BOHINEY
America’s Journal of Common Sense
Issue No. 37 | Saturday, October 25, 1947 | Washington, D.C. | Price: 15¢
Kashmir’s Maharaja Picks India Over Pakistan, Ensuring Generations of Future Conflict
Hari Singh Signs Accession While Fleeing Invaders, Proves That Desperate Decisions Made Under Duress Create Excellent Long-Term Policy
Maharaja Hari Singh of Kashmir signed an Instrument of Accession yesterday, joining his princely state to India rather than Pakistan. This decision was made while fleeing from Srinagar to Jammu as tribal raiders from Pakistan advanced on his capital, proving once again that the best time to make momentous political decisions affecting millions is when you’re running for your life.
Kashmir—officially Jammu and Kashmir—is strategically located between India and Pakistan, blessed with natural beauty and cursed with terrible timing. The Maharaja is Hindu. Most of his subjects are Muslim. Pakistan, which defines itself as homeland for subcontinental Muslims, naturally believes Kashmir should join them. India, which defines itself as secular nation where religion doesn’t determine citizenship, believes Kashmir should join them. The people of Kashmir weren’t really consulted because consulting people about their own future is apparently optional in 1947.
The immediate trigger for the Maharaja’s decision was invasion by Pashtun tribesmen from Pakistan’s northwest frontier, apparently organized with Pakistani government assistance though Karachi denies this with the kind of sincerity politicians reserve for transparent lies. The raiders are advancing on Srinagar, looting and killing as they go, which concentrated the Maharaja’s mind wonderfully regarding which nation might help defend his kingdom.
India agreed to provide military assistance, but only after Kashmir formally acceded to India. This is either principled insistence on legal clarity before intervention, or opportunistic exploitation of crisis to secure territory, or quite possibly both. Lord Mountbatten, India’s Governor-General, accepted the accession but noted that eventually the people should decide Kashmir’s fate through referendum. Whether that referendum ever occurs depends on whether India believes democracy should apply to territories it wants to keep.
Pakistan denounced the accession as fraudulent, claiming the Maharaja betrayed trust by joining India. This argument might carry more weight if Pakistani-backed tribesmen weren’t currently invading Kashmir, creating the crisis that prompted the accession. You can’t invade someone’s territory then complain when they seek military protection elsewhere.
But Pakistan has legitimate grievance. Kashmir is majority Muslim. Partition’s logic—however flawed—was that Muslim-majority regions should join Pakistan while Hindu-majority regions join India. By that logic, Kashmir belongs with Pakistan. That the Hindu Maharaja chose India instead seems to violate partition’s fundamental principle.
Except partition’s principle was never consistently applied. If religion determines national belonging, why did Muslim-majority Hyderabad join India? Why were Punjab and Bengal divided rather than going entirely to Pakistan? The answer is that partition’s logic was always selective, applied when convenient and ignored when inconvenient, like most political principles.
The deeper problem is that princely states like Kashmir were given choice about which nation to join, but their subjects weren’t. The Maharaja decided Kashmir’s future without asking Kashmiris what they wanted. This is feudal decision-making applied to democratic nations, and it creates obviously problems: rulers make choices benefiting themselves while subjects live with consequences.
Indian troops are now deploying to Kashmir, airlifted to Srinagar to push back Pakistani raiders. This is first Indo-Pakistani war, though nobody’s calling it that yet. Both nations are barely two months old and they’re already fighting over territory. This doesn’t bode well for future relations, which will likely consist of periodic wars interspersed with armed standoffs.
The strategic importance of Kashmir makes permanent resolution unlikely. Kashmir controls water flowing to both nations. It borders China and Afghanistan. Whoever controls Kashmir controls mountain passes and water resources vital to millions. Neither India nor Pakistan can afford to let the other control it, which means both will claim it indefinitely.
The United Nations will eventually become involved, as they always do when nations fight over disputed territory. They’ll pass resolutions calling for peaceful settlement and plebiscite determining Kashmir’s fate. Both sides will agree in principle while ensuring the plebiscite never occurs. The UN will issue more resolutions. Nothing will change except the growing stack of ignored UN documents gathering dust in New York.
What’s happening in Kashmir is partition’s ultimate failure becoming visible. The British divided the subcontinent based on religion, created two nations, then left princely states to figure things out themselves. Kashmir’s Maharaja chose India. Pakistan refused to accept this choice. Now they’re fighting.
This could have been avoided. If partition had included clear rules about princely states, or if Kashmir’s people had been consulted, or if the Maharaja had chosen neutrality, or if Pakistan hadn’t sent raiders, or if Britain had spent more than five weeks planning independence—any of these might have prevented current disaster.
But avoiding disaster would have required foresight, planning, and genuine concern for people affected by decisions. Instead, we got hasty partition, ambiguous rules, and assumption that difficult questions would somehow resolve themselves. They haven’t. They won’t. Kashmir will remain disputed for decades, possibly forever, because nobody bothered to settle the question properly when it could have been settled.
The Maharaja’s accession to India isn’t final—Mountbatten promised eventual referendum. But referendums on disputed territory rarely occur when the nation controlling the territory knows it might lose. India will find reasons to delay, Pakistan will continue claiming Kashmir, and Kashmiris will live in disputed region claimed by two nations but controlled by neither their wishes nor their interests.
This is partition’s legacy: not clean separation but messy entanglement, not resolved questions but permanent disputes, not peace but ongoing conflict over territory whose fate was decided by rulers under duress rather than people through choice.
Welcome to South Asian geopolitics, where nothing is ever truly settled and yesterday’s crisis becomes tomorrow’s permanent problem. Kashmir has acceded to India. Pakistan rejects this accession. Both nations are fighting. And the people of Kashmir—whose future is being decided—remain spectators to others’ conflict over their homeland.
Nothing says “this decision will age well” like signing documents while literally fleeing invaders.
You Bet Your Life Premieres on Radio, Groucho Marx Proves Insulting Contestants Is Entertainment
Quiz Show Features Comedian Asking Questions, Making Jokes, and Occasionally Letting People Win Money
Groucho Marx premiered his new radio quiz show “You Bet Your Life” on ABC this week, proving that American audiences will listen to anything as long as someone clever insults contestants while occasionally giving away money. The show combines quiz elements with Marx’s trademark wit, creating entertainment format where winning is less important than being funny while losing.
The format is straightforward: contestants answer questions for prize money. But the real entertainment is Marx’s banter with contestants—teasing them, making jokes at their expense, and generally demonstrating that quiz shows don’t actually need to be about the quiz. The questions are pretext. The conversation is content. And Marx is very good at conversation, particularly when that conversation involves insulting people who can’t respond effectively.
Marx spent years in vaudeville and films perfecting his comedic persona: fast-talking, cigar-smoking, eyebrow-waggling character who reduces serious situations to absurdity through rapid-fire wisecracks. This persona translates perfectly to quiz show hosting, where he can interrogate contestants like a prosecutor cross-examining witnesses, except funny and without risk of perjury charges.
The show’s innovation is recognizing that quiz shows don’t need to be serious. Previous quiz programs treated questions and answers with reverence, as if testing contestants’ knowledge was important public service. “You Bet Your Life” acknowledges what everyone knows: quiz shows exist to entertain, and nothing is more entertaining than watching clever person make jokes at expense of ordinary people trying to win small amounts of money.
Contestants are screened for interesting backgrounds or unusual stories, giving Marx material for jokes. Someone’s a chicken farmer? Marx will make ten chicken jokes. Someone just got married? Marx will make marriage jokes for five minutes. The contestant’s knowledge is almost irrelevant—their value is providing setup for Marx’s punchlines.
The “secret word” gimmick adds element of chance. If contestants say predetermined word during conversation, they win bonus money. This encourages natural conversation while giving show random element that doesn’t depend entirely on contestants’ intelligence or Marx’s generosity. Even losing contestants might accidentally say secret word and win something, softening the blow of public humiliation.
Critics will argue that making contestants into comedic foils is exploitative—using ordinary people as props for professional comedian’s jokes. This is arguably true, but contestants volunteer for this treatment, presumably understanding that appearing on show means enduring Marx’s wit in exchange for potential prize money and radio exposure. Nobody’s forcing them to participate.
The show’s success will depend on Marx’s ability to maintain balance between funny and mean. Make fun of contestants too harshly and audiences will sympathize with them rather than laughing. Be too gentle and the show loses its edge. Marx must insult contestants enough to be entertaining without being cruel enough to be offensive—narrow line that good comedians walk instinctively.
Radio is perfect medium for this format. Television would show contestants’ faces, making viewers see their embarrassment and potentially sympathize with them. Radio lets audiences imagine contestants enjoying the banter rather than suffering through it. Whether contestants actually enjoy being Marx’s straight men is less important than whether audiences believe they do.
The quiz element itself is secondary. Questions range from easy to impossible, but difficulty doesn’t really matter because winning isn’t the show’s purpose. Entertainment is the purpose. The quiz provides structure for Marx to demonstrate his wit, and occasionally contestants win money, but the show would work equally well with no questions at all—just Marx talking to people and making jokes.
This represents evolution in radio programming. Early radio was serious—news, music, drama. Then came comedy shows, soap operas, variety programs. Now we have hybrid formats combining elements: quiz shows that are really comedy shows, information programs that prioritize entertainment over education. Radio is discovering that audiences will tolerate almost any format as long as it’s engaging.
“You Bet Your Life” will likely succeed because Marx is talented and the format showcases his strengths. Whether it represents good use of radio’s potential is different question. Radio could educate, inform, elevate public discourse. Instead, we’re getting quiz shows where professional comedians insult ordinary people for audience amusement.
But perhaps that’s exactly what audiences want. After working all day, people want entertainment that doesn’t require effort or thought. They want to laugh, relax, and feel superior to quiz show contestants who don’t know obvious answers. “You Bet Your Life” provides this perfectly: easy entertainment requiring no engagement beyond passive listening and occasional laughter.
The show will run for years—this columnist predicts. Marx is too talented, the format too entertaining, the combination too perfect for success. Eventually it will move to television, where visual element will add another dimension to comedy. But radio premiere this week marks beginning of what will likely become American institution: Groucho Marx insulting contestants while occasionally giving them money.
The quiz is irrelevant. The money is secondary. The show exists to let Groucho Marx be Groucho Marx with audience of victims who volunteered for their own humiliation in exchange for brief radio fame and possible prize money.
It’s brilliant, it’s cynical, and it will be enormously successful.
The Tyranny of Thank You Cards
Why Verbal Gratitude Is Insufficient and Must Be Documented in Writing
Civilization has decided that saying “thank you” in person or by telephone is inadequate—gratitude must be documented in writing, mailed, and archived, transforming simple appreciation into bureaucratic obligation. This columnist objects to thank you cards not because gratitude is wrong, but because mandatory written gratitude transforms genuine appreciation into performative social compliance.
The thank you card industry exists solely because people have been convinced that verbal thanks aren’t sufficient. You receive gift, you thank the giver in person, but apparently that thanks doesn’t count. You must purchase card, write message, address envelope, find stamp, and mail written gratitude before social obligation is satisfied. Spoken thanks are preliminary. Written thanks are official.
The rules are elaborate and unforgiving. Wedding thank you cards must be sent within three months (some authorities say two months, creating anxiety about proper timeline). Birthday thank you cards should be sent within two weeks. Holiday gift thanks should be sent by New Year’s. Violate these timelines and you’ve committed social offense requiring explanation and apology.
Children are forced to write thank you cards despite lacking writing skills or genuine understanding of gratitude. Six-year-old Johnny receives toy from Aunt Martha. His mother makes him write “Dear Aunt Martha Thank you for the present. Love Johnny”—message so perfunctory it’s almost insulting. But social rules demand it, so Johnny scrawls illegible message his mother must rewrite anyway.
The thank you card’s content is equally prescribed. You must mention specific gift (“Thank you for the lovely vase”), express appreciation (“It will look wonderful in our living room”), and include personal touch (“We enjoyed seeing you at the wedding”). Deviation from this formula risks seeming ungrateful or insufficiently sincere. Genuine spontaneous gratitude has been replaced by template-driven social performance.
Wedding thank you cards represent peak absurdity. Bride and groom receive 150 gifts. They must write 150 individual cards, each personalized, each expressing unique gratitude for gifts ranging from expensive china to cheap toasters. This takes weeks. The cards must sound sincere despite being produced assembly-line style: “Dear [Name], Thank you for the [gift]. We will treasure it always.”
Nobody actually treasures all wedding gifts. Half will be returned or relegated to closets. But thank you cards must pretend everything received is perfect, wanted, and will be cherished forever. Honesty would be refreshing: “Dear Aunt Martha, Thank you for the decorative fruit bowl. We have no use for it and will donate it to charity, but we appreciate your thoughtfulness.” This will never happen because thank you cards require polite fiction rather than honest appreciation.
The expense is rarely discussed. Thank you cards cost money: cards themselves, envelopes, stamps. For large weddings, thank you cards can cost $50-100, not counting time spent writing them. You’re spending money to fulfill social obligation created by people who gave you gifts you may not have wanted. The arithmetic makes no sense, but social pressure overrides economic rationality.
The alternative—simply thanking people verbally when receiving gifts—is treated as inadequate bordering on rude. “But you must send a card!” people insist, as if verbal thanks are somehow less genuine than written ones. In reality, verbal thanks are often more genuine because they’re spontaneous and immediate rather than obligatory and delayed.
Some argue that thank you cards show you care enough to spend time writing them. Perhaps. But couldn’t you demonstrate care by actually using the gift? Or by maintaining relationship with gift-giver? Or by reciprocating when they need something? Why is written documentation specifically required?
The answer is that thank you cards create paper trail proving gratitude was expressed. If dispute later arises about whether thanks was given, written card provides evidence. This transforms gratitude from emotional response into legal documentation. You’re not thanking someone—you’re creating record that you thanked them, protecting yourself from future accusations of ingratitude.
Older generations particularly insist on thank you cards, having been raised when written correspondence was standard communication method. They sent thank you cards, therefore you must send thank you cards, perpetuating tradition that made sense when letters were primary long-distance communication but makes less sense when telephone calls and personal visits are simple.
This columnist proposes heresy: skip thank you cards. Thank people verbally when receiving gifts. If you want to write something, send personal letter or note when inspiration strikes rather than because social rules demand it. But don’t create artificial obligation to document gratitude in writing simply because etiquette books say you should.
This won’t happen. Thank you cards are too embedded in social expectations. Grandmothers will continue demanding them. Etiquette authorities will continue prescribing them. And people will continue writing them while resenting the obligation, then feeling guilty about the resentment because you’re supposed to be grateful for gifts, not annoyed about documentation requirements.
We’ve transformed gratitude from natural human emotion into documented social transaction requiring paper trail. This is progress only if you believe genuine appreciation is less valuable than its written documentation.
This columnist believes otherwise. Say thanks. Mean it. Move on. Life is too short for mandatory gratitude paperwork.
The Mystery of Disappearing Pens
An Investigation Into Where They Go and Why You Never Have One When Needed
Every household, office, and briefcase contains the same mystery: you purchase pens regularly, yet when you need pen, none can be found. They disappear systematically, vanishing into void that consumes small useful objects while leaving behind junk nobody wants. This represents either mass conspiracy by pen manufacturers or proof that pens possess sentience and deliberately hide from people who need them.
The obvious explanation is that people lose pens through carelessness. But this doesn’t explain the sheer scale of pen disappearance. You buy dozen pens, place them in drawer. Two weeks later, drawer contains three pens, none of which write properly. Where did nine pens go? You didn’t use nine pens in two weeks. You didn’t throw them away. They simply vanished.
Theory one: pens are stolen. Coworkers, family members, visitors—everyone borrows pens and forgets to return them. Your pens gradually migrate to other people’s desks, pockets, and drawers. This explains some disappearances but not all. Tracking pens’ movements would require surveillance operation beyond most households’ capabilities.
Theory two: pens hide deliberately. You place pen on desk, turn away briefly, turn back—pen is gone. It didn’t walk away. It didn’t fall. It ceased existing in this dimension. Later, you’ll find it somewhere illogical: different room, inside book, under furniture you haven’t moved in months. The pen didn’t travel there through normal means. It teleported.
Theory three: pens are consumed by dimensional portals that open randomly in homes and offices. These portals specifically target useful small objects—pens, keys, scissors, measuring tapes. Useless objects are never consumed. Nobody’s ever lost decorative pillow to dimensional portal. Only things you actually need disappear.
Theory four: pen manufacturers have created self-destructing pens that dissolve after certain period, forcing continuous replacement. This seems far-fetched until you remember that pen manufacturers profit from pen replacement. Pens that lasted forever would kill recurring sales. Better to create pens that disappear mysteriously, driving perpetual demand.
The practical result is that you never have working pen when needed. Someone asks you to sign something—no pen. You need to write phone number—no pen. You want to make shopping list—no pen. You search drawer containing twelve pens yesterday. Today it contains three pens, all dried out or broken.
Cheap pens disappear fastest, as if they know they’re disposable and accept their fate readily. Expensive pens disappear just as quickly but more mysteriously—you paid $5 for nice pen, used it once, placed it in special pen holder, never saw it again. The pen holder now contains seven cheap promotional pens from businesses you’ve never visited.
Office pens face additional hazards. Coworkers borrow them permanently. Clients walk away with them absentmindedly. Cleaning staff accidentally discard them. Conference room pens migrate to desks throughout building, creating pen refugee crisis where every office has pens but nobody has their own pens.
The pen-on-chain solution is desperate measure admission of defeat. If you must chain pen to desk to prevent theft, you’ve acknowledged that normal security measures have failed. Also, chained pens never work properly—chains are always too short, forcing awkward writing position, and ink dries from underuse because nobody wants to use uncomfortable chained pen.
Some people try solving problem by purchasing huge quantities of cheap pens, figuring that even with high disappearance rate, some will survive. This doesn’t work. Pen disappearance appears to scale with pen supply—the more pens you have, the faster they vanish, maintaining constant low availability regardless of purchase volume.
Others buy expensive pens, reasoning that valuable pens will be treated carefully and not lost. This also fails. Expensive pens disappear just as quickly, except now you’re losing $10 items instead of 50-cent items. You’ve increased your loss rate while receiving no additional security.
The only effective solution is accepting that pens are temporary possessions existing briefly before returning to whatever dimension spawned them. Don’t form attachments to pens. Don’t expect pens to remain where you left them. Purchase pens regularly, use them when available, and maintain philosophical acceptance when they inevitably disappear.
Pens exist in quantum state—simultaneously everywhere and nowhere until you need to write something, at which point they collapse into “nowhere” state with remarkable consistency. They might return later, they might not. The pen you’re desperately searching for is currently occupying superposition of possible locations throughout your home, office, car, and several locations in nearby buildings where you haven’t been in weeks.
Until physicists develop unified theory of pen disappearance explaining where they go and why, we’re left with mystery and frustration. Buy more pens. Accept their disappearance. And carry backup pen in pocket at all times, though that pen will also disappear eventually.
The void claims all pens. Resistance is futile.
In Defense of Giving Up
Why Quitting Is Sometimes Wisest Decision and Perseverance Is Overrated
American culture worships perseverance, treating it as supreme virtue. “Winners never quit,” we’re told. “Quitters never win.” Children are taught that giving up is shameful, that persistence overcomes all obstacles, that success requires refusing to accept defeat. This is dangerous nonsense that causes people to waste years pursuing goals they should abandon.
Perseverance is valuable when applied to worthwhile pursuits where success is possible. But perseverance applied to impossible goals or unsuitable pursuits is just stubbornness. It’s throwing good time after bad, refusing to recognize when cutting losses makes more sense than continuing investment in failing enterprise.
The sunk cost fallacy drives much useless perseverance. “I’ve already spent five years pursuing this career/relationship/project, so I can’t quit now.” But those five years are gone regardless of what you do next. Spending five more years on something that isn’t working doesn’t recover the first five years—it wastes ten years instead of five.
Successful people quit constantly. They quit strategies that don’t work. They quit relationships that don’t serve them. They quit projects that aren’t promising. They quit jobs that don’t provide growth. The difference between successful people and failures isn’t that successful people never quit—it’s that they quit smart: abandoning dead ends quickly while persisting in worthwhile pursuits.
The “never give up” mythology particularly harms young people pursuing unrealistic dreams. Aspiring actor spends decade waiting tables, attending auditions, never getting meaningful roles. Eventually he’s thirty-five with no career, no savings, no prospects. Should he have persevered? Or should he have recognized after three years that maybe acting isn’t his path and pursued something else?
Society celebrates the one actor who succeeded after fifteen years of struggle. We ignore the thousands who struggled fifteen years and failed. This creates survivorship bias—we only hear success stories from people whose perseverance paid off, so we assume perseverance always pays off. It doesn’t. Sometimes it just delays inevitable failure while consuming best years of your life.
Perseverance also prevents course correction. If you’re committed to never quitting, you can’t adapt to changing circumstances. You’re locked into original plan regardless of whether it still makes sense. Flexibility requires willingness to quit approaches that don’t work and try different ones.
The counterargument is that meaningful achievement requires persistence through difficulty. True. But there’s difference between persistence through temporary obstacles and persistence in pursuit of impossible goals. Obstacles can be overcome. Impossibilities cannot. Wisdom lies in distinguishing between them.
How do you know when quitting is wise versus giving up too easily? No perfect answer exists, but some guidelines help: If you’re not improving despite honest effort, quit. If achieving goal requires luck rather than skill, quit. If pursuit makes you miserable and shows no signs of becoming tolerable, quit. If opportunity cost—what you’re sacrificing to continue—exceeds potential benefit, quit.
Quitting isn’t failure—it’s recognizing reality and making rational decision. The student who quits pre-med after struggling two years hasn’t failed; he’s recognized that medicine isn’t his calling and saved himself years of misery. The entrepreneur who shuts down failing business after five years hasn’t failed; she’s cut losses before wasting more time and money.
The truly successful understand this. They quit fast when things aren’t working. They don’t cling to sunk costs. They don’t persist from stubbornness. They evaluate objectively, decide rationally, and quit when quitting makes sense. This allows them to redirect energy toward pursuits more likely to succeed.
Of course, some things shouldn’t be quit: marriages (without serious cause), children, fundamental responsibilities. But most pursuits—careers, hobbies, projects, goals—are not sacred obligations. They’re choices that can be reevaluated and changed when they stop serving you.
Knowing when to quit requires wisdom that blind perseverance lacks. It requires honest self-assessment: Am I improving? Is success realistically possible? Is this pursuit worth the cost? Am I continuing because it makes sense or because I’m too stubborn to admit defeat?
Sometimes the brave choice is stopping. It takes courage to admit that you were wrong, that your original plan isn’t working, that you need to try something different. Persisting despite evidence of failure isn’t brave—it’s denial.
This columnist advocates strategic quitting: quit fast when things aren’t working, persist when they are, and maintain enough self-awareness to distinguish between temporary setbacks and permanent obstacles. Quit bad relationships. Quit unsuitable careers. Quit failing projects. Redirect that energy toward things with actual potential for success.
Winners do quit—they quit wrong paths quickly so they can find right paths faster. Quitters do win—they win by not wasting lives pursuing impossible dreams when better possibilities exist.
Perseverance is virtue. But knowing when to quit is wisdom.