Oh, what a sad story, the Germanwings flight that crashed into the Alps turns out to be a suicide + mass murder. The copilot locked the captain out of the cockpit and blammo!

The last thing you want to hear when flying is the pilot pounding on the cockpit door shouting, Let me in! 

and it would be the last thing you hear. Amitabha.

wow, this blog is up to 2700 posts!
Wish it had 2700 readers.

From 王丹的臉書：

微信上看到的。不知道是不是真的。不許笑：

全國第十二屆人代會統計出人大代表中最爆笑的人名：
劉產、賴月京（這兩個還是男的） 、范統、姬從良 、夏建仁、朱逸群、秦壽生（虧他父母想得出） 龐光、杜琦燕、魏生津、喬厚根、沈京兵、杜子騰。

排名第一的：史珍香。

Can anyone explain to me why the US has money to incarcerate over two million people, many for decades, but cannot afford to educate people for four years?

LINK

今天得到寶了! A real windfall today! This should keep me busy! A Tayal-Chinese dictionary, plus verbal history recorded in Tayal, translated into Chinese. Tesing Losin spent over thirty years compiling these. It’s wonderful that work is being done to insure that ancient minority languages survive; such reference books are invaluable for that survival.

Mhway Watan Kahat balay!

The very first dot com was established thirty years ago today, on March 15, 1985. There’s a lot of junk on the internet, to be sure, but it has enriched our lives in ways nobody imagined even twenty years ago.
Just imagine, this blog wouldn't exist without the web.... okay....

Hope you all enjoyed your Friday the 13^th yesterday. Keep in mind that today is not only Telemann’s birthday, but it is also Pi day, a very special Pi day: “this Saturday, March 14, 2015, 9:26:53 a.m. will be celebrated as ‘Super Pi Day’ - extrapolating pi to its first 10 digits: 3.141592653.”　Keep that in mind.

LINK

An update on the amazing story of the Russian Orthodox Old Believer Agafia Lykov, living in Siberia 250 kilometers from the nearest settlement. My mother’s teacher, Augusto Centeno, told her to study Turgenev’s Sportsman’s Sketches for ‘modes of existence.’ Agafia Lykov certainly has her own. 十七世紀，沙皇彼得大帝改革俄羅斯正教會，老教派/ старообря́дцы/Old Believers拒絕接受，因而受迫害。他們往野外山區逃，不肯與俗世來往。一九三六年老教派信徒Karp Lykov/ Карп Осипович Лыковы帶家人遁入西伯利亞山區，從此與外界隔絕。四十二後，蘇聯地質學家開直升機勘探，發現離最近的居落兩百五十公里的地方居然有農田，從此Lykov家人又與外界見面；兩個在山中生的孩子長到將近四十歲才第一次見到世人。現在只有么女Agafia/ Агафья獨居老家。

我家母的老師Augusto Centeno教母親細讀Turgenev著A Sportsman’s Sketches/「獵人筆記」尋求其中的modes of existence，Agafia一生寫出一篇獨特的生存模式。

I need an apron for woodworking, to keep the chips and shavings off my lap. Out of curiosity, I went to Ebay and here I found:

Lot Of 3 Black Aprons... All Reversible One Brand-New And A Cumber Bun

nothing like a good Cumber Bun on a winter’s day.

From an American seller, mind you.

恭賀新禧 a happy new year to all!

photo from the Norbulingka Insitute

羊年吉祥，廣結善緣，普締美義。Happy New Year. It’s the year of the goat, a great year to realize your dreams. Don’t be sheepish, but don’t ram your ideas down other people’s throats. Be good, don’t kid around, don’t do anything baaaaaa-d. Dare to break away from the flock. If you have to butt into a line, be sure you’re not following a bellwether. Don’t let anybody pull the wool over your eyes, and don’t get fleeced. This is the year to be as great as ewe can!

溫度上升，小鄰居出來辦年貨。The temperature warmed to 17c, so the neighbors came out for a snack.

Qimpahu, 龜殼花, Trimeresurus mucrosquamatus, Taiwan habu , タイワンハブ

A woman of mixed Nigerian + German blood went into a library in Hamburg containing 350,000 books. She found herself drawn to one book, so she took it down from the shelf and changed her life. She discovered that her biological mother was the illegitimate daughter of Amon Goeth, the commandant of a Nazi concentration camp noted as the “Butcher of Ploszaw.” He was noted for shooting prisoners from the porch of his house every morning. LINK

Jeeeezzzz…. I’m at a loss for a comment to wind this up.

overheard on 南陽街

子：我要看蟑螂！

母：張郎已經死了。

Child: I want to see the cockroach!

Mother: The cockroach is dead already.

The ISIS has decapitated two Japanese citizens. Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has told the terrorists “we will never, never forgive them for this act.” LINK

Now that would be interesting if this spurred Japan into going after the ISIS. They are pretty experienced themselves in chopping off people’s heads. 

More on Charlie Hebdo: “The group said it strongly condemned "this repugnant and inhumane action and consider its perpetrators, those who allowed it and its supporters [to be] the enemies of humanity".

Problem is, the group is the Afghan Taliban, and the action they are condemning is a cartoon of their prophet. Chutzpah is not a Jewish monopoly. But then, Arabs and Jews alike are Semites.  

I am sure there are no jihadists among my readers (assuming I have any readers), but if there are, please go out and spit on the sun. If the prophet is as mighty and august as the sun, how is his glory to be diminished by some scrawls on paper?

LINK 

If only Hitler knew about Eva Slonim's revenge: LINK

Today marks the 70^th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz. May the likes never be seen again.

Link

Link

Q: Why does everybody cry at a wedding?

A: Because the most important part of the ceremony is when the bride and groom say, “Eye dew.”

In the Middle East, a ten year old boy has executed two supposed Russian infiltrators, and says his goal is to kill infidels. In Saudi Arabia, Raif Badawi has received the first fifty of a thousand lashes he has been sentenced to for ‘insulting Islam.’ Do Muslim women, especially in modern society, really have to wear a veil? Interesting article with clips here.

Meanwhile, on other fronts, Pope Francis has visited a Buddhist temple in Sri Lanka to pay his respects and view holy relics; the abbot of the temple says that allowing the Pope to witness the relics ‘is the highest honor and respect we can offer to His Holiness.’ In his visit to Kolkata to light a candle on the tomb of his friend Mother Teresa, His Holiness the Dalai Lama praised the Tibetan Muslim community. Who says we can't all get along?