Did you see that the vast majority of the treasures thought lost from the Afghani national collection have turned up, carefully and secretively stored through nearly two decades of political and social turmoil... the foresight and wisdom of the brave and dedicated individuals on the museum staff should be recognised. A Nobel prize or something surely. Through fear of death, torture, pillory and imprisonment, these heroic people risked everything to keep the cultural history and treasure of the country safe.
One of the objects feared lost but now found safe and well is a 3rd century glass vase showing the Lighthouse at Alexandria. How magnificent that something so delicate and eclectic should have made its jouney through the years - it just gets to me, the amount of caring and almost reverent hands that this glass artwork must have travelled through.
I'm so glad that in the midst of so much misery and turnmoil, the Afghani people have a lone crocus that pokes through the prison-yard soil.
....
... and then there's the "other" type of professional. I got this from a nytimes.com article on a suspected new case of Mad Cow Disease (more properly, BSE):
"In 2003, the department tested only about 20,000 of the 36 million animals slaughtered that year.
Testing was voluntary, and concentrated on relatively few slaughterhouses. Many animals with signs of brain damage were missed, according to the government.
With the expansion, the department warned that other positive animals could be found.
But it reassured the public that the beef supply is safe, an assurance repeated today by Ms. Morgan."
Translation appears to be something along the lines of:
"We think there are animals out there with BSE, and there probably have been for several years, but since they're already in the foodchain and we can't do jack about it anyway, we'll keep telling you you're safe, since the lawsuits will take place years after I leave this stinkin' job."
Gosh, Ms. Morgan must go to bed at night with a warm, happy feeling of really helping people and making the world a better place to raise a family according to nice, American values of spin and weasel.
Yesterday I was puttering around New Brighton with the fuel gauge no lower than it has been many a time before. Cough cough die. Crap. I sat there for a while turning the key (which is probably really bad for the engine, rah rah rah, but I was hoping for miraculous fairy petrol, ok?) but it was pretty dead.
Thankfully NB is one of the few suburbs in Chch where I know anyone, and I happened to have spluttered to a stop only a block from their place. So it was all quite social really, I bowled on round to Dave and Jas's place and had a cuppa and a smoke and then we went on a mish to the local petrol station. If I had turned in the opposite direction at the last corner, I would have rolled to a stop pretty much at the pump. Oh well. Obviouly women's intuition doesn't cover petrol divining.
Thanks
Posted by: Online Home Loans at November 19, 2005 10:15 PM