C.S. Lewis observes a similar phenomenon with resonance for us Cambodians: "We are half-hearted creatures ... like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased."

I really appreciate the contribution of KI Media in creating in this forum for expression, the only one of its kind in and for Cambodia. I am not naive not to understand that plants with obstructive comments will be following and posting to this site, especially the more popularity and sensitive the topic to the interests of the powers-that-be. But to ears which can hear, it is worth reminding of KI Media's note (top, left hand column): "We just ask that you keep things civil. Please leave out personal attacks, do not use profanity, ethnic or racial slurs, or take shots at anyone's sexual orientation or religion."

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Apparently it was Erasmus, a Dutch thinker, who first penned the phrase, 'In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king'.

The idea of course is that sight amongst the blind is a precious gift and one which would be lauded.

In 1904 H.G. Wells wrote a short story called The Country of the Blind.

A lost climber Nunez falls and descends into an isolated and inaccessible valley whose people over many generations have grown to become sightless. With the realisation of his situation, Nunez at first believes that he will be feted as king of his new domain. He comes to learn differently.

The people do not feel deprived awaiting being released from their darkness. Indeed quite the opposite. Their beliefs, religion and rituals have all expunged any reference or recollection of sight to the extent that it has become little more than an echo buried within childish fairy stories.

Nunez's attempts to demonstrate the power of his fifth sense are to no avail. The enhancement of their senses of taste, touch, smell and hearing have replaced the need for sight, and his protestations to the contrary are seen as no more than the rantings of the feeble minded and insane. They no more miss or accept the value of a fifth sense, than do the sighted a sixth sense.

In time he is absorbed into the society, required to renounce his belief in sight. Indeed in order to be assimilated into the community by marriage, the village elders propose to cure his insanity by removal of the facial features he, in his insanity, insists on referring to as 'his eyes'.

As society speeds headlong, head-down and with little thought, it is perhaps more appropriate to say that