RIFLE RANGE BOY

Hi Mom, Dad! What's Up?  Greeja De Silva The moment Elvis Presley went on stage gyrating his pelvis, belting his then-new number 'Hound Dog', the elders went white. To them, his suggestive moves were the mark of the beginning of the end, Armageddon. Nearly seventy years on, we are, however, still very much rocking. Ironically, almost all toddlers make Superman out of their fathers. This admiration slowly dwindles as puberty hits when opinions about the perspective of life clash. They grow apart with the passing years only for the toddler, now a middle-aged father of an adult child himself, to realise the 'Superman-Ubermench' capabilities of his old man.  All these are nothing new but generational gaps. The generation next looks at their predecessors as obsolete and the elders at their offspring as decadent and self-destructive. Even Socrates must have thought the same of the youngsters of his times that he thought his death by hemlock would awaken them.  Of course, ...

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 ...

Centennial light 113 years old still lighting in Livermore fire station Our whole childhood in RRF was filled up with the memory of a single refrigerator - National Jet cycle. Even the fluorescent tube light then seem to last forever. I do not even remember the tube starter needing to be changed. So what happen? Every thing seem to have a shorter life span as time goes on. Just heard about a light bulb which was bought in 1903 and is working after all these years barring a few instances when it went off due to wiring faults, power failure and whilst the time the place it was placed, i.e. a fire station, moved premises. It is a  hand-blown common 60W bulb made from carbon filament in the 1890s, donated to a fire brigade when light technology was in its infancy. It was a sort of community service for the voluntary firemen to get ready to rush to their job. The bulb kept on burning over the years, seeing many transformations in mankind. It saw the Wright brothers fly for the fi...

Above us only sky? "Why is it that people get all emotional when a plane goes down in its line of duty?" complained a friend after viewing umpteen posts of the downing of a plane involving 166 and  hardly anything on the massive floods that submerged almost the whole of the east coast of the peninsular, affecting close to 200,000 people of all strata and tears that would fall after the aftermath. Is it because traditionally flying involved people who are important performing jobs which would literally alter the course of mankind? Perhaps, it does not hold water anymore, since, now everyone can fly! The glitz of flying as being the domain of the rich and famous was relevant in mid 20th century. Is that the reason so much of resources is spent on its search and rescue missions? I tend to think that perhaps, man's ability to fly is one giant step in their civilisation. Being a biped, walking on land, ability to fly off the ground with no physical contact with Mother ...

We always tend to gauge modernity via our ability to go from point A to point B on a horizontal plain in record time. We were considered to have propelled into a new era when the steam and combustion engines came to fore. With nuclear energy we took another giant step for mankind. Speed was of essence. We forget that our vertical mobility is also a sign of modernity or at least left an impact with it. Before elevators were invented, buildings were not tall. Elevators helped us to develop 'vertically'. Anyway, what is modernity without skyscrapers? With increased concentration of people in a small square metre, the concept of familiarity and need to acknowledge each other slowly dwindled. Slowly, people began not acknowledging each other and started the business of MYOB. People may be literally dead in the pigeon hole before his neighbour realises that he actually had he had an neighbour from the stench emanated from the decaying corpse! The early elevators were slow and we...

The last few days have been relatively peaceful. The rudimentary contraption that I now hold, called mobile phone serves its purpose quite well. It is mobile, it is always on the go. Life is peaceful as the urge to gaze at the screen if there was anything new in the cyberspace or social media did not arise as it is not a very smartphone. It is from the pre-3G dinosaur era. My life is more serene without the frequent buzzing or vibrations as if a rattlesnake was curling around the inside of my pants. My friends, however, were under the impression that I had somehow recoiled into my own cocoon becoming an antisocial as all the Whatsapp messages directed to me had gone unanswered. I, however, miss indulging in my own magical world filled with podcasts from NPR and the like. Is it a boon or bane? Just like many things (and people) in our lives, we have to learn with it or around it. Priorities in life should be of paramount importance! My usually smart mobile phone is now in critica...