One of my favorite places to visit is Yosemite National Park. Thankfully, since it’s just a few hours drive from home, I have been there dozens of times. Here’s a pretty picture of El Capitan.
Month: August 2015
Renaming Aurangzeb Road: A Proposal
Indian politicians talk a very loudly talk about India being a democracy, meaning Indians have some say in what happens in India. But when it comes to reality, they are understandably reluctant to put their money where their mouth is…. Read More ›
Naming “Dr” APJ Abdul Kalam Road: The Administrator
The proposed renaming of “Aurangzeb Road” into “Dr APJ Abdul Kalam Road” is doubtless an improvement. It marks a welcome transition from honoring an ancient terrible tyrant to honoring a contemporaneous much-admired administrator who passed away very recently. It could… Read More ›
Renaming Aurangzeb Road: The Tyrant
Though not unique in that respect, India does appear to suffer from a severely debilitating case of personality cult disorder. It is not a minor affliction because, as I will argue later in a separate post, it leads to serious… Read More ›
Flash mob performance of Beethoven’s “Ode to Joy”
One of my favorites, Beethoven’s 9th symphony is his final complete symphony. Composed between 1822 and 1824, it is considered to be his finest and some even think that it is the greatest composition in the Western classical music canon…. Read More ›
EPIC pictures of the Earth
This is a picture of our earth taken by NASA’s DSCOVR – Deep Space Climate Observatory – spacecraft which is parked in the L1 Lagrange point to observe the sun and the earth.
The Cycle of Wealth and Poverty
Some years ago, a very wise gentleman told me of a saying that succinctly describes the decline and fall of family fortunes, which happens to cycle in approximately four generations. “Khattu, Nikhattu, Udharichand, Baychumal”. It begins with the generation that… Read More ›
Of Yogis, Grihastis and Institutions
If people were self-sacrificing, self-effacing, other-directed, rational, visionary, benevolent beings — “yogis” — then it would not matter very much what kind of institutional arrangements they lived under: the resulting social welfare of their collective actions would be fairly even… Read More ›
Karl Popper on the Limits of Tolerance
“Unlimited tolerance must lead to the disappearance of tolerance. If we extend unlimited tolerance even to those who are intolerant, if we are not prepared to defend a tolerant society against the onslaught of the intolerant, then the tolerant will… Read More ›
Open Thread. Curiosity.
Click on the picture to embiggen.
