RIFLE RANGE BOY

The Erotic Engine:  How Pornography Has Powered Mass Communication from Gutenberg to Google (2011) Author: Patchen Barss Pornography has always been frowned upon as the destroyer of civilised societies. It has been put in the same decadent basket of other vices of man including cheating and gambling. On the contrary, the idea of voyeurism goes back as far as our cavemen ancestors. They had been so fascinated with human anatomy, like excited schoolboys and toilet graffiti, that they decided to draw what they saw during the day on the wall of their dwellings. The early human civilisations were quite liberal with sexuality and nudity. Ancient sculptures of couples in various stages of undress and in acts of copulation are general knowledge. The Indian book of Kamasutra is the living proof of this. Even as late as the European Renaissance, the human body was immortalised in paintings. Science and technology propelled the human race forward to meet various challenges. It helps ...

Back in medical school, we had the honour of having the first-hand experience of listening to a learned man of stature croak cockamamie. The deputy director of Health then officiated some function. The gist of the speech that left an everlasting impression on me was his stand on allocations of funds for research. From the podcast: Bigger than Bacon, Radiolab. He lamented the idea of students complaining about the lack of grants for research. He insisted that of one is genuinely interested in doing research, he can even do it under the coconut tree! I am sure many findings can be cooked up under the tree - with the help of coconut oil, coconut milk and coconut toddy! Somehow, this thought came to me when I was listening to a podcast recently.  Apparently, the first thing they teach you in underwater surveillance studies is to identify a crackling sound which is not the noise of a advancing naval fleet but a particular type of shrimps. These single clawed crusta...