26th January
Interesting times, indeed. 2000 was a difficult and
challenging year
for a lot of people. I'm glad to see the back of it :).
Killing the Buddha.
Via
Lukelog.
The Zen master Lin Chi said, 'If you see Buddha on the road,
kill him.' I.e., if you have an idea of Buddha that prevents
you from having a direct experience of Buddha, you are being
limited by that idea, and the only
way to free your mind and experience
Buddha (or enlightenment) fully is to kill your idea,
sensory desire, thought, perception, belief system,
or whatever is limiting
you. I think!
21st January
Calculate your ecological footprint.
It's designed for use by Americans, but may
be relevant to other First World
nationalities too. FWIW - it calculated
my footprint as being 20.3 acres, 80.5 % of an
average American's footprint.
The biologically
productive space available per person is
5.4 acres.
I live alone
(most of the time),
in a fairly small house, don't drive
but have a long commute (by train), and take a
couple
of long distance flights a year.
Thanks
Nick.
Actually, this is what I really look like :-
Get your own!
Freakles thinks I
look like this! Who am I to disagree?
Get your own stortrooper
here; there's a whole gallery of
webloggers' troopers
here, courtesy of
Threadnaught.
Augustine of Hippo. Very comprehensive.
This page has been up since 1994, so was
Augustine the first saint to have his own homepage?
Picasso's Guernica Unveiled.
Interesting page about Picasso's Spanish Civil War
painting. The author believes there are 'hidden images'
in the painting - take a look and decide for yourself.
17th January
My great friend Beth now has
a weblog.
Check it out, please. She would also like a job!
AP
- 'Twin Myanmar rebel chiefs surrender.'
'Thailand said Wednesday it may give humanitarian asylum to Johnny and
Luther Htoo, the twin boy leaders of a mystical rebel movement from Myanmar
who have surrendered with some of their followers.' The 'Burma
Twins' are fascinating - read more about them
here.
IRNA - 'Lovebirds joined in
marriage.'
'In an unprecedented match
a 20-year-old Iranian bachelor has married a 77-year-old virgin in a
village in this Iranian province, an official said here Tuesday. '
See 'Ginger' in all its earth-shattering glory.
Not really, but it is pretty funny.
15th January
Daily Telegraph - 'Mallard leads Oxford fellows a merry
dance.'
'Some of Oxford's most learned fellows were marching around their college
behind a wooden duck held aloft on a pole, after excessive eating and
drinking, late last night.'
'The bizarre ritual of "hunting the mallard" occurs once every 100 years at
All Souls College in commemoration of the chase after a huge wild duck
which flew from a drain during 15th-century building works. Archbishop
Henry Chichele, who established All Souls in 1438, is said to have had a
premonition about the duck in a dream.....'
12th January
Interesting Salon profile of
James Lovelock, the grand old man of the 'Gaia
hypothesis' (the theory that the Earth is a kind of
super-organism) (old).
New Scientist - 'Killer virus.'
'An engineered mouse virus leaves us one step away from the ultimate
bioweapon...'
'The Australian researchers had no intention of producing a killer virus.
They were merely trying to make a mouse contraceptive vaccine for pest
control. "But it's a good way to show how to alter smallpox to make it more
virulent," says Ken Alibek, former second-in-command of the civilian branch
of the Soviet germ-warfare programme.'
8th January
Weather permitting (a big question mark), tomorrow night
I will be viewing the
total lunar eclipse which will be visible in
Africa, Asia and Europe - read all about lunar
eclipses (including the approximate viewing times
for the one tomorrow)
here.
7th January
BBC - 'Singing from the same song sheet.'
'Whales, birds and humans all sing and they do it in much the same way,
researchers are finding. '
'The similarities are so marked researchers have suggested that the three types of
animal may share a musical ancestor at some stage in their evolutionary history. '
BBC - 'Millions flock to Hindu festival.'
'Pilgrims have begun arriving in the northern Indian town of Allahabad for
Hinduism's most important spiritual gathering, which is expected to attract at
least 20 million people over the next 42 days. '
'The Kumbh Mela takes place every 12 years and sees millions of devotees
bathe in the Ganges to purify their sins. '
Also see
the official Kumbh website.
Economist - 'Extra sensory perception.'
'Vibrations in the ground are a poorly understood but
probably widespread means of communication between
animals.'
Do some animals have a 'sixth sense' (unknown in humans)
which enables them to
detect vibrations in the ground, or
'seismic signalling'? Does this explain odd animal behaviour
prior to earthquakes and thunderstorms?
Fascinating stuff.
5th January
George Rodger : Photographic Voyager 1908-1995.
Rodger took some particularly wonderful photographs of
Nuba tribespeople in the Sudan (I recommend his book
'Village of the Nuba'). He also took many great photographs
from many other parts of the world.
A nice collection of
photos of religious shrines from around the world.
From the same people who wrote the 'short history of English'
(see yesterday's links). They also travel the world
to see solar eclipses -
visit their fascinating eclipse page which includes
accounts of eclipses visited in Indonesia, the Philippines,
India, Venezuela, Mexico, Chile and the UK.
A document about the Pig War of 1859. Both the
British Empire and the USA laid claim to San Juan Island,
which lies between Seattle and Vancouver. Because
the American and Canadian inhabitants of the islands got
along fairly well, this wasn't too much of a problem,
until an American settler shot and killed a pig belonging
to the (Canadian) Hudson Bay Company. This resulted in
an escalation of the dispute, with the American sending
in the infantry and the British sending in the warships.
The whole matter was referred to the Kaiser for independent
arbitration, and he ruled in favour of the islands being
part of the USA, with the poor pig and maybe a bit of
national pride as the only casualties.
Flyingarmadillo.com
is a cartoon art page. I'm linking to it because I like the
URL.
