At first I laughed and then I was impressed.

I saw a lot of people ridiculing this poster encouraging people to take selfies whilst getting the vaccine.

In fact, I too thought it was quite silly and funny at first.
It was only later on, that it struck me that this was a masterpiece of behavioral psychology in action.
In fact, I think it is quite a bold and forward-thinking step by the ministry of health or whoever thought of it, to come up with such a novel idea.
I am quite sure by encouraging selfies whilst being vaccinated will contribute immensely to reduce vaccine hesitancy and scare amongst a lot of people. Kudos to whoever that came up with this brilliant piece of communication and had the balls to execute it knowing that most people might misunderstand the intention.

Easier Done than Said

The purpose of an army is to fight the enemy and protect their country. They are trained to fight and be tough in any circumstances.

However, the Sri Lankan Army had to do an about-face when it came to the battle against covid 19. They were at the forefront of our vaccination drive. 

And I was lucky enough to get my vaccine from a vaccination center managed and operated by the Sri Lankan army.

I was expecting to be treated with a certain degree of gruffness. To have commands shouted at me. Like they do to young trainees in the movies. But all I saw was absolute kindness, gentleness, and caring by everyone. 

From the soldier standing guard outside, carrying a menacing machine gun, to the persons who were directing and registering the people coming in, and the medical staff on duty. Never have I seen such clockwork-like precision, efficiency, and dedication.

It took me less than thirty minutes to go in and come out. It would have been even shorter if not for me taking the time to fill out the consent form. I was impressed that they even had a box full of pens that we could use if we had forgotten to bring our own pen, which I had.

I have not been a big fan of most of the things which this government has been doing even though I voted for them. Best out of the bad lot as I say. But I must say in this instance they are doing something right. And we need to applaud the good with equal intensity as we criticize the bad.

Post Hoc Ergo Procter Hoc

If you have studied logic then this phrase would be familiar to you.

If not, it means, after this, therefore, because of this in Latin.

It is also a term used to describe when people connect two unrelated articles to arrive at a conclusion.
For instance, a black cat crossed the road in the morning and therefore I had an accident later on.
I scored less in the exam because I forgot to wear my lucky shirt.
I am sure you can think of many such incidents in your life.
I witnessed one such incident on a global scale recently.

When it came to the news of Ronaldo bringing down the share price of Coca-Cola.
I really do not need to elaborate more as you are bound to have heard about this unless you are living under a rock.
Social Media was ablaze with people quoting, tweeting, and doing TikTok's about this.
In fact, some friends called me just to share the news.
From board rooms to Newsrooms people were discussing intently the might of the influencer. 

The power of social media. And of course David Vs Goliath and similar tales of such ilk.
Even I joined the bandwagon.
Then something odd caught my eye. Even though the graphs that were being shown and the figure of 4 BILLION DOLLARS made it look like a large amount of money; if you take a closer look, the price reduction was just 90 cents or 1.6%.
Which is not much, when it comes to a day's trading.
And then I came across this article in the Forbes Magazine which explained things in detail. Let me quote from the article.
"It is true that Ronaldo, in front of the press, declined to drink the strategically-placed Coca-Colas on offer. It is also true that, by the time the press conference was over, Coca-Cola’s value was down $4 billion. However, there were other factors affecting the beverage giant’s stock price."
Coca-Cola has 4.3 billion shares, and closed on Friday, June 11, with a share price of $56.16 for a market value of $242 billion.
On Monday, June 14, Coca-Cola opened lower, at 9:30 a.m. EST.
At 9:40 a.m. EST, its stock price was $55.26 (down 1.6%) and the market value had dipped to $238 billion, $4 billion lower than the prior day.
Cristiano Ronaldo moves the Coca-Cola bottles at 9.43 a.m. EST, and says “Água”.
In other words, Ronaldo's action did not have any effect on the stock price.
In fact, it was a natural price movement as Coca-Cola had just finished paying dividends to its shareholders thus making the share less attractive.
But some of us are prone to believe what we would like to believe.
So much so there is a phrase for it. Confirmation Bias.
But in the end, all it was is a classic case of "Post Hoc Ergo Procter Hoc".

Can you actually prevent people from drinking by banning liquor sales?

So everyone was agog with excitement when it was announced that the Ministry of Finance has given the go-ahead for online liquor sales.

However, within the next couple of hours, their hopes were dashed when our not-so-loved Army commander stated that the Covid Prevention task force has not given permission to do so.

There were several other groups who were vociferously against this as well. For various reasons of their own.

But the important question to ask is are they actually preventing people from drinking?

The answer is a resounding No.

Those who drink will still drink. By hook or by crook. If it's not booze bought at black market prices then it will be moonshine.

I was watching an interview online with the Commissioner-General of Excise. He stated that the banning of liquor sales was a double-edged sword.

On one side the government is losing much-needed revenue. On the other side, there will be an additional strain on our already stretched medical services due to Alcohol poisoning as more and more people turn to Moonshine.

Anyway, I have always been puzzled by our society's and thereby our government's attitude towards alcohol.

Why are we trying to control it so much? What is our problem with it?

Of course, I don't mean that alcohol should be given freely to youngsters. I believe that a more moderate stance should be taken where we promote responsible drinking instead of these fanatical arbitrary measures. Even in India who I thought was far more fanatical than we are, one can order and have liquor delivered to your home.

If an adult wants to purchase a bottle of alcohol why should so many obstacles be placed on his way.

I said he and not she intentionally.

Because even in these modern times it is illegal for a female to purchase alcohol. Yes, the law was removed but then it was reintroduced 4 days later.

Fortunately, the law is not enforced. Other than bringing us international shame it looms over us like a sword of Damocles to be used by some unscrupulous law enforcement authority to violate human rights.

Some are against the sale of liquor saying it deteriorates our social fabric. That alcohol leads to violence and abuse.

I do not deny that. Of course, there are more than a few instances where we have seen inebriated people resort to violence.

But does that mean ALL those who drink behave in such an irresponsible manner? No!

Then why punish the whole for the mistakes of a few?

My personal point of view is Alcohol does not CAUSE social issues. But people are lead to drink BECAUSE of the social issues they face.

Others say it is because of our Buddhist Heritage.

Again, if we followed the principles of Lord Buddha, then we should stop drinking on our own accord. Instead of being forced to do so.

In non-lockdown times during Poson liquor sales would be banned for 5 days.

Does it stop anyone from drinking? No, people just stock up, as you can see from the lines outside the liquor stores during pre-poya days.

And the worst is those who enact these laws do not practice what they preach. As we saw recently when the Sathosa outlet in Anuradhapura was forced open, apparently by the army and 8000 bottles of liquor were "Bought".

In the end, all this is nothing but pious posturing. To impress who? I am yet to figure it out.

Why aren't the so-called representatives of the people making some noise about the downside of the liquor ban?

Well, one main reason is that when liquor is sold through the official channels, it is the government coffers that get filled. However, when it is sold illegally it is the pockets of the black marketers and Kassippu Mudalali's that are getting filled. They are the same people who will fund the political campaigns of our representatives when it comes to election time.

Frustrating much? It sure is for me. I need a drink to make it all go away. 

Want to stop people shitting all over you?

Then the first thing is to stop them climbing over your head.
This was the train of thought in a conversation I had recently on how to deal with bullies.
Bullies come in many forms. Not necessarily the type who push you around or say bad things at you when you were young. They could be in the form of friends colleagues or even relations. One thing about bullies is that they will keep exerting pressure till you snap. The more you yield the more pressure they will exert.
Sadly many of us don't realize this. We allow the bully to exert more and more pressure on us hoping they will stop at a certain point. But they never do and they never will. Then when finally the damn bursts the collateral damage is quite bad. Relationships are shattered as egos are hurt and sometimes the pieces will never be able to be put back together once more.
However their is an alternative to avoiding extensive collateral damage. That is to resist right at the beginning when you realize someone is bullying you. By nipping things in the bud you can turn your bullies into faithful allies. It has happened to me.
The more I think about it the analogy of not allowing people to climb on top of your head makes sense in this kind of situation.
Because when they are on top of your head and you push them off then the fall to the ground and the consequences are far more damaging. It is far more easier and far less damaging to brush them off when they are clamoring around your ankles.

Have you heard of the Insulin Index?

If you are like me it is highly likely that you have not.
And like me if you have been trying to maintain a healthy lifestyle and reduce weight I am quite sure you might be quite familiar with the Glycemic Index or "GI" as we all know it.
I used to follow the GI quite religiously and eat a lot of proteins and egg whites thinking I was being healthy.
Then I came across this video by Dr. Eric Berg on Youtube which quite literally turned my world upside down.
What I realized was that certain low GI foods can be as bad as high GI foods. Because they too can trigger insulin.
For instance weigh protein, Beef and Egg whites all trigger insulin in your system. Which means it is really not helping you to loose weight. The only way to reduce its Insulin creating capability is to mix it with good fat such as butter or coconut oil or the yolk when it comes to eggs.
Now I know some of you who have been throwing away the nice, juicy pieces of fat in your meats must be banging your heads in absolute frustration. Do not despair.
Because if you are like me and love all things "bacon" then you will be delighted to know that that is one of the few foods which is really low on the Insulin Index. Yeah!

Do you know what a wake lock is?

I did not think so. Neither did I to be honest.

Until quite recently when my trusty Samsung note 4 started acting up. It suddenly started lagging or going into standby mode and not waking up. It also used to restart automatically at the most crucial moments. Leaving me helpless in the middle of a client call or whilst wanting to order a cab in a hurry.
I wiped the cache. Did a factory reset. Not once but maybe a dozen of times to no avail. After much suffering I realized that it was not necessarily something wrong with my phone; it could be something wrong with the software. And I was right. After going through some of the android forums I found that there were many Note 4 users who were experiencing the same thing as I was thanks to the the marshmallow 6 update.
Fortunately one particular post I was reading talked about a wake lock. Which turned out to be a simple piece of software which prevents the phone from going into standby mode. I must confess that the description of the google play page and the screen captures of GUI really did not give me any confidence. Mainly because it is described as a power manager (which reads as battery saver in my non tech eyes) However I took a leap of faith and installed the software. And it did the trick.
What relief! I must admit that my phone was not 100% back to normal. Maybe it was back to 80% of what it was. But that was good enough for me. It gave me the freedom to bide my time in getting a new phone instead of having to rush into it in emergency mode.
I am so grateful for that single article about the wake lock. I am sure there must be thousands of others who are experiencing the same problem I did and I sincerely hope that you come across this article and it helps you to come up with a decent solution.