The Golden 80s

It was with some concern that I read the news that the antibiotic Azithromycin could increase the risk of heart deaths. Researchers at Vanderbilt University compared data of people who took the antibiotic and those who took other less dangerous antibiotics. The results showed a increased mortality rate for people who took Azithromycin and those who are already at risk of cardiac failure or those with cardiac illnesses. Since I have no subscription, I could not read the full report published on the New England Journal of Medicine ( NEJM ) . From what I understand, Azithromycin is a macrolide antibiotic, which prevents bacteria from multiplying by affecting their ability to produce growth proteins. It is known that macrolide antibiotics cause abnormal heart rates (arrythmias), but Azithromycin was considered safe like another antibiotic Amoxicillin. But the study by Vanderbilt researchers has proved otherwise. For experts the estimated 245 additional cardiovascular deaths per 1 mill...

I don’t like IPL. I am sorry to tell this. I don’t know the exact reason. But I still I do not like the tournament. May be, I don’t feel it is just cricket. Cricket was serious, slow, and silent. May be that is the version I like. May be that is the misunderstanding I have. Cricket was not like someone’s metabolism gone haywire. The game was serious, thin, and decent. Stuffed with ordinary, decent, and quiet souls. It was never elite, vitriolic, or violent. There were only gentlemen, and not villains. The beauty of cricket lay in hitting the ball through the ground, or not hitting it, or not hitting it over the  boundary line every time. Hitting the ball out of the ground, and using brute power to hit the ball over the green, thick bed of grass was more like unknown violence. Unnatural wooden acceleration against gravity. Man’s restless war against Nature. Sixes resembled violence against the leather, against the spectators, and against the bowler. More impor...