The perils of public transport

A THAI woman who was lost for 25 years after catching the wrong bus home was finally reunited with her family thanks to simple song.

The last time Jaeyaena Beuraheng saw her seven children was in 1982 when she left the southern Thailand province of Narathiwat on one of her regular shopping trips across the nearby border with Malaysia.

She disappeared, and police later told her family that she had apparently been killed in a traffic accident.

In fact, Jaeyaena had simply taken the wrong bus home - an error that would have been easy to fix except that she only speaks the local dialect of Malay known as Yawi, according to officials at the homeless shelter where the 76-year-old has lived for two decades.

On her way back from Malaysia, she mistakenly hopped on a bus to Bangkok, some 1150km north of her home in Narathiwat province.

Unable to read Thai and speaking a language few Thais can understand, she again took a wrong bus, this time to Chiang Mai, another 700km further north.

There she ended up as a beggar for five years, until she was finally sent to a homeless shelter in the central Thai province of Phitsanulok in 1987.
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Catholic Blog Awards

Nominations for the Catholic Blog Awards are now open but only until February 9th... (hint hint). Though of course my ego would love a nomination... I also point you to the many wonderful blogs that I link to that are far more superior to mine.

The categories are for:

• 1. Best Overall Catholic Blog
• 2. Best Designed Catholic Blog
• 3. Best Written Catholic Blog
• 4. Best New Catholic Blog
• 5. Best Individual Catholic Blog
• 6. Best Group Blog
• 7. Best Blog by Clergy/Religious/Seminarian
• 8. Funniest Catholic Blog
• 9. Smartest Catholic Blog
• 10. Most Informative & Insightful Catholic Blog
• 11. Best Apologetic Blog
• 12. Best Political/Social Commentary Catholic Blog
• 13. Best Insider News Catholic Blog
• 14. Most Spiritual Blog

Be warned that you have to sign-up to nominate... but then again you probably have to sign up to vote later on anyway.

[Pity there isn't an award for most outrageous Australian Blog, but then again Dominicanus might win that!

Now here is some good news

From the ABC News website:

Uni to vote on church's demand for stem cell research ban

The University of Sydney is considering complying with a church request to ban a new medical research centre from conducting embryonic stem cell research.

The university wants to buy land from the Catholic Church to build the Institute of Health and Medical Research.

The church's deed on the land stipulates there should be no foetal stem cell research or procedures involving the termination of human life or artificial creation of it.

The president of the Student Representative Council, Angus McFarland, says it is outrageous a health and medical research facility would be banned from such research.

"I'm really concerned that is going to be compromising academic freedom," he said.

"To build a medical research centre on land where you are not allowed to ever, ever engage in human stem cell research or any sort of research that involves the artificial creation or termination of life - I think it's a very limiting thing for the university to do."

The university's Senate will vote tonight on whether to accept the conditions.

I sit on the equivalent of the Senate at the University of Adelaide. The choice is simple - comply or don't buy, and they would be silly not to buy!

Now here is some good news

From the ABC News website:

Uni to vote on church's demand for stem cell research ban

The University of Sydney is considering complying with a church request to ban a new medical research centre from conducting embryonic stem cell research.

The university wants to buy land from the Catholic Church to build the Institute of Health and Medical Research.

The church's deed on the land stipulates there should be no foetal stem cell research or procedures involving the termination of human life or artificial creation of it.

The president of the Student Representative Council, Angus McFarland, says it is outrageous a health and medical research facility would be banned from such research.

"I'm really concerned that is going to be compromising academic freedom," he said.

"To build a medical research centre on land where you are not allowed to ever, ever engage in human stem cell research or any sort of research that involves the artificial creation or termination of life - I think it's a very limiting thing for the university to do."

The university's Senate will vote tonight on whether to accept the conditions.

I sit on the equivalent of the Senate at the University of Adelaide. The choice is simple - comply or don't buy, and they would be silly not to buy!

Blogs4Life

Blog4Life have a conference on this year and as a promotional thing they have AngelMouse cartoons for all their boggers. You can even see my blog's template in the background!

links

World's Toughest Catholic Quiz

Christopher Pearson: Catholics Flock to Cabinet

I'm still trying to get my head around the new Blogger. So please forgive the messiness of the blog at the moment.
Work has been very busy over the last two weeks but rewarding nonetheless. My performance review on Monday went well and it that means that I'll all but guarenteed a full-time job there when I graduate at the end of this year.

This also signals that there is only 3 weeks left until uni resumes. My final year and all engineering subjects. But there are some interesting ones there such as Engineering Management and Professional Practice along with Finance for Engineers. I can't wait to finish and get out.

Papal lace-makers now producing G-strings

(From CathNews earlier this week)

Catholics in a Polish lace-making village that produces altar cloths and robes for priests - including the Pope - are in uproar after declining demand for their products led women to develop hot selling new product lines including sexy G-strings for international markets.

The Age reports that the radical adaptation of the traditional skills of the women of the southern mountain village of Koniakow has proved a huge success and online sales of items costing over $100 are soaring.

But the Catholic Church and other critics say the new products including tight little tops, pants, bras and G-strings, known as stringi, are bringing shame on a respectable craft.

Malgorzata Stanaszek, who set up Koni-Art underwear and is now supplying Japanese, American and European customers, said: "We weren't selling much lace, so we had to think of something. It wasn't one woman's idea, it was more like a collective idea."

However, Mieczylaw Kamieniarz, who runs the lace museum in Koniakow, says that "all of Koniakow is ashamed".

"We have made Koniakow lace for altar cloths, priests' robes, even the Pope himself. And now people are going to wear Koniakow lace on their bottoms."
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This actually made it into the daily paper in Melbourne. Makes you wonder really...

Hello out there

Well well well. No blogging for such a long time! The truth is, that I have been busy, but busy with things that don't involve a computer (outside work). Last two nights I have been transporting some antique furniture that the elderly relative gave me. Most will go in storage for the short-term until I leave the nest.

And you'll have noticed that I've finally moved to blogger beta - only because I was forced to.