Monday, December 8, 2008

THE MAN WHO MADE LISTS---BOOK REVIEW

THE MAN WHO MADE LISTS--ROGET’S THESAURUS BY JOSHUA KENDALL; PUBLISHED BY G.P.PUTNAM’S SONS; PAGES-297; PRICE-US $25.95

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An event of profound importance in the history of the English language was a dinner party on June 6, 1928, held in the Goldsmith’s Hall near St Paul’s Cathedral, London. It was attended by 150 persons each monumentally distinguished in achievement and standing. It attracted the nation’s brightest and most wise—a stellar gathering of intellect. There were two bishops, three vice-chancellors, a dozen peers of the realm, 27 knights, Sir Ernest Rutherford, Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch, Sir Henry Newbolt and J.R.Tolkien. The Prime Minister of England Stanley Baldwin proposed a toast to the Editors and Staff of the Oxford English Dictionary—twelve mighty volumes brought out after 70 years of labour. The Dictionary had 15,490 pages of single-spaced printed text with 414,825 words. There were 1,827,306 illustrative quotations. Rightly did the Prime Minister declare that the Oxford English Dictionary is the greatest enterprise of its kind in history.

Next only in importance and significance is the work of one man—he dedicated his whole life to this and he is Peter Mark Roget who is known for his “Thesaurus”. The book under review deals with both the life of Roget and his achievement. Roget (1779-1869) was a British physician, natural theologian and lexicographer. He is best known for publishing, in 1852, the “Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases.”
Roget’s 250,000-word treatise was the culmination of his lifelong pursuit, begun in his childhood notebook, to organize the animate world. Incorporating the research of countless specialists in zoology, physiology and anatomy, Roget had produced a work whose comprehensiveness was breathtaking. He divided his treatise into four classes of physiology—Mechanical Functions, Vital Functions, Sensorial Functions, and Reproductive Functions.
“Specious phraseology could disseminate the seeds of prejudice and error”, according to Roget. “If the masses could learn to use language better, they might be able to right much of what was wrong with the world.” By organizing not just words but all ideas—knowledge—Roget believed that he was highlighting God’s achievements.


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Peter Mark Roget was born in London. His obsession with list-making as a coping-mechanism was well-established by the time he was eight years old. The son of a clergyman, Roget studied medicine at the University of Edinburgh. His life was marked by several incidents of sadness. His father and his wife died young. One uncle who held the highly respected position of Solicitor General of England committed suicide in Roget's presence. Roget struggled with depression for most of his life. His work on the thesaurus arose partly from an effort to battle depression.
One cannot but express awe at the quality of personalities involved with Roget. He studied “Natural Philosophy” under Dugald Stewart whose illustrious pupils included the novelist Walter Scott and two prominent future Prime Ministers, Lord Palmerston and Lord John Russell. Roget worked with or under James Watt ( inventor of the steam engine), Humphrey Davy( inventor of Miner’s Safety Lamp),Jeremy Bentham (economist and father of Utilitarianism principle). The strength of his intellectual powers was apparent at a very early period of his life; he was remarkable from his infancy for his insatiable thirst for books, and for his indifference to the common objects of amusement, which usually captivate children.
Roget retired from professional life in 1840 and about 1848 began preparing for publication the one work that was to perpetuate his memory. This was the catalogue of words organized by their meanings, the compilation of which had been an avocation since 1805.. During his lifetime the work had twenty-eight printings; after his death it was revised and expanded by his son, John Lewis Roget, and later by John's son, Samuel Roget.
Roget helped found the School of Medicine at the Manchester University. He was also one of the founders of the Medical and Chirurgical Society, which later became the Royal Society of Medicine. He was a secretary of the Royal Society. He was charter member of a prestigious society, the Athenaeum Club, co-founded by Walter Scott. So esteemed was the club that Charles Dickens would regard his own election in the mid-1830s as a major milestone in his career.
He wrote numerous papers on physiology and health, a two-volume work on phrenology and articles for several editions of Encyclopedia Britannica.
These activities would be more than enough for most men, but Roget's insatiable thirst for knowledge and his appetite for work led him into many other fields. He played an important role in the establishment of the University of London. He showed remarkable ingenuity in inventing and solving chess problems and designed an inexpensive pocket chessboard. Among Roget’s achievements was the invention of a machine which finally became the familiar Zeotrope, using hand-drawn pictures. This heralded the advent of Motion Pictures.



Roget was the focus of the play "Synonymy" by Randy Wyatt. It tells the story of a graduate student named Gordon who rents out the last known residence of Roget to inspire him as he works on his dissertation regarding the English language and Roget's Thesaurus. The building, which was soon to be torn down, created a gateway in which Gordon found himself travelling back in time and meeting Roget and his daughter.
Roget’s work was inspired by two earlier texts; the ancient Sanskrit “Amarakosha” (380 A.D ), the very first arrangement of words by subjects, followed by the French “Pasigraphie” (1796 A.D).
Joshua Kendall, the author, is a language enthusiast and an award winning journalist who writes for Business Week and Boston Globe. His book is a thorough exploration of a lexicographer’s life and mind. He has a keen eye for detail and he tells in a gripping manner the story of an astounding person who made an astounding impact on culture. The book is a carefully devised narrative that brings out the history behind the Thesaurus which has become a constant companion to all who love and respect English.
P.P.Ramachandran,
An extract from Roget’s Thesaurus for those who have not seen it. The word I have chosen is “Exclusive”.
exclusive


ADJECTIVE:
1. Not diffused or dispersed: concentrated, intensive, undivided, unswerving, whole. See COLLECT, EDGE, PART. 2. Catering to, used by, or admitting only the wealthy or socially superior: fancy, posh, swank, swanky. Informal : ritzy. See PLAIN. 3. Not divided among or shared with others: single, sole. See INCLUDE. 4. Singled out in preference: choice, chosen, elect, select. See CHOICE, INCLUDE

THE MAN WHO LOVED CHINA--BOOK REVIEW

THE MAN WHO LOVED CHINA BY SIMON WINCHESTER; PUBLISHED BY HARPER COLLINS; PAGES 316; PRICE -$27.95.

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Simon Winchester, is a British author and journalist who began as a geologist and worked on oil-rigs in Africa. As a journalist he was kept prisoner by the Argentinian forces in the Falkland Islands. His book on the Oxford English Dictionary—“The Professor and the Madman” is a classic work in history. His other books “A Crack in the Edge of the World”, “Krakatoa”, “TheMap that Changed the World” were all on the New York Times Best Sellers list. SimonWinchester was made Officer of the Order of the British Empire ( O B E ) by Queen Elizabeth in 2006.
The book under review “The Man Who Loved China” is about the British biochemist and Chinese scholar Joseph Needham . Joseph Needham was one of those rare persons who are so good at so many things that they astonish us. Cambridge-educated in anatomy, physiology and chemistry, Needham became the West's leading authority on Chinese history. Needham "succeeded, as few others are ever privileged to do, in making a significant and positive change to mankind's mutual understanding.”
A simple listing of the British professor's fascinations would fill pages and would include auto mechanics, irrigation, horticulture, public health, military and political science, and Chinese calligraphy. His stupendous work, "Science and Civilisation in China", the product of 50 years of research and writing, fills 23 huge volumes. His collaborators are completing five more.
Winchester concentrates on Needham's flamboyant and eccentric character and those parts of his life which were filled with action, adventure and famous people. At Cambridge University, he pursued scientific research in biochemistry and women with equal avidity. In 1924 he married Dorothy Moyle, another biochemist, and they maintained an open marriage, which lasted until her death more than 60 years later. In 1937, Needham took as his lover, Lu Gwei-djen, a brilliant biochemist from Nanjing, and Moyle accepted her into their marriage. That arrangement, too, lasted until Moyle died and Needham married Lu. She introduced Needham to China's language and culture at a time when Japan's invasion of the country focused the West's attention and sympathy on the country.
Once Needham landed in China, he launched the research project that became the obsession that dominated the rest of his life -- the discovery and recognition of China's many early technological achievements. His research began the day he arrived in the country and ended only with his death.
Most of the narrative, however, covers Needham's adventurous and dangerous three-year stay in China during World War II. It was exciting times for him, filled with hardships, but he also met and befriended scientists, scholars, government and military leaders including Mao Zedong and Zhou Enlai. Both his work and these contacts gave him access for his research and he found evidence everywhere of the early development of sophisticated technology.
Despite his support for the Chinese revolution it was his passion for the country's past that captured him. As his research turned up early advances in Chinese science, Needham documented and made widely available to the rest of the world, the extraordinary accomplishments of an important culture.
Needham's life was a great deal more than scholarly. He was an explorer, adventurer, and womanizer whose wife and mistress remained friends for 50 years while he carried on affairs with other women in other countries. He was a communist who never joined the party — but he nearly lost his academic standing when he was taken in by a scientific hoax, organized by leaders of the Soviet Union and designed to make it appear the U.S. had committed biological warfare during the Korean War.
The love affair between Joseph Needham and Lu Gwei-djen, propelled events that would change dramatically the Western world's perceptions of China. As his mistress for life, she taught him the meticulous art of Chinese calligraphy. In studying her language, he fell in love with a country he had never seen. The outcome was the historical tome that Winchester regards, along with the Oxford English Dictionary, as one of the great intellectual achievements of all time.
Cambridge and the British Diplomatic Corps sent Needham to China to assess what the Chinese universities needed to pressure the Churchill government to provide it. It was the beginning of a lifelong quest to know everything about China and write it all down. For the rest of his life he worked "all in the consequence of his love for a Chinese woman ... to change the way the people of the West looked on the people of the East."
A puzzle often identified by historians as "Needham's question," and central to much of his work is this: Why did China, having given the world its earliest understandings of the pure sciences, having invented printing, gunpowder, the wheelbarrow, the fishing reel, chain-pumps, the magnetic compass and hundreds of other practical devices at a pace "unmatched by the world's other great civilizations including the Greeks" suddenly shut down in the 1500s? Why did this enormous country become isolated and xenophobic, just when modern science and industry began blooming in the West? Needham struggled with this mystery for decades, without a solution that suited him. According to Needham the riddle is of less consequence these days. The more urgent need, Winchester writes for both himself and Needham, is to understand as much as possible of "everything, good and ill, about the awe-inspiring, terrifying entity that is today's new China," as it moves in the direction of world supremacy.
Needham was elected a fellow of the Royal Society and the British Academy. Under the Royal Society’s direction, Needham was the director of the Sino-British Science Co-operation Office in Chonquing from 1942 to 1946. Needham collaborated with the historian Wang Ling , who solidified Needham's passion for Chinese scientific history.
After two years' tenure as the first head of the Natural Science division at UNESCO in Paris- indeed, it was Needham who insisted that Science should be included in the organisation's mandate — he returned to Gonville and Caius College in 1948, when Cambridge University partially funded his Science and Civilisation in China series. He devoted much energy to the history of Chinese science until his retirement in 1990, even though he continued to teach biochemistry until 1966. He also supported the controversial Chinese communist claims of American biological warfare as an inspector from 1952 to 1953 in North Korea during the Korean War He was banned by the American government from entering into American borders for 25 years. According to Simon Winchester "Needham was intellectually in love with communism; and yet communist spymasters and agents, it turned out, had pitilessly duped him." (, p. 212).
Needham suffered from Parkinson’s disease from 1982, and died at the age of 94 at his Cambridge home. In 2008 the Chair of Chinese in the University of Cambridge was endowed in honour of Joseph Needham.


Simon Winchester’s book reads like a thriller and is as fascinating as the life of his hero. The eminent bio-chemist and Chinese scholar has been extraordinarily lucky to get a biographer whose work will be an unique account of a person and a country , both great achievers.
P.P.Ramachandran

THE LAST LECTURE--BOOK REVIEW

THE LAST LECTURE BY RANDY PAUSCH ; PUBLISHED BY HYPERION ; PAGES 207; PRICE -$ 21.95
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Randy Pausch was an American professor of computer science, human computer reaction and design at Carnegie Mellon University. He is a best-selling author who achieved worldwide fame for his " The Last Lecture" speech at Carnegie Mellon University.
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This has been brought out in a book form by his friend Jeffrey Jaslow.
Pausch was an assistant and associate professor in the Department of Computer Science at the University of Virginia’s School of Engineering and Applied Science from 1988 until 1997. In 1997, Pausch became Associate Professor of Computer Science, Human-Computer Interaction, and Design, at Carnegie Mellon University. He started the Building Virtual Worlds course at CMU and taught it for 10 years. He worked with Google, Adobe, Electronic Arts (E A) and Walt Disney Imagineering, and pioneered the Alice Software Project. Pausch was the author or co-author of five books and over 70 articles.
The Pittsburgh City Council declared November 19, 2007 to be "Dr. Randy Pausch Day." In May 2008, Pausch was listed by Time magazine as one of the World's Top-100 Most Influential People.
Pausch was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and after an unsuccessful attempt to halt it he was told in August 2007 to expect a remaining three to six months of good health On July 25, 2008, Pausch died at his 47th year. He is survived by his wife Jai, and their three children, Dylan, Logan and Chloe.
Pausch delivered his "Last Lecture", titled “Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams” at CMU on September 18, 2007. This talk was modelled after an ongoing series of lectures where top academics are asked to think deeply about what matters to them, and then give a hypothetical "final talk," i.e., "what wisdom would you try to impart to the world if you knew it was your last chance?"
During the lecture, Pausch was humorous, alternating between wisecracks, insights on computer science and engineering education, advice on building multi-disciplinary collaborations, working in groups and interacting with other people, offering inspirational life lessons, and performing push-ups on stage.
His " The Last Lecture" has attracted wide attention from the international media, became an Internet hit, and was viewed over a million times in the first month after its delivery. On October 22, 2007, Pausch appeared on The Oprah Winfrey Show where he discussed his situation and recapped his "Last Lecture" for millions of TV viewers. The Walt Disney owned publisher Hyperion has paid $6.7 million for the rights to publish a book about Pausch called The Last Lecture co-authored by Pausch and Wall Street Journal reporter Jeff Zaslow.
Each year at a series known as The Last Lecture, a Carnegie Mellon University faculty member is asked to deliver what would hypothetically be a final speech to their students before dying. It is a wonderful tradition in which both speaker and listeners take a moment to reflect upon what matters most in this life. In September 2007, the speaker, 47-year-old computer science professor and father of three, Randy Pausch, didn't have to imagine that he was confronting his imminent demise because, in fact, he was. Pausch had been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and, at the time of his Last Lecture, had only been given three to six months to live. Pausch's speech, entitled "Achieving Your Childhood Dreams," was every bit inspirational as the man himself. Rather than focusing on dying, it was a speech about living, about achieving one's dreams and enabling the dreams of others, about truly living each day as though it were your last.

With a desire to elaborate on his ideas in print form, but not wanting to take precious time away from his children, Pausch, a self-avowed efficiency nut, spent fifty-three daily bike rides on his cell phone headset conveying his thoughts to Zaslow who helped shape the stories into book form.
The book under review is a slender book that can be read in two or three sittings. The book overflows with stories and aphorisms. Randy Pausch recounts fulfillment of his childhood dreams and the principles he learned along the way. Pausch's strong beliefs included inter-alia "life's brick walls are there to show us how badly we really want something," the notion that "experience is what you get when you didn't get what you wanted," and a quotation from the Roman philosopher Seneca who said that "luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity." Pausch is a thoroughly entertaining storyteller and presents the highlights of his brilliant career bursting with the joy of living even as a cloud of death was enveloping him. The book deals with his struggles with cancer taking it as a challenge he must and will overcome. He has great faith in creative solutions and he refuses to be buckle under any threat—even to his life.
Though Pausch wrote this book for his three children to hear him after his departure the book’s wisdom is of universal value. Reading this swan-song will help resuscitate the lagging and lapsing faith in humanity. Pausch will rank with Helen Keller, Stephen Hawking and other great persons who were struck by serious ailments but overcame them by sheer will power. “The Last Lecture” is one of the great inspirational works of the twenty first century.
P.P.Ramachandran

THE WAR WITHIN--BOOK REVIEW

THE WAR WITHIN BY BOB WOODWARD; PUBLISHED BY SIMON &SCHUSTER; PAGES 487; PRICE U S $ 32/-
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The decline and fall of President Richard Nixon was the result of the patient work of two young journalists—Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward. Much water has flown down the Potomac since Nixon and we are currently witness to the darkest days in American History under President Bush. One of the two enterprising journalists mentioned above, Bob Woodward has become the historian of the Bush era with four books to his credit on this period.

Bob Woodward has worked for The Washington Post since 1971. He, with Bernstein bagged the Pulitzer Prize for the reporting on the Watergate scandal. Woodward was described as “the best pure reporter of his generation, perhaps ever.” and “the most celebrated journalist of our age.” He has established himself as the best reporter of our time. He may be the best reporter of all time.

The question of what sort of wartime President George Bush has been runs through Woodward’s latest book which is the fourth in his running account of the Bush government’s conduct of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. The series began with a generally positive assessment of Bush the President in “Bush at War” and has moved down to levels of disenchantment in “Plan of Attack” and ‘State of Denial”. The weight of evidence, given in the latest volume results in a verdict that is distinctly unhappy.

The heart of the book under review deals with the conception and execution of "the Surge," the infusion of additional U.S. troops that appears to have stabilized the security situation in Iraq, creating an opportunity for President Nouri Maliki's government to begin to assert itself. The success of this strategic shift is a significant issue in the current presidential campaign.

The book states that Bush’s decision in January 2007 to send about 30,000 more troops to Iraq—the Surge—was not the primary factor behind the step drop in violence. According to Woodward four factors that reduced the violence were covert operations, the military build-up, anti-American Shiite cleric Muqtada-al-Sadr’s decision to rein in his Mahdi Army and the “Anbar Awakening” in which Sunnis joined Americans in fighting Al-Quaida in Anbar province in western Iraq.
More important is a hyper-secret new programme that has allowed U.S. forces to identify, locate and kill huge numbers of the insurgency's leaders, including members of al Qaeda. When military and White House officials learned that Woodward knew of the secret program, they asked that he withhold any details because publication would endanger the operation and compromise its use elsewhere. White House has come out openly against Woodward and challenged his version. The author argues that the diminution of violence in Iraq owes a great deal to the so-called Anbar Awakening, in which the tribal sheiks in that crucial Sunni-dominated province have turned on al Qaeda and aligned themselves with the U.S. and the new central government. Woodward points out that the success in Anbar began long before the Surge with the Marines' successful counterinsurgency efforts on the Syrian border. The result of those efforts reached critical mass at about the time the surge began.
A second front in the war rages at the highest levels of the Bush administration. Woodward delineates for us the tensions, secret debates, distrust and determination within the White House, the Pentagon, the State Department, the Intelligence Agencies and the U.S. Military headquarters in Baghdad. What is provided is a lucid account of the distress and uncertainty within the Bush administration from 2006 to date.
The Joint Chiefs of Staff conduct a secret enquiry and Bush too conducts a secret strategy review that keeps the military out. The administration’s strategy reviews continue in secret, partly because public disclosure would harm Republicans in the November 2006 elections for Congress. The book provides an exhaustive account of the struggles of Gen, Petraeus, who has taken over in Iraq during the bleakest and most violent periods of the war.
After the Democratic gains that November, Bush's doggedly loyal National Security Adviser, Stephen J. Hadley, convened a secret White House task force that cut the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the Pentagon out of the loop and went to retired military generals -- mainly the Army's former vice chief of staff, Gen. Jack Keane -- for strategic advice. It was a decision that, according to Woodward, has left America's top military commanders demoralized ever since. The result of Stephen Hadley’s secret consultations was the Surge, a concept the Joint Chiefs had opposed from the start. In essence, their argument was that, even if the Surge succeeded in reducing violence, the U.S. might end up a loser because it would increase the Iraqis' dependence on American military forces. Even Petraeus, who emerges from Woodward's account as a formidable and honorable warrior, agreed on that point. He met privately with Bush immediately after his Senate confirmation. The President called his decision to order the surge "a double down.". Petraeus responded "Mr. President, this is not double down,This is all in." The Surge, sent 30,000 additional soldiers and marines to Iraq to bolster basic security in Iraq in the hope of creating conditions conducive to political reconciliation in Iraq. The result, according to Gen. Petraeus is “fragile and reversible”.
Woodward has harsh things to say about Bush’s leadership style. “For at least seven months during 2006 Bush had known that the existing strategy in Iraq was not working. No matter how he tried to dress it up with positive language, and sugarcoating it to the American public, he was losing the war. But somehow he set no deadlines, demanded no hurry, avoided any direct confrontation with Secretary of Defence Rumsfield, Gen.Pace or Gen.Casey about the need for change.For years, time and again, President Bush has displayed impatience, bravado and unsettling personal certainty about his decisions. The result has too often been impulsiveness and carelessness and, perhaps most troubling, a delayed reaction to realities and advice that run counter to his gut.”
More interesting is the disclosure that about May 2006 U.S. Military and intelligence agencies launched a series of operations “that enabled them to locate, target and kill key individuals in extremist groups such as al-Queda, the Sunni insurgency, and renegade Shia militias.”
Bob Woodward’s book is indispensable reading for those interested in the Iraq war and the bumbling and dangerous leadership provided by President George Bush militias.” It is journalism at its peak."
P.P.Ramachandran

SOROS--BOOK REVIEW

SOROS BY MICHAEL T.KAUFMAN ; PUBLISHED BYALFRED.A.KNOPF ; PAGES -344; PRICE U.S $ 27.50
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Michael Kaufman spent forty years with New York Times in several capacities. He had predicted the collapse of communism in Poland in his book-“Mad Dreams ,Saving Graces”. He bagged the George Polk Award for foreign reporting as also a Guggenheim fellowship.
The book under review is the first biography of George Soros which was written with his collaboration. Soros, global financier and philanthropist is the founder and chairman of a network of foundations that promote, among other things, the creation of open, democratic societies based upon the rule of law, market economies, transparent and accountable governance, freedom of the press, and respect for human rights.
We follow Soros from his European dislocation to monumental success and phenomenal wealth. He was born a Jew in Budapest, Hungary, in 1930. His father was taken prisoner during World War I and eventually fled from captivity in Russia to reunite with his family in Budapest. Soros was thirteen years old when Hitler's Wehrmacht seized Hungary and began deporting the country's Jews to extermination camps. In 1946, as the Soviet Union was taking control of the country, Soros attended a conference in the West and defected. He emigrated in 1947 to England, supported himself by working as a railroad porter and a restaurant waiter, graduated in 1952 from the London School of Economics, and obtained an entry-level position with an investment bank. Ambition and opportunity drove him to the Mecca of capitalism—Wall Street where he adopted novel approaches and soon acquired the sobriquet,”The greatest money manager in the world ”. He established Quantum Fund which laid down the standards for hedge funds. The book is a fascinating account of how in a short period Soros accumulated wealth.
At the London School of Economics, Soros became acquainted with the work of the philosopher Karl Popper, whose ideas on open society had a profound influence on his intellectual development. Karl Popper in his monumental The Open Society and Its Enemies, maintained that societies can flourish only when they allow democratic governance, freedom of expression, a diverse range of opinion, and respect for individual rights.
Soros adapted Popper's ideas to develop his own theory of reflexivity," a set of ideas that explains the relationship between thought and reality, which he used to predict, among other things, the emergence of financial bubbles. Soros began to apply his theory to investing and concluded that he had more talent for trading than for philosophy. In 1967 he helped establish an offshore investment fund; and in 1973 he set up a private investment firm that eventually evolved into the Quantum Fund, one of the first hedge funds, through which he accumulated a vast fortune.
As his financial success mounted, Soros applied his wealth to philanthropic activities. He provided funds to help black students attend the University of Cape Town in apartheid South Africa. This was followed by a foundation in Hungary to support culture and education and help the country’s transition to democracy. Soros also distributed funds to the underground Solidarity movement in Poland, Charter 77 in Czechoslovakia, and the Soviet physicist-dissident Andrei Sakharov. In 1982, Soros named his philanthropic organization the Open Society Fund, in honour of Karl Popper, and began granting scholarships to students from Eastern Europe.
The magnitude and geographical scope of his philanthropic commitments, coupled with the core principle of fostering open societies, has allowed Soros to transcend the limitations of many national governments and international institutions. Soros spent $50 million to help the citizens of Sarajevo endure the city’s siege during the Bosnian war, funding among other projects a water-filtration plant that allowed residents to avoid having to draw water from distribution points targeted by Serb snipers. Most recently, he has provided $50 million to support the Millennium Villages initiative, which seeks to lift some of the least developed villages in Africa out of poverty.
His network of philanthropic organizations dedicated to building open societies has expanded to include more than 60 countries in the Middle East, Central Asia, Africa, and Latin America.


Through his projects he became a key figure in the collapse of communism. The story of his philanthropy is as fascinating as that of his financial rise.
We have intimate portraits of Soros and his family.He would abruptly turn away from some pending multi-million dollar venture to address complex problems in his philanthropic foundations and then switch back to money matters shifting gears, without dropping a beat, a decimal place, or any hint of emotion. When he was asked what accounted for his extraordinary record, he claimed that self-criticism was the decisive factor. He would discover his mistakes swiftly and correct them before they caused too much harm.
If a fully involved life was to be measured by its mixture of ideas and action, then Soros would become the most broadly and deeply engaged citizen of the world.
Soros published several books and contributed essays on politics, society, and economics to major periodicals around the world. The book under review is an eye-opener to the making of a citizen of the world and offers hints on how to develop one’s personality and talents even as one acquires financial expertise.
P.P.Ramachandran

GANG LEADER FOR A DAY--BOOK REVIEW

GANG LEADER FOR A DAY BY SUDHIR VENKATESH ; PUBLISHED BY THE PENGUIN PRESS; PAGES 302 ; PRICE U S $25.95.
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One of the best-selling books last year was “Freakonomics” by Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner . In this book there is a chapter "Why Do Drug Dealers Still Live with Their Moms?" for which the backbone was provided by the research provided by an Indian sociologist Sudhir Venkatesh. According to Stephen Dubner, "Sudhir Venkatesh was born with two abnormalities, “an overdeveloped curiosity and an underdeveloped sense of fear”.
Sociologist Venkatesh has spent seven years living and working among the urban poor in an effort to understand how people survive amid poverty. His previous books include ”American Project”, a historical study of housing projects and “Off the Books”, a bestselling study of illegal economies. Though the University of Chicago issued stern warnings to students 23 year old Venkatesh boldly entered the city’s most notorious housing projects. Most people have never dared venture inside a gang selling crack cocaine — not to do research, anyway. Armed with only a clipboard and a survey on what it meant to be poor and black in America, Venkatesh was promptly taken hostage. He was not one to be cowed down by threats and appeared the next day with another battery of questions. He spent seven long years and the result is the book under review. In the Indian context it is as if a researcher of Tata Institute of Social Sciences spent years with Arun Gawli or Chotta Rajan.
Stephen Dubner, wrote : "A lot of writing about the poor tends to reduce living, breathing, joking, struggling, sensual, moral human beings to dupes who are shoved about by invisible forces. This book shows, day by day and dollar by dollar, how the crack dealers, tenant leaders, cops, and Venkatesh himself tried to construct a good life out of substandard materials."
Venkatesh was accepted by John Henry Torrance –known as” J.T”,the gang-leader. After nearly three years of hanging out with him, he penetrated into the life of Black Kings and the ruthless charismatic J.T. The author had not forgotten how agitated J.T. became when he saw him branching out into the community. But beyond all that lay one simple fact: J.T was a man who led a fascinating life that Venkatesh wanted to keep learning about. J.T. seemed to appreciate having the ear of an outsider who would listen for hours to his tales of bravado and managerial prowess. He often expressed how hard it was to manage the gang, to keep the drug economy running smoothly, and to deal with the law-abiding tenants who saw him as an adversary. Sometimes he spoke of his job with the same dispassion as if he were the C.E.O of some widget manufacturer. He fancied himself a philanthropist as much as a leader. He spoke proudly of quitting his mainstream sales job in downtown Chicago to return to the projects and use his drug profits “to help others”. How did he help?. He mandated that all his gang members get a high-school diploma and stay off drugs. He gave money to some local youth centers for sports equipments and computers. He willingly loaned out his gang members to Robert Taylor tenant leaders, who deployed them on such tasks as escorting the elderly on errands or beating up domestic abusers. J.T. could even put a positive spin on the fact that he made money by selling drugs. A drug economy, he told the author was useful for the community since it redistributed the drug- addicts’ money back into the community via the gang’s philanthropy.
One cold February morning, as the author was shivering, still unaccustomed to the chilling winds, and trying hard to focus on what J.T. was saying. He spoke to his men about the need to take pride in their work. He was also trying to motivate the younger members to brave the cold and sell as much crack as they could. In weather like this, the youngest members had to stand outside and sell while the ones with more seniority hung out in a building lobby. When Venkatesh expressed his belief that J.T.’s job was no earth-shaking one, the latter readily puts the mantle on the author. Venkatesh accepts this offer of a lifetime. One glorious day J.T . lets the author get a taste of power and the problems that come with it. He allows him to make the daily rounds of the platoons under his command—six-man crews that deal in crack cocaine—and try to sort out the petty squabbles and mistakes endemic in a criminal enterprise comprising 250 underpaid, uneducated and violent soldiers All this is much better than toting a clipboard.” It was pretty thrilling to have a gang boss calling me up to go hang with him”, writes Venkatesh. Without question, Venkatesh is dazzled by J.T. and seduced by the gang life. He maintains enough distance, however, to appraise the information he is given and to build up, through careful observation, a detailed picture of life at the project. What he writes rests on a solid foundation of data, like the records of the gang’s finances turned over to him by T-Bone, its treasurer and his fellow officers like to describe the Black Kings as a social—service organization. “You need to understand that the Black Kings are not a gang ; we are a community organization, responding to people’s needs” one high-ranking member tells Venkatesh. The Black Kings operated a hugely successful drug ring, often selling crack in building lobbies, and extorted protection money from every project resident engaged in economic activity, no matter how trivial; prostitutes, street-corner car mechanics, home beauticians and even old women selling candy from their apartments to earn an extra $ 20 a week.
Venkatesh, thorough sheer persistence, unravels a complex, intertwined system of political and economic relationships that makes the housing project run the near-total absence of city services. The police and ambulance crews, in particular, regard Robert Taylor as a no-go area. In their stead local warlords like J.T. and quasi—political figures like the fearsome Ms Bailey, a building president who manipulates her connections to the Chicago Housing Authority, hold sway. They exact tribute and dispense favours. They mediate disputes. Ms Bailey, both ally and rival to J.T. acts as a go-between with city agencies and the police. Venkatesh is shocked to discover that foot soldiers in the drug operation barely make minimum wage. J.T .himself, when the author first met him, earned $ 30,000 a year, although thanks to a series of promotions, he ends up making five times that amount by the late 1990s. J.T. looms as a towering, problematic figure. Violent, paranoid and manipulative he offers a fascinating study in leadership and the author makes the most of his opportunity, trying desperately to maintain some saving skepticism.
Venkatesh’s book is a marvellous piece of sociological history venture –a period piece. The City of Chicago began demolishing the Robert Taylor Homes soon after he completed his research, dispersing the Black Kings. The book is an unusual achievement of one individual noted for his bravado and fearlessness.

P.P.Ramachandran

AUNG SAN SUU KYI--BOOK REVIEW

PERFECT HOSTAGE BY JUSTIN WINTLE; PUBLISHED BY SKYHORSE PUBLISHING ; PAGES 464 ; PRICE-US $27.95
********************
Burma has not been forgotten because of Aung San Suu Kyi, winner of the 1991 Nobel Peace Prize. She is called the Titanium Orchid, for her qualities of steadfast endurance, commitment to principle and personal grace. In Burma itself she is known more simply as ‘The Lady’
A woman in her early sixties, isolated from her friends, and above all isolated from her children; her residence is a crumbling colonial villa. Neither house arrest, nor isolation, nor a spell of actual imprisonment in one of the world’s most ghastly jails, nor threats to her life, not failing health has persuaded her to accept freedom, on condition that she leaves Burma for good. She is the best-known prisoner of conscience alive today. In the narrow gallery of saints her image stands out and it is but true that she is likened to Nelson Mandela, Martin Luther King, even Mahatma Gandhi, whose philosophy of non-violence she has assiduously followed.
The book under review tells her story as also of her father General Aung San. Aung San Suu Kyi, Nobel Peace Prize winner, has led a life perennially under the shadow of sorrow. Her father Aung San was assassinated, her favorite brother was drowned in a pool accident, her husband died of cancer and she herself has been in confinement for over 18 years.. Suu Kyi won the Rafto Prize and the Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought in 1990 and the Nobel Peace Prize in 1991. In 1992 she was awarded the Jawaharlal Nehru peace prize for her peaceful and non-violent struggle under a military dictatorship.
Suu Kyi was born on 19 June 1945 in Rangoon and was the third child in her family. Her name is derived from three relatives; "Aung San" from her father, "Kyi" from her mother and "Suu" from her grandmother. According to the results of the 1990 General Election, Suu Kyi earned the right to be Prime Minister, as leader of the winning National League for Democracy party, but the military junta kept her in detention and prevented her from assuming that role.
Her father, General Aung San, is considered to be the Father of modern-day Burma. He,was a general in the Burmese army and negotiated Burma's independence from the United Kingdom in 1947. He was assassinated by his rivals in the same year. Suu Kyi, was educated in English Catholic schools for much of her childhood in Burma.
Her mother Khin Kyi gained prominence as a political figure in the newly-formed Burmese government. She was appointed as Burmese ambassador to India in 1960.Aung San Suu Kyi followed her mother there, graduating from Lady Shri Ram College in New Delhi in 1964.Of special interest to Indian readers is a chapter on this period-- “An Indian Idyll: ‘The Ugly One’ Takes Wing”. Among Suu Kyi’s contemporaries in Lady Shri Ram College was Malvika Karlekar, who was instrumental in setting up the Centre for Women’s Development studies and her impression is worth recalling-.”She would always sit upright, and never spoke out of turn. She dressed in Burmese clothes”. Her appearance also struck Ann Pasternak, grand niece of Boris Pasternak and she wrote, ”Suu Kyi impressed us by her Burmese longyi, which she always wore in college, and by the small flowers with which she adorned her hair.”
Suu Kyi continued her education at Oxford, obtaining a B.A. degree in Philosophy, Politics and Economics in 1969 and a Ph.D at the University of London in 1985. She also worked for the government of Myanmar. In 1972, Aung San Suu Kyi married Dr.Michael Aris, a scholar of Tibetan culture, living abroad in Bhutan. The following year she gave birth to her first son, Alexander, and in 1977 she had her second son, Kim.

Aung San Suu Kyi returned to Burma in 1988 to take care of her ailing mother. By coincidence, in that year, the long-time leader of the socialist ruling party, General Ne Win, stepped down, leading to mass demonstrations for democratisation on August 8, 1988 ( 8-8-88, a day seen as auspicious ), which were violently suppressed. A new military junta took power.
Influenced by both Mahatma Gandhi’s 's philosophy of non-violence and by more specifically Buddhist concepts, Aung San Suu Kyi entered politics to work for democracy and helped found the National League for Democracy in 1988. She was put under house arrest in 1989. She was offered freedom if she left the country, but she refused.
On May 16, 2007, 59 world leaders released a letter demanding Myanmar's military government free Suu Kyi and other political prisoners. The signatories include all three surviving former US presidents Jimmy Carter, George Bush and Bill Clinton; former UK prime minister Margaret Thatcher; Nobel Peace laureate and former President of Poland Lech Walesa . In December 2007, the US Government conferred on Aung San Suu Kyi the Congressional Gold Medal. She is the first recipient in American history to receive the prize while imprisoned.
She was awarded the Nobel Prize for Peace in 1991 for her non-violent struggle for democracy and human rights in Burma. The citation declared that her struggle is one of the most extraordinary examples of civil courage in Asia in recent decades and she is an important symbol in the struggle against oppression. The Nobel Prize Committee honoured this woman for her unflagging efforts to attain democracy and human rights by peaceful means.
Justin Wintle, the author of the book is a historian who has several books to his credit. –‘Romancing Vietnam’, ‘The Vietnam Wars’ as also the ‘Rough Guide’ histories of China, Islam and Spain. Wintle’s biographical work brilliantly explores the limits of Satyagraha epitomised by Aung San Suu Kyi’s struggle for a democratic Burma in the face of the brutally violent Burmese Junta. The book is a useful guide to Burma and has an added attraction of a number of photographs, a glossary, a list of principal persons in that country’s history. In short,it is a thorough analysis of the country and its most dynamic leader.
Desmond Tutu, himself a Nobel Peace Prize winner, declared accurately, “In physical stature, she is petite and elegant, but in moral stature she is a giant”. The unique quality of this biography is that the author has charted the story of Burma and the character of the woman behind its modern history. Wintle’s book is comprehensively researched and has the right degree of tension and excitement in recounting a tragic life. Wintle’s biography is an excellent account of the making of “Asia’s Mandela”.

P.P.Ramachandran

Sunday, December 7, 2008

HOOVER DAM

HOOVER DAM
Hoover Dam, also sometimes known as Boulder Dam, is a concrete dam in the Black Canyon of the Colorado River, on the border between Arizona and Nevada. When completed in 1935, it was both the world's largest electric-power generating station and the world's largest concrete structure. It was surpassed in both these respects by the Grand Coulee Dam in 1945. It is currently the world's 35th-largest hydroelectric generating station.
An army of over 5200 labourers was assembled and work proceeded 24 hours a day. The dam was completed in 1936 two years ahead of schedule and $15 million under the budget. It is, thus, a Wonder of the Modern Fiscal World. The dam is a massive curved wall, 660 feet thick at the bottom, tapering to 45 feet at the top. It towers 726 feet above bedrock. This dam, located 30 miles southeast of Las Vegas, is named after Herbert Hoover, who played an instrumental role in its construction, first as the Secretary of Commerce and then later as the U S President. Construction began in 1931 and was completed in 1935, more than two years ahead of schedule. Lake Mead is the reservoir created behind the dam, named after Elwood Mead, who oversaw the construction of the dam..
We joined the “The Discover Tour” which began with a short video presentation. Then you ride down more than 50 stories to Black Canyon tunnel to view the dam’s massive power generators, each one of which alone gives power to a city of 100,000 people. From the top of the dam you can view Lake Mead which extends 110 miles towards Grand Canyon. Lake Mead has a capacity of 9 trillion gallons, equal to two years of the normal flow of the Colorado River. The dam provides 4 billion kilowatt hours a year of electricity for Southern California, Nevada and Arizona.

Hoover Dam from the air
In January 1922, Hoover met with the state governors of Arizona, California, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah, and Wyoming to work out an equitable arrangement for apportioning the waters of the Colorado River for their states' use. The resulting Colorado River Compact, signed in 1922, split the river basin into upper and lower halves with the states within each region deciding how the water would be divided. This agreement, known as the Hoover Compromise, paved the way for the Boulder Dam Project. Can’t we think of some such agreement for the Cauvery River?
Early plans called for the dam to be built in Boulder Canyon, so the project was known as the Boulder Canyon Project. The dam site was eventually moved downstream eight miles to Black Canyon, but the project name remained the same. The contract to make the Boulder Dam was awarded to “Six Companies”. The chief executive, Frank Crowe, had previously invented many of the techniques used to build the dam.
During the concrete-pouring and curing portion of construction, it was necessary to circulate refrigerated water through tubes in the concrete. This was to remove the heat generated by the chemical reactions that solidify the concrete, since the setting and curing of the concrete was calculated to take about 125 years if cooling was not done. “Six Companies” did much of this work, but it discovered that such a large refrigeration project was beyond its expertise. Hence, the Union Carbide Corporation was contracted to assist with the refrigeration needs.
Work on the foundation excavations was completed in June 1933. During excavations for the foundation, approximately 1,500,000 yd³ of material was removed. Since the dam would be a gravity-arch type, the side-walls of the canyon would also bear the force of the impounded lake. Therefore the side-walls were excavated too, to reach virgin (un-weathered) rock which had not experienced the weathering of centuries of water seepage, wintertime freeze cracking, and the heating/cooling cycles of the Arizona/Nevada desert.
There were 112 deaths associated with the construction of the dam. There are different accounts as to how many people died while working on the dam and who was the first and last to die. A popular story holds that the first person to die in the construction of Hoover Dam was J. G. Tierney, a surveyor who drowned while looking for an ideal spot for the dam. Coincidentally, his son, Patrick W. Tierney, was the last man to die working on the dam, 13 years to the day later. 96 of the deaths occurred during construction at the site.
We saw the 145 feet tall flag pole and the monument of dedication “Winged Figures of the Republic” in memory of those who died during construction. There is also a dedication to their favourite puppy.



Hoover Dam - June 2005
There is enough concrete in the dam to pave a two-lane highway from San Francisco to New York. The dam crosses the border between two time zones, the Pacific Time Zone and the Mountain Time Zone.
In his memoirs, Hoover wrote of stopping to inspect progress on the dam, by night, on November 12, 1932, on his way back to Washington from Palo Alto after his defeat to Franklin Roosevelt. He commented, "It does give me extraordinary pleasure to see the great dream I have so long held taking form in actual reality of stone and cement. It is now ten years since I became chairman of the Colorado River Commission.... This dam is the greatest engineering work of its character ever attempted by the hand of man." He went on to list its purposes, concluding, "I hope to be present at its final completion as a bystander. Even so I shall feel a special personal satisfaction."
Hoover wrote a footnote in his memoirs "Responding to a suggestion from Hiram Johnson, and with his characteristic attitude, Secretary Ickes changed the name of the dam. The hint in the above address that I should like to be present did not secure me an invitation to the dedication ceremonies conducted by President Roosevelt. I have never regarded the name as important. The important thing is a gigantic engineering accomplishment that will bring happiness to millions of people. In 1947, the Congress, by practically unanimous action, restored the name Hoover Dam".
Thus, Hoover was not present when the dam was declared open by President Roosevelt!. Another case of “Hamlet” without the “Prince of Denmark ”!
P P R
11-11-2008
.

HOOVER DAM


Las Vegas, Nevada

“Hey”, the man who accosted me on the Strip at Las Vegas said, “Do you want a girl? Will get you one in twenty minutes. Give your number”. I was aghast—my wife, daughter and son-in-law were ten feet ahead of me. I told that pimp “I am happily married for forty years. No, thanks”.
“You, Dude” he spat at me.
My first introduction to Las Vegas—the “Sin City of the World”.

If the Grand Canyon is a wonder of the natural world, Las Vegas is a wonder of the artificial world. It has a bit of all places, recreated in meticulous scale detail and then covered in neon and lights. The city is loud and gaudy, it is heartbreaking and ridiculous and it exists for one reason—to take your money. Everything in this town is constantly new. It is affected with terminal restlessness and finds new ways of attracting visitors and relieving them of their money. You will be thrilled to hear the distinct sound of coins dropping as you cash out on your slot machine. The sound is a programmed audio track. Payments come out in printed slips or special coins you will have to exchange at the cages.
There are over 100 Casinos attached to Hotels. It is difficult to cover all these in a few days. We selected half a dozen representative ones and these are among the finest here. I attempt a brief review of these select ones and portray their unique charm

Cityscape


The southern portion of The Las Vegas Strip at night
Nothing can prepare you for your first sight of Las Vegas. The sky-line is hyper-reality, a melange of the Statue of Liberty, an Eiffel Tower, a giant lion (MGM), a Pyramid, a Sphinx and glittering buildings. At night it is so bright, you can actually get disoriented. Here hotels are the major attractions. All hotels have Casinos. Gambling is the major attraction. It is noisy and chaotic. It is a Disneyland for adults. It is a shrine to greed and the love of filthy lucre. Vegas is every bit as amazing as the Grand Canyon and every bit as much a must-see .It is one of the seven Wonders of the Artificial World. And you should experience it at least once!.
We stayed in “Excalibur”, one of the largest resort hotels in the world. “Excalibur”, in case you have forgotten is the sword of King Arthur. The Hotel is a gleaming white, turreted castle complete with moat, drawbridge, battlements and lofty towers. It has a sprawling Casino full of families and small time gamblers. A sky-rail and moving side-walk connects you to adjoining Luxor.


Excalibur Hotel



In Luxor, the main hotel is a 30 story onyx-coloured pyramid, complete with a really tall 315,000-watt light beam at the top. Egyptians believed their souls would travel up to heaven in a beam of light. You will feel giddy to see replicas of Cleopatra’s Needle and the Sphinx gracing the outside. You get inside and will be stunned to watch the statues of Ramses. The lift is a 39-degree high-speed inclinator—that is an elevator when it works inside a pyramid.




The Luxor Hotel
Another impressive hotel is the “Venetian”, an elaborate spectacle. Its exterior re-creates most of the top landmarks of Venice ( which we visited last May). We have the Campanile, a portion of St Mark’s square, part of the Doge’s palace, a number of canals with singing gondoliers plying their Gondolas. Attention to detail is impressive. Stone is aged for that weathered look, statues and tiles are exact copies of the Italian originals, security guards wear Venetian police uniforms—happily the dirty smell of the canals is missing. We were witness to a musical soiree---we got seats in the front row. Good Venetian, colourful dances and lilting music.
The “ Bellagio” has attractions both outside and inside. Fountains from a 8 acre artificial lake-- have giant spouts of water shooting up and down and sideways and dance their aquatic hearts out, to pieces carefully choreographed to tunes ranging from Frank Sinatra to Chopin. We stayed up for several numbers. Even one- from the top of the opposite Eiffel Tower. The ceilings adjoining the Lobby flaunt a homage to the Sistine Chapel of Michelangelo—with faithful reproductions of the original in the Vatican. The Bellagio has a conservatory which is a larger than life atrium, filled with living foliage in riotous colours and styles. It being Halloween Festival time we had a spectacular display of giant pumpkins and ghosts and spirits. Quite an unusual item is the 27 feet chocolate stream in three colours descending slowly and majestically through transparent glass tubes. Reminded me of Roald Dahl’s “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory” .I found it as irresistible as the conservatory.


The Paris Casino reproduces various Parisian landmarks as the Hotel de Ville, Louvre and a half-scale perfect replica of the Eiffel Tower. The interior puts you in the middle of a dollhouse version of Paris. Cobbled streets of Paris,with an artificial sky with clouds, stars and a sliver of the moon. The sky is at a height of five floors. A great place to visit.
The MGM Casino has a $ 9 million Lion Habitat showcasing six adult lions daily. When the lions sleep atop a see-through walkway tunnel, separated from their admirers only by a sheet of protective glass and a couple of feet of air. The lions live with other felines in a nearby ranch. Outside the Casino is U S A’s largest bronze statue one lakh pounds—45 feet tall, perched on a 25 foot pedestal ringed by lush landscapes and fountains.


For those interested in more on Las Vegas—read on…..
“Las Vegas “, Spanish for ‘The Meadows” is the most populous city of Nevada, an internationally renowned major resort city for the gaming industry, shopping, and entertainment. Las Vegas, billed as the Entertainment Capital of the World, is famous for the number of large Casinos and their associated entertainment. The city's tolerance for various forms of adult entertainment earned it the title of “Sin City”, and this image has made Las Vegas a popular setting for films and television programmes. Outdoor lighting displays are everywhere on the Las Vegas Strip and are seen elsewhere in the city as well; as seen from space, Las Vegas is the brightest city on earth
Established in 1905, Las Vegas officially became a city in 1911. With the growth that followed, at the close of the century Las Vegas was the most populous American city founded in the 20th century. It had estimated population of 558,880 during the 2000 census. The population of the Las Vegas metropolitan area exceeds 2 million residents.
In the 1800s, areas of the Las Vegas Valley contained artesian wells that supported extensive green areas or meadows (Vegas in Spanish), hence the name Las Vegas.


Las Vegas Strip
Gambling was legalized in the city in 1931. On December 26, 1946, Bugsy Siegel’s opened the infamous “Flamingo Hotel” in Paradise on what would later become the popular “Las Vegas Strip”. The era of mega resort Casinos began in 1989, with the opening of the “Mirage”.
The completion of the nearby Hoover Dam in 1935 resulted in a substantial growth in tourism, which, along with the legalization of gambling in 1931, led to the advent of the Casino-hotels for which Las Vegas is famous. The city owes almost all its current status and reputation to American organized crime. All of the original large Casinos were managed or at least funded under mob figures Benjamin Bugsy and Meyer Lansky.
The constant stream of tourist dollars from the hotels and Casinos was augmented by a new source of federal money. This money came from the establishment of what is now Nellis Air-force Base. The influx of military personnel and Casino job-hunters helped start a land building boom which still goes on today.
The major attractions in Las Vegas are the Casinos. The most famous hotels are located on Las Vegas Boulevard, better known as the Las Vegas Strip. Many of these hotels carry thousands of rooms. There are, of course, large Casino areas in these hotels as well.

P P R
10-11-2008

LAS VEGAS

Las Vegas, Nevada

“Hey”, the man who accosted me on the Strip at Las Vegas said, “Do you want a girl? Will get you one in twenty minutes. Give your number”. I was aghast—my wife, daughter and son-in-law were ten feet ahead of me. I told that pimp “I am happily married for forty years. No, thanks”.
“You, Dude” he spat at me.
My first introduction to Las Vegas—the “Sin City of the World”.

If the Grand Canyon is a wonder of the natural world, Las Vegas is a wonder of the artificial world. It has a bit of all places, recreated in meticulous scale detail and then covered in neon and lights. The city is loud and gaudy, it is heartbreaking and ridiculous and it exists for one reason—to take your money. Everything in this town is constantly new. It is affected with terminal restlessness and finds new ways of attracting visitors and relieving them of their money. You will be thrilled to hear the distinct sound of coins dropping as you cash out on your slot machine. The sound is a programmed audio track. Payments come out in printed slips or special coins you will have to exchange at the cages.
There are over 100 Casinos attached to Hotels. It is difficult to cover all these in a few days. We selected half a dozen representative ones and these are among the finest here. I attempt a brief review of these select ones and portray their unique charm

Cityscape


The southern portion of The Las Vegas Strip at night
Nothing can prepare you for your first sight of Las Vegas. The sky-line is hyper-reality, a melange of the Statue of Liberty, an Eiffel Tower, a giant lion (MGM), a Pyramid, a Sphinx and glittering buildings. At night it is so bright, you can actually get disoriented. Here hotels are the major attractions. All hotels have Casinos. Gambling is the major attraction. It is noisy and chaotic. It is a Disneyland for adults. It is a shrine to greed and the love of filthy lucre. Vegas is every bit as amazing as the Grand Canyon and every bit as much a must-see .It is one of the seven Wonders of the Artificial World. And you should experience it at least once!.
We stayed in “Excalibur”, one of the largest resort hotels in the world. “Excalibur”, in case you have forgotten is the sword of King Arthur. The Hotel is a gleaming white, turreted castle complete with moat, drawbridge, battlements and lofty towers. It has a sprawling Casino full of families and small time gamblers. A sky-rail and moving side-walk connects you to adjoining Luxor.


Excalibur Hotel



In Luxor, the main hotel is a 30 story onyx-coloured pyramid, complete with a really tall 315,000-watt light beam at the top. Egyptians believed their souls would travel up to heaven in a beam of light. You will feel giddy to see replicas of Cleopatra’s Needle and the Sphinx gracing the outside. You get inside and will be stunned to watch the statues of Ramses. The lift is a 39-degree high-speed inclinator—that is an elevator when it works inside a pyramid.




The Luxor Hotel
Another impressive hotel is the “Venetian”, an elaborate spectacle. Its exterior re-creates most of the top landmarks of Venice ( which we visited last May). We have the Campanile, a portion of St Mark’s square, part of the Doge’s palace, a number of canals with singing gondoliers plying their Gondolas. Attention to detail is impressive. Stone is aged for that weathered look, statues and tiles are exact copies of the Italian originals, security guards wear Venetian police uniforms—happily the dirty smell of the canals is missing. We were witness to a musical soiree---we got seats in the front row. Good Venetian, colourful dances and lilting music.
The “ Bellagio” has attractions both outside and inside. Fountains from a 8 acre artificial lake-- have giant spouts of water shooting up and down and sideways and dance their aquatic hearts out, to pieces carefully choreographed to tunes ranging from Frank Sinatra to Chopin. We stayed up for several numbers. Even one- from the top of the opposite Eiffel Tower. The ceilings adjoining the Lobby flaunt a homage to the Sistine Chapel of Michelangelo—with faithful reproductions of the original in the Vatican. The Bellagio has a conservatory which is a larger than life atrium, filled with living foliage in riotous colours and styles. It being Halloween Festival time we had a spectacular display of giant pumpkins and ghosts and spirits. Quite an unusual item is the 27 feet chocolate stream in three colours descending slowly and majestically through transparent glass tubes. Reminded me of Roald Dahl’s “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory” .I found it as irresistible as the conservatory.


The Paris Casino reproduces various Parisian landmarks as the Hotel de Ville, Louvre and a half-scale perfect replica of the Eiffel Tower. The interior puts you in the middle of a dollhouse version of Paris. Cobbled streets of Paris,with an artificial sky with clouds, stars and a sliver of the moon. The sky is at a height of five floors. A great place to visit.
The MGM Casino has a $ 9 million Lion Habitat showcasing six adult lions daily. When the lions sleep atop a see-through walkway tunnel, separated from their admirers only by a sheet of protective glass and a couple of feet of air. The lions live with other felines in a nearby ranch. Outside the Casino is U S A’s largest bronze statue one lakh pounds—45 feet tall, perched on a 25 foot pedestal ringed by lush landscapes and fountains.


For those interested in more on Las Vegas—read on…..
“Las Vegas “, Spanish for ‘The Meadows” is the most populous city of Nevada, an internationally renowned major resort city for the gaming industry, shopping, and entertainment. Las Vegas, billed as the Entertainment Capital of the World, is famous for the number of large Casinos and their associated entertainment. The city's tolerance for various forms of adult entertainment earned it the title of “Sin City”, and this image has made Las Vegas a popular setting for films and television programmes. Outdoor lighting displays are everywhere on the Las Vegas Strip and are seen elsewhere in the city as well; as seen from space, Las Vegas is the brightest city on earth
Established in 1905, Las Vegas officially became a city in 1911. With the growth that followed, at the close of the century Las Vegas was the most populous American city founded in the 20th century. It had estimated population of 558,880 during the 2000 census. The population of the Las Vegas metropolitan area exceeds 2 million residents.
In the 1800s, areas of the Las Vegas Valley contained artesian wells that supported extensive green areas or meadows (Vegas in Spanish), hence the name Las Vegas.


Las Vegas Strip
Gambling was legalized in the city in 1931. On December 26, 1946, Bugsy Siegel’s opened the infamous “Flamingo Hotel” in Paradise on what would later become the popular “Las Vegas Strip”. The era of mega resort Casinos began in 1989, with the opening of the “Mirage”.
The completion of the nearby Hoover Dam in 1935 resulted in a substantial growth in tourism, which, along with the legalization of gambling in 1931, led to the advent of the Casino-hotels for which Las Vegas is famous. The city owes almost all its current status and reputation to American organized crime. All of the original large Casinos were managed or at least funded under mob figures Benjamin Bugsy and Meyer Lansky.
The constant stream of tourist dollars from the hotels and Casinos was augmented by a new source of federal money. This money came from the establishment of what is now Nellis Air-force Base. The influx of military personnel and Casino job-hunters helped start a land building boom which still goes on today.
The major attractions in Las Vegas are the Casinos. The most famous hotels are located on Las Vegas Boulevard, better known as the Las Vegas Strip. Many of these hotels carry thousands of rooms. There are, of course, large Casino areas in these hotels as well.

P P R
10-11-2008

ALCATRAZ PRISON

ALCATRAZ PRISON Alcatraz is a 12 acre island , the original name of which was “Isle de Alcatraces” in Spanish meaning “Isle of the Pelicans” and refers to the first inhabitants of this rocky, steep-sided island. In 1853 the U.S.Army established a Fort here that guarded San Francisco Bay till 1907, when it became a military prison. From 1934 to 1963 it served as maximum security federal penitentiary. Dubbed “the Rock” by prisoners it had 450 cells but housed an average of 264 of the country’s most infamous criminals, who were transferred here for disobedience while serving time elsewhere in prisons in
U S A. Today Alcatraz is part of the Golden Gate National Recreation Area. Looming ominously “the Rock” is an island in the heart of San Francisco Bay, just a mile and quarter from the sights and sounds of one of the world’s most beautiful cities. It has been used as a fort, a lighthouse and a prison. The prison promised its inmates strict discipline and constant vigilance. Prisoners spent 16 to 23 hours alone in stark cells equipped only with a toilet and a bunk. Many cells measured 5 ft by 9 ft. The average number of prisoners was 260 and the maximum 302. There were 336 cells available. The cell house constructed in 1912 was the strongest largest steel-reinforced concrete building in the world at that time. Of the 1545 men who did time on Alcatraz a few famous inmates were Al Capone who was convicted for income-tax evasion and spent much of his five year term in an isolation cell. He left the prison mentally unstable. Robert Stroud known as “the Birdman of Alcatraz” spent most of his 17 years in solitary confinement. He became an authority on “Canaries” and wrote books which are prescribed reading, even today for ornithologists. John Frankenheimer made a great movie “The Birdman Of Alcatraz”.about the birdman which fetched an Oscar for the hero Burt Lancaster. Actually he kept these birds in his Leavenworth prison in Kansas and Alcatraz did not allow him to keep any birds.

The only attempt to escape was by three prisoners—the Anglin brothers and Frank Morris who chipped through the walls, hiding the holes with cardboard grates. They used raincoats as floatation devices and were presumably bound for San Francisco bay. They kept dummies to foil prison guards. These are on display in their cells. Although their bodies were never found they are assumed to have drowned. Their story was filmed in “Escape from Alcatraz” in 1962 by Clint Eastwood. Another popular Alcatraz movie is “Rock” starring Sean Connery and Nicholas Cage.

George “machine gun” Kelly was the prison’s most dangerous inmate and was held for 17 years for kidnapping and extortion. Attorney-General Robert Kennedy closed down the prison in 1963. After its closure native Americans took over the island and conducted a sit-in protest from 1969—1971. At the entrance there is a message scrawled in paint which reads “Indians welcome”. Pleasantly surprised we thought we were specially welcomed!. We met an author who has written three books on Alcatraz. Her father was the warden for several years and she grew up here. She is Jocelyn Babek. I asked her whether she had seen the Birdman, Robert Stroud. She had not. Then I queried why he was not allowed to see the film “Birdman of Alcatraz”. She said movies were not shown to prisoners, only small clippings. She was autographing her three books and she was indeed having a field day! Admirable is the arrangement. There is an audio tour. For a small sum each one is given a walkman which has high quality commentary leading you step by step to the cells, gun gallery, dining hall,libraryand recreation yard. I do not know if we have such an arrangement in the Cellular Jail at Andamans, which housed Veer Savarkar.P P R
30-10-2008

Saturday, December 6, 2008

FORTIETH WEDDING ANNIVERSARY

FORTIETH WEDDING ANNIVERSARY

The World celebrates United Nations Day every October 24th. My wife and I celebrate our wedding anniversary.And this October 24th it is our Fortieth wedding aniversary.We got married in Poona on October 24, 1968. This is as good a time as any to look back on four decades of wedded life.On the whole it has been a happy one. Both of us--Lakshmy and I hail from huge familes--I am from a family of eight children and she is from a family of six.We have had our privations and suffering typical of large families with modest incomes but undeniably the joys overwhelmed the sorrows.

The highwatermark of our family lives was the tremendous flow of affection and both of us have happy memories of childhood.

Marriage altered our way of living and endowed us with more responsibility. My Father had told Lakshmy as went to approve her,"My son's first wife is 'Books'.You will be the second wife". I must confess that Lakshmy has always welcomed my first wife and tolerated my deep involvement with the world of books. One of the persons whom I hold in great respect--Dr Meenakshi Tyagarajan" inscribed two of her books to "Pustaka Puzhu Ramachandran"!.
A truer and more accurate description is difficult to contemplate. I have accumulated over 3000 books, am closely tied up with book selection for Libraries, including for two decades the prestigious Asiatic Library.
We have two daughters and no sons but never felt the absence of a son. Both the daughters were academically 'achievers' thanks chiefly to their mother.We are lucky to have two highly competent sons-in-law, one magnificent and the other child-like and they keep our daughters happy.We have two grandchildren--Ashwini (11)-the Apple of my eye and Ashish( 9 ) --the Appoos of my eye. The granddaughter is 'Charm Incarnate' and the grandson a Mischievous Imp.
While my wife is deeply religious I have kept religion at an arm's length and require no religious relief. Of course, I believe in some cosmic force which ensures that the revolving planets do not collide and we muddle along in this planet. I do not believe in 'Godmen' but have abundant faith in 'Good men'.
I try to enlarge the sum-total of joy and as a great teacher's son spread what little I know among a vast circle of good and well-meaning friends who have tolerated my idiosyncracies with a smile.
It is a matter of great luck that I joined the Reserve Bank and served there for 40 long years.It is an institution whose culture is abounding and from whose staff I got intellectual fare of a high quality. Despite two reverses in R B I ,my ardour for that institution has not abated nor my regard for my intellectual colleagues diminished all these long years. For me it is a matter of pride that I was part of the great R B I family.
During this period I have had correspondence with a galaxy of personalities.I wrote to Abdul Kalam, asking him to have a hair-cut ( he replied! ),to revered Rajaji requesting him to surrender Bharat Ratna ( he rejected the request in his own handwriting ), pointed out a wrong argument to the Philosopher Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan ( he stuck to his statement ).Many other eminent persons have kindly answered me.
I remain in debt of my brothers and sisters and my host of invaluable friends. And I say to all of you.

THANK YOU.

P.P.Ramachandran
24-10-2008

MARK TWAIN

MARK TWAIN
Berkeley University beckoned us –there was a sneak preview of an Exhibition on Mark Twain. He is known as the author of the “Great American Novel”.
Abhijit, a good young and dynamic friend, took me and my wife by his car and Bart train to the hallowed University. Nobel Laureate Amartya Sen is from Berkeley University. A vast sprawling complex rich with tall tress and level going up steeply, the atmosphere is invigorating. We saw several Indian students and one Sardar student wished us “Namaste”.
The exhibition was “Mark Twain at Play” held in the Bancroft Library. One room is full of the items donated by Mark Twain’s grand-daughter. The exhibition focuses on Twain’s leisure pursuits—from yachting and sketching to private social clubs and amateur theatre—and how they influenced what he produced. It included Twain’s notebooks, photographs, letters, artifacts and a 1909 film with Twain in it with his customary white suit—vigour spelt out in every movement. The objects are as varied as the man himself. The exhibit includes a cigar box that appropriated his name and some bills for his tobacco, cigars and pipes. On his 70th birthday, he joked that his only rule was “never to smoke more than one cigar at a time.” Twain was fond of cats. A few photographs of cats are in the exhibit.
There are two inventions of Twain. A scrap book with pre-gummed pages and “Mark Twain’s Memory Builder”-A Game for acquiring and retaining all sorts of facts. Mark Twain appeared in the July 14, 2008 issue of TIME magazine a special number on the “Making of America “ They gave us copy of that issue with foto and write-up. Articles include “How he changed the way we view politics”—“Why he was ahead of his time on race” and “What his writing can teach America today”. Pretty well written pieces.
P P R
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For those who wish to know more of Mark Twain –read on.
Samuel Langhorne Clemens, was born in Missouri on November 30, 1835. He was the sixth of seven children. He was born two weeks after the closest approach to Earth of Halley’s Comet. He made a startlingly famous comment— “I came in with Halley’s Comet. It is coming again next year, and I expect to go out with it. It will be the greatest disappointment of my life if I don't go out with Halley's Comet. The Almighty has said, no doubt: 'Now here are these two unaccountable freaks; they came in together, they must go out together.”. He did depart, accurately enough, when the Halley’s Comet came next in April 21 ,1910. He was better known by the pen name Mark Twain , a humorist, satirist ,lecturer and is most noted for his novels “Huckleberry Finn” and “Tom Sawyer” .He is also known for his quotations. During his lifetime, Twain became a friend to Presidents, artists, industrialists and European royalty. He was known as “the Father of American literature”.
In March 1847, when Twain was 11, his father died of pneumonia The following year, he became a printer's apprentice. In 1851, he began working as a typesetter and contributor of articles and humorous sketches for the Hannibal Journal, a newspaper owned by his brother, Orion. When he was 18, he left Hannibal and worked as a printer in New York City, He educated himself in public libraries in the evenings, finding wider sources of information than he would have at a conventional school. At 22,Twain returned to Missouri. On a voyage to New Orleans down the Mississippi, the Steamboat pilot, Horace E. Bixby, inspired Twain to likewise pursue a career as a steamboat pilot; it was a richly rewarding occupation.
A steamboat pilot needed a vast knowledge of the ever-changing river to be able to stop at any of the hundreds of ports and wood-lots along the river banks. Twain meticulously studied 2,000 miles of the Mississippi for more than two years before he received his steamboat pilot license in 1859. While training, Samuel convinced his younger brother Henry to work with him. Henry was killed on June 21, 1858, when the steamboat he was working on exploded. Twain had foreseen this death in a detailed dream a month earlier, which inspired his interest in parapsychology; he was an early member of the Society for Psychical Research Twain was guilt-stricken over his brother's death and held himself responsible for the rest of his life. He continued to work on the river and served as a river pilot until the American Civil War broke out in 1861 and traffic along the Mississippi was curtailed

Twain then travelled to San Francisco, where he continued as a journalist and began lecturing. He met several other writers here. In 1867, a local newspaper funded a trip to the Mediterranean. During his tour of Europe and the Middle East, he wrote a popular collection of travel letters which were compiled as “Innocents Abroad” in 1869.
Twain met Charles Langdon who showed him a picture of his sister Olivia; Twain claimed to have fallen in love at first sight. They met in 1868, were engaged a year later, and married in February 1870. She came from a "wealthy but liberal family", and through her he met, principled atheists and activists for women’s rights and social equality ", including H.B.Stowe and Dean Howells. The couple lived in New York. Their son Langdon died of diptheria at 19 months. In 1871, Twain moved his family to Connecticut. There Olivia gave birth to three daughters: The couple's marriage lasted 34 years, until Olivia's death in 1904.
Twain made a second tour of Europe, described in the 1880 book “A Tramp Abroad”. His tour included a visit to London He returned to America in 1900, having earned enough to pay off his debts.
Oxford University awarded him a Doctorate in Letters in 1907.
Twain outlived Jean and Susy. He passed through a period of deep depression, which began in 1896 when his favorite daughter Susy died of meningitis. Olivia's death in 1904 and Jean's death on December 24, 1909 deepened his gloom.
Twain died of a heart attack on April 21, 1910, one day after the Halley’s comet's closest approach to Earth.
Upon hearing of Twain's death, President William Taft said: “Mark Twain gave pleasure—real intellectual enjoyment—to millions, and his works will continue to give such pleasure to millions yet to come. His humor was American, but he was nearly as much appreciated by Englishmen and people of other countries as by his own countrymen. He has made an enduring part of American Literature “.
P P R
21-10-2008

MISS KIM

MISS KIM

She is Miss Kim.
She is a Vietnamese.
She is a tonsorial artist in Sunnyvale, California.
Can I call her a Barb-ress—a female barber?
( I must ask my good “Grammar” friend Lawrence in T V M whether there is such a word –Emperor—Empress and so Barber-Barb-ress”).
I went this morning to “Silk Cuts”—a barber shop. A spacious affair—40 feet by 40 feet, well lit and well ventilated.
Only two elevated chairs. I found a lady sitting on one and a young lady attending to her hair.
I waited and found the November 2008 issue of Reader’s Digest. I read one article and hoped another barber will arrive and my chance will arise. But no second barber arrived and I found that the work of that lady customer’s coiffure was over.
In a minute this Barb-ress said,
“HI”, ever so sweetly and announced, “Now, your turn, Sir”.

She must have been 22 years—pleasant smile, in perfect health and in a bob-cut style—brown hair with strains of gold. Attired in jet black denim jeans and t-shirt, she held a scissor in one hand and towel in the other.

I ascended the elevated chair and was covered with a sparkling new overall and this lady asked me how I wanted it done.
“Short, military or level” —I gasped uncomprehendingly and told her calmly, “I have a dozen hairs. I want you to cut half a dozen and remove the growth round my ears”.
She laughed with a tinkle of glass and remarked,
“Hey, You speak Good English. Where are you from?”
“India”, I declared proudly.
“Oh! Poor country— no water!”
Aghast I asked her, “Who told you?”.
“I have seen an Indian film. Lots of ladies walking with pots on heads for miles to get water!”.
I asked her, “Any desert in the film you saw?”.
“Yes, Sir. And so sad I was to see the film”.
“Why?”, I asked.
“The hero falls in love with the heroine—they dance nicely
And they sing nicely. But the girl’s parents don’t allow him to marry her. There is lot of fights and the hero and heroine are killed. I cried at the end”
Perhaps she saw some film like “Rudali” or “ Reshma and Sehra”.

I assured her where I come from—Bombay (she has not heard of Thackeray and Mumbai ) water is plentiful and lovers can marry without trouble.

She did a good job and with every snip of my denuding hair she would use a fast whirling mini-fan with the result that not one loose of piece of hair attached to me!.
No wonder people their get haircuts done on the way to Office or during lunch intervals.

However, I went home and typical Brahmin fashion dipped all the clothes I wore in water and had my Snanam (bath) royally.

My engagement with Miss Kim was not terribly hair-raising but effectively hair-detaching by a Barb-ress!.
“Don’t I look like Paul Newman?”, I asked her.
“No, Sir. More like Tom Cruise!”, she said with a nice smile .

I opened my purse and gave her as instructed by my son-in-law
U.S Dollars 8 plus Tips 2 equal to U S Dollars 10.
That was indeed hair-raising !!.

P.P.Ramachandran
16-10-200b

LEONARDO DA VINCI

LEONARDO DA VINCI
As a Birthday gift my daughter Pushpa presented me with two tickets for an exhibition at the Technology Museum in San Jose. My wife and I spent an elevating three hours there. It was all about Leonardo da Vinci.
Fritjof Capra in his latest book “The Science of Leonardo” wrote that Leonardo da Vinci, was perhaps the greatest master painter and genius of the Renaissance and his oeuvre included over 100,000 drawings and over 6,000 pages of notes. Leonardo’s scientific explorations were extraordinarily wide-ranging. He studied the flight patterns of birds to create some of the first human flying machines. Using his understanding of weights and levers and trajectories and forces, he designed military weapons and defenses and was in fact regarded as one of the foremost military engineers of his era. He studied optics, the nature of light, and the workings of the human heart and circulatory system. Because of his vast knowledge of hydraulics, he was hired to create designs for rebuilding the infra-structure of Milan and the plain of Lombardy, employing the very principles still used by city planners today ( over 500 years later.)
Leonardo approached scientific knowledge with the eyes of an artist. Through his studies of living and non-living forms, from architecture and human anatomy to the turbulence of water and the growth pattern of grasses, he pioneered the empirical, systematic approach to the observation of nature—what is now known as the “ Scientific Method” .
The exhibition we saw was “500 years into the Future—Leonardo” and it explores Leonardo as a whole. It puts the man in context with his time and presents the sum-total of his accomplishments. The exhibition is the culmination of more than thirty years of research and the collaboration of many highly regarded Florentine institutions, scholars and skilled art restorers and artisans. More than one hundred life-size, interactive working or scale models crafted from the original notebooks of Leonardo and his contemporaries are reconstructed by art-restorers and artisans.
At the entrance to the Tech Museum is a 2 story monumental model of Leonardo’s 24 foot bronze “Sforza Horse”. This is the piece-de-resistance of the exhibition—a fibre glass and steel replica of the “Sforza Horse” designed originally as a gift for Ludovic Moro, the Duke of Milan and Leonardo’s patron, as a monument to Francesco Sforza, his predecessor. Leonardo had planned to cast it in solid bronze—70 tons of it—from a single mould as the greatest sculpture of the day. He never built it; war intervened, and the regent confiscated the bronze to build cannons. But now they have built a horse , based on Leonardo’s extensive sketches. The horse is truly Towering. Leonardo intended to put it on a plaza in Milan. Twenty generations later it has found a place in the forecourt outside Tech Museum in San Jose, California.

I give below a brief note on Leonardo—whose famous painting “Mona Lisa” we saw in the Louvre Museum in Paris last May.
P P R –October 6, 2008

This section is for those more interested in Leonardo da Vinci.
Leonardo da Vinci
Self-portrait in red chalk, circa 1512 to 1515
Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci (April 15, 1452 – May 2, 1519) was an Italian polymath, having been a scientist, mathematician, engineer, inventor, anatomist, painter, sculptor, architect, botanist, musician and writer. Born as the illegitimate son of a notary, Piero da Vinci, and a peasant woman, Caterina, at Vinci in the region of Florence, Leonardo was educated in the studio of the renowned Florentine painter, Verrochio. Much of his earlier working life was spent in the service of Ludovico Moro in Milan. He later worked in Rome, Bologna and Venice, spending his final years in France at the home given to him by King Francois I..
It is primarily as a painter that Leonardo was and is renowned. Two of his works, “ Mona Lisa ” and “The Last Supper”, occupy unique positions as the most famous, most reproduced and most parodied portrait and religious painting of all time Leonardo's drawing of the Vitruvian Man is also iconic.
As an engineer, Leonardo's ideas were vastly ahead of his time. He conceptualised a helicopter, a tank, concentrated solar power, a calculator, the double hull and outlined a rudimentary theory of plate tectonics. Relatively few of his designs were constructed or were even feasible during his lifetime, but some of his smaller inventions, such as an automated bobbin winder and a machine for testing the tensile strength of wire, entered the world of manufacturing unheralded.
In later life, Leonardo recorded two childhood incidents. One, which he regarded as an omen, was when a kite dropped from the sky and hovered over his cradle, its tail feathers brushing his face. The second occurred while exploring in the mountains. He discovered a cave and was both terrified that some great monster might lurk there, and driven by curiosity to find out what was inside.

Leonardo died at Clos Luce, France, on May 2, 1519. It is recorded that the King of France held Leonardo's head in his arms as he died. Some twenty years after Leonardo's death, François was reported by the goldsmith and sculptor Cellini as saying: "There had never been another man born in the world who knew as much as Leonardo, not so much about painting, sculpture and architecture, as that he was a very great philosopher."
P.P.R—October 6, 2008