The week in re(ar)view

Pick axe, drop on foot
Our zeal often precedes common sense. In fact common sense gets so far left behind that it needs a visa to get back into our heads.

Apparently local shop owners and workers became hot headed as soon as they found out that BIWTA had closed a jetty near Sadarghat launch terminal. So they set ablaze a couple of launches (and looted six others). Guess they transferred the heat from their hot heads to the launches. Chemistry students take note how energy is never lost but transferred.

These people claim closure of the mooring would affect their businesses since it would mean hassles for those who come to their markets. Someone should point out that people use launches to come to these markets. Burning them is like, well, burning something that would bring them business.

Waste food, reduce population
Food these days has become too expensive to eat. It's better to put it in a glass showcase and slowly watch it (and our reflection) perish. While we go hungry and thin in this manner, others are busy wasting food.

Imported perishable foods worth over a staggering Tk 80 crore were spoiled or exceeded expiration date for consumption in the last fourteen months. All this because unclaimed containers at Chittagong port were not properly auctioned off.

In times like these, why even bother with auctions. Just dump these along street corners. Then video tape the raw footage of hungry people killing each other over fights and then make millions selling the tape to a TV channel. Yes, we can sometimes be evil.

Last year in February, 1,268 truckloads of expired imported foods worth more than Tk 70 crore were destroyed by a taskforce. Our stomachs cringe in sympathy.

Goods brought in the country by unethical means have remained unclaimed. We bet ethics wont' bother hungry people.

Death to a national symbol
The Council of Advisers yesterday finally approved the Bangladesh Telegraph and Telephone Board (Amendment) Ordinance 2008 to remake the state-owned BTTB into a public limited company.

What this means is that BTTB will finally be something we can use. No more long queues to bribe metermen. Now we can line up in long queues to pay the bills in normal disgruntled fashion.
When this will happen is yet to be known.

Simon says
People name their children, houses, cars, pets and certain unmentionables. Roads are named many times over. But the trend of naming storms is only a recent addition to our culture. Someone important in some Bangladeshi office must have thought, “Heck, if foreigners name their storms, so should we.” After all, we copy music, movies, literature, food, franchises, lifestyles, medicines, computers, tires……and this list would be too long for this space.

Nargis has been a much talked about storm to hit our country. And it did last Friday but luckily it changed course in due time and hit Myanmar instead. In the cities we mainly got sand storms and a drizzle.

What we learned is that people here love to copy things. More importantly we learned though bitter, gritty experience that sand in different areas can have distinctive tastes.

By Gokhra and Mood Dude

RS Timelines

Every week, you find these eight pages tucked into your daily newspaper. If you're in the habit of flipping through it, as we hope you are, then you're bound to see some familiar names with the articles. If you stop to really think about it, you'll also miss some names that used to appear here, and you realise just how long this magazine has been part of a weekly ritual. The story of how it came to be so, is one that's been written over the past sixteen years, so let's take a quick look at the milestones that made up your favourite (?) teen magazine, why don't we?

1992 The brand new paper Daily Star sports a broadsheet page as separate youth supplement, started by Sona Bari. This was called Rising Stars, which featured jokes and articles geared towards a younger audience.

1994 As the page gains popularity, the reigns are taken over by Raffat Binte Rashid, who adds another page called Teens and Twenties, thereby segregating the audience according to age groups. Rising Stars caters to pre-teens, while, as the name suggests, Teens and Twenties carries items of interest to an older age group.

1997 From two to eight, the supplements dissociate from the main paper and merge into a single publication in an eight-page tabloid form. Still in a crude form, this 'magazine' features four colour pages and four black and white pages, and caters to an audience aged between 13-20 years of age. To cope with the demands of filling the extra pages, a core team of in-house writers is recruited.

2007 On June 7, Rising Stars makes one more major transformation, by arriving at the sleek, all-colour format that you're familiar with today.

Mother's Day Quotes

A mother is a person who seeing there are only four pieces of pie for five people, promptly announces she never did care for pie. --Tenneva Jordan

Being a full-time mother is one of the highest salaried jobs... since the payment is pure love. -- Mildred B. Vermont

A suburban mother's role is to deliver children obstetrically once, and by car forever after.
--Peter De Vries

All mothers are working mothers.
-- Author Unknown

The moment a child is born, the mother is also born. She never existed before. The woman existed, but the mother, never. A mother is something absolutely new.
-- Rajneesh

All women become like their mothers. That is their tragedy. No man does. That's his.
-- Oscar Wilde, The Importance of Being Earnest, 1895

Mother love is the fuel that enables a normal human being to do the impossible.
-- Marion C. Garretty, quoted in A Little Spoonful of Chicken Soup for the Mother's Soul

Source: quotegarden.com

The adventures of the Clueless

I have a friend. Although I can't disclose her name here, let's just say she's pretty clueless about some…no, many…alright, almost all things in life. And the fact that she's pretty cute doesn't help her 'cause that means there's always someone scrambling to do 'tedious' things for her, like her homework, reading and exams. This clueless cutie has been begging me for a while now to make her acquainted with the RS's beloved Reporter, whom she thinks is just a 'doll'. While I told her that couldn't happen as the Reporter is usually sent away on assignments no one else wants to do, I told her perhaps she could write something down about her own clueless life so as to get the Reporter's attention. As the clueless cutie is too clueless to know anything about writing, I decided to take up the task for her and find out what actually goes on in the world of the clueless…and when they are cute, no less.

One day, the Clueless Cutie was walking down the street (after being given strict instructions not get into stranger's cars) when she saw a black cat on the sidewalk. With a squeal, and without any idea of what a cat's claws might do to her, she ran upto it, grabbed it and hugged it so hard, it nearly choked.

CC: Kitty!
Cat (struggling): You! Girl! Put me down right now! I can't breathe!

CC: Wow! You can talk! I didn't know cats could talk!
Cat: Well we normally don't but it's not everyday we are choked to death! How dare you touch me like that! Don't you know the proper etiquettes of caressing a cat? We are the king of animals!

CC: Really? I thought it was the lion or something that was the King…or was it the elephant?
C: That's just what everybody thinks. But who do you think started the lion off on his great road to kingship? It was us! The cats! And now that he's got it, he's forgotten about us…one day he will wish he hadn't….muahhahahaha!

CC: You don't sound very nice…you aren't anything like the white, soft kitty toy I have in my room.
C: Ah girl, grow up. Nobody in this world is what they seem. The toy you have is just a marketing front concocted by companies. Cats are quite proud of their lineage and some say that makes us mean.

CC: So that's why a dog is a man's best friend, they're so much friendlier.
C: (drawing itself to its full height…which isn't much): Do not talk to me about dogs! They are our enemies, our nemesis! If it weren't for them, we could have dominated the animal kingdom by now with our evil machinations!

CC: Evil…what?
C: Never mind.

CC: But cats are supposed to be all sweet and mellow! Look at Tom from Tom and Jerry!
C: (coldly): Do not talk to me about Tom…I despise him! That character has given a bad name to cats everywhere. A normal cat would have caught Jerry in the first minute of the first episode and barbequed him for a scrumptious meal. Now, Swat Cats are the real deal.

CC: Swat Cats…are they like mosquitoes which can be killed?
C: No you @#4%! You're so clueless!

CC: Yea, I hear that a lot…so you want to come home with me? I'll take care of you and love you and you can sleep on my bed at night.
C: Didn't you hear a word I said? I'm not a cuddly cat! I'm to be taken seriously!

CC: Mom's making tuna today.
C: I have royal blood! I have controlled humans, I…tuna you say? (Smacking lips) Hmm…well only for today.

And so the Clueless Cutie and the Cat went back to her home, and if it wasn't for the Cat, she would have gotten lost for the twentieth time.
[And no, the Clueless Cutie's number will not be given out]

By Nisma Elias

Top three things I learnt about cell phone use in Bangladesh

1. Every time two people meet, they are to exchange phone numbers. For the next few days, they are to send “miscalls” back and forth as an assurance to each other that their intentions are friendly. This is a lot like dogs sniffing each other's butts.

2. If one person in the family has his/her phone bills paid by the office, everyone else is supposed to use his/her phone to make particularly expensive phone calls. This idea most likely springs from the basic tenets of Marxism.

3. If your phone set comes with a camera, it is important that you get a picture of every person whose number you noted down. In case they deny ever meeting you, maybe?

By Solitary Sniper