Civility

It was Nov 4th 2008, the day of the historic election in the United States of America. The day which was possible because of one man's belief in freedom he pursued with clear focus, determination and tenacity, President Abraham Lincoln. It was the day when the seed of freedom, bloomed into a tree giving its first fruits.

While all the credits go to the believers of freedom and all those who supported the bill of emancipation proclamation and President Abraham Lincoln, this story is not just about those handful of individuals. This is one of many powerful stories of the People of America. This is the story of what America has achieved in last 200+ years - The Civility.

I became citizen of United States of America a couple of years before the Nov 4, 2008. This was the first presidential election I was to participate in. Incidentally I was also out of job! and thus decided to do more than just vote and volunteer as polling place inspector. I went through one class room training and two practice sessions at poling stations. On the election day, I was assigned to the A-Team.

The day at the polling station and serving in various capacities during the day revealed a definition of civility. Close your eyes and picture an election place where there are no police, no uniformed officers are allowed within 100 feet of the polling place. The election is run by common volunteer citizens. Polling place has an area designated for anyone who wants to witness the election. The neighbors of the community bring cookies, cakes, water and drinks to say thank you to the volunteers for their services.

What is unique about America is not the money or it being a Super Power, it is their collective ability to install humanity in the humans. America has achieved the civility which many nations has not been able to, for thousands of years. The reason why America does this consistently through various booms and burst cycles is to push themselves to do better everyday. One very critical element is Immigration, however controversial it may be.


One of my niece in Mumbai sent to me this article: The story You never Wanted to Hear. I was not surprised and that made me wonder why can not India(ns) thrive to excel and seek better quality of life, honest living, less corrupt society and civility ?

Civility is an ultimate result of human development. It starts with education, fueled by food, preserved with sanitation, clothing and shelter and thrives in democracy and freedom.

There can not be any other priorities, goals or measures as powerful as Civility.

Side Note:
Discrimination is an integral human trait. Learning and embracing Civility is what makes a human fair converts to diversity

Promoting choice mean taking away from the others ?!

Our nephew was visiting us and we were traveling to the Inspiration point in Corona Del Mar. Not sure if the richness of the neighborhood real estate values, that influenced or the unbelievable beauty of the pacific ocean protected by the magnificent cliff that promoted that thought .... but we landed up discussing the marriage, life partner and reincarnation.

The world has been male chauvinist. All the GODS are male, except in Hindu philosophy. All the laws built by the men were discriminatory and dictatorial to minorities. The process of freedom and democracy is to challenge them and make them inclusive.

In a way, the process of democracy has been to take the dictatorial, discriminatory, exclusive, singular,  male centric democratic laws and introduce a choice for the minorities. In other words take the choice of being controlling, away from the original small specific group of people.

Promoting choice, in any case, is challenging the resistance, challenging the foundational discriminatory beliefs which are legitimized by the notion that they are valid because they are being practiced in the democratic environment and executed by democratically elected officials.

The Temple of Democracy

Kofi Annan Foundation and One Young World conducted this third "Google hang-out" of the The Kofi Annan Dialogues. The topic was "Democracy and Elections".

Mr. Annan said the following:

"No one is born a good citizen, no one is born a good democrat, it takes participation, it takes observation and reflection and quite a bit of training to get to be a good citizen, a good democrat."

Reference: First 3 Minutes from the Video of first session
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_S2WEcLFXHo

Mr. Annan asked of three things: Participation, Observation and reflection, and training.
First two, participation and observation, are integral to an individual traits. These one would achieve based on many externally influencing elements over of period of time. But the third element - Training, can actually be the most important enabler.

Training of Democracy is an essential aspect which can provide a ground for participation and provide environment to exercise observation and reflection. Unfortunately there isn't much available where one can go and train oneself or learn to participate.

September last year (2012) I took a course at Coursera titled "Securing Digital Democracy". Professor  J. Alex Halderman of University of Michigan is a delight to listen to and learn from. This course is a very fundamental to learning democracy. It touches upon the bear minimum right to vote and what it means by a fair voting system. He does this amazingly by providing a detailed historic context.

We also have Khan Academy which has an entire section for American Civics. This can serve as a good platform as well as an excellent source of required content via participation.

MOOCs and Social Media have already proven to enable increased participation, observation and in turn better learning and promotion of collective plurality and tolerance. The very core principles of Democracy.

That brings us to a thought, what if, we also have places, similar to libraries, where one can go and learn (train), participate in debates, observe the debaters and in turn train oneself to be a good citizen and better democrat (not to be confused with the American political party DNC or any such).

And may be .. just may be .. we call them "Temples of Democracy".

Collection of elating and uplifting speeches

I love TED and all similar sources of quality, informational, educational and uplifting speeches. This is a collection I prepared as my miniscule contribution for two amazing non-profits in India (Mumbai and Ahmedabad) whose missions are to provide underprivileged an opportunity to excel.

Innovations in Education:

Hole in the wall: Concept of self teaching.
An amazing successful experiment by Prof Sugata Mitra
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dk60sYrU2RU

The father of MOOC (Massively Open Online Courses) - Salman Khan
Let's use video to reinvent education
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nTFEUsudhfs

Are we afraid of being wrong ?
An 18 min entertaining speech  by Sir Ken Robinson.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iG9CE55wbtY

Introduction of the book: The Element: 24 min Video
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3TAqSBMZDY8

The Tinkering School: 5 Min TED.
This has spread in six major cities in US, as of June 2013.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hvHViFc0ekw

Entrepreneurship:

Arunachalam Muruganantham: The first man to wear a sanitary napkin
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V4_MeS6SOwk

How laws and government compliment or deter innovations:
18 min Video by Lawrence Lessig
http://www.ted.com/talks/larry_lessig_says_the_law_is_strangling_creativity.html

US and Democracy:

Lawrence Lessig: We the People, and the Republic we must reclaim
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mw2z9lV3W1g

Stay tuned .. for more ...

Airlines, Airports and Flying - The Tickets

I am an aviation enthusiast. The airplane in sky fascinates me every single time.
There are some core processes of the Industry, which I think will be helpful to anyone who flies.

Airline Ticket is the very basic step before flying.
Each ticket has three key attributes: PNR, Fare Basis and Ticket Number.

PNR is a collection of six alpha-numeric characters which identify a ticket or group of tickets.
You can see this as a method to bundle passengers flying together.

Ticket Number is a unique numeric number assigned to each passenger within a PNR.
It is a collection of 13 numerals.

Ticket Number has the following structure:

First three numbers identify the Airline. For example all tickets issued by United Airlines start with "016", for British Airways it is "125", for American Airlines it is "001".

So next time you see a ticket number - you can easily know what Airline your ticket was issued by.
This is important because this decides who will control the mileage credit for your flights.

Your ticket can be booked by Delta Airlines but you actually fly onto an Air France plane.

Curious to know which Airline has which code - Visit the link below, find your airlines and see:
It is called "IATA Accounting Code".
http://www.theairdb.com/sub/Airlines.html

Fare Codes and Fare basis are revenue distribution / maximization method / process / classification.

Fare Codes are single character code which defines rules to treat the ticket when a change is requested. Fare basis define a specific classification of the ticket within a fare code.

Here is an article which sheds light on the subject.
http://boardingarea.com/blogs/frequentlyflying/2011/05/04/airfare-pricing-buckets-airline-fare-basis-codes-revealed/

Deeply discounted tickets are not eligible for mileage earnings. Fare basis is what let's you know up-front, if your ticket will be eligible to earn miles.

Braille - Education and Entertainment

My niece is now 18 months old. Our immediate need is her Education and development.
So I thought to initiate a search to know what is out there already.

My plan is to put together a catalog of such products to:
1. To know what is out there.
2. To spread the awareness amongst friends and families to seek out such products locally, in India.
3. To make a "Wish List" for her future B'day(s) where one can choose what to Gift her! :)
4. May be install an idea in someone's mind to build a sustainable business model.
    There are 20 Million Blind people in India alone.

Please read REVIEWS, on the bottom of each product page, to learn more about them.
Please also provide your comments, suggestions, corrections, recommendations ....

Education:

Braille Slate: To Write in Braille
http://www.amazon.com/MaxiAids-Braille-Slate-Full-Page/dp/B00014VW52/

Puzzle and Alphabets:
http://www.amazon.com/Puzzle-Braille-Pieces-Talking-Alphabet/product-reviews/B004USB0YS/

Braille Math:
http://www.mathwindow.com/

Braille Game Board:
http://www.braillegame.com/learning_tool_and%20game.html

Entertainment:

Braille Playing Cards:
http://www.amazon.com/Casino-Special-Braille-Playing-Cards/dp/B000YL3ZQQ

Scrabble:
http://www.amazon.com/Deluxe-Scrabble-Game-Braille-Version/dp/B000YL1XEM

Soduku:
http://www.amazon.com/MaxiAids-Braille-Sudoku-Game/dp/B000YL60W2

Promote Natural Food - Say NO to Prop 37

Yes, you are reading it correctly and it is not an oxymoron statement!

When I was preparing to vote for Prop 37, my immediate reaction was (very likely as yours) to vote Yes, with a notion that yes, they must be held responsible to let the world know that they feed the world GMO (Genetically Modified Organisms) and GE (Genetically Engineered) products, which in turn harms humans.

But then as I was debating this with my wife, who brought a different perspective, who also was thinking of voting Yes, to start with .... collectively we reached a different conclusion and that is to vote NO. If you wonder why, please read on ....

The goal of Prop 37, per my understanding, is to promote healthy food habits. This in turn can be defined as Non-GMO, Non-GE, natural food. Correct ? If that is correct the best way to do so would be:

- To promote availability and affordability of natural, healthy, non GMO, non GE food.
- Label natural food - For example promote Non GMO Project:
- We do not label produce which is not organic - we label organic one's.
- Publicity of anything legitimizes it (creates an acceptance of it) and you can apply this to anything ranging from celebrity behavior to terrorism.

Now let's evaluate if Prop 37 is passed - what will we achieve?
Labeling requirement for GMO, GE food will require:

1. Almost every food to be labeled, as most food being sold today is GMO and GE.
2. This in turn will result in a need to consume more toxic material in the form of ink, as much of the produce today is minimally labeled which will require labeling.
3. This will result in massive costs to the existing food companies or at least a good excuse for them to increase food costs.
4. In current economic situation this will mean more cost to a families, food pantries, shelters, food banks and in turn more costs for the tax payers.
5. A lawyer community now has an additional reason to promote law suites.
6. In turn we have only expanded the legislated living we all endure today.

By passing Prop 37, we would have succeeded to let the whole world know that we are eating bad food.  But the question is, will this change anything on the front of 'availability and affordability' of healthy, natural food? Not by labeling it for sure!

Now one may say - I am just seeking my right to know which is a fair requirement.
But I think I live in a free country and I already have that right and actually have access to that information if I really want to know about it.

Finally a humble disclaimer: I am not a Republican nor a Democrat, not even Independent. I am an American and I think voting No is good for California and America.