Tuesday, January 31, 2006

Look What Conditioning Can Do !!!

"As I was passing the elephants, I suddenly stopped, confused by the fact that these huge creatures were being held by only a small rope tied to their front leg. No chains, no cages. It was obvious that the elephants could, at anytime, break away from their bonds but for some reason, they did not.

I saw a trainer near by and asked why these beautiful, magnificent animals just stood there and made no attempt to get away. "Well," he said,"when they are very young and much smaller we use the same size rope to tie them and, at that age, it's enough to hold them. As they grow up, they are conditioned to believe they cannot break away. They believe the rope can still hold them, so they never try to break free." I was amazed. These animals could at any time break free from their bonds but because they believed they couldn't, they were stuck right where they were."

Like the elephants, how many of us go through life hanging onto a belief that we cannot do something, simply because we failed at it once before?

Tuesday, January 24, 2006

Nobel Prize for Literature in 2005

Harold Pinter is the man who won Nobel Prize for literature in 2005. His Nobel Lecture was E X P L O S I V E ... to say the least.

An excerpt:
Do we think about the inhabitants of Guantanamo Bay? What does the media say about them? They pop up occasionally - a small item on page six. They have been consigned to a no man's land from which indeed they may never return. At present many are on hunger strike, being force-fed, including British residents. No niceties in these force-feeding procedures. No sedative or anaesthetic. Just a tube stuck up your nose and into your throat. You vomit blood. This is torture. What has the British Foreign Secretary said about this? Nothing. What has the British Prime Minister said about this? Nothing. Why not? Because the United States has said: to criticise our conduct in Guantanamo Bay constitutes an unfriendly act. You're either with us or against us. So Blair shuts up.

If you wish to read the original – here is the link - http://nobelprize.org/literature/laureates/2005/pinter-lecture-e.html

P. S : For non-literature-buffs...the political part of the speech starts with the sentence "As every single person here knows, the justification for the invasion of Iraq was that Saddam Hussein possessed a highly dangerous body of weapons of mass destruction, some of which could be fired in 45 minutes, bringing about appalling devastation."

Monday, January 23, 2006

Good News India - Work creeps into life...

Mr. D V Sridharan of Good News India writes about a story of personal courage. Amazing read. Though the narration is a bit long but it’s difficult not to read it till the end. Below is an excerpt from the story…

Work creeps into life:

In the five and a half years of publishing GoodNewsIndia, I , D V Sridharan have kept a low profile. Finally, having written about many people who stood up against odds, I could not escape my turn when an issue popped up in my own backyard. This is then my own story and I believe it belongs in this site.

My strife also cost me much time during which GoodNewsIndia, a one man operation that it is, has suffered neglect. Reading the story -which includes my brief arrest by the police- I hope you will forgive me this spell. At 64, my passion for seeking out the good work in India, has only increased. This episode and your support will sustain it. I promise to make amends in the coming months.

By a strange coincidence this is also the 100th story in the Magazine section: an occasion when writing in the first person, seems somehow appropriate.

Many of you may not have visited the site recently and therefore, the redesign will be new to you. I hope you find it pleasing.

Now without further ado to a story of vandalism, substantially resisted:

http://www.goodnewsindia.com/index.php/Magazine/story/mgm/

Friday, January 13, 2006

New China

Business Week brings us the face of new china through this slideshow.
A must watch...
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