Weight of Advancement

People are more obese today in general than they were 100 years ago, 50 years ago, even 20 years ago. How you ask? Look at the national headlines stateside and the all out war against obesity. At least that is what certain portions of the media and government would have you believe. No more fries and pizza in school lunch menus (except when the kids can go across the street and indulge in gross candy from an authorised shack); banning of fizzy drinks and soda dispensers from elementary schools etc. along with proclaiming sugar as an addictive narcotic toxic substance. So we have the obvious irony of living in the world wide lands of plenty (Africa excluded) and countries and governments simultaneously dealing with issues of Type II and other types of diabetes and multitudes of diseases linked to overindulgence in rich food content. Aside from this bizzare fiasco there is another factor that is becoming noticable in terms of so called advancing civilizations and that is the other extra weight we seem to be carrying with us. I harken to the days my parents travelled by crowded commuter trains to work and the belongings that they may have had 'on their person' (I particularly like the use of this somewhat retarded phrase where it gives the person in question an otherworldly quality). A pouch for a sandwich or roti sabji and a smallish purse for the train ticket and some money. That is it. Perhaps an eye aid (as in chasma) and its carrier - that was the total spectacle. Take an average idiot on today's commuter train that I sometimes take (the train - not the idiot per se) going to work. First comes the multitudes of makeup gear - enough to paint the eyes of kids in an entire impoverished country in Africa. Then there is gum/mint/candy/mouth freshners in various colors, hardness, price points, containers. Latter to really freshen the person inside out after their arrival at the destination (did I mention the sprays and mists they may indulge in during the journey?) Now on to the accouterments to keep them detached from the person sitting next to them and disembody themselves to their Facebook friend number 9,324. There are multitude of Androids and Pads and Pods to choose from if you are the gaming kind... games people play I tell you. Also those studious types staring at an e book trying to get wiser than the comeptition. Reading is good I say but what of the live experience of watching others get wiser? Then there is of course the sensory detachment in the form of audio and video from the late show the night before being streamed in to their duramatter through expensive looking headsets. After all this overdoes of data its time for some refreshment - liquid kind - sterilized, fancy bottled, sometimes labeled SMART sometimes not, in several colors if you are a fan of the electrolytic beverage and sometimes in the form of hi caffiene shots that would propel that person from his seat to the next just by thinking about it. I mean it is cool to actually drink something that has the word BULL in it? After all this there is the ubiquitous portable computer and several badges to enter severely secure premises that the idiot is ultimately destined to go to. Now where did I put that damned train ticket?

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 ...

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...

Of Jims and Johns

Here is another essay on the subject of first names. As in birth names. Or names provided to an offspring at birth. While the developed world tends to shy away from the exotic like Refrigerator or Coca Cola for their new production there is a plethora of Jims and Johns and Bobs or Robs. Speaking of which I do not think there is a categoric decision point at the time of birth if a child will be hereafter called as Bob. I mean have not yet met a toddler called Bob or Rob for that matter. At some point though the parental instinct to mouth out multiple syllables runs out and they switch from calling the crawler Robert to simply Robbie to Rob. Now speaking of - it is strange that the name sounds like something you would not want Rob to do - i.e. Rob anyone. Then why call someone that? After all Rob Peter to Pay Paul is not exactly a maxim to live a young life? Is it? Perhaps Peter or Paul might want to have a say in it? Then there is this matter of going to the John. Why degrad...

Brown Motion

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