My Great Loss

I stood aghast, lost and deserted,
what a tragedy!....
I'm at the edge of my world, 
Isolated and forlorn, 
no friends, no music, no laughter
nothing but silence!

Where do I begin,
How do I reach out and start afresh?
How far back do I go
Picking up the threads of my life?
My comfort in loneliness, my link with the world,
My loss is immeasurable
Immense and absolute!

I sit down, defeated, empty, resigned to my fate
till my ring tone pierced the air!

With that one sweet sound
I'm alive again____

My heart beats like a thousand drums
My feet dance like never before___

I sing I dance
I haven't lost my mobile after all!!!! 

Chiang Mai
27 July 2013

Helen Thomas:  "A pioneering journalist" who added "more than her share of cracks to the glass ceiling".

Helen Thomas, a trailblazing journalist who covered the White House for nearly five decades, has died aged 92. She died at her Washington apartment after a long illness, the Gridiron Club, Washington's historic press organisation, said.

Ms Thomas covered the administrations of 10 presidents and was known for asking difficult questions. She was a fixture at White House news conferences and considered a pioneer for women in journalism. From her seat in the middle of the front row of the briefing room, she would grill presidents and exasperate government spokespeople with her pointed, persistent questions. One White House press secretary described her questioning as "torture" - and he was one of her fans, the Associated Press reports.

Tributes  

Mr Obama and his wife Michelle released a statement praising Thomas for her work.

"Helen was a true pioneer, opening doors and breaking down barriers for generations of women in journalism," he said. "She never failed to keep presidents, myself included, on their toes. What made Helen the 'dean of the White House Press Corps' was not just the length of her tenure, but her fierce belief that our democracy works best when we ask tough questions and hold our leaders to account."

Former president Bill Clinton and his wife, former secretary of state Hillary Clinton, also paid tribute to Thomas. The pair praised her as "a pioneering journalist" who added "more than her share of cracks to the glass ceiling".

Veteran NBC News correspondent Andrea Mitchell tweeted that Thomas "made it possible for all of us who followed".

Her Career

Born to Lebanese immigrants in Kentucky in 1920, Helen Thomas found her calling while working for her student newspaper at school. She started out as a copy girl for a small Washington newspaper before moving to the United Press (UPI) wire service with whom she covered the presidential campaign of John F Kennedy. Following Kennedy's election, the huge demand for stories about First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy helped Ms Thomas secure her place within the White House press corps. Over the next decade, she began to report harder news and became UPI's White House bureau chief in the 1970s - the first woman to hold the post.

Ms Thomas was a pioneer for women in journalism, notching up a series of firsts during her career. She became the first female president of the White House Correspondents Association (WHCA), the first female member of the Gridiron Club and the only female print journalist to travel with President Richard Nixon on his first trip to China. As the senior news service correspondent at the White House, she was often the one who would end the news conference with the phrase "Thank you, Mr President". Her husband, Douglas Cornell, who was the Associated Press's chief White House correspondent, died in 1982.

Nadia Popova

Nadezhda (Nadia) Popova, night bomber pilot, died on July 8th, aged 91

Salutations to this brave woman who served as a Russian Night Bomber Pilot during the Second World War!  She died on July 8^th, 2013, at the age of 91!

She could turn her aircraft over and dive full-throttle through raking German searchlights, swerving and dancing, acting as a decoy for a second plane that would glide in silently behind her to drop its payload of bombs. That done, the second plane would act as decoy while she glided in to drop bombs herself. She made 852 such sorties in the Second World War as a pilot in the 588th Night Bomber Regiment, later named the 46th Guards in honour of its courage. Once, over Poland in 1944, she made 18 sorties in a single night. The aircraft were old two-seater biplanes, PO-2s, originally training planes, made of canvas and plywood with open cockpits. When it rained, water ran over the instruments; when the planes were shot at, shrapnel tore the wings to shreds. There was no radio and, to save weight, she never wore a parachute. If you were hit, that was it.

Often she flew in pitch dark and freezing air. In an aircraft so frail, the wind could toss her over. Its swishing glide sounded, to the sleepless Germans, like a witch’s broomstick passing: so to them she was one of the Nachthexen, or Night Witches. To the Russian marines trapped on the beach at Malaya Zemlya, to whom she dropped food and medicine late in 1942, she sounded more like an angel. She had to fly so low that she heard their cheers. Later, she found 42 bullet holes in her plane.

She eventually wore on her smart dark suit the medal of a Hero of the Soviet Union, the Order of Friendship, the Order of Lenin and three Orders of the Patriotic War. With enormous pride she sported them, a beaming blonde among the men. She admitted she stood gazing at the night sky sometimes, wondering how she had ever managed to perform such feats up there. Well, came her down-to-earth answer, because you had to; and so you did.

My heart bursts with pride for a fellow woman who has done us all proud!

Inputs from The Economist, July 20, 2013