This blog contains lots of articles and world news. Its aim is to be a source of knowledge for people to read and think, and thus make an intuitive decision on how to lead their lives fruitfully in every-day livings.Under the concept of Today-Readers are Tomorrow Leaders.' The world will be better because we begin to change for the best.
วันเสาร์ที่ 27 พฤษภาคม พ.ศ. 2560
Bangkok: Between two ages
More than eight million inhabitants live astride the past and future in the ever-vibrant Thai capital. Contrasts travel at full speed, on the Skytrain or in a tuk tuk.
TEXT : EUGÈNE WEIER
B
angkok, circa 2559: A new skyscraper opens its doors, the tallest in the city. MahaNakhon has 77 stories and measures nearly 315 m. According to the Gregorian calendar, this took place in August 2016. Its dazzling design, with a pixelated effect, as if the building has not quite finished loading, represents the new wave of skyscrapers in Bangkok.
In the coming years, the city will continue to grow vertically, paying tribute to its Thai name “The City of Angels.” With more than 111 buildings measuring over 100 m, it has already surpassed other major cities such as London and Toronto. And nearly 50 new constructions are planned, including several luxury apartment blocks such as MARQUE Sukhumvit, on one of the capital’s main arteries.
In the coming months, a boutique hotel and an observatory will open in MahaNakhon.
Photo: i viewfinder / Shutterstock.com
WITH M FOR MODERN
The EM district in Bangkok is now a reality. Located in the epicentre of Sukhumvit Road, it consists of two luxurious shopping malls: Emporium and EmQuartier. In total, 650,000 m² packed with leisure and entertainment options.
Most of the new buildings are located in the city’s financial and commercial district, between Silom Road, Siam and Sathorn, where MahaNakhon is being built. Amid this futuristic scene, several metres below the rooftop bars and hotel terraces, is the Bangkok of the past and present: street-food stands, monks in orange tunics walking from the temple, and motorbikes and tuk tuks, dodging traffic lights among steel giants. It has all the charm of a metropolis that lets you change centuries, without needing a time machine. All you have to do is follow the Chao Phraya River to the Grand Palace, or lose yourself among the klongs (canals) in search of the city’s famous floating markets.
One of the oldest places in the city is the Temple of the Reclining Buddha, Wat Pho. It was the most important during the reign of Rama I—considered the founder of Bangkok, after he took his capital there in 1782—although it may have been founded in the 16th century, and later renovated to serve as a royal temple. For the Thai people, it is also the first public university in Thailand, since everyone had the opportunity to learn about medicine, history and other subjects, by reading the 1,360 inscriptions on the marble that decorates it. These inscriptions are the origin of the principles of traditional Thai massage, which is so popular among tourists today. A pavilion near the temple is home to the Massage School, where you can get a massage or take a course in how to give one.
The EmQuartier shopping mall is part of the new EM district.
Photo: MonsterBox / Shutterstock.com
Back in the 21st century, you can find the art of Thai massage reinterpreted in the spas of the most luxurious hotels in the Thai capital. The one at the Banyan Tree Hotel is on the 21st floor. That is 40 floors below the hotel’s famous restaurant, Vertigo, one of the most renowned rooftops in the city. Shangri-La and the Mandarin Oriental also offer exclusive treatments for customers who want to disconnect from the “noise” within the urban vortex of the city centre. Just one more contrast within the diversity offered by the capital of Thailand.
Erawan Shrine is dedicated to a Hindu deity called Phra Phrom, God of Creation.
Photo: topten22photo / Shutterstock.com
It is like that with everything. You can choose to go shopping in an ultra-modern mall like Central Embassy, or in a traditional market, aboard a wooden boat. Enjoy a traditional soup for dinner, on a plastic chair in Chinatown, or get the 2.0 version at Paste restaurant, one of the best in the city. Nearby is the Erawan Shrine, an urban altar, always strewn with flowers, where locals dressed for office take their offerings, from fruit to traditional dances. A whirl of colour in the heart of the urban jungle—that is Bangkok.
วันศุกร์ที่ 26 พฤษภาคม พ.ศ. 2560
The real pirates of the Caribbean
By Chris Scott, CNN
Updated 1725 GMT (0125 HKT) May 26, 2017
Photos:The real pirates of the Caribbean
Warrior women: Engraving of female pirates Anne Bonny and Mary Read holding swords, circa 1730.
Hide Caption
5 of 7
Photos:The real pirates of the Caribbean
North America: A map of North America dating from 1708.
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Photos:The real pirates of the Caribbean
Pirates' lairs: A map of the Caribbean depicting some of the pirates' bases and locations of significant historical events.
The
Capture of the Pirate, Blackbeard, 1718 by Jean Leon Gerome Ferris.
Depicting the fierce duel between Teach and Lieutenant Robert Maynard of
the British Royal Navy.
Hide Caption
1 of 7
Photos:The real pirates of the Caribbean
Captain Henry Avery: One
of the most famous pirates of all time, Captain Henry Avery is depicted
here with the Indian emperor's ship from which he was said to have
taken a bounty worth more than $200 million in today's money.
Hide Caption
2 of 7
Photos:The real pirates of the Caribbean
Blackbeard: A
woodcutting of the most notorious and infamous pirate of the golden age
of piracy, Edward Teach, more commonly referred to as Blackbeard. Taken
from "A General History of the Pyrates" (1724).
Hide Caption
3 of 7
Photos:The real pirates of the Caribbean
Blazing beard:
In this woodcarving you can see the lighted fuses Blackbeard would keep
in and around his beard so that during battle a demonic halo of sparks,
fire and smoke would surround him.
Hide Caption
4 of 7
Photos:The real pirates of the Caribbean
Warrior women: Engraving of female pirates Anne Bonny and Mary Read holding swords, circa 1730.
Hide Caption
5 of 7
Photos:The real pirates of the Caribbean
North America: A map of North America dating from 1708.
Hide Caption
6 of 7
Photos:The real pirates of the Caribbean
Pirates' lairs: A map of the Caribbean depicting some of the pirates' bases and locations of significant historical events.
The
Capture of the Pirate, Blackbeard, 1718 by Jean Leon Gerome Ferris.
Depicting the fierce duel between Teach and Lieutenant Robert Maynard of
the British Royal Navy.
Hide Caption
1 of 7
Photos:The real pirates of the Caribbean
Captain Henry Avery: One
of the most famous pirates of all time, Captain Henry Avery is depicted
here with the Indian emperor's ship from which he was said to have
taken a bounty worth more than $200 million in today's money.
Hide Caption
2 of 7
Photos:The real pirates of the Caribbean
Blackbeard: A
woodcutting of the most notorious and infamous pirate of the golden age
of piracy, Edward Teach, more commonly referred to as Blackbeard. Taken
from "A General History of the Pyrates" (1724).
Hide Caption
3 of 7
Photos:The real pirates of the Caribbean
Blazing beard:
In this woodcarving you can see the lighted fuses Blackbeard would keep
in and around his beard so that during battle a demonic halo of sparks,
fire and smoke would surround him.
Hide Caption
4 of 7
(CNN)Pirates
have been a part of popular culture ever since they first appeared on
the high seas with aspirations for fortune, fame and glory.
Stories about the exploits of pirates fascinated the people of the 17th and 18th centuries.
Even 300 years later, the tales of Long John Silver, Captain Hook and Jack Sparrow are as popular now as they've ever been.
But are these depictions of pirates based on reality?
Was there really an X on the map, buried treasure, a black flag with a skull and crossbones flapping in the wind?
Did duels to the death really take place between naval authorities and these wild men of the seas?
It turns out yes.
But the real stories are more amazing that anything seen on the big screen.
'I am a man of fortune, and must seek my fortune'
Captain Henry Avery: One of the most famous pirates of all time.
If one man can be said to have inspired the so-called Golden Age of Piracy, it's Captain Henry Avery.
In
his book, "The Republic of Pirates," Colin Woodard writes that Avery's
"adventures inspired plays and novels, historians and newspaper writers,
and, ultimately the Golden Age pirates themselves."
"He
was a really important inspiration and symbol to the subsequent
generation who became the Golden Age pirates," Woodard tells CNN. "Part
of the reason is that Henry Avery became a pop culture phenomenon when
these other pirates would have been children and teenagers."
By the time they were young men, Avery was a legend.
A
sailor aboard a merchant vessel, Avery, like many other sailors, was
getting increasingly disillusioned with the way the system worked.
"Sailors
were so badly treated in many of these merchant vessels by the captains
and owners," Woodard says. "They were given lousy rations, cheated out
of their pay at the end of journeys, often fed spoiled food and placed
on vessels that intentionally didn't have enough provisions on board."
Enough
was enough. In 1694 Avery rounded up others to the cause of freedom,
riches and glory and seized a ship under the cover of darkness while its
captain, Charles Gibson, was sleeping in his quarters.
Avery
placed Gibson in a rowboat before sailing away, reportedly telling him:
"I am a man of fortune, and must seek my fortune."
Avery
and his crew sailed for the Indian Ocean, using Madagascar as their
base of operations. Soon they came across and took a ship belonging to
an Indian emperor.
Accounts
vary on what happened aboard the ship but they all agree on one thing
-- Avery made off with staggering haul of money, jewels, gold, silver
and ivory, worth more than $200 million today.
Avery had his fortune and each member of his crew received the equivalent of 20 years of wages aboard a merchant vessel.
With
his ship laden with treasure and naval forces all over the world
scrambling to track him down, Avery sailed for the Bahamas where he
bribed the governor of Nassau with ivory and weapons into allowing him
to ditch his ship and take a smaller vessel, bound for Europe.
Landing in Ireland, he bid his crew farewell. Then he and his plunder disappeared into history, never to be heard from again.
Rumor and myth surrounds Avery's fate.
One
report claimed Avery died a beggar, cheated out of his fortune. Another
had him returning to Madagascar as king of the pirates, ruling over a
piratical empire with a squadron of ships commanded from a fortified
palace.
"Avery
is one of the very few who turned full pirate and got away with it,"
Matt Albers of the Pirate History Podcast says. "He just disappeared
into the winds of history.
"It
might be that he died as a penniless beggar on the streets of London or
he may have died with a fabulous kingdom out in the jungle somewhere.
"No one is entirely sure what happened to him. But we do know that he was never taken by the authorities."
Getting
away with it was a 17th-century thing. For the men he inspired in the
early 18th century there would be few, if any, happy endings.
"The
thing about those famous pirates is that all of them got caught,"
Albers says. "At some point they had a run in with the authorities that
didn't go well for them."
The golden age of piracy
A map of the Caribbean depicting some of the pirates' bases and the location of significant events.
David
Wilson, an academic specializing in historical piracy, says authorities
tried to push stories of piratical downfall as a deterrent.
"Really
they're trying to publicize that piracy ends in death," he says. "The
message is these men meet their doom through piracy to try to discourage
any future pirates."
And there were plenty to choose from.
"Black
Sam'" Bellamy, for example, was a rising star in the pirate world,
calling himself "the Robin Hood of the Seas." In 1715, at the age of 26,
as captain of his own ship, the Whydah, he was the most feared man up
and down the Americas.
Having amassed a small fortune and a reputation for being unbeatable, he was sailing for Cape Cod in 1717 when disaster struck.
"Cape Cod had a weather system that would drive ships against the brutal cliffs of sand and shoals," Woodard explains.
The
Whydah was caught in a storm and ran aground with shocking force and
sank with its treasure still on board. Some 160 men perished and
Bellamy's body was never recovered.
Newspapers of the day claimed God had punished him for becoming a pirate.
Another famous story is that of Calico Jack Rackham, named for the flamboyant Calico clothing he liked to wear.
As a pirate, Rackham was pretty unsuccessful. He was captured quite easily in 1720 and hanged.
His
flag fared better. It's the one we all associate as the pirate flag,
the skull and crossbones, the Jolly Roger. Made famous by Robert Louis
Stevenson's "Treasure Island."
"They
all had different flags and black flags with all these different
symbols on," Wilson says. "They all had symbols of death in some way or
other just to enact fear in ships.
"If
you could throw that flag up and the ship gives in without a fight
you're doing much better than if you had to then engage with them."
The female pirates
Engraving of female pirates Anne Bonny and Mary Read holding swords.
Rackham
is also famous for the company he was keeping when he was arrested:
Mary Read and Anne Bonny, the only known female pirates of the era.
"There
was Ching Shih in China but she wasn't so much a pirate as a pirate
queen who ran a pirate empire," Albers says. "The same with Grace
O'Malley in Ireland, less an actual pirate and more someone who ran the
pirates' base."
Rackham's female crewmates helped cement his own myth and legend, Wilson adds.
"A
lot is made out of the female pirates, there were some but they were an
anomaly, as were any women on sailing ships at that time," says Charles
Ewen, professor of anthropology at East Carolina University.
"Usually
they were just passengers, but there were female sailors from time to
time. But for the most part they were a disruptive influence."
Read
and Bonny were to be tried on charges of piracy and surely hanged. But,
knowing that expectant mothers were exempt from the gallows, both women
seduced guards while being held captive and fell pregnant.
"Their histories are fairly short and I think that the reason they're so popular is because of their trial," Albers explains.
Their
arrest and the subsequent escape from the noose was big news in the
London press at the time, but no one got more coverage than the
notorious Edward Teach, the most fearsome of all the Golden Age Pirates.
A man more commonly referred to as Blackbeard.
Image of terror
In
this woodcarving you can see the lighted fuses Blackbeard would keep in
and around his beard so that during battle a demonic halo of sparks,
fire and smoke would surround him.
"The
interesting thing about Blackbeard is, if you were doing a ledger of
who got the most treasure and was the most successful in monetary terms
or plunder terms Blackbeard wouldn't make your top 10 list at all,"
Woodard says.
"But he is by far the most famous real pirate who ever lived, and the reason is that he cultivated this image of terror."
Blackbeard
ruled the seas through fear. He let his beard grow wild and long, wore
clothes stolen from aristocrats and cultivated an image of a wild man in
gentlemen's fittings.
"You
had all these pirates with bandoliers and grenades and axes wearing a
gentleman's wig or a woman's silk dress or scarves and all this finery."
Woodard says. "His fellow pirates would be dressed up like a 'Mad Max'
movie."
During
battle, Blackbeard would also put lighted fuses in and around his
beard, giving him a demonic halo of sparks, fire and smoke.
"It would be utterly terrifying to people on another vessel. And that was the whole point," Woodard says.
Blackbeard also had serious firepower.
"Blackbeard
put 40 cannon on his ship, the Queen's Anne Revenge, and that was so he
could sail up, run up the black flag, which apparently they really did,
and then scare the folks into saying, 'Ok I give up, don't kill us,'"
Ewen says. "You wanted to have a scary reputation."
Duel to the death
Blackbeard's
scare tactics were so successful that there's no documented account of
him killing or hurting anybody. Everybody just simply gave up.
Until his final fatal battle with Britain's Royal Navy in 1718.
"It
was the gallant young Lieutenant Robert Maynard who was leading the
detachment of sailors charged with finding Blackbeard," Woodard
explains.
"This
is precisely where Robert Louis Stevenson and later the Disney movies
and pop culture -- this is exactly the famous scene from where all this
was constructed.
"Blackbeard's
battle was the model for your cliche shipboard fight between the
dashing young officer and the rogue pirate," Woodard continues.
Blackbeard
and his men boarded Maynard's ship. Cutlass in one hand, pistol in the
other, Blackbeard engaged the lieutenant in a duel to the death.
Maynard
shot Blackbeard, but the pirate carried on fighting furiously with his
cutlass, Maynard's own sword breaking as he tried to stave him off.
As
Blackbeard was about to deliver the final blow, one of Maynard's men
delivered the pirate a "terrible wound in the neck and throat."
Maynard
then shot Blackbeard again in the stomach and though he cocked his
pistol ready to return fire, he fell down dead before he could.
Maynard
decapitated Blackbeard and hung his head from the front of his ship. He
sailed up the east coast of America, causing shockwaves as news spread
that the notorious Edward Teach had perished in battle.
"There
was only one newspaper in what is now the United States, the Boston
Newsletter and they covered it exhaustively, as did the London papers at
the time. It was the big media phenomenon of the early 18th century,"
Maynard says.
Yet there remains a mystery with Blackbeard -- the whereabouts of his journal.
The
journal was recovered by Maynard and used as evidence to try
Blackbeard's captured crew on charges of piracy. But after the trial,
the journal, along with court documents, vanished from history.
"People have been looking for it for years," David Moore, a nautical archaeologist says.
Under
protocols of the time, there should have been a copy of the documents
in the place of trial and another sent back to the Admiralty in London.
"For whatever reason that copy was never sent or it disappeared or it got lost in the filing system," Moore says.
"Certainly
if it had been misfiled somebody would have stumbled across it by now.
It would have been too fascinating a document even though they were
probably looking for something else.
"To me that's odd," Moore says.
Recovering the documents would likely be one of the most significant finds in pirate archaeology.
Who knows, perhaps there's even a map inside with an X that marks the spot.
But those who took it died a long time ago -- and dead men tell no tales.
วันเสาร์ที่ 6 พฤษภาคม พ.ศ. 2560
My son died in 1994 but his heart only stopped beating this year
By Harry LowBBC News
5 May 2017
On
the night of 29 September 1994, seven-year-old Nicholas Green was
fatally shot during a family holiday in southern Italy. The death was a
tragedy for his parents, Reg and Maggie, but their decision to donate
his organs caused organ donation rates in Italy to triple in a decade - a
result dubbed the "Nicholas effect".
"The first time I sensed
danger was when a dark car came up close behind us and stayed there for a
few moments," says Reg Green, who is remembering the night his son was
inexplicably shot by strangers in southern Italy. "Shortly after, this
car began to overtake. I relaxed, thinking there was nothing wrong after
all."
But, instead of overtaking, the car drew alongside. Reg and
Maggie heard loud angry cries. They assumed that the men inside wanted
them to stop.
"I thought if we did stop we would be completely at
their mercy. So instead I accelerated. They did too, so the two cars
raced alongside each other through the night. A bullet shattered the
back window. Maggie turned around and both the children appeared to be
fast asleep." In fact, Nicholas had been shot in the head although
his sister Eleanor was sleeping peacefully. Seconds later, the driver's
window was blown in too and the other car drove off.
"I stopped
the car and got out. The interior light came on but Nicholas didn't
move. I looked closer and saw his tongue was sticking out slightly and
there was a trace of vomit on his chin," says Green, 88, whose book
about the experience, The Nicholas Effect, formed the basis for the 1998
film starring Jamie Lee Curtis and Alan Bates, Nicholas' Gift.
"For
the first time we realised something terrible had happened. The shock
of seeing him like that was the bleakest moment I've ever had."
An
American family's holiday had turned into a nightmare. Nicholas died in
hospital days later, after entering a coma. But before he did, his
parents made a decision which would change the lives of seven families
across Italy - they decided to donate his organs.
"At that point,
these people were just abstractions. You had no idea what kind of
people they were. It was like giving money to charity but you've no idea
how it helps. Four months afterwards, we were invited to go back and
meet them all in Sicily, where four of the recipients are from," says
Green.
Who received Nicholas's organs?
Image copyrightOggiImage caption
Back row left to right: Reg Green, Maggie Green,
Andrea Mongiardo, Francesco Mondello, Tino Motta, Anna Maria Di Ceglie,
Eleanor Green. Seated: Laura Green, Maria Pia Pedala, Domenica Galleta,
Silvia Ciampi, Martin Green
Andrea Mongiardo: Heart, died in 2017
Francesco Mondello: Cornea
Tino Motta: Kidney
Anna Maria Di Ceglie: Kidney
Maria Pia Pedala: Liver
Domenica Galleta: Cornea
Silvia Ciampi: Pancreas, presumed to have died several years ago
Criminals in Italy rarely kill
children, Green says, because it makes the police so determined to catch
the killers. This is what happened in Nicholas's case. A
no-holds-barred police investigation resulted in the arrest and
conviction of two men, Francesco Mesiano and Michele Iannello.
It's
still unclear whether the men were robbers, or hitmen who attacked the
wrong car in a case of mistaken identity, but the fact that one of them
employs one of Italy's top lawyers suggests to Green that they have
mafia connections.
"The killing of a seven-year-old American boy
in a country where violent death is commonplace has plunged Italy into
national soul-searching," the Times reported. Green says that the idea
of an innocent child being shot while on holiday in the country made
many Italians feel ashamed - and led them to embrace the idea of organ
donation as a way of making amends. "The work we have done to remind them of how much
good could come out of this has had this quite astonishing effect which
we couldn't possibly have foreseen. A country that was almost at the
bottom for organ donation in Europe could immediately move almost to the
top. No other country has tripled organ donation."
In 1993, the
year before Nicholas was shot, 6.2 people per million donated an organ,
while by 2006 the figure had reached 20 per million. During that period,
in 1999, Italy moved to an opt-out system, where when someone dies it
is presumed they are willing for their organs to be donated unless they
have specified otherwise.
France, Greece, Portugal and Spain also
use an opt-out system, while the US and UK (with the exception of
Wales) continue to operate an opt-in system.
How Nicholas's name lives on
Image copyrightReg GreenImage caption
Nicholas Green square in Cassino is one of many places in Italy bearing the child's name
In Italy, there are more than 120 places named in Nicholas's honour:
50 squares and streets
27 parks and gardens
27 schools
16 other monuments and installations, including a lemon tree, a bridge and an amphitheatre
Image copyrightReg GreenImage caption
This garden in Turin also pays tribute to Reg's son
"Nicholas was a kindly
boy who always looked for the best in things so, when you were with him,
you always wanted to be your best," explains his father.
"I know
that at seven years old he probably wouldn't have been able to
comprehend but, I know, as he grew up this is just what he would have
wanted us to do - there's no doubt about that.
"If the choice was
between being angry at the people who did it and wanting to help
somebody else as the first priority, he would have undoubtedly chosen
helping somebody out."
Green, who worked as a journalist on Fleet
Street for many years before moving to the US, says his son taught him a
lot about tolerance. "I'm impatient and when things go wrong, I get het
up about it," he says. "Nicholas had a calmness about it all and a
forgivingness that made you want to be the same." Nothing could have prepared Green for the moment he
came face-to-face with those people whose lives were saved by Nicholas's
organs.
"When the doors opened and the six walked in, the effect
was overwhelming," he says, noting that illness prevented one from being
present. "Some were smiling, some were tearful, others were bashful but
they were all alive. Most of these people had been on the point of
death. That's when it hit you for the first time, just how big a thing
this was.
"There was also a sense of how the parents and
grandparents would have been devastated. You got the feeling there were
many more people involved whose lives would have been much poorer if we
hadn't saved them."
Green and his wife Maggie, who married in
April 1986, were keen to ensure that Eleanor did not grow up alone. They
have since had twins, Laura and Martin, who will turn 21 in May. What
impact has the death of Green's son had on his life? "There's a sadness
that was never there before. I'm never completely happy any more," Green
says. "Even when I'm at my happiest, I think: 'Wouldn't it be better if
Nicholas was here?'" But l'effetto Nicholas - the Nicholas Effect -
is a silver lining. "I feel that every time there is a piece in the
newspaper, TV or radio, there is going to be somebody in the audience
who is going to have to make this decision. If they have never heard or
thought about organ donation before, they are much more likely to say
'no'."
Green returns to Italy twice a year
to raise awareness about organ donation. On his most recent visit he
met Maria Pia Pedala, who had been in a coma from liver failure on the
day Nicholas died, but quickly bounced back to health after receiving
his liver. She married two years later, and two years after that gave
birth to a baby boy - named Nicholas - who was followed in two years by a
girl, Alessia. The three of them travelled from Sicily, where organ
donation was almost unknown in 1994 Green says, to take part with him in
a television programme in Milan.
Green points out that even the
recipient of Nicholas's heart, Andrea Mongiardo, who died earlier this
year, had the organ three times longer than Nicholas himself did.
But
he sees his son's legacy extending far beyond the seven people who
received Nicholas's organs. Because donation rates soared after
Nicholas's death, he says, thousands of people are now alive who would
otherwise have died.
