself, what I had always aspired to for myself. I did not want to lie, but I did not want to soil the majesty of the moment by speaking of personal details: these the jailers had stripped from me when they stripped off my clothes. Here we were, one naked man facing another. Would Adam ever have left Paradise of his own free will?"
The mask has dropped, and for all the time that it was on, the revelation hits home harder than it ever cold otherwise. The stylistic shifts – from Voltaire to Darwish, in an instant – are found again when his son Walaa is holed up inside an underground shelter, and speaks of speaking freely, longing, for once, "to be careless about what I say, because all my life you've told me to be careful", insisting that he cannot wait any longer, that it is his generation that must resolve the issue, because "it is my generation." The clarity and urgency of Walaa's words and thoughts – again – put Saeed's own dithering into sharper perspective than could otherwise be possible. Or again, consider this deliberate shift:
These settles, then, laughed good-naturedly when the following story about them spread. The elders of Zikhron Yaqub disagreed about the following problem: is it lawful for a man to sleep with his wife on the Sabbath or is the act a kind of work and therefore not lawful on that day? They went to the rabbi for a decision as to whether it was work or it was pleasure. The rabbi thought long and hard and then he ruled that it was pleasure. They asked him for his reasoning. He replied: "If I had ruled it to be work you would have give it to the Arabs of Fraydis to perform."
My, how we laughed at this story – Jacob because he hates the Ashkenazi Jews and I because he laughed.
And who would be so unfair as to blame the people of Fraydis for owing their preservation to vintage wine? Who, after all, erected the tall buildings of this country, cut and paved its broad streets, dug the trenches and fortified the shelters? Who planted, plucked, and ginned the cotton, then wove it into clothes for the lords of Raghdan and Basman, palaces in the Amman, to wear so proudly.
Like most other Palestinian writing, Saeed is a story of exile and about a lost homeland. Yet unlike the stories of Kanafani or Khoury, or the poetry of Darwish or Barghouti or Tawfiq Zayyad, there is one crucial difference: Saeed is an exile in his own home, and not on the outside looking in. The ambiguity, the doubt – the agony, even – is thus complex and often undefinable. As the book progresses, we see – we feel – Saeed's growing estrangement both with his Israeli employers (and masters) and with the nascent Palestinian revolutionary movement. He is of both worlds, and of neither; understanding and understood by neither, liminal and homeless. Once again, then, he is simply caught up in the events, responding to them as they happen with the simple aim of survival. We cannot pity him because he has little moral fibre; and yet, we cannot condemn because we see ourselves in him, or what we would be like we we to face a situation of the sort – because who would be bold enough to predict their own heroism in the face of adversity? Habiby has painted a complex, ambiguous character, neither hero nor really anti-hero, someone who resists judgment and classification, but seeks – actively – our empathy. And more than that, perhaps, we are in no position to give.
I'll end with an excerpt that once again reflects – fascinatingly – how very different Palestinian works are nonetheless – at bottom – concerned with very similar basic themes. The nakba, as we know, when it happened, was considered only temporary situation by those who fled their homes in Mandatory Palestine. Of course, that temporary situation became permanent. That, however, did not stop many of the refugees from dreaming of a -now impossible – return to status quo ante. This conflict – between a generation that wants to restore a destroyed past, and one that wants to build a new future on its ruins – is explored repeatedly in Palestinian literature. It is the (implicit) debate between Said and Khaldun in Returning to Haifa. It is Younes, in Gate of the Sun, throwing away the oranges brought from old Palestine and exclaiming furiously, "The homeland is not oranges – the homeland is us!" And it is explored here as well, in one of the most moving passages of the book, with which I'll close:
"How can your brother believe that things will return to where they began?"
"He got that idea from his elders; of his beginning an old man remembers only the prime of youth and so thinks fondly of it. Do you really know how the beginning was, uncle? The beginning was not merely sweet memories of pines over Mount Carmel, or orange groves, or the songs of Jaffa's sailors. And did they really sing anyway? Do you really want to return to the beginning, to mourn your brother torn to pieces by the crane as he carved his living from the rocks. You want to do it all again, from the beginning?"
"But your brother, Saeed, said they had learned from the mistakes of their predecessors and commit would not them again."
"If they had really learned, they wouldn't have spoken at all of returning to the beginning."
"You're so young for so much wisdom, Yaad; wherever did you acquire it?"
"From my long life that is still before me."
"Will you be leaving me?"
"Water cannot truly ever leave the sea, uncle. It evaporates, then returns in winter in the springs and rivers. It will always return."
This is widely regarded to be a classic of Arab literature, and deservedly so. Highly recommended.
Filed under Emile Habiby, Middle-Eastern Writing, Palestine
Tagged as Kanafani, khoury, magical realism, palestine


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Home Economy Money Summit: Regulatory regime for investor confidence stronger than before – panelists
Money Summit: Regulatory regime for investor confidence stronger than before – panelists
Panelists at the second edition of The Money Summit have acknowledged the robustness of the country's current regulatory regime for equity and capital market investments, albeit admitting that there are still some milestones to be attained.
The revocation of licenses of some 53 fund management companies by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) in 2019 has significantly impacted investor confidence, with SEC stating that the companies failed to return clients' funds which remained locked up, a contravention of the investment rules.
But the Deputy DG – Legal, SEC, Mrs. Deborah Agyemfra, speaking at the event on the theme: 'Enhancing Investor Confidence, Critical Vehicle To Driving Economic Growth', stated that the recapitalisation of fund managers and the institution of better regulatory regime to protect investors have rebounded investor confidence, enabling fund managers to better manage funds.
"The current regulatory regime is stronger than before, and it is advisable to put liquid funds back in the capital market as there is enormous sanity under better regulatory regime with guidelines that are effective," she said.
Shedding more light, she said investors want systems which have laws to protect them where things are not done haphazardly, adding: "The Securities Act 2016, protects investors through a fair and transparent manner. This regulation applies to everyone in the space, while ensuring confidence".
A ten-year capital market masterplan according to the SEC, has been developed to enable investors understand their operational space, with key guidelines on market expectations and operations.
Mrs. Agyemfra disclosed that despite the successes chalked, challenges of low financial literacy among the general public still persists, offering SEC a constant responsibility to always create awareness and educate the populace.
"The SEC gives guidelines on illegal products and investments – which are misleading – to protect the public. We do this constantly," she said.
The GSE
Equally, a capital market consultant at the Stock Exchange (GSE), David Tetteh, sad the 40 percent performance of stock exchange equities is an assurance to investors to be confident that the market is back.
"Investors should not just keep their money in liquid assets but should be bold to invest in capital market with an assurance of protection," he said.
He however said the participation of locals in the capital market is under 5 percent – a situation that calls for more local people to participate in the capital market.
Mr. Tetteh intimated that the citing of available pool of funds heading back to government is not the way to grow the economy.
He said pension funds' investment in government securities is close to 90 percent of the money they are managing, making it difficult for companies to access long-term debt and equity to grow businesses.
The GSE, Mr. Tetteh emphasised, has been at the forefront of influencing policy, with a current initiative being an engagement with the National Pensions Regulatory Authority on a draft of new regulations asking fund managers to set a floor with a minimum percentage of investment that is going to variable income securities.
This, he added, was meant to enable fund managers to allocate part of the funds they manage into the real economy.
Head of Public Sector at FBN Bank, Hayford Danso, said Ghana currently has all the major indicators to attract confidence from investors, including value efficiency, market motive and political stability.
"The value of efficiency includes the resource seeking motive of the investor which comprises skilled labour, education, road network, electricity, among others. Market motive includes the market size; and the fact that more and more global companies are siting automobile companies here is a good thing. Ghana's political stability is three decades and that is a strong bargaining power for bringing investment here," he said
The FBN Bank, he disclosed, is thriving with the above indicators through positioning itself to support government to drive the public good through a strong manufacturing and construction desk.
"We've pushed a lot of money to construction of roads, and investors are attracted to these things where they can get access to financial facilities to grow their investments," he said.
GIPC's take
CEO of the Ghana Investment Promotion Centre (GIPC), Yofi Grant, speaking at the Summit, maintained that Ghana remains one of the most attractive business environments in West Africa, consolidating its position as a beacon of political stability – a parameter which ranks high among global investors.
He said the economy has shown some resilience and was growing at an average of 7 percent, one of the highest in the world prior to the COVID-19 pandemic.
"The pandemic has eroded over US$12trillion of wealth globally in the first year of covid in 2020. Despite that, the country recorded an FDI of US$2.64billion in 2020 at the height of the pandemic – better than the US$1.4billion in 2021," he said.
Indeed, Ghana was one out of about 27 countries which posted positive growth of 0.6 percent of GDP during the pandemic, with Mr. Grant describing the feat as enviable.
He said one of GIPC's aim is to sell confidence and that is critical to attracting investors, adding that government's 'Building Back Better' agenda hinges on agriculture, energy, housing, education to steer the country during the current global crisis.
VIABy Wisdom JONNY-NUEKPE
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The following links will allow you to download the Basics Primer and Basics Manual which includes over 300 pages of the basic empty handed techniques of the International Budo Institute. The Basics Primer is provided free of charge as a benefit to the martial arts community by the founders and members of The International Budo Institute. The Basic Manual download requires a Basic Member with the Institute.


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The Happiest Workers on the Job – and What Makes Them That Way
By Crystal Spraggins February 12, 2015 July 23, 2015
© jesadaphorn - Fotolia
Recently, TINYhr released its 2015 Best Industry Ranking Report. The purpose of the survey that inspired the report was to answer the question of how the industry they're in affects employee happiness.
Here's what the survey says:
Happy Industry Rankings (in order of happiness quotient)
Construction and Facilities Services;
Consumer Products and Services;
Technology and Software;
Telecom, Energy, and Utilities;
Health care, Pharmaceuticals, and Biotech;
Hospitality;
Media and Entertainment;
Finance and Insurance;
Business Services and Consulting;
Government and Nonprofit
As I stated to David Niu (Founder and CEO of TINYhr) in an email, I'm not at all surprised to find Government and Nonprofit at the bottom of the list, but were you aware that nonprofit workplaces can be a veritable haven for bullies? Everyone I know who's ever worked in nonprofit is all too cognizant of that fact. Sigh.
At any rate, the team at TINYhr makes no judgments. They did however, review the data to determine why workers in construction are so darn happy.
What makes for a happy workplace
What the folks at TINYhr found is that workplace happiness has two primary drivers:
Satisfaction with colleagues;
Satisfaction with the nature of the job and projects.
More than a third (34 percent) of workers in Construction and Facilities agreed with the statement, "I work with great people." Some 19 percent said they were excited about work and projects, and 10 percent "enjoy a positive work environment."
Now this is interesting and brings front and center the reality that surveys are all about comparison. Here you have workers in the happiest industry, and even they're not that happy. Only 10 percent say they enjoy a positive work environment? Only 34 percent think they work with great people? What about the other 66 percent?
What's going on here? Am I reading these numbers right? If so, I can't help concluding there must be a lot of grumpy workers out there. I mean a LOT.
Fortunately, the survey report contains more than a list. Instead, the findings are complemented by suggestions for happier employees, including:
Hire for cultural fit. Yes, I know it isn't earth shattering, but that doesn't make it untrue. Employers also are given some tips about areas to focus on during the hiring/promotion process such as the candidate's collaboration skills, ability to operate well under stress, methods for communicating expectations, and ability to manage up and down. (Gee, I wish more employers would take that last one to heart. Many people are great at managing up — that is, they're fabulous at impression management and kissing butt — but they're lousy at managing down.)
Hire for work fit. Most everyone wants a promotion, and some will take it and then hate the job. How can employers avoid that?
What NOT to do?
According to the survey report, the top three drivers of workplace dissatisfaction are:
Unsupportive managers;
Not having the right tools to do the job; and,
Little to no opportunities for advancement.
Again, none of this is groundbreaking, but it reiterates the point that workers are human and desire positive social interaction and some degree of intellectual stimulation to be satisfied. (There's no getting around this, folks.)
The report also links employee engagement/happiness to innovation, retention, and revenue — all things business people presumably take interest in — so groundbreaking or not, the report is worth a read.
It's all relative
Finally, the survey report makes one other claim I'd like to pass along:
From the report: "Transparency is the No. 1 factor contributing to employee happiness. Organizations that fail to share information and trends will have unhappy employees."
(Reminds me of the lyrics to that Jill Scott song Talk to Me: "What makes me fear/when your personality isn't clear/I make things up in my mind…" )
So there you have it. Happiness is relative. Nonetheless, if you want your employees to be as happy as they can be, reward good behavior (thereby creating gracious colleagues and supportive managers), hire for work fit (so people like what they're doing), and ask for input.
Crystal Spraggins
Crystal Spraggins, SPHR, is an HR consultant and freelance writer who lives in Philadelphia. She also writes at her blog, HR BlogVOCATE. For the past 15 years, Crystal has focused on building HR departments in small- to mid-sized companies under the philosophy that "HR is not for wimps." She is also the CEO and Founder of Work It Out! and partners with HRCVision, a full-service HR consultant practice specializing in leadership and diversity training. Contact her at crs036@aim.com.
Best PracticesCultureEngagementHR CommunicationsHR ManagementHR NewsHR TrendsOrganizational LeadershipTalent Management


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Unapproved Audit Observations - Part 1
My life revolves around visiting client sites ever so often with my visiting cards in the inside breast pocket of my blazer – almost like a CID pocket shield that I flash on the accountant's terrified face and post one slap across his skull, having him spurt why he booked a capital expense as revenue.
The adventure mostly ends with micro-management of the articled assistant, correcting his draft of the report for want of 1.15 pt line spacing and justified text alignment. To add to my misery is the stuff that gets edited out from the report by Senior Partner of Sandeep Ahuja & Co.
Here's taking a leaf out of my book – quite literally – and putting it where at least someone would read and appreciate. Here's observation #1. True life story.
Client Name: Confidential
Branch under review: Unnamed District, Jharkhand
Period covered under audit: Quarter 2, Financial Year 2017-18
Scope: Review of Internal Control Systems
Audit Lead: CA Sarthak Ahuja
Observation: During the course of physical verification of fixed assets installed at the office premises, the Audit Lead observed that the plastic seat on the commode was rickety. Efficiency in the working of the asset was tested through a sampling exercise of sitting on the porcelain rim by putting up the plastic seat in a vertical position against the cistern at the back.
Overlooking the aspect of the rim being too cold, severe doubts on the functioning of the asset arose when on turning on the knob for the water jet, a cold stream of water flowed onto the head of the Audit Lead, almost trickling down his back from the collar above.
Cause: On in-depth examination, it was found that the design of the water jet is flawed, whereby the flexible hose through which the water travels into the jet was attached to the bottom of the backside of the plastic rim, as illustrated in Figure 1 and 2.
Effect: An adverse observation has been recorded due to the following reasons:
- The asset not just has a worn out plastic rim that does not stay firm when put down, but the water jet installation is design inefficient;
- The asset led to the auditor's clothes having drenched in water, especially down the spine of the shirt, making it almost impossible to rationally explain the cause on his way out to the auditee staff. The lack of a shower system in the premises further limited the possible causes that could be used to explain the wetness.
- A trickle or two during accidental excretion of bodily fluids onto the official attire can be explained by an uncontrolled flow of the water tap in the wash basin, especially if the subject purposely splatters water onto his shirt, all the way down to his waist, in an attempt to explain such an incident. However, a trickle down one's spine is an inexplicable situation adding to the subject's embarrassment and lack of willingness to live.
Impact: High. The incident explains how if any of the auditee staff members were to accidentally experience the result of such a shortcoming in the installed fixed asset, it would lead to not only loss in morale of the employees, adversely impacting the working efficiency of the human resource, but may also lead to high employee attrition and turnover.
Management Response: The issue was not discussed with the Management at the time of debriefing due to the sensitive nature of the observation – open communication of which may have led to severe consequences such as a reduction in the authority commanded by the audit exercise. Thus, management response is sought through the medium of this report and may be obtained in the form of an Action Taken Report, the format of which is appended herewith.
Recommendation: It is recommended that the fixed asset be replaced at the earliest, with a more design efficient system be installed, such as a health faucet, which is in line with modern day practices of maintaining hygiene at the workplace.
It was also observed that the fixed asset was neither recorded in the Fixed Assets Register, nor bore any sticker signifying the fixed asset number. This would need immediate redressal as negligence in non-recording of an asset in the said register may lead to theft of the asset, which would also skip the notice of the team conducting physical verification of fixed assets.
Thereafter, the cost of the asset newly installed should be added to the gross block and depreciation be charged at applicable rates as prescribed under the relevant schedule of the Companies Act, 2013 as well as under the Income Tax Act, 1961, for respective purposes.
CA Sarthak Ahuja
Jalebi banaao-ed by Sarthak Ahuja at 12:16 AM 19 comments
Your Pace or Mine?
If I write any further, my mother will think that my sole mission with this post is to reduce her street cred in the lanes of Mothers-with-Marriageable-Betas. But truth be told, Alpha her kid is not, and admittedly, as an appreciator of alliteration and puns, a Beta beta has a nice ring to it.
I'm gifted, both genetically and emotionally, to be asked to field in a game of cricket in seventh grade PE period, and make the spectators go aah-ooh when I run after the ball beyond the boundary, and throw it to cover a distance of 5 cubits between myself and the stumps at an angle of twenty-five degrees instead of ninety. Being promoted to the Man-of-the-Match-esque title, "Beech ka Bichhu", I think I was actually glad that I'd get two shots at batting, and the perks of a Bhatta Ball – with an occasional try-ball at the beginning of each inning.
Football was closer to my heart though. I would run after the ball for five minutes like it was the final episode of Survivor: St. Columba's School, and soon realize that the point of the game was to increase the heat in your chest to a Fahrenheit that would qualify for a hit reference in a Bipasha Basu starrer Omkara song. I would fall to the ground (for dramatics, because attention-seeking bitch), holding my chest with a heart that would thump like Skrillex deciding never to drop the bass. Open my shirt buttons and you would see redness like I tore my chest apart like Hanuman, apart from witnessing too much chest hair for a twelve year old… the sport was closer to my heart, I told you.
Over the years, and especially while I was taking my CA final exams, I realized that my body was actually doing a Benjamin Button, with returning baby fat and all. In an attempt to not reach a condition where a third person would do my washy-washy, I decided to reverse the reverse-ageing and, contrary to popular belief of every single joint in my knee, to take up a sport.
So I took up one which would allow me to not give an unfair disadvantage to others and be magnanimous like Arnold Schwarzenneger.
I started running.
What they call jogging.
Or what they actually call panting for breath while Lady Gaga's Applause plays in your ears to build tempo, but the only tempo you can relate to is Ashok Leyland.
In the dark.
When no one would be in the park.
To mistake me for someone in need of mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. Not that I was getting any while not panting for one.
So, I would run in the moonlight of October 2013 – the silver of the full moon sifting through the carbon-dioxide emitting leaves and making the crescent on my forehead shine in its full glory.
I started small. Five rounds of the park every day for a week. Seven thereafter. Ten. Twelve. Fifteen. And finally, twenty – each round reminding me of the age when we were taught the numbers.
Every single year, at the annual school picnic at Lodhi Garden – there were a few things that would never change –
A guy from the class walking into one of the tombs and coming back to tell the rest that he either saw a ghost of the Mumtaz of the Lodhi who is still haunting the tomb, or better still, that he is possessed by the Mumtaz of the Lodhi, who will pounce at your Blue Lay's because her death was caused by starvation from lack of Magic Masala.
Second, ten-year olds pelting stones at a man resting his head in the lap of a species from the feminine gender, who wore a dupatta-cum-burqah and exercised her abdominal muscles like biting off the crotch of her salwar – while the boys shouted "Romeo-Juliet" in unison with each pelted stone.
Third, the protagonist of this story coming back home with a fever that wouldn't go for days four hundred ninety-six.
The same routine sans the spirit and the stones repeated itself when the hero would take annual trips to the Delhi World Book Fair and walk all day on two sticks that never worked more than doing a nocturnal spinaroonie on the bed while sleeping with Dadi Ma and kicking the gut out of her liquid-diet digesting stomach.
My body would catch a fever every time that it was exerted beyond normal. It never did during the annual running season because it would always be on slow counts of five, seven, ten, twelve, fifteen and twenty – spread over two months.
The over-enthusiastic, self-delusional bitch now decided to take up running again in the new park behind his new residence in Gurugram three days ago on account of a three-day-holiday, long-weekend, no-GST-calls, thank-god, whatever you may call it.
And ran twenty frickin' rounds for two days straight, thinking haha, I'm a runner, bitch. I listen to Tamma Tamma on loop and kick the shit out of Gurugram's morning runners, owning their patooties like no one's ever pwned them before.
The last two days have gone rolling on my bed, trying to convince my family that I'm dying; taking medical advice from a second-year student of medicine who said exertion can never cause fever because it's common sense that it doesn't, and then looking up an article on Livestrong<dot>com to prove him wrong, while coming to terms with the fact that telling family about eminent death was actually not a joke, but is a reality.
Two back-handed slaps to that sadist bitch of a fever, who is keeping the temperature -running-, almost reminding me of what I cannot do for the next three days, or the remaining of my life, whatever comes earlier, ceteris paribus.
They say your whole life -runs- before your eyes before you die. Sadistic little piece of shit.
Anyway, at least the fever got this blog -running- again.
Goddammit!
Image Source: nottheworstcomic.com
Jalebi banaao-ed by Sarthak Ahuja at 8:35 PM 20 comments
Labels: Humor, Personal, Rants
You're Not Transformed Yet
As you wrap up your last class, submission and exam – this year is not yet over. Not until, aside from the life in denial, the transformation is complete.
I remember before I accepted my admission offer, there were friends who mentioned that I should've applied to schools outside the country, as ISB was on a growth spree – while in ranking, but more specifically in its intake year-on-year. There were arguments against the quality of the institute's churn out as well as against its placement focused, rat-race culture. I was told that I probably settled while I could shoot higher – all personal opinion, mind you. And I walked in with thinning hair but thickening confidence.
Within a week, the fellow Chartered Accountants seemed more accomplished; the engineers definitely smarter. And why wouldn't they when it's expected for CAs to be math geeks while the JEE experienced ace at financial equations.
I hope my conceitedness can be forgiven for I thought I could walk into this institution and rule it for having settled for something in India rather than moving farther from home, whereas my classmates would be those for whom this was a dream come true. It's a pity how far some of us can imagine ourselves from reality.
Now, what would you do but transform when your bubble of self-assurance bursts. This year, as many of our alums mentioned during the O-Week, is a humbling experience. You're amidst a pack of doyens, ready to sprint and grab what you've laid your heart on while you trot on a Jaipur foot. Or Delhi foot, or Bombay – coming from cities where egos inflate with small achievements.
The year was tough to begin with: a feeling of loneliness, never-before-experienced competitiveness and given by a few instances at the squash court, head-breaking if not cut-throat competition. It took months to figure out how this world works, cracking case-studies, making resumes, attending interviews and running calculations of ROI – like it's so easy to put a percentage on experience.
We've seen brave-hearts with GPA 4 rejected by companies by the dozen and party-planners get the highest of packages. And then we've found ourselves in the middle somewhere – either with changed career paths or hands folded in gratitude for being blessed with a job-profile that we think we were only lucky to bag.
We've all humbled through the year, as most of us will claim on our way out. However, it's important to remember that true humility is not a result of undervaluation of one's talents and accomplishments. It differs from a phase of dealing with relatively low self-confidence. We've been in an environment for a year that put us amidst the smartest bunch of 900 we can possibly never find ourselves in again. The world outside will have a more rich portfolio of skills, abilities and talents – not all of which we may have learned to appreciate in whatever degree they present themselves in.
Maybe, the test of our true humility will be when we realize that anyone else we interact with may have probably done better or at least just as well as we may have, had they found the same opportunities for growth as all of us were lucky enough to find not just at ISB, but even before and much after.
With this, we're almost ready to sign off, knowing that we were definitely blessed to have been a part of this cohort. We leave with dreams to fly, to achieve much more than what we thought we could before coming to the Indian School of Business. Among all these hopes should be the dream to create platforms for others to achieve – for hopefully, that would be the mark of the true to its core, humble leaders from the PGP Class of 2017. The test of transformation awaits.
This piece was addressed to the PGP (MBA) Class of 2017 at the Indian School of Business on 31st March, 2017 - a week before their convocation.
Image Credits: Venkataragavan Sabesan
Jalebi banaao-ed by Sarthak Ahuja at 4:41 PM 9 comments
Labels: ISB, Open Letters, Personal
The Case of Hindi, Sanskrit and Maternal Influence
It was an early Sunday morning and I had quite ambitiously managed to capture the look of someone who parts his hair with a generous smear of Arnica hair oil and stares blankly at his math textbook in an attempt to show sincerity to the feminine parent walking in and out of the room, instructing the domestic help to wipe the edges of the floor in compensation for the weekday she took off the previous week. While it seemed like I had completed my Masters in verbosity and a false sense of ability to appreciate literature, as reflected in the previous sentence, a big question about my literary pursuits through high school remained unanswered.
Should I be taking Hindi as my second language in the ninth grade or Sanskrit?
The answer was as simple as choosing between Jennifer Aniston and Jennifer Lawrence. It's best to pick the one you relate to more. Not like I relate to being the emotionally distraught female lead in Silver Linings Playbook, but if it counts, I share my birth year with Lawrence. So, as I had almost made up my mind to pick Hindi, my mother decided to relate to the one she shares her birth year with and picked Sanskrit.
The arguments in defense of my choice were one, that I topped my class in Hindi the previous year, and two, I enjoyed the subject. Also, I hated studying Sanskrit. But then of course, haha, who said that mattered? ROFLOL overbearing parents *cough*
The Mother's argument was that Sanskrit was more scoring. Made sense if the discussion was about who among Aniston and Lawrence scored more in the number of husbands till date, but then of course, haha, who said that I scraped through the class average only in Sanskrit while topping Hindi mattered? ROFLOL children's interest *cough cough*
As both parties found themselves at a deadlock, an arbitrator (The Father) was appointed, who performed his duty to the fullest by appreciating the Gobhi Paraunthe heavily that morning and awarded that the subsidiary company comply with the holding company's mandate in line with the Ahuja Group's overall objective of unhindered growth and peaceful organizational culture.
The defeated party cried foul, and on insistence of the Maternal Highness, the matter was directly thrown to the highest appellate authority, Hon'ble Sri Krishna.
The Mother initiated me into the process quite diligently. An equal number of chits with each 'Hindi' and 'Sanskrit' had to be prepared and placed before the Hon'ble Bench. The proceedings involved an hour long recital of Saraswati Chalisa, Hanuman Chalisa, Krishna Chalisa and the Gayatri Mantra, which both the Mother and I sang in unison, followed by the Lord's Prayer which I had learnt in school and only I recited as a closing argument. The Mother attempted to beat the little cymbals in rhythm to "Our Father, thou art in heaven…", and in effect, did not let me have the last word before His Highness because "do not bring us to the test, but deliver us from all evil… om shanti shanti shanti om".
The Lord gave his decision by inaudibly suggesting that I pick a chit. I complied.
"Hindi", the chit said.
"Shut up, you're taking Sanskrit."
P.S. I scored a 95 in Sanskrit in my tenth grade. Who knows, I would have scored a perfect score on Hindi had the judgment not been vetoed by the other party.
Image Source: cepuckett.com
Labels: Humor, Personal
Raees: When You Listen to Your Mum, But You Don't
Have you heard of the barebottoms? They're shoes without soles. These shoes are synonymous to a character named Raees Khan - who looks the part, but again, lacks a soul.
The movie, Raees, begins with a young titular character running errands for a local bootlegger in Gujarat. While he's endearing as a school-goer and otherwise, he loses sincerity immensely to the screenplay, proportionally as he grows in age. The character's life and decisions rest on one teaching given by his mother: "Koi bhi dhanda chhota nahi hota, aur dhande se bada koi dharm nahi hota". While on paper, the line looks like it has weight to develop a fan-following as did the Abhishek Bacchan starrer, Guru; on delivery, it appears like a stillborn. In an industry where "in kutton ke saamne mat naachna" has maintained its cult status after half a century, it's interesting to debate whether Raees lost its charm in execution (where Shah Rukh Khan's acting was on point) or in writing (when Jaadu's alien-voiced 'Om-Om-Om-Om' appears as a more memorable line, repetition and alliteration not-withstanding).
The first half shows the young entrepreneurial boy setting up a bootlegging business in competition to his godfather. His rise makes you feel for him. You cheer for him when you see him thrash goons with a goat's head when he tries to set up a small meat selling stall during Eid. It makes you want to give up your 9-to-5 at Infosys and wishing that much like Raees' employer, Narayan Murthy had thrown his Titan (because he doesn't wear Rolex despite being able to afford it) at your face, that would've triggered you to walk out of that beautiful Mysore campus and pursue your start-up dream. However, as the gangster's empire grows in size, so do the plot-holes.
Nawazuddin Siddiqui as Officer Majmudar is a delight on screen, and makes up for all the charm that we're otherwise used to seeing SRK exude, albeit off-screen. He is an honest police officer who despite humbly accepting transfer orders, is bent on obtaining evidence against Raees Khan's misdeeds. When he blocks a road to nab one of the protagonist's trucks, Raees Khan shows his 'baniye ka dimaag' and 'miyan bhai ki daring' by taking another route into the state. Woot! Further, when the police blocks all roads, the 'baniye ka dimaag-miyan bhai ki daring' comes up with the masterplan to use the waterways to get liquor in. Double Woot! While Raees' trucks evade the barricades on each occasion, a sense of dismay sets in not because you realize the lack of infrastructure with the Indian police to close all possible modes of entry, but because the movie ridiculously insults a baniya's dimaag and a miyan bhai's daring by expecting you to celebrate the move as if it were worthy of an Olympic gold, or okay, to be realistic, the logistics version of a Spelling Bee trophy.
During the second half, Raees Khan uses all his funds to contest elections for the Legislative Assembly so as to strengthen his political ground for business sustenance, and then spends his savings in working capital for building a residential colony for his vote-bank. The character loses sincerity when it's apparent how his decisions are business related, but he expects the audience to believe, with tears in his eyes on one occasion, that it's all for the benefit of his community. One would defend it in the name of Corporate Social Responsibility – business while looking after the needs of the community. However, the sense of Robinhoodness that awakens in our gangster appears more like a sham trust-deed to avail tax benefits than sincere CSR spending of up to two percent of your net profit1 – consequently, you fail to feel for the character anymore.
A proviso to the lesson given by Raees' mother was: 'as long as your dhanda hurts nobody'. One would hate to turn this into a moral debate, but in the context of this movie and otherwise, how would you define 'hurt'?
Is making alcohol available for people to turn into drunkards not a kind of 'hurt'? Maybe not as per most moral compasses. Is murdering competitors and politicians in an attempt to set up an illegal business not 'hurt'? Maybe not when like most people in the world, the characters murdered are themselves grey, regardless of the shade of grey they exhibit when compared to the murderer.
The character realizes 'hurt' when he's made an instrument to import explosives for a devastating blast in the country. The guilt hits him so hard that he surrenders to the police and in the penultimate scene, questions Siddiqui if he will be able to live with the guilt of murdering Raees. *long pause to let that sink in*
The movie flails in maintaining sincerity while attempting to showcase a gangster with a heart of gold – which in my opinion, there was none.
The closing scene shows Siddiqui moving away with his army of officers into their patrolling vehicles, leaving Khan shot dead on the highway side. The shot would've earned Siddiqui street-cred for the swag with which he walks back, except it brings none because you're left wondering why the police would drive off without taking the fugitive's corpse. When thoughts such as this overshadow the emotion a scene attempts to generate, you know that something has failed.
"Battery nahi bolne ka", I said as my friends pointed out that my glasses are similar to Raees' big frames. So here go 2.5 jalebis because I walked out with a memorable line nevertheless.
1demerits of letting a Chartered Accountant do movie reviews
Labels: Books & Movies


The Checklist provided questions that assessed the 'ensure', or essential, items within all sections of the NIHG.
The Checklist then produced reports for designers on items compliant with and not compliant with the NIHG.
It also produced a list of details missing from the documents, needed to comply with the NIHG.
The Checklist showed that many new and upgrade projects did not comply with the items presented in the NIHG.
Better designers used the Checklist process enthusiastically to check their design work, whilst poorer more ill informed design teams thought the checklist was an additional bureaucratic burden.
A proposal, requested by FaHCSIA, to make an online version of the Checklist was prepared and presented, but no action was taken.
No action was ever taken to follow up on the details of design assessments showing significant lack of compliance to the NIHG.
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