I am not into celebrating days like Father's day. It always felt corny. There are so many generations that have been parents and went on with their lives without celebrating this day. It just feels like another day for marketing and selling products. This year is however different and cant help but think what I could done differently last year on this day.
This is the first Father's day without my Dad. It is hard to believe that months have passed since he is gone and in couple more it will be an year. As time passes, memories fade and wounds heal they say. I am not sure if either of them will happen, but I wish they do. I know one thing for sure, that he wanted me and my family to move on.
He was very devotional and philosophical man. He believed in karma and doing good. He never failed to visit an orphange and make donation on my grandma's death anniversary. He wanted to give back to the society by donating to the school and temple in the village he was born and grew up. He did his prayer every day without a fail in the morning. He never gave up this habit even when he became weak and lost a lot of weight from his CKD. I think his faith and belief in God gave him the strength to handle the pressures of life and his bad health.
My Dad was a very humble man. People took advantage of his soft spokenness. He brushed them aside by saying 'paddavadu yeppudu cheddavadu kadu'. I felt rage at those people and more at my Dad for tolerating the idiots. I had expressed my anger to him about the way people would take his help and not even convey their gratitufe. He would just say 'edaina asinchi manchi cheyyakoodadu. manchini gurthanichani vadide tappu kani manchi chese vadidi kadu'. I never understood his philosophy.
One thing, he never told us how much he loved us. It is typical of his generation and mine to grow up and know that there was love and effection but no mention was ever made of it. Sadly, I never said the same to him. That is my only regret, I wish I had that one extra moment to tell him how much he meant to me. How much we as a family still needed him, may be he would have had a reason to fight longer. But that is just wishful thinking, I know.
He was great with money. He put to good use of it, with the limited income he had. He got us educated and built a house for the family. Unfortunately, he also gave away money as loans to people who asked for help. He trusted people to be good just like him. Hopefully, the world will not break the trust he had.
He was very uncomfortable when it involved matters dealing with the public office. There is a lot of haggling, nagging, repetitive visits and under the table dealings that one has to be involved. He hated it. I did not understand that growing up. Now I understand after dealing with these people. It plays with your conscience and there is a certain kind that can live with it and some that accept it. He could do neither, but did the chores when necessary and go more and more uncomfortable as grew older.
He was persistant and never gave up hope, be it his career, personal life, health. He never expressed his anger at his superiors for bypassing him . He hoped one day he would get to be an Accounts Officer. Inexperienced, young kids got promoted way ahead of him. He would move on. The only way he knew was to put in his time and earn every penny of his salary. He was content knowing that his livelihood came from his hardwork. Playing hard was the only way he know and playing 'smart'. Just about a month before his official retirement, he did get the promotion to become an Accounts Officer. I could feel the happiness and contentment in his voice that day.
I had rarely seen him cry. I had heard from my Mom once about it. It was the time when he was about to undergo his first angioplasty. Apparently he had a tear in his eyes, when the doctors told that his heart condition is hereditory. He shed his tears not for himself, but over a concern he had for his kids and their future.
Growing up, I did not understand why he did certain things the way he did. Now a little older and having a daughter of my own, I understand him better. He would deliberate on things and I understand that deliberation is not all that bad. Most times in life, a thoughtful inaction is better than a hasty action. Hopefully I can keep learning from his memories and lead a fulfilling life as he did.
I dont know why but I am reminded of a poem 'Stopping by Woods On a Snowy Evening' by Robert Frost that I learnt in my childhood in school
Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.
My little horse must think it queerTo stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.
He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sound's the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.
The woods are lovely, dark and deep.
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.
I am sure my Dad would want me to go miles and miles longer.
Sunday, June 19, 2011
Friday, June 17, 2011
Exploring the success of Indians at the Spelling Bee?
Yet again an Indian wins the spelling bee. Give it up to Sukanya Roy from Wilkes-Barre , PA. 7out the 13 finalists in 2011 contest were of Indian origin. It has become astereotype of sorts for a kid of Indian ancestry to win the US National Spelling Bee championship. About a year ago, in an article titled Indian Buzz at the Spelling Bee, I pondered on the success of Indians at this competition. In this post, I will explore the possible causes of the success.This post however is not an attempt to explore the why of the success, rather the how of it, may be? Before we begin analyzing the success, I want to take a small detour into the history of the Spelling Bee winners who are of Indian Ancestry.
The first Indian kid to win the championship was Balu Natarajan in the year 1985. He did it by spelling the word milieu. He went on to become a Physician in Internal and Sports Medicine with a fellowship in Sports medicine. He practices inChicago Chicago
The list of all Indian Spelling Bee Winners is below
1985 Balu Natarajan
1988 Rageshree Ramachandran
1999 Nupur Lala
2000 George Abraham Thampy
2002 Pratyush Buddiga
2003 Sai R. Gunturi
2005 Anurag Kashyap
2008 Sameer Mishra
2009 Kavya Shivashankar
2010 Anamika Veeramani
2011 SukanyaRoy
For a full list visit http://www.spellingbee.com/champions-and-their-winning-words.
Time, effort and hardwork each of the winner put into the preparation for the contest has to be the primary cause of their success. Proper encouragement and supportive environment at home and in school plays a part. Assuming every winner had these conditions, a candidate preparing for such an intensive high
competitive event needs a training and practicing ground. To the Indian Kids this came in the form of North South Foundation(NSF). NSF has over 60+ chapters inUSA and was started in 1989. The educational contests including the spelling bee contests at the chapter level was started in 1993. These contests have kind of become a minor-league training ground for the major league level Scripps National Spelling Bee.
So far, we know that the Indian kids have been successful post 1999 thanks at some level to the intensive training grounds provided by NSF since 1993. What about the period prior to 1999? There were only two winners in the 80s and none prior to that. To that I would like to take one more detour and explore
the history of Immigration (legal) to US fromIndia
The immigration policy of US has been fairly restrictive prior to 1965. A policy change in 1965 could be termed a land mark for Immigrants from Non-Western countries to US. You can find details of the history of Indian immigration here. An excerpt from it that is relevant to the current topic is below. Italics are
mine.
A further boost to the immigration fromIndia
The immigrant Indian population in US can be seen in the list and chart below. More details here.
Year Indian born Immigrants
1960 12,296
So the immigration rules mattered. It limited the number of Indians coming toUSA prior to 1965 and 1992, thereby limiting the number of participants in the contests. With the issuance of temporary work permit visas, the number of immigrants from India to US has increased manifold since 1992. This led to the formation of Indian communities and they began to participate in the local events that symbolize something to them. Part of that is success in academic and knowledge pursuits. This has to be cultural as well as demand of the times. The 1980s and after were a period of knowledge driven societies. Service industries have grown that need well educated, high skilled work force. The lack of local workforce led to the immigrant work force from India filling the gaps. This work force came to US on the factor of skill set – good education, learning in science and technology. The immigrants from India
In a follow-up to my first post on Spelling Bee, I attempted to find if there were a set of conditions that all communities, who attained success in certain specialized fields, have. The communities that succeeded, I observed, had
•Barrier Breaker
•Willing Takers/Followers
•Continuing Success
•Network for Practicing and Competing Opportunities
Apart from the above I had also wondered if the size of the community matters.
From what I can see so far, the success of Indian kids at the Spelling Bee meet all the above mentioned observations. The question to ask next is, with the change of times in India and USA, will Indian kids continue their success at the Spelling Bee and in the large context at the academic, professional levels. Also the success is largely achieved by the progeny of first generation immigrants from India. What happened to the kids from second and third generation? Why is their participation and success so limited at the spelling bee? The second generation is fairly successful. We are beginning to see a lot of the second Indians in the movies and TV, politics, leading corporations etc. The time has not elapsed enough and there is very limited data on the third generation. That’s a topic for another day.
The first Indian kid to win the championship was Balu Natarajan in the year 1985. He did it by spelling the word milieu. He went on to become a Physician in Internal and Sports Medicine with a fellowship in Sports medicine. He practices in
The list of all Indian Spelling Bee Winners is below
1985 Balu Natarajan
1988 Rageshree Ramachandran
1999 Nupur Lala
2000 George Abraham Thampy
2002 Pratyush Buddiga
2003 Sai R. Gunturi
2005 Anurag Kashyap
2008 Sameer Mishra
2009 Kavya Shivashankar
2010 Anamika Veeramani
2011 Sukanya
For a full list visit http://www.spellingbee.com/champions-and-their-winning-words.
Time, effort and hardwork each of the winner put into the preparation for the contest has to be the primary cause of their success. Proper encouragement and supportive environment at home and in school plays a part. Assuming every winner had these conditions, a candidate preparing for such an intensive high
competitive event needs a training and practicing ground. To the Indian Kids this came in the form of North South Foundation(NSF). NSF has over 60+ chapters in
So far, we know that the Indian kids have been successful post 1999 thanks at some level to the intensive training grounds provided by NSF since 1993. What about the period prior to 1999? There were only two winners in the 80s and none prior to that. To that I would like to take one more detour and explore
the history of Immigration (legal) to US from
The immigration policy of US has been fairly restrictive prior to 1965. A policy change in 1965 could be termed a land mark for Immigrants from Non-Western countries to US. You can find details of the history of Indian immigration here. An excerpt from it that is relevant to the current topic is below. Italics are
mine.
The Immigration Act of 1965 liberalized immigration, increasing per country quota to 20,000 people irrespective of race, color or creed. The new legislation while ending the period of selective discriminatory immigration to the, encouraged a new wave of Indian immigrants who were educated and skilled and have profited from their knowledge. US
A further boost to the immigration from
After 1992, it was the relatively less noticeable route of temporary migration that started to become predominant. The 1990 Amendments, brought into effect in 1992, explicitly favored the building up of the human capital capabilities of America by fulfilling its current and future requirements of highly skilled knowledge workers, finally bringing to relevance the immigration of Indians to the American labour market needs.
The immigrant Indian population in US can be seen in the list and chart below. More details here.
Year Indian born Immigrants
1960 12,296
1970 51,000
1980 206,087
1990 450,406
2000 1,022,552
2008 1,622,522
So the immigration rules mattered. It limited the number of Indians coming to
In a follow-up to my first post on Spelling Bee, I attempted to find if there were a set of conditions that all communities, who attained success in certain specialized fields, have. The communities that succeeded, I observed, had
•Barrier Breaker
•Willing Takers/Followers
•Continuing Success
•Network for Practicing and Competing Opportunities
Apart from the above I had also wondered if the size of the community matters.
From what I can see so far, the success of Indian kids at the Spelling Bee meet all the above mentioned observations. The question to ask next is, with the change of times in India and USA, will Indian kids continue their success at the Spelling Bee and in the large context at the academic, professional levels. Also the success is largely achieved by the progeny of first generation immigrants from India. What happened to the kids from second and third generation? Why is their participation and success so limited at the spelling bee? The second generation is fairly successful. We are beginning to see a lot of the second Indians in the movies and TV, politics, leading corporations etc. The time has not elapsed enough and there is very limited data on the third generation. That’s a topic for another day.
Labels:
Immigration,
Indian Diaspora,
Spelling Bee
Friday, April 1, 2011
Dancing With The Stars: Debating Talent Vs. Diligence
The twelfth season of the reality show Dancing With The Stars currently on TV now. I follow it for reasons more than just the entertainment. A bunch of celebrities(mostly B-grade) are brought together, paired with a professional dancer to compete with one another dancing to western classical ballroom dances like cha cha, fast step, foxtrot etc.
My aim in this post is to find a pattern and predict a winner for this season based on my analysis. There are several factors that should be considered when looking into who can win the show. I have excluded the irrationality and bias of audience in picking a rightful winner. Before I do the prediction I have to analyze the factors involved to be a winner.
The factors in the contestants can be categorized into two - physical and non-physical. Both are important. Physical attributes are what the contestants have coming into the show. The show from the title is a dance show. A good dancer, in my opinion, needs to have rhythm, right body language, controlled footwork and grace in the movements with the hips, hands and legs.
There are some physical attributes contributing to how viewers perceive a person to be a good dancer. A dancer height is important - one has to be not too tall or too short. Too tall, you have movements that don't translate well. The same with being short; some moves just don't translate well. The physique of the person is also important. Not too heavy or too lanky. A good dancer is most times on the lean side.
The non-physical attributes are what a contestant has as a person. The energy, stamina, patience and perseverance to put in all those painful hours in physical repetitive practice. The show involves a lot of practice by the contestants that requires energy, stamina, maturity and will power. Each week is a new style of dance and whole lot of new routines to practice and perfect them. All this has to be in a week. Some contestants come from professions that require them. Almost all athletes, at least the ones still in their game, are used to the rigor involved, just a different kind of routine. The same can be said about entertainers who are singers or dancers. Whereas contestants who are like say businessmen and politicians are not involved in this physical rigor in their daily lives. How about the age of the contestants? Too young, they are not mature enough to carry on the seriousness and too old, not strong enough to practice and keep the energy needed for that long period of time. There is a sweet spot. Of course there are always going to be exceptions to these factors. Last but not least is the instructor; all the partners of the celebrities are professional dancers, but we all know that all teachers are not good.
Here is a list of winner and runner up for the last 11 seasons with their profession, age and height.
2005 - Season 1
Kelly Monaco - Entertainer(Model, Actress), 28, 5' 3''
2006 - Season 2
Drew Lachey - Singer, 30, 5' 6"
2006 - Season 3
Emmitt Smith - Athlete(NFL), 37,5' 9''
2007 - Season 4
2007 - Season 5
Helio Castroneves - Athlete(Race Car Driving), 1975/32/5' 8''
2008 - Season 6
Kristi Yamaguchi - Athlete(Figure Skating), 36, 5' 1''
Brooke Burke - Entertainer(Model, TV Show Host), 37, 5' 7''
2009 - Season 8
Shawn Johnson - Athlete(Gymnastics), 17, 4'10''
Gilles Marini - Actor, 33, 6'1''
2009 - Season 9
Donny Osmond - Entertainer(Singer, Actor), 52, 5' 9"
Mýa - Singer, 30, 5' 4½"
2010 - Season 10
Nicole Scherzinger - Entertainer(Singer - Pussycat Dolls), 32, 5' 5"
Evan Lysacek - Figure Skater, 25, 6' 2''
2010 - Season 11
Jennifer Grey - Entertainer(Actress), 50, 5' 3"
Kyle Massey - Actor, 19, 5' 6"
2011 - ?
What does the list tell us?
The split is almost 50-50 between athletes and entertainers. Celebrities in their early 30s seem to have won most. The average height of the winners is 5'5''. The outliers were Shawn Johnson(4'10'') and Donny Osmond(at age 52). As the seasons are increasing the outliers in age are increasing. Last season Jennifer Grey won at the age of 50, but she fit into every other pattern I had recognized earlier. I want to say that age is important, but I am beginning to feel that some contestants can overcome this shortcomings provided they are motivated. The outliers listed earlier are all examples who are either too young(Shawn Johnson) or old(Danny Osmond).
This 12th season the contestants are my view on their chances of winning.
Chelsea Kane, 22, 5'6'', Actress, DANCE PARTNER: Mark Ballas
Chance: Average, Has great energy, but I feel she needs to show maturity.
Chris Jericho, 41, 6'0'', WWE Wrestler, Dance Partner: Cheryl Burke
Chance: Good. His advantage is she has a great instructor. Cheryl Burke is the best among the instructors.
Hines Ward, 35, 6'0'', NFL Wide Receiver, Dance Partner: Kym Johnson
Chance: Good.
Kendra Wilkinson, 25, 5'4'', Reality TV Star, Dance Partner: Louis Van Amstel
Chance: Below Average. I don't she has the motivation to go far. Not mature.
Kirstie Alley, 60, 5'8'', Actress, Dance Partner: Maksim Chmerkovskiy
Chance: Good. Highly motivated. Puts in a lot of effort. She gets winded at the end of each show. Her age could be a factor slowing her down.
Mike Catherwood, Radio Host- ELIMINATED: Week One - Dance Partner: Lacey Schwimmer
Chance: Not so much as he is a already eliminated.
Petra Nemcova, 31, 5'10"Super Model, Dance Partner: Dmitry Chaplin
Chance: Confused. She fits all the attributes that I listed above. But somehow she is too lanky and her moves are not translating well.
Ralph Macchio, 49, 5'9", Actor, Dance Partner: Karina Smirnoff
Chance: Great. I love him, not because I love his movie 'My Cousin Vinny', but the effort he puts in the practice. A very likeable personality that can translate to votes with the viewers.
Romeo 21, 5'11'', Actor, Singer, Dance Partner: Chelsie Hightower
Chance: Low. Very young and immature.
Sugar Ray Leonard, 55, 5'10'', Boxer, Dance Partner: Anna Trebunsakaya
Chance: Low. He is a boxer. What can I say?
Wendy Williams, 46, 5'11'', TV and Radio Show Host, Dance Partner: Tony Dovolani
Chance: Low. Doesn't have the energy and grace on the floor.
My Pick: Ralph Macchio. But he is no Jennifer Grey. She had the most full scores ever by a contenstant, three last season when she won it.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dancing_with_the_Stars_(U.S._TV_series)
My aim in this post is to find a pattern and predict a winner for this season based on my analysis. There are several factors that should be considered when looking into who can win the show. I have excluded the irrationality and bias of audience in picking a rightful winner. Before I do the prediction I have to analyze the factors involved to be a winner.
The factors in the contestants can be categorized into two - physical and non-physical. Both are important. Physical attributes are what the contestants have coming into the show. The show from the title is a dance show. A good dancer, in my opinion, needs to have rhythm, right body language, controlled footwork and grace in the movements with the hips, hands and legs.
There are some physical attributes contributing to how viewers perceive a person to be a good dancer. A dancer height is important - one has to be not too tall or too short. Too tall, you have movements that don't translate well. The same with being short; some moves just don't translate well. The physique of the person is also important. Not too heavy or too lanky. A good dancer is most times on the lean side.
The non-physical attributes are what a contestant has as a person. The energy, stamina, patience and perseverance to put in all those painful hours in physical repetitive practice. The show involves a lot of practice by the contestants that requires energy, stamina, maturity and will power. Each week is a new style of dance and whole lot of new routines to practice and perfect them. All this has to be in a week. Some contestants come from professions that require them. Almost all athletes, at least the ones still in their game, are used to the rigor involved, just a different kind of routine. The same can be said about entertainers who are singers or dancers. Whereas contestants who are like say businessmen and politicians are not involved in this physical rigor in their daily lives. How about the age of the contestants? Too young, they are not mature enough to carry on the seriousness and too old, not strong enough to practice and keep the energy needed for that long period of time. There is a sweet spot. Of course there are always going to be exceptions to these factors. Last but not least is the instructor; all the partners of the celebrities are professional dancers, but we all know that all teachers are not good.
Here is a list of winner and runner up for the last 11 seasons with their profession, age and height.
2005 - Season 1
Kelly Monaco - Entertainer(Model, Actress), 28, 5' 3''
John O'Hurley - Actor, 50, 6-2,
Drew Lachey - Singer, 30, 5' 6"
Jerry Rice - football player, 43, 6'2'',
2006 - Season 3
Emmitt Smith - Athlete(NFL), 37,5' 9''
Mario Lopez: actor, 33, 5'11'',
2007 - Season 4
Apolo Anton Ohno - short track skater, 1982/25/5' 8''
Joey Fatone: singer, 30, 6'1''
2007 - Season 5
Helio Castroneves - Athlete(Race Car Driving), 1975/32/5' 8''
Mel B: singer, 32, 5'5''
2008 - Season 6
Kristi Yamaguchi - Athlete(Figure Skating), 36, 5' 1''
Jason Taylor - Football player, 33, 6' 6''
2008 - Season 7Brooke Burke - Entertainer(Model, TV Show Host), 37, 5' 7''
Warren Sapp - football player, 35, 6'2''
2009 - Season 8
Shawn Johnson - Athlete(Gymnastics), 17, 4'10''
Gilles Marini - Actor, 33, 6'1''
2009 - Season 9
Donny Osmond - Entertainer(Singer, Actor), 52, 5' 9"
Mýa - Singer, 30, 5' 4½"
2010 - Season 10
Nicole Scherzinger - Entertainer(Singer - Pussycat Dolls), 32, 5' 5"
Evan Lysacek - Figure Skater, 25, 6' 2''
2010 - Season 11
Jennifer Grey - Entertainer(Actress), 50, 5' 3"
Kyle Massey - Actor, 19, 5' 6"
2011 - ?
What does the list tell us?
The split is almost 50-50 between athletes and entertainers. Celebrities in their early 30s seem to have won most. The average height of the winners is 5'5''. The outliers were Shawn Johnson(4'10'') and Donny Osmond(at age 52). As the seasons are increasing the outliers in age are increasing. Last season Jennifer Grey won at the age of 50, but she fit into every other pattern I had recognized earlier. I want to say that age is important, but I am beginning to feel that some contestants can overcome this shortcomings provided they are motivated. The outliers listed earlier are all examples who are either too young(Shawn Johnson) or old(Danny Osmond).
This 12th season the contestants are my view on their chances of winning.
Chelsea Kane, 22, 5'6'', Actress, DANCE PARTNER: Mark Ballas
Chance: Average, Has great energy, but I feel she needs to show maturity.
Chris Jericho, 41, 6'0'', WWE Wrestler, Dance Partner: Cheryl Burke
Chance: Good. His advantage is she has a great instructor. Cheryl Burke is the best among the instructors.
Hines Ward, 35, 6'0'', NFL Wide Receiver, Dance Partner: Kym Johnson
Chance: Good.
Kendra Wilkinson, 25, 5'4'', Reality TV Star, Dance Partner: Louis Van Amstel
Chance: Below Average. I don't she has the motivation to go far. Not mature.
Kirstie Alley, 60, 5'8'', Actress, Dance Partner: Maksim Chmerkovskiy
Chance: Good. Highly motivated. Puts in a lot of effort. She gets winded at the end of each show. Her age could be a factor slowing her down.
Mike Catherwood, Radio Host- ELIMINATED: Week One - Dance Partner: Lacey Schwimmer
Chance: Not so much as he is a already eliminated.
Petra Nemcova, 31, 5'10"Super Model, Dance Partner: Dmitry Chaplin
Chance: Confused. She fits all the attributes that I listed above. But somehow she is too lanky and her moves are not translating well.
Ralph Macchio, 49, 5'9", Actor, Dance Partner: Karina Smirnoff
Chance: Great. I love him, not because I love his movie 'My Cousin Vinny', but the effort he puts in the practice. A very likeable personality that can translate to votes with the viewers.
Romeo 21, 5'11'', Actor, Singer, Dance Partner: Chelsie Hightower
Chance: Low. Very young and immature.
Sugar Ray Leonard, 55, 5'10'', Boxer, Dance Partner: Anna Trebunsakaya
Chance: Low. He is a boxer. What can I say?
Wendy Williams, 46, 5'11'', TV and Radio Show Host, Dance Partner: Tony Dovolani
Chance: Low. Doesn't have the energy and grace on the floor.
My Pick: Ralph Macchio. But he is no Jennifer Grey. She had the most full scores ever by a contenstant, three last season when she won it.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dancing_with_the_Stars_(U.S._TV_series)
Saturday, March 12, 2011
Another usual day
This Tuesday morning was like any other. I woke up, rushed to work, came home and slept. But something happened on this day that got me thinking. My colleague had scheduled a meeting 30 mins ahead of the normal business hours and you know how difficult it is to squeeze in 30 mins early in the day when your day is scheduled way ahead. I had made myself tentative to the meeting. The meeting however has been on the back of my mind. I woke up early and rushed out of the door forgoing the customary 'Barney hug and kiss' from my kid.
A couple blocks and a stop sign away from my home is a T junction. I take a right at this junction which becomes a commuter thoroughfare for many including me. There was a Black Lexus SUV today. I waited my turn behind the SUV. The driver side window pane was drawn down and the car appeared to be stopped. I began to get anxious while the traffic on the main path was waning and rising depending on the traffic light upstream that was located only a quarter mile away. After waiting a whole minute and half (it certainly appeared longer) I decided to overtake the car. I was surprisingly calm but anxious to go past the stopped vehicle. While I was passing the car, I saw through my car window an old lady sitting in the drivers seat. She was probably in her late sixties and appeared to be searching for something on the dashboard. Any other day I would have stopped and asked if she needed any help. Today however I did not as my mind was occupied with reaching work. The thought only came after taking a right at the intersection by which time it was already late as I had been part of the mainstream traffic and there was no turning back.
I reached the office about an hour later and was just in time for the meeting. I went through the meeting, my presence being hardly necessary, with as much interest I could muster on a really dry morning. The morning was filled with few more back to back meetings, the ones where everyone is talking. I went through the grind. Had a short break for lunch. The reminder of day was filled with calls to customers and issue resolution. Made little progress with the bigger project work while silly requests forced their way to my inbox. Before I knew the day was over. I packed and headed to my car.
I have a good 10 min walk to car from my work place. This short walk got me thinking about the day and what I had accomplished. The quick conclusion was not much. The day was just another hamster wheel. I kept thinking back to the beginning of my day. I could have spent a minute savoring the hug and kiss of my kid. I could have pulled aside and asked if the old lady needed any help. The likelihood that the old lady would ask for help was very slim - she being in a good neighborhood and driving a Lexus. If I did the right thing, I could have been just a couple minutes late to the meeting that meant nothing. Who knows, I could have gotten consecutive green lights and be early to work also. But I didn't, I was just another city dweller that had no time to help an old lady or to smell the roses.
I reached my car and switched on the radio station for my commuter news from NPR. There was nothing to lighten my mood. About a mile away from the parking lot is the interstate that takes me home. While I was waiting for the traffic signal to turn green I changed the radio from FM to CD. The traffic light turned green and couple yards later turned left to be on the ramp to join other commuters on the interstate. The CD was playing a song by 50 cent. The song played while I joined the traffic..
Go, go, go, go
Go, go, go shawty
.............................
.............................
My flow, my show brought me the doe
That bought me all my fancy things
My crib, my cars, my pools, my jewels
.............................
.............................
I joined the traffic, about an hour later I was home. As I said it was another usual day.
A couple blocks and a stop sign away from my home is a T junction. I take a right at this junction which becomes a commuter thoroughfare for many including me. There was a Black Lexus SUV today. I waited my turn behind the SUV. The driver side window pane was drawn down and the car appeared to be stopped. I began to get anxious while the traffic on the main path was waning and rising depending on the traffic light upstream that was located only a quarter mile away. After waiting a whole minute and half (it certainly appeared longer) I decided to overtake the car. I was surprisingly calm but anxious to go past the stopped vehicle. While I was passing the car, I saw through my car window an old lady sitting in the drivers seat. She was probably in her late sixties and appeared to be searching for something on the dashboard. Any other day I would have stopped and asked if she needed any help. Today however I did not as my mind was occupied with reaching work. The thought only came after taking a right at the intersection by which time it was already late as I had been part of the mainstream traffic and there was no turning back.
I reached the office about an hour later and was just in time for the meeting. I went through the meeting, my presence being hardly necessary, with as much interest I could muster on a really dry morning. The morning was filled with few more back to back meetings, the ones where everyone is talking. I went through the grind. Had a short break for lunch. The reminder of day was filled with calls to customers and issue resolution. Made little progress with the bigger project work while silly requests forced their way to my inbox. Before I knew the day was over. I packed and headed to my car.
I have a good 10 min walk to car from my work place. This short walk got me thinking about the day and what I had accomplished. The quick conclusion was not much. The day was just another hamster wheel. I kept thinking back to the beginning of my day. I could have spent a minute savoring the hug and kiss of my kid. I could have pulled aside and asked if the old lady needed any help. The likelihood that the old lady would ask for help was very slim - she being in a good neighborhood and driving a Lexus. If I did the right thing, I could have been just a couple minutes late to the meeting that meant nothing. Who knows, I could have gotten consecutive green lights and be early to work also. But I didn't, I was just another city dweller that had no time to help an old lady or to smell the roses.
I reached my car and switched on the radio station for my commuter news from NPR. There was nothing to lighten my mood. About a mile away from the parking lot is the interstate that takes me home. While I was waiting for the traffic signal to turn green I changed the radio from FM to CD. The traffic light turned green and couple yards later turned left to be on the ramp to join other commuters on the interstate. The CD was playing a song by 50 cent. The song played while I joined the traffic..
Go, go, go, go
Go, go, go shawty
.............................
.............................
My flow, my show brought me the doe
That bought me all my fancy things
My crib, my cars, my pools, my jewels
.............................
.............................
I joined the traffic, about an hour later I was home. As I said it was another usual day.
Labels:
Musing
Sunday, February 6, 2011
Wimpy Squeak of a Dragon Dad
Its been sometime since I last blogged. I have not been living under a rock and have been following what has been happening around me. For all those not living under the rock, this story by Amy Chua, a professor at Yale Law School, on Wall Street Journal must be familiar. This story titled 'Why Chinese Mothers are Superior' has caught the web and traditional media abuzz. The article, somewhere at the beginning of it, has a disclaimer sort of .
Despite the tongue in cheek style disclaimer by the author, this article provoked a lot of resentment and vitriol from Asian(taking offense citing thier own psychological damage from asian parents) and Western(defensive and vitriolic citing how Asians cant seem to produce anything of intellectual capacity) readers, parents and non-parents alike. The title of the book 'Battle Hymn of a Tiger Mom' is enough to explain the angst experienced by these readers responding to Amy's article. The author even recieved death threats and has considerably toned down her rhetoric in her appearances in talk shows on TV and Radio. Amy Chua in her article focused on the stereotypes of Asian and Westerm Parents and enhanced it with vivid description of how she parented her kids through rigorous practice, practice and practice.
While the world has become dis-harmonized by this story, life was going on fine for me. One weekend, my wife needed a haircut and I decided to give her a ride. We couldn't leave the kid alone at home, though an Indian kid she is could very well manage things by herself. She can start and stop the rhymes on my computer, and read all the numbers from one to two on the knobs of our gas stove. About the stove, a reminder for myself - Need to buy a Safety Gate. We had to take the kid along with us on a ride to the nearest mall. I dropped off my wife at the hair salon and got myself a table by the window with a coffee(Latte) at the Panera Bread next door.
I fastened my kid safely inside a high chair and took a sip of my coffee. I, wrongly assuming that my kid would amuse herself, took out a book and began to read. There were two old ladies, probably in their sixties, sitting ahead of me on the next table by the window. Between us by the wall there was another table with two chairs leaving a narrow walk way for other customers. The couple were talking about a new arrival in their family; a girl I think. Could be a grandkid of one of them or both. Not sure what the relation was between the two ladies. A few minutes later a tall stout Caucasian guy with a scruffy goatee came with his toddler(girl) and got seated by the table next to the wall.
There is something about young parents that quickly acknowledges one another. They can gauge the happenings at home and can appreciate the little moments, good, bad and not so ugly ones, that come with the newborns and toddlers. We said hello to each other and exchanged pleasantries like the age of our kids. His daughter was 14 months and mine about 4 months older. We shared complements about our daughters and let each other have the company of our own daughters. The old ladies were enamored by his daughter and quickly started a long chat with him. I continued on with reading the book.
A sentence or two into the book, my daughter began to show her expressive, demanding side. She sought my attention by grabbing the book. I tried 'Shhh..'ing her down. It was futile. I had to close the book and give her full attention. Her attention though was onto something else; she wanted a sip of the coffee I was drinking. Privately I would have indulged my daughter's request, but in public I did not dare to give caffiene induced drinks to a toddler. So I tried to distract her with something else.
I tried to interest her into playing with a rattle - She was too old for them and instantly threw it back at me. The sound of the rattle caught the attention of the old ladies and they gave a glance at me. You know the glance that old ladies give. This made me self conscious and things got downhill from here. I tried my other weapon - A picture book. 'Not interested' my daughter said.
While I was frantically looking for other options, I was hoping that the goatee gentleman's daughter would do something that would take the attention of the judging old ladies away from me. It was not to be. The kid was very well behaved and was skillfully munching of the bread crumbs her dad was feeding her from the toasted bagel he got for himself.
My failed attempts only increased the energy of my kid to grab the Latte. I tried 'Shh...'ing her again. My thought process is if a 'Shh' does not work once, try it five, ten more times. She was not afraid. I tried to induce her into eating an organic vegetable crunchy snack while holding it high so the old ladies coud see them. I wanted to show I was a responsible parent and feed my kid only the best stuff unlike the scruffy guy who feeds her highly processed bagels. The ladies turned away. This new treat, however, did not have enough honey for my Bee.
I tried the sippy cup and she pushed it aside. I tried the pacifier and she instantly spit it out. She never had the habit of the pacifier and was not going to get into it now. I was almost begging her to stay silent and obey me.
After all my attempts at pacifying my kid were exhausted, I resorted to something my wife would never accept or do. But she wasn't around and I was desperate. I wiped the flat wooden straw clean. Removed the lid on my coffee cup. Swooped a portion of the white milk foam with the straw and wait for it ... gasp ...put it in the mouth of my precious little one. Finally I was successfully in pacifying my daughter. Yeah... take that from Indian Dad you old ladies. What? In some cultures this is construed as caving in - well to that I say Tomaatoes Tomatoes.
Within a few minutes my wife came in and I was glad to share the ordeal with her. On finishing my latte and few minutes of chat, we drove home.
In few years I could write a memoir of my experiences as a Dad. It would break all stereotypes of Asian Parents and immediately restore the world peace that was disturbed by Amy Chua. The title of my book would be - 'Wimpy Squeak of a Dragon Dad'.
I'm using the term "Chinese mother" loosely. I know some Korean, Indian, Jamaican, Irish and Ghanaian parents who qualify too. Conversely, I know some mothers of Chinese heritage, almost always born in the West, who are not Chinese mothers, by choice or otherwise. I'm also using the term "Western parents" loosely. Western parents come in all varieties.The gist of the article is below
First, I've noticed that Western parents are extremely anxious about their children's self-esteem....Chinese parents aren't. They assume strength, not fragility, and as a result they behave very differently.
Second, Chinese parents believe that their kids owe them everything. ....By contrast, I don't think most Westerners have the same view of children being permanently indebted to their parents.
Third, Chinese parents believe that they know what is best for their children and therefore override all of their children's own desires and preferences
...........................................................
...........................................................
Western parents try to respect their children's individuality,..... By contrast, the Chinese believe that the best way to protect their children is by preparing them for the future.....
Despite the tongue in cheek style disclaimer by the author, this article provoked a lot of resentment and vitriol from Asian(taking offense citing thier own psychological damage from asian parents) and Western(defensive and vitriolic citing how Asians cant seem to produce anything of intellectual capacity) readers, parents and non-parents alike. The title of the book 'Battle Hymn of a Tiger Mom' is enough to explain the angst experienced by these readers responding to Amy's article. The author even recieved death threats and has considerably toned down her rhetoric in her appearances in talk shows on TV and Radio. Amy Chua in her article focused on the stereotypes of Asian and Westerm Parents and enhanced it with vivid description of how she parented her kids through rigorous practice, practice and practice.
While the world has become dis-harmonized by this story, life was going on fine for me. One weekend, my wife needed a haircut and I decided to give her a ride. We couldn't leave the kid alone at home, though an Indian kid she is could very well manage things by herself. She can start and stop the rhymes on my computer, and read all the numbers from one to two on the knobs of our gas stove. About the stove, a reminder for myself - Need to buy a Safety Gate. We had to take the kid along with us on a ride to the nearest mall. I dropped off my wife at the hair salon and got myself a table by the window with a coffee(Latte) at the Panera Bread next door.
I fastened my kid safely inside a high chair and took a sip of my coffee. I, wrongly assuming that my kid would amuse herself, took out a book and began to read. There were two old ladies, probably in their sixties, sitting ahead of me on the next table by the window. Between us by the wall there was another table with two chairs leaving a narrow walk way for other customers. The couple were talking about a new arrival in their family; a girl I think. Could be a grandkid of one of them or both. Not sure what the relation was between the two ladies. A few minutes later a tall stout Caucasian guy with a scruffy goatee came with his toddler(girl) and got seated by the table next to the wall.
There is something about young parents that quickly acknowledges one another. They can gauge the happenings at home and can appreciate the little moments, good, bad and not so ugly ones, that come with the newborns and toddlers. We said hello to each other and exchanged pleasantries like the age of our kids. His daughter was 14 months and mine about 4 months older. We shared complements about our daughters and let each other have the company of our own daughters. The old ladies were enamored by his daughter and quickly started a long chat with him. I continued on with reading the book.
A sentence or two into the book, my daughter began to show her expressive, demanding side. She sought my attention by grabbing the book. I tried 'Shhh..'ing her down. It was futile. I had to close the book and give her full attention. Her attention though was onto something else; she wanted a sip of the coffee I was drinking. Privately I would have indulged my daughter's request, but in public I did not dare to give caffiene induced drinks to a toddler. So I tried to distract her with something else.
I tried to interest her into playing with a rattle - She was too old for them and instantly threw it back at me. The sound of the rattle caught the attention of the old ladies and they gave a glance at me. You know the glance that old ladies give. This made me self conscious and things got downhill from here. I tried my other weapon - A picture book. 'Not interested' my daughter said.
While I was frantically looking for other options, I was hoping that the goatee gentleman's daughter would do something that would take the attention of the judging old ladies away from me. It was not to be. The kid was very well behaved and was skillfully munching of the bread crumbs her dad was feeding her from the toasted bagel he got for himself.
My failed attempts only increased the energy of my kid to grab the Latte. I tried 'Shh...'ing her again. My thought process is if a 'Shh' does not work once, try it five, ten more times. She was not afraid. I tried to induce her into eating an organic vegetable crunchy snack while holding it high so the old ladies coud see them. I wanted to show I was a responsible parent and feed my kid only the best stuff unlike the scruffy guy who feeds her highly processed bagels. The ladies turned away. This new treat, however, did not have enough honey for my Bee.
I tried the sippy cup and she pushed it aside. I tried the pacifier and she instantly spit it out. She never had the habit of the pacifier and was not going to get into it now. I was almost begging her to stay silent and obey me.
After all my attempts at pacifying my kid were exhausted, I resorted to something my wife would never accept or do. But she wasn't around and I was desperate. I wiped the flat wooden straw clean. Removed the lid on my coffee cup. Swooped a portion of the white milk foam with the straw and wait for it ... gasp ...put it in the mouth of my precious little one. Finally I was successfully in pacifying my daughter. Yeah... take that from Indian Dad you old ladies. What? In some cultures this is construed as caving in - well to that I say Tomaatoes Tomatoes.
Within a few minutes my wife came in and I was glad to share the ordeal with her. On finishing my latte and few minutes of chat, we drove home.
In few years I could write a memoir of my experiences as a Dad. It would break all stereotypes of Asian Parents and immediately restore the world peace that was disturbed by Amy Chua. The title of my book would be - 'Wimpy Squeak of a Dragon Dad'.
Labels:
Amy Chua,
Asian,
Indian,
New Parents
Thursday, January 6, 2011
An inconvenient truth of being green
I was an avid re-cyclist, till about two months ago. I would diligently put all that is recyclable in the recycle bins. I recycled plastic and glass bottles, plastic bags, milk and juice containers, soda cans, paper, batteries and even used electronics like cellphones. I did this for almost 4 years. And something happened that altered my behavior.
My previous residence of three years had a huge recycle container and a regular trash collector very nearby. It took care of recycling the bulky items - soda cans, plastic and glass bottles. The paper and electronics were recycled at my wife's workplace which was close by and I delegated them to her. The only item requiring a little extra effort were the thin plastic grocery bags. I took them to a grocery store nearby that had containers for recylcing them. So it worked well for me while I lived there.
About six months ago, I moved to my current location. For all the grandeur of my current rental place, it does not have any recycling containers. The residents are left to device plans for themselves to recycle stuff. The weather was fine and dandy in fall. I found a school nearby that accepted plastic and glass recyclables. The plastic bags were taken to a local grocery store or Wal-Mart. I had to take the paper, like magazines, newspaper, junk mail etc, to my work place as my wives work did not have paper recycle containers at her new job. That was extra task I had to take up on myself but I felt good about do taking the extra step.
Things took a different turn with the onset of winter. I only ventured out if I absolutely had to. Now the recycle project became a hassle. It was causing a lot of inconvenience for a morally right thing to-do with questionable good. I was emitting carbon with my extra miles driving while trying to reduce carbon footprint. I was taking an extra trip to the local school, to the local grocery store or Wal-Mart for recycling. Recycling plastic bags has been the most trouble I had with recycling. Most places including Wal-Mart are highly inconsistent in their plastic bag recycling policies. Some places do and some do not have the containers to leave your plastic bags for recycling. A place that had the recycle receptacles today may not have them the next time you visit them. This inconsistency lead me to take extra trips to multiple places just to recycle plastic bags. I was driving a ton heavy car about 5-10 miles a trip to recycle couple pounds(if at all) of plastic bags.
Similar but a slightly different picture comes into play with the remaining - glass bottles, plastic bottles and aluminium/plastic cans. Since these are bulky and I own a rental place without a backyard, they ended up piling in our small kitchen. Some like milk cartons smell really bad, if you forget to rinse off the remaining contents and thereby got me into trouble at home. My kid started playing with them and managed to open some of these bottles spilling the few drops left inside on the floor. I had to clean the floor and I hate mopping floors. Of course the hazard of my kid drinking the expired contents and putting the lids in her mouth exists. But those are trivial collateral damages for having a high moral ground. Unwanted cleaning of course is an inconvenience I cannot tolerate.
As always, this experience of mine, lead to a larger question. Is recycling worth the effort? Lets break it down.
Plastic bottles - First you have to remove the caps. The caps are usually made of different plastic and most times are not accepted for recycling. If you don't remove the lids, the odds that an employee at the recycling factory would throw the bottle away are very high. It is more work for the average Joe at the factory and he/she is not going to waste his time of separating the lids of every bottle. He is just going to throw the bottle away and it defeats the purpose of recycling. So might as well remove the lids. Then you need to rinse the bottles before recycling because the residue left can contaminate other plastic, thereby preventing your plastic from being fully recycled. You think you are done here. Well not yet; It is highly recommended that you crush the plastic bottles before you recycle for save space in the recycle bins/containers. From NPR, more on plastic recycling - For Empty Water Bottles, There's an Afterlife.
Paper - The paper recycling has it's own problems. The important being your identity. If you accidentally discarded an important document like a credit card bill or a bank statement, you risk identity theft. So you have to separate the sensitive documents from regular ones. The sensitive documents will have to be shredded and the rest could be dumped in recycle bins. Sometimes shredding alone doesn't prevent identity theft. Some smart folks could recover your shredded material and piece them together to gather information about you. So due diligence is required.
I have already listed the issues with thin plastic bags - inconsistent collection facilities.
Electronic Waste - one would think you did a good job by recycling your electronic waste. Most electronic waste recyclers will ship the waste to emerging countries like China, Pakistan, Nigeria, etc where they are valuable metal is extracted out of them. The metals are scavenged by workers with no protective equipment and breathe in high levels of toxic chemicals, which are then released into the atmosphere. Please refer to this link - After Dump, What Happens To Electronic Waste?, for more information. Not only is electronic waste hazardous, it can also cause identity theft if not cleaned up properly before recycling. In certain parts of Africa rogues can purchase unwiped hard drives for $25 - $300. Needless to say these hard-drives can contain a lifetimes worth of data - sensitive and personal.
The bigger issue however is finding a responsible recycler who does due diligence in providing safe environment for the workers and also does the recycling in a responsible manner. Currently it is not very economical for recyclers without heavy support(subsidies/tax incentives etc) from the government. Follow this link from December 2008, when everything on earth was down - Falling Prices Take Toll On Municipal Recycling. In conditions like that the economics of recycling is a not very promising. Dream of every recycling enthusiast is "Zero Waste" and getting to zero waste with recycling is only possible by making going greener more profitable - Beyond Recycling: Getting to 'Zero Waste'.
So, with all the inconveniences of recycling, I am not surprised that most folks don't recycle. Unless these inconveniences are removed, unless it becomes much more easier to recycle, no amount of promotions in the media can help increase interest in recycling among our fellow citizens. Also recycling has got to be profitable for recyclers.
As for me, I will wait out this terrible winter to get back into recycling rigorously. I have the above valid reasons to excuse myself till it is more convenient for me to recycle more.
My previous residence of three years had a huge recycle container and a regular trash collector very nearby. It took care of recycling the bulky items - soda cans, plastic and glass bottles. The paper and electronics were recycled at my wife's workplace which was close by and I delegated them to her. The only item requiring a little extra effort were the thin plastic grocery bags. I took them to a grocery store nearby that had containers for recylcing them. So it worked well for me while I lived there.
About six months ago, I moved to my current location. For all the grandeur of my current rental place, it does not have any recycling containers. The residents are left to device plans for themselves to recycle stuff. The weather was fine and dandy in fall. I found a school nearby that accepted plastic and glass recyclables. The plastic bags were taken to a local grocery store or Wal-Mart. I had to take the paper, like magazines, newspaper, junk mail etc, to my work place as my wives work did not have paper recycle containers at her new job. That was extra task I had to take up on myself but I felt good about do taking the extra step.
Things took a different turn with the onset of winter. I only ventured out if I absolutely had to. Now the recycle project became a hassle. It was causing a lot of inconvenience for a morally right thing to-do with questionable good. I was emitting carbon with my extra miles driving while trying to reduce carbon footprint. I was taking an extra trip to the local school, to the local grocery store or Wal-Mart for recycling. Recycling plastic bags has been the most trouble I had with recycling. Most places including Wal-Mart are highly inconsistent in their plastic bag recycling policies. Some places do and some do not have the containers to leave your plastic bags for recycling. A place that had the recycle receptacles today may not have them the next time you visit them. This inconsistency lead me to take extra trips to multiple places just to recycle plastic bags. I was driving a ton heavy car about 5-10 miles a trip to recycle couple pounds(if at all) of plastic bags.
Similar but a slightly different picture comes into play with the remaining - glass bottles, plastic bottles and aluminium/plastic cans. Since these are bulky and I own a rental place without a backyard, they ended up piling in our small kitchen. Some like milk cartons smell really bad, if you forget to rinse off the remaining contents and thereby got me into trouble at home. My kid started playing with them and managed to open some of these bottles spilling the few drops left inside on the floor. I had to clean the floor and I hate mopping floors. Of course the hazard of my kid drinking the expired contents and putting the lids in her mouth exists. But those are trivial collateral damages for having a high moral ground. Unwanted cleaning of course is an inconvenience I cannot tolerate.
As always, this experience of mine, lead to a larger question. Is recycling worth the effort? Lets break it down.
Plastic bottles - First you have to remove the caps. The caps are usually made of different plastic and most times are not accepted for recycling. If you don't remove the lids, the odds that an employee at the recycling factory would throw the bottle away are very high. It is more work for the average Joe at the factory and he/she is not going to waste his time of separating the lids of every bottle. He is just going to throw the bottle away and it defeats the purpose of recycling. So might as well remove the lids. Then you need to rinse the bottles before recycling because the residue left can contaminate other plastic, thereby preventing your plastic from being fully recycled. You think you are done here. Well not yet; It is highly recommended that you crush the plastic bottles before you recycle for save space in the recycle bins/containers. From NPR, more on plastic recycling - For Empty Water Bottles, There's an Afterlife.
Paper - The paper recycling has it's own problems. The important being your identity. If you accidentally discarded an important document like a credit card bill or a bank statement, you risk identity theft. So you have to separate the sensitive documents from regular ones. The sensitive documents will have to be shredded and the rest could be dumped in recycle bins. Sometimes shredding alone doesn't prevent identity theft. Some smart folks could recover your shredded material and piece them together to gather information about you. So due diligence is required.
I have already listed the issues with thin plastic bags - inconsistent collection facilities.
Electronic Waste - one would think you did a good job by recycling your electronic waste. Most electronic waste recyclers will ship the waste to emerging countries like China, Pakistan, Nigeria, etc where they are valuable metal is extracted out of them. The metals are scavenged by workers with no protective equipment and breathe in high levels of toxic chemicals, which are then released into the atmosphere. Please refer to this link - After Dump, What Happens To Electronic Waste?, for more information. Not only is electronic waste hazardous, it can also cause identity theft if not cleaned up properly before recycling. In certain parts of Africa rogues can purchase unwiped hard drives for $25 - $300. Needless to say these hard-drives can contain a lifetimes worth of data - sensitive and personal.
The bigger issue however is finding a responsible recycler who does due diligence in providing safe environment for the workers and also does the recycling in a responsible manner. Currently it is not very economical for recyclers without heavy support(subsidies/tax incentives etc) from the government. Follow this link from December 2008, when everything on earth was down - Falling Prices Take Toll On Municipal Recycling. In conditions like that the economics of recycling is a not very promising. Dream of every recycling enthusiast is "Zero Waste" and getting to zero waste with recycling is only possible by making going greener more profitable - Beyond Recycling: Getting to 'Zero Waste'.
So, with all the inconveniences of recycling, I am not surprised that most folks don't recycle. Unless these inconveniences are removed, unless it becomes much more easier to recycle, no amount of promotions in the media can help increase interest in recycling among our fellow citizens. Also recycling has got to be profitable for recyclers.
As for me, I will wait out this terrible winter to get back into recycling rigorously. I have the above valid reasons to excuse myself till it is more convenient for me to recycle more.
Labels:
Green Living,
Recycle
Sunday, January 2, 2011
Letter from my Neice to her GrandPa!
My Niece is 12 years old and during my last visit to India, I found a hand written letter from her to my Dad.
*********************************
On the outside opening fold, she wrote
--------------------------------
I want reply.
Come well soon.
:-)
Open with smile.
-------------------------------
The contents of the letter were
-------------------------------
To,
Grand Pa,
Hi Grand Pa, How are you? I hope you will be alright soon. Grandpa can I know how are you feeling now? You are the best Grandpa I had ever noticed.
For me, for us, for all your beloved, please come well soon!
From
A.XXXXXX
Note: I want reply.
*****************************
I was very surprised at the expressiveness of such a young kid.
However, the letter went unanswered.
*********************************
On the outside opening fold, she wrote
--------------------------------
I want reply.
Come well soon.
:-)
Open with smile.
-------------------------------
The contents of the letter were
-------------------------------
To,
Grand Pa,
Hi Grand Pa, How are you? I hope you will be alright soon. Grandpa can I know how are you feeling now? You are the best Grandpa I had ever noticed.
For me, for us, for all your beloved, please come well soon!
From
A.XXXXXX
Note: I want reply.
*****************************
I was very surprised at the expressiveness of such a young kid.
However, the letter went unanswered.
Tuesday, December 7, 2010
Human mind a Procrustean Bed?
It was long time ago, time when I was in middle school. My class teacher narrated a scary story from Greek Mythology - 'The story of Proscrustes'. It is the story of an evil guy named Procrustes, son of Poseidon, who had a iron bed. He would invite innocent bypassers to spend the night in his den, provide them good dinner and have them sleep on his iron bed. He was somehow obsessed with fitting his guests to his bed. If his guest was longer then the bed, he would chop of the excess portion of the guest's legs. If the guest was shorter then then bed, he would stretch them. His original name was Damastes but was nicknamed Proscrustes which means ' the stretcher'. I had forgotten this story until it was brought back to mainstream discussion by Author/Economist Nassim Taleb, of the Black Swan fame, whose new book is titled 'The Bed of Procrustes'.
In the early part of 2000's I received a email forward from a friend. It detailed that the right age difference for a married couple was three years. It had the reasons explained which I do not want to detail as they are very silly. Not surprisingly the age difference between this guy and his wife was, you guessed it, three. A few years later, I received a similar email with a forwarded message from another friend belonging to a different group. The email content was exactly the same with a single minor difference. The ideal age difference between a married man and woman was five in this email. No prizes for guessing how young this guys wife was - five years. Everything else remained the same in the two emails, word to word, alphabet to alphabet excepting the age difference. Procrustes was streching or cutting his guests to fit his bed. My friends were shortening or lengthening the age difference in the emails to fit their personal experiences. This stretching, shortening of facts to suit our beliefs is a common theme among us humans. The above email anecdote has no negative consequences other than light banter, but this nature of humans might have serious implications.
It was the year 2008 and the economy was in shambles. The financial markets were in turmoil and highly volatile. I was just entering the stock market. As is normal of amateur stock market traders/investors, I was confident that I could beat the market gurus out there. I decided to go short on the market especially the oil. It turned out to be a huge mistake. For a while I was making money, a lot of it. But the first rule is you don't make any money unless you realize the gains in your positions. That was a hard and expensive lesson. Greed and confirmation bias kept me piling on more money on the short side and then something happened. The market turned around and I did not close my shorts. Instead I added more to my shorts believing in my hypothesis - that the economy was in shambles and that oil was headed much much lower. A few months were gone along with a few thousands and I came to my senses. I covered my shorts after having almost lost my clothes. I haven't recovered from that whipsaw and am continue to shy away from the stock markets.
I have noticed this penchant for stretching facts to confirm of belief and decisions, instead of the other way round - Our beliefs should be stretched or shortened based on the facts. There is more to the story of Procrustes. For every villian there has to be a hero, atleast in mythologies. So the hero in this story is Theseus, who visits Procrustes and convinces him to lie on his own bed. Procrustes is longer than the bed and Theseus decapitates him. Thus, keeping intact the tradition of fitting humans to the bed of Procrustes. This story feels flawed now, but it resonates well the theme of how our mind works. I almost lost the savings in my budding retirement account due to my bias. In this age of information, our search for confirmation is a just a click away. We can get confirmation to our beliefs for any sort of weird thing that one can imagine. You can also find staunch supporters too of your belief and all of this is just a click away. Some of these may be less harmful, but there will be occassions when the repurcussions are more than benign.
I conclude by quoting Nassim Taleb from his new book 'The bed of Procrustes' - we humans, facing limits of knowledge, and things we do not observe, the unseen and the unknown, resolve the tension by squeezing life and the world into crisp commoditized ideas, reductive categories, specific vocabularies, and prepackaged narratives, which, on the occasion, has explosive consequences.
In the early part of 2000's I received a email forward from a friend. It detailed that the right age difference for a married couple was three years. It had the reasons explained which I do not want to detail as they are very silly. Not surprisingly the age difference between this guy and his wife was, you guessed it, three. A few years later, I received a similar email with a forwarded message from another friend belonging to a different group. The email content was exactly the same with a single minor difference. The ideal age difference between a married man and woman was five in this email. No prizes for guessing how young this guys wife was - five years. Everything else remained the same in the two emails, word to word, alphabet to alphabet excepting the age difference. Procrustes was streching or cutting his guests to fit his bed. My friends were shortening or lengthening the age difference in the emails to fit their personal experiences. This stretching, shortening of facts to suit our beliefs is a common theme among us humans. The above email anecdote has no negative consequences other than light banter, but this nature of humans might have serious implications.
It was the year 2008 and the economy was in shambles. The financial markets were in turmoil and highly volatile. I was just entering the stock market. As is normal of amateur stock market traders/investors, I was confident that I could beat the market gurus out there. I decided to go short on the market especially the oil. It turned out to be a huge mistake. For a while I was making money, a lot of it. But the first rule is you don't make any money unless you realize the gains in your positions. That was a hard and expensive lesson. Greed and confirmation bias kept me piling on more money on the short side and then something happened. The market turned around and I did not close my shorts. Instead I added more to my shorts believing in my hypothesis - that the economy was in shambles and that oil was headed much much lower. A few months were gone along with a few thousands and I came to my senses. I covered my shorts after having almost lost my clothes. I haven't recovered from that whipsaw and am continue to shy away from the stock markets.
I have noticed this penchant for stretching facts to confirm of belief and decisions, instead of the other way round - Our beliefs should be stretched or shortened based on the facts. There is more to the story of Procrustes. For every villian there has to be a hero, atleast in mythologies. So the hero in this story is Theseus, who visits Procrustes and convinces him to lie on his own bed. Procrustes is longer than the bed and Theseus decapitates him. Thus, keeping intact the tradition of fitting humans to the bed of Procrustes. This story feels flawed now, but it resonates well the theme of how our mind works. I almost lost the savings in my budding retirement account due to my bias. In this age of information, our search for confirmation is a just a click away. We can get confirmation to our beliefs for any sort of weird thing that one can imagine. You can also find staunch supporters too of your belief and all of this is just a click away. Some of these may be less harmful, but there will be occassions when the repurcussions are more than benign.
I conclude by quoting Nassim Taleb from his new book 'The bed of Procrustes' - we humans, facing limits of knowledge, and things we do not observe, the unseen and the unknown, resolve the tension by squeezing life and the world into crisp commoditized ideas, reductive categories, specific vocabularies, and prepackaged narratives, which, on the occasion, has explosive consequences.
Labels:
Confirmation Bias,
Nassim Taleb,
Procrustes
Tuesday, October 5, 2010
Malthus: Menace to Minority
Last month(September 2010) in the myriad of dreadful events like the floods in Paksitan, one news caught my attention. It was about a guy, James J. Lee who took a few employees of Discovery Channel Hostage. According to the news, he hated the shows like "Kate Plus 8" and "19 Kids and Counting." on the Discovery Channel. He had protested against them and had served some jail time. He demanded that Discovery Channel network air "programs encouraging human sterilization and infertility." He had the following on his website "Humans are the most destructive, filthy, pollutive creatures around and are wrecking what's left of the planet with their false morals and breeding cultures,". His myspace account appears to be shut down for now, but you can find some of his ramblings here and here. From his Save the Planet Protest site he demanded the following(bolding and italics, are mine)
Immigration: Programs must be developed to find solutions to stopping ALL immigration pollution and the anchor baby filth that follows that. Find solutions to stopping it.
Develop shows that mention the Malthusian sciences about how food production leads to the overpopulation of the Human race. Talk about Evolution. Talk about Malthus and Darwin until it sinks into the stupid people's brains until they get it!!
He rambles about a bunch of other important matters like War, Environment, Global Warming etc. But the gist appeared to me that he was paranoid about Human Population growth and he desperately wanted an end to Human Births. He blamed discovery channel for fostering shows that promote human population growth and war.
*************
A few years ago, my friend in India had the following(italicized) to say in one of our email communications.
I agree with you on the subject of the discrimination that our society exercises on Muslims. There could be many reasons for it. some (of) them could be the mistakes committed by Muslims themselves. Here, through sai organization I went to couple of Muslim Bastis on couple of occassions. .... the number of children in a house was observed around 6. Ironically, the bread winner is just one (father); in some places you may find one more (eldest son). This might be one of the reasons for their lower economic conditions. They are not interested in studies. Some of them also found to have inclination towards crime and get some intant(sic) money. Hence, reformation is required from both sides.
The views expressed above are not unique to my friend and are harbored by many more. Different versions of that opinion are expressed by people in the country of my dominion. Replace the Muslims with immigrants and minorities; Voila, the discourse is the same.
*************
The fear of population was originally stated by Thomas Robert Malthus in his three volume book titled 'An essay on the principle of population'. The central observation of this book, later came to be termed as 'Mathusian Catastrophe' is that if the population growth is left unchecked, it will be forced to subsistence levels as agriculture production(Arithmetic progression) cannot keep pace with human growth(Geometric Progression).
He wrote this theory to refute his compatriot Marie Jean Antoine de Condorcet. Condorcet in his seminal work 'Sketch for a Historical Picture of the Progress of the Human Mind' wrote about the perfectibility of human mind and society.
*************
The theory proposed by Malthus has become so widely accepted and twisted that crimes have been committed in that belief. History has proven over and over again that when bad ideas are taken in faith by the powerful, it can lead to some bad results for the powerless.
During the darkest days of Indian Democracy called the Emergency, Sanjay Gandhi, son of then Prime Minister of India Indira Gandhi, committed crimes in the name of family planning program to limit population growth. According to author Mark Tully "His inexperience did not stop him from using the Draconian powers his mother, Indira Gandhi, had taken to terrorise the administration, setting up what was in effect a police state.[Mark Tully 'Amritsar Mrs. Gandhis last Battle, pp. 55, ISBN 81-291-0917-4]
During the emergency it was reported that he forced evacuation of a slum of 250,000 people, mostly muslim, near Turkman Gate and Jama Masjid in Delhi. The government officials and police officers forcibly performed vasectomies in order to meet quotas. By official orders, men with two children or more had to submit to sterilization. Many unmarried young men, political opponents and ignorant, poor men were also believed to have been sterilized. This forced sterilization program had wide repercussions for government led family planning programs later on. Luckily for India this period lasted only two years from 1975-1977 and Indira Gandhi herself restored democracy to India.
(P.S.: Compulsory Sterilization of a group of humans has been practised by law in several countries like USA and Germany until very recently.)
In China the 'one child only' policy was started in about 1980 and is still in place today. This created social consequences like gender selective abortion, female infanticide, girl abandonment, kidnapping by officials etc causing imbalance in the sex ratio of male to female in the population as a whole to its current level of 117 to 100. The young men in china find it diffcult to find a suitable mate as is expected. This has other repurcussions at the lower end of society like forced prostition, bachelors 'purchasing' wives, social unrest, violence by restless young men etc.
*************
Malthus has been proven wrong all along and for well over 200 years since the first publication of his theory in 1798. The argument has been that agriculture growth will not be sufficient to cater to the needs of humans and its high growth rate. Until about 1950, the farm productivity was limited by the availability of natural fertilizer which was manure from animal waste, labor which was mostly human and arable land which is limited or decreasing. The other inputs - sun, air and water are almost free. So the powerful, elite and regular folks alike bought into the notion that population growth should be limited by any means. That meant prevention of immigration, forceful sterlization, blaming large families(most of which happen to be minorities).
The argument for 'food supply running out' has been largely quelled by invention of synthetic techniques of making fertilizers that replaced natural fertilizer namely manure. The availability of cheap nitrogenous fertilizer has clearly prevented the long-predicted “Malthusian catastrophe,” or population crisis. The cost of food as % of household income has dropped from one-third of the average U.S. household income in 1955 to less than 15 percent today. The labor issue was resolved by Industrial revolution where large machines replaced much of human work on the farm. In developed countries unlike the developing countries, obesity is the problem and not malnutrition from lack of food.
But the fear of 'population crisis' is well alive today and raises its ugly head almost every year especially in times of economic crisis. It manifests as a case for stopping all forms of socail welfare programs to the poor, the recipients of which being the minorities in the society. It is cited as a case against immigration.
It is time for some fact checking. The global population growth has been in a decline for about five decades now. As per US Census Bureau, the world population rate is currently at 1.1% in 2010 from a high of 2.2% in 1962. Infact there are quite a few countries like Russia, Germany, Latvia, Italy and Japan that have negative rate of natural increase in population. For complete list of growth rates by country, see here. These countries face challenges of aging population with the median age shifting to the right, with fewer working young people having to support more aged and retired members of their country. The other factor is the fertility rate. The necessary replacement rate is about 2.1 and fertility rate of US is at 2.05. There are about 100 countries that have a fertility rate below the replacement levels.
***********
It might appear that I am in support of unlimited human growth. I am not. I am against the 'social darwinists' who took a leaf from Malthus and made this world a bad place to live creating unsustainable public policies, commiting crimes and suffering for the general public. The solution to the human population growth is economic growth itself. Help the underdeveloped sections around the globe grow economically; let people choose their path, provide education, give them independence to choose, let democracy prevail; and population growth as in developed countries will be controlled to a point where public policy has to be changed to support child bearing like that in Japan now. This is already happening in sections of developing countries like India, where the educated and economically well off couples in the upper and middle class prefer a single child.
To put it better in the words of Chris Anderson who in his book 'Free' said
A look at the history of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries suggested that we get smarter faster
than we reproduce—human ingenuity tends to find ways to extract resources from the earth faster
than we can use them. This has the effect of increasing supply faster than demand, which in turn
depresses prices.
......[parts ommitted for brevity]......
Humans are wired to understand scarcity better than abundance. Just as we’ve evolved to overreact
to threats and danger, one of our survival tactics is to focus on the risk that supplies are going to run
out. Abundance, from an evolutionary perspective, resolves itself, while scarcity needs to be fought
over. The result is that ..., people were inclined to believe the very worst about anything and
every- thing; they were immune to contrary evidence just as if they’d been medically vaccinated
against the force of fact.
***********
I think it is time to put Malthus and his theory to rest.
Immigration: Programs must be developed to find solutions to stopping ALL immigration pollution and the anchor baby filth that follows that. Find solutions to stopping it.
Develop shows that mention the Malthusian sciences about how food production leads to the overpopulation of the Human race. Talk about Evolution. Talk about Malthus and Darwin until it sinks into the stupid people's brains until they get it!!
He rambles about a bunch of other important matters like War, Environment, Global Warming etc. But the gist appeared to me that he was paranoid about Human Population growth and he desperately wanted an end to Human Births. He blamed discovery channel for fostering shows that promote human population growth and war.
*************
A few years ago, my friend in India had the following(italicized) to say in one of our email communications.
I agree with you on the subject of the discrimination that our society exercises on Muslims. There could be many reasons for it. some (of) them could be the mistakes committed by Muslims themselves. Here, through sai organization I went to couple of Muslim Bastis on couple of occassions. .... the number of children in a house was observed around 6. Ironically, the bread winner is just one (father); in some places you may find one more (eldest son). This might be one of the reasons for their lower economic conditions. They are not interested in studies. Some of them also found to have inclination towards crime and get some intant(sic) money. Hence, reformation is required from both sides.
The views expressed above are not unique to my friend and are harbored by many more. Different versions of that opinion are expressed by people in the country of my dominion. Replace the Muslims with immigrants and minorities; Voila, the discourse is the same.
*************
The fear of population was originally stated by Thomas Robert Malthus in his three volume book titled 'An essay on the principle of population'. The central observation of this book, later came to be termed as 'Mathusian Catastrophe' is that if the population growth is left unchecked, it will be forced to subsistence levels as agriculture production(Arithmetic progression) cannot keep pace with human growth(Geometric Progression).
He wrote this theory to refute his compatriot Marie Jean Antoine de Condorcet. Condorcet in his seminal work 'Sketch for a Historical Picture of the Progress of the Human Mind' wrote about the perfectibility of human mind and society.
*************
The theory proposed by Malthus has become so widely accepted and twisted that crimes have been committed in that belief. History has proven over and over again that when bad ideas are taken in faith by the powerful, it can lead to some bad results for the powerless.
During the darkest days of Indian Democracy called the Emergency, Sanjay Gandhi, son of then Prime Minister of India Indira Gandhi, committed crimes in the name of family planning program to limit population growth. According to author Mark Tully "His inexperience did not stop him from using the Draconian powers his mother, Indira Gandhi, had taken to terrorise the administration, setting up what was in effect a police state.[Mark Tully 'Amritsar Mrs. Gandhis last Battle, pp. 55, ISBN 81-291-0917-4]
During the emergency it was reported that he forced evacuation of a slum of 250,000 people, mostly muslim, near Turkman Gate and Jama Masjid in Delhi. The government officials and police officers forcibly performed vasectomies in order to meet quotas. By official orders, men with two children or more had to submit to sterilization. Many unmarried young men, political opponents and ignorant, poor men were also believed to have been sterilized. This forced sterilization program had wide repercussions for government led family planning programs later on. Luckily for India this period lasted only two years from 1975-1977 and Indira Gandhi herself restored democracy to India.
(P.S.: Compulsory Sterilization of a group of humans has been practised by law in several countries like USA and Germany until very recently.)
In China the 'one child only' policy was started in about 1980 and is still in place today. This created social consequences like gender selective abortion, female infanticide, girl abandonment, kidnapping by officials etc causing imbalance in the sex ratio of male to female in the population as a whole to its current level of 117 to 100. The young men in china find it diffcult to find a suitable mate as is expected. This has other repurcussions at the lower end of society like forced prostition, bachelors 'purchasing' wives, social unrest, violence by restless young men etc.
*************
Malthus has been proven wrong all along and for well over 200 years since the first publication of his theory in 1798. The argument has been that agriculture growth will not be sufficient to cater to the needs of humans and its high growth rate. Until about 1950, the farm productivity was limited by the availability of natural fertilizer which was manure from animal waste, labor which was mostly human and arable land which is limited or decreasing. The other inputs - sun, air and water are almost free. So the powerful, elite and regular folks alike bought into the notion that population growth should be limited by any means. That meant prevention of immigration, forceful sterlization, blaming large families(most of which happen to be minorities).
The argument for 'food supply running out' has been largely quelled by invention of synthetic techniques of making fertilizers that replaced natural fertilizer namely manure. The availability of cheap nitrogenous fertilizer has clearly prevented the long-predicted “Malthusian catastrophe,” or population crisis. The cost of food as % of household income has dropped from one-third of the average U.S. household income in 1955 to less than 15 percent today. The labor issue was resolved by Industrial revolution where large machines replaced much of human work on the farm. In developed countries unlike the developing countries, obesity is the problem and not malnutrition from lack of food.
But the fear of 'population crisis' is well alive today and raises its ugly head almost every year especially in times of economic crisis. It manifests as a case for stopping all forms of socail welfare programs to the poor, the recipients of which being the minorities in the society. It is cited as a case against immigration.
It is time for some fact checking. The global population growth has been in a decline for about five decades now. As per US Census Bureau, the world population rate is currently at 1.1% in 2010 from a high of 2.2% in 1962. Infact there are quite a few countries like Russia, Germany, Latvia, Italy and Japan that have negative rate of natural increase in population. For complete list of growth rates by country, see here. These countries face challenges of aging population with the median age shifting to the right, with fewer working young people having to support more aged and retired members of their country. The other factor is the fertility rate. The necessary replacement rate is about 2.1 and fertility rate of US is at 2.05. There are about 100 countries that have a fertility rate below the replacement levels.
***********
It might appear that I am in support of unlimited human growth. I am not. I am against the 'social darwinists' who took a leaf from Malthus and made this world a bad place to live creating unsustainable public policies, commiting crimes and suffering for the general public. The solution to the human population growth is economic growth itself. Help the underdeveloped sections around the globe grow economically; let people choose their path, provide education, give them independence to choose, let democracy prevail; and population growth as in developed countries will be controlled to a point where public policy has to be changed to support child bearing like that in Japan now. This is already happening in sections of developing countries like India, where the educated and economically well off couples in the upper and middle class prefer a single child.
To put it better in the words of Chris Anderson who in his book 'Free' said
A look at the history of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries suggested that we get smarter faster
than we reproduce—human ingenuity tends to find ways to extract resources from the earth faster
than we can use them. This has the effect of increasing supply faster than demand, which in turn
depresses prices.
......[parts ommitted for brevity]......
Humans are wired to understand scarcity better than abundance. Just as we’ve evolved to overreact
to threats and danger, one of our survival tactics is to focus on the risk that supplies are going to run
out. Abundance, from an evolutionary perspective, resolves itself, while scarcity needs to be fought
over. The result is that ..., people were inclined to believe the very worst about anything and
every- thing; they were immune to contrary evidence just as if they’d been medically vaccinated
against the force of fact.
***********
I think it is time to put Malthus and his theory to rest.
Labels:
Malthus,
minority issues,
population crisis
Sunday, August 8, 2010
To BP, or not to BP: Discourse on a modern moral dilemma
Abstract: This post will chronicle a moral dilemma I faced after filling my car at a gas station. I have some questions answered while raising some to myself as I always have.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Before I begin, I have to confess of my bad habit. I wait for the yellow empty gas indicator to come up on my car to refill and it has caused me trouble in the past. I am not one of those who stick to a single gas station and pump premium only in my cars. I go whichever is closest and cheapest. However, I faced a dilemma after pumping gas in my car a few weeks ago.
It was one of those days when the indicator on my car showed that it was time to refill. I relocated recently to my current location and was not very familiar with the neighborhood. I have been around the streets here and there for groceries, coffee etc. So I was driving along a major road in search of a gas station. I knew there was a BP station on that road. I have seen it on my way to a coffee shop few days ago. My memory served me right this time and I reached the intersection to the left of which was the BP gas station. However, there was also a Sunoco gas station at the corner of the intersection after the traffic signal. The price was same, exactly to the tenth of a penny. I wonder when they will stop pricing to the 9/10th of a penny though penny itself has become worthless. I went to the Sunoco gas station to fill my car instead of going to the BP gas station.
The moral dilemma started a few hours after filling the gas. There are multiple reasons why humans act the way they do. Most times self interest takes precedence over other reasons like social causes, environment concerns etc. In this case, I went through a considerable hardship at Sunoco for a simple task of filling the tank of my car. I did this to deny BP of my business. This was my way of showing dissent at BP for it’s handling of the Deepwater Horizon Drilling Rig crisis resulting in the biggest oil spill in continental US. The more I think about my actions now, the more I am convinced of my irrational action on that day.
Before I get into the details of my moral dilemma, let me narrate the troubles I went through in my act of trying to avoid BP. I waited for my turn at the traffic light to turn green so I can go to the Sunoco gas station while that would have been completely unnecessary had I gone to the BP station. The BP station was located before the traffic signal and I just had to yield to the opposite traffic, which was sparse, and fill up my car at the completely empty gas stations. There was not a single soul using the gas stations at this BP location. I drove into the Sunoco and waited my turn which had a queue of two cars at each line. It was 15 minutes before my turn would come up. When my turn did come up, I swiped my credit card and it was rejected. Now I had to go inside and speak to the attendant. There was again a line there. I had to wait 10 more minutes before I could speak to the attendant. The attendant took my card for some about $30 and told me I could go pump. The attendant somehow messed up activating the pump and I had to go in again. He had to cancel my previous transaction and charge my card again. After three more attempts due to errors made by the attendant, I was able to fill my car with some gas. I was sure the tank still had about 2 gallon left, but I was frustrated now to redo the whole process. I was now 45 minutes into the process and was getting anxious to get away from there.
Had this been six months ago, I would have been to the gas station and would be out of there in 15 minutes under normal circumstances. I had lost 30 minutes of my life (I say that as a matter of factly and I have been known to waste lot more time that the half hour without guilt) for a cause that I am not sure was right and worth it. I was trying to deny BP of my business, thereby hurt BP in my own humble way for causing the gulf oil spill and not responding in a timely manner. I felt that they denied taking responsibility for a long time, lied about the rate at which the oil was spilling out into the ocean, was trying half baked measures at containing the spill, tried to save money even while facing the worse oil spill disaster the US has known that has effected the livelihood of millions, immeasurable loss to the marine life and unknown damage to the Atlantic Ocean ecosystem in the Gulf of Mexico. While all my reasons are my own and are debatable to some extent, my thoughts was going counter to my original thinking that lead to my decision of boycotting the BP gas station.
I acted against my selfish interests of going to the closest, cheapest and quickest choice which was BP in my current anecdote. Humans are social beings and we sometimes take actions counter to our selfish interests. I was not the only one boycotting BP on that particular day. It was evident when you look at how the BP gas station lot was empty, while there were people waiting in line at the Sunoco station on the other side of the intersection. This is not just a local phenomenon also. BP gas stations all over USA
While fighting for social causes, acting unselfishly may not be right choice after all. Like in trying to hurt BP by boycotting it, I think myself and many more like me are causing little harm to BP. Instead we might be causing much bigger harm to those other faceless people who are in no way related to the disaster. They are only guilty by association and we all fell into that trap. So who is affected by this ‘bigger harm’ and what exactly is this ‘bigger harm’ I am talking about?
The gas station owners and the people employed at the gas stations are the ones affected much more by the BP boycott in this case. As I have mentioned earlier, nationwide BP gas stations have noticed a reduction in sales by about 20%. In a struggling economy that might mean a lot for people who are making a living out of a low margin sales of gasoline. According to smartmoney in 2006, fuel sales made up 71 percent of revenue but only 34 percent of gross margins. With the profit margin just over 2% on a gallon of gas the gas stations owners depend on the sale of the in store items to the customers coming in. The in-store items are high margin items (profit margin over 30%) and bring lot more money than the gas itself. So when the gas sales go down by such big percentage, the number of people buying items in the store also reduces.
Even if we ignore the ‘bigger harm’ by the irrational notion that the gas station owners have to be punished as they are guilt of associating with BP, we have to understand how much of an impact if any ‘Boycott of BP’ has on BP. If the collective impact is big enough, then the boycott can be considered successful from the perspective of those boycotting BP. A naïve look at it might seem to have a big impact as the sales have reduced by 20% at the gas station. Digging deeper, one will be surprised to know that only a fraction of the gas at the BP stations actually originated from a BP crude oil facility or is produced at a BP refinery. The odds are, it is very unlikely and the reason is this. The gas at BP comes from a storage facility where the gas stored could have come from any number of refineries and not just from one producer. To be called BP gas, the gas has to be added BP additives and thats it. The difference between a gas at a BP and a gas at other station like Sunoco is nothing but the brand of additives added. The additives themselves are not any different. Also it is required by law that all gas stations have a certain amount of additives. If BP sees a reduction in demand from its own gas stations, they can sell their crude oil and gasoline from it’s refineries to others in the open market. The corollary is also true. Meaning that gas at a non BP gas station may contain gas from a BP refinery or gas produced by a refinery using the crude oil produced from a BP production facility. Beyond gasoline, there are other products from BP that are rather invisible. Castrol brand of lubricants is owned by BP. When you get the oil changed in your automobile from a garage, you might not even know that you are using a BP product. Beyond gas and lubricants, there are several products from crude oil that we use in our daily life that are not branded. For example, the polythene bags, plastic containers for food and storage, trash bags. These synthetic products are made by non BP brands that might use the feed from crude oil derivative produced by BP. Overall the impact to BP from boycotting BP gas stations is very minimal and depending on the location and time it could be nothing.
Here are some more links to recent news items that will shed more light on this topic.
NY Times - Punishing BP Is Harder Than Boycotting Stations.
Market Watch - Gas-station owners, not BP, feel sting of boycotts.
Yahoo News - Time to scrap BP brand? Gas-station owners divided.
I decided to revert to my selfish choice: to go to the nearest, cheapest gas station with minimal traffic. But I knew all the above facts well before I made that fateful decision leading up to this rant. So what made me make that irrational decision and what is causing this casual reversal? What if I had a more pleasant experience at the Sunoco on that day? I am sure I would have felt happy for sticking it to the evil multinational in the remotest, humblest, irrationally possible way – by boycotting the evil brand.
I shop at Wal-Mart that has bad reputation for wage and working conditions of its workers. I occasionally eat at McDonalds that is alleged to causing obesity in US, and violating animal welfare. I buy coffee at Starbucks that is criticized for anti-competitive practices. And I own a Tobacco company(do I say more) in my investment portfolio. My irrational action was based on a recent incident; that of an oil spill disaster. And a 45min trouble brought me back to my senses. Or have I?
I shop at Wal-Mart that has bad reputation for wage and working conditions of its workers. I occasionally eat at McDonalds that is alleged to causing obesity in US, and violating animal welfare. I buy coffee at Starbucks that is criticized for anti-competitive practices. And I own a Tobacco company(do I say more) in my investment portfolio. My irrational action was based on a recent incident; that of an oil spill disaster. And a 45min trouble brought me back to my senses. Or have I?
Labels:
Current Affairs,
Moral Dilemma,
Oil Spill
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)