The Third Slip - Issue 32: Between us anthem
Hello and welcome to issue 32 of The Third Slip - the weekly newsletter that reminds you that it’s Sunday evening and your week of meaningless, boring work is coming at you sooner than you thought it was. 32, of course, is the number of teeth a fully functional adult has. Now that TTS has a set of 32, we have canines for some biting satire and wisdom teeth for some holier than thou posturing balanced, meaningful analysis. 32 is also what a mathematician thinks of when he hears the commentary in a low-stakes poker game that goes “Two raised to 5”. There’s a throwaway bad joke for you fans of numbers out there. But wait, where’s the news you ask? Let’s get to it...
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Yay Supreme Court!
The beacon of hope in a country run by morons. This week, the SC said that there is no need to stand up for the national anthem in a movie theatre to prove your patriotism and therefore you shouldn’t beat up people randomly. It further didn’t go on to say (but should have), that while the word patriotism has “riot” at its core, it’s not necessary to go by coincidental placement of letters in the word to arrive at how one should behave, all one needs is some common sense. So don’t create a divide between us anthem.
The SC also said this week that only women have the right to abort a pregnancy and that a man’s consent is not needed.
The right-wing discovers the Streisand Effect
What happens when you try to ban something so that people don’t hear about it? The Streisand Effect - AKA a fuckton more of people get to see it. This week, this happened with Mersal, a Tamil Movie starring Vijay (Joseph Vijay as a BJP leader revealed to us, but we already know that and who gives a f**k anyway?), which was controversial apparently because it has a couple of unflattering lines about GST. The movie is now breaking records in collections.
Also, a bit by a standup comedian which mimicked Mr. Modi was not aired by Star Plus. The video is viral now.
How paranoid are you...
On a scale of ‘0’ to ‘snooping on Hardik Patel showing he might be forming an alliance with the Congress against BJP in a state they’ve owned for the last few decades’?
The dark side of a stat digital marketers love to show
If you thought social media was important for the 2014 elections, wait till 2019 when the internet penetration goes up from 15% to 40%. The word ‘penetration’ is important here, since, if BJP’s ‘pioneering’ work on social media is anything to go by, the country is well and truly f**ked.
Let’s do a small recap(italization) now
You might have waited with bated breath when Arun Jaitley announced he was going to say something. Maybe income tax relief? Maybe he was going to admit to what a blunder demonetization was? Alas no, it was some incomprehensible thing called ‘bank recapitalization’. Yay? So this is to infuse some money to bleeding public sector banks so they are Basel III compliant by 2019 (they’ll need that to do business abroad). But it’s a temporary fix - if banks continue running the way they are - giving loans to anyone who lands up with a goon by his side - it’ll just mean this is like using a band-aid to fix a pipeline leak.
Around the world
Oh Mao God
Chinese President Xi Jinping has given himself almost unlimited power - the dude has managed to write himself into the constitution as if it were a Wikipedia page. He is now almost Mao-level, and is scarier than ever before. If there’s one good thing about China, though, it’s that they’re getting damn serious about pollution control - cracking down on factories, imposing fines and stuff, even at the risk of lower economic growth. Meanwhile, eastward, Shinzo Abe was re-elected as Japan’s president and looks to be its longest-serving one. He’s not exactly super-popular but is a symbol of stability and economic growth.
Leave us (cat) alone ya!
After last week’s comical do-you-want-independence-or-not, Catalonia’s regional government finally said yes. But everyone forgot about a never-used-before law that allows Madrid to strip parliamentarians prone to such behaviour arrest-able. The result is chaos. Add Spain to the list of places to avoid for your next holiday.
#ThemToo
We have a lot to thank sleazeman Harvey Weinstein for. Women are increasingly becoming unafraid to voice themselves, and several more rotten ‘famous’ men have had accusations against them. The high-profile nature of these can only mean the bigger issue will be discussed more - making even the US Congress sit up and take notice. One hopes L’Orange doesn’t f**k this up - after all, nobody respects women more than him.
What loquaciousness!
Trump has declared an opioid crisis. His plan? “Really tough, really big, really great advertising”. Moving. (To another country). In the meantime, Republicans are increasingly getting pissed off with Trump, and even quitting the party to speak out against him.
More reason to legalize weed: Netherlands didn’t have a working parliament for 225 days! Nobody noticed or cared.
Get set for an Arabian Singapore
Saudi Arabia swiftly moves from banning women from everything to featuring them in sports bras, as the country invests $500b (!) in an ambitious new nation-state called NEOM. Hyperbole aside, it does look pretty futuristic and shows Saudi Arabia is trying to move on from both oil and the 12th century. They’re dead serious about the ‘moving on from oil’ part - they even called a massive pitch for world business leaders to help the country diversify.
What a transformation
A year ago, Myanmar was supposed to be a country led by a Nobel Peace Prize Winner. Today, its monks call Rohingyas ‘snakes’ and said NPPW doesn’t give - forgive our French - une d’fuque.
Rex is on tour!
US Sec of State came to India, probably just to give Modi another photo-op. On the way, he stopped over in Pakistan and said “hey would be nice if you stop like sheltering terrorists and stuff k?” to which Pakistan reportedly said “lolbro”.
LOL Section
A political party in New Zealand - that most inoffensive of countries - has to pay Eminem’s publisher $413000 for copying a song!
The World Health Organization briefly had Robert Mugabe - yes, that one - as a goodwill ambassador before the world said “dude wtf”.
MP Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chauhan said that his state had better roads than Washington. With a straight face.
Tech
Can you guess which tech company Americans say they’d miss the most if it’s gone? Yup, Amazon, whose stock is having a party of late. Whom don't they trust too much anymore? Facebook, of course. For good reason - fake news and the fact that it’s increasingly seen as stifling innovation by buying up / copying all other startups with ambition. Nobody cares about Twitter anymore, but they did ban two huge Russian media outlets from buying advertising. And as for Alphabet, they’re into a lot of things, sure, but 87% of their profit comes from just one thing - Google ads.
The Third Slip Trivia
Why is the Ericsson Z1010 smartphone (2003) important? It was the first to have a front-facing camera, which Sony thought would help business meetings. Of course, things (and the lit millennial fam) took another route.
Which country has the world’s most powerful passport (159 / 195 countries!)? It’s one of the smallest. Singapore.
LinkedOut
If you were around when Twitter was a great way to make jokes and meet people, you will be sad like us about its death. Here’s one man telling the story.
What does life aboard the longest train journey in India look like? Nat Geo takes us on the Vivek Express.
What is communism still doing in 2017? In Kerala, it’s still alive. This feature by Washington Post
China wants to rate its citizens. Real life, not the plot of a Black Mirror episode.
In Conclusion
Of late, trusted media outlets have taken down several articles and sections critical of the government, no doubt after a couple of friendly tete-a-tete with the BJP. We at The Third Slip remain neutral. But more importantly, so do several other independent media outfits you should spend your time with: Newslaundry, The Wire, Scroll, AltNews. Don’t take the news at face value. Even from us.
That’s all from us this week. If you have something to share with us you can follow us on Twitter (Chuck | Tony). But if you really have something to share with us, you could email us. We genuinely appreciate the time you take out to share comments/feedback with us - it’s really the only thing that keeps us going. Apart from oxygen, food, and wheat beer of course. Until next week, hope all the roads you travel on are from Madhya Pradesh and not Washington. Bye!