Nepe wrote: "If Prachanda, who has not read anything except "Collected works of Chairman Mao" and quotations from Marx, Lenin and Stalin, can change Nepal for good, we, with our state-of-art knowledge in law, economics, management, IT, science & technology, sure can change Nepal. Can't we ?" When I read sentences like this, I feel the same way -- please see the quote below -- that Speaker Sam Rayburn (D-TX) felt when he heard from Lyndon Johnson about all the top brains assembled to do great things in US President Kennedy's administration. "They may be just as intelligent as you say. But I'd feel a helluva lot better if just one of them had ever run for sheriff." Speaker Sam Rayburn (D-TX), to LBJ. America's then "best and brightest" led that country to Vietnam War and much else besides, as grippingly recounted in David Halberstam's book by the same name. *** Likewise, though I CELEBRATE various intellectual accomplishments of our fellow-Nepalis around the globe, I, for one, would feel a lot more comfortable -- when it comes to reading their proposed "we should do this, and we should do that" ideas for Nepal -- if only they "had ever run for sheriff" in Nepal. In otherw ords, if brains substituted actions, then the Golden Boys of Panchayat -- Prakash Chandra Lohani, Bhesh Bdr. Thapa, Pashupati Shumsher Rana, Narayan Prasad Shrestha etc, with their fanciest degrees from the world's best academic institutions -- would have made Singapore envy Nepal by now. Ditto for the Golden Boys of Jana Andolan I: Sher Bdr. Deuba, Ram Saran Mahat, Madhav Nepal, etc. This is NOT a criticism of Nepe's dreams per se. Don't get me wrong. Dreams are important. But too much dream merely makes one sleepy long after the alarm has gone off. And so, this posting is just to an attempt to keep one's feet planted on the ground by reminding ourselves that -- no matter how lofty our talks are -- it's the small, small but consistent actions (full of mistakes and feedbacks in ALL fields) that are likely lead us to larger goals for a better Nepal. Anything else, and we will be ticking off the Golden Boys of Jan Andolan II 10 years from now. ************* Anil J Shahi wrote: "Traditions are not God-given. They are creations of those in power." Right. In this lok-tantrik Nepal, and in the spirit of times, can we expect to see you change your formidable 'Jung Shahi' title -- with its obvious connotations of proximity to royal power -- changed to, well, Anil Nepali or Anil Chepang? oohi ashu