Biden's Afghan ClusterF

When it comes to the whole Afghan clusterF, the guy we thought would be the more empathetic and experienced alternative to Trump, apparently turns out not to be such.

As if he's learning from the predecessor he cannot utter the name of ..

- The whole business of not admitting - at the least an intelligence failure, 

- or simply doubling down that the fault lies with everyone but his administration 

- or keep stating that we only care about American interest and American troops (suddenly not so much about Afghans)

The first step in fixing something is to admit there was a problem - with the execution of US retreat. If our intelligence said we probably have a year before the fall of the government - then there was a clear failure of the intelligence and someone should have been held responsible.

I was waiting to hear someone say there was a failure and here's how we're fixing it..

I was waiting to hear someone say while we care about American interests first, we highly value the lives of the Afghan people and here's how we're going to help them after we have left. They deserve better treatment from us - not like a traitor. 

Writing to Representatives for action against the Capitol Riot 01/06

Senator John Cornyn
517 Hart Senate Office Building  
Washington, DC, 20510

Senator Ted Cruz

Representative John Carter
2110 Rayburn House Office Building  
Washington, DC, 20515


Dear Congressman Carter,

I am appalled by the attacks on Capitol yesterday.

Texans watched with disbelief as the attackers, who had been incited and encouraged by the President, threatened our elected officials and staff and destroyed public property as they stormed and occupied both the House and Senate chambers bringing our democracy to a halt. At one point, these insurrectionists even removed an American flag flying at the Capitol and replaced it with a Trump flag. If the rioters got there in time, they would have attacked all of you regardless of whether you supported the President or not. To them, you are the swamp that needs to be drained. 

Earlier in the morning, the President encouraged them to march to the Capitol to protest the certification of the electoral college votes. He remained silent as the attackers continued their attacks, even after multiple elected officials asked him to call them off. 

We also saw last Saturday that the President asked the election officials in Georgia to find more votes to overturn the election results. Even before the election, he refused to commit to a peaceful transition of power. We have now seen the fruit of the President's remarks in the violence and chaos unleashed yesterday. 

I strongly believe that the President is not mentally sound and is still unable to process and accept the results of the 2020 election. His willingness to incite violence and social unrest to overturn the election results by force clearly meet this standard. So too are his recent Tweets and remarks, saying the election was "stolen". The President does not hesitate to unleash unrest and violence of his supporters on anyone who does not support his opinion and agenda, which to me, is a sign of an autocrat who does not have an affiliation to any political party.
 
For the sake of our democracy, it is imperative that we do everything in our power to remove the President from power. He has shown many times in the past that he is unwilling to protect our Democracy and carry out the duties of the office. 

As a constituent, I urge you to find the courage to insist that Donald Trump must no longer be the President of the United States. We must remove this corrupt, unstable, bigoted, and extremely dangerous man from the presidency. I urge you to communicate to Vice President Mike Pence to invoke the 25th amendment to remove the President from office immediately. If the Vice President is unable to take action, I urge you to support the impeachment process and vote to impeach him on our behalf. 
Regardless of however few days he has left in the office and however long it may take for any of the removal process, I urge you to support the process so that he is held accountable for inflicting damage on our democracy.

I urge you, as a fellow Texan, with strong family values, decency and honor, to represent us to reinstate rule of law, accountability and decency in the office of the President of the United States.
Thank you,
--
regards,

US Election 2020 - Human Progress

Social progress has been slow in the USA. For things like gender equality, college for all, healthcare as a human right, income inequality and higher minimum wage, BLM and LGBTQ+ equality, climate concerns - progress had been slow over the past decades. For many of the progressive like Bernie and his supporters (myself included), perhaps the progress had been 'too slow' for the collective wisdom of the nation.  

But progress is inevitable. One hundred years ago women could not vote; black folks were not considered human by many. Now, they are unquestionable. So, progressives may be ahead of their time - but always on the right side of the human history. Perhaps that was one of the reasons why so many of the Primary candidates followed Bernie's message. Progressives cannot make progress alone though. They need partners in the Senate and the House and in the White House. 

Whatever forward leaps we made in the previous 8 years, it feels like we have regressed three steps backward in the past 4 years. All in the name of tax cuts, small government etc. deceivingly wrapped in shiny words like 'freedom', 'faith' etc. Add to that the total mismanagement of the pandemic and the 230,000+ deaths. 

Oh.. and sliding down in presidential decency was a bonus!

In the past few months, I have seen Bernie and his team working tirelessly, with their incessant social media campaigns like virtual town halls, to get Biden elected. "Our fight is not over - we need partner in the White House. If you believe in our agenda, vote for Biden" - Bernie said. 

Whether we win or lose - we keep our sleeves rolled up and continue fighting the good fight - towards human progress. I hope this time, all our Bernie dreamers, all our conscientious conservatives, all our liberals and moderates will vote for Biden to fight for humanity over everything else. 

Oh.. and restoring the presidential decency will be a bonus!!

#BidenHarris2020

US Election 2020

Even though Trump is a vile human being - a misogynist, a bully, an unempathetic pathological liar, a borderline racist, a failed businessman (according to his tax and bankruptcy records) among other things, I do have a few friends who will vote for Trump - unconvinced by our plea to make American presidency decent again! To them, the small government, the tax cut along with all the usual deep state conspiracy theories are much more significant, even at the cost of social progress - like health care, education for all, social justice, reducing income inequality, assisting unemployed people etc.

For many of the moderates and progressives, 2016 was a shock. All the national polls were wrong and all of the national media kept repeating the polls as if the election was a done deal. They kept talking about what Trump would do after losing the election. I remember all of them including CNN, PBS, NPR were talking about TrumpTV. In fact, media's broadcasting "it's all over for Trump" - was a contributing factor why Clinton lost - people just didn't bother to go vote. Yes, media helped Trump win in 2016.

So I hope all of my friends, acquaintances and strangers would stop looking at any polls and would go out and vote this time - and not sit this election out.

Over the last four years, many of the Trump voters have become more vocal. They are fairly well versed with opinion-based engineered facts - thanks to social media and Fox News like propaganda machines. When you talk to them - BLM issues are counter argued by the need for Law & Order; HealthCare and education are counter argued by the Freedom to choose; Abortion and LGBTQ issues are counter argued by the need to be 'governed by God'. These people posses a general affection for autocrats and dictators - sort of like saying - 'someone ought to give these politicians a good beating'. Their opinions and views are probably more hardened over the last four years. Even as recent failure as covid with 215,000 death in the US, they respond by saying - "you cannot blame Trump for a pandemic" - in other words, focus on the disease, not how it is managed.

But I cannot help thinking - couldn't there be some Trump voters who would look at the four years and reconsider their choice? Could there be enough of them to make a difference? May be this time - they are shy about expressing their dissatisfaction with Trump.

Remember in 2016, many Trump voters publicly remained quiet and then voted for him at the polls?

Well, I hope this time, many Trump voters will quietly and privately vote for the other guy at the polls.

I can hope.. can't I?

https://youtu.be/Idi_M9ISor0

Eid, Ramadan during Covid-19 pandemic

This pandemic caused our Eid and Ramadan to be quite different this year and the experience has been very humbling and somber. We lost people - some to Covid-19, some to other reasons, some near and dear ones and some famous folks. These losses along with constant panic and fear have eroded our confidence.
But we've also found ways to celebrate our occasions. For Eid, we've visited our near and dear ones with our facemasks on and shared some moments together six feet apart, sometimes just standing outside their doors. We've celebrated virtual Birthdays with family and friends over zoom and we've celebrated Drive-by Graduation parties. All within the last month.
But what left a lasting impression from this month was seeing the overwhelming number of people being kind to one another and being charitable. Going into Ramadan, we were raising funds for SpaandanB Austin's project to distribute food for the poor and desperate in Bangladesh locked down. People have been generous and are continuing to help the poor through different fundraisers and organizations like ours and like Biddyanondo. We've also seen people dropping off boxed Iftar for each other which also prompted the recipients to be equally and sometimes more generous to drop off Iftar. Kindness is definitely contagious. Some of us were involved in helping our local community with food and groceries for people who need them. Zafar and MYNA's outreach along with Sarah's Ramadan Cookout were some of them that are so inspiring in these somber times.
I hope our friends and families will continue their kindness, generosity, volunteerism and charity beyond Ramadan and Eid. 

Scrum is not rigid

In a software development team, Scrum process prescribes a designated Product Owner and a Scrum Master. As recommended, these roles should be full-time roles - meaning, ideally a team should not designate one of the team members to play either of these roles part-time while doing his/her own job. However, in a start-up environment, it may not be possible to hire someone full-time for the Product Owner and the Scrum Master roles.

While the team manager makes it a priority to hire people for these roles in the long term or when budget allows, the team must improvise and figure out how to fulfill these roles. Those who adhere to the Scrum process too rigidly are often opposed to the idea of improvising. Sometimes they are unwilling to start the process until all the right people are found. This rigidity damages the team morale, the team's existing process and eventually affects the product.
To state the obvious, what works for one team may not work for another. It is up to the team to decide what elements of the Scrum they can adopt right away and what they would improvise. Scrum relies on the Sprint Retrospectives to "inspect and adapt" - to review whether the improvisations worked and what corrections are needed.
In some teams, the team manager plays the role of the Product Owner until a full-time one is hired, since the team manager is probably communicating with the necessary stakeholders. In other teams, the Project Manager or the Product Manager temporarily plays the role of the Product Owner.
In the absence of a full time Scrum Master, some teams select their QA lead to take on the role until a full time is hired. Team lead or other team members can also alternate as Scrum Master. Team can also rotate the role for a sprint among the members.
The associated cost of team members taking on multiple roles is lower than not having a process until all necessary roles are hired.
Scrum provides a standard framework - the teams should be flexible enough to adopt some of it and improve upon the rest sprint by sprint to make a quality product, not to make a quality process.