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We've forfeited the rights to our own tragedies. As the carnage in Mumbai raged on, day after horrible day, our 24-hour news channels informed us that we were watching "India's 9/11." And like actors in a Bollywood rip-off of an old Hollywood film, we're expected to play our parts and say our lines, even though we know it's all been said and done before.

As tension in the region builds, U.S. Senator John McCain has warned Pakistan that, if it didn't act fast to arrest the "bad guys," he had personal information that India would launch air strikes on "terrorist camps" in Pakistan and that Washington could do nothing because Mumbai was India's 9/11.

But November isn't September, 2008 isn't 2001, Pakistan isn't Afghanistan, and India isn't America. So perhaps we should reclaim our tragedy and pick through the debris with our own brains and our own broken hearts so that we can arrive at our own conclusions.

We all know the effects of media on our perception of things going around us. It is very essential for us to know that whatever our media bodies are trying to sell us is really true and not twisted in favor of one side. Sad thing that we learn from the recent events around us though is that, there is a PR campaign going on which doesn't allow us to get the real picture on the grounds. Here is a short documentary The Normalization of Horror which highlights state of our media.

They wrote the names of the dead children on their plastic shrouds. " Mehdi Hashem, aged seven ­ Qana," was written in felt pen on the bag in which the little boy's body lay. "Hussein al-Mohamed, aged 12 ­ Qana", "Abbas al-Shalhoub, aged one ­ Qana.'' And when the Lebanese soldier went to pick up Abbas's little body, it bounced on his shoulder as the boy might have done on his father's shoulder on Saturday. In all, there were 56 corpses brought to the Tyre government hospital and other surgeries, and 34 of them were children. When they ran out of plastic bags, they wrapped the small corpses in carpets. Their hair was matted with dust, most had blood running from their noses.

On March 31st, Islamic Relief along with ICSD is organising Fundraiser for the Victims of South Asian Earthquake. You can find more information about the event at ICSD Blog . Guest Speakers for the event are former captiains, Moin Khan and Rashid Latif from Pakistan Cricket team.

Imagine all the data in the internet as ocean and useful information as fish, then our evil search engine warlord: Google, becomes a giant fish store. Atleast, Yahoo guys think so. Here is little prank that Yahoo engineers played highlighting Google on thier Local Business directory as Dude's Fish store. Gotta love their twisted fun.

Islamic Relief organized Humanitarian Day yesterday at skid row, Los Angeles Downtown distributing food, clothing, vaccines, blankets and providing live clinical tests to the homeless on the spot.

There is this join community effort via wiki to gather information about recent Earthquake in Pakistan/India. There is also listing of the organizations taking donations for the victims on the wiki. In San Diego Area, ICSD is accepting donations in form of tents, blankets, wool sweaters, jackets and gloves. You can drop it at their office which is located on Balboa Ave. More info on their website.