January 2006 Archives

Aung San Suu Kyi, the pro-democracy activist and Nobel Peace Prize laureate who has long been under house arrest in Myanmar, has been named winner of the Olof Palme Prize, organisers said on Monday.

The award is endowed by the family of the slain Swedish prime minister and the governing Social Democratic Party.

Suu Kyi was cited for being "an outstanding example of the efforts to attain democracy by the people of Burma, where respect for human rights, ethnic unity, and a life in peace remain only a dream," the organisers said in a statement.

DOI TAILANG, Myanmar (Reuters) - The heroin trade is burgeoning in Myanmar's Golden Triangle, a reality hidden from the international community by the lies and cunning of the former Burma's military junta, a top rebel leader said.

In an interview with Reuters in his jungle hideout on the Thai-Myanmar border, Shan State Army (SSA) supremo Colonel Yod Suk rejected U.N. studies suggesting opium poppy cultivation in the world's second largest heroin producer was falling.

"The U.N. trips are very limited. They have not seen the grass roots. They are stopped by the Burmese soldiers from getting the correct information," said the bespectacled 48-year-old ethnic guerrilla leader, whose name means "Warlord".

A friend of mine sent me this video and I thought it was so funny that I should put this on my blog!!

Because I'm a crackhead and I cannot sleep, I'm catching the USA's breaking news. This one from Wired.com absolutely caught my attention. But my thoughts after reading the article: "Yes, that's what Buddhism has been trying to teach all along - with enough teaching and practise, compasion can be grown in Humans. Is that so hard for Science to believe?"

Read on!

The hot new frontier of neuroscience: meditation! (Just ask the Dalai Lama.)
By John Geirland

(The First 2 paragraphs can be seen at:)

The Dalai Lama is here to give a speech titled "The Neuroscience of Meditation." Over the past few years, he has supplied about a dozen Tibetan Buddhist monks to Richard Davidson, a prominent neuroscience professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Davidson's research created a stir among brain scientists when his results suggested that, in the course of meditating for tens of thousands of hours, the monks had actually altered the structure and function of their brains. The professor thought the Dalai Lama would make an interesting guest speaker at the Society for Neuroscience's annual meeting, and the program committee jumped at the chance. The speech also gives the Tibetan leader an opportunity to promote one of his cherished goals: an alliance between Buddhism and science.

A creative Ad at the Singapore Changi Airport. Love the Green and Pinks. Am a sucker for color.

I work in the Cenral Business District in Singapore. It's really crowded here, since it's downtown filled with offices. So, this area is prime target for advertisers, promoters- especially those targeting women consumers as for some reasons a lot of women work down here.

So, when I step out of the train station, or step out of my office for lunch, or to go home, I am bombarded by promoters handing me flyers. Thousands of rectangular pieces of flyers that say ridiculous things like "Beauty is Everything" (I'm not kidding) to more inane things that I cannot remember because I end up putting them in the recycling bins or I make origami paper boats out of them (it's an automatic response - it's rectangular and they just shove it at me).

I mean, they are killing trees daily. I do not believe the flyers are effective in reaching or securing any consumers at all. Especially because we are targeted with a huge amount of flyers a day, no one even looks at them. Also, the promoters, poorly paid (Singapore has no minimum wage - will hand these out to anyone - cares not who it is and will hand out 2 or more each person to get over with their job). So you tell me, where is this message on the flyers going? Bottom of the dustbins.

Worse, Singapore hardly recycles. There is 1 recycling bin in the whole of the Central Business District and none in the office towers and individual offices.

And as someone who loves creative Branding, PR and Advertisement, as much as she thinks that trees are important because global warming is a motherf*&%$!, please, can the Singapore government, who thought it was important to ban chewing gum to stop "sticky situations", do something about this flyer handing out culture, that is ultimately destroying trees?

The opening of this bridge is good in a way, that means more communication between Burmese people and their relatives in Thailand and vice versa. I just hope that this does not mean increase of sex trade of Burmese girls who are sold/sent/smuggled/brought to Thailand to work as prostitutes.
Because those girls don't get any help from the Thai government or the Burmese government or anybody for that matter.
The Thai government gives out condoms to the Thai prostitues, they treat the girls who have HIV and they investigate those who have been abused. But they don't have any jurisdiction (or they don't care) or any funding for the Burmese girls who are working as sex workers. (or why should they? this means the Thai Health Ministry spends less money - and the Tourism in the area still booms, win - win situation for them, as I see it )

His "excellency" Nyan Win, (having a cup of tea and not caring about the state of Burmese girls forced to work as prostitutes in the Burma/Thai Border) who presided over the opening ceremony of the Second Mae Sai Friendship Bridge between Burma and Thailand

Thai Foreign Minister Kantathi Suphamongkhon, who presided over the opening ceremony of the Second Mae Sai Friendship Bridge in the Chiang Rai Province.

Thailand, Burma open second bridge
CHIANG RAI, Jan 22 (TNA) - A flow of friendly faces--Thai and Myanmar people--characterised a kind of cross-border 'happy hour' traffic between Thailand and Myanmar on Sunday, as the two countries relaxed the need for cross-border documentation.

Thailand and Myanmar on Sunday opened a second friendship bridge across the Mae Sai River, the natural border demarcating the two countries, which Thailand hopes will not only boost bilateral trade but trade with southern China as well.

Crimes against humanity are atrocisuous - but crimes by Burmese people against other Burmese people are the worst in my opinion and this happened recently in Singapore.
Shame on you, man!

I'm just crazy about Madonna right now - I thought it would stop last year, the love for this song, but it has grown. I love Madonna, from the sparkling purple belt in this video, to this phat beat, to the simple, nonsensical lyric, to her retro moves to her toned ass butt to her hair.

I want a purple sparkly purple belt... oh, the power of the celebrity influence...

Click on the link below to watch the "Hung Up" Video.

I admit - I am very into Astrology, palm reading, and all things occult and mysterious. I mean, I am Burmese and most Burmese people believe in that too.

So when I read this at Freewillastrology.com as my horoscope for the week, I think it's a good sign!!

In my homeland of Northern California, four of the most overused terms are "juicy," "sacred," "radical," and "wild." I haven't made a scientific study, but I'd guess that maybe 30 percent of all workshops and self-help books originating in this part of the world have at least one of those words in their titles. As a connoisseur of language, I naturally try to avoid them myself. Nevertheless, your long-term astrological omens demand that I invoke them to describe your destiny. In fact, I'm duty-bound to predict that 2006 will be the Year of Juicy Sacred Radical Wildness for you Scorpios. Do your best, please, to express the primal potency of these words.

And I'm sick of blogging about my blog but i've checked out my blog from 3 different browsers and they all come out differently in all 3 of them. weird!!! So i'm gonna just let it be for a while.

A Burmese Painting.

So it's a brand new year!!! I'm so so sleepy now that I stayed up to welcome the new year.

I would like to thank my father, my mother, my sister and the rest of my family for being so good to me and taking care of me when I need it. I wish you all good physical and mental health and for your hearts to be filled with happiness everyday in this coming year.

For all my friends and their families, who have laughed with me, held my hands and given me a shoulder to cry on and put up with me :) I am blessed to have you in my life and I wish you every joy that could possibly befall on you.

To all those new acquaintances that I've made - via this blog or other ways - I wish the same for you - may your lives be filled with joy.

Most of all, May we see a more peaceful and prosperous year in 2006.

Yours Very Truly.