Please note The Green Man is usually accurate however he does tend to drift into the mischievous areas of satire and parody from time to time. Such is the nature of the Green Man. In fact he is not above complete fiction when the fancy takes him.
Naive art exists in all contexts. The painting you see to the left is by Sister Gertrude Morgan. Entitled New Jerusalem From the Prayer Room it is from a collection of her works that is on display at American Folk Art Museum.
In the mid 1950s she decided that God had called upon her to spread his message via paint and, with no prior art experience, acquired pencils and paints. She launched into a prolific period, creating paintings that illustrated her "fire and brimstone" view of life.
For a slideshow, with accompanying commentary, of her work, courtesy of the New York Times click here.
It seems that the one combination that is incompatible in the domain of art is the naive artist and the naive observer. The paradox is that it is that to appreciate this art form you must have devoted a degree of intellectual effort to the appreciation of art. It is easy to dismiss naive art as childish but it has a special quality that is impossible to reproduce once you have it trained out of you.
Most art is a view of the landscape it is representing with a hint of the artist. Naive art is a view of the mind of the artist within the context of the subject of the painting. ArtBrut.com has an interesting collection of naive art. Let go of the civilised part of yourself and embrace the images. They have a resonance at a low level.
It seems the days of monochrome polar bears have ended. Some time ago The Green Man reported on a purple Polar Bear
.
He got that way because of a skin condition and had to be treated with gentian violet. OK so that was a man made effect. The green polar bears at the Singapore zoo have got that way all by themselves, with the assistance of some warmth and humidity.
Polar bears have clear hair shafts which normally appear white because they reflect light however it seems that a harmless algae has taken up residence in their coats.
Naturally The Green Man thinks it looks quite becoming, green being his colour after all, but the zoo officials are not so inclined. They are embarking on a bleaching program in an attempt to rid their bears of their green hue.
The first two of the detainees at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba have been charged. They are Ali Hamza Ahmed Sulayman al-Bahlul of Yemen and Ibrahim Ahmed Mahmoud al-Qosi of Sudan.
Mr Bahlul has been accused of saying bad things about America and producing videos glorifying the killing of Americans. That should make a few people in Hollywood nervous. There have been a lot of videos glorifying the killing of Americans coming out of there over the last few years. Mr Stallone having been involved in a number of them.
Mr Qosi has been accused of being an accountant. It is alleged he travelled with Bin Laden, serving as a driver and treasurer for the organisation. The Green Man suspects it was the beige turban that gave him away.
Boy the US military are certainly picking the fruit from the low branches first aren't they? One would have thought that there was some of those detainees who had done things like torture and kill people. Wouldn't you think they would be good ones to try for war crimes.
That's not poor television reception you are looking at. It is a small piece of the cosmos and the bit circled in red is asteriod 2004 AS1.
On January 13th asteriod 2004 AS1 looked like it was going to collide with the northern hemisphere of the earth within 36 hours. 2004 AS1 is a pretty pissy little asteroid really when you stack it up against the one that caused the extinction of the dinosaurs but it would still have made the 9/11 attack on the twin towers look like an amateur effort.
The astronomers came within a hairs breath of doing what they have been dying to do ever since they had a social night out at the movies and saw Deep Impact, ring the President.
It raises the question of "What is the point?" Let's put aside the fact that when the twin towers event happened GWBs assessment of the situation was such that he didn't find it necessary to interupt a meeting at a primary school where he was listening th children read aloud. What was he actually going to do?
Adjourn to some bunker to save himself, well probably, wouldn't you in the same circumstance.
Make an announcement to the world! Since no accurate location for the impact was possible, that would be guaranteed to acheive nothing except panic and looting in the more densely populated cities.
The Green Man wonders whether, in circumstances such as this, it is better for the astronomers to just shut up and let nature take its course, which it will do anyway.
You can read about the hand wringing that went on about whether to ring the President at BBC News.
Colmar De Von Figueroa-Moseley has found that women who were sexually abused as children are much more likely to be current smokers than women who weren't abused as children. It is the finding a study she conducted as part of her PhD research. She says it is
a topic that has been largely overlooked in medical research.
Um could that be because it is of absolutely no value. Let's face it, if you are an potential abuser of a child, the childs welfare is clearly not a major consideration. You are hardly likely to restrain yourself because the child may take up smoking in later life?
I know it is getting hard to find innovative research topics these days but surely there is something a little more valuable that this researcher could be working on.
If, for some perverse reason, you want to read about the research. Click here.
Do wear a ribbon to symbolise your support for a cause, breast cancer research, sudden infant death, third world debt, refugee rights, that sort of thing? You are obviously not alone many people do and it is part of the malais that is afflicting our society according to the UK think tank Civitas.
A recently published study by Patrick West suggests that we have relieved ourselves of the need to "do good" by replacing it with "conspicuous compassion". His proposition is that public displays of grief particularly for significant public figures or global events have surplanted the actual doing of good at a local level.
Breast cancer research, for example, is a great and noble cause but buying a $2 ribbon should not be used as an excuse for your ignoring the immediate needs of people in your community. This is where your true resonsibility lies. Concern yourself less with third world debt and more with poverty and homelessness in your own community.
Read more in The Guardian
Deep inside a mountain in a cave that had been their winter home for generations this small family group was drawing protection from the thousands of tons of rocks that encased them. As the environment outside plunged into a bitter winter they sealed, as best they could, the entrance to the cave and drew on the essential warmth that was stored in the heart of the mountain. Living off stores of dried meat and grain that were collected during the warmer months they were challenged with the task of passing the long dark months of winter. Some time was spent on practical tasks of course but much time was left to devote to art of story telling.
Skip forward several tens of thousands of years and the situation has not changed that much. The accommodation has improved so that now there are constructed dwellings that, for warmth, domesticated animals share with their human masters. The tradition of story telling remains essentially the same. Long nights are passed with the elder members of the group passing on the oral history of their community to the younger members of the group. The stories told had a number of roles, entertainment of course but also education, development of imagination and the passing of cohesive information about the group. Stories convey modes of acceptable behaviour and social mores to the younger members of the group. In this safe environment they had the opportunity to consider how they would handle themselves if they found themselves in the situation in the story.
A mere century or two later and the whole situation had changed. Story telling had been taken out of the context of the dwelling, indeed it had been taken out of the context of the local community as a whole. It is substantially removed even from our own culture. We vest the responsibility for story telling in large American conglomerates whose responsibility is primarily to their shareholders. If you wish to take the view that story telling has no greater purpose than entertainment then you may view this as an essentially harmless eventuality. If on the other hand you take story telling as a crucial vehicle through which children and adolescents establish and role-play their approach to dealing with others in their community then possibly there is room for some concern. Movies promote a monoculture, the colourful kaleidoscope that was world culture is being homogenised into a sort of muddy brown version of American culture.
Don’t get me wrong, I love the movies; I am one of those people who doesn’t pick up the small inconsistencies. I can easily suspend disbelief and become engrossed in the story. In spite of this I fear that the richness of childhood fantasy has been fundamentally eroded. That children’s ability to embrace the spoken word and to use their imaginations to fill in the pictures is only a shadow of what it was. But most of all I fear that our children’s ideals and ambitions are those that a group of corporate executives in Hollywood deem to be the most fiscally appropriate.
If you have a child or adolescent ask them to tell you a story and, most importantly, tell them some of yours.
BBC Reports that, a day after he celebrated is 80th birthday, the Zimbabwean president, Robert Mugabe, was incapacitated with chest pains.
If The Green Man was not such a nice person he would be tempted to say that it is a shame it was not the result of a spear sticking out of his chest.
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?
Whether we like it or not males are basically expendible. After you have done the business and fertilised sufficient females, or the same female enough times, then, from a perpetuation of the species perspective, your role on this earth is done. Thus it is that recent research by lion researcher Craig Packer of University of Minnesota has found that allowing unlimited trophy hunting of male lions aged five and older has no impact on lion population sustainability.
The first question that springs to mind is how you tell how old a lion is but this is, apparently, quite easy. The colour of the lions nose darkens with age and if a lion's nose tip is more than 50 percent black, the lion is probably at least 5 years old, the researchers said.
The Green Man is firmly of the opinion that men who find it necessary to go out shooting big things are saying more about their insecurities than their manliness. Never the less he grudgingly acknowledges that managed trophy hunting is probably the most effective way of ensuring the survival of wild lions. This is, in part, because economic benefits to the local communities mean that they protect and support the lions, hunters pay up to $100,000 for a safari. Additionally managed hunting reduces the uncontrolled illegal trophy hunting where hunters often take any lion that they encounter.
Earlier this month The Green Man reported on pain perception and how it is altered by the gender of the person administering the pain. Casting more light on this curious phenonemon is a recent article in Science that investigates the placebo effect with respect to pain.
Subjects were told that a cream they were given to apply dulled pain in the skin. They were then given painful but harmless electric shocks. Comparing their brain activity with that of people who had not been given the "anti-pain" cream showed a shift in brain activity away from well-known pain-sensing regions, such as the thalamus, the somatosensory cortex and parts of the cerebral cortex, to an area known as the prefrontal cortex.
Given that the cream did nothing the shift of brain activity was unconsiously orchestrated by the person themselves. This research highlights that, just as the brain controls activities in other parts of the body, so it can control its own activity. This is a big step that has been taken in providing understanding and scientific legitimacy to certain eastern meditative therapeutic practices which appear to work but for which science had no explanation.
You recall that time GWB was flown onto an aircraft carrier moored a couple of miles of the US coast to declare the war in Iraq over. He arrived is a flight suit. If Australia's Prime Minister of the day, regardless of political persuasion, had attempted a stunt like that he would have been universally regarded as a wanker. The Green Man acknowledges, however, that American culture is somewhat different to Australian culture in these matters, as evidenced by the production of a doll to comemorate the event.
It is hard for The Green Man to imagine a productive use for such a doll which clearly points to a lack of imagination on the part of The Green Man because the innovative folks at Bush Yoga have the mighty commander in chief of the freeist nation of the world in a variety of ancient yoga positions.
It sets The Green Man a pondering,
"Was the doll designed to cater for such positions or have some fiendish operations been performed upon it?"
"Is it anatomically correct and, if so, there must some unexpected wear and tear on certain parts"
It is positively unAmerican.
Have you ever suspected that, in todays society, you are just a number? Well how far behind the times are you? We moved to bar-codes long ago.
Never mind, it is not to late to catch up. Bar Code Art is a valuable free service that enables you to generate your own personal bar-code. Feel free to have it tattooed onto your forehead.
Does this look like the face of a caring, compassionate man? It is! He is the leader of the Australian Labor Party in the Australian Federal parliament and he appears to have recognised the crisis facing Australian males. In a recent press club speech he said
Our boys are suffering from a crisis of masculinity. . . We need to give our boys a new centre to their lives, one grounded in community support and mentoring
Although the welfare of men is typically a taboo subject in politics, this is perhaps not as surprising as it may at first seem. Mr Latham has been forced to confront and conquer the demons with respect to his own masculinity. Some years ago he was diagnosed with testicular cancer and had to have one testicle removed as part of the treatment.
Compare this with John Howard who, as far as can be determined from media reports, is as caught up in the negative and destructive masculine culture as most Australian males. His apparent addition to power has caused him, like most parliamentarians, to abandon any real effort in being a father to his children. He is now so addicted to the power that any chance of him gracefully handing over to his successors has evaporated long ago.
There are of course many issues to consider when choosing which party to vote for in the forth coming election but the mature and balanced self image that Mr Latham clearly possesses must speak in his favour. Compare this with the immature behaviour of the senior Liberal minister Tony Abbott who felt it was appropriate to use parliamentary privelege to accuse Mr Latham of being less of a man because he now only possessed one testicle.
I know you have been sitting there pondering "I wonder how many motor vehicle accidents there were between 1975 and 1999 in Texas". Well wonder no longer, there was 3.9 million resulting in 90,036 fatalities.
As reckless teens burn rubber up and down your street I can see you sitting in the rocking chair on your balcony thinking "Those darn young uns, they are the menace on the road". Well they might be annoying but they are not the main cause of the accidents, that honour falls to the over 65 bracket.
Not only do the elderlies have the most accidents, because of declining perception and motor skills, but, quite understandably, they also experience the most trauma when they do have one. Drivers 65 or older are nearly twice as likely to die in a crash as drivers between 55 and 64. Drivers over 85 were nearly four times as likely to die.
We could, of course, view this as nature in action, easing the older members of the community off their perch to make way for the young uns but it will continue to increase in significance as populations in countries such as Australia, USA and UK age.
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.
Charles Crawford is an evolutionary psychologist at Simon Fraser University in Burnaby, Canada and he has an interest in teenage girls. No not that sort of interest! He is interested in the catty remarks they make about one another, particularly in respect to physical appearance.
Studies by Charles and by Maryanne Fisher of York University in Toronto indicate that whilst competition amongst men tends to focus more on aggression or displays of wealth or physical fitness, women's competition tends to focus on physical beauty. Yes, hard as it is to imagine in todays enlightened feminist utopia, there are still cat fights amongst teenage girls and it is physcial appearance that is the weapon of choice.
What is more it appears that they are at their worst when the girls are in a fertile period of their monthly cycle. Asked to rate the physical beauty of other girls, girls consistently rated them lower when they were fertile compared with when they were not.
You can read more in Nature here.
It is a glorious spring morning and you are strolling carefree across a meadow. A zephyr plays tricks with the seed laden heads of the grasses. As the grasses wave they reveal a myriad of tiny multicoloured wild flowers that are blooming below. You lie down and are embraced by the grass and amidst the flowers, accepted by a benevolent nature.
Although you are completely hidden by the tall grass, the slope on the meadow means that you can still see the rural vista spread out before you. It is a living version of a Constable painting of the old English rural countryside. There is small river winding its leisurely way through the slightly undulating paddocks and a small farmlet, which is far enough away that the grimy details of farm life are invisible and the romantic ideal remains.
A large eagle rides a thermal current, it’s wings stationary as it glides in a lazy spiral ever vigilant for an inattentive rodent with which to feed its …. ring ring ….. ring ring – damn I forgot to switch the office phone through to message bank again. Oh well I might answer it.
“Yes I know we are late.”
“I can contact dispatch and find out the status and get back to you”
“Of course I don’t take you for an idiot”
“I promise. I will get straight onto them and ring you right back”
“Speak to you shortly”
Now where was I? Ah yes that eagle……
Here is a little bit of trivia for you, in lieu of some sensible comment which seems beyond The Green Man today.
John Denver is a stage name. John adopted it because he fell in love with Denver. When he became famous he bought himself a large place at Aspen. He loved the Rockies.
Being a touristy sort of town, Aspen has entertainment venues that cater for all sorts. On one night one of them was running a John Denver look-alike competition. John, having nothing else to do, entered. The competition involved getting up on stage and singing your favourite John Denver song, as well as looking like him of course.
These competitions can be pretty tough, with some people putting a lot of effort into looking like their favourite star. As an indication of the toughness of the competition, the best John Denver could manage in his own look-a-like comp was a third.
There is increasing angst in the gym/swimming pool operators over the use of the camera facilities of modern mobile phones within certain areas of their complex. It seems that certain members of their clientelle are taking exception to their images appearing on web sites in somewhat less than their full attire.
To address this issue the establishments have taken to posting signs regarding the acceptible use of mobile phones on their premises.
One would hope that general courtesy and common sense would make it unnecessary to post such a policy,"
says 29-year-old Debbie Goodson, a San Franciscan whose gym recently put signs about its ban in locker rooms. Unbeknownst to Debbie, you can find some interesting pictures of her at www.amateur-hornbags.com. Oh well, it seems common sense is not that common after all.
Did you click the link?
Tut tut, I just made that one up.
hmmmm I hope it isn't actually a real website.
Here is question for you! Who is supposed to be having babies?
Hmmm tough one that, let me guess, is it young women?
Yes it is and basically they are not. They are waiting until they are older then, in a desparate attempt to wind back their biological clock, they are resorting to fertility treatments. This in turn is leading to multiple birth pregnancies which, in turn, leads to complications and babies dying. Multiple births climbed more than 400 percent between 1980 and 1998 because of fertility treatments by older women, the CDC has reported.
Couple this with the higher instance of babies with birth defects or other potentially deadly complications in women in their 30s and 40s and you get the first increase in infant mortality rates in the US in quite some time. It is a trend we are likely to see continue unless women return to having children at a younger age.
Ideology aside, if you are a women, for your own physical wellbeing, it pays to have your children young or not at all.
Will you people please stop ordering "Shark Fin Soup" at your local chinese restaraunt. The practice of catching sharks, cutting off their dorsal fin and throwing them back to die a slow and painful death in the ocean has caused a crash in shark populations worldwide. Oceanic whitetip sharks, once the most common shark in the world, are almost completely extinct, according to a new census. Shark populations generally have dropped by 99% over the last 50 years.
Isn't it interesting that when it comes to fluffy koalas we have all these bleeding hearts wringing their hands but when it is a fish or reptile they show complete indifference. Please get over your ridiculous "Jaws" based attitudes to these magnificent creatures.
When everyone stops ordering shark fin soup fishermen will stop the wasteful carnage of these animals. We can only hope that it will be soon or they will be extinct.
Herpes is a big success as an organism, that is if you define a virus as an organism but we wont enter that debate. It has successfully established itself in the human population and does what the most successful parasites do. It may inconvenience its host but it does not kill it. If you think about it, a parasite that kills its host is depriving itself of a home.
It appears that there is a version of herpes that is not quite so benign. Koi herpes virus, or KHV, is killing four out of every five carp that it infects, and has spread rapidly around the world. The disease threatens two important fish populations: the ornamental koi carp industry, which is worth tens of millions of dollars in Japan, and the common carp, the world's fourth most-farmed fish.
It was first identified in Israel in 1998 which prompts The Green Man to wonder what bizarre practices are engaged in in that country via-a-vis fish and herpes infected humans. Perhaps it is better not to think to much about that. Anyway it has spread to Europe, Asia and the United States, which prompts the question "How come we haven't got it in Australia?" It seems that everywhere that likes carp have got it and Australia, that hates carp (they are an environmental nightmare here) has missed out. Ah the irony.
You can read more about this carp social disease in Nature here.
I have called this principle, by which
each slight variation, if useful, is preserved,
by the term Natural Selection.
—Charles Darwin from "The Origin of Species"
One of the truely great thinkers in natural science was born on this day in 1809. From 1831 to 1836 Darwin served as naturalist aboard the H.M.S. Beagle on a British science expedition around the world. This trip was when Darwin made the observations that were to be the foundation of one of the most fundamental shifts in scientific thinking. Up until this time man had seen himself as separate from the natural world, a higher being. Through Darwins work we came to see that we fitted into and were part of the natural world.
If you happen to be in London you can celebrate his birthday at the Natural History Museum who sponsor an annual celebration. Find out more here.
Darwin was the fifth child in his family and, as such, had the gift of intellectual flexibility, at least according to Frank Sulloway, a visiting scholar at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in the Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences. His theory is that it’s our siblings and the threat they present us to getting out of childhood alive that are at the heart of who we are, the single best predictor of personality traits. Basically, lower born children, like Charles Darwin, are physically less capable of exerting an influence in the family because their siblings are older and stronger. These individuals are forced to adopt more innovative ways of thinking in order to survive and prosper in the family. His book "Born to Rebel: Birth Order, Family Dynamics and Creative Lives" makes fascinating reading from a theoretical perspective but it is a bit long winded. I found myself skipping bits but it was worth the read anyway.
If you have a close relative or friend who has terminal cancer visiting them can be a trial. It is nothing compared to what they are going through of course but we find it a confronting experience. It is important to think about why we go. We like to think it is to provide support but new evidence suggests that we may inadvertently doing the exact reverse.
Home grown wisdom points to the importance of the patient maintaining a positive attitude. We seem to have accepted the concept that it will improve the quality of what life they have left. The more extreme even suggest that it can prolong life.
New research by Penelope Schofield, a research fellow at the Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre in Melbourne suggests that this is complete fiction. Not only do people maintaining a positive attitude not live any longer than those who didn't but the expectation that they maintain a positive attitude places an additional, unnecessary burden upon them.
We have to ask ourselves whether we are expecting terminally ill patients to maintain a positive attitude for their benefit or for ours. It is much more comfortable to go and visit if the person is happy and optimistic. Some time you may be in the position of having to provide support to a friend or relative that finds themselves in this unfortunate situation. Try providing quality support by not placing the burden of your expectations and your comfort upon them, they have enough to bear already.
On Sunday George W Bush gave an interview to "Meet The Press" on NBC in America. Early in the interview he said
I'm a war president. I make decisions here in the Oval Office in foreign policy matters with war on my mind."
And people wonder why America is viewed by large sections of the globe as currently the greatest threat to world peace.
Dr Susan Hallam of the UK Institute of Education is about to become a hero amongst our younger citizens. Analyzing 75 years of research by the Institute she has concluded that homework is almost a complete waste of time particularly when parents attempt to assist the child.
The most productive environment for out of class study is after-school learning clubs, away from the potentially disruptive influence of parents. Anxiety, boredom, fatigue and emotional exhaustion are about the only things that students gain from in home study.
Dr Hallam says
Parents have the most positive influence when they offer moral support, make appropriate resources available and discuss general issues. They should only actually help with homework when their children specifically ask them to.
Such is the domination of English that, if your name means something inappropriate in English then you are destined not to be taken seriously. The quintessential example of this is the Oops tribe of Central Africa. They spoke an ancient dialect of Swahili and, as you could imagine, in their language the term has no other meaning than their identity.
You may think this is a trivial issue however, in our shrinking world, how we are perceived by the rest world has a fundamental impact on how the community is viewed, which, in turn, has an impact on the survival of the traditions and culture of the community. When we think of The Bushmen of the Kalahari we conjure up images of a happy race of hunter-gatherers living a “noble savage” type existence in the harsh, mostly arid Kalahari dessert. We see a value in their maintaining their lifestyle and traditions.
Compare this with the Oops tribe. Living in the Congo River valley, they were first encountered by Livingston on his legendary journey into darkest Africa. As they possessed no written language it left to Dr Livingston to phonetically interpret their language when writing of them. To the untrained English ear it appeared that they referred to themselves as “Oops” and, as such, that is what Livingston wrote in his journal.
Even when your name sounded noble it was a hard task to maintain some semblance of cultural integrity in the 19th and early 20th centuries. The unfortunate Oops were destined to be ridiculed and their chances of cultural survival were negligible. The last record of people identifying with the tribe was in 1936 when an anthropologist visited the area. Some older people still new the name but everyone else were identifying themselves as “Uyanzi”. It seems that being laughed at for generations had taken its toll.
Sunday Frebruary 22nd is Wet Nose Day. An event to support Seeing Eye Dogs. If you live anywhere other than Victoria Australia then I will be very surprised to see you at the event which is being held at Grant St intersection on St Kilda Rd, commencing at 10:00am.
To find out how to participate and support this worthwhile cause click here.
Gender plays a big part in the perception of pain. As surprising as it may be it is well established that males have a much higher tolerance of pain than females, both in their perception of pain and in their physiological response to pain, quickened heart rate, increased blood pressure etc.
Interesting work by David Williams,of the University of Westminster in the UK, has shown that the gender of the person administering the pain is also important. Earlier studies indicated that men reported higher pain thresholds when the person administering the pain was a female. This was put down to a macho display on the part of the recipients. It turns out, however, that both males and females, genuinely experience less pain when the person administering it is female.
There has been some theorising over the evolutionary benefit of this phenonema however it seems pretty tenuous at this stage. At least we now know why women make better nurses.
Read more about pain in New Scientist.
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)
Well by now you should have had at least one delicious batch of Ginger Beer from the Ginger Beer Recipe posted some time ago. It is a beautiful hot summers day today and there is nothing nicer than a cold ginger beer. (If you are in the northern hemisphere then suffer, it is magnificent here.)
The perfect thing to accompany ginger beer is a ploughmans lunch. For those of you that are ignorant of one of the great gourmet experiences of the old world, it is large chunks of crusty bread, hard cheese like Cheddar, cured meat like ham, Pickles and Pickled Onions. It is consumed in the English countryside outdoors during that pathetic excuse for a summer that they traditionally have. Traditionally it is accompanied by chilled scrumpy apple cider but the problem with that is that, after a pint or two, standing becomes exceptionally difficult. Scrumpy is, afterall, about 35% alcohol so the ginger beer makes an excellent liver saving alternative.
Enough rambling (my pint of scrumpy is almost finished) the purpose of this post is a recipe for pickled onions. I know you can buy them at the supermarket but what fun is that. Here is a chance to pretend that you stand a vague chance of surviving the collapse of civilisation as we know it by pickling your own onions.
The recipe comes courtesy of Peter Shave who prefers to consume his with home brewed beer, that I strongly suspect is as potent as the aforementioned scrumpy, given that I am usually incapable of remembering anything after the first drink or two at his place. Click here for the recipe. Happy pickling.
Boy, how could one breast generate so much internet traffic. The BBC reports that Janet Jackson's breast has has made internet history.
Compared to Janet Jackson, Paris Hilton might seem pale but her drawing power is paler still. There has been 60 times the searches for a single Jackson breast than for a pair of Hilton breasts. And poor old Britney, she might as well hand back her crown as queen of geek desire. The aforementioned breast rated 80 times her pulling power.
Now, as the icing on the cake, literally, Amateur Gourmet has fast tracked years of culinary research to release his Janet Jackson Breast Cupcake.
Naturally, every virile young man will want to turn his attention to the kitchen and acquire this recipe. You can find it here.
Ever thought of breeding yourself a master race of humans? America did, although if you take a look at the comments on post entitled "Facts On Guns In The USA" you will see that they were not completely successful, not, at least, if intellect was the measure.
But I digress, the science is called Eugenics and America embraced it with enthusiasm.
You can read all about it at the Eugenics Archive.
Take a look at this photo.
Is that the honourable George W with his hand on that trollop's breast? It might be. Whether it is or not it has caused quite a stir in the hallways of the Humanities Department at Lehigh University where it is on display at the moment. It is part of a series by Larry Fink entitled The Forbidden Pictures which is a satire of political leaders.
The Green Man is still waiting for the picture of the nude wrestling match between GWB and John Kerry from their Yale days.
See more of Larry's work here.
Those of you who are regular readers of The Green Man will have noticed the scarcity of posts over the last couple of days. The Green Man has swapped paid employment and his new employer has the internet blocked.
Yes, shock horror!! What is The Green Man to do. He is trying prostrating himself all the way to the IT department at the moment. Surely they are kind hearted souls.
Janet Jackson's little display at the super bowl yesterday has caused a cuffufle in middle America Fancy all those Americans getting a glimpse of a breast. Who knows what long dormant urges it awoke in the couch potatos that had settled in for a predictable dose of football action. Many may not have been able to focus on the second half! (The Green Man will be watching the birth statistics in 9 months for the repercussions)
Naturally there was outrage in the American officialdom, Federal Communications Commission Chairman Michael Powell has ordered an investigation of the incident. This will allow him to see a high-definition version of the action since he was out at the toilet at the time it aired live.
In an interesting comparison all Australian TV channels happily played the footage uncensored and without a warning on their prime time news without a whisper of complaint.
In Athens Mrs. Gianna Angelopoulos - Daskalaki, President Organizing Committee for the Olympic Games Athens 2004, is quoted as saying
America is a world leader in quality sporting entertainment and we are constantly looking for ideas for improving the opening ceremony for the Games. Of course any addition to the opening ceremony would need to be culturally sensitive and in keeping with the traditional nature of the games.
Given that participants in the Olympic Games were traditionally naked The Green Man thinks that it leaves the door pretty wide open.
Anyway, with all this worldwide attention on tits it seems an appropriate time to introduce one of the worlds foremost tit websites. www.nice-tits.org is the home of the Royal Tit-Watching Society of Britain, errr that is the bird type of tit. It was founded in 1824, by Lord Roylott of Stoke Moran, Surrey. Lord Roylott was himself a tit man and his writings on the subject caused Charles Darwin to remark that they were "of immense importance in the formation of my theory of natural selection"
By way of demonstration of the fact that members of the Royal Tit-Watching Society possess aesthetic abilities that extend beyond a fine appreciation of avian tits, below is a picture of Roosa Heikkinen of the Finnish Chapter of the Society modeling one of their signature "Nice Tits" t-shirts.
Conduct disorder is a psychiatric diagnosis defined as "a repetitive and persistent pattern of behavior in which the basic rights of others and major age-appropriate societal norms or rules are violated," In a teenager this means they have little respect for their peers and consistantly violate those social rules that are the glue that holds our society together. These sorts of teenagers undermine the psychological wellbeing of the community.
Recent research indicates that adolescents with conduct disorder are also five times more likely to be carrying of a conceled hand-gun. Even though the carrying of handguns by juveniles is prohibited, this is hardly a surprising finding since that
1. disorder is closely linked with delinquency.
2. sufferers are characterised by their disregard for the law
The demographic of these adolescents is 30% black, 70% white. Blacks represent 12.6% of the population generally meaning that they are overrepresented in this group.
George W Bush and John Kerry look like they will be up for a bit of sparring soon. So it is with a degree of amusement and fascination that The Green Man reports that it may not have been the first time.
Both men are Yale graduates and both belonged to the university's most elitist secret society, Skull and Bones Club. John Kerry was in the class of '66, and George Bush in the class of '68, ie their memberships of the club overlapped. This really becomes intriguing when you learn that one of the practices of the club was nude wrestling. (Yep you read it correctly and this is not some bit of Green Man satire either. It is in The New York Times) Sadly a spokesman for John Kerry, David Wade, reports
there are no pictures of them dancing together naked.
The Green Man is starting to see the struggle for the White House from a whole new, and somewhat bizarre, perspective. Who cares about Janet Jackson flopping a tit out, a nude wrestling match between John Kerry and George Bush, now that would have been some Superbowl half time show.
I am not sure how many of my international readership are acquainted with the culinary delight that is fish and chips wrapped in paper. It is something that Australia inherited from the English and Friday evening would not be complete for many Australians without a trip to the take-away Fish and Chip Shop for the evening meal. It has been that way in Australia for generations.
They did change slightly when health regulations meant that the traditional newspaper wrapping had to go in favour of clean white paper. Up until then they had been somewhat greyer in appearance, courtesy of the leached out newsprint.
The gold rush of the late 19th century saw a huge influx of Chinese to southern Australia. One of the cultural treasures they brought with them was Dim Sum. It's Australian derrivative, the Dim Sim, is now a consistent presence on blackboard menu of every Fish and Chip shop although any resemblance in taste to a chinese dish is distant at best. Australians know that it is best not to inquire as to what they contain.
Known affectionately in Australia as a Dimmy they can be purshased steamed (pictured) or fried, the health conscious usually feeling obliged to purchase the steamed variety.
If you are on a low fat diet for a healthy heart then it may be time to swap to the deep fried variety if research from The State University of New York is to be believed. In findings that seem counter intuitive they found that those on a moderate fat intake actually fared better than those on a low fat intake. Both groups were on reduced calorie intake diets.
Participants who consumed a diet containing 33 percent fat (moderate fat) reduced their cardiovascular risk by 14 percent, based on their lipid profiles, findings showed. Those consuming a diet containing 18 percent fat (low fat) reduced their lipid-based risk by nine percent.
Want a healthy heart, forget the steamed rice and raw vegetables and head off to the Fish and Chip Shop. Just don't eat much when you are there, which is the hard bit because it makes a pretty tasty meal.
Is Georgia in the American bible belt? I imagine it is because they have a big problem with the theory of evolution there. It seems that it is creating confusion amongst the students.
In a move simplify things that could only have been thought up by a bureaucrat, the state has mandated that schools are allowed to teach evolution, they are just not allowed to use the word "evolution", it has been banned from their text books. The bureaucrat in question, Superintendant Cathy Cox says
"The unfortunate truth is that 'evolution' has become a controversial buzzword that could prevent some from reading the proposed biology curriculum. We don't want the public or our students to get stuck on a word when the curriculum actually includes the most widely accepted theories for biology. Ironically, people have become upset about the exclusion of the word again, without having read the document."
'Evolution' was a controversial buzzword in England, IN 1860!!!
Ex-president and Georgian native Jimmy Carter is not known for his atheist leanings but he has a different view on this topic.
As a Christian, a trained engineer and scientist, and a professor at Emory University, I am embarrassed by Superintendent Kathy Cox's attempt to censor and distort the education of Georgia's students.The existing and long-standing use of the word 'evolution' in our state's textbooks has not adversely affected Georgians' belief in the omnipotence of God as creator of the universe. There can be no incompatibility between Christian faith and proven facts concerning geology, biology, and astronomy.
There is no need to teach that stars can fall out of the sky and land on a flat Earth in order to defend our religious faith.
And while we are on the topic of "the theory that must not be named", a recent paper in the journal of The Royal Society points to snakes "developing into their current form" on land rather than in the ocean. (Isn't that so much simpler than saying "evolving")
Genetic analysis by Nicolas Vidal and Blair Hedges at Penn State shows that snakes are more closely related to land based lizards than aquatic ones, such as the monitor lizards. This points to the fact that they lost their limbs after leaving the ocean, possibly in response to evolutionary pressure arising from burrowing. (oops I should have said "developing into their current form" pressure).
Read more about the research here.
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.
Wake, shower, eat.
Commute, work, eat.
Work, commute, eat.
Sleep – Ah blessed unconsciousness.
Wake, shower, eat.
Commute, stress, eat.
Stress, commute, eat.
Sleep – Ah blessed unconsciousness.
Wake, shower, eat.
Commute, submit, eat.
Submit, commute, eat.
Sleep – Ah blessed unconsciousness.
Wake, shower, eat.
Commute, sicken, eat.
Sicken, commute, eat.
Die – Ah blessed release.
This is a photo of a grey wolf in Yellowstone National Park. They are currently being reintroduced to the park with some success. Read about it here.
As an ancient woodland spirit, The Green Man is familiar with the wolves that share his domain in the old forest. As he explores forgotten paths he frequently encounters wolves, they are a manifestation of the wilderness spirit.
Not everyone shares The Green Mans fondness for wolves however. A study by Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) and the University of Wisconsin shows that your attitude to wolves depends very much on deeply rooted social identities and occupations. Hunters, who view wolves as competitors, are particularly intolerant to them with 74% indicating they wanted the wolves of Winconsin reduced in number or eliminated entirely. This compared with 44% of livestock producers and 28% of the population generally.
You might think that the intolerance of hunters and farmers is born out of their experiences with losses to wolves but this is not the case. There was no difference in attitude between those who lost stock/hunting dogs and those who didn't. It tended to be more cultural, with the attitudes arising from their peer group rather than personal experience.
Wolves were eliminated in Wisconsin in the 1950's but are slowly making a comeback, there is now a population of approximately 350. The Green Man wishes them luck. They are a natural part of the North American ecosystem and deserve a small space in the vast American wilderness.