Unexpected Consequences

What the Dickens? I got to think that to every cloud there is some wind. So what of the recent Financial Tsunami that hit continents in its wake. It came close to shutting down the global monetary pipes just a few years ago. Yet its after shocks continue. With all this turmoil there are some bright spots ... 1. Americans discovered there is a place on the planet called Greece. Not the one in their car or a type of yogurt but an actual country. 2. Then they discovered there is another island country called Cyprus. Not like the tree but again a community of oligarchs and fishermen who went bankrupt just like Americans do time to time. Hey look we have cousins. 3. Kids learned new vocabulary words like 'Bailout', 'Sequester', 'Fiscal and Monetary policy', aside from simply learning about bankruptcy. 4. A lot of new movies showcasing the financial disaster got made - more jobs created - some bad guys even went to jail. 5. Some inflated egos went bust while some inflated busts went into hiding. To quote or is it paraphrase Dickens ... what we witnessed was surely the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity et al..

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But What If We're Wrong?

I attempted to read this book by author Chuck Klosterman backward to forward but it started hurting my brain so I decided to stop and do it like any other publication in the English language. Start from page 1 and move to the right. Witty, caustic and thought provoking this is a book you want to read if you believe that the status quo might, just might be wrong. At times bordering on being contrarian about most things around us it tries to zero in on the notion of what makes anything believable and certain in our minds. The fact that there is a fact itself is ironic. Something analogous to the idea that you can never predict the future because there is no future. Many books and movies have tried to play on this concept - best that I recollect (I think I am) was 'The Truman Show'. This book by Klosterman attempts to provoke the reader to at least contemplate that what they think they know may be wrong. He uses examples like concept of gravity, and how it ...

Peru, South America - Week well spent

Growing up in India the only Peru I knew of was a tropical fruit (Guava for those whose lingua is English). Not until high school did I discover that it was also a country in the South American continent. So it was this early April week that we decided to hit up Peru - the land of the once glorious Inca people that lived 500 years ago. Today Peru is the third largest country on that continent with a diverse geography that stretches from the drier Pacific coast plains to the high mountains of the Andes and the Amazon river valley to its east. Our trip was primarily a pilgrimage of sorts to visit the last remaining, lost (now found and documented), large scale, mostly undamaged, city of the Inca nobility, called Machu Picchu (MP). The Inca were great architects and builders. MP is a UNESCO world heritage site affording it high visibility to the tourism trade and therefore crowded year round. Our timing was not quite high season allowing us...

You are important to us

Followed by piano music. Followed by 'we are experiencing heavier than usual call volume'. Sounds macabre like bleeding during menstruation or after a ghastly attack with a weapon on a hemophiliac. Sorry Mrs. Johnson but it appears little Gertrude here has been bleeding heavier than usual what with her night time activities competing with the woodchucks in your neighborhood. Some services even go as far as to pick a random day to say - 'if you were to call us during the Chinese lunar month when the moon is axiomatically hugging the polar star with Jupiter intravenous when call volume is light'. Well I will be damned. I thought I had checked with my astrologer before I placed this well focused call but I guess this is what you get for listening to a quack. Umph! I am not sure which marketing genius came up with this personal touch concept of informing the caller that you are really a jackass for actually calling the customer serv...

Brown Motion

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