carrying this around

eileen mailed this beautiful note to me and i've been carrying it around in my purse. i pull it out every so often and feel loved. i <3 you eileen.

white snakes

Mary Ting's exhibit at Metaphor Contemporary Art
I really like this image, and it scares me. I would like to learn from her. She is teaching a course called "Collections, Obsessions, and the Display of the Other" this summer at the TransArt Institute in Linz, Austria. I might take it, if we decide Europe. India or Europe? and Europe being a continent... we're having a hard time narrowing down. I think Hong Kong is almost definitely out though, the cost of living is obscene.

Beware- this one is really rough

Photography by Stanley J. Forman

"Forman was already an accomplished photographer. The previous year, he had followed a firetruck to the scene of a fire in Boston's Back Bay neighborhood. He instinctively ran to the back of the building, where he saw a fireman climbing down from the roof onto a fifth-floor fire escape to rescue a 19-year-old girl and her 2-year-old goddaughter. As a firetruck extended its ladder toward the girls and their would-be rescuer, the fire escape collapsed."

http://www.slate.com/id/2188648/slideshow/2188675/fs/0//entry/2188672/

shit

Robert Zoellick, president of the World Bank, said on Thursday that while people in developed nations complained about the high cost of fuel to run their cars, poor people in developing nations were struggling to feed themselves.

"In many developing countries, the poor spend up to 75 per cent of their income on food. When prices of basic foods rise, it hits hard", he said.

"In just two months, rice prices have skyrocketed to near historic levels, rising by around 75 per cent globally and more in some markets - with more to come."

The price of coarse rice, the staple food of poor Bangladeshis, has more than doubled in a year [EPA]

Price riots

Riots over rising food prices began in southern Haiti earlier this week and quickly spread to the capital Port-au-Prince.

Tens of thousands of people took to the streets to protest against the food price increases.

Four were killed in the disturbances, while UN peacekeepers used rubber bullets and tear gas to drive away rioters from the presidential palace.

Most Haitians live on less than $2 a day.

Reports suggest some people have turned to eating cookies made of dirt, vegetable oil and salt.

Meanwhile, at least seven people have died in Egypt in riots earlier this week, sparked partly by rises in the price of bread of other foods.

Similar riots have been reported in Burkina Faso, Mauritania, Indonesia and Peru.

Biofuels link

The increased use of grains to produce biofuels, first heralded as a way to cut greenhouse gases, has been blamed for contributing to rises in the cost of basic foods.

al-jazeera article

hear hear!

Re: pretty sea star

Southern California is a deapsea weight to be beautiful. Moving back here was like an unsuspecting plunge past the continental shelf into the ocean bottom of desire to improve my self image. I didn't even notice the sudden dark pressure down here, the greatly increased heaviness in the air all around until I noticed that I see that familiar expression in the mirror: frustrated embarrassment. The sun is out so often that the normative culture around what to do about the exposure seeps in everywhere: pluck. wax. epilate (ors). laser hair removal. These phenomena exist everywhere, it's true, but I always felt like I had an easy choice to ignore them. When did I start feeling secretly ashamed? Soft skin abounds and shame on you for coarse and fur.

And the speed- we zip around everywhere in zippy cars that screech to halt at the door of our destination. We apply makeup in the visor mirror and boyish boots, thrift store pants poke out the driver's side door?? Not hot.

Eileen said all I have is my wit and dignity, and I said, hear! hear!

Dog Years

oh, animals break my heart.

Portal

Human beings found this beautiful sea star off the antarctic. They've been living in the quiet (dark, Eileen, dark) deep all this time, and we've been living up here close to the sun. Parallel worlds, and the portal: Marine Science.

Our astonishment stems from our illusion of knowledge, we think we Know. But what of this sea star's internal life? and the weight upon her? and the evolutionary pressure to be so beautiful?