U.S. Midterm Elections

Now that the U.S. Midterm elections are over, both parties (Republicans and Democrats) are celebrating. The House was captured by Republicans from the Democrats. Republicans have 222 seats and Democrats have 213 seats. 218 seats are needed to become a majority party. The Senate has 50 democrats and 49 Republicans in a 100 member Senate. One seat is still undecided. Georgia Senate runoff election will be held on December 6. 

Republicans are happy that they captured the House. Democrats are happy that there was no Republican Tsunami. My interpretation of this is Democrats are happy that they are drowning only under 5 feet of water instead of 20 feet of water. 

Of the total of 435 House seats only 24 sitting members were defeated. 18 defeats for Democrats and 6 Republican defeats. It is very difficult in USA to defeat a sitting member of House or Senate. They all take very good care of their constituents. Whenever a citizen asks something to be done, their office will go out of the way to do it. Whether it is to request to arrange a tour of Washington, DC or to solve a problem with any Government agency or to write a letter to the U.S. Embassy and recommend a visa for the citizen’s uncle in a foreign country, they will do it immediately. (Most of the times U.S. Embassies will not act on their letters of recommendation.) 

I was really surprised by 2 Senate elections. 

One is for the State of Pennsylvania. John Fetterman, a Democrat won the Senate election. I was surprised by his win. He is not a sitting Senator. He is a nice and capable guy. On May 13, 2022, he suffered an ischemic stroke. He is suffering from auditory processing disorder. It is a problem with the way his ears and brain work together to understand sound. I was wondering how can he work as a Senator with that problem. Anyway, congratulations to John. 

My second surprise was that for the State of Georgia. As per Georgia rules, the winner must get at least 50+% of the vote to be declared a winner. 3 parties contested the elections. Democrats, Republicans, and Libertarian Party. By getting 2% of the total votes, Libertarian Party candidate denied both Democrats and Republicans to get 50+% of the votes. The other 2 candidates got around 49% of the votes each.  Therefore, there will be a run off election on December 6 between Democrat and Republican. 

The Republican candidate is Herschel Walker. He was an American Pro Football player. He is very popular.  He shattered and holds many records. He is kind of equivalent to Sachin Tendulkar in India. Can you imagine, if he ran for Parliament, Sachin not getting 50% of the vote in Maharashtra? We will know on December 6. 

I will end this blog post writing Donald Trump has announced he is a candidate for the Republican Party nomination for U.S. President in 2024. His most likely challenger within the Republican Party is Ron DeSantis. 

Stay tuned for my next blog post. I have a recommendation for both them to select this person as their Vice-Presidential nominee.

Advice to Elon Musk

I am writing this post with a “tongue-in-cheek” frame of mind. This is meant to be more on the humorous side and not meant to be a hot topic for debate regarding the merits and demerits of Elon Musk’s decision. 

Elon Musk has ordered Twitter employees must work 80 hours a week. Therefore, employees are resigning in droves. Here is an opportunity for Indians in India. My advice to Elon is to move his entire Twitter operations to India. 

They will work for 100 hours a week for ¼ of the salary paid to American employees. If a Software Engineer is getting $100k a year in USA (Rs.83 lakhs per year), Indians will work for $25k a year (Ra.20 lakhs per year). That is Rupees one lakh sixty-seven per month.

Provide them with free breakfast, lunch, and dinner. And, free beer every Friday evening. They will become Musk’s obedient servants. 

Government of India will like it because they will be getting lot of foreign exchange. 

Just thought of another Idea. Outsource the entire thingy to Mr. Narayana Murthi. He will hire people with lesser salary and get the job done. 

I am not a technical software guy. Twitter is an app that allows people to write 280 characters and express their opinion. Does it need 8000 employees to maintain an app?

UC Davis (Part 2 of 2)

Whenever I visit any College/University cafeteria in USA I am amazed how excellent they are and so many varieties of food to choose from.

By contrast when I was doing my college in Chennai, my dorm (hostel) canteen was just mediocre. They had two wings. One for vegetarian and another for non-vegetarian. It was OK for me. My wife went to a reputed college, which was considered India’s Radcliffe College at that time, HATED the hostel food. 

At UC Davis, the cafeteria food was very tasty and had so many different varieties to choose from. It accommodated all religions and all cultures. You are able to get food from steak to pure vegetarian to vegan.

There are 4 cafeterias at the campus. Here is the picture of the cafeteria I went. 

Here is a sample section of where you pick up the food. 

Here is the eating place. 

Being a vegetarian, I chose a falafel burger and fries. (Falafel is similar to masal vada between 2 buns.)

Every food section has a notification board.  Here is one for Rice and Choley.

Here is my plate of Rice and Choley.

Of course, the dessert section. 

And there were sodas of all kinds, ice creams, milk, tea, and coffee. 

Enjoyed the cafeteria food very much.

UC Davis (Part 1 of 2)

I visited University of California at Davis last Friday. Unfortunately, it was a Veterans Day Holiday and therefore not much crowd. Almost all the buildings and classrooms were closed and locked. I wished I had gone there on a working day. 

University of California has 10 campuses all over California. The most famous are UC Berkeley and UCLA (University of California at Los Angeles). Third in line is UC Davis.

Someone told me long time ago that "at Berkeley the professors don’t teach and the teaching is done by the teaching assistants. At Davis, professors teach. Therefore, Davis is much better than Berkeley”. I do not know how far this is true. 

First item I wanted to see was their football stadium. But I could not go inside the stadium because of the holiday. Here is a photo from outside: That stadium can accommodate 33,000 people but you will never know looking from outside because the football field is surrounded by tiers of seats for the spectators. Just like an amphitheater. 

Here is a building for classrooms. This building was donated by Robert Mondavi, an American billionaire and a wine maker. I was joking with my host the Mondavi family will not have any difficulty in getting admission to this University. 

One particular thing I did not like is the dorms (hostels) are only for the first year students.  Second, third, and fourth year students have to rent apartments outside of the campus.  I think this is ridiculous.  They also should have an option to stay in the dorm if they so wish.

The dorms are located far away from the classrooms. Therefore, all the students staying in the dorms have a bicycle to go to the classes. 

I met a few students who stayed in the dorm during this long weekend. They were very friendly and easy to have conversation. 

Stay tuned for the next blog post about the UC Davis cafeteria.