#275 farewell to the woman I most admired

On Monday, October 4th, I paid my last respect to the woman I admired most (blog #39 written on March 2008) at Sri Temasek.    Glad it was an overcast afternoon when I had to queue for almost an hour at the entrance of the Istana before boarding a van which brought us to Sri Temasek where we had [...]

#160 the gulag

An avid reader, I have always loved reading the writings of  Russian authors (Turgenev, Tolstoy, to name a few)…although these were translated versions but the way the writers candidly sculptured life using words, especially those by Anton Chekhov. However with the late Mr Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn’s writings, it was my interest in understanding the communist regime that led me to his [...]

#150 fertilizers

I hear that farmers in some parts of England are using human wastes as fertilizers for their crops. Today, are farmers in developed countries resort to using human faeces or wastes to fertilize? By using such, they are producing organic foods. In many Asian less developed countries, farmers used human faeces in producing vegetables for consumption. Vegetables taste sweeter and [...]

#141 leadership

Microsoft’s founder Bill Gates, at age 52, is moving away from the outfit he’d started to social enterprises (?) as he and his wife want the challenge to reducing poverty in practical ways in some parts of the world. The difference between NGOs and one using one’s personal finances is ownership. I’m sure Bill & Miranda Gates will guard their [...]

#135 love

Love is a feeling to be learnt…through self-discovery — not through seminars though! There is pain in love. Sometimes, one feels gagged. Of course there is joy and elation…sunshine all day… The best description found on love is from the Bible in 1 Corinthians 13. Love is patient, love is kind. Love does not envy, love does [...]

#117 when earth shook

He cried when the earth shook schools, hospitals and homes turn to rubble burying the living roads inaccessible. In helplessness, man dropped his differences and ego to help the devastated. Courage found in victims to start afresh… He cried when his wife left him the innocent 15-month-old son a stamp of their short-gun marriage causing a [...]

#116 rain

The sounds of rain…soothing… ‘Tis music shutting out noise made by thoughtless young in deep of night consoling the awoken light sleeper. No home to return? Has loneliness drown you to love hearing your voices? Has loudness become your companion in still of night?

#103 forces of nature

 Volcano eruption in Chile, South America.       Volcanic ash spilled over to neighboring Argentina (below)           Cyclone Nargis swept through Irrawaddy Delta, Myanmar on Saturday, 3rd 4th May leaving hundreds several thousands or tens of thousands? dead and tens or hundreds of thousands homeless…trees uprooted, roofs of building blown away, lamp [...]

#101 suffering silently

Yesterday, parents left inheritance for their children. Today, are children left with debts of their parents? And their own? I know of marriages where one spouse has to service loans for the other. Will love help overcome the problem? Or will this increase the rate of divorce? In the midst of high inflation and food/fuel crises; credit crunch [...]

#100

May 1st is a public holiday…known as May Day or Labor Day. But Labor Day is observed on different day and month of year in some countries like in Canada, this day falls on October 4th. This May day was inspired by the first organised workers – stonemasons and building workers on building sites around Melbourne, Australia. On 21 April 1856, [...]