A Christmas Carol

By: Charles Dickens

 

• Scroodge is very greedy, doesnt even allow Cratchit (the clerk) to use more coal. And he doesnt care about Christmas or about the others.
• On Christmas Eve 3 ghosts haunt him. Past, present n future.
• They show him cheerful n sad moments in his own life n that of others around him, and he realizes that he has to change.
• Interestingly, the ghost he fears the most is the one of the Future, even though by that time he already knew he had to change.
• Very recomendable book especially near Christmas time.
• Higjlights importance of friendships being more important than anything else even if poverty or similar misfortunes had to be suffered.
• At one point, maybe with the ghost of Christmas present, Dickens says Christmas is a good time to play like kids, especially in view of its divine founder.
  BookNo.: r003
  Date: 30/12/10

George's Marvellous medicine. Roal Dahl

A very simple plot, a kid's story, quite childish, yet the way Dahl delivers it is highly amusing and entertaining. It was a great 'medicine' for a day in which I was exhausted and a bit frustrated.

A kid, George, is tired of the bulling attitude of his grandmother, a horrible old lady who keeps shouting horrible and irritating things to him. He decides to cure her (or to blow her up) with a concoction he makes out of anything he finds in the house and the farm (soap, deodorant, make up, animal's pills, shoe polish, etc), everything boiled up in a huge pot.

Grandma at first starts literally fuming, then grows and grows to be taller than the two-story house. He also gives it to the animals who equally grow like mad. His dad, when comes back home, gets excited as they may become rich by growing their full farm (mom was not so happy though). But the 'medicine' is over.

George tries to make it again, but doesn't remember all the ingredients. After a lot of fruitless attempts they finally reach some results... but this new medicine has a different effect. They give it to grandma who starts becoming smaller, and smaller, and even smaller, until she disappears from sight.

They give up, they will not find the medicine to become rich, but at least... they have got rid of grandma who became so small they coud

Cars, family size and demography

Blog post at: Demography is Destiny
Author: Brian Lilley

Europeans ask: why American like large cars? Because they have something to put inside... Americans have larger families than Europeans or Japanese people.

Before many could be compressed in a small car, but now the rules in America are very stringent and is not possible to fit many kids in one small car (even if they fit).

They should come down to Mumbai and see how many kids can fit in a Rikshaw!

Tears for Middle Pleistocene human Cranium 14

Article published at: MercatorNet
Author: Michael Cook

Recently, archaeologists in Spain (Sima de Huesos) found a skull from a person 530,000 years ago. They have called it Cranium 14. It belonged to a girl who was between 5 to 12 years old and had a distortion which affects 6 in every 200,000 humans.

This kind of distortion happens even now-a-days: "It is distressing for parents. The head can be large and misshapen, the eyes can bulge out. The children can be blind and deaf. Their limbs may be deformed. They may have seizures and feed poorly. Cranio-facial surgery works wonders and after many, many operations, an affected child can lead something like a normal life."

In our days, if parents knew that their child is to be born with this distortion, it is highly probable they would abort the child.

However, even 530,000 years ago, when people were supposed to be beasts and not care for each other, the girl managed to reach at least the age of 5, and perhaps even 12. This would have meant a lot of care and love from her parents.

A commentator says: "This is a very powerful article. Early humans, who barely survived day-by-day, were willing to say yes and love their disabled child. This contrasts with the great evil of today where our society, with all its modern comforts and medical technologies, would opt to kill this child in the womb. Humanity has not progressed, but has regressed where we behave merely as animals instead of humans with souls. "