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Details: Written by: Richard_McKie; Category: Uncategorised; Published: 08 December 2010; Hits: 12519

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Travel

Laos

The Lao People's Democratic Republic is a communist country, like China to the North and Vietnam with which it shares its Eastern border.

And like the bordering communist countries, the government has embraced limited private ownership and free market capitalism, in theory. But there remain powerful vested interests, and residual pockets of political power, particularly in the agricultural sector, and corruption is a significant issue.

During the past decade tourism has become an important source of income and is now generating around a third of the Nation's domestic product. Tourism is centred on Luang Prabang and to a lesser extent the Plane of Jars and the capital, Vientiane.

Fiction, Recollections & News

The Meaning of Death

'I was recently restored to life after being dead for several hours'

The truth of this statement depends on the changing and surprisingly imprecise meaning of the word: 'dead'.

Until the middle of last century a medical person may well have declared me dead. I was definitely dead by the rules of the day. I lacked most of the essential 'vital signs' of a living person and the technology that sustained me in their absence was not yet perfected.

I was no longer breathing; I had no heartbeat; I was limp and unconscious; and I failed to respond to stimuli, like being cut open (as in a post mortem examination) and having my heart sliced into. Until the middle of the 20th century the next course would have been to call an undertaker; say some comforting words then dispose of my corpse: perhaps at sea if I was travelling (that might be nice); or it in a box in the ground; or by feeding my low-ash coffin into a furnace then collect the dust to deposit or scatter somewhere.

But today we set little store by a pulse or breathing as arbiters of life. No more listening for a heartbeat or holding a feather to the nose. Now we need to know about the state of the brain and central nervous system. According to the BMA: '{death} is generally taken to mean the irreversible loss of capacity for consciousness combined with the irreversible loss of capacity to breathe'. In other words, returning from death depends on the potential of our brain and central nervous system to recover from whatever trauma or disease assails us.

Opinions and Philosophy

Overthrow and the 'Arab Spring'

Back in April 2007 I was in Washington DC and wandered into a bookshop for a coffee. On display was Stephen Kinzer's National Best Seller: Overthrow: America's Century of Regime Change from Hawaii to Iraq. So I bought it to read, before bed and on the plane.

It is a heavily researched and work; very well described by the New York Times as: "A detailed passionate and convincing book... with the pace and grip of a good thriller." And like a good thriller it was hard to put down. I can recommend it.

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