Kamal S. Prasad

There is great debate in the news these days about tax cuts for the large corporations and the rich, and how, when they get it, that prosperity will trickle down to the workers and others further down the socioeconomic ladder. As much as some would like to believe that, unfortunately, it can never be practical. There is no incentive for people to share their prosperity other than the goodness of their hearts and, when they are in competition with their neighbors to see who has the higher net worth, that goodness is not easy to find.

To ensure that all the people of a state are prosperous, their prosperity needs to be tied to each other. In order to make this happen, in my world, the salary of highest paid employee of an organization will be no higher than 50 times the salary of it lowest paid employee. If the CEO wants to give him or herself a raise, that means that the person at the bottom gets a raise too.

If the world were to end tomorrow, and no one was around to miss it, would it still be a sad thing?

Boon or doom? Large Hadron Collider stirs debate

Time to try to start blogging again. I have many things to say but not sure just how important it is that they be said. I am of the belief that if one opens their mouth or starts writing a blog that they do it increase the knowledge of the world and not to diminish it. Have I said this before? I know I think it often enough.

If for nothing else, this may increase my own knowledge (in a self-reflection sort of way) since it is very unlikely that anyone else besides myself and perhaps a few friends who occasionally drop in to see what I am up to will read this.

Plus, if I don’t start writing, I will never finish the screenplay I started on a couple of years back.

Happy New Year Everyone!

I know it is  a little bit late but, I wanted  I wanted to write my first blog post for the year 2008 using my new laptop.  I did get the laptop back in January as part of the Give One Get One program but have not been using it much. The XO laptops are really meant for kids. To use them using adult hands is not the most comfortable thing.

Well, I have been lazy but recently I have started to do things that I have wanted to do for while. For example, my brother and I started a podcast for the community website we run for Indo-Fijians. I have also started playing racquetball, again, which is great but that also means having to discover which parts of my body are growing older faster than the other parts.

OK, this little bit of gem has taken me over 15 minutes to write on this cute laptop designed for kid fingers so I will have to stop writing now before I get too weary.

Today is blog action day. And I just found out. What is blog action day you ask?

“What would happen if every blog published posts discussing the same issue, on the same day? One issue. One day. Thousands of voices.”

That is blog action day in a nutshell.  Today’s theme happens to be about the environment. Why not? Environmental crisis, in my opinion, is the single biggest threat to human, indeed many species’ existence. It has been in our radar a long time and all that time should have been enough to avert this disaster. But the threat continues to grow and, according to many scientists, has brought us to the brink of no return. We need to act now. Don’t think what other people are doing, or not doing. What are you doing? How will you answer to your kids and grandkids when they ask what did you do to prevent the natural catastrophe?

Every little bit helps. Recycling a sheet of paper or a pint of oil means that your offspring will have that much more. It sounds silly but I dare you to track the things you waste thinking, “this won’t make a difference.”

There are many organizations that exist that make helping the environment a little more than what you can do just by reducing, reusing and recycling your waster. And best part is that it does not cost you anything more than a few minutes out of your daily life.

Care2.com has a click to donate program where you click on a image that shows you a few ads. Does not cost you anything and you are not obligated to buy anything but you have done a little extra to save the planet for your children. You can even track to see how big a difference you are making.

Join Care2.com’s Race to Stop Global Warming!

 Ecologyfund.com and TheRainForestSite have similar programs. None of these programs cost you anything more than a few seconds. You could do this while downloading your email, listening to messages or any number of things that allow you to do multiple things at the same time. Please check them out and help save the future of our children.

So I spend the day thinking about all the cool things to write in my blog and by the time I get home, I am either too tired to concentrate or I have forgotten what I was going to say.

Oh, here is something. Have you ever met a not so smart person who says something that pisses the crap out of you and then you spend the rest of the day, night, perhaps week thinking about what you could have said back to at that moment to put them in their tiny place, only that you can’t cuz that moment has passed and there is nothing that can be done about it?  It happens to me more than I would like to admit, and it drives me crazy that stupid little things like that bother me so much.

My first profession of choice when I was really young was to be a medical doctor. That all changed when I had to get my blood taken out for some medical exam. I could/can not handle needles too well.

The second thing I remember wanting to be was a scientist. I had setup a fake lab and everything in my yard and I used to scare the neighbors kids (much younger than me) that I could blow up their house if I wanted to.

Anyway, as time progressed, I still wanted to be a scientist but also wanted to so many more things. I wanted to be a teacher, a doctor (via the virtue of a Ph.D.), a writer, a school bus driver, a movie maker, etc.

I have worked to achieve some of those goals… I studied physics in college (although I don’t consider myself a bona fide scientist yet), I wrote a children’s book, and plan to write others, I was a teacher for a while (although I did not consider myself to be very successful at the task), and I am working on a writing a screenplay for a feature movie.

I don’t think I could picture myself doing the same thing for the rest of my life. I have a very understanding wife who indulges me in my dreams and I am supportive of her in hers. Did I mention I was very lucky?

Indeed it is.  You will hear me say that a lot.  Life is crazy.  I do believe it is true.  People care too much about all the wrong things, and in the end it does not even matter. (No, I do not believe in god.)