All of us receive and give gifts during our life while on mother earth. Some of these gifts become old and torn, others are no longer relevant in our lives as we grow older and some, which we receive are given to others on Christmas or other holidays and occasions. But one gift given to me by my mother and grandmother is still retained. Which is the gift of reading on a regular or consistent basis.

Situated at the eastern tip of Cameron County in the Rio Grande Valley of Texas, South Padre Island is one of the premier coastal resort destinations in the United States. It is bordered by Laguna Madre Bay and the Gulf of Mexico and is connected to the mainland by the Queen Isabella Causeway. South Padre Island is an excellent place for deep-sea fishing, beautiful beaches, and a wide range of adventure and recreational activities. It is one of the least developed and longest barrier islands in the world. Also, it is a popular destination for college spring breaks. Every year, thousands of students and vacationers visit South Padre Island.

While we were moving in the main street in the distance the burnt Jaffna Library was another symbol of the ethnic conflict near the perished Dutch Fort. While I was schooling I was interest in knowing about the outside world. The Jaffna Library was a treasure trove to me. Those wonderful books of more than 95,000 volumes and numerous other culturally important and irreplaceable manuscripts had been reduced to ashes. It was unbelievable that I was doing relief work in the same hospital after so many years with German students where once I left without any guarantee of life in the battling streets.

Electricity has become necessary for almost all our daily activities. From the moment you hit your ringing clock when you wake up to the moment you watch a movie in your apartment after a harsh day at work, you are actually connected to a large network of people, electric lines, and generating equipment without even your knowledge. Distribution engineer also called power plant distributors and dispatchers are the people in charge of the monitoring of the flow of electricity first from the power plant, over a network of transmission lines, to industrial plants and substations, and, eventually, over distribution lines to residential users.

Critical thinking is anathema to Daas Torah. They seek to undervalue individual rights, independent thinking, and the ability to make an informed and intelligent decision. Daas Torah doesn't allow for dissent. It is noble for a faith based Jew to consult with his spiritual mentor for guidance always with the option for accepting or rejecting that advice. Daas Torah, however, seeks to control the individual and thus the community, molding it into its own image, squashing dissent and undermining free will by manipulating peer pressure in order to insinuate its singular control and presence.

The culture of story threads through daily life in African countries, became a tool for teaching and community development, and touched the life story of the author. For five years in the 1970s I lived and worked in Africa in both Botswana and Ghana. I also traveled throughout Western, Eastern, and Southern Africa. From that experience, I gathered these impressions of the culture of the storytelling in Africa.

A serene well-patterned naturally beautiful landscape interlacing an intricate network of similar structures arrested my sight on touching down on Louisville Sunday the 26th of June 2006. Driving to the University of Louisville we past buildings all set in uniform symmetry with the well-terraced and tended gardens of the meadows all seeming like scenes the paradisaical garden of Eden. Huge varieties of the biggest and oldest trees reside in lush lawns, gardens and forests amidst frolicking families of white squirrels.