Is Humanity Becoming Sadistic ?

This post can also be titled "The case for TV show re-runs". Historically art forms are considered a reflection of the society. They are greatly influenced by the broader culture and social outlook of their era. I only wish it does not apply to today's TV if only it can be considered an art form.

I was browsing through some recent hit TV shows here and back home in India as well (which seem to mimic the most-useless-aspects of the western world) - A commonality I was able to gleam in all of them is "Sadistic satisfaction" - a reality or talent show where in the so called celebrity-judges pass caustic, stinging comments about a contestant's performance and the viewers kind of watching it with mouth wide open - some sympathising and many hedonistic of what they are watching. Of course, one can argue that much of this is staged/orchestrated and the listeners should be a better judge of what to watch. I mean why select such a poorly talented contestant in the first place - may be the contestants do it for the money and the few moments of spotlight or its just sensational media culture. If what we watch is true and this is what is popular among people, the sad truth will be we are just become more sadistic society as a whole - drawing pleasure from someone's public stupidity or misery - OR, we are just indifferent and just want to watch some sensational stuffs just to ward off the feeling of living "monotonous mundane lives". Both are not healthy. A few moments of recent TV come to mind -

• "America's Got Talent" - Contestants who should have been filtered off in the screening stages itself making it to the stage only to make a mockery of themselves and to be boo-ed by the audience (elders, youngsters ..) The so called celebrity-judge dismissing the contestant with an audacious "NOT IN A MILLION LIGHT YEARS" - comment. Verbatim. Isnt a light-year an unit of Length and not time...umm...never mind. there are bigger issues here.
• A reality cooking show - showing a chef and his sous-chefs/assitants - in a real kitchen tackling the peak hour pressures etc - think of Apprentice and Donald Trump. The chef tasting one of the dishes and yelling at the sous-chef "Isnt the brussel sprout supposed to be soft/cooked ? What am I - an animal to eat it ?" - I dont know but for sure we are vegetating by watching this show.

You find moments such as these in a lot of other shows as well. My wife often takes me for a ride because I keep watching the re-runs of re-runs of sitcoms like "Everybody Loves Raymond, Seinfeld, Friends, Frasier etc etc". If the new shows (save it for Bill Engval though) are going to be like what I mentioned above, thank God we have re-runs. Make my spectacles more thicker and my hair oily-slick-retro-combed and call me a geek or nerd, I am happy to watch Jeopardy or PBS or C-SPAN for that matter.

Attached photo taken at San Diego Sea Port Village - some newly erected art piece against the backdrop of sunset at the bay.

The (Weak) Case for a Home Theater

Ever since I got hooked on to the NFL games (the only american sport I understand a bit), the desire for a wide screen TV (42" or more) kind of grew wildly. The addition of the Onkyo HTSR800 to my home decor only added more fuel to this. However the situation was well under control.

8th of July was a record of sorts - We (me, wife and kid) went to the theater to watch a movie for the first time. After a 4 year gap I stepping in to a movie theater. The last one for me and wife had been just when our son was conceived. Even this time, theater-movie evaded us for a week or so before we nailed it. The movie was Disney-Pixar's animation UP. This is what I came out with -

• Probably out of touch, me and my wife kind of found the screen toooooooo wide to cover with our two eyes and were missing subtle details of the photography/animation. (may be too old)
• I really missed the comfort of watching movie in a DVD at my home - you can pause, attend to kid or get something to eat, even have dinner.
• I couldnt rewind the movie at the theater to observe the fine details of the animation which I keep doing at home movies. I gravely missed it.
• Our kid started crying in the last 15min and I had to take him out thereby missing the climax.
• Not to mention the cost - ticket + snacks etc etc vs a 5$ DVD rental.
• As far as audio goes, any original DVD with a 5.1 sound track is enough for my Onkyo HT to give a splendid sound rendition.

I guess henceforth I would be contended with watching a movie at the comfort of my home. May be stepping into a theater occasionally. But then, I still need the widescreen....hmmm....

Attached pic shows the wire mesh covering the speaker's driver side.

Yosemite

We spent the last weekend on a relaxed road trip to Yosemite Valley. Beautiful place. Stayed outside at Oakhurst (the closest point to Yosemite where lodging is not costly). The falls had water, could have been better early summer or spring but no complaints. The bus service inside was great. Trekked alone to the Vernal falls. We visited Glacier Point for entire view of the valley. Valley view outside the tunnel was great. All of us trekked for a couple of miles at the Mariposa Grove of Giant Sequioas. The Valley is worth a visit for sure. Bass Lake was the downside in the whole trip - not a tourist place. On the way to Yosemite, we crossed the Bakersfield area. For the first time I saw farming and agricultural activities and lush green plain fields in US - farm equipment, John Deere tractors, cows (a lot of them). The greenery and the plains were a welcome change for the eyes and kind of reminded me of the Cauvery delta where I grew up. The highlights of the trip are, in increasing rank, -

• 5 - For capturing the flow of a water falls, I learnt, you dont necessarily need a ND filter. If you are there at the right time of the day (evenings), smaller lens aperture, wide focal length - you are good. I almost bought a ND filter at the valley

• 4 - Got pulled over by a Park Ranger for speeding - my first in the US - I was doing 48 on a 35 mph stretch while descending down from Glacier point. Was lucky to escape with a warning. I even noticed the cop's radar going wild when I passed him at that speed.

• 3 - My wife made the shrewd observation that almost all the public trash cans in the valley are shaped like the "Half Dome" - an iconic granite rock formation that symbolises the whole area. Coincidence or bear-protection, I dont know - An interesting observation for sure.

• 2 - The whole family - a 3yr old and my inlaws - trekked a mile up and a mile down - on a decently steep trail on the Mariposa Grove. The whole time the younger one was very engrossed with the sticks he had in his hands and every so often renewed them for a fresh pair as well.

• 1 - And the oscar goes to - my wife and her mother for "Lunch with Curd Rice and Pickle". This really made the day for all the three days - timely, tasty food right in our car without the worry of queues and junk food.
  

Attached pics show the Yosemite Valley and the Half Dome from Glacier point and other pic shows Merced River seen from Mist Trail after it has fallen through Vernal Falls (This photo proves point 5 above :-) ).

Chaos Theory

I came across this term quite a bit in the past few months starting with a crazy tamil movie I saw a while ago. Then I heard this term kind of used to explain the not-so-obvious aspects of life in the Art Of Living class I mentioned in my earlier post - for eg, how a random act of kindness can cause a chain effect and how even when something bad happens to you when you actually did some good, you have to take into account a bigger picture to tally the equation out. Life is complex.

Well today, I got to experience my own dose of this medicine. Here's a small snippet of what happened. Got up today in a grumpy mood (which, according to my wife, would be saying I got up normally), my mind wandering, and when it came to leaving for office, I was so grumpy that I dint even wait to say good bye to my son as I often do, even though I was 10 min ahead of time I dint wait for him to come from his pee-pee (loo usage) to tell me a goodbye. I had just turned into the road outside my apartment complex and waiting for a green signal, an old truck in front of me, for reasons unknown, decided to backup and his rusted door saw my hood and fender bent in no time. It all happened even before I can reach to my car horn to alert him to stop. Insurance info exchanged, claim filed - seemed like an amicable person.

Now - the question is - if only I had waited for my kid to come from the loo to give me a good bye, --- I would have had my car whole, no insurance mess. Even though its the other drivers liability, still its unpleasant. My grumpy day eventually became an insurance mess for him. ( I am hoping he would also tell the same to his insurance so that its sorted amicably. But if he changes the story, then I am not sure whats going to happen. )

Now its anybody imagination to fill the details on why was I grumpy and whats next for the other driver who had a bad start for his day. Thought this sounds like chaos theory hence.

Attached is a pic of abstraction taken during fire works. Long exposure during fireworks couple with crazy movements of camera to create weird/abstract effects.

AWOL

This AWOL stands for "American Way Of Life" just to rhyme with my earlier post :-) One thing today's economic recession and job losses stand to validate is an observation I made about USA and its life style long time ago. This is a consumerist economy - less and less of production at home, more and more of ravenous consumption of services and goods from all parts of the world. They live of the credit line extended to them by fools who save money from them from the developing world. So in such an economy its the "marketing" that becomes a key player in the profitability. Unfortunately this marketing spree of the capitalist world seems to have caught up with the non-profit outfits here as well. Recently I made a $5 donation to the american cancer foundation (impulsive act). Since then I have gotten about a dozen postal mails from various other organizations asking for donation. Each time they send me this long scroll of address stickers with my name/address as thank-you-gift. If I guestimate the cost of making these stickers in first place, even if they are made in china, it would have come close to $5, my original contribution. There should be a better way. And a smarter way to squeeze money out of the filthy rich capitalists rather than bean-counting pennies from average joes like me.

AOL

This AOL stands for Art of Living. Around april, attended their part-I course and here is my take on the same --

1. Good endeavor to help people realize peace and alleviate stress by breathing techniques.
2. They teach you mainly the "Sudarshan Kriya" (amazing feeling when I did the first time), some subtle yoga exercises. Would need roughly 30-45min per day to practise. But really worth the time and effort.
3. Lot of discussions on introspection, life in general and knowledge points.
4. People repeat the course just to refresh their understanding or to see how different teachers approach aspects of life. But basic material of kriya/yoga remains same I guess.
5. Bit expensive here in US than in India. Not sure how the quality compares.
6. I guess the fundamental requirement of any therapy course is a belief that the therapy will work for you and help you. Same here.

My wife attended the same the last week of June. Her class was young compared to mine. Hoping to start doing the sudarshan kriya regularly. Definitely would recommend this to anybody.

On a tangential note, while things like Art of Living etc give you tips on how to manage stress and control emotion, life keeps giving you events to test it out in the field :-) Here is one -

My wife's I94 was stamped as H1B by mistake by the immigration office at the LA airport. Our immigration attorney found it out and asked us to get it corrected. All's well till this point. What irked us most was the attorney's comment that its our duty to make sure I94 is stamped correctly by the immigration office upon our arrival. Who is supposed to be agile here - a sleep-depreived family that has just flown 36hrs OR a burger-fed officer at home in his A/C office ? Remember art of living. Take a deep breadth, and let it go ....

This post's pic is tangentially related to the subject AOL. It shows a sun (sudharshan) . This is a revolving decoration item and the center sun is still while the periphery shows the nice motion though its in the same focal plane.