Peeking

Some West Bank wall paintings and also here

Hue and cry - the devastation caused by Hurricane Katrina (our own fair lady in Bollywood is now infamous!) was awesome and my sympathies go out to the thousands affected. This calamity only drives home the power of Nature’s forces, their ability to wreck havoc and how puny our engineering and technology really is.

Interestingly, the public statements by officials of state administrations reminded me of our dear own country - the central (read federal here) government did too little, too late ?!
To think about it, large tracts of our country - UP, Bihar, W Bengal and Assam, in particular, are inundated by rivers in spate with unfailing regularity every year. The images from New Orleans would have appeared unsurprisingly familiar to Indian viewers, specially the residents of Mumbai, fresh out of their own ordeal. Does all of that qualify ours as a developed country ? Or does it pull the US down onto a level playing field ?

A peek at the past - Astronomers have witnessed the most distant cosmic explosion on record. A gamma ray burst that has come from the edge of the visible Universe