Pakistan Earthquake

250 dead
15, 000 homeless

In world of information overload we have become so desensitized that loss of human life is nothing but a number, and doesn’t have a resonating impact on our psyche unless its in thousands or millions.

These are not mere numbers but represent the aftermath of the 6.4 magnitude earthquake which destroyed mud houses and triggered landslides; burring people as they slept, in Pakistan's scenic but poverty stricken province of Balouchistan. These numbers are the misery of the most unfortunate who worked hard to make ends meet all their life and are now left stranded in the ruthless cold nights with temperatures ranging from -1 to -4 C with no food, shelter or blankets, to grieve for their loved ones.

Haji Shahbaz, a man from Wam village, said he had lost 17 relatives in the quake. "Nothing is left here, and now life is worthless for me," he said.

International and Pakistani relief agencies have started relief efforts in the areas; I hope you can find it in your heart to spare a small amount to help these organizations provide the much need aid.

http://www.imcworldwide.org/content/media/detail/1972/

Click on Donate > in the 'Responding to a recent appeal?' select Yes > and in the ' Publication name' field please write 'Global Disaster response: Pakistan Earthquake'

http://helpinghandsworldwide.com/index.php
Either in the latest news or on the Appeal Section select Quetta, Pakistan Earthquake > After registering select your preferred currency > in the first section labeled 'Donation for' write your donating amount in the 'Pakistan Earthquake' section.

If you don't have a credit card you can donate to Islamic Relief at Giro 2002 from Rabobank or ABN Amro or any other Dutch bank account. Remember to write 'Pakistan Earthquake' in the description.
St. Islamic Relief Nederland
Giro 2002
Amsterdam
For more information in English: http://www.islamic-relief.com/Emergencies-And-Appeals/emBackground.aspx?emID=56

For the children

Got a link to this song today from a lady who used one of my photographs in a song she wrote in support of the future generation: the children.

My photograph of a man gently holding a rose in his hands to represent care for the delicate, appears at around 4 miutes in to the song.

Almost lover

Throughout the passage of time numerous lovers have come to symbolise the enduring passion and the sacrifice that love entils; either due to feuding families, Romeo and Juilet, difffering social standings, Laila and Majnu and Salim and Anarkali or tragedies of Cleopetra and Mark Antony. A common theme in almost all of these legendry accounts is stubborn parents, had it not been for them we would now be deprived of such great tales.

Historical accounts of such fictional, mythical, real-life love stories and legends are prevalent, but even the modern times are ripe with their fair share of Heers and Rahjahs and Romeos and Juliets. Will there ever come a time when society will not discriminated us by the colour of their skin, the shape of their eyes, the way they prostrate to God, the part of the world they were born in and their standing in the social hirearchy? But we are the ones who make up this society and its up to us to bring about this change, but in the end fear over rides any other feelings; fear of isolation; fear of a bigger loss, fear of being ostracized from family, culture and values you have been brought up; and we are left stranded contemplating whether these values are worth giving up soo much for….

The next few post will unfold the stories of the legendry Arabian and South East Asian lovers; a testimonial to unattainable love and the hopeless dreams.

SXC

Had forgotten about SXC until today when i got probably a backlog of SXC emails delivered all the same time. Its alwasy satisfying to see people appreciate your work and make someting useful out of it. The one below really makes me feel like taking out the SLR and snapping some photographs.

Dear [redacted],

I just wanted to say that your pictures are really inspiring.

I'm an industrial design engineering student and when I'm brainstorming for ideas, I often use random pictures to get inspiration. I also use pictures when developing an idea into a product, especially pictures of textures: I ask myself whether the product should be tough or smooth etc.

Your pictures are of a good quality and of a type that can really help me in projects in these ways, so I added some to this collection.



Thank you so much for sharing your work!

Best regards,
[redacted]

Birth/Death

I'm halfway though 'The memory keeper's daughter' by Kim Edwards. The story takes places on a winter night in 1964; in an unexpected snow storm a doctor delivers his own son, he soon notices that his wife was actually pregrant with twins and he also becomes a father to a baby daughter. Seconds after the baby girl enters the world he realises that she suffers from downsyndrome. He makes a split second decision and asks the nurse to take his daughter to an institution.

The nurse instead of taking the baby to an instiution leaves the state and raises her as her own daughter. His wife, who is told that their daughter died at birth, never gets over the loss and the story evolves to show how this split second decision haunts the doctor for the rest of his life.

At a point in the novel where the nurse, holding the blank birth certificate in her hands, decides to declare herself the parent of the baby, I wondered how are still born babies recorded in the national statistics? Is there a birth certificae issued for them and a simultanenous death certificate? what about the ones who are born alive but only live to be a few seconds or minutes old?

The origins of the birth certificate date back to before Christ, where they served to determine the tax base and the avilability of militry manpower. A still birth is recorded seperately in a register, where both a birth and a death registery takes place at the same time.The parents receive only a death certifiacte. In the USA a foundation is currently patitioning for 'MISSing Angels Bill', its an initiative for parents who want to have a birth certificate for their still borns in addition to the death certificate. The backbone of this legiselative effort is the concern that "public health policy which issues the death certificate yet completely ignores the woman's process of birth when there is an intrauterine death."

A follow on though which is still puzzling me is what about cryonics? The people who have their bodies frozen in the hope that when medical science has advancend their bodies will be thawed and cured of the disease which killed them. In an event when this were to happen will there be an issuance of a new 'birth' certificate or will the previous death certificate be revoked? The popular urban legend that Walt Disney was cryopreserved is false; he was cremated.

Some little known facts

- No American has officially died of 'old age' since 1951, when the government eliminated that classification on death certificates

- Approximately 100,000,000,000 people (that's 100 billion!) have died since humans began.

- Eighty percent of people who die in the United States die inside of a hospital.

- In the 19th century, Egypt had such an excess of mummies that they started using them as fuel for trains engines.

-In Madagascar, dead people's families dig up the bones of the deceased bones parade them around the village during their 'famadihana' ceremony . The remains are then wrapped in a new shroud and buried again. Meanwhile, the old shroud is given to a newly married, childless couple. They use it to cover the marriage bed.

Another attempt

I have been pushed hard and long by those anxious readers to continue the blog but procrastination is a great characteristic I possess when it comes to the blog. For a long while I have been thinking of continuing but never found the time. This year I actually started using an agenda to better keep track of things that had to be get done, this should give you a sense of my level of engagement with matters ( read: busyness) that I actually used an agenda! For those of you who know me well enough and spend the school and uni years would know that I always kept an agenda but never really used it apart from exam dates and scribbles from whoever was sitting next to me in class; it was just the idea of having one which was comforting enough to know that I am 'well-organized'.

This time the agenda has served a second purpose. I have been noting down some mysteries of nature I have observed and general musings, all in the hope that one day I shall have enough 'me time' to unlock the mysteries and research the answers to my futile musings.

After an hours hesitation I summed up the courage to type blogger.com on my window explorer, because I knew once I make this post I have to live up to the pact. As I read from my previous post I was meant to be back on June 8th, well sadly that didn’t happen due to a lot of life altering events ( no missing CFA is not one of them) but this time a lot more rests on this blog. So those of you who were part of the pact I am keeping my end of the bargain and its time you get started your dancing shoes out.

What to expect in terms on contents? I haven’t created a mission statement and I wont do so, this will serve as a platform for total random bullshit, complete blank canvas... mostly just stuff I wonder about utter crap. So if you ever find yourself bored out of your mind sitting at home sulking on a Friday night with no friends and tired of facebook, I hope you can find some entertainment value or a thing or two to learn.

As you can already see this is already turning out to be a complete ramble, at the risk of boring myself to sleep I am goona stop this welcome back post here......check back in near future for something more interesting...and if you really read till the end of this post you are either xixi or just so pathetically sad (myself including) with nothing better to do and i know you will be coming back for more...hahahha