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Showing posts with the label summer

Just a biological act or something divine?

Y tu mamá también  (And your mother too,  Mexican Spanish, 2001 ) Director: Alfonso Cuarón Interestingly, sex has always assigned the duty of maturing someone and smacking people with the profound answer of the reason for existence. Tinseltown impresses us that sex is the panacea to all our worldly problems. Of course, we all know that sex may also create problems of its own. There was a time when sex was accorded a special status in society. Because of its mysterious nature, which was ill-understood by primitive men, sanctioning permission to indulge in this biological activity was complicated. Many requirements and rituals had to be fulfilled to obtain access. As the societal restrictions became increasingly questioned with no logical explanation in sight, the biological act came to be treated as such, a biological process, not needing frills and pomp. Humans were merely continuing the spread of their seeds for the continuity of species. Slowly sex lost its respected status ...

1816, the year without a summer

Chichester Canal by J. M. W. Turner (1828) [Wiki]  In 1816, whilst Reverend Hutchings was busy organising things in his selfless deed to set up facilities for English education, free from encumbrances of religion, race, creed and socioeconomic statuses, for natives on a small idyllic island of Penang, Europe and the rest of the 'civilised' world including North America were undergoing turmoils of their own kind. In April the year before, the volcanic mountain, Mount Tambora in Sumbawa, Indonesia after building up energy over the years, decided enough was enough. It spewed lava, magma, shock waves and dust of such devastation estimated to have had volcanic eruption scale of 7. It is said to be the most massive volcanic eruption in human history and is dubbed 'Pompeii of the East'. The devastation that it left can also be described as callosal. Not only was the immediate human and property loss was immense, but the ash from the outburst also lingered on in the strat...