Wednesday, May 7, 2008

Bush and the Indian media. Who's the bigger idiot?

An (in)famous specie that looks very much like the normal (and rather intelligent) chimpanzee but shows extreme characteristics of the brainless jellyfish has yet again made its way to the TV news channels and the national newspapers for its irrational comment on the soaring food prices and India.

Now I'd like to state some facts. 65.5% of the American population is obese. That country spends 14.2 billion on food. For PETS. OK so let's say the media over-reacted saying Bush "blamed" India but a) He said 350 million are poor. Sorry to correct you, Mr. Bush but the figure is closer to like 200 million. No, I'm not saying that's something to be proud of. Just that this is no unimportant figure to exaggerate it by the million. And b) He said : “And when you start getting wealth, you start demanding better nutrition and better food”. Nutrition and food? If I'm not wrong he was talking about the middle class and the "middle class" aren't "poor". Civics coaching anyone? The issue with middle class was never malnutrition. I think the whole issue is about him making it sound condescending. It is clear that he does not know about valid statistics. There's no surplus here. It is old news when I say that the poor are starving to death. Not because of inadeqate production, mind you. Just that the storage facilities here suck. We had to even import wheat in 2006-2007.

On the other hand:
I thoroughly "blame" the media for over reacting. I mean what was with the sensationalism? As a student of Journalism I find this to be appalling, disgusting and thoroughly frightening. Where are we heading to? OK so the guy is an idiot but if that's your opinion, express it on your frickin opinion page. NOT on page one with screaming headlines and bigass font sizes. Whatever happened to neutrality in news? This comment of his did not bear any sort of resentment to India. He never actually said this was only about India. He also mentioned China. Some time back Rice (Doesn't that last name sorta act as a pun here? Yeah a bad one but still...) had quite literally "blamed" India and China. But Bush's remarks don't shout the same motives. I'm no damn economy expert but this made even me go "What the... heck."

I shall now go drink to more intelligent presidents and journalists. Oh and cheaper foodgrain prices. I can't imagine a life without either sambaar rice or a burrito.