Carra'

Thought for the day...

"Trust those who are seeking the truth; doubt those who find it."
-André Gide

Purple, again...

Slowly but surely

I am starting to readjust to this life in Boston. It's still cold but I don't feel it much. My tan is fading but I am still thin :-) Oh well... and I made a dental appointment and I have to get new glasses (I lost my prescription sunglasses rock-climbing in Buzios... ha ha...)

Anyway- I am a Bostonian, there is no escaping that at this time.

Oh and in a month's time this blog will be 2 years old! and I will be 37... sigh...

Discotheque Francais

Sapos

'Amphibian Ark' planned to save frogs
By Dorie Turner, Associated Press Writer | February 15, 2007

ATLANTA --Ponds and swamps are becoming eerily silent. The familiar melody of ribbits, croaks and chirps is disappearing as a mysterious killer fungus wipes out frog populations around the globe, a phenomenon likened to the extinction of dinosaurs.

Scientists from around the world are meeting Thursday and Friday in Atlanta to organize a worldwide effort to stem the deaths by asking zoos, aquariums and botanical gardens to take in threatened frogs until the fungus can be stopped.

The aim of the group called Amphibian Ark is to prevent the world's more than 6,000 species of frogs, salamanders and wormlike sicilians from disappearing. Scientists estimate up to 170 species of frogs have become extinct in the past decade from the fungus and other causes, and an additional 1,900 species are threatened.

"This is the precedent of a disease working its way across an entire species on the scale of all mammals, all birds or all fish," said Joseph Mendelson, curator of herpetology at Zoo Atlanta and an organizer of Amphibian Ark. "Humans would be absolutely stupid if they didn't pay attention to that."

Amphibians -- of which frogs make up the majority -- are a vital part of the food chain, eating insects that other animals don't touch and connecting the world of aquatic animals to land dwellers. Without amphibians, the insects that would go unchecked would threaten public health and food supplies.

Amphibians also serve important biomedical purposes. Some species produce a chemical used as a pain reliever for humans; one species is linked to a chemical that disables the virus that causes AIDS.

Amphibian Ark wants zoos, botanical gardens and aquariums in each country to take in at least 500 frogs from a threatened species to protect them from the killer fungus, which is called chytrid fungus. Each frog would get cleaned to make sure it doesn't introduce the scourge into the protected area.

The group estimates it will cost between $400 million and $500 million to complete the project. It is launching a fundraising campaign next year to create an endowment.

The scientists say the amphibian collection is simply a stopgap. It buys time and prevents more species from going extinct while researchers figure out how to keep amphibians from dying off in the wild.

The fungus isn't the only thing that's deadly to amphibians -- it's just killing them faster than development, pollution and global warming, said George Rabb, the retired head of the Chicago's Brookfield Zoo and a leader in Amphibian Ark. Scientists will have to closely monitor frog populations rereleased into the wild once the fungus is eliminated, he said.

"Right now with global warming and the garbage heap we put in the atmosphere, there are going to be risks," said Rabb, one of the country's leading conservation scientists. "That's why we'll need people from other professional fields -- epidemiology, climate change."

Scientists aren't quite sure of the fungus's origin, but they suspect it might be Africa. The African clawed frog, which carries the fungus on its skin and is immune to its deadly effects, has been shipped all over the world for research.

The clawed frog was also used in hospitals in the 1940s as a way to detect pregnancy in women. It produces eggs when injected with the urine of a pregnant woman.

The fungus works like a parasite that makes it difficult for the frogs to use their pores, quickly causing them to die of dehydration. It has been linked to the extinction of amphibians from Australia to Costa Rica.

Last month, Japan reported its first cases of frog deaths from the fungus, prompting research groups to declare an emergency in the country. On the Caribbean island of Dominica, the fungus has almost wiped out the mountain chicken, a frog species considered an island delicacy.

At Yosemite National Park in California, the mountain yellow-legged frog is close to extinction. The park has only 650 frog populations left, but 85 percent are infected with the fungus and the growing quiet along the park's lakes is evident as many of the frogs are dying off.

HomeTime

Listening to this a lot lately, produced by the Insects. Say It and Should I Feel It's Over are total Moyet Drama - love it.

Happy Valentine's Day

"Purple" by Skin

Purple washes over me
Seeping through my open seams
I'm stained all over

You pretend we've started again
Waiting for me to say when
But I say purple


She won't go
Where I
I would go for you
I'd curse my heart
For you

Silence makes a girl talk fast
Speeding but I'm gonna crash
And burn for love's sake

Duty keeps a lover loyal
(But) is it really worth the spoils
When I dream purple

Maenads

Info I am looking into for an old script idea...

In Greek mythology, Maenads were female worshippers of Dionysus, the Greek god of mystery, wine and intoxication, and the Roman god Bacchus. The word literally translates as "raving ones". They were known as wild, insane women who could not be reasoned with. The mysteries of Dionysus inspired the women to ecstatic frenzy; they indulged in copious amounts of violence, bloodletting, sexual activity, self-intoxication, and mutilation. They were usually pictured as crowned with vine leaves, clothed in fawnskins and carrying the thyrsus, and dancing with wild abandon.

They also were characterised as entranced women, wandering through the forests and hills.¹ Also, they are described as mad women and nurses of Dionysus, wandering through the mountains. They went into the mountains at night and practised strange rites.² Compare also the description in Homer's Illiad, Book VI, beginning at line 130.

" ... he that on a time drave down over the sacred mount of Nysa the nursing mothers of mad Dionysus; and they all let fall to the ground their wands ..."

The Maenads were also known as Bassarids (or Bacchae or Bacchantes) in Roman mythology, after the penchant of the equivalent Roman god, Bacchus, to wear a fox-skin, a bassaris.

The behavior of Maenads in stories is intended to explain and display the intoxicating effects of alcohol. In some cases, the alcohol causes bizarre behavior in people and cannot be justified or explained by any other reason except that of the intoxication.

In Euripides' play, "The Bacchae", Theban Maenads murdered King Pentheus after he banned the worship of Dionysus. Dionysus, Pentheus' cousin, himself lured Pentheus to the woods, where the Maenads tore him apart. His corpse was mutilated by his own mother, Agave, who tore off his head, believing it to be that of a lion.

A group of Maenads also killed Orpheus.

A Maenad appears in the second stanza of Percy Bysshe Shelley's Ode to the West Wind (1819):

...
Angels of rain and lightning; there are spread
On the blue surface of their airy surge,
Like the bright hair uplifted from the head
Of some fierce Maenad, ev'n from the dim verge
Of the horizon to the zenith's height—
...
The Bassarids, to a libretto by W. H. Auden and Chester Kallman, is the most famous opera composed by Hans Werner Henze.

The maenads correspond to the Shikome in the Japanese myth of Izanami and Izanagi (which has a correspondence with the Orpheus myth).

In Greek Art the frolicking of Maenads and Dionysus is often a theme depicted on Greek kraters, that are used to mix water and wine. These scenes show the Maenads in their frenzy running in the forests often killing any animal they happen to come across.

See also Icarius, Butes, Dryas, and Minyades for other examples of Dionysus inflicting insanity upon women as a curse.

wikipedia be praised

Sabian Symbols

The 360 symbols of Elsie Wheeler. Click to view the generator

Shabd

Shabd or Shabda literally means “sound” or “word” in Sanskrit. [1] Esoterically, Shabd is the “Sound Current vibrating in all creation. It can be heard by the inner ears.” [2] Variously referred to as the Audible Life Stream, Inner Sound, Sound Current or Word in English, the Shabd is the esoteric essence of God which is available to all human beings, according to the Shabd path teachings of Eckankar, the Quan Yin Method, Sant Mat and Surat Shabd Yoga.

Adherents believe that a Satguru, or Eck Master, who is a human being, has merged with the Shabd in such a manner that he or she is a living manifestation of it at its highest level (the “Word made flesh”). However, not only can the Satguru can attain this, but all human beings are inherently privileged in this way. Indeed, in Sant Mat the raison d’être for the human form is to meditate on the Sound Current, and in so doing merge with it until one’s own divinity is ultimately realized.

from Wikipedia


Billions of years ago, an explosive flash of light marked the creation of the universe. The residual energy of this event permeates the universe even today- and it tells us that the young universe was filled with sound.

"Although the flash was brilliant light, that light has traveled to us across the universe, which is expanding. Those waves have been stretched by a large amount, by a factor of 1,000. So the light waves have been stretched, and they become microwaves."

Mark Whittle is a professor of astronomy at the University of Virginia. He tells us that since this pervasive microwave radiation was first detected 40 years ago, scientists have been able to observe it in great detail.

"And what was seen were patches, very slight patches, slightly brighter, slightly dimmer. What that is, it transpires, it's like looking down on the ocean's surface. You're actually seeing the peaks and troughs of waves. And so, the microwave background is showing us an image of sound waves, peaks and troughs."

from Pulse of the Planet

Home

Now here I go again, I see the crystal visions
I keep my visions to myself
It's only me
Who wants to wrap around your dreams and...
Have you any dreams you'd like to sell?
Dreams of loneliness...
Like a heartbeat... drives you mad...
In the stillness of remembering what you had...
And what you lost...
And what you had...
And what you lost

Thunder only happens when it's raining
Players only love you when they're playing
Say... they will come and they will go
When the rain washes you clean... you'll know
you will know...

Stevie Nicks by way of Carlo Dall'anese's 2007 Sirena Summer Brazilian Mix

As I knew it would...

The vacation draws to a finish. SIGH... UNITED is supposedly searching my luggage... I'm a bit crushed