The Third Slip: Issue 111 - Modi Code of Conduct
Hello, Slippers! Welcome to The Third Slip - the weekly newsletter that’s like a complaint against the nation’s prominent leaders to the Election Commission - it’s seemingly important, supposedly speaks truth to power, and questions the behaviour of our prime leaders but is mostly fully ignored and on the odd occasion that it’s read leads to a verdict of “Oh hmmm, so what?”
This is issue 111. Or as cricket lovers would call it - Issue Nelson. Somewhere in the world, Umpire David Shepherd is doing a hop, skip, and jump while reading this issue to avoid bad luck. Which is what most of you do anyway with this newsletter that provides hop - skip the intro and jump past the conclusions. So let’s go straight to the news...
At Home
Electile Dysfunction
Smoke and mirror mirror on the wall: Yes, it’s the most important elections in India’s history, which is why the BJP is focusing on truly important issues such as Rahul Gandhi possibly being a UK citizen (spoiler alert: he’s obviously an Indian citizen). This adds to all the lovely things the BJP has done in the last few weeks (politicizing border issues, hate speeches, calling Muslims cows that don’t give milk). The BJP treats the election Model Code of Conduct like Australian cricketers treat the “spirit of the game”. Why blame them? The Election Commission first lost a complaint against honourable right reverend Modiji and then found him innocent of any wrongdoing after being told to buck up by the SC. Which makes many (including politicians) wonder - why doesn’t the EC take action against the BJP leaders?
Integration by parts: Some people want to vote for the BJP saying “at least they are united”. The Congress is still a mess, but as this fabulous episode of Amit Varma’s podcast (with Aakar Patel) explains - fragmentation is probably not a bad idea for a democracy as varied as ours. A view also mirrored by Anand Mahindra.
VVPAT - Very Very Problematic and Anti-Transparent: Did you know you can challenge the EVM if the confirmation slip shows a wrong vote? The problem is, if the test vote doesn’t goof up as well, you could be sent to the slammer for six months! Oh the wonders of democracy - the election commission can’t do squat about politicians supposed to serve us (except maybe squat 100 times with hands on their ears to seek an apology from them), but can throw a well-meaning ordinary citizen in jail. Shut up and take my apathy.
Putting the pathetic in sympathetic: The BJP believes in free speech when it needs to - outraging over the arrest of right-wing nutjobs peddling fake news. Too bad that sympathy didn’t extend to actual journalists who were murdered.
Other Indian Things
It’s not fani: Cyclone Fani (meaning snake) charmed its way through Odisha this week wreaking havoc across the state. Thanks to the timely intervention by the state machinery, over 1.2 million people were evacuated - an act that received plaudits from the UN. The state still needs tremendous support to rebuild. You can contribute to the CM’s relief fund here.
Yetiurappa: Our army said they saw footprints by the yeti. Tarun Vijay of the BJP and black people gaffe fame said congrats, but please, be respectful and call it ‘snowman’. (We demand more - address it with the Indian respect it deserves - call it Yetiurappa.) Many people laughed. Others scolded the laughers saying you believe things when NASA says black hole and all, you anti-national traitors. Just another week in India, folks.
Taking a aloo break: It turns out everyone can eat just one bullet after all. Pepsi this week decided it will lays off the case against potato farmers in India. So much for having a chip on their shoulder. Ouch potato.
This world is nuts
And now for something completely different: A three-eyed snake landed up in Australia and of course it got called Monty Python. (Although a Simpsons reference wouldn’t have been too far off). <Please throw in your own Nelson reference as a tribute to TTS 111 here.>
The grill of the chase: Chase Bank tried to get “with it” and tweeted something. Except, it was insensitive to the poor and got roasted in glorious fashion by Elizabeth Warren.
On the why axis: This week in “stuff nobody asked for”: Vertical TVs.
Blue whale, red whale: A whale landed up in Sweden. This one had “Equipment of St. Petersburg” on a harness attached to it. So Russians are weaponizing massive water animals. What could go wrong?
Who are you kidding?: Cricket’s eternal youngster, Shahid Afridi, revealed in his autobiography titled Game Changer that he’s way older than originally claimed, but also that he’s still terrible at math and we still don’t know his actual age. Perhaps Age Changer may have been a more appropriate title. Also, he called Gautam Gambhir a grump to which the come to India we will show you man replied “You are hilarious, come to India we will provide medical care” - in effect saying that he thinks humour is a disease and proving Afridi’s original point.
Seemingly more important world news...
Sadly we need to talk about the USA (it’s been a busy week)
Ab ki Barr: Robert Mueller’s not very happy about Attorney General and Trump flunkie William Barr’s misleading comments about the Russia Investigation report. Here, watch Barr get pwned by Democrats who are trying to get information (or a coherent sentence) out of him). Meanwhile, Rod Rosenstein, the Deputy AG who appointed Mueller in the first place - has finally had enough and resigned, adding to an already impressive exodus since 2016.
Pharma is temporary, class action is permanent: At least the country is finally taking action against its opioid crisis (which you know about if your media diet includes Hasan Minhaj & John Oliver) - massive fines for shady pharma companies are a coming!
Shooting itself in the footnote: And of course, what week in the US is complete without shootings (school, place of worship) and ridiculous responses to shootings (teachers in Florida can now arm themselves!). While the US destroys itself, China’s zooming away and Russia merely plans to interfere in their next elections.
Rest of the world:
Leading - cause of concern: In what we can only hope is the first of many push backs to the dangerously rightward swings in global politics, a record voter turnout in Spain elected a social-agenda party. But Venezuela is still effed up, they can’t decide who their actual president is. And ISIS’ leader is still alive, the surfacing of his video will motivate followers. Oh-oh. Meanwhile, Japan has a new Emperor - a largely ceremonial role, like “influencer manager”.
Licky Weeks: Julian Assange is in jail for a year. Not for that document leaking stuff that you might know him for, but for breaching bail (he was accused of rape, don’t you know). But yes, US lawmakers must be licking their lips...
You’re party of the problem: Everyone in the UK is pissed off at the biggest parties for not being able to solve Brexit. We know this because both the Conservative Party (Theresa May’s party) and the Labour Party (Jeremy Corbyn’s Party) suffered massive losses in local elections. Maybe people feel that if they’re unable to solve UK’s divorce from the EU, these parties might not be able to fix potholes.
Union Jak: And finally, Indonesia is trying to find a new capital, because thanks to climate change Jakarta’s sinking. In times like these,’ UK setting an example for the rest of the world’ is an unexpected headline, but that’s exactly what’s happening: They’ve declared a climate emergency and has become the first country to turn climate goals into law. Go poms!
Tech
Yes Vegan: Finally, a company that deserves it: plant-based meats company Beyond Meat is now valued at $3.8b after the year’s best IPO.
Crushing conventions: So Zuck spoke / wrote a lot recently about a pivot for FB to privacy. That has pros (privacy!) and cons (unchecked fake news!). A good analysis here. And, tired of copying from Snapchat, Facebook has now decided to revive a shady feature of Orkut’s. It’s called Secret Crush. It’s fine until they start popping up with “people you may have a crush on”.
Founder-intuitive: Guess who wants (1. to stop iPhone addiction apps? iPhone. 2. the “Subscribe to PewDiePie” thing to end? PewDiePie. 3. to acquire Tumblr now that Verizon doesn’t know what to do with it? Pornhub). Oh, and Jack Dorsey is quite the cult character for doing hipstery Silicon Valley things like intermittent fasting, ice-immersion therapy and things. We don’t know if he likes bulletproof coffee or kefir milk though.
All in favour of machine made puns, say AI: If you hate the puns in TTS, don’t worry - by issue 234716, AI will make better ones.
LinkedOut
A fabulous read about why TikTok’s product is AI (rather than something reliant on AI) and why that’s part of its appeal.
China’s workers are tired of the “996” culture that Alibaba founder Jack Ma epitomized. About time, too.
This beautiful (but sad) story of a dog who stayed by her owner’s side… After he died on a hike, and helped police find the body.
Airpods are causing new types of social awkwardnesses. As if we introverts didn’t have to deal with enough already.
If we were to place a bet on your favourite collectible from your school days, how many tazos would we get? Here’s the story of how the tazo era began across the world.
That’s it for this week. If you’d like to get in touch with us, we’re on Instagram (Chuck | Tony), Twitter (Chuck | Tony), and good ol’ email. We've read every one of our 3 fan mails so far and we aim to keep the streak going. Until next time, may people always be confused about your age from the youthfulness of your looks and the wisdom of your words. Bye!
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