Saturday, November 10, 2007
Sunday, September 23, 2007
Sunday, September 9, 2007
Madrid, Spain
A protest is held in which to defend and remind people of ancient grazing routes that are being covered by urban sprawl. Shepherds from 32 countries were involved, most of whom had been taking part in a world gathering of Nomads and Transhumants. The event highlights a tradition that has allowed herdsmen the right to use Spanish paths in seasonal livestock migrations. Madrid lies in the middle of two such routes.
Saturday, August 18, 2007
Tuesday, August 7, 2007
Monday, August 6, 2007
Willem Reich & Orgone Accumulators
Orgone energy is a term coined by physician and psychoanalyst Wilhelm Reich for the "universal life energy" that he claimed to have discovered in published experiments in the late 1930s. Reich claimed that orgone energy was a "life energy" which filled all space, was blue in color, and that certain forms of illness were the consequence of depletion or blockages of the energy within the body. When alive, Reich was hotly attacked by his critics, triggering a formal investigation by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA). Following a court case, in which materials were found to be improperly advertised, his books and scientific journals on the subject were collected and burned by the FDA.
Reich claimed that life was founded upon bioenergetic phenomena, and characterized by the pulsation of bioenergy, as with heart-beat, respiration, and bladder functions. Emotions and sexuality, he argued, also followed a similar basic bioenergetic pulsation, and optimal health necessitated open emotional expression and periodic sexual release of accumulated bio-energy. He measured bioelectrical signatures of emotional-sexual human subjective experiences, using sensitive millivoltmeters, interpreting these as expressions of a specific "bio-electric" life-energy. He later observed and developed objective measures to identify energetic fields around humans and other living forms, including microbes, and claimed the same bio-energy also charged non-living matter, and existed in a free form in the atmosphere.
Reich claimed that life was founded upon bioenergetic phenomena, and characterized by the pulsation of bioenergy, as with heart-beat, respiration, and bladder functions. Emotions and sexuality, he argued, also followed a similar basic bioenergetic pulsation, and optimal health necessitated open emotional expression and periodic sexual release of accumulated bio-energy. He measured bioelectrical signatures of emotional-sexual human subjective experiences, using sensitive millivoltmeters, interpreting these as expressions of a specific "bio-electric" life-energy. He later observed and developed objective measures to identify energetic fields around humans and other living forms, including microbes, and claimed the same bio-energy also charged non-living matter, and existed in a free form in the atmosphere.
In 1940, Reich built boxes called orgone accumulators to concentrate atmospheric orgone energy. Reich said orgone was the "primordial cosmic energy", blue in color, which he claimed was omnipresent and responsible for such things as weather, the color of the sky, gravity, the formation of galaxies, and the biological expressions of emotion and sexuality. Composed of alternating layers of ferrous metals and insulators with a high dielectric constant. He believed that sitting inside the box might provide a treatment for cancer and other illnesses. Based on experiments with the orgone accumulator, he argued that orgone energy was a negatively-entropic force in nature which was responsible for concentrating and organizing matter.
Reich posited a conjugate, life-annulling energy in opposition to orgone, which he dubbed Deadly Orgone or DOR. Reich claimed that accumulations of DOR played a role in desertification and designed a "cloudbuster" with which he said he could manipulate streams of orgone energy in the atmosphere to induce rain by forcing clouds to form and disperse. Reich reported observing UFOs over Orgonon, Maine and also in the Arizona skies during his drought-relief expedition into the American Southwest. Reich speculated that these UFOs were propelled by orgone and released DOR as a by-product.Reich even claimed to have done battle with the UFOs, convinced that his "cloudbuster" could be deployed to extinguish the anomalous "stars" from the sky.
Reich posited a conjugate, life-annulling energy in opposition to orgone, which he dubbed Deadly Orgone or DOR. Reich claimed that accumulations of DOR played a role in desertification and designed a "cloudbuster" with which he said he could manipulate streams of orgone energy in the atmosphere to induce rain by forcing clouds to form and disperse. Reich reported observing UFOs over Orgonon, Maine and also in the Arizona skies during his drought-relief expedition into the American Southwest. Reich speculated that these UFOs were propelled by orgone and released DOR as a by-product.Reich even claimed to have done battle with the UFOs, convinced that his "cloudbuster" could be deployed to extinguish the anomalous "stars" from the sky.
Acording to Reich's theory, illness was primarily caused by depletion or blockages of the orgone energy within the body. He conducted clinical tests of the orgone accumulator on people suffering from a variety of illnesses. The patient would sit within the accumulator and absorb the "concentrated orgone energy". He built smaller, more portable accumulator-blankets of the same layered construction for application to parts of the body. The effects observed were claimed to boost the immune system, even to the point of destroying certain types of tumors, though Reich was hesitant to claim this constituted a "cure." The orgone accumulator was also tested on mice with cancer, and on plant-growth, the results convincing Reich that the benefits of orgone therapy could not be attributed to a placebo effect. He had, he believed, developed a grand unified theory of physical and mental health.
If you would like to find out more about Reich and his theory of Orgone, or are interested in building your own Orgone Accumulator, try visiting the following links:
Sunday, August 5, 2007
Mahjong game 'can cause epilepsy'
A study by doctors in Hong Kong has concluded that epilepsy can be induced by the Chinese tile game of mahjong.
The findings, published in the Hong Kong Medical Journal, were based on 23 cases of people who had suffered mahjong-induced seizures.
The report's four authors said the best prevention was to avoid playing - or even watching - mahjong.
The Chinese tile game, played by four people round a table, can involve gambling and quickly becomes compulsive.
The game, which is intensely social and sometimes played in crowded mahjong parlours, involves the rapid movement of tiles in marathon sessions.
The doctors conclude that the syndrome affects far more men than women; that their average age is 54; and that it can hit sufferers anywhere between one to 11 hours into a mahjong game.
They say the attacks were not just caused by sleep deprivation or gambling stress.
Mahjong is cognitively demanding, drawing on memory, fast calculations, concentration, reasoning and sequencing.
The distinctive design of mahjong tiles, and the sound of the tiles crashing onto the table, may contribute to the syndrome.
The findings, published in the Hong Kong Medical Journal, were based on 23 cases of people who had suffered mahjong-induced seizures.
The report's four authors said the best prevention was to avoid playing - or even watching - mahjong.
The Chinese tile game, played by four people round a table, can involve gambling and quickly becomes compulsive.
The game, which is intensely social and sometimes played in crowded mahjong parlours, involves the rapid movement of tiles in marathon sessions.
The doctors conclude that the syndrome affects far more men than women; that their average age is 54; and that it can hit sufferers anywhere between one to 11 hours into a mahjong game.
They say the attacks were not just caused by sleep deprivation or gambling stress.
Mahjong is cognitively demanding, drawing on memory, fast calculations, concentration, reasoning and sequencing.
The distinctive design of mahjong tiles, and the sound of the tiles crashing onto the table, may contribute to the syndrome.
Thursday, April 5, 2007
Tuesday, April 3, 2007
Monday, April 2, 2007
New OOIOO album - TAIGA
In Japanese, Taiga means "big river"; in Russian, it's "forest." Both are apt descriptions for the dense, winding, jungle-like music OOIOO craft on this, their fifth album. Not to push the connection too much, but Taiga's multilingual meanings could also allude to the band's magpie-like ability to pick the most vital, interesting sounds from other cultures and fashion them into what feels like world music from an alternate universe. Despite the Japanese and Russian meanings of "taiga," the most prominent influence on Taiga comes from Africa: dense African jazz and lilting African folk-inspired guitar melodies play large roles on most of the album's tracks. In particular, the vibrant "KMS," which makes nine minutes feel like the blink of an eye (well, maybe two blinks) incorporates these elements brilliantly. Building from hand drums, guitars, and a rubbery bassline, the track shifts to jazzy rhythms and picks up steam as it goes along, adding forceful singing and brass on the way. By the time it closes with an insistent guitar riff that weirdly echoes "Pictures of Matchstick Men," OOIOO make three very different-sounding stretches of music sound perfectly natural together. "SAI" is another standout, a 15-minute epic with a loping beat; hypnotic, slowly turning organ; and flute melodies and vocals that sound like wild birds. Elsewhere, the band fuses gamelan and psych-rock ("ATS") and calypso with drum rolls straight out of the big top ("GRS"). As always, Yoshimi P We's drumming is so vivid it's almost visible, especially on Taiga's opening salvo, "UMA." She plays cat-and-mouse with the rhythm (perhaps it's not coincidental that the album's name also sounds like "tiger"), rolling and batting it around before pouncing down with a satisfying crash that makes the track's chanted vocals sound even more feral. Most importantly, the album is a beautiful demonstration of how OOIOO keep changing and innovating without losing touch with what made them distinctive in the first place. Their inspired, eclectic mix of sounds and textures is always playful, but Taiga's powerful playing and sophisticated arrangements make it OOIOO's most mature album yet.
Panda Porn
Chuang Chuang the panda has been spending his days in front of a television watching panda porn.
Authorities at the Chiang Mai Zoo in northern Thailand hope the images will encourage him to mate with his partner, Lin Hui, and serve as an instructional lesson in how to do it right.
So far it has been a tough sell, according to the zoo's chief veterinarian, Kanika Limtrakul.
"Chuang Chuang seems indifferent to the videos. He has no reaction to what he's seeing on TV," Mr Kanika said yesterday. "But we're continuing to show him videos and hoping they will leave an impression."
So far it has been a tough sell, according to the zoo's chief veterinarian, Kanika Limtrakul.
"Chuang Chuang seems indifferent to the videos. He has no reaction to what he's seeing on TV," Mr Kanika said yesterday. "But we're continuing to show him videos and hoping they will leave an impression."
Every day for the past week, Chuang Chuang has been taken from his outdoor environment of rocks and trees to an indoor cage set up in front of a big-screen television. Animal experts then put on a DVD that shows pandas mating.
At first they kept the sound off, but noticed that the images alone were not grabbing Chuang Chuang's attention, so they turned up the volume, said Prasertsak Buntrakoonpoontawee, head of the zoo's panda project.
"Before, he might have been clumsy and not known how to approach and react to a female panda. Now he will remember and imitate the video," Mr Prasertsak said.
The exercise will continue for about another week. Then Chuang Chuang will be reunited with his partner.
At first they kept the sound off, but noticed that the images alone were not grabbing Chuang Chuang's attention, so they turned up the volume, said Prasertsak Buntrakoonpoontawee, head of the zoo's panda project.
"Before, he might have been clumsy and not known how to approach and react to a female panda. Now he will remember and imitate the video," Mr Prasertsak said.
The exercise will continue for about another week. Then Chuang Chuang will be reunited with his partner.
Zoo officials say the two pandas have been kept separate since late last year as part of efforts to spark some romance between them.
Chuang Chuang was recently put on a strict diet because zoo officials said he was too heavy to mate.
The diet trimmed him down from 150 kilograms to 142 kilograms.
AP
Giant pandas, especially those in captivity, have such low sexual desires it is threatening their future, prompting workers to turn to artificial insemination to keep the endangered species going. Only about 1,100 giant pandas still survive in the wild, along the edge of the Tibetan plateau in China.
But rather than use drugs such as Viagra to help giant pandas boost their sexual desire, centers believe sex education and physical exercise will make all the difference, says Zhang Guiquan, an official with the China Giant Panda Protection Center.
For long periods, more than 60 percent of adult male giant pandas in protection areas or zoos lack any sexual desire. Only 10 percent of them are capable of natural mating and only 30 percent of female giant pandas become pregnant and give birth.
Sunday, April 1, 2007
Las Muertas de Juárez
The phenomenon of the female homicides in Ciudad Juárez, called in Spanish the feminicidios ("femicides") or las muertas de Juárez ("The dead women of Juárez"), involves the violent death of hundreds of women in the northern Mexican city of Ciudad Juárez, Chihuahua, a border city across the Rio Grande from the US city of El Paso, Texas. Most of the cases remain unsolved
According to the Organization of American States's Inter-American Commission on Human Rights:
According to the Organization of American States's Inter-American Commission on Human Rights:
The victims of these crimes have preponderantly been young women, between 17 and 22 years of age. Many were students, and most were maquiladora [workers in foreign owned factories]. A number were relative newcomers to Ciudad Juarez who had migrated from other areas of Mexico. The victims were generally reported missing by their families, with their bodies found days or months later abandoned in vacant lots or outlying areas. In most of these cases there were signs of sexual violence, abuse, torture or in some cases mutilation.
According to Amnesty International, as of February 2005 more than 370 bodies had been found, and over 400 women were still missing. In November 2005, BBC News reported Mexico's human rights ombudsman Jose Luis Soberanes as saying that 28 women had been murdered so far in 2005. Despite past and current unsolved murders, in August 2006 the Mexican federal government dropped its investigation.
Various individuals have been arrested in connection with the murders. However, the Mexican police have been criticized for making arrests with little or no evidence and failing to detain alleged perpetrators. Additionally, they have been accused of coercing people to confess to murders, destroying evidence, even kidnapping women.
One of the first arrests made was that of an Egyptian-born chemist, Abdul Latif Sharif (born in 1947), who was accused but never convicted of several rapes in the United States before moving to Ciudad Juarez in 1994 to escape a deportation hearing in Texas. Since his conviction and imprisonment for the murder of a young maquiladora worker in 1995, the police have arrested two groups of men whom they allege Sharif was paying "from behind bars" to rape and murder on his behalf in an attempt to establish his innocence of the crimes.
However, despite the arrests of Sharif and his alleged co-conspirators, the killings continued, leading the Mexican police and the public in general to consider many theories, among them that the real killer or killers are still on the loose or that the original killer or killers are in jail and copycats have moved to the area since. There are also accusations that there has been a conspiracy of silence and cover-up by Mexican politicians bribed by the killer or killers.
Many people have been surprised at how women could turn up dead while Sharif was in prison, but the police never failed to blame him for many of the murders.
Other suspects convicted in connection with the affair include Víctor García Uribe (El Cerillo), convicted in October 2004 for eight of the murders, and Gustavo González Meza (La Foca), who was arrested on suspicion in some of the killings but died in jail under suspicious circumstances on February 8, 2003. In January of 2006, their lawyer, Sergio Dante Almaraz, was murdered in Juarez. Some suspect he was ambushed by the same police officers who have killed before. On January 7, 2005, four members of the "Los Toltecas" gang were convicted of six murders and six member of the "Los Rebeldes" gang were convicted of another six murders. Jesús Manuel Guardado and four other "Toltecas" had been arrested in 1999. One was found not guilty. Five of the twelve convicted so far have been bus drivers.
On May 30, 2005, President Vicente Fox told reporters that the majority of the Juárez killings had been resolved and the perpetrators placed behind bars. He went on to criticize the media for "rehashing" the same 300 or 400 murders, and said matters needed to be seen in their "proper dimension". In response, the congressional special commission for the killings said that the president needed to be better informed about the situation.
A group of mothers, families, and friends of the victims, called Nuestras Hijas de Regreso a Casa A.C. ("Our daughters to come back home, civil association") was formed to raise awareness about the situation and put pressure on the Mexican government to pay attention to these cases, some of which have gone unsolved for 12 years. Members of the group, including co-founder Norma Andrade, demand that proper investigations be carried out.
Another family organization, Voces sin Eco ("voices without a sound") was founded in 1998. They painted pink crosses on black telephone poles to draw attention to the problem and align themselves with family values. An informal group, which the press named Las Mujeres de Negro ("the women in black"), originated in November of 2001 in Chihuahua City, following the discover of eight corpses together. They attended the protest, which interrupted the celebration of the Mexican Revolution, wearing black tunics (as a sign of mourning) and pink hats. Since then, they have marched across the desert from Chihuahua City to Juárez and planted crosses (sometimes with plastic limbs attached) in prominent places.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Female_homicides_in_Ciudad_Juárez
Leroy Jenkins, violinist and composer, born March 11 1932; died February 24 2007
Leroy Jenkins, who has died of lung cancer at the age of 74, was one of jazz's boldest explorers of both the violin's and the viola's potential in non-classical music. He belonged to a 1960s generation whose heroes were the free-improvising saxophonists Ornette Coleman (who also taught himself to play the sax-like violin) and John Coltrane.
Unlike such older jazz fiddle virtuosi as the 1920s pioneer Joe Venuti or the swing star Stephane Grappelli, later jazz violinists felt released from classical standards of purity and western lyricism. Coleman's playing drew on country hoedowns and blues as well as jazz, but strayed way outside equal-tempered scales. Jenkins, and his more widely acclaimed student Billy Bang, took a similar course, with the classically trained Jenkins exploring voice-mimicking sounds, 20th-century art music innovations and sometimes the use of an electric wah-wah pedal.
But if Jenkins could subvert his instrument's traditional elegance with a rough, percussive bowing attack and an abrasive tone, his improvisations invariably had the balance and shape of a composer, which he also was. He liked the mantra-like recurring phrase, subtly varied by small alterations and sometimes closed or freshly galvanised by a staccato flourish. His music looked back to the raw, unvarnished jazz violin style of the 1930s pioneer Stuff Smith, but was as modern as Coleman, Coltrane, saxist Anthony Braxton or Bartok.
Unlike such older jazz fiddle virtuosi as the 1920s pioneer Joe Venuti or the swing star Stephane Grappelli, later jazz violinists felt released from classical standards of purity and western lyricism. Coleman's playing drew on country hoedowns and blues as well as jazz, but strayed way outside equal-tempered scales. Jenkins, and his more widely acclaimed student Billy Bang, took a similar course, with the classically trained Jenkins exploring voice-mimicking sounds, 20th-century art music innovations and sometimes the use of an electric wah-wah pedal.
But if Jenkins could subvert his instrument's traditional elegance with a rough, percussive bowing attack and an abrasive tone, his improvisations invariably had the balance and shape of a composer, which he also was. He liked the mantra-like recurring phrase, subtly varied by small alterations and sometimes closed or freshly galvanised by a staccato flourish. His music looked back to the raw, unvarnished jazz violin style of the 1930s pioneer Stuff Smith, but was as modern as Coleman, Coltrane, saxist Anthony Braxton or Bartok.
A radical in music and musical politics, Jenkins was at first drawn to cooperative projects rather than band-leading. He was an early and prominent member of Chicago's influential Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM), worked from 1969 to 1970 in the US and Paris with such farsighted improviser/composers as Braxton and trumpeter Leo Smith, and helped sustain the powerful Revolutionary Ensemble improvising trio for six years. From the mid-1970s, he developed his own take on jazz-funk in the avant-fusion band Sting, and then moved toward more contemporary-classical ventures, sometimes with pianist Muhal Richard Abrams.
This development brought Jenkins many commissions and opportunities for jazz-classical collaborations; his work was performed by the Brooklyn Philharmonic and the Kronos Quartet, and his later career saw partnerships with choreographers, writers and video artists.
Born on Chicago's South Side, and encouraged by his pianist mother, Jenkins learned the clarinet, alto saxophone, bassoon, violin and viola as a child, and was playing in St Luke's, the city's biggest Baptist church, by the time he was 10 - sometimes accompanied by pianist Ruth Jones (Dinah Washington). He then joined the Ebenezer Baptist church choir and orchestra, and played alto sax at DuSable high school. He attended Florida Agricultural and Mechanical University on bassoon, but worked as an R&B saxophonist out of college hours, and then became a high-school violin teacher in Mobile, Alabama. Returning to Chicago in the mid-1960s, he became involved with the AACM cooperative, soon establishing himself as free jazz's most inventive violinist. In 1967 he co-founded the Creative Construction Company with Braxton and Smith, which migrated to Paris, where he also recorded with the Coltranesque saxophonist Archie Shepp. On returning to New York, he initially lived in Coleman's SoHo loft.
Jenkins continued to perform with Shepp in the 1970s, and with trumpeter Don Cherry and drummer Paul Motian, but it was the Revolutionary Ensemble that saw some of his most sophisticated work of that decade. As with Chicago's legendary Art Ensemble, the group's materials were African-American music at its widest definition, and its members (Jenkins, bassist Sirone and drummer Jerome Cooper) were multi-instrumentalists who made a bigger and richer sound than the trio line-up suggested.
In the late 1970s, Jenkins worked as a player and composer with pianist Anthony Davis (a classically inclined performer also fascinated by gamelan music) and drummer Andrew Cyrille. The trio often suggested links with the idiosyncratic piano virtuoso Cecil Taylor, but Jenkins also confirmed enduring debts to the influence of saxophone players on such scalding adventures as Brax Stone (dedicated to Braxton) and Albert Ayler: His Life Was Too Short. Jenkins then formed Sting, following Coleman's move to a free-electric music with Prime Time.
Though he mostly suspended recording between the mid-1980s and the early 1990s, he became active on the board of the Composers Forum, the new-music pressure group in New York, worked as a soloist and stepped up his composition output. He also worked in a typically uncompromising quintet led by Taylor, in a duo with Art Ensemble saxophonist Joseph Jarman and, in the late 1990s, in the trio Equal Interest, with Jarman and pianist Myra Melford.
Jazz occupied Jenkins far less in his later career. He composed the opera Mother of Three Sons as a collaboration with dancer Bill T Jones; reworked the Faust legend with hip-hop overtones on 1994's Fresh Faust; and followed it with "a cantata for the departed" called The Negroes Burial Ground in 1996 and the opera The Three Willies.
Yet he remained a dazzling violin improviser. The 1998 album Solo, an unaccompanied set that visited such demanding modal and bebop excursions as Coltrane's Giant Steps and Dizzy Gillespie's Wouldn't You, demonstrated how creatively profound was Jenkins' grasp of orthodox jazz structure, yet how eloquently he could live without it. He is survived by his wife Linda and daughter Chantille.
Leroy JenkinsBold explorer of the violin's free jazz potential John Fordham Friday March 16, 2007 The Guardian
Genetically Modified Mosquitoes
It could soon be possible to "redesign" the mosquito so that it cannot carry malaria, say European researchers. Scientists have developed a technology that allows them to modify the insects' genetic make-up.
They proved the technique by introducing a fragment of DNA that makes the mosquitoes glow green under ultraviolet light.
But the team, who report their work in the journal Nature, say it should also be possible to introduce more useful changes that prevent mosquitoes from spreading malaria.
This could be done by:
+ altering the insects' own immune system so that they cannot carry the parasite that causes malaria;
+ modifying the insects' sense of smell so that they seek out and bite animals rather than humans;
+ altering the insects in a way that would allow large-scale breeding of sterile males. These could then be released into dangerous populations to keep numbers down.
However, the scientists, including Dr Andrea Crisanti at Imperial College London, UK, say there would need to be a full political, ethical and scientific review before any such genetically-modified animals were released into the environment.
This point was emphasised by Chris Curtis, professor of medical entomology at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.
"I think one should have concern for the remote possibility that the modifications could make the mosquitoes able to carry a virus that they cannot carry at present," he told the BBC.
"And of course one thinks about HIV. Certainly any females - only females bite - with the transgenic technology applied to them should be tested for their susceptibility to infection by dangerous viruses before they are released. Those tests could be done, and should be done."
Risks and benefits
Dr Susan Mayer of GeneWatch, which campaigns on the ethics of genetic engineering, said the risks and benefits of releasing GM mosquitoes into the wild would have to be carefully examined.
"I think as the scientists are saying these are very early stages and there is a lot more that needs to be done," she told the BBC.
"There are some very practical questions about whether you can change a population of malaria mosquitoes on a large scale, which is what you would have to do. And there will be ecological questions too.
"But malaria is an important, damaging disease and we have to find new solutions to it. This may be one way - there may be better ways. We need to take a broad look at it."
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/800796.stm
Shaquanda Cotton
Hundreds took to the streets of Paris, Texas yesterday to protest the seven year prison sentence handed down to a 14 year old girl accused of shoving a hall monitor at a local school. Shaquandra Cotton, now 15, says the teacher's aide pushed her first and denied her permission to enter school before the morning bell in 2005.The girl has already spent more than a year at the Ron Jackson Correctional Complex in Brownwood, about 300 miles from her Paris, Texas, home. The facility is part of an embattled juvenile system that is the subject of state and federal investigations into allegations that Texas Youth Commission staff physically and sexually abused inmates.Her family and civil rights activists say they want her home now. They are condemning the sentence as unusually harsh and shows a justice system that punishes youthful offenders differently based on race.“My daughter has been (at Brownwood) a year now,” Creola Cotton, standing in front of the Lamar County Courthouse, told the Herald Democrat, “It’s time for her to come home.”
From her blog: Shaquanda Cotton
Location: Paris : Texas : United States
About Me: I am a 14-year-old black freshman who shoved a hall monitor at Paris High School in a dispute over entering the building before the school day had officially begun and was sentenced to 7 years in prison. I have no prior arrest record, and the hall monitor--a 58-year-old teacher's aide--was not seriously injured. I was tried in March 2006 in the town's juvenile court, convicted of "assault on a public servant" and sentenced by Lamar County Judge Chuck Superville to prison for up to 7 years, until I turn 21. Just three months earlier, Superville sentenced a 14-year-old white girl, convicted of arson for burning down her family's house, to probation.
You can leave a note for Shaquanda Cotton at her website:
http://freeshaquandacotton.blogspot.com/
the Great Pyramid's construction
It was one of the seven wonders of the ancient world, and the only one of them to remain standing today. Yet the story of how the Great Pyramid of Giza was actually built has remained a mystery for more than four millennia - until, perhaps, now.
A French architect believes he has finally solved one of the most puzzling construction problems in history by working out how the ancient Egyptians built such a massive structure without the benefit of iron tools, pulleys or wheels.
In Paris tomorrow, Jean-Pierre Houdin will unveil the fruits of eight years' work by describing at a conference how the pyramid of the pharaoh Khufu was built from the inside out. He will propose that the Egyptians carried the building blocks up an internal ramp that formed a spiral tunnel within the structure's outer wall. These tunnels, he believes, must still exist today.
With the help of sophisticated computer software developed by the French company Dassault Systemes, M. Houdin has been able to reconstruct a three-dimensional simulation of how the great limestone and granite blocks of the pyramid were put together stone by stone.
The simulation shows the logic behind building such a pyramid from the inside out. M. Houdin even believes he has solved the mystery of the king's chamber - why it had five granite ceilings instead of one, and how these great granite blocks were lifted to such a height.
A French architect believes he has finally solved one of the most puzzling construction problems in history by working out how the ancient Egyptians built such a massive structure without the benefit of iron tools, pulleys or wheels.
In Paris tomorrow, Jean-Pierre Houdin will unveil the fruits of eight years' work by describing at a conference how the pyramid of the pharaoh Khufu was built from the inside out. He will propose that the Egyptians carried the building blocks up an internal ramp that formed a spiral tunnel within the structure's outer wall. These tunnels, he believes, must still exist today.
With the help of sophisticated computer software developed by the French company Dassault Systemes, M. Houdin has been able to reconstruct a three-dimensional simulation of how the great limestone and granite blocks of the pyramid were put together stone by stone.
The simulation shows the logic behind building such a pyramid from the inside out. M. Houdin even believes he has solved the mystery of the king's chamber - why it had five granite ceilings instead of one, and how these great granite blocks were lifted to such a height.
The first recorded attempt to explain how the Pyramid of Khufu was built came from Herodotus, the Greek historian, who travelled to Egypt in about 450BC. Herodotus said that thousands of slaves dragged the stones to the site, which were then lifted up from one step of the pyramid to the next by a series of machines. The trouble with this, however, is that it was written about 2,000 years after the great pyramid was built.
Mechanical engineers today believe that it was unlikely that this was done with the limited technology of the time, especially when some of the granite stones of the king's chamber weigh up to 60 tons.
Another theory is that a giant external ramp was built to take the stones to the highest points on the pyramid. But such a ramp could not have had an incline any greater than 7 or 8 per cent, which would mean it must have been a mile long to build a structure 146 metres tall.
Such a ramp would also require as much building material as the pyramid itself - an unlikely scenario.
Others suggested that the ramp may have been wound around the outside of the pyramid as it grew. But such a ramp would have been prone to collapsing without being firmly fixed to the pyramid - and there is no evidence of any fixing points remaining on the outside of the pyramid today.
An external ramp would also raise the issue of where the waste products from the building went. What happened to such immense volumes of waste material when the pyramid was finished? There is no evidence of it today.
M. Houdin's explanation is that the "spoil" has been left within the pyramid because the internal, spiral ramp built a few metres inside the outer wall was left behind and remains there to this day.
"I am an architect - in my brain I have a 3-D computer," M. Houdin explained in an interview with The Independent. "My idea is that the pyramid was two different projects. The first was to build the volume of the pyramid and the second problem was to build the king's chamber."
According to his theory, the first stage of construction used a traditional external ramp that led up to a height of 43 metres from the base. Once completed, this volume of material would account for more than 70 per cent of the pyramid's total mass.
The next stage involved building the internal ramp in the shape of a spiral. "It was like a tunnel with a covered roof, but open to the sky at the four corners of the pyramid so that the stone blocks could be turned," M. Houdin said.
He has calculated that at a gentle incline of 7 per cent, such a ramp would be about a mile long as it wound itself up to a point just short of the pyramid's summit. One-ton blocks were hauled up this ramp by teams of eight to 10 men.
M. Houdin believes that the stone blocks used to construct the external ramp were eventually "recycled" by taking them up the internal ramp to the upper parts of the pyramid above the king's chamber.
Once the bulk of the pyramid was finished, the open corners of the ramp were filled in as the pyramid was finished off, but the ramp's tunnels were left empty.
The crucial piece of evidence in support of an internal network of spiral tunnels comes from a microgravity test carried out in 1986, he said. French scientists found a peculiar anomaly - a less-dense structure in the form of a spiral within the pyramid.
"They had it in the drawer for 15 years because it could not be explained. But when we put my drawings over it, there it was," M. Houdin said. "It is strong evidence, but not proof, that the tunnels still exist inside the pyramid and that they were not filled in," he said.
As for the task of lifting the 60-ton granite blocks as high as the ceilings of the king's chamber, M. Houdin believes this was done using a system of counterweights dragged down the internal ramps as the granite blocks, which were attached by ropes on the other side, were hauled up.
He also believes that the reason for the five false ceilings above the king's chamber was to act as a weight-saving device. They prevented too much weight being brought to bear on the supporting arch above the chamber's ceilings.
M. Houdin now has to convince sceptical Egyptologists, who have been offered rival theories in the past, that his construction theory is correct.
Neal Spencer, of the British Museum, said that from what little he knows of it, M. Houdin's idea seems plausible. "It's not as outlandish as some of the theories put forward," he added. "Elements of the idea might be reasonable, but the thing is to find the archaeological evidence to support it."
Mechanical engineers today believe that it was unlikely that this was done with the limited technology of the time, especially when some of the granite stones of the king's chamber weigh up to 60 tons.
Another theory is that a giant external ramp was built to take the stones to the highest points on the pyramid. But such a ramp could not have had an incline any greater than 7 or 8 per cent, which would mean it must have been a mile long to build a structure 146 metres tall.
Such a ramp would also require as much building material as the pyramid itself - an unlikely scenario.
Others suggested that the ramp may have been wound around the outside of the pyramid as it grew. But such a ramp would have been prone to collapsing without being firmly fixed to the pyramid - and there is no evidence of any fixing points remaining on the outside of the pyramid today.
An external ramp would also raise the issue of where the waste products from the building went. What happened to such immense volumes of waste material when the pyramid was finished? There is no evidence of it today.
M. Houdin's explanation is that the "spoil" has been left within the pyramid because the internal, spiral ramp built a few metres inside the outer wall was left behind and remains there to this day.
"I am an architect - in my brain I have a 3-D computer," M. Houdin explained in an interview with The Independent. "My idea is that the pyramid was two different projects. The first was to build the volume of the pyramid and the second problem was to build the king's chamber."
According to his theory, the first stage of construction used a traditional external ramp that led up to a height of 43 metres from the base. Once completed, this volume of material would account for more than 70 per cent of the pyramid's total mass.
The next stage involved building the internal ramp in the shape of a spiral. "It was like a tunnel with a covered roof, but open to the sky at the four corners of the pyramid so that the stone blocks could be turned," M. Houdin said.
He has calculated that at a gentle incline of 7 per cent, such a ramp would be about a mile long as it wound itself up to a point just short of the pyramid's summit. One-ton blocks were hauled up this ramp by teams of eight to 10 men.
M. Houdin believes that the stone blocks used to construct the external ramp were eventually "recycled" by taking them up the internal ramp to the upper parts of the pyramid above the king's chamber.
Once the bulk of the pyramid was finished, the open corners of the ramp were filled in as the pyramid was finished off, but the ramp's tunnels were left empty.
The crucial piece of evidence in support of an internal network of spiral tunnels comes from a microgravity test carried out in 1986, he said. French scientists found a peculiar anomaly - a less-dense structure in the form of a spiral within the pyramid.
"They had it in the drawer for 15 years because it could not be explained. But when we put my drawings over it, there it was," M. Houdin said. "It is strong evidence, but not proof, that the tunnels still exist inside the pyramid and that they were not filled in," he said.
As for the task of lifting the 60-ton granite blocks as high as the ceilings of the king's chamber, M. Houdin believes this was done using a system of counterweights dragged down the internal ramps as the granite blocks, which were attached by ropes on the other side, were hauled up.
He also believes that the reason for the five false ceilings above the king's chamber was to act as a weight-saving device. They prevented too much weight being brought to bear on the supporting arch above the chamber's ceilings.
M. Houdin now has to convince sceptical Egyptologists, who have been offered rival theories in the past, that his construction theory is correct.
Neal Spencer, of the British Museum, said that from what little he knows of it, M. Houdin's idea seems plausible. "It's not as outlandish as some of the theories put forward," he added. "Elements of the idea might be reasonable, but the thing is to find the archaeological evidence to support it."
by Steve Connor, Science Editor
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