Remembering the times...

Surfing through the channels, I stopped at CNN where they were commenting on the memorial service that was about to start for Michael Jackson. Soon I found out that all the news services were covering it here...I was amazed to see the media shower glib tongued praises and relentless extolment with the same elan as when they used to mock him (when he was alive) - whats the point now?
Watching it, I was flooded with memories - I think I was about 4 when I first saw/heard him. It was at a family friend's place, where we kids used to sit together with the lights turned out to watch the video "Thriller". I think we did this countless times :)...and it was fun every time.
Uncle had brought the making of Thriller tape from the States. MJ is basically responsible for initiating me to music.
I also remember the time (this is before the Internet changed everything) when some friends and I used to share notes on the lyrics of his (and others) songs :) - playing the tape over and over in the Walkman and getting scolded by my folks for it :)

One more link to my childhood is gone now.

I watched the whole memorial service and it was really moving, especially the rousing sermon from the Rev. Al Sharpton. The saddest moment of course was watching Paris speak about him...it was probably the first time anyone has ever seen his kids and perhaps the first time people thought of him as more than just a performer.

Whatever might be the truth in all the allegations that constantly surrounded him, no one can deny his impact on the music scene - and for that reason alone he will remain a legend.

R.I.P. MJ

26/11

Oh my god...

Men Who Changed the World - Thomas Midgley

...the world today wishes he hadn't!!!

An engineer by profession, Thomas Midgley took deep interest in chemistry. In 1921, while working for GM Research institute, he found that tetraethyl lead can help get over the problem of engine knocking.
The automobile industry lapped it up and by 1923 the world was beginning to get used to leaded petrol - this in spite the fact that lead was known to be poisonous.
Lead is a neuro toxin and if it gets into the system in sufficient quantities can wreck havoc on the nervous system. But it was many decades later that leaded petrol was finally banned. So what was once found only in traces in the atmosphere is now easily available to breathe in and since lead hardly de-generates, it will be around more or less forever.

Buoyed by this success, Thomas Midgley decided to devote his energies to killer refrigerators - which at that time used poisonous gases. He decided to develop a gas that was non-flammable, stable and safe to breathe - tada we have the CFCs (Chloro-Fluoro Carbons). CFCs don't like Ozone too much - basically annihilating it as it comes in contact. To add to their reputation, CFCs are amongst the worst green house gases out there...
So together these two inventions can compete for the prize of the "Worst inventions of all time".

Hmm, I wonder how many of the inventions being made today will be looked at by contempt in the coming generations...