Tuesday, August 31, 2010

Cockroaches


Of all hated members of the insect family, cockroaches seem to have the worst reputation.

To us they are symbols of dirt and disease and their scuttling little legs give everyone the shivers.
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Contrary to popular belief, cockroaches do not carry disease in themselves
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Although they can aggravate allergies and worsen asthma.
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They may have gained such a bad name because of their favourite places to hang out:
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Anywhere fairly warm and wet, such as sewers, toilets and rubbish dumps
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Where they can pick up germs and spread them around in their tracks.
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In fact, cockroaches are one of the most successful and tough pests on Earth
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They have been around for 250 million years and even outlived the dinosaurs.
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They are thought to be able to resist 15 times the level of radiation that a human being can
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So they would probably be the only survivors of a nuclear war on Earth.
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They do not need much food, either, being able to live on just one meal a month.
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One of cockroaches’ favourite pastimes is to make more cockroaches.
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A female roach can lay an egg at the age of one month
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Then another for every month of her life thereafter — and every egg contains 40 babies.
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Each baby makes another 40, and so on.
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It is estimated that in one year, a single cockroach can be responsible for producing up to a million new cockroaches.
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There are about 4,000 species of cockroach but 99 per cent of those live outdoors and are not household pests.
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Watch out, though, for the biggest species in the world, the Australian Rhinoceros cockroach, which is up to 9cm in length.
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And is it really true that cockroaches can survive without a head?
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Yes — a cockroach will live for a number of weeks after decapitation, before starving to death.
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The severed head survives for several hours.
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The cockroach is also the fastest insect on the planet.
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Michael Carroll  - Times

Monday, August 30, 2010

Female farmers



80% of sub-Saharan farmers in Africa are women

Women make up the majority of farmers worldwide.

What are some of the unique problems that female farmers face?
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Although women produce most of the food and raise most of the livestock in Africa, they rarely have access to land tenure, credit, and agricultural extension services
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They are sadly under-represented in farmers groups, associations and unions.
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But by increasing women’s participation and representation in these groups, women and men farmers alike can work together to improve gender awareness
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While also improving their access to loans and agricultural inputs and land tenure.
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As a result, women are able to earn a greater income, which translates into better nutrition for their families.
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But women's voices often go unheard, or even ignored, and that has to change.
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Because once women obtain their rightful place in the decision making process so many of the current inappropriate policies and regulations can be changed
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For centuries men have controlled their women's lives, often totally ignoring their needs
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Where women have a voice such as in the Indian State of Kerala and access to education then literacy improves dramatically, birth rates go down and poverty becomes less prevalent 
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Globally many of the foods we eat in Europe are produced in emerging countries and if the farmers who raised the vegetables and other foods you eat were given a fair price for their crops then this would have a knock on effect for their greater communities 
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And if the workers who processed and packaged the food you eat had safe working conditions and were paid a fair wage then this alone would have a huge impact on their societies.
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As much as we all care about global food issues and how they affect human health and the environment, the problems of people in third-world countries can seem so far away.
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What can we do to contribute, even if it’s just in a small way?
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Why should wealthy foodies in the United States and Europe care about hunger in Africa?
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Because the foodie community in the United States and Europe are a powerful force in pushing for organically grown and local foods in hospitals and schools
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More farmers markets, and better welfare of livestock and some of that energy can be harnessed to promote more diversity and resilience in the food system.
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Right now, the world depends on just a few crops–maize, wheat, and rice–which are vulnerable not only to price fluctuations, but the impacts of climate change.
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Many indigenous crops–including millet, sorghum, sweet potato, and many others–however, are not only more nutritious than monoculture crops, but also more resilient to adverse weather events and disease.
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By supporting–and funding–NGOs and research institutions, such as Slow Food International, Heifer International, and the World Vegetable Center, wealthy foodies can help ensure that farmers in sub-Saharan Africa help maintain agricultural biodiversity.
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Even today, more than 6 million people in Ethiopia are at risk of starvation
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The people in many of these countries know better than anyone how to solve the problems they are facing
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They just need attention–and support–from the international community.
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In Africa, maybe more than anywhere else a little funding can go a long way
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Make your food choices judiciously

Sunday, August 29, 2010

Understanding



There is an illusion of understanding in our modern world

Everyone thinks he knows what is going on in a world which is more complicated or random than they realise

The overvaluation of factual information and the real handicap of authoritative and learned people particularly when they create categories

Our minds are wonderful expelling machines capable of making sense out of almost anything

Unfortunately we can only asses matters after the fact

Pundits are capable of of providing convincing explanations for all manner of phenomena after the fact

The more intelligent the person the better sounding the explanation

All these accounts appear to be logically coherent and devoid of inconsistencies

Upon examination however they are found to be anything but

Too late by the time objections arise

Even if they are allowed, which often they are not being obscured in official reports, committees and commissions to name but a few ways of hiding things

Or we have already moved on

Modern media like to make us think that we know more than we actually do

But this does not happen everywhere

Models and constructions, intellectual maps of reality are not always wrong

They are wrong only in some specific applications

The difficulty is that you do not know before where the map will be wrong

Only the fact that they will be wrong

And the mistakes this causes can lead to very severe consequences

This is where the gap between what you know and what you think you know becomes dangerously wide

And never more than in these confusing times where financial, business, social, climate and other certainties are anything but today

No one can see the next unexpected event

But we can be very sure that there is one coming down the road towards us

No if, only when and what

Saturday, August 28, 2010

Rare events



Rare events = uncertainty

The gap between what you know and what you think you know becomes dangerously wide

Our world is dominated by the extreme

The unknown and the very improbable

Note please how the very improbable impacts this planet

The improbable is what really flattens us

Often but not always events from nature

Financial crisis - man made

Tsunami - nature

Volcano = ash clouds - nature

Earthquakes - nature

And yet and yet society spends most of it's energy and time engaged in small talk focusing on the known and the repeated

A switch is required in our thinking because the improbable is becoming more frequent

We need to use the extreme event as a starting point and not treat it as an exception

While both human nature and social science seem to conspire to hide the knowledge from us

Our times demand that we acknowledge that the improbable is becoming more common

Response is one thing

Anticipation quite another

Being flattened by a tsunami is a catastrophe

Being aware of the possibility another step up

Being warned in time yet another

Planning and building sensibly even more intelligent

More and more extreme weather is our new experience

Our new reality

The unexpected is to be expected

Shock, horror, surprise will no longer do

The unexpected is the norm that we need to think about, not ignore until it flattens us again

Friday, August 27, 2010

After booze

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The drugs, cigarettes, sex and other such

Then what?

How will you enjoy yourself next?

More of the same?

Really and for how long will that suffice?

How long until that too becomes boring, repetitive and less thrilling?

Look at those older than yourself who went down that road

How do they enjoy themselves now?

Finding the latest to 'die for' diversion

Diversion?

Maybe that's why many people now spend endless hours playing games

Lose your self in games it's an option

It's another diversion

Like TV the same daily routine spending hours and hours watching

Anything to give you a fix to waste another day

To kill time

A lift perhaps

Another head space

Away from worry

A release, a break

Again a diversion

And after a while the pleasure seems to fade

Just does not seem the same any longer

What to do?

Why is there that vague dissatisfaction inside?

Why when you have had everything, tried everything?

Why this feeling of dissatisfaction?

Could it be that "you cannot hide when you are crippled inside" as one John Lennon once wrote?

Crippled from trying to run away

Trying to amuse yourself to death

Trying to hide from the pain and loneliness inside

All those diversions

Year after year

And still that loneliness inside

Lets face it life is not just about amusing yourself

Thought it was?

Well you were wrong

Life is about putting out and not just to gain things for yourself

Life is about caring and sharing

Try it

Before karma smacks you about

And the loneliness inside has you screaming some more

Thursday, August 26, 2010

Where we learn to lie



The five-year-old girl in the laboratory test was told not to turn round to see what soft toy was behind her.
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However, once her adult minder left on the excuse of taking a telephone call, she swivelled her head to look at Barney, a cuddly purple dinosaur.
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When asked minutes later she denied peeking but said she thought it was Barney behind her.
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How did she know?
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Well, God came into the room and whispered in my ear.
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Little children who tell such big fibs should not be a worry for parents.
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Scientists have discovered that a child who claims “the dog ate my homework” may have a future career in the City.
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Researchers who carried out a study of 1,200 children say the fact that a child has learnt to tell a lie shows they have reached an important step in their mental development.
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A majority of the human guinea pigs aged two to 16 told porkies but it is the children with better cognitive abilities who can tell the best lies.
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They have developed “executive functioning”, which means they are able to keep the truth at the back of their mind so their fib sounds more convincing.
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At the age of two, 20% of children will lie.
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This rises to 50% by three and almost 90% at four.
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Parents of troublesome youths may not be surprised that the curve peaks at the age of 12 when almost all of them will be deceitful.
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The tendency starts to fall away by the age of 16, when it is 70%.
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As adulthood approaches, young people learn instead to use the less harmful “white lies” that everyone tells to avoid hurting people’s feelings.
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Researchers say there is no link between telling fibs in childhood and any tendency to cheat in exams or to become a fraudster later in life.
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Nor does strict parenting or a religious upbringing have any impact.
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Healthy, intelligent children learn to lie quicker, but parents have to learn to distinguish between the harmless make believe — such as an imaginary friend — and the fibs told to protect or better the child.
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There is a “Pinocchio peak” about the age of seven after which it is hard to discern whether a boy or girl is lying without evidence.
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Kang Lee, director of the Institute of Child Study at Toronto University, which carried out the research, said: You have to catch this period and use the opportunity as a teachable moment.
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You shouldn’t smack or scream at your child but you should talk about the importance of honesty and the negativity of lying.
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After the age of eight the opportunities are going to be very rare.
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The research team invited younger children — one at a time — to sit in a room with hidden cameras.
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A soft toy was placed behind them.
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When the researcher briefly left the room, the children were told not to look. In nine out of 10 cases cameras caught them peeking.
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But when asked if they had looked, they almost always said no.
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They tripped themselves up when asked what they thought the toy might be.
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One little girl asked to place her hand underneath a blanket that was over the toy before she answered the question.
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After feeling the toy but not seeing it, she said: “It feels purple so it must be Barney.”
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Lee, who caught his son Nathan, 3, looking at the toy, said: We even had cameras trained on their knees because we thought their legs would fidget if they were telling a lie, but it isn’t true.
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Older children were set a test paper but were told they must not look at the answers printed on the back.
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Some of the questions were easy, such as who lives in the White House.
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But the children who looked at the back gave the printed answer “Presidius Akeman” to the bogus question “Who discovered Tunisia?”
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When asked how they knew this, some said they learnt it in a history class.
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Joan Freeman, professor of lifelong learning at Middlesex University in London and the author of How to Raise a Bright Child, said: Clever children are going to be better at lying.
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Most youngsters grow out of lying if it is not an acceptable part of their culture.
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But if you are running a business when you grow up you might want to get away with something — and not telling the whole truth is on the edge of morality.
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Margaret McAllister, a leading educational psychologist, said: Just because a child is bright I don’t think they are more likely to lie.
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But if they do, they will lie better and tell more complicated lies.
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Maurice Chittenden

Wednesday, August 25, 2010

Always thinking

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Maybe not thinking

But for sure thoughts one after another

Never ending

Usually worrying about this or that

Never at rest

Always there unless we drink or find some other diversion which can stop these endless thoughts

Nothing new in this we all know this

Ever thought how tiring this is?

Ever thought to change it?

Said it many times

Say it again

Endless thoughts are not good for your immune, mental and nervous systems

Giving your brain a rest, more than just when you sleep is a smart idea too

Controlling your mind is an even better one

Controlling your mind means you can stop endless worrying

Means you can enjoy peace of mind

Controlling our minds is tough

Do not believe that this is easy it is not

It is neat though

To do this there is only really one way although there are lots of labels for the same thing

Meaning?

Meditation

Meditation is the only way to train your mind to shut up and leave you alone

Meditation gets a good and bad press

A simple meditation is more than enough to begin with

Wear comfortable clothes

Choose a time of day convenient to you

Sit in a semi lotus or on a chair with legs and arms uncrossed, feet below the knees straight to the floor, uncrossed, hands resting in your lap palms facing upwards

Face the East where the sun and energy come from

Breath normally in and out, no pressure just normal breathing

Listen to your breath going in and out, notice what you feel

Every time a thought comes into your head push it away

There will be endless thoughts just keep pushing them away

Do this every day

Not for long just five or ten minutes but every day

Every day because if you do this infrequently your mind will understand that you are not serious

Your mind will keep interrupting you until you demonstrate that you wish to be quiet without thoughts

After all your mind has been controlling you all your life, why should it stop now

And you have never objected before to whatever thoughts it has pushed into your brain

It might take weeks months or years until you reach the point where suddenly you become conscious that you are having no thoughts

Meditation is tough do not believe otherwise

Why else would we have so many stories about how easy it is or conversely others saying how difficult it is?

It is though the only known way to peace of mind, a state that is the most satisfying and fulfilling

Peace of mind whatever our circumstances is a great ability to have

A human can attain few things more useful than this in life

Peace of mind

Think about it

Peace of mind allowing us to enjoy our lives more consciously, objectively, calmly, harmoniously

Non stop thinking is not a recipe for good health over the course of one's life

Tuesday, August 24, 2010

Alone again




Alone again can seem horrible

For those used to living with a partner

For those in a family where a member dies or moves away

Being alone is something that comes to most of us

Sometimes by choice and more often by circumstance

It is something that comes often unexpectedly

For some they never recover

For most we mourn and then move on

Being alone might not be our choice

Learning to enjoy being alone is a choice

A choice that we will not waste our life waiting for someone or something to come along

Too often people stay in a frozen state waiting

Waiting for something or someone that might never come

Better pick yourself up

Begin by getting busy

Fill your days

And as they fill we usually begin to see life more positively

Light comes into our lives

We begin to accept

We begin to start new activities slowly gaining confidence in our new actions

Finding ourselves more comfortable with being alone

Once we can enjoy being alone then often someone will come into our lives

Alone is not for all

Alone is for some a better space to be in

These are choices we make

After all we come into life not knowing what to expect then we are brainwashed by our societies

Telling us that life should be this or that

Often ignoring those aspects of life that are not so comfortable

Alone is one of these

Decide to use being alone to enjoy life and not to feel hard done by

Alone is a state of mind, being lonely is something else entirely

You choice as to whether or not that state of mind is positive or negative

Monday, August 23, 2010

Nassim Nicholas Taleb



"I cannot accept a pretence of science

I much prefer a sophisticated craft focused on tricks to a failed science looking for certainties

Could it be that they are doing something worse

Could it be that they are involved in manufacturing certainties

It means for me the caring about the premises more than the theories

I want to reduce my reliance on theories

Stay light on my feet and reduce my surprises

I want to be broadly right rather than precisely wrong

A theory is like medicine or government, often useless, sometimes necessary, always self serving and on occasion lethal

So it needs to be used with care moderation and close adult supervision"

N Taleb

His major point is that the unexpected is so much more important than the expected

The unexpected will also do immeasurably more damage than the expected

And if it only hits us once in a lifetime then being able to handle this is often the measure of our lives

His other point is that so much of what we pretend to know we do not in fact know at all

That we try to pretend that we know what is coming by producing explanations after the event 

Worthy experts called up to explain what they did not know or have a clue about before the event

To make us feel secure that they know

When they do not

Sunday, August 22, 2010

Cherokee wisdom



One evening an old Cherokee told his grandson about a battle that goes on inside all people.
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He said, My son, the battle is between two wolves that dwell inside each and everyone of us.
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One is Evil
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It is anger, envy, jealousy, sorrow, regret, greed,
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arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority,
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lies, false pride, superiority and ego.
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The other is Good.
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It is joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility,
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kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity,
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truth, compassion and faith.
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The grandson thought about it for
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a minute, and then asked his grandfather:
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Which wolf will win ?
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The old Cherokee simply replied:
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The one you feed

Saturday, August 21, 2010

Child safety



Safety is an important subject and never more so than when talking about young children

Young children should not be left alone period

And by young children we are talking about those up to 10 years old

This is no magic age and some are obviously more responsible than others

It is an idea as to when the young boy or girl should have some common sense and be able to behave reasonably

Before anyone writes in let's say use common sense and know your child

We hear of so many situations where children are left alone and get into trouble

Most of us when hearing about these situations say how on earth can parents leave their children alone?

And they do

Please understand that the danger is not when they are behaving normally

Not when things are normal

It is when they are not behaving normally that things go wrong

It is when the unexpected occurs that children are at risk

Parents please plan for the unexpected

Consider what would happen if your children have to face danger alone

Are they able?

Is it fair to put them in this possible situation?

Could you live with yourself if you did?

Enough of selfishness or thoughtlessness

Protect your children

Do not leave your children alone
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We are airing this at the request of a young couple whose child nearly died as the result of thoughtlessness

Friday, August 20, 2010

What is crop diversity?



Agriculture depends on relatively few crops – only about 150 are cultivated on any significant scale worldwide –
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However, each comes in a vast range of different forms.
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They may vary, for example, in height, flower colour, branching pattern, fruiting time, seed size, or flavour
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They may also vary in less obvious characteristics such as their response to cold, heat or drought, or their ability to tolerate specific pests and diseases.
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In fact it is possible to find variation in almost every conceivable trait, including cooking and nutritional qualities, and of course tasty
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And if a trait cannot be found in the crop itself, it can often be found in a wild relative of the crop.
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This multitude of different traits can be combined in an almost infinite number of ways.
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Diversity in a crop can result from different growing conditions: a crop growing in poor soil is likely to be shorter than a crop growing in fertile soil.
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It can also be the result of genetic differences: a crop may have genes conferring early maturity or disease resistance.
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It is these heritable traits that are of special interest as they are passed on from generation to generation and collectively determine a crop’s overall characteristics and future potential.
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Through combining genes for different traits in desired combinations, plant breeders are able to develop new crop varieties to meet specific conditions.
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A new variety might, for example, be higher yielding, more disease resistant and have a longer shelf life than the varieties from which it was bred.
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Put simply, crop diversity is the biological base of all agriculture.
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Its use goes back to the origins of farming, and farmers and scientists must continually draw on this irreplaceable resource to ensure productive harvests.
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World-watch

Thursday, August 19, 2010

Julian Assange



Assange is an international trafficker, of sorts.
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He and his colleagues collect documents and imagery that governments and other institutions regard as confidential and publish them on a Web site called WikiLeaks.org.
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Since it went online, three and a half years ago, the site has published an extensive catalogue of secret material, ranging from the Standard Operating Procedures at Camp Delta, in Guantánamo Bay, and the “Climategate” e-mails from the University of East Anglia, in England, to the contents of Sarah Palin’s private Yahoo account.
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The catalogue is especially remarkable because WikiLeaks is not quite an organization; it is better described as a media insurgency.
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It has no paid staff, no copiers, no desks, no office.
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Assange does not even have a home.
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He travels from country to country, staying with supporters, or friends of friends—as he once put it to me,
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I’m living in airports these days.
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He is the operation’s prime mover, and it is fair to say that WikiLeaks exists wherever he does.
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At the same time, hundreds of volunteers from around the world help maintain the Web site’s complicated infrastructure; many participate in small ways, and between three and five people dedicate themselves to it full time.
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Key members are known only by initials—M, for instance—even deep within WikiLeaks, where communications are conducted by encrypted online chat services.
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The secretiveness stems from the belief that a populist intelligence operation with virtually no resources, designed to publicize information that powerful institutions do not want public, will have serious adversaries.
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Iceland was a natural place to develop Project B. In the past year, Assange has collaborated with politicians and activists there to draft a free-speech law of unprecedented strength, and a number of these same people had agreed to help him work on the video in total secrecy.
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The video was a striking artifact—an unmediated representation of the ambiguities and cruelties of modern warfare—and he hoped that its release would touch off a worldwide debate about the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan.
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He was planning to unveil the footage before a group of reporters at the National Press Club, in Washington, on April 5th, the morning after Easter, presumably a slow news day.
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To accomplish this, he and the other members of the WikiLeaks community would have to analyze the raw video and edit it into a short film, build a stand-alone Web site to display it, launch a media campaign, and prepare documentation for the footage—all in less than a week’s time.
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Assange also wanted to insure that, once the video was posted online, it would be impossible to remove.
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He told me that WikiLeaks maintains its content on more than twenty servers around the world and on hundreds of domain names. (Expenses are paid by donations, and a few independent well-wishers also run “mirror sites” in support.)
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Assange calls the site “an uncensorable system for untraceable mass document leaking and public analysis,” and a government or company that wanted to remove content from WikiLeaks would have to practically dismantle the Internet itself.
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So far, even though the site has received more than a hundred legal threats, almost no one has filed suit.
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Lawyers working for the British bank Northern Rock threatened court action after the site published an embarrassing memo, but they were practically reduced to begging.
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A Kenyan politician also vowed to sue after Assange published a confidential report alleging that President Daniel arap Moi and his allies had siphoned billions of dollars out of the country.
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The site’s work in Kenya earned it an award from Amnesty International.
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Assange typically tells would-be litigants to go to hell.
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In 2008, WikiLeaks posted secret Scientology manuals, and lawyers representing the church demanded that they be removed.
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Assange’s response was to publish more of the Scientologists’ internal material, and to announce more was on file
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WikiLeaks will not comply with legally abusive requests from Scientology any more than WikiLeaks has complied with similar demands from Swiss banks, Russian offshore stem-cell centers, former African kleptocrats, or the Pentagon.
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In his writing online, especially on Twitter, Assange is quick to lash out at perceived enemies.
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By contrast, on television, where he has been appearing more frequently, he acts with uncanny sang-froid.
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Under the studio lights, he can seem—with his spectral white hair, pallid skin, cool eyes, and expansive forehead—like a rail-thin being who has rocketed to Earth to deliver humanity some hidden truth.
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This impression is magnified by his rigid demeanor and his baritone voice, which he deploys slowly, at low volume.
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Lily Mihalik/Wired

Wednesday, August 18, 2010

Sex life



The average person’s sex life ends by the age of 70, according to a report published today in the British Medical Journal.
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Men age 30 have an average of 35 years of sexually active life remaining, compared with 31 years for women, researchers at the University of Chicago’s department of obstetrics and gynecology estimated after reviewing a survey of 3,000 people.
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A separate survey of older people showed that by 55, men have an average sexual life expectancy of 15 years and women can expect 10 more years, the researchers found.
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People in very good or excellent health were almost twice as likely to be interested in sex as people in poorer health, according to the study.
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Men lost more years of sexual activity as a result of poor health than women, the researchers said.
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That may motivate men to pursue healthier lifestyles, they said.
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Translation of expectations about the duration and quality of sexually active life may, at the individual level, influence important health behaviors to promote or prolong sexual functioning, such as adherence to medical treatment or maintenance of a healthy lifestyle, the researchers wrote.
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In statistics, projections of how long people will live vary according to age.
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Life expectancy increases as people reach middle age because they have survived risks that earlier in life reduced their chances of making it to old age.
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The team, led by Stacy Tessler Lindau, used data from a 1995-1996 survey of 3,000 men and women between ages 25 and 74 and a 2005-2006 survey of 3,000 men and women between 57 and 85.
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Men were more likely than women to be sexually active, report a having a good quality sex life and be interested in sex, according to the study.
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The gap was largest among 75- to 85-year-olds.
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About 40 percent of men in that group were sexually active, compared with 17 percent of women, the researchers found
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Bloomberg
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So now you know, well now you know what some researchers have found and to be sure others will soon find something else as well

Tuesday, August 17, 2010

To be a woman


Ever wondered why a man can look at an advert featuring a six-pack and laugh, while a woman might look at a photograph of female perfection and fall to pieces?

William Leith thinks he might have uncovered the answer
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Plenty of guys have told me this story.

The guy in question is preparing to go to a party with his girlfriend.

She is trying on shoes and dresses.

He is telling her how good she looks.

She tries on more shoes, more dresses.

And then: the sudden, inexplicable meltdown.

She crumples on the bed.

Something is horribly wrong.

Now the party is out of the question.
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The guy sits down.

He hugs her.

What's the problem?

Gradually the truth emerges.

'Do you know what it was?' the guy will say later to his friends.

'She said she "didn't look right".

She felt … I don't know. Fat.

Or that she was the wrong shape.

It's all about her body.'

He goes on: 'I told her she looked great.

Which she does, right?'
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At this point the other guys will say, 'Yeah – she looks great.'

And: 'She looks fine.'

And: 'I saw her the other day, wearing those shorts.'

And: 'She is hot.' Then the first guy will say,

'That's what I kept telling her.

And that's when she got really upset.

She said, "You just don't understand."'
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It's true – men, by and large, do not understand.

In her book The Beauty Myth, Naomi Wolf made this point very powerfully.

When a woman has a crisis of confidence about the way she looks there is nothing a man can do to console her.
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Whatever he says hurts her more

If he comforts her by calling the issue trivial, he doesn't understand.

It isn't trivial at all.

If he agrees with her that it's serious, even worse: he can't possibly love her, he thinks she's fat and ugly
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But it doesn't stop there, says Wolf.

What if the man were to say he loves the woman just as she is – that he loves her for her?

An absolute no-no, of course, because then 'he doesn't think she's beautiful'.

Worse still, though, if he says he loves her because he thinks she's beautiful.
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There's no way out.

It seems to be, in Wolf's words, 'an uninhabitable territory between the sexes'.

So why don't men understand?

And, given a bit of education, can the situation be improved?
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Well, I'm a man, so let's see.

The first thing to say is that, when it comes to their bodies, men have a completely different attitude.

I'm not saying they don't think about their bodies, or worry about them, because they do.

But men relate to their bodies in a simple way.
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A man's body is either fine, or it's not fine.

For a man, the body is a practical object.

It's a machine.

Sometimes it works well; sometimes it needs fixing.

Some guys know how to fix it, by taking up a sport, maybe, or cutting down on the carbs.

Some don't, and go to seed.
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Men see their bodies as machines because, for most of their time on this earth, they have defined themselves as hunters and protectors.

They equate being attractive with being strong and fast and muscled.

That's a simple concept, isn't it?

And that simplicity is hard-wired into the male brain.
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When his girlfriend has a meltdown, and says she hates her body, that is not a simple concept.

Unlike men, women do not have a simple relationship with their bodies.

They have a complex relationship with their bodies.

This is what men often don't understand.

When it comes to their bodies, women are extremely vulnerable – and, what's more, lots of people take advantage of that vulnerability.

This makes the situation worse.
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Men don't have to contend with this –

the hair people, and

the make-up people,

and the fashion people,

and the shoe people,

and the bra people,

and the nail people,

and the eyelash people,

and the Botox people,

and the cosmetic surgery people,

and the perfume people,

and the hair-removal people.

Oh, and the diet people.
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Men are not at the mercy of corporate manipulation on remotely this scale.

Sure, there are six-packs creeping into our field of vision every so often.

And, sure, this is making us feel insecure. I know – I was fat, and it's no fun being fat, especially with all those pictures of Brad Pitt nagging away.
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And then there are the adverts for Lynx, and the Reebok advert in which a man is chased around town by a big fat hairy belly.

But for men the message is very direct.

Buy some running shoes.

Go to the gym.

Cut down on the carbs.

For men there is no mystery behind the veil of the adverts.

You either tackle the situation, or become a fat slob. End of story.
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For men the holy grail is within reach – you just need to get fit, and then you'll be fine; then you can think about something else.

But the messages aimed at women are much more complex and confusing.

As the American social commentator Warren Farrell has pointed out, women's magazines often contain articles about being Superwoman, which are next to adverts about being Cinderella.
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In other words, the words tell women how to be independent and in control.

But the adverts, where the money is, tell them they have to be beautiful.
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Farrell said this more than two decades ago – and, shockingly, nothing has changed.

There's a solid pulse running through everything our culture aims at women – be beautiful, be beautiful, be beautiful.
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But being beautiful, it turns out, is a near-impossible task.

It keeps getting harder and harder.

Everybody knows that it entails being slim – and every year the ideal gets slimmer and slimmer.

In 1960 the average model weighed 10 per cent less than the average woman.

Now she weighs 25 per cent less.

Soon she will weigh 30 per cent less.

But she doesn't have the breasts of a skinny woman – nor, as Susie Orbach has recently pointed out, the bottom.

To achieve the ideal is vanishingly impossible.
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And it's getting worse.

Orbach believes that we are exposed, on a weekly basis, to several thousand images that have been digitally manipulated.

And this, in turn, makes more women opt for cosmetic surgery – which, of course, moves the goalposts even farther away.
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When lots of people have surgery to make themselves look more beautiful this has the effect of making everybody else feel less beautiful.

And this is happening on a global scale – in 2007 people spent £9 billion on cosmetic surgery; the vast majority of them, of course, were women.
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So: men are told they should aspire to fitness and strength, and women are told they should aspire to something more nebulous.

But that still does not explain, in terms a man could understand, why the female message is so much more powerful and disturbing.
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It doesn't explain why a tenth of women are anorexic, why a growing number are bulimic, why almost half of women, at any given time, are on a diet.
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It doesn't quite explain the meltdowns.
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And it doesn't explain why women want to be so skinny.

Why they think they are fat, when they are not.
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It doesn't explain why, when a woman's body is perfectly attractive, she often thinks it isn't, and can't be persuaded otherwise.
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In short, it does not explain why a man can look at an advert featuring a six-pack and laugh at it, whereas a woman might look at a picture of Gisele Bündchen and feel a sense of unease that hangs around for days.
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John Updike once said that the female body is the world's prime aesthetic object – we look at it more than we look at anything else, including landscapes, gadgets, cars.

In fact, cars and gadgets are often designed to resemble the female body, and landscapes can be painted to remind us of it.

When we talk about 'the nude' in art we are almost certainly referring to the female nude.

As far as nudes are concerned, the male nude is a distant runner-up.
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I once wrote the introduction to a book of male nudes by the photographer Rankin; it was a sequel to his previous book of female nudes.
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One thing struck me above all – male nudes were a much, much harder thing to portray than female ones.
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That's because the female body carries with it a huge weight of iconic significance – thousands of years of being looked at.
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The female body has meaning.
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Pictures of the female body can be profound, serious and complex.
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For thousands of years they have been depicted with reverence.
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Now imagine having one of those bodies.
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It puts a bit of pressure on, doesn't it?
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Now I'm beginning to see why women might be so addicted to perfection.
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They have a lot to live up to – a couple of thousand years of art history, and a couple of thousand airbrushed boobs and bums to deal with every week.
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But what started this off in the first place?
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Why aren't there so many airbrushed pictures of men around?
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Of course, these pictures do exist, and their numbers are increasing.
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But why are women so much more vulnerable to pictures of perfect bodies than men?
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In his book The Evolution of Desire, the American psychologist David Buss goes some way towards explaining why this should be so.
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Since the Stone Age, he explains, men and women have had different attitudes towards sex.
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Men can pass on their genes with very little risk – all they need is a fertile woman.
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But it's different for women, because pregnancy is incredibly risky.
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What women need is a man who looks like a good provider – better still, who looks like a proven provider.
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So let's think about our Stone Age man and woman.
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If he's going to settle down, and stop playing the field, he wants one thing above all – a woman who looks fertile.
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More than that, he wants a woman who looks as if she'll be fertile for many years to come.
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In other words, he might consider being a provider and protector, as long as his mate looks young, fertile and unblemished.
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And now consider his mate.
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What does she want?
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Not just a man who is a good hunter and a good fighter, but a man who has a track record as a hunter and fighter.
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In other words, an older man.
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And this is not only true of Stone Age couples.
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In a survey conducted by David Buss, 10,000 people, in 37 cultures, were polled.
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In all 37 cultures included in the international study on choosing a mate,' writes Buss, 'women prefer men who are older than they are.
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Now I'm getting close to understanding why women are so critical of their bodies.
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Since prehistoric times they have had a hard-wired link to how they look.
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For tens of thousands of years it was crucial; it could be the difference between having a protector and not having one – between life and death, even.
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For men it's not the same at all.
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The odd wrinkle or grey hair doesn't matter.
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Hell, it might even be an advantage.
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As long as you're good at throwing spears and building shelters, you'll be fine
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Twenty thousand years on, what has changed?
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Well, as David Buss points out, it's unlikely that a Stone Age man would have seen 'hundreds or even dozens of attractive women in that environment'.
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But now, when he looks at a Playboy centrefold, he is seeing a woman who has competed with thousands of other women for the part – not only that, he's seeing the best picture out of thousands.
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And it's not just centrefolds, is it?
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Just look at newsreaders – mostly, it's a pretty girl and a grey-haired man.
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Message to men: relax.
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Message to women: panic!
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And then there are the girl groups, and the short-skirted girl on Countdown, and even the characters in the Harry Potter films, where the boys are allowed to look like geeks but the girl must look like a model.
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As the art critic John Berger wrote: 'Men look at women.
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Women watch themselves being looked at.
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This determines not only the relations of men to women, but the relation of women to themselves.'
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It's a tough one, isn't it?
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Surely guys can understand that, at least.
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If it happened to us, we'd have a meltdown, too.

By William Leith - NYT

Monday, August 16, 2010

Slow Food International



Slow Food is an international movement founded by Carlo Petrini in 1986.
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It strives to preserve traditional and regional cuisine and promotes farming of plants, seeds and livestock characteristics of the local ecosystem.
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It was the first established part of the broader Slow movement.
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Slow Food began in Italy with the foundation of its forerunner organization, Arcigola, in 1986 to resist the opening of a McDonald's near the Spanish Steps in Rome
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The Slow Food organization spawned by the movement has expanded to include over 100,000 members with chapters in over 132 countries.
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All totaled, 800 local convivia chapters exist. 360 convivia in Italy — to which the name condotta (singular) / condotte (plural) applies — are composed of 35,000 members, along with 450 other regional chapters around the world.
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The organizational structure is decentralized: each convivium has a leader who is responsible for promoting local artisans, local farmers, and local flavors through regional events such as Taste Workshops, wine tastings, and farmers' markets
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Offices have been opened in Switzerland (1995), Germany (1998), New York City (2000), France (2003), Japan (2005), and most recently in the United Kingdom and Chile.
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The head offices are located in Bra, near the famous city of Turin, northern Italy.
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Numerous publications are put out by the organization, in several languages.
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In the US, the Snail is the quarterly of choice, while Slow Food puts out literature in several other European nations.
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Recent efforts at publicity include the world's largest food and wine fair, the Salone del Gusto in Turin , a biennial cheese fair in Bra called Cheese, the Genoan fish festival called SlowFish, and Turin's Terra Madre ("Mother Earth") world meeting of food communities.
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In 2004, Slow Food opened a University of Gastronomic Sciences at Pollenzo, in Piedmont, and Colorno, in Emilia-Romagna, Italy.
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Carlo Petrini and Massimo Montanari are the leading figures in the creation of the University, whose goal is to promote awareness of good food and nutrition.
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The Slow Food movement incorporates a series of objectives within its mission, including
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Forming and sustaining seed banks to preserve heirloom varieties in cooperation with local food systems
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Developing an "Ark of Taste" for each ecoregion, where local culinary traditions and foods are celebrated
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Preserving and promoting local and traditional food products, along with their lore and preparation
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Organizing small-scale processing (including facilities for slaughtering and short run products)
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Organizing celebrations of local cuisine within regions (for example, the Feast of Fields held in some cities in Canada)
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Promoting "taste education"
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Educating consumers about the risks of fast food
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Educating citizens about the drawbacks of commercial agribusiness and factory farms
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Educating citizens about the risks of monoculture and reliance on too few genomes or varieties
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Developing various political programs to preserve family farms
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Lobbying for the inclusion of organic farming concerns within agricultural policy
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Lobbying against government funding of genetic engineering
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Lobbying against the use of pesticides
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Teaching gardening skills to students and prisoners
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Encouraging ethical buying in local marketplaces
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From time to time, Slow Food intervenes directly in market transactions; for example, Slow Food was able to preserve four varieties of native American turkey by ordering 4,000 of their eggs and commissioning their raising and slaughtering and delivery to market
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Because by being informed about how our food is produced and actively supporting those who produce it, we become a part of and a partner in the production process.
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It is difficult to gauge the extent of the success of the Slow Food movement, considering that the organization itself is still very young.
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The current grassroots nature of Slow Food is such that few people in Europe and especially the United States are aware of it.
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Statistics show that Europe, and Germany in particular, is a much bigger consumer of organics than the US
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Slow Food has contributed to the growing awareness of health concerns in Europe, as evidenced by this fact, but on society as a whole, Slow Food has had little effect.
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An example of this is the fact that tourists visit Slow Food restaurants more than locals, but Slow Food and its sister movements are still young.
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In an effort to spread the ideals of anti-fast food, Slow Food has targeted the youth of the nations in primary and secondary schools.
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Volunteers help build structural frameworks for school gardens and put on workshops to introduce the new generation to the art of farming
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Steven Shaw, a food writer and a founder of the food Web site eGullet, says the Slow Food movement succeeded because it "mixed hedonism with a leftist political agenda".
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He further argues that the movement's, strong antitechnology, antiglobalization views are lost on the average member.
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An individual involved in the protection of traditional plant varieties has parted from the Slow Food movement, saying "They really only exist to promote themselves"
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The Slow Food movement's arguments parallel those of the anti-globalization movement, Greenpeace, and green parties against global export of monocultured foodstuffs, especially GMOs.
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A central point related to these arguments is that transport prices are artificially low because the true cost of fuel (including the protection of shipping lanes and military interventions around the world) are not factored into the price of goods, and are instead paid for indirectly through personal taxes

Sunday, August 15, 2010

Brand integration



Not only did this prolific brand weasel its way into 18 movies, but these films reached significantly different demographics
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From the adult female consumer (He’s Just Not That Into You) to the male and female teenager (Taken and Hannah Montana), to young children (G-Force and Race to Witch Mountain).
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If you haven’t heard of these movies, you’re probably better off
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And with all of its targeting of children and teens, Apple is quite strategically building its future customer base.
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Good job, Apple!
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Way to brainwash a whole new generation with the idea that your products are cool, hip, and essential to our happiness.
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I only wish I was writing this blog on a new iPad tablet, because my computer just doesn’t seem good enough anymore.
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Of course, it’d be great to see this new category excised from the annual awards ceremony—like the tumorous growth it is—
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But I can’t imagine a scenario where any effective legal restrictions on product placements or in industry jargon “Brand Integration” are adopted
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Or where there is any reduction in the $3.5 billion spent each year in the U.S. to infect movies with brand propaganda
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Recognizing this reality¸ it would be nice to at least see this powerful tool also used by truly sustainable companies and products. Imagine watching cool characters shop at Goodwill instead of The Gap.
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Imagine sexy celebrities scrubbing themselves with Dr. Bronner’s Magic Soap instead of a toxic beauty bar.
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Picture them cleaning their countertops with baking soda instead of carcinogen-laced cleaning products.
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Imagine them reading Worldwatch’s State of the World 2010 report instead of the newest issue of GQ.
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Ok, I couldn’t resist doing a bit of brand integration myself!
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Wired

Saturday, August 14, 2010

Forwards or backwards?























Should baby face forward or back?


What direction does your child’s stroller face?

New research raises questions about stroller design and the role it may play in a child’s language development.
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M. Suzanne Zeedyk, a senior lecturer in developmental psychology at the University of Dundee in Scotland, studied the way 2,700 families interact with their infants and toddlers while pushing them in strollers.
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She found that caregivers were less likely to speak to infants when the child was facing forward, compared with strollers where the baby faces the caregiver — what she calls a toward-facing journey.
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In a small controlled experiment, the researchers gave 20 mothers and infants ages 9 to 24 months a chance to use both types of strollers, and recorded their conversations.
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Mothers talked to their children twice as much during the 15-minute toward-facing journey, and they also laughed more.
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The babies laughed more, too.
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Of course, infants do not spend all their time in strollers, but anecdotal evidence suggests that babies can easily spend a couple of hours a day in them.
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And research tells us that children’s vocabulary development is governed almost entirely by the daily conversations parents have with them.
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When a stroller pusher can’t easily see the things that attract a baby’s attention, valuable opportunities for interaction can be missed.
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Ms. Zeedyk notes that forward-facing strollers are a relatively new development.
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In the 19th century, strollers were designed so that infants faced the person pushing them.
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But the development of convenient collapsible strollers changed that, because engineering constraints required the baby to face forward to look at the world, rather than a parent or caregiver.
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Ms. Zeedyk notes that her findings raise more questions than answers, but she hopes stroller manufacturers will work to develop a collapsible stroller that faces both ways.
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Meanwhile, the findings already encourage us to think again about how babies experience stroller rides — and other forms of transportation like car seats, shopping carts and slings.
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Parents needn’t feel worried, but instead curious about the elements of the environment that attract their children’s interest.
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The core message of our findings is simple
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Talk to your baby whenever you get the chance — and whichever direction your stroller faces.
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Tara Parker-Pope - The New York Times