RIFLE RANGE BOY

Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? (1962) They use to say that blood is thicker than water. Logically, Nature would not want its own kind to destroyed. The selfish gene must surely want its continuity of species. The last thing that it would wish for is for hosts carrying somewhat similar genetic materials going for each other's jugular.  In life, however, sibling rivalry is genuine.  Tales of the vengeful Cain over his younger brother, Abel, is one which had been in the annals of mankind as long as Man can remember (being Adam's offspring). Siblings, fighting for recognition over the other and yearning for requited love from their elders, have plunged them into the abyss of darkness to prove their point, sometimes unsuccessfully, with disastrous outcomes. Many victims of depression and adjustment disorders have blamed the stress of growing up with a high achieving person as possibly the prime cause of their malady. In the Hollywood circle, primadonnas Betty...

The Equalizer (2014) Suddenly, somebody I knew blurted out, "Hey, Equalizer 2 will out soon!" Not really remembering anything about the first Equalizer, I inquired, "Was it any good?" to which he babbled something to the effect of as if I had committed a cardinal sin. So I made it a point to view the film myself, and I am not impressed. Appa used to be hooked to a TV series with the same name where a team of do-gooders went around helping desperate. I never went around watching it as I had many other pressing deadlines in my life then. Appa had a cult following for it, but I would not say he was a die-hard fan. Halfway through the episode, he would be in Slumberland, especially after his long hours spent in the bank working with other people's hard-earned money. So much for being an ardent fan! The TV series This 2014 movie based on the TV series defies logic. So many of the executed plans are too far-fetched and bends reality so much that it...

The answers on Earth are not easy to come by, especially when it comes to questions about the purpose of Life and ways to steer it. Why some people are born with all the options in life, with a silver spoon, in a rose garden, but are too blind to use them for their benefit while others have all the zest to do all the things in life to better themselves without any opportunities. Assoc Prof Munjed Al Muderi This topic of discussion came up the other day when the story of an Iraqi doctor, now Assoc. Prof. Munjed Al Muderis, who was given a new lease on life in Australia after running away from his birth country flashed in a newsfeed somewhere. Dr Muderis was an ambitious young doctor in an Iraqi University when the Republican Guard showed up and ordered him to mutilate his patients who happened to be Iraqi soldiers. Refusing to conform, as it was against the Hippocratic Oath, he finally had to make a dash out of the country and eventually ended up in Christmas Islands as just a...

As if by the interference of the divine forces, in two seemingly unrelated events, coincidences happen. In the first, the name Giorgio Moroder was mentioned within a span of a day (after not having heard the name mentioned since the 90s). In the other, two podcasts featured on the same topic - speech difficulties and singing. The general understanding is that stammering and singing are apparently not compatible. Unlike 'The Who' who came up with their 1965 hit song "My Generation', where the lead singer tries to sing with a stutter, the general consensus is that stammerers cannot string the words before the next beat. Wrong. In a documented case, as can be heard in the podcast below, an Indianapolis local resident, Ellen Spencer, was admitted for a neurological condition and came out of the hospital with a slurred speech. Even though at one look, her speech may sound like a French-accented English but on greater scrutiny, she had problems pronouncing certain syll...

Avengers: Infinity War (2018) The first thing that I noticed was that there were too many superheroes and I had a difficult time trying to identify them. Some of them even look somewhat similar to my eyes. To me, one who is a slow learner of this genre, Captain America and Star-Lord has the same face-cut. Black Widow and Scarlett Witch look almost alike. Even Bruce Banner without his Hulk outfit and Iron Man seem to share a similar exoskeleton. Anyway, one gets the gist of the story as the story, which could have easily been plucked out of the Indian mythology. Thanos, the protagonist, who wants to destroy half of the world's population to put things right. To do this, he needs to have in his possession some precious stones which are implanted in some superheroes. Just as seen in Hindu mythologies when an Asura is given a boon and he terrorises, all the Devas have to join forces to set order in the Cosmos, here the Avenger and the Guardian of the Galaxy teams put their ...

Cosmos: A Personal Voyage (Documentary; 1980) Creator, Presenter: Carl Sagan It all probably started over 13 billion years ago. A mammoth explosion which sent energy expanding across the universe gave light and mass. This expansion of space after the blast, by all accounts, is likely to be still ongoing as seen by the Doppler effect visible in the telescopic visualisation of distant stars. In cosmic terms, time probably started at that juncture. Then there was nothing for a very long time. Slowly with the cooling of the system, galaxies and stars came around. The earlier stars had short shelf lives. Their burning out of hydrogen fuels gave rise to other heavier atoms and supernovas that became the seed of our existence. With carbon and oxygen came the blueprint of existence, water. By trial, chance and selection, the seed of life began. Slowly unicellular, then multicellular and complex creatures formed. DNA was found by Nature for continuity of life. With time a primitive reptili...

Aryabhata (476-550 CE) Mathematician/Astronomer. The first person to say that Earth  is spherical and revolves around  the sun. The first to suggest that  any number divided by 0  gives infinity ∞. (pinterest) Continuing in the quest to make sense of things around me, I stumbled into something quite thought-provoking. It has something to do with our idea of separating knowledge into the sciences and the arts. It is interesting to note that the Ionians, of the Eastern part of the Greek civilisation, and the Hindu culture started learning things about the world we live in entirely independent of each other. It is incredible how quite similar their discoveries were, at least in the initial stages. The pre-Socratic thinkers thought that there was a connection between the Universe and the world immediately around us. Thales tried to say that water is the essence of our existence. Democritus put forward the theory of Void and eternal, indivisible ato...

We are told that the fundamental need of man is simple. All he needs are food, sleep and the chance to procreate. The high water mark of procreation, the ecstasy of climax, must have been added by Nature to lure Man to help in the continuity of his species. With increasing complexity, when Man started living in communities, and social mores began creeping in, their fundamental needs zeroed on food, clothing and protection from the harmful elements of Nature. With further sophistication, when the society progressed, the essential things in life do not remain basic anymore. There used to be a time when food was a necessity, or perhaps obligatory, for one's body to be able to burn enough energy for one to garner sufficient might to provide for his loved ones. With their God-given limbs, the immigrants and the sojourners alike tried to change their fate through sheer hard work and willpower.  Whatever came their way which was nutritious and palatable was consumed fo...

Operation Blue Star, The True Story. Author: Lt. Gen. K. S. Brar Sometimes one cannot help but wonder if this whole business of God, His Divine Grace, His Omnipresence, His Omnipotence and His Omniscience is just that. A business. His symbolic representation here on Earth may just be a figment of our imaginations and our complicated way to justify our ignorances, faux pas and errors of judgment. We use His name to hoodwink our flock to commit atrocities against our kind and to qualify for a 'get-out-of-jail' free card. We evoke the divine forces for one's solace and to pacify our ego. Is there indeed a force out there that governs the balance and metes justice to ensure equilibrium in the grander scheme of things? This  is crystal clear from the events surrounding the events that led to and occurred after the siege of the revered shrine of the Sikh Golden Temple in Amritsar back in June 1984. The account of circumstances of the unfortunate event was penned from the ...

The world is your oyster. Too bad for vegetarians!  ©FG A few weeks ago, I met up with an old friend who had been under the weather of late after being under the barrage of attack of the unfriendly crab, which seems to have attacked his immune system. His account of life is one of melancholy and hopelessness. After retirement from Government service as a medical officer, he let life slip by. An occasional part-time job here and there, biking trip every now and then, that was it. His life had been dragging its feet at a snail's pace, then this. At the hospital, he lamented how people ask him to rest with his illness as if he was doing anything else after his retirement. He never owned a mobile phone and does not believe in going online. He keeps thinking the digital world is a just fad. He can only be contacted on a landline! And he continues in his grumpy, miserable and lifeless life living day by day and counting. On the other spectrum, I met a group of retirees who embrace...

Did you forget to reflect? shuttershock.com Living in the fast lane is not for the faint-hearted. After the recent Weinstein-type of exposé in a hospital in Malaysia, my thoughts were drawn to an event that happened more than some 30 years ago.  As the Weinstein effect goes on hyperdrive, one cannot help but wonder whether how the perpetrators did what they did. It baffles how they got away with it. Did they not realise that it was morally wrong what they were doing? Are they too engrossed into it that they find it difficult to untangle? Was it an addiction? Was the power trip too compelling? Did they think that it was mutually agreed upon; hence it was entirely legitimate? I remember a varsity friend, who, with his new found freedom away from the prying eyes of his parents and having almost securing himself of a degree, wanted to live to savour the forbidden fruits of life. With his self-perceived appreciation of his physique, he ventured into the business of swinging. Ju...

Christiaan Huygens (1629 - 1695) I always wondered how such a small country as the Netherlands could transform themselves suddenly to a seafaring nation and a superpower from the 17 century onwards. Sieving through its history, one can find that it was paved with many upheavals and uprisings. Lord Burgundy is credited for uniting regions around Holland, Luxemburg and Belgium. Protestants, who were protesting silently against the tyranny of control of the Roman Catholic Church and congregated around the Netherlands, declared themselves as a Republic as the Spanish kingdom became weaker. With superstition and dogma out of the way, with science as the guiding light, the people of the Netherlands prospered. Encouraging citizens to think, speak and not be ostracised for out-of-the-box ideas, scientists prospered. They had entered the golden age of their existence. With advances in science, in particular astronomy and navigational knowhows, they went places. Improvement ...