Woman Hit By Lightning While Praying in Storm

This one is a "Wow!" ... what an experience that must have been.
AOL News - Woman Hit By Lightning While Praying in Storm

Worried about the safety of her family during a stormy Memorial Day trip to the beach, Clara Jean Brown stood in her kitchen and prayed for their safe return as a strong thunderstorm raged through Baldwin County.

Suddenly, lightning exploded, blowing through the linoleum and leaving a pockmarked area on the concrete. Brown wound up on the floor, dazed and disoriented by the blast but otherwise uninjured.

"I said, 'Amen,' and the room was engulfed in a huge ball of fire," she said. "I'm blessed to be alive."

Brown, 65, was hit by a bolt of lightning that apparently struck outside and traveled into the house Monday afternoon. She doesn't know how much time passed while she remained disoriented on the floor before Jamie Matthews, her 14-year-old granddaughter, discovered her after returning from the beach.

[more...]

Dutch paedophiles want consent cut to 12

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

Desperate search for life as toll climbs

Once again Indonesia cops it! It's the little people who suffer the most -- those out in the villages and small towns where they already don't have much of this world's goods. So many dead, so many family members dead or missing, so many homeless. It's heartbreaking to read about the suffering. I pray for God's mercy and help for them.

Desperate search for life as toll climbs - World - smh.com.au

Counting the cost ... a six-year-old boy is dug out of the rubble.

Photo: Reuters

MEDICINE and food were being rushed to quake-hit central Indonesia yesterday as aid agencies dispatched emergency supplies and world leaders offered help and their condolences.

Rescue workers dug desperately for survivors as residents returned to ruined homes on the densely populated island of Java after the 6.3-magnitude earthquake killed up to 5000 people on Saturday.

Up to 20,000 were injured and, according to the United Nations Children's Fund, more than 100,000 left homeless. But other sources placed the number of homeless as high as 200,000. [more...]

See also: Back to zero for the poor amid the devastation

PONIRAN'S daughter was still breathing when he dug her from the ruins of his house. But the five-year-old died in his arms as he waited for treatment at a hospital overflowing with injured.

"Her last words were Daddy, Daddy," said Poniran, as he took a break from searching in the ruins of his ruined house for salvageable items. "I have to start my life from zero again."

Forty-eight hours after their lives were shattered by Saturday's 6.3 magnitude earthquake, tens of thousands of homeless Javanese face an uncertain and grief-scarred future. [more...]

Aung San Suu Kyi is not released after all!

They're at it again! The Burmese leadership is so paranoid about Aung San Suu Kyi that they don't dare let her go free. It is incredible that they are so afraid of her and the force of her appeal to the masses. Surely something has to give soon! When will they be brought to justice for all the atrocities they have perpetuated on the Burmese people? May it be soon that their ediface of control crumbles.

Bangkok Post Breaking News: Burma snubs UN, extends Suu Kyi detention

Burma's military authorities were seen entering the compound of opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi Friday night on what was believed to be a mission to extend her house arrest order, despite appeals for her immediate release by the United Nations chief, informed sources said.

The news could not be officially confirmed, but if true, the development would prove a major snub to United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan who on Friday issued a statement in Bangkok appealing to Burma's ruling junta to release Suu Kyi.

[...]

The military's last six-month extension of her house arrest was due to expire on Saturday.

Flash floods hit north Thailand

Bad news for Thailand! The flooding is starting early this year, in May! It hardly rains in May but not this year... it has been raining for weeks and now the floods are hitting those least able to escape the inundations. I understand the confirmed death toll has climbed to over 50. More mudslides are predicted as the ground is so thoroughly saturated.

BBC NEWS | Asia-Pacific | Flash floods hit north Thailand

More than 100 people are feared dead after floods caused by heavy rains in northern Thailand, officials have said.

At least 27 bodies have been found so far, according to government figures, but the death toll is expected to rise much higher.

Rescue teams in helicopters are trying to reach thousands of people still stranded in their homes.

The province of Uttaradit is the worst affected. Up to two metres (6.5 feet) of water is covering some streets.

Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra is scheduled to inspect the area on Wednesday.

Mr Thaksin resumed his official duties on Tuesday after a seven-week leave of absence due to the country's ongoing political problems.

Mudslides
The heavy flooding has come at the start of Thailand's rainy season, which is expected to last until October.

But the three consecutive days of heavy rain that have hit this region are very unusual, leading to mudslides and rivers bursting their banks.

One of the worst hit areas was Lablae district in Uttaradit province.

Many of the victims are thought to have been swept away by the flood waters, or buried in the swirling mud.

More than 1,000 people have been evacuated from affected areas, while more than 75,000 have suffered damage to property, according to Interior Ministry estimates.

Rail services to northern Thailand have been suspended.

"The floods have inundated the rail lines in the north, and the water is still high. We have to wait until it recedes so we can repair the tracks," rail spokesman Monthskarn Srivilasa told the French news agency AFP.

Backpack medics

The oppressively dire situation in Burma calls for creative, and very brave solutions to medical problems among the minority groups. Sometimes these medics are called "backpack medics" and sometimes "barefoot doctors". And, without them the suffering of Burma's oppressed peoples would be just too awful to imagine.

Backpack medics minister to rebels caught in crossfire - World - smh.com.au

HE IS not your average GP. The 32-year-old medic amputates legs with a Leatherman knife and has calf muscles that would put a tri-athlete to shame.

Small wonder when he has to dodge Burmese Army patrols in the Dawna Ranges in the country's Kayin (Karen) state. Karen rebels have been at war with the central government for 57 years, and providing medical services to people seen as sympathetic to the insurgents has not been a priority. So were born the Backpack Medics, set up in 1998 by the Karen Health and Welfare Department to provide basic health care to Karen villagers caught in the crossfire. The medics are a small salve to a people under terrible duress.

more...

Rescue of arrested four-year-old fails

Picked up this piece of news at Burmanet. I have to confess that I'm pretty disgusted that a luittle 4-year old child is being treated so shamefully. The leaders in Burma are paranoid and out of their minds!

Burmanet » South China Morning Post: Rescue of arrested four-year-old fails

New Delhi: Attempts by India-based pro-democracy activists to take a four-year-old out of Myanmar failed when military agents guarding the child intercepted them after they secretly entered the country.

Because her father was a pro-democracy activist and supporter of 1991 Nobel prizewinner Aung San Suu Kyi, Ei Po Po in January became the youngest prisoner in military ruled Myanmar when she was picked up by security forces while visiting her grandparents in the country’s north. Her father has been sentenced to death and her mother handed a five-year jail term for “anti-national” activities.

“Born in India and living with her parents, Ei attended a nursery school in Manipur. But in Myanmar it is impossible for her impoverished grandparents to take her to another nursery school. [Myanmese] authorities did not even allow her aunt to bring the child back to India where she could return to her old school. It is ruthless,” said Burma Solidarity Organisation activist Dr Thura, who has one name.

Ma Cho - Ei’s aunt, living as a refugee in northeast India’s Manipur state - visited Myanmar last month to take her niece back to India, but was unable to meet the child, who was under the constant watch of security agents. “I could not even enter [her village of] Yan Lem Phai. From friends in a nearby village, I knew that outsiders visiting the house [of Ei’s grandparents] needed permission from the local military authority. Fearing for my own security I returned to India,” she said.

Dr Thura said: “The four-year-old child is under virtual house arrest. Burmese agents are keeping a constant watch on her. She is not free to move. She cannot even go out of Yan Lem Phai, let alone out of Myanmar.”

An attempt to rescue the child this month failed when an activist from the group was intercepted by agents inside Myanmar. The activist escaped and returned safely to India.

“We had a plan to present Ei in front of the international media in India or Thailand. Somehow, Burmese military intelligence got to know about our plan and took the decision not to let the child out of Burma,” Dr Thura said. “This is the simple reason why they have thrown the ring of security around the child now.”

Mrs Cho said: “It is impossible to bring the child back to her school in India now. We pray that she gets back her mother after five years. But again there is a possibility that the mother and child will not be allowed to leave Burma then. The child is facing a bleak uncertainty.”

Update on Aung San Suu Kyi

Good to get some news of Augn San Suu Kyi. She continues to be an inspiration to the Burmese people and to the rest of those who value their freedoms. I cannot begin to imagine what it is like to be under house arrest for such a long time, and to be so isolated from the rest of the world.

The military junta is so afraid of her... and they are terrified to touch her. This is good! And, may it continue until Burma is once again free. It would be wonderful if she were to have to opportunity to become the leader of the country and provide a path back from the depths of the poverty into which Burma has sunk.

God bless Aung San Suu Kyi!

UN diplomat allowed meeting with Suu Kyi - World - smh.com.au

Burma's detained opposition leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, is in good health, a senior United Nations official said after a one-hour meeting, her first contact with an outsider in three years.

"She is well, but of course she is still under restriction," Ibrahim Gambari, the UN undersecretary-general for political affairs, said at Bangkok airport on Saturday after his three-day mission to the military-ruled country.

The meeting at a Rangoon guesthouse followed an audience between Mr Gambari and Than Shwe, the ruling military junta's supremo, where the Nigerian envoy said he delivered a message from the UN Secretary-General, Kofi Annan.

The Nobel peace laureate Ms Suu Kyi, 60, who has been imprisoned or under house arrest for more than 10 of the past 16 years, has had her telephone disconnected and all visitors barred save her housemaid and doctor.

"She feels she has a contribution to make and I hope she will be allowed to make it," said Mr Gambari, the first senior official from the world body to be allowed into Burma in two years.

The US President, George Bush, on Thursday renewed sanctions against Rangoon for failing to take any recognisable steps towards restoring democracy or improving its record on human rights. The Indonesian Foreign Minister, Hassan Wirajuda, echoed the US call for change on Saturday by urging Burma's main trading partners to persuade the junta to allow more democracy.

Reuters

Burma! A land where freedom is a dirty word

All news from Burma is full of suffering and distress. I do look forward to the day when some good news will burst upon the world's press that tells us that Burma is finally free of the ruling leeches who have sucked the country dry. They have brought such profoundly abusive suffering into the lives of everyone who isn't "in"!

A land where freedom is a dirty word - World - smh.com.au

As Burma faces economic meltdown, many wonder if the country's regime can retain its Big Brother grip, writes Connie Levett.

THE day after political writer Ludu Sein Win met a European visitor at his Rangoon home, Burma's feared military intelligence knocked at the door: stop talking to foreigners.

Maung Maung Kyaw Win arranged a meeting between an American journalist and a recently freed leader of the 1988 student protests. Two weeks later, armed plain-clothes intelligence officers met him at a bus stop and took him somewhere quiet.

"We know everything. Don't think we know nothing about you. We have been watching you for long years, so stay out of politics, stay away from [the student leader] or your wife will become a widow," they told him. He fled the next morning, crossing illegally into Thailand. His family followed two months later.

The threats are real. Last year, Aung Hlaing Win, 30, was arrested at a Rangoon restaurant, then interrogated and tortured by military police for seven days. His interrogators told his family he had died from a heart attack during questioning. His body was cremated by the military. On March 17 this year, former political prisoner Ko Thet Naing Oo was beaten to death by police and firefighters on a Rangoon street, according to the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners, a group of exiled former Burmese political prisoners fighting to maintain awareness and improve conditions of current political prisoners.

Two friends who were with Naing Oo were arrested for obstructing government officials.

THIS is Burma circa 2006. When people talk about Big Brother here, they don't mean a television reality show. There are at least 1156 political prisoners, child labour is common and the military regularly uses forced labour to carry supplies and munitions. Locals refer to living in Burma as being "on the inside" as if their whole country was a prison. Since 1988 at least 127 democracy activists have died in prison, according to the political prisoners association.

Aid workers are viewed with suspicion, foreign journalists are blacklisted, local media is censored and giving information about government activities to outsiders is a jailable offence.

All people but one, Sein Win, who provided information for this story asked that their name be withheld. Sein Win wants to set an example of courage for the next generation of activists. On an oxygen tank, and partially paralysed by a stroke he suffered in prison, the 65-year-old fears the generals may outlast him.

For 44 years the Burmese generals have brooked no opposition. But now, as the economic wheels look set to fall off this gun-carriage regime, they have launched an aggressive two-pronged campaign to stamp out their most-loathed political and military opponents - Aung San Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy and the insurgent ethnic Karen National Liberation Army. It will either crush the last breath of air from opponents, or light the fire under a deep well of suppressed anger.

The brutality of the State Peace and Development Council, as the junta is known, is matched only by its paranoia. The generals consulted astrologers before moving the capital from Rangoon on the Gulf of Martaban, to Pyinmana in central Burma last November, and they are fighting their nemesis, Nobel peace laureate Suu Kyi, under strict house arrest in Rangoon, by planting astrologically powerful nut trees across the country.

[Read the rest at the Sydney Morning Herald]

Update on Little Maria

I reported on little Maria April 28 when she first came to Sydney for the life saving surgery. It's wonderful to know that the surgery was successful and that little Maria is doing so well. What a wonderful provision! What a blessing for the family.

Little Maria's heart on the mend - World - smh.com.au

By Dylan Welch
May 18, 2006 - 3:12PM

After a startling recovery Maria Soares, the three-month-old Timorese baby with a potentially fatal heart condition, has this afternoon been moved from intensive care to the cardiac ward at the Sydney Children's Hospital.

After 20 days on life support - she was brought off a ventilator on Tuesday - Director of clinical operations, Dr Michael Brydon, said Maria was improving steadily and could even be discharged from hospital soon.

"We're very optimistic that she'll be able to leave hospital relatively soon to go to a residence here in Sydney for a few weeks."

He said that if everything continued to go well for three-month-old she may be able to return to East Timor with her mother, Lorenca, in six weeks. [...]

Maria Soares suffered from a ventricular septal defect (VSD) - a small hole in her heart - and would have died in Timor where doctors were unable to perform the delicate operation.

With the help of a Rotary-backed program Reaching Overseas with Medical Aid for Children (ROMAC) Maria and her mother, Lorencia Soares, were flown to Sydney for the life-saving procedure, which took place on April 27.

Comedy of errors??

If the circumstances weren't so tragic this fiasco over what happened to Private Kovco's body would be funny. What next for the poor family to endure? What next to embarass the Australian govt? Seems awfully bizarre...

Heads to roll over lost report - National - smh.com.au

A FURIOUS Defence Minister, Brendan Nelson, last night ordered an emergency summit of his top brass after the loss of a report into how the body of Australia's first soldier killed in Iraq was misplaced.

The Government's anger over the latest defence debacle means that jobs will be on the line, with some forced resignations likely. ...

The report, left on a computer in the Qantas Club lounge at Melbourne airport on Monday night, found its way into the hands of the broadcaster Derryn Hinch, who revealed details of the findings on his program yesterday.

...

Almost back online...

Well now, I have some access to the internet... via dialup at 26 kbps... I've been spoiled by adsl!!!

I won't have good access again for another 10 days. But, even something as slow as 26kbps is better than nothing at all ;)

I've had a good trip so far and things have gone well with everything. One big treat has been to get a new computer, a Vaio TX 770P. It is really quite lovely. I'm thrilled with the lightness of it -- 2.76 lbs -- and the battery life -- ~7 hrs. GREAT!!! More later.

Have a good week!

Off on a trip

I'm going offline for a while, possibly as long as 3 weeks. Will be away on business without a computer and probably without access to the internet.

I've been enjoying writing these blogs and will miss the enjoyment of it all. Right now I must stop and back up my computer before I put it to sleep.

God bless you all!

Little Maria's opportunity for life

Little Maria Soares has finally had open heart surgery to give her a chance at life. This is a heart warming story which I pray will have a good ending for her and her family.

Her life in their hands … at last - National - smh.com.au

...

With one last kiss on her two-month-old daughter's temple, Lorencia Soares leaves Maria to members of the cardio-thoracic surgical team who over the next five hours repair the hole in her heart and grant her a new lease of life.

At 4pm yesterday doctors declared the operation a success while Maria lay in the intensive care unit at Sydney Children's Hospital, recovering with her mother by her side.

The tiny East Timorese girl had been facing a death sentence when the Herald highlighted her plight last month. Her condition - a ventricular septal defect - had been identified but her country did not have the resources or specialist to fix it. Moved by her story, doctors from the Sydney Children's Hospital volunteered to perform the operation and she was flown to Sydney two weeks ago.

Maria's surgeon, Peter Grant, said the next two days would be critical to her recovery and warned her condition remained serious. Anaesthetist Alan Rubinstein said her low body weight and fragile health meant the operation was both delicate and challenging.

...

Lloyd Roever, from the Rotary-funded ROMAC - Reaching Overseas with Medical Aid for Children - has supported Mrs Soares during her time in Sydney.

Maria is expected to stay in hospital for at least a week, and then with her mother will spend a fortnight at Mr Roever's house, preparing for the journey home.

Texas hospital to 'kill' sick woman!

Tragically, we begin to see ethics gone mad. Because so much has been developed in the medical world to make it possible for the serious ill to be artificially kept alive, we now see many who "live" life unable to care for themselves. In past days these would have died quickly but now they live on with the aid of ventilators and other technologies and life sustaining medications. This kind of care is expensive. So, now the dilemma... we've been too clever by far with our inventions, and now we have this unforseen consequence... the struggle with the ethics of keeping someone alive artificially or of allowing them to die gracefully and peacefully. I don't have an answer for such a dilemma. I would not like to serve on any ethics committee.

Thanks to Lost Budgie for alerting us to this article in World Net Daily
WorldNetDaily: Hospital to 'kill' sick woman?

An ill woman in Houston could die within days because a hospital ethics committee has voted to take her off life support – this despite the fact the 54-year-old is not in a coma, is not brain dead and wants to go on living, her family says.

On April 30, Andrea Clark is scheduled to be on the receiving end of a Texas law that allows a hospital ethics committee to terminate care with 10 days' notice, giving the patient's family that length of time to find a different facility.

"They just say, 'Well she's miserable.' Well, to me that's a quality of life decision that is up to her and her family," Lanore Dixon told KHOU-TV. "That is not a medical decision."

Dixon recently protested at the St. Luke's Hospital on behalf of Clark, her sister, who has been hospitalized there since November.

In January, Clark underwent open-heart surgery and later developed bleeding on the brain. A ventilator, which the committee voted to remove Sunday, helps her breathe.

Talking about the Texas law, Dixon told KHOU: ""If their ethics committee makes a decision, it doesn't matter what the patient wants. It doesn't even apparently matter what the patient's condition is, because our sister is not in a coma; she's not brain dead."

Clark's family says though she cannot speak, they are able to communicate with her by moving her lips and blinking her eyes.

Columnist and attorney Wesley J. Smith, who wrote extensively on the Terri Schiavo case in Florida, chimed in on his blog:

"Note that the treatment is apparently being removed because it works, not because it doesn't – which means, in effect, that the hospital ethics committee has declared the patient's life to be futile."

Noting that the family wants Clark to live, Smith noted, "It is as if Michael Schiavo and the Schindlers wanted Terri's care continued but the hospital said no."

Smith described the Texas law as allowing "private decision-making that will result in death without even the right to a public hearing, to cross examine witnesses or a formal appeal."

Some have charged the law is meant to benefit insurance companies who want hospitals to get critical patients "off the books." [emphasis added]

According to the TV station report, Clark's family is doing all it can to find another facility that will treat Andrea.

More good news on coffee...

Well, now I'm really happy! I love my coffee and have always believed it was "good" for me. After all the hoo-haa about how bad it was for you, like chocolate, they're finally discovering that coffee is not that much of a problem at all. YEAH!! However, I must add that I don't smoke and drink almost zero alcohol, but I do use aspirin (for arthritis).

Take heart, coffee's not a disease risk after all - World - smh.com.au

Go ahead and have that second cup of coffee - or the third, or fourth. A new study shows heavy, long-term coffee drinking does not raise the risk of heart disease for most people.

The study, which followed 128,000 men and women for as long as 20 years, showed that drinking filtered coffee - not espresso or French-style brews - did not raise the risk of heart disease. Heavy coffee drinkers did tend to smoke and drink alcohol more often and those two factors clearly did raise heart risk, the researchers reported in the journal Circulation.

[...]

Researchers also found no link between heart disease and how much caffeine, tea or decaffeinated coffee people drank. But this does not mean everyone can overload on coffee with impunity, said Dr Rob van Dam of the Harvard School of Public Health in Boston. "We can't exclude the association between coffee consumption and the risk of [heart disease] in small groups of people."

A study published last November found no link between coffee drinking and high blood pressure, but an apparent association with drinking caffeinated sodas. [emphasis added]

Those who drank six or more cups of coffee a day were also more likely to smoke cigarettes, drink alcohol and use aspirin.

Reuters

Big blow misses Darwin but belts Maningrida

The good news is that Cyclone Monica changed direction and basically bypassed Darwin. It did pound Maningrida though. No lives were lost. That has to be a God-thing, surely.

Pounded for 12 hours … and still everyone's safe - National - smh.com.au

CYCLONE Monica hammered the small Aboriginal community of Maningrida on the West Arnhem Land coast with devastating force for more than 12 hours.

"It was amazing nobody was hurt," said an emergency services worker, Olga Wrzesinska, last night.

A wind recording instrument at the police station broke after registering 170 kilometres per hour early yesterday.

"The gales were much higher [than that] - it came in as a category five storm, which is very frightening," Ms Wrzesinska said. "The eye of the storm was only 10 kilometres off the coast from here." [...]

In Maningrida, trees were snapped and uprooted, and sheets of iron, exhaust fans, timber and rubbish bins were turned into deadly missiles that shot through the darkness, often spearing buildings.

As 30 people huddled together in the high school, the roof of an adjoining building was blown off. "It collapsed onto the rooms where the people were sheltering," said a photographer, Jake Nowakowski. "How nobody was hurt I don't know … It seemed like it would never end."

Bradley Mason, 21, surveyed the devastation of what had been his family's house. "It's just as well we went to a shelter - the house is totally destroyed," he said. "I don't know what we will do now - find somewhere to sleep, I guess."

A schoolteacher, Kevin Rennie, said the emergency plan had worked quite well. "People had designated houses and shelters to go to," he said.

About 2100 of Maningrida's 2300 residents are indigenous.

"The Aboriginal people take these things in their stride," Mr Rennie said. "Their ancestors rode these things out."

Weather forecasters said that as Monica tracked slowly over the sea towards Maningrida it was the most intense cyclone ever recorded in the Top End.

Yesterday, as workers cleared debris, some people delivered hot food to hungry neighbours.

"It's surreal. Like … all that terror never happened," Ms Wrzesinska said. "This has brought out a great sense of community spirit."

Anzac Day, looking back at the horror of war

Yesterday's Sydney Morning Herald has a timely article about the soldiers who went crazy because of the horrors of what they experienced during their military service. The article reports on those who had obvious signs of distress. I'm sure many more suffered severely throughout their lives from the nightmares, the depression, and the emotional pain of what they went through... and, it isn't just the great war, it's all wars.

My own father (WW2) seemed quite normal to everyone but as I look back now on his life I realise he suffered from depression. He would never talk about his war experiences. I knew nothing until several years after he died. My mother told me that one of the jobs he'd had during the war was to bring the bodies back from the Kokada Trail. That kind of job would be just awful! That one piece of information explained a lot to me. It was no wonder he had not been able to be emotionally present to us, his children. How could he? His life spirit was dead in PNG. As a result, he avoided conflict at all costs. He just could not bear it. He couldn't stand us kids arguing about anything. And, he left just about everything to our mother.

I've met Vietnam vets who to this day still have nightmares. War is so awful, so destructive. The suffering is so great.

Military madness of diggers lost in legend - National - smh.com.au

An army major is challenging the Anzac legend, which he says hides the reality of mental illness among diggers. Cynthia Banham reports.

BURIED alive four times - once at Gallipoli and three times in France - by 1916 "Private A" of the 18th Battalion could not stop the tremor of his head or limbs.

"Fred" from the 4th Battalion was blown up by a bomb at Lone Pine, redeployed a year later to the Somme, where he, too, was buried alive, remaining unconscious for two hours. By 1917 he had been admitted to a military asylum, nervous, suffering headaches, tremulous. Private Alfred Kirkwood, of the 7th Battalion, was gassed twice in the trenches, and eventually diagnosed as suffering shell shock.

Private Alfred Kirkwood
(Photo: Australian War Memorial)

These are the diggers most Australians rarely think about when they celebrate the Anzac legend, as they will tomorrow.

They are the disenfranchised soldiers who sustained psychological injuries in the Great War, and they are the diggers whom a serving army major says Australians have "let down".

Published to coincide with Anzac Day, Madness and the Military: Australia's Experience of the Great War, by Michael Tyquin, is the first comprehensive study on mental illness in World War I. It shatters the stereotype of the tough Anzac, an icon that he argues Australians look up to today - but which never existed.

Major Tyquin says of the soldiers who were "mentally shattered" by the war - some of whom recovered, though many did not - "I think we've erased them from our public memory. We like to celebrate Anzac, and I use 'celebrate' now because I think we're getting away from the original intent.

"There's nothing really in society that we can focus on - king and country and religion seems to have gone - and we're clinging onto this Anzac myth. And there's no place in that myth for anyone that's less than perfect."

In challenging the legend, Major Tyquin lays much of the blame at the feet of the wartime journalist and historian C.E.W. Bean, who he says manufactured the icon for a new nation. But he argues that in doing so, Bean chose to ignore any evidence of the diggers who, psychologically, emerged from the war in poor shape. "He was very conscious of this nation-building task that he took upon himself. I do think he shut off aspects of the Australian military that didn't fit in to that mould."

Major Tyquin, who is in the army's medical corps, began researching the book after reading "dozens and dozens" of diaries written by Gallipoli troops, and discovering that in a great number of them "all was not well".

"There was a sense of disturbance coming out of those."

War history, he says, does not dwell on the unlucky, the weak, the fragile. And so he aimed to record a part of what he calls the forgotten history of a generation of soldiers who, because the medical profession and the military viewed them as "somehow morally inferior or genetically prone to neurosis", have been effectively locked out of Australia's collective memory of war.

Despite the lack of knowledge of psychology at the time, the military did try, towards the end of the war, to understand what was going on with its soldiers who were presenting with symptoms of what eventually became known as shell shock.

After the war soldiers with psychological injury were admitted to special military asylums, such as Callan Park in Sydney.

But the onset of the Depression meant the public lost sympathy with the mentally ill diggers, who became, he says, the first to fall victim to the cynicism and budgetary constraints.

What next in Burma?

What next in Burma? Now you can get into strife for "obstructing" an official. It shows up that there are them that's "in" and there are them that "ain't" -- tough luck if you're one of the latter!

And, it seems as if the judgement is a foregone conclusion against the student. Students definitely aren't "in"!!

Democratic Voice of Burma - Burmese student sued for accidentally hitting authority car with a ball:

A Burmese university student from Rangoon South Okkalapa Township was taken to court for playing football in a field by a roadside and accidentally hitting a car driven by a former local authority member.

22-year old Phyo Wai Soe, a third year student from Dagon University, was sued by the owner of the car, Maj. Win Nwe, former Eastern Rangoon District authority secretary, in early April with Act 186, for obstructing an official on duty at South Okkalapa court,- and the trial is due to end this coming week with the sentencing of the defender, according to his friends.

The trial is being presided over personally by South Okkalapa Township court judge Thet Swe Oo, and he promised Win Nwe that he would let him win the case for sure even before the sentence is passed on the defendant. Win Nwe himself has been threateningly bragged to people that students need to be taught harsh lessons so that they know their place, according to local residents. (emphasis added)

A big blow heading for Darwin

The Northern Territory is bracing for Monica! It sounds like this could be worse than cyclone Tracy that devastated Darwin years ago.

Warning: cyclone Monica's a monster - National - smh.com.au

As Cyclone Monica bears down on Darwin, the weather bureau has issued a stark warning: "It's as strong as any cyclone we've seen in the Australian region.''

The category five storm, which has wind gusts up to 350 kmh at its core, was 70 kilometres off the coast of Millingimbi in the Northern Territory at 1600 AEDT.

"[From] the analysis we've been doing, [Cyclone Monica] is as strong as any cyclone we've seen in the Australian region,'' said supervising meteorologist Andrew Tupper at Darwin's Bureau of Meteorology.

He said the cyclone is expected to make landfall tonight somewhere between Maningrida and Croker Island - about 350 kilometres from Darwin - before slowly tracking its way towards the Territory's capital.

If the weather bureau's predictions prove correct, Darwin will feel Monica's full force by tomorrow afternoon - but the bureau can't say exactly how strong it will be by then.

"Even if it hits Darwin, we don't expect it to be quite that strong. [It will be] anything between a category three to five,'' he said.

Darwin's Anzac Day march and services cancelled

The cyclone has forced the cancellation of Darwin's Anzac Day march and services.

Darwin RSL manager Mussy Shaw today said the decision was made to protect both marchers and military equipment.

"We made the decision because we didn't want to damage some of the old war equipment we use in the march and obviously we need to protect the people as well," he said.

Mr Shaw said the decision was not made lightly.

"It's Australia's biggest day and we have to cancel it, so people are very upset," Mr Shaw said.

Darwin residents have been urged to secure their homes and stock up on essential supplies.

Monica would prove to be a serious threat even if it weakened, Mr Tupper said.

"Our most optimistic forecast is it will be a category three at Darwin. We're preparing for a category three and a category five would be the most pessimistic.

"A category three cyclone is still a very serious cyclone - we're tracking it very carefully and hoping it will change course.

"We're expecting gales will affect Darwin. There's almost no way around that.

"The edge will hit about dawn tomorrow and the core will approach later in the day.

"Even if the track changes, Darwin will still receive a glancing blow."