Brown Motion

As Covid ravages I sit at home. Sometimes as the sun shines I go and sit in my backyard with a camera. What I saw through the lens was a variety of wildlife making its way as if nothing had changed.  And to them it had not.  Perhaps an unusual stillness had descended with the goofy H sapiens sapiens not making an appearance as often.  These noisy creatures with their large mechanical smoke belchers had suddenly and magically stopped wandering.  So many a winged life buzzed, or chirped and others circled. The turkey vulture pictured below scanned its food supply chain down below and ... ..eyed the little guy sunning himself ... as he in turn kept a wary eye or two on its newly minted offspring pictured below..

Modern day life has brought many a convenience to us humans.   A toaster to toast a piece of bread by merely pressing a button or a steaming cup of caffeine with the press of another button.   And that is just to start our day. Our entire existence now has become subject to multiple button pressing activity, least of which is the incessant banter between two or more individuals of our species using the manifold tech available to us. Communication therefore has transformed from what used to be a difficult exercise in millennia past and now more so become central to our (perceived) success as a civilization occupying this rock. I would argue how and what we choose to communicate in today’s day and age are immensely important to our future survival.   The POTUS presenting a point of view about a deadly pathogen and its impact to society vs a trained immunologist articulating what we as a society need to do for self-preservation brings it home to many of us. ...

Something light hearted amidst the global angst felt by most unless they live on Antarctica or perchance are as yet an undiscovered tribe on our planet. Many of the regulars to this blog know of my penchant for a show that aired in the last decade of the last millenium on American television eponymously titled 'Seinfeld'. Created by two Jewish comedians Jerry Seinfeld and Larry David it was self titled the 'Show about Nothing'. It spanned a total of about eight years in the 1990s, consisting of nine seasons as the TV networks classify it.  NBC was the original TV network that had the broadcast rights and funded the productions. While the show followed the standard 22 minute actual taped time format it was written by a team of writers including Jerry and Larry and to me has come to represent the best of realistic comedy ever. I have had the fortune of reading and following and viewing many a show or book in my many years in America but none comes close to the ...

The largest economy on earth - loaded statement there - has a fundamental flaw. Look closely.  At American Dollars.  The currency in the world.  Everyone wants some. What do you see on it? Lots of portraits of dead men.  Poor Washington got stuck to a $1 bill.  Some other relatively unknown guys got higher values.  How come? Also some pictures of old greek looking buildings.  Some mumbo jumbo scrawls that cannot be duplicated easily. But most importantly the printed words - IN GOD WE TRUST. What? When a pandemic hits we don't really care what the President does.  Nor the Congress.  Nor the Federal Reserve. You see most people don't even understand the above man made institutions. Most people apparently understand God.  Because the first thing they think is - Oh God! Otherwise these are just meaningless pieces of colored paper.  What on earth are we doing chasing them?  We will find out on Easter. PS:...

This century only 20 years old has already pushed the boundaries of never before seen statistics and many firsts. Some nutjobs with skewed ideology flew commercial planes into large buildings killing 3,500 in the richest economy on earth. India did a global pilot with 1.3 Billion people when they decided to remove their most popular paper currency in an exercise called demonetization. Net result - some black market types got hammered.  Poor people (which is half of India's population) got hammered.  Today net result is that the grey economy continues with new Rupee notes.  Duh! World stock markets reached all time highs.  Man made indices to represent the fastest growth companies rang up huge profits as cost of capital plummeted.  World banks dropped interest rates to levels not seen ever.  Some went to Zero and some Negative.  It costs money to put it in a bank not the other way. More people are alive than ever before approaching 8 billion....

This phrase has often made headlines in these extraordinary times. Viewing our planet and its occupants as one entity in the universe.  Devoid of class and socio economic barriers, and without the lens of our otherwise jaded views on gun control, pro life or not, same sex or otherwise, cultural biases et al. From the Dalai Lama to the otherwise rebellious folk; from milk lovers to the lactose intolerant; Republican to Democrat, we all realized that it is critical to view this as more than a passing issue. A small organism of which we seem to know little has threatened the way of life.  No not way of life. But LIFE. It is crunch time.  The species slowly but surely awoke.  Outliers exist but largely we get it. It has also put a sensitive and debate topic to the forefront of whether socialist or capitalist models work best in case of such an unprecedented event. Time will tell.  I have no idea.  There are merits to each model and some Scandinavia...

King of Monaco has the virus. Honestly, I am not sure how many people on the planet would know what Monaco is? Including Americans. In India Monaco is the equivalent of a Ritz Cracker.  King of Monaco might sound like some uber cracker and a general reluctance to indulge in a tea time snack. Much like goofy people stopped drinking Corona beer. What next?  Pepperidge farms have to sell the farm?  They make Milanos.  Would people give up on their Milano cookies?  Because Milan is under lockdown? When they announced a run on toilet paper I was left wondering if the rascals in my neighborhood would please TP my house. I have heard that these random attacks in America's suburbs involve a bunch of disgruntled or misdirected youth that decide to wrap the topiary and hedges around someone's house with reels of toilet paper. Dang - that would be handy.  Sort of a trick and treat in one roll. LOL and more ROFL.