Month: February 2004

Why not make this your good deed for the day…

From: Online Action Center Alert List

Date: 02/17/04 09:06:49

To: corbid@cox.net

Subject: Action Needed Immediately to Protect Rodi Alvarado

Dear Corbid:

Your action is needed immediately to help protect Rodi Alvarado and other women fleeing gender persecution.

Nearly a year ago, Attorney General John Ashcroft said that he would personally decide the asylum case of Rodi Alvarado, a Guatemalan woman whose government failed to protect her during ten years of horrific abuse by her husband. When deciding that case, Ashcroft also planned to issue regulations that could bar many people, especially women fleeing gender-based persecution, from asylum in the United States. Fearing that the Attorney General would deny Ms. Alvarado asylum and issue restrictive regulations, Amnesty campaigned to prevent such a decision. There has been no decision so far, but now it seems imminent.

–> Please send appeals in your own words as quickly as possible to U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft and to Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge. To take action, click on this link or paste it into your Web browser:

http://takeaction.amnestyusa.org/ctt.asp?u=624826&l=7991

About Rodi Alvarado

The terrible facts of Rodi Alvarado’s case are undisputed. She fled Guatemala and applied for asylum in the United States in 1995, after suffering ten years of relentless domestic abuse. Her husband Francisco Osorio, a former soldier, attempted to abort their second child by kicking her in the spine, dislocated her jaw, tried to cut her hands off with a machete, kicked her in the genitals, and used her head to break windows and mirrors. Ms. Alvarado sought assistance from the Guatemalan police and the courts – in vain. If Mr. Ashcroft denies asylum to Rodi Alvarado, she would be deported to Guatemala, where she faces battering and possible killing by her husband, who has vowed to find her.

Online Action Center

Amnesty International USA

Ghost of a touch recedes on waking

Invisibly substantial as a phantom limb

Some hearts dream paralell and others silent

Sing prayers and speak in sighs to purge the heart to save the soul

Salvation is elusive

Redemption something other

Save your soul

On a block of ice

Fresh and bloody for the wolves outside your door

Hang on cruel words like crosses

Welcome your hells and favorite torturers

Rise from the depths and live once more

In richness and sin

Until Sunday comes again

Myth of the Day:The unicorn is a legendary animal. It is usually portrayed as a slender, white horse with a spiraling horn on its forehead, although its appearance and behavior differs, depending on the location. In the west it was usually considered wild and untamable, while in the Orient it was peaceful, meek and thought to be the bringer of good luck. There it is usually depicted as a goat-like creature, with cloven hooves and a beard. In Japan it is called Kirin, and in China Ki-lin.

The word “unicorn” is based on the Hebrew word re’em (“horn”), in early versions of the Old Testament translated as “monokeros”, meaning “one horn”, which became “unicorn” in English. The creature is possibly based on the rhinoceros or the narwhal, a marine creature with one horn.

In the west it was first mentioned by the Greek historian Ctesias in 398 BCE. According to him they lived in India and he described them as ‘wild asses which are as big as a horse, even bigger. Their bodies are white, their heads dark red and their eyes are deep blue. They have a single horn on their forehead which is approximately half-a-meter long.’ This description was based on the tales of travelers, and is a mixture of an Indian rhinoceros, the Himalayan antelope, and the wild ass.

The horn itself is white at the base, black in the middle and with a sharp, red tip. It is believed to possess healing abilities. Dust filed from the horn was thought to protect against poison, and many diseases. It could even resurrect the dead. Amongst royalty and nobility in the Middle Ages, it became quite fashionable to own a drinking cup made of the horn of an unicorn, not in the least because it was supposed to detect poison.

The belief in the healing abilities of the horn is probably based on a medieval story. In this particular tale, many animals once gathered around a pool in the midst of night. The water was poisoned and they could not drink from it, until a unicorn appeared. He simply dipped his horn in the pool and the water became fresh and clean again.

Another medieval story tells of the capture of a unicorn by a maiden. The unicorn was far too fast and wild for the man that was hunting him. He could only be tamed by a maiden who sat lonely underneath a tree in the woods. Attracted by the scent of purity he would lay his head on her lap and she would rock him to sleep. Then she would cut of his horn, and leave him for the hunter and his dogs.

There have been attempts to give these tales a Christian interpretation. In the first tale the horn symbolizes the cross and the pool the sins of the world. In the second story the maiden was Maria, the unicorn Jesus Christ and the horn a representation of the unity of the Father and the Son. Jesus, embodied in the unicorn, was killed for sake of a sinful world.

Article details

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Article created on 03 March 1997; last modified on 25 April 2001.

� 1995-2004 Encyclopedia Mythica. All rights reserved.

“Unicorn.” Encyclopedia Mythica from Encyclopedia Mythica Online.

[Accessed February 16, 2004].

Happy Valentine’s Day to one and all, from the girl who always has candy:Virtual Hersheys Kisses.

And following that, an excerpt from a strange story…

I dont know what it was anout Bowie that really spoke to the core of me, even more so than previous obsessions such as Pink Floyd or John Lennon or the vast array of punkdom. Maybe because it was more than music. Bowie wrote philosophical science fiction epics and passed them off as rock albums. He was odd and brilliant and full of strange light. His genre was a sort of postmodern vaudville, theatre and sound and sexual energy combined with tremendous energy and wit. And even though he was an elder statesman of sorts even then, to us in the Reaganoid wasteland that was 1988, he was an undiscovered country. Little rebellious, oddball teenage girls with literary pretentions and dragon rings, reading Dylan Thomas and watching Dr Who over the phone on Saturday nights. No hero more fit for us than this exotic creature with two toned eyes and engulfing aura, who was both outcast and idol, icon and iconoclast. Or, in his own words, “comedian, chameleon, Corinthian, and caricature.”

Random Bowie moments:

1991 – Senior year, we are assigned to audition freeform solo projects in Choir. Lizzie and decide to collaborate on a relatively odd and unknown Bowie song “The Man Who Sold The World,” with me taking the lead vocal and Lizzie on piano and harmony.

1994 – Kurt Cobain less than a week dead, I flip on the radio to hear Nirvana singing “my” Bowie song. Chills run down my spine.

1995 – At last we have a chance to see the Man live, in Phoenix, on tour with Nine Inch Nails, on the “Outside” tour. That story I shall relate in the next installment…

For now, Friday Five:

1. Are you superstitious?

Superstitious, Obsessive Compulsive, tomato,tomahto…

2. What extremes have you heard of someone going to in the name of superstition?

My parents gave up an oppurtunity to see a solar eclipse in Mexico because they thought the Rapture was coming, I swear to god.

3. Believer or not, what’s your favorite superstition?

A superstition prevalent in my own family’s tradition is that one must include money in any gift of a purse or wallet. Every year for Christmas, my sister and I would claim we needed a new wallet 🙂

4. Do you believe in luck? If yes, do you have a lucky number/article of clothing/ritual?

Number of icons, necklaces and soforth that give me a sense of personal comfort.

5. Do you believe in astrology? Why or why not?

I believe all forms of divination are akin to inkblots. Useful as a means of perspective rather than actual fortunetelling.

So far, the primary message of the movie is that poetesses write better poetry when men treat them like shit. The movie “Frida” seemed to imply similar things about women artists. Disturbing trend. Do you suppose there’s any truth to it? Is misery a prerequisite for great art? And if so, is it better to have a society full of happy individuals with no creative output, or one with a few unredeemably ravaged souls, but lots of beautiful forms of expression?

How’s that for a loaded question?

Whilst, a bit of a cliche as well, I suppose.

So no points for me today originalitywise…

This is part one in a series leading up to my actual review of the concert.

I feel that first I must expound upon the import of Bowieness upon the formation of my youth.

Bear with me as I was nostalgic and self importnat…

Part I: Ziggy Saves

When I was 14, my best friend lent me a copy of “Never Let Me Down” and rented the movie “Labyrinth” for me.

I lapped it up like cream set before a housecat and was dying for more. It was 1988 and Bowie’s catalogue had not yet been rereleased by Ryko, so the only way to find the bulk of it was to go trolling the aisles of Bookman’s for ancient original cassette releases.

Sophomore year, I found what I was after. Manna from heaven. The Holy Grail. I came to possess a copy of “The Rise and Fall Of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders From Mars.”Lying on my floor, feet up against the dresser, eyes closed, I imagined the story of the Starman rock saviour coming down to save a world that had only five years left to live. I was transfixed, I was transformed.

coming soon…why Bowie?

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Bowie as the nine of Pentacles

mythology

detritus

opinion

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Myth of the Day:

Why has David got odd looking eyes?

He has a condition called aniscoria, which is the medical term for unequal pupils. In 1962, aged 14, he got punched in the eye by his school friend George Underwood, during an argument over a girl named Carol Goldsmith. George’s knuckle caught David’s eye and dislodged something. David was admitted to Farnborough Hospital, where it was found that the sphincter muscles in his left eye were damaged and he underwent two eye operations. He has an enlarged pupil that remains permanently open, giving the effect of different coloured eyes. David and George are to this day still life-long friends.

George played in early Bowie groups and eventually became a commercial artist. He was involved in the design of the album sleeves for Hunky Dory (1971), The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and The Spiders From Mars (1972) albums/posters/flyers, graphics for The 1980 Floor Show and The Man Who Fell To Earth book cover.

Obviously, there will be a Bowie review shortly, but until then I shall address more important things, such as…
How To Swear In Five Celtic Language Variants:

Scottish Gaelic
Irish Gaelic
Welsh
Breton
Manx Gaelic

Also, how to swear in Trainspottingese…
And in Latin!