Tribute to Madiba

The Holy Father, Pope Francis I, paid tribute to Nelson Mandela in a telegram to South African president, Jacob Zuma, Vatican News reports.  

The full text of the telegram reads:  

It was with sadness that I learned of the death of former President Nelson Mandela, and I send prayerful condolences to all the Mandela family, to the members of the government, and to all the people of South Africa.  In commending the soul of the deceased to the infinite mercy of Almighty God, I ask the Lord to console and strengthen all who mourn his loss.  Paying tribute to the steadfast commitment shown by Nelson Mandela in promoting the human dignity of all the nation's citizens, and in forging a new South Africa built on the firm foundations of non-violence, reconciliation and truth, I pray that the late President's example will inspire generations of South Africans to put justice and the common good at the forefront of their political aspirations.  With these sentiments, I invoke upon all the people of South Africa divine gifts of peace and prosperity.  
- Franciscus P.P. 

Nelson Mandela's right-hand palm print
which, amazingly, shows the map of Africa

Ta-ta for now, Tata.

For to be free is not merely to cast off one's chains, but to live in a way that respects and enhances the freedom of others. 
- Nelson Mandela

Dumb, dumber and dumbest

This week’s first prize for CHUMP OF THE WEEK goes to the two motorbike cops in Paphos who shot at the tyres of a speeding getaway car five times and missed, but hit one of the passengers instead.  Oops. 

Second prize goes to the driver of the same car who was evading being pulled over because they had drugs in the car, he told police after the event.  Not, err, because the car did not have registration plates ...  To cap that, the driver abandoned the car leaving behind four unused shotgun cartridges plus tools commonly used in burglaries ...

Third prize goes to the one who took the bullet, who then went to Paphos General Hospital A&E.  So the police found him and his mates PDQ. 

I’m not making it up. LMAO.

And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall set you free. 

- John 8:32

Exaudi, Deus

A Nigerian cook who incredibly survived three days at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean was saved by prayer and Divine intervention, he says. 

Thumbs up for God

Harrison Odjegba Okene was trapped in freezing waters at a depth of 100 feet under a capsized tugboat for 72 hours.  Wearing only his boxer shorts, and rapidly running out of oxygen from an air pocket, he had only one bottle of Coca Cola for sustenance.  He could hear large fish – shark or barracuda – eating and fighting in other parts of the vessel. 

For three days, he kept reciting aloud Psalm 54, commonly known as the Prayer for Deliverance, which his wife had sent him earlier by text.  “Save me, O God, by thy name...”

Startled rescue divers from the Dutch company DCN Diving were expecting to find only corpses when they came across Harrison, in shock, but still alive. 

All the other 11 men aboard the Jascon 4 died. 

Dramatic video footage of Harrison’s rescue was released by the diving company and has since gone viral, with more than 932,000 hits on YouTube in just 2 days. 

A great faith story to gladden hearts.  

Psalm 54 is the prayer of a just man under persecution.  It was written by David at the time when the men of Ziph tried to betray him to Saul.  It calls upon Divine justice and foretells prophetically of the punishment that shall fall upon the wicked.  Read the full psalm here (Douay-Rheims translation). 

Hear, O God, my prayer and despise not my supplication. 

Just another brick in the wall

Cypriot teenagers are the biggest dunces in Europe today, the CM announces. 

Requirements for teachers in Cyprus

Slightly unfair, we think, when we all know how well-read, knowledgeable, sophisticated and enlightened a society Cyprus is.

The just published OECD 2012 PISA report (Programme for International Student Assessment) covers the academic performance of 510,000 students worldwide, aged 15-16, who were tested in maths, reading, and science. 

65 countries took part, including all 34 OECD member states (Cyprus is not an OECD member), 21 of which are EU members and 13 are OECD members but non-EU.  The other participants included non-European countries. 

Slightly misleading of the CM to use the attention-grabbing strapline:  “Last in the sciences, second last in maths, and third from the bottom in reading” for the Cyprus results. 

That's not last in the world.  Just Europe.  Whoohoo.  

Out of the 65 countries participating globally, Cyprus ranked 46^th overall – after Turkey (44^th) and Romania (45^th).  Out of the EU participants, only Bulgaria came out worse than Cyprus overall, although the Bulgarian kids were better than the Cypriot kids at science.

Column 1 of scores: Maths Column 2: Reading Column 3: Science
for the full chart click on the image

Out of the three subjects, Cypriot teenagers did slightly better at reading compared to maths or science, with 449 points (44^th overall), but still behind the Slovakian teens' reading score.  Maths in Cyprus scored 440 points (46^th overall), behind Romania.  Science in Cyprus had the worst result with 438 points, ranking an abysmal 50^th out of 65, also behind Romania in science, and just ahead of Costa Rica and Kazakhstan.

 

These kids are supposed to be the the future of Cyprus.  In 10 years' time they will be entering the job market, maybe.  Cyprus's future doctors, lawyers, accountants, teachers, bankers, and government employees...  

  

Footsteps has written about the state education system in Cyprus before.  It doesn’t look like the problems are going to go away quickly.  State teachers with no formal teaching qualifications or classroom training, no practical teaching experience, recruitment through nepotism, interested mainly in their pensions and 13^th salaries, in bed with the trade unions, strike actions, and barely educated themselves in the subjects they teach, e.g. English teachers who can’t speak English.  How, then, are the kids supposed to learn anything? 

the minister of education said: "duhhh"

The current minister of education and culture, Kyriakos Kenevezos, is a 41-year-old lawyer, elected to government office just 9 months ago.  Has he ever taught kids?  Are his kids in a state school or in one of the elite private schools of Nicosia?  Perhaps if he spent less time eating and spouting gobbledegook such as “success will require collective work”, something might be done about education reforms.  Maybe...  

If the status quo continues, Cyprus will become a Third World country, if it isn’t already. 

Father of all mercies, we ask that You would bless the youngest and littlest of learners, the most helpless and powerless of persons, with Your infinite and loving mercy, granting them the strength to learn, concentrate, and act in love towards their teachers and fellow students.  We also ask that You would watch over them, at home and at school, and give them proper direction, so that they may learn of Your wonderful virtues.  We ask this in the name of Your son, Jesus Christ.  Amen.  

Where are all the turkeys?

Larnaca Town Hall is considering cancelling its annual 10,000 euro staff party this Christmas, to spend the money on needy families instead, the Cyprus Daily reports today (print edition).

Aww, isn’t that considerate?  

the mayor said: "gobble gobble"

Mayor of Larnaca Andreas Louroujiatis said the number of destitute families in Larnaca has gone up recently.  Resources at the municipal food bank are overstretched.  The mayor says 800 people per week are currently seeking food aid.  That's about 3,200 handouts a month in Larnaca alone.  Louroujiatis is “concerned” about numbers rising further.  If they do, all the nice hard-working employees at the town hall won’t be able to party, and wouldn’t that be a shame.  

The local authority is attempting to find Christmas turkeys and chickens for the food bank, the paper reports.  The turkeys and chickens were last spotted hiding under a huge pile of paperwork. 

10,000 euro for a party?  Wow, must be great working there.  That’s a lot of turkeys.

Our Lady of Graces Church (Terra Santa), Larnaca, operates a food bank for people in need on Sundays from 11 am to 1 pm in the community centre (go through the church).  All food donations come from the parishioners.  More donations needed, particularly baby food and powdered/condensed/UHT milk, or milk formula, plus all non-perishable foodstuffs.  

 

The Association of St. Joseph, Larnaca, is dedicated to helping the needy in the Larnaca area.  See the fundraising Christmas Bazaar coming up this weekend. 

they offered Him gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh

Advent: from the Latin verb, advenire, ‘to come to’, noun, adventus, ‘arrival’.  We await with joyful anticipation the coming of Our Lord, and prepare for it with the Sacrament of Reconciliation (confession of sins) and Penance - prayer, fasting, abstinence, works of charity and self-sacrifice. Advent is a "Little Lent".  

Let us give generously this Advent season. 

God prepared for the coming of his Son over the centuries.  He awakened in the hearts of pagans a dim expectation of this coming and he prepared for it specifically through the Old Testament, culminating with John the Baptist who was the last and greatest of the prophets.  We relive this long period of expectancy in the annual liturgical celebration of the season of Advent.  At Christmas the glory of heaven is shown forth in the weakness of a baby.

- Catechism of the Catholic Church (CTS Compendium, 2006), teachings 102 -103

It's all in the Levis

Modern day Cypriots have closer genetic links with Jews, Arabs and Anatolians rather than with Europeans, a 2013 scientific study reported. 

"Progress"

An international team of 14 geneticists published their extensive research in a Public Library of Science (PLOS) journal on February 28^th this year. The results reveal a Levantine racial structure not previously reported in the international scientific world. 

Cypriots fall into the genetic group called West Asia.  Closest to the Cypriot gene pool are Armenians, Syrians, Lebanese, Druzes (Arabs), Ashkenazi and Sephardic Jews, Saudi Arabians and Jordanians.  Followed by Georgians, Iranians (Persians) and Turks.  See the pink bar on the chart below - click on the image to enlarge.    

Cypriot genes:  not in the European group

A common ancestry matrix from the same article shows the genetic links between Cypriots and North and East Africans, Middle Easterners and West Asians.  The highest concentrations of pink show the most common ancestry.  

Cypriots descend from the NE African, Middle Eastern and Anatolian gene pools

The map below shows gene distribution by geographical area.  Cypriot genes, in the bar on the left, are mostly 'blue' with a bit of 'green'.  While there are faint blue areas in western Europe, Egypt, and north-west Africa, the highest concentration of the ‘blue’ gene type is found in the Jewish and Arab regions, extending into the South Caucasus and Asia Minor.  The highest concentrations of the 'green' gene are in north and east Africa and the southern Arabian peninsula.

Cypriots originate from the highlighted regions
N.B. There is no blue or green shading in the area that is now modern Greece

The first undisputed human settlement of Cyprus dates to the Neolithic period, 9^th or 10^th millennium BC.  Water wells discovered by archaeologists in west Cyprus are believed to be among the oldest of the world, approximately 9,000-10,500 years old, putting the earliest inhabitants of Cyprus in the Stone Age.  

The earliest known stone tools have been excavated in what is now Ethiopia, i.e. East Africa is where man is thought to have first developed before multiplying and migrating, taking stone technology with him.  Human skin colour changed over the millennia according to the degree of exposure to UV light from the sun.  

The most widely accepted evolutionary theory of the origins of anatomically modern humans is the Out of Africa theory.  This is supported by the PLOS scientists, who say:

Genetic and archaeological studies present solid evidence placing the Middle East and the Arabian Peninsula as the first stepping stone outside Africa.  

In other words, we are all children of Africa.  

The teachings of the Catholic Church are not incompatible with evolutionary theory.  Pope Benedict XVI defended the concept of Theistic Evolution in the book, Creation and Evolution:  A Conference with Pope Benedict XVI in Castel Gandolfo,  Stephan Horn (Ed.), San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2008.  

And God saw all the things that He had made, and they were very good. And the evening and the morning were the sixth day.
- Book of Genesis 1:31 (D-R)

Quiz

Out of the following 10 people, guess who are ethnically Cypriot or part-Cypriot.  

1 point for each correct answer.  

The answers are in the comm-box.  No cheating!  

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