Sunday, December 25, 2005
Gay Writers from 365Gay.com
Was Jesus Gay?
by Matt Johns 365Gay.com Los Angeles Bureau
Editor's Note: This story first appeared in 365Gay.com on Christmas Day 2003 and generated considerable debate on both sides of the issue. The debate over Jesus' sexuality continues, and likely never will be resolved.
(Los Angeles, California) As Christians celebrate the birth of Jesus few of them will be told in their churches and Cathedrals anything about the sexuality of Jesus, yet a growing group of Biblical scholars believe that Christ may have had at least one sexual relationship with another male.
Noted Methodist theologian Rev. Theodore Jennings Jr. and Dr Morton Smith, a world renowned Bible scholar, say there is irrefutable evidence that Jesus was at least bisexual. Dr Rollan McCleary of the University of Queensland, in Australia, says he has discovered through his research that three of the disciples were gay.
Prof. Smith points to a fragment of manuscript he found at the Mar Saba monastery near Jerusalem in 1958 which he says alludes to Jesus having a homosexual relationship with a youth he raised from the dead. The fragment shows that the full text of St. Mark, Chapter 10 (between verses 34 and 35 in the standard version of the Bible) includes the following passage:
"And the youth, looking upon him (Jesus), loved him and beseeched that he might remain with him. And going out of the tomb, they went into the house of the youth, for he was rich. And after six days, Jesus instructed him and, at evening, the youth came to him wearing a linen cloth over his naked body. And he remained with him that night, for Jesus taught him the mystery of the Kingdom of God".
Rev. Jennings, a professor at the United Church of Christ's Chicago Theological Seminary, points to the Gospel of St. John. In his book "The Man Jesus Loved: Homoerotic Narratives From the New Testament," Jennings writes that the reference in St John about "the disciple Jesus loved" was actually a reference to Jesus' gay boyfriend.
Jennings also claims the centurion's servant who was healed by Jesus actually was the centurion's gay boyfriend and that Jesus did not denounce their relationship.
Dr McCleary spent three years researching “gay spirituality”. His book, "Signs for a Messiah" says that Jesus and at least three of his disciples were gay, and Christianity in general is built on “gay principles”.
McCleary says that Christianity needs to recognize its homosexual roots and abandon the practice of alienating gays and spreading homophobia.
British gay rights advocate Peter Tatchell says even though the information about Jesus' sexuality remains scant, "there is certainly no evidence for the Church's presumption that he was heterosexual. Nothing in the Bible points to him having desires or relationships with women. The possibility of a gay Christ cannot be ruled out."
"Since there is no proof of the heterosexuality of Jesus, the theological basis of Church homophobia is all the more shaky and indefensible," Tatchell said.
"Large chunks of Jesus' life are missing from the Biblical accounts. This has fuelled speculation that the early Church sanitized the gospels, removing references to Christ's sexuality that were not in accord with the heterosexual morality that it wanted to promote", said Tatchell.
The Vatican has denounced the research by Jennings, Smith and McCleary as "heretical". It has also been denounced by Southern Baptists and evangelical Anglicans.
When recently asked if his research might be tainted because he is gay, McCleary said: "You could see that either way. You could also say that heterosexual people have their eyes wide shut on the matter, that they don't want to see that Jesus would have been of gay disposition.
"You maybe have to be gay to read the signals and to see things and research things which other people wouldn't," he added.
©365Gay.com 2005
Was Jesus Gay?
by Matt Johns 365Gay.com Los Angeles Bureau
Editor's Note: This story first appeared in 365Gay.com on Christmas Day 2003 and generated considerable debate on both sides of the issue. The debate over Jesus' sexuality continues, and likely never will be resolved.
(Los Angeles, California) As Christians celebrate the birth of Jesus few of them will be told in their churches and Cathedrals anything about the sexuality of Jesus, yet a growing group of Biblical scholars believe that Christ may have had at least one sexual relationship with another male.
Noted Methodist theologian Rev. Theodore Jennings Jr. and Dr Morton Smith, a world renowned Bible scholar, say there is irrefutable evidence that Jesus was at least bisexual. Dr Rollan McCleary of the University of Queensland, in Australia, says he has discovered through his research that three of the disciples were gay.
Prof. Smith points to a fragment of manuscript he found at the Mar Saba monastery near Jerusalem in 1958 which he says alludes to Jesus having a homosexual relationship with a youth he raised from the dead. The fragment shows that the full text of St. Mark, Chapter 10 (between verses 34 and 35 in the standard version of the Bible) includes the following passage:
"And the youth, looking upon him (Jesus), loved him and beseeched that he might remain with him. And going out of the tomb, they went into the house of the youth, for he was rich. And after six days, Jesus instructed him and, at evening, the youth came to him wearing a linen cloth over his naked body. And he remained with him that night, for Jesus taught him the mystery of the Kingdom of God".
Rev. Jennings, a professor at the United Church of Christ's Chicago Theological Seminary, points to the Gospel of St. John. In his book "The Man Jesus Loved: Homoerotic Narratives From the New Testament," Jennings writes that the reference in St John about "the disciple Jesus loved" was actually a reference to Jesus' gay boyfriend.
Jennings also claims the centurion's servant who was healed by Jesus actually was the centurion's gay boyfriend and that Jesus did not denounce their relationship.
Dr McCleary spent three years researching “gay spirituality”. His book, "Signs for a Messiah" says that Jesus and at least three of his disciples were gay, and Christianity in general is built on “gay principles”.
McCleary says that Christianity needs to recognize its homosexual roots and abandon the practice of alienating gays and spreading homophobia.
British gay rights advocate Peter Tatchell says even though the information about Jesus' sexuality remains scant, "there is certainly no evidence for the Church's presumption that he was heterosexual. Nothing in the Bible points to him having desires or relationships with women. The possibility of a gay Christ cannot be ruled out."
"Since there is no proof of the heterosexuality of Jesus, the theological basis of Church homophobia is all the more shaky and indefensible," Tatchell said.
"Large chunks of Jesus' life are missing from the Biblical accounts. This has fuelled speculation that the early Church sanitized the gospels, removing references to Christ's sexuality that were not in accord with the heterosexual morality that it wanted to promote", said Tatchell.
The Vatican has denounced the research by Jennings, Smith and McCleary as "heretical". It has also been denounced by Southern Baptists and evangelical Anglicans.
When recently asked if his research might be tainted because he is gay, McCleary said: "You could see that either way. You could also say that heterosexual people have their eyes wide shut on the matter, that they don't want to see that Jesus would have been of gay disposition.
"You maybe have to be gay to read the signals and to see things and research things which other people wouldn't," he added.
©365Gay.com 2005
Saturday, December 24, 2005
Friday, December 23, 2005
Kennedy said Science picked evolution as the year's biggest breakthrough in part because it was a "hot topic," but stressed there was a wealth of research that justified the choice.
Other breakthroughs in the journal's Top 10 include research in planetary exploration, the molecular biology of flowers, the violent ways of neutron stars, the relationship between genetics and abnormal human behavior, the new field of cosmochemistry, a protein that controls the flow of potassium ions to cells, fresh evidence of global warming, an engineering approach to molecular biology and superconductivity.
Areas to watch for in 2006, according to Science, include the avian flu, ultra-high-energy cosmic rays and the possible sighting of the ivory-billed woodpecker, long presumed extinct but rediscovered in 2004.
Other breakthroughs in the journal's Top 10 include research in planetary exploration, the molecular biology of flowers, the violent ways of neutron stars, the relationship between genetics and abnormal human behavior, the new field of cosmochemistry, a protein that controls the flow of potassium ions to cells, fresh evidence of global warming, an engineering approach to molecular biology and superconductivity.
Areas to watch for in 2006, according to Science, include the avian flu, ultra-high-energy cosmic rays and the possible sighting of the ivory-billed woodpecker, long presumed extinct but rediscovered in 2004.
dream today, i was in the old house at 818 lewis drive in daytona beach, the house was under some kind of construction, and running water, as like a stream, was running thru the house, like the stream in the closet in nanas house in her mothers bedroom, that would appear in the floor of the closet, when it would ran a lot, for there was a stream under that house, somehow connecting to streams in the park behind the house at seneca street, and some friends, were helping repair the house, and i saw or felt diane, i have felt diane the last few days since i found the christmas card she gave me when she hired me in dec of 1996 at empact, a few months before her death from cancer in her neck, and my feeling of her as my quardian angel. i am living with james, its christmas 2005.
Thursday, December 22, 2005
Tuesday, December 20, 2005
dh to Garry, hippoluvr1
More options 3:17 am (0 minutes ago)
2ish am week of x mas
Mr. g m :
I hope your holiday season is going well. I just want to add that I am now 50 and will be 51 years old on 2/8/2006. I could also never return to my previous job due to severe back pain and knee pain. I can sit up in a chair for one to two hours, and then the pressure on the "bad disc", as Dr. Jackson calls it, causes such intense pain I have to lay down on ice packs. I have read this is a benign tumor and is called a hemangioma.
This vertebrae or whatever it is, disc, or whatever, has been a major source of pain for years for me, if I massage this area it swells up, and if I sit up and put pressure on it as sitting in a chair or a couch, it just makes the pain extreme and the pressure from the chair makes the lumbar region inflame. I know I sound like I am whinning and complaining...but its a relief to know what is causing all this horrible pain.
there is no way i can work due to this disc pain.
The neck pain is just as bad, dr shah said that vertebrae or disc was pushing on the spinal cord and is the cause for "discomfort"
"THERE IS A FOCUS OF INCREASED T 1 SIGNAL IDENTIFIED IN THE L4 VERTEBRAL BODY, COMPATIBLE WITH A BENIGN VERTEBRAL BODY HEMANGIOMA" (lower back pain)
The bulges, like you mentioned before, are not usually a source of pain unless they push on nerves, and most of my bulges, minues the one in my neck and in my lower back, appear to not be putting pressure on nerves
Regardless, I have been having pain in my whole back and neck for over two years, and pain in both knees for over three years, regardless of cause or what a doctor is finding to be the cause.
My aunt has many of the same trouble I have , and over the months and years her bulges have gotten worse, they are degenerative, and as I get older, its all going to get worse, and if some judge deems me not disabled at this point, in a few months to years, all this mess in my spine and neck will eventually get so bad I will be disabled....so I am hoping I am found disabled the first time around, so perhaps I can get disability, and make sure you get paid, and make sure pinellas county gets paid for helping me with rent.
Right now I am sitting up typing with a pillow at my lower back and a large blue ice pack between my back and the pillow, which allows me to type even though I am dealing with level 8 pain. I an only manage this for short periods of time, as the ice pack gets warm, the pressure of the ice pack and the pillow still hurts that hemangioma thing.
I will take a break, and after I get another cold ice pack out, I will finish this e mail. I have gone thru four ice packs since dr abrahamson prescribed them in august of 2002, the current one is being held together with duck tape, as when they fall apart this grey glue seaps out of the ice pack, and it gets all over my clothes and the floor.
I am going to try to get one of the doctors prescribe me four more when i go to physical therapy, because this is how i got them from healthsouth in 2002, they are invaluable and stop the pain in my back and neck better then any of the pain pills.. but only for 20 minutes at a time.
I know you must get really tired of my e mails, but I hope you wll be able to convey to the hearing judge what I have to go through to just to sit up in a chair. IT even hurts to sit in a wheelchair unless I use ice packs, and the whole wheelchair thing is a big hassle, but it does help me when I have to avoid walking more then 30 feet...but nothing helps the neck pain.
I am going to call the pain doctor in the next few weeks as the weather gets warmer, he is not listed as a pain specialist in the paperwork of doctors pinellas county gave me, so i do not know if he is really a pain doctor. he is not a podiatrist, he is a D.O.
or whatever the right name is for a pain doctor, i really do not think pinellas county has real pain doctors......
and there are no pain specialist doctors listed on the main doctor list from pinellas county, the one doctor they use to have under "pain specialist" has his name crossed out.
in workers compensation, when they sent me to a pain doctor, he had credentials and was called a podiatrist., or some name like that.......i just think dr shah refuses to prescribe pain medications to anyone, as i had been told that by the first case manager i met with pinellas county, what is the use of these doctors if they refuse to help patients that suffer with chronic pain, andn i have been suffering for over four years now, and its really making me go nuts!!!!
well you dont need to respond to this e mail at all, i know its the holidays and you have more important things to do then deal
with me.
dr shah still wants to refer me to a cardiologist, so I am going to make sure she does that when i see her next month, she was very concerned about my rapid heart rate, and she still is having problems getting my blood pressure done, she has doubled the
TOPROL XL 100MG, it makes me really dizzy, and she doubled the ALTACE 10MG....allthis pain is gonnan give me a heart attack, just like it keeps giving me panic attacks, even in my sleep, somedays it feels like all these pills dont do a anything for me at all, the pain meds dont stop the pain, the panic meds dont stop the attacks, and my blood pressure just keeps getting higher and i still get kidney stones every month, its like these doctors dont really care about helping anybody, its like they know they see me on a 6 month renewal basis, and at anytime, they wont see me anymore, and im gonna be on my own, broke, in pain, and im gonna have a stroke just like my grandmother or a massive heart attack just like my grand dad.
My case manager, ms jeanya mccoy, is leaving for a st pete office, so i will be getting a new case manager in three months at the belcher commons pinellas county dept of human services, so i will need to get to know her. Ms Mccoy renewed me for another 6 months, and when I see the new case manaager, she will give me three rent vouchers, and go over all my paperwork....
so that too is just a joke, no one is taking long enuff to get to know me, to get to help me, and in the long run, im just another patient........and no body really cares what happens to me, especially dr slomka! he said twice he could not do anything for me, he is supposed to help me! he is supposed to make me have a better quality of life!
when i was an hiv/aids case manager , i made sure all of my clients got the best of care, and i took care of 65 clients a month, and i got all of them food, rent, anything you could hope for, i was always there, 24 hours a day, and i make their lifes better, and that was before protease inhibitors in 1996, and most of my clients died, but i made sure they died with hospice and with dignity.
i hate being on this end of the process, i used to be able to help my clients, now im on the other end, and im just another number and to dr slomka he doenst even care how much pain i am in.
I really need an mri of both knees, as the pain is just really bad and i do not believe its just from "chronic muscle weakness" per dr slomka, he acts like i should have no pain in either knee, but i have sent him the old mri from 2002, but he is not compassionate at all, and the last two times I have seen him, he acts like the pain in my back and knees is in my head.
I have walked for him, and I have not whined or complained or made any sounds of noise from pain, I have told him I need to use the wheelchair cause his office is so large it hurts to walk in his huge office. would you believe this doctor has a water fall in his reception room, and coffee, and it takes a long time to walk from the front door to the water fall, then to his office, and then all the way back to the x ray room, and he shows no compassion for people like me that cant walk that far.
so when i used a wheelchair the second time i saw him, he would not see me because he had lost the referral from dr shah, that they had sent to him in september, so he sent me home that day, asking me why i was in a wheelchair, and i said i cant walk, and then when i did get to see him again, with the referral and the mri, he wouldnt even go over the results of the mri, and he made me walk again!.....it took dr shah and then dr jackson, to tell me what the mri meant, dr slomka only old me i had bulges, he didnt tell me they dont usually cause pain, and then he has the gaul to prescribe physical therapy when i keep telling him i can not walk! but i was nice, i was professional, i did not have any attitude, and i told him i would do anything he told me to do, because i wanted to get better............i just dont understand rich doctors, you should check out his office some day Garry, its the size of four houses, with tall vaulted ceilings, and a staff of 20 or more, its just makes me so mad i have to get in a cab that takes me 30 minutes to even get to him, for him to tell me he cant find the referral , and send me home.
and to make things worse, the pain doctor is in the same huge complex, i only have community transportation till june, then after that i will have to pay $35 dollars one way to see the pain doctor, or to see dr slomka, so in june, and after junen for the rest of this disability process, if I see dr slomka and the pain doctor, i am going to have to pay $70 bucks each time to see them, and how in the world can i afford t hat, so even if the pain doctor prescribes a better pain medication, i cant afford toeven get to see the doctor,
pinellas county no longer pays for medications from dr jackson, after paying for them for the last year, so pinellas county forces us to see their doctors, no matter how far away they are, so even if i do get a better pain med, i will not be able to afford the $70 dollar cab ride to pinellas park every 30 days , and dr shah says this is the only orthopeaic surgeon and the only pain doctor in my area, and i live in dunedin, this is just nuts!!!!
after june, i have no idea how i am going to pay to see any of these doctors, and if i stop seeing dr jackson, who gives me a cheaper pain medicatin that does not work as well as i have been taking it for two years now, after june my life is just going to fall apart!
up to june i can go anywhere in pinellas county for $3 one way to see all these doctors, and right now dr shah has me seeing her, dr slomka, the pain doctor, to physcial therapy, to a cardiologist, once a month, now after june, when i am no longer able to get the $3 dollar cab ride, because my room mate makes too much money, who can not take me to doctor s anymore as he has to work, and since i can not use a bus, im going to be in real trouble in june.
what is the point of all these doctors prescribeing all these meds for blood pressure, pain managment, kidney stones, and in fact, right now they have me taking 12 medications, so in june, i will have no way to get to any of these doctors, my blood pressure is going to go up, my pain is going to make me suicidal, i will have no way to get to the case manager for rent help, so my room mate will have no reason to let me live here anymore, all i iwill have is food stamps, but by june the pinellas community transortation program will not have the funds to take me to get groceries, and they have already told me they no longer have the funds to take me to a pharmacy to get these live saving medications they all have me on.....
and i know i am not the only person in this situation, i spoke with several new clients at the new belcher commons office last week after i saw ms mccoy, and most people are worse off then me, they have already exhausted their benefits...
its just not right, that george w bush is spending one billion dollars a week in iraq helping them when in 6 months i am going to be homeless, racked with pain, not able to walk, stand, or work,
i dont see how you can even stand it, you must hear this all the time from all your clients, you must just get sick and tired of listening to clients like myself who are afraid and are scared to death as to how the next year is going to un fold
well here i am panicing, at 3am iin the morning, i cant sleep, and the pain meds are t working, and its too cold, and fi cant sleep, and if i can do anything, i am going to get disability and go back into some kind of casemanagment services and help people, i was asking ms mcccoy if they had any openings for part time work.
well forgive me for ranting, you dont deserve all of this, you have been the only good thing that has happened to me, im just scared to death that all of this is going to fall apart, and it seemed like dr slomka didndt even care about the mri, i felt like
i was just another annoyance, and he didnt even make anohter appt to see me again, all he wanted to do was put me thru a month of pain, just to see what would happen to me, and in the end, he is getting rich, and im just literally dying of pain
PLEASE FORGIVE ME FOR ALL OF THIS, SOME HOW I WILL GET OVER THIS.
dh
More options 3:17 am (0 minutes ago)
2ish am week of x mas
Mr. g m :
I hope your holiday season is going well. I just want to add that I am now 50 and will be 51 years old on 2/8/2006. I could also never return to my previous job due to severe back pain and knee pain. I can sit up in a chair for one to two hours, and then the pressure on the "bad disc", as Dr. Jackson calls it, causes such intense pain I have to lay down on ice packs. I have read this is a benign tumor and is called a hemangioma.
This vertebrae or whatever it is, disc, or whatever, has been a major source of pain for years for me, if I massage this area it swells up, and if I sit up and put pressure on it as sitting in a chair or a couch, it just makes the pain extreme and the pressure from the chair makes the lumbar region inflame. I know I sound like I am whinning and complaining...but its a relief to know what is causing all this horrible pain.
there is no way i can work due to this disc pain.
The neck pain is just as bad, dr shah said that vertebrae or disc was pushing on the spinal cord and is the cause for "discomfort"
"THERE IS A FOCUS OF INCREASED T 1 SIGNAL IDENTIFIED IN THE L4 VERTEBRAL BODY, COMPATIBLE WITH A BENIGN VERTEBRAL BODY HEMANGIOMA" (lower back pain)
The bulges, like you mentioned before, are not usually a source of pain unless they push on nerves, and most of my bulges, minues the one in my neck and in my lower back, appear to not be putting pressure on nerves
Regardless, I have been having pain in my whole back and neck for over two years, and pain in both knees for over three years, regardless of cause or what a doctor is finding to be the cause.
My aunt has many of the same trouble I have , and over the months and years her bulges have gotten worse, they are degenerative, and as I get older, its all going to get worse, and if some judge deems me not disabled at this point, in a few months to years, all this mess in my spine and neck will eventually get so bad I will be disabled....so I am hoping I am found disabled the first time around, so perhaps I can get disability, and make sure you get paid, and make sure pinellas county gets paid for helping me with rent.
Right now I am sitting up typing with a pillow at my lower back and a large blue ice pack between my back and the pillow, which allows me to type even though I am dealing with level 8 pain. I an only manage this for short periods of time, as the ice pack gets warm, the pressure of the ice pack and the pillow still hurts that hemangioma thing.
I will take a break, and after I get another cold ice pack out, I will finish this e mail. I have gone thru four ice packs since dr abrahamson prescribed them in august of 2002, the current one is being held together with duck tape, as when they fall apart this grey glue seaps out of the ice pack, and it gets all over my clothes and the floor.
I am going to try to get one of the doctors prescribe me four more when i go to physical therapy, because this is how i got them from healthsouth in 2002, they are invaluable and stop the pain in my back and neck better then any of the pain pills.. but only for 20 minutes at a time.
I know you must get really tired of my e mails, but I hope you wll be able to convey to the hearing judge what I have to go through to just to sit up in a chair. IT even hurts to sit in a wheelchair unless I use ice packs, and the whole wheelchair thing is a big hassle, but it does help me when I have to avoid walking more then 30 feet...but nothing helps the neck pain.
I am going to call the pain doctor in the next few weeks as the weather gets warmer, he is not listed as a pain specialist in the paperwork of doctors pinellas county gave me, so i do not know if he is really a pain doctor. he is not a podiatrist, he is a D.O.
or whatever the right name is for a pain doctor, i really do not think pinellas county has real pain doctors......
and there are no pain specialist doctors listed on the main doctor list from pinellas county, the one doctor they use to have under "pain specialist" has his name crossed out.
in workers compensation, when they sent me to a pain doctor, he had credentials and was called a podiatrist., or some name like that.......i just think dr shah refuses to prescribe pain medications to anyone, as i had been told that by the first case manager i met with pinellas county, what is the use of these doctors if they refuse to help patients that suffer with chronic pain, andn i have been suffering for over four years now, and its really making me go nuts!!!!
well you dont need to respond to this e mail at all, i know its the holidays and you have more important things to do then deal
with me.
dr shah still wants to refer me to a cardiologist, so I am going to make sure she does that when i see her next month, she was very concerned about my rapid heart rate, and she still is having problems getting my blood pressure done, she has doubled the
TOPROL XL 100MG, it makes me really dizzy, and she doubled the ALTACE 10MG....allthis pain is gonnan give me a heart attack, just like it keeps giving me panic attacks, even in my sleep, somedays it feels like all these pills dont do a anything for me at all, the pain meds dont stop the pain, the panic meds dont stop the attacks, and my blood pressure just keeps getting higher and i still get kidney stones every month, its like these doctors dont really care about helping anybody, its like they know they see me on a 6 month renewal basis, and at anytime, they wont see me anymore, and im gonna be on my own, broke, in pain, and im gonna have a stroke just like my grandmother or a massive heart attack just like my grand dad.
My case manager, ms jeanya mccoy, is leaving for a st pete office, so i will be getting a new case manager in three months at the belcher commons pinellas county dept of human services, so i will need to get to know her. Ms Mccoy renewed me for another 6 months, and when I see the new case manaager, she will give me three rent vouchers, and go over all my paperwork....
so that too is just a joke, no one is taking long enuff to get to know me, to get to help me, and in the long run, im just another patient........and no body really cares what happens to me, especially dr slomka! he said twice he could not do anything for me, he is supposed to help me! he is supposed to make me have a better quality of life!
when i was an hiv/aids case manager , i made sure all of my clients got the best of care, and i took care of 65 clients a month, and i got all of them food, rent, anything you could hope for, i was always there, 24 hours a day, and i make their lifes better, and that was before protease inhibitors in 1996, and most of my clients died, but i made sure they died with hospice and with dignity.
i hate being on this end of the process, i used to be able to help my clients, now im on the other end, and im just another number and to dr slomka he doenst even care how much pain i am in.
I really need an mri of both knees, as the pain is just really bad and i do not believe its just from "chronic muscle weakness" per dr slomka, he acts like i should have no pain in either knee, but i have sent him the old mri from 2002, but he is not compassionate at all, and the last two times I have seen him, he acts like the pain in my back and knees is in my head.
I have walked for him, and I have not whined or complained or made any sounds of noise from pain, I have told him I need to use the wheelchair cause his office is so large it hurts to walk in his huge office. would you believe this doctor has a water fall in his reception room, and coffee, and it takes a long time to walk from the front door to the water fall, then to his office, and then all the way back to the x ray room, and he shows no compassion for people like me that cant walk that far.
so when i used a wheelchair the second time i saw him, he would not see me because he had lost the referral from dr shah, that they had sent to him in september, so he sent me home that day, asking me why i was in a wheelchair, and i said i cant walk, and then when i did get to see him again, with the referral and the mri, he wouldnt even go over the results of the mri, and he made me walk again!.....it took dr shah and then dr jackson, to tell me what the mri meant, dr slomka only old me i had bulges, he didnt tell me they dont usually cause pain, and then he has the gaul to prescribe physical therapy when i keep telling him i can not walk! but i was nice, i was professional, i did not have any attitude, and i told him i would do anything he told me to do, because i wanted to get better............i just dont understand rich doctors, you should check out his office some day Garry, its the size of four houses, with tall vaulted ceilings, and a staff of 20 or more, its just makes me so mad i have to get in a cab that takes me 30 minutes to even get to him, for him to tell me he cant find the referral , and send me home.
and to make things worse, the pain doctor is in the same huge complex, i only have community transportation till june, then after that i will have to pay $35 dollars one way to see the pain doctor, or to see dr slomka, so in june, and after junen for the rest of this disability process, if I see dr slomka and the pain doctor, i am going to have to pay $70 bucks each time to see them, and how in the world can i afford t hat, so even if the pain doctor prescribes a better pain medication, i cant afford toeven get to see the doctor,
pinellas county no longer pays for medications from dr jackson, after paying for them for the last year, so pinellas county forces us to see their doctors, no matter how far away they are, so even if i do get a better pain med, i will not be able to afford the $70 dollar cab ride to pinellas park every 30 days , and dr shah says this is the only orthopeaic surgeon and the only pain doctor in my area, and i live in dunedin, this is just nuts!!!!
after june, i have no idea how i am going to pay to see any of these doctors, and if i stop seeing dr jackson, who gives me a cheaper pain medicatin that does not work as well as i have been taking it for two years now, after june my life is just going to fall apart!
up to june i can go anywhere in pinellas county for $3 one way to see all these doctors, and right now dr shah has me seeing her, dr slomka, the pain doctor, to physcial therapy, to a cardiologist, once a month, now after june, when i am no longer able to get the $3 dollar cab ride, because my room mate makes too much money, who can not take me to doctor s anymore as he has to work, and since i can not use a bus, im going to be in real trouble in june.
what is the point of all these doctors prescribeing all these meds for blood pressure, pain managment, kidney stones, and in fact, right now they have me taking 12 medications, so in june, i will have no way to get to any of these doctors, my blood pressure is going to go up, my pain is going to make me suicidal, i will have no way to get to the case manager for rent help, so my room mate will have no reason to let me live here anymore, all i iwill have is food stamps, but by june the pinellas community transortation program will not have the funds to take me to get groceries, and they have already told me they no longer have the funds to take me to a pharmacy to get these live saving medications they all have me on.....
and i know i am not the only person in this situation, i spoke with several new clients at the new belcher commons office last week after i saw ms mccoy, and most people are worse off then me, they have already exhausted their benefits...
its just not right, that george w bush is spending one billion dollars a week in iraq helping them when in 6 months i am going to be homeless, racked with pain, not able to walk, stand, or work,
i dont see how you can even stand it, you must hear this all the time from all your clients, you must just get sick and tired of listening to clients like myself who are afraid and are scared to death as to how the next year is going to un fold
well here i am panicing, at 3am iin the morning, i cant sleep, and the pain meds are t working, and its too cold, and fi cant sleep, and if i can do anything, i am going to get disability and go back into some kind of casemanagment services and help people, i was asking ms mcccoy if they had any openings for part time work.
well forgive me for ranting, you dont deserve all of this, you have been the only good thing that has happened to me, im just scared to death that all of this is going to fall apart, and it seemed like dr slomka didndt even care about the mri, i felt like
i was just another annoyance, and he didnt even make anohter appt to see me again, all he wanted to do was put me thru a month of pain, just to see what would happen to me, and in the end, he is getting rich, and im just literally dying of pain
PLEASE FORGIVE ME FOR ALL OF THIS, SOME HOW I WILL GET OVER THIS.
dh
Monday, December 19, 2005
Sunday, December 18, 2005
Gmail - the lst thing i do 9pm tonight
Gmail Dave Hughes
the lst thing i do 9pm tonight
1 message
Dave Hughes Sun, Dec 18, 2005 at 9:12 PM
To: "BigBlkMusc256@aol.com", Dave Hughes
if its the lst thing i do , i will move out of this apartment when i get disability and i will construct my life with order, joy, and success.
and for those human beings who can not understand their own imaturity; i blow them to the wind, to be extinqished as any flame on a cold night.
i do not nor yet to continue to understand those that want to love me, and when the mood is wrong, those that seek to hate me and destroy me
i have no friends but those that can learn to grow up, and stop abusing me at any whim of their temperamental personalities, i have done my lot, I have provided rent, food, paid light bills, found a person a high paying job via monster .com, and was never thanked for it, and to the end, i continue to find myself in situations where i am yelled at, abused, told i am an insect,
and i have lost all patience with any good that might be tring to live and survive in that one human being i speak of tonight
there is no excuse for abuse, even when the person thinks he or she loves me, and wants to help me, for i always return in kind, with my help, with my support, my my money and food, but if the person can not grow beyound this manic meaness, then i give up, for it has been four years, and many years before that, and i still awake up some days, like today, to have that very soul i love too much, scream, yell, abuse, and give me all manner of grief, to such an extent, that in the ran, in pain, i have to walk away from this house, and tour a graveyard
yesterday i was yelled at because it was a faucet not turned off "right"......what will it be tomorrow?
i order and will it so that my life will change, and i will enjoy that independence, and i will survive, and i will live in my own home where no on, no one, can abuse me with words and outright meaness
its time god makes some fucing changes around here, via one lawyer, via one determined 50 year old soul, and to create a future worth something living for.....i have plenty of time, and that time is my time, its time within one or two years, that i get the fuck out of this madness living with this madman.
and off to st pete, and off to wetting my hands in clay to make a fu cin living or me, me, me and only, me.
--
dave hughes
Gmail Dave Hughes
the lst thing i do 9pm tonight
1 message
Dave Hughes
To: "BigBlkMusc256@aol.com"
if its the lst thing i do , i will move out of this apartment when i get disability and i will construct my life with order, joy, and success.
and for those human beings who can not understand their own imaturity; i blow them to the wind, to be extinqished as any flame on a cold night.
i do not nor yet to continue to understand those that want to love me, and when the mood is wrong, those that seek to hate me and destroy me
i have no friends but those that can learn to grow up, and stop abusing me at any whim of their temperamental personalities, i have done my lot, I have provided rent, food, paid light bills, found a person a high paying job via monster .com, and was never thanked for it, and to the end, i continue to find myself in situations where i am yelled at, abused, told i am an insect,
and i have lost all patience with any good that might be tring to live and survive in that one human being i speak of tonight
there is no excuse for abuse, even when the person thinks he or she loves me, and wants to help me, for i always return in kind, with my help, with my support, my my money and food, but if the person can not grow beyound this manic meaness, then i give up, for it has been four years, and many years before that, and i still awake up some days, like today, to have that very soul i love too much, scream, yell, abuse, and give me all manner of grief, to such an extent, that in the ran, in pain, i have to walk away from this house, and tour a graveyard
yesterday i was yelled at because it was a faucet not turned off "right"......what will it be tomorrow?
i order and will it so that my life will change, and i will enjoy that independence, and i will survive, and i will live in my own home where no on, no one, can abuse me with words and outright meaness
its time god makes some fucing changes around here, via one lawyer, via one determined 50 year old soul, and to create a future worth something living for.....i have plenty of time, and that time is my time, its time within one or two years, that i get the fuck out of this madness living with this madman.
and off to st pete, and off to wetting my hands in clay to make a fu cin living or me, me, me and only, me.
--
dave hughes
Saturday, December 17, 2005
New Scientist Is string theory in trouble? - Interview
tIs string theory in trouble?
17 December 2005
NewScientist.com news service
Amanda Gefter
Why are physicists taking the idea of multiple universes seriously now?
First, there was the discovery in the past few years that inflation seems right. This theory that the universe expanded spectacularly in the first fraction of a second fits a lot of data. Inflation tells us that the universe is probably extremely big and necessarily diverse. On sufficiently big scales, and if inflation lasts long enough, this diversity will produce every possible universe. The same process that forged our universe in a big bang will happen over and over. The mathematics are rickety, but that's what inflation implies: a huge universe with patches that are very different from one another. The bottom line is that we no longer have any good reason to believe that our tiny patch of universe is representative of the whole thing.
Second was the discovery that the value of the cosmological constant - the energy of empty space which contributes to the expansion rate of the universe - seems absurdly improbable, and nothing in fundamental physics is able to explain why. I remember when Steven Weinberg first suggested that the cosmological constant might be anthropically determined - that it has to be this way otherwise we would not be here to observe it. I was very impressed with the argument, but troubled by it. Like everybody else, I thought the cosmological constant was probably zero - meaning that all the quantum fluctuations that make up the vacuum energy cancel out, and gravity alone affects the expansion of the universe. It would be much easier to explain if they cancelled out to zero, rather than to nearly zero. The discovery that there is a non-zero cosmological constant changed everything. Still, those two things were not enough to tip the balance for me.
What finally convinced you?
The discovery in string theory of this large landscape of solutions, of different vacuums, which describe very different physical environments, tipped the scales for me. At first, string theorists thought there were about a million solutions. Thinking about Weinberg's argument and about the non-zero cosmological constant, I used to go around asking my mathematician friends: are you sure it's only a million? They all assured me it was the best bet.
But a million is not enough for anthropic explanations - the chances of one of the universes being suitable for life are still too small. When Joe Polchinski and Raphael Bousso wrote their paper in 2000 that revealed there are more like 10500 vacuums in string theory, that to me was the tipping point. The three things seemed to be coming together. I felt I couldn't ignore this possibility, so I wrote a paper saying so. The initial reaction was very hostile, but over the past couple of years people are taking it more seriously. They are worried that it might be true.
Steven Weinberg recently said that this is one of the great sea changes in fundamental science since Einstein, that it changes the nature of science itself. Is it such a radical change?
In a way it is very radical but in another way it isn't. The great ambition of physicists like myself was to explain why the laws of nature are just what they are. Why is the proton just about 1800 times heavier than the electron? Why do neutrinos exist? The great hope was that some deep mathematical principle would determine all the constants of nature, like Newton's constant. But it seems increasingly likely that the constants of nature are more like the temperature of the Earth - properties of our local environment that vary from place to place. Like the temperature, many of the constants have to be just so if intelligent life is to exist. So we live where life is possible.
For some physicists this idea is an incredible disappointment. Personally, I don't see it that way. I find it exciting to think that the universe may be much bigger, richer and full of variety than we ever expected. And it doesn't seem so incredibly philosophically radical to think that some things may be environmental.
In order to accept the idea that we live in a hospitable patch of a multiverse, must a physicist trade in that dream of a final theory?
Absolutely not. No more than when physicists discovered that the radii of planetary orbits were not determined by some elegant mathematical equation, or by Kepler's idea of nested Platonic solids. We simply have to reassess which things will be universal consequences of the theory and which will be consequences of cosmic history and local conditions.
So even if you accept the multiverse and the idea that certain local physical laws are anthropically determined, you still need a unique mega-theory to describe the whole multiverse? Surely it just pushs the question back?
Yes, absolutely. The bottom line is that we need to describe the whole thing, the whole universe or multiverse. It's a scientific question: is the universe on the largest scales big and diverse or is it homogeneous? We can hope to get an answer from string theory and we can hope to get some information from cosmology.
There is a philosophical objection called Popperism that people raise against the landscape idea. Popperism [after the philosopher Karl Popper] is the assertion that a scientific hypothesis has to be falsifiable, otherwise it's just metaphysics. Other worlds, alternative universes, things we can't see because they are beyond horizons, are in principle unfalsifiable and therefore metaphysical - that's the objection. But the belief that the universe beyond our causal horizon is homogeneous is just as speculative and just as susceptible to the Popperazzi.
Could there be some kind of selection principle that will emerge and pick out one unique string theory and one unique universe?
Anything is possible. My friend David Gross hopes that no selection principle will be necessary because only one universe will prove to make sense mathematically, or something like that. But so far there is no evidence for this view. Even most of the hard-core adherents to the uniqueness view admit that it looks bad.
Is it premature to invoke anthropic arguments - which assume that the conditions for life are extremely improbable - when we don't know how to define life?
The logic of the anthropic principle requires the strong assumption that our kind of life is the only kind possible. Why should we presume that all life is like us - carbon-based, needs water, and so forth? How do we know that life cannot exist in radically different environments? If life could exist without galaxies, the argument that the cosmological constant seems improbably fine-tuned for life would lose all of its force. And we don't know that life of all kinds can't exist in a wide variety of circumstances, maybe in all circumstances. It a valid objection. But in my heart of hearts, I just don't believe that life could exist in the interior of a star, for instance, or in a black hole.
Is it possible to test the landscape idea through observation?
One idea is to look for signs that space is negatively curved, meaning the geometry of space-time is saddle-shaped as opposed to flat or like the surface of a sphere. It's a long shot but not as unlikely as I previously thought. Inflation tells us that our observable universe likely began in a different vacuum state, that decayed into our current vacuum state. It's hard to believe that's the whole story. It seems more probable that our universe began in some other vacuum state with a much higher cosmological constant, and that the history of the multiverse is a series of quantum tunnelling events from one vacuum to another. If our universe came out of another, it must be negatively curved, and we might see evidence of that today on the largest scales of the cosmic microwave background. So the landscape, at least in principle, is testable.
If we do not accept the landscape idea are we stuck with intelligent design?
I doubt that physicists will see it that way. If, for some unforeseen reason, the landscape turns out to be inconsistent - maybe for mathematical reasons, or because it disagrees with observation - I am pretty sure that physicists will go on searching for natural explanations of the world. But I have to say that if that happens, as things stand now we will be in a very awkward position. Without any explanation of nature's fine-tunings we will be hard pressed to answer the ID critics. One might argue that the hope that a mathematically unique solution will emerge is as faith-based as ID.
Leonard Susskind
Leonard Susskind is the Felix Bloch Professor of Theoretical Physics at Stanford University in California. His book Cosmic Landscape: String theory and the illusion of intelligent design is published this week by Little, Brown ($24.95, £14.33, ISBN 0316155799)
Printed on Sat Dec 17 08:39:42 GMT 2005
tIs string theory in trouble?
17 December 2005
NewScientist.com news service
Amanda Gefter
Why are physicists taking the idea of multiple universes seriously now?
First, there was the discovery in the past few years that inflation seems right. This theory that the universe expanded spectacularly in the first fraction of a second fits a lot of data. Inflation tells us that the universe is probably extremely big and necessarily diverse. On sufficiently big scales, and if inflation lasts long enough, this diversity will produce every possible universe. The same process that forged our universe in a big bang will happen over and over. The mathematics are rickety, but that's what inflation implies: a huge universe with patches that are very different from one another. The bottom line is that we no longer have any good reason to believe that our tiny patch of universe is representative of the whole thing.
Second was the discovery that the value of the cosmological constant - the energy of empty space which contributes to the expansion rate of the universe - seems absurdly improbable, and nothing in fundamental physics is able to explain why. I remember when Steven Weinberg first suggested that the cosmological constant might be anthropically determined - that it has to be this way otherwise we would not be here to observe it. I was very impressed with the argument, but troubled by it. Like everybody else, I thought the cosmological constant was probably zero - meaning that all the quantum fluctuations that make up the vacuum energy cancel out, and gravity alone affects the expansion of the universe. It would be much easier to explain if they cancelled out to zero, rather than to nearly zero. The discovery that there is a non-zero cosmological constant changed everything. Still, those two things were not enough to tip the balance for me.
What finally convinced you?
The discovery in string theory of this large landscape of solutions, of different vacuums, which describe very different physical environments, tipped the scales for me. At first, string theorists thought there were about a million solutions. Thinking about Weinberg's argument and about the non-zero cosmological constant, I used to go around asking my mathematician friends: are you sure it's only a million? They all assured me it was the best bet.
But a million is not enough for anthropic explanations - the chances of one of the universes being suitable for life are still too small. When Joe Polchinski and Raphael Bousso wrote their paper in 2000 that revealed there are more like 10500 vacuums in string theory, that to me was the tipping point. The three things seemed to be coming together. I felt I couldn't ignore this possibility, so I wrote a paper saying so. The initial reaction was very hostile, but over the past couple of years people are taking it more seriously. They are worried that it might be true.
Steven Weinberg recently said that this is one of the great sea changes in fundamental science since Einstein, that it changes the nature of science itself. Is it such a radical change?
In a way it is very radical but in another way it isn't. The great ambition of physicists like myself was to explain why the laws of nature are just what they are. Why is the proton just about 1800 times heavier than the electron? Why do neutrinos exist? The great hope was that some deep mathematical principle would determine all the constants of nature, like Newton's constant. But it seems increasingly likely that the constants of nature are more like the temperature of the Earth - properties of our local environment that vary from place to place. Like the temperature, many of the constants have to be just so if intelligent life is to exist. So we live where life is possible.
For some physicists this idea is an incredible disappointment. Personally, I don't see it that way. I find it exciting to think that the universe may be much bigger, richer and full of variety than we ever expected. And it doesn't seem so incredibly philosophically radical to think that some things may be environmental.
In order to accept the idea that we live in a hospitable patch of a multiverse, must a physicist trade in that dream of a final theory?
Absolutely not. No more than when physicists discovered that the radii of planetary orbits were not determined by some elegant mathematical equation, or by Kepler's idea of nested Platonic solids. We simply have to reassess which things will be universal consequences of the theory and which will be consequences of cosmic history and local conditions.
So even if you accept the multiverse and the idea that certain local physical laws are anthropically determined, you still need a unique mega-theory to describe the whole multiverse? Surely it just pushs the question back?
Yes, absolutely. The bottom line is that we need to describe the whole thing, the whole universe or multiverse. It's a scientific question: is the universe on the largest scales big and diverse or is it homogeneous? We can hope to get an answer from string theory and we can hope to get some information from cosmology.
There is a philosophical objection called Popperism that people raise against the landscape idea. Popperism [after the philosopher Karl Popper] is the assertion that a scientific hypothesis has to be falsifiable, otherwise it's just metaphysics. Other worlds, alternative universes, things we can't see because they are beyond horizons, are in principle unfalsifiable and therefore metaphysical - that's the objection. But the belief that the universe beyond our causal horizon is homogeneous is just as speculative and just as susceptible to the Popperazzi.
Could there be some kind of selection principle that will emerge and pick out one unique string theory and one unique universe?
Anything is possible. My friend David Gross hopes that no selection principle will be necessary because only one universe will prove to make sense mathematically, or something like that. But so far there is no evidence for this view. Even most of the hard-core adherents to the uniqueness view admit that it looks bad.
Is it premature to invoke anthropic arguments - which assume that the conditions for life are extremely improbable - when we don't know how to define life?
The logic of the anthropic principle requires the strong assumption that our kind of life is the only kind possible. Why should we presume that all life is like us - carbon-based, needs water, and so forth? How do we know that life cannot exist in radically different environments? If life could exist without galaxies, the argument that the cosmological constant seems improbably fine-tuned for life would lose all of its force. And we don't know that life of all kinds can't exist in a wide variety of circumstances, maybe in all circumstances. It a valid objection. But in my heart of hearts, I just don't believe that life could exist in the interior of a star, for instance, or in a black hole.
Is it possible to test the landscape idea through observation?
One idea is to look for signs that space is negatively curved, meaning the geometry of space-time is saddle-shaped as opposed to flat or like the surface of a sphere. It's a long shot but not as unlikely as I previously thought. Inflation tells us that our observable universe likely began in a different vacuum state, that decayed into our current vacuum state. It's hard to believe that's the whole story. It seems more probable that our universe began in some other vacuum state with a much higher cosmological constant, and that the history of the multiverse is a series of quantum tunnelling events from one vacuum to another. If our universe came out of another, it must be negatively curved, and we might see evidence of that today on the largest scales of the cosmic microwave background. So the landscape, at least in principle, is testable.
If we do not accept the landscape idea are we stuck with intelligent design?
I doubt that physicists will see it that way. If, for some unforeseen reason, the landscape turns out to be inconsistent - maybe for mathematical reasons, or because it disagrees with observation - I am pretty sure that physicists will go on searching for natural explanations of the world. But I have to say that if that happens, as things stand now we will be in a very awkward position. Without any explanation of nature's fine-tunings we will be hard pressed to answer the ID critics. One might argue that the hope that a mathematically unique solution will emerge is as faith-based as ID.
Leonard Susskind
Leonard Susskind is the Felix Bloch Professor of Theoretical Physics at Stanford University in California. His book Cosmic Landscape: String theory and the illusion of intelligent design is published this week by Little, Brown ($24.95, £14.33, ISBN 0316155799)
Printed on Sat Dec 17 08:39:42 GMT 2005
Thursday, December 15, 2005
Back.com - Causes - Tumors - Benign
Hemangioma
A hemangioma is a benign tumor that can involve the body of the vertebra. This tumor is often found in the lower thoracic or upper lumbar spine, usually involving only a single vertebra. Interestingly, not all hemangiomas produce symptoms such as pain. Hemangiomas typically occur during mid-life, affecting females more often than males.
The most common symptom associated with a hemangioma is pain. This is typically the result of a large hemangioma involving the entire vertebral body. Hemangiomas may be discovered as part of an evaluation for back pain. They have a very characteristic appearance on regular x-rays, referred to as " honeycombing." There may also be a varying degree of collapse and loss of vertebral height with extensive involvement. When the collapse is severe, impingement on the spinal cord or neural elements will produce severe pain and loss of function in the legs, bowel or bladder.
There are a number of treatment options for vertebral hemangioma, ranging from observation to radiation to surgical resection. Treatment decisions are based upon the severity of symptoms or neurologic compromise. The management of a vertebral hemangioma must take into account the generous blood supply of the lesion, and requires careful planning by the surgeon involved in your care before surgical treatment is recommended.
Click here to find a doctor who treats begnin tumors.
Hemangioma
A hemangioma is a benign tumor that can involve the body of the vertebra. This tumor is often found in the lower thoracic or upper lumbar spine, usually involving only a single vertebra. Interestingly, not all hemangiomas produce symptoms such as pain. Hemangiomas typically occur during mid-life, affecting females more often than males.
The most common symptom associated with a hemangioma is pain. This is typically the result of a large hemangioma involving the entire vertebral body. Hemangiomas may be discovered as part of an evaluation for back pain. They have a very characteristic appearance on regular x-rays, referred to as " honeycombing." There may also be a varying degree of collapse and loss of vertebral height with extensive involvement. When the collapse is severe, impingement on the spinal cord or neural elements will produce severe pain and loss of function in the legs, bowel or bladder.
There are a number of treatment options for vertebral hemangioma, ranging from observation to radiation to surgical resection. Treatment decisions are based upon the severity of symptoms or neurologic compromise. The management of a vertebral hemangioma must take into account the generous blood supply of the lesion, and requires careful planning by the surgeon involved in your care before surgical treatment is recommended.
Click here to find a doctor who treats begnin tumors.
Tuesday, November 15, 2005
horoscope
"New discoveries that capture your imagination could find you spending most of your day sequestered in your home, learning as much as you can about them. All indications are that you're not going to want to do much else, but it is important, dear Aquarius, to remember to take breaks and get a little exercise throughout the day. Moving the body and shaking out the kinks in your muscles can get your mind going as well."
"New discoveries that capture your imagination could find you spending most of your day sequestered in your home, learning as much as you can about them. All indications are that you're not going to want to do much else, but it is important, dear Aquarius, to remember to take breaks and get a little exercise throughout the day. Moving the body and shaking out the kinks in your muscles can get your mind going as well."
Saturday, November 12, 2005
san ethnography, african rock art, the southern zone
http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/san/hd_san.htm
For most of the twentieth century, people followed a "gaze and guess" approach to interpreting southern African San rock art. They would simply look at the art and feel confident enough to pronounce on its meaning. Of course, such pronouncements made by missionaries, explorers, and colonialists were heavily prejudiced against San people. The San were seen to be simple and crude and therefore their art was simple and crude. At best, the art was seen as a sort of menu—they painted and engraved what they ate. During the 1960s, scholars began to approach the art more systematically, in order to get away from the earlier, obviously simplistic, attempts to understand the art. In particular, they undertook quantitative studies of the images. This revealed a marked patterning in certain parts of southern Africa. The eland, the largest of all antelope, was the most commonly depicted animal in most areas, in stark contrast to archaeological evidence that San people ate mainly small antelope and wildebeest, which were rarely depicted. Clearly, the San were not painting a menu; they were choosing to paint eland for other reasons.To understand what these reasons might be, scholars began to read about San beliefs and practices. They were fortunate in that a German linguist, Wilhelm Bleek, and his sister-in-law Lucy Lloyd had collected some 12,000 pages of /Xam San beliefs, folklore, and ritual practices in the 1870s. These were written down in the /Xam language in the orthography developed by Bleek and translated verbatim. Today these notebooks are stored in the Jagger Library at the University of Cape Town, where one can see the San text on one side of a notebook and the English translation, line for line, on the opposite page. In addition to this invaluable resource, anthropologists living among San groups of the Kalahari Desert of Namibia and Botswana from the 1950s onward provided detailed material on San practices and beliefs. These San did not paint or engrave on stone but still practiced the rituals that were integral to the art.Central to these rituals is an invisible energy, said by the San to be found in almost all animals but in great quantities in the eland. San shamans harness this supernatural energy in order to undertake the dangerous journey to the world of spirits, where they must perform various tasks such as rainmaking, fighting off evil spirits, and curing the sick. This potent energy was to be found, particularly, in the eland's blood, fat, and sweat. Oral testimony from a man who painted with San people in the nineteenth century as well as chemical tests show that many of the images of eland are made with blood; the art itself is redolent with this supernatural energy.As scholars came to understand San beliefs in greater detail, more and more of the art could be related to San religious beliefs concerning the world of the spirits and the ritual by means of which they contacted that world—the healing or trance dance. This dance was, and still is in the Kalahari, the central mechanism for harnessing the supernatural power residing in eland and other animals. Often performed around the carcass of a recently killed animal, the trance dance is circular in movement; men and older women shamans dance in a circle, while young women sit, clap, and sing songs (themselves thought to carry supernatural energy). The rhythmic singing and clapping and the intense dancing for hours on end produce altered states of consciousness in which the shamans experience, first, visual imagery, and later, more complex multisensory hallucinations.To call these experiences "hallucinations" is, of course, to look at them from a detached Western academic perspective; for the San, these experiences are deeply moving and profound revelations of a religious reality beyond this world. In order to experience these revelations, they believe that one must harness the supernatural energy from the dead animal. This energy enters the body, where it "boils" in the stomach, forcing it to rise into the heads of the dancers, where it explodes, catapulting them into the other world.Alongside the numerous images of eland are ubiquitous depictions of healing or trance dances and the various experiences that the shaman-dancers have when they enter the other world, such as transformation into animal form. These images often interact with the rock surface; they appear to enter or leave cracks, steps, and other openings in the rock surface. For this reason, it is believed by scholars that, for the San, the rock surface functioned as a veil between this world and the spiritual one. Filled with supernatural energy, the images are depicted on this veil, on the very liminal space between two worlds. It is now thought by some scholars that, for the San, these images were more than just representational—they were the actual inhabitants of the spirit world
http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/san/hd_san.htm
For most of the twentieth century, people followed a "gaze and guess" approach to interpreting southern African San rock art. They would simply look at the art and feel confident enough to pronounce on its meaning. Of course, such pronouncements made by missionaries, explorers, and colonialists were heavily prejudiced against San people. The San were seen to be simple and crude and therefore their art was simple and crude. At best, the art was seen as a sort of menu—they painted and engraved what they ate. During the 1960s, scholars began to approach the art more systematically, in order to get away from the earlier, obviously simplistic, attempts to understand the art. In particular, they undertook quantitative studies of the images. This revealed a marked patterning in certain parts of southern Africa. The eland, the largest of all antelope, was the most commonly depicted animal in most areas, in stark contrast to archaeological evidence that San people ate mainly small antelope and wildebeest, which were rarely depicted. Clearly, the San were not painting a menu; they were choosing to paint eland for other reasons.To understand what these reasons might be, scholars began to read about San beliefs and practices. They were fortunate in that a German linguist, Wilhelm Bleek, and his sister-in-law Lucy Lloyd had collected some 12,000 pages of /Xam San beliefs, folklore, and ritual practices in the 1870s. These were written down in the /Xam language in the orthography developed by Bleek and translated verbatim. Today these notebooks are stored in the Jagger Library at the University of Cape Town, where one can see the San text on one side of a notebook and the English translation, line for line, on the opposite page. In addition to this invaluable resource, anthropologists living among San groups of the Kalahari Desert of Namibia and Botswana from the 1950s onward provided detailed material on San practices and beliefs. These San did not paint or engrave on stone but still practiced the rituals that were integral to the art.Central to these rituals is an invisible energy, said by the San to be found in almost all animals but in great quantities in the eland. San shamans harness this supernatural energy in order to undertake the dangerous journey to the world of spirits, where they must perform various tasks such as rainmaking, fighting off evil spirits, and curing the sick. This potent energy was to be found, particularly, in the eland's blood, fat, and sweat. Oral testimony from a man who painted with San people in the nineteenth century as well as chemical tests show that many of the images of eland are made with blood; the art itself is redolent with this supernatural energy.As scholars came to understand San beliefs in greater detail, more and more of the art could be related to San religious beliefs concerning the world of the spirits and the ritual by means of which they contacted that world—the healing or trance dance. This dance was, and still is in the Kalahari, the central mechanism for harnessing the supernatural power residing in eland and other animals. Often performed around the carcass of a recently killed animal, the trance dance is circular in movement; men and older women shamans dance in a circle, while young women sit, clap, and sing songs (themselves thought to carry supernatural energy). The rhythmic singing and clapping and the intense dancing for hours on end produce altered states of consciousness in which the shamans experience, first, visual imagery, and later, more complex multisensory hallucinations.To call these experiences "hallucinations" is, of course, to look at them from a detached Western academic perspective; for the San, these experiences are deeply moving and profound revelations of a religious reality beyond this world. In order to experience these revelations, they believe that one must harness the supernatural energy from the dead animal. This energy enters the body, where it "boils" in the stomach, forcing it to rise into the heads of the dancers, where it explodes, catapulting them into the other world.Alongside the numerous images of eland are ubiquitous depictions of healing or trance dances and the various experiences that the shaman-dancers have when they enter the other world, such as transformation into animal form. These images often interact with the rock surface; they appear to enter or leave cracks, steps, and other openings in the rock surface. For this reason, it is believed by scholars that, for the San, the rock surface functioned as a veil between this world and the spiritual one. Filled with supernatural energy, the images are depicted on this veil, on the very liminal space between two worlds. It is now thought by some scholars that, for the San, these images were more than just representational—they were the actual inhabitants of the spirit world
Friday, November 11, 2005
My show is today! I have 8 paintings ready to show. I hoped to have ten, but that's life. I so lucky to even be alive. I love you more than you even realize. We can never forget how much history that we share. You are one of my only life long friends, in good times and in bad; you've always been there for me. I hope only that I could do the same. I hope that I never become proud of anything that I do on this plane. The world that we live in is in a state of transtition. The river is moving very fast right now, the bridge between the different aspects of reality has been blown away! I'll try to call you before I have to go in today. I need you counsel before this show. Thank
Thursday, November 10, 2005
http://www.oceansonline.com/gaiaho.htm
this page last updated January 21, 2005
The Gaia Hypothesis
The last half of the 20th century witnessed incredible leaps in our understanding of planet Earth. Beyond the technological achievements, these decades have produced a substantial body of evidence in support of a revolutionary hypothesis, first posed by Alfred Wegener in the early 1900s, that the continents move around the planet, like ice cubes in a glass. The theory of plate tectonics, as it is now known, embodies a century or more of scientific research, bringing together the efforts of oceanographers, geophysicists, climatologists, palenotologists and more. It represents to my mind what the scientific method is all about and provides an awesome example of how science works.
Another example of how science works is a revolutionary hypothesis first proposed by an atmospheric chemist the the late 70s. This hypothesis, known as the Gaia Hypothesis, states that the Earth is alive. While perhaps agreeable to many an artistic or spiritual soul, the very statement of the hypothesis rankled some scientists. Still, two decades later, the Gaia Hypothesis is still with us.
Whether the Gaia Hypothesis will stand the test of time is uncertain. But its impact on how we think of our planet, how we view the processes that create our atmosphere and climate and oceans and even the mountains is unmistakable.
I think you will find it fascinating. Herein is described one of the more controversial scientific hypotheses of our time, the Gaia Hypothesis.
What is Gaia?
The Gaia Hypothesis proposes that our planet functions as a single organism that maintains conditions necessary for its survival. Formulated by James Lovelock in the mid-1960s and published in a book in 1979, this controversial idea has spawned several interesting ideas and many new areas of research. While this hypothesis is by no means substantiated, it provides many useful lessons about the interaction of physical, chemical, geological, and biological processes on Earth. Thus, it is a good starting point for our study of oceanography, providing a broad overview of the kinds of processes that will interest us throughout the semester.
Throughout history, the concept of Mother Earth has been a part of human culture in one form or another. Everybody has heard of Mother Earth, but have you ever stopped to think who (or what) Mother Earth is? Consider these explanations.
The Hopi name for Mother Earth is Tapuat (meaning mother and child), symbolized by a form of concentric circles or squares, as shown below. These forms symbolize the cycle of life, the rebirth of the spirit, its earthly path, and, possibly, its return to the spiritual domain. The lines and passages within the "maze" represent the universal plan of the Creator and the path that man must follow to seek enlightenment.
A more imposing definition of Mother Earth might be found in the Hindu goddess Kali. She is the Cosmic Power, representing all of the good and all of the bad in the Universe, combining the absolute power of destruction with the precious motherly gift of creation. It is said that Kali creates, preserves, destroys. Also known as the Black One, her name means "The Ferry across the Ocean of Existence."
The ancient Greeks called their Earth goddess Ge or Gaia. Gaia embodies the idea of a Mother Earth, the source of the living and non-living entities that make up the Earth. Like Kali, Gaia was gentle, feminine and nurturing, but also ruthlessly cruel to any who crossed her. Note that the prefix "ge" in the words geology and geography is taken from the Greek root for Earth.
James Lovelock has taken the idea of Mother Earth one step further and given it a modern scientific twist. (Are our modern Mother Earth "hypotheses" any more refined than ancient Mother Earth myths?). Lovelock defines Gaia "as a complex entity involving the Earth's biosphere, atmosphere, oceans, and soil; the totality constituting a feedback or cybernetic system which seeks an optimal physical and chemical environment for life on this planet." Through Gaia, the Earth sustains a kind of homeostasis, the maintenance of relatively constant conditions.
The truly startling component of the Gaia hypothesis is the idea that the Earth is a single living entity. This idea is certainly not new. James Hutton (1726-1797), the father of geology, once described the Earth as a kind of superorganism. And right before Lovelock, Lewis Thomas, a medical doctor and skilled writer, penned these words in his famous collection of essays, The Lives of a Cell:
Viewed from the distance of the moon, the astonishing thing about the earth, catching the breath, is that it is alive. The photographs show the dry, pounded surface of the moon in the foreground, dry as an old bone. Aloft, floating free beneath the moist, gleaming, membrane of bright blue sky, is the rising earth, the only exuberant thing in this part of the cosmos. If you could look long enough, you would see the swirling of the great drifts of white cloud, covering and uncovering the half-hidden masses of land. If you had been looking for a very long, geologic time, you could have seen the continents themselves in motion, drifting apart on their crustal plates, held afloat by the fire beneath. It has the organized, self-contained look of a live creature, full of information, marvelously skilled in handling the sun.
Thomas goes even one step further when he writes: "I have been trying to think of the earth as a kind of organism, but it is a no go...it is most like a single cell."
Whether the Earth is a cell, an organism, or a superorganism is largely a matter of semantics, and a topic that I will leave to the more philosophically minded. The key point here is the hypothesis that the Earth acts as a single system - it is a coherent, self-regulated, assemblage of physical, chemical, geological, and biological forces that interact to maintain a unified whole balanced between the input of energy from the sun and the thermal sink of energy into space.
In its most basic configuration, the Earth acts to regulate flows of energy and recycling of materials. The input of energy from the sun occurs at a constant rate and for all practical purposes is unlimited. This energy is captured by the Earth as heat or photosynthetic processes, and returned to space as long-wave radiation. On the other hand, the mass of the Earth, its material possessions, are limited (except for the occasional input of mass provided as meteors strike the planet). Thus, while energy flows through the Earth (sun to Earth to space), matter cycles within the Earth.
The idea of the Earth acting as a single system as put forth in the Gaia hypothesis has stimulated a new awareness of the connectedness of all things on our planet and the impact that man has on global processes. No longer can we think of separate components or parts of the Earth as distinct. No longer can we think of man's actions in one part of the planet as independent. Everything that happens on the planet - the deforestation/reforestation of trees, the increase/decrease of emissions of carbon dioxide, the removal or planting of croplands - all have an affect on our planet. The most difficult part of this idea is how to qualify these effects, i.e. to determine whether these effects are positive or negative. If the Earth is indeed self-regulating, then it will adjust to the impacts of man. However, as we will see, these adjustments may act to exclude man, much as the introduction of oxygen into the atmosphere by photosynthetic bacteria acted to exclude anaerobic bacteria. This is the crux of the Gaia hypothesis.
How Does Gaia Work?
James Lovelock, in collaboration with another eminent scientist, the microbiologist Lynn Margulis, first explained the Gaia hypothesis as such: "Life, or the biosphere, regulates or maintains the climate and the atmospheric composition at an optimum for itself." Inherent in this explanation is the idea that biosphere, the atmosphere, the lithosphere and the hydrosphere are in some kind of balance -- that they maintain a homeostatic condition. This homeostasis is much like the internal maintenance of our own bodies; processes within our body insure a constant temperature, blood pH, electrochemical balance, etc. The inner workings of Gaia, therefore, can be viewed as a study of the physiology of the Earth, where the oceans and rivers are the Earth's blood, the atmosphere is the Earth's lungs, the land is the Earth's bones, and the living organisms are the Earth's senses. Lovelock calls this the science of geophysiology - the physiology of the Earth (or any other planet).
Viewed from this angle, there are certain predictions and experiments that can be performed to refute or lend evidence to the Gaia hypothesis. In fact, it was the search for life on Mars that led to Lovelock's early ideas about the existence of Gaia. As part of a NASA team formed in 1965 to look for life on other planets, Lovelock was asked to propose hypotheses that would demonstrate whether life existed on a planet or not. One of these hypotheses was the idea that gases in an atmosphere on a "dead" planet would be in chemical equilibrium, that is, all the possible chemical reactions that could have happened would have happened and the gases of the atmosphere would be relatively inert. On the other hand, if life existed on the planet, gases in the atmosphere would not be in balance, and chemical reactions would be actively occurring.
VENUS
EARTH
MARS
N (<2%) CO2 (95%)No oxygenatmosphere inchemical equilibrium
N (77%), CO2( 0.03%)21% Oxygenatmosphere not inchemical equilibrium
N (<3%) CO2 (95%)No oxygenatmosphere inchemical equilibrium
When they looked at the gaseous composition of Mars and Venus, they saw that the atmosphere was largely composed of the generally unreactive gas carbon dioxide. According to their hypothesis, both these planets would be dead. However, when they looked at Earth, they saw that the atmosphere was an unusual and unstable mixture of many gases. Thus, life was expected to be present on Earth (which we all know is true).
While perhaps not so dramatic, this example should give you some idea of how science works and how the Gaia hypothesis came into being (see handout). The fact that the gaseous composition of the Earth was not in chemical equilibrium, yet appeared to be maintained in a constant state, suggested some form of planetary regulation for the planet's atmosphere. Lovelock initially suggested that life itself maintained the composition of the atmosphere, but has broadened the concept to include the whole system of the climate, the rocks, the air, and the oceans as a self-regulating process.
To understand how the Earth might be living, let's take a look at what defines life. Physicists define life as a system of locally reduced entropy (life is the battle against entropy). Molecular biologists view life as replicating strands of DNA that compete for survival and evolve to optimize their survival in changing surroundings. Physiologists might view life as a biochemical system that us able to use energy from external sources to grow and reproduce. According to Lovelock, the geophysiologist sees life as a system open to the flux of matter and energy but that maintains an internal steady-state.
[updated 1999] Modern biology texts often provide the best descriptions of what defines like. Before you proceed, take a few moments to review the characteristics of living matter that I have summarized on a separate page. Read Characteristics of Living Matter here.
Redwood trees from theNational and State ParksElectronic Visitor's Center
One useful analogy that has been proposed for understanding Gaia is the California redwood tree, Sequoia gigantea. These trees which stand in great groves along the northern coast of California and elsewhere can stand as high as 300 feet and weigh as much as 2000 tons. Some of them are more than 3000 years old.
Redwood trees are like Gaia because 97% of their tissues are dead. The wood of the trunk and the bark of the tree are dead. Only a small rim of cells along the periphery of the trunk is living. The trunk of the tree is similar to the Earth's lithosphere with a thin layer of living organisms spread across its surface. The bark, like the atmosphere, protects the living tissues, and allows for the exchange of biologically important gases, such as carbon dioxide and oxygen.
There is no doubt in my mind that a redwood tree is a living entity. Would you just call the outer layer the redwood tree and the rest of it dead wood? The same holds true for Gaia. While much of the Earth may be considered "non-living", the fact that all of these non-living parts are involved to some extent in living processes suggests that the whole Earth is alive, just like a redwood tree.
To better understand how the Earth functions physiologically, let's look at one example that has recently been proposed as evidence of Gaia. Let's compare mechanisms of temperature regulation in our bodies and on Earth.
All of us know that our body temperatures are maintained pretty close to 98.6 degrees F (37 degrees C). The maintenance of this body temperature is the result of feedbacks between the brain and various organs and systems of the body. Our bodies have developed different responses to increases or decreases in our core temperature. If it is too cold, our bodies produce heat by shivering; if it is too warm, our bodies sweat and remove heat through evaporation. Of course, humans have extended their ability to survive in extremes of temperatures by inventing clothing that insulates, heats, and even cools our bodies. Such clothing has allowed humans to explore the coldest waters of the polar oceans or the hottest regions of the world's deserts.
On Earth, temperature is regulated in a similar, albeit, more complicated fashion. We will examine how the sun warms the Earth in more detail in a later lecture, but for now we can gain some understanding by just considering the effects of the Earth's albedo. Albedo refers to the color of a planet and its ability to absorb or reflect light. Probably most of you have experienced the difference in temperature between a black asphalt street and a white sidewalk; the Earth's temperature regulation works in much the same way. Dark areas, such as mountains in summer, forests, or even the ocean, tend to absorb heat energy from the sun. Light areas, such as deserts, cloudy areas, or the polar ice caps tend to reflect the sun's energy away from the Earth.
As you can imagine, the albedo of the Earth is not constant. What kinds of changes occur over the Earth's surface that would affect the Earth's albedo?
One possible means by which global temperature is regulated is by clouds. If there are more clouds, more sunlight is reflected away from the earth, and the earth cools. If there are less clouds, more sunlight is able to reach the surface of the Earth and the earth warms. What factors control the abundance of clouds?
There are many factors that affect cloud cover over the planet. The interaction of the atmosphere with the ocean is one major factor. Think of how fog forms along the coast during early summer and you'll get the idea. Other factors, such as the rain shadow effect and weather fronts contribute to cloud cover over the planet.
Given that the oceans cover two-thirds of the Earth's surface, it stands to reason that anything that contributes to the formation of clouds over the ocean will have a major impact on the Earth's temperature. One such mechanism proposed in the last couple decades is the release of cloud-condensation nuclei (or CCN's) by marine phytoplankton, particularly coccolithophorids. Coccolithophorids are well-known for their beautiful calcareous skeletons that make up the White Cliffs of Dover in England.
Gephrocapsa sp, one of many species ofcoccolithophorids living in the ocean
Clouds form when water vapor in the atmosphere condenses or freezes. However, for clouds to form, a particle or "nucleus" must be present to "gather up" the water into a droplet. These particles, called cloud-condensation nuclei, are the tiny particles in the atmosphere that lead to the formation of clouds. Water vapor condenses around these particles and clouds are formed.
One substance that can act as a CCN is dimethyl sulphide, or DMS. It has been known for quite some time that certain algae or phytoplankton (plant plankton that live in the ocean) release trace quantities of DMS. Production of DMS by phytoplankton may be sufficient to cause the formation of clouds, and recent research has been directed towards quantifying the amounts of DMS released into the atmosphere by organisms living in the sea.
Where this process becomes interesting for Gaia is the possibility that phytoplankton can control the temperature of the Earth by regulating the amount of cloud cover over the oceans. Imagine that! Phytoplankton, tiny single-celled plants in the sea, have their fingers on the Earth's thermostat! When the sun is shining brightly, phytoplankton grow rapidly (they're plants, remember?) and produce DMS, which leads to clouds. After a while, the increase in clouds lowers the temperature of the Earth, but it also blocks the sunlight to the phytoplankton. As a result, the phytoplankton grow more slowly, less clouds are formed, and the temperature of the Earth rises. The cycle continues to repeat in a self-regulating and balanced manner.
While much more research is needed, there is some evidence that phytoplankton could control the formation of clouds and the Earth's temperature to some degree. Regardless of whether this mechanism bears the test of time, it does give us pause to think of how living organisms and the Earth itself may interact with each other. It should make us sit and wonder how such a mechanism evolved. For sure, the idea that the whole Earth - the lithosphere, atmosphere, hydrosphere, and biosphere - works together in a harmonious fashion has great intellectual, philosophical, and poetical appeal, if nothing else!
What Does Gaia Predict?
If indeed the Earth is a living organism and the sum of its biological, geological, chemical, and hydrological processes act in concert, what then might we expect of such an organism? How should such an organism act?
We've already mentioned the maintenance of non-equilibrium conditions in the atmosphere as one characteristic of a Gaian planet. We also looked at how organisms such as phytoplankton can transfer chemicals such as DMS into the atmosphere and thus, participate in the cycling of elements within the planet. Organisms are a vital part of all chemical cycles and I would like to introduce to you here the concept of biogeochemical cycles.
By their very nature (and as the name implies) biogeochemical cycles are a mechanism by which the Earth's elements are transformed and carried (in the physical sense) around the Earth. Because the Earth's mass (and material elements) are fixed, the Earth must recycle elements to make them available for other processes. Otherwise, the whole system would run down and the Earth would be just like the moon.
The most common biogeochemical cycles are the carbon cycle, the nitrogen cycle, and the sulfur cycle. Living organisms are a vital part of these cycles. Tremendous masses of material are consumed, transformed, transported, and recycled by the actions of living organisms. In fact, the deposition of sediments in shallow waters is responsible for the uplifting of coastal shores.
Planetary processes governed by living organisms lend credence to the Gaia hypothesis, but they do not prove her existence. If, after a number of decades, a large body of evidence develops that supports the hypothesis that our planet is a living, self-regulating organism, then the Gaia hypothesis may be upgraded to a theory, much like the theory of gravity. Until then, Gaia is an idea that stimulates our thinking and generates scientific research that helps us better understand our planet and how it works.
As one last look at what Gaia might predict, I would like to offer an idea of my own. One of the biggest criticisms against the idea that Gaia is a "living" organism is the inability of the planet to reproduce. Certainly one of the hallmarks of living organisms is their ability to replicate and pass on their genetic information to succeeding generations. In the case of Gaia, this does not appear to be true, or does it?
I would like to propose that man himself is the means by which Gaia will reproduce. Man's exploration of space, his interest in colonizing other planets, and the large body of sci-fi literature that describes terraforming, lend strong evidence to the idea that Gaia is planning to reproduce. Imagine that man colonizes another planet. Imagine that the planet slowly begins to transform; the atmosphere changes, perhaps leading to the formation of ice caps; plants grow, creating clouds and changing the planet's albedo. No longer will this planet be a static, forbidden place. It will be transformed into a place of beauty -- a living, breathing, evolving entity. This indeed is the power of Gaia, and one of the more fascinating and compelling reasons to consider her existence!
Finally, beyond the scientific importance of what we have discussed here, we might do well to consider some of the more poetical thoughts of the originator of the theory. At the end of Chapter 1 in his first book, Lovelock writes:
"If Gaia exists, the relationship between her and man, a dominant animal species in the complex living system, and the possibly shifting balance of power between them, are questions of obvious importance...The Gaia hypothesis is for those who like to walk or simply stand and stare, to wonder about the Earth and the life it bears, and to speculate about the consequences of our own presence here. It is an alternative to that pessimistic view which sees nature as a primitive force to be subdued and conquered. It is also an alternative to that equally depressing picture of our planet as a demented spaceship, forever traveling, driverless and purposeless, around an inner circle of the sun."
Update Summer 1999
I first heard of the Gaia Hypothesis as a graduate student at the University of Southern California (USC) in the 1980s. Having taken a couple courses in Systems Ecology from Dr. James Kremer, I was more than accepting of the idea that systems have emergent properties that cannot be discerned from their individual components. Within that context, the Gaia Hypothesis made sense to me, perhaps more philosophical scientific, but sense, nonetheless.
Since the time of writing these notes in the summer of 1996 (just before I started teaching at Fullerton College), I have learned a lot more about the Gaia Hypothesis, both from the WWW and from conversations with Tom Morris, who teaches planetary biology at Fullerton College and hosts the Planetary Biology Home Page. It has also become somewhat of a theme of mine throughout all of my oceanography classes, not so much the hypothesis, but the idea that physical, geological, chemical and biological processes are interdependent, something that fits quite well with Gaian Theory.
Here then are a few more things that I have learned in the past three years that may further elucidate and validate this important idea.
The Many Faces of Gaia
One of the more interesting extensions of the Gaia Hypothesis has been its transformation from one hypothesis to multiple hypotheses. This is not uncommon in scientific work and it generally represents a healthy and lively application of the scientific method. This divergence of views arises as a result of the different approaches of individual scientists and their beliefs, in the sense of their view of what a body of evidence supports or doesn't support.
Recognition of the many Gaia hypotheses evolved from a symposium on the Gaia Hypothesis held in 1988. A group of geophysicists and others came together to discuss the hypothesis, an event in itself that helped fuel its acceptance. While there were (and still are) many detractors, Gaia did appear to gain a toehold with general acceptance of the idea that life at least influences planetary processes.
Certainly no one could argue against the evidence that dramatic changes occurred in Earth's early atmosphere as a result of the evolution of photosynthetic organisms approximately 3.5 billion years ago. The resulting oxygen holocaust, which established present-day oxygen concentrations about 2.5 billion years ago, radically changed physical, geological, chemical and biological processes on our planet. Rust is one good example of chemical alterations brought about by oxygen. A good biological example is the appearance of oxygen-breathing organisms, or aerobes, and the confinement (in a figurative sense) of non-oxygen breathing organisms, or anaerobes, to swamps and bogs and places deep in the Earth.
The idea that life influences planetary processes (i.e. has a substantial effect on abiotic processes) has become known as the weak (or influential) Gaia hypothesis. This hypothesis is generally supported by scientists today and, in fact, is probably most responsible for stimulating continued research on Gaia. Even the most conservative scientists agree that research on the way in which living organisms interact with non-living processes may yield useful information. Much of our modern-day climate research is based, to some degree, on this idea.
As a result of defining a weak Gaia hypothesis, the original Gaia hypothesis (i.e. that life controls planetary processes) became known as the strong (or optimizing) Gaia hypothesis. Few scientists are willing to support this hypothesis.
One of the reasons that the Gaia Hypothesis sparked such debate in scientific circles has to do with scientists' ability to test hypotheses. As we learned earlier, the traditional scientific method relies on refuting a hypothesis, proving it wrong, as the means for eliminating possible explanations. This method of falsifying a hypothesis was proposed by the Austrian-born Karl Popper in a 1934 publication called Logik Der Forschung or The Logic of Scientific Discovery. (Popper passed away in 1994 but he is still considered one of the most influential philosophers of the 20th Century. The single largest complaint lodged against the strong Gaia hypothesis is that experiments can't be designed to refute it (or test it at all, for that matter.)
Without going into all the details, suffice it to say that those arguments are valid. The strong Gaia hypotheis states that life creates conditions on Earth to suit itself. Life created the planet Earth, not the other way around. As we explore the solar system and galaxies beyond, it may one day be possible to design an experiment to test whether life indeed manipulates planetary processes for its own purposes or whether life is just an evolutionary processes that occurs in response to changes in the non-living world.
Additional Reading:
To read more about the Gaia Hypothesis and related topics, check out these publications:
Turney, Jon. Lovelock & Gaia: Signs of Life. Columbia University Press. 2003 J. E. Lovelock, Gaia: A New Look at Life on Earth, Oxford University Press, 1979James Lovelock, Healing Gaia: Practical Medicine for the Planet, Harmony Books, 1991;Lewis Thomas, The Lives of a Cell, Bantam Books, 1974.The Gaia hypothesis: can it be tested? in Reviews of Geophysics 27:2, 223-235, 1989
this page last updated January 21, 2005
The Gaia Hypothesis
The last half of the 20th century witnessed incredible leaps in our understanding of planet Earth. Beyond the technological achievements, these decades have produced a substantial body of evidence in support of a revolutionary hypothesis, first posed by Alfred Wegener in the early 1900s, that the continents move around the planet, like ice cubes in a glass. The theory of plate tectonics, as it is now known, embodies a century or more of scientific research, bringing together the efforts of oceanographers, geophysicists, climatologists, palenotologists and more. It represents to my mind what the scientific method is all about and provides an awesome example of how science works.
Another example of how science works is a revolutionary hypothesis first proposed by an atmospheric chemist the the late 70s. This hypothesis, known as the Gaia Hypothesis, states that the Earth is alive. While perhaps agreeable to many an artistic or spiritual soul, the very statement of the hypothesis rankled some scientists. Still, two decades later, the Gaia Hypothesis is still with us.
Whether the Gaia Hypothesis will stand the test of time is uncertain. But its impact on how we think of our planet, how we view the processes that create our atmosphere and climate and oceans and even the mountains is unmistakable.
I think you will find it fascinating. Herein is described one of the more controversial scientific hypotheses of our time, the Gaia Hypothesis.
What is Gaia?
The Gaia Hypothesis proposes that our planet functions as a single organism that maintains conditions necessary for its survival. Formulated by James Lovelock in the mid-1960s and published in a book in 1979, this controversial idea has spawned several interesting ideas and many new areas of research. While this hypothesis is by no means substantiated, it provides many useful lessons about the interaction of physical, chemical, geological, and biological processes on Earth. Thus, it is a good starting point for our study of oceanography, providing a broad overview of the kinds of processes that will interest us throughout the semester.
Throughout history, the concept of Mother Earth has been a part of human culture in one form or another. Everybody has heard of Mother Earth, but have you ever stopped to think who (or what) Mother Earth is? Consider these explanations.
The Hopi name for Mother Earth is Tapuat (meaning mother and child), symbolized by a form of concentric circles or squares, as shown below. These forms symbolize the cycle of life, the rebirth of the spirit, its earthly path, and, possibly, its return to the spiritual domain. The lines and passages within the "maze" represent the universal plan of the Creator and the path that man must follow to seek enlightenment.
A more imposing definition of Mother Earth might be found in the Hindu goddess Kali. She is the Cosmic Power, representing all of the good and all of the bad in the Universe, combining the absolute power of destruction with the precious motherly gift of creation. It is said that Kali creates, preserves, destroys. Also known as the Black One, her name means "The Ferry across the Ocean of Existence."
The ancient Greeks called their Earth goddess Ge or Gaia. Gaia embodies the idea of a Mother Earth, the source of the living and non-living entities that make up the Earth. Like Kali, Gaia was gentle, feminine and nurturing, but also ruthlessly cruel to any who crossed her. Note that the prefix "ge" in the words geology and geography is taken from the Greek root for Earth.
James Lovelock has taken the idea of Mother Earth one step further and given it a modern scientific twist. (Are our modern Mother Earth "hypotheses" any more refined than ancient Mother Earth myths?). Lovelock defines Gaia "as a complex entity involving the Earth's biosphere, atmosphere, oceans, and soil; the totality constituting a feedback or cybernetic system which seeks an optimal physical and chemical environment for life on this planet." Through Gaia, the Earth sustains a kind of homeostasis, the maintenance of relatively constant conditions.
The truly startling component of the Gaia hypothesis is the idea that the Earth is a single living entity. This idea is certainly not new. James Hutton (1726-1797), the father of geology, once described the Earth as a kind of superorganism. And right before Lovelock, Lewis Thomas, a medical doctor and skilled writer, penned these words in his famous collection of essays, The Lives of a Cell:
Viewed from the distance of the moon, the astonishing thing about the earth, catching the breath, is that it is alive. The photographs show the dry, pounded surface of the moon in the foreground, dry as an old bone. Aloft, floating free beneath the moist, gleaming, membrane of bright blue sky, is the rising earth, the only exuberant thing in this part of the cosmos. If you could look long enough, you would see the swirling of the great drifts of white cloud, covering and uncovering the half-hidden masses of land. If you had been looking for a very long, geologic time, you could have seen the continents themselves in motion, drifting apart on their crustal plates, held afloat by the fire beneath. It has the organized, self-contained look of a live creature, full of information, marvelously skilled in handling the sun.
Thomas goes even one step further when he writes: "I have been trying to think of the earth as a kind of organism, but it is a no go...it is most like a single cell."
Whether the Earth is a cell, an organism, or a superorganism is largely a matter of semantics, and a topic that I will leave to the more philosophically minded. The key point here is the hypothesis that the Earth acts as a single system - it is a coherent, self-regulated, assemblage of physical, chemical, geological, and biological forces that interact to maintain a unified whole balanced between the input of energy from the sun and the thermal sink of energy into space.
In its most basic configuration, the Earth acts to regulate flows of energy and recycling of materials. The input of energy from the sun occurs at a constant rate and for all practical purposes is unlimited. This energy is captured by the Earth as heat or photosynthetic processes, and returned to space as long-wave radiation. On the other hand, the mass of the Earth, its material possessions, are limited (except for the occasional input of mass provided as meteors strike the planet). Thus, while energy flows through the Earth (sun to Earth to space), matter cycles within the Earth.
The idea of the Earth acting as a single system as put forth in the Gaia hypothesis has stimulated a new awareness of the connectedness of all things on our planet and the impact that man has on global processes. No longer can we think of separate components or parts of the Earth as distinct. No longer can we think of man's actions in one part of the planet as independent. Everything that happens on the planet - the deforestation/reforestation of trees, the increase/decrease of emissions of carbon dioxide, the removal or planting of croplands - all have an affect on our planet. The most difficult part of this idea is how to qualify these effects, i.e. to determine whether these effects are positive or negative. If the Earth is indeed self-regulating, then it will adjust to the impacts of man. However, as we will see, these adjustments may act to exclude man, much as the introduction of oxygen into the atmosphere by photosynthetic bacteria acted to exclude anaerobic bacteria. This is the crux of the Gaia hypothesis.
How Does Gaia Work?
James Lovelock, in collaboration with another eminent scientist, the microbiologist Lynn Margulis, first explained the Gaia hypothesis as such: "Life, or the biosphere, regulates or maintains the climate and the atmospheric composition at an optimum for itself." Inherent in this explanation is the idea that biosphere, the atmosphere, the lithosphere and the hydrosphere are in some kind of balance -- that they maintain a homeostatic condition. This homeostasis is much like the internal maintenance of our own bodies; processes within our body insure a constant temperature, blood pH, electrochemical balance, etc. The inner workings of Gaia, therefore, can be viewed as a study of the physiology of the Earth, where the oceans and rivers are the Earth's blood, the atmosphere is the Earth's lungs, the land is the Earth's bones, and the living organisms are the Earth's senses. Lovelock calls this the science of geophysiology - the physiology of the Earth (or any other planet).
Viewed from this angle, there are certain predictions and experiments that can be performed to refute or lend evidence to the Gaia hypothesis. In fact, it was the search for life on Mars that led to Lovelock's early ideas about the existence of Gaia. As part of a NASA team formed in 1965 to look for life on other planets, Lovelock was asked to propose hypotheses that would demonstrate whether life existed on a planet or not. One of these hypotheses was the idea that gases in an atmosphere on a "dead" planet would be in chemical equilibrium, that is, all the possible chemical reactions that could have happened would have happened and the gases of the atmosphere would be relatively inert. On the other hand, if life existed on the planet, gases in the atmosphere would not be in balance, and chemical reactions would be actively occurring.
VENUS
EARTH
MARS
N (<2%) CO2 (95%)No oxygenatmosphere inchemical equilibrium
N (77%), CO2( 0.03%)21% Oxygenatmosphere not inchemical equilibrium
N (<3%) CO2 (95%)No oxygenatmosphere inchemical equilibrium
When they looked at the gaseous composition of Mars and Venus, they saw that the atmosphere was largely composed of the generally unreactive gas carbon dioxide. According to their hypothesis, both these planets would be dead. However, when they looked at Earth, they saw that the atmosphere was an unusual and unstable mixture of many gases. Thus, life was expected to be present on Earth (which we all know is true).
While perhaps not so dramatic, this example should give you some idea of how science works and how the Gaia hypothesis came into being (see handout). The fact that the gaseous composition of the Earth was not in chemical equilibrium, yet appeared to be maintained in a constant state, suggested some form of planetary regulation for the planet's atmosphere. Lovelock initially suggested that life itself maintained the composition of the atmosphere, but has broadened the concept to include the whole system of the climate, the rocks, the air, and the oceans as a self-regulating process.
To understand how the Earth might be living, let's take a look at what defines life. Physicists define life as a system of locally reduced entropy (life is the battle against entropy). Molecular biologists view life as replicating strands of DNA that compete for survival and evolve to optimize their survival in changing surroundings. Physiologists might view life as a biochemical system that us able to use energy from external sources to grow and reproduce. According to Lovelock, the geophysiologist sees life as a system open to the flux of matter and energy but that maintains an internal steady-state.
[updated 1999] Modern biology texts often provide the best descriptions of what defines like. Before you proceed, take a few moments to review the characteristics of living matter that I have summarized on a separate page. Read Characteristics of Living Matter here.
Redwood trees from theNational and State ParksElectronic Visitor's Center
One useful analogy that has been proposed for understanding Gaia is the California redwood tree, Sequoia gigantea. These trees which stand in great groves along the northern coast of California and elsewhere can stand as high as 300 feet and weigh as much as 2000 tons. Some of them are more than 3000 years old.
Redwood trees are like Gaia because 97% of their tissues are dead. The wood of the trunk and the bark of the tree are dead. Only a small rim of cells along the periphery of the trunk is living. The trunk of the tree is similar to the Earth's lithosphere with a thin layer of living organisms spread across its surface. The bark, like the atmosphere, protects the living tissues, and allows for the exchange of biologically important gases, such as carbon dioxide and oxygen.
There is no doubt in my mind that a redwood tree is a living entity. Would you just call the outer layer the redwood tree and the rest of it dead wood? The same holds true for Gaia. While much of the Earth may be considered "non-living", the fact that all of these non-living parts are involved to some extent in living processes suggests that the whole Earth is alive, just like a redwood tree.
To better understand how the Earth functions physiologically, let's look at one example that has recently been proposed as evidence of Gaia. Let's compare mechanisms of temperature regulation in our bodies and on Earth.
All of us know that our body temperatures are maintained pretty close to 98.6 degrees F (37 degrees C). The maintenance of this body temperature is the result of feedbacks between the brain and various organs and systems of the body. Our bodies have developed different responses to increases or decreases in our core temperature. If it is too cold, our bodies produce heat by shivering; if it is too warm, our bodies sweat and remove heat through evaporation. Of course, humans have extended their ability to survive in extremes of temperatures by inventing clothing that insulates, heats, and even cools our bodies. Such clothing has allowed humans to explore the coldest waters of the polar oceans or the hottest regions of the world's deserts.
On Earth, temperature is regulated in a similar, albeit, more complicated fashion. We will examine how the sun warms the Earth in more detail in a later lecture, but for now we can gain some understanding by just considering the effects of the Earth's albedo. Albedo refers to the color of a planet and its ability to absorb or reflect light. Probably most of you have experienced the difference in temperature between a black asphalt street and a white sidewalk; the Earth's temperature regulation works in much the same way. Dark areas, such as mountains in summer, forests, or even the ocean, tend to absorb heat energy from the sun. Light areas, such as deserts, cloudy areas, or the polar ice caps tend to reflect the sun's energy away from the Earth.
As you can imagine, the albedo of the Earth is not constant. What kinds of changes occur over the Earth's surface that would affect the Earth's albedo?
One possible means by which global temperature is regulated is by clouds. If there are more clouds, more sunlight is reflected away from the earth, and the earth cools. If there are less clouds, more sunlight is able to reach the surface of the Earth and the earth warms. What factors control the abundance of clouds?
There are many factors that affect cloud cover over the planet. The interaction of the atmosphere with the ocean is one major factor. Think of how fog forms along the coast during early summer and you'll get the idea. Other factors, such as the rain shadow effect and weather fronts contribute to cloud cover over the planet.
Given that the oceans cover two-thirds of the Earth's surface, it stands to reason that anything that contributes to the formation of clouds over the ocean will have a major impact on the Earth's temperature. One such mechanism proposed in the last couple decades is the release of cloud-condensation nuclei (or CCN's) by marine phytoplankton, particularly coccolithophorids. Coccolithophorids are well-known for their beautiful calcareous skeletons that make up the White Cliffs of Dover in England.
Gephrocapsa sp, one of many species ofcoccolithophorids living in the ocean
Clouds form when water vapor in the atmosphere condenses or freezes. However, for clouds to form, a particle or "nucleus" must be present to "gather up" the water into a droplet. These particles, called cloud-condensation nuclei, are the tiny particles in the atmosphere that lead to the formation of clouds. Water vapor condenses around these particles and clouds are formed.
One substance that can act as a CCN is dimethyl sulphide, or DMS. It has been known for quite some time that certain algae or phytoplankton (plant plankton that live in the ocean) release trace quantities of DMS. Production of DMS by phytoplankton may be sufficient to cause the formation of clouds, and recent research has been directed towards quantifying the amounts of DMS released into the atmosphere by organisms living in the sea.
Where this process becomes interesting for Gaia is the possibility that phytoplankton can control the temperature of the Earth by regulating the amount of cloud cover over the oceans. Imagine that! Phytoplankton, tiny single-celled plants in the sea, have their fingers on the Earth's thermostat! When the sun is shining brightly, phytoplankton grow rapidly (they're plants, remember?) and produce DMS, which leads to clouds. After a while, the increase in clouds lowers the temperature of the Earth, but it also blocks the sunlight to the phytoplankton. As a result, the phytoplankton grow more slowly, less clouds are formed, and the temperature of the Earth rises. The cycle continues to repeat in a self-regulating and balanced manner.
While much more research is needed, there is some evidence that phytoplankton could control the formation of clouds and the Earth's temperature to some degree. Regardless of whether this mechanism bears the test of time, it does give us pause to think of how living organisms and the Earth itself may interact with each other. It should make us sit and wonder how such a mechanism evolved. For sure, the idea that the whole Earth - the lithosphere, atmosphere, hydrosphere, and biosphere - works together in a harmonious fashion has great intellectual, philosophical, and poetical appeal, if nothing else!
What Does Gaia Predict?
If indeed the Earth is a living organism and the sum of its biological, geological, chemical, and hydrological processes act in concert, what then might we expect of such an organism? How should such an organism act?
We've already mentioned the maintenance of non-equilibrium conditions in the atmosphere as one characteristic of a Gaian planet. We also looked at how organisms such as phytoplankton can transfer chemicals such as DMS into the atmosphere and thus, participate in the cycling of elements within the planet. Organisms are a vital part of all chemical cycles and I would like to introduce to you here the concept of biogeochemical cycles.
By their very nature (and as the name implies) biogeochemical cycles are a mechanism by which the Earth's elements are transformed and carried (in the physical sense) around the Earth. Because the Earth's mass (and material elements) are fixed, the Earth must recycle elements to make them available for other processes. Otherwise, the whole system would run down and the Earth would be just like the moon.
The most common biogeochemical cycles are the carbon cycle, the nitrogen cycle, and the sulfur cycle. Living organisms are a vital part of these cycles. Tremendous masses of material are consumed, transformed, transported, and recycled by the actions of living organisms. In fact, the deposition of sediments in shallow waters is responsible for the uplifting of coastal shores.
Planetary processes governed by living organisms lend credence to the Gaia hypothesis, but they do not prove her existence. If, after a number of decades, a large body of evidence develops that supports the hypothesis that our planet is a living, self-regulating organism, then the Gaia hypothesis may be upgraded to a theory, much like the theory of gravity. Until then, Gaia is an idea that stimulates our thinking and generates scientific research that helps us better understand our planet and how it works.
As one last look at what Gaia might predict, I would like to offer an idea of my own. One of the biggest criticisms against the idea that Gaia is a "living" organism is the inability of the planet to reproduce. Certainly one of the hallmarks of living organisms is their ability to replicate and pass on their genetic information to succeeding generations. In the case of Gaia, this does not appear to be true, or does it?
I would like to propose that man himself is the means by which Gaia will reproduce. Man's exploration of space, his interest in colonizing other planets, and the large body of sci-fi literature that describes terraforming, lend strong evidence to the idea that Gaia is planning to reproduce. Imagine that man colonizes another planet. Imagine that the planet slowly begins to transform; the atmosphere changes, perhaps leading to the formation of ice caps; plants grow, creating clouds and changing the planet's albedo. No longer will this planet be a static, forbidden place. It will be transformed into a place of beauty -- a living, breathing, evolving entity. This indeed is the power of Gaia, and one of the more fascinating and compelling reasons to consider her existence!
Finally, beyond the scientific importance of what we have discussed here, we might do well to consider some of the more poetical thoughts of the originator of the theory. At the end of Chapter 1 in his first book, Lovelock writes:
"If Gaia exists, the relationship between her and man, a dominant animal species in the complex living system, and the possibly shifting balance of power between them, are questions of obvious importance...The Gaia hypothesis is for those who like to walk or simply stand and stare, to wonder about the Earth and the life it bears, and to speculate about the consequences of our own presence here. It is an alternative to that pessimistic view which sees nature as a primitive force to be subdued and conquered. It is also an alternative to that equally depressing picture of our planet as a demented spaceship, forever traveling, driverless and purposeless, around an inner circle of the sun."
Update Summer 1999
I first heard of the Gaia Hypothesis as a graduate student at the University of Southern California (USC) in the 1980s. Having taken a couple courses in Systems Ecology from Dr. James Kremer, I was more than accepting of the idea that systems have emergent properties that cannot be discerned from their individual components. Within that context, the Gaia Hypothesis made sense to me, perhaps more philosophical scientific, but sense, nonetheless.
Since the time of writing these notes in the summer of 1996 (just before I started teaching at Fullerton College), I have learned a lot more about the Gaia Hypothesis, both from the WWW and from conversations with Tom Morris, who teaches planetary biology at Fullerton College and hosts the Planetary Biology Home Page. It has also become somewhat of a theme of mine throughout all of my oceanography classes, not so much the hypothesis, but the idea that physical, geological, chemical and biological processes are interdependent, something that fits quite well with Gaian Theory.
Here then are a few more things that I have learned in the past three years that may further elucidate and validate this important idea.
The Many Faces of Gaia
One of the more interesting extensions of the Gaia Hypothesis has been its transformation from one hypothesis to multiple hypotheses. This is not uncommon in scientific work and it generally represents a healthy and lively application of the scientific method. This divergence of views arises as a result of the different approaches of individual scientists and their beliefs, in the sense of their view of what a body of evidence supports or doesn't support.
Recognition of the many Gaia hypotheses evolved from a symposium on the Gaia Hypothesis held in 1988. A group of geophysicists and others came together to discuss the hypothesis, an event in itself that helped fuel its acceptance. While there were (and still are) many detractors, Gaia did appear to gain a toehold with general acceptance of the idea that life at least influences planetary processes.
Certainly no one could argue against the evidence that dramatic changes occurred in Earth's early atmosphere as a result of the evolution of photosynthetic organisms approximately 3.5 billion years ago. The resulting oxygen holocaust, which established present-day oxygen concentrations about 2.5 billion years ago, radically changed physical, geological, chemical and biological processes on our planet. Rust is one good example of chemical alterations brought about by oxygen. A good biological example is the appearance of oxygen-breathing organisms, or aerobes, and the confinement (in a figurative sense) of non-oxygen breathing organisms, or anaerobes, to swamps and bogs and places deep in the Earth.
The idea that life influences planetary processes (i.e. has a substantial effect on abiotic processes) has become known as the weak (or influential) Gaia hypothesis. This hypothesis is generally supported by scientists today and, in fact, is probably most responsible for stimulating continued research on Gaia. Even the most conservative scientists agree that research on the way in which living organisms interact with non-living processes may yield useful information. Much of our modern-day climate research is based, to some degree, on this idea.
As a result of defining a weak Gaia hypothesis, the original Gaia hypothesis (i.e. that life controls planetary processes) became known as the strong (or optimizing) Gaia hypothesis. Few scientists are willing to support this hypothesis.
One of the reasons that the Gaia Hypothesis sparked such debate in scientific circles has to do with scientists' ability to test hypotheses. As we learned earlier, the traditional scientific method relies on refuting a hypothesis, proving it wrong, as the means for eliminating possible explanations. This method of falsifying a hypothesis was proposed by the Austrian-born Karl Popper in a 1934 publication called Logik Der Forschung or The Logic of Scientific Discovery. (Popper passed away in 1994 but he is still considered one of the most influential philosophers of the 20th Century. The single largest complaint lodged against the strong Gaia hypothesis is that experiments can't be designed to refute it (or test it at all, for that matter.)
Without going into all the details, suffice it to say that those arguments are valid. The strong Gaia hypotheis states that life creates conditions on Earth to suit itself. Life created the planet Earth, not the other way around. As we explore the solar system and galaxies beyond, it may one day be possible to design an experiment to test whether life indeed manipulates planetary processes for its own purposes or whether life is just an evolutionary processes that occurs in response to changes in the non-living world.
Additional Reading:
To read more about the Gaia Hypothesis and related topics, check out these publications:
Turney, Jon. Lovelock & Gaia: Signs of Life. Columbia University Press. 2003 J. E. Lovelock, Gaia: A New Look at Life on Earth, Oxford University Press, 1979James Lovelock, Healing Gaia: Practical Medicine for the Planet, Harmony Books, 1991;Lewis Thomas, The Lives of a Cell, Bantam Books, 1974.The Gaia hypothesis: can it be tested? in Reviews of Geophysics 27:2, 223-235, 1989
Practical abilities you may not have known you have might suddenly appear today, dear Aquarius. You may be working behind the scenes on a project of some kind, perhaps involving earning some extra money or raising funds for a worthy cause. Your ESP and intuition are operating at a high level, so don't be surprised if you're more likely than usual to tune into the hearts and minds of others. Your imagination and inspiration are also high. Make use of them!
Tuesday, November 08, 2005
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10:39 pm (0 minutes ago)
well ive been in bed all day on ice, james got home late, he left for an hour, then at 10 pm he started screaming at me about some red scissors, that he claims i have moved, i gave him my grey siccors, which i was gonna use to fix my leg braces, but he just went on and on, about the red scrissors, and how its my fault he cant find them, and how its my fault that somehow i moved them, and i told him why would i move his red scissors when i have my grey scissosrs, that makes no sense, when he got home i had a nice gift for him, a 1944 Liberty Half Dollar that is pure silver, minted in 1916 in san fransico, i know he like coins, so when he came home late at 6pm, i gave him this present, and now its 10 pm, and he is screaming at me, i want to stay here, but i think im gonna let the lawyer move me out of here as soon as my case is setteled, why should i let james scream at me every fucin day, there is not a day that goes by that he finds some reason to yell and scream at me, and he gets so fucin mad, he just jumps up and down in the kitchen, while he was eating , throwing his food around, looking for his scissors, i gave him mine so he could open up his potatoes, and by the way, i bought the steaks he ate tonight, and i bought the food he ate tonight with my food stamps, as far as i can tell, james curtis griffin has a personality disorder, most of the time he is sweet and tells me he loves me, and other times, he is just a mad man, and its time like these i run to my room, lock the door, and cry an think about taking alll my pills.............i got the rent figured out today with ms mccoy, she was late getting the voucherss out to his landlord, he says he will still pay for my doctor and my medications, but its the way he says it, i dont want to be dependendt on him for anything anymore, he is just a mad man, i have to ask him on 11/21 for 55 bucks to see doc jackson again, and 60 bucks to pay for pain pills and xanax, once the mri s are seen by dr shah, and if she sees there is a reason for pain on the mri s, i am gonna stop seeing doc j, and have s prescribe the v, and switch me off the and p ut me on another anti anxiety medication\r\n",1]
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well ive been in bed all day on ice, james got home late, he left for an hour, then at 10 pm he started screaming at me about some red scissors, that he claims i have moved, i gave him my grey siccors, which i was gonna use to fix my leg braces, but he just went on and on, about the red scrissors, and how its my fault he cant find them, and how its my fault that somehow i moved them, and i told him why would i move his red scissors when i have my grey scissosrs, that makes no sense, when he got home i had a nice gift for him, a 1944 Liberty Half Dollar that is pure silver, minted in 1916 in san fransico, i know he like coins, so when he came home late at 6pm, i gave him this present, and now its 10 pm, and he is screaming at me, i want to stay here, but i think im gonna let the lawyer move me out of here as soon as my case is setteled, why should i let james scream at me every fucin day, there is not a day that goes by that he finds some reason to yell and scream at me, and he gets so fucin mad, he just jumps up and down in the kitchen, while he was eating , throwing his food around, looking for his scissors, i gave him mine so he could open up his potatoes, and by the way, i bought the steaks he ate tonight, and i bought the food he ate tonight with my food stamps, as far as i can tell, james curtis griffin has a personality disorder, most of the time he is sweet and tells me he loves me, and other times, he is just a mad man, and its time like these i run to my room, lock the door, and cry an think about taking alll my pills.............i got the rent figured out today with ms mccoy, she was late getting the voucherss out to his landlord, he says he will still pay for my doctor and my medications, but its the way he says it, i dont want to be dependendt on him for anything anymore, he is just a mad man, i have to ask him on 11/21 for 55 bucks to see doc jackson again, and 60 bucks to pay for pain pills and xanax, once the mri s are seen by dr shah, and if she sees there is a reason for pain on the mri s, i am gonna stop seeing doc jackson, and have shah prescribe the vicoden, and switch me off the xanax and p ut me on another anti anxiety medication
\r\n \r\nthis is just all wrong, james gets three months of $270 each month for my half of the rent, and all he has to loan me is 100 bucks to pay for doc jackson every 25 days, and he says he does not mind doing that\r\n \r\nbut more and more i dont want anything from him, nothing, i had wanted to live with him, to help him get a house with my disablitiy money, and he wantd to do that too, but he keeps doing this almost every day now, yelling at me over the stupidist things, and i just cant take it james, it hurts me to the core, cause i really love james\r\n\r\n \r\nbut my lawyer wrote me and said this: "Sorry to hear about your housing problems. If we can get soemthing solidfrom the doctor\'s report on your MRI, etc. I will write the ALJ and ask foran expedited hearing due to your housing issues. There is no guarantee that\r\nthe hearing will be sped up, but we can ask....i told my lawyer how mad james got about me having to wait at the emergency room for four hours, and how mad james got, even my lawyer sees that my living situation is getting worse, and i dont understand why james is so mad at me, what am i doing wrong, i have been doing everything he asked me to do, i get rent, i get food stamps, i get free rides, when he is in a good mood he tells me how proud he is of me for doing all this, but tonight, he got so mad about a pair of scrisssors, and that makes no sense to me\r\n\r\n \r\nit must be douglas, he must me doing eveything in his might to turn james against me, even thought i am pay ing rent, buying my own food, and even giving james steaks, what the fuck is going on here tonight, i gave james two expensive steaks and other food, and he could not cut the package with his red scrissors, and he just lost hit, and he is still screaming at me\r\n\r\n \r\nim in my room, like i was in my room all day today on ice, im scared of him, thank god i took the pills away from james, at least i can take what i need now, and i can knock myself out, and i can get up and watch tv while he sleeps, and when he gets home from work tomorrow, i will be alseep, and for the next few months, when he is up, i will be in my room knocked out\r\n",1]
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this is just all wrong, james gets three months of $270 each month for my half of the rent, and all he has to loan me is 100 bucks to pay for doc jackson every 25 days, and he says he does not mind doing that
but more and more i dont want anything from him, nothing, i had wanted to live with him, to help him get a house with my disablitiy money, and he wantd to do that too, but he keeps doing this almost every day now, yelling at me over the stupidist things, and i just cant take it james, it hurts me to the core, cause i really love james
but my lawyer wrote me and said this: "Sorry to hear about your housing problems. If we can get soemthing solidfrom the doctor's report on your MRI, etc. I will write the ALJ and ask foran expedited hearing due to your housing issues. There is no guarantee that the hearing will be sped up, but we can ask....i told my lawyer how mad james got about me having to wait at the emergency room for four hours, and how mad james got, even my lawyer sees that my living situation is getting worse, and i dont understand why james is so mad at me, what am i doing wrong, i have been doing everything he asked me to do, i get rent, i get food stamps, i get free rides, when he is in a good mood he tells me how proud he is of me for doing all this, but tonight, he got so mad about a pair of scrisssors, and that makes no sense to me
it must be douglas, he must me doing eveything in his might to turn james against me, even thought i am pay ing rent, buying my own food, and even giving james steaks, what the fuck is going on here tonight, i gave james two expensive steaks and other food, and he could not cut the package with his red scrissors, and he just lost hit, and he is still screaming at me
im in my room, like i was in my room all day today on ice, im scared of him, thank god i took the pills away from james, at least i can take what i need now, and i can knock myself out, and i can get up and watch tv while he sleeps, and when he gets home from work tomorrow, i will be alseep, and for the next few months, when he is up, i will be in my room knocked out
\r\n \r\njames family will be here for thanksgiving, all 100 of them, and i love his mom, and she is not going to understand why im gonna have to hide in my room, james will make up some excuse for me, but i just cant handle dealing with all his relatives, they dont understand why i am here anyhow, even though his brohter and his mom like me\r\n\r\n \r\ni really think is douglas, he has shown up four times this month, without calling, just kncoking on the door, the first time he showed up with food he bought, chitclens and hamhocks from a black lady, and ;he said he cooked them for james hiimself, and he stayed all night, and left around 2am, after they had had sex\r\n\r\n \r\nhe was here last week, showed up halloweeen, without calling, and james is always telling me how much he hates douglas, and how fat he is, but when i wentn into the living room, they were on teh couch with a towel, and then when i went back into my room, they both weent into james room, and an a few hours later, i heard douglas sneak out the side door, and i watched him leave in his car, as its in front of my window, and i just dont u;nderstadn why james has sex with douiglas, he is just disgusting.\r\n\r\n \r\ni really think, more and more, that james has two personalities, the sexual one takes over and he will get sex from any one, and the other one, that used to be my lover, still loves me, and is still sweet to me some of the time\r\n\r\n \r\nbut other times, like tonight, he does not want me here, and i am at fault for everything, like on purpose i lost his red scrissors, none of this makes any sense does it james, this while living situation is just nuts\r\n\r\n \r\nim gonna do everything in my power to get my own place via my lawyer, james is not going to change, james does this too often to me, and as sweet as he is at times, the bad side of him is worse and i cant stand it, i left tampa bay and moved to fort lauderdale to get over james griffin, and it took me two years, and i got independent, i got my own job, and i was on my own way to become a teacher, and for some stupid reason the devil fucked up my knees, and bought me back here\r\n",1]
);
//-->
james family will be here for thanksgiving, all 100 of them, and i love his mom, and she is not going to understand why im gonna have to hide in my room, james will make up some excuse for me, but i just cant handle dealing with all his relatives, they dont understand why i am here anyhow, even though his brohter and his mom like me
i really think is douglas, he has shown up four times this month, without calling, just kncoking on the door, the first time he showed up with food he bought, chitclens and hamhocks from a black lady, and ;he said he cooked them for james hiimself, and he stayed all night, and left around 2am, after they had had sex
he was here last week, showed up halloweeen, without calling, and james is always telling me how much he hates douglas, and how fat he is, but when i wentn into the living room, they were on teh couch with a towel, and then when i went back into my room, they both weent into james room, and an a few hours later, i heard douglas sneak out the side door, and i watched him leave in his car, as its in front of my window, and i just dont u;nderstadn why james has sex with douiglas, he is just disgusting.
i really think, more and more, that james has two personalities, the sexual one takes over and he will get sex from any one, and the other one, that used to be my lover, still loves me, and is still sweet to me some of the time
but other times, like tonight, he does not want me here, and i am at fault for everything, like on purpose i lost his red scrissors, none of this makes any sense does it james, this while living situation is just nuts
im gonna do everything in my power to get my own place via my lawyer, james is not going to change, james does this too often to me, and as sweet as he is at times, the bad side of him is worse and i cant stand it, i left tampa bay and moved to fort lauderdale to get over james griffin, and it took me two years, and i got independent, i got my own job, and i was on my own way to become a teacher, and for some stupid reason the devil fucked up my knees, and bought me back here
\r\n \r\nbut im not gonna stay, im gonna become independent again, and im gonna get a job after i get disailaity, and im gonna become the ceramic artist im supposed to be, and im gonna do it on my own, without james griffins help\r\n\r\n \r\nand in time, he will realize how much he fucked up, cause im a nice guy, and i have a lot to offer, i have alot of love to give, and im not gonna be abused like this anymore\r\n \r\nthe worse case seernero, is im here two more years, with $270 each month going to james landlord, and i will keep getting food stamps, and i will be happy and i will deal with this madness that is james griffin, and the best case, is that my lawyer settles my case soon, that i can move out, get houseing at abilititis or some where else, and get my membership at st pete clay company and do my sculputre, and get my wheelchair, and get yellow cab to take me to my clay studio and do my kiln stuff, and i , god damn it, i will make somehting of my life and of all this fucing pain. \r\n\r\n \r\ni have the power and the will, and the gifts, to help other people get money, i will pray for you, for dana, for james mom, and even for james, but in the long run, all of this good ness will come back my way\r\n \r\nandi will be happy, and i will do my art work, and i will love alone where i can control my living situation, and where i am not abused, yelled at, abouit stupid things like a fucin pair of scissors.-- dave hughes \r\n\r\n\r\n",0]
);
//-->
but im not gonna stay, im gonna become independent again, and im gonna get a job after i get disailaity, and im gonna become the ceramic artist im supposed to be, and im gonna do it on my own, without james griffins help
and in time, he will realize how much he fucked up, cause im a nice guy, and i have a lot to offer, i have alot of love to give, and im not gonna be abused like this anymore
the worse case seernero, is im here two more years, with $270 each month going to james landlord, and i will keep getting food stamps, and i will be happy and i will deal with this madness that is james griffin, and the best case, is that my lawyer settles my case soon, that i can move out, get houseing at abilititis or some where else, and get my membership at st pete clay company and do my sculputre, and get my wheelchair, and get yellow cab to take me to my clay studio and do my kiln stuff, and i , god damn it, i will make somehting of my life and of all this fucing pain.
i have the power and the will, and the gifts, to help other people get money, i will pray for you, for dana, for james mom, and even for james, but in the long run, all of this good ness will come back my way
andi will be happy, and i will do my art work, and i will love alone where i can control my living situation, and where i am not abused, yelled at, abouit stupid things like a fucin pair of scissors
10:39 pm (0 minutes ago)
well ive been in bed all day on ice, james got home late, he left for an hour, then at 10 pm he started screaming at me about some red scissors, that he claims i have moved, i gave him my grey siccors, which i was gonna use to fix my leg braces, but he just went on and on, about the red scrissors, and how its my fault he cant find them, and how its my fault that somehow i moved them, and i told him why would i move his red scissors when i have my grey scissosrs, that makes no sense, when he got home i had a nice gift for him, a 1944 Liberty Half Dollar that is pure silver, minted in 1916 in san fransico, i know he like coins, so when he came home late at 6pm, i gave him this present, and now its 10 pm, and he is screaming at me, i want to stay here, but i think im gonna let the lawyer move me out of here as soon as my case is setteled, why should i let james scream at me every fucin day, there is not a day that goes by that he finds some reason to yell and scream at me, and he gets so fucin mad, he just jumps up and down in the kitchen, while he was eating , throwing his food around, looking for his scissors, i gave him mine so he could open up his potatoes, and by the way, i bought the steaks he ate tonight, and i bought the food he ate tonight with my food stamps, as far as i can tell, james curtis griffin has a personality disorder, most of the time he is sweet and tells me he loves me, and other times, he is just a mad man, and its time like these i run to my room, lock the door, and cry an think about taking alll my pills.............i got the rent figured out today with ms mccoy, she was late getting the voucherss out to his landlord, he says he will still pay for my doctor and my medications, but its the way he says it, i dont want to be dependendt on him for anything anymore, he is just a mad man, i have to ask him on 11/21 for 55 bucks to see doc jackson again, and 60 bucks to pay for pain pills and xanax, once the mri s are seen by dr shah, and if she sees there is a reason for pain on the mri s, i am gonna stop seeing doc j, and have s prescribe the v, and switch me off the and p ut me on another anti anxiety medication\r\n",1]
);
//-->
well ive been in bed all day on ice, james got home late, he left for an hour, then at 10 pm he started screaming at me about some red scissors, that he claims i have moved, i gave him my grey siccors, which i was gonna use to fix my leg braces, but he just went on and on, about the red scrissors, and how its my fault he cant find them, and how its my fault that somehow i moved them, and i told him why would i move his red scissors when i have my grey scissosrs, that makes no sense, when he got home i had a nice gift for him, a 1944 Liberty Half Dollar that is pure silver, minted in 1916 in san fransico, i know he like coins, so when he came home late at 6pm, i gave him this present, and now its 10 pm, and he is screaming at me, i want to stay here, but i think im gonna let the lawyer move me out of here as soon as my case is setteled, why should i let james scream at me every fucin day, there is not a day that goes by that he finds some reason to yell and scream at me, and he gets so fucin mad, he just jumps up and down in the kitchen, while he was eating , throwing his food around, looking for his scissors, i gave him mine so he could open up his potatoes, and by the way, i bought the steaks he ate tonight, and i bought the food he ate tonight with my food stamps, as far as i can tell, james curtis griffin has a personality disorder, most of the time he is sweet and tells me he loves me, and other times, he is just a mad man, and its time like these i run to my room, lock the door, and cry an think about taking alll my pills.............i got the rent figured out today with ms mccoy, she was late getting the voucherss out to his landlord, he says he will still pay for my doctor and my medications, but its the way he says it, i dont want to be dependendt on him for anything anymore, he is just a mad man, i have to ask him on 11/21 for 55 bucks to see doc jackson again, and 60 bucks to pay for pain pills and xanax, once the mri s are seen by dr shah, and if she sees there is a reason for pain on the mri s, i am gonna stop seeing doc jackson, and have shah prescribe the vicoden, and switch me off the xanax and p ut me on another anti anxiety medication
\r\n \r\nthis is just all wrong, james gets three months of $270 each month for my half of the rent, and all he has to loan me is 100 bucks to pay for doc jackson every 25 days, and he says he does not mind doing that\r\n \r\nbut more and more i dont want anything from him, nothing, i had wanted to live with him, to help him get a house with my disablitiy money, and he wantd to do that too, but he keeps doing this almost every day now, yelling at me over the stupidist things, and i just cant take it james, it hurts me to the core, cause i really love james\r\n\r\n \r\nbut my lawyer wrote me and said this: "Sorry to hear about your housing problems. If we can get soemthing solidfrom the doctor\'s report on your MRI, etc. I will write the ALJ and ask foran expedited hearing due to your housing issues. There is no guarantee that\r\nthe hearing will be sped up, but we can ask....i told my lawyer how mad james got about me having to wait at the emergency room for four hours, and how mad james got, even my lawyer sees that my living situation is getting worse, and i dont understand why james is so mad at me, what am i doing wrong, i have been doing everything he asked me to do, i get rent, i get food stamps, i get free rides, when he is in a good mood he tells me how proud he is of me for doing all this, but tonight, he got so mad about a pair of scrisssors, and that makes no sense to me\r\n\r\n \r\nit must be douglas, he must me doing eveything in his might to turn james against me, even thought i am pay ing rent, buying my own food, and even giving james steaks, what the fuck is going on here tonight, i gave james two expensive steaks and other food, and he could not cut the package with his red scrissors, and he just lost hit, and he is still screaming at me\r\n\r\n \r\nim in my room, like i was in my room all day today on ice, im scared of him, thank god i took the pills away from james, at least i can take what i need now, and i can knock myself out, and i can get up and watch tv while he sleeps, and when he gets home from work tomorrow, i will be alseep, and for the next few months, when he is up, i will be in my room knocked out\r\n",1]
);
//-->
this is just all wrong, james gets three months of $270 each month for my half of the rent, and all he has to loan me is 100 bucks to pay for doc jackson every 25 days, and he says he does not mind doing that
but more and more i dont want anything from him, nothing, i had wanted to live with him, to help him get a house with my disablitiy money, and he wantd to do that too, but he keeps doing this almost every day now, yelling at me over the stupidist things, and i just cant take it james, it hurts me to the core, cause i really love james
but my lawyer wrote me and said this: "Sorry to hear about your housing problems. If we can get soemthing solidfrom the doctor's report on your MRI, etc. I will write the ALJ and ask foran expedited hearing due to your housing issues. There is no guarantee that the hearing will be sped up, but we can ask....i told my lawyer how mad james got about me having to wait at the emergency room for four hours, and how mad james got, even my lawyer sees that my living situation is getting worse, and i dont understand why james is so mad at me, what am i doing wrong, i have been doing everything he asked me to do, i get rent, i get food stamps, i get free rides, when he is in a good mood he tells me how proud he is of me for doing all this, but tonight, he got so mad about a pair of scrisssors, and that makes no sense to me
it must be douglas, he must me doing eveything in his might to turn james against me, even thought i am pay ing rent, buying my own food, and even giving james steaks, what the fuck is going on here tonight, i gave james two expensive steaks and other food, and he could not cut the package with his red scrissors, and he just lost hit, and he is still screaming at me
im in my room, like i was in my room all day today on ice, im scared of him, thank god i took the pills away from james, at least i can take what i need now, and i can knock myself out, and i can get up and watch tv while he sleeps, and when he gets home from work tomorrow, i will be alseep, and for the next few months, when he is up, i will be in my room knocked out
\r\n \r\njames family will be here for thanksgiving, all 100 of them, and i love his mom, and she is not going to understand why im gonna have to hide in my room, james will make up some excuse for me, but i just cant handle dealing with all his relatives, they dont understand why i am here anyhow, even though his brohter and his mom like me\r\n\r\n \r\ni really think is douglas, he has shown up four times this month, without calling, just kncoking on the door, the first time he showed up with food he bought, chitclens and hamhocks from a black lady, and ;he said he cooked them for james hiimself, and he stayed all night, and left around 2am, after they had had sex\r\n\r\n \r\nhe was here last week, showed up halloweeen, without calling, and james is always telling me how much he hates douglas, and how fat he is, but when i wentn into the living room, they were on teh couch with a towel, and then when i went back into my room, they both weent into james room, and an a few hours later, i heard douglas sneak out the side door, and i watched him leave in his car, as its in front of my window, and i just dont u;nderstadn why james has sex with douiglas, he is just disgusting.\r\n\r\n \r\ni really think, more and more, that james has two personalities, the sexual one takes over and he will get sex from any one, and the other one, that used to be my lover, still loves me, and is still sweet to me some of the time\r\n\r\n \r\nbut other times, like tonight, he does not want me here, and i am at fault for everything, like on purpose i lost his red scrissors, none of this makes any sense does it james, this while living situation is just nuts\r\n\r\n \r\nim gonna do everything in my power to get my own place via my lawyer, james is not going to change, james does this too often to me, and as sweet as he is at times, the bad side of him is worse and i cant stand it, i left tampa bay and moved to fort lauderdale to get over james griffin, and it took me two years, and i got independent, i got my own job, and i was on my own way to become a teacher, and for some stupid reason the devil fucked up my knees, and bought me back here\r\n",1]
);
//-->
james family will be here for thanksgiving, all 100 of them, and i love his mom, and she is not going to understand why im gonna have to hide in my room, james will make up some excuse for me, but i just cant handle dealing with all his relatives, they dont understand why i am here anyhow, even though his brohter and his mom like me
i really think is douglas, he has shown up four times this month, without calling, just kncoking on the door, the first time he showed up with food he bought, chitclens and hamhocks from a black lady, and ;he said he cooked them for james hiimself, and he stayed all night, and left around 2am, after they had had sex
he was here last week, showed up halloweeen, without calling, and james is always telling me how much he hates douglas, and how fat he is, but when i wentn into the living room, they were on teh couch with a towel, and then when i went back into my room, they both weent into james room, and an a few hours later, i heard douglas sneak out the side door, and i watched him leave in his car, as its in front of my window, and i just dont u;nderstadn why james has sex with douiglas, he is just disgusting.
i really think, more and more, that james has two personalities, the sexual one takes over and he will get sex from any one, and the other one, that used to be my lover, still loves me, and is still sweet to me some of the time
but other times, like tonight, he does not want me here, and i am at fault for everything, like on purpose i lost his red scrissors, none of this makes any sense does it james, this while living situation is just nuts
im gonna do everything in my power to get my own place via my lawyer, james is not going to change, james does this too often to me, and as sweet as he is at times, the bad side of him is worse and i cant stand it, i left tampa bay and moved to fort lauderdale to get over james griffin, and it took me two years, and i got independent, i got my own job, and i was on my own way to become a teacher, and for some stupid reason the devil fucked up my knees, and bought me back here
\r\n \r\nbut im not gonna stay, im gonna become independent again, and im gonna get a job after i get disailaity, and im gonna become the ceramic artist im supposed to be, and im gonna do it on my own, without james griffins help\r\n\r\n \r\nand in time, he will realize how much he fucked up, cause im a nice guy, and i have a lot to offer, i have alot of love to give, and im not gonna be abused like this anymore\r\n \r\nthe worse case seernero, is im here two more years, with $270 each month going to james landlord, and i will keep getting food stamps, and i will be happy and i will deal with this madness that is james griffin, and the best case, is that my lawyer settles my case soon, that i can move out, get houseing at abilititis or some where else, and get my membership at st pete clay company and do my sculputre, and get my wheelchair, and get yellow cab to take me to my clay studio and do my kiln stuff, and i , god damn it, i will make somehting of my life and of all this fucing pain. \r\n\r\n \r\ni have the power and the will, and the gifts, to help other people get money, i will pray for you, for dana, for james mom, and even for james, but in the long run, all of this good ness will come back my way\r\n \r\nandi will be happy, and i will do my art work, and i will love alone where i can control my living situation, and where i am not abused, yelled at, abouit stupid things like a fucin pair of scissors.-- dave hughes \r\n\r\n\r\n",0]
);
//-->
but im not gonna stay, im gonna become independent again, and im gonna get a job after i get disailaity, and im gonna become the ceramic artist im supposed to be, and im gonna do it on my own, without james griffins help
and in time, he will realize how much he fucked up, cause im a nice guy, and i have a lot to offer, i have alot of love to give, and im not gonna be abused like this anymore
the worse case seernero, is im here two more years, with $270 each month going to james landlord, and i will keep getting food stamps, and i will be happy and i will deal with this madness that is james griffin, and the best case, is that my lawyer settles my case soon, that i can move out, get houseing at abilititis or some where else, and get my membership at st pete clay company and do my sculputre, and get my wheelchair, and get yellow cab to take me to my clay studio and do my kiln stuff, and i , god damn it, i will make somehting of my life and of all this fucing pain.
i have the power and the will, and the gifts, to help other people get money, i will pray for you, for dana, for james mom, and even for james, but in the long run, all of this good ness will come back my way
andi will be happy, and i will do my art work, and i will love alone where i can control my living situation, and where i am not abused, yelled at, abouit stupid things like a fucin pair of scissors
Sunday, October 23, 2005
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/10/22/AR2005102200969.html
washingtonpost.com
Young Democrats Sharpen Tactics Against Old Rivals
New Breed on Hill Works Aggressively To Snap GOP Grip
By Shailagh Murray
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, October 23, 2005; A04
With the Capitol all but deserted last Monday night, the Democratic "30-Something Working Group" seized the House floor and took aim at their Republican adversaries.
As C-SPAN cameras beamed their performance around the country, Rep. Timothy J. Ryan, 32, of Ohio and Rep. Kendrick Meek, 39, of Florida recited a litany of GOP misdeeds -- mismanaging Hurricane Katrina and neglecting education and health care, for example -- and offered the Democrats' alternatives.
Their conversation even veered to religion, a subject many Democrats are afraid to touch. Ryan described the problems of the poor as a moral obligation and asked of Meek: "Where is the Christian Coalition when you are cutting poverty programs? They are fighting over Supreme Court justices."
The two newcomers -- who have served a combined six years in the House -- are part of a new generation of Democrats who are working to try to topple the GOP. Their fresh ideas, modern media skills and aggressive political tactics have inspired a party that has drifted for much of the past decade -- wedded to old notions and seemingly incapable of capitalizing on White House and congressional Republican miscues.
As part of the new approach, House and Senate Democrats are devising an alternative agenda of key policies. Ryan is pushing proposals aimed at drastically reducing the number of abortions over the coming decade by offering support and services to pregnant women. Others are crafting a plan for reducing U.S. dependence on imported oil by using more domestic agricultural products, an approach that would have significant appeal to Midwestern voters.
"We can't be Dr. No to everything Republicans do," said Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.). "We have to provide our own positive ideas."
The rise of the new breed, including Rep. Rahm Emanuel (Ill.), the chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, and Barack Obama (Ill.), the Senate's only African American and the keynote speaker at the 2004 Democratic National Convention, marks a generational divide in a party long dominated by Northeastern liberals and Southern conservatives.
Unlike some of their forbears, the newcomers are pragmatists who view the past decade of GOP rule not as an aberration but as a sea change in political campaigning, fundraising and lobbying to which Democrats must adjust. They arrived in Washington as challengers and are comfortable questioning the establishment -- because they have not been part of it.
"Everyone recognizes the bottom line: We've got to win the House," said Van Hollen, who is in his second term. "So people are looking for creative alternatives, and they're much more willing to experiment now."
Many Democrats concede that, as a group, they were bullied into submission by President Bush during his first four years, when his popularity was high. They went along with his tax cuts, backed the war in Iraq and helped adopt a controversial Medicare prescription drug program. This year, however, the Democrats began pushing back more, even before the uproar over the administration's handling of Hurricane Katrina. By standing united, they helped to block Bush's plan to create private accounts in the Social Security system.
But in light of the Democrats' meager political successes in recent years, it is far from certain they can score major gains in next year's elections, even with Bush's popularity falling and widespread displeasure over the war and gasoline prices, according to lawmakers and political experts.
"It's not as easy as it looks," said former representative Robert S. Walker (Pa.). Walker sees plenty of parallels between his crowd of 1994 GOP House revolutionaries and the young Democrats, but he notes that the Republicans started laying the groundwork for their takeover in the early 1980s, at least a decade before their electoral coup. "I can understand why people say an opportunity is presenting itself," Walker said. "But it does take more than a couple of election cycles to change things."
While change within the party has not always gone smoothly, the top leaders recognize the importance of giving newer members running room. House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) has passed over more senior lawmakers to give newcomers key committee assignments and speaking roles during high-profile floor debates. For instance, she placed Meek on the Homeland Security and Armed Services panels, to enable him to earn national security credentials. And she gave Rep. Stephanie Herseth (S.D.) a prominent role in fighting a GOP plan to reduce Medicaid spending.
She also put junior lawmakers in charge of the 2006 campaign effort. "They are the future," Pelosi said. "And they are starting to set the pace for where things go."
Perhaps no other newcomer has moved up as quickly as Emanuel, an adviser in the Clinton White House who took command of the Democrats' campaign committee after a single House term.
Emanuel has assembled a 2006 candidate slate that includes a former National Football League player, several veterans of the Iraq war, and many senior state officials, the latest being New Mexico Attorney General Patricia Madrid, who signed on last week to challenge Rep. Heather A. Wilson (R). Madrid was recruited by Rep. Hilda L. Solis (D-Calif.), who is in her third term.
Another standout on Emanuel's recruitment team is Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, 39, who arrived in Washington 11 months ago after a dozen years in the rough-and-tumble Florida legislature. She lined up former Florida state senator Ron Klein (D) to run for the seat next door to hers, now occupied by Rep. E. Clay Shaw Jr. (R), a veteran legislator.
When Shaw heard the news, he confronted Wasserman Schultz on the floor and told her that the tradition among members of the Florida delegation is to refrain from working against one another. Wasserman Schultz reminded Shaw that several Florida Republicans had worked against Rep. Karen L. Thurman (D-Fla.), who was defeated in 2002.
"I was really polite and said the pact didn't seem to have held very solidly," Wasserman Schultz recalled. "I guess he thought he was speaking to someone who had just begun their political career that day."
Emanuel says of his newcomer colleagues, "They're willing to dust it up, and that's what it's going to take."
They have run into their share of friction. Pelosi has gone back and forth with Ryan over his abortion proposal, worried that certain provisions could dilute the traditional Democratic position backing abortion rights. And Emanuel got into a spat with senior Hispanic House Democrats over the hiring of a campaign committee aide they were pushing.
In the Senate, newer faces must vie with Democratic presidential aspirants for media attention. Two who are breaking through are Obama, 44, and Sen. Mark Pryor (D-Ark.), 42, one of 22 Senate Democrats who supported John G. Roberts Jr. as chief justice of the United States. Yesterday, Pryor gave the Democratic response to Bush's radio address.
"One of the advantages of having a lot of new blood in the Senate is that we don't necessarily come to the chamber with a lot of baggage from past battles," Pryor said. "A lot of my senior colleagues vividly remember the Bork nomination. I don't care about Robert Bork. That's in the past, and I don't think we ought to dwell on that."
Obama, a former Illinois legislator, voted against Roberts but defended Pryor and other Democratic supporters on the Daily Kos blog. Like many new-generation Democrats, he is impatient with the rigidity expressed by some of the party's old-line liberal interest groups, believing the public takes a more nuanced view of issues such as abortion and affirmative action.
"When we lash out at those who share our fundamental values because they have not met the criteria of every single item on our progressive 'checklist,' then we are essentially preventing them from thinking in new ways about problems," Obama wrote.
Pelosi says House and Senate leaders will soon lay out a slate of new ideas, similar to the "Contract With America" that the GOP used to attract voters in 1994, when it took back control of Congress.
One group that Democrats want to tap is veterans and active military members, who have seen their benefits cut or frozen as part of an ongoing budget squeeze. Rep. Artur Davis (D-Ala.), a second-term House member, believes Republicans could pay heavily at the polls throughout the South for overlooking this crucial voting group.
"When I see white male Alabamians shaking their heads, that tells me there are opportunities for Democrats to make major inroads," Davis said.
© 2005 The Washington Post Company
washingtonpost.com
Young Democrats Sharpen Tactics Against Old Rivals
New Breed on Hill Works Aggressively To Snap GOP Grip
By Shailagh Murray
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, October 23, 2005; A04
With the Capitol all but deserted last Monday night, the Democratic "30-Something Working Group" seized the House floor and took aim at their Republican adversaries.
As C-SPAN cameras beamed their performance around the country, Rep. Timothy J. Ryan, 32, of Ohio and Rep. Kendrick Meek, 39, of Florida recited a litany of GOP misdeeds -- mismanaging Hurricane Katrina and neglecting education and health care, for example -- and offered the Democrats' alternatives.
Their conversation even veered to religion, a subject many Democrats are afraid to touch. Ryan described the problems of the poor as a moral obligation and asked of Meek: "Where is the Christian Coalition when you are cutting poverty programs? They are fighting over Supreme Court justices."
The two newcomers -- who have served a combined six years in the House -- are part of a new generation of Democrats who are working to try to topple the GOP. Their fresh ideas, modern media skills and aggressive political tactics have inspired a party that has drifted for much of the past decade -- wedded to old notions and seemingly incapable of capitalizing on White House and congressional Republican miscues.
As part of the new approach, House and Senate Democrats are devising an alternative agenda of key policies. Ryan is pushing proposals aimed at drastically reducing the number of abortions over the coming decade by offering support and services to pregnant women. Others are crafting a plan for reducing U.S. dependence on imported oil by using more domestic agricultural products, an approach that would have significant appeal to Midwestern voters.
"We can't be Dr. No to everything Republicans do," said Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.). "We have to provide our own positive ideas."
The rise of the new breed, including Rep. Rahm Emanuel (Ill.), the chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, and Barack Obama (Ill.), the Senate's only African American and the keynote speaker at the 2004 Democratic National Convention, marks a generational divide in a party long dominated by Northeastern liberals and Southern conservatives.
Unlike some of their forbears, the newcomers are pragmatists who view the past decade of GOP rule not as an aberration but as a sea change in political campaigning, fundraising and lobbying to which Democrats must adjust. They arrived in Washington as challengers and are comfortable questioning the establishment -- because they have not been part of it.
"Everyone recognizes the bottom line: We've got to win the House," said Van Hollen, who is in his second term. "So people are looking for creative alternatives, and they're much more willing to experiment now."
Many Democrats concede that, as a group, they were bullied into submission by President Bush during his first four years, when his popularity was high. They went along with his tax cuts, backed the war in Iraq and helped adopt a controversial Medicare prescription drug program. This year, however, the Democrats began pushing back more, even before the uproar over the administration's handling of Hurricane Katrina. By standing united, they helped to block Bush's plan to create private accounts in the Social Security system.
But in light of the Democrats' meager political successes in recent years, it is far from certain they can score major gains in next year's elections, even with Bush's popularity falling and widespread displeasure over the war and gasoline prices, according to lawmakers and political experts.
"It's not as easy as it looks," said former representative Robert S. Walker (Pa.). Walker sees plenty of parallels between his crowd of 1994 GOP House revolutionaries and the young Democrats, but he notes that the Republicans started laying the groundwork for their takeover in the early 1980s, at least a decade before their electoral coup. "I can understand why people say an opportunity is presenting itself," Walker said. "But it does take more than a couple of election cycles to change things."
While change within the party has not always gone smoothly, the top leaders recognize the importance of giving newer members running room. House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) has passed over more senior lawmakers to give newcomers key committee assignments and speaking roles during high-profile floor debates. For instance, she placed Meek on the Homeland Security and Armed Services panels, to enable him to earn national security credentials. And she gave Rep. Stephanie Herseth (S.D.) a prominent role in fighting a GOP plan to reduce Medicaid spending.
She also put junior lawmakers in charge of the 2006 campaign effort. "They are the future," Pelosi said. "And they are starting to set the pace for where things go."
Perhaps no other newcomer has moved up as quickly as Emanuel, an adviser in the Clinton White House who took command of the Democrats' campaign committee after a single House term.
Emanuel has assembled a 2006 candidate slate that includes a former National Football League player, several veterans of the Iraq war, and many senior state officials, the latest being New Mexico Attorney General Patricia Madrid, who signed on last week to challenge Rep. Heather A. Wilson (R). Madrid was recruited by Rep. Hilda L. Solis (D-Calif.), who is in her third term.
Another standout on Emanuel's recruitment team is Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, 39, who arrived in Washington 11 months ago after a dozen years in the rough-and-tumble Florida legislature. She lined up former Florida state senator Ron Klein (D) to run for the seat next door to hers, now occupied by Rep. E. Clay Shaw Jr. (R), a veteran legislator.
When Shaw heard the news, he confronted Wasserman Schultz on the floor and told her that the tradition among members of the Florida delegation is to refrain from working against one another. Wasserman Schultz reminded Shaw that several Florida Republicans had worked against Rep. Karen L. Thurman (D-Fla.), who was defeated in 2002.
"I was really polite and said the pact didn't seem to have held very solidly," Wasserman Schultz recalled. "I guess he thought he was speaking to someone who had just begun their political career that day."
Emanuel says of his newcomer colleagues, "They're willing to dust it up, and that's what it's going to take."
They have run into their share of friction. Pelosi has gone back and forth with Ryan over his abortion proposal, worried that certain provisions could dilute the traditional Democratic position backing abortion rights. And Emanuel got into a spat with senior Hispanic House Democrats over the hiring of a campaign committee aide they were pushing.
In the Senate, newer faces must vie with Democratic presidential aspirants for media attention. Two who are breaking through are Obama, 44, and Sen. Mark Pryor (D-Ark.), 42, one of 22 Senate Democrats who supported John G. Roberts Jr. as chief justice of the United States. Yesterday, Pryor gave the Democratic response to Bush's radio address.
"One of the advantages of having a lot of new blood in the Senate is that we don't necessarily come to the chamber with a lot of baggage from past battles," Pryor said. "A lot of my senior colleagues vividly remember the Bork nomination. I don't care about Robert Bork. That's in the past, and I don't think we ought to dwell on that."
Obama, a former Illinois legislator, voted against Roberts but defended Pryor and other Democratic supporters on the Daily Kos blog. Like many new-generation Democrats, he is impatient with the rigidity expressed by some of the party's old-line liberal interest groups, believing the public takes a more nuanced view of issues such as abortion and affirmative action.
"When we lash out at those who share our fundamental values because they have not met the criteria of every single item on our progressive 'checklist,' then we are essentially preventing them from thinking in new ways about problems," Obama wrote.
Pelosi says House and Senate leaders will soon lay out a slate of new ideas, similar to the "Contract With America" that the GOP used to attract voters in 1994, when it took back control of Congress.
One group that Democrats want to tap is veterans and active military members, who have seen their benefits cut or frozen as part of an ongoing budget squeeze. Rep. Artur Davis (D-Ala.), a second-term House member, believes Republicans could pay heavily at the polls throughout the South for overlooking this crucial voting group.
"When I see white male Alabamians shaking their heads, that tells me there are opportunities for Democrats to make major inroads," Davis said.
© 2005 The Washington Post Company
Saturday, October 22, 2005
Wednesday, October 12, 2005
i hate this fucing man we have to call president, he is a disgrace to all americans, he is no christian, he is not even a man, he is a child, he is not even a child, for he has no heart and he has no brain, he is satan, the devil, he is all that is wrong with humans, his greed, his selfishness, his texan pride, may god help us all from this man, who will for sure, bring destruction to our planet via his atomic bombs, as he tortures all of us , even us, american, can be tortured to his glee, may i say, FUCK YOU G W BUSH, FUCK YOU FOREVER, I SPIT ON YOU
Tuesday, October 11, 2005
usnews.com: Education: E-Learning: Computer-animated courses
Computer-animated courses
By Alex Kingsbury
Rebecca Perez-Dominguez took three weeks to finish her 350-frame computer-animated scene. In it, a blocky little figure deftly tosses pieces of blue luggage into a large open doorway. When one of the suitcases proves too heavy, the frustrated hurler begins shoving it up a steep ramp. The bag finally reaches the top of the ramp only to slide down, flattening the exhausted baggage handler like a steamroller. "I had some trouble in the last few frames because I didn't know how much his head should squish," says Perez-Dominguez. The final product is short, seamless, and entertaining. She was given an A for the assignment.
Though her home in West Hollywood is in the heart of animation country, Perez-Dominguez could just as easily live in upstate New York, London, or Miami. In fact, her classmates at the new Internet school Animation Mentor hail from remote locales including the United Arab Emirates and Iceland. All the courses, taught by some of the most successful people in the animation industry, happen online.
Founded in February by a group of animation veterans from studios including Disney and Pixar, the E-school features some of the world's top cartooning talent teaching to a class of about 300 students. To participate in the program, students need only a Web camera, a sufficiently speedy Internet connection, third-party animation software, and a drawing pad. And with a $13,000 price tag for the entire 18-month certificate program, it's cheaper than a traditional art degree. (One year at the Savannah College of Art and Design, for example, runs $20,000).
The school's mission is simple: train Train the next generation of top-tier animators. Traditional art schools produce jack-of-all-trades graduates, trained well in a variety of skills but masters of none, according to school president Bobby Beck, a former Disney animator. He says many traditional art- school graduates have to take peripheral roles in the film industry because they lack the specialized skills that animation studios are seeking. Chris Ilvento, 26, from East Hartford, Conn., earned a bachelor's degree in graphic design from Eastern Connecticut State University but still yearned to learn the art of cartooning.
"I spent years trying to teach myself how to animate and didn't get very far," he says.
The Animation Mentor program draws students from all walks of life. While some have no artistic training, a background in a visual arts medium certainly helps. Early assignments require animating a bouncing ball. Then students add a jointed leg to the ball, then two, until they have given life to fully articulated human figures. Animation Mentor is a sharp departure from traditional (and more stodgy) E-learning courses, perhaps because it is designed by and for artists. Lectures are slickly edited video productions with short scenes and soundtracks to keep the classes lively. The professors are dynamic and the lessons feature a series of integrated bullet points outlining the topics of each class with motion graphics. The assignments are supposed to be both instructive and humorous. After all, the business is cartoons.
Each stage of an assignment, from pencil sketch to final product, is compiled into a student's online portfolio. Professors and other students view the portfolio and offer comments and critiques. "Live" classes, which students are expected to log into, are held in the evening, Pacific Coast time, and the students revise and edit their assignments during the week.
"I'd been looking to go back to school to get an art degree but I didn't want to disrupt my life," says Irene Chung, 22, a computer programmer in North Carolina, who began her "artistic tangent" on a whim and enjoys her new hobby.
Others see it as a professional steppingstone.
"I always took Looney Tunes and animators like Chuck Jones seriously," says Janessa Portner, 24, who works full time in a bookstore in Vernon, N.J., and spends her nights animating bouncing balls and strolling stick figures. "The most valuable thing is the body of work that we are producing, since that's what the studios are looking for."
Computer-animated courses
By Alex Kingsbury
Rebecca Perez-Dominguez took three weeks to finish her 350-frame computer-animated scene. In it, a blocky little figure deftly tosses pieces of blue luggage into a large open doorway. When one of the suitcases proves too heavy, the frustrated hurler begins shoving it up a steep ramp. The bag finally reaches the top of the ramp only to slide down, flattening the exhausted baggage handler like a steamroller. "I had some trouble in the last few frames because I didn't know how much his head should squish," says Perez-Dominguez. The final product is short, seamless, and entertaining. She was given an A for the assignment.
Though her home in West Hollywood is in the heart of animation country, Perez-Dominguez could just as easily live in upstate New York, London, or Miami. In fact, her classmates at the new Internet school Animation Mentor hail from remote locales including the United Arab Emirates and Iceland. All the courses, taught by some of the most successful people in the animation industry, happen online.
Founded in February by a group of animation veterans from studios including Disney and Pixar, the E-school features some of the world's top cartooning talent teaching to a class of about 300 students. To participate in the program, students need only a Web camera, a sufficiently speedy Internet connection, third-party animation software, and a drawing pad. And with a $13,000 price tag for the entire 18-month certificate program, it's cheaper than a traditional art degree. (One year at the Savannah College of Art and Design, for example, runs $20,000).
The school's mission is simple: train Train the next generation of top-tier animators. Traditional art schools produce jack-of-all-trades graduates, trained well in a variety of skills but masters of none, according to school president Bobby Beck, a former Disney animator. He says many traditional art- school graduates have to take peripheral roles in the film industry because they lack the specialized skills that animation studios are seeking. Chris Ilvento, 26, from East Hartford, Conn., earned a bachelor's degree in graphic design from Eastern Connecticut State University but still yearned to learn the art of cartooning.
"I spent years trying to teach myself how to animate and didn't get very far," he says.
The Animation Mentor program draws students from all walks of life. While some have no artistic training, a background in a visual arts medium certainly helps. Early assignments require animating a bouncing ball. Then students add a jointed leg to the ball, then two, until they have given life to fully articulated human figures. Animation Mentor is a sharp departure from traditional (and more stodgy) E-learning courses, perhaps because it is designed by and for artists. Lectures are slickly edited video productions with short scenes and soundtracks to keep the classes lively. The professors are dynamic and the lessons feature a series of integrated bullet points outlining the topics of each class with motion graphics. The assignments are supposed to be both instructive and humorous. After all, the business is cartoons.
Each stage of an assignment, from pencil sketch to final product, is compiled into a student's online portfolio. Professors and other students view the portfolio and offer comments and critiques. "Live" classes, which students are expected to log into, are held in the evening, Pacific Coast time, and the students revise and edit their assignments during the week.
"I'd been looking to go back to school to get an art degree but I didn't want to disrupt my life," says Irene Chung, 22, a computer programmer in North Carolina, who began her "artistic tangent" on a whim and enjoys her new hobby.
Others see it as a professional steppingstone.
"I always took Looney Tunes and animators like Chuck Jones seriously," says Janessa Portner, 24, who works full time in a bookstore in Vernon, N.J., and spends her nights animating bouncing balls and strolling stick figures. "The most valuable thing is the body of work that we are producing, since that's what the studios are looking for."