Big change is coming and it time to remember our fallen soldiers all around the world.

What a contradiction. Aren’t artists supposed to paint what they see, and not the other way around? That question is put to the test in William Morrow’s “Parallel Visions in Space, Time, and Light“. In fact, the author argues that artists’ visions and expressions often proceed the actual advances in science. The primordial soup of metaphors and unanswered questions expresses a zen riddle to the scientist, almost daring them to discover the hidden truth. These same messages serve as both inspiration and as challenge. Just how many Trekkies marveled as captain Kirk flipped open his communicator device and uttered the prophetic words ‘Beam me up, Scotty”. Today we walk around with blinking Bluetooth ear buds and rationalize that the phone is a fashion accessory. Blackberry users actually call it an addiction. Can we argue that the modern art movement with its stark canvases, random color washes, and quizzical twisting sculptures proceeded and gave way to discoveries in astrophysics, quantum theory, and the existence of black holes? Does life imitate art?

Foreign exchange traders will focus on BoE interest rate decision, and associated currency gyrations.

Silicon Valley is arguably the epicenter of the computer industry. Several generations of computer wizards has brought us ‘one step closer to the holodeck‘ experience as video games became the new immersive reality. Choose your battle, choose your enemy, today’s games may have bread a generation of Enders. As the Internet was created by Tim Berners-Lee in Switzerland, a mass of interconnected kids chatted, blogged, IM’d, and twittered one another. As the notion of ‘beam me up, Scotty‘ fades from memory, we realize it took a mere decade of media barrage to put a cell phone in everybody’s hand. Heck, in China they were able to bypass a whole bunch of copper land line infrastructure and go directly to cell phones to ‘phone home’. Yes, we are all interconnected.

My father excitedly gave me the novel “The World Is Flat” by Thomas Friedman a few years back. The last chapter was very compelling in that it described ‘the steroids’ – personal digital devices like cell phones, iPods, Blackberries and instant messaging. Just as the financial system is coming off of their leveraging highs, so too must everyday consumers change their habits . In other words, come back to reality. Despite the brilliant historical summary, what really compelled me was the cover. This is the exact scenario that everyone except for Columbus and his brave crew envisioned as they bravely sailed to discover the new world. Is this the repercussion of our fast-paced lifestyles and over-leveraged financial institutions, or just another hologram?

Supply and Demand. That’s all you have to know about economics. We are all convinced about global warming and encouraged to ‘invest’ in solar, wind, nuclear, and ‘clean coal’ energy. This is all the supply side and represents big business. This is where we are supposed to get our power from, or so the media says.

On the flip side of the coin is the demand side – oil to drive our cars, electricity to power our computers, natural gas to heat our homes, and power to fire up that fancy cook top installed over the sparkling granite counter in a record 15 seconds. Most of all, we use electricity to ‘brighten’ our lives in the form of light bulbs. When visiting Las Vegas, we even stop to marvel at the Luxor as it thrusts a saber of piercing light into the heavens. So bright is this spotlight that it can be seen from outer space. Would the Egyptians have approved of this display of excess? I think not. Yet in the end, why doesn’ t the light go on over our heads?

Stopping in the local supermarket, the magazine rack was full of covers suggesting what stuff is hot, how to look better, what you are missing now, and essays on what you really need. I picked up a copy of National Geographic – yeah, the one with the yellow box around it. The one you used to marvel at when you were a kid and dreamed of distant lands, wonders of the earth, and dazzling photos taking our mind to faraway places. This month’s cover was sobering, yet at the same time enlightening.

The message was simple. Stop wasting by illuminating the sky and isolating us from the stars that guided Columbus as he sailed into the new world, that which put us into a heliocentric orbit that Copernicus used to set the stage for the Age of Reason, and to this day reminds us that we are still human in a vast sea of humanity. Just put a cap on the waste and shine the light down, not up. That’s the right way to tip the balance of supply and demand.