Cheese made from donkey mill

• By Kristin Vuković

27 July 2016

Slobodan Simić lounged on the crude wooden bench in Zasavica Special Nature Reserve’s dining room like the caterpillar from Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, holding court and puffing on the quarter-bent Calabash-style briar pipe that dangled delicately from his teeth. Tanned creases ran down his face like tributaries, and his eyes sparkled with mischief.
“Rakia?” he said, offering me a shot of the strong Balkan brandy that is often drunk in the morning, even before coffee.

A glass of sweet donkey milk accompanies a cup of Turkish coffee (Credit: Kristin Vuković)

“Ne, hvala,” I replied, shaking my head and thanking him. Instead, I accepted a cup of thick Turkish coffee accompanied by a shot glass of donkey milk from Zasavica’s herd. It was my first time tasting the sweet milk; I was even more eager to try the donkey cheese, a delicacy I’d learned about a few years back when rumours swirled that Serbian tennis ace Novak Djokovic was buying up their entire stock for his restaurants. Although the rumours were untrue, they brought global attention to Zasavica – and Serbia.
Despite being a nature lover, Simić never set out to create a farm. Twenty years ago, the former MP-turned-conservationist remembered that he’d heard about some wetlands in west-central Serbia. His ex-wife’s parents, who lived in a nearby village, took him to see them.
“I fell in love immediately,” he said.
Zasavica, named after the river that runs through it, is located just 90km northwest of Belgrade, but the 1,825-hectare area was virtually undiscovered. The place is ripe for bird watching, and in the summer, hues are so vibrant they seem otherworldly. With the help of his political contacts, Simić transformed the wild marshland into a nature reserve in 1997.

Donkeys are social and intelligent creatures (Credit: Kristin Vuković)

Three years later, Simić was at a fair in the nearby town of Ruma and saw some abused Balkan donkeys. No longer needed for work or transportation, they’d been beaten and were in bad shape. He had the idea to rescue them and bring them to Zasavica. Today, 180 Balkan donkeys, smaller than most donkeys and marked with crosses on their backs, roam the verdant marshland. Other native animals were added, including the Mangalica, related to the Hungarian “curly pig”, and the Podolian cow, originating from the European wild cow. Beavers were also reintroduced to the area.
“We lost contact with animals, and we need that contact,” Simić said.
But I’d come for the donkeys. More specifically, for the donkey milk cheese, which is the most expensive cheese in the world due to the extremely low milk yield of the magarica (female donkey): just 300 millilitres per day. Rich in vitamins and minerals, donkey milk is believed to slow down the aging process and has been used as an immunity booster in the Balkans since ancient times. Cleopatra allegedly even bathed in it. It is also purported to boost virility.
“If you drink our milk, you can even sleep with your own wife,” joked Simić, who has been married three times.
Simić had the notion to produce donkey milk cheese a few years ago.
“He is full of crazy ideas, but he is always right,” said farm manager Jovan Vukadinović, a formidable former traffic police chief with a near-white moustache that resembled a bristle brush.

Donkey milk has been used as an immunity booster in the Balkans since ancient time (Credit: Kristin Vuković)

No one had produced cheese from donkey milk before, and it took some experimentation. Stevan Marinković, a dairy technologist, was brought in to consult. Donkey milk doesn’t have enough casein to make cheese, so he compensated by adding goat milk to the mix. The winning formula, which Marinković is in the process of patenting, turned out to be 60% donkey milk and 40% goat milk.
But despite there being no established rules for donkey milk (or donkey milk cheese) in Serbia, concerns arose over the use of unpasteurized milk, and Zasavica was forced to stop factory production of the cheese.
In the meantime, until official regulations are determined, local cheese makers Zoran Nedić, Momčilo Budimirović and his assistant, Milena, are producing small amounts of donkey cheese with milk pasteurized at low levels for Zasavica in a room adjacent to Budimirović’s kitchen in the nearby village of Glušci.

Donkey milk cheese is the most expensive cheese in the world (Credit: Kristin Vuković)

I sat at Budimirović’s dining table with Nedić, Vukadinović and Simić, who were chatting in rapid Serbian. Domaće crno vino (domestic red wine) and a wedge of white cheese were on the table.
“Is this donkey cheese?” I asked. Vukadinović shook his head. “Goat cheese, so you can taste the difference.” It was tangy and crumbly, with a dark kora od hrast (oak bark) rind.
Then, without much ceremony, Budimirović brought out a much smaller bell-shaped chunk of magareći sir (donkey cheese). It had a yellowish tinge, and was less crumbly than the goat cheese. This piece, the size of a cupcake, would sell for 50 euros, I was told. Nedić cut me a slice. Its flavour was sweet, clean and mild, unlike any cheese I had ever tasted.
We headed to the cheese room to see how it was made. That day, the trio of cheese makers were crafting goat cheese, but they explained donkey cheese is essentially made the same way – although the exact method is a secret. Rennet is added to the milk to help it coagulate, and the curds are strained and hand packed into moulds. The cheese stays in the mould for 24 hours, then it is removed and refrigerated in a large trailer cooler in Budimirović’s yard.

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 Zasavica also sells donkey milk cosmetics, such as donkey milk soap and anti-ageing face creams, which contain essential fatty acids and high levels of vitamin A; and donkey milk liqueur that tastes like milky Limoncello.
The reserve, which has been supported by international grants, is working to become self-sustaining. Selling animal products is part of that plan, as is camping: Zasavica was rated among the 100 best campsites in Europe in 2013 and 2014.

We made something in the middle of the nothing

“We made something in the middle of the nothing,” Vukadinović said. “We always have to find new ways to survive. It’s easy when they say ‘sustainable tourism’, but it’s not easy. We want to be the best. We know we can’t change the world, we can’t change Serbia, but we always want to do just a little better than normal. That is our mission.”
Just before I left, Vukadinović and I took a walk through the reserve. Donkeys grazed on shrubbery and frolicked in the grass. They nuzzled, cleaned each other and nursed. A grey donkey ambled toward me.
“She’s pregnant,” Vukadinović said. “A magarica can be pregnant for more than a year.”
I reached out and rubbed her forehead, fingering her coarse hair. She nuzzled my hand and leaned her body into mine. When we turned to leave she followed me, nudging for more attention.

Vukadinović feeds one of his donkeys (Credit: Kristin Vuković)

“They are very intelligent and social,” Vukadinović said. He bent down and hugged her neck. “This is very good for the stress.”
We sat down at a picnic table for lunch. Sun illuminated the flat landscape, highlighting various shades of green – moss, pine, fern ­­– against a clear blue sky. Frogs sang. A stork soared overhead, landing on her nest atop Zasavica’s 18m-high watchtower.
Vukadinović brought out a plate of cured meats: Mangalica sausage, speck and donkey sausage. I cringed a little. “Try it,” he urged, gesturing to the donkey sausage.
This was one of their products I had not planned to sample. “How do you choose which donkeys are made into sausage?” I said. He explained that male donkeys sometimes become interested in their daughters, and then “it’s sausage time for them.”

A charcuterie platter of Mangalica sausage, speck and donkey sausage (Credit: Kristin Vuković)

I speared a mottled slice with a toothpick. The fatty meat was tough and slightly gamey. Even eating an incestuous donkey felt wrong after communing with these gentle creatures – but Zasavica embraces the cycle of life, replete with its imperfections.
Here you can go back to a way of living that has all but disappeared, when people cured their own meats and made their own cheese. You can experience virgin nature. You can believe, even for a moment, the local legend: on this land there was too much sun from Christ, which forever marked the Balkan donkey with a cross pattern on its coat, running down its spine.
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Wild birds 'come when called' to help hunt honey

By Jonathan Webb Science reporter, BBC News

New findings suggest that the famous cooperation between honeyguide birds and human honey hunters in sub-Saharan Africa is a two-way conversation.

Honeyguides fly ahead of hunters and point out beehives which the hunters raid, leaving wax for the birds to eat.
The birds were already known to chirp at potential human hunting partners.
Now, a study in the journal Science reports that they are also listening out for a specific call made by their human collaborators.
Experiments conducted in the savannah of Mozambique showed that a successful bird-assisted hunt was much more likely in the presence of a distinctive, trilling shout that the Yao hunters of this region learn from their fathers.
"They told us is that the reason they make this 'brrrr-hm' sound, when they're walking through the bush looking for bees' nests, is that it's the best way of attracting a honeyguide - and of maintaining a honeyguide's attention once it starts guiding you," said Dr Claire Spottiswoode, a researcher at the University of Cambridge, UK, and the University of Cape Town, South Africa, who led the study.
She and her colleagues wanted to test what contribution this sound actually made.

"In particular, we wanted to distinguish whether honeyguides responded to the specific information content of the 'brrr-hm' call - which, from a honeyguide's point of view, effectively signals 'I'm looking for bees' nests' - or whether the call simply alerts honeyguides to the presence of humans in the environment."

It seems to be a two-way conversation between our own species and a wild animal

Dr Claire Spottiswoode, University of Cambridge and University of Cape Town

To make that distinction, the team made recordings of the "brrrr-hm" call, as well as of general human vocal sounds such as the hunters shouting their own names, or the Yao word for "honey".
Then, Dr Spottiswoode accompanied two Yao honey hunters on 72 separate 15-minute walks through the Niassa National Reserve - a protected area the size of Denmark - playing these recordings on a speaker.
"This was great fun," she told BBC News. "We walked hundreds of kilometres through beautiful landscapes and occasionally bumped into elephants and buffalo and lions and so on. It's a really remarkable wilderness where humans and wildlife still coexist."

Sure enough, walks accompanied by the "brrrr-hm" recordings were much more likely to recruit a honeyguide (66% of the time, compared to 25% for the other vocal sounds).
The special call also trebled the overall chance of finding a beehive (a 54% success rate, up from 17% for the other sounds).
"What this suggests is that honeyguides are attaching meaning, and responding appropriately, to the signal that advertises people's willingness to cooperate.
"We already knew very well... that honeyguides communicate with humans, using special calls and behaviour to lead honey hunters to bees' nests. What our work has done is to complement those findings, by showing that humans communicate back to honeyguides too.
"It seems to be a two-way conversation between our own species and a wild animal, from which both partners benefit."

Prof Richard Wrangham, a biological anthropologist at Harvard University, said the new study greatly strengthened the idea that honeyguides had evolved to cooperate with humans in this way.
He said a previous explanation, that the teamwork originated with another species - such as honey badgers or baboons - and was then co-opted by humans, had fallen from favour because the birds had never been witnessed guiding these animals.
"[This study] shows just how tightly attuned they are to human sounds," Prof Wrangham told the BBC. "They're not just generally interested in weird noises - anything loud or unusual or whatever. They have been trained, as it were, to look for humans.
"That really supports the notion that this is an evolved, co-evolutionary relationship."
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วันอาสาฬหบูชา....คิดถึงคำสอนของพระสงฆ์ดีๆ: “หากคิดเป็นผู้นำ...ต้องทำตัวเหมือนกระโถน”

โดย ผู้จัดการรายวัน

18 กรกฎาคม 2559 17:53 น.

วันอาสาฬหบูชาเป็นวันที่พระพุทธเจ้า ทรงแสดงปฐมเทศนา-เริ่มประกาศศาสนา-เกิดอริยสงฆ์ครั้งแรก-เกิดพระภิกษุรูป แรก-เกิดปฐมสาวก ถือว่าเป็นวันที่เริ่มเกิดมีพระสงฆ์ ดังนั้นจึงเรียกวันสำคัญทางพุทธศาสนาวันนี้ว่า “วันพระสงฆ์”              ผู้จัดการ Live ขอรวบรวมคำสอนของพระสงฆ์ที่เป็นพระแท้ๆ พระดีๆ แม้ท่านละสังขารไปแล้ว แต่คำสอนไม่ดับตาม หากยังคงเป็นหลักยึดเหนี่ยวจิตใจส่องนำทางชีวิตของพุทธศาสนิกชนคนไทยทุก วันนี้              ปฐมเทศนา คำสอนที่ไม่เคยตาย              ในการแสดงแสดงปฐมเทศนาครั้งแรกของพระพุทธเจ้า ทรงแสดงหลักธรรมสำคัญ 2 ประการคือ              1. มัชฌิมาปฏิปทาหรือทางสายกลาง มิใช่การดำเนินชีวิตที่เอียงสุด ๒ อย่าง หรืออย่างหนึ่งอย่างใด คือ              1.1 การหมกหมุ่นในความสุขทางกาย มัวเมาในรูป รส กลิ่น เสียง              1.2 การสร้างความลำบากแก่ตน เช่น บำเพ็ญตบะการทรมานตน คอยพึ่งอำนาจสิ่งศักดิ์สิทธิ์ เป็นต้น              ดังนั้นเพื่อละเว้นห่างจากการปฏิบัติทางสุดเหล่านี้ ต้องใช้ทางสายกลาง ซึ่งเป็นการดำเนินชีวิตด้วยปัญญา โดยมีหลักปฏิบัติเป็นองค์ประกอบ 8 ประการ เรียกว่า อริยอัฏฐังคิกมัคค์ หรือ มรรคมีองค์ ๘ ได้แก่ สัมมาทิฏฐิ เห็นตามเป็นจริง, สัมมาสังกัปปะ ตั้งใจทำสิ่งที่ดีงาม, สัมมาวาจา กล่าวคำสุจริต, สัมมากัมมันตะ ทำการสุจริต, สัมมาอาชีวะ ประกอบอาชีพสุจริต, สัมมาวายามะ เพียรละชั่วบำเพ็ญดี, สัมมาสติ ทำการด้วยจิตสำนึกเสมอ, สัมมาสมาธิ คุมจิตให้แน่วแน่มั่นคง              2. อริยสัจ ๔ หมายความถึง บุคคลที่ห่างไกลจากกิเลส ได้แก่ ทุกข์ ต้องกำหนดรู้ให้เท่าทันตามความเป็นจริงว่าปัญหาคืออะไร, สมุทัย สาเหตุของปัญหา, นิโรธ ความดับทุกข์, มรรค กระบวนวิธีแห่งการแก้ปัญหา              เมื่อพระพุทธเจ้าทรงแสดงธรรมแล้ว ปรากฏว่าโกณฑัญญะผู้เป็นหัวหน้าเบญจวัคคีย์ได้เกิดเข้าใจธรรม เรียกว่า เกิดดวงตาแห่งธรรมหรือธรรมจักษุ บรรลุเป็นโสดาบัน จึงทูลขอบรรพชาและถือเป็นพระภิกษุสาวกรูปแรกในพระพุทธศาสนา ชื่อว่า อัญญาโกณฑัญญะ

“วันอาสาฬหบูชาเวียนมาอีกครั้งเพื่อเตือนให้เรารำลึกถึงเหตุการณ์สำคัญเมื่อ ๒๖๐๒ ปีที่แล้ว เป็นครั้งแรกที่พระบรมศาสดาได้เปิดเผยหนทางสู่อิสรภาพแก่มนุษย์ กล่าวคือ แม้ทุกคนยังต้องแก่ เจ็บ พลัดพราก และยังต้องตาย แต่ก็สามารถยกจิตให้เป็นอิสระเหนือสิ่งเหล่านั้นได้ ทุกข์กายไม่มีใครหนีพ้น แต่ใจไม่เป็นทุกข์ก็ได้ ยิ่งไปกว่านั้นยังสามารถอยู่เหนือการเกิดและการตาย หลุดพ้นจากวัฏสงสารได้ในที่สุด”              พระไพศาล วิสาโล เจ้าอาวาส วัดป่าสุคะโต จ.ชัยภูมิ ซึ่งท่านเป็นพระนักวิชาการ นักคิดนักเขียนพระพุทธศาสนารุ่นใหม่ ได้กล่าวต่อถึงความสำคัญของวันอาสาฬหบูชา              “พระพุทธองค์ได้ชี้ว่า อิสรภาพที่แท้จริงนั้นบรรลุได้เมื่อจิตละตัณหา และมีปัญญามาแทนที่อวิชชา ทั้งนี้ด้วยการฝึกตนให้ตั้งมั่นในความดี และเปิดใจให้เห็นความจริงอย่างแจ่มแจ้ง จนรู้ว่าไม่มีอะไรที่ยึดติดถือมั่นได้เลย        ปฐมเทศนาที่ทรงแสดงในวันนั้น ได้กำจัดธุลีในดวงตาของท่านอัญญาโกณฑัญญะ จนบรรลุธรรมเป็นพระอริยบุคคลท่านแรก              และได้อุปสมบทเป็นพระภิกษุองค์แรกในพุทธศาสนา วันนั้นจึงมีพระรัตนตรัยครบองค์สามเป็นครั้งแรกในโลก              การใคร่ครวญสาระของ วันอาสาฬหบูชา ช่วยเตือนใจให้ตระหนักว่าชีวิตนี้มีค่าเกินกว่าที่จะอยู่ไปวันๆ หรือมัวเสพสุข ไล่ล่าหาทรัพย์ เพียงเพื่อจะถูกความทุกข์บีบคั้นซ้ำแล้วซ้ำเล่าจนสิ้นลมไปในที่สุด เราทุกคนมีศักยภาพมากกว่านั้นและสามารถเข้าถึงภาวะที่ประเสริฐกว่านั้นมาก”              หลวงพ่อชา: ขาดสติเมื่อใดก็เหมือนตาย

พระโพธิญาณเถร หรือ หลวงปู่ชา สุภัทโท แห่งวัดหนองป่าพง จ.อุบลราชธานี พระวิปัสสนาจารย์สายอีสาน ซึ่งได้รับความเลื่อมใสศรัทธาจากสาธุชนทั้งชาวไทยและต่างชาติเป็นอย่างมาก แม้ท่านมรณภาพไปเมื่อปี 2535 แต่ลูกศิษย์มากมายทั่วสารทิศ โดยเฉพาะชาวต่างชาติที่ยอมรับนับถือสืบสานคำสอนของท่านจนทุกวันนี้              “สิ่งที่รักษาสมาธินี้ไว้ได้ คือสติ สตินี้เป็นธรรมเป็นสภาวธรรมอันหนึ่ง ซึ่งให้ธรรมอันอื่นๆ ทั้งหลายเกิดขึ้นโดยพร้อมเพรียง สตินี้ก็คือชีวิต ถ้าขาดสติเมื่อใดก็เหมือนตาย ถ้าขาดสติเมื่อใดก็เป็นคนประเภทในระหว่างขาดสตินั้นพูดไม่มีความหมาย การกระทำไม่มีความหมาย              สติเป็นเหตุให้สัมปชัญญะเกิดขึ้นมาได้ เป็นเหตุให้ปัญญาเกิดขึ้นมาได้ ทุกสิ่งสารพัด              ธรรมทั้งหลายถ้าหากว่าขาดสติ ธรรมทั้งหลายนั้นไม่สมบูรณ์ อันนี้คือการควบคุม การยืน การเดิน การนั่ง การนอน ไม่ใช่เพียงขณะนั่งสมาธิเท่านั้น แม้เมื่อเราออกจากสมาธิไปแล้ว สติก็ยังเป็นสิ่งประจำใจอยู่เสมอ มีความรู้อยู่เสมอ เป็นของที่มีอยู่เสมอ ทำอะไรก็ต้องระมัดระวัง              เมื่อระมัดระวังทางจิตใจ ความอายมันก็เกิดขึ้นมา การพูด การกระทำอันใดที่ไม่ถูกต้อง เราก็อายขึ้น อายขึ้น เมื่อความอายกำลังกล้าขึ้นมา ความสังวรก็มากขึ้นด้วย เมื่อความสังวรมากขึ้น ความประมาทก็ไม่มี”              ท่านพุทธทาส: การทำงานคือ การปฏิบัติธรรม

พระธรรมโกศาจารย์ (เงื่อม อินทปญฺโญ) หรือรู้จักในนาม พุทธทาสภิกขุ พระนักปราชญ์ผู้ยิ่งใหญ่แห่งพุทธศาสนา สวนโมกขพลาราม จ.สุราษฏร์ธานี ถึงท่านมรณภาพไปแล้วเมื่อปี 2536ทว่าคำสอนของท่านกลับยิ่งได้รับการเผยแพร่ พุทธศานากชนให้ความสนใจ นำมาเป็นไฟส่องทางดำเนินชีวิตประจำวันเป็นจำนวนมาก              “การทำการงานนั้นก็คือการประพฤติธรรม แต่ด้วยเหตุที่พ่อแม่มันไม่สอน ไอ้ลูกหลานมันก็ไม่รู้ ว่าการทำงานนั้นคือการประพฤติธรรม มันแยกออกจากกันเสีย มันก็เลยกลายเป็นภาระ หลายฝักหลายฝ่าย ทำงานแล้ว ยังจะต้องไปประพฤติธรรม หรือทำบุญทำกุศล มันก็เลยมีหลายภาระ...              ...ทีนี้ปัญหาทั่วประเทศก็คือว่ามีแต่คนทำงานอย่างเสียไม่ได้ เพื่อเอาเปรียบ ทำเล็กน้อยก็เรียกร้องประโยชน์มาก อย่างนี้ก็จะเกิดปัญหาเรื่อยไปไม่มีที่สิ้นสุด...เพราะมันไม่สนุกกับการทำ งาน ไม่เห็นว่าการทำงานคือการประพฤติธรรม              ฉะนั้นขอให้ไปศึกษากันเสียใหม่ ว่า การ งานนั้นมันคือการประพฤติธรรม แม้แต่จะทำนา ต้องฝึกฝนให้มีสติปัญญา ให้มีความพากเพียร ให้มีความอดทน ให้มีความสามัคคี ให้รู้จักประหยัด แต่ละอย่างละๆ นี้เหล่านี้เป็นธรรมะทั้งนั้น แล้วก็พอใจว่าได้ทำหน้าที่ ก็สบายใจ เคารพตัวเอง นับถือตัวเอง อย่างนี้เรียกว่าทำการงานมันสนุก ก็ได้ประพฤติธรรม...”              "หลักพุทธศาสนา หัวข้อธรรม ต้องการพิสูจน์ทดลอง ไม่ต้องการคาดคะเนคำนวณ มันผิดหลักกาลามสูตร ตรรกเหตุ นยเหตุ มันต้องพิสูจน์ทดลองจนทนต่อการพิสูจน์ ว่ามันดับทุกข์ได้ เพียงแต่พอใจแล้วว่า พุทธศาสนานี่มันมีลักษณะเป็นวิทยาศาสตร์...              "...กฎของ วิทยาศาสตร์ที่ว่าด้วยเหตุผล เพราะสิ่งนี้มี สิ่งนี้จึงมี กฎอิทิปปัจจยตามีลักษณะเป็นวิทยาศาสตร์อยู่อย่างเต็มที่ แล้วมนุษย์ก็จะเริ่มสนใจเรื่องต้นเหตุของความทุกข์ ต้นเหตุของวิกฤติการณ์กันอย่างเต็มที่ พบแล้วก็จำกัดหรือควบคุมตามแต่กรณี เรื่องร้าย ๆ ในจิตใจของมนุษย์ก็จะลดลง..."              หลวงตาบัว: ช่วยชาติแท้จริง หันมาแก้ไขต้นเหตุ

พระธรรมวิสุทธิมงคล (บัว ญาณสมฺปนฺโน) หรือที่นิยมเรียกกันว่า หลวงตาบัว หรือ หลวงตามหาบัว เจ้าอาวาสวัดป่าบ้านตาด อุดรธานี มรณภาพไป 5 ปีแล้ว แต่ลูกศิษย์มากมายยังคงระลึกถึงคุณงามความดีและคำสอนของหลวงตาฯ              "การช่วยชาติที่แท้จริง ให้ต่างหันมาแก้ไขที่ต้นเหตุ คือ การทรงมรดกธรรมของพระพุทธศาสนา เอาศีลเอาธรรม ความประพฤติดีงาม ด้วยเหตุผลหลักเกณฑ์เข้ามาอุดหนุนจิตใจ จนมีหลักประกันภายในใจ เรียกว่า มีหลักใจ โดยหันกลับมาปรับปรุงตัวเราแต่ละคนๆ ให้มีความประหยัด ไม่ลืมเนื้อลืมตัว ไม่ฟุ้งเฟ้อเห่อเหิม ด้วยการอยู่การกินการใช้การสอยการไปการมา              โดยให้ดูแบบของพระผู้มีหลักเกณฑ์ภายในใจ เป็นแบบอย่างของความประหยัด ของผู้มีหลักเกณฑ์เหตุผล ให้มีธรรมคอยเหนี่ยวรั้งไว้ในใจไม่ให้ถูกลากจูงด้วยกิเลสตัณหาราคะ ด้วยความโลภโมโทสัน จนเลยเขตเลยแดน เหมือนรถที่มีแต่เหยียบคันเร่ง ไม่เหยียบเบรก ย่อมเป็นภัยอันตรายร้ายแรงต่อชีวิตและทรัพย์สินได้ในที่สุด หากต่างมีการหันมาอุดหนุนทั้งทางด้านหลักทรัพย์ และหลักใจควบคู่กันไป ปัญหาต่างๆ ของชาติย่อมทุเลาเบาบางลงเป็นลำดับๆ ไป"              หลวงพ่อคูณ: หากคิดเป็นผู้นำ...ต้องเป็นกระโถน

กลางปี 2558 ที่ผ่านมา ประเทศไทยและวงการพุทธศาสนาได้เกิดการสูญเสีย พระเทพวิทยาคม (คูณ ปริสุทโธ) หรือ หลวงพ่อคูณ พระ เกจิอาจารย์ชื่อดัง เจ้าอาวาสวัดบ้านไร่ จ.นครราชสีมา ที่มีผู้คนนับถือเลื่อมใสทั่วประเทศ เพราะคำสอนของหลวงพ่อฯเรียบง่าย เข้าใจง่าย ตรงไปตรงมา แต่แฝงไปด้วยข้อคิดและหลักธรรมล้ำลึก              “อยากให้บ้านเราเจริญนะ ไม่ยากหรอก ตั้งอยู่ในองค์ปัญจะทั้ง 5 คือรักษาศีล 5 ให้บริสุทธิ์ ไม่ให้ขาด อย่าให้ด่างพร้อย เป็นมนุษย์สุดประเสริฐ หรือใครก็ตาม แม้แต่พระเราก็ต้องรักษาศีล 5 ถ้าไม่มีศีล 5 ประจำใจ ไม่ว่าพระรูปใดรูปหนึ่ง ก็เป็นพระไม่ได้เหมือนกัน              “กูไม่มีอะไรมาก กูไม่มีอะไรจะสอนพวกมึงหรอก เพราะพวกมึงก็รู้ว่ากูพูดไม่เป็น พูดไม่เก่งเหมือนเขา เทศนาว่ากล่าวอะไรก็ไม่เป็น กูมีแต่ว่าให้ละชั่ว ทำดีกันเท่านั้นแหละ บุญบาปมีจริงลูกหลานเอ๊ย ให้เชื่อว่าบุญมีจริง บาปมีจริง ให้ละชั่ว ทำดี มีศีลธรรมประจำใจ บุญเห็นกับตา บาปเห็นกับตา รักตัวกลัวภัยอย่าทำชั่ว ให้ตั้งอยู่ในเมตตา”              “การขับรถอย่างระมัดระวังไม่ประมาท สำคัญกว่าการเจิม อย่างโบราณท่านว่า วิ่งไม่ดูตาม้าตาเรือก็ชนกันตาย การขับรถจะต้องดูทาง ถ้ามันคดโค้งจะต้องระมัดระวัง”              “ลูกหลานเอ๋ย การทำหน้าที่คือการปฏิบัติธรรม จงทำหน้าที่ของตนเองให้ดีที่สุด อย่าได้ทุจริตต่อหน้าที่เลย”              “หากมึงคิดเป็นผู้นำของแผ่น ดิน องค์กรหรือครอบครัวที่ดี มึงต้องทำตัวเหมือนกระโถน ยอมรับได้ทุกสิ่งทุกอย่าง ทั้งเรื่องดีเลว เรื่องดีมึงเก็บไว้กับตัว เรื่องเลวมึงทิ้งไว้ตรงนั้น แม้เขาถูกหรือผิดมึงก็ต้องรับฟังค่อยๆ บอกให้เขาแก้ไข”

Profile: Theresa May's husband Philip

• 13 July 2016
• From the section UK Politics

Image caption The Mays on the steps of No 10 

 

 

As only the second male prime ministerial consort in British history, Philip May is going to have to get used to being in the spotlight.

He emerged from relative obscurity on Monday to be pictured on the steps of Parliament, embracing his wife of 36 years, before a crowd of her cheering supporters.
Their broad grins made the front pages, offering a rare glimpse of the human side of Theresa May, who has carefully guarded her private life.
But Mr May, who has led a quiet life as an investment manager to this point, seems unlikely to be the kind of prime ministerial spouse who seeks the limelight.
Some have already pigeonholed him as another Denis Thatcher, who was content to play a supporting role to Margaret Thatcher during her time in power, offering opinions and succour in private, but doing his best to avoid controversy in public, despite being sent up by Private Eye as a gin-swilling, golf club reactionary.

Political ambitions

Philip May is from a different social background to Denis Thatcher. Grammar-school, rather than privately educated, he was born in Norfolk and grew up on Merseyside before going up to Oxford to study history.
His mother was a French teacher, his father a shoe wholesaler, which has caused some amusement in the family, according to the Daily Mail, given Mrs May's much publicised fondness for an exotic pair of heels.
He is different from Denis Thatcher in another way, having harboured political ambitions of his own as a young man.

When they met in 1976 at Oxford University, at a Conservative Association disco, Mr May was president of the Oxford Union, a traditional precursor to a career in frontline politics.
Other contemporaries included Alan Duncan, who preceded him as Union president and remains a friend of the couple, future Tory ministers David Willetts, Dominic Grieve and Damian Green and future political journalist Michael Crick, who was elected Union president after him.
Benazir Bhutto, who would later become the prime minister of Pakistan, was the star of the Oxford political firmament at the time, and is reported to have introduced Mr May to his future wife.
The couple, who reportedly bonded over a shared love of cricket, married in 1980, at Mrs May's father's church in Wheatley, Oxfordshire.

'Huge support'

Within months, however, Mrs May's father, Anglican vicar Hubert Brasier, died in a car crash. Her widowed mother Zaidee, who had multiple sclerosis and used a wheelchair, died a few months later.
Mrs May, who rarely opens up about her private life, spoke about the "huge support" she received from Philip, who at 57 is two years younger than her, during this period in her life on BBC Radio 4's Desert Island Discs.
"That was very important for me. He was a real rock for me," she said.
She recently spoke of her sadness that they could not have children together.

Apart from a stint as chairman of Wimbledon Conservative Association, Philip May appears to have long ago abandoned political ambitions of his own and got behind his wife on her long, steady climb to the top.
He built a career in the City as a fund manager for Prudential Portfolio Managers, de Zoete and Bevan, and Deutsche Asset Management.
Since 2005, he has worked as a relationship manager for Capital Group, who released a statement on news of his wife's new job, saying: "He is not involved with, and doesn't manage, money and is not a portfolio manager.
"His job is to ensure the clients are happy with the service and that we understand their goal."
Philip has been described by friends of the couple as the more gregarious of the two at social gatherings, but not someone who would want to steal the limelight from his wife. He will offer criticisms of her speeches but is always supportive, it is said.
A friend told The Guardian: "Philip is really lovely. He's just a regular, nice guy who's bright like she is. They still totally love each other and have a great friendship."

Greens Skeptical About India‘s Ambitions to Rejuvenate Ganges

The Hindu holy city of Varanasi is one of the top priorities in a new $3 billion plan to revive the Ganges River. (A. Pasricha for VOA)

Anjana Pasricha

July 13, 2016 4:55 AM

NEW DELHI— In Kanpur, a busy industrial city in eastern India, environmental activist Rakesh Jaiswal has waged a quarter-century long campaign to stop the flow of poisonous chemical waste from the city’s thriving leather industry into the Ganges River.
The “Eco Friends” voluntary group he heads was launched after he watched the waters of one of the world’s mighty rivers turn into a toxic cocktail as crowded cities along its banks dump millions of tons of untreated sewage and industrial waste, bodies, animal carcasses and non-degradable waste.
“The water is stinking, it is black, it is muddy, especially in the areas where tanneries are situated. The river is dead there,” bemoans Jaiswal.
As the government launches an ambitious $3 billion plan to rejuvenate the 2,500 kilometer long Ganges, the green campaigner swings between optimism and despair.
“Now new hope has been ignited by this government.  But if I go by the experience, I have lost hope,” he said.
Hope and despair
He has reason to be skeptical. Over the last three decades, high profile programs costing millions of dollars to clean up the river that Hindus consider holy have not only been unsuccessful, but the pollution has worsened.
This time, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has vowed it will be different. Rejuvenating the river known as mother, or “Ma Ganga,” is one of the pledges close to the heart of the Hindu nationalist leader.
Experts say the situation is grim, particularly along the stretch where populous cities like Kanpur, Varanasi and Allahabad have sprung up on its banks. As it gushes down from the snow-covered slopes of the Himalayas and journeys through the plains of North India, the Ganges supports an estimated 400 million people.
“From Narora to Allahabad, along 600 kilometers, Ganga water has probably more than 75 percent city sewage and urban effluents and hardly 20 to 25 percent fresh water,” said R.K. Sinha, a zoology professor at Patna University, who has spearheaded efforts to save the Ganges river dolphin from extinction.
He said the flow of the river has been reduced drastically in the plains. A large part of this stretch lies in two states, Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, where governance is poor.
Launching the project called “Namami Ganga,” Water Resources Minister Uma Bharti said the federal government will address all sources of pollution. “Work is beginning at 100 places simultaneously to plant trees, do riverside development, build plants to treat sewage industrial effluents,” she said last week, promising quick results.

A colourful evening religious ceremony with butter lamps is performed every evening along the Ganges in Varanasi. (A. Pasricha for VOA)

Holy waters
Perhaps the most closely-watched stretch will be along the holy city of Varanasi, the Prime Minister’s constituency. It is here that millions of Hindu devotees come to perform the last rites of their loved ones and take a dip in the river, believing it will wash away past sins. Many take a sip of the water, considered as nectar.
But is the water safe to drink or bathe along Varanasi’s famous banks where a colorful religious ceremony is held every evening? Experts answer with an emphatic “no.”
“In Varanasi, the present situation is very alarming,” said Vishwambhar Nath Mishra, a professor at the reputed Indian Institute of Technology in the city.
He points out that the technology being used in sewer plants set up earlier did not fully remove the bacteria from the sewage. He worries that in the new plans also, not enough attention has been paid to engineering solutions. “The technology they are using, I think they are sailing still in same boat,” he said.
Mishra, who is also a priest and an environmental campaigner, heads the Sankat Mochan Foundation, which has worked with the local corporation and been involved with earlier projects to revive the Ganges.
He said the main focus should be to ensure that not a drop of sewage is dumped into the river. “Whatever sewage you are generating in the city should be treated and it should be reused for farming and any other thing, and if they don’t have that capability of reusing, they can discharge it downstream,” said Mishra.
Strict oversight
Others point out that it will not be easy to prod India’s slow-moving bureaucracy and lethargic state governments, which often miss project deadlines although the federal government has promised strict oversight.
Saying that implementation will be the main challenge, Jaiswal in Kanpur hopes the government will learn from the failures of the past. “Rs 700 crores (approximately 100 million dollars) were spent in order to sewer the entire Kanpur city and also set up sewage treatment plants. But all these plans were left halfway,” he said.
There are some milestones to cheer, largely due to the efforts of voluntary groups and green activists living in cities that have watched the degradation of Ganges. In Kanpur, after Eco Friends helped raise public awareness, people have stopped dumping bodies and animal carcasses into the river. Thousands of bodies have been removed from the river. There are programs to enroll school children as “Ganga Ambassadors” so that a new generation will be more sensitized to combating river pollution.
The endangered Ganga dolphin still swims in the river’s waters, after awareness was raised about protecting its habitat, and laws against its killing were tightened.
And in Varanasi, Mishra remains steadfast in his zeal to see a clean, flowing river in the holy city, a passion he inherited from his father. “I would love to hear that this will happen in my lifetime. If not, my next generation will take up the issue. It’s like a relay race, but we are not going to give up”, vowed Mishra.
And more than all, the ambitious Ganga project will test the reputation of Modi as a leader who repeatedly asserts that his government, unlike previous ones, can deliver on its promises.

Who is Theresa May: A profile of UK's next prime minister

• 3 hours ago
• From the section UK Politics

Image copyright EPA

Image caption Theresa May will become the UK's second female prime minister

Theresa May is the new Conservative Party leader and will become the UK's second female prime minister on Wednesday, taking charge at one of the most turbulent times in recent political history.

The 59-year old home secretary's carefully cultivated image of political dependability and unflappability appears to have made her the right person at the right time as the fallout from the UK's vote to leave the EU smashed possible rivals out of contention.
Long known to have nurtured leadership ambitions of her own, Mrs May - whose university friends recall her ambition to be the UK's first female PM - could have reasonably expected to have had to wait until at least 2018 to have a shot at Downing Street.
But the EU referendum which David Cameron called and lost - the year after leading the party to its first election win in 23 years - turned political certainties on their head and, as other candidates fell by the wayside after the PM's own resignation, Mrs May emerged as the "unity" candidate to succeed him.
That her party should rally round her at such a time of national uncertainty is testament not only to the respect in which she is held across the party but to the fact that, in a world where political reputations can be shredded in an instant, Mrs May is the ultimate political survivor.

Image caption Theresa May has been in the front rank since the turn of the century

In the early days she may have become known for her exuberant choice of footwear - her kitten heels became famous in political circles in the noughties, while she named a lifetime subscription to Vogue as the luxury item she would take to a desert island.
But it is her toughness which has became her political hallmark. She has coped with being one of only a small number of women in the upper echelons of the Tories' for 17 years and has been prepared to tell her party some hard truths - famously informing activists at the 2002 conference that "you know what some people call us - the nasty party".

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Who is Theresa May?

Media captionTheresa May: We need proven leadership to negotiate the best deal

• Date of birth: 1 October 1956 (aged 59)
• Job: MP for Maidenhead since 1997. Home Secretary since May 2010
• Education: Mainly state-educated at Wheatley Park Comprehensive School with a brief time at an independent school; St Hugh's College, Oxford
• Family: Married to Philip May
• Hobbies: Cooking - she says she owns 100 recipe books. Occasional mountain walks. On BBC Radio 4's Desert Island Discs in 2014, she chose Abba's Dancing Queen and Walk Like A Man, from the musical Jersey Boys, among her picks, alongside Mozart and Elgar.
• On her party's future: "(It is) nothing less than the patriotic duty of our party to unite and to govern in the best interests of the whole country. We need a bold, new positive vision for the future of our country - a country that works not for a privileged few but for every one of us." Says people want more than just a "Brexit PM" and has vowed to unify the Leave and Remain factions in the party.

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Even before entering Downing Street, she made history by becoming the longest serving home secretary for more than 100 years.
The daughter of a Church of England vicar, who died from injuries sustained in a car crash when she was only 25, Theresa May's middle class background has more in keeping with the last female occupant of Downing Street, Margaret Thatcher, than her immediate predecessor.

Image caption Theresa May married her husband Philip in 1980

Born in Sussex but raised largely in Oxfordshire, Mrs May - both of whose grandmothers are reported to have been in domestic service - attended a state primary, an independent convent school and then a grammar school in the town of Wheatley, which became the Wheatley Park Comprehensive School during her time there.
Like Margaret Thatcher - with whom she also shares a love of the sitcom Yes Minister - the then Theresa Brasier went to Oxford University to study and, like so many others of her generation, found that her personal and political lives soon became closely intertwined.
She met her husband Philip, a president of that breeding ground for future political leaders, the Oxford Union, in 1976. The story has it that they were introduced at a Conservative disco by the subsequent Pakistani prime minister Benazir Bhutto. They married in 1980.

Image caption Theresa May is seen here as a child with her parents Hubert and Zaidee

By that point, Theresa May, who studied geography at St Hugh's College, was already beginning to forge a successful career in the City, initially starting work at the Bank of England and later rising to become head of the European Affairs Unit of the Association for Payment Clearing Services.
But it was already clear that she saw her future in politics. She was elected as a local councillor in Merton, south London, and served her ward for a decade, rising to become deputy leader. However, she was soon setting her sights even higher.
Mrs May, who has become a confidante as well as role model for aspiring female MPs - told prospective candidates before the 2015 election that "there is always a seat out there with your name on it".

In her case - like that of Margaret Thatcher - it took a bit of time for her to find hers. She first dipped her toe in the water in 1992, where she stood in the safe Labour seat of North West Durham, coming a distant second to Hilary Armstrong, who went on to become Labour's chief whip in the Blair government. Her fellow candidates in that contest also included a very youthful Tim Farron, who is now Lib Dem leader.
Two years later, she stood in Barking, east London, in a by-election where - with the Conservative government at the height of its unpopularity - she got fewer than 2,000 votes and saw her vote share dip more than 20%. But her luck was about to change.
The Conservatives' electoral fortunes may have hit a nadir in 1997, when they suffered a landslide defeat, but there was a silver lining for the party and for the aspiring politician when she won the seat of Maidenhead in Berkshire. It's a seat she has held ever since.

Image copyright PA

Image caption Theresa May has described her husband Philip as her rock

Image caption Theresa May has said she is not the most clubbable of politicians and avoids the limelight

An early advocate of Conservative "modernisation" in the wilderness years that followed, Mrs May quickly joined the shadow cabinet in 1999 under William Hague as shadow education secretary and in 2002 she became the party's first female chairman under Iain Duncan Smith.
She then held a range of senior posts under Michael Howard but was conspicuously not part of the "Notting Hill set" which grabbed control of the party after its third successive defeat in 2005 and laid David Cameron and George Osborne's path to power.
This was perhaps reflected in the fact that she was initially given the rather underwhelming job of shadow leader of the House of Commons. But she gradually raised her standing and by 2009 had become shadow work and pensions secretary.
Nevertheless, her promotion to the job of home secretary when the Conservatives joined with the Lib Dems to form the first coalition government in 70 years was still something of a surprise - given that Chris Grayling had been shadowing the brief in opposition.
While the Home Office turned out to be the political graveyard of many a secretary of state in previous decades, Mrs May refused to let this happen - mastering her brief with what was said to be a microscopic attention to detail and no little willingness to enter into battles with fellow ministers when she thought it necessary.

Image copyright PA

Image caption Theresa May initially fell down the pecking order under David Cameron but worked her way back up

While some in Downing Street worried that the Home Office was becoming her own personal fiefdom, she engendered loyalty among her ministers and was regarded as "unmovable" as her tough talking style met with public approval even when the department's record did not always seem so strong.
On the plus side crime levels fell, the UK avoided a mass terrorist attack and in 2013, she successfully deported radical cleric Abu Qatada.
She was not afraid to take on vested interests, stunning the annual conference of the Police Federation in 2014 by telling them corruption problems were not just limited to "a few bad apples" and threatening to end the federation's automatic right to enrol officers as its members.
However, the Passport Office suffered a near meltdown while she has faced constant criticism over the government's failure to meet its promise to get net migration down to below 100,000 a year.
There was also a bitter public row with cabinet colleague Michael Gove over the best way to combat Islamist extremism, which ended with Mr Gove having to apologise to the prime minister and Mrs May having to sack a long-serving special adviser - a turf war which is said to have led to a diminution in her admiration for the prime minister.

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Key policies:
Where she stands on Brexit: Theresa May has insisted "Brexit means Brexit" and there will be no second referendum on the issue. She says official talks on leaving, which will begin when the UK triggers the so-called Article 50, won't begin until the end of 2016 at earliest. She has insisted the status of EU nationals in UK won't change until a new "legal agreement" is reached but has yet to give a guarantee on their status. She says the best deal is needed to trade with the EU in goods and services but more control is needed to lower immigration.
Other policies: Theresa May has pledged a shake-up of boardroom ethics as part of which workers will be guaranteed representation on company boards while shareholders votes on executive pay deals will be made binding every year.
What the press say: "In a political party that struggles to shake off its elitist, old Etonian, yah-boo-sucks reputation, May represents a different kind of politician: a calm headmistress in a chamber full of over-excitable public schoolboys. She holds herself at one remove... her obdurate stance has earned her some vociferous critics. There are those who claim that, while she takes care never to sully her own hands with the grubby business of political backstabbing, she will send out her team to issue ferocious briefings against her rivals." The Guardian.

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Former Conservative chancellor Ken Clarke also had run-ins with her and was recorded on camera ahead of an interview last week saying that Mrs May was good at her job but a "bloody difficult woman" - before adding as an aside, a bit like Mrs Thatcher. A reference to be Conservative leader can hardly come better than that.
Mrs May has never been one of the most clubbable of politicians and is someone who prefers not having to tour the tea rooms of the House of Commons - where tittle-tattle is freely exchanged.
She has rarely opened up about her private life although she revealed in 2013 that she had been diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes and would require insulin injections twice a day for the rest of her life - something she says she had come to terms with and which would not affect her career.

Generally regarded to be in the mainstream of Conservative thinking on most economic and law and order issues, she has also challenged convention by attacking police stop and search powers and calling for a probe into the application of Sharia Law in British communities.
She also expressed a personal desire to withdraw from the European Convention on Human Rights but later said she would not pursue this as PM due to a lack of parliamentary support - an example of what many believe will be pragmatism in office.
Her social attitudes are slightly harder to pin down. She backed same sex marriage. She expressed a personal view in 2012 that the legal limit on abortion should be lowered from 24 to 20 weeks. Along with most Conservative MPs she voted against an outright ban on foxhunting.
What is undisputable is that at 59, Mrs May will be oldest leader to enter Downing Street since James Callaghan in 1976 and will be the first prime minister since Ted Heath who does not have children.

Image copyright PA

Image caption Mrs May has worked closely with David Cameron and will now succeed him

Image copyright PA

Image caption Mrs May has been the most senior female Cabinet minister for the past six years

One of Westminster's shrewdest as well as toughest operators, Mrs May's decision to campaign for the UK to remain in the EU but to do so in an understated way and to frame her argument in relatively narrow security terms reaped dividends after the divisive campaign.
During what turned out to be a short-lived leadership campaign, Mrs May played strongly on her weight of experience, judgement and reliability in a time of crisis.
While her wider political appeal is, as yet, untested, Mrs May will not have to face a general election until May 2020 unless she decides to seek a fresh mandate - something she has seemingly ruled out.
While the early years of Mrs May's time in Downing Street may be dominated by the process of divorcing the UK from the EU and the deal she will be able to strike, she has also insisted she won't be content with the "safe pair of hands" tag that is often attached to her.
Brexit, she has said, won't be allowed purely to define her time in office and she has promised a radical programme of social reform, underpinned by values of One Nation Toryism, to promote social mobility and opportunity for the more disadvantaged in society.
But with a slender parliamentary majority of 17 and a nation still riven by divisions over the EU referendum and anxiety over the future, she will face as tough a task, some say even tougher, than any of her recent predecessors in Downing Street.

4 Young Chess Masters Tackle a Persistent Puzzle: The Gender Gap

By JOHN LELANDJULY 8, 2016

Maggie Feng, 15, at the Marshall Chess Club in New York on Wednesday. She was one of four female masters to participate in an elite clinic at the club. Credit Alex Wroblewski/The New York Times

Fourteen of the nation’s top young chess masters came to New York this week for an elite clinic at the Marshall Chess Club. Four of them were girls. For proponents of gender parity in chess, this was progress.

At a front table, as several boys yelled out answers to a chess puzzle, Carissa Yip, 12, handed a yellow paper to the instructor, Greg Shahade. “You wrote down one move,” Mr. Shahade said. “That’s it?”

Carissa, who at age 11 became the youngest American girl ever to attain the rank of master, did not blink. “It’s a brilliant move,” she deadpanned. “You’re so needy.”

It is one of the vexing questions in chess: Why, in a sport where physical differences do not matter, are boys and men so much more prominent than their female counterparts, despite efforts to attract more girls and women?

The British grandmaster Nigel Short inflamed the debate last year by writing in New in Chess magazine that men’s brains were simply better wired for chess and that instead of “fretting about inequality, perhaps we should just gracefully accept it as a fact.”

In response, several female players, using the hashtag #sexisminchess, wrote of being belittled, harassed, stalked or propositioned at tournaments. Some of the strongest response came from the retired grandmaster Judit Polgar, who beat Mr. Short eight times, with only three losses and five draws.

Photo

Jennifer Yu, 14, at the club. She said that before she became known, boys often expected her to be a weak player because she was a girl. Credit Alex Wroblewski/The New York Times

The gender gap has especially perplexed educators, who say chess helps students learn to solve problems, improve their concentration, delay gratification and socialize with peers. At school tournaments, boys typically outnumber girls by two or three to one, and the gap gets wider as the level of play rises; none of the world’s 100 highest-rated players is female.

Explanations for the imbalance ring familiar: a shortage of female role models, less encouragement from parents and teachers, an unwelcoming atmosphere in what has traditionally been a boys’ club.

“It seems to follow the STEM conversation,” said Marley Kaplan, president of Chess in the Schools, a nonprofit organization that teaches the game to 13,000 students in 50 New York City public schools, referring to the gender gap in science, technology, engineering and math education. “I wish somebody would do some real research into it. Everybody knows about it, but nobody knows why.”

To Carissa, the gender gap was an advantage.

“It’s much better to be a girl,” she said. “In chess if you’re 2200 and you’re a guy, that’s not really important,” she said, referring to a competitive rating that qualifies the holder as a master (Carissa, who is the top-rated 12-year-old girl in the U.S. Chess Federation, is 2286; grandmasters are 2500 and up). “But if you’re 2200 and you’re a girl, that’s pretty good. You get more publicity if you’re a girl and you’re the same strength.”

Her father, Percy Yip, who works in information technology, said that when she started, he had some “misconceptions” about girls and chess.

“There’s a culture that parents should take girls to dancing class, not to chess,” Mr. Yip said. “When she said she wanted to play chess, I said, ‘No, no, it’s not easy; you probably won’t like it.’”

Carissa Yip is the top-rated 12-year-old girl in the U.S. Chess Federation. Credit Alex Wroblewski/The New York Times

To address the gender gap, some programs, like the Success Academy charter school network, have created separate clubs or tournaments for girls.

“It’s something I am very conscious of,” said Eva S. Moskowitz, the network’s chief executive. “One has to make it a safe and inviting space. It doesn’t help that most teachers are male. We’ve gone to lengths to bring Judit Polgar and Irina Krush to play at the schools. It’s inspiring for our girls to see these amazing women.”

Even so, Ms. Moskowitz said, the percentage of girls playing waned in middle school, and dwindled to “very few girls playing in high school.”

At the Marshall Chess Club on Wednesday, three of the girls were silent through most of the lessons, while a group of boys practically bounced out of their seats, periodically getting sent out of the room for their behavior.

But Mr. Shahade, whose sister Jennifer is a former national women’s champion and author of the books “Chess Bitch” and “Play Like a Girl,” said the behavior had more to do with age than gender: The rambunctious boys were younger, and the girls had been just as loud at their age.

Maggie Feng, 15, the oldest and quietest girl in the group, said she was drawn to the abstract side of chess: analyzing novel positions or strategies. In spring, she became the first girl ever to win the American championship for players in ninth grade and younger, a title previously won by Fabiano Caruana and Hikaru Nakamura, the two top players in the United States.

Greg Shahade, right, the instructor at the clinic at the Marshall Chess Club. Credit Alex Wroblewski/The New York Times

Most of her female peers, Maggie said, were not interested in chess. “Not many girls really know chess,” she said.

To test the social effects of gender on chess, researchers in Padua, Italy, matched male and female players of equal ratings and had them play online.

The 2007 study, reported in The European Journal of Social Psychology, was very small but produced intriguing results. When women did not know their opponents’ gender or thought they were playing other women, they won about half of the games. But when they thought their opponents were male, they won only one in four games, even though they faced the same opponents in all conditions.

The women also played less aggressively and displayed lower self-esteem against “male” opponents. The researchers surmised that a reason men dominate the game’s top levels may be that women perceive themselves as minorities in tournaments and lose confidence, causing them to perform below their abilities.

Ms. Polgar, who is widely considered the best female chess player ever, said women were often held back by lower ambition, choosing to play in the less competitive all-female events rather than in open tournaments.

“In practice, not many ladies are competing on the highest level,” she said from Hungary. “But many of the ladies are very happy that it’s separate, because this way they also become world champions. But they could be better and go higher.”

At the Marshall, Jennifer Yu, 14, from Ashburn, Va., said she hoped to break that stereotype, adding that before she became known, boys often expected her to be a weak player because she was a girl.

“The way it’s depicted in the culture, you don’t see many girls playing,” she said. “I wanted to play. I don’t care that I was the only girl playing, and I don’t care what people say.”