Wonder what’s bothering Washington (Post)?

Indians are the biggest savers in the world. Can buying a few grams of gold be termed as lust? Sin, covetousness?

From India struggles to balance its books as citizens lust for gold – The Washington Post | 2012-05-18 19-55-55 |

International crisis

Are purchases of gold by Indian consumers an international problem?

Washington (Post) teams thinks so.

Washington (Post) thinks it is in the same league as the Greek economy; elections in Egypt or the breakdown of the State in Pakistan’s frontier areas. (See graphic above).

Let’s understand this ‘issue’ better!

In India, the world’s biggest annual bullion importer, gold jewelry plays a central role in weddings and festivals. India imported 933 metric tons of gold for private consumers last year, a 35 percent rise over five years and just under a quarter of global demand, according to the World Gold Council.

Indian households’ disposable incomes grew by 13 percent during the 2010-11 financial year, but the amount in their bank accounts rose by only 3 percent, according to official data.

High inflation often renders the idea of financial savings unappealing, and many people in rural areas lack access to banks.

India is struggling to balance its books partly because its citizens keep buying gold. The country’s current account, the difference between the value of its imports and exports of goods, services and financial-transfer payments, is running at a deficit of about 4 percent, largely because of high import bills for oil and gold — India bought 969 metric tons of bullion last year at an overall cost of $48 billion.

The lack of money in Indian bank accounts forces the government and private companies to borrow abroad, pushing the country further into the red.

“You’re not looking at something sustainable. The balance of payments becomes very skewed,”

The International Monetary Fund predicts that India’s economy will grow by 6.9 percent this year, a significant drop from the double-digit rates touched in recent years.

India’s government has been trying to exert some control this spring. (via India struggles to balance its books as citizens lust for gold – The Washington Post).

How India’s gold buying affects the world

Has crime rate in India gone up in India to fund gold consumption.

Not true.

India has low crime rates; lowest imprisonment ratios, a small police force – despite a huge number of unlicensed firearms, with really poor people.

Is the Indian Government likely to renege on its debt obligation? India has not in its history defaulted on sovereign debt.

Have Indian consumers borrowed large amounts and likely to default on their obligations to international lenders? Indians consumer debt is contracted locally – and hence Washington (Post) has no cause for worry.

Are Indians causing international flare-ups to fulfill their ‘lust for gold’?

Have Indians annihilating people?

Like the British did with Australian aborigines? Or the Spanish and European migrants did to Native Americans in North and South America? Or committed gross human rights violations like the Belgian king in Congo? Have Indians enslaved millions or invaded other countries – like Europe did in the Scramble for Africa?

Answer – None of the above.

James Gillray, a leading caricaturist in 1797, in his print Midas, published after Bank Restriction Act came into force. Prime Minister William Pitt the Younger (28 May 1759 – 23 January 1806) is using the Bank of England as a commode. From both his rear end and his mouth Pitt is showering the English people with new currency notes that also are in his paper crown. | Image source – rc.umd.edu. | Click for a larger scan.

Call this lust …

Lust – meaning.

Usually the words associated with lust are

deadly sin, mortal sin, craving, appetite, or great desire, desire, longing, passion, appetite, craving, greed, thirst, cupidity, covetousness, crave, yearn for, covet

After paying international prices, can there be covetousness, cupidity, deadly sin, mortal sin? The Japanese save money in pension funds; Americans buy gilt-bonds and shares, British savers buy shares and put money in insurance and mutual funds.

Indians buy gold.

How can retail buying of gold by small people be described as lust. Most families in India have less than 100 gm of gold. Is that craving, longing, passion, greed, cupidity?

Would you call Indians lustful, if they do not wish to undergo the fate of the British people?

War by other means

This portrayal of the Indian consumer as sinner smacks of aggressive intent.

First demonize and then annihilate. It is not as though the Indian Government is cornering the gold market – and trying to destabilize the world currency system – ramshackle as it is.

So why this attempt to demonize the Indian consumer?

If this is causing a trade imbalance, does Washington (Post) demonize American consumers – for their oil consumption, for their garbage generation? For creating a housing bubble and credit balloon which burst – causing global misery. For running a a 100-year old trade imbalance, that has only been reversed, when the US used war materiel production to enhance economic activity.

So, if crime is not the issue, default is unlikely, why are these dem fine White folks so worried about us Injuns?

On a clear day

Ahh! I get it.

It must be the Washington (Post) acting in Christian spirit of being their Injun Brother’s keeper. They are trying to save us Injun’s from ourselves.

We stoo-pid, silly Injuns.

Why can’t we take advice from Washington (Post)?

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Death of Indian Shipbuilding

Bengal, which Mughal rulers described as paradise on earth, became a hell on earth during the British Raj. Right from the Famine of 1765 to the 1943 Great Bengal Famine which killed at least 3-4 million..

Note: Read 'f' as 's', where needed. | From: The ... report from the Select Committee of the House of Commons on the Affairs of the East India Company (Google eBook) | Published in Great Britain | Author: Select Committee on the Affairs of the East India Company, East India Company (London) | Publisher: Cambray | Year: 1810

Gunpowder capital of the world

After the Battle of Plassey (1757), the British gained control of Bengal – which was India’s major industrial centre. For the British, the most valuable product from Bengal was saltpetre – nitrate, the essential ingredient in gunpowder.

In 1757, right up to WWI, India manufactured more nitrate (essential for gunpowder manufacture) than the rest of the world put together. An intricate technology, no other country in the world manufactured gunpowder products, as much as India, of such good quality. For the British, Bengal’s gunpowder production was the passport to a world empire.

Gunpowder apart, Bengal was a major textile centre, famous for shipbuilding and a significant agricultural centre.

Lockstep in Bengal

Between 1757 and the Battle of Buxar (1765), the British moved step at a time, to tighten their grip on Bengal.

One of the first steps was to create a famine. After Buxar for the next two hundred years, the Bengal region started witnessing famines that continued upto 1943, when some 30-40 lakhs Indians died in Bengal (3-4 million).

Bengal which was intricately connected by thousands of kilometres of waterways and canals, had lakhs of boats plying up and down the region. In 1788 came the order that killed shipbuilding in Bengal. Today it may seem fantastic, but more than 20 different types of boats, were used. Each of them built for different use.

Chronicles of India

In the eighteenth and nineteenth century, wonder-stuck Europeans spent years making etching and woodcuts, that are today the main surviving record of that age gone by.

The Mughals built the world’s largest treasury of the world – and even after that, India was a major economic power. After the end of Mughal power in 1857, in the next 100 years of the British Raj, we see India become a starving, naked and homeless population.

And in the last 65 years, India has again become the fourth largest economy in the world.

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Famous Last Words

Many Indians willingly credit the British Raj with the unification of India. This is a claim worth examining – especially in the backdrop of the War of 1857.

Kashmiri Gate was evidence of the heavy fighting between the British army and the Indian defenders. This was a double gateway to Delhi, built in 1835, on the north wall of Delhi, by a British engineer, it suffered from major assault by British forces. Later this became a major draw for British tourists. In 1858, Delhi was besieged by British, and this gate was the scene of the final assault on Delhi by forces under Brigadier John Nicholson. | Image of Kashmiri Gate from Felice Beato photographs. | Source & courtesy - bbc.co.uk. | Click for larger image.

Divide … or unite?

There is a modern myth, especially among the English-speaking Indian élite, that the British ‘unified’ India.

This is a little strange, because in the next breath, the same people will also claim that the British could rule over India because of divide et impera – divide-and-rule policy of the British.

The Delhi Bank building wrecked during the Anglo-Indian War of 1857. The Delhi Bank, set up in 1847, owned by the Dyce Sombre family in Delhi, had other local businessmen as shareholders, was housed in this stately building. In May 1857, the manager of the bank, one Beresford, was killed by the rebels during the fighting. British forces took back the bank in September. | Image source & courtesy - bbc.co.uk | Click for larger image.

So did the British divide-and-rule over India – or did they unify India.

Or were the British able flip around their policy by 180 degrees, on a regular basis?

A simple question that begs asking is ‘why would the British want to unite India.’

If India was a divided lot?

British legacy

Before making this claim, no one is looking at the British record in other parts of the world.

Starting with their own backyard.

More than two centuries after the annexation of Ireland in 1801, Northern Ireland, a small part of Ireland that Britain occupies, has still not been integrated into the UK. Coming to the Middle East, the British worked hard to break up the moderate Islāmic Ottoman Empire – releasing a global wave of fundamentalist Islam. British record in Cyprus, Malaysia has been equally disastrous.

Or the other British creation, Pakistan, broke into two, within 25 years.

Another angle of Bank of Delhi building. The street fights between Indian warriors with the British colonialists. | Image source & courtesy - prophotos-ru.livejournal.com | Click for larger image.

None of the above examples have the complications of language, religion, race that India has. So how did British achieve the singular feat of uniting people who speak hundreds of languages and dialects, dress differently, worship differently, into one nation?

Something that they could or would not do in any other part of the world!

Not British, but Gandhiji

There are others who would claim that it was Gandhiji who did this? Although Gandhiji could and did bring many disparate elements together, it could not have happened, without a pre-existing ‘bias’ among Indians.

Much before Gandhiji was even born, soon after the start of the Anglo-Indian War of 1857, (aka The Sepoy Mutiny of 1857), an American journalist wrote on India.

Army movements and transport in circa 1857. Elephants, camels, oxen, horses, mules, hauling cannon, carts, luggage, people over long distances. Pitched battles were fought - and this was no mutiny. | Image source and courtesy - bbc.co.uk | Click for image.

We are so accustomed to speak of India as if it constituted one country, and were inhabited by homogeneous people, that it is difficult to understand that not even in Europe are nations to be found more unlike to one another than in British India. In Hindostan and the Deccan there are ten different civilized nations, resembling each other no more than Danes resemble Italians, or Spaniards Poles. They differ in moral, physical, and intellectual conditions, — in modes of thought and in modes of life. This is one of the chief causes of England’s supremacy, just as similar state of things not only promoted the conquests of Rome, but facilitated her rule after they had been made. The Emperors ruled over Syrians, Greeks, Egyptians, and other Eastern peoples, with ease, because they had little in common, and could not combine against their conquerors. (via British India by Charles Creighton Hazewell).

This 'picket' fence could not safeguard the 1000-acre estate of Metcalfe against the local people, who stormed the barricade after the war broke out. | Photographer Felice Beato's Image; Source & courtesy - bbc.co.uk | Click for larger image.

Mutiny that lasted for more than a year

One proof of this unity in India was the 1857 War against Colonial England.

Finally, Britain’s new-found wealth from slavery, piracy, loot from the Spanish Empire, coupled with British brutality against Indians defeated the Indians in 1857.

This ‘mutiny’ lasted for nearly two years, had lakhs of soldiers, moving across the Deccan plateau and the Indo-Gangetic plains. The triangular region, measuring across nearly 2000 km (Nagpur to Dhaka to Rawalpindi) had coördinated troop movements, needed huge volumes of arms and armaments, that had to bought.

This war was fought simultaneously on multiple fronts.

How was the spontaneous Sepoy mutiny coördinated across such a huge geography, for so long, with such a huge cost. The fighting, mainly between 10 May 1857 to the capture of Gwalior (20 June 1858), was an expensive affair, and extended to nearly two years.

While the main theater of war was Deccan plateau and the Indo-Gangetic plains, disturbances spread to Burma, Malaysia, Trinidad.

After the blood on the ground dried, after the dead were buried, and the dust settled, the iron pillar at Mehrauli in Delhi was still standing. | Image source & courtesy - Image source & courtesy - prophotos-ru.livejournal.com | Click for larger image. | Click for larger image.

Republic of 65 years

65 years ago, when the British could not no longer stay in India, British apart, there were many Indians who predicted that India will break up – and soon.

65 years later, the Indian republic is the only Republican democracy, apart from USA, to have lasted for more than 50 years without a break down. Though smaller countries like Switzerland, Israel, Singapore, can make a similar claim, they do not generate the same challenges to create a historic landmark.

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• Art Review: ‘Princes and Painters in Mughal Delhi’ at Asia Society (nytimes.com)
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Aryan Britain

Before WWII, British journalists, editors and writers wrote of Britain’s Aryan past. One writer made out a significant case, in his books, that Britain was the homeland of Aryans.

Britain – Homeland of the Aryans

While, ‘Aryan’ Germany has been a matter of much analysis, controversy, condemnation, ‘Aryan’ Britain or ‘Aryan’ USA are glossed over – or completely ignored.

One booster for ‘Aryan’ Britain was a prominent journalist and editor in Britain before WWII. With many books to his credit, by significant publishers, William Comyns Beaumont, also known as Comyns Beaumont, moved from the Daily Mail to become an editor for two of the ‘Great Eight’.

When British publishers spoke of “The Great Eight” they meant the Graphic, Illustrated London News, Sphere, Sketch, Tatler, Bystander, Britannia & Eve, Illustrated Sporting & Dramatic News—all published by Illustrated Newspapers Ltd. Last week the eight were reduced to-seven. Instead of their weekly copies of the Graphic, U. S. subscribers received instead notice that the famed 62-year-old paper was no more. (via The Press: Eight Less One – TIME).

William Comyns Beaumont, also known as Comyns Beaumont, (1873–1956) was a British journalist, author, and lecturer. Beaumont was a staff writer for the Daily Mail and eventually became editor of the Bystander in 1903 and then The Graphic in 1932.

Among Beaumont’s propositions were:

• catastrophic climate changes were the results of the action of asteroids on the earth.
• The Egyptian dynasties up to the 13th century BC ruled in South Wales.
• Jerusalem was originally located in Edinburgh.
• The works of Shakespeare were written by Francis Bacon.
• Francis Bacon was the illegitimate son of Queen Elizabeth I.
• There is a Zionist plot to undermine the British Empire.
• Part of this plot was disinformation disseminated by means of the Bible, which concealed the fact that the Holy Lands were in Britain, not in Palestine.
• The British Isles were Atlantis.
• Jesus was born in Glastonbury, and his life played out in Somerset.
• Beaumont accepted the existence of giants based on folklore, mythology, traditions and archeology as real. Beaumont believed that Britain was the location of Atlantis and that it was occupied by a giant race of Aryans. (via William Comyns Beaumont – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia).

An extract from his book

British Mainstream Thinking 1930s | From: The Riddle of Prehistoric Britain By Comyns Beaumont | Page 21 | Click to go to books.google.com

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China’s solution to corruption

Two birds with one stone - Underpaid government employee of the past; and glib rejection of corruption charges. (Cartoon by RK Laxman). Click for larger image.

China believes it is a corrupt nation

China has a big ‘corruption’ problem. Apart from Western media reports, China’s own media confirms,

Corruption has long haunted the ruling Communist Party of China. The Party’s General Secretary, Hu Jintao, once said that “determined punishment and effective prevention of corruption concerns… the existence of the Party”. (via Former official executed by lethal injection).

A report carried by Time magazine, says that

The current level of corruption in China is systematic and widespread. It is so entrenched that honest officials are now part of a minority that risks being left behind. It is a system where corruption is the rule rather than the exception. According to the Chinese professor Hu Xing Do, 99% of the corrupt officials will never be caught. The few who do get caught are simply considered unlucky, and even if their punishment is typically heavy, the dissuasive effect remains minimal.

They have an answer

The Chinese answer to corruption has been death penalty. Liberally, widely, explicitly. A bullet in the head. Finito. Finito. Fini. Ände. Revestimento. Vuoden. Eind. Ende. final de la muerte. отделка . Τέλος.

That is the Chinese answer. To further ram home the point (in case the bullet does not do the trick), these executions are photographed, televised, published in newspapers, covered by the media.

Cant miss it.

Everyone must get equal opportunity at corruption. (Cartoon by Kirish Bhatt; courtesy - bamulahija.blogspot.com). Click for larger image.

Strike Hard

In 1983, Deng Xiaoping initiated what were called ‘Strike-Hard’ campaigns. Based on traditional imperial Chinese attitudes and wisdom, apparent from

traditional sayings like “a life for a life,” “killing one to warn a hundred,” “killing a chicken to warn a monkey” are embodiments of these retributive and deterrent beliefs.

Deng, who initiated the strike-hard campaigns in light of the rampant crimes, commented that the authorities could not be soft on crime, and the death sentence was “a necessary educative tool”

This thinking continues in China

The notion of “returning like for like” is rooted in China. The majority of the public could not accept that some murderers could go free after 10 years’ imprisonment.

It is believed in modern China that,

death penalty does have a strong deterrent effect. Studies do suggest that one execution deters five to 18 potential murderers from committing the ultimate crime. Though there is no detailed study on the death penalty’s deterrent effect on corruption cases, it can be expected to play a similar role. If corruption is struck off the capital punishment list in such a situation, there is a fear that all hell would break loose. (via Opinion: Corruption has to stay capital crime).

From the Deng’s initial ‘Strike-Hard’ campaign in 1983, crimes that qualify for death penalty has increased from 32 to 68 – ranging from corruption to embezzlement, smuggling and tax evasion.

The State has simply public appetite for vengeance, killings and torture. (Cartoon from chinadaily.com.cn/).

Simply lovin’ it

What do the Chinese people think of these killings, shootings and executions?

Public opinion in China is rooted in the eye-for-an-eye and a tooth-for-a-tooth idea of justice. Efforts by the Chinese authorities to reduce categories of crimes for which death penalty can be awarded, sparked suspicions that ‘abolishing the death penalty for economic-related and non-violent offences (was) a tool to help privileged officials involved in corruption crimes escape capital punishment’ (text in parentheses supplied).

Chinese public opinion and reactions borders on being vengeful. Pictures on the Chinese internet, of the execution of Wang Shouxin, a woman government official from northern province of Heilongjiang scored more than a million hits. In another case,

Hearing the news of Wen’s execution, some local residents lit firecrackers or held banners that read “Wen’s execution, Chongqing’s stability” at the gates of the Municipal High People’s Court and the municipal Communist Party Committee. (via Former official executed by lethal injection).

Time magazine reports of the Chinese ‘appetite’ for such killings and executions. Even as China tops the world in the number of executions and killings, there is

endless “public demand” for this kind of punishment and (by) the surging popular anger, it would seem that there is actually not enough of it. Of all the criminal cases in China, those involving corrupt officials sentenced to death arouse the greatest interest. The morbid examples abound: from the public cheering for the recent death sentences. People in China viscerally hate corruption and are reluctant to see the death penalty dropped. (text in parentheses supplied).

Was China always like this.

During the time when Buddhism at its peak in China, in early Tang dynasty (618 AD – 907 AD), ‘death penalty was abolished for a time during the reign of Tai Zong emperor (627-650), one of the Tang dynasty’s most admired rulers.’

Chinese plans and measures

The Chinese do understand, that these killings and executions are not the answer.

If cutting hands, legs, heads, was the solution, every Islamic shariat-country would have been free of crime. China has been killing people since 1983, for nearly 30 years, now. Chinese corruption should have reduced. With the largest prisoner-population in the world, with the biggest secret-service, police force, the US should have been crime-free. After a sustained levels of executions at a historic-high, China still believes, it has a corruption problem.

In fact, Time magazine goes further and announces, ‘China is the global leader for the number of corrupt officials who are sentenced to death, and actually executed each year- carrying out 90% of (the executions) worldwide. Though another report by Time Magazine gives a varying estimate that China ‘puts to death more people than the rest of the world combined — about 70% of the global total in 2008.’ In 2001, Amnesty International recorded and confirmed ‘more than 4,000 death sentences and nearly 2,500 executions in China.’ Chinese authorities do not release execution statistics, ‘but rights groups estimate that they number from about 5,000 to 12,000 annually.’

Is the Chinese Government happy with these killings and executions? Using Western models, ideas and thinking, the Chinese look to the West for solutions.

For the first time in 30 years, China’s top legislature proposed this week to reduce the number of crimes punishable by execution. The proposal, largely symbolic, has drawn renewed attention to China’s controversial death-penalty policy, under which 68 crimes are punishable by death.

13 nonviolent economic crimes — ranging from smuggling relics and endangered animals to faking VAT receipts — have been dropped in a pending amendment to China’s capital-punishment law. Convicts above the age of 75 will also be eligible for the exemption. If passed, the revised law could slash the total number of capital crimes in the country by up to 20%. (via China Reviews Death Penalty for Nonviolent Crimes – TIME).

For one, Chinese authorities seem quite amenable to adopting the Western labels of developing country and increased ‘supervision’ as the models to go with.

“As a developing country, China’s current food and drug safety situation is not very satisfactory because supervision of food and drug safety started late. Its foundation is weak so the supervision of food and drug safety is not easy,” (via Former SFDA chief executed for corruption).

Another senior government official echoed similar sentiments

“As for the death penalty, different countries have different situations and different cultural backgrounds,” (said) Gan Yisheng, head of the party’s Central Commission for Discipline Inspection.

“We still execute people who have committed serious economic crimes on consideration of China’s national condition and cultural background.” (via Execution defended as graft trial nears – The Standard).

After 30 years of sustained, public executions, all that the Chinese Government seems to have done is created a public appetite for more such killings and executions.

Justice that seems to have death and killings as its sole weapon. (Cartoon by Clay Bennett; courtesy - claybennett.com). Click for larger image.

An end in sight?

How do the Chines see a solution to this situation?

There is considerable disbelief in ‘political re-education’ – a hall-mark of Maoist system of criminal ‘reform’.

If political education is the answer to rampant corruption, then all the propaganda courses we are constantly exposed to would have solved the problem by now. While so many people are “beheaded,” executives at all levels are still determined to brave death by trying to (benefit from) corruption (via Blood, Justice and Corruption: Why the Chinese Love Their Death Penalty – TIME).

Press, elections, democracy?

More Western ideas are more acceptable in China.

It is thus obvious that the reason for corruption lies elsewhere, in the fact that there isn’t enough control and supervision over public power, and in the lack of democratic elections and freedom of the press. (via Blood, Justice and Corruption: Why the Chinese Love Their Death Penalty – TIME).

Some of China’s commentators believe that

It is also time to rope the mass media into this war. The Zhejiang provincial committee of the Communist Party has made a good start by expressly empowering its local media to scrutinize and keep an eye on public officials.

Educational ads should be telecast on TV, broadcast on the radio and published in newspapers, something that Hong Kong’s Independent Commission Against Corruption has been doing for a long time. (via Opinion: Corruption has to stay capital crime).

If democracy and free press were the answers, why is corruption so rampant in India. Not to mention the West?

People caught up between the State and gangs protected by the State. (Cartoon by Morparia). Click for larger image.

Echoes from India

China-style killing-and shooting has some admirers of in India. If the Chinese were successful at curbing corruption, it would be worth studying their approach. Have the Chines succeeded?

Anna Hazare, Baba Ramdev have captured the media’s attention – and possibly a significant part of ‘middle-India’ also. What Anna-Baba are proposing to impose is a ‘Hindu’ shariat in India. Cut of hands, legs, heads. Flog people. Nail them and jail them. The works. How can India remain backward?

Chetan Bhagat, an admirer of Chinese style anti-corruption campaign, and another darling of ‘middle-India’ has become a Hindu Shariat supporter. Since powerful politicians cannot be ’embossed’ or ‘tattooed’, Chetan Bhagat wrote on his forearm – मेरा नेता चोर है mera neta chor hai (My leader is a thief). He writes,

Contrast (India) with China where the punishment for the corrupt can be death by firing squad. Not only that, the family of the convict gets a bill for the bullets, just to emphasise the point that no one steals the nation’s money. (via Of Ravages And Kings – Times Of India).

(Cartoonist - Kirk Anderson on the Enron Case). Click for larger image.

Root of corruption

The source of corruption is power. Raw, unbridled power. That the modern State enjoys. More laws, more corruption, more crime. More police, more crime.

Any steps (like the Lok Pal) that empowers the State with more power will increase corruption. Reducing powers of the State reduces corruption. By eliminating monopoly, the Indian telecom sector saw a massive decrease in corruption. The opaque Indian railway ticketing system of the past encouraged corruption. That has been eliminated by bringing in transparency, through computerization. Like this Chinese commentator says

To tackle corruption at the roots, prevention is more important than punishment. China needs to thoroughly review its institutional system for preventing and combating corruption and for identifying and plugging loopholes. Corruption in many cases has been the result of power abuse. So we have to think of ways to curb such powers. (via Opinion: Corruption has to stay capital crime).

The three main areas where the State comes in is in land, wealth (as in gold), and people-to-people interaction. By injecting itself in the middle, the State creates abuse of power opportunities – leading to corruption. By arrogating the power of law and justice to itself, the State creates injustice. The end of corruption will be systemic change. End of Desert Bloc ideas. भारत-तंत्र Bharat-tantra has delivered corruption free regimes for centuries – and can do it again.

People get ready. Time for भारत-तंत्र Bharat-tantra.

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• Corruption Taints China’s Booming Telecoms (globalspin.blogs.time.com)
• Corruption, a World wide view: (hotdogfish.wordpress.com)