Bob Herbert of The New York Times recently wrote a fascinating Op-Ed piece describing America’s crumbling educational system.  Meanwhile, he wrote about our fascination with what he felt were trivial items, like Lady Gaga, Mike the Situation, etc.  I think his main point is we are doing a good job distracting ourselves while our country dissolves before our eyes.

Are we obsessed with the wrong things?  Perhaps.   But I think it’s a generalization.  For every groupie listening to Alejandro on his IPOD, there are surely several intellectuals working away to help us get rid of this dirty recession, right?  Or is BARACK at home watching Keeping up with the Karadashians?

Pursuit of happiness is what its all about. How do you get there? Wake up in the morning and smell the grass.  It all starts with attitude and investing your time in worthwhile places. It begins with a RA-RA attitude demanding more from life and a commitment to reaching your goals. The grass will always be there and the sun will always come out. The rest of the day has to be shaped by what you want.

You choose your friends not your family. You may not like your Auntie Jeetu, but deal with it.   If you think she’s annoying, consider it a defect, like an extra hand coming out of your elbow.  She’s here to stay.

Your friends, however, are another entity.  Some people fade away. Some remain at a distance.  Some people you will never understand.

But if you share your feelings with someone regularly, chances are you have some kind of bond with them.    And be thankful for it.

You can have a lot of things in this world, but having a good friend or two is the kind of wealth that would make a calculator explode.

Believe it baby.

Everyone needs to have a purpose in life.  They say that there’s 3 kinds of people that exist. The runners, the committers and the spectators.  Most people are spectatators and just sit back and don’t do anything. The committers found something or someone their passionate to and stick by it and usually do through thick and thin. The runners are the most interesting. They get from one place to the other and do transactions.  The White Devil is a runner. The White Saint is a committer-spectator-runner. The White Devil never went to college and probably would fail sociology considering he can’t even spell it. The White Saint went to college and couldn’t even make half the money of a White Devil.  The White Devil probably can get a woman longer than the White Saint but the White Saint can get some weight hoisted with dumbells longer than the White Devil. Both are fighting for very different causes. Some might even call both of them greats and others would simply call them trashy. But you can only get to know how trashy or great the other one is when you truly get to know the other. The underlying causes aren’t always in black and white.  Sometimes their in red blue green. What if God was one of us?

Wheat prices have gone up because Russia has had a drought.  NJ Transit buses will go up because of Christie. And Muscle Milk ie becoming ever more a commodity. I feel like muscles are starting to shrivel without the sweet casein.  I feel like there’s no boost to my anabolic growth without this supplement.  Is that a good thing or bad thing? Isn’t dairy not good for you anyway in the long term? Who knows? But isn’t protein essential to the growth of muscles- yes!

I’ve had coffee for years. Its almost like a daily requirement to me like my multivitamin and muscle milk.  However, I’ve been feeling like the coffee hasn’t been working as effectively the past few days. I’ve been drinking the same amount of coffee I normally do and been getting lots of rest.  However, I’ve been needing additional boosts to wake me up. I think I may need an alterior lifestyle again in order to make the caffeine more effective. The Starbucks does at times have its limits. Maybe I need the vampires that exist underground to give me the feedback to my underlying issues. I need the coffee to be effective so I can feel human

written by an outside contributor for desiexclusives.com

The majority of Indians scoffed at Joel Stein’s article in Time Magazine about his dislike for the rampant growing Indian character of his previously predominant white hometown of Edison, NJ.  Indian celebrities such as Kal Penn and Bollywood superstar Amitabh Bachchan voiced their displeasure about the content of the article.  Though it was written in bad taste, I honestly don’t think it was as racist as many people made it out to be.  I think it was rather the honest reaction of a man witnessing his hometown completely transformed and unfamiliar in character.

For those that are not familiar with Edison, NJ, it is municipality in central New Jersey, known for its large Indian population.  Of course with a large Indian population, there are many Indian stores and businesses that take up a long stretch of road in Edison, known as Oak Tree Road.  Stein mentions how many of the places he hung out at while growing up in Edison, have transformed into Indian businesses such as the Pizza Hut which became an Indian restaurant, and the multiplex which mainly plays Bollywood movies.  I can’t blame the guy for expressing his honest feelings and reaction to seeing how much of his hometown has transformed.  Though I don’t know Stein personally, from the reading the article, I don’t think he hates Indians, but rather he has a great dislike for how they have taken over the character of his hometown in such a way, it is a completely different place than where he grew up.  One thing I wholeheartedly agree with Stein is his disdain and hatred for Guindians (wannabe Indian Guidos).  Being Indian myself, I loathe Guindians, and I can understand how a non Indian can hate such a poser.

Though I can see where Stein is coming from, his article is written in completely bad taste and is rather unintelligent in many ways.  One comment that really struck me was how he mentioned that Indians didn’t quickly assimilate to American culture by not giving their children American names?  Just because an Indian moves from India to America, he has to change his name from Samir to Sam or from Anil to Andy?  Our name is part of our cultural identity.  Are we supposed to just give that up since we are not living in the motherland?  Stein also comments about the merchants cousins that were brought over by the Indian doctors and engineers, which according to him, shows why India is “so damn poor”  I don’t know what your ethnicity is Stein, but likely you probably are of European descent.  What about your ancestors that migrated from Europe and were dirt poor that they basically had to live in inner city slums in the late 19^th and early 20^th century?  Or were all the Europeans that came over were rocket scientists and spinal surgeons?  If they were so well off, then why the hell would they come here?  Not to toot our own, Indians immigrants are often much better off and better educated than most other immigrants that come to America.  Of course there are some that come here without money looking to earn a living and start a new life, but isn’t that the case with many other immigrants?   Again Stein, you prove to be unintelligent and ignorant.

Stein, I understand your displeasure for seeing your hometown become a mini Mumbai, but times have changed and immigrants are a large part of American society, especially in the New York metro area where Edison is located.  Instead of bitching, why don’t you take some action?  If you are looking for an area without any ethnic flavor or diversity, why don’t you move to Wyoming where 96% of the population is Caucasian?  You are probably safer there than here in the New York Metro area.  You have developed a lot of enemies within the Indian community.  Since you hate spicy food so much, there might be an Indian that may slip a few hot Indian chilies in your next hamburger that will make you faint, just like in the movie Dumb and Dumber.

Whether we realize it or not, we are surrounded by people everywhere we go.  While on the face of it, these folks are just nameless strangers whose purpose and identity will remain unknown as they walk past us.

While each of us on this Earth are inherently different individuals, at the core our needs are the same: we all need to eat, have a shelter over our head, and earn money to help us pursue our passions, however varied they might be.  You have a lot more in common with the fellow man than you might think.

So speak up.  Help that old lady cross 96st.   If someone on the subway looks lost, offer to guide them.  You never know who you might meet, or how your favor will be returned, if you stay silent.

by Ken LeClair

Seemed like just about everybody I knew had moved to Florida. Miami Beach, Coral Gables, Fort Lauderdale, West Palm Beach, Naples, Ft. Myers, Tampa-St Pete, Orlando, Jacksonville and of course Port Saint Lucie. So off I went with all of my belongings and my 2 cats on a snowy January morning, driving all the way to North Carolina where I spent the night in a motel . The next morning I was up early and on my way to Florida, still excited about my new life to be. I made my way through South Carolina then into Georgia and finally crossed the border into Florida with a good ways still to go. Finally, at dusk I reached my destination: Port Saint Lucie- where half the people from my little NJ town had moved to.

Next day I went to the beach… it was January but 84 degrees and the water was warm and beautiful and I couldn’t believe that I had transformed my world into such a incredibly beautiful place. Like being in some kind of paradise with no snow, no icy wind, trees with leaves on them and flowers blooming everywhere and palm trees everywhere! Aha! Now I knew why everybody moved to Florida – it was a dream world come to life..like a magical garden in the middle of a snow storm.

Then, it was time to look for a job.  There weren’t any that paid more than $8.00 per hour and none of them had medical benefits or any benefits for that matter.  I went to a Chinese take out. The people behind the counter were white..egads! I went to the beach and got sun burned again and saw a shark swimming just off the beach with the fin actually sticking out of the water.  I saw two buzzards pecking at a dead armadillo and then I saw an alligator swimming in the canal as I drove by. I went home and turned on the evening news..there was a major snow storm blanketing the east coast.

The next morning I packed up and headed back to New Jersey……..End of Story