election

The population of the US must be a fraction of ours, and that of the state of Wisconsin a fraction of any of our states.  Yet, they are not able to make proper arrangements to see that everyone gets to vote. In many places according to this video, there was confusion and they blame it on the new rule that everyone must have a valid voter id. Cheers to the Election Commission of India who manage to conduct the election with almost 900 million voters all with voter ids. 

metallurgy in ancient India

With all the pseudoscience ascribed to ancient Hindus, one real scientific/ technological achievement
is described here.
Another is the Iron Pillar presently near the Qutub Minar.
The hyped up pseudoscience does great disservice to the real scientific achievements in our history.

language

When my children were born, I decided they can learn English and Hindi once they start school, but before that, they must learn Tamil. Secondly, I don't know baby talk in any language other than Tamil. Both my children spoke Tamil till age three and then suddenly, if I spoke in Tamil, they answered in English so that by the age of about 4 or 5, they spoke only English. I never realised when that happened. Now a Star trek fan has tried teaching Klingon to his son. His results explain a lot to me

I wish we could elect adults to our parliament

Past precedent is always an excuse for future crimes.
This is the logic my bickering children would use whenever one of them was pulled up for some act that violated the code of conduct set for them by me. The answer to any question starting "Why did you........." was always  "But last week you didn't say anything when he did this....." blaming the sibling for a similar violation which I had apparently failed to chastise. I then become defensive trying to recall what that was all about and the momentum is lost.
Every discussion on the TV news channels is a replay of this. It brings to my memory the years when my children were bickering pre-teens. I wish we could elect adults to our parliament. 

Thinking is fine, but learning is what I'm here for.

There is a Chem course where the faculty has tried over a few years to teach analytical thinking by making students observe expts, formulate hypotheses and find answers.
This is a part of a student feedback for this course
"The teacher is good in his field. He encourages us. But he doesn't define things. Thinking is fine, but learning is what I'm here for."
It defines everyone's concept of TLE- everyone who has a say in defining curricula. So much so that though I recognise the need to, I doubt if I could successfully teach what these people at Nebraska are trying to.

Just saying, if it is good logic to say I cleaned up a lot of mess and so I am allowed to make a big mess, what about doctors and surgeons?
So now that I did 8 heart transplants and saved 8 people, I can maybe kill off my mother-in-law who always interferes in my life- then after 8 more......hmm let's see maybe that ........ 

Dr Dog, PhD in English Lit

Prof Makarand Paranjape has also had a dog attending his class regularly (at around 9-10 min in the video) . I had one attend all my BSc Chem lectures- all - I, II and III year lectures, and then next academic year took up residence in the MSc Biochem lab.
http://midwaypersonal.blogspot.in/search?q=dr+dog