A nice tutorial on identifying constellations

Learn your constellations!

Sierra Leone

I jreceived a call this morning from my friend, Sam Pieh, in Freetown, Sierra Leone.
He is a great man with a heartfelt commitment to improving his homeland.
In fact it is my hope that he will one day become president of Sierra Leone.
Anyway he tells me that they could use thermometers, blood pressure cuffs, and other assorted medical equipment for the clinic in Tiama.
In addition, due to recent heavy rain, ponchos would be useful.

If you are so moved please feel free to contact me with any potential donations and I will see that Sam gets them.

Thanks...

Legal Hurdles Stall Rape Cases on Native Lands

I had one of those proverbial NPR driveway moments when I heard the first in this series of reports on sexual assault of Native American Woman. (Where you turn your car off in the driveway and remain seated to hear the end of the story).

It is astonishing to me that one of every three Native American women will be raped in their lifetime.


Native American women and Alaska Native women suffer disproportionately high levels of sexual assault compared with other women in the United States. They're also the least likely to receive justice, according to a report from Amnesty International. Aid workers say most of the crimes are not perpetrated by Native American men. The report says that the perpetrators are most often outsiders, who know that little will be done to stop them.

'Kill Them All'

One thing that has always amazed me is how people who have suffered so much cruelty and evil retain their faith in God. I found the same phenomenon over and over in Sierra Leone on my last trip there in the Fall of 2006. One of the most interesting quotes was from a friend I made there named Mohammed. He and his 5 year old son was forced to watch the repeated raping of his wife by a rebel leader. The rebel leader kept his sonand wife, and told him to "run for his life."To make a long story short, he ended up with a compound femur fracture and withered away in the bush down to about 50 pounds over the course of about a month. His quote was "God seemed to answer my prayers quickly in those days. Now I am not sure when my prayers will be answered...


A victim of a recent militia attack in eastern Congo describes her horrific days in captivity.

In June, the Hot Zone reported the details of a recent massacre reportedly committed by Rwandan Hutu militia in eastern Congo in which 18 civilians, including six children, were killed.

One of the surviving victims, a 23-year-old woman we called Kahumba, provided a harrowing eyewitness account of the incident in which her brother was murdered in front of her and both she and her twin sister were sexually assaulted. The twin, who we'll call Mirenge, was kidnapped by the attackers and taken back to their camp. After weeks in the jungle, she escaped and returned to her village, but her suffering is far from over. This is her story, as told to reliable humanitarian sources on the ground in eastern Congo.
(..)

"I was suffering so much. One day I told them I was feeling ill and they tied me to a tree and three of them raped me. I felt like there was no more reason to live.
(..)
"We went to the river and decided we had to escape and return to our homes. We all slipped away into the jungle. It's only because of God that I am alive today.
(..)
"Now I am feeling very tired all over my body, I am urinating with much pain. I have constant headaches and backaches. When I stand up I am dizzy. When I remember what they did to me I wish I were dead.

"It is not important for me to get treatment because there is no difference between me and people who are dead.

Rodney Jones Soup Bone

Presenting one of the coolest jazz cats around...Rodney Jones.
This is the kind of amazing culture that makes me wnat to move to "The City"

Eight Americans graduate from free Cuban medical school

I am curious where they will get a residency...
HAVANA (AP) — Eight Americans who graduated from a Cuban medical school say they will put the education paid for by Fidel Castro's communist government to use in hospitals back home.
(..)

"I will be heading back to the United States with a great advantage over the American students who have stayed there," said Wing Wu, from Minneapolis, Minnesota. (uh...okay)

The Antiwar, Anti-Abortion, Anti-Drug-Enforcement-Administration, Anti-Medicare Candidacy of Ron Paul

What an interesting, principled presidential candidate--Ron Paul. I didn't know much about him before this article...Worth a read

Real Life Sea Monsters - 24 Bizarre Creatures of the Deep

The sea contains untold numbers of strange and bizarre creatures. It is said that we know more about our own solar system than we know about our oceans.

New Yorker Magazine Rocks!

Some great articles in this month's New Yorker magazine this month:

An editorial on the complexities inherent to healthcare reform by surgeon/writer, Atul Gawande, M.D.



An article on an orthopedic surgeon who has a near death experience after being struck by lightning and then becomes obsessed with piano music. (abstract only available on the net)

Finally, there is a great article on recent Pakistani politics and human rights activist Asma Jilani Jahangir by William Dalrymple that brings alive the dyanmic of political tensions in Pakistan. It seems that Musharef is facing many of the same issues that the Saudi government is facing today and that the Iranian government faced before the revolution...(The web version is audio only)

Libya Frees Foreign Medical Workers in H.I.V. Case

Finally!

SOFIA, Bulgaria, July 24 — After more than eight years in jail in Libya, five Bulgarian nurses and a Palestinian doctor stepped off the French presidential plane here in Bulgaria’s capital early this morning where they were greeted by crying relatives and Bulgaria’s top officials.

Why Bungee jumping is bad for the retina

From the latest New England Journal of Medicine:

A 25-year-old woman with no clinically significant medical history and with normal coagulation and hematologic studies went bungee jumping from a vertical height of 150 ft (45.7 m). Immediately afterward, she noticed a substantial decrease in vision in her left eye

Abraham Laboriel

A taste of the great Mexican Bassist, Abraham Laboriel

New Leaders Say Pensive French Think Too Much

Still, the French seem to be divided about the best way to get rich. On Thursday, a widely reported TNS-Sofres poll of more than 1,000 people concluded that 39 percent of the French think that it is possible to get rich by winning the lottery; only 40 percent believe that getting rich can happen through work. Certainly, the veneration of money more than ideas is new to French politics.

RICARDO COBO IN CONCERT

I recently learned of an organization entitled the sierra guitar society, headed by Larry Aynesmith of Incline Village. They aim to bring classical guitarists to Reno. We were fortunate to see the beautiful Paraguayan guitarist Berta Rojas last month. Her musicality blew me away. There are only two guitarists I have seen who have opened my "ears and eyes" to new ways of approaching the guitar--Jeff Beck and Berta. (Also Berta signed my CD: "To Deep with Love..Berta)." :)

Next week the Columbian guitarist, Ricardo Cobo, will be coming to Reno. I think we will try and see him at the Trinity Church--a fantastic venue for music. Hope to see you there.

TWO CONCERTS
JULY 22
Concert: 7:00pm Sunday July 22, 2007
Location: Cal Neva Resort, Frank Sinatra Celebrity Showroom,
2 Stateline Road, Crystal Bay, NV

JULY 24
Concert: 7:30pm Tuesday July 24, 2007
Location: Trinity Episcopal Church, 200 Island Avenue, Reno, NV

Tickets for each concert at door, $10 to $25
Tel.: 775-338-1671
Email: sierraguitar@yahoo.com
Web: www.sierraguitar.org

Los Lobos

"The wolves" put on a great concert last night at Barley Ranch. Originally from East LA, Los Lobos put together a great night of Latin flavored Rock and Roll last night. They thankfully asked the fans to supercede the "Rules" from security and to get up and dance. The crowd willingly obliged!
It was a festive night. We were fortunate to share the evening with our good friends who are very Latin oriented as well!

Here is a video of Chuco's Cumbia.
BTW, if you are local to Reno, do make an effort to check out some concerts at Bartley Ranch this summer it is a great venue. The concert listing can be found at 1moe.com.

Ciao's

For all local Reno-ites, if you haven't checked out "Ciao's" lately, I would highly recommend it. In fact, this is the first time I have been inspired to write a restaurant review on this blog! We had a fantastic dinner with great friends their last night.

The dining area is elegant and subdued-the tables spaced out far enough to allow initimate conversation with our friends. We all agreed that from the mojitos on, the entire meal was delectable.

Items we tried included a mushroom and cream soup topped with fontina cheese, after which one of our companions remarked "I am balanced and in harmony with the world." Every bite was to be savored... The most interesting of the salads we ordererd was one with succulent heirloom tomatoes, festooned with caramelized watermelon slices, and fresh mozarella-- drizzled with a balsalmic reduction. For the entrees, we had eroasted escalade with a basil chiffonade and ricotta stuffed pascilla pepper, halibut with zucchini flowerettes, and filet mignon with olive oil shipped potatoes and calabria chile demi glace--all elegantly presented and perfectly prepared. The desserts were a flourless chocolate torte (which my wife orders every time we dine here) and a savory dessert consisting of heirloom tomatoes and some minimally sweet cherries in a pie crust accompanied by a basil and mint sorbet.

Overall it was a wonderful time shared with our friends in a charming and intimate setting, whilst enjoying exquisitely prepared cuisine. Not only was great detail evident in the preparation of each component of the meal, but our waiter was attentive and actually quite entertaining in an "English or perhaps it was "Welsh" sort of way...

Give it a try. There is also a quaint outdoor patio to enjoy our pleasant summer evenings and an extensive Italian wine list!

A Partnership of Minds

Here is a fantastic oped by David Brooks of the NY Times (subsription required)--perhaps one of the finest he has ever written--
which beautifully highlights the interconnectedness of lives, experience, life and death...

Douglas Hofstadter was a happily married man. After dinner parties, his wife Carol and he would wash the dishes together and relive the highlights of the conversation they’d just enjoyed. But then, when Carol was 42 and their children were 5 and 2, Carol died of a brain tumor.

A few months later, Hofstadter was looking at a picture of Carol. He describes what he felt in his recent book, “I Am A Strange Loop”:

“I looked at her face and looked so deeply that I felt I was behind her eyes and all at once I found myself saying, as tears flowed, ‘That’s me. That’s me!’

“And those simple words brought back many thoughts that I had had before, about the fusion of our souls into one higher-level entity, about the fact that at the core of both our souls lay our identical hopes and dreams for our children, about the notion that those hopes were not separate or distinct hopes but were just one hope, one clear thing that defined us both, that wielded us into a unit, the kind of unit I had but dimly imagined before being married and having children. I realized that though Carol had died, that core piece of her had not died at all, but that it had lived on very determinedly in my brain.”
(..)

Carol’s death brought home that when people communicate, they send out little flares into each other’s brains. Friends and lovers create feedback loops of ideas and habits and ways of seeing the world. Even though Carol was dead, her habits and perceptions were still active in the minds of those who knew her.

Carol’s self was still present, Hofstadter sensed, even though it was fading with time. A self, he believes, is a point of view, a way of seeing the world. It emerges from the conglomeration of all the flares, loops and perceptions that have been shared and developed with others. Douglas’s and Carol’s selves overlapped, and that did not stop with her passing.

I bring all this up in an Op-Ed column because most political and social disputes grow out of differing theories about the self, and I find Hofstadter’s social, dynamic, overlapping theory of self very congenial.

It emphasizes how profoundly we are shaped by relationships with others, but it’s not one of those stifling, collectivist theories that puts the community above the individual.

It exposes the errors of those Ayn Rand individualists who think that success is something they achieve through their own genius and willpower.

It exposes the fallacy of the New Age narcissists who believe they can find their true, authentic self by burrowing down into their inner being. There is no self that exists before society.

It explains why it’s so hard to tackle concentrated poverty. Human beings are permeable. The habits that are common in underclass areas get inside the brains of those who grow up there and undermine long-range thinking and social trust.

It illuminates the dangers of believing that there is a universal hunger for liberty...

(..)
What’s being described is a vast web of information — some contained in genes, some in brain structure, some in the flow of dinner conversation — that joins us to our ancestors and reminds the living of the presence of the dead.

Saudi Wife Shows us into her Home (part 1)

A very nice video from a female reporter from the Saudi Gazette Journal that focuses on what it is like for a woman living in Saudi Arabia. She is a very pleasant woman--reminds me of many of my friends in Saudi. There are some nice shots of Riyadh as well. At the end of the video she notes that many Saudis are just as if not more knowledegeable about fashion trends and haut coutre as their Western counterparts. I had a friend in Riyadh, originally from London, who was a buyer from major Fashion houses. Saudi Arabia was one of his best markets...

Overall, this is a very nice video that puts a "human face" on the side of Saudi culture that is not often nor well-depicted in the Western media.

Killing Us Softly 3: Advertising's Image of Women

There are some amazing statistics regarding how many advertisements Americans are exposed to over the course of our lifetimes. My big concern is how these ads may eventually impact my 6 year old daughter, who now is just so innocently living life in the moment...

Hope Found Beneath War-Torn Darfur

But it could apply to one of the root causes of the ethnic conflict: drought, at least according to observers including scientists, Britain’s foreign secretary and retired American military officials.

If only we had known … about an underground lake the size of Lake Erie in Darfur.

A team of geologists from Boston University discovered the imprint of a “megalake” using radar. Farouk el-Baz, director of the study, urged the digging of 1,000 wells to start tapping into it.

“If you find water for the farmers, in addition to that for the nomads, for agricultural production, to feed them, to give them grain, then you resolve the problem completely,” he said.