Please note The Green Man is usually accurate however he does tend to drift into the mischievous areas of satire and parody from time to time. Such is the nature of the Green Man. In fact he is not above complete fiction when the fancy takes him.
Picture this, on the steps of Flinders St Station, 120 people, each wearing one yellow dish-washing glove and pointing at the sky. Here's a picture of Flinder Street Station if you are having trouble.
This is an example of a newly evolving art form, called "Flash Mob". Flash Mob installations are brief and anachronistic. They are organised across the internet in a purely anonomous manner, even the artist organising has no idea how many people will show up.
People register and just before the event are emailed a list of instructions for some bizarre activity. People wishing to participate arrive at the appointed time, perform the act and disperse.
Begining in US a few months ago, over 40 cities world wide have experienced a Flash Mob.
I'm not talking euphemistically here, I'm talking about that plastic tube you use to breath when you are swimming in the shallows. Wait, don't rush off to get it! It will be about 1ft (30cm). Now before you go and check the locks on the window in your spare room let me assure you I haven't broken in, well not recently anyway. I know it is 30 cm because they all are and this is no coincidence.
If you had a really long snorkel and dived down deep while continuing to breath you would find nasty things starting to happen in your lungs. The pressure differential between your spot in ocean and the surface would cause you to start bursting blood vessels in your lungs.
"Aha" I hear you cry "What about elephants when they are swimming with only their trunks showing?"
Well I'm glad you asked.
In all other mammals, the lungs are surrounded by two layers of a thin membrane called the pleural cavity. Imagine a double-bagged garbage can: The can is the ribs, the trash is the lung, and the space between the two bags is the pleural cavity. In humans and other mammals, there's about a teaspoon of liquid between the two layers.In elephants, the pleural cavity is filled with connective tissue. "It's not muscle and it's not meat—it's slippery-slidey kind of stuff that allows bits to slide over each other,"
So says John B. West, a pulmonary physiologist at the University of California–San Diego School of Medicine.
This points to a time when elephants spent a lot more time in the water than they do today. This is backed up by the fact that their closest living relatives are the dugong and the manatee, both sea living mammals who feed on sea grasses.
Elephants remain strong swimmers and are quite confortable in marine environments, using their long trunks as snorkels when they are below the water.
Yahoo reports that the FBI are set to arrest an 18 year old teenager some time today for producing and distributing the Blaster virus that has been proving so problematic over the last couple of weeks. Interestingly it was not high tech methods that tracked him down. A witness noticed him testing the virus and notified the police.
I must say my capacity for sympathy is sorely strained. It is interesting, however, that we have constructed a technology where a pimply 18-year-old can bring the worlds information systems to their collective knees.
Todays signpost on the path to enlightenment dedicated to the federal parlimentary liberal party.
If you tell the truth, you don't have to remember anything.
Historical context is always important when considering the social framework within which we operate. Accordingly, as a computer oriented person, I was delighted to stumble on this site that provided some valuable insights into the structure and development of computer technology.
The Institute of Druidic Technology has been working tirelessly for a number of years now to interpret and classify the use of computer technology by the ancient druids. Originally we thought these were primative hand axes. Now, thanks to their dedication, we know them to be computer mice so sophisticated that they have no moving parts.
Click here to visit their site and the ancient origins of our modern devices.
When you think computer game player do you think nerdy male teenager with poor interpersonal skills then you need to update your thinking. Wired reports that these days computer game players are more likely to be adult females than teenage boys and what's more they like war titles rather than those aimed at the female market.
What's more 41% of gamers earn over $50,000 per year (I am assuming that's US dollars).
The Great White Shark or White Pointer inspires terror in most people.
This magnificent creature is the result of 400 million of years of evolution. It is the quintessential killing machine.
Humans have a lot of trouble seeing themselves as a food source for other hunters and the Great White personifies their fear. We have hunted and killed these awe inspiring creatures to the extent that they are now endangered.
Is our fear rational? Not really, in the last 500 years there has only been 67 deaths attributed to these sharks arising from 367 attacks. (Compare that with the annual road toll, for example.) The irony is that they don't like eating us and when they do attack it is probably because we are mistaken for a seal. They are such efficient killers that if they liked the taste of human there would have been 367 deaths from 367 attacks.
It is a big world. There is room enough to leave some of it as the domain of these awe inspiring creatures.
The image belongs to Apex, you can purchase a print of this or similar from them at their web site. Click on the image to see more or to buy.
Read more about Great Whites here.
Read about some research on their lack of taste for humans here. (We are too bony apparently)
(Via Jordon Cooper)
Prue Goward, the national sex discrimination commissioner writes
British sociologist Dr Catherine Hakim proposes that women fall into three groups: home-centred, work-centred, and adaptive women whose hopes and aspirations are in the areas of both work and family. Of course, there is going to be the same three categories of men, although nobody has bothered to ask them.Failing to acknowledge that men at least aspire to an adaptive type of life means men are firmly stuck, by choice or not, in the working world.
And that disadvantages all of us - fathers, children and mothers.
The light is starting to dawn. Feminism was not completely successful because it ignored exactly half the problem. Men are just as constrained as women in the choices open to them, in fact, post feminism probably more so. We must grant men the same compassion and the same freedoms that women have in part attained or the quality of our society, for both men and women, will be poorer for it.
Duct tape is like the Force. It has a light side and a
dark side, and it holds the universe together.
I wrote yesterday of the depth and vibrance of the Indian culture. (Read it here) One subculture within this society that is uncomfortable for much of the west is the hijra. In simple terms they are males who have had their genitals removed in a backyard surgical procedure that can be horrifically brutal and from which approximately 10% die. They dress as women but are regarded with the Indian culture as neither men nor women.
Prior to the British occupation of India they were highly regarded in society and were believed to have supernatural powers to bless and curse. They occupied positions in royal courts and new mothers paid them to perform rituals to protect their babies.
The British banned the surgical removal of the genitals of hijra, which predictably had little effect other than to drive it underground and increase the mortality rate. Even though it is still illegal in India today there is estimated to be over one million hijra in India.
The hijra live collectively in small commune like arrangements with an elderly hijra as "mother" looking after and guiding the younger ones. They still perform rituals for the new born and dance at weddings but the increasing influence of western culture is seeing them increasingly marginalised.
In an interesting development the town of Gorakhpur was the first to elect a hijra, Asha Devi, an independent candidate, to a public office. She has done great things for the town, eclipsing her predecessors in her acheivements and avoiding much of the corruption that is so typical of Indian office bearers. Her success has seen the major political parties in India rushing to recruit hijra to stand for them.
The Indian culture embraces diversity in a way that seems unimaginable in the west.
Click here from some interesting photos of hijra (the site is Japanese but supports English)
Click here to read more about the Hijra
No-one in Australia who has experienced a mouse plague, or even seen it documented on TV, doubts that an effective control mechanism for exotic European pest is desparately needed. Scientists in Canberra at the Pest Animal Control-Cooperative Research Centre are holding a biological weapon that could solve the problem in the blink of an eye. It is a man made virus designed to replicate and spread through the mouse population that causes sterility in the mice. The big question is whether to release it. Australia's track record in biological control is not good, one example being the cane toad that is now ravaging natural ecosystems across Queensland, Northern Territory and Northern New South Wales.
We will be releasing a living organism that we have created that is then free to mutate and evolve in ways that cannot be predicted or controlled. This is scary stuff. If it hopped species into an indigenous species it could result in extinction of that species in one generation.
Science has always played with the unknown and sometimes with disasterous consequences. Let us hope that, in these enlightened times, our scientists are treating the power they now have with the awe and respect that it deserves.
Muslim/Hindu conflict and violence has been an underlying theme in India for centuries and the latest bombings in Mumbai are another example.
At Ayodhya in nothern India the focus of this conflict is a site that until 1992 contained a mosque. Hindu fundamentalists claimed that it was built on the site of a holy Hindu temple and the birthplace of the God-King Rama. In 1992 rioting Hindus razed the 16th century mosque and in the resulting conflict 2,000 people were killed.
In an effort to resolve the issue the Archaelogical Survey of India have been conducting detailed excavations of the site. They have just released their report that evidence of a large structure that was probably a temple was found under the ruins of the mosque. Quite understandably the Hindus are claiming vindication for their actions and the Muslims are pointing to the inconclusiveness of evidence. Sadly, we can expect more violence and death as this saga continues to play out.
This is so typical of the racial and caste problems that afflict this culturally rich and magnificent country. It has a wealth of culture and a depth of civilisation that countries like Australia and America can only envy. This gift is bitter-sweet, however, when you realise that conflict and violence are intricately woven through the fabric of their society.
New Scientist has an interesting report on the excavations here.
Visit Archaelogical Survey of India here.
Some of you may find this old news but I think it is interesting and worthy of comment anyway.
On May 22nd the US President George Bush signed a Presidential Executive Order that specifically gave US oil companies unlimited access to Iraqi oil and gave them complete immunity from prosecution in relation to Iraqi oil in the areas of "extraction through transportation, advertising, manufacture, customer service, corporate records and payment of taxes"
As well as the obvious, it also means that they cannot be prosecuted for enviromental destruction, oil spills and labour rights violations.
If the war in Iraq was not about oil then what is this executive order all about? I can see no possible justification for granting these corporations legal immunity when, in the past, have displayed questionable ethical behaviour, at the very least. If, as it is now claimed, the invasion was for humanitarian reasons then this action is completely inconsistent with the objective of returning the justice and the rule of law to Iraq.
You can read a detailed critique of the order here.
An American woman has plead guilty to misdemeanor battery after hitting a male stripper over the head with a bottle, scratching and punching and kicking him. He was performing at a hen's night and the woman was the mother of the bride. Apparently she felt he did not pay enough attention to the bride and "did not live up to expectations" (one can only wonder what that meant).
I am hoping this bride's future husband is going into this relationship with his eyes wide open.
The Green Man's Western Australian odyssey is now documented. Here is one of the more interesting photos.
They are stromatolites at Hamlin Pool near Denham. Stromatolites are the result of primitive life forms that first existed on earth 3.5 billion years ago. The dome shaped structures reach up to 60cm in height and are formed by single celled organisms called cyanobacteria. They are continuing to grow.
If you are that desparate to fill in time you can view the rest of the photos at Webshots
There must be few eerier sounds than wolves howling as dusk falls in the wilderness. It is a sound that links us to a time in our development when our integration with our environment was more direct and obvious. Packs of these large carnivores hunted us the way they did other game. Standing in the darkening forest hearing the distant howls of pack members communicating sends a shiver down the spine. It reminds us that we can only pretend to be apart or above nature. Given certain circumstances we could be the prey and not the preditor. It is humbling and healthy for us to be reminded of this from time to time.
Sadly, this is an experience that many in Washington have not had and may never have. In June, the Bush administration announced plans to boost the timber industry on Prince of Wales island, an Alaskan wilderness whose pristine rainforest supports massive spruce, hemlock and cedar trees standing 70 metres high, 6 metres across and perhaps 500 years old. These areas also have an open canopy, so a dense carpet of shrubs and herbaceous plants flourishes beneath the trees. This is the home of the wolves and the deer upon which they prey. Unless there is some miracle this will be another wilderness whose destruction and death our children will mourn.
Several days ago Pauline Hanson was imprisoned in Australia for electral fraud. She falsely claimed, when registering a political party, that there were 500 members of the party when in fact there were only three. She received over $500,000 in funding arising from electral wins.
She was imprisoned for 3 years and there is outrage in the community about the harshness of the sentence and I am at a loss to understand why. Forget the $500,000. By fraudulently registering a political party this woman launched an attack on our democracy. She showed contempt for the democratic process and a readiness to ignore to laws of our society in an area that should be held sacrosanct. These are the first few steps on a path that leads to the destruction of our democracy.
It is for the judicial process to decide on sentences and I trust that it works reasonably well. In this case I think there is no reason to question it.
The previous entry focused on reducing the number of calories we consume each day over a long period. The way NOT to do it is skip breakfast. Click here for an interesting article on this subject. For those of you not up to the challenge of reading the whole page, here is the crux.
Breakfast eaters tend to eat fewer calories, less saturated fat and cholesterol and have better overall nutritional status than breakfast skippers.
Interested in finding out more, then visit Meals Matter. It contains excellent nutritional information.
Here is a little secret, just between you and me! Whether you get fat or not depends on how much you eat.
Americans have long marvelled at the paradox of the French. They eat very high fat meals and yet remain relatively slender and have far less heart disease that their American counterparts. University of Pennsylvania researchers have confirmed what we all should have guessed anyway. It is because they eat a lot less. Average portion sizes in America were found to be 25% larger than in France. Compounded over many years this results in many more Americans being obese (22% compared with 7% of French).
Forget the secret diets of the stars, just eat less and exercise more over the long term.
Well I back from the west. The weather was appalling but a good time was had anyway.
One of the best successes of the trip was a deep sea fishing trip. This is a photo of me with a Blue Bone Groper I caught.
For the next week I will be travelling up the west coast of Australia. Here is a map for those not of Australian origin.
The Shark Bay Heritage Area is the home one of the worlds last surviving herds of dugongs, who along with whales, turtles, manta rays, and large sharks are regularly sighted.Monkey Mia is one of Western Australia's most famous and popular tourist attractions, where wild dolphins can be hand fed on the shoreline. The area is one of the best for fishermen and also home to the famous Western Australian crayfish.
Photo and quote from Australian Tourism Net
mmmm crayfish!
I will post during the week, if possible, but this is a remote area of Australia and I anticipate that the technology I will be grappling with will involve a fish hook and fishing line.
If I can't find a internet cafe posting will resume Monday 25th.
As well as providing hamburgers and chips it seems the golden arches are serving as a ubiquitous reference point across America and probably elsewhere as well.
Entering "McDonalds" and "turn" into Google returns you 112,000 set of directions on the net that are using McDonalds as a landmark.
Note: my refusal to call them "french fries" has nothing to do with the French intransigence over the Iraqi war. Also, puzzle me this. Why did this display of jingoism extend to "French Fries" but not to "Hamburgers" which are named after a town in Germany? Germany, after all, also apposed the Iraq war?
Strom Thurmond is a very old US politician who, I believe has turned toes up recently but not until he had kept a senate seat warm, on and off, for approximately 70 years.
To put this in perspective he was 50 when McDonalds opened their first store and when Disneyland opened its gates to the public for the first time.
He was 61 when JFK was assasinated and 80 when the first episode of Cheers went to air.
Here is a somewhat satirical look at his career. It is just fascinating to think this guy watched the 20th century unfold from a position power withing the US political system.
If you lend someone $20 and never see that person again,
it was probably worth it.
Have you been feeling a bit muddle headed lately? Are you failing to appreciate some of The Green Mans subtle irony? Perhaps you are even missing some of the "hit you over the head with a sledgehammer" satire?
Here, have a steak. The beloved cow delivers much as a food source. One of the things it delivers is creatine a chemical that can be found in muscle fibres. Scientists at the University of Sydney have found that this chemical provides a significant boost in brain power as measured by working memory and general intelligence. Cows aren't alone in this of course, it appears in the muscle fibre of most animals.
Creatine also aids sports performance and is useful in the treatment of neurological, neuromuscular and atherosclerotic disease.
Ideology aside, humans are built as omnivores, to reach our maximum potential we need meat in our diet.
Sometimes you stumble across a piece of cinema that fundamentally changes your perspective on the world and how it operates. Good cinema facilitates "eueka moments" where we can take another small step along the path to self-actualisation.
I worked at a company some time ago that serviced a group of clients that were renowned for being rather tight with their money. On one occasion a coworker of mine went to visit one of said clients. At the end of the meeting the manager he had been visiting offered to take him to lunch. He accepted, being both surprised and delighted at this turn of events. The delight rapidly evaporated when they turned into the drive-through at McDonalds. He was bitching about it for months.
Well here's one better, a couple in England have taken their wedding guests to McDonalds for the wedding breakfast. Bride Paula Hand said "we both like McDonalds and thought it would be a bit different." I trust they liked the inscribed cardboard drinking goblets they got as a wedding present.
Partner swaping, questionable group activities amongst stars. I am not talking about movies stars here, although I probably could be. I am talking about those small shining dots in the night sky.
The journal Nature reports that "astronomers have uncovered a scandalous degree of promiscuity in the cosmos. Clusters where stars gather more densely than usual are veritable hotbeds of partner-swapping. Some stars engage in half a dozen or so relationships during their lifetime."
Densely packed stars often become involved with others, sometimes two revolving around their combined centre of mass whilst stealling matter from one another. And, as if that wasn't bad enough, these relationships can occassionally extend to 3, or even 4, stars.
Such hedonistic behaviour comes at a cost, of course. In a related article, Alan Heavens of University of Edinburgh predicts that a mass extinction of stars is taking place. Within a mere 10 billion years our night sky will be a pretty dark place, well so will our day sky if our sun is one of them.
Read about promiscuity here and star extinction here
As an aside, what an incredibly appropriate surname for a astronomer.
The darkest hour is just before dawn. So if you're going to nick your neighbour's milk, that's the time to do it.
Cenotes exist all across the Yucatan peninsula in southern Mexico. They are sink holes in the limestone of the area that contain underground lakes. The Mayans believed these were gateways to the world of the gods. Accordingly they adopted the habit of sacrificing unfortunate individuals by chucking them in through the small openings in the ground that are the only sign of the cenote.
The Mayans did not think of this as a punishment, it was a privilege. This belief was confirmed by the fact the none of them ever returned. The fact that the person sacrificed promptly drowned in the underground lake did not seem to occur them as reason for them not returning.
Most cenotes are inaccessible however the Dzitnup cenote near Valladolid in Yucatan has a path leading into it. We visited at 10:00 am in the morning before most of the tourist traffic arrived. It was already scorchingly hot outside and the cave was refreshingly cool. You can swim in this cenote which is an eerie experience, swimming amongst stalagmites that formed before the cenote filled with water and below giant stalactites. Also there are small blind fish that brush past you in the water.
The Green Man could have been more accurately described as the red man at the time, having, two days before, been on a snorkelling and sunburn tour off the coast of Cancun. The Green Man's skin is callibrated for the pallid sun of northern Scotland not the blistering (literally) sun of Cancun. The cool water was refreshing on a raw and tender back.
The Green Man, in an act of gross denial, prefers to ignore the alleged link between his beloved cows and those big chunks of red meat you get at the butchers. Well they are not called cow are they, they're called beef.
Putting aside the denial for a moment, Heather Burrow of the CSIRO has determined that happy cows taste better. She is working at breading placid cows with the expectation that they will increase profits for the farmers and improve the quality of the meat. "Flighty cattle don't have enough glycogen, a sugar which helps breaks down the muscle after slaughter." She says.
As a side benefit there is less risk of damage to farm workers when handling the cattle.
Most cows I have known have seemed pretty placid anyway. Any more placid and some of them would have been asleep.
That staple of the vegetarian menu, the soya bean, may be under threat. Secret intelligence reveals that Islamic terrorists have fundamentally misunderstood the print material they smuggled out of the USA. In a missguided attempt to undermine the food ecomony they are experimenting with Soya Bean Rust as a terrorist agent.
Well, satirical comment aside, Soya Bean Rust is a potentially big problem and a suitable agent for terrorist purposes. Plant pathologists from around the world are meeting in Charlotte, NC, to address this and other potential plant disease agents at Annual Meeting of the American Phytopathological Society.
Visit their website here to find out what the plant disease of week is (this week it is Volutella blight)
You can also look at their web cam of proceedings at the annual meeting.
The journey of a thousand miles begins with a broken fan belt and a flat tire.
The Age reports President of the Australian Society of Plastic Surgery Dr Alfred Lewis as saying of penis enlargement
It's a completely and absolutely unnecessary operation which I think in the patient requesting it is showing a fairly profound psychological disturbance
Of women, on the other hand, he said
Breasts are public organs and the penis isn't - it's a private organ, women don't want to have big breasts to look right out of clothes, they want to have big breasts to look right in clothes, in public.
Just as well we have these middle aged men, with little or no training in pscyhology, to decide whether the desire to augment a particular body part represents a psychological disorder or not.
The people requesting these operations have a poor self-image and a spare $5,000-$10,000, that is why they are doing it.
The Green Man has a secret approach that costs about the same, involves much less pain and acheives the same result. You have a number of choices
• Save a third world child from poverty and death
• Contribute to the protection of an endangered species
• Help keep a refuge for the homeless open
In the end the size of the penis/breast is not as important as the size of the heart. The way to happiness and a good self-image is not through getting bigger bits but through doing good.
Gloucester Cathedral has a fine collection of images of The Green Man. The age of the images range from mediaeval through to modern.
If you are driving past you can check them out. Click here to find a list of them.
Introducing the first of a number of signposts on the path to enlightenment.
Do not walk behind me, for I may not lead. Do not walk ahead of me, for I may not follow. Do not walk beside me for the path is narrow. In fact, just bugger off and leave me alone.
Did you hear the story about the naked woman and "the blind man"?
Well, in summary, a woman is naked for one of a number of reasons when there is a knock at the door. She yells "who is it?" A man replies "Blind Man!". Thinking there is no harm, given he is blind, she opens the door. It is at this point she discovers he is a man delivering blinds.
You have probably heard it before, of course, such is the nature of urban legends. If you would like to learn about the origin of this and other urban legends you can visit Tales of the Wooden Spoon, a well structured and entertaining site.
The race for the Californian governership hots up, figuratively anyway and what a figure it is. The latest candidate to enter the race is 23 year old blond porn star Mary Carey, sporting a figure that contains a 36DD chest.
Her fund-raising initiatives include installing voyeur cams in the State Capitol and charging $19.95 a month to watch her undress and go to the bathroom.
If elected, Carey also wants to start a "Porno for Pistols" program to get gun owners to swap their pistols for X-rated movies.
She joins fellow candidates, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Ariana Huffington, Larry Flynt, actor Gary Coleman, and comedian Gallagher.
Nothing to do with me of course, The Green Man looks on in bemusement.
I have heard people, from time to time, rant about how perpetrators of crimes should be made to stand and listen to the terrible impacts that their crime has had on the victim or the victims relatives. It seems to happen quite frequently in US courts apparently. Our sense of justice is somewhat sated by observing this. You are looking at this from your own perspective, that is, how bad you would feel if you were in the shoes of the perpetrator. Let me just "white-ant" that satisfied feeling with some harsh realities.
Let's look at it from a different perspective for a moment. Let's suppose you are one of the communities most powerless, you are treated with scorn and in a community where money can by power you have none. You commit an act of extreme violence against an individual, one of the feelings you may experience is that of power, power over the life or death of this person. This is an intoxicating feeling and one you are quite unfamiliar within. So what happens when you are the target of the victim impact statement? You realise that your action has made you powerful over many more people than you first thought. You stand there, yet again, drinking the intoxicating feeling of being powerful.
Far from filling a perpetrator with shame, victim impact statements, in some circumstances, act as motivating and affirming experiences for the disempowered perpetrator.
Whilst teenage girls and boys offend at roughly the same rates, the domain of serious offence is predominately that of the boys. What's more, one of the best indicators of whether a boy will offend at 15 is whether he was a victim at 12. If, at 12 or so, a boy has things he holds precious stolen then it is giving him the mandate, later, to reciprocate.
Interestingly, this seems to be a normal male response but not a normal female one. Male offenders and male non-offenders were quite similar in behaviour patterns and attitudes suggesting that it was a product of the circumstances in which they found themselves. Female offenders on the other hand tended to be quite different from other girls in their age group, typically being drug users, gang members, truants, and from a lower class background.
Gang membership generally was a good predictor of offending with the gang providing moral support and encouragement in such activities.
The implications of this excellent research by Economic & Social Research Council in the UK are that programmes targeting offenders and victim support programs need to be rethought within the context that they are targeting the same people. You can read more here.
Black sarcophagus
Hides your utility
Through tiring eyes I see
The echo of your presence
Sprung sarcophagus
Releases your power
The world slips into focus
I bless your refractive elegance
© 2003
.
Well its a big day for cows on The Green Man. They have usurped computing as a category, since computing is essentially boring and cows are essentially interesting.
You will notice the cow has replaced the circuit board in the banner. Clicking on these images accesses the entries in that category, in case you hadn't figured that out for yourself.
I have taken the liberty to include other interesting animal entries in this category but it's emphasis will remain cow-like.
The Green Man's obsession with cows continues. If you are new to the site you will have missed some serious cow entries:
So far we have had
Where are the cows?
Cow fantasies
More on Cows
Todays cow update is CowParade.Net
The cows have mooo-ved out to their summer grazing pastures throughout the Greater Atlanta area where they will remain until Sept. 26. If you can't visit them in person you can visit their website here.
I do not agree with what you have to say, but I'll defend to the death your right to say it. Voltaire
A notable and noble sentiment, and one clearly not embraced by some very angry Americans.
Artist John Steins has been kicked off eBay and received substantial hate mail for daring to produce linograph parodies of the "Axis of Evil" deck of cards, entitled the "Axis of Weasels" and featuring likeness of Bush, Rumsfeld, Cheney etc. They seem quite innocuous to me, one might speculate that such a violent over reaction is a pointer to a deeper issue.
Why, if you were supremely confident of the correctness of your countries actions, would you not look at these and think "interesting but misguided social commentary"?
As an aside he seems a skilled and talented artist.
(via Bene-Diction)
Continuing with our imprisonment theme for today but on a somewhat lighter note. You have to give credit to a forward thinking Italian man. Being a regular visitor to some of Italy's penal institutions he had become somewhat of a connoisseur.
Being currently on the wanted list he chose to surrender in Vercelli a northern town with a particularly pleasent institution rather than in Biella where the crime had been comitted. His plan worked to the extent that he is now enjoying an extended stay in his desired prison.
Well this is a hornets nest I'm wacking here. The folks at Signposts and LivingRoom, to name but two, suffer many stings from wacking this particular nest. Hornets, however, are an integral part of The Green Mans ancient forest and he can only walk past their nest so many times before being tempted to give it a wack.
University of Iowa has been examining the role of faith-based groups in helping ex-offenders. In the USA around 500,000 people are released from prison each year, a staggering figure in itself. What happens to these people, who are often disengaged from their family and allienated from their old community.
This is where faith based organisations, churches, synagogs and mosques, perform a crucial community service. (note to certain members of the community: mosques may not be quintessentially evil places you first thought)
Their research found that these organisations provided not only vital humanitarian aid to these vulnerable individuals but also diversion programs that enabled them to take paths that did not lead inevitably back to prison. Without them the burden on society of excriminals would be enormous.
As I have stated, somewhat mischeiviously elsewhere, perhaps gods real purpose for the church is a place to leave your coat while you are helping in the soup kitchen the church runs next door.
You can read about the research here.
Concerned about sex and violence on TV? (The Green Man is very concerned about the latter and much less concerned about the former.)
Here is some news that will gladen your heart. Research by the University of Michigan has found that brand recall from ads embedded in shows containing excessive amounts of sex or violence is much poorer that normal. Makes sense really, when things on the show are confronting you have much less brain circuitry available to process the ads than in a less confronting show.
This is somewhat balanced by the fact that these shows often draw significantly bigger audiences. Never the less advertisers would do well to pressure for moderation in these aspects of a program if they want their stuff to sell.
The verdict against Amrosi is in. Unsurprisingly he was found guilty and sentenced to death. Listening to the radio on the way in to the city I hear a relative of one of his victims say it didn't make her feel as good or as satisfied as she had expected. Well sur-prise sur-prise (a Gomer Pile'ism that has made it into the lexicon even in Aus).
The thing about satisfaction derived from vengence is that it is only acheived when the amount of pain and suffering exceeds the original. (The logic seems to run along the lines that the equal amount is the justice bit, the bit extra is the punishment bit.) It is easy to see how rapidly this can spiral out of control.
Also, it is clear from the video images that this man does not fear death, for whatever reason. The pain these people are feeling will ease but it will take many years. How can the execution of a man who clearly relishes the prospect equate to that pain?
Here is the irony. To assist these people in healing, if that is what we want, then they should be helped to forgive him and show him some compassion. The gift they give themselves by this act will be far greater than anything they give him.
The answer is that it could have but chose not to.
It's such a great feeling, relieving the conscience by paying a bit more to let those chickens roam around. The problem is, they rarely leave their barn.
Chickens are a prey animal and naturally wary of wide unprotected areas. They will only venture out if there is cover from shrubs for protection, which is rarely present in commercial poultry farms.
"Barn Laid" is the way to go with your eggs folks.
Well enough of such depressing topics and on to something that really important, the fourth annual "World's Most Beautiful Feet" contest.
The Green Man has stubbed his toes on one too many tree roots to be a contenter but there are clearly some attractive looking tootsies out there.
If you fancy yourself as a coni-sewer of all things feet you can participate in the judging of the finalists. They are on display at foot.com here is a sample.
I observe they do not have separate categories for male and female feet. Be careful of your choice if you are thinking of running for bishop soon.
The article below focuses on the role of revenge in punishment but, as I implied there, revenge is slippery slope, revenge begets revenge. One would hope that, in a civilised society, the principal role of punishment is the removal of risk to society.
Clearly the cheapest and most effective method of doing this is to have the offender remain in society and stop offending. From memory, it costs society around $60,000 per year to keep an offender in a low security gaol, much more for high security.
Some types of crimes are clearly related to an individuals inability to manage anger, road rage and barroom brawling are examples. The Salt Lake Tribune reports that, in an inspired moment Municipal Judge Frances Gallegos of Santa Fe is giving offenders in this category the opportunity to take Tai Chi classes as their punishment. Teaching self control and calm to these offenders can revolutionise their lives and deminish, rather than exacerbate, their violent behaviour and their danger to society.
Small rays of enlightment in dark times.
Amrosi, if you didn't already know, is one of the alleged bombers of the nightclubs in Bali last year. The general expectation is that he will be found guilty and that he will be given the death penalty.
On the radio this morning I heard a relative of a victim say "We want him to suffer the way our daughter suffered". This is, of course, quite a natural reaction, particularly given his apparent complete lack of remorse, but is it justice. I have read numerous articles from the West claiming that Islam is not a civilised religion. By calling for this venegeful treatment of Amrosi are we not doing two things:
1. Making ourselves exactly what we claim to detest in the Islamic states.
2. Giving Amrosi and the radical Islamic faction exactly what they want, a martyr.
Clearly people of this ilk must be isolated from society but the temptation to indulge in a feast of vengence will only result in reciprocation by the other side, as we have already seen at the Marriott.
In the first Harry Potter book Harry is given an owl as a present. In the book these owls are used as messengers, delivering mail and presents between witches and wizards. Harry's owl is a magnificent creature, a Snowy Owl (Nyctea scandiaca for the bird watchers amongst you).
Who knows how much Hagrid paid for Harry's owl in Diagon Alley but they cost around ₤400 in other parts of London. Please don't buy one though. These magnificent creatures should be left to fly free over the northern tundras of Europe and America. They are big birds standing 60 cm (2ft) tall and hunt lemmings for food.
National Geographic has an excellent article here, or visit the World Owl Trust
"Renee was just gorgeous—long lashes, long legged, and very gifted, very talented," said Komar, a Russian conceptual artist.
She's all of that and she's also an elephant. In 1998 the artist founded the Lampang Elephant Art Academy at the Thai Elephant Conservation Cente where Renee was one of the first students.
This may seem a somewhat flippant use of elephants but it is addressing a serious issue in Thailand. Elephants are finding it difficult to earn their keep these days and this can lead to mistreatment and neglect. Also elephants, being intelligent animals, need stimulation.
National Geographic Society are assisting with a new website Novica, a commercial online arts agent, which is now representing 15 of the academies' painting elephants. About half of the money from sales of elephant art at Novica will go directly to elephant sanctuaries in Southeast Asia.
Visit Novica, read the National Geographic Story here you can see some of their art on the site.
So, go a bit of time on your hands have you?
Well you can continue on exploring the ancient woodland forest of The Green Man or you can . . . . . . . . . . . Stare down Sally!
Here is a sight (sic) where you can try and not blink before Sally does. Those green eyes are quite disturbing.
Once you're will has been broken you can come wimpering back to The Green Man. He has some old forest paths for you to explore.
It's doom and gloom time at The Green Man.
A huge cloud of galactic dust is headed our way. Scientists say that changes in the suns magnetic field will focus the dust storm on the inner solar system and it should last for approximately 10 years.
What does this mean for us? We don't know really. It might signal the onset of the next Ice Age and a period of mass extinctions. On the other hand it might just result in some great spectacles in the night sky.
One thing is for sure, we haven't got much choice but to wait and see.
Now here is a bit of research that goes against the tide of popular culture.
Penn State researchers have found that living together prior to getting married is a recipe for a lower quality marriage. Comparing data from 30 years ago and now they found that, as you would expect, cohabitation prior to marriage is far more common now than it used to be but
They found that, in both groups, cohabiters reported less happiness and more marital conflict than noncohabiters. Also, in both groups, couples who lived together before marriage were more likely to divorce.
So is this a cause and effect kind of thing? Does the fact that you cohabit prior to marriage mean that the quality of your marriage will be less? Probably not.
It does not deminish the quality per se but cohabitation is percieved as far less of a comittment than marriage and thus we are prepared to entertain it with riskier partners, that is ones that, originally, we don't envisage spending the rest of our lives with. Of course things happen as you live together, you acquire joint assets, pets, even children and marriage often flows from this. Thus you find yourself in a marriage with a person you originally thought might not be quite the right one for you.
This, of course, is a largely western problem since, in large chunks of the world, people have little say in who their marriage partner will be.
Well apologsies to those of you who visited yesterday. Not only were there no jewels of wisdom, there wasn't even any bits of shiny glass.
It was a road trip day, off to Broadford for a meeting. Broadford is a small town in central Victoria and a pleasent 1 hour drive north of Melbourne. Travelling up the Hume Freeway the road climbs to the central plateau. Hills that, only a few months ago, were dry dusty and barren are now coated in green. The area has had it's lushness restored.
Broadford is a tiny rural town. We arrived there at about 9:15 am to find it already settled into its quiet morning lull, a dog ambling lazily across the street would not have been out of place. The days meeting had that casual country feel where the stresses of city life are something to be viewed with mild amusement.
Lunch was catered by the local store who clearly relished is extra little bit of income and provided magnificent country food. I must organise a transfer to one of these offices.
Well bigger than they used to be anyway and bums are smaller. In 2002 seven million people in the US underwent cosmetic surgical and non-surgical procedures. Breast enlargements were chosen by nearly 250,000 Americans (nearly all of them women), the second most popular operation after liposuction.
Recent research shows that there is a link between breast enlargement and suicide. Current thinking suggests the link may be poor self-image and depression. Women in this category are looking to bigger breasts to improve their life. With certain noteable exceptions this has not been a particularly successful approach in the past and many women end up more depressed than before the operation, hence the prevalence of suicide amongst these women.
This research is being used to push for training for plastic surgeons in identifying underlying psychiatric conditions that may be motivating some women to seek this surgery.
Wow, all that talk about breasts and The Green Man did not make one infantile or sexist remark. Will wonders never cease?
If you give a man a fish you feed him for a day. If you teach a man to fish you contribute to the destruction of an ecosystem.
I think there is something in that for all of us!
In an interesting corrollory to the entry below on doctor's mental health, researchers from Queens University Belfast, Northern Ireland, have found that medical students, compared with University Students generally, went on to have the largest number of alcohol-related deaths and death from suicide.
This was determined by examining the medical records of nearly 10,000 male graduates of Glasgow University who attended during the years 1948 to 1968.
In spite of this, general mortality amongst medics, like scientists, was significantly lower than other graduates of the university. Arts students fared particularly badly in the longevity stakes being particularly at risk of contracting lung cancer or a cardiovascular disease.
So, if you fancy living a long and healthy life, the evidence is clear: study science.
A number of blogs in the circle of blogs to which The Green Man loosely belongs are concerned with the emerging church. The Green Man himself is not so interested, being the lord of misrule and a free pagan spirit of the ancient woodland. (read more here) Never the less, in the spirit of camaraderie, he is prepared to pass on good ideas when he comes across them.
In an effort to boost numbers Greenwood Acres Full Gospel Baptist Church in Shreveport, Louisiana is paying people to attend church. You get $5 per hour on Sundays and $10 per hour on Thursdays.
Jesus said that we're to fish for men, I'm just using money to fish with.
Says Bishop Fred Caldwell, who is paying the money himself, not using the church coffers. In this predominately black area payments are restricted to whites, hispanics and asians to encourage them to attend.
The death of an individual evokes strong emotions amongst those who were close to the person in question. Relatives, and sometimes friends, seek the services of their GP to help them understand and deal with these, often complex emotions. This can take the form of medication or at least someone to talk to.
If you stop and think about this for a minute you will see that one of the people with the most complex set of emotions over the death may well be the doctor himself/herself. Whilst eveyone else is grieving at the loss, the doctor may be trying to cope with feelings of inadequacy mixed with loss and sorrow.
When do doctors experience the most sever emotional response to death? As you might expect it is when they have treated the patient for a long time and grown to know them as a person. This is most typically the GP who treats people of years or even decades.
Interestingly, there is a culture of silence in the medical profession over the emotional response of doctors to grief. This, amongst other factors, is what leads to substance abuse in doctors.
The British Medical Journal has an interesting article. Read it here.
I know George W Bush is extremely popular at the moment in the US but I am sure most recognise that, in spite of the excellent job he is doing at bombing the crap out of Iraq, he is not the brightest street lamp in the steet. That being said, if I was going to live in western Arizona at the moment I am thinking that the town of Bagdad may not be the wisest choice.
Never the less, if you are so inclined Carl Chapman, an Arizona realtor, can see you right. I understand there are some really cheap places just near the mosque.
The US are offering US$25,000,000 for anyone who can point them in the direction of Saddam and to aid you in your search they have released some pictures of what he might look like, here's one
Right, noone else ring, I saw him first, it's my 25 mill. What a genius he is. Who else would've thought of hiding out in the Doner Kebab caravan in King St, Melbourne. Brilliant plan really, not only is he away from the heat, but he is getting $5.50 a kebab, which is good money in anybody's language.
I ran a software development company for a number of years in a former life. This means that I have had considerable experience with recruiting and dealing with computer programmers who are almost exclusively male and, for the most part, have the social skills of a lower order primate.
Having said this, I am now kicking myself that I did not recognise the vast improvement that I could have acheived by using higher order primates instead. (How many of us only recognise a great idea after someone else has thought of it?)
Anyway, forget farming out your software development to India, where human labour is disgustingly cheap. Skip straight to a workforce that you can exploit with none of those awkward ethical dilemmas. Yep, forget India and head straight for the primate population of Africa.
Pimate Programming Inc has chimpanzees, bonobos and orang utans ready to churn out code for a fraction of the cost of the Indian untouchables. Not surprisingly, their platform of choice is Visual Basic 6.0. Most simians I have known have been Basic programmers.
Visit Primate Programming Inc to find out more.
Those of you who feel obliged to email or comment that Orang Utans are from south east asia and not Africa please don't. Have a sit and a think for a moment, I am sure you'll work it out
(via J-Walk)
The hypocratic oath, in case you are unaware, is taken by doctors when they graduate and sets out moral and ethical obligations of doctors to their patients vis-a-vis the sanctity of human life, relief of suffering etc.
So if you are a US military doctor and you are witness to practices that are in violation of your hypocratic oath, such as the alleged torture of prisoners at, or near, the Iraq airfield, which comes first, your loyalty to your country or your obligations as a doctor.
Jerome A Singh, a senior lecturer in law and bioethics, says it is the latter.
Singh refers to the questionable interrogation techniques reported in a December 2002 Washington Post article, and the deaths of two detainees in Afghanistan in March 2003. While he makes clear that there has been no proof of US military physician complicity in the alleged detainee abuse Singh asserts that "if physicians witness or suspect the abuse of detainees, they should consider it their ethical duty… to document and report such abuse."He warns that "the American government's openly negative views towards terror suspects and the Afghan detainees could influence state physicians to not want to provide reasonable care to, or protect the interests of, such detainees. This mindset could conflict with the physician's ethical duty."
Singh's concern is that doctors, like members of the public, are susceptible to "a loss of moral perspective". He warns against the moral disengagement that can come from the negative labelling or devaluing of a group because of their political culture, and against "victim-blame" where detainees in pain or suffering are considered to be responsible for their own fate.
Doctors in the military face the ultimate ethical dilemma, they particularly, must protect themselves against the scapegoating Phil at Signposts refers to.
Remember I posted on the Pollyanna phenonemon (really you must concentrate or you'll never keep up, go and look for it using the search function!)
Here is a practical example of the Pollyanna principal in action. Researchers have found that women who exercise in front of a mirror, as is so common in gyms, actually feel worse about themselves at the end of the session than if they exercise without being able to see themselves. This is particularly applicable to women who are unfit and trying to get fit.
Being forced to confront the reality of how you look and how unco-ordinated you are for a whole hour is pretty damn depressing. Much better to live under the illusion that you didn't look too bad. It will keep you coming back.
If you want to read more click here.
Ah there is balance everywhere!
The British 10 pound note has the image of a notable Briton on the back. At the moment it is Charles Dickens who is soon to be replaced by Charles Darwin. You may think that having a Christian name of Charles is a big plus in the bank note game but you would be wrong.
One of the most popular choices for the next 10 quid note is David Beckham and, in an interesting piece of yin and yang, one of the least popular is his wife, Victoria Beckham aka Posh Spice.
It seems to me that the perennial calls for harsher penalties, ie longer terms of imprisonment, are doing the rounds again at the moment. It is predictable and understandable for relatives of the victim to be dissatisfied with a sentence, vengence forms part of our makeup after all, and they want to see the offender punished.
Calls from the general community for harsher penalties however are more to do with the deterent aspect of imprisonment. They think, somewhat simplistically, that increasing the punishment will deter others and reduce the overall crime rate. Paradoxically this often has the reverse effect. This is seen clearly in 18th century England where stealing a handkerchief could result in death or transportation. Crime was flourishing.
Here is a question for you to think about? Why do we imprison criminals? There are four reasons I can think of (feel free to flame if you come up with more)
1. Remove risk to society - This is a short term benefit if, when they are eventually released, they are worse than when they went in.
2. Punishment - Important from a closure perspective of the victim, but in most cases no punishment is enough for the victim.
3. Rehabilitate - Possibly the most important reason and the one that is least likely to be acheived.
4. Deter others - What the community wants but is not acheived.
On point 4 research from Canada points to the fact that criminals are detered by the chance of being caught not the severity of the punishment if you are caught. Makes sense really, if you think there is little chance of being caught what does the punishment matter. You can read about it here.
Lasers have developed into a highly effective tool in the hands of skilled surgeons. They are used for many techniques from the cosmetic to the life saving. At the life saving end of the spectrum they can be used to destroy tumer cells.
The problem for the third world is that lasers are highly specialist pieces of equipment the cost of which is far beyond the reach of these poor countries. In a moment that falls into the "why didn't someone think of this before" category Jeffrey Gordon of Ben-Gurion University in Israel realised that our cheapes form radient energy is the sun. He has designed a collector that tranmits the light as a laser via fibre optics to the surgery. At this stage he has confined himself to operating on chicken fillets but the potential for tropical 3rd world countries is enormous.
It has been hypothesised in the macro-ecology domain for some time that AIDs may be a biological control mechanism for the human population. All populations, with the partial exception of human beings, wax and wane in response to the enviromental pressures of the ecosystems in which they live.
The South African government is clearly embracing this approach to population management. They are set to ban a WHO supported drug that prevents the transmission of AIDs from a pregnant women to her child during child birth.
This government has a track record of denial of the AIDs problem and has, at times, been quite obstructionist in the treatment of this pandemic to the extent that they went through a phase of denying it even existed.
Death is an inevitable consequence of life, but this decision will see many African children unnecessarily confronting the reality of their own mortality before they are even old enough to understand it.
You can read more of this depressing story here.
There are not many Hollywood actors I hold in hight esteem but, of the few there are, Bart The Bear is right up there.
After a successful career in the movies spanning 20 years Bart died peacefully in May 2000. He had incurable cancer.
A Kodiak Bear, in adulthood Bart weighed 1,500 pounds (680 kgs) and stood 9 1/2 ft (3 metres) tall. If you need a feel for how big and impressive he was just compare the size of his head to that of his owner Doug.
He could have crushed Doug Seus, his trainer, killing him instantly without any exertion. In spite of this he was a gentle animal and a good companion to Doug who purchased him as 5 week old cub.
Visit Vital Ground and support the purchase of wilderness for bears, Bart was the patron.