"King" of the Jungle

Illustration courtesy Martin Aveling, FFI via WWF

Sightings of the camera-shy "Elvis monkey" (pictured) are about as rare as modern-day sightings of the King himself.
Known for its Presleyan pompadour, Rhinopithecus strykeri—1 of some 208 new species found in Southeast Asia's Greater Mekong region last year, according to a new WWF report—hasn't yet been captured alive on camera.
(See a photo of a dead R. strykeri [warning: graphic picture].)
Discovered in Myanmar's section of the Greater Mekong-a sprawling realm of water, wetlands, mountains, and forests-was well known to local Himalayan hunters, but its discovery stunned scientists like Stuart Chapman, conservation director of WWF's Greater Mekong program, based in Vientiane, Laos.
"This is really the end of the era of large mammal discovery, so to have a new primate discovered in this area, unknown to science, is extremely rare," Chapman said. "Looking ahead we may only ever see one or two more discoveries like this. And it's sort of a bittersweet moment, because we think this species already has very low numbers."
Local hunters say that the pug nose on "Snubby," as scientists have nicknamed the species, causes the animal to sneeze repeatedly in rainstorms.
If true, Chapman said, this physical anomaly may make the animals more susceptible to hunting and/or place them at some natural disadvantages. "But the fact is that right now we know very, very little about it."

The Iraq War Weakened the U.S. in the Middle East

By Tony Karon | @tonykaron | December 16, 2011 | 34

Mohammed Ameen / Reuters

U.S. soldiers carry an Iraqi national flag and an U.S. flag during a ceremony to retire the flags, marking the end of the U.S. military engagement at the Baghdad Diplomatic Support Center, December 15, 2011.

The no-show by Iraq’s President Jalal Talabani and Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki at Wednesday’s departure ceremony that officially closed the U.S. military mission in Iraq spoke volumes: Chairs with name cards reserving them for the two Iraqi leaders were quickly occupied by U.S. soldiers, but the fact that the Iraqi leaders failed to show up to publicly thank the Americans for “Operation Iraqi Freedom” was a painful reminder of the limits of what the war had achieved.
Saddam Hussein has gone, but at a cost to his own people of almost nine years of war, civil strife, terrorism and occupation that left more than 100,000 Iraqi civilians dead and millions displaced from their homes, infrastructure destroyed (water and electricity supplies in Iraq remain patchy even now) and the country’s social fabric torn apart. Of the 1.5 million American soldiers that cycled through Iraq, 4,487 were killed and tens of thousands left with debilitating physical and psychological scars. And the war has cost the United States some $1 trillion and counting.
Yet for all that horror and sacrifice, the Iraq that American forces leave behind is not especially stable, riven as ever by dangerous ethnic, political and sectarian fault-lines. Nor can the Iraq that the U.S. invasion has created be counted as a U.S. strategic ally in a wider Middle Eastern context. Iraq’s elected government is closer to Tehran than it is to Washington, although it is a puppet of neither, and in all likelihood uses the rivalry between them to enhance its own independence. But the Iraqi government is on the wrong side of U.S. policy throughout the region, from its attitude to Israel and its efforts to oust Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad, to its rejection of the U.S. effort to isolate Iran over its nuclear program. It’s an open secret in Baghdad that a key reason for Maliki’s government declining the agreement needed to keep U.S. troops in Iraq beyond this month was deference to Iran’s wishes.
Tehran’s strategic position, on the other hand, has been vastly enhanced by the elimination of its most dangerous enemy, Saddam Hussein (who had waged a brutal eight-year war against Iran with Saudi backing), and has used its close political and religious ties with the Shi’ite majority to ensure that the democratically elected government in Baghdad is a friendly — and Shi’ite — one. Whenever intra-Shi’ite disputes have threatened to allow anti-Iran elements to regain power, Tehran has intervened to broker compromises.
The combination of the horrors visited upon Iraq under U.S. occupation, and the failure of the massive show of American military force to bend the Iraqis to their will, havesharply diminished U.S. influence throughout the region. The year of the Arab Spring has shown that Washington’s ability to persuade its allies and intimidate its foes into compliance is dramatically reduced from what it had been in 2003. (Important to note, however, is the fact that the Arab Spring has also reduced Iranian regional influence: The zero-sum view Iran vs. the U.S. view of the Middle East has little traction with the Arab public.)
The architects of the Iraq war had promised a “demonstration effect” that would intimidate challengers and subdue the troublesome region, enabling the construction of a “new Middle East” on terms favorable to America. Instead, the U.S. departure sees American influence diminished, with Islamist Parties the likely inheritors of the fall of the dictatorships of Tunisia, Egypt and Libya, and the rest of the region — notably such U.S. allies as Israel, Saudi Arabia and the Palestinian Authority — acting independently of Washington’s preferences. A new Middle East, indeed; one that has relinquished Pax Americana and is writing its own history on terms that hardly fit the vision that drove the Iraq invasion. The demonstration effect of “Operation Iraqi Freedom,” then, has been to show the limits of American military power to shape events.


Read more: http://globalspin.blogs.time.com/2011/12/16/ten-grim-lessons-learned-from-the-iraq-war/#ixzz1gkwRtiEc

Reaching for the Sky in Utah

By TIM NEVILLE

A FEW years ago, I packed my skis and did something every winter sports enthusiast should do at least once in a lifetime: take a trip to Utah, a place known for its powder. I met a friend in Salt Lake City and spent a week bouncing between four resorts. We flew around aspens at Deer Valley and nailed jump turns off a ridge at Robert Redford’s Sundance Resort. At Snowbird I sailed weightlessly through three feet of the airiest, steepest, untracked powder I’d ever skied.
Then we went to the Canyons, the neglected cousin of two nearby skier favorites, Deer Valley and Park City Mountain Resort. The bounty of glades was impressive, but as soon as we got hungry, the mountain’s faults really became apparent. The fact that it was next to impossible to find a place to grab a bite on the mountain meant returning to base, which was the last place we wanted to be. The main lift out was 45 years old, a slow relic with crowds of impatient skiers fanned out around it. Soulless buildings in desperate need of updating were arranged so poorly that a well-used run actually ended below them. Here, at the biggest resort in Utah, surrounded by some of the best ski country in the nation, I felt no need to linger. 
But that was in 2006. Two years later, I’d heard the resort had begun to wake up when Jack Bistricer, a private investor, bought the Canyons from the American Skiing Company with the apparent goal of staking out a niche somewhere between Deer Valley’s white-gloved pampering (where, as one local put it, “you fall over and they’ll pick you up”) and Park City Mountain Resort (where rowdy teenagers scarf down hot dogs before jumping back into the halfpipe).
In 2010, virtually the entire resort village was razed and rebuilt as workers rerouted a gondola and added restaurants and a sunbathing area where you can listen to music and have a beer. That old, slow lift from the 1960s was replaced with North America’s first heated chairlift, a high-speed quad. There are new places to eat, including midmountain stops, food carts (one with nine types of hot chocolate) and fancier fare at sit-down spots like the Farm or the Bistro, said to be the only kosher-certified restaurant at a United States ski area. Workers built more snowshoe trails, gladed more trees, and added a winter zip line.
All of this appears to be paying off. Last season the resort became the nation’s third largest ski area when it added 300 acres of north-facing intermediate terrain to the 3,700 acres it already had. Now some 4,500 people an hour — a 47 percent increase from when I was first there — can get up the mountain from the base.
The resort even has a new name, sort of: the Canyons is now simply Canyons.
“It’s been totally transformed, that’s for sure,” said the United States Ski Team member Ted Ligety, an Olympic gold medalist and three-time World Cup champion who grew up in Park City and is now sponsored by one of Canyons’ neighboring rivals, Park City Mountain Resort. “It was something of a stepchild for a long time.”
Maybe so, but part of me was still skeptical when I decided to go back to see it for myself last March. I already knew that skiing in Utah could be spectacular, but I had to wonder if Canyons — with its new fancy menus and sunbathing strip — could really be worth it this time.
WINTER was in full force when I arrived in Park City. Yet another storm had walloped the Wasatch Range with some 20 inches of new snow. That made for nearly 25 feet so far that season; huge piles of the stuff lined sidewalks.
And it would only get better: More snow, then bluebird skies for the next three days of my visit — a snow-sun combination rare enough that I can count on one mitten how often I’ve timed a ski trip so well. I was so excited I hardly slept my first night, eventually kicking off the covers in the pastel dawn and wandering down to the fireplace in the Chateau Après, my budget hotel in downtown Park City for the first few nights. The hotel dated back to the old days, and is something of a classic among diehard skiers. Faded posters of the Swiss Alps adorned the chalet’s white walls, and a breakfast of cereal and mushy bread was little better than what you might find at an exit-ramp motel. But whatever the chateau lacked in elegance was gained in convenience. It is just a short walk from the pubs downtown and a free bus stops in the back. It whisked me to Canyons in about 15 minutes, just as the first chairs began to roll.
The changes at Canyons quickly became noticeable as I strolled through the base area, an inviting town square of sorts, strewn with cushy chairs, tables and a new bar with a collapsible roof. Though the lift lines were still long — it was a powder day, after all — they seemed to move quickly.
Dick Bench, a longtime Canyons ski patroller, had driven over from Salt Lake City to show me around, though I suspect he would have come anyway with conditions like those. I met him in the new Alpine House restaurant for coffee, and together we hopped on the Red Pine Gondola, the bottom portion of which had recently been diverted several hundred feet to serve the busy, central area near the ticket offices.
Our plan was to warm up on some groomed runs, which weren’t always a given. “Back when the resort first opened it was called Park City West but it was really ‘bump city,’ with not a lot of grooming,” Mr. Bench said. “It was mostly Utahans who came. Now it’s East, West, South, New York, even foreigners. I think it still has a local vibe, though, because even after a few days you’ll start seeing people you know.”
The resort seems too big for that — it spans nine mountains, after all — but Mr. Bench is no newcomer either. Deeply tanned with a neatly trimmed mustache, he started skiing here during the resort’s inaugural season in 1968 and has seen the resort go through several names and owners.
With 182 trails, Canyons now offers no shortage of runs smoothed by an armada of machines, including the country’s largest fleet of the largest kind of groomer. Truth be told, these manicured runs, known as cruisers because they offer such a smooth ride, aren’t my thing; I much prefer the steep, free-riding terrain of places like Alta and Snowbird. But if you’re going to ski on groomed slopes, Canyons is a fine place to do it.
We clicked into our skis at the top of an intermediate run called Chicane and pushed off. The storm had left the groomed slopes buried under five inches of fluff, with a hint of firmness below, like a memory-foam mattress. I skied it fast and hard, arriving at the bottom with my legs on fire.
Mr. Bench nodded approvingly. “O.K.,” he said. “Let’s see if we can find something a little more challenging.”
We scooted up the Tombstone Express chairlift, which had been upgraded from a four- to a six-person lift, and Mr. Bench pointed me down what is perhaps Canyons’ greatest asset: gorgeous tree runs that readers of Skiing magazine once rated fifth best in the country. The run, called Paradise, had been “limbed up,” as Mr. Bench said, referring to the removal of low branches to create openings perfect for popping through without having to remove whole trees. He shoved off and disappeared into the firs with the grace of a young athlete. Though he is 70, he skis about 100 days a year.
He was also losing me fast, so I pointed my tips down an untracked line and felt the snow well up around my thighs. It was classic “hero snow,” the kind that’s so forgiving you feel like a better skier than you really are. This is what I remembered liking about Canyons so many years ago. I came back to mortal reality when I hooked a ski tip on a small tree, performing a pirouette that left me with a purple shin.
Despite the blunder, I wanted more. Mr. Bench and I skied six more long runs. One called Showcase took us through a residential area, where sprawling slopeside homes resembled private ski lodges.
By noon the sun grew warm, too warm, and the snow turned from Utah dust into a heavy Cascade-like concrete: a good time to rest.
I grabbed a bowl of couscous at Cloud Dine, a new on-mountain cafeteria, while Mr. Bench annotated my trail map, pointing out places I shouldn’t miss: some gullies carved into natural halfpipes, a 1.1-mile-long terrain park and high, off-piste areas where I was sure to find fresh snow days after the storm.
By the time the day was done I’d skied nearly seven full hours before finally collapsing in a lounge chair at the Beach, the sunbathing area at the base. I didn’t really need a tan or the Grateful Dead that blared from outdoor speakers, but a local Squatters ale and the festive vibe was a fine way to call it a day.
At 6:30 the next morning I checked into the new Grand Summit, a decidedly more expensive slopeside hotel with a heated outdoor pool. Inside my room I’d later find a modest kitchenette with a granite countertop, a gas fireplace and a flat-screen TV. There was no time for inspections, though, not when there were more first tracks to be had.
Canyons has devised all sorts of ways to allow guests to customize their stays. You can heli-ski deep into the Wasatch from a landing pad near the newly expanded Red Pine Lodge for about $1,100 a day. For $750 for two people, you can get a weeklong Canyons Club membership that allows you to cut to the front of the lift lines, have dinner in a private yurt on the mountain and gain access to valet parking and a ski concierge. It also gives you two passes to ski the slopes a full 90 minutes before Canyons opens to the masses — a “First Tracks” program that otherwise costs $79 a person à la carte. I signed up for the latter and met the group around 7 a.m.
I buddied up with Chris Waddell, a Paralympics skier who broke his back ski racing in college, and Burney Jennings, head of the Biscuitville fast-food franchise who was here with his two sons from North Carolina. We grabbed the Orange Bubble Express — yes, the heated one — where a jolt of electricity warmed the seat to a cozy 57 degrees (it automatically gets to about 30 degrees warmer than the air outside).
I’d ridden a heated chairlift before in Europe, where my initial skepticism at such a luxury quickly changed. Sitting down on one is indeed a wonderful perk. The burst of heat could bring joy to even the most grizzled of hard-core skiers by taking the edge off a gelid day. That means more energy for skiing and less time replacing it with overpriced hot drinks.
For the next hour we rocketed down Doc’s Run, Main Line and a shot that was not on the map called Dead Tree. Catching this on a powder day would be sublime but the groomers had been busy and I did my best to ruin their wide wale work with high-G carves.
AFTER stopping for breakfast burritos at Red Pine Lodge, a bright, airy building perched midmountain, I took the Timberline Lift to the Iron Mountain Express, two new lifts since my last visit, to reach Iron Mountain, where a batch of new tree runs had just opened that year. The resort is so big that it took me close to an hour to work my way back north, slowly, to another lift, the Saddleback Express. From there I could play in natural gullies and the Transitions terrain park, riding over the smaller jumps with all the caution of someone who knew better. Next to me, rubber-boned teenagers soared backward into orbit while snowboarders slid over boxes and rails. Steve Duke, who created the giant 1.1-mile-long park out of a series of smaller ones in 2010, had added features like a gong hanging from a tree that one rider whacked midflight, adding a brassy flourish to a trick.
Eventually, I decided to head back to the base, still exhausted from my marathon day before. But first I visited one of the new food carts near the bottom of the Red Pine Gondola, where I got a spicy cup of hot chocolate flavored with cardamom and chipotle. A long stretching session in the hotel pool did wonders for my sore legs but nothing for my energy. After a dinner of oxtail soup at the Farm, a new upscale restaurant at the base, I headed back to my room.
My luck seemed to run out on my last day as temperatures soared to a sloppy 40 degrees at the base. My plan: go as high as I could, up to 9,990 feet above sea level on the Ninety-Nine 90 express chair, a high-speed quad, where Mr. Bench said good snow tends to linger if you’re willing to work a little.
The air was indeed much cooler up at the top. I took off my skis, threw them over my shoulder and hiked past Park City’s only backcountry gate for sweeping views of Big Cottonwood Canyon to the west. Before me lay a good dozen turns through fluffy untracked snow three days — three! — after the storm.
After a few hours, I was just about to call it a day when I remembered another powder-hunting tip Mr. Bench had given me: stick to the firs, not the aspens, because firs grow on shaded north faces. I began searching for a good line in what’s known as the Old Area to the north when I heard a shrill scream followed by giggly squeaks.
Three girls, no older than 12, had found even more untracked snow here, right next to the lift on a pleasing ridgeline with firs on one side and aspens on the other. I mustered some energy, fought my way through thick brush and discovered a series of lines with as many as 15 turns that the girls hadn’t touched. Hands forward. Knees bent. I transformed the alabaster ribbon into a tracked-up mess, racing back up after each run to lay more squiggles next to my own.
Before my last run down, I paused and looked around. I was alone in the woods, far from the new restaurants and spas. The music from the village base had been drowned in the silence of a pale Utah sky. It struck me that even a heated chairlift was just a faster, more comfortable means to this: the chance to discover and claim my own powder kingdom where I could hoot and holler and ski as I please. There were probably hundreds of these pockets tucked among the firs that I had missed. Oh well. I shoved off and settled into my turns, happy to save them for another time.
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ใครที่หลงรักในการชื่นชมทะเลหมอกยามเช้า แต่ไม่มีเวลาที่จะเดินทางไกลไปเที่ยวถึงภาคเหนือ วันนี้ เดลินิวส์ออนไลน์ จะพาทุกคนไปตะลุยเส้นทางสุดหฤโหด กับการเดินทางขึ้นพิชิต ยอดเขากระโจม ที่อำเภอสวนผึ้ง จังหวัดราชบุรี จุดชมวิวพระอาทิตย์ขึ้นเคล้าสายหมอกแสนสวยงาม ที่อยู่ใกล้กรุงเทพฯเพียงไม่ถึงสองร้อยกิโลเมตร

เขากระโจม ตั้งอยู่ในอำเภอสวนผึ้ง มีความสูง 1,045 เมตรจากระดับน้ำทะเล ทำให้ที่นี่กลายเป็นจุดชมวิวทะเลหมอกที่กำลังได้รับความนิยมเป็นอย่างมากจากนักท่องเที่ยว เพราะนอกจากจะมีทะเลหมอกสวยงามให้ได้เห็นแล้ว อากาศในช่วงฤดูหนาวก็เย็นสบายไม่แพ้ภาคเหนือ
การเดินทางขึ้นมายังจุดชมวิวเขากระโจมจำเป็นต้องใช้รถโฟล์วิวที่ผ่านการดัดแปลงสำหรับการขึ้นภูเขามาโดยเฉพาะเป็นพาหนะ เพราะตลอดระยะทางประมาณ 10 กิโลเมตรจากตีนเขาถึงยอดเขา มีความโหดของเส้นทางรออยู่มากมายจนหลายคนอาจนั่งไม่ติดตลอดการเดินทางก็ว่าได้

ส่วนใหญ่นักท่องเที่ยวที่เดินทางขึ้นเขากระโจม จะเลือกใช้บริการรถโฟล์วิวรับจ้างของกลุ่ม “รักษ์เขากระโจม” ที่ชำนาญพื้นที่ เป็นผู้พาฝ่าเส้นทางสุดโหดขึ้นไป โดยรถแต่ละคันสามารถรองรับได้ประมาณ 8 -10 คน ซึ่งส่วนใหญ่คนที่จะเดินทางขึ้นไปดูทะเลหมอกยามเช้าที่ยอดเขากระโจมจะนัดกันตั้งแต่ประมาณตี 4 ครึ่ง เพื่อให้รถมารับยังรีสอร์ที่ค้างแรม ก่อนจะตะลุยเส้นทางหฤโหดไปพร้อมกันโดยฝากชีวิตไว้กับคนขับรถผู้ชำนาญเส้นทาง

การเดินทางขึ้นเขากระโจมของผมในครั้งนี้ถึงจะไม่ใช่ครั้งแรกแต่ก็ต้องขอขอบคุณ ททท.สำนักงานเพชรบุรี ที่จัดทริปดีๆอย่างนี้ขึ้น พร้อมดูแลชาวคณะทุกคนตลอดการเดินทาง สำหรับคนที่ไม่เคยมาพิชิตยอดเขาแห่งนี้ ถ้าเห็นเส้นทางช่วง 2 - 3 กิโลเมตรแรกอาจรู้สึกว่าไม่มีความน่าตื่นเต้น แต่อย่าเพิ่งเบื่อไปเสียก่อน เพราะหลังจากเส้นทางที่ถนนขาดไปแล้ว ความระทึกใจก็จะค่อยๆเพิ่มทวีคูณขึ้น ผมเชื่อว่าบางคนอาจถึงขั้นคิดว่าอยากกลับที่พักตั้งแต่ยังไม่ถึงครึ่งทาง

ถ้าจะให้บรรยายภาพเส้นทางขึ้นเขากระโจมช่วงที่เหลือกว่า 7 กิโลเมตร อยากให้ทุกคนนึกถึง ทางดินที่เป็นหลุมลึกลากยาวสั้นสลับกันไป เหมือนใครเอาอะไรมาขีดเป็นเส้นไว้ตลอดเส้นทางหลายเส้น ผมพยายามชะเง้อมองอยู่หลายครั้งจากหลังรถ ขอบอกเลยว่าถ้าไม่ชินเส้นทางไม่สามารถหาทางวิ่งไปจนถึงยอดเขาได้แน่นอน โดยต้องผ่านเนินที่ชาวบ้านเขาเรียก เนิน700 ไล่ไปจนถึงยอดเรียกว่าเนิน1,000 ตามลำดับความสูงจากระดับน้ำทะเล

ถึงการเดินทางจะสมบุกสมบันเพียงใด แต่การได้มาสัมผัสความงามของผืนป่าอันอุดมสมบูรณ์บนภูเขาลูกนี้ด้วยตาตนเอง คลอเคล้าบรรยากาศที่ลมหนาวพัดมาเยือน แม้จะต้องแรกกับการตื่นเช้าและฝ่าฟันเส้นทางเลวร้ายแค่ไหนก็ถือว่าคุ้มค่า โดยถ้าใครจะเดินทางมาในช่วงฤดูหนาวแนะนำว่าอย่าลืมพกเสื้อกันหนาวติดตัวมาด้วย เพราะลมจะพัดแรงตลอดเส้นทาง รวมถึงหมอกจะลงหนามากทำให้อาจไม่สบายได้

หลังจากฝ่าฟันอุปสรรคมากมายมาจนถึงยอดเขา ก็จะเห็นจุดตั้งฐานปฏิบัติการตำรวจตระเวนชายแดน และจุดชมวิวที่สามารถชมความงามของทะเลหมอกได้ทั้งฝั่งไทย และฝั่งเพื่อนบ้านอย่างพม่า ขึ้นอยู่กับดวงของแต่ละคนว่าจะขึ้นมาเห็นทิวทัศน์ในสภาพอากาศแบบไหน ผมเชื่อว่าคงไม่มีใครที่ขึ้นมาเพียงครั้งเดียวแล้วเห็นความงามของยอดเขากระโจมได้อย่างสมบูรณ์แบบ แต่ถ้าเดินทางมาบ่อยๆสักวันธรรมชาติจะต้องเข้าข้างความพายามของเรา

การท่องเที่ยวเพื่อชมความงามของธรรมชาติที่ซ่อนอยู่ทั่วเมืองไทย เป็นเสน่ห์การท่องเที่ยวที่ทำให้นักท่องเที่ยวทั้งชาวไทยและต่างชาติหลงรักประเทศของเรา เพราะฉะนั้น การท่องเที่ยวควบคู่ไปกับการอนุรักษ์จึงเป็นแนวทางที่ทุกคนควรปฏิบัติ เพื่อให้ความงามตามธรรมชาติเหล่านั้นคงอยู่อย่างยั่งยืนสืบต่อไป

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The dingo is legendary as Australia's wild dog, though it also occurs in Southeast Asia. The Australian animals may be descendents of Asian dingoes that were introduced to the continent some 3,000 to 4,000 years ago.

These golden or reddish-colored canids may live alone (especially young males) or in packs of up to ten animals. They roam great distances and communicate with wolf-like howls.
Dingo hunting is opportunistic. Animals hunt alone or in cooperative packs. They pursue small game such as rabbits, rodents, birds, and lizards. These dogs will eat fruits and plants as well. They also scavenge from humans, particularly in their Asian range.

Dingoes breed only once a year. Females typically give birth to about five pups, which are not independent until six to eight months of age. In packs, a dominant breeding female will kill the offspring of other females.
Australia is home to so many of these animals that they are generally considered pests. A famous "dingo fence" has been erected to protect grazing lands for the continent's herds of sheep. It is likely that more dingoes live in Australia today than when Europeans first arrived.

Though dingoes are numerous, their pure genetic strain is gradually being compromised. They can and do interbreed with domestic dogs to produce hybrid animals. Studies suggest that more than a third of southeastern Australia's dingoes are hybrids.

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Sometimes the tabloid route is best: Obama got Osama. President Barack Hussein Obama approved the attack that killed his near namesake Osama bin Laden the very same week that Obama revealed his long-form birth certificate, addressing a silly dispute that was really about something heinous and serious: the suspicion of far too many Americans that the President was not who he said he was, that he was a secret Muslim and maybe not even playing for our team. All such doubts are resolved now, by document and deed, although the various birthers and truthers and mouthers will continue to play their vile games. But the facts are there for posterity and for the voters who will have to make a judgment in 2012: this profoundly American President ran an exquisite operation to find and kill one of the great villains of history. In the process, U.S. presidential politics and the so-called war on terror were transformed dramatically; suddenly, both foreign policy experts and Republican candidates for President had vast new landscapes to consider. And so much for No Drama, by the way. there is no measure of competence the public takes more seriously than a President's performance as Commander in Chief. On the most basic level, the bin Laden raid was a vivid demonstration of how this Commander in Chief operates. He is discreet, precise, patient and willing to be lethal. He did not take the easy route, which would have been a stealth-bomber strike on bin Laden's compound. He ordered the Navy SEAL operation, even though there were myriad ways it could have failed — or turned out to be an embarrassment if bin Laden hadn't been there, or a disaster if the SEALs had been slaughtered, or if a helicopter had been damaged (as several aircraft were when Jimmy Carter tried to rescue the hostages from Iran). In at least nine National Security Council meetings, Obama insisted on reviewing every crucial detail of the operation. He made sure, after a decade of witless Islam-related goofs by U.S. leaders, that bin Laden's body would be handled and consigned to the lower depths in a way that would not offend Muslims; that in the early hours, at least, there wouldn't be gory photos or films or any evidence of barbaric gloating; that the operation would be surgical and stealthy enough that bin Laden's document hoard would be preserved and dispositive DNA evidence would be gathered. These are the sort of nuances — a word his predecessor mocked — that have marked many of Obama's foreign policy decisions, made in a deliberative style that his critics, and even some supporters, have seen as evidence of dithering or indecision

George W. Bush certainly deserves some of the credit for this raid. It would not have been possible without his decision to amp up human-intelligence assets and special-operations forces after decades of neglect. But you have to wonder whether Bush would have had the patience or subtlety to conduct this operation with the same thoroughness Obama did. Bush certainly lacked the strategic focus to understand that the war against al-Qaeda had to be primarily a slow-moving special-forces affair; he was diverted into bold gestures, like the disastrous war in Iraq. He never studied the intelligence rigorously enough; he bought the sources that backed his predispositions. He understood too late the style and substance of Islam, how words like crusade resonated through the region. His was a bumper-sticker foreign policy. His speeches were full of God and Freedom and Evildoers. His troops rushed into Baghdad in three weeks, and he celebrated their victory with another bumper sticker: MISSION ACCOMPLISHED. He was able to use these simplicities to win re-election in 2004, although he lost a lot of lives unnecessarily and damaged America's esteem in the eyes of the world.

Obama's national-security practices, if not his actual policies, have been almost the exact opposite, almost to a fault. There have been no three-week victories; there have been three-month deliberations about what to do in Afghanistan. There were precious few victories at all before the bin Laden operation. There was a lot of multilateralism and deference to foreign leaders. Critics said Obama bowed too deeply to the Emperor of Japan. There were few dramatic pronouncements and zero foreign policy bumper stickers; there were more than a few embarrassments. He was dissed by the Chinese. He was dissed by the Iranians. He was defied by corrupt nonentities like Afghanistan's Hamid Karzai; he was double-dealt by the Pakistanis. And in recent weeks, there was a growing chorus that his handling of the Arab Spring revolutions had been incoherent and his indulgence in a humanitarian intervention in Libya had been muscled through by a coterie of female policy advisers who were tougher than he was.

In the days before the bin Laden raid, Obama's national-security staff was increasingly frustrated with how his foreign policy was being portrayed. He was not indecisive, they argued, just careful. They made a transcript of a crucial Feb. 1 phone call between Obama and Egypt's Hosni Mubarak available to me. It was classic Obama. "I have no interest in embarrassing you," the President said. "I want to help you secure your legacy by ushering in a new era." He worked this track patiently, twice, three times. "I respect my elders," Obama said, "but because things worked one way in the past, that doesn't mean they're going to work the same way in the future. You need to seize this historic moment and leave a positive legacy." Mubarak said he'd think about it and would talk again in a week. Obama said he wanted to talk again the next day. Mubarak said maybe over the weekend; Obama said no: "We'll talk in 24 hours." No threats, but no give, either.

"You have to see this in the context of history," a senior Administration official told me. "That's a pretty tough decision to make, involving a longtime U.S. ally. But he was very firm with Mubarak. If you look at Reagan, he agonized far longer over whether to abandon governments we had supported in Indonesia and the Philippines than the President did about Egypt." Last Aug. 12, four months before the Tunisian rebellion began, the President issued a national-security directive ordering his staff to develop a new policy that assumed the governments in the Middle East were rickety and might soon topple. A copy of this memo was provided to me as well.

Too much has been made of what some are calling Obama's taste for humanitarian intervention. Officials at the National Security Council and the State Department insist that the roles of NSC staffer Samantha Power, U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice and former State Department director of policy planning Anne-Marie Slaughter have been exaggerated. Power is a well-known human-rights activist, but she attended only one meeting with the President on Middle East policy in the past six months; Slaughter is a prominent academic, but she never met with the President on these issues. Indeed, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was leaning against taking military action in Libya until the last moment, when members of the Arab League convinced her that a massacre would take place in Benghazi if nothing were done. The President opposed a no-fly zone because it wouldn't effectively stop a Gaddafi massacre. "He expanded the U.N. resolution to include attacks on Libyan equipment and forces about to move into the city," an Administration official said. "He drove the policy. No one talked him into anything."

But there was something incoherent, or perhaps insufficiently explained, about Obama's foreign policy performance. The Libya intervention opened the door to a series of logical questions: Why choose this humanitarian intervention and not others? Why not get involved in Syria, a far more crucial country, where the government was brutally suppressing its citizens and perhaps even conducting massacres? Whom were we actually supporting in Libya? What if the conflict slipped into a tribal stalemate? How were we going to deal with the economic catastrophe looming in Egypt, which Administration officials say is the most pressing problem in the region? Weren't the President's priorities all screwed up? "Libya was tough," the official told me. "The President decided to make a front-end decision to save Benghazi and let our allies carry the burden after that." This policy became the subject of ridicule after an anonymous Administration official called it "leading from the rear."
The splendid success of the bin Laden operation should clarify the precise way that this President goes about his work. It also provides an insight into the reasons for Obama's ill-concealed frustration with his critics: the metabolism of policy runs much more slowly than the metabolism of the media. Policy, especially foreign policy, does not lend itself to spiffy one-size-fits-all doctrines. The same President can decide to take a risky shot at killing Osama bin Laden and choose not to take out Muammar Gaddafi; he can decide to make a discreet humanitarian intervention in Benghazi, at the behest of all the countries in the region, while allowing blood to flow in Syria. Not all of these decisions will prove correct over time — every President makes mistakes — but the overall pattern of judgments can be assessed only with sufficient hindsight. It is difficult for a President and his team to keep things in perspective when the media pulse has reached tuning-fork speed and now includes not just CNN and Fox News but also al-Jazeera, Facebook and Twitter. It is particularly difficult for a President whose every decision is questioned by an opposition whose most prominent spokespeople are willing to toy with despicable rumors about his nationality and religious background.

"My fellow Americans," the President opened at the White House correspondents' dinner on the night before bin Laden was killed, and the audience roared with laughter. His decimation of Donald Trump, who sat in the audience, was particularly brutal. He marveled at Trump's decision to "fire" Gary Busey instead of Meat Loaf on his Celebrity Apprentice show. "These are the kinds of decisions that would keep me up at night. Well handled, sir." The audience didn't know it at the time, but two nights earlier Obama had been kept up trying to decide whether to launch the SEAL team against bin Laden or take the stealth-bomber route. A President lives at the intersection of historic decisions like that one and a media environment in which Donald Trump can make outlandish claims about the President's birthplace — and shoot to the top of Republican presidential polls. The distance between those two worlds is mind-bending.

The Obama presidency has been plagued by complexities: How do you conduct a presidency without bumper stickers? How can you explain counterintuitive policies like the need to spend money to soften the blow of a killer recession, even if it expands the federal deficit? How do you convey the policy tightrope that has to be walked as longtime despotic allies in the Arab world are toppled, or not, by revolutions without leaders? How can you explain the delicate task of managing relations with China, when all the public wants to know is why the U.S. seems to be falling behind economically?

The one slogan Obama has attempted — WINNING THE FUTURE — seems pretty lame and lamer still when he repeats it incessantly. Why isn't he focused on winning the present? There have been times — his speech after the Tucson, Ariz., shootings, his bin Laden announcement — when the President has tapped directly into the heart of American sensibility and sentiment. More often, he seems a stranger, unable to fix on the momentary needs of the public, unwilling to indulge the instantaneous needs of the media. His strategy is to hope that the accumulated wisdom of his decision-making will count for more when 2012 rolls around than the pyrotechnics that pass for political discourse in this jittery, nano-wired age. He will mediate congressional disputes rather than make grand policy proposals that others can shoot down. He will eschew dramatic gestures overseas — unless he has carefully considered every facet, as he did in Abbottabad, Pakistan. He will play the grownup because he is a grownup. It will be interesting to see if that works.

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Digital textbooks open a new chapter

By Gary Eason  ­­­­­­

South Korea's classrooms will be switched to digital textbooks over the next four years

 

South Korea, one of the world's highest-rated education systems, aims to consolidate its position by digitising its entire curriculum.

By 2015, it wants to be able to deliver all its curriculum materials in a digital form through computers. The information that would once have been in paper textbooks will be delivered on screen.
South Korea's Minister of Education, Science and Technology, Ju-Ho Lee, said that his department was preparing a promotion strategy for "Smart Education", focusing on customised learning and teaching.
The project, launched during the summer, will involve wireless networks in all schools to allow students to learn "whenever and wherever", as well as an education information system that can run in a variety of devices including PCs, laptops, tablets and internet-connected TVs.
He said the government would support an open content market containing a variety of learning materials, aimed at keeping up quality while keeping down costs.
"Smart Education will change how we perceive textbooks," said Mr Lee.
"The transfer from the traditional paper textbooks to digital textbooks will allow students to leave behind their heavy backpacks and explore the world beyond the classroom."
Tech-friendly teenagers
The intended benefits include extending the choice of subjects for students in rural areas who previously have lacked specialist teachers and to make it easier for pupils to study from home.
South Korea's teenagers should be particularly receptive to such educational technology.

SOUTH KOREA

• South Korea is second in global rankings for reading, fourth for maths and fifth for science
• Family spending on education is the highest in the world, as a proportion of household income
• It has been among the most improved education systems in the world. In 1945, 78% of the population were illiterate. It now outperforms all European countries and the US at reading
• In the 1980s, South Korea banned private tutoring
• This year it introduced a ban on corporal punishment

An Organisation for Economic Co-ordination and Development (OECD) international assessment found that 15-year-olds in South Korea were the most competent users of digital technologies in a survey of 16 developed countries.

They were best at evaluating information on the internet, assessing its credibility and navigating web pages.
South Korea's pre-eminence has not come about by chance.
Unesco has documented the way that South Korea has carefully controlled the use of information and communication technology (ICT) in education.
The government has understood the importance of having formal standards, so that systems can work with each other and quality can be assured.
The United States, alarmed by its relative international educational decline, is now also increasing the resources it devotes to digital learning.
But its move appears to be an acknowledgement of a lack of joined-up thinking in the past.
President Barack Obama's "Digital Promise", announced last month, involves a new national centre to advance technologies that can supposedly transform teaching and learning.
The remit is "to determine quickly what is working and what is not, and transform today's fragmented learning technology market, paving the way for the widespread use of learning technologies that deliver the best results for students, parents, and teachers".
Teaching gap
"With more than 14,000 school districts, and an outdated procurement system, it's difficult for entrepreneurs to break into the market, and it's also tough to prove that their products can deliver meaningful results," the White House said.

DIGITAL CLASSROOMS

• The Indian state of Tamil Nadu is giving 6.8 million free laptops to school pupils
• Uruguay plans to be the first country where all school pupils are given their own laptop
• Apple says 600 US school districts are switching to digital textbooks on iPads
• Amazon has launched a rental service in the US for digital textbooks for students

Given the way education in the US is so highly devolved there are bound to be continuing questions over how much the initiative can achieve.

Another question is whether technology in the classroom is what really makes a difference.
A study by the Department of Educational Research at Lancaster University found that digital technology in the classroom might help to engage pupils in their learning and could save schools money.
But the Achilles' heel - commonplace with educational technology - was the teachers. They felt they needed far greater training in how to integrate the resources into their lesson plans.
"The sad truth is that students can learn just as badly with a class full of computers, interactive whiteboards and mobile technology as they can with wooden desks and a chalkboard," said science and ICT teacher David Weston, founder of the consultancy Informed Education.
There might be enormous potential for software or gadgets to engage and challenge students in new and imaginative ways.
"But unless there is a focus on developing the teaching expertise to support this then you run the risk of wasting time, money and opportunity," he said.
And it may be that technology is seen as a way to achieve cost savings by - to put it crudely - replacing teachers with robots.
Digital tutor
Setting out its Digital Promise ambitions, the White House said: "For years, researchers have been working on developing educational software that is as effective as a personal tutor."

Digital Promise has been launched by US President Obama to keep up with global competitors

Preliminary results from a US military "digital tutor" project suggested the time needed to become an expert in information technology could be reduced from years to months, said the White House.
"Achieving similar results in subjects such as math would transform K-12 [primary] education." It certainly would.
And although children tend to be quicker on the uptake than their teachers where anything with a screen is involved, this cannot be taken for granted.
The OECD's study of the technology-friendliness of 15-year-olds highlighted crucial differences between printed and digital texts, with their non-linear navigation.
"Individuals who develop the skills needed to use these texts efficiently and effectively will be at an increasing advantage in accessing higher education, finding and succeeding in a well-paid job, and participating fully in society."
So policy makers must guard against creating a new "digital divide" between those who could and who could not use these new technologies, it warned.
Big Brother?
But is there a bigger, darker concern about such a centralised digital curriculum? If you put all your educational eggs in one digital basket you might hatch a monster.
An unscrupulous government could relish the fact that everything a child learns is controllable through one, easily manipulated, digital portal.

Do we trust the written word in digital books in the same way as the traditional printed editions?

Such fears have been examined in the novel, The Book, by M Clifford. The US author presents a dystopian civilization in which all information is accessed through an e-reader. The people discover that the digital content has been subtly altered by a corrupt government.
"There is something about paper that commands trust," Mr Clifford said. "And reading is very personal. A bonfire of books used to make us cringe because it represented the destruction of that trustworthy bond."
In an increasingly paperless society, we can trust the technology, but questions need to be raised when governments are involved, he says.
"The scare for me was always the subtlety. The delicate manipulation, one word at a time, to alter someone's perception of the truth.
"Not only is there a fear of changing historical record, but of tailoring someone's perspective on the world. If you think that what you are reading is authentic, then your guard is lowered and you accept it as reality."
He debunks his own dark scenario - but has doubts. "As we've seen, the world is becoming more interconnected on an individual level and so it is unlikely that factual information could be so widely altered. We are probably safe.
"But the fact that it could happen without anyone knowing is the real nail-biter."
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Living in New Orleans.

For all that New Orleans means to her residents, to tourists and to the repeat visitor, from jazz revivals to Greek Revival architecture, it is the city’s uniqueness within the modern United States that make it so exotically appealing. You may not need a passport to get here from the rest of the country, but you certainly can expect a change in latitude — and attitude. Let the good times roll.

What is it known for?
Beignets, beads and Bourbon Street, Mardi Gras, Mississippi mud pie and Creole cuisine, and sadly now Hurricane Katrina. That disaster cut the city’s population in half and displaced a larger proportion of the black population than the white, due to the city’s poorer neighbourhoods taking the brunt of the flooding. However, now the city has returned to three-quarters of its pre-Katrina population. And tourism is flourishing.
The magic of New Orleans is that its pace is tied to Old Man River, the Mississippi that just keeps rolling along. The Creole culture, mixed with Irish and Italian, means spectacular restaurants and inventive cuisine. The jazz tradition, from Preservation Hall to hole-in-the-wall clubs, attracts famous musicians and music lovers from around the world. The New Orleans Museum of Art and the National WWII Museum make the city a cultural hub for the Gulf South. But it is the people of New Orleans that give the place its soul and true joy.

Where do you want to live?
The areas that remain strongly popular are the historic districts, which became known as “the silver on the river” after they did not flood in Katrina. The land they are on is only a few feet above sea level, but it was enough. These districts include Bywater, Garden District and St Charles Avenue, the French Quarter, Faubourg Marigny and the Irish Channel area. “New Orleans is a city of neighbourhoods,” said Sterling Joe Ory, ex-officio of the New Orleans Metropolitan Association of Realtors. “The market is like the weather — it’s rarely raining everywhere.” The historic district market is currently brisk, according to Ory, who said they attract the large influx of young professionals who have moved to the city.
New Orleans has a unique mix of housing characteristics where affordable houses are cheek-by-jowl with wealthier blocks, and 19th-century architecture spans different price ranges. Some people are attracted to fixer-uppers or condo units in converted grand Victorian homes. “Even our slums are Greek Revival, so bargains are out there,” said Ory. But rentals are not. The inventory is very scarce at the moment and there are fewer places for rent than for sale.

Side trips
New Orleans proximity to the Gulf Coast in Mississippi, Alabama and even Florida makes the city a popular weekend and second-home destination, and many New Orleanians own condos along the Gulf. South Louisiana is also popular for hunting and fishing, and some people go camping or own boats.
Airfare from New Orleans to Caribbean destinations is usually reasonable and there are direct flights to Toronto and some summer service to Central American destinations. Louis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport was also one of eight approved this year for charter flights to Cuba, but it is unknown when those will begin.

Practical infoNew Orleans bucked the national trend and had fewer foreclosures than many other cities in many other states. “Tourism, the port and the teaching hospitals keep us ‘recession resistant’,” said Ory. “And we’ve experienced a large influx of young professionals with disposable income who appreciate the cultural uniqueness of New Orleans.” But house prices are abetted by low interest rates on long-term mortgages. “With 30-year interest rates hovering at 4%, money is at 1960 prices,” said Ory.
In the city, an 1,800-sq ft house can sell for as low as $240,000 with a monthly payment of under $900, while three-bed rentals can be as high as $2,500 a month. Many people buy to realize the best return on their investment. One quirk of buying in New Orleans, however, is that the city’s legal system operates under the Napoleanic Civil Code, which can mean that some laws governing commercial transactions are different from the rest of the country. Some out-of-state lenders will bail out of the loan process because there are rules and regulations that you do not have elsewhere in the country. It best to work with a local realtor and a local lender who can help you navigate the regional differences.

“We do things differently here,” said Ory. “But that’s why we are a number one destination. The city truly is hitting on all cylinders now.”
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ขอขอบคุณภาพประกอบจาก acidcow.com, roceco.co.uk

           ภาพที่ทุกท่านได้เห็นนี้ ไม่ใช่คนที่ตัวเล็กที่สุดในโลกหรือการตัดต่อภาพใด ๆ ทั้งสิ้น แต่นี่คือภาพของใบไม้ยักษ์ที่เจริญเติบโตตามธรรมชาติ ซึ่งมีขนาดใหญ่ที่ใหญ่ ใหญ่ ใหญ่ แล้วก็ใหญ่มาก ๆ ซึ่งเป็นใบไม้ที่มีขนาดใหญ่เกินกว่า 3 เมตรเลยทีเดียว!!

           ใบไม้ที่สุดแสนจะใหญ่โตมโหฬารนี้ คือใบไม้ของต้น "Gunnera Manicata" ซึ่งปลูกไว้ที่แอ็บบ็อทส์บิวรี่ การ์เด้นส์ (Abbotsbury Gardens) ในประเทศอังกฤษ โดยนายสตีเฟ่น กริฟฟิธ ซึ่งเป็นหัวหน้าผู้ดูแลสวนแห่งนี้ ได้บอกเล่าถึงเจ้าใบไม้ไซส์บิ๊กบึ้มนี้ว่า Gunnera Manicata เป็นต้นไม้ที่มีถิ่นกำเนิดมาจากประเทศบราซิล และได้นำมาปลูกที่สวนแห่งนี้มานานกว่า 30 ปีแล้ว

           ตามปกติแล้วใบของ Gunnera Manicata จะมีขนาดใหญ่แบบสุด ๆ เพียงแค่ประมาณ 2.1 - 2.2 เมตรเท่านั้น แต่มาในปีนี้ มันดันเจริญเติบโตแบบเกินคาดไปหน่อย ซึ่งจากการสันนิษฐานก็น่าจะมาจากสภาพอากาศที่มีการเปลี่ยงแปลงไปพอสมควร เอื้ออำนวยต่อการเติบโตของมัน เลยทำให้มีใบที่ขนาดใหญ่ถึง 3.3 เมตรอย่างที่เห็น

           ทั้งนี้ กริฟฟิธ เชื่อว่านี่จะเป็นใบไม้ที่ใหญ่ที่สุดในเกาะอังกฤษแล้ว อีกทั้ง นี่ยังถือเป็นโบนัสชิ้นโบว์แดงของสวนแห่งนี้ด้วย เนื่องจากเมื่อช่วงฤดูหนาวของปีที่แล้ว ด้วยสภาพอากาศที่หนาวจัดเลยทำให้ต้นไม้หลาย ๆ ต้นไม่ได้ผลิดอกออกผลให้เห็นมากนัก แต่ ณ ตอนนี้หลาย ๆ ต้นรวมถึงเจ้า Gunnera Manicata ก็ออกดอก ออกใบมามากมาย เรียกได้ว่าเป็นเรื่องที่น่ายินดีสำหรับคนที่รักต้นไม้มาก ๆ

In Cambodia. Flow of flood aid speeds up.

The Australian government will provide up to AUS$2.5 million (US$2.53 million) in aid to Cambodia as part of an AUS$5.25 grant to flood hit countries in the Mekong region and the Philippines, it said yesterday.

THE European Union will likely follow suit next week with two million euros (US$2.7 million) in emergency assistance for Cambodia, an official with its humanitarian aid department, ECHO, told the Post yesterday.

Funding from Australia aims at providing food, water, shelter and support for repairs, a statement from Foreign Minister Kevin Rudd said. The aid would be disbursed through the  Red Cross, he said.  

The funding from the European Commission Humanitarian Aid and Civil Protection Department follows an assessment made by an ECHO team last week, ECHO’s disaster risk reduction coordinator for Southeast Asia, Cecile Pichon, said.

Pichon said the funding would provide emergency relief for the next six months and would target the most vulnerable families. She said the assessment found there would be long-term effects on livelihoods due to the prolonged flooding.

“Recognising the magnitude of the disaster the European Commission Humanitarian Aid and Civil Protection Department is very actively examining the mobilisation of a substantial amount of funding to support emergency response in favour of the most vulnerable populations,” Pichon said

“Any funding made available will include financial support to the efforts of NGOs and international organisations in Cambodia,” she said.

Meanwhile, relief agencies and the governmental bodies remained unable yesterday to determine how many people remained in need of emergency relief.

A spokesperson for UNICEF said: “We are not in a position to answer the question on the scope of the flooding … What we do know is that despite efforts already undertaken by government and partners to assess the situation, the extent and severity of impacts resulting from the flooding are still not clear”.

National Committee for Disaster Management president Keo Vy estimated that more than 200,000 families are still waiting for aid, but he could not provide a break down of the numbers by province.

Water levels in Kampong Thom province, the hardest hit province, continued to rise yesterday, shutting down sections of Highway 5, traffic department officials said. In other areas of the country water levels either fell or remained stable yesterday, according to the Ministry of Water Resources and Meterology.

Meanwhile, the World Health Organisation said that no outbreaks of infectious diseases had been detected in flood-hit areas. Daily surveillance was occurring in flood-hit provinces through the Ministry of Health’s Rapid Response Team of more than 1,000 health volunteers, the WHO said.

“We haven’t detected any outbreaks yet, and believe me we are looking for them,” WHO public health expert Nima Asgari said.

รักษาโรคน้ำกัดเท้าด้วยมังคุด

ในสภาวการณ์เช่นนี้ ผู้ประสบภัยบางรายอาจเจ็บไข้ด้วยการเป็นโรคน้ำกัดเท้า วิธีการรักษาอย่างหนึ่งคือผลไม้ใกล้ตัวที่ชื่อ “มังคุด” เพราะมังคุดมีสรรพคุณ รักษาบาดแผล สมานแผล ใช้ชะล้างบาดแผล แก้แผลเปื่อย แผลเป็นหนอง ทาแผลพุพอง

วิธีรักษาคือ นำเปลือกผลสดหรือแห้ง ฝนกับน้ำปูนใสให้ข้นพอประมาณ ทาแผลน้ำกัดเท้า วันละ 2-3 ครั้ง จนกว่าจะหาย

แต่ข้อควรระวัง คือ ก่อนใช้ยาทาบริเวณที่น้ำกัดเท้า ควรจะล้างเท้าฟอกสบู่ให้สะอาด จากนั้นเช็ดให้แห้ง ถ้ามีแอลกอฮอล์เช็ดแผล ควรเช็ดก่อนจึงทายา

วุ้นว่านหางฯ แก้แผลในปาก

แผลร้อนในที่เกิดขึ้นภายในช่องปากจะไม่ใช่ความผิดปกติที่ส่งผลรุนแรงต่อสุขภาพ แต่ปัญหาที่ว่านี้ นำความรู้สึกเจ็บแสบให้กับช่องปาก ซึ่งเป็นอวัยวะส่วนที่คนเราใช้รับรสชาดอาหารต่างๆ เวลาที่เป็นแล้วจะกินอะไรก็ไม่อร่อย เผลอเอาลิ้นไปโดน ก็เจ็บแปลบแสบขึ้นมา ช่างเป็นแผลที่สร้างความรำคาญเสียจริง

การรักษาแผลร้อนในซึ่งอยู่ในช่องปาก อันที่จริงก็พอเยียวยาได้ด้วยตนเอง โดยเฉพาะบ้านไหนที่ปลูกว่านหางจระเข้ไว้ ให้ไปตัดกาบว่านหางจระเข้ขนาด 2-3 นิ้ว จากนั้นนำไปล้างน้ำทำความสะอาด ใช้มีดปอกเปลือกออกแล้วล้างซ้ำอีกครั้ง ก็จะได้เนื้อวุ้นที่มีลักษณะเป็นก้อนเมือกเหนียวๆ บรรเทาอาการเจ็บและแสบลงได้ ควรทาที่แผลให้บ่อย หรือราว 4 ครั้งต่อวัน

ทั้งนี้เนื้อวุ้นของว่านหางจระเข้นั้นกินได้ไม่อันตราย จึงสามารถหั่นเนื้อวุ้นเป็นชิ้นนำไปอมหรือเคี้ยวให้ละเอียดแล้วให้ไปสัมผัสกับแผล ลดอาการเจ็บแผล ช่วยแผลหายเร็ว

อย่างไรก็ตาม หลังจากตัดกาบว่านหางจระเข้ออกมาแล้ว ควรนำมาใช้รักษาแผลในปากอย่างรวดเร็ว หากปล่อยไว้สรรพคุณจะเสื่อมลง.

ปีแห่งพระราชพิธีมหามงคลเฉลิมพระชนมพรรษา ๗ รอบ ๕ ธันวาคม ๒๕๕๔

ปีแห่งพระราชพิธีมหามงคลเฉลิมพระชนมพรรษา ๗ รอบ ๕ ธันวาคม ๒๕๕๔ ในโอกาสที่พระบาทสมเด็จพระเจ้าอยู่หัวทรงเจริญพระชนมพรรษาแปดสิบสี่พรรษานั้น นำความปลื้มปีติอย่างท่วมท้นมาสู่ประชาราษฎร์ รวมไปถึงประชาคมคาทอลิกในราชอาณาจักรไทย ซึ่งต่างน้อมเกล้าน้อมกระหม่อมถวายพระพรชัย ด้วยสำนึกในพระมหากรุณาธิคุณและพระราชจริยวัตรที่ทรงสืบสานและเกื้อกูลสัมพันธไมตรีระหว่างราชอาณาจักรไทยและสำนักวาติกัน ที่นับเนื่องมาถึงสี่ศตวรรษ ให้ยั่งยืนสถาพรจวบจนปัจจุบัน
   
คณะผู้แทนของพระศาสนจักรคาทอลิกในสยามประเทศได้ก่อตั้งขึ้น ณ กรุงศรีอยุธยา เมื่อปี ค.ศ. ๑๖๖๙ ในรัชสมัยของสมเด็จพระนารายณ์มหาราช ซึ่งตรงกับสมณสมัยของสมเด็จพระสันตะปาปา อินโนเซนต์ที่ ๙ นับแต่นั้นมาเป็นที่ประจักษ์ว่าความสัมพันธ์ระหว่างสันตะสำนักและราชอาณาจักรไทยได้ดำเนินไปอย่างแน่นแฟ้น จนในปีคริสต์ศักราช ๑๙๖๙ ทั้งสองประเทศจึงได้สถาปนาความสัมพันธ์ทางการทูตขึ้นอย่างเป็นทางการ ด้วยองค์กรหน่วยงานต่าง ๆ ภายใต้พระศาสนจักรคาทอลิกได้ร่วมสรรค์สร้างสาธารณประโยชน์แก่ประชาชนในราชอาณาจักรไทยมาช้านานนับศตวรรษ โดยเฉพาะอย่างยิ่งในด้านการศึกษาและสาธารณสุข
   
เมื่อย้อนรำลึกถึงประวัติศาสตร์การเสด็จพระราชดำเนินเยือนนครรัฐวาติกันขององค์พระประมุขของไทย กล่าวคือการเสด็จฯ ของพระบาทสมเด็จพระจุลจอมเกล้าเจ้าอยู่หัว ในปี ค.ศ. ๑๘๙๗ และการเสด็จฯ ของพระบาทสมเด็จพระเจ้าอยู่หัวพร้อมด้วยสมเด็จพระนางเจ้าฯ พระบรมราชินีนาถ ในปี ค.ศ. ๑๙๖๐ ตลอดจนเมื่อครั้งที่พระบาทสมเด็จพระเจ้าอยู่หัวเสด็จออกรับสมเด็จพระสันตะปาปายอห์นปอลที่ ๒ ในปี ค.ศ. ๑๙๘๔ ณ พระที่นั่งจักรีมหาปราสาท นั้น
   
คริสตชนไทยทุกคนต่างตระหนักเสมอว่า ราชไมตรีขององค์พระประมุขทั้งสองประเทศอันนับเนื่องมายาวนานได้สร้างแรงบันดาลใจและพลังแก่ทุกคนในประชาคมคาทอลิก ตั้งแต่ระดับมุขนายก บาทหลวง บรรดานักบวช ไปจนถึงสัตบุรุษน้อยใหญ่ ให้มุ่งมั่นดำเนินกิจกรรมเพื่อประโยชน์สุขแก่เพื่อนมนุษย์เสมอมา ดังจะเห็นได้จากพันธกิจของพระศาสนจักรคาทอลิกในกิจการด้านการศึกษา สาธารณสุข รวมไปถึงการให้ความอนุเคราะห์แก่ผู้อพยพและผู้ประสบภัยพิบัติ  ซึ่งมุ่งเน้นที่จะธำรงดุลยภาพระหว่างการพัฒนาด้านจิตใจกับการพัฒนาทางวัตถุ ภายใต้เงื่อนไขที่ท้าทายของสังคมโลกาภิวัตน์ พันธกิจเหล่านี้ยังครอบคลุมถึงศาสนสัมพันธ์ ตลอดจนการศึกษาและพัฒนาความรู้ความเข้าใจต่อวัฒนธรรมความเชื่อต่าง ๆ อีกด้วย ทั้งนี้เพื่อยกระดับชีวิตให้ดีขึ้นอย่างถ้วนหน้า
   
สำนักวาติกันและพระศาสนจักรคาทอลิกในประเทศไทยต่างประจักษ์แจ้งเสมอมาว่าพระเมตตาต่อประชาราษฎร์ พระราชจริยวัตรต่อทุกศาสนา พระราชอุตสาหะในพระราชกรณียกิจน้อยใหญ่ และพระปรีชาสามารถในการดำเนินความสัมพันธ์ระหว่างประเทศนี้เอง คือ บ่อเกิดแห่งกำลังใจให้ผู้คนทุกหมู่เหล่าใฝ่บำเพ็ญประโยชน์ต่อสังคมอยู่เสมอ
   
ประเทศไทยและสำนักวาติกันต่างยึดมั่นในอุดมการณ์ในอันที่จะจรรโลงสันติภาพมาสู่ประชาคมโลก อีกทั้งจักส่งเสริมสิทธิมนุษยชน และธำรงศักดิ์ศรีของมนุษย์ ดังปรากฏในเวทีการเมืองระหว่างประเทศและสังคมสากล ว่าสำนักวาติกันและพระศาสนจักรคาทอลิกได้เข้าไปมีส่วนร่วมในโครงการต่าง ๆ อันมุ่งเน้นพัฒนาสภาวะทางจิตใจและจริยธรรม พระราชกรณียกิจน้อยใหญ่ที่พระบาทสมเด็จพระเจ้าอยู่หัวทรงปฏิบัติเพื่อความสุขของอาณาประชาราษฎร์ตลอดรัชสมัยนั้น เป็นดั่งต้นแบบแห่งเมตตาธรรม ความเอื้อเฟื้อต่อเพื่อนมนุษย์และความสุภาพอ่อนโยนอย่างเป็นเอกลักษณ์ไทย ดังนั้น พระเมตตาและพระมหากรุณาที่พระบาทสมเด็จพระเจ้าอยู่หัวทรงมีต่อพสกนิกรชาวไทย จึงหล่อหลอมดวงใจทุกดวงของคนไทยเข้าเป็นหนึ่งเดียวกับองค์พระมหากษัตริย์ อีกทั้งน้อมนำความจงรักภักดีของคนทั้งชาติต่อสถาบันอันสูงสุดนี้
   
ในฐานะที่ทรงเป็น “องค์อัครศาสนูปถัมภก” พระบาทสมเด็จพระเจ้าอยู่หัวพระราชทานโอกาส สิทธิ และเสรีภาพแก่ศาสนิกชนจากทุกศาสนาและนิกายหลายหลาก เพื่อให้ต่างฝ่ายต่างปฏิบัติศาสนกิจตามความเชื่อและรูปแบบจารีตของตน นี่คือเอกลักษณ์ไทยที่ธำรงอยู่มาช้านาน ควบคู่กับขันติธรรมของประชาชาติ ภายใต้พระบรมโพธิสมภารและพระบรมราโชบายที่มุ่งจรรโลงสันติภาพ ความสามัคคีในชาติ และภราดรภาพ ดุจดั่งครอบครัวเดียวกัน คริสตศาสนิกชนในประเทศไทยต่างสำนึกในพระมหากรุณาและพระเมตตานี้ จึงมุ่งดำเนินชีวิตภายใต้ครรลองแห่งพระวาจาของพระเจ้า พร้อมอุทิศตนและงานเพื่อประโยชน์สุขของประเทศและผู้ด้อยโอกาส ประหนึ่งการเดินตามรอยพระยุคลบาท
   
ในโอกาสนี้ ข้าพเจ้าในนามของประชาคมพระศาสนจักรคาทอลิกในประเทศไทยขอเทิดทูนพระมหากรุณาธิคุณแห่งองค์อัครศาสนูปถัมภกไว้เหนือเกล้า พระราชจริยวัตรอันงดงามที่ปรากฏต่อเหล่าศาสนิกของทุกศาสนานั้นก่อเกื้อให้แผ่นดินไทยเป็นราชอาณาจักรที่ยิ่งใหญ่แห่งหนึ่งของโลก
   
ข้าพเจ้าขอร่วมใจกับประชาชนชาวไทยทุกหมู่เหล่า น้อมเกล้าน้อมกระหม่อมถวายพระพร ให้พระบาทสมเด็จพระเจ้าอยู่หัวและพระบรมวงศานุวงศ์ ทรงเจริญด้วยพระพลานามัยที่สมบูรณ์ พระบารมีแผ่ไพศาล สถิตอยู่เป็นมิ่งขวัญของปวงประชาราษฎรตราบเท่านาน

ด้วยเกล้าด้วยกระหม่อมขอเดชะ
ข้าพระพุทธเจ้า พระอัครสังฆราชโจวานนี ดานีเอลโล อัครสมณทูต แห่งนครรัฐวาติกันประจำประเทศไทย

สำหรับนครรัฐวาติกัน ตั้งอยู่ภายในเขตกรุงโรม ประเทศอิตาลี มีนครรัฐวาติกันเป็นเมืองหลวง ภูมิอากาศแบบเมดิเตอร์เรเนียน ฤดูหนาวอุณหภูมิปานกลางและมีฝนตก ฤดูร้อนอากาศร้อนแห้ง ภาษาราชการที่ใช้คือภาษาอิตาเลียนและลาติน ประชากรนับถือศาสนาโรมันคาทอลิก

การปกครอง เป็นแบบรัฐเอกราช มีสมเด็จพระสันตะปาปาเป็นประมุข การบริหารกระทำผ่านสำนักเลขาธิการแห่งรัฐ (Secretariat of State) และมีเลขาธิการแห่งรัฐ(Secretary of State) เทียบเท่านายกรัฐมนตรี เป็นหัวหน้าคณะหน่วยงานระดับกระทรวงต่าง ๆ ซึ่งมีทั้งหมด 9 หน่วยงาน เรียกว่า Sacred Congregations

ความสัมพันธ์ระหว่างไทยกับนครรัฐวาติกัน เว็บไชต์ของกระทรวงการต่างประเทศ (www.mfa.go.th) บันทึกว่า ราชอาณาจักรไทยและศาสนจักรวาติกันได้สถาปนาความสัมพันธ์ทางการทูตระหว่างกันเมื่อวันที่ 26 เมษายน ค.ศ. 1969 ฝ่ายไทยได้มอบให้สถานเอกอัครราชทูต ณ กรุงเบิร์น ดูแลความสัมพันธ์ไทย-วาติกัน สมเด็จพระสันตะปาปาจอห์น ปอล ที่ 2 ได้ทรงแต่งตั้งคาร์ดินัลชาวไทยคนแรก เมื่อเดือนกุมภาพันธ์ ค.ศ. 1983 คือ คาร์ดินัล มีชัย กิจบุญชู

อย่างไรก็ตาม ความสัมพันธ์ไทย-วาติกันเริ่มต้นขึ้นตั้งแต่ปี ค.ศ. 1662 เมื่อสมเด็จพระสันตะปาปา Alexander ที่ 7 ได้จัดส่งคณะมิชชันนารีชุดแรกเดินทางมายังกรุงศรีอยุธยา ในรัชสมัยของสมเด็จพระนารายณ์มหาราช นับเป็นคณะผู้ก่อตั้งคริสตศาสนาในไทยเป็นคณะแรก

ต่อมา สมเด็จพระสันตะปาปา Innocent ที่ 11 ได้มีพระราชสาส์นมาถวายพระพรสมเด็จพระนารายณ์ เมื่อ 4 ตุลาคม ค.ศ. 1679 ซึ่งทรงมีพระราชสาส์นตอบในปี ค.ศ. 1680 แต่เรืออัญเชิญพระราชสาสน์ประสบอุบัติเหตุแตกกลางทะเล สมเด็จพระสันตะปาปา Innocent ที่ 11 จึงได้มีพระราชสาส์นมาอีกเป็นครั้งที่ 2 ลงวันที่ 15 กุมภาพันธ์ ค.ศ. 1687 ต่อมา ในปี ค.ศ. 1688 สมเด็จพระนารายณ์ทรงส่งคณะนำโดยเจ้าพระยาโกษาธิบดี (ปาน) เดินทางไปยังกรุงโรม เพื่ออัญเชิญพระราชสาส์นตอบ ไปถวาย ลงวันที่ 23 ธันวาคม ค.ศ.1688 ในปลายศตวรรษที่ 17 เกิดความปั่นป่วนในพระราชอาณาจักรจากการสงครามกับพม่าซึ่งนำไปสู่การเสียกรุงในที่สุด คริสตจักรในกรุงศรีอยุธยาจึงถูกทำลายลง

ในสมัยรัตนโกสินทร์เป็นต้นมา คริสตจักรได้เริ่มฟื้นฟูกลับคืนมาอีกครั้ง พระบาทสมเด็จพระจอมเกล้าเจ้าอยู่หัว ได้ทรงมีพระราชสาส์นติดต่อกับสมเด็จพระสันตะปาปา Pius ที่ 9 ระหว่างปี ค.ศ. 1851-1861 พระบาทสมเด็จพระจุลจอมเกล้าเจ้าอยู่หัวได้เสด็จฯ ประพาสนครรัฐวาติกัน ในระหว่างเสด็จฯ ประพาสยุโรปในปี ค.ศ. 1897 และได้ทรงพบสมเด็จพระสันตะปาปา Leo ที่ 13 นับเป็นการแลกเปลี่ยนการเยือนเป็นครั้งแรกในระดับประมุขของประเทศระหว่างราชอาณาจักรไทยและศาสนจักรวาติกัน ซึ่งต่อมาพระบาทสมเด็จพระปกเกล้าเจ้าอยู่หัวได้เสด็จฯ เยือนกรุงโรม และทรงพบสมเด็จพระสันตะปาปา Pius ที่ 11 เมื่อเดือนมีนาคม ค.ศ.1934

พระบาทสมเด็จพระเจ้าอยู่หัว และสมเด็จพระนางเจ้าฯ พระบรมราชินีนาถได้เสด็จฯ ประพาสนครวาติกันในเดือนตุลาคม ค.ศ. 1960 และทรงพบสมเด็จพระสันตะปาปา John ที่ 23

สมเด็จพระสันตะปาปาจอห์น ปอล ที่ 2 เสด็จเยือนประเทศไทยเป็นครั้งแรก (State Visit) ระหว่างวันที่ 10-11 พฤษภาคม ค.ศ. 1984 ในโอกาสเดียวกับที่เสด็จเยือนสาธารณรัฐเกาหลี ปาปัวนิวกินี และหมู่เกาะโซโลมอน ระหว่างการเยือน สมเด็จพระสันตะปาปาฯ ได้เยี่ยมค่ายผู้อพยพที่พนัสนิคม และทรงเรียกร้องวิงวอนให้ประเทศต่างๆ ให้ความช่วยเหลือแก่ผู้อพยพเหล่านั้น อีกทั้ง ยังทรงบริจาคเงินสดช่วยเหลือผู้ลี้ภัยอินโดจีนเป็นจำนวน 1 ล้านบาทด้วย

การฉลองครบรอบ 25 ปี ความสัมพันธ์ไทย-วาติกัน ปี ค.ศ. 1994

เมื่อวันที่ 20 พฤษภาคม ค.ศ. 1994 สถานเอกอัครสมณทูตวาติกันประจำประเทศไทยได้จัดให้มีการตีพิมพ์บทความและสาส์น ของ Monsignor Luigi Bressan เอกอัครสมณทูตวาติกันฯ ใน Supplement ของหนังสือพิมพ์บางกอกโพสต์ ในโอกาสการครบรอบ 25 ปีแห่งการสถาปนาความสัมพันธ์ทางการทูตระหว่างไทย-วาติกัน

ในโอกาสการฉลองครบรอบ 25 ปีแห่งการสถาปนาความสัมพันธ์ระหว่างกันนี้ สมเด็จพระสันตะปาปาจอห์น ปอล ที่สอง ได้ประทานเครื่องอิสริยาภรณ์ Knight Grand Cross of the Pian Order ให้แก่นาวาอากาศตรี ประสงค์ สุ่นศิริ รัฐมนตรีว่าการกระทรวงการต่างประเทศ โดยเอกอัครสมณทูตนครรัฐวาติกันประจำประเทศไทยเป็นผู้มอบเมื่อวันที่ 26 สิงหาคม ค.ศ. 1994 และพระบาทสมเด็จพระเจ้าอยู่หัวได้ทรงพระกรุณาโปรดเกล้าฯ พระราชทานเครื่องราชอิสริยาภรณ์ประถมาภรณ์ช้างเผือกให้แก่ H.E. Archbishop Jean Louis Tauran รัฐมนตรีว่าการกระทรวงการต่างประเทศนครรัฐวาติกัน โดยเอกอัครราชทูตไทยประจำนครรัฐวาติกันเป็นผู้มอบเมื่อวันที่ 17 มกราคม ค.ศ. 1997

Asking Empowering Questions.

Asking Empowering Questions   Chuck Gallozzi   

A Penny for Your Thoughts

You probably heard the expression, "A penny for your thoughts..." Isn't that an offer that is far too little to hear the thoughts, opinions, and beliefs of our friends? For if we were to listen carefully to what they have to say, I'm sure there is a great deal we can learn.

How about YOUR thoughts? How much are they worth? Their value and importance are incalculable. Why? Because your success and happiness depend on them. Do you know that each day winners, champions, and achievers have half the thoughts of ordinary folk? That's because they spend twice the time mulling over them.

A critical part of the mindset of champions is curiosity. Because they are curious, they ask questions. That's why they spend twice as much time considering their thoughts, for they pose questions to themselves and then seek to answer them. No wonder they are successful. After all, questions are keys that unlock answers. They also help to focus the mind on one's goals.

Also, as Francis Bacon (1561 ~ 1626) wrote, "Who questions much, shall learn much, and retain much."

Questions are empowering as their answers help us to solve problems and to advance. Since questioners are on a quest, they find life exciting. And when they find the answers they are looking for, they find life all the more enjoyable. There are no foolish questions. But there are fools. They are the ones who never ask questions.

Well, then, what sort of questions should we be asking ourselves? For starters, here are three important questions: What do I want? What is preventing me from getting what I want? What will I do to remove or overcome the obstacle or obstacles blocking my way? The answers to these questions are no less than the keys to our success.

The renowned author of ''As a Man Thinketh,'' James Allen (1864 ~ 1912), adds "For true success ask yourself these four questions: Why? Why not? Why not me? Why not now?"

A Jewish sage poses three powerful questions: "If I am not for myself, who will be for me? If I am only for myself, what am I? And if not now, when?"

(Pirke Avot 1:14)

Scholar Joseph Campbell (1904 ~ 1987) posed one question: "The big question is whether you are going to be able to say a hearty yes to your adventure (life)."

Now that you have the idea, here are some more helpful questions to ask

Ourselves: What do I know today, that I did not know yesterday? Will what I am doing now bring me closer to my dreams? What can I do now? What SHOULD I do now?

What can I dedicate my life to? How can I infuse my life with meaning? What cause can I live for? How do I spend my time? Am I contributing to life?

What am I doing wrong? What can I learn from my mistakes? What should I avoid doing? What do I need to do more often? Am I going to make the most of this opportunity (life)?

If we want to think like champions, we have to keep asking ourselves questions and then act upon the answers. Here are still more questions that are helpful to ask: What would I do if I knew I wouldn't fail? (Once you know, do it.) What new, positive habit am I starting today? What am I doing better today than I did yesterday?

Now, the natures of our questions determine the nature of our answers. For example, trivial questions produce trivial answers while important questions generate momentous answers. For similar reasons, if you are interested in results, avoid theoretical questions and stick with practical questions.

There are also right and wrong questions. "Do I have what it takes to be successful?" is an example of the wrong question. It is wrong because EVERYONE has what it takes to be successful. The correct question is "Am I willing to pay the price for success?" Everyone wants to be successful, but few are willing to pay the price. So, few succeed.

Also, avoid useless questions and adopt empowering ones. If you're stuck in a traffic jam on the way to an important meeting, asking yourself why this happened to you is useless. Instead, you should be asking yourself questions such as "How can I cope? What are my options? How will I handle the situation once I am finally out of the traffic jam? Is there anything useful I can do while I am stuck here? What can I do to lessen the likelihood of something similar occurring in the future?"

We can also have high or low standards for our questions, which determine whether we lead rewarding or disappointing lives. Perhaps you are familiar with some of these low standard questions: "How can I leave work early today? How can I use sick days to take time off? How can I avoid the company picnic? What is the least I can do and still get paid?"

Examples of high standard questions are: "How can I help my company to reach its goals? What can I do to fully cooperate with my teammates? Who can I encourage today? What is the most efficient use of my time? How can I increase my value to the company? What other responsibilities can I take on?" Can you see how by asking different questions, we get different answers, which lead to different results? Yes, our successes and failures are the results of our questions!

Of course, the purpose of asking questions is not merely to arrive at answers, but to act on them, for questions derive their power from the actions they inspire.

Science cannot answer all our questions. It can teach us our capabilities, but it cannot reveal whether we OUGHT TO do everything we can do. Some questions fall under the purview of philosophy or metaphysics. The answers to such questions often come from deep within. Hermann Hesse (1877 ~ 1962) explains, "I have been and still am a seeker, but I have ceased to question stars and books; I have begun to listen to the teachings my blood whispers to me."

Our questions also create our life view. A good example is given by Bobby Matherne, "The way the Buddhist asks the question creates a different view of nature than the way the physicist does. The Buddhist asks wave questions and the physicist asks particle questions. One sees an unbroken whole and the other sees scattered parts."

As we grow in consciousness, we come to realize there are times to refrain from asking questions. Such a time is described by South African author Sir Laurens Jan van der Post (1906 ~ 1996), "I think the most wonderful things in life are beyond reason, that is why I think 'why' is often such an irrelevant question; it is very limited. The real things in life have nothing to do with 'why.' They are just 'so;' they are just 'thus.' Life is a 'thus,' and until you realize this 'thusness' of life, you are stuck."

Egyptian writer and Nobel Prize winner Naguib Mahfouz (1911 ~ 2006) wrote "You can tell whether a man is clever by his answers. You can tell whether a man is wise by his questions." What are YOUR questions going to be today?

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Congress Ends 5-Year Standoff on Trade Deals in Rare Accord.

Congress Ends 5-Year Standoff on Trade Deals in Rare Accord

By BINYAMIN APPELBAUM and JENNIFER STEINHAUER

WASHINGTON — Congress passed three long-awaited free trade agreements on Wednesday, ending a political standoff that has stretched across two presidencies. The move offered a rare moment of bipartisan accord at a time when Republicans and Democrats are bitterly divided over the role that government ought to play in reviving the sputtering economy.
The approval of the deals with South Korea, Colombia and Panama is a victory for President Obama and proponents of the view that foreign trade can drive America’s economic growth in the face of rising protectionist sentiment in both political parties. They are the first trade agreements to pass Congress since Democrats broke a decade of Republican control in 2007.
All three agreements cleared both chambers with overwhelming Republican support just one day after Senate Republicans prevented action on Mr. Obama’s jobs bill.
The passage of the trade deals is important primarily as a political achievement, and for its foreign policy value in solidifying relationships with strategic allies. The economic benefits are projected to be small. A federal agency estimated in 2007 that the impact on employment would be “negligible” and that the deals would increase gross domestic product by about $14.4 billion, or roughly 0.1 percent.
The House voted to pass the Colombia measure, the most controversial of the three deals because of concerns about the treatment of unions in that country, 262 to 167; the Panama measure passed 300 to 129, and the agreement concerning South Korea passed 278 to 151. The votes reflected a clear partisan divide, with many Democrats voting against the president. In the Senate, the Colombia measure passed 66 to 33, the Panama bill succeeded 77 to 22 and the South Korea measure passed 83 to 15. Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, the majority leader, voted against all three measures.
The House also passed a measure to expand a benefits program for workers who lose jobs to foreign competition by a vote of 307 to 122. The benefits program, a must-have for labor unions, passed with strong Democratic support. The Senate previously approved the measure.
Proponents of the trade deals, including Mr. Obama, Republican leaders and centrist Democrats, predict that they will reduce prices for American consumers and increase foreign sales of American goods and services, providing a much-needed jolt to the sluggish economy.
“At long last, we are going to do something important for the country on a bipartisan basis,” said Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the minority leader.
However, Mr. Obama’s support for the measures has angered important parts of his political base, including trade unions, which fear job losses to foreign competition. Many Democrats took to the House floor Wednesday to speak in opposition to the deals.
“What I am seeing firsthand is devastation that these free trade agreements can do to our communities,” said Representative Mike Michaud, a Maine Democrat who once worked in a paper mill.
Both chambers raced to approve the deals before a joint Congressional session Thursday with the South Korean president, Lee Myung-bak.
The revival of support for the deals, originally negotiated by the Bush administration five years ago, comes at a paradoxical political moment, when both conservative Republicans and the Occupy Wall Street protesters have taken antitrade positions, albeit for different reasons. In a debate among Republican presidential candidates Tuesday night, Mitt Romney, the former governor of Massachusetts, accused China of manipulating the value of its currency to flood the United states with cheap goods, while populist sentiment on the left opposes the trade agreements because of the potential for American job losses.
Mr. Obama cited similar concerns in criticizing the agreements during the 2008 presidential campaign, but he later embraced the deals as a key part of his agenda to revive the economy. To win Democratic support, the White House reopened negotiations with the three countries to make changes demanded by industry groups and unions, and insisted that the expansion of benefits for displaced workers be tied to passage of the trade agreements.
The benefits program was expanded in 2009 to include workers in service industries as well as manufacturing. The compromise negotiated this summer between the White House, House Republicans and Senate Democrats preserves most of the funding for the program.
Increased protections for American automakers in the South Korea deal won the support of traditional opponents of trade deals, including some Midwestern Democrats and the United Automobile Workers union. But scores of Democrats opposed the deal with Colombia, because they said it did not do enough to address the murders of dozens of union organizers in that country.
“Trade agreements should not be measured solely on how many tons of goods move across the border,” said Representative Lloyd Doggett, a Texas Democrat.
Economists generally predict that free trade agreements, which eliminate tariffs and other policies aimed at protecting domestic manufacturers, benefit all participating nations by creating a larger common market, increasing sales and reducing prices. But such deals also create clear losers, as workers lose well-paid jobs to foreign competition.
The White House and Republican leaders said that the three agreements would provide a big boost to the lagging American economy and put people back to work.
Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton hailed the deals Wednesday as an important victory for American foreign policy. And she said she expected that the South Korea pact alone would create 70,000 American jobs. “By opening new markets to American exports and attracting new investments to American communities, our economic statecraft is creating jobs and spurring growth here at home,” Ms. Clinton said at a Washington event.
But the United States International Trade Commission, a federal agency that analyzed the deals in 2007, reported that that economic impact would be minimal because the three countries combined represent a relatively small market for American goods and services.
The modest projected increase in demand will come mostly from South Korea, the world’s 14th-largest economy, which will join a short list of developed nations that have free trade pacts with the United States, alongside Australia, Canada, Israel and Singapore.
The commission predicted that American farmers would benefit most, because of increased demand for dairy products and beef, pork and poultry. Conversely, it predicted that the pacts would eliminate some manufacturing jobs, particularly in the textile industry.
Opponents, including textile companies, said that the deals would harm the economy by undermining the nation’s industrial base. They argued that South Korean companies would benefit much more than American companies because they were gaining access to a much larger market.
These are the first deals to pass Congress since the approval of an agreement with Peru in 2007. The Bush administration had won approval for trade agreements with 14 countries before the Democrats regained Congress in 2008, but it was then unable to gain traction.
“It’s been five years in the making, but we are finally here,” said Representative Lynn Jenkins, a Kansas Republican, in a speech urging passage of the agreements.
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