Thursday, May 27, 2010

FOOTBALL FUMBLE

How Not to Fumble


Clifton Dawson has become a standout running back because of what he has done, but he has also excelled at not doing something: fumbling the football. In 721 career carries (and 798 touches, including pass receptions and kickoff returns), he has fumbled only five times. “I don’t know what it is with this guy,” joked head football coach Tim Murphy last fall, after Dawson committed a rare turnover in a Crimson win. “Every couple hundred carries, he fumbles the ball.”

Dawson demonstrates the “eagle claw” grip, a key to ball security.
Carrying the ball high on the chest helps keep it away from grabby defenders.
Photographs by Jim Harrison

It’s no accident. Like the rest of the Harvard offense, Dawson focuses on ball security. “Turnover ratio is the number-one factor in winning games,” he says. “If you get more turnovers than the other team, 95 percent of the time, you’ll win. You can run 80 yards and make a one-handed catch of a pass, but if you drop the ball, it doesn’t matter.”

On the sidelines, Dawson nearly always has a football in his hands; he is constantly renewing his feel for the pigskin. He hates wearing gloves and avoids them whenever possible. In a game, Dawson keeps the ball secure with five “pressure points” of contact—fingertips, palm, forearm, bicep, and chest. He also makes a point of using an “eagle claw” grip, holding the pointed tip of the football between his second and third fingers. “A lot of people put a finger on the tip of the ball,” he says. “But that’s a weak point of pressure.”

Dawson also carries the ball high against the upper chest. “You never want to carry the ball low, especially in traffic,” he explains. “That’s where a defender can grab at it.” Of course, ball security, like everything else, has its price. “From holding the ball so tightly,” he says, “someday I’m definitely going to have arthritis in my hands.”


Wednesday, May 26, 2010

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Monday, February 15, 2010

THE END TELLS THE TALE

WHO WAS SADDAM HUSSEIN IN A NUTSHELL ?
Saddam Hussein was executed 15 days before the Americans had actually planned on December 30, 2003. A senior Iraqi official who was involved in the events leading to Saddam's death was quoted as saying: After the physical control of Saddam was given to the Iraqi government the America Inc had absolutely no direct involvement with his execution. Reports suggest that Saddam's behavior was ``submissive.'' He carried the copy of Holy Quran which remained with him throughout the trial. Al-Rubiae, who was a witness to Saddam's execution, described Saddam as repeatedly shouting "down with Persians and the Americans."- He also reportedly asked Saddam if he had any remorse or fear, to which Saddam replied: ``I am not a militant and I have no fear for myself. I have spent my life in jihad fighting aggression. Anyone who takes this route should not be afraid.'' A witness to the execution, said, "Before the rope was put around his neck, Saddam shouted, 'Allah-u-Akbar. He also stressed that the Iraqis should fight the Americans and the Persians. After the rope was secured, guards shouted various rebukes including "Muqtada! Muqtada! Muqtada!" and Saddam repeated the name mockingly and rebuked the shouts stating, "Do you consider this bravery?'' A Shia version of an Islamic prayer was also recited by some of those present in the room, an apparent sectarian insult against the Sunni Saddam. One observer told Saddam: "Go to hell!" Saddam replied: "The hell that is Iraq?"Another man asked for quiet, saying:`` Please, stop. The man is facing an execution." Saddam began to recite the Shahada again. As he neared the end of his second recitation, the platform dropped. After the drop there was an audible crack indicating that his neck was broken. After that Saddam was suspended for a few minutes, the doctor present listened to his heartbeat with a stethoscope . After he detected none, the rope was cut, and his body was placed in a coffin.

Wednesday, February 10, 2010

Most inspiring speeches in the history

We choose to go to the Moon' speech by John F. Kennedy

We meet at a college noted for knowledge, in a city noted for progress, in a state noted for strength, and we stand in need of all three, for we meet in an hour of change and challenge, in a decade of hope and fear, in an age of both knowledge and ignorance. The greater our knowledge increases, the greater our ignorance unfolds.
Despite the striking fact that most of the scientists that the world has ever known are alive and working today, despite the fact that this Nation's own scientific manpower is doubling every 12 years in a rate of growth more than three times that of our population as a whole, despite that, the vast stretches of the unknown and the unanswered and the unfinished still far outstrip our collective comprehension.
No man can fully grasp how far and how fast we have come, but condense, if you will, the 50,000 years of man's recorded history in a time span of but a half-century. Stated in these terms, we know very little about the first 40 years, except at the end of them advanced man had learned to use the skins of animals to cover them. Then about 10 years ago, under this standard, man emerged from his caves to construct other kinds of shelter. Only five years ago man learned to write and use a cart with wheels. Christianity began less than two years ago. The printing press came this year, and then less than two months ago, during this whole 50-year span of human history, the steam engine provided a new source of power. Newton explored the meaning of gravity. Last month electric lights and telephones and automobiles and airplanes became available. Only last week did we develop penicillin and television and nuclear power, and now if America's new spacecraft succeeds in reaching Venus, we will have literally reached the stars before midnight tonight.
This is a breathtaking pace, and such a pace cannot help but create new ills as it dispels old, new ignorance, new problems, new dangers. Surely the opening vistas of space promise high costs and hardships, as well as high reward.
So it is not surprising that some would have us stay where we are a little longer to rest, to wait. But this city of Houston, this state of Texas, this country of the United States was not built by those who waited and rested and wished to look behind them. This country was conquered by those who moved forward--and so will space.
William Bradford, speaking in 1630 of the founding of the Plymouth Bay Colony, said that all great and honorable actions are accompanied with great difficulties, and both must be enterprised and overcome with answerable courage.
If this capsule history of our progress teaches us anything, it is that man, in his quest for knowledge and progress, is determined and cannot be deterred. The exploration of space will go ahead, whether we join in it or not, and it is one of the great adventures of all time, and no nation which expects to be the leader of other nations can expect to stay behind in this race for space.
Those who came before us made certain that this country rode the first waves of the industrial revolution, the first waves of modern invention, and the first wave of nuclear power, and this generation does not intend to founder in the backwash of the coming age of space. We mean to be a part of it--we mean to lead it. For the eyes of the world now look into space, to the moon and to the planets beyond, and we have vowed that we shall not see it governed by a hostile flag of conquest, but by a banner of freedom and peace. We have vowed that we shall not see space filled with weapons of mass destruction, but with instruments of knowledge and understanding.
There is no strife, no prejudice, no national conflict in outer space as yet. Its hazards are hostile to us all. Its conquest deserves the best of all mankind, and its opportunity for peaceful cooperation many never come again. But why, some say, the moon? Why choose this as our goal? And they may well ask why climb the highest mountain? Why, 35 years ago, fly the Atlantic? Why does Rice play Texas?
We choose to go to the moon. We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win, and the others, too.
It is for these reasons that I regard the decision last year to shift our efforts in space from low to high gear as among the most important decisions that will be made during my incumbency in the office of the Presidency.
In the last 24 hours we have seen facilities now being created for the greatest and most complex exploration in man's history. We have felt the ground shake and the air shattered by the testing of a Saturn C-1 booster rocket, many times as powerful as the Atlas which launched John Glenn, generating power equivalent to 10,000 automobiles with their accelerators on the floor. We have seen the site where five F-1 rocket engines, each one as powerful as all eight engines of the Saturn combined, will be clustered together to make the advanced Saturn missile, assembled in a new building to be built at Cape Canaveral as tall as a 48 story structure, as wide as a city block, and as long as two lengths of this field.
Within these last 19 months at least 45 satellites have circled the earth. Some 40 of them were made in the United States of America and they were far more sophisticated and supplied far more knowledge to the people of the world than those of the Soviet Union.
The Mariner spacecraft now on its way to Venus is the most intricate instrument in the history of space science. The accuracy of that shot is comparable to firing a missile from Cape Canaveral and dropping it in this stadium between the 40-yard lines.
Transit satellites are helping our ships at sea to steer a safer course. Tiros satellites have given us unprecedented warnings of hurricanes and storms, and will do the same for forest fires and icebergs.
We have had our failures, but so have others, even if they do not admit them. And they may be less public.
To be sure, we are behind, and will be behind for some time in manned flight. But we do not intend to stay behind, and in this decade, we shall make up and move ahead.
The growth of our science and education will be enriched by new knowledge of our universe and environment, by new techniques of learning and mapping and observation, by new tools and computers for industry, medicine, the home as well as the school. Technical institutions, such as Rice, will reap the harvest of these gains.
And finally, the space effort itself, while still in its infancy, has already created a great number of new companies, and tens of thousands of new jobs. Space and related industries are generating new demands in investment and skilled personnel, and this city and this state, and this region, will share greatly in this growth. What was once the furthest outpost on the old frontier of the West will be the furthest outpost on the new frontier of science and space. Houston, your city of Houston, with its Manned Spacecraft Center, will become the heart of a large scientific and engineering community. During the next 5 years the National Aeronautics and Space Administration expects to double the number of scientists and engineers in this area, to increase its outlays for salaries and expenses to $60 million a year; to invest some $200 million in plant and laboratory facilities; and to direct or contract for new space efforts over $1 billion from this center in this city.
To be sure, all this costs us all a good deal of money. This year's space budget is three times what it was in January 1961, and it is greater than the space budget of the previous eight years combined. That budget now stands at $5,400 million a year--a staggering sum, though somewhat less than we pay for cigarettes and cigars every year. Space expenditures will soon rise some more, from 40 cents per person per week to more than 50 cents a week for every man, woman and child in the United States, for we have given this program a high national priority--even though I realize that this is in some measure an act of faith and vision, for we do not now know what benefits await us. But if I were to say, my fellow citizens, that we shall send to the moon, 240,000 miles away from the control station in Houston, a giant rocket more than 300 feet tall, the length of this football field, made of new metal alloys, some of which have not yet been invented, capable of standing heat and stresses several times more than have ever been experienced, fitted together with a precision better than the finest watch, carrying all the equipment needed for propulsion, guidance, control, communications, food and survival, on an untried mission, to an unknown celestial body, and then return it safely to earth, re-entering the atmosphere at speeds of over 25,000 miles per hour, causing heat about half that of the temperature of the sun--almost as hot as it is here today--and do all this, and do it right, and do it first before this decade is out--then we must be bold.
I'm the one who is doing all the work, so we just want you to stay cool for a minute. [laughter]
However, I think we're going to do it, and I think that we must pay what needs to be paid. I don't think we ought to waste any money, but I think we ought to do the job. And this will be done in the decade of the Sixties. It may be done while some of you are still here at school at this college and university. It will be done during the terms of office of some of the people who sit here on this platform. But it will be done. And it will be done before the end of this decade.
And I am delighted that this university is playing a part in putting a man on the moon as part of a great national effort of the United States of America.
Many years ago the great British explorer George Mallory, who was to die on Mount Everest, was asked why did he want to climb it. He said, "Because it is there."
Well, space is there, and we're going to climb it, and the moon and the planets are there, and new hopes for knowledge and peace are there. And, therefore, as we set sail we ask God's blessing on the most hazardous and dangerous and greatest adventure on which man has ever embarked.


SEVEN YEARS LATER ARMSTRONG PROVED KENNEDY

On July 20, 1969 Neil Armstrong became the first man to put his step on the moon. And he said:`That's one small step for a man and a giant leap for the mankind.' The tapes of the event were of overwhelming significance and the words were chosen quite deliberately. Armstrong maintained for some time later that he said "for a man" rather than "for man". It was believed to be his wife who had prepared him to say this in advance. The tapes of the event aren't enough to be sure, although the 'a' does appear to be missing.


Blood, toil, tears and sweat speech by Winston Churchill on May 13th 1940

It is the second half of the speech he gave:

``In this crisis I think I may be pardoned if 1 do not address the House at any length today, and I hope that any of my friends and colleagues or former colleagues who are affected by the political reconstruction will make all allowances for any lack of ceremony with which it has been necessary to act.
I say to the House as I said to ministers who have joined this government, I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears, and sweat. We have before us an ordeal of the most grievous kind. We have before us many, many months of struggle and suffering.
You ask, what is our policy? I say it is to wage war by land, sea, and air. War with all our might and with all the strength God has given us, and to wage war against a monstrous tyranny never surpassed in the dark and lamentable catalogue of human crime. That is our policy.
You ask, what is our aim? I can answer in one word. It is victory. Victory at all costs - Victory in spite of all terrors - Victory, however long and hard the road may be, for without victory there is no survival.
Let that be realized. No survival for the British Empire, no survival for all that the British Empire has stood for, no survival for the urge, the impulse of the ages, that mankind shall move forward toward his goal.
I take up my task in buoyancy and hope. I feel sure that our cause will not be suffered to fail among men. I feel entitled at this juncture, at this time, to claim the aid of all and to say, "Come then, let us go forward together with our united strength.''

TWO YEARS LATER

At the height of the battle of Britain, his bracing survey of the situation included the memorable line: "Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few. This expression gave birth to enduring nickname The Few the RAF fighter pilots who won it. And one of most memorable war speeches came on 10 November 1942 at the Lord Mayor's Luncheon at Mansion House London, in response to the Allied victory at the second victory of El Alamein. Churchill stated: This is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning.


The famous phrase blood toils, tears and sweat

The famous phrase blood, toil, tears and sweat was originally used by Theodore Roosevelt an address to the Naval War College on June 2, 1897, following his appointment as assistant secretary of the Navy. However, the phrase became well known after a speech given by Winston Churchill.


Obama's backroom boy who swung America !

When Barack Obama stepped up to the podium to deliver his inaugural address, one man standing aloof in the crowd paid special attention. With his cropped hair, five o'clock shadow and boyish face, he might look out of place among the dignitaries, though as co-author of the speech this man has more claim than most to be a witness to this moment of history. Jon Favreau, 27, is, as Obama himself puts it, the president's mind reader. He is one of the youngest chief speechwriters on record in the White House, and, despite such youth, was at the centre of discussions of the content of today's speech, one which has so much riding on it. For a politician whose rise to prominence was largely built upon his powers as an orator, Obama is well versed in the arts of speech-making. In composing the high notes of the speech, Obama has leant on Favreau, whom he discovered almost by chance four years ago when the younger man was working on John Kerry's failed presidential bid. "Favs" has since studied Obama's speech patterns and cadences with the intensity of a stalker. He memorised the 2004 speech to the Democratic national convention which first brought Obama into the limelight. He is said to carry Obama's autobiography, Dreams From My Father, wherever he goes. As a result, last November when Favreau sat down to write the first draft of the inaugural address, he could conjure up his master's voice as if an accomplished impersonator. That skill had been put to almost daily use in the 18 months of brutal campaigning on the presidential trail. Favreau would be up most nights until 3am, honing the next day's stump speeches in a caffeine haze of espressos and Red Bull energy drinks, taking breaks to play the video game Rock Band. He coined a phrase for this late-night deadline surfing: "crashing". He crashed his way through all Obama's most memorable speeches. He wrote the draft of one that helped to turn Iowa for Obama while closeted in a coffee shop in Des Moines. For the presidential election, he wrote two speeches: one for a victory, one for defeat. When the result came through, he emailed his best friend: "Dude, we won. Oh my God." Obama is an accomplished writer in his own right, and the process of drafting with his mind reader is collaborative. The inaugural speech has shuttled between them four or five times, following an initial hour-long meeting in which the president-elect spoke about his vision for the address, and Favreau took notes on his computer.
Favreau, age 27, is not the youngest chief speechwriter in the White House. He shares that honour with James Fallows, who served as Jimmy Carter's speechwriter at the same age. This has been corrected.



Speech by Swami Vivekanand in Chicago on Sept 11, 1893

Sisters and Brothers of America,

It fills my heart with joy unspeakable to rise in response to the warm and cordial welcome which you have given us. I thank you in the name of the most ancient order of monks in the world; I thank you in the name of the mother of religions, and I thank you in the name of millions and millions of Hindu people of all classes and sects.
My thanks, also, to some of the speakers on this platform who, referring to the delegates from the Orient, have told you that these men from far-off nations may well claim the honor of bearing to different lands the idea of toleration. I am proud to belong to a religion which has taught the world both tolerance and universal acceptance. We believe not only in universal toleration, but we accept all religions as true. I am proud to belong to a nation which has sheltered the persecuted and the refugees of all religions and all nations of the earth. I am proud to tell you that we have gathered in our bosom the purest remnant of the Israelites, who came to Southern India and took refuge with us in the very year in which their holy temple was shattered to pieces by Roman tyranny. I am proud to belong to the religion which has sheltered and is still fostering the remnant of the grand Zoroastrian nation. I will quote to you, brethren, a few lines from a hymn which I remember to have repeated from my earliest boyhood, which is every day repeated by millions of human beings: "As the different streams having their sources in different paths which men take through different tendencies, various though they appear, crooked or straight, all lead to Thee."
The present convention, which is one of the most august assemblies ever held, is in itself a vindication, a declaration to the world of the wonderful doctrine preached in the Gita: "Whosoever comes to Me, through whatsoever form, I reach him; all men are struggling through paths which in the end lead to me." Sectarianism, bigotry, and its horrible descendant, fanaticism, have long possessed this beautiful earth. They have filled the earth with violence, drenched it often and often with human blood, destroyed civilization and sent whole nations to despair. Had it not been for these horrible demons, human society would be far more advanced than it is now. But their time is come; and I fervently hope that the bell that tolled this morning in honor of this convention may be the death-knell of all fanaticism, of all persecutions with the sword or with the pen, and of all uncharitable feelings between persons wending their way to the same goal.

Friday, February 5, 2010

ABOUT THE BLOG

Going through various blogs, for a change I decided to make a blog which is more impersonal
than me, myself, my dog, cat or else paste some of the residue from my professional bin. Seeing so many blogs, please allow me to be a bit non-serious. Albert Einstein was wrong only on one count when he said that nothing can travel faster than light. In today's world, information travels than light -- courtesy the heat felt in news channel studios. And there is so much of serious information that the funny and more quizzical part is missed altogether. So this is an attempt to shore up on the info culled from the archives with excerpts from books, newspapers, magazines, et al which were readable but you might have missed due to the burden of more `serious' intellectual choirs. It will essentially comment about the past and history, the present and its misery, and the mystery which we call our future.

THE OTHER SIDE

`The Other Side of Gandhi'

* In the first satyagraha campaign, when Kasturba was ill, Gandhi decline to pay his fine and leave jail to be with her. `If you die', he wrote even your death will be a sacrifice to the cause of Satyagraha. In February, Gandhi wrote a letter to Kallenbach of his disappointment that there had been no Gujarati martyr. If anybody should have died it was Mrs Gandhi, refering to his wife.

* A few weeks later Kasturba began to improve and even started complaining about Jeki's behaviour (daughter of Gandhi's close friend Dr Pranjivan Mehta, of whom she thought her husband was too fond of. At this, Gandhi gently but rebukingly remarked that her illness was largely due to her sinful thoughts.

(courtesy: Gandhi A political and Spiritual Life by Kathyrn Tidrick)

Thursday, February 4, 2010

THE RIGHT FACT. IS IT!

WHAT'S NOT: George Washington was the FIRST President of the United States.

WHAT'S THE FACT: While George Washington was the first president elected under the current constitution, he was not the first president of the US. In 1781, the last of the thirteen original colonies ratified the articles of Confederation. Later, the Congress unamimously elected John Hanson as the president with the title president of the United States in Congress Assembled. Washington himself referred to Hanson as the president. Six more presidents were elected by Congress before Washington became the one. He was 8th in number.


WHAT'S NOT: THE MYTH THAT GANDHI HAD HIS TEETH.

FACT: He had a set of false teeth, which he always carried with himself. He put them in his mouth when he wanted to eat. and after every meal he took them off and washed them. Another interesting fact of his was that he spoke English in Irish accent for one of his first teachers was an Irish.


WHAT'S NOT: THAT WINSTON CHURCHILL WAS A MASTER OF HIS SPEECH.

HE once famously said:`` My impediment is no hindrance,'' regarding his speech disability since he used to stutter/lisp tried not to do so in public functions. Churchill was a war correspondent and did an assignment in South Africa in 1899 . He was captured and held in a POW camp in Pretoria after war broke out between Britain and the Boer Republic. But instead of returning home, he rejoined General Redvers Buller’s army. This impressive feat, made him a sort of national hero. When he returned to England eight months later, it was on the very ship on which he sailed to South Africa. He was also a very good painter and made more than 550 paintings.

HOW WAS IT THEN ALLEGEDLY!

HOW WE LIVED 700 YEARS AGO!

* Most people got married in June because they took their yearly bath in May and still smelled okay by June. However, they were starting to smell, so brides carried a bouquet of flowers to hide the body odour. Hence the custom today of carrying a bouquet when getting married.

* Children were bathed in water already used for bathing and ablutions and were the last in the family. Hence came the saying:"Don't throw the baby out with the bath water."

* Houses had thick and thatched roofs no wood underneath. It was the only place for animals to get warm, so all the dogs, cats and other small animals (mice, bugs) lived on the roof. When it rained it became slippery and sometimes the animals would slip and fall off the roof. Hence the saying "It's raining cats and dogs."

* It took as many as 10 days to one month for marriage ceremonies to complete in South Asia if the distance was anything more than 60-70 kms between the bride and bridegrooms house.

* Breads in the west and chappatis in South Asia were divided according to status. Workers got the burnt bottom of the loaf, the family got the middle, and guests got the top.

* If one wants to learn about the social order of the past, look at the chess board and you get to know everything. After the King came the queen, then the Bishop followed by warriors, cavalrymen on horses and elephants and then the soldiers.

History isn't all that boring! Is it?

Monday, February 1, 2010

KNOW WORDS OF WISDOM

Q. Who said this:``Common sense is the collection of prejudices acquired by age eighteen'' ?

A. Albert Einstien.


Q. Who said:``In the practice of tolerance, one's enemy is the best teacher'' ?

A. Dalai Lama.


Q. Who said this: ``Here is the test to find whether your mission on Earth is finished: if you're alive, it isn't'' ?

A. Richard Bach.

Q. Who said:``I arise in the morning torn between a desire to improve the world and a desire to enjoy the world. This makes it hard to plan the day''
?

A. EB White.

Q. Who said this:``If there is anything that we wish to change in the child, we should first examine it and see whether it is not something that could better be changed in ourselves'' ?

A. Carl Jung.

Q. Who said:``Live out of your imagination, not your history'' ?

A. Stephen Covey.

Q. Who said:``There is more wisdom in your body than in your deepest philosophy'' ?

A. Friedrich Nietzsche.

Q. Who said:``When I die, I'm leaving my body to science fiction ''?

A. Steven Wright.

Q. Who said:``Men love to wonder, and that is the seed of science'' ?

A. Ralph Waldo Emerson.

Q. Who said: ``Science does not know it's debt to imagination'' ?

A. Ralph Waldo Emerson.
.

THREE HINTS !

Q. Name the first president ever to be born in a civil hospital, a nuclear physicist and a speed reader who could read 2,000 words a minute, and Nobel Peace Prize winner in 2002 ?

A. Jimmy Carter.

Q. Name the American president who has no living heirs; was a skilled wrestler and days before his death he had a dream about it ?

A. Abrahm
Lincoln.

Q. Name the heavyweight boxing champion ;killed about five lakh people in his rule; would eat the meat of his enemies ?

A. Idi Amin.

Q. Name this first black billionairre who was raped at age nine, became pregnant at 14 and her name was changed because the parents couldn't pronounce it ?

A. Oprah Winfrey, Her name was picked up from Bible -- Orpah but the p and r were interchanged because of pronunciation difficulties.

BRAINTEASERS

Q. What colour is saphhire ?

A. Blue.

Q. In cookery, `FOO-YOUNG', is the Chinese-equivalent of which western dish?

A. Omelette.

Q. Name the first author to win the Booker prize twice ?

A. JM Coetzee.

Q. Which university athletics team did Jeffery Archer represent as a member?

A. Oxford.

Q. Name the only person who switched sides from the Kauravas to Pandavas just before the famous battle of Mahabharata commenced ?

A. Yuyutsu.

Q. Which Indian state has the longest coastline ?
A. Gujarat.

Q. Which baseball star has been refered to in the novel `The Old Man And The Sea' by Ernest Hemingway ?

A. Joe Dimaggio.

Q. Who won the men's gold in hockey in 2008 Beijing Olympics ?

A. Germany.

Q. Minsk is the capital city of which country ?

A. Belarus.

Q. Which country was the first to give voting right to women ?

A. New Zealand in 1883, though it was a British colony. First independent country Australia in 1902.