K. Kumar's Blog, page 12

Chinese Foreign Aid Policy

In July 2014, China released a white paper on its foreign aid. This is from the preface:

When providing foreign assistance, China adheres to the principles of not imposing any political conditions, not interfering in the internal affairs of the recipient countries and fully respecting their right to independently choosing their own paths and models of development. The basic principles China upholds in providing foreign assistance are mutual respect, equality, keeping promise, mutual benefits a...

Blow a Kiss, Fire a Gun

I have been listening to this recently:

Nietzsche

This is an article from the Wall Street Journal written about 20 years ago. We are living in the world that the article predicted and it is scary to think about...

Essence of the Gita

The Path Between the Seas: Panama Canal

I have been reading The Path Between the Seas: The Creation of the Panama Canal, 1870-1914, by David McCullough, and I was struck by the following passages:

Matachín was best known as the place where Chinese workers, hopelessly lost to “melancholia,” had committed suicide en masse. Matar is Spanish for “to kill,” it was explained; chino, the word for “Chinese.” The fact that matachín is also a perfectly good Spanish word meaning “butcher” or “hired assassin,” and that the place had been called...

More thoughts on the Cauliflower Robbery

Following up on the prior post, I think the imagery of the cauliflower robbery is a useful reminder about the power of the mind. Or maybe it is just a well written peace of fiction? If you take the story as truth, it posits that there are some people that have fine tuned their thoughts to such an extent, largely through meditation, that they can control the thoughts of others.
The idea is that through meditation, you can obtain a faculty to read people's thoughts and even manipulate their beha...

The Cauliflower Robbery

Chapter 15 of Paramhansa Yogananda's autobiography is called The Cauliflower Robbery, and this part of the story has stuck with me for a long time. This is an excerpt:

"Master, a gift for you! These six huge cauliflowers were planted with my hands; I have watched over their growth with the tender care of a mother nursing her child." I presented the basket of vegetables with a ceremonial flourish."Thank you!" Sri Yukteswar's smile was warm with appreciation. "Please keep them in your room;...

Movie Review: Flight

I recently saw Flight:

Flight stars Denzel Washington as a pilot who miraculously saves his flight after an apparent malfunction with the aircraft. He is seen as a hero, but there is a hidden secret kept from the public: he was drunk and high during the flight. The movie builds around the tension over whether this lie will be revealed. There are some side stories, but the general premise is pretty easy to follow.
I was not really impressed with this movie. It was just ok. It was very drawn out...

Jeb Bush

I recently finished Jeb Bush: The Kindle Singles Interview (2013) and I came across an interesting passage:
JB[Jeb Bush]:...I'm happy to have that debate with people, you know. I think there's enough evidence to suggest that if you're focused on taxing— hey, if that's your obsession, that's good. It’s better that than being complacent. But you're going to miss the whole argument about how do you build capacity? We've increased transfer payments for people in need dramatically. If you look at S...

veritas odium parit

Truth begets hatred. 
I was in a training session some time back and one of the presenters talked about this concept in the context that there is an inherent bias and even hostility towards truth and those who seek to uncover the truth. It fits in well with my own thoughts, namely that the word truth is bit overwrought and unless one is given the proper context, truth is not such a high standard we all hold it up to be.

But there are times when the highest form of truth is so unseemly that...