The Match of the (20th) Century

Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4

Every time there is a news article on rediff on Vishy Anand, a bunch of people scratch their itch to comment. From the comments the following become clear, and I wonder why they need to comment at all:

- Most people commenting have no clue about chess, the tournament/match details, the rankings/ratings of the players, the relative importance of the tournament/match, Anand's chess-strength relative to other players.

- People are usually commenting on another sport, usually Indian cricket, and how it has let everyone down, whatever that means.

- Most comments are highly polarized with no sense of proportionality. In them Anand is either the King and is heavily lionized, or he is portrayed as a loser - the guy who always played second fiddle -- again displaying a marked hyperbole.

- Most remaining comments are of chess not being encouraged (again displaying a lack of understanding of the sponsorship difficulty for a non-spectacular sport), or of politics in every other sport (as if the monstrosity of chess-politics is nothing at all.)

Why comment on a subject which you know nothing about, or you lack all the important facts, or cannot stay on topic, or you only have cliches and hyperbole to speak with? I am wondering if people are just trigger-happy and can't keep their fingers off the keyboard, regardless of what the topic-du-jour is.

Buncha ragamuffins climbing Mt. Whitney :)

Deep Thoughts

This guy Jack Handey is funny! A friend digs him and told me about him.

"The Greater Sea" from Khalil Gibran's "The Madman"

My soul and I went down to the great sea to bathe. And when we reached the shore, we went about looking for a hidden and lonely place.
But as we walked, we saw a man sitting on a grey rock taking pinches of salt from a bag and throwing them into the sea.
"This is the pessimist," said my soul, "Let us leave this place. We cannot bathe here."
We walked on until we reached an inlet. There we saw, standing on a white rock, a man holding a bejewelled box, from which he took sugar and threw it into the sea.
"And this is the optimist," said my soul, "And he too must not see our naked bodies."
Further on we walked. And on a beach we saw a man picking up dead fish and tenderly putting them back into the water.
"And we cannot bathe before him," said my soul. "He is the humane philanthropist."
And we passed on.
Then we came where we saw a man tracing his shadow on the sand. Great waves came and erased it. But he went on tracing it again and again.
"He is the mystic," said my soul, "Let us leave him."
And we walked on, till in a quiet cove we saw a man scooping up the foam and putting it into an alabaster bowl.
"He is the idealist," said my soul, "Surely he must not see our nudity."
And on we walked. Suddenly we heard a voice crying, "This is the sea. This is the deep sea. This is the vast and mighty sea." And when we reached the voice it was a man whose back was turned to the sea, and at his ear he held a shell, listening to its murmur.
And my soul said, "Let us pass on. He is the realist, who turns his back on the whole he cannot grasp, and busies himself with a fragment."
So we passed on. And in a weedy place among the rocks was a man with his head buried in the sand. And I said to my soul, "We can bathe here, for he cannot see us."
"Nay," said my soul, "For he is the most deadly of them all. He is the puritan."
Then a great sadness came over the face of my soul, and into her voice.
"Let us go hence," she said, "For there is no lonely, hidden place where we can bathe. I would not have this wind lift my golden hair, or bare my white bosom in this air, or let the light disclose my sacred nakedness."
Then we left that sea to seek the Greater Sea.