Abducted engineer beheaded in Pakistan

It has been a few years since the beheading of CNN's Daniel Pearl
but I am always reminded of his tragedy since he spent some time
based in my home town of Pune, India with his pregnant wife Marianne.
Some of you may have seen 'The Journalist and the Jehadi'
the documentary narrated by Christiane Amanpour and the
Angelina Jolie film it spawned called 'A Mighty Heart'
(filmed in Pune, BTW)

Daniel Pearl, a dedicated investigative reporter willingly walked into
the face of death while trying to unravel the mystery of the 9/11 attacks.
Not so Polish engineer Piotr Stanczak who worked for the Geofizyka
oil and gas exploration company. He was apparently used as barter
for the release of Taliban militant hostages.

Story at Poland.pl

NowPublic

Tags: World | Pakistan

King of the USA in the Works

March 20 2011 :two years later I am checking back for anything worth
remembering in this post......and I find it amusing that the 'King of the USA'
who wanted to be the 'King of Kings' is now a marked man.

"In principle, we said the ultimate is the United States
of Africa. How we proceed to that ultimate, there are
building blocks"
- Tanzanian President Jakaya Kikwete, speaking to the
BBC regarding the proposed transformation of the AU
into the USA

Well, I have a piece full of uneasy feelings about this one....,


 The BBC website is reporting that

Moammar Gadaffi has been elected as the next
African Union leader:

"The chairmanship of the African Union is a rotating
position held by heads of state for one year.
The BBC's Elizabeth Blunt in Addis Ababa says it
was the turn of North Africa to lead the bloc, and
Col Gaddafi was seen as the obvious choice.
However, some African leaders believe the Libyan
leader is too erratic to be AU chairman. Before he
arrived at the summit, he circulated a letter saying
he was coming as the king of the traditional kings
of Africa and he wanted to be seated as the king
of kings,our correspondent says"

Full BBC article on the current AU summit here

Profile of Gaddafi from the BBC here

Tattoo Leads to Violence in India

Click on above Screencap of my recent post at
Now Public.

Read the Mumbai Mirror article here

'Teach Your Children'. Well......

Southern charm and manners are often touted as highly desirable
but I think this goes beyond all human decency since it involves
the greatest gift a human couple can possess - the gift of a child.

But rather than cherish, protect and shower love on their innocent
daughter, a couple in Galveston, Texas chose to train the toddler
via a 'daylong torture session in which the toddler was beaten with
belts, dunked in cold water and flung across a room so violently that
she died,' according to an AP news article.

This is something that not only sickened but reduced jurors
to sobs, and personally I can't even bring words to bear on how
badly I'm feeeling about this. Especially since somewhere in
Florida there's another little body, found murdered and awaiting
a proper funeral and burial.

Galveston County Daily News on 'Baby Grace'

Fox News coverage of the Caylee Anthony case

NowPublic

Tags: Family | Health | Galveston | Human Behaviour

Backstage with Bono - Inaugural Day 2009

Message from Josh Peck at one.org

Dear Fred, Yesterday, U2 performed in front of hundreds of thousands of people at "We Are One: The Obama Inaugural Celebration" concert at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C. ONE co-founder Bono took a few moments backstage to record this message to ONE members. Check it out here: http://www.one.org/blog/2009/01/19/message-from-bono/?id=810-3378371-zbEUrwx&t=1 Thank you for your voice, Josh Peck, ONE.org

ONE.ORG | BLOG | PRIVACY | SUBSCRIBE | UNSUBSCRIBE | CONTACT US | ABOUT

Proud Mary is a Texan

Mary Margaret Wilson, that is- not the lady CCR
sang of way back in the '70s. Mary is the sister of
Chesley B. Sullenberger III,

the quick-thinking savior of an entire Airbus-load of
passengers aboard Flight 1549 from LaGuardia NY
that 'landed' in the Hudson River yesterday.

The Herald Democrat Texoma quotes Mary's reaction to
seeing the news on TV : "And I thought to myself,
'That's something my brother could do."

Just like that. The man nicknamed 'Sully' has a sister who has no
doubts as to his skills and character, for she knows that he first
made headlines flying at the age of 15, even though it was a
crop duster he flew back then. "He would be the one person
who could land a plane in the water without any engines",
she said recalling her lack of nervousness while flying with him.

The people of Dennison, Texas are equally proud and we
should be hearing a lot more from them about this hero who
was raised in their town.

And you can be sure Sully's wife Lorrie

is as proud as Mary, as she keeps on burnin' with love
for Scully. I mean, Lorrie is no slouch either. Just go
check her out at Fit and Fabulous !

Updated Feb 2, 2009
http://www.mashget.com/topic/sully/

Google is Nice....

...but Flickr is quicker if it's a particular picture you
want. I've made many useful connections with it, and
below are a few examples.

Flickr works as a great Search engine for folks who need
pics of all kinds, freely available under a Creative Commons
License. I granted these rights to my Flickr photos - since I
didn't consider them to be of much interest except to those
within my immediate circle. Then recently I received an email
from Schmap Guides informing me that a 10 year-old photo
of mine was being used for the New Orleans Sights and
Attractions section of their Guides, under the Creative
Commons License granted by me to all....a license that is
available to YOU, too !



click to enlarge

I was thankful, flattered and animated at the potential
that Flickr offers unskilled amateurs such as myself,
armed only with a little Vivitar DVC (minus tripod).
The exposure (no pun intended) courtesy of the Flickr
site is deeply appreciated. In this fast-paced, hi-tech
world of today, people are conducting searches not at
the desktop and laptop alone but also on the go, using
Blackberries and iPhones. Search results in turn are
now being created and released on the fly, and things
are certainly flying along and checking my Flickr stats
I discover, heyyyy... here's more pics of mine , this
time being used by BooRah, which bills itself as
'the ultimate, personalized review guide providing
consumers a smarter way to find great restaurants'.


click to enlarge

So Google all you want but do take a look at my photo
collection, leave a comment, Fave a pic, or simply Add
me as a Contact. This is Networking that works. Try it !

My Flickr Faves
http://www.flickr.com/photos/rosie_hardy/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/firozeshakir/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/lecercle/sets/72157603867379617/

Purple Is for Pride

images info*
You may have heard of 'Purple Haze' and 'Purple Rain' affecting people
in many ways, some inspired to try to play guitar like Jimi Hendrix, while
others have sought to sing or dance like Prince, errr... the Artist Formerly
Known As...Before He Went Back To Being Known As.......Prince. I think....

But who knew the color Purple (movie association unintended) could move
people not only to sing and dance but take flight? This color symbolises so
much to so many, it's right up there with Red for Valentine's and Stop signs !
Yes, Purple Songs Can Fly, all the way into Space, just one facet of a
project engineered by a hospital in Houston, Texas.

One year ago today, the highly-esteemed New York Times visited the
Texas Children's Cancer Center and followed up with a great article on how
Songwriting and Recording in a Studio setting are proving to be an
immensely valuable therapeutic tool in the battle against Children's Cancer.

"“Just treatment is not enough,” Dr. Poplack said to the New York Times.
“We want to have a psychosocial impact so that the children are not only
cured, but healed as well.” He said breakthroughs over the last 50 years had
raised the survival rate of children with cancer to 75 percent from 10 percent.

Anita Kruse, who founded the Purple Songs Can Fly Project with her own
money saw her Mission Accomplished in 2003 as her song,
If We Can Fly to the Moon, written as a September 11th tribute, flew over
5 million miles around the earth with astronaut, John Herrington, on the
Endeavor Shuttle Mission.

Here are some links that I hope you will use because this is one effort that's
just too good not to be considered :

http://www.purplesongscanfly.org/
*images above are from this site

http://www.musicdiscoveries.com/ifwecan/flytothemoon.html

The New York Times article Jan 2008

In the mix, Sugarhill Recording Studios in Houston

The Year 2008 for Me

Forgetting the lists of the Top Albums, Celebs,
Strange, Weird and Outrageous that they come
out with around this time, and instead taking a
closer look at
10 Things I will remember about 2008....

The Mumbai Terrorist Attacks

Hurricane IKE

Obama For President

Long Beach California

Las Vegas Nevada

One of my photos is now on on the official
Schmap Guide to New Orleans

Approaching 26,000 visitors to this Blog

Getting a new Toshiba Laptop

Joining Facebook

....and taking a flight after a gap of 10 years

In a very disturbed world where American Politics were
given a jolt by their first-ever Black appointee to the
Presidentship which then took a backseat to the
Terrorist attacks in Mumbai, after a devastating hit
to Texas by Hurricane Ike I took my first airline flight
in ten years and wound up in Long Beach California
and then Las Vegas,

reunited with childhood long-lost friends on Facebook and settled into using my first new Laptop PC which made me scramble to be productive once again on Flickr and here on Virtual Poona Where will all this take me in 2009 ? Hopefully to a more widespread audience, and better communications with those whom I would like to count as friends and family. Wish me luck!

I'm Really Back. With Babelgum.

Happy Holidays ! Virtual Poona is still around....
Let's get back to the business of blogging I said to myself
today, fully recharged with a new laptop and an upgrade
to blazing DSL speed. No more excuses and complaints
about lost data and repeated trips to the repair shop, I said.
Then along came the Christmas crunch on my physical
and mental (financial goes without saying) resources and
I was delayed from updating this space yet again. And what
better way to return to you than to share the best of what
I've discovered in the past two months. So look out for the
best of the best in upcoming posts. Like HQ streaming videos
from Babelgum

on a wide range of subjects, many showcasing
absurdly talented artists and musicians.

Note: You will need to download the FREE Babelgum Player
but you will not be sorry for the quality entertainment at
your fingertips.