One person who should also be called in to advise on Burma - Jeffrey Sachs

http://www.earth.columbia.edu/articles/view/1770

Mitch McConnell interviewed by PBS about Burma

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/2012/01/changes-in-myanmar.html

Aung San Suu Kyi's address at World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland

http://www.weforum.org/videos/aung-san-suu-kyi-annual-meeting-2012

Residence of Chang Da Chien - master painter and forger

http://www.npm.gov.tw/exh96/dai-chien/index.html I don't know how to activate links on this new format but the Memorial is at the National Palace Museum in Tapei, Taiwan. Kyi May Kaung

Voltaire and his room at Sans Souci Palace in Potsdam

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voltaire I've seen Frederick's San Souci palace in Potsdam and the overly decorated room with pink parrots on the walls where Voltaire lived for a while. The whole palace was not more than one room wide throughout its length and the slaves/servants - had to go in the narrow passages between the walls to empty out the commodes the guide said no one ever bathed much and overused perfumes etc. I wrote a short story called My Potsdam - about a guide whose home had been confiscated in E. Germany days. One cottage I saw was held together by a wire mesh. kmk

Wai Hnin Pwint Thon - daughter of a Burmese political prisoner, is skeptical about "reforms"

http://www.rohingyablogger.com/2012/01/my-fathers-release-from-prison-is-good.html

Vietnamese-American artist Huong's Immigration Wall

From: Huong Subject: Thank you for your support on Immigration Mural! To: "immigration mural" Date: Wednesday, January 18, 2012, 8:47 AM My dear ART-Lovers & PEACE-Makers, Thank you for your SUPPORT! Your presence helped to the unveiling a fun and real SUCCESS! Your words of encouragement fuel me to plow to this project faster and faster. We have no time to waste. The immigration tidal wave is coming on the shore! I appreciate your words of wisdom, your emotion respond and your guideline for the future chapter of this mural. I am LISTENING and COUNT ON YOU! Cheers from the Artist, Huong P.S. Here are the press covered on the unveiling which generated a lot of debate and communication. Please throw your thoughts there and educate me more! Miami Herald: http://www.miamiherald.com/2012/01/14/2587815/the-art-of-immigration.html Miami New Times: http://blogs.miaminewtimes.com/cultist/2011/12/huongs_immigration_mural_turni.php Foreign Policy in Focus: http://www.fpif.org/articles/giving_voice_on_immigration South Miami News : http://www.miamiherald.com/2012/01/11/v-print/2584899/peace-mural-to-stir-immigration.html#storylink=cpy

Poetry International Website - special issue on Burma and Vietnam

Abstract chairs - photo copyright Kyi May Kaung http://www.poetryinternational.org/piw_cms/cms/cms_module/index.php?obj_name=www

"reforms" in Burma

Yellow rose half light. Photo copyright Kyi May Kaung

Mrs. Clinton's announcement on release of Burmese political prisoners

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f7-fOsJLA5c

Sen. Mitch McConnell and Aung San Suu Kyi of Burma meet in person at last --

http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/story/2012-01-16/mcconnell-suu-kyi-meeting/52601680/1?csp=34news You've spoken up for me and my Cause, so you are my Friend. Blog not - Kyi May Kaung

How bestselling author Daniel Silva writes -

Amazon Exclusive: Daniel Silva on Writing Portrait of a Spy with a Pencil While on book tour, I’ve been surprised to find that readers are fascinated by how writers actually write. Most readers hold in their mind an idealized image of the novelist at work—a figure in a trendy urban coffeehouse, a solitary figure walking along an empty beach. The truth, however, is seldom so romantic. Before going any further, let us stipulate that, much like the hero of my novels, the art restorer and spy Gabriel Allon, I am something of a creature of habit. I work seven days a week, from early in the morning until six thirty in the evening, when I stop to watch the evening news. My work clothing never varies: gray sweatpants by Russell Athletic, a long-sleeve T-shirt by L.L. Bean, fleece Acorn moccasins, and discount cotton socks from Marks & Spencer in England. Occasionally, visitors to our house will catch a glimpse of this outfit, but, for the most part, my wife and children tend to shield me from public view. As a rule, I don’t answer the telephone—unless it is a family emergency of some sort—and I don’t read e-mail. I nibble rather than eat. Portrait of a Spy, like all the Gabriel Allon novels, was fueled largely by McVitie’s digestive biscuits. I have a computer, of course, but I really do most of my actual writing in longhand, on yellow legal pads. I prefer to work while lying on the floor rather than at my desk. This annoys my wife because she took a great deal of time and effort to have a desk custom made to fit my office. When I showed her a photograph of Muriel Spark, one of her literary heroes, writing in longhand stretched across a floor, she was only partially mollified. Sometimes we talk about living somewhere other than Georgetown. Secretly, the very idea terrifies me. After writing 14 books in the same room of the same house, I am afraid I have lost the ability to work anywhere else. As for my writing instrument of choice, it is unquestionably the pencil. There is something about the sound it makes scratching across the page that, for me, is the essence of composition. The pencil is the antithesis of all things cyber and e, a means of returning, however briefly, to a world that is unconnected and unwired. A pad and pencil do not freeze or crash. There are no viruses or error messages. If a thunderstorm knocks out the power, the words will still be there when the lights come on again. And then, there is the satisfying natural rhythm of the work itself—the turning of the completed page, the sharpening of the dulled point, the fortnightly disposal of the fluffy wooden shavings. Lately, I have been hoarding pencils. I’m not sure precisely when it began; I suspect it had something to do with the death of the typewriter. An irrational fear gripped me, a fear that pencils were next. If the typewriter could go extinct, how could the lowly, environmentally hostile pencil possibly hope to survive in the brave new world? I now order my favorite brand—the Paper Mate Mirado Black Warrior No. 2—by the case. I am reasonably confident I now have enough pencils on hand to see me through the next several novels—though, if I happen to misplace a pencil, I will search the house thoroughly before removing a new one from its special drawer and sharpening it for the first time. To sharpen a virgin pencil is, in a sense, to commit an act of assisted suicide. It saddens me. I wish it were not so. I wish I could write on a computer while traveling on an airplane or sitting in a strange hotel room, but I cannot. I have become a prisoner of my office. I need my floor, and my Mirado Black Warrior No. 2 pencils, and my McVitie’s digestive biscuits. I hoard them, too. I keep them on a special shelf in the storage room, next to my socks from Marks & Spencer. Copyright © Daniel Silva 2011. All Rights Reserved.

Poetry International Web - Zeyar Lynn

Poetry International Web - Zeyar Lynn

Images of Burma

http://www.myanmar-image.com/mandalay/misc/image19.html

Bhava Chakra - in Burmese - Bawa Setkya - the Wheel of Life

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bhavacakra

see also Wiki - Buddhist Hells
seven layers of hell

hot hells and cold hells.

kmk

Ajanta Caves in India - nearby Ellora Caves

http://www.sacred-destinations.com/india/ajanta-caveshttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif

Former Czech President Vaclav Havel's memorial and Aung San Suu Kyi's tribute

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ihT3AX1Aww&feature=relmfu

Billionaire George Soros meets Daw Aung San Suu Kyi - will open Rangoon office

http://www.mizzima.com/news/inside-burma/6354-suu-kyi-meets-soros-the-billionaire.html

Iran accuses American of spying and sentences to death

http://www.cnn.com/2012/01/09/world/meast/iran-accused-spy/index.html?hpt=hp_t1

re-posting - Kyi May Kaung's memoir profile from 2005

http://www.wildriverreview.com/4/profile_kaung.php

Wordnik on line dictionary

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/01/business/wordniks-online-dictionary-no-arbiters-please.html?_r=1&nl=todaysheadlines&emc=tha26