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Monday, October 4, 2010
Magazine lists Kamla among top female leaders
Magazine lists Kamla among top female leaders
by
Sun Oct 03 2010
But that trend has been changing in recent years, the publication observed. The magazine pointed to the fact that Dilma Rouseff was in line to be elected president of Brazil yesterday. The publication said Prime Minister Persad-Bissessar "has stated her goals in office to be cutting down on crime and slashing the island's 20 per cent poverty rate." Time magazine recently indentified Persad-Bissessar as one of the world's top female leaders.
PITRI PAKSH: CEREMONY FOR THE LIVING
Every year, during the September/October period for approximately fifteen days, Hindus observe the Pitri Paksh (loosely translated as ancestors' time), by engaging in reflection, prayer and remembrance; a manifestation of gratitude to those who have paved the way and who continue to live through us. As is the case with many ancient ceremonies, misconceptions are common for the purpose and theological principles underpinning the rituals are not generally understood. All Hindu rituals are grounded in the social, psychological and meta-physical domains with a core goal of maintaining order in the family, society and country. The ritual is not the end itself but rather a means or process towards a more noble and lofty cause of remembering and acknowledging the sacrifice and contribution of those who have died.
In this regard, the rituals performed in this period are similar to remembrance ceremonies in both the secular and religious worlds. Examples of the former are Memorial Day and Remembrance Day. Gratitude is one of the stronger threads of the social weave and hence a primary aim of the period is to engender and foster this essential and critical human characteristic. It is thus for the living who perform it. The continuity of life (spirit, energy and matter) is expressed in the tenet of reincarnation and thus the prayers that are proffered are meant for the benefit of the reincarnated ancestor in his/her present life. To many, this is a difficult concept to acknowledge or grasp, particularly those whose construct of the world is assembled from inflexible dogma.
Such individuals can be found in both the secular and the religious communities who share a commonality; a one-dimensional binary world view, one that is inconsistent with the inter-related multi-dimensional complexities of the universe. Religion, like other endeavours of man, seeks to provide an understanding of the world.
The problem with dogma based belief systems is that the evolving world is constrained to conform to a model that might not represent reality. On the other hand, process based belief systems are able to accommodate changing situations and thus are more relevant as they provide a model that is aligned with existing situation. Hinduism and Buddhism are process based religions which provide the individual with the algorithms for effective decision making.
Authority, responsibility and accountability lie fully in the domain of the individual upon which the concept of karma and its corollary, reincarnation, are based. The theory of karma indicates that our present life trajectory at any point in time is the dynamic conjoint of past and present actions. Since we are accustomed to thinking that the outputs of actions are limited to a finite time scale, conceptualisation of the continuity of the effects over large distances and time periods requires effort. To give a simple example, an earthquake occurring for a few seconds near the eastern shores Pacific ocean take a few hours to be felt on the western shores; as it takes time for the waves to propagate. Now imagine, a few minutes later, a second earthquake occurs a bit west of the site of the original quake.
Waves near the western shore would be the conjoint of both waves; that is, its present characteristics is a product of both actions (quakes). Put another way the effects of the past and present are coexisting and by extension, the future is a product of the present and past; the idea behind karma. At the physical plane level, the performance of the rituals for one's ancestors is a product of a past action or consistent set of actions. By performing these rituals, the future actions of one's offspring are influenced. In other words, an action by an ancestor one generation removed will affect the actions of a successor one generation forward. Put another way; actions from the distant past impact on the present and future.
The clear conclusion, even if one did not subscribe to the reincarnation and karma, is that the worship of the ancestors impact positively on the living, over many generations. To say otherwise is to deny the fundamental characteristic of what makes us human. To criticise the ceremony as worshipping the dead is to admit one's own ingratitude to one's fellowman.
From article by Pundit Prakash Persad
Sun Oct 03 2010, Sunday Guardian
Sunday, October 3, 2010
Friday, October 1, 2010
The Trinidad Guardian
An exciting discovery - Sea Shells Far From Shore | Trinidad Express Newspaper | News
An exciting discovery - Sea Shells Far From Shore | Trinidad Express Newspaper | News
By Richard Charan
An exciting discovery - Sea Shells Far From Shore
By Richard Charan
By Editor, South Bureau
The man who found it thought it was treasure of the pirate kind - only without the wrought iron and wood chest.
How else could the mind explain, he would say later, all these crystals and sea shells emerging from the ground? And at a place so far from the coast - eight miles at least - past hills and valleys and homes and highways?
A great hiding place, Bob Ramoutar first thought, when his giant excavator unearthed the shells while digging into a hillside in early September.
His discovery while clearing land for a housing development off rural La Cuesa Road, Freeport, has piqued the interest of researchers at the University of the West Indies. A suggestion that the find could have been a shell midden left behind by Trinidad's early people (similar middens have been found in other parts of Trinidad) was dispelled by Dr Basil Reid, senior lecturer in Archaeology at the Department of History, University of the West Indies, when the massive scale of the find began to emerge.
Shells by the millions, no billions, some resembling what you might see washed up on a tropical beach, others the size of an adult's hand, none having any business so far from the sea, the layman would think. And mixed up in it all, quartz (rock crystals).
This, Dr Reid said, might be something of interest to his colleague, Dr Brent Wilson, senior lecturer in Paleontology and Sedimentology, Petroleum Geosciences Programme, at UWI's Department of Chemical Engineering.
Wilson has examined images of the shells found at the site - there are at least five distinct types, and made observations. The discovery, Dr Wilson said, would be sure to excite the Geological Society of Trinidad and Tobago, of which he is an executive committee member.
This is what Dr Wilson reported.
"I concur with Dr. Reid that this is most likely not a man-made shell midden: from the photographs showing the site, the number of shells is small compared to what one would expect in a midden. Also, they appear to be widespread. Instead, this appears to be a community of shells enclosed within a muddy deposit, and probably has a geological rather than an anthropogenic (man-made) origin.
The shells themselves are thick and heavy, one being an oyster. Many show a heavy ornament of ribs. Such molluscs typically live in shallow water, where the thick shells protect the creatures from damage during heavy seas. The ribs also confer strength and stability to the shells, a bit like steel added to the framework of a building (when the contractors remember put it in, that is!)
I would hesitate to give an age for these shells, other than to say that they do not look old in a geological sense (i.e., we may be talking thousands rather than millions of years). I shall assume that this is so. Sea level has not been constant throughout geological time, but has gone up and down as ice caps at the poles have alternatively melted and grown. At times when the ice caps are particularly small, sea levels will be high, the melt water being released into the oceans. Perhaps, then, the shells mark a time when sea level worldwide was higher than it is at present.
There is an alternative explanation: Trinidad is in an area where two of the world's few crustal, tectonic plates meet. Southern Trinidad lies on the South American plate, while northern Trinidad lies on the Caribbean plate. (There's a thing few realise: drive from Port of Spain to San Fernando and you go from the Caribbean to South America, the actual point of passing from one to the other not being far north of the Forres Park Flyover.)
Plate boundaries are characterised by tectonic activity -- a fancy term for earthquakes. These occur as the plates rub together, producing uplift such as had formed the Northern and Central Ranges. The earthquakes can be very powerful and destructive to lives and property. (It was earlier this year suggested that Trinidad has enough stress stored within the Central Range to produce a magnitude 7 earthquake. Unfortunately, we cannot say when it will take place.)
Perhaps, then, the shells mark a period of one or more major earthquakes, when a section of the seafloor was uplifted, bringing the shells with it.
It might be suggested that the shells were transported inland during a tsunami associated with an earthquake. However, this is highly unlikely. Tsunamis (and storm surges associated with hurricanes) are not capable of transporting such large shells far. Instead, the material they would wash inland is fine sand and microscopic shells just a few millimetres across".
Bob Ramoutar intends preserving the site to allow researchers time to conduct a study.
richard.charan@trinidadexpress.com
How else could the mind explain, he would say later, all these crystals and sea shells emerging from the ground? And at a place so far from the coast - eight miles at least - past hills and valleys and homes and highways?
A great hiding place, Bob Ramoutar first thought, when his giant excavator unearthed the shells while digging into a hillside in early September.
His discovery while clearing land for a housing development off rural La Cuesa Road, Freeport, has piqued the interest of researchers at the University of the West Indies. A suggestion that the find could have been a shell midden left behind by Trinidad's early people (similar middens have been found in other parts of Trinidad) was dispelled by Dr Basil Reid, senior lecturer in Archaeology at the Department of History, University of the West Indies, when the massive scale of the find began to emerge.
Shells by the millions, no billions, some resembling what you might see washed up on a tropical beach, others the size of an adult's hand, none having any business so far from the sea, the layman would think. And mixed up in it all, quartz (rock crystals).
This, Dr Reid said, might be something of interest to his colleague, Dr Brent Wilson, senior lecturer in Paleontology and Sedimentology, Petroleum Geosciences Programme, at UWI's Department of Chemical Engineering.
Wilson has examined images of the shells found at the site - there are at least five distinct types, and made observations. The discovery, Dr Wilson said, would be sure to excite the Geological Society of Trinidad and Tobago, of which he is an executive committee member.
This is what Dr Wilson reported.
"I concur with Dr. Reid that this is most likely not a man-made shell midden: from the photographs showing the site, the number of shells is small compared to what one would expect in a midden. Also, they appear to be widespread. Instead, this appears to be a community of shells enclosed within a muddy deposit, and probably has a geological rather than an anthropogenic (man-made) origin.
The shells themselves are thick and heavy, one being an oyster. Many show a heavy ornament of ribs. Such molluscs typically live in shallow water, where the thick shells protect the creatures from damage during heavy seas. The ribs also confer strength and stability to the shells, a bit like steel added to the framework of a building (when the contractors remember put it in, that is!)
I would hesitate to give an age for these shells, other than to say that they do not look old in a geological sense (i.e., we may be talking thousands rather than millions of years). I shall assume that this is so. Sea level has not been constant throughout geological time, but has gone up and down as ice caps at the poles have alternatively melted and grown. At times when the ice caps are particularly small, sea levels will be high, the melt water being released into the oceans. Perhaps, then, the shells mark a time when sea level worldwide was higher than it is at present.
There is an alternative explanation: Trinidad is in an area where two of the world's few crustal, tectonic plates meet. Southern Trinidad lies on the South American plate, while northern Trinidad lies on the Caribbean plate. (There's a thing few realise: drive from Port of Spain to San Fernando and you go from the Caribbean to South America, the actual point of passing from one to the other not being far north of the Forres Park Flyover.)
Plate boundaries are characterised by tectonic activity -- a fancy term for earthquakes. These occur as the plates rub together, producing uplift such as had formed the Northern and Central Ranges. The earthquakes can be very powerful and destructive to lives and property. (It was earlier this year suggested that Trinidad has enough stress stored within the Central Range to produce a magnitude 7 earthquake. Unfortunately, we cannot say when it will take place.)
Perhaps, then, the shells mark a period of one or more major earthquakes, when a section of the seafloor was uplifted, bringing the shells with it.
It might be suggested that the shells were transported inland during a tsunami associated with an earthquake. However, this is highly unlikely. Tsunamis (and storm surges associated with hurricanes) are not capable of transporting such large shells far. Instead, the material they would wash inland is fine sand and microscopic shells just a few millimetres across".
Bob Ramoutar intends preserving the site to allow researchers time to conduct a study.
richard.charan@trinidadexpress.com
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