Anxiety is the hand maiden of creativity - T. S. Eliot
Thursday, March 06, 2008
Letters-8: ‘Sons of the Soil’ Slogan
The Bombay of yore prided itself on being a melting pot of cultures and El Dorado for those dreaming to make something of their lives. Many were willing to bear hardships for that ‘pot of gold’. An example is my great-aunt who had come to the city with her little daughter to escape harassment by her husband and in-laws. When her daughter died of typhoid, my aunt made her life in the city’s suburbs. Another woman, who is a friend of my mother, had come to the city long ago. After working in a ration shop initially, she completed her MBBS and moved to the US in the 50s. That was Bombay for many. We should take pride in being Indians and go beyond state and linguistic classifications. And not allow politicians to use the ‘sons of the soil’ slogan to tear us apart to garner votes. - Suman G.Pai, On email.
Wednesday, March 05, 2008
A Thought for Today : March 2, 2008
Yearning for the seemingly impossible is the path to human progress - Bryant H. McGill
Facts & Figures-25 : Undiscovered Planet at the edge of Solar System
Japanese scientists studying the path of space debris over the last four billion years postulated an undiscovered "Planet X," between 30 and 70 percent the size of Earth, at the edges of the solar system.
Courtesy: Weekly Review, Harper's Weekly, March 4, 2008
Courtesy: Weekly Review, Harper's Weekly, March 4, 2008
Facts & Figures-24 : Drug-resistant TB found in 45 countries
The World Health Organization announced that virtually untreatable drug-resistant tuberculosis could now be found in 45 countries with a half-million new cases each year, and that the highest rate of infection was in Baku, Azerbaijan.
Courtesy: Weekly Review, Harper's Weekly, March 4, 2008
Courtesy: Weekly Review, Harper's Weekly, March 4, 2008
Monday, March 03, 2008
A Thought for Today : March 1, 2008
Success depends on your backbone, not your wishbone – Author not known
A Thought for Today : February 29, 2008
Plan your work for today and every day, then work your plan - Norman Vincent Peale
12 Ways of Winning People to Your Way of Thinking
1. The only way to get the best of an argument is to avoid it.
2. Show respect for the other man’s opinions. Never tell a man he is wrong.
3. If you are wrong, admit it quickly and emphatically.
4. Begin in a friendly way.
5. Get the other person saying, “yes, yes” immediately.
6. Get the other do a great deal of talking.
7. Let the other man feel that the idea is his.
8. Try honestly to see things from the other person’s point of view.
9. Be sympathetic with the other person’s point of view.
10. Appeal to the nobler motives.
11. Dramatize your ideas.
12. Throw down a challenge.
Courtesy: “How to Win Friends and Influence People” by Dale Carnegie
2. Show respect for the other man’s opinions. Never tell a man he is wrong.
3. If you are wrong, admit it quickly and emphatically.
4. Begin in a friendly way.
5. Get the other person saying, “yes, yes” immediately.
6. Get the other do a great deal of talking.
7. Let the other man feel that the idea is his.
8. Try honestly to see things from the other person’s point of view.
9. Be sympathetic with the other person’s point of view.
10. Appeal to the nobler motives.
11. Dramatize your ideas.
12. Throw down a challenge.
Courtesy: “How to Win Friends and Influence People” by Dale Carnegie
Saturday, March 01, 2008
A Thought for Today : February 28, 2008
Greater is he who acts from love than he who acts from fear - Simeon Ben Eleazar
Eyecatchers-62: "Darwin's Legacy"
On February 12, 2009, most of the world will celebrate the 200th birth anniversary of a great scientist whose theory – based on incredibly laborious empirical observation and once-in-a-millennium-insights – forever changed humankind’s perceptions of itself and of the natural world around. Next year will also mark the 150th anniversary of the publication of Charles Darwin’s great work, On the origin of species by means of natural selection or the preservation of favoured races in the struggle for life. The five year (December 27, 1831 – October 2, 1836) the English naturalist spent on board H.M.S.Beagle in a round-the-world voyage gave him the opportunity to study and compare the fauna, flora, and geology of many distant lands. It led him to wonder about the diversity of life forms he found and why creatures occupying similar environments in places around the globe could be so vastly different. The idea that biological species were not immutable but were capable of change was in itself not new at the time. Darwin would have been familiar with the speculations of his own grandfather, Erasmus Darwin, and the French zoologist, Jean-Baptiste Lamarck. But within a couple of years following the Beagle voyage, Darwin was going much further. He was thinking about a common origin for all life on the planet when he sketched in his notebook a ‘tree of life’, implying that all species had diversified from a common stalk.
However, Darwin was not the only one thinking alone such lines. In 1858, he received a letter suggesting ideas remarkably like his own; it was from Alfred Russell Wallace, who was collecting biological specimens in Southeast Asia. Papers putting forth both points of view were duly presented at a meeting of the Linnaean Society of London. The Origin of Species (as Darwin’s 1859 magnum opus came to be titled in 1872, in the sixth edition) marshaled a vast body of evidence and presented his arguments in favour of evolution driven by a process of natural selection that allowed traits best suited to a particular environment to spread in a population. Evolution and a common origin for all life lie at the heart of biology. In an essay strikingly titled ‘nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution,’ the geneticist and evolutionary biologist Theodosius Dobzhansky declared: “Without that light [biology] becomes a pile of sundry facts – some of them interesting or curious but making no meaningful picture as a whole.” The elucidation of the structure of the DNA, the unraveling of the genetic code, and the ability to sequence the entire genome of even complex organisms have served only to lay bare the processes that produce life, which all living organisms share, and show how evolutionary pressures act on those processes. As though this were not enough, Darwin’s ideas have inspired, over the past century-and-a-half, “powerful images and insights in science, humanities and the arts,” as an essay in Nature reminds us.
Courtesy: Editorial, The Hindu, Feb.12, 2008
However, Darwin was not the only one thinking alone such lines. In 1858, he received a letter suggesting ideas remarkably like his own; it was from Alfred Russell Wallace, who was collecting biological specimens in Southeast Asia. Papers putting forth both points of view were duly presented at a meeting of the Linnaean Society of London. The Origin of Species (as Darwin’s 1859 magnum opus came to be titled in 1872, in the sixth edition) marshaled a vast body of evidence and presented his arguments in favour of evolution driven by a process of natural selection that allowed traits best suited to a particular environment to spread in a population. Evolution and a common origin for all life lie at the heart of biology. In an essay strikingly titled ‘nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution,’ the geneticist and evolutionary biologist Theodosius Dobzhansky declared: “Without that light [biology] becomes a pile of sundry facts – some of them interesting or curious but making no meaningful picture as a whole.” The elucidation of the structure of the DNA, the unraveling of the genetic code, and the ability to sequence the entire genome of even complex organisms have served only to lay bare the processes that produce life, which all living organisms share, and show how evolutionary pressures act on those processes. As though this were not enough, Darwin’s ideas have inspired, over the past century-and-a-half, “powerful images and insights in science, humanities and the arts,” as an essay in Nature reminds us.
Courtesy: Editorial, The Hindu, Feb.12, 2008
A Thought for Today : February 27, 2008
Great works are performed, not by strength, but by perseverance - Samuel Johnson
Facts & Figures-23 : Sperm Damage affects Four Generations!
According to a recent U.S.study, mean can pass down sperm damage caused by alcohol, cigarettes, and other environmental toxins for up to four generations.
Courtesy: Weekly Review, Harper's Weekly, Feb.26, 2008
Facts & Figures-22 : The Sun will vaporize the Earth!
Scientists revealed that the sun will vaporize the earth if we cannot figure out how to change our orbit within 7.6 billion years.
Courtesy: Week Review, Harper's Weekly, Feb.26, 2008
Facts & Figures-22 : Japan Launches Experimental Satellite
Japan launched an experimental satellite that would provide Internet access speeds of 1.2 gigabytes per second.
Courtesy: Weekly Review, Harper's Weekly, Feb.26, 2008
Facts & Figures-21 : Top Producer of Wind Power
Texas surpassed California to become the top producer of wind power, and oil men were cashing in on the boom. "We are number one in wind in the United States," said Texas land commssioner Jerry Patterson, "and that will never change."
Courtesy: Weekly Review, Harper's Weekly, February 26, 2008
A Thought for Today : February 26, 2008
Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds - Albert Einstein
Living without Violence by Usha Jesudasan
On January 30, we remember the anniversary of Gandhiji’s violent death.
Violence. How we fear it. How we hope that it will not touch us or those we love. But it does – so often. The violence we face may not be brutal or physical; it may not on our streets; or with bombs or guns; but nevertheless it is there. We find it lurking in our everyday relationships, attitudes to each other, words, thoughts, looks and feelings.
For centuries men mostly, and those in authority, marginalized the idea of non-violence as it did not help them prosper or succeed in getting what they wanted as much as violence and fear did. Then came people like Gandhiji, Martin Luther, Vaclav Havel and others who made non-violence a political weapon and showed those who were captive to violence and oppression, its power.
Since then, people all over the world have discovered the power of non-violence as a political weapon. But the non-violent life is more than just a political tactic. It is a way of life for every single person and one that is both challenging and meaningful. The idea of non-violence is revolutionary and feared by those who cling to power, because it is an idea that can completely change the nature of society, and thus is a grave threat to the established order.
Non-violence or ahimsa living, is not just for activists; it is for us ordinary people – we all need to transform our minds and hearts to embody non-violence. This is a huge challenge because our society surrounds us with violence – in the media, in our workplaces, relationships and way of life. So, unless we train ourselves to consciously unlearn all the habits of violence we use, our first response to a crisis is violence.
We need to practice the art of “ahimsa living” every day. We need to store within ourselves a repertoire of non-violent actions, thoughts and words, so that when we do face crises, we can draw upon these practical, ethical, and spiritual ahimsa resources.
Could you make a commitment to an ahimsa way of life for a day or a week? Which areas of your life would you have to specially target to live this way?
Courtesy: ‘Young World’, Supplement to The Hindu, Jan.25, 2008
Grateful thanks to Ms Usha Jesudasan and The Hindu for the excellent article, which I intend to read at every opportunity till it is indelibly registered in my mind and some visible change is effected in me; and I fondly hope the visitors to this blog also read it with due to attention and benefit by it.
Violence. How we fear it. How we hope that it will not touch us or those we love. But it does – so often. The violence we face may not be brutal or physical; it may not on our streets; or with bombs or guns; but nevertheless it is there. We find it lurking in our everyday relationships, attitudes to each other, words, thoughts, looks and feelings.
For centuries men mostly, and those in authority, marginalized the idea of non-violence as it did not help them prosper or succeed in getting what they wanted as much as violence and fear did. Then came people like Gandhiji, Martin Luther, Vaclav Havel and others who made non-violence a political weapon and showed those who were captive to violence and oppression, its power.
Since then, people all over the world have discovered the power of non-violence as a political weapon. But the non-violent life is more than just a political tactic. It is a way of life for every single person and one that is both challenging and meaningful. The idea of non-violence is revolutionary and feared by those who cling to power, because it is an idea that can completely change the nature of society, and thus is a grave threat to the established order.
Non-violence or ahimsa living, is not just for activists; it is for us ordinary people – we all need to transform our minds and hearts to embody non-violence. This is a huge challenge because our society surrounds us with violence – in the media, in our workplaces, relationships and way of life. So, unless we train ourselves to consciously unlearn all the habits of violence we use, our first response to a crisis is violence.
We need to practice the art of “ahimsa living” every day. We need to store within ourselves a repertoire of non-violent actions, thoughts and words, so that when we do face crises, we can draw upon these practical, ethical, and spiritual ahimsa resources.
Could you make a commitment to an ahimsa way of life for a day or a week? Which areas of your life would you have to specially target to live this way?
Courtesy: ‘Young World’, Supplement to The Hindu, Jan.25, 2008
Grateful thanks to Ms Usha Jesudasan and The Hindu for the excellent article, which I intend to read at every opportunity till it is indelibly registered in my mind and some visible change is effected in me; and I fondly hope the visitors to this blog also read it with due to attention and benefit by it.
A Thought for Today : February 25, 2008
Deeds, not stones, are the true monuments of the great - John L. Motley
A Gentler Way To Lose Weight
You may have thought yoga was strictly for the mystics. Well, think again. Research in Washington shows that 45- to 55-year-olds who regularly practice it are better able to fight “middle-age spread,” while those already overweight are more likely to slim down.
Interestingly, few people practice yoga vigorously enough to burn many calories doing it. The study authors speculate that yoga instead makes you more “body aware” and perhaps teaches you discipline that you can apply in other areas of life.
The authors offer these yoga tips:
· Find an edge where you are challenged but not overwhelmed.
· Pay more attention to the internal experience than outer
Interestingly, few people practice yoga vigorously enough to burn many calories doing it. The study authors speculate that yoga instead makes you more “body aware” and perhaps teaches you discipline that you can apply in other areas of life.
The authors offer these yoga tips:
· Find an edge where you are challenged but not overwhelmed.
· Pay more attention to the internal experience than outer
performance.
· Try to become more aware of even your smallest movements.
· Note what you are saying to yourself as you practice – be sure
· Try to become more aware of even your smallest movements.
· Note what you are saying to yourself as you practice – be sure
to appreciate your own efforts.
Courtesy: ‘RD Health’, Reader’s Digest, January 2006
Courtesy: ‘RD Health’, Reader’s Digest, January 2006
Thursday, February 28, 2008
A Thought for Today : February 24, 2008
When man was first placed in the Garden of Eden, he was put there that he might cultivate it; which shows that man was not born to be idle - Voltaire
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