Columbia students told job prospects harmed if they access WikiLeaks cables | Media | The Guardian

Columbia students told job prospects harmed if they access WikiLeaks cables | Media | The Guardian

US govt. going bezerk. Columbia seems to be completely in the grip of orthodoxy. Wonder why the faculty is not standing up to this intrusion.

Another Reko Diq in North Waziristan

Another Reko Diq in North Waziristan
The truth behind the clases in waziristan. Why US is so interested in that area? It's the gold mines.

Soyinka, A Man Died

Soyinka is a Nigerian. A dramatist and a political revolutionary he spent 2 years in solitary confinement in Nigeria. Out of that imprisonment came this book: A Man Died.
Author's comments about the book.

The Audacity of Going Rouge (Not A Typo) (Update)

"Bob Silber’s “book” Going Rouge: A Candid Look Inside The Mind Of Political Conservative Sarah Palin, which was for some reason released on November 11th instead of yesterday, is not doing as well. This may have something to do with the fact that it contains no text, just blank pages. Because it’s supposed to be like Sarah Palin’s mind."

What's wrong with McDonald's?

What's wrong with McDonald's?
The case against McDonald's unhealty food and exploitative practices against its employees and third-world. Two environmentalists published a pamphlet against McDonald's and they were taken to the court by the corporation. A very interesting story follows...

A Stitch in time

1. Do the questions from Paper 2 from the last 3 years (2007-2009), and hand them in for marking. I will point out the shortcomings if there are any, and post the corrected response on the website (without your name on it so others can benefit from it without your ego having to suffer embarassment). If you write inaccurately, (example: 'possible' for 'plausible'), there will be implications for your grades. So, get it fixed now.
2. Do any of the MCQs from the past papers. All the past papers have been put up on the website (see link CIE on my website). You can write to me (haroon.agha@hotmail.com) regarding any difficult questions.
3. Read blog entry: Food for Thought, especially all those nervous nellies, and obsessive compulsive A graders (who feel all there is to TS is getting an A).
4. Enjoy the course, and IA, you will do well. If you don't enjoy pretend to, it is still better than going about your course in a lacklustre and killjoy bureaucratic fashion.

Food for Thought

Here are a few commentson career planning, aptitude (or lack thereof) for problem-solving, and the attitude towards learning. The generalizations below are I believe 70-80 percent correct, allowing for the 20-30 percent exceptions, and exceptions don’t prove the rule:

1. Do not be upset with new problems. That is your time to shine under pressure. And that will mark the wheat from the chaff. University education is all about it. So, when you see new problems attack them with everything you have. Try different things. Stand on your head if that helps!

2. Learn to take initiative. Take new unexpected turns. Explore new territory. You can’t be spoon-fed all the time. If you don’t do it now, you will lose much more later. This is a true story:

A new graduate was in charge of an emergency ward in a clinic in Lahore, when a patient undergoing a heart attack was brought in. He realized that he had lost the keys to the cabinet containing the life-saving drug. He kept silent out of guilt of having misplaced the keys and the patient, a 35 year old, and a father to 3 children, died. Later the family came to know what had happened, and they said that had he told them they would have simply broken the glass cabinet.

3. Many students, who work very hard, will be unable to make up for their lack of problem-solving ability and technique through more hard-work. The problems get more difficult especially in technical subjects, and those reluctant to use their heads now will be worse off later. So, break the patterns of your thoughts, try new things, experiment, now is the time, when you can afford to, before it’s too late.

4. Do not feel insecure; do no fear losing. Just look at the Pakistani cricket team. They are so afraid, even of winning, they can’t perform, and they can’t take risks. Have guts, be bold, and go out and make new mistakes.

5. Do not think like a colonized people! Typical of such individuals is that they do not challenge whatever comes their way. They are the obedient followers of the status quo. They accept things as they are. Rather ask questions, challenge, get upset-don’t just accept everything that is told to you with an obliging smile. You are not robots. Exercise your humanity! Just read up anything on our history, when were not colonized. People weren’t like this. There were debates on nearly everything. They didn’t just let themselves be dictated.

6. Aiming for A’s, at the expense of understanding, is as disastrous for your future as it is ridiculous. While many students will get A’s, but few among them would continue to do so later on. This is simply because they were focused too much on grades, they missed the whole point of education! Later on they’ll be at loss to use their learning, because when they look back at what they learnt, they draw a complete blank. Universities ask you about intellectual ideas that engaged you, experiences that changed you, creative ideas that you explored. If you do these things for the sake of getting into a good university, you’ve again missed the point. The idea is to be genuine; do it because you want to know, explore, and discover—wherever it will lead you. Only then would you be able to come up with something interesting and impressive. And thus improve your chances of getting into a good place. But it can’t be contrived.

7. Don’t just bask in the laurels of your grades. The next stage of the game is very different. Even 10 As in O Levels will not help your cause for SAT. It’s a different ball game. Ideally you should have read a lot by the time you appear for the test. Otherwise waste no time and get down to reading, as much as you can. If you haven’t read anything, even read basic stuff like detective novels (say Sherlock Holmes, Agatha Christie) then you are in deep trouble.

8. If you were reading useful material, you would already know this stuff. Time and Newsweek magazines are as useless as the English Dailys. Take a break, go on news fast, and read something substantial like Thoreau, Shaw, Orwell, Postman, Chomsky. The Uncles and Aunts who encourage you to read newspapers don’t have a clue as to what is going on. Most of the news is mere propaganda, so don’t fill your minds with useless stuff. The quality of arguments is generally poor as well.

9. Read good quality stuff in our own tradition. Ali Hajveri (ra)’s Kashf-ul-Mahjoob (translated by Nickolson) is one of the early books on Islam. You get to know Islam through him, rather than through Farkhanda Noor Muhammad. What a difference! Then you don’t only understand issues, you can have an informed debate about what is right and what is wrong.

10. Be moral and upright people. Finding out cheeky and underhanded ways of getting ahead will soon catch up with you, leaving you exposed and empty.

11. Remember that nothing will change in Pakistan until you change. Arm-chair commentary on political events is no use. You have to be something, something different, from those who just sit back and take in everything. Be proactive.

12. Learn to improvise and strategize. The odds are never in your favour, almost never. Learn to win from the lower wicket. You will inevitably be the underdog in many situations. Learn to turn it around for yourself. If you try, and fail, you will still learn, so that perhaps later, you will draw on that experience and be able to pull of something more substantial and important. There is nothing better than being the underdog winning it at the end. The satisfaction is unparalleled. Read about this-stories of battles, even sports, where a weaker team through strategy, discipline, coordination and timing took down a mightier opponent. Examples abound. Read on how Mamluks warded off the Hoards of Mongols—very fascinating stuff. Or how individuals challenged entire governments and countries. Read Malcolm X’s biography by Alex Haley. A man comes out of jail after 9 years, and becomes the most articulate defender of civil rights.

13. An excellent recipe to become ordinary individuals is to make one’s grades one’s sole concern. That is how people usually are, and that is why they are remarkably ordinary.

14. A couple of shows of Yes Minister! and Yes Prime minister! will teach you more about our political situation then a year of watching Geo.

15. Intelligence is to make new mistakes.

16. Intelligence is highly overrated.

17. Intelligence is a moral commitment to not be persuaded to accept something blatantly false.

18. Intelligence is background: what have you been exposed to in the past. This exposure consists of stories, ranging from biographies, history, sociology and literature; stories of survival, ambition, challenge, success, failure, betrayal, loyalty... Vocabulary is gained from learning from these different contests. A goldfish cannot understand loyalty. Read stuff on history of science, early history of mathematics, Greek philosophy, personal accounts of battles and so on. You don’t pick words up from dictionaries! You might think this is daunting. By no means. This is the very stuff of your education. Only you receive these things at the level of full development, devoid of the background, which is why you cannot appreciate what Newton really did or what Freud or Marx did. You study it when it has lost all character and is presented as revelation, which cannot be analyzed and looked at from different angles. However, if you were able to read up on Newton’s life, you will be filled with inspiration, creativity and wonder. You will get a sense of what it means to do something special.

19. Today political ideas regarding fairness, justice and freedom of press, have an exciting and provocative history, with many people playing important roles in reminding their government to treat the people with respect. You can use the word capitalism, socialism, and democracy but if you are unaware of the struggles in history, which bring meaning to these terms, your vocabulary will remain useless, passive, and in fact devoid of life. So, get into things, let yourself go, leap and do not be afraid.

20. These stories make up your framework of looking at anything. Only when you have these stories by with which you can compare new stories, will you be able to get any insights. No one is intelligent in of themselves, in isolation. Intelligence is in a sense an outcome of comparison and difference, seeing one thing in the light of another.

21. Also your potential will remain unappreciated and undiscovered until you properly articulate it. Either you create some work of art, or something scientifically creative, or you write up something exciting and interesting. Your intelligence has to somehow be expressed in order to convince the university and perhaps later on the world that you actually have it. Even if you plan a career in business, you need to be articulate in order to show that you are thinking and you have ideas (of course they need to be expressed).

21. If you want to really learn to reason, look up an actual debate and follow it all the way through.