i'm SO glad i stopped wearing purple eyeshadow. ;) other than that, good times. :D

that pic cracks me up! is this a photoshoppeed masterpiece? just wondering...

(Tip to SM to continue the secular/communal debate - maybe there should be a permanent comment section for this - because this is not ending anytime soon)

For the secularist crowd - a good article (with obvious bias) which makes great points about India and psedo-secularism.

Who mourned the Pope?
- By Balbir K. Punj
(Excerpts from Asian Age)
There was something puzzling about the Indian government’s decision to declare a three-day state mourning for Pope John Paul II, Karol Jozef Wojtyla. Did it try to appear more Christian than Christians, or more "secular" than the rest? I am all for showing respect to the dead, irrespective of their creed, faith or colour. However, the Indian government’s decision raises some interesting questions. Did it declare a state mourning because the Pope was a head of state?

Does the death of a sovereign of an artificial state of less than 1,000 people deserve it? Vatican is a "state" whose head, the Pope, is elected by an electoral college consisting of 117 voting cardinals — all foreigners! Prince Rainier III, the monarch of Monaco, a stamp size principality but substantially bigger than the Vatican and commercially more important, died within a week of the Pope’s death. He was Europe’s longest ruling monarch, but was there any mourning in India?

And if the gesture was to the head of a billion strong Christian sect, with global presence, then can a "secular state" differentiate between one religion and another? Should it not show similar gestures on the demise of heads of other persuasions in India and abroad? A few years ago, when the paramacharya of Kanchi, in whom many saw a "living God," died, no such gesture was shown. Isn’t our "secularism" skewed?

In fact, an embarrassing situation was created when the South Block realised that the Prime Minister of Uzbekistan was due to start his visit to India from April 6, the third day of the mourning. South Block frantically sought a two-day postponement of the visit, but in vain. The Uzbek Prime Minister’s diplomatic schedules could hardly be reorganised. This forced New Delhi to reorganise its diplomatic schedule by splitting the mourning into two segments — April 4, 5 and April 8, the actual funeral day — to accommodate Mr Islam Karimov.

How did the rest of the world react to the event? Ireland, a country with 92 per cent Catholic population, did not declare any state mourning and Catholics were not upset over it at all. The same was true for Spain, a deeply believing Catholic country. Leading French left-wingers criticised the government of President Jacques Chirac for lowering flags on public buildings in tribute to the Pope for a day, arguing that it was a breach of the country’s secular principles.

Protestant countries like the US, Britain, Sweden, Denmark etc., declared no national mourning. The same was true for countries like Russia, Greece, Ukraine under the Eastern Orthodox Church. Of about 100 Christian countries, just a dozen, all insignificant ones apart from Italy and Canada, declared a mourning. Only Egypt, a predominantly Muslim country with hardly any Catholics amongst its Coptic Christian minority, declared a mourning.......

erm.. and how is this relevant to south park, CO?? maybe use the mutiny tips email address instead of hijacking this thread, jack!

You forgot the union jack painted on Anna's face, heh.

You forgot the union jack painted on Anna's face, heh.

???

Perhaps refers to Anna favouring Anglicised spellings.

and there's a need to go there...why?

Anna-hating (feels like a whole bunch of morons out there trashing a desi sister for no apparent reason) has reached abysmal depths - certainly far worse than GC's race-baiting posts. Houston/Vij, we need a comments (quality) control program immediately!

Show the south park character maker some love.

I think if Anna controlled her abrasiveness toward others and made new commenters feel more welcome instead of antagonizing them immediately, SM would not have this hating issue. Maybe it's just how she speaks/writes, but others who don't know her could easily perceive her as rude and be driven to retaliate. I think if Anna worked on this things would get better for her.

Truth is, people aren't going to dog someone out for being fat/dark if the person is nice.

I think if Anna controlled her abrasiveness toward others and made new commenters feel more welcome instead of antagonizing them immediately

..and this happened when ?

dear flaming hotness,

I have exactly the same question as blank above: when was Anna ever rude to newbie commenters such as you. Dude, just show us some evidence of this so-called 'abrasiveness' if you have any. I’ve been reading SM for the last 8 months (or so) and the only time I have seen any of the bloggers here ever lash out (albeit in a civil way) is when they receive abusive comments from scum like you.

your loving halon-supressant,
liberal pundit

Whoever is using my call sign "Blank" to post, please stop doing so. The above poster is not me.

Liberal Pundit- Since you are already so biased towards her, I see no point giving too many examples to humor your rude ass...not like you'd actually understand the concept of being rude yourself.

me:At least in America desis aren't persecuted in REAL LIFE on a daily basis. I'm so glad I'm in America.

anna:after your bizarre comment on abhi's cute "south park" post, *i'm* not
sure i'm glad you're here.
---

some dude:I lost respect for her after she dated Salman Khan.He battered her and still she hung on with him for a long time.Finally better sense prevailed and she moved on to boy toy Vivek.

anna:you can lose respect for me too. here's a thought-- before you casually, cravenly dash off comments about people whom you don't know- try to remember that it's not your or our place to judge. we're all human, you're not perfect either.

some dude:Anna-
Ash was beaten on multiple ocassions and she still stuck around with Salman.She is unofrtunately a kind of role model for many young girls and what was the message she was sending them : It's ok for your boyfriend/husband to bash you!You should still stay with them .
I personally believe one incident of physical abuse is one too many.

*no apology from anna*

I could go on and on, but I won't waste my time on you. This is simply meant to be constructive criticism (since Anna-hating is an issue), not an attack on Anna. Anna tends to assume commenters are personally attacking her, and then feels she has the right to talk to them however she deems fit. Just my speculation on why she has so many haters.

You see my picture above. I don't have a Union Jack on my face but I do have a knife and a straight jacket. Quite frankly its because I am insane and highly unpredictable. I also have a very low threshold for taking shit from people and a bit of a God-complex when it comes to blogging. I am still VERY lovable though. :)

Flaminghotness, you are banished. Why? Not because you are dogging Anna. Its a free country and I know that it will roll off her back. I also don't like defending people because I feel it is a dis-service to them. I am banning you because I don't like people with bad karma leaving comments on my blog. I already know that you have bad karma simply by reading how you "think." Is this unfair of me? Absolutely. Honestly though if you look in the picture above I am drooling. I am surprised you noticed the lack of a Union jack on Anna but not the spittle dribbling down my chin. I am a bad-ass m*ther-f*cker. I feel like giving you a Samuel L. Jackson Pulp Fictionesque speech right now, but quite frankly I save my best material for live people, instead of shadowy comment leavers. Also I want to go to bed.

p.s. if you are female, I apologize for speaking so harshly to a lady. Yes, even bad-ass mo-fos can be gentlemen

Liberal Pundit, how's that for quality control?

flaming shitbag,

Truth is, people aren't going to dog someone out for being fat/dark if the person is nice.

Firstly, being South Indian myself and from a state that makes no bones about loving curvy women, your comment comes off as totally obnoxious and hateful (and in what way was the above comment constructive, you spineless paranoid stalker). Secondly, your idiotarian brain has obviously no sense of context - Anna was clearly responding to the hate mail TMBWITW was getting incessantly. Also, she linked to an incident from her personal life about an abusive ex-boyfriend which shows that anyone get stuck in a scatological relationship. Finally, I have no problems being her subservient lackey or SM's faithful fan. SM is a community blog and these guys do a wonderful job - if you can't show some appreciation, atleast quit writing vindictive comments.

no apologies for scumbags,
liberal pundit

Abhi,

Have I ever disagreed with a fellow liberal :>) Quality control is certainly a much-vaunted 'liberal' skill and your speech above clearly demonstrates that ;)

Cheers,
liberal pundit

See, Manish, I was right about you getting a haircut.

ANNA~hating is a disease with misogyny at its root. To hear people complain of her 'abrasiveness' is funny. It reflects the inferiority complex of its accusers more than anything else.

Note: Abusive, content-free, or commercial comments, long, obscure rants and requests for celebrities’ contact info may be deleted. Unless they’re funny. It’s all good then.

He's not funny. Zap him.

Abhi, Liberal Pundit, others

Thanks for banishing this tool bag. Quite frankly, the thread on Susan's Choice yesterday left me feeling really disgusted and upset with some people's need to insult others, while hiding behind anonymous covers, instead of using their brains and grasping the mission of Sepia Mutiny and this amazingly bright, articulate, intelligent community all 7 of you have created. Thank you for dealing with the offenders both promptly and sternly; but of course you did, because you're stand up human beings.

Besides, it's easier than me flaming people because I just don't understand why so many brown brothers have to hate on a gorgeous sister with a brilliant mind, too. You say she's abrasive, but I would be willing to wager that if it were one of the guys being as curt with you, you'd not bat an eye. What was your problem, flamingtepidloser, did she challenge your intellect, did she shake you out of complacency and make you think? Anna's done these things for me and I thank her for it; I, for one, am grateful that she is here to challenge the dull and tired patterns of thinking and comfortable ignorances.

Nothing but love for the Magnificent Seven of you :)

Peace,
DesiDancer

Jeez this thread was promising to be funny before sundry douchebags hijacked the thread...

The anna-bashing is just getting so tired and old. just read the post and comment if you have something to contribute to a discussion. anna and everyone else on this blog take time out of their lives to write these entries for people's enjoyment, not to get attacked. if you don't like the way they write a post, or the way the respond, don't comment....read the post and that's it.
this was a cute and funny entry and it got turned into something ugly....the other post where anna got attacked was a serious and touching entry and someone has to go off on not posting the whole article???
can't sm just make a general rule that any comment, including comments made by any of the sm crew (not that there are any), that make personal attacks will be deleted? that way, once you guys saw the comment it would just be deleted and that way no one, including anna, needs to spend time defending anna's weight, color or any other personal choice she decides to make in her life.
i'm not trying to say anyone is wrong for defending her, sometimes, its just too much not to respond, but that the more people respond the more crazy and attacking the comments get. Let all the attacking comments just get deleted.

indomitus: right on!

i'm having way too much fun with this south park character maker. just made south park versions of me and my wife. too funny!