Elephant out of rehab, didn't see
Lindsay
Article from: Reuters
From correspondents in Beijing
August 30, 2007 02:25pm
*A ONCE drug-addled elephant fed heroin-laced bananas by illegal traders
will soon return to the wild after being weaned off his addiction through
methadone and round-the-clock care.*
Big Brother, a bull elephant that once lived peacefully with his herd near
the China-Burma border in Yunnan province, was caught by traders in 2005,
the *China Daily *reported today.
"To control it so that it could lead the herd to where they wanted, the
traders kept feeding it bananas laced with drugs," the paper said.
However, the traders were caught trying to sell Big Brother and his herd
after a tip-off to forest police.
By that time Big Brother had developed a raging heroin addiction and posed a
danger to people if denied his fix, the paper said, citing police.
A drooling and twitching Big Brother had to be transported to a special park
in the neighbouring island province of Hainan for treatment, after cold
turkey proved so tortuous at a local centre that "even its iron chain could
not contain it", the paper said.
After being diagnosed as a heroin addict, park authorities in Hainan spent a
year gradually weaning Big Brother off his dependence through methadone,
regular bathing and massage.
Now clean, Big Brother would soon be returned home, the paper said.
Here's
the Story of the Day:
Tightrope
Most
people she never tells about the tightrope because she doesn't want to
listen to their helpful comments from the ground.
A Rock Midwife, Hilly Kristal, Is Dead at
75
By
BEN SISARIO
SISARIO&fdq=19960101&td=sysdate&sort=newest&ac=BEN SISARIO&inline=nyt-per>
Published: August 29, 2007
Enlarge This Image
'29cnd_cbgb_1',
'width=670,height=600,scrollbars=yes,toolbars=no,resizable=yes')>
'29cnd_cbgb_1',
'width=670,height=600,scrollbars=yes,toolbars=no,resizable=yes')>
Scott Gries/Getty Images
1970s and served as the inspiration for musician-friendly rock dives
throughout the world, died in Manhattan on Tuesday. He was 75.
His son, Mark Dana Kristal, told The Associated Press that the cause was
complications from lung cancer.
From its opening in late 1973, when Mr. Kristal, a lover of acoustic music,
gave the club its name, an abbreviation of the kinds of music he originally
intended to feature there — country, bluegrass and blues — until a dispute
with its landlord forced the club to close last October, CBGB presented
thousands of bands within its eternally crumbling, flyer-encrusted walls.
Most famously, it served as the incubator for the diverse underground scene
of New York in the 1970s and early '80s, with acts like the Ramones, Patti
Smith, Blondie, Television, Talking Heads and Sonic Youth playing some of
their earliest and most important concerts there, at a time when there were
few outlets in the city for innovative rock music.
"There was no real venue in 1973 for people like us," Ms. Smith said today.
"We didn't fit into the cabarets or the folk clubs. Hilly wanted the people
that nobody else wanted. He wanted us."
Besides his son, Mr. Kristal is survived by a daughter, Lisa Kristal
Burgman, and two grandchildren.
Hilly Kristal inside the CBGB punk-rock club in New York in August 2005. More
Photos »
'20061016_CBGB_SLIDESHOW',
'width=750,height=600,scrollbars=yes,toolbars=no,resizable=yes')>
Multimedia [image: CBGB Closes Its Doors for Good]
Video
CBGB
Closes Its Doors for
Good
[image: CBGB Is History]
Slide Show
'750_700',
'width=750,height=700,location=no,scrollbars=yes,toolbars=no,resizable=yes')>
CBGB
Is History
'750_700',
'width=750,height=700,location=no,scrollbars=yes,toolbars=no,resizable=yes')>
Related
- Music: Fans of a Groundbreaking Club Mourn and Then Move
On(October
17, 2006)
- CBGB Brings Down the Curtain With Nostalgia and One Last Night of
Rock(October
16, 2006)
- Op-Ed Contributor: Rock n Roll High
School(October
14, 2006)
- Readers' Opinions
Share Your Thoughts
Discuss Hilly Kristal, the founder of CBGB, on the City Room blog.
- [image: Comment] Post a
Comment
Times Topics: Hilly
Kristal
From the Archive (PDF's)
- CBGB Club Is Hub for Bands Playing Underground
Rock(Jan.
24, 1976)
- Talking Heads: Cool in Glare of Hot
Rock(March
24, 1976)
- Teenage Runaways Play to
Fantasites(Aug.
4, 1976)
- Damned, British Punk-Rock
Group(April
9, 1977)
- A New Life for the
Bowery(April
15, 1977)
- B-52's, Rock Band From
Georgia(June
3, 1978)
Issue nº 154
to visit the site | other
editions
| subscribe to
WLO
*
*To visit Paulo Coelho's blog (up-dated daily), please click
here
.
In this issue
- Changing sound into color
*Changing sound into color*
"Let's stop for a bit. I can't stand this orange color!"
Where is the orange color? We are at the Trastevere in Rome, and all that I
can see are the bars, the people in the streets in this early frozen spring,
all this to the sound of church bells ringing. It's almost night-time on a
cloudy day, so we can't even blame the sun for the optical illusion.
I am strolling with an actress I have known for some time, but we have never
had the chance to have a proper conversation. I stop as she requested, but
only out of politeness, since this well-balanced professional woman must be
crazier than I thought.
We go into a restaurant to have dinner. We order risotto with truffles, and
a good wine. We chat about life, and once again she comes out with an absurd
comment:
"This food is rectangular!"
She noticed the alarmed expression on my face. Rectangular food?
"You must think I'm crazy; I'm not. At a certain moment in my life I thought
that I was color-blind, that I got colors all mixed up. I went to the doctor
and discovered that I have a common neurological disorder."
When I got back home I immediately started to research on the computer and
was surprised to find out something that I had never heard of before in my
life: synesthesia. A condition in which the stimulus of a certain sense
provokes perception in another. Those who suffer from this type of disorder
confuse sounds with smells, sights with taste, colors with touch (not
necessarily in that logical order).
Some scientific studies claim that the vision of auras in human beings was
born there; I disagree with these studies, for I believe that all of us
really have an astral body that can be seen when we alter perception. But
what fascinated me most in my research was to find out that what we perceive
through our five senses is not an absolute truth. Synesthetic people have a
notion of the world completely different from ours, though this does not
prevent them from leading a relatively normal life. My actress friend works
on Italian TV every day, and says that she eventually became used to it.
Delving a bit deeper into the matter, I discovered a study in the British
journal *Cognitive Neuropsychology*. A team of researchers from University
College in London, headed by Dr. Jamie Ward, went even further: some
synesthetics can perceive colors in emotion-laden words such as "love" or
"son". The vast majority of them end up associating someone's name with a
certain tonality. Ward describes the case of a girl identified as G.W., who
simply by hearing certain names had her field of vision entirely covered by
a certain color associated with that word.
I learn from an art magazine that the halos that we see around the heads of
saints may have been created by some synesthetic painter in days of old,
then repeated by others without anyone wondering about the reason for that
circle of light. The 1965 winner of the Nobel Prize for Physics once said in
an interview: "when I write equations on the blackboard, I note the numbers
and the letters in different colors". One article explains that Feynman
belongs to a group of persons for whom the number two can be yellow, the
word car may taste like strawberry jam, and a certain musical note may evoke
the image of a circle.
Ward says that synesthesia is by no means a disease: "quite unlike
psychiatric disorders, synesthetic people have none of their basic functions
compromised, but they do have a positive symptom which most other human
beings lack". The big problem lies in school-age children, who cannot
understand why they feel things differently from others.
To my great surprise, some studies point out that one on every 300 people is
synesthetic (although most say that the ratio is one in every 2,000).
The next day I called my friend and asked what sensation she always
associated with me. "Gentle" was her answer.
Well, synesthesia can't always be logical!
www.warriorofthelight.com Copyright @ 2007 by Paulo
Coelho
*Since my daughter's name is Medea...I present for your enjoyment the
various myths of Medea.*
>
> Medea posted by Krista | 12/30/2003 11:11:25 AM | [image: Email article to
> friend] Email article
>
> Medea in The Argonautica
> The *Argonautica* by Apollonius of Rhodes was written during the 3rd
> century BCE and tells the story of Medea, who fell in love with Jason, the
> leader of the Argonauts, and helped him obtain the Golden Fleece. She was
> known as a sorceress and was able to use her magic to fight a monster called
> Talos, a bronze giant who tossed large rocks at them.
>
> And Talos, the man of bronze, as he broke off rocks from the hard cliff,
> stayed them from fastening hawsers to the shore, when they came to the
> roadstead of Dicte's haven. He was of the stock of bronze, of the men sprung
> from ash-trees, the last left among the sons of the gods and the son of
> Cronos gave him to Europa to be the warder of Crete and to stride round the
> island thrice a day with his feet of bronze. Now in all the rest of his body
> and limbs was he fashioned of bronze and invulnerable but beneath the sinew
> by his ankle was a blood-red vein and this, with its issues of life and
> death, was covered by a thin skin. (ll. 1638-1648)
>
> Medea decided to take on Talos, for as long as he was not immortal (ie a
> god), her magic would be just as powerful as his and she could win. Medea
> then proceeds to channel her hatred into a deadly weapon and attack from a
> distance to beat Talos.
>
> Thus she spake and they drew the ship out of range, resting on their oars,
> waiting to see what plan unlooked for she would bring to pass and she,
> holding the fold of her purple robe over her cheeks on each side, mounted on
> the deck and Aeson's son took her hand in his and guided her way along the
> thwarts. And with songs did she propitiate and invoke the Death- spirits,
> devourers of life, the swift hounds of Hades, who, hovering through all the
> air, swoop down on the living. Kneeling in supplication, thrice she called
> on them with songs, and thrice with prayers and, shaping her soul to
> mischief, with her hostile glance she bewitched the eyes of Talos, the man
> of bronze and her teeth gnashed bitter wrath against him, and she sent forth
> baneful phantoms in the frenzy of her rage. Father Zeus, surely great wonder
> rises in my mind, seeing that dire destruction meets us not from disease and
> wounds alone, but lo! even from afar, may be, it tortures us! (ll.
> 1659-1676)
>
> In the Medea legend told by Apollonius of Rhodes and Euripides, when Jason
> and Medea return to Pelias' kingdom, Pelias refuses to honor his oath and
> give Jason the kingdom. Angered, Medea tricks Pelias' daughters that if they
> were to boil their father in water that contained magical herbs, he'd become
> young again. Secretly, Medea gives the girls the wrong herbs and they end up
> killing Pelias. This angers the people of Pelias, who then drive Jason and
> Medea out of the land, and finally to Corinth, where Medea bears two
> children. In the meantime, the King of Corinth, Creon, decides to offer his
> daughter, Creusa, in marriage to Jason. He accepts, much to the anger of
> Medea. Hurt by Jason's betrayal, she vows to hurt him deeply and as a
> wedding present, she uses her magic to kill Creon and Creusa. She then kills
> both of Jason's children and flees to Athens.
>
> Medea in Ovid
> Ovid was fascinated by Media and wrote an epic tragedy about her that many
> considered to be his greatest work. Unfortunately, that work is lost to us.
> He also writes of her powers in his *Metamorphoses*. Ovid describes Medea
> as a powerful sorcerer that can invoke the powers of darkness - the Night,
> Hecate, the Underworld. He recounts a number of Media's deeds. This excerpt
> tells of Medea fleeing after she had killed Jason's bride and killed their
> sons.
>
> At last, the dragon's wings brought her to Corinth, the ancient Ephyre,
> and its Pirenian spring. Here, tradition says, that in earliest times, human
> bodies sprang from fungi, swollen by rain. After Jason's new bride Glauce
> had been consumed by the fires of vengeful Colchian witchcraft and both the
> Isthmus's gulfs had witnessed flame consuming the king's palace, Medea
> impiously bathed her sword in the blood of their sons. Then, after
> performing this evil act, she fled from Jason's wrath. Carried by her
> dragons that are born of the Titans, she reached Pallas's citadel of Athens.
> This once knew you Phene, the most righteous, and you old Periphas, both
> flying in the air, as birds, the eagle and the osprey: and Alcyone,
> granddaughter of Polypemon, resting on strange new wings. It was Aegeus who
> gave Medea sanctuary there, damned thereafter by that one action: and not
> content with taking her in, he even entered into a contract of marriage with
> her.
>
> Seneca's Medea
> Seneca (5 BCE- 65 CE) composed another story about Medea in which she is
> presented as a witch with a number of demonic subordinates. She is able to
> invoke various deities to curse her enemies and, feeling betrayed by Jason,
> she vows to hurt him as deeply as she can. She can also make elaborate
> concoctions and magical potions.
> Reference
>
> - Luck, Georg. "Witches and Sorcerers in Classical Literature." Witchcraft
> and Magic in Europe: Ancient Greece and Rome.
> University of Pennsylvania Press (November 1999) ISBN: 0812217055
> - Euripides. Medea.
> Dover Pubns (May 1993) ISBN: 0486275485
> - Apollonius, Richard Hunter (Translator). Jason and the Golden
> Fleece: (The Argonautica)
> .
> Oxford University Press Reprint edition (August 1998) ISBN: 0192835831
> - Harry M. Hine (Editor). Seneca: Medea.
> Aris & Phillips (December 2000) ISBN: 0856686921
> - Ovid, A. D. Melville (Translator). Metamorphoses.
> Oxford Press; Reprint edition (June 1998) ISBN: 019283472X
>
>
John M. Barry
[image: nola new orleans louisiana]
The I-510 bridge goes over the Intracostal Waterway with the Mississippi
River Gulf Outlet.
Alex Brandon / AP
Article Tools Print
Email
Sphere
AddThis
RSS
[image: Click here to find out
more!]
The most important thing that people need to understand about the New
Orleans area is the interplay between geology and engineering, and their
unintended consequences. This involves two issues: how the city became
vulnerable and rising sea level.
Nature did not make New Orleans vulnerable to hurricanes. Engineers did. The
sea once reached north to Cape Girardeau, Missouri. But the Mississippi
River deposited enough sediment into the ocean to create 34,000 square miles
of land — three quarters the area of Texas— from there to the sea.
Engineers cut the natural amount of sediment in the Mississippi River by
60-70%. They did this to protect lives and property in the entire
Mississippi Valley, which stretches from New York to Idaho, from North
Carolina to New Mexico. Keeping river banks on the Arkansas, Missouri, and
other rivers from collapsing into the river stops sediment from getting into
the Mississippi. Then, engineers built jetties two and a half miles out into
the Gulf of Mexico, which carry the remaining sediment into deep water.
Engineers did this to keep the mouth of the river open to shipping. The
Mississippi River makes Pittsburgh, Tulsa, Kansas City, Omaha, and many
other cities into ports with direct access to the ocean, but they can reach
the sea only through New Orleans. But those actions deprived coastal
Louisiana and some of Mississippi of the sediment that created it.Another,
final engineering blow came from the oil industry, which dredged 10,000
miles of canals and pipelines through the marsh, destroying it with salt
water intrusion.
The result: 2,100 square miles of land and barrier islands have melted into
the sea. Since every mile of land over which a hurricane travels absorbs one
foot of storm surge, that land loss has enormously increased the danger to
populated areas. Although much of that loss cannot be regained, enough
sediment remains in the river to rebuild land in key spots and make New
Orleans much safer. Better levees are of course also needed. Rebuilding this
land also counteracts rising sea level. The reason: the coastal marsh is
alive. It's dynamic. It will fight for life. It will, within limits, adjust
to a rising sea level.
Protecting people from floods and improving local economies as far away as
Montana and Pennsylvania actually makes life more dangerous in Louisiana.
The nation as a whole is getting most of the benefits of all this
engineering, while Louisiana and part of coastal Mississippi pay 100% of the
price. Nothing demonstrates that as well as New Orleans East, the lower
Ninth Ward, and most of St. Bernard Parish, where 175,000 people were
flooded by three man-made shipping canals that create almost no jobs there
but carry barge traffic from Houston to Florida, or ocean shipping from the
entire river valley to and from the rest of the world.. Think about that
when you think about New Orleans.
*John M. Barry is author of* Rising Tide *and* The Great Influenza *and
serves as secretary of the Southeast Louisiana Flood Protection Authority
East, which oversees six levee districts in the New Orleans metropolitan
area.*
י"ב באלול תשס
This Tuesday the moon is with full power in
Pisces(ק). There is also a
lunar
eclipse Tuesday, where the
earth (malchut מ) rises to be
stationed between the sun
(tiferet ד) and the
moon (yesod ב).
Marking this time, a black-pigmented pillar candle empowered with
frankincense, myrrh and mugwort
(האה)
essential oils, inscribed with the magical phrase אברא שלמא כדברא - (I
create peace as I combine), will be ritually burned.
Today was the first day of school here in our local school district and I
sent the kid off for her first day of third grade. She was so nervous over
the weekend she gave herself hives! It is so funny. I was such an eager
kid, marching willy-nilly into any circumstance so long that it was *new!*
My daughter is much more nervous about things. She worries and she's a bit
of a hypochondriac. After refreshing myself on the characters of the
eight-year-old, I learned that MOST 8's are a bit concerned that they
contracted a flesh-eating virus or possibly have grown a brain tumor each
time they have a bit of a headache. It's funny, but at times I find that
I'm assuming she's more grown up than she is, just because she acts like
it. I have to refocus my age-appropriate behavior to what eight-year-olds
are like, instead of just what I feel like treating my daughter like, for my
own convenience.
Over the weekend we did a bit of pre-school shopping to get a few of the
last things on her supply list. We attended her open house last Thursday.
It's been HOT in Ohio the past week. Really hot. It's also been flooding
quite a bit. Not in our area. I live in Summit county which is the highest
county in Ohio. No flooding here. but lots of other areas have been sunk.
FEMA is in the area going door to door offering assistance. I've been
conducting some trainings for the volunteers. Yes, I know I have no free
time. But my neighbors are flooding and I did this as a result of the
Katrina flooding of NOLA. To NOT train would negate my service commitment
to come to the aid of those that need it. Bully for time!
This week I'm hoping to catch up on some sleep by going to sleep before 2AM
each evening. Although there IS a lunar eclipse tonight that I may be
getting up in the middle of night to see. Check your local info to find out
when it is going to hit your area. California residents. Get your butt up
at 3:27. Gotta love blood red moons!!!
*Memento Mori
*Black as hell, strong as death, sweet as love
(the herald on the Darrington Family Crest)
[ FYI: This is the originating story for a new event listed today that
indicated she is going to serve five years for her
crime...
However, her name is now down on "the list" for her afterlife sentance to be
in my Ninth circle of Hell for trechery and exploitation for personal
benefit. And I'll welcome her addition and will oversee her
"rehabilitation" personally. ]
> Mom Charged With Offering Daughter For Sex
>
> POSTED: 10:05 am EDT April 1, 2007
> UPDATED: 10:55 am EDT April 2, 2007
>
>
>
> Charged With Offering Daughter For Sex&src=sc&pos=top&from_posted=1>
> *TAYLOR, Mich. -- *A 33-year-old mother was charged Sunday after
> authorities said she offered to let an undercover investigator have sex with
> her daughter and take pornographic pictures of her.
>
> The Taylor woman was arrested Friday night after bringing the girl to a
> hotel in Romulus where she had agreed to meet the investigator, the Wayne
> County Sheriff's Department said.
>
> "This is truly a horrifying case," Sheriff Warren Evans said in a
> statement. "To think that a woman would offer up her own daughter in this
> way is impossible to comprehend."
>
> Police said the motive was to make money by selling the photos. Her name
> wasn't being released to avoid identifying the child.
>
> The e-mail conversations started with the mother offering herself up as a
> prostitute, according to police. Police said before long she was offering
> her daughter up for sex.
>
> "She indicated very clearly that her daughter would do just about anything
> that the man wanted her to do," Sheriff Evans said.
>
> She was arraigned Sunday on five charges, including child sexually abusive
> behavior, illegal use of the Internet for child sexually abusive actions or
> materials, and distribution of child sexually abusive material, police said.
>
>
> A not-guilty plea was entered on behalf of the woman.
>
> Authorities said the woman in Internet chats offered the investigator, who
> posed as a photographer when they met online, the opportunity to take photos
> and discussed being paid in exchange for sex with the child.
>
> When the woman arrived at the hotel, she had her daughter with her, along
> with several adult sex toys in a duffel bag and different dresses for the
> girl to wear, the department said.
>
> At the time of the chats, the department said it was investigating her on
> suspicion of distributing child pornography. The mother indicated the child
> had been used before.
>
> The girl and the woman's four other children, ages 12, 11, 9 and 6, all
> were in protective custody, Roach said.
>
> She was held in lieu of $1 million bond and a preliminary examination was
> scheduled for April 12.
>
