Saw this on CNN today:
http://money.cnn.com/magazines/moneymag/bplive/2008/top25s/qualitylife/skinniest.html
Almost all the Bay Area counties are featured: Marin, San Francisco, San Mateo and Santa Clara. Yet the one place in California most known for its body-image consciousness - Los Angeles - is prominently absent. What gives?
After slightly more than two decades, I have finally attained the state of nirvana when it comes to shaving. Call me a shaving snob, if you will. With a fast growth (what 5 o’clock shadow — more like 1 o’clock) and a thickness that rivals the Black Forest, nicking has been a weekly occurrence for most of my post pubescent life. Not anymore. I have discovered shaving oil and perfected the art of shaving.
First a hot water shower that allows my facial pores to open up. Then comes a liberal splash of more hot water on the face at the sink (I am not an in-the-shower shaver primarily due to the fact that my vision without glasses is far from 20/20). Then I pour a few drops of shaving oil onto my palms and spread it evenly across the stubble. I allow it to settle in for a few seconds and then lather up my face with shaving cream, using a badger brush to spread it evenly (and in the process, saving on the cream). I use a decent blade (currently the favorite is Fusion from Gillette) in smooth motions to wipe the face clean of hair. Just one stroke per area is sufficient. I start with the cheeks and work my way inwards. The chin is last. The rinsing is done with cold water and to finish up, I spread only a small amount of after shave. I don’t believe in being masochistic and having an alcohol based after shave applied. I currently am using a sandalwood based balm that finishes off a very satisfying shave.
Gone are the days when I used to think that shaving was as bad as flossing. I now look forward to my shaving ritual daily. Try it, maybe you will too.
Reflections on “Sicko,” collective compassion, and (fantasies of) quitting the corporate world
I finally saw “Sicko” last week, and it had a strong impact on me. That’s not surprising if you know how susceptible I am to the emotional pull of movies — and if you consider that Michael Moore was “preaching to the choir” in my case, since I’ve long been an ardent supporter of government-financed universal health coverage (my last job was as the communications coordinator for a health policy research center).
A caveat: I fully acknowledge that “Sicko” has its share of flaws and oversimplifications. For example, Moore makes a big deal of how the evil health plans deny patients’ appeals for medical services. While health plans have certainly denied many legitimate, needed treatments, it’s also true that — given the need to use our limited healthcare resources wisely — not all treatments for all medical conditions can or should be covered. Also, we never hear even a negative peep about the healthcare systems of France, England, Cuba or Canada (but Michael Moore is not exactly about balance!).
That aside, what really disturbed me about Sicko was not just the stories of suffering and hardship that sick people have endured because of our refusal to provide universal health coverage (although that was part of it — I cried when confronted with the Sept. 11 volunteer rescue workers who gave selflessly to their country, then couldn’t get decent care for the resulting ailments). What disturbed me even more was the broader point Moore makes (effectively I think) when he asks the question, “Who are we as a society?”
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The other day while riding downhill on my bicycle, averaging speeds above 35mph, I happened to notice that a squirrel had been struck, perhaps a few moments before I passed it, by another cyclist or a car. The squirrel was not dead, it was struggling and writhing, its head almost entirely severed and it lay there dying. It probably died long before I reached the bottom of the mountain. Note that I captured all this in a fleeting moment - there was a brief instinct to brake and help put it out of its misery but I continued downhill, my thoughts moving quickly - from the shame of not helping the miserable creature by putting an end to its suffering, to the ethics behind my inaction.
I asked myself the question what my “kartavya” (duty) was to that squirrel. What was my role in the death of that squirrel? Am I as responsible for its death as the person who directly laid the hit. What if instead of a squirrel it were a person? Is letting a person die as dastardly an act as laying a hit on that person that caused them to die? I know the utilitarian answer to that question but that is not at all comforting.
I know that if it were a person, I would have done everything in my power to help that person, but that got me to the question - what if the only reasonable help that I could offer that person was, like the squirrel, a quick death. Would I act illegally? Obviously what was supposed to be an exhilarating downhill ride was quickly filled with angst. At least the physical pain of the uphill ride was masked easily with memories of funny expressions. There was zero thrill to be had in this downhill return. I confess that I was at a complete loss, I even blew past a STOP sign, with a middle-aged man yelling sarcastically from his car “Nice Stop”.
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When I was studying for my BSc, undergrad to you ‘mericuns, my friends (a very colorful bunch - I must add) and I, had some hilarious - albeit crass, expressions. These were expressions you would dub as “poly” (i.e foul) in kannada and they indeed were, but I am convinced that we made some of these up on the fly. One that I had reason to remember yesterday is “niN tHeega karGathe” ( i.e. arse will dissolve or reduce). Another Hindi expression also came to mind yesterday- “gaanD phategi” less chemical than the Kannada expression and a tad more pathological, it simply means “arse will rip”.
Why was I remembering these yesterday? Actually I can Google map the exact spot at which I remembered these expressions..but I am getting ahead of my story. Over the last 10 years, every year, I have set myself a physically challenging goal to accomplish. There were a couple of trips up Mt. Whitney, a few up Half Dome, and a few backpacking trips etc. Most of these goals I successfully accomplished but there have been a few failures, the most notable one being Mt. Dana. A few frequently tell the story of my stupidity that cost me the mountain, but I attribute it to chivalry (yes, it is not dead, long live and all that rot). Turns out I gave my gloves to someone and as I continued my way up the summit, the wind-chill was so brutal it was dangerous to continue which forced me to turn around.
This year has been like none other. I started off in May by doing a 3 day backpacking trip along the Lost coast (will do it again, anytime). Ran a 10K and next week is the opportunity to go back to Mt Dana - (I have given adequate caution to my hiking partner about warm clothing and gloves). I have been telling my buddies that given my fitness this year I will whistle my way to the top of this 13,500 feet mountain. We start hiking at Tioga pass (which is at 9000+ ft). It looks simple but the wind-chill and the elements make it one of the toughest mountains I have hiked.
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My cousin Kailas has always been the brainiest in my extended family as far as I am concerned. When he was in his early teens, he’d bug me with annoying questions about computers whenever I visited his family in Lubbock, TX. I struggled to answer most of these questions then. He eventually grew up, went to M.I.T. and got interested in robotic braces to help the injured. After years of hard work, the fruits of his vision, a company called Myomo has won FDA approval for their first product, the e100, that will soon be available in the US. Today’s New York Times has a nice feature on Myomo and its potential. Way to go little brother!
I live in a nation full of hypochondriacs. And though I don’t consider myself one of them, I might start using a new web application called Who Is Sick?. This new “Beta” (are there any other kind of web apps these days?) site is for finding out who in your neighborhood has what. A sudden surge of the common cold in your neighborhood might tempt you to head for the mountains or take that vacation to Greece. In Who is Sick?, you can enter your own sickness(es) by zip code and you can search for the same. The results are displayed visually on a Google map for the chosen area.
If you are ever in the city of Bangalore and if you plan on getting any sleep, get some high quality ear plugs. Even better would be to get a noise-maker, assuming can sleep to the sounds of babbling brooks or plain white noise (my preference). The city is overrun by dogs and they howl through the night. Most residents are used to this and it doesn’t bother them one whit, but woe is me on a recent trip. Despite carrying earplugs - they didn’t do the job, and turning on overhead fans at my sister’s - they were too quiet (where is the hypnotic whirr of noisy fan when you need one) I struggled with barely a few hours sleep every night.
The dogs in Bangalore are making news too, having attacked and killed a couple of children in the last few weeks. These creatures are everywhere and they are not the emaciated mongrels that I remember from my childhood. Most of these dogs are extremely well fed and a bit more aggressive than the ones that I remember.
A large number of these dogs feed on the meat discarded by the unlicensed meat shops, the rest feed on the garbage that is heaped on the side of the streets by restaurants and residents. A spaying and neutering program is, like most other projects, mismanaged and has failed to control the rapid growth in the number of these dogs on the streets.
The mauling of the kids has put the city government on the defensive. There is a law against killing healthy dogs, even stray dogs, so the ‘hunt’ is on to hold them in shelters. The process of catching these dogs is, I assume, unique to Bangalore- they use metal cables that has the dog bleeding all over by the time they are caught and dragged into the vans. These dogs are then transported to over crowded animal shelters where one can only imagine the pain and suffering inflicted on them being packed like sardines with open wounds. One wonders why they won’t choose a less gruesome method of putting down a dog.
Bangalore clearly faces a public health problem which will not go away anytime soon. While the rich will find ways to get their sleep, the poor have to find ways to keep their kids alive, for this is also a public health problem that more adversely impacts the poor. For Bangaloreans, which is aspiring to become a city of International repute, this is also a problem of how the city is perceived by its large outsourcing clientèle.
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