The Third Slip - Issue 7: You can finish in less than 2 hours and survive
Hello. Another week, another collection of news - part depressing, part hilarious. Read on.
Let’s get the Trump section out of the way first (sigh)
Trust us, every week we hope to relegate this section to scroll 2, but (sigh) along comes something by Thursday that bumps it up. So, what’s been happening?
There’s a theory that humans are the only creatures who crave pain - for instance, by eating spicy food, BDSM, and voluntarily listening to IPL commentary. So that probably explains why Trump’s supporters are keen on his repealing Obamacare, and hence putting themselves out of insurance coverage (Why? Well, not to sound like a coastal elite, but… they didn’t understand they were benefiting from Obamacare). This week, the US lower house narrowly passed the Republicans’ plan (which they put together in the same smooth, flawless manner that an engineering college student does during his viva after the interviewer calls his bluff on ‘being very well versed with Java sir’). It now goes into Senate where it faces much tougher opposition (even by Republicans themselves) - and is likely to dominate proceedings for a while. Which is good, because you need to make plans if you have pre-existing conditions, have drug use disorders, were planning to donate an organ or are… a woman. If you’re the last mentioned, then you have your education to worry about too - Trump’s scrapping a girls’ education program. What’s scary is that Americans are reaching blind bhaktism - they don’t care that the act goes against everything Trump actually promised in his campaign, and the RSS themselves would be proud of an Alabama Congressman proclaiming “People who lead good lives don’t have pre-existing conditions”. Wah!
In any case, we’re very likely to have a 21st century example for the term ‘Phyrric victory’ - this symbolic victory for Trump is likely to come back to bite him in his presidential nuts soon.
Perhaps Americans are getting what they deserve - less of them are engaging with Trump on Twitter because he rants relatively less these days (fair enough, we stopped ordering from KFC after they stopped Fiery Grilled). Perhaps the reason for that is he’s being forced to study history after asking “Why was there the Civil War?” or manners since he was forced to meet the man he slammed the phone down on - the Aussie PM. He also promised a solution to the Israel-Palestine kerfuffle. And you know that sinking feeling you get when you see your mom talking to Sharmaji ka beta and a pompous man with a Rao’s IIT Coaching T-shirt? Well, Trump this week said he’d love to meet North Korea’s Kim Jong Un & the Phillippines’ Rodrigo Duterte (painful analogy, yes).
The rest of the world
While the United States is increasingly proving that Onion article correct, the man who is the human embodiment of the word ‘slimy’, Vladdy Putin met Angela Merkel (surprise, nothing happened) and reassured Trump he wasn’t up to any naughty business in Syria. Which is probably true - he was probably focusing on screwing up Macron’s chances of winning the French elections by hacking his emails (that’s like an ad agency reusing a successful pitch PPT). Thankfully, the French seem to have enough of the good Nutella - Macron should win on Sunday, which means the EU might still survive and with it, the world and sanity. Le Pen, by the way, channeled her inner Melania by plagiarising a speech.
Cheerful news back home
Arnab Goswami launched his new channel, Republic, after a disastrous Reddit AMA and ads proclaiming himself as Pakistan’s Migraine . This is a lot of fuss for <1% of the TV audience - a little like arguing a ‘font change’ of a 325-slide presentation.
The Aadhaar is giving India a leg-up in the global is-it-satire-or-not race - Babies now need an Aadhaar before being given a birth certificate. And sales of 1984 are unlikely to abate anytime soon after the government said that it owns your body (and not in a sexy John Mayer sort of way). Meanwhile, Nandan Nilekani is annoyed at all this and did the tech equivalent of saying “Chowmein is what is causing rapes” by blaming smartphones for lower privacy.
Meanwhile, up in Kashmir, things are still bleak: The government chopped off internet access after they found the locals’ enthusiasm for video uploads a tad too inconvenient. Depressingly, two soldiers were killed and it’s clear the Pakistan government is more unstable than an Indian parent being told her son who got 96% in 10th wants to do arts.
Also, Gautam Gambhir tries to make himself relevant by tweeting about the issue.
And speaking of ‘washed up’ and ‘cricketer’ in the same breath: MP Minister Gopal Bharghava wants to gift women laundry bats to thrash abusive husbands with.
Economically, it’s been a mixed bag - the Sensex crossed 30k, but news arose that the government’s much-vaunted coal rejig has led to no results (Coal ho na ho?). And the humble jamun might help us make more solar panels!
Finally, in #proud2bIndian news of the week, this dude was around long before Humans Of New York was a thing.
Sports! 50% less depressing
Aizawl FC AKA why is this not a sports movie yet?
This is a story that introduced many new concepts to us - such as the existence of a state called Mizoram in the Northeast, the fact that Aizawl is its capital, and that Aizawl FC, the football club was set up in 1984. The club was relegated from the I-league (that’s India’s official football league, not to be confused with the ISL, except they may soon become the same thing. Or not.).
After their relegation last year, followed by a popular campaign and some great football, they played in the I-league this year on a shoestring budget and to everyone’s surprise and delight beat all the other rich teams to win the I-league. The only guessable part of this story is the name of the stadium where they played their final match - yes, it is the Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium (Have you noticed how Nehru is to stadiums what Mahatma Gandhi is to roads?), and because Aizawl FC and its fans awesome, they won our hearts by cleaning up the stadium in Shillong.
Fairy tale endings are so passe, and so this story has a plot twist where corporate greed is the real winner. Even after winning the league, Aizawl are set to be demoted from the I-league because sports is not about outperforming bigger opponents on the field. It’s all about the money.
Will India play the Champions Trophy? (Yes)
Since we mentioned sports, money, and greed, can the BCCI be far behind? (Cue the song Kasu Panam Thuttu Money Money.) After the BCCI was outvoted by the ICC’s new constitution in April, it was set to lose about a half of the truckload of money it decided to give itself through the Big Three financial model. The BCCI then pulled a trick out of my playbook in 5th standard when I took away the stumps I owned and disrupted the class cricket match because I was accused of chucking (yes, Tony and Chuck go together). In a pressure tactic, the BCCI decided to not name the India squad for the Champions Trophy and even threatened a pull out. The BCCI and CoA then indulged in shadow boxing before finally announcing their decision to play the Champions Trophy earlier today.
2-hour marathon
We are going to need new adjectives to describe our unending movie and series binges while chilling on the couch because the marathon takes only (almost) 2 hours now! That’s right, in an attempt to break the 2-hour barrier, Nike got 3 elite marathon runners together (no it was not a marketing gimmick. Really. Sincerely. Okay fine, we remember Vaporfly Elite, but still.) and let them have a go in a custom setting in Monza. Fluid Eliud Kipchoge came oh so close and finished in 2 hours and 25 seconds.
The Breaking2 effort has certainly raised the bar and made us believe that the 2-hour mark is within the realms of possibility. Nothing has furthered the cause of Marathon more than this of late (no, the Shiv Sena and MNS further the cause of a different kind of marathon).
LinkedOut - 100% less depressing
The Dog Ate My Homework
The Bihar Police says rats finished off more than 9 lakh litres of alcohol, seized from people flouting the Nitish Kumar government’s total prohibition.
Kerala FTW
Malayalees will continue to derogatorily call migrant workers bengalis, but Kerala will also provide them with insurance and medical care.
The internet is where I belong
Abhishek Madan with a delightful piece on how memes have redefined relatable content for youth in India.
Scientific progress goes Bing!
The story of man's progress can be summed up as his unending endeavour to access better porn more efficiently. Bing seems to have found its raison d'être.
And on that note, we complete this tissue issue. Follow Chuck and Tony on Twitter. You can also email us. Bye!