Here is a link to some children's stories on youtube. If you look carefully you may see The Green Man himself, in a different guise, of course, if you know what he looks like. (Hint: The story has a definite canine feel)
Haiku is a form of Japanese poetry known for its simplicity and elegance. In English, haiku are written as three lines, with a syllable count of five, seven, and five on in the first, second, and third line.
In The Green Man's opinion nothing softens the blow of a systems failure better than an error message delivered in Haiku. Consider some examples:
Seeing my great fault
Through darkening blue windows
I begin again
-- Chris Walsh
I'm sorry, there's -- um --
insufficient -- what's-it-called?
The term eludes me ...
-- Owen Mathews
A file that big?
It might be very useful.
But now it is gone.
-- David J. Liszewski
and perhaps my favourite
Errors have occurred.
We won't tell you where or why.
Lazy programmers.
-- Charlie Gibbs
As anyone can see, this adds a sense of elegance to an otherwise exasperating experience. Now researchers at Kyoto have developed a computer program that can write Haiku on your behalf. It may be the dawning of a new era in error messages.
Existing Haiku courtesy of Salon 21
Each year at the festival a contest is held amongst the performers to see who can produce the most innovative and entertaining version of a song. This years theme is the Sound Of Music and last night was round one. Anyone who holds the Sound of Music dear to their hearts would do well to avoid these events where the songs of the movie are mutilated in the most hilarious ways.
I will avoid the detail of the bondage version Eidleweise, however here are the new words to Doh-A-Deer.
Doh, a large amount of cash
Ray, a flatish kind of fish
Me, half of a cats word
Far, three quarters of a smell
So, two thirds of a call for help
La, the french word for "the"
Tee, a little stick in golf
Doh, .....
Although the gross out entry must go to a Marlene Deitrich with
"You are seventeen going eighteen, I an 60 going on 70"
Over the last couple of years at the National Folk Festival there has been a rediscovery of the magic of the massed male voice. In the past we had the Spooky Men, a male a capella group from the Blue Mountains, this year there are two groups present, Voice Male and Bloke-apella. All three groups have two important things in common, they have discovered the power and vibrance of unaccompanied male voices on mass and all have a healthy disrespect for the gift that they have.
There is nothing feminine about these performances, they are all male. It is both invigorating and immensely entertaining to hear a group of men, in good humour, singing their hearts out, their voices untainted by instrument or female voice.
The bit I just don't get however is how the baritone, who you expect to be size of a small tractor, is always this skinny little guy. Small of stature, big of voice; that's yin and yang for you I suppose.
The Green Man is once again at the national folk festival in Canberra. The NFF is one of the premier folk music events of the year and is a marvellous conglomerate of music, dance and culture. At the NFF the cultural fringes of Australia are not only tolerated but celebrated.
A witch seeks advice on the best wine to go with her curry from the Hare Krishna food stall.
two rabbits have settled on a Guiness
workers on the way home from the fields engage in a spontaneous morris dance in the main street of the festival.
three women of the little known but devout sect of upturned wheelie bin worship
a young faerie gets her first set of balloon wings
the Hurdy Gurdy and the Pipes, it's a combination you just don't hear enough these days
a boy meets a horse that only eats chocolate
Just another ordinary day at the festival really.
Do you have trouble deciding whether to get a leather or metal watch band? Fear not the choice has now become superfluous with the watch piercing. ModBlog, a blog dedicated to body piercing and related forms of bodily mutilation have released pictures of the new wrist watch attached to your wrist in a way normal watches just aren't.
Karl Kemp, owner of Karl Kemp & Associates, an antiques dealer, at 833 Madison Avenue near 69th Street is suing a homeless man who is camped outside his shop for US$1 million. He claims that it upsets his clients to be confronted with one of the great unwashed when they are preparing to waste large amounts of money on some meaningless bit of old stuff so that they can prove to their friends how wealthy they are.
He says
“It’s nothing against him, I want him to be safe and not to be an obstruction to us.”
Well here is an idea Karl, how about spending the $50,000 you are currently giving your lawyers to sue him on some cheap accomodation he can utilise.
Well the Nigerians may be actively engaged in scamming billions of dollars from the rest of us (In 1999, Howard Jeter, the U.S. State Department's deputy assistant secretary for African affairs, claimed that "Americans lose $2 billion annually to white collar crime syndicates based in Nigeria.") but at least we know that they are going to be forgiven for these fiscal indescretions. As far as church attendance goes, only Ireland comes close.
At 89% attendance the Nigerians truely are a church going nation, they have a church attendance more than double that of the USA (you heathen lot). As for Australia we only made it to 16%, which from The Green Mans anecdotal experience is fairly generous. This means that 84 percent of Australians don't attend church, which in a strange example of synergy, is also the average age of church attendees in Australia.
The full list of countries is listed below.
#1 Nigeria: 89%
#2 Ireland: 84%
#3 Philippines: 68%
#4 South Africa: 56%
#5 Poland: 55%
#6 Puerto Rico: 52%
#7 Portugal: 47%
#8 Slovakia: 47%
#9 Mexico: 46%
#10 Italy: 45%
#11 United States: 44%
#12 Belgium: 44%
#13 Peru: 43%
#14 Turkey: 43%
#15 India: 42%
#16 Canada: 38%
#17 Brazil: 36%
#18 Netherlands: 35%
#19 Venezuela: 31%
#20 Uruguay: 31%
#21 Austria: 30%
#22 United Kingdom: 27%
#23 Argentina: 25%
#24 Chile: 25%
#25 Spain: 25%
#26 Croatia: 22%
#27 Hungary: 21%
#28 France: 21%
#29 Romania: 20%
#30 Australia: 16%
#31 Switzerland: 16%
#32 Lithuania: 16%
#33 Czech Republic: 14%
#34 Korea, South: 14%
#35 Taiwan: 11%
#36 Ukraine: 10%
#37 Moldova: 10%
#38 Bulgaria: 10%
#39 Georgia: 10%
#40 China: 9%
#41 Armenia: 8%
#42 Serbia and Montenegro: 7%
#43 Belarus: 6%
#44 Azerbaijan: 6%
#45 Latvia: 5%
#46 Norway: 5%
#47 Denmark: 5%
#48 Finland: 4%
#49 Estonia: 4%
#50 Iceland: 4%
#51 Sweden: 4%
#52 Japan: 3%
#53 Russia: 2%
Weighted average: 26.2%
Well I think that is how you spell her name.
Anyway, for the first time in American history more adult women are single than married. Yep, 51% of all adult women in America have no male partner. By way of comparison 35 percent in 1950 and 49 percent in 2000 were living without a "husband" of sorts. Whilst this is, in part, because women are living so much longer than they did and also so much longer than men, it is also because they are less likely to put up with, to use a sociological term, a "crap marriage".
Race plays a part in this. If you are an asian woman then you are much more likely to be married (60%) than a black woman (30%), with anglo-saxon (49%) and hispanic women (55%) falling somewhere in the middle.
So is this reflected in the male population? Well to a certain extent but men leave marriage by two methods, divorce and death, the latter meaning that the percentage of men in a marriage is significantly higher than women.
In the Hindu religion the goddess Durga is an incarnation of the Devi or Mother goddess. She manifested when evil forces threatened the very existence of the gods. To enhance her power all the gods contributed to her radiance. She is considered a potent force for good and in one incident she killed the mighty Mahisha.
This event is being celebrated in the Great Court of The British Museum as part of the "Voices of Bengal" exhibition where Bengali artists are constructing a spectacular image of the goddess Durga killing the buffalo-headed demon Mahisha. If you are fortunate enough to be in the vicinity you can watch them construct it using traditional techniques using straw, clay and paint. For the rest of us images of the construction are available on the British Museum web site Click Here
As regular readers of The Green Man will know, he is not that interested in religion as a topic on the blog. That said this could not pass without a mention.
The photo below is of a church in a shipping container. Just load it onto a truck and take it where you wish. When the photo was taken it was located at Sildajazz music festival in Haugesund, Norway, obviously for use by those Christians tempted by that heathen jazz music.
Being the size of a shipping container it was not particularly suited to a large congregation but quite suitable for a quiet personal visit although one would suspect that it does raise some territorial issues with the indigenous churches.
For thousands of years the Sámi have been herding and domesticating reindeer. Here is a photo of a reindeer with full Sámi adornments standing patiently while his photo was taken. The indignity of having to wear said adornments vastly surpassed by the indignity of being stuffed.
When some people enter academia they are looking for a quite uneventful life, University of Toronto sociology professor Robert Brym is not one of those people. His latest research investigates Palestinian suicide bombers, their rationale and motivation. No matter what he found he was guaranteed to upset a few people and it is a fair bet that some of them will be Arabs and some will be Jewish.
It seems that the Hamas campaign of suicide bombing attacks against Isreal may well have been strategic in motivation however the motivations of the inidividual suicide bombers are quite different. To convince a human being to give up their life for a cause is a substantial achievement and it appears from Dr Bobs work that arguing strategic advantage is not going to deliver the suicide bombers. Suicide bombers are primarily motivated by a desire for revenge. By examining events that preceded each specific attack, he found that particular Israeli actions such as specific killings prompted most attacks.
He writes
For the most part bombers gave up their lives to avenge the killing of a close relative, as retribution for specific attacks against the Palestinian people or as payback for perceived attacks against Islam."
It is, of course, in the interest of the propaganda machine to portray these poeple as crazy, irrational and sick or that their culture led them to behave in ways that were crazy. It is far more difficult to view them as making a rational choice that was made to seem appropriate by the actions of others, in this case the Isreali army.
So what would happen if Isreal were to suspend all extra-judicial killings? What would happen if Isreal, a wealthy state by any measure, was to pour aid into Palestine? What would happen if Isreal were to offer the hand of peace in the certain knowledge that it would be bitten?
We can all speculate safely on those questions because it is pretty sure that they are entirely hypothetical. Isreal seems set on a course of quashing the suicide bombers through military action which is guaranteed to breed a whole new wave of suicide bombers.
So who's fault is it? The correct answer is, of course, "Who cares?" All right minded compassionate people want the confict to end and, like in all similar situations, there are guilty parties on all sides.
Sadly, The Green Man thinks that the situation is hopeless because the strength and wisdom that it would take to break the cycle is far beyond those who, driven by power, seek office in parliament.
Some may say it is evidence of the onset of senility in The Green Man but, over the years of attending the National Folk Festival, Morris Dancing has moved from a quaint English idiosyncrasy to something that is rich in culture and tradition.
This is the time for Morris, it is an integral component of the Northern Hemisphere spring and ancient Pagan fertility rituals are kept alive in the attire and dances, well not all of them obviously otherwise it would hardly be suitable for public performance. Still one can only speculate what goes on in private, secret Morris business no doubt.
The origins of Morris are lost in time although the name is thought to be a corruption of Moorish Dancing. This is from a time around the 12th and 13th centuries when the Muslim Moors were the dominant and enlightened culture in Europe and the Middle East. As well as music and dance they were pioneering medicine, mathematics and the sciences.
The photos are of Molonglo Mayhem Border Morris, a Morris group from Canberra who are keeping alive the traditional Morris from the Welsh border region of England. Those of you who are aware of Morris will note that their costumes are quite different from those that you may be familiar with. Whilst the dances have a commonality across the English countryside each region developed their own style of dress.
On a related matter it is good to see that President Bush is keen on the perpetuation of Pagan fertility rituals himself and that the fertility egg hunt will once again take place at the White House.
Consult the history books that have been, and probably still are in use in most schools and you will see references to the guy called Costello. The history books say that he set forth from New South Wales to conquer the lands almost single handedly, facing down the savage natives and returning triumphant to New South Wales. This was based on his own account and based on this the government of the day granted him 25,000 square miles of the land that he had conquered.
Review of other journals that recorded the oral history of the local aboriginal tribe, the Kawiwali, show quite a different picture. He in fact set out with three other white men, all hopelessly ill equipped for the territory that they were entering. Some time into the journey they had reached a stage of desperation whereby they were about to slaughter one of their horses for food. The local Kawiwali supplied them with food and water and advised them to return south. Ignoring this advice they continued on until, once again, they were in need of rescue. Once again the Kawiwali obliged, this time insisting that if they wished to survive they should return south. Yet again they ignored this advice and for a third time found themselves in desperate circumstances. By this time the Kawiwali had had enough of these serial pests and escorted back to NSW.
He seems to have been quite the conquering hero doesn’t he?
Of course, his version, that made it into the text books at the time, suited the objectives of the government of the day. The portrayal of the indigenous occupants as compassionate and having superior skills in survival was at odds with image of them as primitive savages who can only benefit from being stripped of their tribal ways and introduced to western civilisation.
Footnote: Whether this Costello was any relation to our erstwhile Federal Treasurer is a investigation for the future.
Yes this year The Green Man is posting live from the National Folk Festival in Canberra courtesy of a broadband network kindly provided by the National Library of Australia and fortuitously stretching as far as the Guinness Tent.
It appears that juries that contain a diverse cultural mix are better at making decisions than homogenous groups. Well that is the conclusion of Samuel Sommers of Tufts University anyway.
Dr Sam, who happens to be white himself, conducted a study on decision making on two types of juries. The first consisting of 6 white jurers and the second where two of the jurers were black. We learn from this research that the white jurers were more objective in their assesment of the case when blacks were present. They made less errors in their recall of the evidence, took longer in their deliberation and raised more factual information. They also expressed more leniency towards the black defendant.
He seems to have missed the obvious inclusion of one containing six black jurers. Consequently we don't know how the behaviour of the black jurers alters in the presence of whites. Also it reflects America's obsession with the Black/White divide, diversity is, of course, much greater than this. Presumably he is concerned with practicality and that all black juries are a rarity, never the less from a academic perspective it seems to present less than the complete picture.
Cartoons can provide consise and incisive commentary on contemporary issues and, as such, they provide an intriguing historical perspective on our attitudes to an issue over time.
From the days of "Terra nullius" Europeans have had a troubled and often discordant relationship with the Australian Aborigines. Gary Foley, a long term activist for Aboriginal rights has compiled a comprehensive collection of cartoons depicting the changing (or perhaps not) view of aboriginals in the mainstream Australian media. Click here to see them all
Here is an image from the new campaign by the Australia Government seeking visitors from other countries to Australia and the campaign has generated a degree of controversy world wide. You can view the television ad here
England banned it because they didn't like the word "bloody" and now Canada is banning it because they don't like the word "hell". Apparently you can say the "hell" in front of the children. Who can guess what America will find offensive about it? Hopefully something, all this controversy is better publicity than the advert itself.
The advert, of course, highlights a cultural gap between Australia and the rest of the English speaking world because there are few Australias that would think anything of it. It is a common expression in the context within which it is used in the advert.
To the right we see a image of a hula dancer that is compatible with the image of the hula as it has been packaged for consumption by the mainstream media and for the tourist trade in Hawaii.
How beautiful and gentile she seems and how much the antithesis of the traditional hula warrior maiden. As mentioned several posts ago The Green Man was fortunate enough to attend a concert that was the closing celebration for the WIPCE (world indigenous peoples conference on education) and, as part of this conference, many of the attendees performed. These people however were not interested in packaging their culture for the consumption of the tourist trade. They were interested in the preservation of elements of their cultures as they existed prior to contamination by the west.
There were performances by plains indians from North America, Sammi from Norway, Australian Aboriginals and a huge contingent from the Pacific Islands and of all these fascinating performances The Green Man found the Hula from Hawaii the most intriguing and captivating, not the least because it was so much at odds with the image of the Hula that has been fed to the west by the mass media.
The first and perhaps the most important thing to note is that the Hula was not intended for entertainment. It was a manifestation of the spiritual and social structure of the Hawaians and the ones who performed it were not cute post-pudescent teenage girls with carefully groomed hair and nails. It was performed by shamans and warriors, both men and women.
These men and women were powerful and ferocious and the performance was intended to display their commitment to their land and their culture. The concept of someone being entertained by their performance was the furthest from their minds. And so it was with the Hula performers that performed at the WIPCE closing conference.
There are few performances that can match the Haka for emotional intensity and ferociousness but a traditional Hula is one.
oohh and Happy New Year, whilst remembering that happiness is not a destination but a mode of travel.
An older part of the fence
And a part that is somewhat newer.
The new Superman, Brandon Routh, it seems, is more super than most of his predecessors and is quite capable of filling his underpants, even when they are on the outside in a way that is making the movies producers not nearly as comfortable as he clearly is.
Producers are worried that the size of the new Superman’s manhood…that is, his bulge is so big that it will put cinema audiences off.
Bosses on the film are considering using digital technology to cover up the lunchbox in the new film ‘Superman Returns’.
Speaking to The Sun, a source said: "It's a major issue for the studio. Brandon is extremely well endowed and they don't want it up on the big screen.
"We may be forced to erase his package with digital effects."
The Green Man is in New Zealand as a tag along at whip-see (well WIPCE actually). It stands for World Indigenous Peoples Conference on Education and Mrs Green Man is attending. What better excuse for a trip to NZ or Aotearoa as it is known in Maori.
Aotearoa being Maori for "land of the long white cloud" or is it "land of the wrong white crowd"; something like that anyway.
The WIPCE conference had delegates from indigenous peoples from North America, Africa, Europe (Saami from Norway) and the odd Moari and Koori. It looked most interesting although there was a notable absense of some significant indigenous groups, such as the maya from Mexico and Central America.
The conference had many interesting speakers although The Green Man did not get to see that many, not being a delegate, and it was clearly a valuable exploration of educational issues for indigenous cultures across the world however the indigenous are often amongst the poorest in a community and government funding is required for many to attend. One sad irony was that indigenous cultures most in need of education are the ones with little government support and they, of course, could not afford to attend.
Still it was a worthwhile exercise never-the-less culminating in a concert that was truely magnificent. I will post some photos later but most are on print so you will have to wait for them to be developed.
The highlight of the evening for The Green Man was the hula performed by dancers from Hawaii. If you think you have seen a traditional hula at the tourist resorts or on TV then you are quite mistaken. It is awe inspiring, the women are wild and war like. No cute little girls with flowers behind their ears in this performance.
Ngan Girra is an indigenous festival held each year at Mungabareena Reserve located on a horseshoe bend in Murray River at Albury on the Victoria/NSW border. 
It is easy to see how this would have been a popular spot for gatherings and celebrations of the local Wiradjuri. The bend of the river defines a circular area about 500m across. At this point the Murray is swift and provides an excellent natural semi-circular moat.
It is run by Koories primarily for the benefit of the local Koorie community but it is open to all and an excellent opportunity to immerse yourself in contemporary Aboriginal culture as well as for the Koorie community to focus on the preservation of their heritage.
There was a wide range of stalls selling tucker, some indigenous, some not. The Green Man found the crocodile burger an interesting experience. It has been described as a cross between chicken and pork which turned out to be a fairly accurate description. It has the look of chicken but it has a lot more texture to the flesh, as you would expect from a larger animal. It has to be said, of course, that the word indigenous has been used fairly loosely in this instance since the nearest live crocodile not in a zoo is approximately 2,000 kms away. But then the term "burger" was used pretty loosely too. It was essentially a large chuck of crocodile between two slices of white bread.
As well as food there yidaki making and playing. (That's a didgeridoo to those of you ignorant of Wiradjuri.) Yidaki were not traditionally made in this area, they are a central Australian instrument however native traders introduced them and over the years they became incorporated into the culture of the Koories. There were many yadaki to be found and a number of eager students for the yidaki master class that was being conducted under the shade of a large Murray River Red Gum by one of the dance troup that had come down from Arnhem Land in Northern Territory.
It is a simple instrument and easy to play badly but to master it is a significant challenge as the students attempting to follow along were discovering.
The Green Man hypothesised that his musical ability on the yidaki would probably be equivalent to his musical ability on western instruments and accordingly did everyone a favour by not even attempting to play one.
There was also an area where flint knapping was being taught and this was much more to The Green Mans inclination however it never seemed to be happening at a convenient time. Never mind, next festival perhaps.
If this had been organised whites the place would have been marked out and stall holders would have been organised into where they were supposed to go and what facilities they had etc. Here everyone seemed to arrive when they felt like it, set up where they wanted to and help themselves to whatever facilities they could lay their hands upon. There was no stress, no tempers, everything seemed to get set up and the whole thing ran at least as smoothly as a more "organised" event. This lack of angst was perhaps the most striking cultural difference. Even though there was a large number of people in attendance the whole event had a languid relaxed feel, everyone had time to stop for a chat. It makes such a pleasant change from existing in a highly organised society that is bristling with rules and expectations.
The web site for Taungurung Clans is now up and running. Visit it here.
Well solar flares may be interesting but not as interesting as intergalactic battles.
Lara Croft has done wonders for the sci-fi community. There was a time where the most excitement you could find in the bar at DragonCon was an informed discussion on the dangers of light-speed with a wookie.
The tomb raider has changed all that. Suddenly the chances of scoring with someone possessing the usual number of human appendages in the correct places and who is FEMALE have sky-rocketed.
Here we see Gen. Veers laying a line on one of the Lara Crofts who, to the annoyance of several Leias, were in high demand at the bar of the downtown Atlanta Hyatt Regency.
Somewhere upward of 20,000 fans descend on Atlanta for this event every year, filling three massive hotels to share everything from their comic-book collections and home-brewed Lord of the Rings fan fiction to gigantic Transformer costumes they've spent months creating for the Masquerade Ball contest
You have missed Dragcon for this year however you can put their web site on your favourites for next year. www.dragoncon.org
Hard as it is to imagine now, within the lifetime of most of the readers of The Green Man (less than 40 years ago) Australian Aboriginals were not recognised as citizens of Australia. They were not allowed to own property and any money they earned was administered on their behalf by whites.
In 1966 Vincent Lingiari and other members of the Gurindji worked at Wave Hill Station 600kms south of Darwin in the service of Lord Vestey. Lord Vestey, known as Lord Spam to his friends, was at the time one of the wealthiest men in the world, owning land in Australia, South Africa and South America. His business was the production of beef for the world market. One of the ways that he got so rich, presumeably, was by utilising workers who he did not have to pay. Before 1968 it was illegal to pay an Indigenous worker more than a specified amount in goods and money.
Not only did the Gurindji work on his outback station whilst receiving practically no payment, (salt, beef, bread and tobacco, and six dollars a week at a time when average weekly earnings were around $90 per week) government benefits for which Lord Vestey's Gurindji employees were eligible were paid into Lord Vestey's account.
Vincent Lingiari had had enough and lead a walk out, literally. The Gurindji walked off Wave Hill to Wattie Creek and there they camped. Initially it was dismissed as a stunt and the general consensus was that they had no chance against one of the wealthiest men in the world.
This was not a strike that was born of a minor grievance, these people had been robbed of their land and, to add insult to injury, they were being used as virtual slaves to exploit it. From an initial dissatisfaction with their conditions the Gurindji the grievances soon crystalised on the issue of land, they wanted some of theirs back. They were convinced of their cause and determined to see it through.
To quote Vincent Lingiari
They said, "Hey! You're stealing another man's country." And I said, "Well, what was before Lord Vestey born and I born? It was blackfella country."
For eight years they sat at Wattie Creek. As the years past their determination transformed them into national matyrs. Frank Hardy, a local author and activist picked up their cause and ensured that it was kept in the press. They were a festering sore on the side of Australia's indigenous policy. International attention became more prominent as each year past until in 1975 the government finally took a small but significant step in recognising the human rights of the Gurindji and their right to the land that their ancestors had occupied for 40,000 years.
I will leave Kev Carmody to finish the story.
The Whitlam Government started to, like, negotiate with Vesteys to get a portion of the Gurindji land back for them. The conclusion was, in 1975 it was symbolically handed back. You'll notice Gough pulls the old man's hand up because he can't see too well. The old man...he doesn't smile when Gough lifts his hand up. As soon as that sand hits his hand, you can see he grinned. "Got 'em!" (Laughs) "I got it." There's a painting done by Peter Hudson. It's Vincent Lingiari, it's Frank Hardy at a typewriter, and it's me standing there with no shirt on, and Paul Kelly. You know, the painting does depict the people that have told this story. And it's about a remarkable struggle led by a remarkable man.
Paul Kelly wrote a song this epic struggle and Kev Carmody sang it. I have included the lyrics below. If you enjoy Kev Carmody's singing and want a copy of the song then click on the album to buy it.
Gather round people let me tell you're a story
An eight year long story of power and pride
British Lord Vestey and Vincent Lingiarri
Were opposite men on opposite sides
Vestey was fat with money and muscle
Beef was his business, broad was his door
Vincent was lean and spoke very little
He had no bank balance, hard dirt was his floor
From little things big things grow
From little things big things grow
Gurindji were working for nothing but rations
Where once they had gathered the wealth of the land
Daily the pressure got tighter and tighter
Gurindju decided they must make a stand
They picked up their swags and started off walking
At Wattie Creek they sat themselves down
Now it don't sound like much but it sure got tongues talking
Back at the homestead and then in the town
From little things big things grow
From little things big things grow
Vestey man said I'll double your wages
Seven quid a week you'll have in your hand
Vincent said uhuh we're not talking about wages
We're sitting right here till we get our land
Vestey man roared and Vestey man thundered
You don't stand the chance of a cinder in snow
Vince said if we fall others are rising
From little things big things grow
From little things big things grow
Then Vincent Lingiarri boarded an aeroplane
Landed in Sydney, big city of lights
And daily he went round softly speaking his story
To all kinds of men from all walks of life
And Vincent sat down with big politicians
This affair they told him is a matter of state
Let us sort it out, your people are hungry
Vincent said no thanks, we know how to wait
From little things big things grow
From little things big things grow
Then Vincent Lingiarri returned in an aeroplane
Back to his country once more to sit down
And he told his people let the stars keep on turning
We have friends in the south, in the cities and towns
Eight years went by, eight long years of waiting
Till one day a tall stranger appeared in the land
And he came with lawyers and he came with great ceremony
And through Vincent's fingers poured a handful of sand
From little things big things grow
From little things big things grow
That was the story of Vincent Lingairri
But this is the story of something much more
How power and privilege can not move a people
Who know where they stand and stand in the law
From little things big things grow
From little things big things grow
From little things big things grow
From little things big things grow
This is more the domain of Signposts but for some bizarre reason it caught my interest.
Professor Bradley Mclean of biblical studies at Knox College, University of Toronto has been musing on why Theology and Classical Biblical Studies are suffering intellectually and he proposes that the problem arises because academics
use the same basic paradigm handed down to us by 19th-century historicism and romanticism without questioning this approach. We forget that the conditions, social biases and political pressure of the times that these intellectuals lived in colour the way they looked at classical and religious knowledge
further he says
The reason biblical and classical studies have had difficulty attracting the curiosity of the media and the general public is that we as scholars don't realize that the way we approach these subjects was abandoned by so many other researchers in other fields of study such as linguistics, psychology and philosophy. The manner in which we study the classics and biblical texts should have died a natural death the way it did in other fields in the early 20th century but, curiously, it didn't.
The result of this is that these classical studies have lost their connection with the real world and society generally regards studies in these areas to be limited to religious fanaticism rather than intellectual pursuit, which after all, should be underlying tenet of all academic activity.
Obviously this point of view will offend those clinging to, what he terms, "reverential antiquarianism" and there will be much angst and conflict if studies in these areas are to be aligned with current academic practice and to regain the relevance to society generally.
Tribal drumming at the National Folk Festival in Canberra. Hang on what are all those women doing in there. Isn't drumming secret mens business. geeeze these new age women, can't keep their noses out of anything.
Thursday night the The National Folk Festival was opened in an auspicious fashion this year with chanting by Buddhist Monks fresh from Tibet and unsullied by western decadence. Each morning of the festival a session was held of chanting and meditation at the luxurious time of 9:30am. (Perhaps they had become a fraction sullied afterall, in Tibet these sort of things usually happen at 5:30am)
On the first morning The Green Man showed up at 9:30 only to find that there was an exceptionally large number of festival goers wishing to subject themselves to the lower body pain that invariably accompanies a westerner sitting cross-legged on the floor for half an hour. Never mind it was time to squash up with the other attendees and focus. (There were some chairs but these were long gone)
Pick an object and focus. When your mind wanders bring it back to the object and your mind will wander because you have weak western minds.
These were our instructions however I am not sure everyone entirely grasped the concept because the woman sitting next to me was focusing on her program deciding what she wanted to go to next.
There are, of course, a select group of people who seem to be almost exclusively women, some middle aged but mostly in their early 20's who are completely awed by the experience. It is mildly amusing since most seem not to have a clue what it all means but are confident it must be deeply spiritual, which indeed it is.
Click here for a sample of the chanting, it is from the gelug chanting tradition.
All that aside and, apart from being a bit naughty and spending some time observing the other participants, The Green Man found it a refreshing way to start the day even if it did take an hour or so for the legs to start working normally again. It did however clash with the Poets breakfast which meant that GMs usual sport of presenting poems that take the piss out of the bush poets had to be abandoned this year.
After the chanting it was off to the mandala for the monks. The mandala is constructed from coloured sands which the monks apply using finely tapered bronze funnels. It takes about 240 monk hours to construct and at the end it is swept away. It symbolises the impermanence of things.
Prior to the arrival of the europeans Australian Aboriginal technology was one of the simplest in the world. This image intrigued me purely because of the juxtaposition of the simple with the complex.
If you would like to hear something of what it sounded like here is a clip from Yothu Yindi.
"The time had come" The Green Man said "to speak of many things, mostly aboriginal"
And where better to do it than Camp Jungai. So it was that The Green Man abandoned the blog to the comment spammers for the weekend (490 comments over the two days) and headed off light of spirit to the said Camp Jungai. Along with the usual cultural activities that The Green Man indulges in, such as, eating far too much and reading the newspaper, there was a notable high point on the weekend which was a talk by the lovely Dr Jane Lydon on early photography of aboriginals, particularly at Coranderrk Aboriginal Reserve.
Below is a photo entitled "The Yarra Tribe Starting For Acheron, 1862" by Charles Walter.
What makes this photo so interesting is that it is a set piece depicting a story. Photography was only about 20 years old at this stage and this style of photography did not become common until quite some years later. It is distinguished from the other photos in the collection by this characteristic and Dr Jane asserts that the reason for this is probably that it was orchestrated by the aboriginals themselves. She suggests that in exchange for posing for the more portrait style photographs that make up the rest of the collection the photographer, Charles Walter, agreed to take one whose composition was determined by the aboriginal group.
This photo gives us a glimpse of early aboriginals utilising a new media to represent a story in a similar manner to the approach that they used in their paintings on bark.
To the left is a drawing of two spirit people drawn in 1918 by an unknown aboriginal artist. It is easy to see the extension of this approach to depicting characters and stories to the photo they composed above.
On the left of the composition is Simon Wonga who is leading the expedition. Third from the left is a Mr Green who was the white overseer of the Coranderrk Reserve and was accorded a position of authority by Simon but he was not leading. A second row can just be seen behind the first which is a row of women who had their own line with their own hierarchy.
I will post more on this topic since I am greatly interested in it and so, naturally, all of you will be as well.
150 years ago today the Eureka Stockade was stormed but government troops.
S.D.S Huyghue, Eureka Stockade 1882, watercolour
Collection: Ballarat Fine Art Gallery
30 miners and 3 troopers died. It was generally considered that the government response was an over-reaction and that a negotiated resolution would have been possible. Thirteen of the ring leaders were charged with Treason but were subsequently found innocent at trial.
The brutality of the government response engendered a wave of support for the miners and the principal instigator, Peter Lalor, was subsequently elected to parliament where he served as a member of the conservative government for many years.
Read more about Peter Lalor in Eureka Times
Visit the home of the excellent watercolour above, the Ballarat Fine Art Gallery
Spies for Resident Gold Commissioner, Robert Rede, report to him that the rebels have constructed a stockade at Eureka consisting of timbers whose original purpose was support poles for the mines. Within this stockade had assembled a band of rebel who declared that they would resist any further attempt to collect mining taxes.
The rebels, whilst fired with enthusiasm and bravado, are largely a disorganised bunch and little real preparation is made to organise their defences or to plan for an attack by the authorities.
At 11:00am on November 30th, 1854 the Southern Cross, the flag of the Eureka rebellion, was raised for the first time on Bakery Hill in Ballarrat.
At the same time in Melbourne, 150 years later descendants of those rebels raised the flag on Melbournes largest flagpole at Haymarket. The picture above is of Glenn Withers and his great-great-great-grand mother, Anastasia Withers. Anastasia was one of the women who sewed the first flag.
At a mass meeting on Bakery Hill on Wednesday, November 29, 1854 the blue "Southern Cross" flag flew for the first time behind the speakers. The Reform League’s delegates reported their failure to obtain any undertakings from Governor Hotham, other than the promise of a Commission of Enquiry, which was perhaps seen as a delaying tactic. With the patience of the miners running out, and the mood of moderation beginning to darken, the meeting voted in favour of burning licences and general resistance to the arrest of unlicensed miners. So it was that the miners of Ballarrat rose up against the unjust taxes, in the form of mining licences, that the government of the fledgeling State of Victoria was imposing upon them and one of the most defining periods in Australian history began.
Today, 150 years later, the descendants of the protagonists of this battle, that resulted in the death of 22 miners on the Eureka Stockade and 4 Government troopers, look back on this defining moment in Australian history.
Most countries can point to civil wars that killed thousands of soldiers and civilians as defining moments in their history. For Australia this, relatively minor skirmish was the defining moment in our nationhood. It distinguishes us from England that seeded our caucasian population and from the jingoism of America. Whilst Australia has been present at most major wars, we are not a nation that values conflict or looks to war as a solution to our problems. The leader of the Eureka rebellion, Peter Lalor (that is his descendant on the left), was later elected and represented the interests of the disaffected miners in the Victorian parliament. Like so few countries we settled our differences by largely peaceful and democratic processes. Perhaps the most precious aspect of Australian culture, and one thing that distinguishes us in the world, is our reluctance to resort to violence to address internal conflicts.
Australians also have a distinct distrust of authority that lives on from this time. With the current ethical and moral standards demonstrated by the worlds most powerful individuals it is hard to see how this is such a bad thing.
For those of you who are completely ignorant of the Eureka rebellion, there is a consise summary here.
Some time ago The Green Man posted an article on Stonehenge and the angst that had developed between conservators and modern Druids over the useage of the site, see here.
Jenny Blain, who is one of the authors of the study that was quoted has emailed The Green Man. This is a disconcerting experience and necessitates a quick trip back to the article to see what was actually written. Fortunately it was a sensible post, unlike a significant number of them, and she did not email to complain. She wrote to draw attention to a web site that details research on sacred sites that dot the British countryside, it is called Sacred Sites.
Much of the readership of The Green Man have some of their ancient ancestry in Britian. If want to understand yourself more fully, you would do well to acquaint yourself with this ancient component of who you are.
This is a Gothic Cathedral, actually it is Milan's Duomo, big isn't it. The original Gothic Cathedrals were built in the 12th century and they are amazing feats of technology for that period. These massive structures were constructed without any significant mechanisation. You might wonder how it was acheived and the answer is similar to that of the pyramids. They were community efforts. Although there were paid artisans working on these projects they would not have been completed with large amounts of voluntary labour by the wider community.
Now skip forward to the present day and you may think that this sense of community endeavour has gone out the window. This is not so however, it has meerly changed its form. The public are still willing to band together on a voluntary basis to assist projects as long as they meet certain clear criteria.
Yochai Benkler, an expert on information and intellectual property at Yale Law School, Connecticut believes that if a project is viewed and being "for the public good" and there is no clear beneficiary other than the public then there is no shortage of willing helpers, even in todays cynical society. He sites Project Gutenberg, which is creating an ever-growing, searchable online library of copyright-free books. So far 12,000 books have been scanned, OCR'd and proof read by volunteers who receive no recognition or reward other than knowing that they are contributing to society.
There is immense power in community and others are looking at how they can harness it. Scientific endeavours have over recent years become increasingly marginalised from the mainstream community. Scientists work seeming to be so specialised that only fellow specialists are capable of contributing. New research however is showing that the "collective consciousness" is proving to be as powerful, if not more so, than individual thought of these specialists. NASA instigated a project called Clickworkers in which volunteers were given a small amount of training then ask to classify craters that were identified on photos from Mars.
NASA found that
the automatically computed consensus of a large number of clickworkers is virtually indistinguishable from the inputs of a geologist with years of experience in identifying Mars craters
or, to put it another way, the collective opinion of a large number of amateurs was just as good as that of an expert. Now other scientific organisations are looking at how they can utilise this phenonemon to their advantage.
Interestingly this is arising out of the America where the general assumption is that the almighty dollar rules. It seems that even in this highly comercial environment "community good" is still a powerful force.
If you would like to read more on this phenonemon then on the right is a link to a book called The Wisdom of Crowds: Why the Many Are Smarter Than the Few and How Collective Wisdom Shapes Business, Economies, Societies and Nations by James Surowiecki. You can also read more in Nature.
It was 8:30pm, pitch black, and torrential rain created long silver streaks in the high beam lights of the car as we sped along the narrow strip of bitumen that is typical of roads in the Victorian high country. In these conditions familiarity with the road is impossible, your world is blackness, rain and the hundred or so feet of bitumen you can see in front of you. There are no lights in the distance to provide context or to hint at progress. After some time, out of the blackness, a roadside sign takes form. It is rust coloured sign and signals our departure from the bitumen.
We find the dirt track awash with the torrential rain and barely visible. It is our first time up here in the 4WD and the “sure footedness” of the new car feels comforting in these appalling conditions. Easing our way across the small bridge that spans the flooded Rubicon River we pull in Jungai Camp for a weekend of cold, rain and aboriginal culture.
This is Taungurung country, in the heart of the Victorian highlands, in the depths of winter. The hills are shrouded in cloud and a steady drenching rain keeps at least a centimetre of water over all but the steepest sections of ground. It is a very normal winter scene in the high country, the environment in which the Taunurung lived for thousands of years in simple bark shelters and wearing nothing but the occasional animal skin.
It is a testament to their survival skills and resilience that they survived here. I would not stand much of a chance dressed like that out in these conditions, nor would the Taungurung of today probably. Not to worry, along with me, they are cocooned in the warmth of Camp Jungai talking of archaeological surveys, land rights and the preservation of language and culture. This was a much more intellectual effort than our last trip here, which was about art, music and dance. It is still important stuff but not so much fun, never the less, it is impressive the progress being made in reconstructing the language.
The group has been working with a linguist and through extensive research the basic nouns of the language are being uncovered and documented but there is still such a long way to go.
Even creatures as quitessentially evil as the Daleks have a creator. They arose from the mind of Terry Nation who originally pitted them against Dr Who, beaten but not eliminated they lurked in the dark corners of the galaxy waiting for their next opportunity to attack.
It seemed that that was not going to be in the near future because the BBC appeared to have lost its battle with the estate of their, now deceased, creator. Unfortunately for Dr Who, and fortunately for the sci-fi viewing public, the dispute has now been settled and the Daleks have commenced the planning of their next attack.
The Green Man anxiously awaits their blasting their way back onto the ABC in the near future.
As readers of the earlier entries on the topic of old Australian songs will know. The early Australian society was characterised by injustice and corruption. Those in power were often more vilianous than the convicts that were transported. So it was that many of the early folk songs took the side of the outlaw bushrangers, portraying them as heroic. The Wild Colonial Boy is one such song.
There was a wild Colonial Boy,
Jack Doolan was his name,
Of poor but honest parents,
He was born in Castlemaine.
He was his father's only hope
His mother's pride and joy,
And dearly did his parents love
The Wild Colonial Boy.
Chorus
So come away me hearties
We'll roam the mountains high,
Together we will plunder
And together we will die.
We'll scour along the valleys
And we'll gallop or'er the plains,
And scorn to live in slavery,
Bound down by iron chains.
At the age of sixteen years
He left his native home,
And to Australia's sunny shores
A bushranger did roam.
They put him in the iron gang
In the government employ,
But never an iron on earth could hold
The Wild Colonial Boy
In sixty-one this daring youth
Commenced his wild career,
With a heart that knew no danger
And no foreman did he fear.
He stuck up the Beechworth mail coach
And robbed Judge MacEvoy
Who, trembling cold, gave up his gold
To the Wild Colonial Boy
He bade the Judge good morning
And he told him to beware,
That he'd never rob a needy man
Or one who acted square,
But a Judge who'd robed a mother
Of her one and only joy
Sure, he must be a worse outlaw than
The Wild Colonial Boy
One day as Jack was riding
The mountainside along,
A- listening to the little birds
Their happy laughing song.
Three mounted troopers came along,
Kelly, Davis and Fitzroy
With a warrant for the capture of
The Wild Colonial Boy.
'Surrender now! Jack Doolan,
For you see it's three to one;
Surrender in the Queen's own name,
You are a highwayman.'
Jack drew his pistol from his belt
And waved it like a toy,
'I'll fight, but not surrender,' cried
The Wild Colonial Boy.
He fired at trooper Kelly
And brought him to the ground,
And in return from Davis,
Received a mortal wound,
All shattered through the jaws he lay
Still firing at Fitzroy,
And that's the way they captured him,
The Wild Colonial Boy.
This is the first in a series of posts to place a record of a collection of Australian folk songs on the net. These precious parts of our culture are becoming lost and The Green Man believes that should not happen.
The Streets of Forbes
Come all you Lachlan men, and a sorrowful tale I'll tell
Concerning of a hero bold who through misfortune fell
His name it was Ben Hall, a man of good renown
Who was hunted from his station, and like a dog shot down.
Three years he roamed the roads, and he showed the traps some fun
A thousand pounds was on his head, with Gilbert and John Dunn
Ben parted from his comrades, the outlaws did agree
To give away bushranging and to cross the briny sea.
Ben went to Goobang Creek, and that was his downfall
For riddled like a sieve was valiant Ben Hall
'Twas early in the morning upon the fifth of May
When seven police surrounded him as fast asleep he lay.
Bill Dargin he was chosen to shoot the outlaw dead
The troopers then fired madly, and filled him full of lead
They rolled him in a blanket and strapped him to his prad
And led him through the streets of Forbes to show the prize they had.
(traditional)
Colloquialisms
Traps - Police
Prad - Horse
Station - Ranch
And, for those Christians amongst the readership who think there has been far to much pagan talk at The Green Man today, Happy Feast of St John The Baptist.
Like most other pagan festivals the early Christians deemed it expedient to replace it with a Christian one rather than try and eliminate it, which had proved singularly unsuccessful when they tried. St John The Baptist got the guernsey for Summer Solstice.
The Green Man being a pagan icon himself and today being a day of such significance in the pagan year it is appropriate to dwell on things of stone and wood.
Everyone has heard of Stonehenge of course. It is the defining symbol of pagan Briton however, 
although it is the most dramatic, it is just one of the giant pagan relics that dot the British country-side. We don't understand the full meaning of many of these sites but their presence defies our attempts to ignore our pagan past.
A mere 20 miles across the Salisbury Plane from Stonehenge lies the little township of Avebury. It has been constructed within one of the largest stone circles in England. The ring is 26 acres in area.
Stone circles appear throughout Briton stretching as far north as the Orkneys at the top of Scotland. Here is a photo of Ring O Brodgar
Made somewhat famous by Billy Connolly dancing naked around it in excellent TV series "Billy Connolly's World Tour of Scotland". The ring itself is in the distance with the "Comet Stone" in the foreground. This stone is on a raised mound and is thought to have formed part of a processional entrance to the ring itself. The term "Comet Stone" is thought to be a corruption of "Cummistane" meaning mound stone in the ancient language of the area. This itself derives from the ancient Norse word of "Kumi" also meaning mound. Read more on Orkney's prehistory here.
If you are in the UK then why not hunt out some in your area. Here is a map to all the megalith sites and there are thousands.
Today is the Winter Solstice in the southern hemisphere, which means that it is the Summer Solstice in the northern hemisphere. So it is then that the thoughts of all good English pagans are bent towards the most defining symbol of English paganism, Stonehenge. By any persons standard this is a magnificent piece of human engineering and one that would have taken religious devotion to erect with the technology that was available at the time. I defy anyone with any degree of spirituality to stand amongst those Sarsens and not feel filled with awe.
Many come to marvel at this ancient temple but at the summer solstice it is the true domain of modern day pagans. Their worship at the site is somewhat contentious however and the fundamental disconnect that underlies this contentiousness is whether it is a historic ruin, the English Heritage view, or a living embodiment of pagan and druidic culture.
Summer Solstice is a big day for pagan celebrations and for many years modern day Druids were allowed access to the site to perform rituals on this day. This however is not a practice that has continued uninterrupted through the millennia. The modern Druids have reconstructed their religion based on some facts and some creativity. This lack of continuity has meant that their practices have been discredited by the mainstream community. This is, of course, incredibly presumptuous of the mainstream community since all religious practices had to start at some time and as such all current religious practices of the mainstream religions could be equally discredited.
Concerns by English Heritage that the Druids were damaging the site have lead to banning of them. This is somewhat like preventing Christians from entering York Minster at Easter because of the historical significance of the building and arises because English Heritage views the site as an archaeological ruin whereas the Druids view it as a working temple. Given that the Druids view Stonehenge this way it seems logical that they would want to preserve it and protect it and generally speaking this is, in fact, the case. So both sides of the debate are deeply interesting in the preservation of the site. The main obstacle is that the conservative elements view the Druids as a bunch of new-age whackos and the Druids view the conservatives as narrow minded middle-class propeller-heads. Dr Jenny Blain of Sheffield Hallam University and Dr Robert Wallis of Richmond University are undertaking some excellent work in connecting these two groups to achieve the objective of preserving the historical significance of the site whilst recognising its religious significance to modern day pagans.
Once again the real issue at stake is respect for the diversity of the community. When groups are prepared to accept that others have different views and beliefs from themselves and are prepared to accommodate these differences then workable solutions that satisfy all parties are usually achievable.
Read more of the work of Drs Blain & Wallis here.
Are people who live in Melbourne, Australia more intelligent that most other people? Of course we are, hey that's why we live here. The Green Man thinks he knows why. Melbourne is an extremely racially diverse, multicultural city and recent research by Stanford Institute for Higher Education Research reveals that this does wonders for the intellect. They say
students who had more racially diverse friends and classmates tended to show even higher levels of thinking, suggesting that long-term exposure to racial diversity may be even more beneficial to higher-order thought than is immediate immersion in a diverse environment
I know the sentence is a bit long and complicated but I am sure you non-Melbournites can work it out.
Ask an Australian teenager to name their current Australian heros and I am guessing that John Howard won't feature particularly frequently in their response. Further, if you were to categorise the responses I am thinking that one of the categories that won't be too heavily utilised is "Politician". I say this based on the fact that our current opinion of politicians is that they only just less honourable and honest than used-car salesmen.
In fact, the youth of today is fundamentally disinterested in politics, so are most of their parents actually.
This was not always the case. Political figures used to be seen in somewhat the same light as football stars or Olympic athletes are today. Angela McShane-Jones of the University of Warwick says
In the 17th century the general public- and especially young people- really cared about parliamentary politics, so much so that they sang about political events and figures all the time. Political issues appealed not just to young people's heads but also to their hearts.
The interesting bit about this is that the leaders of the day were equally prone to dialiances with the fairer sex and other social misdemeanors as prominant people are today. The public were generally prepared to overlook these faults in their heros however, pretty much the way the public does today with sporting figures like Shane Warne
The fact that we are not prepared to overlook these things in our politicians indicates that they no longer hold hero status in the hearts of the Australian (or American/British/Canadian etc) citizens. It is interesting to ponder why that is. If anything they are more powerful now and have greatly improved communications facilities to get this message to their subjects. The Green Man suggests that it is because, unlike todays sporting heros and 17th century politicians, they no longer lead from the front. If the public were to see Howard or Bush in Iraq, going out on a patrol to get first hand experience of what they were expecting from our soldiers, sharing, if only in some small, temporary way, the risks that the soldiers were experiencing then perhaps their score on the hero meter may move off the bottom of the scale.
As it is we see them both too scared to even announce their trips to Iraq, flying in with the lights turned off on the plane, restricting themselves to the safest of environments and the briefest of visits. They both behaved in a cowardly manner, more concerned with their own safety than that of their troops. Where is there anything for young people to hero worship in that?
Read more of the 17th Century political climate here.
There are some amongst us that believe in the absolute and literal truth of The Bible. The Green Man has always found this a somewhat difficult concept to embrace if you are talking about an English version since it is a translation and, as such, is filtered through the values and prejudices of the person(s) translating it. The counter argument, of course, is that the translators were divinely inspired to create a true and accurate translation.
Whether or not this is true, all those who fall into this camp be thankful that Peachtree Editorial and Proofreading are as good at their job as they are. Those who also happen to be mathematicians will be relieved that they do not have to give up their profession, the call to an end to "fractions" being corrected by Peachtree to an end to "factions".
This and numerous other typos have been assiduously smote by Peachtree from the Holman Christian Standard Bible, a recently completed $20 million project, retranslating The Bible from the original mixure of ancient Greek, Aramaic and Hebrew.
Unlike the 1631 King James edition, the Holman Christian Standard Bible does not contain the commandment
"Thou shalt commit adultery."
It seems that revealing all to a security guard in America is quite OK (see here) but revealing somewhat less in Canne is an entirely different story, particularly if you happen to be the daughter of a US presidential candidate.
Alexandra Kerry, a 30-year-old filmmaker and actress, demonstrated that high tech imaging hardware and software is not always necessary when seeking to espy some things that are ostensibly covered. A camera with a high powered flash may be all that's required. In the home of the topless beach this is nothing of course but back in the good old USA it is causing quite a cufuffle.
Most understandably President Bush is extremely concerned with this unexpected turn of attention towards his opposition. The Green Man notes that GWBs twin daughters are joining his campaign. Perhaps we can expect a double barrel response to this threat, or is that a quadruple barrel.
Saturday evening at Camp Jungai was a time for the budding didg players to demonstrate their skill. The didg seems one of those instruments that is easy to get started on but takes a long time to perfect. Consequently there were some impressive first attempts demonstrated.
It was also the time for some aboriginal dancing. A number of the kids had been practicing dances during the day and it was time to demonstrate.
This part of the event was like any event where you have kids performing. It is entertaining to see children demonstrating their new found skills but The Green Man found his attention wandering. That was, of course, until one of the female elders announced that the women would be dancing next. Now for those of you who don't know, Aboriginal women always dance topless. Strangely The Green Man's attention was drawn rapidly back to the dancing.
I don't know how it happened but the dancing peetered out before the women got a chance to dance, unfortunate that.
The other great success story of recent times has been aboriginal art. Obscenely large amounts of money have been paid for selected works. Sadly little of it went to the artists themselves. Anyway, enough of that, art was on the agenda of activities for the camp and we all eagerly embraced it.
Australia is a vast land where and there were approximately 700 different aboriginal nations at the time of Western colonisation. Some aspects, such as the didgeridoo seem to have been consistent across these however painting developed different styles in different parts of Australia. Much of this regional specialisation has been lost through the general attitude of white Australians to see aboriginals as a homogenous group.
More research needs to be done into the specific characteristics of the paintings of the Taungurong. Whatever they were they are now being blended with the symbolism of central Australian aboriginals such as the Papunya. This is not necessarily a bad thing, I once learnt American Indian tribal painting from an elderly American Indian painter who was quite indignant that the whites were insisting that the Indian culture remain static, as it was in the days of the wild west. As he correctly pointed out, it is still a living culture and, as such, is still growing and evolving. The same can be said for comtemporary Australian aboriginal culture.
One interesting aspect of the camp was how everyone was so willing to have a go at things. Even adolescent boys who would traditionally view such activities as something less than manly were getting involved with drawing designs and painting them.
The upper painting is the work of The Green Man and the lower by Mrs Green Man. Hers looks a more traditional aboriginal effort but then she is aboriginal.
If you would like to have a go yourself then you will need to understand the symbols that are used. The painting are generally intended to tell a story, as all good paintings should. Below you will see a set of the commonly used symbols and their meanings. As indicated earlier these are central Australian in origin, from the Papunya mob.
Grab a canvas and some acrylic paints, think of a story and get stuck into it. It is immensely good fun.
The didgeridoo, known more commonly now as a “didg”, is an iconic component of the aboriginal culture in Australia. Interestingly the didg is in not danger of dying out because the world community has embraced it an instrument. It is a sad state of our indigenous culture however that there are more didg players in Germany, for example, than there are in Australia.
Never-the-less it is an important component of aboriginal culture and it featured during the weekend at Camp Jungai. Here is a photo of Troy Melvil, a Taungurong member, giving a demonstration to a group of eager young students and a couple of the eager young students with their PVC pipe equivalents giving it all they’ve got.
Of course kids will be kids and these days aboriginal culture, like the broader Australian culture, is blended with the world of TV and movies. Accordingly the PVC pipes served as an excellent beginners didg and as a light-sabre during breaks in the didg practice.
Camp Jungai is situated approximately 100kms north of Melbourne (on the way to lake Eildon for you Melbourneites) and its function is the preservation and promotion of aboriginal culture. Situated in a natural bush setting in the heart of Taungurong country it is a place where current aboriginals can work at maintaining and teaching their cultural traditions and others can come to learn more about the original occupants of Victoria.
We are here because Mrs GreenMan has a member of Taungurong as an ancestor and, as such, is one herself. The weekend is one for her to catch up with family, learn more about Taungurong and become more involved with the aboriginal community generally. The Green Man has no aboriginal blood himself but, as regular readers will know, is generally interested in culture and viewed it as a potentially enlightening and entertaining weekend. (besides he was told he had to go)
The weekend was a laid back affair and excellent break for modern city hurly burly. Situated on the banks of the Rubicon River, Jungai is 120 hectares and has that quiet unhurried feel about it. I am sure it is chaotic when there is a school group in but for our weekend there was only about 30 present and it was pleasantly peaceful and relaxing.
Before western colonisation the Taungurong mob owned much of the land of central Victoria, from Healesville in the south to near Shepparton in the north. Stretching west to Bendigo and east into East Gippsland around Falls Creek. To say they were decimated by the white colonisers would be an understatement, “centimated” would be more appropriate, if such a word existed. To compound this problem, for many years it was seen as very undesirable to be aboriginal and many children were told they were of Indian or Polynesian descent rather than aboriginal. In spite of these obstacles there is great enthusiasm and a great deal of effort going into preserving the Taungurong heritage and traditions. The weekend was a chance to experience some of these.
Well it seems that Janet Jackson is not the only one to have taken to flopping out the right breast in public.
The erstwhile Miss Piggy here is never one to be left out in the cold, like the said breast.
Both Janet and Miss Piggy however are just keeping alive a tradition that stretches back through the centuries. Accordingly to The University of Warwick it is a practice that was quite the rage in the 1600's, particularly amongst the nobility, female nobility that is.
They report that it was seen as a bit over the top to have both hanging out but one was not only acceptable but quite the thing to do. Of course the queen was allowed to have both out and it is reported that Queen Mary II, wife of William of Orange, quite frequently had both out. She is depicted this way in numerous woodcuts from the time. This did not seem, however, to interfer with her being regarded as a modest and virtuous Queen.
Read more of breasts through history at The University of Warwick. Strangely there are few illustrations.
Miss Piggy comes courtesy of Worth 1000, an admirable photoshop site.
Morris dancing is a big feature of the National Folk Festival and, as usual, there were a number of Morris troupes performing. Danced in sets, Morris dancing dates from mediaeval times.
Like most ancient culture it is mixed in origin and the exact details are lost. Clearly, however, there are pagan/pre-Christian influences, encapsulating, as it does, the symbolism of spring and fertility rites. As I have mentioned in earlier posts, The Green Man himself frequently features as part of the troupe, although his role is typically a disruptive one. One of the interesting aspects of ancient culture is its embracing of the anarchy of natural forces as an integral part of life. Today we like to live under the illusion that we live in a controlled and manageable world and an illusion it is. Whilst we have more control over our environment that our predecessors we are still at the mercy of the natural world and our refusal to accept that make the random misfortunes of nature harder to accept.
Anyway I have drifted off the topic, which is Morris. The Molonglo Mayhem Morris site points to the term “Morris” arising from a corruption of “Moorish” dancing, a suggestion that it may have been introduced to England by the Moors in 15th century. The England of this time was a vast land not connected by high-speed motor ways. Consequently, following its introduction, Morris evolved and developed local character in the various regions that adopted it.
Molonglo Mayhem, a Canberra based Morris troupe, adopt a version from the Welsh border region which is characterised by highly coloured rags attached to their clothing, painted faces, and comical hats. This is perhaps the wildest style of Morris although the dances themselves do not differ greatly from the generic style.
By contrast, the Victorian troupe Brandragon adopt a North-West County style. Dressed in green and red they reflect a forest influence. In the left of the photo you can see a variation of the disruptive character that is typically played by The Green Man. Unlike other forms of Morris, which use raw sticks that are bashed together, usually disintegrating over the period of the festival, Brandragon use more stylised half hoops and sticks. These are decorated with forest motifs like ivy and leaves.
The more commonly recognised appearance of a Morris dancer is in white with straw boater hats adorned with garlands of flowers representing the spring and fertility themes typical of Morris. This style of dress was represented at the festival by the Victorian group, Britannia Morris Men and the Adelaide Morris Men.
Yes, there will be a lot more serious post about Morris Men at the festival. They are a big feature there and worthy of some consideration. This, however, is the tivial post on Morris, since I am still working on the serious one.
It has been said that Morris is the most fun you can have standing up, particularly if you have a bad back and that unusual sexual position we have all read about is beyond you.
This is the Adelaide Morris Men hard at it at the festival this year. Hmmm it looks like thirsty work. The Adelaide Morris Men clearly agree. Here is a photo taken some 20 minutes later.
What's not to like about Morris, daggy clothes, hitting with sticks, and copious consumption of beer. This is The Green Man's idea of fun.
In a move that is guaranteed to upset those US citizens that have taken Mel Gibson's "The Passion of The Christ" far too seriously, Monty Python's film The Life of Brian is to return to US cinemas next month.
Still the United States is a diverse nation and I am sure that there is a subset of its citizenry that have a good sense of humour and will find this movie extremely funny. The Life of Brian follows a Jewish character from Nazareth who is worshipped as the Messiah then crucified by Romans. It's original released was marked by claims that it was blasphemous however the producers have always maintained that it was satirising religious films not the Christian religion. Which, of course, is precisely why it is being rereleased now.
The president of the films distribution company Rainbow, Henry Jaglom said:
We decided this is an important time to re-release this film, to provide some counter-programming to The Passion.
Trailers for the comedy would start to appear in cinemas on Good Friday, hmmmm.
Via BBC
Well I am back after a loooong weekend at the Port Fairy Folk Festival. A venue where a significant percentage of the audience actually know of The Green Man myth.
Happily this year it shedded some of the rigid authoritarianism that had crept in over the last few years. The security guards were a lot less obnoxious this year and generally the festival was better for it.
It was a big weekend with the consumption of The Green Man's annual quota of Guiness and very loud music of the Celtic variety in the Guiness tent. It is good to get back to work for a bit of a rest.
In a giant step forward for western cultural imperialism the BBC reports that the Arab version of Big Brother has just commenced. Filmed in Bahrain, the only changes made to the standard format of the show that anyone with a ounce of taste has avoided in their own country is that there are segregated sleeping quarters for men and women. There is also a prayer room and a separate women's lounge in addition to the mixed-sex communal area.
Approximately one third of the worlds population has now seen this show, which is probably about everyone who has access to a television. Is this the end of civilisation as we know it?
Dennis Prager at TownHall.com is bemoaning the practice of young females displaying more flesh than they used to. Hmmm interesting view point Dennis but not one that The Green Man supports. Like most red blooded males The Green Man welcomes the visual delights that a hot spring day delivers after the cold winter months.
Naturally, Dennis drags out the usual conservative clap trap but the statement that drew The Green Man's attention was
Playing with the sex drive, the most powerful force in nature, is far more dangerous than playing with fire.
Big call Dennis. The Green Man suspects that there are several earthquakes and the odd cyclone that would take issue with that statement. Not to mention the asteriod that hit the earth 65 million years ago that resulted in the extinction of 90% of the species that existed on the earth at the time or the "super-massive" black hole that astronomers has recently observed ripping apart a star and consuming part of it.
On a more serious note the statement demonstrates the fundamental contradiction that usually arises in these types of pieces. On one hand he is implying that we are above and separate from the animals and on the other that we are totally controlled by our biology and incapable of moderating our sexual urges.
He goes on to suggest that women are displaying more of their bodies to show, in these days of equality, that they are not men. His alternative approach appears to be for them to demonstrate their feminity by getting pregnant. If his statement about natural forces is true then The Green Man would have thought that the latter is a logical consequence of the former.
He concludes by saying
So, femininity is largely a dead concept. Ask most young women -- or men -- what it means, and you will get either a blank stare or a hostile reaction.
Where does this man live, Iran or somewhere, has he not seen Vogue or Womens Weekly or anyone of the hundreds of magazines targeted at women and promoting feminity often in a most destructive way.
There has been a lot of breast talk on The Green Man lately. In spite of this, to bring you this important item of news, The Green Man is prepared to risk the accusation of being "breast centric" (Now there is a mental image for you.)
I am sure most of the readership will have come across stress balls. They sit on your desk and when things are getting all too much they are ready to receive your frustration. Some lateral thinker at Identity Links, recognising that they don't technically have to be a "ball" shape to perform this function, has released the "stress breast"
Gentlemen, you can squeeze away your stress without a wiff of a sexual harrassment case. That is, unless, of course, someone takes a close look at what you are squeezing.
Given that an average young male thinks of sex once every 45 seconds that he is conscious it is incredible that it has taken this long for this concept to pop into some young male designers mind.
(via Fritz)
Soldiers have a bit of a reputation for finding anything in a skirt acceptable, which makes for risky times for the Scottish contingent but that is another story.
It seems, however, to get the loins of your average infantryman a thumping that there is nothing like a woman in uniform. The Green Man suspects that it is all that military discipline, it makes them crave a good wallup across the buttocks with a riding crop administered by a woman in uniform. And it is not just the military either, the police it seems also have a penchant for women in uniform.
Perhaps you are feeling in need of a little disciplining yourself. Worry not, there is a new internet service available that has been designed to satisfy this very need. Uniform Dating is a site that caters exclusively to the dating and matchmaking requirements of your uniformed gentleman.
It is not a one sided thing either. James, who is 33 and an inspector in a police force says
'I also tend to meet a lot of people with similar careers. I think this website will be really popular. The nurses have parties all the time and it is policemen who get invited - I think women like men in uniform.'
Read more about Uniform Dating in The Guardian.
You can tell that Darren at Livingroom is a young whipper snapper. The first topic in blogger idol is "the 80's". Really! Those of us who were there know that the 70's crapped all over the 80's as a decade. The seventies was the decade of flower power, peace and love. Of course we were napalming Vietnamese children in order to keep from falling into the evil clutches of the communists but we will overlook that.
We were hippies in those days; all long hair, embarrassing clothes and idealism. Sadly, it was not to last. Peace guided the planets and love ruled the stars only for the briefest period. We had ascended the spiritual heights, meditated with a guru, listened to whale song on the reel-to-reel tape player, attuned ourselves to the cosmic realm but, as the song says, "You'd better start swimming or you'll sink like a stone for the times they are a changin"
Change they did and sink we did. PCs and Microsoft arrived like a firestorm in the IT marketplace. That elegant piece of assembler that ran on a mainframe in 64K of memory, instead of being viewed with awe by junior programmers, was now an anachronism. It was the same throughout industry, "executive" and "over 35" were mutually exclusive terms. Commerce and industry were the domains of the young corporate high-flyer. They grabbed the joy-stick and, after a few loops, plowed our economy into "the recession we had to have" You see they had stopped making things and started making money. Sooner or later someone was bound to open a door and allowed in a gust of common sense. The "house of cards" that our economy had become collapsed.
If that wasn't bad enough, the 80's saw the first outbreaks "economic rationalism", a disease that afflicts industry to this day. Like any disease that is not managed it has spread through the corporate community to the extent that, like herpes, it is ubiquitous.
The 80's has a lot to answer for really, perhaps I'll just drag out the beads and the tie-dyed shirt and meditate on it. If only I could still fit into the matching pants.
Further to the earlier discussion on Coca-cola hijacking santa and turning him into a marketing vehicle for their soft drink, here are some Christmas cards from pre-Coke days.
Santa is dressed in green of course and he only needed a more modest set of raindeer in those days.
The images are from a set of cards produced by a company called Christmas Traditions.
You can make a small contribution to the perpetuation of a pre-Coke innocence by sticking to the traditional santa for your cards etc.
Visit Christmas Traditions here.
When the first series of "Survivor" was on the TV I was captivated. It hooked me in on a number of levels, not the least of which was the amusement of watching "city slickers" try to survive in the rudimentary conditions on a desert island. Not being able to shower oooooh that must have been horrible particularly when you only have the whole pacific ocean to wash in.
The next episode was filmed in Australia I commenced watching with eager anticipation. Sadly the magic had gone. After a couple of episodes I was being to wish that one of those salty's was actually in the river like they kept showing in the intro. It would have broken the monotony.
Anyway several series have come and gone since then that I haven't bothered with, even the men vs women one. Now, in an order to boose the flagging income that invariably comes with flagging ratings, it seems they are introducing product placement in the show. Proctor & Gamble products are to be "subtely" introduced into the format. Procter & Gamble brands to appear in include heartburn antidote Pepto-Bismol, Secret deodorant, Olay skin care and Tide laundry detergent. They will be sitting around smelling sweet in their laundered clothes and not a touch of indigestion amongst them.
Remind me again why I would want to watch this.
Here is an image of a black hole in space. I know it is all black it is a black hole afterall. A section of space around an object that is so dense that not even light can escape. A bit like The Green Man's brain is feeling at the moment. These Christmas parties are taking their toll, The Green Man's usually witty demeanor is crumpling under the weight of all the Christmas cheer and I still don't have a Christmas present for Mrs Green Man.
It is just about lunch time so it is off into the chaos that is Melbourne at Christmas time to find a present which I personally think can be classified as "cruel and unusual punishment" for the usually carefree woodland spirit of The Green Man.
By the way here is an artists impression of what a black hole would look like if all the light was not being trapped within.
It is probably complete rubbish and a black hole doesn't look anything like that but how would you know. Let's face it, if you visited one you wouldn't be coming back to talk about it would you? It is a great looking image and that is what is important when it comes to stellar bodies.
The Walking School Bus is a program where children walk to school instead of being driven by a parent. The idea is that there is a volunteer parent at the front as "driver" and another at the rear as "conductor" with a whole heap of kids sandwiched inbetween. The group takes a fixed route each day to and from school, picking up and dropping off kids along the way.
With the decreases in physical activity and the consequent increase in obesity in children it is being hailed as a positive initiative. The Green Man has mixed feelings, sure it is great that they are walking to school but why the need for the parents. At least in Australia, the streets have never been safer. Once again we are denying our children valuable unsupervised, unstructured time which is so important to their development.
The Green Man suggests the following; teach them road saftey; walk them to school and back once or twice; push them out the front door and say "go to school, I'll see you back here tonight". Go on, be brave, they'll survive and be better for it.
See these three people above; they all have two things in common. Firstly, and most importantly, they have been granted the honour of having their images posted on The Green Man. What more recognition and fulfilment could they want?
Secondly they are all big fans of the 1993 movie "Groundhog Day". I have attempted to watch this movie several times and never quite made it to the end, which just shows how lacking in religious insight I am because it is being held up by a number of mainstream religions as embodying the core principles of their faith.
Accordingly the Museum of Modern Art has included it in it's "The Hidden God: Film and Faith," retrospective of religious films. Christians believe that "the movie beautifully expresses Christian belief,", Rabbi's are using it because of it's illustration of the Jewish faith and the Buddhists are claiming it is quintessentially Buddhist.
The woman on the left is Angela Zito, a co-director of the Center for Religion and Media at New York University who screens it in her first year Buddhist class because "Groundhog Day," is a cinematic version of the teachings in Mahayana Buddhism, known as "the greater vehicle."
In the middle, is Rabbi Niles Goldstein who sees it as an allegory for the Jewish faith.
On right is a picture of a priest I picked up from the net to balance out the list. Appologies to him if he doesn't like Groundhog Day.
Read more in the New York Times.
German Universities are old and prestigous, they have served as models for universities in the United States and other countries around the world. Now they are under the same cost cutting pressure that most institutions in the western world are experiencing these days. After a decade of cost cutting the government now wants to shave a further $90 million and the students are not happy. They are nuding up and taking their protest to the streets as any reasonable person would.
Streaking through a Christmas market near the central west Berlin business district, 40 students, wearing nothing but sneakers and smiles, provided an educational alternative to the Christmas windows for the children in town who were out for a bit of festive shopping. On undressing their new Barbie and Ken dolls the young girls present will now be able to make a much more accurate assessment of the anatomical correctness, or otherwise, of their new Christmas toys.
It has been a slow day on The Green Man today, well stationary actually. Doesn't it get up your nose when paid work get's in the way of your other activities? Never mind. Here is a little something I stumbled across that you can spend an idle minute or two on.
I have been to America a couple of times and my general opinion is that it is a nice enough place if somewhat bland, compared to, say Mexico or Guatemala. Clearly, however, I have been visiting the wrong bits.
The Conspiracy Museum in Dallas, Texas, where else? Whilst the assasination of JFK gets pride of place of course but there is also plenty of other material There is enough information to keep even your most devoted conspiracy theorist going for months. To remember you trip there why not buy a JFK salt shaker, the salt comes out of a whole in the back of the head, how tasteful.
Or how about "World's Largest Collection of World's Smallest Versions of the World's Largest Things" in Lucas, Kansas. It contains a little stonehenge, the pyramids, you get the idea. It is mobile though, in a truck so you might not find it there at the moment.
And if little things aren't your scene how about big dinosaurs and scarry ones at that, if this image is anything to go by, at the Dinosaur Park in Rapid City, South Dakota.
You can find out about all these things and more at Roadside America, your guide to the wacky side of the American pysche.
Reports that say that something hasn't happened are always interesting to me, because as we know, there are known knowns; there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns — the ones we don't know we don't know.
This perceptive insight into the known unkown has handed Donald Rumsfeld this years Foot-In-Mouth award. Awarded by "The Plain English Campaign", whose raison d'ętre is "fighting for crystal-clear language and against jargon, gobbledygook and other confusing language. "
The Green Man is launching an appeal against the decision on the grounds Mr Rumsfeld had acheived exactly the degree of clarity he was aiming for.
Mr Rumsfeld joins some prestigous company visit their site to see some other auspicous winners.
Homie Bear raises his eyebrows
Is it true that Coca-Cola owns the trademark on santa's image but allows it to be used as if it were in the public domain?
he writes
and quite reasonably too since The Green Man has been known to drift off into complete fiction when the fancy takes him. In this case however the assertion was completely kosher. Up until 1931 Father Christmas was dressed in green. On the right you can see the image from the original 1931 Coca-Cola advert that started the rot. It was drawn by Haddon Sunblom who was commissioned by Coke to produce a advert extolling the virtues of coca-cola in the winter months. It was his idea to dress Santa in the red and white livery of the coca-cola brand.
A problem for dominant brands such as Coke is that, if they are too successful, their brands names can be deemed by the courts to have moved into common usage and hence lose their copyright protection. Coke began to suffer this very problem and, through a concerted campaign, succeeded in introducing the term "cola" as the generic description thus protecting "Coca-cola" and "Coke"
See some of the original images here.
Ever heard of the department store Marshall Field's, I haven’t but apparently it is in Chicago and has a Christmas window display each year. This year it has outraged a small section of it’s clientele by using a Harry Potter theme. They claim a cult of witchcraft and paganism is hijacking this Christian celebration.
Get your facts straight people. The Christians hijacked the pagan celebration of the winter solstice and the Roman celebration of Saturnalia. These celebrations date back at least 4,000 years, long before the birth of Christ and are responsible for such Christmas traditions as the Christmas Tree and decorations, Mistletoe and Exchange of Gifts. The actual date that was chosen to be the notional birth of Jesus was, in fact, the day celebrated as the birthday of Mithras, the Persian sun god who was popular at the time Christmas was created by the Pope in 320AD. Rather than try to get the peasants to change celebration dates it was decided to use this date even though evidence suggests that Jesus was actually born around midsummer, i.e. June or July.
Here is another interesting factoid. Santa was traditionally dressed in green with white fur trim; some say he was derived from The Green Man himself. In 1930 Coke-a-cola dressed him in red as part of an advertising campaign to promote consumption of their soft drink during the winter months. It was so successful that the red suit stuck.
Check out the Marshall Fields windows here.
So GWB ended British visit with Fish and Chips in a pub with Tony Blair. Makes you think Howard dropped the ball in Australia. I know there was the BBQ at the Lodge but I think we know how culturally authentic that would have been. We missed the opportunity to introduce him to some of our cultural delights, the “pie floater” for example.
Unique to the state of South Australia the pie floater is a minced meat pie floating is a sea of thick split pea soup and topped liberally with tomato sauce, which is more savoury that American ketchup. Typically, they are only available extremely late at night from caravans parked around inner Adelaide and individuals who have usually had far too much to drink consume them.
An unaesthetic element to the whole proceedings is the excellent colour and texture that they add to the vomit some time later.
Speaking at a news conference in London George W Bush said
I do say that freedom is the Almighty's gift to every person," the president replied. "I also condition it by saying freedom is not America's gift to the world. It's much greater than that, of course. And I believe we worship the same god."
Predictably,
Bush's remarks sent immediate shock waves through Christian Web sites and radio broadcasts. A Baptist Press report quoted Richard D. Land, president of the public policy arm of the Southern Baptist Convention, the nation's largest Protestant denomination, as saying that Bush "is simply mistaken.""We should always remember that he is commander in chief, not theologian in chief," Land said in a telephone interview yesterday. "The Bible is clear on this: The one and true god is Jehovah, and his only begotten son is Jesus Christ."
Clearly Mr Land is not Theologian in Chief either because GWB was correct. Islam, Judaism and Christianity have a common monotheistic origin and as such Allah and Jehovah (and Yahweh for that matter) are simply different references to the same god.
Police began burning 20 tons of marijuana and cocaine in a steel furnace this week in the biggest ever incineration of drugs seized in Sao Paulo.
"About 95 percent is marijuana. This was the year for marijuana," said Antonio Carlos Silveira, a spokesman for Denarc, the police's narcotics investigation division. Police have seized a record 25 tons of marijuana in Sao Paulo state this year, five times more than in 2002, he said. Which raises the question of what happened to the other 5 tons of marijuana but perhaps we shouldn't go there.
In a related item the near by suburb of Osasco has reported a dramatic reduction in the reports of violent crime over the last two days. Police issued a statement saying that it had nothing to do with the wind blowing in that direction and was just a happy coincidence. The Green Man suspects there was also a coincidental increase in trade at the take-away pizza shops.
The Search For Saddam
On Patrol
Powerful Weaponry
A Rest Day
Suggestions for alternative talk bubble contents welcome.
Apologies to 101st Airborne stationed in Mosul, Iraq.
Wow, isn't it great to be old, well oldish anyway. Most of the difficult decisions in life have been made, where to live, which career to rise to dissy heights of mediocraty in, what to name your children.
Excuse me for a minute! "Vegemite, can you put the rubbish tins out please"
Sorry about that, it is rubbish collection day in The Green Man's neighbourhood.
As you would imagine The Green Man is a trend setter so it is not surprising that the USA is only now catching up with the concept of naming your children after your favourite product, edible or otherwise. The BBC reports on this growing trend. Names being chosen range from perfume brands and automobile models. In Nebraska there are 55 young boys who'll come running if you call out "Chevy", for example, and 5 girls if you yell "Celica". The name that has got me stumped though is "ESPN", is that pronounced "E.S.P.N." or "Espen", I guess I'll just wait till the unfortunate boys carrying this monicer get old enough and ask them.
The President of the United States of America does not give out exclusive interviews lightly. The New York Times hasn't had one, neither has Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, Time or Newsweek.
If he is going to give a solo interview it has to be to a paper that is up to it, one of a certain, err, calibre. It is quite obvious, then, which UK paper will be getting the interview in the up coming presidential visit, The Sun. Apparently the president only agreed to the interview on the condition that his words of wisdom appear in close proximity to The Sun's legendary Page 3 girl who, by tradition, always appears sans clothes, at least on the top half.
Of course The Sun is more than a collection breasts with George W Bush squeezed in between them. It also has thought provoking analysis of current affairs such as:
"Man begins 12-day sausage, bean and chip bath to promote Brit food,"
"German saboteurs plotted to bomb Palace with peas in WW2, files reveal,"
"Sobbing islanders say sorry to the ancestor of minister eaten by natives."
Check out some quality journalism at The Sun or check out the "spit-the-dummy" rant at that rag The Washington Post
Regular readers of this blog will note the great restraint exercised by The Green Man in not posting a topless page three girl as the supporting graphic for this piece.
Africa is a very wealthy continent. This is evident by the numbers of offers from residents of said continent to place multi-million dollar sums of money in my bank account. Being a spirit of the ancient woodland, I have no need for money and am not inclined to accept their offers.
Many humans, on the other hand, are not so fortunate and accept these generous offers. In an interesting anomoly they end up an average of US$60,000 out of pocket. I am sure this is just an unfortunate accident because the people who email The Green Man with these generous offers seem so nice.
Sadly the internet casts a wide net (excuse pun) and some participants in this diverse realm are, believe it or not, quite cynical. They think these people are scammers and have adopted the somewhat amusing and addictive practice of scam baiting. This involves replying under a false name and publishing the results of the correspondance.
If it wasn't bad enough that these poor people are having trouble finding someone to give their US$22.5 million to, now they are being humiliated to boot.
Visit http://419eater.com/ and be appalled at how badly the sons/wives of some Nigerian ministers are being treated.
It was 39 degrees celsius yesterday, that's 102 degrees in the old language. Not a bad effort for spring, I wouldn't be suprised if we are seeing 45 degrees (113) in summer. Ah the joys of global warming.
It was an appropriate time to crack open our first bottle of home made ginger beer. It was great success, not as sweet as the commercial stuff which is what you want on a hot day. We haven't made ginger beer for years but, unlike versions of Windows, the recipe does not go obselete. It works just as well now.
That is a picture of a ginger flower by the way. I thought it looked much more interesting than a picture of a bottle of ginger beer.
In these days of fast food and convenience stores it is a good feeling to create something the old fashioned way. Why not give it a go yourself.
Click here for the ginger beer recipe.
Bearing in mind that vomit can be very corrosive to keyboards and quite unaesthetic to boot it is important that your colour scheme doesn't stimulate this response in your readers. I am also aware that not all of you have The Green Man's impecible sense of colour matching. ColorMatch Remix is a site that will help you find a compatible set of colours for your web site and provides the hex and RGB values for the colours suggested.
Of course there is more to designing a site than the colour scheme and Optimization Week has done an analysis of the web sites of prominent US polititians in the lead up to next years elections, including that of the commander in chief. How did they rate?
In a word, poorly. While some sites were constructed for faster display times, most failed in accessibility tests, and no site got high scores on all counts.
On a 56k modem, which is the access method of choice for most Americans, George W Bush's page takes 45 seconds to load. This is far above the attention span of said Americans which, apparently, is 8.6 seconds.
Vis-a-vis The Green Man site, this would be bad news if his readership was not of such high calibre. Careful research has shown that the average reader of The Green Man has an IQ of 133.6 and an attention span of 1 minute 23.8 seconds. Accordingly you will be able to visit GWB's site safe in the knowledge you will not drift off while it is painting. Whilst there you can marvel at his committment to the environment. From reading the site I now know that
Clear Skies, President Bush’s initiative to improve the nation’s air quality, is the most aggressive initiative in American history to cut power plant emissions, as well as a bold new strategy for addressing global climate change.
I guess that is why Open Source reports his changes in enforcement policy will force the EPA to drop investigations into 50 power plants for past violations of the Clean Air Act.
Ever received one of those emails from Negeria offering to use your bank account to store $22.5 million temporarily, in return you get to keep %10? (they are a scam but I'm sure you know that already).
If you have it probably wasn't from Olusegun Obasanjo who is the real president of Nigeria. He has his own problem with scams however and it is worth bilions of dollars not millions. It appears that a bill before the parliament that determines the split of oil revenue between central and local government may be a fake. He has written to all parliamentarians requesting return of copies of the bill. An authentic version will subsequently be issued.
Are you planning for your son to be president of the United States. (I hope you are American because it is a bit of a futile plan otherwise.) If you are then I think you should give due thought to what church he should attend. A quick analysis of the Presidents of the United States reveals a significant variation in logevity based on the denomination to which the president belonged. See below:
| Methodist | 61 |
| Episcopalian | 68 |
| Presbyterian | 73 |
| Unitarian | 78 |
Some lesser known branches of the Christian faith, such as Roman Catholic, have too small sample sizes to be included. The only Roman Catholic was JFK and we all know about his longevity don't we?
Of course some of the more recent presidents haven't obliged by dying yet so they had to be excluded from the calculation.
The 57 year old George W Bush is a Methodist.
The post hasn't got anything to do with Harry Potter actually but my hits have been dropping off a bit lately so I thought it was time to give him a mention.
There is an exhibition running in London at the moment called Body World that is preserved corpses stripped back to reveal muscle and bone and arranged in life like poses. Confronting and fascinating in equal measure. There has, however, been speculation as to where the exhibition's organiser Dr Gunther von Hagens has been sourcing the bodies. Kyrgyzstan seems the most likely candidate at the moment and the BBC reports that a top Kyrgyz medical official has been dismissed over controversy.
What, you haven't heard of Kyrgyzstan? How ignorant of you, it's on the western border of China, adjoining Tajikistan and Kazakhstan. Actually, I didn't know either so I turned to the font of all knowledge on countries that are candidates for having the proverbial bombed out of them by the US, the CIA. Yep, believe it or not, the CIA maintains a website containing information about all countries potentially hostile to the USA. Here is the Kyrgyzstan entry.
Hang on a minute. There is an entry for Australia. Here's what it has to say.
Australia became a commonwealth of the British Empire in 1901. It was able to take advantage of its natural resources to rapidly develop its agricultural and manufacturing industries and to make a major contribution to the British effort in World Wars I and II. Long-term concerns include pollution, particularly depletion of the ozone layer, and management and conservation of coastal areas, especially the Great Barrier Reef. A referendum to change Australia's status, from a commonwealth headed by the British monarch to a republic, was defeated in 1999.
Fascinating to see the things that the CIA think are interesting about Australia. Also unlike President Bush, who is rumoured to have mistaken us for the small western European country of Austria, CIA appear to know exactly where Australia is.
Yahoo reports that David Letterman is a father.
Letterman's girlfriend, Regina Lasko, delivered a baby boy late Monday night. He weighed in at 9 pounds, 11 inches and is 21 inches long, Letterman announced on his show Tuesday night.
"9 pounds 11 inches", is that some new fangled weight that I have yet to come across? See, this is why the metric system is so much better.
Tomorrow is the Melbourne Cup. The most significant horse race in Australia and one of the big ones world wide. It is a public holiday in Melbourne tomorrow so The Green Man anticipates that he will be sipping alcoholic beverages and sqandering money on the ggs' in a once a year indulgence. (The horses that is, the alcohol is a somewhat more frequent pleasure.)
Few places in the world other than Australia, if any, have a holiday specifically for a horse race. Of course only Melbournians have the official holiday but you can bet that in offices throughout Australia there will not be much work done come Tuesday at 3:10pm. It says much about the Australian pysche.
It is one area where I think significant portions of the worlds population could benefit from taking a leaf out of our book. You lot get so het up about things, lighten up, chill out, tolerate, have fun.
I'll be back on-line Wednesday no doubt poorer and hung over but happy. See you then.
Find out more about our famous race here and here.
Here is the cover of the Homes & Gardens magazine from November 1938.
Innocuous enough you say. Well it was at the time and Simon Waldman thought so too until he came across an article inside that would land the hapless blogger in a lot of hot water. You see inside was an article on Hitlers mountain retreat. Reading it you will notice a number of things, one is that the standard of journalism at Homes & Gardens magazine hasn't changed much in 65 years. Another is that this bastion of all that is right and proper homewise paints the dictator and homicidal maniac in very glowing terms.
Mr Waldman clearly is a blogger after my own heart and thought this was worthy of observation and in the course of several months was
1. innundated with visits to his blog
2. threatened with legal action by the current owners of the magazine
3. subject to hate mail from both nazi simpathisers and anti-nazi campaigners
4. befriended by John Irving (a scary thought in itself)
Bloggers beware a seemingly harmless human interest post can lead in some very strange directions.
Read the article about Hitlers home here.
Read about Simon Waldman's blogging experience here.
As if being abused in India wasn't bad enough (see previous post). Not only does Donald Rumsfeld appear to have lost his mojo but he is not sure what it is he is supposed to be looking for when attempting to recover it.
The bemused Rumsfeld consulted an aide when responding to a question from a Time reporter enquiring as to whether he felt he had lost his mojo. "And they asked me that, and I said, 'I don't know what it means.' he told the aide. In a singularly unhelpful response the aide replied "In 1926 or something, it had to do with jazz music."
The Green Man thinks that some of Secretary Rumsfleds statements have been questionable of late to say the least. This may, of course, be directly attributable to the absent mojo and, in a spirit of goodwill, The Green Man points him to Catherine Yronwode's online book at The Lucky Mojo where he can assemble a new mojo bag for himself.
For those of you who didn't know, a mojo is a amulet or charm that is worn to bring good fortune to the wearer. It has it's origins in the African inspired voodoo religion.
Catherine Yronwode herself, not content with a mojo bag, has constructed a mojo car in which to transport herself around California. (You sort of knew it would have to be California didn't you).
Constructing a mojo car, it seems, requires the glueing of lucky icons to the exterior of the car. Thought has to be given, of course, to placement and it was with due thought that Godzilla was placed top and center, he is surrounded by other tall items -- a Menorah, a Black Pocahontas-like Guardian Angel, the Virgin of Los Lagos, the Statue of Liberty, a head-nodding El Diablo, Merlin with his raven, two large Santas.
Surrounding them are The Devil and his Grandmother, Glinda the Good Witch and the Wicked Witch of the West, large crowns, pyx and chalice, altar boy and altar girl, Buddy Christ, Visnu, Chango Macho, Santissima Muerte, Pikachu, and about a dozen Buddhas.
Ms Yronwode feels lucky when travelling California in this vehicle. The Green Man thinks that anyone that she hits will not feel at all lucky when they are impaled on a statue.
Remember that time where America had the shits with France for opposing the war in Iraq. "French Fries" became "Freedom Fries", french restaruants were persona non grata, and all things french were considered distasteful by the good citizens of the USA.
Well maybe not all things. A Bordeaux wine council, reported on Thursday a 77 percent rise in the value of the region's produce sold to the U.S. market in 2002-03. This meant that the USA overtook Germany as the largest importer of French wines. This period included, of course, the time of the boycott.
Each year the town of Pamplona in Spain hosts a event called "The Running Of The Bulls". In this event a collection of young men run through the streets of the town pursued by bulls that have been released behind them.
Here is the website for the event.
Next year you could compete. It just requires being reasonably fit and a reckless disregard for your own safety. Click here.
And if that last post wasn't flippant enough for you. Here is a photo of "Jackie" the dog and Nikaela Straus who are using the "Harry Potter" books for inspiration at the 13th annual Dog Halloween Parade in Tompkins Square Park in New York City.
For that rare one or two of you who have not read the Harry Potter books, the boy is dressed as Harry and the dog as "fluffy" the three headed dog.
The more scholarly amongst you will know that J K Rowling drew on the ancient greek saga of Hercules as the basis for fluffy. The dog is, in fact, Cerberus and kidnapping him from the underworld was the twelfth, final and most dangerous labour assigned to Hercules.
Here is a challenge for you.
Pick the African leader who's ancestors were masai warriors.
Yep it is President Paul Kagame of Rwanda on the right who is meeting Democratic Republic of Congo Minister for Regional Cooperation Mbusa Nyamwisi in Kigali, Rwanda.
The meeting aimed to normalize relations between the two countries which were at war for the last five years.
Based on months of careful analysis and at a cost of Ł3m, a conservative think tank in the UK believes it has stumbled on the reason for the ongoing success of the Australia's version of the Conservative Party, the Liberals. They have decided that it is John Howards surname that is the critical factor and have dumped Iain Duncan Smith in favour of Michael Howard.
Rumour has it that The Australian Labor Party has shamelessly ripped off this research and that Simon Crean has lodged a change of name deed poll with the Registry of Births Deaths and Marriages to change his name to Blair.
It seems that The Green Man is not the only one to notice the somewhat blatant bias at Fox News (here). Matt Groening, the creator of The Simpsons, has also picked up on it. Unfortunately for Mr Groening, he has a significantly larger profile and audience than The Green Man and has had a law suit slapped on him by Fox.
A recent episode of The Simpsons, ironically aired on Fox Entertainment, contained a parody of the Fox News ticker that runs along the bottom of the screen. It contained messages such as
"Pointless news crawls up 37 per cent... Do Democrats cause cancer? Find out at foxnews.com... Rupert Murdoch: Terrific dancer... Dow down 5,000 points... Study: 92 per cent of Democrats are gay... JFK posthumously joins Republican Party... Oil slicks found to keep seals young, supple..."
However a red faced Fox News was later forced to withdraw the suit when it realised it would, in fact, be sueing its sister company Fox Entertainment. Fox Entertainment has responded by banning news ticker like crawls on the bottom on the screen in cartoons because, they claim, viewers might confuse them with the real ones. Yeah right!
(via The Guardian)
As a supporter of comprehensive gun safety measures, I was deeply disappointed when I discovered my name was not on the list. I was particularly surprised by the omission given my opposition to the loophole that makes it legal for 18- to 20-year-olds to buy handguns at gun shows.
So wrote Dustin Hoffman when, to his horror, he discovered the he was not on the NRA blacklist. His indignant letter to the NRA is typical of a growing number of prominent Americans who feel that not being on the NRA black list implies their support for the gun lobby.
The list contains both corporations and individuals and includes such luminaries as
- Brittney Spears, (notable for her grasp of ethic and moral issues)
- Sean Connery (well that's the female voters of America convinced)
- New York Times (that left wing liberal rag)
You can find out more and nominate yourself at http://www.NRAblacklist.com
This is a picture of Ipanema beach in Rio de Janeiro, Brasil. It looks a lot like the Gold Coast in Queensland to me but one thing it has that the Gold Coast doesnt is one of the largest and poorest shanty towns in Brasil. This is a problem because abject poverty translates into crime and there has been a massive increase in thefts and assaults on the beach lately.
In an effort to counter crime wave a new 50 man police squad is going undercover, or should that be uncovered, on this famous beach. Yep, the Rio police are stripping down to the bare essentials to mingle with the beach set and nab the errant locals.
A brief review of pictures of the Ipanema set via google suggests that they are going to have to choose the police officers for this assignment carefully if they are going to mingle unobtrusively.
There have been some unkind things said on blogs of late about the USA and it would be easy to get the impression that there is a lot of anti-American feeling around at the moment. The Green Man thinks it is opportune to give some praise to Americans for a job well done. When it comes to sex they are holding their own (and when they are not holding it they are using it to good effect). In the population stakes they are the only developed country to be producing enough "cannon fodder" to replace the current generation. Click here for a graph.
Whilst we have seen a pick up in hanky panky rates generally over the last two years or so, only the USA has managed to crawl above the fateful red line that indicates a sustainable population.
For the rest of the OECD countries it looks like they will be looking to the third world for carers to work in their nursing homes.
Read OECD report on fertility here.
You really know you are a science geek when you think a cool adornment for the front of a young mans t-shirt is the periodic table.
Sadly, The Green Man must admit that in his late adolescence he probably fell into that category. Oh the shame of it.
Obviously The Green Man has out grown that now. That double helix necktie does look pretty cool though.
Buy them both and other science related attire at Science Teacher.
Ever wonder what those women in the burkas in Afghanistan looked like. Well here is a more revealling glimpse of one of them. The woman in red is Miss Afghanistan in the current Miss Earth competition. The photo was taken at a poolside photoshoot in Manila recently. Her name is Vida Samadzai and she was born and raised in Afghanistan. She fled to the USA as a refugee in 1996.
She is one contestant that can say she wants to work towards world peace and retain her credibility.
Vida, 25, plans to take her message of female liberation back to Afghanistan later this year, hoping to raise money for womens' schools. A worthy ambition in it's own right.
Hmmm, It appears that Forest School in Winnersh, southern England has a bit of excitement recently. Those of you who have not been a teenage boy at some time during your life, my female readership springs to mind, may not be aware that puberty is a time of unpredictable and uncontrollable erections of the penile kind. This can be embarrassing at the best of times, so one has to wonder at the extreme lack of forward thinking of the 5 boys at Forest School who took viagra tablets for a dare a lunch time.
By mid afternoon the tablets, which had been lifted from one of the boys home, had had the predictable effect and their attempts to enter afternoon classes in a casual and nonchalant manner were doomed to failure. The paramedics were called and the boys rushed to Royal Berkshire Hospital, where they were monitored until the effects wore off.
Ah, the mental image of the five boys hobbling to the ambulance. It brings a smile to my face.
Ever been to a psychic medium to investigate your past lives? If you have then you have probably discovered that you were a member of the ancient Egyptian royalty. Let's face it anyone who is anyone was a Egyptian prince/princess in a former life.
The next step, of course, is to head off to Egypt to visit your ancestoral home and to try and find evidence of yourself amongst the tombs and pyramids.
You'll need to know what to look for when you get there so a course in hieroglyphics is in order. Too much bother, well perhaps just look for your name then. The University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology has a convenient site where you can convert your name into hieroglyphs so you know what to look for. On the right you will see "Green Man" converted.
Translate your name here.
A quick check by The Gematriculator reveals The Green Man is
Only 29% evil after posting on voyuerism, witchcraft, charms, homosexuality, nude four breasted women. Boy it's getting tougher to be evil these days.
(via Poison Kitchen)
George W Bush has landed in Australia and after some boring but necessary formalities he is joining John Howard for a BBQ at the Lodge, the Prime Ministerial residence in Canberra.
Here is a photo of John when he entertained the British Prime Minister, Tony Blair, at the Lodge earlier this year. I expect George W. will have been briefed on the etiquette for this occasion and has an overnight bag with suitable attire so that he can change in the back of the president-mobile on the way over. Naturally this will consist of a faded souvenir t-shirt from some previous holiday he has been on, a pair of shorts and a terry-towelling hat. In an interesting piece of synergy the rubber thongs for footwear provided by the Australian Embassy will have been made in China, whose president also happens to be in Australia at the moment. Naturally John will be wearing his new apron with the female lingerie painted on it.
At the BBQ it will be important for George to realise that John is in charge of the tongs and responsible for turning the sauages and chops. Any attempt to wrest the tongs from John and control the cooking could result in a major diplomatic incident, although he may be temporarily given control while John goes to the loo.
Predictably, John will be serving the finest red wine that is available in a cardboard cask, the Lindemanns Bin 65 Claret, aged in the truck on the way from the winery, and the afternoon will progress with a game of cricket in the backyard (backyard rules, if the ball goes over the fence it's six and your out!)
Finally, a nap on the couch in front of the tele and then George W can climb back into his president-mobile and head back to Airforce One, via the back roads so as to avoid the booze bus, having tasted a slice of authentic Australian culture. At least, that's how it should go, maybe the really will be little less authentic.
I am sure a number of you out there in the blogosphere read Signposts as well as The Green Man but for those of you who don't it is a Christian blog and concerned with matters spiritual. Given this it was of no surprise when Phil of Signposts called on an Australian Senator who died last August to launch an investigation into Fox News (here).
Senator Colston had a auspicous period in the senate (The Age has an article here.) so it is only natural that he continue his service of the Australian people from beyond the grave.
My only concern is when it comes to delivery of the findings. Hmmm That sounds like the domain of John Edwards, who, according to his website, is an "Internationally acclaimed psychic medium". Of course those who remember Senator Colston will know that, in his case, a psychic extra-large would be far more appropriate.
Are you lacking vivid dreams of a night time?
Are you indecisive at work during the day?
Or do just have some nasty bad habits that you wish you were rid of?
(The Green Man is quite happy with his bad habits, enjoys them immensely and doesn't want to be rid of them, but that's just me.)
Did you answer yes to any of the above? If you did then what you'll be needing is a witch and preferably one that does house calls. If you live in Norway you're in luck, Lena Skarninga is a practicing witch with a cream for each of the above conditions.
Like everything else today, however, witchcraft is a business and Lena has just been awarded a grant from Norwegian Industrial and Regional Development Fund, the SND. The Fund gave her $7,453 so she could spread her magic to residents around the forest of Nord-Odal, 93 miles north of the capital, Oslo.
A spokesman for the fund, Ove Gahren, said the money was awarded for applications that were "exceptional, very innovative, and very importantly, offered a new service or created a job." and that her business plan was well reasoned and carefully thought out.
Late Breaking News: It seems Lena is very happy with her grant and is changing her business cards to say "Norway's only state-backed witch."
(via Yahoo)
Well you have tried looking towards the homosexual community for improvements to your relationship (see previous entry) and it is still not working out. It might be time to pull out a charm or two.
John Brolley, University of Cincinnati program director for Religious Studies, is your man here. He has been translating four little books of Syriac charms that are among the rare collections at Harvard University that date from the 17th and 18th century. Each book is so fragile that they cannot be microfilmed and contains about between 50-100 written charms.
There are charms to protect against the 'Evil Eye' and illness as well as more modern ones to deflect gunfire and to make a judge favourable in a court appearance.
Christians need not be concerned. Although some charms date back 5,000 years they have been lovingly "christianised" by an early priest with references to Zeus and other pagan dieties removed and replaced with the power of God and Jesus. Also there is a reduction in the amount of physical ritual involved in the charms, moving more towards the spoken word.
"So, for example, if I were a farmer who had somehow ended up with a sick cow or a sick spouse, the priest, probably for some small amount of money, would copy down a charm from one of the books and the farmer would take it and wear it as an amulet. Many of the local villagers may not have been Christian, but they appear to have considered the local priest what you and I would call a medicine man, and were able to trust him."
The real question, of course, is "Do they work?" On this point Dr Brolley is remaining non-commital.
If you are looking for a model for a relationship that is mature, considerate and responsible then look no further than the gay and lesbian community. This is the finding of John Gottman, a University of Washington emeritus professor of psychology and Robert Levenson, a University of California, Berkeley, psychology professor.
In a longitudinal study lasting 12 years they studied the nature of relationships amongst 40 homosexual couples in the San Francisco Bay area and a similar number from a larger sample of heterosexual couples from Bloomington, Indiana. The couples were matched on age, education level, marital satisfaction and income.
Generally the way the two members of the couple interact is far more constructive in homosexual relationships. When an interaction commences negatively then, in a hetersexual relationship, 96% of the time it continues to deteriorate and becomes a power struggle. Interaction between homosexual couples is, in contrast, warmer, friendlier and less belligerent.
Additionally, over the years, homosexual couples generally become more communicative and heterosexual couples less so. Rather than the stereotype portrayed in the media of gay relationships as transient and flippant, this study points to many of these relationships as being long term, mature and stable, delivering security and satisfaction to the participants.
Perhaps even the most committed heterosexual should be looking to the homosexual approach to relationships to improve the quality of their own marriage.
If your apartment is 11 stories up then, barring the presence of another nearby building, you'd recon it was pretty safe to nude up without closing the curtains right? Well not if you have a Brontosaurus with voyeuristic tendancies roaming in your neighbourhood it isn't.
This image is by William Harlow Reed and was drawn around 1898.
It is one of a collection of images that give us an insight into the way our predecessors pictured the great creatures of prehistory, both real and imaginary. Here are two sites that provide glimpses into the way the overlapping worlds of fantasy and paleontology were viewed in earlier times.
Strange Science provides an interesting look at sciences early attempts to depict the strange beasts that were suggested by fossilised bones.
Cornell University has an extensive collection of scanned images dating from the 16th century that depict fantastic creatures.
Ever wonder why expensive cars seem to be made for tall people. Well it's probably because they are the ones that can afford to buy them.
Timothy Judge, a professor in management studies at the University of Florida has published a paper in the Journal of Applied Psychology that analyses the correlation between height and career success. Using results of four large-scale studies in the United States and Britain that followed thousands of participants from childhood to adulthood, he has come to the conclusion that for each additional inch in height you can expect to earn an extra US$789 per annum.
This phenonemon was particularly pronounced in social professions such as sales and management but also present in the nerdy domains of engineering, accounting and computer programming.
Not only are tall people rated more highly on subjective measures like evaluations of work performance by supervisors but also on more objective measures like sales volume.
Evolutionary pyschologists believe they have an explanation. Prehistoric man lived among animals and size was an index of power and strength.
"They ascribed leader-like qualities to tall people because they thought they would be better able to protect them," Judge said. "Evolutionary psychologists would argue that some of those old patterns still operate in our perceptions today."
