The Long Now Foundation

[+] Here's the download page for the LongNow Foundation. Some very interesting and informative seminar material uploaded; [LongNow]

[+] The site for the Rosetta Project

Other stuff

[+] An excellent blog project;[ArtisticYear]

Nikolai Ostrovsky

An excerpt from Nikolai Ostrovsky's 'How the Steel Was Tempered'

"The most valuable thing to man is his life. Life belongs to him only once and should be spent this way: when he recalls his past, he will not regret having wasted any time or feel ashamed of having accomplished nothing. Thus he can say on his deathbed: I have devoted my whole life and every bit of my energy to the most magnificent cause of humanity - the struggle for the liberation of mankind."

Which side you want to be in ?

Well iam starting to write this after just finsihing up a movie. FIGHT CLUB. It was really a conflict of one with himself .

It was only after watching this i realised ANNIYAN was so very messed up .

Its a fact that all of us want to be something else than what we are.More powerful … To be able to do what ever we want and not be afraid of others or this society .

I just relaised i have a wicked side too.How wicked i can be .. i guess is relative .
I see a girl on the way and i get attracted to her . what do u call that ..definitely not love ?
yes some call it appreciation of beauty but deep i know i would want to do much more than just appreciate.Before staring at me ask the same question back to yourself and you might be surprised .

Here in this story there a ordinary guy who thinks his life is boring and that he is pretty much useless.and he goes on to meet Tytler who is nothing but a part of himself and he is just what he really wants to be . Powerful active and happy with what he is doing.

But his real himself tries to keep him away from that wicked image atleast thats what it is shown as but the truth when u really watch out for is that his tendency is really to move more towards Tytler.

The director never lets you know this intention until the last frame wherein there is a flashing image that goes by !. He makes his galfriend stand out in a place and have all the buildings burst around her . and before you realise what has happened
The credits start rolling over . I had to rewind and see the frame again and i think all it says is the real persona has finally gotten rid of the real himself and his liking for the more powerful and more happy Tytler makes him become a real Tytler .

It seems unconventional because we expect the evil to be dead in the end .But what would have you done ?

Be the same yours or choose a new one !

did u see any change in my way ??

the copy of this post can be found at http://theyaga.3lo.net/blog/?p=10

--taggy

Félicitations

Hurrah, India won the Hutch Cup, an overseas series victory. The first overseas ODI Trophy for captain Dravid. After the demoralizing defeat in the Test Series against Pakistan, the Indian Cricket Team was written off by the critics for the Hutch Cup. The 5 ODI’s tournament had a predictable opening. Pakistan won the first match; afterwards it was just the India’s story. India won the rest 4 matches more convincingly than the previous one. Probably they implemented the management principle Kaizen in their game plan. This series had its own set of controversies. The unusual way Inzy got out in the first match. There was too much furore in the sports column about it. Many claimed though the appeal by the Indian team complies with the rules of the game, it was not a sportive call. The age old argument surfaces to the top again, whether the game should just be played with both sportive spirit and rules or just the rules. Controversies apart, the ODI series was an absolute treat to watch. The icing on the cake is definitely the technology used by TEN Sports, “The Dartfish and Hawkeye”. The strides in technology which traces the movement of the ball every moment is simply amazing. If atmosphere is the reason which attracts the viewer to get into the stadium then definitely it’s these technologies which are going to keep the viewer glued to the TV screens in the days to come.

Multan seems to be a charm of luck for Dravid. It is here, he won the first test as a captain and it is here he won the first overseas ODI series as a captain. Well the Indian team finished the final rites in Karachi by winning the last match in style. At one point of time, when the asking rate was around 8.3 rpo, 100 odd runs to score with Dhoni and Yuvraj were batting, I thought Indian’s might lose the match. Later when Yuvraj got injured and couldn’t move his feet properly, the match started tilting in favour of Pakistan. But due to some inconsistent line and length from the Pakistan bowlers and some extremely poor fielding, the Indians cruised home. Nonetheless Dhoni was simply awesome; I hope he would be repeating these powerful knocks against teams like Australia. Have to wait and watch.

One growing concern amongst the veterans of the game is in order to make the ODI format of the game more interesting and marketable the organizers are spoiling the game to be purely a batsman game. By preparing flat tracks, reducing the boundary lines, etc.

Looking forward to England’s tour of India which is about to start the next fortnight.

Best Regards
A Happy Indian Cricket Fan

Pyramid of a Capitalist System

Cross posted at http://urbansiege.blogspot.com


Saw this poster when browsing through wikipedia, in the article, Economic Inequality. This was a campaign poster used by the Industrial Workers of the World, for protesting against the evil effects of capitalism and its ignorance of the marginalised and underprivelaged. Their main aim was to bring up a workers' union, and to gain support for it.
This poster is relevant even today and it is so sad that this is so... What is Capitalism, Globalization and Technology when such systems has not resulted in considerable positive change in Human Welfare?
Pyramid of a Capitalist System

Ghost Particle(s)!

(From Stephanie's Email) Hey there – I thought the info on the exciting premiere of this NOVA show would be great for your site.

NOVA’s “The Ghost Particle”, which is premiering Tuesday, February 21, at 8 PM ET on PBS (check local listings), explores the swarms of invisible particles that fill every cubic inch of space, and just may explain how the universe was created.

I also was hoping you’ll be able to link to this cool package online, in time for the accompanying on-air NOVA premiere on February 21.

The URL is: http://pbs.org/nova/neutrino

Below’s the press release on the show – thanks very much!

Stephanie Houghton Dera, Roslan & Campion PR 212-966-4600, x. 19
stephanie@derapr.com


NOVA CHASES A SCIENTIFIC PHANTOM THAT MAY
HOLD THE KEY TO HOW OUR UNIVERSE WAS BORN

NOVA Presents THE GHOST PARTICLE
PREMIERES TUESDAY FEBRUARY 21, 2006, AT 8PM ET ON PBS
www.pbs.org/nova/neutrino


Boston, MA — NOVA probes the secret ingredient of the cosmos: swarms of invisible particles that fill every cubic inch of space, and just may explain how the universe was created. Trillions of ghostly neutrinos move through our bodies every second without us noticing a thing. Yet, without them, the sun wouldn’t shine and the elements that make up our world wouldn’t exist. NOVA explores the 70-year scientific struggle to understand the neutrino—a tale of mind-boggling disappearances—on The Ghost Particle, premiering Tuesday, February 21, 2006, at 8 pm ET on PBS.

Narrated by British actor Juliet Stevenson, The Ghost Particle is the story of a discovery that altered scientists’ understanding of what the universe is made of and how it was first formed. NOVA accompanies scientists into the laboratory, revealing astonishing footage of bizarre experiments. Computer animation brings to life the neutrino particle that is at once invisible and yet utterly essential to all life. NOVA first takes audiences back to 1930, when Austrian physicist Wolfgang Pauli wrote to his colleagues about the phenomenon of radioactive decay. The experts were puzzled by a missing bit of energy that could not be accounted for in their picture of how a radioactive atomic nucleus decays. Pauli suggested that a tiny, previously unknown particle had to exist to account for the missing energy. The problem with this theory, however, was that there was no hard evidence of the neutrinos existence.

It seemed to be an impossible investigation. Neutrinos have no electric charge – making them invisible to ordinary detecting equipment. Truly a poltergeist among particles, they can pass directly through solid matter without making so much as a ripple. Yet, every element vital to life, including carbon and oxygen, is made by a chain of nuclear reactions that would be impossible without neutrinos. They are an essential ingredient of the universe, and catching these neutrinos became the ultimate scientific quest. NOVA sits down with Professor John Bahcall and Nobel Prize winner Ray Davis, two men determined to solve of the biggest puzzles in particle physics. In the 1960s, they began their scientific adventure with a daring underground experiment that few believed could succeed.

Their goal was to find neutrinos produced by nuclear fusion within our shining sun. While Bahcall calculated the sun’s theoretical neutrino output, Davis built a neutrino trap nearly a mile underground in a gold mine in South Dakota, consisting of over 100,000 gallons of dry cleaning fluid. Their results were anything but expected, and sparked a raging debate that would take 40 years to resolve. Journeying from Davis’s South Dakota experiment site, to the Super-K detector in Japan, NOVA recounts the neutrino hunt with the world’s top physicists. To all the experts, Bahcall’s prediction method and Davis’s experiment design were both correct – yet the results did not match up! Most disturbing, the possible explanation for the discordance flew in the face of the Standard Model, an underlying theory explaining the basic building blocks of the universe and essential to understanding the Big Bang.

Construction of the Sudbury Neutrino Observatory (SNO) in Canada would finally settle the long debate by revealing the unlikeliest solution of all --- that neutrinos have a bizarre ability to switch identity as they travel from the sun. With its shape-shifting behavior, the “Ghost Particle” turned out to be even stranger than anyone imagined.On an eye-popping tour, NOVA visits this extraordinary laboratory built two kilometers below ground, housing an acrylic sphere containing 1,000 tons of heavy water. The exact center of the SNO detector boasts the lowest level of radiation at any point in the solar system.Join NOVA for one of the great stories of science – a sprawling mystery culminating in what is arguably the most significant discovery of the new century. It is a discovery that challenges convention and continues to open a new world of physics--all due to this ghost particle, the enigmatic neutrino.

# # #

Pressrooms
pressroom.wgbh.org/nova
pbs.org/pressroom

Press contacts for NOVA
Eileen Campion
Dera, Roslan & Campion
(212) 966-4600
eileen@derapr.com

Rang De Basanti – It’s Different

Welcome here, avant-garde genre films meet commercialism. Yes this is yet another review of the latest Aamir Khan movie “Rang De Basanti”. One might be wondering why so many reviews for this movie, is it such a great movie. I wouldn’t say it’s a greatest movie of all times but I guess it has to do with what the movie says “A new generation awakes”. It’s been a long time since I wanted to see a movie more than once. This movie is one which I would love to see time and again.

One thing I have tried my best to do is not to let out the plot of the movie. It’s a wafer thin plot which loads of sensible subject in it. Does that sound bit Contradictory? Well then look at this. Is this a youth film with fun element in it? Yes. Is this a patriotic film with enough elements of fervor in it? Yes. It’s different since it’s a good time pass film directed by an Advertising Man, It’s short and sweet. It’s different since the director has handled the screenplay pretty well and successfully managed not to get into the preachy mode which has been the case with other movies in this genre. It’s different since this movie is completely shot in India. It’s been a long time since a big time Hindi film being completely shot in India. It’s different since the lighting is constantly switched back and forth between “Black & White” to color at the right moments, setting the right tone for the movie. The Cameraman has done a wonderful job on this one. It’s different since all the songs in the movie come as a background score. The title track “Rang De Basanti” is colorful. The marketing team of India’s Tourism board can even add this one in their “Incredible India” campaign. The genre of music is contemporary. This is yet another feather in the cap for A.R.Rahman. I enjoyed the title track the most. In recent times critics have said that the director just inserts the songs for commercial value. Kudos to the director, there couldn’t have been a more appropriate place for the “Lukka Chuppi” song by Lata Mangeshkar and A.R.Rahman. It’s hard hitting, this is where it really makes the viewer get involved with the film. Just note the songs while watching the movie; you would know the contribution of the lyricist Prashoon Joshi. It’s a commendable job he has done. I hope he gets the same kind of opportunity in the future too. At least that would end this Re-Mix era and junta would start listening to the OST’s. Aamir khan has given a yet another good performance. He speaks the Punjabi accented Hindi with ease. (Now here only a Punjabi can tell that how much authentic it was not me who has never been to that part of the country). The other lead characters have matched Aamir’s performance to an extent. You get to see Om Puri, Waheeda Rehman, and Kiron Kher in cameo roles. You know how their performance would be. One part I really enjoyed in the movie is when the foreigner auditions the Delhi college students for a documentary. That’s fun. I felt the movie dealt more with the subject of Non Violence than patriotism. It just says that violence is not a solution to everything. One of the protagonists realizes bit lately when a School master says that they have set a wrong example by resorting to violence. This movie clearly depicts that an Indian’s attitude towards this Nation has changed a lot over the past fifty years.

My Perception: A Time Pass yet a Sensible Film.

Warning: Never ever read a review which has the plot of this movie if you are planning to watch it. It would spoil the surprise element when you watch it for the first time. Probably that is why people said “Ignorance is Bliss”.

'A' Constant Gardener

To Yvette Pierpaoli and all the aid workers who lived and died giving a damn.

Not even the mesmerizing music of the movie could hide the dark tragedy that’s been eating away Africa. This would not be the first movie in recent times depicting Africa as the dumping ground of all things evil, or in the case of The Constant Gardener, the testing ground for medicines. (Lord of war showed illicit arms dealings in Africa). Based on the novel by John Le Carré (David Cornwell), TCG depicts a love story in the milieu of illegal pharmaceutical testing in Africa. The movie was shot in Kenya among other places. Ralph Fiennes and Rachel Weisz are magnificent in their roles, with Fiennes slipping in masterfully playing the diplomat husband of Weisz. Something about British actors who never seem to fail on the silver screen. Weisz through some turn of events get into investigating the backroom deals of pharma’s in Africa. She gets killed and it’s Fiennes who traces the rest of the story. The screenplay is absolutely fresh and amazing and the cinematopgraphy is beautifully swift. Find out more about the movie at the official site;[TCG]

The world is a sick place. How do we explain Africa? The basic idea of the movie is this; the following are based on my own theory but basically tells the story of TCG. We have this one hypothetical pharmaceutical company called Orion Pharma which employs about 10,000 employees worldwide or so. Every one of them needs to be supported, amounting to a huge amount of salary every year. We have sick people all around the world. We have pandemics killing millions yearly. In the movie, the ‘future’ pandemic is TB. Testing drugs in develop or developing countries means regulations and years wasted without profit. So take the medicine to Africa and test it there. Africans are poor; they can’t pay for the medicine. In the pretext of giving it free to them, the drugs are tested on the unsuspecting victims clearly represented as sponsored by the Pharma and specially masked as an AIDS drug (while throwing in a free TB test). You test once to find the other disease and the drug is actually meant to be a TB drug. And yes, along with the Pharma workers, throw in arms dealers, Mafiosi styled gangs and a few innocent diplomats, aid workers and local doctors. Test the drugs. Burry the dead in unmarked mass graves, a job done by the local gangs. Finally get the working drug formula after a few tries, patent it, and sell it to the developing world and rich countries for huge amounts of money. The company execs get rich, the local governments get their bribe and the thousands of employees get their salary. That’s how the world works. What happens to the Africans? Who cares? Disposable drugs for disposable people (a line from the movie).

With biotech and medicine becoming more important in the wake of emerging pandemics such as the bird flu, the pharmaceutical field is a hot bed for scientist and industrialists alike. Normally drugs or medicines take no less than four years to enter the market, but of course in serious cases such as the bird flu, the clinical trials took around 6 months to a year. Even then, Tamiflu the destined drug for bird flu is showing signs of weakness in certain cases. While countries are becoming more aware of the fact that any widespread pandemic will badly cripple the world economy, in the case of TCG, an outbreak of TB would paralyze the world market in a short few years. The race to create new drugs takes years and millions if not billions of dollars to be spent on research. Top it up with different licensing regimes in different regions; we have a complex market but not so complex global players. As usual the giants of the industry will want to rake in profits to support its huge operations while maintaining its spotless image. But in the world of medicines there is no spotless image, and one wrong move will cause billions of market capitalization to vanish in seconds in the stock markets. To steer away from any unwanted happenings, drugs are tested in obscure countries, regions namely Africa and to some extent Asia. And if that’s not enough, research publications are withheld and often distorted to minimize the evidence of side effects popping up. By the time people starts dropping on the streets dying, the company would have in its coffers enough money to bail out its CEO’s and paid enough insurance to cover the future lawsuits. That leaves Africa as dead as anyone can imagine. Where is the silver lining in this? Actually the big pharma’s do build clinics and schools and for all its worth, what’s a few thousand African lives compared to millions of dynamic citizens of the rest of the world. 95% of the world economy, industry and research are safely situated outside of Africa. We are safe, high and dry and could thank our African cousins for sacrificing themselves for us.

There is another part to this story. No civilization can remain stupid forever. All civilizations around the world had its own timeline to develop culture and intelligence. The pharma’s must not let that happen in Africa. So comes in arms dealers and oil prospectors. You see, there are a few countries with huge oil deposits in Africa. If they manage to get the oil out and as fast as possible drain the natural resources of the countries concerned, the people will remain poor and uneducated. And to make them more cooperative, supply arms to local gangs and warlords so that manpower would come easily to them. It’s also a tested way to silence those who speak out, the occasional lost social activist and generally blind the UN into thinking the whole scenario is an internal conflict. It doesn’t stop there does it? Africa is also full of diamonds and other resources. Mine them too and to cover the whole operation install a few democratic government in strategic corners of the continent so that the refugees have places to run (and later bring in aid agencies sponsored by the oil industry and big pharma’s). And also to let the tired company execs go on safaris and desert holidays. Surely a roasted lamb meal in the middle of the desert under the clear skies scattered with stars as beautiful as conflict diamonds from Sierra Leone is a holiday not to be missed. And to maintain the momentum, just move around this huge puzzle a few times in a year so that the world is alert that Africa needs help and we all can go to giant concerts to sing songs to dead African children.

Who said all problems have solutions? They might have, but if we just maneuver the problems in certain ways for a certain amount of time, everything will remain as they are as long as we want it to be. No solution. As for Africa, the future has no more stories to tell about this great land we all came from, only the occasional Blogger with a sudden spark of thinking, devising a way to let the readers ponder the situation for a couple of hours. And all along the time, tell them what a fine movie it is. It is.

For walking are the feet for,
and for talking is the mouth for,
and the brain, is not to be restrained anymore…

[+] The post is a cross post from my blog.

Lost Daughters

It was almost eight months, since this was going on. People always warning me that, I would have to share a lot of things if it happened. I for once knew what I was doing, even though I was too young to understand. Dad had a big smile, when he first heard me pray about it. And mom asking me names when we had those evening walks on the streets of Panajim, 16 years back. But it’s a pity that this is quiet not the case in most Indian families.

Daughters are regarded as a liability, eventually belonging to the family of her future husband, expenditure on her will benefit others, they think. Some one who can carry the family surname but just lose it on the way out. Still prevalent in our communities, the cost of her dowry could be phenomenal.

It was a month back when I notice this board in the Ultrasound department in my university here in the Caucus, it read, in two different languages ‘The gender of a child cannot be disclosed’. Later on a chat with the nurse I found out that it could be done if the doctor was paid about 40$.I am pretty sure about the similar boards and activities with the Indian doctors back home.

Women's rights activists', sometime fail to realize that educated women abort more that uneducated women when they find out it’s a girl. What are they doing about this? But as someone pointed out yes, women who choose this might be those who are under pressure, or women who are not the ones who are making the decision. It’s hard to deny that the rights for women have not been low in India.

The practice of aborting female foetuses is becoming a major problem in India. This is a much larger problem in the future. Among other problems, it will make it harder for men to find wives. In China, where a one-child policy is strictly enforced, prenatal sex selection has resulted in an estimated 40 million bachelors.

Times are changing; girls can become successful heirs. Its time parents realized that girls care more than boys at certain instances, when it comes to family problems. Did you know that females have 10 times the amount of white matter than males, which controls networking abilities? They are getting more rights. She is found in every field, be it technology, medicine, or defense.

I am not sure if this small piece of blogging would eradicate this major problem of female foetus abortion. But I’m sure, at the end of the day it will give me the peace of mind that I did voice against it.

Give her a life.

No War, Only Peace (100th post)

After the Sri Lankan Foreign Affairs Minister Lakshman Kadirgmar (73) was short dead by an unidentified gunman in Colombo on August 12 , 2005, the war fear started in Srilanka. The Sri Lankan government declared a state of emergency for two months, after Kadirgmar died. The Government accused LTTE for killing Kadirgmar, but they rejected it. In this situation the President elections came on November, in this Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapakse wins the election and selected as fifth President.

After the elections, the President Rajapakse called the LTTE to continue the peace talk, and also said it like to keep an asian country as the ambassador, but LTTE denied to continue the talk, and said it like to keet a European country as its ambassador. In this situation on December 23 the suspected LTTE rebels blew up a convoy in the northern Manner district, killed at least 13 sailors, after the ceasefire agreement with Sri Lankan Government in 2002, this is the biggest suicide sea attack. After this attacks, the LTTE continue its attacks on Lankan Navy and innocent people, they killed a woman and here daughters in Jaffna peninsula on January 16, in the following days they have gunned two brothers and 2 soldiers, and they are killing at least a person almost every day. After the suicide attack carried out by the Sea Tigers, guns are a common sight along the beach. Many fishermen’s feel forced to stay close to the shore, because they usually go up to 5km in the sea, but now they go only up to 1km., they fear that the Sri Lankan navy will mistake them for Sea Tigers and fire, because of this hundreds of people who depend on fishing are taking other jobs. When the peace delegation ask LTTE to explain the attacks against the military in the recent times, the LTTE denied responsibility, even of the spate of claymore mine attacks that killed over 60 soldiers since December. The people in Sri Lanka are really afraid of these killings, and don’t know when the War will start, so many people leave there country and comes as destitute to South Tamil Nadu, like Rameswaram, Kanyakumari, the destitute continuously coming to Tamil nadu in recent days.

Already the Tsunami struck the Island in 2004 and destroyed many housed and many people killed and the normal life was completely shaken. Just now the people are coming out from the fear of tsunami, and getting relief and new houses, which was constructed by foreign NGO’s, the NGO’s said it will take at least 2years to complete the buildings. When the war starts now, the hard work of organizations will be destroyed, so they are feared that another tsunami will attack soon in the name of war and wash them.

Finally the Sri Lankan government selected the European country Geneva as its Peace talk ambassador, the LTTE also said yes to this decision on January 25, I think the peace talk will be held in february. But there are lots of confusing scenarios emerging in Sri Lanka of the breakthrough that has been achieved to hold direct talks between the Sri Lanka and the LTTE on January 25^th. The LTTE has delegated for the talks under the leadership of its chief negotiator, Anton balasingham.

When the War starts, the Military and Tigers are going to kill many innocent people. If they love their people they like to do good things for them, they should not go to war, should continue their talk and give there people peace. For a long 20 year they are fighting each other, and given trouble for the people. If they forget the fight and all of them get involve and work for there country, we can see another Developed country like Singapore, I hope they have the power and facilities. When they go to war they are going to loss the country’s development, a country’s development is in the hand of forest and nature and also the People power, if they destroy it, who ever wins the Sri Lankan Government or LTTE, are going to loss the identity of there develop. I think in this peace talk there should not be another country involve, because their are many chance for them, to look for any benefits from this peace talk. But when they sincerely involve in the peace talk and like to give life for a country they can solve the problem. Hope for looking good result in this peace talk.

Voilà 10000 !

We are finally there; the Bombay Stock Exchange’s Market Capitalization-Weighted Index BSE-30 more popularly known as “SENSEX” hits 10,000 for the first time yesterday. A Decade before who would have thought something like this would at such a short span of time in the Indian Equity Markets. This happens at a time when the communists are part of the ruling coalition in the country.

Critics might say no matter what happens; the stock markets are highly volatile places to put your money in. But history has been on the side of the Game theorists, who believe the Stock Markets are nothing but a Positive Sum Game. Over a long period of time it would always be on the up move. It is just that in this game only very few players would win in big time and there would be lots of small winners and extremely small number of losers. Remember this theory applies for people who stay invested for a long period of time.

Go Play the Game.
----
"Someone's sitting in the shade today, because they planted a tree long time ago." - Warren Buffet

Man Made Missiles

" Misguided missiles by guided men, Guided missiles by misguided men both are same "


Picture Source : Web
Words : Prakash

Another Earth?

OGLE-2005-BLG-290: Five times bigger than earth.

An international team of scientists has discovered a planet five times bigger than Earth. Called OGLE-2005-BLG-290, it is the smallest spotted outside the solar system. It orbits a red dwarf star in the Sagittarius constellation and takes a decade to circle its star. Researchers say its surface is likely to be rocky and covered by frozen seas. The planet was discovered in July 2005 through telescopes in Chile, Australia and South Africa using a technique called "microlensing" light analysis, which is based on Albert Einstein's theory. The discovery involved a concerted effort by 32 institutions in France, Denmark, Germany, Poland, Chile, Austria, New Zealand, United States, Australia, South Africa, Japan and the U.K.

What cause is there for God?

* If you felt completely in control of your life, would you have any reason to appeal to whatever entity may be out there for help?
* When you have no reason for being here, doing what you do, is God who you turn to for a sign as well as guidance?
* Is God to be held accountable for that which is mainly inexplicable? Then what would would happen if you could explain everything you came across?
* Is it weakness to require that there be a God for your salvation, for your life to have meaning, for there to be hope?
* In strength, would you turn to God to say thanks for everything?
* Or, would you say that you have not resigned yourself to what God has deemed as your fate? Instead would you say that what has become of you is a result of favourable circumstances as well as who you are and what you have done with your life?

If you are in control, God need not feel that he must bestow upon you his attentions and bother with pulling you out of the hole you were planted in to grow from. You will make it out of the dirt yourself and you will be stronger and better off as a result of the struggle. Don't rely on someone else's help. Do yourself and everyone else a favour and help yourself out of your troubles and into success. And if you have time, effort and resources that are not needed for your own triumph, start pulling others out of the muck with you. The secret to making the world a better place is first fixing yourself and ensuring your own strength and security. Then and only then should you attempt trying to fix anybody or anything else that needs bettering.

Third Time Lucky

That’s the way the next Bryan Adams tour of India is being promoted. I came across 2 promotions based on this theme. The first one was on TV, it’s starts like this, “when he came for the first time…”, then a glimpse of his first tour to India appears, after that the ad says “…you had a girl friend but no money”. A glimpse of the audience of the First Tour appears on screen. After that the ad says “The second time he came…” a glimpse of his second tour to India appears, the ad says “…you had money but no girl friend”. A glimpse of the audience of the second tour appears on screen. Then the volume of the background music increases…the ad announces the third tour of Bryan Adams to India. Implicitly it means that if you have a girl friend and money and want to have fun at the Bryan Adams show, here is your chance. This is one catchy promotion for a rock show.

In a music outlet here, where the tickets for the concert is being sold. I saw another promotion. The print ad said when he came for the first time, tickets were available but u did not have money. When he came for the second time, u had money but the tickets weren’t available. Now here is your chance. Tickets are available here.

When he came for the second time, I was completely surrounded by friends who liked Bryan Adams; I ended up being in the concert. But now strangely enough, the same old friends and new friends not even a single soul is interested in Bryan Adams songs. I don’t know what happened over the years, but I still like his numbers. Of course all said and done I would not be third time lucky. This summer of 2006 is of course not a “summer of 69” for me since this is not the “Best of me” to be on the “Cloud number nine”. And the concert night I wouldn’t be saying “Let’s make a Night to remember”, now if you would “Please forgive me”, I just “Can’t stop this thing we started”. Always remember that “Everything I do, I do it for you”, I would be soon coming “Back to you”.

Inside Out