Tendulkar can do no wrong - 2

I had commented some time back on the ingenuity shown by the media in lavishing praise on Tendulkar, even on occasions when he had failed miserably.

The other day, he was out for 12 runs, with Jayasuriya firing on all cylinders at the other end. One of the papers reported that there was something about Sachin’s inspiring presence that brought out the best in Jayasuriya. “When you have someone of the stature of Sachin at the other end, you want to rise to the occasion too…..

In the next match, chasing a total of 66 runs, he got out for a duck. The champion batsman delighted the home crowd, by taking four catches, when Kolkata had batted, reported one of the papers.

Now, Sachin himself is quite level-headed and, in all his interviews, accepts his failures as an inevitable part of the cycle of ups and downs in one’s career. After all, you can’t score a century every time you go in to bat.

The spectators too come to terms with this reality and move on.

But, not some of these reporters. They have this compulsive need to shower accolades on him. Suffering from a variant of the Tolstoy syndrome, they simply cannot accept evidence that is contrary to some belief that they hold dear. Or, believe that their readers hold dear and want reinforced. It is almost as if the press wants to apply the maxim of ‘the king can do no wrong’ and, in the resulting cognitive bias, confer on Sachin, the immunity from any kind of criticism.

When Sachin himself seeks no such immunity or the demi-god status. And, I am sure, nor do most of the readers.

The boy in the well-2

In this post, I had wondered what was it about ‘boys falling into wells” that had the television channels pitching their tents to provide a minute-by-minute commentary on the rescue effort, when incidents involving lives of greater number of people do not get as much attention. For instance, thousands have died in Myanmar recently in the havoc wreaked by a cyclone. It doesn’t seem to capture so much of media space.

Jonah Lehrer links to a study done by Paul Slovic, a psychologist at the University of Oregon, on this subject.

According to Slovic, the problem with statistics is that they don't activate our moral emotions, which are what compel us to act. The depressing numbers leave us cold: our mind can't comprehend suffering on such an unimaginable scale. This is why we are riveted when one child falls down a well, but turn a blind eye to the millions of people who die every year for lack of clean water. Or why we donate thousands of dollars to help a single African war orphan featured on the cover of a magazine, but ignore widespread genocides in Rwanda or Darfur. As Mother Theresa put it, "If I look at the mass I will never act. If I look at the one, I will."

Or, as Stalin ( the original, not the one in Chennai) is supposed to have said, ““One death is a tragedy; a million is a statistic”

Statistics stay silent in us.

Light Bulb moments

I remember the first time that I convinced myself to buy a Compact Fluorescent Lamp (CFL), to replace one of the humble incandescent bulbs in my house. After all, as an engineer and one involved with the power sector, wasn't it my duty to set an example, save energy and reduce my carbon footprint?

The electrical shop owner had given me a sales pitch that, though the CFL cost 20 times as much as the bulb, it had a much longer life (around 10000 hours) and that a CFL of 25 watts produced the same luminescence as that from a 100 watt bulb. Considering that I would be using the CFL for a max of 4 hours a day, I calculated that it would last for around 8 years.

As an engineer, and one involved with the power sector, I ought to have known that the life of the CFL was dependent on voltage conditions (which in most parts of India can fluctuate wildly) and the number of times you switched it on or off (which, given the frugality that characterizes Indian mindsets, can happen many times a day, - every time you leave the room) So, instead of the 8 years that it was supposed to last, mine went bust in a few months. Payback calculations made with good intentions while buying the CFL were rendered invalid, for reasons that the Techno explains in this interesting conversation.

Ever since, I remain a CFL- skeptic and cling to the bulb, as much as I can.

So, this report in the L.A.Times ( via Boing Boing) about an incandescent bulb that has been burning continuously for 107 years, appealed to me greatly. Explaining the longevity of the bulb, Tom Brammel, the bulb-keeper says, “Most people just consider it a freak of engineering. But I believe the bulb has stayed alive so many years because the makers gave it a perfect seal, so no air gets inside the bulb to help disintegrate the carbon filament. This bulb operates in a vacuum and it doesn't burn hot. That's the secret."

To which, my question to the engineers in the power sector and the lighting industry is, “ Why don’t you provide a perfect seal in all the bulbs that come out of your factories, so no air gets into it to disintegrate the carbon filament? I realise that you may have to close down your factories, in the absence of repeat business, but we will build well-lit memorials for you, with plenty of your bulbs glowing. Think of the glory that will be yours.

Entomophagy

Rice is in short supply, the world over. So is wheat.. Eating more meat is not the answer, as grain production will need to go up by a factor of 10, to feed the livestock.

The most eco-friendly and least resource-consuming solution is to eat insects, says David Gracer of the Gastronauts, as reported in Discover magazine. The practice, though jarring to western sensibilities, is quite common in many parts of the world.

“If you want to feed a lot of people, insects are the best choice in terms of getting the biggest bang for your buck.” Insects, he claims, are nutritious. Although they typically contain less protein by weight than beef or chicken—100 grams of giant water bugs or small grasshoppers, for example, have about 20 grams of protein, compared with 27 grams in the same amount of lean ground beef—they do have other benefits. For instance, grasshoppers contain just one-third of the fat found in beef, and water bugs offer almost four times as much iron. A 100-gram portion of the cooked caterpillar Usata terpsichore has about 28 grams of protein. In their dried form, as they are commonly sold in Africa, insects such as grasshoppers may contain up to 60 percent protein."

The Guardian also referred to a UN report of 2004 that promoted insects as an environmentally friendly food source: low impact, consuming very little in the way of feed, easy to harvest, with no special measures required for their husbandry. Insects are arthropods, like lobster, crab and shrimp. They are plentiful, and account for over half of the known species on the planet. We spend billions of pounds trying to control or eradicate them, when we could just be eating them. So why don't we?

We could all become cricket lovers, in a different sense

Daddy's day out

“The kind of knowing you get from experience”, writes Joe Kissell in this post, “is qualitatively different from what you get by reading about something or hearing a story. This is why people travel instead of just reading travel books. However much you may trust other sources of information, they can’t provide what your own senses can. And just as some foods are worth eating even though they don’t taste good, some potentially unpleasant experiences are worth having.”

“From Descartes, who said, “I think, therefore I am,” through phenomenologists like Husserl and Heidegger, who tried to create a rigorous science of experience, philosophers have time and again reaffirmed the importance of one’s own experience in understanding the world. Yet it is a tacit principle of modern western culture that only pleasant experiences are worth pursuing, that any experience you can’t reasonably expect to enjoy should be avoided if possible. This attitude effectively puts the evaluation of experiences in other people’s hands, but other people will never experience things exactly the way you will. You may enjoy an experience someone else does not, and even if you don’t, you may appreciate the value of collecting that knowledge for yourself.”

That’s more or less how I felt too, yesterday, when I let myself be convinced by my daughter’s persuasion, to watch the cricket match at the Chepauk. Though I have been to the Chepauk several times in the past, the last time I went there was around 1980. Since then, I have dreaded the thought of even going there, getting put off by the prospects of navigating my way through the crowds, bearing the sweltering heat and humidity and finding the transport to get me back home. The pleasant thoughts of watching exciting cricket were always outweighed by these negative ones, and the couch potato always settled down in front of the television in the comfort of one’s home.

The transport issue was solved when daughter suggested that we could take the local train to Chepauk and use the same mode to return, as someone in authority had thoughtfully arranged for a train at midnight. The heat and humidity were tolerated admirably and the navigation through the crowd successfuly managed.

I must say that it was a great experience. The noise was deafening and the atmosphere at the ground electrifying. I realized that nothing can equal the pleasure of watching cricket live at the ground/ To settle for the sanitized version one is offered on television was a poor and unequal compromise. To avoid going to the match, fearing the crowd and the traffic, was to deny oneself the joy that comes with it.

It is so, too, with many other things in life.

Bring on the trainees...

In the barber shop that I go to, there is a certain protocol for training new hands. The first few weeks, the new recruit does some basic and miscellaneous work, like putting on the towel, spraying some water, handing over scissors or knife to the master, dusting the hair off the face – in short, activities with no scope for inflicting any harm on the customer. After some time, he moves up the ladder and tackles responsibilities such as shampooing, drying, an odd shave or two, head and neck massage and such stuff. Then he is gradually entrusted with the responsibility of hair-cut, through a surreptitious process. He will be inflicted on unwary customers or small boys who can’t complain or won’t spot the difference. If a trainee barber were to be assigned to a seasoned campaigner like me, the pretender will be pushed aside summarily and a demand raised for the real one.

So, how does the trainee get trained? If never allowed to get hands-on, he is never going to get the confidence and the master will never get to have subordinates he could delegate the work to.

If the training process for hair-cuts has to overcome so many obstacles, imagine the plight of the trainee surgeons in the medical profession. In his book, “Complications: Notes from the life of a young surgeon” written when he was a Resident, Dr.Atul Gawande observes :

In surgery, as in anything else, skill and confidence are learned through experience- haltingly and humiliatingly. Like the tennis player and the oboist, we need practice to get good at what we do. There is one difference though in medicine: it is people we practice on.

.. We find it hard in medicine to talk about this with patients. The moral burden of practicing on people is always with us, but for the most part unspoken. ..There is always that conflict between the imperative to give patients the best possible care and the need to provide novices with experience.

..By traditional ethics and public insistence, a patient’s right to the best care possible must trump the objective of training novices. We want perfection without practice. Yet everyone is harmed if no one is trained for the future. So learning is hidden behind drapes and the anesthesia and the elisions of language.

..Do we ever tell patients that because we are still new at something, their risks will be inevitably higher, and that they’d likely do better with others who are more experienced?.. I’ve never seen it. Given the stakes, who in the right mind would agree to be practiced upon?

Can people be persuaded to take on chances for societal benefit? We’d ask patients- honestly, openly- and then they say yes? Hard to imagine.

In fact, Dr Gawande answers that last question, by admitting that when he was confronted with a medical emergency involving his son, he decided to go to the cardiologist-in-chief, rather than a junior surgeon, as he wanted the best medical care for him. So, he concedes that, if at all the choice is offered, it is not done equally. The rich and the knowledgeable have and exercise that choice. The doctor’s child has that choice, but not the truck driver’s.

So, the next time you are at that humble barber’s shop, the swanky beauty parlour. in a plane or, unfortunately at the surgeon’s table, spare a thought for that trainee. Because, even if you don't spare that thought, the work is probably getting done by the trainee anyway. Who knows who is operating on you, under cover of anesthesia, or who is flying that plane inside that locked cockpit?

Revenge

‘Revenge’ is such a recurring theme in our movies and is an important ingredient in the masala mix. Why, even in sports, a common headline in the media is that ‘so-and-so avenged their defeat’. A stated policy of Israel– well, I am not sure if it stated- is swift retribution. When Jayalalitha came to power last time, one of her first moves was to imprison the former CM, Karunanidhi. According to the popular story, she had vowed that she would make him eat from the same plate in the same jail that he had thrown her into, when he was in power. Kids caught red-handed in the act of knocking out another kid will come up with a solid defence, “ He hit me first, so I hit him back” and this is usually seen as fair. Taking revenge is ‘acceptable behaviour”.

In his absorbing article in the New Yorker, that I came across via Guru’s blog,( warning: do read the article first, as this post gives away many of the punch lines) ,Jared Diamond narrates a story of revenge set in the highlands of New Guinea. Daniel of the Handa clan was expected to avenge the death of his uncle Soll, who had been murdered by one Isum of the neighbouring Ombal clan. The act of revenge alone would redeem the family honour. Through a series of discussions with Daniel, Jared Diamond understands and explains that “we forget that before there were states, Daniel’s method of resolving major disputes—either violently or by payment of compensation—was the worldwide norm.” Even after nation states came into being and disputes are referred to the Govt for disposal, old tribal methods of personal pursuit of justice continue to co-exist with state legal systems. Fights between two tribes come to an end only when a third tribe emerges as a common enemy, or when the state govt introduces and administers effectively the apparatus to resolve disputes.

What Diamond found interesting was the fact that Daniel was completely at peace with himself after he had successfully avenged the death of his uncle, as if his life mission had been accomplished.

As a contrast, Diamond provides the story of his own father-in-law, Josef Nabel, who as a Jew in Poland was witness to mindless atrocities committed on his family. He then set out, a la Sholay, to nab the perpetrators an, indeed, came face to face with the man who had wiped out his family. Just when he was about to shoot the man , a thought ran through his mind, ““I’ve seen enough of people killing, and behaving like animals. I’ve done enough killing myself. This man behaved like an animal, but I don’t want to become an animal myself by shooting him.” Josef decided to hand over the man to the newly formed Polish Govt, only to see him being released in a year. According to Diamond, Josef died, many decades later, an embittered man overcome with guilt over the fact that he had let go of the murderer of his wife”.

Jared Diamond concludes “We regularly ignore the fact that the thirst for vengeance is among the strongest of human emotions. It ranks with love, anger, grief, and fear, about which we talk incessantly. Modern state societies permit and encourage us to express our love, anger, grief, and fear, but not our thirst for vengeance. We grow up being taught that such feelings are primitive, something to be ashamed of and to transcend” and adds, “state societies and their associated religions and moral codes teach us that seeking revenge is bad. But, while acting on vengeful feelings clearly needs to be discouraged, acknowledging them should be not merely permitted but encouraged”.

While I found the story itself quite gripping, that last line made me gulp.

Also, I see the story of “ Priyanka Vadra visiting her father's killer in Vellore jail to come to terms with his death” in a new light. Completely un-tribal.

India- the vibrant democracy

The Bharatiya Custodians of Public Morality (BHACUPUMO) has condemned the organizers of the IPL league for allowing cheerleaders to take part in the cricket festivities. They are outraged by the fact that scantily clad women are being paraded before a mixed crowd (age group 10-70) in an attempt to tarnish the image of India. This, they argue, must be stopped forthwith.

In response, the Progressive Organisation of Women’s Rights ( POWOR) has come out with a strong statement that such a ban would be an infringement on the right of women to express themselves in a manner that they deem fit. The National Cheerleaders Union (NACHU) while endorsing the views of the POW however asked them not to be presumptuous, as there were male members too in the cheerleader squad.

Representing the Bollywood Association of Pensioned Villains (BASSOPEVI) Shatrughan Sinha issued a press release supporting the stand of BHACUPUMO and pointed out how in the hundreds of scenes that he had acted as the rapist, he had ensured that the rapee was always appropriately dressed. Not to be left out, J.Jayalitha of AIADMK demanded the resignation of M.Karunanidhi holding him responsible for the display of skimpily-clad girls at the Chepauk. In a concurrent message as President of the Group of Ex-Heroines of MGR movies ( GROEXHEM), she clarified in Freudian terms that her own insufficient attires in those movies should not invite criticism, as all that had happened in dream scenes, over which she had no control..

The Pediatric Society of India (PEDSOCI) and the Geriatric Community of India (GERCOMMI), took strong exception to one part of BHACUPOMO’s statement which referred to the age band as 10-70. In a joint communiqué, the PEDSOCI and GERCOMMI, while maintaining that they had no specific opinion on the advisability of having cheerleaders, insisted that those aged between 0-10 and above 70, were also part of the mixed crowd.

In an interview to NDTV, Mandira Bedi, (MABE) cricket expert, read out an ex-tempore poem that ridiculed the moral policing done in the name of safeguarding national culture.

The All-India Forum of Ex-tempore Poets (AIFEXPO) immediately was up in arms and expressed shock that a non-member had been given the chance to narrate poems. The AIFEXPO called upon its subscription-paying members to boycott all the programs of NDTV, until further instructions. “If you fail, to obey the mail, we’ll clip your tail, till you wail, and throw you in jail, without the option of bail”, the AIFEXPO’s letter said in lyrical, categorical terms.

Meanwhile, Nestle issued a legal notice to Mandira Bedi, their brand ambassador for 2-minute Maggie, for appearing for two minutes in a public show without her noodle straps that the terms of contract required her to wear all the time.

Last evening, the Prime Minister, under the aegis of the Sonia Gandhi Sycophants Syndicate ( SOGASYCSYN) called all warring factions for a meeting, during which a compromise was worked out, with the cheerleaders agreeing to increase their skirt length by an inch and reduce the angle of their hip sway by twenty degrees. A peace pipe was smoked, signaling the end of the dispute. However, it is understood that this symbolic ritual has incurred the wrath of Anbumani Ramadoss, self-appointed Chairman of the Anti-Smokers Brigade of India (ASBIN).

At the time of posting this, Plus Ultra has been served a stern notice by the Controller of Abbreviated Names ( COABNAM) that use of unauthorized and unregistered acronyms was ultra vires the guidelines issued by the COABNAM and to refrain from violating those norms. Reliable soruces say that Plus Ultra plans to rope in the support of the Fraternity of Bloggers of the Indian Diaspora ( FRABLOINDIA)

Not a clean Slate

Slate refers to a recent, as yet unpublished study, that reports that those Muslims who went to Mecca came back with more moderate views on a range of issues, both religious and nonreligious, suggesting that the Hajj may be helpful in curbing the spread of extremism in the Islamic world. .. it's heartening to find that the Hajj may help to undermine support for the violent methods that have been so devastatingly deployed against Americans in the past.

The tone of the article is so patronising and, even demeaning. I mean, has anyone done a study on the impact of the visits to the Vatican and the Lourdes by the Catholics, and if it makes them more benevolent in their views? Or, what about the millions of devotees who go to Sabarimala, year after year? Do they come back exuding brotherly love, after the pilgrimage? And, since I can’t think of a religious context for the Americans, does their presence at the Super Bowl, rubbing shoulders with thousands of human beings, in a charged atmosphere, convert them into paragons of virtue?

And, a slight digression. If I understood it correctly, the Super Bowl involves a match between winners of two different football leagues. Do you think that the winners of the ICL and IPL leagues must similarly have a match to decide the real champion? Let’s call it the Super Bat.

Come, dirty your hands

Remember the childhood days when you loved to play with sand, but the response from your parent was less than enthusiastic? Or, how as a parent yourself, you try to keep your child away from mud?

Joe Kissel comes up with this interesting thing of the day:

“Children, I have observed, seem to have an innate affinity for dirt. No matter how recently a parent has dressed the child in freshly laundered clothes, no matter how carefully the parent has attempted to keep the child geographically separated from any substance that might soil or stain, it is just not possible to keep a child clean for more than 60 seconds….. Kids clearly have a talent for finding dirt, but also, dirt finds them. If you’re a parent, you know what I’m talking about.

But that’s changing now, thanks to the renaissance of a traditional Japanese art form known as dorodango, shiny mud balls (or, more specifically, hikaru dorodango, ultra-glossy mud balls). Parents are now not only actively encouraging their kids to play in the mud, they’re getting their own hands dirty too as they spend hours refining ordinary dirt into elegant sculptures. “

Joe Kissel concludes:

"I have yet to try dorodango myself, but I love the idea that you can make something so beautiful with three ingredients (dirt, water, and a rag) that virtually anyone in the world can obtain for free. As any child knows, mud is one of life’s simple pleasures. "

Now, what were the other things that I was prevented from doing, as a child?

A tale of the city

Charlie Broker, the self-confessed nocturnal creature, writes about his amazing journey into a whole new world that he thought was essentially inhabitable – mornings. He is astonished to find real, live people around. He establishes contact with an entirely new species- the commuters.

But, he quotes The Economist that thanks to the ongoing technological revolution, the commuter of yesteryear is gradually being replaced by the "urban nomad" of tomorrow and location is becoming increasingly irrelevant.

“The upshot of all this being that the early morning commute is set to slowly dissipate from a concentrated frenzy of furrow-browed scampering into a sort of fuzzy, laid-back cloud in which worker bees drift hither and thither, sometimes staying at home, sometimes buzzing round town….The very notion of geography has been shattered as surely as if someone had written the word "geography" on a plate and hurled it to the floor in a touristy Greek restaurant. And it'll be a bit less cramped at the bus stop as a result.”

So, can we all work from wherever we are? Does it mean the death of the office as we know it? Will cities be made irrelevant and will people begin the reverse migration to their villages?

Not quite. There are others who point out that the quintessence of a city is its ability to provide the conditions for constant interaction and, therefore, innovation. The amount of interaction and also the intensity lead to mutual learning from one another and offer the potential to combine different types of knowledge that support innovation. Not all cities have been innovative, but most innovations have happened in cities. You need a ‘spatial base’ for innovation systems to flourish.

That’s why platforms such as schools, universities, offices are also necessary. These are enablers of knowledge transactions, by ensuring close proximity.

In his book, “Cities in Civilisation”, ( I just read this review), Peter Hall argued that "great cities are central to civilization because their very size and complexity make them natural sites for “the innovative milieu.” Only the greatest cities can bring together the critical mass of creative people to overcome cultural inertia. Within these urban networks of innovators, new paradigms take shape that transform civilization. Here lies the justification and the salvation of the city."

Hall believes that the cultural centrality of cities will continue and even intensify, despite the success of space-conquering technologies of communication that seemingly have made the city obsolete.

Heck, I need to go back to my office tomorrow.

Pre-taped, live shows

What happens when you try to pre-tape a call-in show? I found this episode hilarious. (via).

Reminded me of the maddening, circular references in the book “Catch 22”, such as this one :


Maj. Major Major Major: Sergeant, from now on, I don't want anyone to come in and see me while I'm in my office. Is that clear?
First Sgt. Towser: Yes, sir? What do I say to people who want to come in and see you while you're gone?
Maj. Major Major Major: Tell them I'm in and ask them to wait.
First Sgt. Towser: For how long?
Maj. Major Major Major: Until I've left.
First Sgt. Towser: And then what do I do with them?
Maj. Major Major Major: I don't care.
First Sgt. Towser: May I send people in to see you after you've left?
Maj. Major Major Major: Yes.
First Sgt. Towser: You won't be here then, will you?
Maj. Major Major Major: No.
First Sgt. Towser: I see, sir. Will that be all?
Maj. Major Major Major: Also, Sergeant, I don't want you coming in while I'm in my office asking me if there's anything you can do for me. Is that clear?
First Sgt. Towser: Yes, sir. When should I come in your office and ask if there's anything I can do for you?
Maj. Major Major Major: When I'm not there.
First Sgt. Towser: What do I do then?
Maj. Major Major Major: Whatever has to be done.
First Sgt. Towser: Yes, sir.

Let the battle begin.....

The advertisements for IPL league dub the event as a “karmayudh” and show the captains in war paint and battle gear - holding spears, daggers and other assorted missiles. As the first match starts today, conches will be blown and blood-curdling cries heard.

Why should sports be promoted as ‘war’ and why should such a promotion appeal to people at all? Does it pander to the innate aggressiveness in all of us?

Why are most video-games for kids, all about killing the enemy by shooting, bombing, blasting, maiming, piercing, blowing to smithereens, etc? Aren’t we inculcating in them a destructive mindset?

What explains the idiocy of parents buying toy guns and water-pistols for their toddlers, knowing well that these can lead to aggressive conduct? Why should Lego, known for their range of constructive building blocks, come out with their toy gun series?

Is there a link between ‘playing’ with toy guns as a child and aggressive behaviour as an adult? Just as the big cats of Africa train their cubs to fight and attack, through the medium of aggressive play, are we using toy guns to consciously prepare the kids for the rough adult life, by training them to become militant and violent?.

Google search shows that a study was conducted in 1976 by Charles W. Turner and Diana Goldsmith, psychologists at the University of Utah. Children were observed playing with neutral toys like blocks and airplanes and then with toy guns. The researchers found that the children exhibited more physical and verbal aggression after playing with guns. Isn't this a no-brainer?

But, toy makers disagree and argue ( source) that today’s toy guns provide a modern extension of the role of toys in enhancing children's play experiences. They point out that children have played fantasy games involving the triumph of good over evil for centuries. Before guns, there were bows and arrows. Such ''rough and tumble,'' is often a healthy way for children, especially boys, to resolve competitiveness and form friendships.

Probably, we are all born not with just an instinct for survival, but with an aggressive drive. As the Devil in Shaw’s “Man and Superman’ states:.

And is Man any the less destroying himself for all this boasted brain of his? Have you walked up and down upon the earth lately? I have; and I have examined Man's wonderful inventions. And I tell you that in the arts of life man invents nothing; but in the arts of death he outdoes Nature herself. In the arts of peace Man is a bungler. I have seen his cotton factories and the like, with machinery that a greedy dog could have invented if it had wanted money instead of food. I know his clumsy typewriters and bungling locomotives and tedious bicycles: they are toys compared to theMaxim gun, the submarine torpedo boat. There is nothing in Man's industrial machinery but his greed and sloth: his heart is in his weapons.

That sums it up well. Man’s heart is in his weapons. So, it’s war out there. All the time.

The morning entertainment

I am beginning to get hooked to the Deccan Chronicle. Endless fun, it gives me.

Monday’s edition carried details of an MMS floating around, showing a Tamil actress kissing someone who was believed to be a local, married businessman with kids. The correspondent reported that when the actress was asked for her views, she emphatically denied that the photo was hers. She went on to add that someone had obviously doctored the photo, supplanting a look-alike of hers, just to tarnish her image. She lamented that some unscrupulous elements were misusing technology with a view to injuring people like her who hailed from cultured backgrounds.

Tuesday’s edition carried a report that the photograph was indeed that of the Tamil actress, and the kissing mate was none other than her husband whom she had married three years back and divorced later. When the actress was contacted, she confirmed that the photo was taken on the evening of her wedding, during a private function, where only select photographers were present. One of the photographers must have leaked the photo out, betraying our trust, she said. The newspaper, to enhance the credibility of the report, carried a couple of more photographs from the same wedding reception.

Also, Tuesday’s edition carried a sensational front-page article on how the police had tapped into the phone of even the Chief Secretary of the State. It said that an audiotape of the tapped conversation was in the possession of the newspaper. A transcript was published for public consumption.

On Wednesday, the paper reported that the Govt had ordered an enquiry into the episode. Not to investigate why or how the tapping was done, but to find out how the audiotape had fallen into the hands of the newspaper.

Endless fun, I tell you. .

Statins save lives

A study has apparently pointed out that statin drugs do not prevent heart attacks by lowering cholesterol. No, sir, they don’t. Statins prevent heart attacks by controlling inflammation. That’s how they do it.

I remember Mad magazine once came up with a wise observation that, contrary to popular belief, bulls don’t get affected by red colour at all. The reason they attack you when you display red colour is because they hate being mistaken for cows, which are the ones that do get affected by the red colour.

Does it matter whether bulls attack you because they are affected by the red colour themselves or because they are angry that you have mistaken them for cows? In either case, they attack you.

Does it matter how statins prevent heart attacks- whether by attacking the inflammation or by attacking the cholesterol? In either case, they attack. So gulp them down, whatever may be your cholesterol level.

The fact is that the CEOs of many drug companies are stressed out due to falling revenues and it is incumbent on all of you to go out right now and buy the statins to prop up the sales. The statins may not help your heart one bit. But by swallowing one or two a day, you will prevent the heart-attacks of all those CEOs. Or, should that be hearts-attack?

On birthdays and baseball pros.

“Why do so many pro-baseball players have their birthdays in August?” asks Slate in this article, and then proceeds to offer an explanation.

The pattern is unmistakable. From August through the following July, there is a steady decline in the likelihood that a child born in the United States will become a major leaguer.

One possibility, of course, is that the zodiac sign under which a person is born is a key determinant, as was argued in the book, The Baseball Astrologer.

But, there is a a better explanation.

“The magical date of Aug. 1 gives a strong hint as to the explanation for this phenomenon. For more than 55 years, July 31 has been the age-cutoff date used by virtually all nonschool-affiliated baseball leagues in the United States. Youth baseball organizations have long used that date to determine which players are eligible for which levels of play… The result: In almost every American youth league, the oldest players are the ones born in August, and the youngest are those with July birthdays. …. Twelve full months of development makes a huge difference for an 11- or 12-year-old. The player who is 12 months older will, on average, be bigger, stronger, and more coordinated than his younger counterpart, not to mention more experienced. And those bigger, better players are the ones given opportunities for further advancement. Other players, who are just as skilled for their age, are less likely to be given those same opportunities simply because of when they were born.

It will be interesting to see if there is such a pattern in schools. In Chennai schools, for instance, the cut-off date for admission is July 1st. Meaning that the child should be three years old on June 1st of the year, to qualify for admission into kindergarten. Do children born in June shine better as students, as they would be the oldest in class?

Do you know what you are looking for?

Noam Chomsky in an interview ( Source: “What we say goes”) , while acknowledging the benefits of the Internet, points to this flip side :

Built into the Internet is a system for creating cults. So, for example, if I had a blog, which I don’t, and I put up something that is slightly novel and maybe questionable interpretation of some event- the Bush administration is trying to poison the water in Boston or something, to pick at random- tomorrow somebody else would say, “That’s right, but it’s worse than you think.”. And pretty soon you would develop a cult of people proving that the Bush administration is trying to poison the world’s water. It’s extremely easy to get caught up in this kind of cultlike behaviour, which has a cocoon-like property similar to other religious cults, immune to evidence, immune to
argument.

There is an element of truth in what he says, but will not the same apprehension be equally valid in the case of various devices- mobile phones, photo-copying machines and suchlike? They also have the potential to move and distort information at great speed.

So, what would Noam Chomsky suggest to someone surfing the Internet?

Surfing the Internet makes about as much sense as for, say, a biologist to read all the biology journals. You will never learn anything that way. No serious scientist does that .The literature is massive. You get flooded by it. A good scientist is one who knows what to look for, so you disregard tons of stuff and you see a little thing somewhere else. The same is true for a good newspaper reader. Whether it’s in print or on the Internet, you have to know what to look for. This requires knowledge of history, an understanding of the backgrounds, a conception of the way the media functions as filters and interpreters of the world. Then you know what to look for. And the same is true on the Internet.

What Chomsky misses out is that the knowledge of history and an understanding of the backgrounds can also be provided by the same Internet.

David Brooks writes in his column, in the New York Times :

They say the 21st century is going to be the Asian Century, but, of course, it’s going to be the Bad Memory Century. Already, you go to dinner parties and the middle-aged high achievers talk more about how bad their memories are than about real estate. Already, the information acceleration syndrome means that more data is coursing through everybody’s brains, but less of it actually sticks. It’s become like a badge of a frenetic, stressful life — to have forgotten what you did last Saturday night, and through all of junior high….

Society is now riven between the memory haves and the memory have-nots….

As one of the have-nots, I can understand what David Brooks is trying to say, With the finite RAM size of our brains and with more data coursing through relentlessly, the only option is to develop the ability to selectively forget the past. A neural program must be developed which would do some ‘housekeeping’ of the brain and send unwanted data to the recycle bin, to be permanently deleted if kept in storage for more than 48 hours. Aspects of the past which we find painful or useless can be picked out for disposal.

In the nineteenth century, writers and philosophers seem to have explored this theme of ‘forgetting’ in some detail. In his book, the Haunted Man, Charles Dickens has a Professor of Chemistry, Redlaw, being given the gift of forgetting ‘sorrow, wrong and troubles in his life”. With the painful incidents of the past removed from memory, Professor Redlaw experiences inexplicable anger and bitterness, and the moral of the story is explained as “it is important to remember past sorrow and wrongs, so that you can forgive the wrong-doer and unburden your soul from the misery”. Otherwise, you end up unbalanced and filled with emptiness.

That’s typical nineteenth-century drivel. If he were to write the story now, Dickens will have the Professor re-inforcing his memory cells with vivid description of the wrong-doer, so that he will not forget to have his revenge. While cluttering his brain with such trivia, the Professor will not be able to remember what he did on Saturday night….

Absolut truth

A map that Absolut vodka used in an ad campaign seems to have hurt American sentiment, according to this blog that tracks unusual maps.

The map shows what the US-Mexican border would look like in an ‘absolut’ (i.e. perfect) world: a large part of the US’s west is annexed to Mexico.

The blog explains:

Large swathes of the western US used to be part of Mexico. In 1836, American settlers proclaimed the independence of Texas, formally a Mexican territory. The US annexation of Texas in 1845 prompted the Mexican-American War (1846-1848), after which Mexico was forced to cede 525,000 square miles of territory (42% of its pre-war territory, 12% of the US’s current territory).

Mexico didn’t have much choice: a US army occupied Mexico City, and the alternative was total annexation. The Mexican Cession consisted of the territories of Alta California and Nueva Mexico, out of which were eventually formed the US states of California, Nevada and Utah, and parts of Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico and Wyoming.

In this ‘absolut’ version of the world, the US and Mexico are about the same size.

But, what I found most interesting was the response of Absolut to the American protest:

We are sorry if we offended anyone. This was not our intention. We will try to explain. Though you may not agree, I hope you understand.”

“We have a variety of executions running in countries worldwide, and each is germane to that country and that population. This particular ad, which ran in Mexico, was based upon historical perspectives and was created with a Mexican sensibility. In no way was this meant to offend or disparage, nor does it advocate an altering of borders, nor does it lend support to any anti-American sentiment, nor does it reflect immigration issues. Instead, it hearkens to a time which the population of Mexico may feel was more ideal.”

“Obviously, this ad was run in Mexico, and not the US — that ad might have been very different.”

I found this refreshingly candid. No multi-national organisation can have one global marketing campaign. As the jargon goes, they have to think global, but act local. So, national and regional sensibilities have to be factored in all the time. This will obviously create issues that will need tackling. A map of India, cut off at the LOC, will invite a stern notice from the Govt of India. And, if drawn the Indian way, will anger Pakistan.

And, within India, you never can say what part of the ad will affect the sensibility of which religious group or linguistic community. When this happens, the usual response is to apologise profusely or to withdraw the ad and come out with one that is neutral in all respects ( and terribly dull, in the process)

So, when Absolut tells an ‘injured’ party, honestly, that they were appealing to the Mexican perception of an ideal world, which may not necessarily tally with the USA’s, I admire the stand they are taking.

The lightning rods

Bryan Caplan of EconLog links to an interview (1922) in which Hitler explains in a sober and quite dispassionate manner, why he was singling out the Jews for extermination, though fully aware that they had contributed immensely to science, art, literature, economics, etc.

It is manifestly clear and has been proven in practice and by the facts of all revolutions that a struggle for ideals, for improvements of any kind whatsoever, absolutely must be supplemented with a struggle against some social class or caste.

My object is to create first-rate revolutionary upheavals, regardless of what methods and means I have to use in the process. Earlier revolutions were directed either against the peasants, or the nobility and the clergy, or against dynasties and their network of vassals, but in no case has revolution succeeded without the presence of a lightning rod that could conduct and channel the odium of the general masses.

With this very thing in mind I scanned the revolutionary events of history and put the question to myself against which racial element in Germany can I unleash my propaganda of hate with the greatest prospects of success? I had to find the right kind of victim, and especially one against whom the struggle would make sense, materially speaking. I can assure you that I examined every possible and thinkable solution to this problem, and, weighing every imaginable factor, I came to the conclusion that a campaign against the Jews would be as popular as it would be successful.

There are countless instances in India when political parties have used caste, religion or language to whip up public sentiment and to appeal to the tribalism inherent in people. The propaganda of hatred offers the highest probability of success. The trick is to find the ‘right kind of victim’ to unleash and direct one’s venom on. Hitler knew this. And every politician worth his salt knows this and uses it to good effect.

Take note

I wince when I watch my daughter attend various coaching classes, take tons of notes and later commit to memory, thousands of Chemistry equations, hundreds of Physics formulae and pages and pages of theory. . The whole thing is a futile exercise as none of that stuff is going to help her cope with the real world, I feel. All that trivia and minutiae have a short shelf life- up to the examinations. And then she would discard all that junk from her brain and move on.

So, why do it at all? With so many ‘guide’ books available in the market, why should she attend lectures and take copious, hand-breaking notes? Why subject generations of students to this form of torture? What purpose does it serve?

Jonah Lehrer of Frontal Cortex offers this perspective:

It's easy to be misled into thinking that the real purpose of taking organic chemistry or "The 19th century English Novel" is to learn about benzene rings or the writing habits of Charles Dickens. But that's an illusion. What nobody bothers to tell you is that you will forget everything, that all those chemical equations will be purged from your hippocampus shortly after the semester is over.

Rather, the real purpose of all those big lecture classes is to teach you how to learn. You are being given an education in education, forced to develop the kind of thinking habits that will allow you to synthesize, memorize and analyze information later on, in real life. The content of the lecture notes is virtually irrelevant. What's important is the fact that you know how to take notes in the first place.

So - stretching the point beyond taking notes - education or a degree is not an end in itself. The process merely arms you with the basic tools to cope with the real world. You learn how to learn.

A humble suggestion

In an interesting article in The Hindu, D.Balasubramanian, noted science writer discusses, in one broad sweep, the argument between the Government and animal activists over culling of animals such as the kangaroo to keep their numbers in check, how Le Chatelier’s principle comes into play and how human beings introduce an anthropo-centric bias of individual liberty into the proceedings. He asks, “Is the individual the crucial moral entity in nature, as we have decided it should be in human society? We simply may require a different sort of ethics to guide our dealings with the natural world, one as well suited to the particular needs of plants and animals and habitat (where sentience counts for little), as rights seem to suit us and serve our purposes today”.

He concludes that we should accept reality and cut the number (in each species) to a level that offers enough food and space to lead a sustainable level.

By numbers, of course, he means the population of kangaroos, pigs, elephants, monkeys, etc.

This, I feel, is not fair. The restriction on numbers should apply to human beings as well, and there should be a system that regulates the human population through periodic culling. And, in order to ensure transparency in the process, we should leave it to a master computer, which has access to all relevant data on all species, including human beings, to decide which species must go in for culling, how many and where. With human beings, it should also identify the individuals and the ID No. And, if a blogger, his or her URL.

There are several ways of implementing this idea and I don’t want to trouble you with too many details, which can be worked out as we go along. Naturally, the exercise will have to be kick started in India and China. A good beginning can be made, if the number of human beings in each of these countries can be kept to 1 billion. Anything above this has to be eliminated by ‘culling’

What criteria can we lay down for the culling of human beings? (Warning, the next para may affect the sensibilities of young mothers)

One good suggestion was made by the Irish writer, Jonathan Swift, as early as the 18th century. Making what he called as a ‘Modest proposal” ( albeit, in a different context), Swift recommended that “a hundred thousand babies, about a year old, could be sold at a price, as they would make a most delicious, nourishing and wholesome food, whether stewed, roasted, baked or boiled. They could be sold to the persons of quality and fortune through the kingdom; always advising the mother to let them suck plentifully in the last month, so as to render them plump and fat for a good table. A child will make two dishes at an entertainment for friends; and when the family dines alone, the fore or hind quarter will make a reasonable dish, and seasoned with a little pepper or salt will be very good boiled on the fourth day, especially in winter.”

Swift was quick to aver that he had no personal interest in this proposal as “I have no children by which I can propose to get a single penny; the youngest being nine years old, and my wife past child-bearing.” I may add that I don’t have any vested interest in promoting Swift’s idea either, as both my daughters are over a year old, and have no market value, under the scheme. My support to this idea arises out of pure altruism and with a noble view to maintain a proper ecological balance on Planet Earth

Swift’s scheme would be one way of controlling the population. But, I am aware that this may not be acceptable to all, especially some of the young mothers in the blogosphere. So, I am open to other suggestions. Unless, some pea-brained person comes up with a wild thought that persons over 50 years of age are the most appropriate specimens for culling. Then, I will have something to say.

Keep running on that treadmill

I had taken a week off from work last month. On one of those blissful days, happening to walk idly past a traffic signal at 9.00 am, I was happy to note that thousands of people in hundreds of cars and buses were rushing to their offices or factories, to toil, to sweat and to earn. If time-motion cameras were to be placed at vantage points, I thought, it would capture, to telling effect, the entire sequence of humanity on the move, the wheel of commerce spinning, the ensuring of livelihood by most, the pursuit of success by many… The most satisfying part was watching the whole scene from the sidelines, instead of participating in the mad scramble.

If only I could do it everyday, watch all the hard work being done, from the side lines….

In fact, during the break, I had picked up Jerome K Jerome’s book, “The idle thoughts of an idle fellow”. Just the sort of title that appealed to me. Though he lived in the nineteen century, I felt that here, at last, was an author, who was going to preach the virtue of laziness and contentment, and raise a clarion call to put an end to the insanity of this success-obsessed world. Which I would then cite to justify my aversion to hard work and burning ambition.

And, sure enough, in one of his essays, “On getting on in this world”, he gets off to a good start,

“..sitting in my arbor by the wayside, smoking my hookah of contentment and eating the sweet lotus-leaves of indolence, I can look out musingly upon the whirling throng that rolls and tumbles past me on the great high-road of life. Never-ending is the wild procession. Day and night you can hear the quick tramp of the myriad feet--some running, some walking, some halting and lame; but all hastening, all eager in the feverish race, all straining life and limb and heart and soul to reach the ever-receding horizon of success. Mark them as they surge along--men and women, old and young, gentle and simple, fair and foul, rich and poor, merry and sad--all hurrying, bustling, scrambling….

Ha, he is warming to the theme, I thought. Dripping with sarcasm. He is going to knock the stuffing out of those maniacs who perpetuate the myth that hard work was vital for success. Way to go, Jerome.

Suddenly, Jerome changes tack and puts a same-side goal. He says,

Contented, unambitiuos people are all very well in their way. I have not a word to say against contented people so long as they keep quiet. But do not, for goodness sake,let them go strutting about, as they are so fond of doing, crying out that they are the true models for the whole species. Why they are the deadheads, the drones in the great hive, the street crowds that lounge about, gaping at those who are working’.

Hell, it is as if the prescient Jerome K Jerome had caught me standing near the traffic signal, idly gaping at humanity on the move.

He goes on :

The contented people never knew the excitement of expectation nor the stern delight of accomplished effort, such as stir the pulse of the man who has objects, and hopes, and plans. To the ambitious man life is a brilliant game- a game that calls forth all his tact and energy and nerve- a game to be won, in the long run, by the quick eye and the steady hand, and yet having sufficient chance about its working out to give it all the glorious zest of uncertainty.

Why this guy must give a suggestive title of “idle thought of an idle fellow” to his book, and lure me to buy it, I can’t understand.

In another part of the book, he says “It is impossible to enjoy idling thoroughly unless one has plenty of work to do. There is no fun in doing nothing when you have nothing to do. Idleness, like kisses, to be sweet must be stolen”.

I better get back to work.

When the floods come...

There is a story on Israeli tenacity, that goes like this::

“Scientists predict that in a month's time an enormous natural catastrophe will be visited upon the earth as a result of which the whole surface of the globe will be covered with water. Thereupon the Pope issues from Rome an encyclical exhorting his flock to make use of the remaining days of grace to seek salvation in Christ and to hope for resurrection. The chief Mufti of the grand mosque on Mecca issues a fatwa to all the true believers in Allah and His prophet Mohammed assuring them that they will go straight to Paradise where great pleasures await them. And the Chief Rabbi of Jerusalem calls upon all his brothers, the Children of Israel, saying, “We have four weeks to learn how to live under water."

I was reminded of this when I read this interview ( via Sepia Mutiny)) of Lee Kuan Yew. Minister Mentor, Singapore, in which he discusses the possibility of the island getting flooded due to global waming and then adds nonchalantly: “ we are already in consultations with Delft in Holland to learn how we can build dikes!”

While many of the countries keep talking about global warming or wishing it away, it is typical of Singapore to take a pragmatic approach and start preparations to tackle the eventuality.

My luxury splurge

Happened to pick up a copy of today’s issue of Mint, at the Mumbai airport. It carries a special feature on “Luxury Splurge”.

It has some useful tips on how you can spend your annual bonus that your company has generously doled out to you. The ideas are divided into three broad categories, for those earning bonuses under Rs 10 lakhs, for those earning between Rs 10 lakhs and Rs 50 lakhs and finally, those over Rs 50 lakhs.

Pleased that I was fitting into one of the categories, viz the one between zero and 10 lakhs, albeit closer to the former than the latter, I read the whole piece.

The suggested ways to spend the bonus are :

1) Participate in Bloomsbury Auctions, London on 22nd May, for collection of classic works such as Henri Cartier- Bresson’s “Marseilles” at Rs 4.8 to 5.6 lakhs
2) Buy a Vellus Aureum Zegna Suit for Rs 6 lakhs ( note Suit is spelt with a capital “S’)
3) Enjoy a 30-course dinner at El Bulli, Spain ( price around Rs 1.43 lakhs, plus Business Class Air fare approximately Rs 1.43 lakhs)

None of these appealed to me and just when I was beginning to lose interest, I spotted this suggestion to go in for a Vu LCD Television, costing only Rs 29,000. The kind of price, at last, that was within my striking distance. The fine print however said that this was a water-proofed, 15 inch TV, perfect for in-shower channel surfing. Meant, I surmised, for those who suffer from severe withdrawal symptoms if denied the facility of watching TV while in the bath.

I think I will spend my entire bonus on fitting a shower in my drawing room, so that I am not denied the pleasure of having a bath, while watching TV.

Forget NASA, here's the real proof

Now, Google Earth offers a special feature using which one can zoom into the past and zero in on any combination of the 3-D coordinates of latitude, longitude and time.

Thanks to this amazing feature, I have obtained photographic evidence of the existence of Ram Sethu Bridge, capturing it at the precise moment when Ram's army was crossing over to Sri Lanka . Here it is. (via)

The source mistakenly says that this is a photo of Moses parting the Red Sea, but we know better, don’t we?

The argument is closed.

Only 99.5% similar.

The journey of mankind spanning 150000 years. (via).

So, we all originated from one place, kept multiplying and moving from place to place. So, that should make us all genetically quite similar, right?

Mark Bagel, evolutionary biologist, says we could differ more than we thought. Modern genomic studies r