Lesson from Eddie

Am currently revising learnings from Frasier - a sitcom that actually makes me laugh aloud unlike the like of Friends or Scrubs. It most definitely is the best English sitcom I've seen.

The motivation for this post is a particular comment Father Martin Crane to Frasier.

"Martin: You kill me, you know. You've got exactly what you wanted
and you're still not happy. Frasier, life is not hard, you
make it hard. You don't just let things happen and enjoy
it. You've got to analyze everything that you can. You know,
you can learn a big lesson from this dog here.

Eddie begins rolling on his stomach.

Martin: You know what makes him happy? A sock! "

Interesting thought, I should say!

2015: US Supreme Court announces its verdict on bin Laden trial

I found the following piece in The Acorn.

2015: US Supreme Court announces its verdict on bin Laden trial

Mar 17, 2015
Washington, DC

One of America’s most complicated legal proceedings came to a shocking end when the Supreme Court of the United States acquitted Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri of involvement in the conspiracy to hijack commercial airliners and plunge them into the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and the White House.

The court ruled that key prosecution witnesses against the two accused were not credible, and that investigators had used illegal methods to secure testimonies, but agreed with the prosecution claim that the bombing plot appeared to have been based in Kandahar and Karachi.

The 9/11 investigation has been controversial from its early stages, starting with whether Washington took warnings of a potential bombing plot seriously enough to whether testimony extracted from suspects interned in Guantanamo Bay is legally admissible.

Families of the victims of the 9/11 bombings angrily demanded a public inquiry on Wednesday after a judge acquitted the prime suspects.

In an emotional news conference following the verdict, shocked members of several families of the people killed on September 11, 2001 decried what they said was Washington’s insensitivity to their plight.

“I cannot believe the verdict. All those witnesses would not have come forward and risked their lives. All those poor families. Not in a million years did I think this could happen,” said a former airlines ticket agent and a witness in the case.

“Today 15 years on we have lost our families all over again to the American justice system,” said one distressed family member, who had come to Washington from Mumbai to hear the verdict.

{End of Article}
The above article was triggered by "Terror, anger greet Air India bombing verdict and the 2 articles posted here and here

Do you know who you are?

"How would you describe yourself?" - I've been spending some time now thinking of how I'd answer this question in a recruitment interview. Believe me, its fun to think about yourself. I'd urge you to do it right away- introspection rox!!

Frameworks rock!!

In the past two years, I've been bombarded with so many frameworks that sometimes seemed trivial and irritated me. But today I declare to the world (or rather the small subset of the world that reads this post) that "Frameworks rock".

In a space of about 10 days now, I've felt the power of frameworks in three different occasions. First when putting fundaes to a friend on what he should do with his life, I used a 2*2 that floored this friend of mine (aside: its funny that it is so easy to tell others what they should do, but when it comes to decide what one has to do in his own life, its "bulb-time"). The second instance was when I was reading a powerful article in The Economist about Corporate Social Responsibility. The article used incisive arguments coupled with a 2*2 to prove that CSR measures should be undertaken only if they are profitable. And just yesterday, while working on a project, I used a framework - that I had considered to be trivial - but turned out to be an amazing way to channel our ideas on the problem at hand.

P.S: This does not mean my respect for consultants has in any way increased. :p