Subject: 	rt43 -- plumbing Belafonte
	Date: 	April 13, 2005 12:54:52 AM EDT
	

Perennial friends,     Hope all of you are doing well. Spring has finally arrived 
here. Like restless monkeys that had been stuffed in a dark cave for four months 
we emerge to greet the sunshine, smell the freshness in the air and smile at each 
other with uncontrollable friendliness. The streets are filled again with laughter 
and gaiety,  the sidewalks redolent of the foods of the world. This evening 
(Monday) after work I too rushed out to enjoy the sunshine. But a stop at the 
hardware store to get some plumbing supplies turned into two hours of 
rummaging through shelves full of  pipes, couplings and adapters. Finally a 
helpful employee found exactly what was needed and I got out just in time for 
sunset. Knowing my Ahab-like quest to replace a broken pipe to be finally over 
was such a relief that just walking outdoors was exhilarating. After some food at 
Whole foods and browsing at Kramerbooks I biked back home via fourteenth 
street on whose wide bosom  bikers, walkers, buses and behemoth SUVs coexist 
happily. Having blissfully fixed the plumbing to some satisfaction I can now write 
to you my dear friends, while the laundry machine is humming peacefully thanks 
to the new pipes and WBJC is bringing eclectic and elevating music through the 
internet.

I hope you all enjoy these random thoughts, especially those who are getting 
them for the first time. If anyone would like to be taken off this mailing list please 
let me know. Otherwise, I hope you are also enjoying the spring sunshine and do 
please write about it too, when you get the time.

Sankar

Random Thoughts (43) -- Plumbing Belafonte
Monday, 4-11-05

1. Last friday Harry Belafonte gave a talk at Howard University. I didn't know 
much about him, except that he was a famous actor and a political activist. But it 
turned out to be a once in a lifetime experience. I have seen very few men or 
women who radiate so much moral and spiritual power. For more than two hours 
the seventy-eight year old thespian stood at the podium without as much as 
taking a sip of water, delivering an electrifying speech of Shakespearean 
eloquence and the intellectual clarity and coherence of a thesis paper. It could 
not have been mere physical stamina or energy, or just training. It had to 
originate from a place of deep spiritual strength and intensity. It was like watching 
an aging warrior give his everything in a final battle, calling to arms the next 
generation of African-Americans to join the fight against the industrial 
ruthlessness and cruelty of the criminal justice system in America, AIDS in Africa, 
poverty, intolerance and the degradation of the environment.

2.  The fight against imperialism always takes time, patience, and the spiritual 
strength to love even your enemy. Love is what eventually triumphs. Leaving all 
political posturing aside, there is no mistaking that what we have today is an 
empire. There is a large group of people in this country who support this 
imperialism. Perhaps some of them think it is best for the world, bless their 
hearts. This empire seeks to manipulate and modify everything in the world to 
feed its monstrous appetite. Political action alone will not change the way this 
empire acts. It takes spiritual action based on love to reform an imperial system. 
On the other hand, terrorism is not fighting against anything except the human 
soul. Neither the imperialists nor the terrorists can defeat the human spirit. The 
human spirit and its capacity for love is the only thing that can prevail over either 
of these destructive forces.

3. The advantage of having your own house, and an old one at that, is you 
cannot escape from gardening, wiring, plumbing and such. While it is 
disconcerting to see weeds growing wild in the backyard or your toilet not 
flushing, once you get going and start working on it you find that it is a joy unto 
itself. A few weeks ago I started noticing a mysterious blob of water in the middle 
of the kitchen. After several days of suspense finally the blob's origin revealed 
itself to be a broken pipe leading to the main drain. Having reached the end of my 
savings I had no intention of calling the plumber so I set out to find a temporary 
fix to the problem. Little did I know the hours I'll spend in Home Depot looking for 
the right parts, crawling under the kitchen sink until my back started aching, 
cutting and fitting the parts together and then taking them apart again and again, 
...But at the end of it I realized it had really gotten me out of the rut and filled me 
with a lot of positive energy, drive and inner harmony. So it is with all house 
related work. Gardening can be therapeutic, wiring can be exciting, and cutting 
down weed trees with a saw can be downright  intoxicatingly empowering. The 
various gadgets and tools are like toys for adults. Sometimes the resemblance is 
almost embarrassing -- putty reminds you of playdough, and the various 
plumbing accessories of lego blocks. I have spent many an hour  wandering 
through Lowe's or Home Depot just looking through the various latest tools, 
sometimes spending insane amounts of money before I even realize it.

4. Water is unforgiving, like mathematics. It will find its way through the smallest 
gaps in the tightest of fittings. Unless everything is done exactly right it will 
expose your sloppiness mercilessly. It is also powerful. Love too is powerful like 
water, in breaking the toughest heart and dissolving the hardest head into a 
mushy mass of sentiment. Nothing can withstand the power of water or love, it 
seems.

5. I do mathematics the way I work on plumbing. Think of problem, get idea for 
solution. Go to the store, see what is there, and try to put some things together to 
fit into your solution. If that doesn't work, then rethink the problem and go to the 
store again. Sometimes it is worse -- I feel like a mathematical scavenger. 
Collecting leftovers and castoffs and trying to build a sculpture out of them or 
hoping to find a diamond in the scrap-heap. Often I like to work on mathematics 
in a cafe. In fact I work better that way, except when the cafe happens to be full 
of beautiful women. It is not that I cannot focus on mathematics when there are 
women around. Rather I am afraid that the rare nice woman who might happen to 
fancy me might slip away unnoticed if I don't keep watch :-)

6. It is amazing how even in simple arithmetic one's mind can get stuck in a set 
way of thinking. I've always thought of 144 as 12 times 12 or 72 times 2 or 36 
times 4. I never recall thinking of it as 150 minus 3 times 2. If only I had thought 
of it that way many calculations might have been quicker.

7 Everyone is crazy, in his or her own way. If you are completely normal then you 
must be a vegetable. Even vegetables have character. Except for cabbage, 
maybe. I've always thought of cabbage as the most unremarkable of all 
vegetables. I do like it very much, though. Cabbage is the midwesterner of 
vegetables -- plain and honest, unassuming, hard-working, yet nutritious. It is one 
thing you can eat as much as you like without getting sick, or sick of.

8. I was driving through the Pennsylvania countryside on my way to Harrisburg. 
For whatever reason momentarily I looked at the countryside and saw only soil 
and rocks. Not town or village, farm or factory, developed or undeveloped, 
cultured or backward, etc., etc., Just soil and rocks, not associated to anything 
else. That is how it is, anywhere you go. If you just look at the earth it looks pretty 
much the same wherever you go - soil, rocks, plants, trees... Why, if you have 
looked at the pictures from Mars lately you would have thought it looks like some 
rocky place on earth. So if ever you get homesick, my world traveling friends, just 
remember that the earth is the same everywhere.

9. Anywhere in the world you need to know only three words to survive. Yes, No 
and Sorry. One more thing, but it requires no words -- smile. So another advice to 
my traveling friends -- before you set out to that strange country learn those three 
words in the local language and never forget to smile.

10. America is a factory to turn immigrants into arrogant know-it-all ignorant 
assertive loud-mouthed swaggering imperialists in two generations.

11. It takes completely different character skills to be a boss compared to an 
employee. Bosses like their employees to be honest, hard-working, obedient, 
trustworthy people. On the other hand some of them think these qualities are a 
liability in their own position, that to be a successful boss means you have to 
work less,  be ruthless, unscrupulous, listen to no one and be deceptive. 
Corporate bosses especially, act in a dog eat dog manner, believing that the 
company that is ruthless, unscrupulous and deceptive will gobble up the rest. At 
the same time, they cannot run their companies if the employees are not honest, 
trustworthy and hardworking. In fact these qualities were listed at the top of the 
desired qualities for an employee in a recent survey of managers, ahead of 
intelligence and creativity. This contradiction lies at the root of the various 
scandals rocking the corporate world today, exposing the hypocrisy of some of 
the chief executives.

12. Christopher Walken is one of my favourite actors. There are others whom I 
admire, such as Gregory Peck and Clint Eastwood.  But Walken I admire for his 
consummate artistry. He is one of the few great actors who are totally devoid of 
ego and flamboyance yet are most charismatic. He has completely devoted his 
life to acting and loses himself in any role that is given, bringing out the character. 
When you are watching his movie, he disappears and only the character 
appears. The opposite is true for people like de Niro and Pacino. Among 
actresses perhaps Renee Zellweger is in the same category. In any vocation the 
one who sheds his ego and focusses solely on the work excels above all others. I 
know for sure because Sunil Gavaskar said so.

13. I was thinking how people's faces are like books etched with all the features 
of their personality and character. This morning on wordsmith.org's "A word a 
day" e-mail I came across this quotation which expresses brilliantly what I wanted 
to say:  A man finds room in the few square inches of the face for the traits of all 
his ancestors; for the expression of all his history, and his wants. -Ralph Waldo 
Emerson.

14. Why is it that in chess the Queen is able to move in all sorts of directions 
while the King just sits there most of the time? What is the history behind it?

15. Finally, on a lighter note,  here is my nomination for worst slogan for a 
company. Found on the side of the van owned by an elevator repair company: "If 
we can't fix it, then it can't be fixed."