Mayank Chhaya Daily

Can light travel at the speed of light?

‘Befuddlement’ by Mayank Chhaya

Light is made up of photons which have been so far assumed to be massless and hence eternally stable. It turns out that photons might, just might, have mass. That in turn means that they would eventually die and decay into smaller particles which, in turn, can travel faster than light. Since nothing is supposed to travel faster than light, what do we do?

A new study by particle physicist Julian Heeck, who is a Ph.D. student at the Max Planck Institute for Nuclear Physics at Heidelberg, Germany, suggests that photons might have mass. As a consequence, they could decay into even lighter elementary particles. The institute’s official press announcement puts it thus: “Photons, the quantum of electromagnetic radiation, usually assumed to be massless. But simple extensions of the theory allow a nonzero rest mass*. 

The existence of mass in anything is also a condition to decay and eventual death. Heeck’s study has found that photons may have a lifetime of a billion billion years. It has been helpfully pointed out that a billion billion years may seem like an eternity to us earthly creatures but for a photon traveling at the speed of light it feels like only three years.

Let me spare you all the dense physics that invariably attends such findings and instead entertain you a bit with my own speculative interpretation. Not being a serious anything has unshackled me from the responsibilities of a serious mind. So I can speculate and wonder the way I please in these columns.

Heeck has been quoted by Scientific American’s Claire Ely as saying that in case photons do have some mass and therefore limited lifetimes, “the notion of light-speed obviously wouldn't make much sense anymore." "There would still be an absolute limit on velocities, but the photons would have to obey that law, too, and travel below the speed of light,” he says.

That comment has set off speculation in me which would be either profoundly brilliant or irredeemably foolish. My money is on the latter but then I already told you that not being a serious anything has unshackled me from the responsibilities of a serious mind. So here goes.

If light is made up of photons and if photons have mass, then are we now finding that given that photons might have mass, no matter how incomprehensibly tiny, light cannot travel at the speed of light?

A smarter mind would say what Heeck is saying which is that the idea of the speed of light being a universal limit becomes redundant. I, on the other hand, am stuck on the paradox that light, as we know it, cannot travel at the speed of light if photons have any rest mass at all.

Science at the particle level has a way of becoming one epic befuddlement. There are two ways to approach it. One is to feel emotionally frustrated,  frequently vent it and ultimately give up. The other, which I prefer, is to experience that epic befuddlement. Every time I enter the realm of epic befuddlement I think of my long overdue bills and become hurtfully clear about what’s what.

* Mass, in fact, is rest mass which means mass when a photon or any other particle is stationary. It is not practically possible to determine the mass of stationary particles at that level. Hence scientists do so when they are in motion.

The name is bond, visa bond

This morning I am torn between writing about Google Now, a predictive search tool for mobile devices, the “lungi dance” from Shah Rukh Khan’s upcoming ‘Chennai Express’ and Britain’s controversial decision to impose a 3000-pound bond ($4,630) on visitor visas for “high-risk” travelers. I can always write about all three but that would be greedy. So let me go with the British visa bonds.

Every time I write about Britain’s visa policies affecting visitors from India and the subcontinent, I make it a point to remind every one that the entire British Raj was built on the East India Company officers and their families overstaying their welcome by over 200 years. I seriously doubt if when Major-General Robert Clive, KB MP FRS, arrived at Fort St. George in June 1744 near what is now Chennai, he was asked for his visitor visa by anyone. (There, my one tangential connection to ‘Chennai Express’ is taken care of). Incidentally, Clive (25 September 1725 to 19 November 1774) is widely credited with having “delivered” India for the British Crown. Like Kate, the Duchess of Cambridge, “delivered of a son”, Clive “delivered of India.”

I have frequently said half in jest and fully in seriousness that one of the ways Britain can compensate India for two centuries of exploitation (1744-1947) or at least nearly one century of British Raj from 1858–1947 is by freely issuing visas to travelers from the country until at least 2047 if not longer. I had once said that to a visa officer at the British High Commission in New Delhi. He had the good sense to see humor in it and laugh.

Britain’s refundable visa bond is meant for visitors from six countries, Nigeria, Ghana, India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka. That is mainly because citizens of these countries accounted for half a million visa applications last year. There is a racial element to this type of bond but I am not entirely certain whether it meets the standard of being called fully racist. Four of the six countries on the bond list , India, Sri Lanka, Nigeria and Ghana, were once British colonies. I am not including Pakistan and Bangladesh because they did not exist as separate countries but were part of India. Now they are all members of the British Commonwealth.

The way it works is that Britain will demand a 3000-pound bond from “high-risk” visitors. It is not clear to me but I suspect that money will be refunded once the visitor in question has left Britain in accordance with the duration of the visa. Those who choose to illegally immigrate will obviously lose the bond money and face the prospect of being pursued by immigration authorities.

The bond policy has enraged people in these countries and some of them may consider reciprocal action. India being the biggest economy among these six countries should lead the charge in matching a retaliatory response to Britain.  An official statement by the British government was quoted as saying  “The pilot will apply to visitor visas, but if the scheme is successful we'd like to be able to apply it on an intelligence-led basis on any visa route and any country.”

The Associated Press quoted Britain’s Home Office  as saying that the visa bond  “is the next step in making sure our immigration system is more selective, bringing down net migration from the hundreds of thousands to the tens of thousands while still welcoming the brightest and the best to Britain.'' It is pretty clear what the bond wants to accomplish—It wants keep the dregs out.

Here is one idea how India should respond. Let India create a floating visa fee structure which will impose visa fees on the basis of the worth of the visitor. This is, of course, apart from the standard fees for everyone. So if Kate and William want to vacation in India along with George, they will have to pay an enormously high visitor fee. It could be as high as returning the Kohinoor.

‘Masala, Madness and Manmohan Desai’

Throughout the past 100 years of Indian cinema there have been Hindi movies that embody, define and assert the quintessence of Hindi cinema. Filmmaker Manmohan Desai’s 1977 blockbuster ‘Amar Akbar Anthony’ is easily one of the ten most compelling examples of such movies.

Apart from its enormous commercial success, the movie stands out for capturing Desai’s effortless pluralism and charming syncretism that is at the heart of the Indian nationhood. He uses the film’s assertive obviousness in crafting three brothers separated at birth and raised in three different religious faiths (Hinduism, Islam and Christianity) as a powerful device to serve the kind of no-fuss, street-level cultural inclusiveness of India.

At a time when hyperloquacious (A word a I coined a while ago) TV talking heads are engaged in what it means to be a “Hindu nationalist” it might be useful to revisit ‘Amar Akbar Anthony’ for its effervescent liberalism. It is in this context that I herald the upcoming publication of dear friend and fellow journalist Sidharth Bhatia’s book ‘Amar Akbar Anthony—Masala, Madness and Manmohan Desai.’

So far I have only seen the jacket of Sidharth’s book being brought out by HarperCollins India as part of its Film Series. For the purposes of this post the jacket is enough for me to recommend it, not to mention the fact that it has been written by a seasoned hard news journalist of long standing. This is Sidharth’s second film related book. The first one was ‘The Navketan Story: Cinema Modern’ about which I wrote here December 5, 2011.

Sidharth Bhatia

Some of us journalists of a certain vintage and once based in Bombay/Mumbai would have a story or two about Manmohan Desai. I do too, notwithstanding that I was never a film journalist. Those of you who might have watched  Desai’s movies would know that the filmmaker made a career out of shunning nuance and subtlety like the plague. I had asked Desai in the early 1980s about the singular lack of nuance and subtlety in his movies. His response was “Woh jo rickshaw chalanewala meri picture dekhne aata hai uske paas itna time nahi hai. He wants to see the obvious and I will give him the obvious.” (The rickshaw driver who comes to watch my movies does not have the time (for nuance and subtlety).”

I cannot easily think of another filmmaker who had such keen understanding of what the average urban entertainment consumer wanted in their movies. Also, there was no one else who was as supremely self-assured about what he made.

I will do a more detailed piece on Sidharth’s book once I have read it.

I want to ripple delete my life

Illustration by MC, using clipart images

Leading a well-edited life has been my longstanding fascination. For as long as I remember, I have always wanted the ability to edit life in real time. It in this context that as part of human evolution, I think it is time for all of us to develop the ability to ripple delete our life.

Ripple delete is a video editing function which allows you to delete chosen items from a track without leaving a gap. It automatically shifts the items after the deleted point to the left in their entirety.

This might not make any sense to most of you who are unused to editing audio and video. Let me explain a little more before I return to the main theme of the blog. When you edit any track your primary purpose is to give the raw material a narrative and visual logic and consistency, not to mention cinematic drama. Lift edit, which is another function of editing, allows you to edit but leaves gaps between two points. This can throw the track to the right of the delete point out of sync.

With that, hopefully, comprehensible explanation, I can now dwell a bit on how evolution can at least equip us with these little improvements if not create superhuman altogether. For now I would be happy with the ability to edit my life with functions such as ripple delete. The idea is to be able to delete unwanted experiences even as they are occurring. While editing one has to be mindful that it does not throw other experiences which are to follow out of sync or leave gaps like in the visual above.

Can you imagine what the ability to live-edit your life can do to transform it so fundamentally? There are thousands of situations and experiences throughout our life which we wish had not happened. With real time ripple delete all of those can be avoided. You can ripple delete entire periods of history without anyone noticing the gaps.

Even as I am writing this I sense some of you are going ‘Wait, what?” but as you reflect on it you would begin to appreciate the value of this ability.

Another improvement, I wish human evolution would soon lead to is eliminate the need to discharge bodily waste, prevent bodily hair in certain parts and/or all parts and stop sweating altogether. These changes sound minor but have radical implications for the species generally and perhaps even the planet.

You might argue that the human brain has the innate ability to ripple delete. It is called thinking before acting. May be so, but there are experiences that occur irrespective of your best efforts to either preempt them or alter them. That’s where the ripple delete would come in handy.

We should have two clearly defined options when it comes to individual life—one is the raw life as it unfolds and the other, which runs parallel and in simultaneity, that we can edit. You might argue that I am going precariously close to the multiple personality disorder. I am not. I am merely suggesting a two-track life, one track consisting an organic passage of time and the other what I called an intervened passage of time. The latter might sound like contrived or manufactured. It is to the extent that it takes what is available and refashions it.

I think I should end the track here and fade into black.

Duke it out Messrs. Sen and Bhagwati but be careful about your hips

It is perilous for a lowly hack like me to interject myself in the epic and surprisingly personal fight between two giant economists; one a I-am-a-Nobel laureate-but-so-what? type and the other Can-you-just-give-me-the-damn-Nobel-now-and-quell-my-bile? type.

Amartya Sen and Jagdish Bhagwati are both of Indian origin and both globally respected economists and, as it turns out, can’t stand each other. Reading the massive debate currently on between the 80-year-old Sen and 79-year-old Bhagwati one gets the sense that there are pathologies at work which go deeper than economics. Particularly, when you read Bhagwati’s unvarnished attack on Sen in the Mint newspaper it becomes evident that they are unlikely to kiss and make up anytime soon. Given their ages they do not have time on their side.

The fundamental point of divergence between the two men is over how India can achieve inclusive growth, whether by keeping social empowerment as a key element of the economic policy as advocated by Sen or by letting the free market, unshackled from regulation, generate enough growth to include everyone as argued by Bhagwati. I , of course, simplify but then this is a blog also read by the fans of Savita Bhabhi’s boobs. That necessitates that I keep it simple even though both men have much more complex minds than the media perspectives over their current public disagreements might show.

Bhagwati’s Mint opinion piece, while reflecting on his fundamental disagreement with Sen about economic philosophy, also gets remarkably personal. Contesting Sen’s assertion of his pro-growth credentials, Bhagwati says, those are “much like an anti-Semite would claim that Jews are among his best friends!” (I don’t get the exclamation point but let that pass!- Sarcasm).

Rather than going into their rancor about each other in great detail I have chosen to carry in full the letters written by Bhagwati and Sen castigating each other in The Economist magazine recently.

Being an unapologetic free marketer, Bhagwati is inevitably sanguine about the growth model of my home state of Gujarat which he holds up as “the ideal template” where “people believe in accumulating wealth but they believe also in using it, not for self-indulgence but for social good.” Having been born and grown up in Ahmedabad, the bastion of precisely the kind of people who believe in accumulating wealth and using it for social good, I can tell you that Bhagwati’s characterization is accurate. But then India’s socioeconomic challenges are slightly more than what the altruistic impulses of successful wealth creators might overcome and that’s where Sen’s prescriptions of inclusive growth come into play.

I must say reading both men in the narrow context of the amusing fight, I am not entirely sure what the contention is really about. Bhagwati, popularly perceived to be a diehard advocate of deregulation, strenuously argues his pro-poor work early on. Sen, popularly perceived to be a diehard advocate of inclusive growth, equally strenuously touts his pro-growth work early on.

In the end, like it often does, this economic slugfest boils down to the half-baked media’s silly obsession with controversy and squabbles. At the same time though the rancor between two old men is not entirely imagined. They are both at an age where they are no longer constrained by politeness. So they might as well duke it out. While they do so, they must be careful and not cause each hip fractures.

It is a good thing that economies have a way of operating independent of economists.

The Economist letters below:

Go for growth in India

SIR – We read your review of “An Uncertain Glory”, the latest book on India by Amartya Sen and Jean Drèze (“Beyond bootstraps”, June 29th). The review approvingly cites us as advocating faster growth through labour and land market reforms to cut poverty yet more deeply and to generate more revenues for social programmes. But your claim that Messrs Sen and Drèze wish to go “much further” leaves us puzzled.

The truth of the matter is that Mr Sen has belatedly learned to give lip service to growth, which he has long excoriated as a fetish. He did not explicitly advocate any pro-growth policies, such as opening India to trade and to direct foreign investment, in practice before or after the 1991 reforms. Nor does he recognise that significant redistribution to the poor without growth is not a feasible policy.

Instead he continues to assert that redistribution has led to rapid growth in Asia, a proposition that has no basis in reality and puts the cart before the horse. Growth has made redistribution feasible, not the other way round.

Jagdish Bhagwati

Arvind Panagariya

Professors of economics

Columbia University

New York

SIR – In complaining about your generous review of “An Uncertain Glory”, which I wrote with Jean Drèze, Jagdish Bhagwati and Arvind Panagariya have misdescribed my past work as well as the book itself (Letters, July 13th). I have resisted responding to Mr Bhagwati’s persistent, and unilateral, attacks in the past, but this outrageous distortion needs correction.

Their letter says that, “Mr Sen has belatedly learned to give lip service to growth.” On the contrary, the importance of economic growth as a means— not an end—has been one of the themes even in my earliest writings (including “Choice of Techniques” in 1960 and “Growth Economics” in 1970). The power of growth-mediated security outlined in another book I co-authored with Mr Drèze in 1989, “Hunger and Public Action”, is a big theme in the present book.

Economic growth is very important as a means for bettering people’s lives, but “to go much further, faster” (as your reviewer commented) it has to be combined with devoting resources to remove illiteracy, ill health, undernutrition and other deprivations. This is not to be confused with mere “redistribution” of incomes, on which Messrs Bhagwati and Panagariya choose to concentrate.

The understanding, which is central to our book, that economic growth is greatly helped by early public support for the education and health of the people draws on positive experiences from Japan, China, Korea, Singapore and many other countries. It can scarcely be like putting “the cart before the horse”.

Amartya Sen

Harvard University

Cambridge, Massachusetts

Messrs. Babbar, Masood and Abdullah Food Bank

Politicians who pretend as if a perilously penurious life is no big deal must be made to live that life for an extended period of time. Three Indian politicians, all apparently very well fed, may have to eat their words.

Raj Babbar, a Hindi cinema actor turned politician who is now a spokesman for the Congress Party, and Dr. Farooq Abdullah, a near aristocrat from Kashmir who has held more powerful positions than he might remember, and Rasheed Masood, who is a Member of the Rajya Sabha or the Upper of House of Indian Parliament for the Congress Party have walked right into it.

Babbar was quoted as saying that 12 rupees can by a complete meal in Mumbai. The conversion of 12 rupees into dollars is so small that it refuses to get converted. Incidentally, at today exchange rate of 58.97 rupees to the dollar, 12 rupees is 0.20349330167. Sure there are a lot of numbers but they are all after the decimal point.

Dr. Abdullah, a multiple times chief minister of Jammu and Kashmir and currently India’s minister for new and renewable energy, went one up on Babbar and was quoted as saying, “If you want, you can fill your stomach for Re 1 or Rs 100, depending on what you want to eat. We are working to change the life of the poor so they can eat well be healthy and India can progress."

One rupee is 0.01695777513 cent ( Feels cruel to use plural below zero).

Masood has been reported as having said that five rupees (0.08478887569 cent) can buy a decent meal in Delhi.

If Messrs. Babbar, Masood and Abdullah think that twelve rupees, five rupees and one rupee can buy stomach-filling meals, then I have a suggestion. Force the three to adopt diets that respectively cost the amounts they think are enough to fill the stomach. Let them be on that diet for the next five years and see how much of Messrs. Babbar, Masood and Abdullah remain.

It is not my case that for those sums you cannot buy somewhere in India something that resembles food in that it can be chewed and has some salt in it. If that is the definition of a “stomach-filling” meal, then politicians need to reconsider what food is. It is also not my case that politicians are disconnected from reality because they are so into reality that they often forget it.

Something mysterious happens to politicians at a certain stage in their careers when they start to believe that they can say anything and get away with it. It is no longer possible to say anything and get away with it now that the various forms of the media ride their butts 24/7.

As a penance for their comments perhaps they can set up a Messrs. Babbar, Masood and Abdullah Food Bank where “stomach-filling” meals are served at an average of six rupees or 0.10174665083 cent. (I reached that average by adding up the three sums and dividing it by three).

There was once Anthony Weiner

New York Mayor candidate Anthony Weiner (Photo: A framegrab from his official video at www.anthonyweiner.com)

It is almost criminal how former U.S. Congressman and current aspirant for New York mayoralty Anthony Weiner’s private conduct lends itself to such easy lewd humor. As a matter of self-restraint I am not going to pun the heck out his last name because it is so obvious. Why shoot a sitting duck?

Among the oddest things about Weiner’s serial debauchery is that he is 48 years old and yet has not lost any of the lustful vigor of a freshly pubescent teenage boy. It is almost as if he has just discovered his genitals and can’t keep his hands off of it.

I am trying hard to separate his conduct while sexting with a 22-year-old woman from his value as a politician bent upon becoming the next mayor of New York. While The New York Times has already advised him to fold up his campaign and leave the stage, his resolve appears to be harder than what is inside his pants.

People are analyzing whether he is a genuine repentant sex addict or an arrogant remorseless narcissist. Narcissism is intrinsic to his chosen profession as a politician. So that is neither here nor there. As for arrogance, remorselessness and sexual addiction, I do not have enough material to make a judgment one way or the other.

He has handled the latest revelations about his sexting habits in 2012 after he had quit as a Congressman in 2011 the best he could. He was fortunate to have his fetching wife and highly regarded public servant Huma stand by his side and reaffirm her commitment to him publicly. One is not privy to the behind-the-scenes turmoil that may have occurred prior to Weiner’s press engagement the other day. However, going by her public pronouncements, which may well have been dictated by the demands of realpolitik, it appears that she is willing to look past and beyond Weiner’s crass indiscretions. I can’t second-guess her motivations and say that she is abetting his flaming political ambitions.

Is Huma’s support for her husband enough for New Yorkers to disregard his private conduct and focus on his political talents? One can never tell. If I were a New York voter, would I vote for him irrespective of his behavior? Yes, if I were an ideologically inclined voter. Of course, there is the real question of his personal conduct in so much as one can ask whether such behavior can manifest and spillover into other areas of his public life. Is there a larger pathology to hide stuff or is this just the only weak point in his life? In the end it is a judgment call that individual voters will have to make.

I am conflicted whether the latest admission is enough for him to get out of the race as suggested by the Times. Soon after the revelations of his behavior were first made in June, 2011, I wrote this: “I am sure Weiner would eventually sort out what seems to be an addiction for him, but my general response to this fake controversy is characteristically broader than just him. We live in times when the bulge in a man’s underwear could be a stick of RDX and not his barely concealed arousal. Aren’t we better off with men in whose underwear the bulge is what it should be and not something wired and triggered by an insane ideology? Just a thought. You might disagree.”

With these fresh revelations all that I can muster up is mockery in the form of this limerick thoughtfully titled Mayor Swinging Dick. Somehow, it sounds just right for New York, a city that does the same to the world.

There was once Anthony Weiner

Whose dick so big that he couldn't grapple

Slithering through the streets like a serpent

Until it found the Big Apple

Vice President Biden in India

U.S. Vice President Joe Biden, left, with India’s Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on July 23 in New Delhi (Photo:http://pmindia.nic.in)

Once you get past the customary sidelight of monkeys disrupting routines in the Indian capital of New Delhi, there does not seem to be much to the news of U.S. Vice President Joe Biden’s four-day India visit.  Sure, the fact that he is the first vice president to visit India in nearly three decades may count for something. The last vice president to pay a visit was George H. W. Bush in 1984.

Normally, the vice president is sent as a stand-in for the president who often may not be able to slot a visit. However, in Biden’s case it is more than just a salutary engagement with India. Given his extensive influence on the U.S. foreign policy in the region and particularly the impending drawdown of the U.S. troops from Afghanistan, the visit could prove more substantial than reflexive cynics like me may think.

One often hears from experts informally that Washington sees New Delhi as an important inheritor of its interests in Afghanistan and vicinity once the U.S. forces leave in 2014. Of course, no one in the Obama administration has explicitly said so. However, it has become received wisdom that India will have a clearly defined role in Afghanistan, possibly as a guarantor of American interests. It is in this context that Biden’s visit is seen as important. I am not entirely sure of this construct even though it sounds impressive. That’s because India’s interests in the region are quite apart and irrespective of whether America recognizes them. It is possible that there is a happy convergence between what India sees itself as in the extended South Asian context and the way the U.S. sees its role post-2014.

The vice presidential visit has a definite broader agenda as articulated by Biden himself during his speech today in Mumbai. Four areas of bilateral engagement were highlighted by Biden. They were strengthening economic ties, improving cooperation over climate change, more collaboration in defense matters and India’s position within the Asia-Pacific region. These are broad themes which cannot possibly be addressed during a visit of this nature. The best that can happen is sharpen the focus of the two countries.

A familiar point while analyzing a visit like this relates to how the U.S. sees India as counterbalancing China within Asia and perhaps beyond. It is a perspective that has some takers in India because it gives them a sense of global consequence. In reality, India does not specifically see itself as a countervailing force. It is somewhere between conciliatory and cautious rather than openly adversarial. That is understandable given that the 3488-kilometer (2180 miles) border that the two share and along which the two make many disputed territorial claims. For Washington, encouraging New Delhi to rise as Beijing’s counterbalance may be part of some grand strategy but for India and China border tensions and claims are very much physical and real friction points. This reality clearly influences the foreign policy establishments of the two countries when it comes to how they position themselves in regional and global contexts.

Unless Biden runs for president in 2016 and actually becomes one, this visit is like a farewell trip. The scope of what it can achieve is inherently limited by several factors, including the very nature of his office. Of course, the amusing sight of monkeys swinging on the branches of a mango tree and biting into the fruit near the Gandhi Smriti even as the Bidens were visiting the monument in Delhi is not one of the factors. There was some apprehension among the security detail that a particularly insolent monkey might defy diplomatic decorum and pelt the visitors with half-eaten mangoes. That did not happen presumably because the monkeys understood the importance of the man in their midst.

Kate did not give birth; She was “safely delivered of a son”

At this stage I would settle for the cicada cacophony over the relentless multiple CNN orgasms over the royal baby. It is like CNN anchors have been in an orgasmic relay from one to the next-- Wolf Blitzer to Anderson Cooper to Piers Morgan back to Cooper.

There is actually a CNN royal commentator named Victoria Arbiter whose job is to be the arbiter of all things Victorian. For instance, she said it was “brilliant” of Kate to deliver a boy first time, meaning in her very first pregnancy. Not to be left behind CNN’s superstar global correspondent Christiane Amanpour spoke how the royal family was blessed with “good genes”. I suppose she meant as opposed to you and I who were just handed with the leftover that survived after embedding the British royals with the best of the best.

"I can't believe we finally, after all this waiting, know that we have a boy," Arbiter gushed but because she is British she managed to make her observations sound deep.  "My first thought, I have to say, was this is how brilliant a royal Kate is. There are women throughout British royal family history that have panicked over not being able to deliver a boy. And here we are -- Kate did it first time."

Brilliant a royal? Really? For becoming pregnant and delivering a baby?  Reathefucklly? Where does CNN find them? It seems in Britain unless proven otherwise all citizens are royal watchers.

CNN should officially announce that its royal baby reporting will last until he reaches puberty or Charles becomes the king, whichever happens first. Speaking of Charles becoming the king, the media makes it a point to underline that the baby is third in line to the throne. The first in line to the throne, namely the 65-year-old Charles, is still waiting. The second in line, namely the 31-year-old William, is also waiting and already going bald.

It is amazing how this giant anachronism called the British royalty is being perpetuated with the collusion of the broadcast media. CNN’s new approach seems to be pick a story with obvious ratings potential, give it saturated coverage and wring it dry till every ounce is out. They did it with the George Zimmerman trial and they have done it with the baby.

I don’t know how “serious” journalists such as Cooper, Blitzer and Morgan retain their equanimity while navigating through the swirling banalities of such stories. From the baby’s weight to the baby’s likely name they discuss everything threadbare, asking half a dozen talking heads to weigh in on whether it would be George or James as if both these names are staggeringly original. I am grateful that no one saw a grand cosmic plan in the baby’s weight of 8 pounds and 6 ounces.

Even The Guardian feels compelled to report online that Kate and William had spent their first day as parents or that Kate would have to spend most of Tuesday in hospital.

In keeping with the anachronistic parade the birth was announced in a framed document mounted on a royal easel and displayed in the forecourt of the Buckingham Palace. Rather than saying it straight that Kate and William had a boy, it said, “Her Royal Highness The Duchess of Cambridge was safely delivered of a son at 4.24pm. Her Royal Highness and her child are both doing well.” She did not give birth. She was “safely delivered of a son”.

Commoners give birth. Royals are “safely delivered of” babies.

To cancel or not to cancel NYTimes subscription

 

Two more strikes like this and I will cancel my online subscription to The New York Times unless the paper can prove that the “early stages of labor” of Kate Middleton are in a medical league of their own due to her blue blood. While I am at it, unless a royal can show their blood to be actually blue in color we need to stop this profound nonsense.

Is the Times going to tell me every detail about every cervical dilation leading up to the birth of a baby? If yes, I will not even wait for two more strikes to cancel my subscription unless the paper can prove that the royal cervix dilates in a particularly different way; such that horns are blown and satin red carpet is rolled out.

The Times story by Alan Cowell even quoted a message from Clarence House, the official residence of the Duchess of Cambridge, formerly Kate Middleton, to say that she had traveled by car to St. Mary’s Hospital in the Paddington district of London. This also constitutes infraction serious enough to lead my canceling the subscription unless the paper can prove that other female members of the royal family have either walked or jogged to hospital in the early stages of labor.

I may have been willing to forgive these idiocies but the one on display in these lines are forcing me to open my account settings and cancel the subscription right away. “There has been no official word on whether the duke and duchess are expecting a boy or a girl, and information about the birth is expected be closely restricted,” the story says.  Unless the Times can prove that royal mothers-to-be have in the past expected and delivered something other than a boy or a girl, I think it is time for me to stop spending $20 a month on this mockery.

I am not even going to mention observations like ‘The expected birth has been depicted as offering a likely counterpoint to Britain’s economic austerity” or the fact that apart from Cowell, John F. Burns, Sarah Lyall, Julia Werdigier and Stephen Castle contributed to this story. It took the Times five journalists to report a story about a woman in the early stages of labor about whom it is not known whether the baby is a boy or a girl but is certain she was driven in a car.

The only reassuring detail in the story is that the kind of private obstetric unit that Kate is in for the delivery charges $7500 for normal deliveries and care for 24 hours and $9000 in consultation fees. The Buckingham Palace will not have to mortgage the Kohinoor to pay for the hospital expenses. It is so modest that even I could afford it if I were not a print journalist.