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Origin of some sayings we take for granted
It has been while since I posted …….. lots going on in my life and worthy of a separate post down the line. But this post is about common usage of some expressions and sayings we take for granted without knowing their origin. It came up when I was curious about the very American expression: “It ain’t over till the fat lady sings” …. an expression commonly used today in the context of sports. It essentially means that until the game is over don’t take anything for granted. I wondered about the origin of the expression and there are several views though the most accepted one is a reference to…
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It takes a village: the inspiring story of Dawn Loggins
Attending an Ivy League school is an aspiration of many students. Competition is intense especially in recent years and the acceptance rate is usually below 10% in the most selective of the Ivies like Harvard University. During a recent Science Fair that my grandson, DJ, was a Grand Prize nominee, there was a young Asian high school senior who won the Grand Prize for research he did on the effect of zinc on certain types of cancer. He was waiting to hear from a couple of the Ivies and mentioned how difficult it was to get accepted at Harvard. A perfect score in the SAT, an excellent GPA and multiple…
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Blimey! Is this really what we want in the US?
The relationship between Americans and the British and how they view each other is complicated and interesting. For obvious reasons Americans feel they share a common heritage with the British more so than people from other countries. But I know from my days as a student in the UK, there is a mildly contemptuous attitude by many Brits to Americans and all things American. Americans are viewed as brash, materialistic and superficial. Americans, on the other hand, despite their common heritage and fascination with the royal family, British pomp and ceremony and some movies and television programs, view the British like they view much of the world – they are…
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To go or not to go to college ….. that is the question
One of the cultural divides that confronts immigrants to the US and possibly other Western nations is the perspective on career choices when it comes to their children. When I was growing up in Kenya and what happens to this day in India is that children are inculcated with a mind-set that one’s choice of college and educational pursuits is a blend of innate ability, spheres of interest and most importantly, the potential the course of study offers to find a job upon completion of college. This came to mind because of two news events: first, there is mounting concern about the huge student loan debt, in some instances guaranteed…
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Mother’s Day ….. past and present
I must confess that I am not overly enamored by some of the holidays celebrated in the US mainly because of the extent of commercialization that occurs. My biggest gripe is about Christmas which has lost all of its real meaning because of rampant commercialization – and I commented on this in in a prior posting on this blog. The one exception is Mother’s Day which – although also commercialized heavily – is an occasion that I quite enjoy celebrating because it celebrates mothers. Of course, both in India and in Kenya, there was no such thing as Mother’s Day, though I understand that this is changing in the major…
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Those were the days………..when women were encouraged to gain weight!
Concepts of beauty have varied among cultures and even within the same culture over a span of time. A few decades ago an attractive woman was a more full-bodied and rounded individual than would be the case today. During the 50s’ the actress in India renowned for her beauty was Nargis who appears on the right. Today, it is Aishwarya Rai (shown on the left) who is considered to be one of the most beautiful women not just in India but in the world; the contrast is fairly obvious. The same holds true in the West, where Marilyn Monroe was the epitome of sexiness and beauty with her quite full…
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Is your Dell Inspiron laptop having a problem with a jumping cursor?
If you have ever, while typing on your laptop, found that the cursor jumps around for no apparent reason resulting in whatever you are typing not appearing where it should be, you have gotten, what I call the “jumping cursor syndrome”. This is a problem that affected my Dell Inspiron 1764 laptop and after googling to find a solution, it turns out to be be a problem that obviously affects not only Dell laptops but those by other manufacturers including HP, Lenova, Compaq, Asus, etc. The indications are that it started with the Vista operating system but those who have Windows 7 are also affected by the problem. There is…
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What’s in a name ……..well, a Mallu name?
I don’t know if Malayalees are unique in their choice of names for adults and children. When I lived in Kenya in the fifties and early sixties, there were relatively few families from Kerala and everyone knew each other within the community. But even within the relatively small community, there were some interesting variations on names. For example, my father was referred to as Allidina Joseph to differentiate him from another individual with the same name who was called Agakhan Joseph – my father worked at Allidina Visram High School and the other Joseph worked at the Agakhan School. There were two people called Thomas – and to differentiate between…
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Voyages between Mombasa and Bombay – SS Khandalla and SS Amra
We love cruising and have been on fourteen cruises since I arrived in the US. These have included several cruises in the Caribbean as well as ones to Alaska, the Mediterranean, the Mexican Riviera and the Yangtze river in China. Our last cruise was with my brother Peter and his family and it was on one of the largest cruise ships in the world…….the Carnival Dream which was 1000 feet in length, over 128,000 tons and accommodated more than 5000 passengers and crew! Cruising is for me the ultimate relaxation and one can be as active or not as one chooses. There are multiple activities on board ranging from trivia…
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Pan Am Flight 217 Redux
A few months ago, I posted about the crash of Pan Am Flight 217 in 1968 while en route to Caracas, Venezuela and more specifically about a friend, Franciska Buyers, who was an air stewardess on that flight. More about Franciska and my relationship to her and her family appears on this link. When I first posted about that flight and the tragedy that befell Pan Am 217, it was intended more as a personal tribute to Franciska than anything else. There was nothing on the net that was readily available about her and many of the others on that flight. It was a pleasant surprise when several people commented…
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The big fat Indian breakfast
I am partial to most Indian foods …… no great surprise given my Indian heritage. During our recent stay in Kerala one of the pluses was being able to eat home cooked meals using the freshest ingredients, vegetables and fish/meat. We would buy king fish from a government approved vendor who brought a variety of fish, prawns and other shell fish each evening displayed on a cart. The vendor had someone who would clean and slice the fish based on specific requirements. The fish was so fresh that when it was cut for cleaning, it would frequently still ooze blood! We ate very limited amounts of meat and chicken while…
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Can non-Christians attain salvation?
During our recent winter sojourn in Kerala, my sister and brother-in-law who live in Australia visited with us for a couple of days. We had an interesting discussion whether salvation is possible for non-Christians ………. and, in fact, whether any one who is not “born again” can achieve salvation. I told them – much to their shock – that even Pope Benedict had issued a proclamation in 2005 specifically stating that biblical belief was not necessary to attain salvation. This was quite a revelation to them since it went against conventional Christian doctrine. Upon reflection, it is remarkable that Benedict – a conservative Pope – would have publicly adopted such…
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Three years and counting……
Today marks three years since I started this blog. During this period there have been 74 posts on a variety of subjects which have generated 334 comments from different readers. The blog has had well over 24,000 hits – most were during the second and third years of the blog. This is not a high traffic blog – most blogs that cover a variety of unrelated subjects tend to have a limited following. The traffic this blog has experienced is relatively good given the generalized nature of the blog. The blogs that have repeat visitors are those that address a specific subject whether it is travel, computers, investments, cuisine, humor,…
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Steve Bridges: RIP
I was shocked to hear about the death of Steve Bridges whose uncanny impressions of George W Bush were hilarious and always done without any malice. He was only 49 years old. As I watched one of his more memorable imitations of Bush at the White House Correspondents Association Dinner – an annual fixture of Washington DC, during which there is well-intentioned fun made of the president and other public figures – one of the thoughts that passed my mind is that this sort of thing can only happen in the West. One cannot imagine that this would occur in most developing countries without the comedian facing serious repercussions. Perhaps…
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Alas, no more cashmere coats & pearls for Smithies!
A firestorm recently erupted over a letter written by a Smith College alumna, Anne Spurzem, whose brazen comments were a mix of bigotry, classism, snobbery, ignorance, inaccuracies, misinformation and outright nastiness that was directed at the admission policies of the college in recent years. Smith College is part of the “Seven Sisters”, a group of liberal arts colleges that have been historically women’s colleges. The others are Barnard College, Bryn Mawr College, Mount Holyoke College, Radcliffe College, Vassar College, and Wellesley College. Radcliffe (which merged with Harvard College) and Vassar (which is now coeducational) are no longer women’s colleges. Smith’s alumnae have included some eminent women including Gloria Steinam, Betty…
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Kumaraswamy Kamaraj’s loyalty and humility
It is rare indeed for a leader to have the attributes of humility, loyalty and honesty and to be an effective leader but such a man was Kumaraswamy Kamaraj, a former chief minister of Tamil Nadu – formerly known as Madras state – and subsequently a key advisor to Jawaharlal Nehru. He was a man with limited formal education who rose from humble beginnings to the pinnacle of power such that he was at one time viewed as the “king maker” in India. His humility and loyalty came to my attention through an anecdote about Kamaraj related to me by my first cousin, Dr Alexander Joseph, who was a young…
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Men are from Mars, women are from Venus ……. is there a canine equivalent?
“Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus” was a best seller in the nineties by John Gray that sold over 7 million copies. It essentially sought to highlight the differences between men and women in dealing with problems and issues and how it affects relationships, etc. To segue from this to the focus of this post is, admittedly, a bit of a leap but one cannot help notice how male and female dogs react differently to situations. In fact, this is true of other species of animals as well. We have two German Shepherd dogs, Max and Kaya; actually, Kaya belongs to Saira and Richard – my daughter and…
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“No parent should have to bury their child”
“The young perish and the old linger …………….. no parent should have to bury their child” Theoden in “Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers” When my mother was terminally ill with cancer in 1964, her mother who was then in her late sixties would tell me that she (my grandmother) would like to die. I could not relate to her comment and when I asked her the reason she would merely say that she had lived long enough and was ready to meet her Maker – my grandmother was a deeply spiritual person who believed that what awaited her after death was immeasurably better than her life on earth.…
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Nair weddings – the antithesis of conspicuous consumption
Life in Kerala – and, for that matter in India – involves a lot more social interaction than occurs in the West. This interaction occurs in different settings but one that occurs with frequency is attendance at baptisms, engagements, marriages and funerals. Birthdays seem to be less frequently celebrated except for special occasions like the first birthday of a child or the sixtieth birthday of an adult – the latter is considered a significant milestone in Kerala and in Hindu tradition and referred to as sashti poorthi. Since coming to Kerala we have been invited to several of these occasions. This past weekend, we went to Trivandrum to attend an…
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More presidential trivia – but a truly remarkable fact
What are the odds of someone being born in the 18th century having grandchildren – yes, GRANDCHILDREN – who are alive in the 21st century? Pretty infinitesimal most people would say and they would be right. But a confluence of factors resulted in just such a thing happening with none other than the tenth president of the United States – John Tyler! John Tyler was born in 1790 and has grand-children who are still living today, 222 years after the birth of their grand-father! Tyler succeeded William Henry Harrison who died after 32 days in office from pneumonia. He was born at a time when Napoleon Bonaparte was busy conquering…
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Back in “God’s own country”
Yes, we are back in Cochin, Kerala where we spend our winters away from the frigid temperatures of Virginia. I start every trip with a sense of dread over the the long flight from the US to India – a good 17 hours of flying time – but once I am here there is almost a sense of exhilaration. This is all the more remarkable given that I have spent very little time in India over the course of my life and even less time in Kerala. So I am not able to explain the attraction that Kerala has for me. It is clearly not just the warm weather –…
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Jobs, Hitchens, faith and near death experiences
I have always been fascinated by the phenomenon of the “near death experience” – known by the acronym NDE. Perhaps it is my belief in an after-life – even though I am not sure what form it takes – which accounts for this interest. After all, for someone who believes in an after life the reports of what happens in NDEs’ seems to offer some sort of affirmation of what happens after death. There are also scientific explanations that seek to debunk the spiritual explanations of such experiences. Scientists suggest that NDEs’ are attributable to physical causes such as brain chemistry (neural noise, hypoxia, etc.), psychological states (wish fulfillment or…
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East is east and west is west ………. when it comes to mourning
It was Rudyard Kipling who said that east is east and west is west and never the twain shall meet. Kipling was referring to India which was then the jewel in the British empire and Kipling, like other colonial apologists, maintained that the cultural bridge between Indians and the British could never be bridged. This came to mind a few days ago when Kim Jong Il, the president of North Korea, died and there was a sense of shock and surprise in the US media over the public expressions of grief. There was much speculation that the grief was, at least in part, contrived and although that cannot be ruled…
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David Carroll, United Airlines and social media at its best!
I love You Tube and its endless variety of offerings. I also cordially dislike flying – everything about it infuriates me ranging from the security hassles at the airport, the less than customer friendly airline service, the cramped seating, the full flights and just about every thing that one associates with flying nowadays. I did not always feel this way about flying – there was a time in the eighties when I flew several days a week as part of my job. It was a different era then and many of the frustrations associated with flying today were not there then or to the extent they were, it was relatively…
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Facts and trivia about US presidents
Some interesting facts and trivia about US presidents: Eight presidents were born before the founding of the nation Every president was born in one of only nineteen (arguably twenty) of the fifty states: these states are Arkansas, California, Connecticut, Georgia, Hawaii, Illinois, Iowa, Kentucky, Massachusetts, Missouri, Nebraska, New Hampshire, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Texas, Vermont and Virgina. The arguable one is that some believe Andrew Jackson was born in South Carolina and not North Carolina. Of the nineteen, thirteen states produced a single president – so the remaining six states produced multiple presidents. The most presidents -eight – were born in Virginia. Surprisingly, only one president – Richard…
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Funny – and not so funny moments – during spelling bees
Spelling bees are fascinating and puzzling. The former because it is a pleasure to see young children being successfully tutored to a point that they are able to spell the most esoteric words which most people have never heard before and certainly few would use in either oral or written communication. It is the limited value in learning these rarely used words that makes the whole competition puzzling – these kids, their parents and tutors must spend endless hours and perhaps money trying to master these words. It reminds me of the old joke by Billy Connolly: “I don’t know why I should have to learn Algebra… I’m never likely…
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Turning points in presidential debates
I am a political junkie and have been one since I was a teenager in Kenya during the height of the independence movement in that country. To give you a sense of how much of a political junkie I was even then, I attended a political gathering with my parents being addressed by Tom Mboya and Mwai Kibaki at a time when the release of Jomo Kenyatta was being sought from detention. ,After the speeches were over and hundreds of people were awaiting the departure of Mboya and Kibaki, I got around the police cordons and entered the building where Mboya and Kibaki were drinking tea after their speeches. I…
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The Tudors, Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn
I am not an Anglophile …….. in fact, I probably have something of a bias against things one associates with the English. My attitude is largely because of the time I spent in the the UK as a student in the sixties when discrimination against anyone who was not white was rife in just about evey facet of life including employment, housing and social acceptance. Things have changed today in the UK – admittedly there is still some discrimination though it is not the sort of blatant bigotry that one saw in the sixties. I have always been somewhat puzzled by the average American’s fascination and admiration of all things…
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“A genius and a jerk”
Let me first acknowledge that I have never been a fan of Apple products. However, this is not because I have a problem with the product as much as the fact that I have always felt that they were over-priced. A Dell PC does all that I need to do at a third of the price. Perhaps the Apple operating system is less buggy and the interface is more streamlined. I will also concede that the three members of my family who are computer savvy – namely my son, my son-in-law and my younger brother – are unreservedly Apple fans. Having said this, it does not take away from the…
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From the sublime to the ridiculous
Part of my regular TV viewing is a show that airs on weekdays called “Morning Joe”. It focuses mainly on political events but also has a hodge podge of other issues. It is hosted by Joe Scarborough, a former Republican Congressman from Florida and Mika Brezinski, the daughter of Zbigniew Brezinski, the former National Security Advisor to President Carter. Scarborough represents what may be referred to as a moderately conservative view – although some Republicans consider him to be a RINO ie a “Republican in Name Only” – and Brezinski is an uninhibited and unreserved liberal. Scarborough will accord credit to Obama at times and is critical of the “crazy…