varnam

The Divine Comedy , Dante's imaginative vision of the Christian afterlife, describes the poet's journey through hell, purgatory and paradise. In Dante's hell, there are nine concentric circles and in each region the sinners are punished in proportion to their earthly sins. The ninth circle is reserved for Lucifer and the traitors. Lucifer has three faces in which he chews three of the greatest traitors in history: Brutus and Cassius, Caesar's assassins and Judas Iscariot, who betrayed Jesus.

This year The National Geographic published a translation of the Lost of Gospel of Judas. According to the National Geographic translation, Judas is the favorite disciple to whom Jesus imparts secret teachings. Contrary to the teachings of other Christian texts, Jesus came to save the world, predicted his own death and used Judas as an instrument in that process. According to this version, Judas is the good guy, a friend of Jesus who helps him achieve his life mission.

A new book,The Thirteenth Apostle by Dr. April Deconick says that the National Geographic translation is wrong.

I wrote this book because when I read the Coptic transliteration of the manuscript in April 2006, I realized that Judas was much more a hero in the National Geographic translation than he was in my own translation. As I worked through the Coptic and then sat and studied the text as a whole, I quickly came to see that Judas is not a good guy in this gospel. He is not Jesus' friend or the greatest disciple. I began to wonder why the NG team translated in reference to Judas "daimon" as "spirit" when its most accepted translation is "demon." I wondered why the team chose to say that Judas is "set apart for" the holy generation, when the Coptic actually reads that he is "separated from" the holy generation. And so forth.[What is different about my translation of the Gospel of Judas?]

In his lecture at the 19th International Conference on South Asian Archeology in Italy, Prof. B.B. Lal gave an example of how linguists can manipulate translations to suit their agenda.

A case in point is that of the well known Professor of Sanskrit at the Harvard University, Professor Witzel. He did not hesitate to mistranslate a part of the Baudhayana Srautasutra (Witzel 1995: 320-21). In 2003 I published a paper in the East and West (Vol. 53, Nos. 1-4), exposing his manipulation. Witzel’s translation of the relevant Sanskrit text was as follows:

"Aya went eastwards. His (people) are the Kuru-Pancalas and Kasi Videha. This is the Ayava(migration).(His other people)stayed at home in the west. His people are the Gandhari, Parasu and Aratta. This is the Amavasava (group).

Whereas the correct translation is:

Ayu migrated eastwards. His (people) are the Kuru-Pancalas and the Kasi-Videhas. This is the Ayava (migration). Amavasu migrated westwards. His (people) are the Ghandhari, Parsu and Aratta. This is the Amavasu (migration).

According to the correct translation, there was no movement of the Aryan people from anywhere in the north-west. On the other hand, the evidence indicates that it was from an intermediary point that some of the Aryan tribes went eastwards and other westwards.

The problem it seems was that National Geographic gave the manuscript to a few scholars who mistranslated. The originals were not made public and so no one else could read or correct these mistakes. Now National Geographic has decided to make this information public so that  scholars can read, debate and decide what those Coptic texts really mean.

In the Aryan Invasion folklore, the agenda is very clear, but in the case of the Lost Gospel of Judas story, it is not clear if it was a genuine mistake or agenda driven.

(Extent of Vijayanagara Empire)

There were attempts to plunder rich Hindu temples. Jesuits and other priests worked on conversion in the coastal regions. No, we are not talking about the present, but what was happening in South India some time in the 14^th century. This threat to Hinduism was controlled and checked by the rise of the Vijayanagara empire.

One of the major tasks of the empire was to conserve the Hindu society and save it from these threats as well as from the Bahmani Sultanate. This empire, run by very able monarchs of whom the most famous was Krishnadevaraya, was the focus of a resurgent Hindu culture with the works of Sayana, and Mādhavācārya, the construction of various temples, and the promotion of religious worship, education and learning.

The third capital of Vijayanagara was in Chandragiri and a recent ASI excavation has revealed two temples in the premises of the fort.

The temples are understandably in a bad shape. Nonetheless, are quite interesting given that one is a Vaishnava temple and the other a Shivaite one. Though idols of the presiding deities were missing in both, archaeologists were able to identify their nature by studying the structures.Vaishnava temples are structurally different from Shivaite temples. The ASI also found a statue of Nandi near one temple.

The other big find was near Srinivasa Mangapuram. Sources in the ASI say 250 exquisitely carved pillars, each at least 7 to 8 ft long and all laid out in an orderly fashion, were excavated at the temple.[ASI stumbles upon 1000-yr-old temples in Chandragiri fort]

Today's  WP has the story of how Rep. Dennis Kucinich met his current wife.

That very morning, believe it or not, guru Sri Sri Ravi Shankar, who teaches peace through meditation and rhythmic breathing, had come to town. Dennis and Ravi have known each other for a long time. Ravi asked about Dennis's love life. Dennis said he was still looking for that special someone.

"And his response was, 'Stop looking and then she will appear,' " Dennis says. "And I said, 'Okay, I'm going to stop looking.' I said that.

Her first inkling that Kucinich might be different from the run-of-the-mill congressman was the presence of two Indian nuns from the Brahma Kumaris World Spiritual University in Kucinich's reception room. She chatted with the nuns about India and felt herself being "opened" up by the conversation.

Then she and Zarlenga were called into Kucinich's office.

Dennis watched the young woman's eyes. First they went to a bust of Gandhi sitting on his bookshelf. Then they went to a picture given to him by the Hindu nuns -- a burst of brightness against an orange background meant to depict "conscious light." Then her eyes went to his.

"That was it," Dennis says now. "One, two, three." He knew.

In 70 CE, the Roman general Titus Flavius placed a siege around Jerusalem by digging a trench and building additional walls. Anyone caught fleeing was crucified. During this siege many Jews hid in a drainage canal and escaped through the city's southern gate. This drainage canal was discovered underneath the rubble of the Second Temple, under what was the main road during the time.

Now, right opposite the Second Temple, below the parking lot, archaeologists have found the remains of a palace which was destroyed in 70 CE. This palace, in high probability belonged to Queen Helena, a wealthy Babylonian aristocrat who converted to Judaism and moved to Jerusalem with her sons.

The find includes massive foundations, walls whose remains soar five meters high in some places, two-story-tall halls, a basement, ritual baths (mikvaot), remains of colored frescoes, and more.  The archaeologists say they can see, in the narrow openings discovered in the basement level, evidence of the drama that transpired in the structure prior to its destruction by the Romans. It appears that the inhabitants attempted to flee through the openings.  Attempts were also made to destroy the structure at the time.[Discovered: Large 2nd-Temple House Adjacent to Temple Mount ]

1. Kerala Food Minister on the shortage of rice

For some days now, Kerala is facing problems in the supply of rice. And hence there is an increase in the price and people are feeling the heat. Now what is the solution to this problem? Here is what our food minister C.K Divakaran has to say,

“Malayalees should change their food habits. They should start drinking more milk, eating eggs and eat more chicken dishes.”

I am still laughing my guts out. I wonder how PETA will react to C.K. Divakaran’s comment. I am sure he will need some additional security [Tackling food shortage and traffic problems - kerala way]


2. Remember what Swami Vivekananda said about Kerala. It seems the Church wants to take us there as fast as possible.

   A Church dignitary recently asked all Christians to send their children only to Christian schools. An explanation followed that the suggestion was aimed at ensuring that the new generation imbibed Christian values, and was unconnected with the issue of educational reform. What will happen if all caste and religious groups think along these lines? The Churches, which made possible the social renewal that rescued Kerala from darkness by establishing modern educational facilities, should not become instrumental for a return to the lunatic asylum.[..so we do not go back to the lunatic asylum]

3. The Communist Government does not allow private retail chains, but has plans to start their own.

   It may be recalled that the Food and Civil Supplies Minister C. Divakaran had announced one and a half years ago that State owned Civil Supplies Corporation (Supplyco) would start retail chains to take on the retail giants. This was a contradiction of sorts. The Minister was proposing to create a retail chain to compete with the retail chains instead of disallowing them, if the policy was to discourage them.

   Anyway, that has not materialised so far. One cannot expect the Supplyco chains to actually take on the retail chains. Instead, one can expect more demonstrations from the CPI stable as its Minister rules the Supplyco.[CPI takes on retail chains]

See Also: Notes from Kerala, Notes from Kerala (2), Notes from Kerala (3)

'The boy grew in wisdom and stature'. That's what the Bible says about the life of Jesus between the the age 13 and 30. While the Church approved Gospels have been silent about this aspect, other people have come up with creative ideas which include various minority positions like he was in India or Glastonbury or he lived with the Essenes. There have been books like The Unknown Life of Jesus and many others.

Now a bunch of film makers are making a movie titled the Aquarian Gospel based on the book The Aquarian Gospel of Jesus the Christ by Levi H. Dowling. According to this book, Jesus wandered as a mystic across India, living in Buddhist monasteries and speaking out against the caste system. The movie, which will be made in the style of 300, will follow Yeshua all way from Middle East to India and will emphasize that Jesus was inspired by Indian spirituality, besides other religions.

While the Gospel says that Jesus came to earth to show the way back to God and all the usual stuff there are some more issues which will not go well with the Church. According to the The Aquarian Gospel of Jesus the Christ, Jesus was conceived by a human father and not a divine one. Also, according to this gospel, the soul is not eternal but undergoes reincarnation, the Hindu way. Eventually all souls will become perfect and end the cycle of reincarnation. Both these contradict the fundamental teachings of the Church. You also have to see from where Levi H. Dowling got this material to know why the whole thing is called bizarre.

If this is a bizarre movie, the only way to take attention away from this would be release something more bizarre. How about if Jesus had a twin brother and he grows up to be a dacoit or software engineer.? That is what the German film maker Robert Sigl is planning to do, but the twin would not be a dacoit or software engineer for that would make the story completely unbelievable. The filming is expected to start as soon as they can translate, Mere pass maa hai into Aramaic.

"The film is about two archaeologists touring India to research about Jesus' life in India. The story is about Jesus's evil twin brother who used to practice some different sect," fieber.film's producer Mario Stefan narrated the story at film 'bazaar' of IFFI organised by National Films Division Corporation (NFDC). The firm, which has produced film like "The Army of Ghosts", is ready to face the controversy that would erupt on their project. "My aim is not to create controversy but if you deal with religious theme then be prepared to face the controversy," Stefan said. "The film is a piece of fiction and not based on true events," he sought to re-clarify. The film will mostly have an Indian cast except two who would be playing the role of archaeologists visiting India. [German filmmaker plans fictional film on Christ's twin brother ]

One of the disadvantages of running a large government is that ministers often have to spend time playing Whac-A-Mole. Life is especially hard for people like the Hon. Minister T.R.Baalu when he has too many moles to Whack. He had just finished whacking the Archaeological Survey of India on the head and now another mole has popped up. This time it is the Hyderabad-based National Remote  Sensing Agency (NRSA) that comes under the Department of Space which has said that Ram Setu may be a man made structure.

The revelations in the book, with a foreword by Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) chairman G. Madhavan Nair, are in contrast to what the government has been maintaining so far that the setu is formed by giant tombolos - bars of sand connecting an island with another island of the mainland. It also contradicts the findings of the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI), which says there is no "historic or scientific" evidence of the existence of Lord Ram or Ram Setu.[Ram Setu 'man-made', says government publication]

The book says the bridge is about 1,750,000 years and may be made-made. Considering the fact that modern humans originated in the African savanna around 200,000 years back only, it would be interesting to hear the NRSA theory of human evolution.

(Martin Waldseemüller's map)

$10 million might be too much to pay for a map, but not if the map is nicknamed, “America’s baptismal document.” The map we are talking about is a four-and-a-half-foot-by-eight-foot map, the last surviving print of a map of the world made by the German cartographer, Martin Waldseemüller. The speciality of the map is that it is the first one to use the words, "America", to mark the region known by that name today.

The name America itself comes from Amerigo Vespucci, a contemporary of Christopher Columbus, who was believed to have discovered the fourth continent in 1504. The word, believed is used here because the basis of Vespucci's discovery was a document known as the Soderini Letter which was later found to be a forgery. Waldseemüller removed the name America from later maps and replaced it with “Terra Incognita”, but by then the name America had spread across other maps.

(Tabula Peutingeriana showing the mouth of Ganges)

Another rare map, about 200 years older than Waldseemüller's map was made public recently. This map called the Tabula Peutingeriana is the only map from the Roman empire showing the road from Spain to India. This copy made in the thirteenth century was based on a version last revised in the fifth century CE.

The entire map is available on this page and it looks odd because the length of the map is 6.75 m and the width is only 0.34 m. This segment in the map shows India and you can see Sri Lanka at the bottom mentioned as Insula Taprobane. The red lines in the map represent roads  all of them really lead to Rome which is at the center of the map.

Every so often there is a little hook along the red lines which represents a rest stop - and the distance between hooks was one day's travel."  "Every so often there is a pictogram of a building to show you that there was a hotel or a spa where you could stay," he said.

"It was meant for the civil servants of the late Roman Empire, for couriers and travellers," he added.  Some of the buildings have large courtyards - a sign of more luxurious accommodation. [Ancient Roman road map unveiled]

Speaking of maps, another article in the NY Times says that the oldest map in the world comes from Jaora^[1] near Bhopal, India.

This may look like the drawing of a 48 month old when asked to depict some images from Finding Nemo (look for the fish at the top), but according to rock art experts, the image above drawn 7000 - 8000 years back represents the heaven and earth.

This  painting shows a 'square' (actually a rectangle), divided into  several stripes decorated with a variety of design patterns. An  empty circle is in the centre. On the upper periphery of the  square, 'fish' are shown between 'reeds' or 'lotus stems'. Along two  other sides are 'water birds', besides the rectangle are five 'flying birds'. The geometric design within the rectangle does not seem to  represent fields of agriculturists because this kind of design is  also applied to animal bodies and is used independently. Neumayer  assigns the rock art of this style to the Mesolithic period as only  activities of hunters and gatherers are shown in contrast to  pictures of other rock art styles [Berger ]

We have to see who will pay a million dollars for this rock art.

[1] Jaora Rock Art image from From Circle And Square To The Image Of The World by Friedrich Berger (Thanks Francesco)

For a moment you would think that all those people were interviewing for the position of the Pope, but in fact they were interviewing for the position as the secular head of United States of America. All the candidates, mostly Republican, are desperate for the evangelical vote that the debates are now focusing on the candidates beliefs rather than his vision for the future.

When Rudy Giuliani was seen as the front runner, Mitt Romney started a campaign to show that he (Mitt) was a family values guy with just one marriage thus implying that Giuliani was an adulterer. As Romney started gaining some traction the fact that he was a Mormon came into a play and he was forced to give a speech in which he had to spell out loud that he believed that Jesus Christ was the son of God. Mike Huckabee put some zing into his campaign by running ads (later dropped ) which said that he was a Christian leader.  All the candidates are running over each other to make a simple point - they are all believers in no one else but Jesus.

Mitt Romney in his religious speech mentioned that America has a tradition of religious tolerance and said that a person should not be elected due to this faith or rejected because of his faith. He acknowledged all the Abrahamic religions, supported the separation of Church and State, and  in the same breath mentioned that secularism has no place in America. Then he came up with the most outrageous statement of the speech, "Freedom requires religion just as religion requires freedom."

If you think Mitt Romney is nuts, all you need is read this statement by Huckabee on why left pastoring and entered politics, "I hope we answer the alarm clock and take this nation back for Christ."  In 1998 Huckabee signed a statement which stated that, "A wife is to submit herself graciously to the servant leadership of her husband even as the church willingly submits to the headship of Christ". The Taliban wanted to take Afghanistan back to the times of Mohammed and the answer to that would be to take America to the time of Christ.? Even the scholastics would have found Huckabee crazy.

41% of Americans attend Church regularly while those numbers are  15% in France and 10% in United Kingdom. About 80% of Americans believe in God, while that percentage is near 30% in France and 38% in England, and both France and England have strong democracies. Religious tolerance is not tolerating various denominations of the Christian Church and everyone who accepts Jesus as the savior, but also in people who don't believe in Jesus and who don't believe in the concept of God. Then you won't get the Southern Baptist vote if you say that. Also with the last two elections, we seem to be electing the president of a theological school than the President of United States and these candidates want to carry on with that ritual.

United States was not created as a Christian nation and when it was launched did not have an official cult or official religion.  In fact that was the only new thing in the American Constitution since federalism, independent judiciary, bicameral legislature, and tripartite administration existed either in theory or practice. The founders of such a nation would be shocked to see the exploitation of religion by their descendants.

Names, routes and locations of the Periplus of the Erythraean Sea.

Classic Italian wine amphora, which came from Naples and belonged to the late first century B.C have been been found in a number of Roman sites in India, including Arikamedu and Alagankulam in Tamil Nadu. Bright red Samian ware from Arezzo near Tuscany have also reached Arikamedu near Pondicherry. A new study says that some of the artifacts thought to be Roman were actually from Mesopotamia.

More than 10,000 Roman coins are known from southern India alone, and although there are growing numbers of amphorae reported, identification is more problematic, Tomber says. Her survey has confirmed the presence of such wine jars from 31 sites, but at about half these sites it was also discovered that amphora sherds thought to be Roman were actually Mesopotamian in origin.

In ten cases there were only Mesopotamian sherds present. These were in the form of “torpedo jars”, tall cylindrical peg-footed amphorae, common in Mesopotamia and the Gulf but not hitherto noted in India. Fragments of the rims and bodies could be mistaken for Roman wares made in Syria and Anatolia, as indeed they have been, and their dates span the Roman period from around the time of Christ onwards, although they also continue into early Islamic times in the seventh century.

The port of Qana, on the coast of Yemen and an important point in the frankincense trade, may have been an entrepôt for both Roman and Mesopotamian goods arriving from the Red Sea and the Persian Gulf respectively. It has not yielded the full range of Late Roman amphorae found in India, however, and other places may have played an equal role. The overall distribution of Roman amphorae and torpedo jars suggests three seaborne routes to India, Dr Tomber proposes. One ran direct from the Gulf, one direct from ports such as Berenike on the Red Sea coast of Egypt, and one via Qana.[Mesopotamia was a vital link on Roman-Indian trade routes]

Such secular mud never must have been flung on anyone in the history of India. Tons of editorials were written and sting operations were conducted. We were warned that if Modi was re-elected, it would be bad for India.  We were told that there is an anti-incumbency factor in all Indian elections and Modi would definitely be out. We were told that the people who died in the Mumbai train bomb blasts were Gujaratis and so it is fine. Everything and anything was blamed on Modi.

Thankfully it is not Psephologists, Op-Ed writers, various bloggers and news anchors who decide the election results of Gujarat. Now the Gujaratis have given such a secular heartburn with the elections that no amount of Zantac 75, and Pepcid AC can cure. The fun is in reading the post-results headlines and analysis and watching the reactions of Rajdeep Sardesai, Barkha Dutt and the likes. The comment from Pakistan was, "Democracy is not just about voting, it is also about protection of minorities, about human rights". When Pakistanis talk about "democracy", "minorities" and "human rights", then you know it is hard to top that.

Bloggers are weeping and are trying to come to terms with the Jeet ka Saudagar and Prof. Haimanti Roy will now have to replace Anand Patwardhan's movie with an analysis of Gujarat elections in her MIT course The Making of Modern South Asia. The elections reveal something which the pundits have not been able to predict: No one cares what the pundits think.

The Lupercal

That was probably the date when Christmas was celebrated on Dec 25th for the first time and now we have a theory on the location where Christmas was first celebrated on the "official day." The place is Basilica of St. Anastasia and the basis for the theory is the discovery of a pagan shrine, the Lupercal, dedicated to the founders of Rome - Romulus and his brother Remus. The Basilica of St. Anastasia was built around 326 CE near the Lupercal shrine  and the location was chosen to link pagan practices to Christian celebrations.

According to Roman mythology, the brothers were abandoned by their parents and was bought up by a wolf. They were discovered by shepherd, Faustulus who raised them as his own children. In January of this year, archaeologists found the Lupercal believed to be the one where the brothers were bought up by the wolf, and in November, the first photos were released. This cave is located between one of the seven hills of Rome and the Basilica of Santa Anastasia.

In the early days of Christianity, the practice was to appropriate pagan practices and celebrations.  The Roman emperor Constantine presided over the First Council of Nicaea and it was there that Dec 25 was picked as the birth date of Yeshua. During those times, two important pagan festivals were celebrated - the first one starting on Dec. 17 honored Saturn, a major Roman deity of agriculture and harvest and the second one starting on Dec 25, celebrated the birth of Mithras, the Persian god of light. Constantine combined both and we now have Christmas.

See Also: Merry Christmas!

The Archaeology Magazine has published their Top 10 discoveries of 2007. Among the top 10 are the Solar Observatory at Chankillo, Peru, Nebo-Sarsekim Cuneiform Tablet, Greater Angkor, Cambodia, and Urbanization at Tell Brak, Syria. While nothing from India made it to the top 10, there is one story among the nine which did not make it to the final cut - Toba Survivors in Andhra Pradesh

The Pyramids of Caral

Caral, in Barranca province, Peru, is one of the oldest cities of the Americas. The site was inhabited between 2627 BCE and 2020 BCE and had  an elaborate complex of temples, an amphitheatre and ordinary houses.The official web site of the project lists all those societies which created civilization: Mesopotamia, Egypt, India, Peru, China and Mesoamerica. The web site calls Caral,the oldest civilization of America.

Writing in the Times of India, Shobhan Saxena decided to be more Peruvian than the Peruvians themselves, According to him, Caral is the mother of all civilisations. He also writes, "the earliest known civilisation in South Americas—at 2,627 BC–was much older than the Harappa Valley towns and the pyramids of Egypt." Shobhan needs to know something: Google is your friend. The Indus valley civilization had its roots in Mehrgarh and reached the Mature phase by 2600 BCE. Ancient Egyptian civilization began around 3150 BC and they were building pyramids by the time of Caral.

One more thing. Even Tom Friedman does not use metaphors like "mother of all something" these days.

Numitor and his brother Amulius were descendants of fugitives from Troy and upon their father's death, they received the throne of an ancient city near Rome. Numitor became the king and Amulius in charge of the royal treasury. Soon Amulius dethroned Numitor and fearful that Numitor's daughter would produce children, she was sworn to abstinence. Well, we all know how well abstinence works, and before the daughter realized that she was pregnant and gave birth to twins. Amulius ordered that the daughter and both her children be killed.

The servant who had to kill the twins did not do it and instead put them in a basket on the banks of the Tiber river. The basket was carried downstream and the twins were  found by a shepherd Amulius who raised them as his own children. One of them grew up to be a dacoit and the other a software engineer. No, they grew up to be Romulus and Remus, known as the founders of Rome.

If this story has an uncanny similarity to the story of Karna don't be surprised. The seventh century BCE  biography of Sargon says

My city is Azupiranu, which is situated on the banks of the Euphrates. My high priestess mother conceived me, in secret she bore me. She set me in a basket of rushes, with bitumen she sealed my lid. She cast me into the river which rose over me. The river bore me up and carried me to Akki, the drawer of water. Akki, the drawer of water, took me as his son and reared me. Akki, the drawer of water, appointed me as his gardener. While I was a gardener, Ishtar granted me her love, and for four and […] years I exercised kingship

Besides Moses, and Karna, others who have undergone this ordeal include Perseus who was cast into the open sea, but was saved by the fisherman Dictys, and King Nyatri Tsanpo, regarded as Tibet's first recorded monarch, who was sent floating in a casket down the Ganges. Like the story of the great deluge, this is also one of the recurring themes across cultures. Also, without this pattern the Hindi movie industry would have folded in the early 70s.

4000 years back Babylonians started the New Year by paying off debts and bringing back borrowed goods. In Rome, the New Year was considered a time to expunge old ills and set a pattern for the next twelve months. Every Jan 1st, we make a bunch of resolutions which we promise to keep for the year only to find that by Jan 31st, we can't even remember most of them. If you are such a person, you are in the majority for statistics show that only about 15% of New Years resolutions are kept.

There are three simple ways by which you can keep your resolutions

• One by One: Instead of starting a whole bunch of tasks on Jan 1, space it out and start a new one each month. 

  Each month of this year develop one new habit. Make it simple and doable. At the end of each month decide on a new “habit” for the next month and continue doing the existing habit. At the end of the year 12 habits will be developed.

• Be specific: Instead of saying I will write every day, set a measurable target like, "I will write 300 words every day". Instead of saying I will read more books, be precise by saying, I will read at least 5 pages daily. Once these resolutions are quantified they can be tracked.

  My first habit was to drink at least 2 quarts of water per day This is a pretty simple habit but it did take some planning to accomplish. I had to make sure I had a way to measure the water I was drinking and that I had a good source of water that I could take with me in the car and to work. I decided that 1 liter bottles of drinking water would do the trick. I bought a case of them from Costco and took some to work with me. It’s real easy to see if the goal has been accomplished as I will have 2 empty bottles at the end of the day.

• Track the resolutions:Once Brad Isaac asked Jerry Seinfeld how to write better jokes and Seinfeld replied that for that you have to write every day.

  He told me to get a big wall calendar that has a whole year on one page and hang it on a prominent wall. The next step was to get a big red magic marker.

  He said for each day that I do my task of writing, I get to put a big red X over that day. "After a few days you'll have a chain. Just keep at it and the chain will grow longer every day. You'll like seeing that chain, especially when you get a few weeks under your belt. Your only job next is to not break the chain."

Have a happy and productive new year!