Folks, go to this site and watch the video. This is really fascinating. The article in the BBC says that in 2001, the Talibans destroyed two huge statues of Buddha that were built two thousand years ago in this amazing structure of caves and secret tunnels. Although I was of course around in 2001, I don't recall hearing anything about it back then. Why didn't the world put a stop to the madness of these Talibans? America did nothing because there was nothing in it for them?

What a shame! What kind of world will the "adults" hand over to the "children"?

Saepe ne utile quidem est scire quid futurum sit

Recently, a friend of mine was told the bad news that he had an incurable form of cancer. He was told the worst. Or rather, his parents were told and they in turn thought it best to tell him and he told me.

I don't blame his parents. It must have been a difficult decision to take. Deep within me, I agree with Cicero but would add that often it's just that we don't know. Since ignorance doesn't change the fact at all, neither should knowledge change our mood or affect us in any way.

Vita perseverat. To know or not to know? With knowledge, one can prepare better. After all, didn't Seneca say, Timendi causa est nescire? Some will say it contradicts what Cicero says but I think they complement each other. Cicero's quotation is good if you don't want to know. But if you already knew, Seneca's wisdom applies.

As I've said before, I don't really care for politics. But I just got a spam email that might be interesting. It refers me to Time magazine that tells us that Mayor Palin is a book burner - she once tried to ban a list of books and tried to get the librarian fired when she refused. Read Time magazine

I also discovered in this site what the list of books was. Librarian.net Read in particular the list of books Palin wanted to ban.

I'll reproduce the list and try to see what her objection might be (my comments appear immediately after; where I have no comments, it means I haven't read those books):

A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess The reason must be obvious.
A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle
Annie on My Mind by Nancy Garden
As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner
Blubber by Judy Blume
Brave New World by Aldous Huxley I can't think what's so objectionable.
Bridge to Terabithia by Katherine Paterson
Canterbury Tales by Chaucer I think it must be this line in the Merchant's Tale: "Gan pullen the smog and in he throng".
Carrie by Stephen King
Catch-22 by Joseph Heller
Christine by Stephen King
Confessions by Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Cujo by Stephen King
Curses, Hexes, and Spells by Daniel Cohen
Daddy’s Roommate by Michael Willhoite
Day No Pigs Would Die by Robert Peck
Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller
Decameron by Boccaccio
East of Eden by John Steinbeck
Fallen Angels by Walter Myers
Fanny Hill (Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure) by John Cleland The reason is obvious but this is such an old book. There are more modern ones that will make this book seem so tame.
Flowers For Algernon by Daniel Keyes
Forever by Judy Blume
Grendel by John Champlin Gardner
Halloween ABC by Eve Merriam
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone by J.K. Rowling What's wrong with a book for kids?
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets by J.K. Rowling
Harry Potter and the Prizoner of Azkaban by J.K. Rowling
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire by J.K. Rowling
Have to Go by Robert Munsch
Heather Has Two Mommies by Leslea Newman
How to Eat Fried Worms by Thomas Rockwell
Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou
Impressions edited by Jack Booth
In the Night Kitchen by Maurice Sendak
It’s Okay if You Don’t Love Me by Norma Klein
James and the Giant Peach by Roald Dahl
Lady Chatterley’s Lover by D.H. Lawrence Mild by today's standard.
Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman
Little Red Riding Hood by Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm
Lord of the Flies by William Golding Oh come on!
Love is One of the Choices by Norma Klein
Lysistrata by Aristophanes
More Scary Stories in the Dark by Alvin Schwartz
My Brother Sam Is Dead by James Lincoln Collier and Christopher Collier
My House by Nikki Giovanni
My Friend Flicka by Mary O’Hara
Night Chills by Dean Koontz
Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck I really don't know what's wrong with this except perhaps Palin objects to the murder scene at the end when the little guy blew off the brain of the big guy.
On My Honor by Marion Dane Bauer
One Day in The Life of Ivan Denisovich by Alexander Solzhenitsyn
One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest by Ken Kesey
One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez I've just bought the book. Haven't read it yet.
Ordinary People by Judith Guest
Our Bodies, Ourselves by Boston Women’s Health Collective
Prince of Tides by Pat Conroy
Revolting Rhymes by Roald Dahl I've read other books by this guy. Isn't he the guy famous for writing Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and other such innocuous kids' stories?
Scary Stories 3: More Tales to Chill Your Bones by Alvin Schwartz
Scary Stories in the Dark by Alvin Schwartz
Separate Peace by John Knowles
Silas Marner by George Eliot This is a marvellous work by Eliot. I can't see any objection to it. Perhaps Palin is afraid of a portrayal of epileptic seizures?
Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.
Tarzan of the Apes by Edgar Rice Burroughs
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain
The Bastard by John Jakes
The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger I think this is a boring book. Didn't like it but I don't think there's anything wrong with it.
The Chocolate War by Robert Cormier
The Color Purple by Alice Walker
The Devil’s Alternative by Frederick Forsyth
The Figure in the Shadows by John Bellairs
The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
The Great Gilly Hopkins by Katherine Paterson
The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood
The Headless Cupid by Zilpha Snyder
The Learning Tree by Gordon Parks
The Living Bible by William C. Bower
The Merchant of Venice by William Shakespeare I think Palin should read this and she'll understand why she sounds like Shylock.
The New Teenage Body Book by Kathy McCoy and Charles Wibbelsman
The Pigman by Paul Zindel
The Seduction of Peter S. by Lawrence Sanders
The Shining by Stephen King
The Witches by Roald Dahl
The Witches of Worm by Zilpha Snyder
Then Again, Maybe I Won’t by Judy Blume
To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee I saw the film two years ago.
Twelfth Night by William Shakespeare What can possibly be wrong with this except for the disguise that crosses gender? That might be deemed wrong by ultra-conservative right-wingers.
Webster’s Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary by the Merriam-Webster Editorial Staff Ban this, by all means. One should only use the Oxford Concise or the Shorter Oxford. Hehe.
Witches, Pumpkins, and Grinning Ghosts: The Story of the Halloween Symbols by Edna Barth

Semi-vegetarianism

Shun meat! See this article why eating meat is not green. Read

It's a long and tedious article but briefly, the process of producing meat increases the greenhouse effect. Meat production produces more greenhouse gases than transport.

The beamishboy will be a semi-vegetarian. The occasional steak and kidney pie and KFC zinger is all right though. Nobody can give up the good old English fare which means lots of chunky meat. French food is too dainty for real men. Hehe.

Here's a pic of the best meal on this planet. Pic was taken at my favourite restaurant, the George & Vulture. This restaurant was mentioned in Charles Dickens' Pickwick Papers.

LOST CIVILISATION

Mankind has always been fascinated by lost civilisations. Forget Atlantis and all the rubbish that our fertile imagination has churned out. Researchers have found a whole new set of cities in what was thought to be virgin jungle deep in the Amazon.

Read it here.

I reproduce the report here:

'Lost towns' discovered in Amazon

A remote area of the Amazon river basin was once home to densely populated towns, Science journal reports.

The Upper Xingu, in west Brazil, was once thought to be virgin forest, but in fact shows traces of extensive human activity.

Researchers found evidence of a grid-like pattern of settlements connected by road networks and arranged around large central plazas.

There are signs of farming, wetland management, and possibly fish farms.

The settlements are now almost completely overgrown by rainforest.

The ancient urban communities date back to before the first Europeans set foot in the Upper Xingu region of the Brazilian Amazon in the 15th Century.

Urban planning

Professor Mike Heckenberger, from the University of Florida, in Gainesville, said: "These are not cities, but this is urbanism, built around towns."

"They have quite remarkable planning and self-organisation, more so than many classical examples of what people would call urbanism," he said. Although the remains are almost invisible, they can be identified by members of the Kuikuro tribe, who are thought to be direct descendents of the people who built the towns.

The tell-tale traces included "dark earth" that indicated past human waste dumps or farming, and concentrations of pottery shards and earthworks.

The researchers also made use of satellite images and GPS navigation to uncover and map the settlements over the course of a decade.

The communities consisted of clusters of 60-hectare (150-acre) towns and smaller villages spread out over the rainforest.

Road network

Like medieval European and ancient Greek towns, those forming the Amazonian urban landscape were surrounded by large walls. These were composed of earthworks, the remains of which have survived.

Each community had an identical road, always pointing north-east to south-west, which are connected to a central plaza.

The roads were always oriented this way in keeping with the mid-year summer solstice.

Evidence was found of dams and artificial ponds - thought to have been used for fish farming - as well as open areas and large compost heaps.

The people who once lived in the settlements are thought to have been wiped out by European colonists and the diseases they brought with them.

Trouble in Bangkok

Bangkok is now under a state of emergency.

For details, click here

Here is a pic taken by the beamishboy in Bangkok. It's hilarious how a forum friend of mine told me that his nephew thought I didn't really exist because I couldn't have travelled that much. But the beamishboy has been to lots of places. I've watermarked this pic to claim copyright over it. I shouldn't be surprised if newspapers all over the world want to publish my photo because it does in a nutshell encapsulate all the beauty and oriental-ness of Thailand.

Answered Prayer?

I recently recovered from a bout of high fever and flu. A friend of mine told me to give thanks to God for an answered prayer. The truth is I didn't pray for healing during my illness. When my fever was very high, I vaguely recall reciting the Kyries only because it is repetitive and possibly I was bored but I didn't pray.

Do modern people still expect to die from a fever? If 99.99% of the time, we have total recovery from a bout of fever, do we still attribute the recovery to answered prayers, if prayers had been said in the first place? In the unlikely event that one dies from a fever, one wouldn't be in the position to talk about unanswered prayers. More likely, stories will abound about answered prayers only because most of the time, the outcome appears very much as if prayers had been answered.

I think this best illustrates our lives: We live in a world with minor earthquakes all the time. Those within a five-mile radius to the epicentre of the earthquake will be utterly destroyed. Those outside of the five-mile radius survive. Most of the time, we are too far from the epicentre. So we live to tell the tale of answered prayers. Sometimes, we are close to the epicentre and we don't live to tell tales of unanswered prayers. We just die. Sometimes we are far enough to the epicentre and we survive the earthquake but we sustain injuries. We're still able to tell tales of answered prayers. Dum spiro, spero.

There'll come a time when we'll be too close to the epicentre of an earthquake. That's when our tales of answered prayers will come to an end. Others will continue to tell their own amazing tales in their own lives until they too meet their end.