VINDICA

On the 26th December 2004, a magnitude 9.0 earthquake off the coast of Indonesia sent a devastating Tsunami racing across the Indian ocean. Over a 100,000 people have been killed across asia. TIME magazine and BBC News have put up photo essays documenting the devastation. Over the last few days, I have been working with Vibha , an established organization with deep roots in India, helping them in their efforts to raise funds for disaster relief. Please visit the Vibha's Emergency Relief website for more information, and please, please donate generously. We need you. Thanks.

A review of Arthur Schopenhauer's path breaking and precient book about winning debates. The rules for winning are as light-hearted as they are profound. Here are a few: Truth does not matter. "We must regard objective truth as an accidental circumstance". The point is to win the debate, not to illuminate the truth. "persuade the audience, not the opponent" "bewilder your opponent" The reviewer holds that the author implies that the audience for serious debate is likely to shrink. He sees evidence for this in the rise of the TV, and in the rise of American Presidents who do not much care about the truth (""There you go again," said Ronald Reagan, annihilating with a grin the very concept of rational debate, and the right loved him for it.") The reviewer concludes with a comic bang when he says: "...not even the melancholic German (Schopenhauer) predicted that the world's most powerful democracy would on

Economist laments the decline of meritocracy in America.

The anonymous writer of posts his last piece. The column will return in January under new authorship . Buttonwood finishes with the same style that we have come to enjoy, relentlessly pessimistic about the future - in this case, the immediate future.

New York Times reports that Google has entered into agreements with Oxford, Harvard and other leading libraries to make their libraries available online. MIT already makes available several of its courses online through its OpenCourseWare initiative. Once Google's initiative comes to fruiction, we shall have for the first time a society in which the doors for knowledge are open (if only a little bit) for everyone who wants to take a dip.

There is a class of people, who are not atheistic or agnostic, and yet have a delightful disregard for the totalitarian veneration that religion demands. It is from the ranks of this crowd that I have heard about the “sexy Swami” (Krishna) and “hippy God” (Shiva). Belief can have the strangest roots, and my religion serves up a unique God for each of our numerous peculiarities. To each, her own belief and who are thy to ask why or how come? However, the problem with being among such irreverence for such a long time is that you start to forget the precepts that govern safe conversation among strangers. Sandy had invited over a group of people for a party at my place. Although most were friends of hers, they were mostly just acquaintances of mine. It was a smart company and the conversation was consistently enjoyable, especially when experienced through that unpleasantness filter called beer. Over the course of the evening, the conversation meandered through some hazy pathway

MS Subbulakshmi passes away .