What Year is this Again?

G'day there! How's it going where you are, eh? I hope all is well, the sun is shining and things are progressing as though it was 2013...which, in most places, it is...well except here in Thailand where it is 2556 (Buddha was born 543 years before JC). Help yourself to a nice, refreshing mug of Arabica and a virtual treat while I tell you a little about this modern world in which we find ourselves.

This week there was a report out of Papua New Guinea about a woman who was burned as a witch. Yup...it still happening.Papua New Guinea police have charged two people with the grisly killing of a woman who was tortured and burned alive in front of hundreds of people, including young children, after being accused of witchcraft.

Janet Ware and Andrew Watea were charged with murder over the slaying of Kepari Leniata, a 20-year-old mother who was stripped, tortured with a hot iron rod, doused in gasoline and set alight on a pile of car tires and trash by a mob earlier this month.

Leniata had been accused of sorcery by relatives of a 6-year-old boy who had died in a hospital. Ware and Watea are believed to be the boy's mother and uncle, police said in a statement.

In Papua New Guinea, the Pacific nation just a short boat ride from Australia’s far north, 80 per cent of the 7 million-plus population live in rural and remote communities. Many have little access to even basic health and education, surviving on what they eat or earn from their gardens. There are few roads out, but a burgeoning network of digital-phone towers and dirt-cheap handsets now connect them to the world — assuming they can plug into power and scrounge a few kina-worth of credit.

And, read this report out of India:

In a January submission to India's Supreme Court, an association of the country's caste councils begged for greater sympathy for men who commit "honour killings" of wayward females. The councils denied encouraging such killings, but emphasized that fathers or brothers who murder a daughter or sister are usually "law-abiding, educated and respectable people" who must protect their reputations after a female has had a "forbidden" relationship -- especially a female who intends to marry within her sub-caste, which the councils believe leads to deformed babies. [Daily Telegraph (London), 1-15-2013]

Kind of makes you wonder what progress the world has made over the past several thousand years...if any, eh?

See ya, eh!

Bob

Comment from Brian in Pattaya:

OK Now here's the thing.

Golden Bab was all black lettering on a brown background so I thought I would simply send the page back to you so you could see for yourself.

Lo and behold, as the Art Mistress said to the Bishop, "surely thiiis maaan he waaas the soooon of Gaaaaad", this must be magic.

 

On the e-mail, the brown background mysreriously changed to a white background. So I think 'Hey. This is OK now" So I go back to read the blog and 'beejasus' its changed back to brown again.

 

How are you doing this and what have I ever done to you to deserve this!!!

 

It's those pludy Kremlins agen.

 

B.

 

Bob's plucky reply:

 

What is causing my problem reading Bob's magnificent daily blog?

a) Bad karma

b) A Google screw-up

c) Kremlins because Pattaya is overrun with Russians

d) All of the above. (Correct) 

As soon as I return to Canadian reality (Wednesday) I shall take the problem under advisement and review, Brian!)