Construction on the Crazy Horse memorial in the Black Hills of South Dakota, in 2011, commemorating the Sioux warrior, one of those who defeated General Custer at Little Bighorn in 1876. The Black Hills were seized by the US the following year. Photograph: Reuters
When I was a little girl, a long time ago, we would go camping in the Black Hills of South Dakota. We had to pay, just as tourists do, to camp there and enjoy the beauty of the Black Hills or, in Lakota, of the Paha Sapa or He Sapa. When I say we had to pay, I always remember someone griping about having to pay to camp in our sacred hills. But perhaps the way we enjoyed the Black Hills was a little different than the way the average tourist experienced them.
We felt at home, at peace, as content as a soul could feel, unless, otherwise, in heaven. We were taught to walk with care among the soft pine-needle beds and treat every living being from the smallest of creatures to the tallest of trees with respect. We breathed deeply of the pine-scented air and appreciated how the sun would find us, even through the thick veil of trees. We were taught how to pray and give thanks there, and as children, we ran and played among the hills without fear.
Even to this day, you can ask any member of the Oceti Sakowin, or Sioux Nation, how their hearts feel when in the Black Hills: there, they find a mood of melancholy and an inner peace that some people seek all their lives.
And then, we would go home to the reservation. What some people on the reservations refer to as modern-day prison camps that were given to us after the United States whittled Indian land down to only nine reservations from the whole western half of South Dakota and parts of Nebraska, Wyoming, Montana, and North Dakota, which was the territory originally negotiated in the Fort Laramie Treaty of 1868. The reservations broke up all the bands of the Sioux Nation; some say this was part of a campaign to weaken us.
Our reservation has been in the news many times for the poverty and deprivation that most people are shocked to find exist right here in America. So, for us to go from the beautiful Sacred Paha Sapa back to the reservation was always a downer. Especially when you learned from your parents that not only are the Black Hills sacred and that they belong to us, but they were stolen by the United States after the discovery of gold.
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Brain scans don’t lie about age.
Paleobiologist argues that earliest land dwelling amniotes were likely egg layers.
US drought could spur civil unrest around the world – environment – 17 August 2012 – New Scientist.
World’s largest tobacco use study: People still like it, despite bans and awareness | Science Codex.
Meditation reduces loneliness | ScienceBlog.com.
Yoga: A cost-effective treatment for back pain sufferers?
Report card shows Australia’s oceans are changing
Common parasite may trigger suicide attempts
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FamilySearch.org “FamilySearch is a service provided by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Millions of people use FamilySearch records, resources, and services to learn more about their family history. For over 100 years, FamilySearch has been actively gathering, preserving, and sharing genealogical records worldwide. Patrons may freely access our resources and service online at FamilySearch.org, or through over 4,500 family history centers in 70 countries, including the renowned Family History Library in Salt Lake City, Utah.”
In the early 1950s, Walt Disney started plans for a huge amusement park to be built near Los Angeles and it opened on July 17, 1955 in Anaheim. Disney’s love of nostalgia and fantasy was evident in its design and construction and it soon became a mecca for tourists from around the world. A second Disney park, Walt Disney World, near Orlando, Florida, which was under construction at the time of Walt Disney’s death, opened in 1971. – Provided by Reference.com
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Breaking News of the Day: Pussy Riot Gets 2 Years In Jail
Meanwhile in Russia: Three members of Russian punk band Pussy Riot each have been sentenced to two years in jail for an obscenity-laced performance at Moscow’s Christ The Savior cathedral in February in which they were so bold as to criticize Russian President Vladimir Putin.
The woman — Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, 23; Maria Alekhina, 24; and Yekaterina Samutsevich, 29 — are made of tough stuff. As the verdict came down, and a shout of “Shame!” was heard in the courtroom, they just laughed.
Judge Marina Syrova convicted the women of hooliganism motivated by religious hatred, saying they had “crudely undermined social order.” She cited three specific elements for finding the trio guilty:
- The choice and timing of venue.
- Their continued performance and resistance to be taken outside by security and cathedral parishioners.
- The defendants’ conduct and their accomplices afterwards.
Here’s the shocking performance that started it all.
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The remains of hundreds of warriors have resurfaced from a Danish bog, suggesting that a violent event took place at the site about 2,000 years ago.
Discovered in the Alken Enge wetlands near Lake Mossø in East Jutland, Denmark, the skeletal remains tell the story of an entire army’s apparent sacrifice.
NEWS: Prehistoric Human Brain Found Pickled in Bog
Following work done in 2009, archaeologists have so far unearthed the hacked bones of more than 200 individuals.
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Jury sees video of English teacher ‘having group sex with four students during orgy in her home while another taped it’
- Brittni Colleps, 28, formerly worked at Kennedale High School in Texas
- Video does not show her face but a distinctive tattoo on her back
- Sent ’100 texts in one day’ to one student
- Told students her fave sex toys
- Allegedly described herself as ‘anything-goes-in-sex kind of girl’
- Accused of sending videos of her using a sex toy
- Modeled lingerie for them
- Faces up to 20 years in prison
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Researchers uncover how poxviruses such as smallpox evolve rapidly — despite low mutation rates .
Organisms cope with environmental uncertainty by guessing the future
Secrets of ‘SuperAger’ brains | e! Science News.
Climate and drought lessons from ancient Egypt | e! Science News.
Study: Homeless people find equality, acceptance on social networking sites.
Study explores the impact of corruption and military organization on civilians.
Facebook finally gets around to deleting your deleted photos | Internet & Media – CNET News.
Two major areas of the brain shown to be connected | KurzweilAI.
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Chicken of the trees
It starts every summer with the first ripening tomato. Maybe it’s the early blush on a squat Cherokee Purple, or the lighter stripes of a Green Zebra turning pale yellow, or a lime Bush Beefsteak going gradually olive, then pink, then red. The effects of the sun on this single fruit carry the promise of summer, and the subtle message of whether it will be a good season for tomatoes, or even whether it will be a good summer overall. I watch the weather forecasts and gently squeeze with my fingertips to calculate the precise day I’ll pluck it.
But without fail—sometimes the very day before I plan for this auspicious moment—I’m foiled. I’ll climb to the roof to find the fruit’s smooth surface violated, chiseled and gnawed by a honed set of incisors. The marauder is insolent and indiscriminate. Sometimes the fruit is discarded, half eaten, on the roof. Other times it remains hanging on the vine. Now this tomato becomes a sign of war. And the hostilities will have begun in my annual jihad with Sciurus carolinensis, aka the eastern gray squirrel. It’s a war I’ve never won.
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Possible Vaccine Cure for Juvenile Diabetes
Experts are divided on the significance of the results of an early-stage trial investigating a cure for type 1, or juvenile, diabetes, but the researchers say that a tuberculosis vaccine in use since 1921 could be the key. Treatment with the bacillus Calmette-Guérin (BCG) vaccine appeared to reverse the disease and temporarily restore insulin production in patients who had been diabetic for as many as 15 years. The effects of the treatment lasted about one week. Researchers believe that the vaccine does this by destroying rogue immune cells that attack insulin-producing cells.
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Mouse study finds clear linkages between inflammation, bacterial communities and cancer
What if a key factor ultimately behind a cancer was not a genetic defect but ecological?
Ecologists have long known that when some major change disturbs an environment in some way, ecosystem structure is likely to change dramatically. Further, this shift in interconnected species’ diversity, abundances, and relationships can in turn have a transforming effect on health of the whole landscape – causing a rich woodland or grassland to become permanently degraded, for example – as the ecosystem becomes unstable and then breaks down the environment.
For this reason, it should come as no surprise that a significant disturbance in the human body can profoundly alter the makeup of otherwise stable microbial communities co-existing within it and that changes in the internal ecology known as the human microbiome can result in unexpected and drastic consequences for human health.
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The Unconventional Hacker Teaches an Old Mouse New Tricks | Wired Design | Wired.com.
Washing machines that do it without electricity – Hack a Day.
BBC News – Male contraceptive pill ‘step closer’ after mice studies.
Scientists find brain-cleaning ‘plumbing’ – UPI.com.
Chemists do a double take on the double helix.
Floating robot helps track great white sharks – Reuters:Science | e! Science News.
Turmeric Spices Up Virus Study | ScienceBlog.com.
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Moment of execution for Nicolae and Elena Ceaușescu. December 25th, 1989 in Târgovişte, Romania
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Mae West (Born on this day in 1893)
West was an American stage and movie comedienne who started her career in burlesque and vaudeville. In 1926, she began to write, produce, and star in her own Broadway plays, which were often replete with sexual innuendo. A master of the double entendre, she treated sex with broad humor in popular films such as I’m No Angel. As a result, she constantly battled the censorship of the motion picture Production Code. Many of her one-liners have become classics. What are some examples?
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ElvisLit: The River That Will Never Run Dry
1.
Elvis Presley disappeared 35 years ago today.
I choose the verb disappeared for a reason. Not because I’m a big believer in conspiracy theories or Elvis sightings — I am not — but because in a very real sense Elvis Presley didn’t actually die on Aug. 16, 1977, he simply moved on to a different level in the ether of superstardom. When asked what he planned to do once Elvis was in the ground, his evil genius of a manager, Col. Tom Parker, said it all: “Why, I’ll just go right on managing him!” As Elvis biographer Peter Guralnick put it, “RCA (records) would discover that Elvis was as great a sales phenomenon in death as in life.”
Even more phenomenal than the unquenchable hunger for Elvis music, Elvis impersonators, and Elvis memorabilia (black velvet paintings, ashtrays, liquor bottles, etc.) is the relentless outpouring of books about Elvis. I call it ElvisLit — a river of words that gives every indication, year after year after year, that it will never run dry. Guralnick described it as “the cacophony of voices that have joined together to create a chorus of informed opinion, uninformed speculation, hagiography, symbolism, and blame.”
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National Geographic reveal winners of 2012 Photo Contest
The eagerly-awaited winners of the 2012 National Geographic Photo Contest have been revealed. Eleven stunning pictures have been chosen from the more than 12,000 entries.Prizes ranged from a Galapagos photography expedition to $200 gift certificates at B&H photography. The winning picture went to Cedric Houin for his image entitled ‘Butterfly’. The image was shot in the Kyrgyz lands of the Wakhan Corridor in Afghanistan. A woman and child are sitting inside a yurt.
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Japanese researchers build speech-jamming gun that stops you mid-sentence
Won’t stop babbling? Not a problem. You reach into your bag, whip out your trusty speech-jamming gun, whirl around in your seat and blast them. No more nattering.
This isn’t a theoretical scenario; this silencing device actually exists. The team of Japanese researchers that created it call it “SpeechJammer,” and it could soon be coming to a theatre (or library, or conference hall) near you.
SpeechJammer works by exploiting a mind hack that psychologists have known about for ages: most people find it incredibly difficult to continue talking when the words that they’re speaking are replayed to them on a slight delay.
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Crackle – Watch Free Movies Online – Full-Length Streaming Movies
HERE.
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Mullah Omar addresses green-on-blue attacks
Over the last several weeks, the violence across Syria has continued to escalate unabated. The death toll since the uprising began 16 months ago has now surpassed 17,000. Large numbers of refugees continue to flee the fighting. More than 500,000 people have been internally displaced in the country and more than 100,000 have fled abroad.
The violence has reached the point where the International Red Cross has declared that the country is in a state of civil war (note: this activates Geneva Convention requirements for the treatment of civilians and combatants; legally, violators can now be prosecuted for “crimes against humanity”).
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Details of the Plague preserved by Warwick historian
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Nottinghamshire Archives, Petition of Charles Piggot on the reverse of the Will of Thomas Waite, PR/NW 22 October 1645.
“Military artefacts from the Civil War are plentiful but much rarer are the social sources that give us an insight into everyday life at that time,” he explained.
The variety of documents he has catalogued ranges from council minutes over the plague outbreak to petitions from destitute citizens caught up in fighting around Newark. Amongst the more interesting items includes a petition from a man from Newark whose house was destroyed during the second siege which reads:
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Originally posted 2012-08-17 13:28:59. Republished by Blog Post Promoter