Random pompous assertions
.... from a recuperating man with a healing collar bone
I am reading stuff on and by two great men - Thomas Jefferson and Jawaharlal Nehru.
Wow. Two wise, supersmart men. A huge chunk of humanity owes so much to the legacy of these men.
Jill Greenberg is a very good artist. It is not often that you see a visual artist who is a great photographer and is also great with Photoshop. Someone who uses all the opportunities of the digital media.
Some of her work is exquisite.
But she is a pompous jerkess (=female jerk, I don’t like the word ‘bitch’ though in her case I am tempted to make an exception) who has not thought through anything. The text she has given as the intro to her artwork on crying babies is a boatload of cringing platitudes.
She should read more. And may I suggest Thomas Jefferson and Jawaharlal Nehru.
And of course, she did a super stupid thing recently (link) which only a self-righteous, pompous person with no perspective will do. She may as yet go to the grave with this as being the most google-juicy thing she has ever done.
But to come back, she is a cool visual artist.
The initial decision of the Communist party in Kerala before the last elections was that Paloli Mohammad Kutty will become the Chief Minister.
They didn't have enough balls to go through with that decision and it will go down as another historical blunder.
House MD is back. House is television at its absolute best. Hugh Laurie is perhaps the best actor I have seen after midcareer Mohanlal.
But if they are going to milk the franchisee for half a decade more,the writers are going to have a very tough time coming up with great scripts which won't feel repetitive. Some of the episodes in season four itself felt a bit repetitive to me.
The ‘national’ (ie south delhi) television news media in India is pathetic.
And I hope the word ‘pathetic’ doesn't take offence.
Most of the anchors are pompous jerks with verbal diarrhea.
And most of the correspondents are clueless young girls with verbal diarrhea.
Almost all of them have not thought through what they are doing.
Fox news in US is a propaganda machine. But at least there is propaganda. What the Indian ‘national’ News media has is sensationalism, soft porn and Barkha Dutt.
Fox news does have soft porn but that is, as far as I have seen limited to when a pretty white woman with a non-white boyfriend gets is missing. You can then almost see the anchors winking – ‘she should have known better’ and trying to say what they want to say without seeming racist, but well, you get the message. But other than that it is papa bear O’Reilly beaming down his worldview, which is fun to watch.
The Malayalam news media is a wee bit better and that is primarily due to the seemingly greater presence of the print journalists who do topical programs. Programs like Kannadi.
Prof. Sukumar Azhikode, the darling intellectual of the malayali media never fails to play to the gallery. In the most recent interview he has given, he keeps his record for superficial analysis and ad hominem attacks.
Even Anand, of all people, is a target this time.
The accidental Guru is what Fastcompany calls him. Malcolm Gladwell is one of the most important thinkers of our times. He does not simplify the complex or complexify the simple. He does not pander. He is uber-great.
