Month: February 2009

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Slumdog Millionaire

slumdogAs a movie critic I might not be your first choice. I venture to the cinema on average about once every two years at this point in my life. And I do not rent a lot of films, maybe a couple a year. I do watch the occasional movie on TV.

I just came back from seeing Slumdog Millionaire, and if you are any sort of movie fan I would put this movie in the “must see” category.   It was rightly nomimated for Best Picture for the 2009 Academy Awards.

First, it is an excellent story. It intertwines episodes of the India version of Who wants to be a Millionaire with the story of 3 Mumbai (Bombay was the colonial name of this city) street orphans. Both story lines kept me on the edge of my seat. Continue reading “Slumdog Millionaire”

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Let your kids play

Article in the Feb/March 2009 edition of Scientific American Mind reports that there is a correlation between lack of unstructured play time for kids and crime, “By age 23, more than one third of kids who had gone to play-free preschools had been arrested for a felony as compared with fewer than one tenth of play-oriented preschool alums.” Continue reading “Let your kids play”

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Memes, is there a self?

memeI just finished reading a book by Susan Blackmore, The Meme Machine. 

Meme may be an unfamiliar term to you so I will attempt to explain to the best of my limited ability.  All of us are familiar with DNA and genes; these can also be termed replicators.  It is how the blueprint of a species is passed down the generations.  Modifications/mutations of DNA are the backbone of evolution.

Memes were not first proposed by Ms. Blackmore, but she explores the concept deeply.  It is her contention that what separates Homo sapiens from other species is our ability to imitate.  Continue reading “Memes, is there a self?”