A little too nice or a little too stupid?

I'm not really sure where to begin. Would you be, if you wanted to vent about the pathetic case of a 5-year-old girl raped, mutilated and left for dead with the police later bribing the victim's father to keep mum about it? As if all this was not enough, a protester was slapped by a cop for demanding justice. Furious as I am about all of this, I am beginning to wonder seriously about another aspect of the case altogether.

The police are supposedly on the 'lookout' for the perpetrator who seems to have fled the scene. I can understand if the authorities are operating on just a hunch. But the child was found with her throat slit, lying in a pool of her own blood in the locked apartment of a man with a criminal record. Is it too much to ask to release his photo to the press? The victims of a crime, their families and neighbors are not spared by the media but sure, let's cover the face of the pervert to preserve his standing in society. We could really learn a thing or two from countries like the US (at least a few states in the US) where a registered sex offender is required by law to make his neighbors aware of his unenviable status.

At this point, I know I am up against at least two arguments:

(i) Given how sentimental (read volatile) Indians can be, the probability of the accused of a heinous crime being identified and calmly handed over to the authorities is next to zero.

(ii) There are bound to be some nutjobs who would welcome even negative publicity and would therefore do anything just to be 'famous' (yes, I've actually heard this argument before).

My rebuttal to these points:

(i) Would you rather others be victimized by the perp-in-hiding while the police are busy bribing the family of the initial victim? I, for one, think it's ridiculous to have the end result favoring a criminal, no matter how noble your intentions.

(ii) Why not follow through and make sure those nutjobs also understand what punishment lies in wait for them at the end of the road? In any case, I think the number of people deterred by the threat of certain punishment far outweighs the number of people who would do anything just to become 'famous'.

I don't really know how I got started thinking along this tangent today, but now that's it out there, I wonder if more people have thought about this and drawn the same conclusion I have.

Will this do for now?

"If at first you don't succeed, try, try again" - quite possibly the most clichéd quote used to motivate someone to maintain the never-say-die attitude. I thought of it today when I was blindsided by writer's block on the very second day of this poor little blog's foray into the competitive blogosphere. Out of curiosity, I did some research and found that American educator Thomas H. Palmer (in the eighteenth century) penned these words in his 'Teacher's Manual' to motivate schoolchildren to complete their homework.

Tis a lesson you should heed, try, try again. If at first you don't succeed, try, try again.

Another brilliant soul, comedian W.C.Fields extrapolated this to:

If at first you don't succeed, try, try again. Then quit. There's no point in being a damn fool about it.

I am not going to quit. No way. But I am done trying for today, and this is what I've come up with. Maybe I'll succeed tomorrow.

A first of many

I woke up today wondering why I don't have a blog. I can write, and well (maybe the "and well" part is somewhat of an exaggeration). But how do you improve on something if you never do it? These thoughts served as enough inspiration for me to create an account. Turns out I had a similar stroke of inspiration a year back because I already have an account with Blogspot...since February 2012. That's right, 2012! Which brings me to the main topic of my first blog post. Yes, I'm a first class procrastinator but that's not it. I was thinking more along the lines of how things have a way of falling out of your radar without your even realizing it.

Last year, I had so many things going on (this is just a fancy way of saying I may not have been the most efficient in terms of managing time) that I didn't pick up a book (or my Kindle) for months. The funny thing is, I used to think of myself as an avid reader and it never occurred to me that at some point after months of not looking at a book, it could stop being true.

I'm glad I thought "Enough is enough, let me do something about it" today, but writing is just one of many things I need to get back to. I'm sure a lot of people reading my first post (notice how I casually assumed there's going to be a lot of traffic on my blog? I may not be the most organised person, but you can count on me to be unduly confident about projects that may never see the light of day!) on a blog created over a year ago are bound to smirk at my lazy, forgetful ways, but I'm hoping there are a few of you who can nod your heads in empathetic agreement.

Signing off for now, but I'll be back...this time, in less than 14 months....hopefully.