Athlete of the decade

Tiger Woods has been chosen by AP as the Athlete of the decade. The close nominees were Lance Armstrong, Michael Phelps, Roger Federer and Usain Bolt. Pretty impressive list and I am sure it would take a lot of analysis to figure who would be the athlete of the century. It is easy to compare these athletes as they are all part of individual sport and not team sport. They are alone while performing and the outcome of their matches pretty much depends on themselves unlike a team sport.

To begin with Tiger Woods transcended the sport of golf from being a Rich Old's man game to a world sport. He controlled the TV ratings and brought in millions into the sport. He holds 14 majors - 4 short of Jack Nicklaus's record as well as 64 titles. He was ranked for almost 90% of this decade. These are unbeatable numbers but is he really the ATHLETE of the century?

Does he possess all attributes of a world class athlete - speed, physical strength, endurance, skill, mental strength to oversome tough situations, consistency. We will never know if he has all of these as Golf doesnt require all of these but he definitely has 4 of these. Physical strength - one of the longest drivers in the game; Skill - best of the game; mental strength; consistency - kept winning for majority of the decade. Image is important as well in world sport to set an example for people to take up the sport. He has inspired millions to take up golf. It's just a sad part that infidelity had harmed his image at the very end of the decade.

More lack of involvement of the physicality (strength, speed, stamina) makes me reluctant to agree on Woods being the true athlete of the decade. It is noted that mental strength becomes all the more difficult when physical fatigue sets in.

Compared to Golf, Tennis is a much more demanding sport physicality wise. In addition almost all tennis tournaments employ the knock out system, which implies that if you wake on the wrong side of the bed one day, its very likely you are going out of the tournament. Unlike the other sports conditions vary a lot in tennis  with the four different surfaces -Hardcourt, Grass, Clay and rebound ace (Synthetic). Also the seasons are longer - from Jan to November with the tournaments in all corners of the world. All these make Roger Federer's - the current world number one's performance in the last decade very special. Federer is Tiger Wood's equivalent in tennis and is widely acclaimed by many to be the greatest player to play the game. He would have been all the more famous had he been American!!
Just have a look at Federer's records which he has set in this decade:-
15 Major Grandslam titles
237 consecutive weeks as world number one
21 major grandslam final appearences
22 consecutive Grandslam semifinal appearences
10 consecutive grandslam finals
65 consecutive victories on grass
56 consecutive victories on clay
24 consecutive tournament final victories
one of the only 6 men in history to win all four grandslams
only player to play all 4 grandslam finals in 3 seasons.

Some of these records may never be broken.

And unlike Woods he has a clean image, making him a great role model.

What Michael Phelps has done is unprecendented. Chosen World swimmer of the year for 6 years in this decade is incredible enough. His 6 gold medals in Atlanta were probably the best Olympian swimmer perfomance since Mark Spitz's 7 gold medal haul. Well, he accomplished the unimaginable -won 8 gold medals in the Beijing Olympics. Racing at almost one race every 15 minutes takes incredible physical and mental strength. He has till date broken 37 world records. These numbers are stupendous. Its just sad that his image was tainted with DUI charges and marijuana allegations. It can also be argued that the number of events Phelps had to take part in a regular non olympic / non world championship year were very few and far between.

At 6'5" Usain Bolt is the tallest man of the list. He is the first man since Carl Lewis to hold all three sprinting world titles and the first man to hold world and olympic records for the 100 and 200 m sprints as well as 100 m relay. But He came into limelight only at 2008 Olympics therefore compared to the other athletes he might not have a wide time span of performances over several years to show but in the short time he has been in the scene he has definitely transcended the sport rewriting the myth that man couldnt run any faster.

That leaves us with the Lance Armstrong. A man who won seven consecutive Tour de France races- six being in this decade. It is arguably the most physically demanding race across all sports spanning 3 weeks and 2200 miles. The effort is equivalent to running several marathons over 3 weeks and the cumulative climbs are equivalent to 3 x Mt Everest. Even more it takes great game strategy to complete the course on top.On top of that - we are talking about an athlete who survived testicular cancer, and brain & lung tumor just 3 years prior to his first Tour de France. The treatments involved extensive surgery and chemotherapy. For someone to come back and win the most physically gruelling event in the world for 7 years in a row - it takes incredible physical and mental strength along with consistency.He has got to be the athlete of the decade without a doubt.

There is it. My rankings for Athlete of the decade:-

1. Lance Armstrong
2. Roger Federer
3. Michael Phelps
4. Tiger Woods
5. Usain Bolt

The heart of a Lion

I just finished watching UFC 107 ( read Ultimate fighting championships). After watching the main event between BJ Penn and Diego Sanchez, the commentator Joe Rogan said a phrase about the loser Diego Sanchez that struck a chord with me.

"Sanchez has the heart of a Lion."

Of course its well known that Lion is widely accepted as the King of the Jungle and the most powerful predator among many. Well..for people just tuning in, Sanchez received a hell of a pounding for 5 rounds. It culminated in one of the deepest cuts on his forehead and it resulted in a doctor stoppage. His left eye was closed, his left side of his face was swollen and his lower lip was cut.

Well, I have seen people get pummelled and destroyed in the octagon before. BJ Penn himself was in the receiving end a masterful performance by Georges St Pierre recently. So what made this performance special  apart from this being one of the worst cuts in MMA?

There is a wide spread misconception that Lion is the strongest predator in the jungle. It may be in the top 10 but it definitely is not number one. Grizzlies weigh almost 2.5 times the weight of a lion and are strong enough to kill raging bulls. Tiger is the largest cat in the world. It is more agile, more muscular, have larger teeth and a greater bite force, some species of tigers outweigh lions by almost 100 pounds. [ not to move on a tangent a lot, I will have a tiger vs Lion article soon]. Then what is the quality of a Lion?

In one word- "COURAGE". Lions are mean fighting machines that spend close to 4 years of their lives learning how to fight. They are known never to back down from a fight. They beat stronger foes by sheer will and aggressiveness. I remember a documentary I had watched in National Geographic about a pride of Lions in Krueger Park. This was the last fit Lioness in its pride and the pride desperately needed a successful kill for survival. Opposite her was atleast 150 wildbeasts all of the them easily twice the lion's size. They are charging towards the Lioness..

In one of the most incredible attacks ever, the lioness stands her ground and  then leaps into the oncoming wild beast mob and captures a wild beast. The rest run away, I guess amazed by the sheer guts.

BJ Penn was clearly physically stronger and more skilled than Sanchez. Penn is one of the best strikers in the Lightweight division. He is also a Jitu-Jitsu world champion, with renowned grappling skills and world class take down defense. On top of this he had a strength advantage over Sanchez. There was no chance for Sanchez. The fight ought to have been a no-contest and should have ended in the first round.

But all this didnt stop Sanchez from moving forward striking and attempting take downs. BJ Penn's offense didnt stop him from coming forward and sttacking even on one instance. I am sure BJ Penn would have been thinking I would have to kill him to stop him, he is not going to quit.

A couple of other performances I can recall which deserves the "heart of Lion" title :-
Georges St Pierre 's victory in his first match versus BJ Penn after getting absolutely thrashed and bloodied up in the first round.
Jon Fitch's performance in his 5 round loss against Georges St Pierre.
Fedor Emelianenko's victories against Fujita (he borderline knocked out midway through the bout) and Kevin Randleman ( he was suplexed WWE style and landed heavily on his neck- but finished the bout 30 seconds later).
Sachin Tendulkar's 143 versus Australia midst a sandstorm at Sharjah in 1998, which qualified India to the final.
Rafael Nadal and Roger Federer's battled like Lions during Rome 2006 final and Wimbledon 2008 final.

So what is so special about having the heart of Lion. Well in the current world where everyone plays it safe, it sometimes takes the heart of a Lion to stand out from the rest of the field - Just like how the Lion stands out from the rest of the animals in the Jungle.

End of the world and Copenhagen

                         I remember a series of mildly irritating endless discussions about the end of world by one of my cynical buddies and his wish to "see the end of everything while having popcorn!!". I initially chose to ignore as most of the futuristic pictures painted were extremely negative and pessimistic.

Gradually it did turn out to be one of my topics of interest as it encompasised everything from my career, lifestyle, food, politics, money, climate, media etc. There is a fear in some sections on the possibility of the world's end in 2012 - I believe they are optimistic!

As for the world reaching a sudden death due to climate change or collision of the so called planet Nubiru, its very unlikely, as Man has developed a capacity to withstand environmental elements to a great extent over the last millenium and the presence of incoming cosmic object would have been detected by astronomers by now.



Unfortunately it seems like we are going to have a slow and painful death. Population has multiplied over 3 times in the past few decades and is forecasted to be around 15 million within the next two decades. Medical science has advanced so much that everyone seems to have someone in their family who is past 80. The previously truthful news media has turned into a medium for false propoganda by political parties. The reign of internet has ussured in an avalanche of false news, rumors and gossips. Even people we meet on a day to day basis have an extreme difficulty in being honest with their statements. We always find some section of the media trying to divert viewers from world issues by substituing them with reality drama. The only thing predictable is the constant inflation rates. The gap between the rich and the poor is definitely widening in almost all countries, while cost of living (health, education, food) constantly on the rise. The cost of cultivating food crops more than tripled over the last decade with selling price not increasing proportionally; thus plunging large sections of farmers under the poverty line. Climate wise the last decade has been the hottest since the last 160 years. Man and to an extent climate change has eliminated 100's of species of flora and fauna over the last 150 years, including 6 species of animals in the last 6 years.

All these point to a population explosion, with widespread poverty, food shortage and very few parts of the world that are inhabitable.


Now this scenario has been foreseen by a number of nations decades back and infact the world has moved in the right path with globalization and more lax trade measures between the east and west. Climate Change has also been a great topic of concern among all "developed" countries, with the "Developing and underdeveloped" countries more concerned about maintaining their economy. Tighter "pro climate" rules would impact a number of lifelines in these countries - multiple industries will have to cut costs to implement these measures which might lead to laying off millions of people.

This realization has led countries to be very relaxed and easy going on most of the climate change summits. And virtually very little has been done towards climate change (of course you can point a number of  minor egs like smog checks for vehicles etc). Every agenda with a deadline has never been followed by most nations with China showing least inclination among developed nations. This primarily has been due to the lack of legally binding task lists and lack of penalities for missing the deadlines. India has come up with a statement that they would reduce their carbon emission by 20% in 2020. US ( who by the way is responsible for 50% of the world's carbon emissions) is clearly fighting their position within their own country. The US chamber of commerce (reponsible for over 3 million businesses) has clearly questioned the science behind climate change and alsong with the republican party claimed that it is a hoax. They have also opposed setting a constant world wide price for carbon though the rest of the world agrees on it.

Despite this I believe it is still great to have skeptics take part in the climate summit as it will prevent the sanctions from too inflexible.

With lack of technology on "cost effectively" converting the Carbon gas emissions; a complex situation has risen with a clear lack of incentive for developing countries to implement the different chapters being addressed at the climate change meeting. With the world economy still recovering , it will difficult for the developed countries to provide aid as well. 
Despite this I believe it is very important during the current climate summit at Copenhagen, that we need legally binding agenda for the countries to follow and missing deadlines should yield penalties; of course with deadlines being considerate considering the current world economy.

May be these steps would help us and our children live in slightly better conditions in the future.

-thoughts from a small optimist.

Islamic politics and its acceptance to the western world.

Just a couple of news I have been coming across recently:
        In a November 2009 referendum in Switizerland, over 57% of participating voters vote in favor of   banning the construction of new minarets.
       Huge opposition within European Union countries on whether to include Turkey in EU.
Of course, The now old story of
      US Republican parties opinion on why to occupy Iraq and Afghanistan.
      Chaos in the Indian Parliament over Chidambaram's comments that religious terrorism is not just Islam but other religions as well.

There is a common thread in these three stories - presence of political Islam as an antagonist.
      I had read Hege Storhaug's article on why the swiss where right in banning minarets. Despite the overwhelming criticism of the swiss on such a move, it was good to see a different angle to the whole story. I initially felt the article was very one sided. But later on, I felt the core concepts were true to an extent.

    The article despite attempting to be politically correct and considerate to readers of all communities initially, progresses towards a Islam vs christianity war and  the inabilities of Islam in the current world. Some of the examples were mere speculations, and most statements were very imbalanced like Christianity is not a political religion and Islam struggles to distinguish between religion and politics.

To start with, I believe despite swiss employing direct democracy, the people were scared into voting for the ban via false propoganda. Clearly the posters of forests of minarets springing out of the swiss flag and the image of the Burka clad lady has send a wrong image in the public eye - that Islam is here to take over the swiss and enforce sharia law. Sharia law has "many interpretations" and a "less than a handful" of countries employ a harsh, literal interpretation of Sharia (path). The article states that "why should we build mosques in our country when there isnt a single church in islamic countries?" It's blatantly false information.There are churches in middle eastern countries like Kuwait, UAE, Turkey and other middle eastern countries. In Fact a new church is being built in Kuwait that is tipped to be larger than the grand mosque of kuwait.

It is falsely stated that Islam cannot coexist in a democracy. There are approx 1.8 Billion muslims spread primarily around middle east, south east Asia and africa. Many secular countries have significant muslim population like India- where there are around 160 million muslims (more than 20 times the population of switzerland). They vote and run for political offices just like citizens of other communities. There hasnt been any such setup of political coup and enforcement of sharia laws in these democracies. These democracies do employ a parallel sharia court binding for muslims but which should abide by the constitution of the democratic country.


I believe political parties / rulers have leveraged religion for meeting their political agendas - and not vice-versa as the article suggests. The one sided argument in the article only mentions Islam and its coexistance with politics. They stress that Christianity is devoid of politics. Well a couple of examples;

Crusades were religiously sanctioned militiary campaigns led by Latin Christian Europe against not just muslims but against a series of communities as well as "political enemies" of the Popes. These series of wars waged over 200 years and claimed well over 2 million deaths. During the course of these wars, there are articles which state clear accounts of peope around baltic sea and central Europe being subjugated and made to convert to Christianity. Moreover there were major instances in the Indian Subcontinent and many other countries that were invaded colonized by the British (a christian country as there is a link between the church and the state) during the 1700's and later years civilians were being forced to convert to Christianity by Christian Missionaries. These incidents are similar to the incidents we get of actions of political parties ruling some islamic nations. Even Christian Countries oppose liberal thoughts like gay marriage, abortion etc. In the US the republican party (church based) have lobbied against the approval of gay marriage -which is still illegal in most of the states.

The article also implies only christianity and not islam is secular. You can find a number of articles in the web about the secular nature of islam. Countries like Turkey despite being previously muslim country has adopted a secular and democratic government with equal rights to men and women.

Hege also states that Islam tells muslims to lead a certain way of life and christianity doesnt. I believe this is a very biased opinion - every religion does teach its followers on ideal way of leading life.

It is primarily the organization that executes sharia that dictates how every law can be placed. I have personally read lines in the Bible on how to slave trade - that doesnt mean we follow it to the "T". Its interesting to note here that there was slave trade in US little over a century ago.

Quran was written centuries ago within a particular society in the middle east and a number of preachings were suited to that particular society. Its in best interest to the world and especially the whole of the islamic community to reinterpret and re-adapt this to the present world. Multiple sections of the islam community have re-interpreted Quran and have adapted it to the modern world. Its a shame that some sections are not ready.

I believe this reluctance is clearly politically motivated by fuelled by the greed of power and wealth. As Abdurrahman “Gus Dur” Wahid, a renowned Muslim cleric and former Indonesian president, said jokingly “To certain Muslims, God is so distant that they need to use minarets and loudspeakers to call and communicate with Him.” As Khairil Azhar mentions in his article within the need for Muslims to be more patient and tolerant. The last thing the community needs is a reinforcement in public opinion about the extremist nature of islamic politics. It is also neccessary to adjust our religious needs to fit in with a secular organization.

I absolutely agree to that.

New series of posts coming up

I have had a major change in lifestyle recently. I switched workplaces across continents. I left my closest friends but get to live with my parents now.

Major changes have occured. There seem to be more of a Routine /  discipline to my day - Never had any sort of discipline or routine when I stayed in the US. My dad recently had asked me what was my daily routine and I was struggling to explain - matter of fact, I never had a routine. Everyday had its own unique routine.

I sleep really well these days. "Accumulated stress" had taken a heavy toll on me for the last year or so. I had way too many thoughts while going to sleep and always end up like a zombie not knowing what I was talking about or doing..every other day. Definitely Kuwait has been a great stress reliever.

I have started following the news, reading and writing a lot more. Unlike what my first blog says...my current  intention is write a series on random topics, as my blog title suggest. It may contain absolutely random topics of my interest - some on world events, politics, movies, sports and some dedications to my fav stars, movies etc.
An another target would be to finish Ron Paul's The revolution. I am done half way- guess i might finish it over the next few weeks.

-Nazzu

How do people stay motivated?

This being my very first blog; I dont really see myself writing down indepth analysis of current events in this blog. My main motivation behind writing this blog is to ultimately find (within myself) what might really motivate me!



Let me explain.

At this phase of my life, there has been a distinct lack of motivation to do my regular desk job. Anything new definitely excites me and I seem to find new found energy. In the last 3 years, I have tried gyming, Muay Thai, jiu-jitsu, boxing, Dancing (salsa, break dancing, tango, Bollywood dancing..lol), Tennis, Acting etc. I have intentions on starting to play football (soccer) in the next few months.



Except for tennis and to an extent gyming, I havent stuck onto any such activity for more than 6 months.



I wonder how people stay motivated. At my age of 28, I already feel burnt out. I hope to one day find the reason to motivate myself to excel at what I do.



Thinking back over the years I find a drastic change in my personality. I remember having an aggressive, a "never give up", and fearless attitude until my late teenage years. I also remember my aggressive self in multiple fights and tough situations during undergrad. I have definitely mellowed down over the years. It has reached a point in fact, it takes a lot of drama to invoke a reaction in me which usually doesnt involve violence or aggressive talk / debate even remotely.



Has the loss of my aggressive side taken the something along with it? Why do I deflated, demotivated and fearful taking on huge tasks? Each task is a challenge and one needs to aggressively pursue it. I feel its high time I bring the old Nazzu back!