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2010 – The year that was!

(pictures source: Zeenews network)

Some of the prominent global events that in my view have shaped  2010 are:

1. The BP Oil spill in the gulf of mexico – On April 20, 2010, a deep water horizon drilling rig explosion killed 11 men working on the rig and injured 17 others and released about 4.9 million barrels of crude oil and caused extensive damage to marine and wildlife habitats off the Gulf of Mexico.
2. The Haiti quake – On Tuesday, January 12, 2010 at 21:53:10 UTC a 7.0 magnitude earthquake struck Haiti. The Haitian government estimates 200,000 have died as a result of this sad incident and 2,000,000 people have been left homeless.
3. The eruption of the Iceland Volcano of Eyjafjallajokull caused enormous disruption to air travel across western and northern Europe over an initial period of six days in April 2010.
4. The Wikileaks expose of worldwide secret classified documents by Assange took the world by surprise and diplomats were scurrying to restore relationships with countries over the expose.
5. Facebook and Twitter social media revolution: The social media took the world by storm and the Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg was voted Times person of the year 2010
6. Paul the Octopus – During the world cup Paul accurately predicted the results of the german games and became an instant celebrity. However, he passed away on 26th Oct. 2010
7. Release of Aung San Suu Kyi – The Burmese military authorities  the pro-democracy leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, from house arrest on 13th Nov.2010 .The Nobel Peace Prize winner has been detained for 15 of the past 21 years.
8. Nobel Peace prize awarded to Liu Xiabao – The Norwegian Nobel Committee  decided to award the Nobel Peace Prize for 2010 to Liu Xiaobo for his long and non-violent struggle for fundamental human rights in China.
9. The break up of Tiger Woods – The world famous professional golfer was embroiled in controversy over numerous extra-marital affairs and his marriage eventually ended in divorce
10. The spat between North & South Korea- North Korea fired scores of artillery shells at a South Korean island  in one of the heaviest attacks on its neighbor since the Korean War ended in 1953.

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Einstein’s theory of relativity

Einstein in my view is the greatest scientist and visionary.  His theory of relativity is so little understood because apart from the scientific or physics aspect it has a philosophical angle to it.  Mark Hawthorne has compared the famous physicist’s concepts of God and soul to Hindu beliefs. Many people, mostly theologians, have accused Einstein of being an atheist; such a scientist, say his detractors, could hardly be religious. Einstein’s view of religion did not include a personal God, which in the first half of the twentieth century was tantamount to saying he was atheistic. But no atheist spent so much time, and put so much thought, into celebrating God.  And perhaps no physicist ever considered so deeply the link between science and religion. When asked how he accounted for being both a scientist and a man known for religious musings, Einstein replied: “Well, I do not think that it is necessarily the case that science and religion are natural opposites. In fact, I think that there is a very close connection between the two. Further, I think that science without religion is lame and, conversely, that religion without science is blind. Both are important and should work hand-in-hand. It seems to me that whoever doesn’t wonder about the truth in religion and in science might as well be dead.”

More recently, Eknath Easwaran wrote in his commentary on the Bhagavad Gita that Einstein’s quest is a theme found in Hinduism: “One of the most fervent hopes of Einstein was to find an overriding law of nature in which all laws of matter and energy would be unified. This is the driving question in some of the ancient Hindu scriptures, too. Mundaka Upanishad 1.1.3 asks, ‘What is That by knowing which all other things may be known?’ ”

In an attempt to define why and in what way he was “religious, ” Einstein said, “Try and penetrate with our limited means the secrets of nature and you will find that, behind all the discernible concatenations, there remains something subtle, intangible and inexplicable. Veneration for this force beyond anything that we can comprehend is my religion. To that extent I am, in point of fact, religious.”

Einstein summarized his philosophy in what he termed the “cosmic religion, ” which is characterized by a feeling of awe and an experience of the mysterious that he declared to be the source of his religiosity. In this experience, God does not punish or reward. Although his cosmic religion does not include a personal God (i.e., Ishvara), which he believed was devised due to fear of the unexplained, Einstein believed, “The religious geniuses of all ages have been distinguished by this kind of religious feeling, which knows no dogma and no God conceived in man’s image; so that there can be no church whose central teachings are based on it.” At this point, for Einstein, religion and science meet, for the cosmic religious experience “is the strongest and noblest driving force behind scientific research.”

 

Peace

The ubiquitous lust for power
Constant strife and discord
War, discontent,  terror and arson
The constant rhetoric and finger pointing
Arms race and nuclear buildup
Bloodshed and broken rubble
Shuffle like images in a kaleidoscope

The fleeting dove has lost its way
In this illusory maze
Deluded in anger , lust and envy
Its vision is blurred
Seeking the rainbow -utopian and ephemeral
The naive man rushes outward
Hidden in his own bosom
Is the lasting peace he seeks

©copyright 9th Dec 2010, skm

Innocence

 

 

Those sparkling eyes, that charming smile
That countenance full of love
You cast a spell on everyone,
Innocence, you are a child!

Your naughty pranks, your witty lies,
Your cries and your giggles
I have no answer to your endless queries
Innocence, you are a child!

You know no caste, you know no creed
You know no envy and pride
You put to shame, men at war
Innocence, you are a child!

I watch you sleep, undisturbed
A picture of serenity!
With a smile on your face and a tear in your eye
Innocence, you are a child!

 

©copyright 9th Dec 2010, skm

 

Lincoln’s Gettysburg address

On November 19, 1863, President Lincoln went to the battlefield to dedicate it as a National Cemetery. Over time, however, this speech with its ending – government of the People, by the People, for the People – has come to symbolize the definition of democracy itself.  The Gettysburg Address stands as a masterpiece of persuasive rhetoric.  It is one of my favourite speeches:

Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battlefield of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.

But in a larger sense, we cannot dedicate – we cannot consecrate – we cannot hallow – this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember, what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us – that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion – that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain – that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom – and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

President Abraham Lincoln – November 19, 1863