RIFLE RANGE BOY

P rofessor Thomas Sowell, the 90-year-old veteran economist and social theorist from Hoover Institute of Stanford University, is still active on social media. He is quick to give his opinion, backed by statistics and historical events, to run down ongoing national policies. He is an opinionated person and at one time was drawn to the idea of communism. His rationalisation for gravitating toward the left is that it is just human nature. He wants to share when one has nothing; conversely, he does not share when he tends to lose his 'hard-earned' possession. Sowell hails from Harlem, working as a postal worker as a young man and pulling himself up by his bootstrap to his current stature. He often campaigns against affirmative action and minimum wage. He asserts that the Black American community had a better quality of life when the aforementioned policies were pinned upon them. Another recurrent theme in his rhetorics is the importance of the family unit in the upliftment of socie...

Back in the 80s, my cousin RR, sister and I all bought similar combs of the same colour and make and promised to keep in forever as a sign of our bond. At that naïve carefree age, we made a pledge that we would keep till end of time as common tool. During about the same time, over the same holiday period, RR and I used to go crazy over the rock band ‘Cheap Trick’. Over and over again, we found intense joy in croaking in our untrained hoarse vocal cords to the song ‘If you want my love, you got it’ till it hurt and felt so good about it. The song used to be a regular feature on Radio RAAF Butterworth those days. 30 years after that eventful holiday, when I last met up with RR, I happened to mention about the comb and the song to him. And what do you know? RR had absolutely no recollection of the song that we used to sing. In fact, he asked; “Cheap who?” Do not even bother about the comb! And there I was keeping the blue plastic comb in pristine condition. Well, something mean more to s...

I heard a radio interview recently with a motivation consultant. He was advocating that in order for one to achieve his ambitions, he must cling along with company of the same spirited individuals, with go-getter's, amongst people with positive attitudes so that some of the positive vibes will rub off on you. Hey, you do not need a motivation guru to tell you that. Amma told us that 40 years ago and she only had primary school education. Her quotable quote told in a negative sense was 'If a calf (being a divine animal) starts mixing with piglets, they would start eating faeces.' The smart Alecs would argue that Winnie the Pooh's friend Piglet (even though a pig) seems very civilized (or is that why Winnie got the nickname Pooh?) and also that modern pigs are reared in farms and their feeds are controlled and monitored scientifically unlike the hogs in the slums of Tamil Nadu! If I remember well, the management people have a rule of thumb called 'Peter's Princip...