My Photos - Mobile Uploads: And so it begins ...

The myth of Samhain: Celtic God of the Dead: "W.J, Bethancourt III has an online essay which traces the God Samhain myth back to the year 1770 when Col. Charles Vallency wrote a 6 volume set of books which attempted to prove that the Irish people once came from Armenia. 'With modern research, archaeology and the study of the Indo-European migrations, these conclusions can be seen as the complete errors they were...'

Later, he writes: ' 'Samhain' is the name of the holiday. There is no evidence of any god or demon named 'Samhain,' 'Samain,' 'Sam Hane,' or however you want to vary the spelling.'"

Today was a beautiful end of summer, a great day to be outdoors for a walk or sitting on the deck, or raking leaves, or scooting about dressed as demons and witches extracting good-fortune tithes from the neighbours ;)

A 3-Minute Fairy Tale of Mixed Emoticons: "Storyteller and poet Rives tells a typographical fairy tale that's short and bittersweet. On stage, his poems burst in many directions, too, exposing multiple layers and unexpected treats: childhood memories, grown-up humor, notions of love and lust, of what is lost forever and of what's still out there waiting to unfold."

"The truly MODERN composers," I said, "program the presets into personal music devices. Real-time creative 'interactive' music is the future of composition." Todd was giving the keynote, said he had to go.

Rundgren talked up his new 'interactive' project, a jukebox CD of premixes, all the same song. At Q&A, a young man asked, "But Todd, when will I get to JAM with you?"

Once Upon a School: The essence of the program is that it's like school, but it's not school. 826 National is a nonprofit tutoring, writing, and publishing organization with locations in seven cities across the country. Our goal is to assist students ages six to eighteen with their writing skills, and to help teachers get their classes excited about writing. Our work is based on the understanding that great leaps in learning can happen with one-on-one attention, and that strong writing skills are fundamental to future success.

Once Upon a School is challenging adults to support their local public schools. Their goal is to collect 1,000 stories told by those who participate.

BBC Science & Environment: "The population of the endangered West African chimpanzees in Ivory Coast has fallen by about 90% in less than 20 years, a study has suggested.

Researchers found 90% fewer nests than a similar audit carried out in 1990, which suggested the chimp population had crashed from 12,000 to about 1,200."

I mentioned this at breakfast, and the kids calmly shot back with some school-fed bio-jargon that meant, basically, "yeah, well, it's ok, there's still some in zoos and private collections" ... as if that's good enough.

Is this the manifest danger of Reductionist dogma taught for science? So obsessed with DNA, they miss the whole-system FUNCTION of the creature?

Greenspace - Los Angeles Times: "Bottled water isn't necessarily any purer than the water you get from your tap, it's just more expensive, according to a report released Wednesday by a Washington, D.C., nonprofit research group.

The Environmental Working Group sent samples of 10 major bottled-water brands to the University of Iowa Hygienic Laboratory. The results: 38 low-level contaminants turned up in the water, with each brand containing an average of eight chemicals. Disinfection products, caffeine, Tylenol, nitrate, industrial chemicals, arsenic and bacteria were detected.

Two brands contained disinfection products at levels that exceeded California's bottled-water standards"

and that doesn't even get into how bad the bottle itself can be! I think word is getting around, though, as I see at our beach-side no-pipeline resort-area grocers the bottled water is selling for record low-prices and still sits stacked up on skids in the ailes.

News for a Synergic Earth: "For middle aged and older people at least, using the internet helps boost brain power, research suggests.

A University of California Los Angeles team found searching the web stimulates centres in the brain that control decision-making and complex reasoning. The researchers say this might even help to counter-act the age-related physiological changes that cause the brain to slow down. The study features in the American Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry.

Lead researcher Professor Gary Small said: 'The study results are encouraging, that emerging computerized technologies may have physiological effects and potential benefits for middle-aged and older adults. Internet searching engages complicated brain activity, which may help exercise and improve brain function.'"

And why should this be? I think it is because most internet apps, google included, are so hopelessly broken that to do even the simplest task is a constant challenge of "What do you suppose the programmer intended here?" and other opaque black-box puzzles that make the New York Times Crossword seem like a walk in the park!