Thursday, March 25

HAPPY BIRTHDAY STRATON!!!! 28 TODAY!!!

AUT and others present AWAKENING THE DREAMER, CHANGING THE DREAM SYMPOSIUM - Working Locally as Global Citizens

The Symposium takes a fresh look at our most critical current concerns - environmental sustainability, social justice and spiritual fulfillment - and explores and exposes what connects them.

"A life spent making mistakes is not only more honorable but more useful than a life spent in doing nothing." George Bernard Shaw

Date/Time Commences: Saturday, 27 March. 12.30pm – 6pm. Please arrive at 12:15pm for a 12:30pm start.Venue: Room AG127, AUT North Shore Campus, Auckland.
website

Wednesday, March 24

Taxidermy




Almighty animals. Aren't they great? They're dead, they're taxiderm-ified, but that's good, right? So we can take a look, and not be scared of certain death-by-feeding/hugging. I think this bear is a brown bear (or Grizzly Bear - subspecies of Brown Bear), so would not actively kill to eat a woman/man. The leopard might eat us, because leopards in Africa eat mid-sized antelope. Thanks Wikipedia!

Brown Bears have long claws, great for digging up insects. This photo is extremely cute.


www.niwa.co.nz

National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research
NIWA, research and consultancy company are leaders in water and atmospheric research conducting environmental science to enable the sustainable management of natural resources for New Zealand and the planet. They are doing so much!

Aquaculture & Biotechnology
Aquatic Biodiversity & Biosecurity
Atmosphere
Climate
Coasts
Energy
Fisheries
Freshwater
Natural Hazards
Oceans

and more.....

Monday, March 22

Mental Health

These statistics refer to mental disorders in children and young people

According to the 2001 Census there are about 8, 823, 293 five-sixteen year olds in Great Britain. Of these 4,381, 047 are aged between 5-10 years-old and 4, 442, 246 are aged between 11-16 years-old.

MENTAL DISORDERS
The figures below are based on the finding of the ONS’ Child and Adolescent Mental Health Survey, 2004. Any ballpark figures regaqrding the number of children with these disorders are estimates based on the prevalence rates found in this study, and the demographics listed above.

9.6% or nearly 850, 000 children and young people aged between 5-16 years have a mental disorder
7.7% or nearly 340,000 children aged 5-10 years have a mental disorder
11.5% or about 510, 000 young people aged between 11-16 years have a mental disorder

ANXIETY
3.3% or about 290,000 children and young people have an anxiety disorder
2.2% or about 96,000 children have an anxiety disorder
4.4% or about 195,000 young people have an anxiety disorder

DEPRESSION
0.9% or nearly 80, 000 children and young people are seriously depressed
0.2% or about 8,700 aged 5-10 year-olds are seriously depressed.
1.4% or about 62,000 aged 11-16 year-olds are seriously depressed.

CONDUCT DISORDERS
5.8% or just over 510,000 children and young people have a conduct disorder
4.9% or nearly 215,000 children have a conduct disorder
6.6% or just over 290,000 young people have a conduct disorder

HYPERKINETIC DISORDER (SEVER ADHD)
1.5% or just over 132,000 children and young people have severe ADHD
1.6% or about 70,000 children have severe ADHD
1.4% or about 62,000 young people have severe ADHD

References
1 Office for National Statistics (2004). Census 2001: national report for England and Wales. London: Office for National Statistics. See http://www.statistics.gov.uk/StatBase/
2 Registrar General for Scotland (2002). Scotland's Census 2001: population report. Edinburgh: General Register Office for Scotland. See http://www.gro-scotland.gov.uk/files/01poprep.pdf
3 Green, H., McGinnity, A., Meltzer, H., et al. (2005). Mental health of children and young people in Great Britain 2004. London: Palgrave. See http://www.statistics.gov.uk/

Monday, March 8

One in five women who attend college in the USA will become the victim of a rape or an attempted rape by the time she graduates.
more here..
listen here

Friday, March 5

Happy Birthday Jembeedoo! Love me xxx

Princess Chelsea - Monkey Eats Bananas



Princess Chelsea will be releasing her first album soon. She lives in Auckland, and is not only a stupendous person, she writes great songs. Talented lady.

Friday, February 26

AB FLEX

Take a look at this ridiculous contraption!!


I was thinking about working out, and working out in the nineties. I remembered that when I was about 13, which was 1996, I some how convinced my Dad to buy an Ab Flex! The infomercial made me think I was going to get a super flat stomach if I used it for - I dunno, seven minutes a day.
Truth be told, when it arrived, we used it for a week or two, then buried it in the cupboard at the back of our TV room, only to drag out on occasion to humour/impress friends.

The below news release from 1997, states that the infomercials and advertisements for such exercise equipment made exaggerated weight loss claims, which is certainly obvious, if you remember the abs they used.
I still feel the fact that I got my Dad to order one was a great feat, as Dad's never usually buy into this crap!

FTC Puts Exercise Device Weight-Loss Claims on a Diet

Sunday, February 21

HAPPY BIRTHDAY BENJAMIN JACK TINDALL





Ben, Happy 20th
You are truly wonderful, talented and fun
Love you

Kenya scandal splits political elite

As a bitter power struggle rumbles on among Kenya's elite after the suspension of two ministers amid corruption scandals, the BBC's Will Ross in Nairobi assesses the impact of the graft on the country's young.

Donors are worried funds are being looted from Kenyan schools
In a primary school in a Nairobi slum more than 80 students are squeezed into one classroom.
As the teacher tests their science knowledge, the wide-eyed children raise their hands in unison. There is a real hunger to learn here.
But these students and others across the country are the victims of just one of the high-level corruption scams eating away at the public coffers.
"In Kenya of course corruption is pervasive and has been for a long, long time ever since independence but it doesn't get much worse than taking money from a child I think," US ambassador Michael Ranneberger told the BBC.
In solidarity with other donors the US withheld $7 million intended for a programme in the Ministry of Education.
Britain held back £10 million ($15 million).
This action was taken after an audit showed that roughly $1m had disappeared from the Education Ministry in just one month.

to read more
click here

Thursday, February 18

THE VAGINA MONOLOGUES FRIDAY 19 FEB, LONDON

The Vagina Monoglogues is performed around the world in February and March each year to raise awareness and funds for local Women's organisations, which all work to end violence against women. If you can go to a Vagina Monologues near you, you should.



THE VAGINA MONOLOGUES, 7PM £6
AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL UK
The Human Rights Action Centre
17-25 New Inn Yard
London EC2A 3EA

Friday, February 12

V-Day's Five City 'Turning Pain to Power' Brings International Attention to the Women and Girls of the DRC

V-Day's 'Turning Pain To Power Tour' took place during the month of February, 2009 making stops in NYC, LA, the San Francisco Bay Area, Atlanta and Washington, DC.

The tour featured Dr. Denis Mukwege, winner of the 2008 UN Human Rights Prize and Founder of the ground breaking Panzi Hospital in Bukavu, in conversation with Eve Ensler, reaching thousands of women and men throughout North America and bringing attention to the violence against women in the Congo, and V-Day's joint campaign with UNICEF.

Interview with Dr. Denis Mukwege

Wednesday, February 10

FROM CONGO WITH LOVE





Rankin's photographs, in collaboration with Oxfam will feature in a huge exhibition 'From Congo with Love' at the National Theatre, London for a month: 12 February - 11 April. The images focus on the love and solidarity found in the midst of the DRC, one of the world’s worst conflict zones. There are images and stories exploring romantic love, love lost, mother's love and the kindness of strangers, as well as photos taken by Congolese villagers with Rankin's guidance, providing an extraordinary insight into their everyday life.

Sunday, February 7

New View Campaign

New View Campaign

The New View Campaign was formed in 2000 as a grassroots network to challenge the distorted and oversimplified messages about sexuality that the pharmaceutical industry relies on to sell its new drugs.

The pharmaceutical industry wants people to think that sexual problems are simple medical matters, and it offers drugs as expensive magic fixes. But sexual problems are complicated, sexuality is diverse, and no drug is without side effects.

The goal of the New View Campaign is to expose biased research and promotional methods that serve corporate profit rather than people's pleasure and satisfaction. The Campaign challenges all views that reduce sexual experience to genital biology and thereby ignore the many dimensions of real life.

Saturday, February 6

E V E E N S L E R



Eve Ensler: writer, activist, founder of the V Day movement to end Violence against Women. This woman is inspiring, a kind of most extraordinarily excellent human and role model.

piece from The Vagina Monologues
Eve Ensler Interview

Friday, February 5

Are we listening to each other?

Tonight, while waiting outside to meet two friends I heard people talking as they passed by.
It seemed the listeners weren't listening to the other, the speakers not noticing the listeners not listening,
while they kept gabbing.
Perplexing.

Wednesday, February 3

C l e m e n t i n e



Lovely Clementine,

You are a precious, exotic creature.
Happy Birthday from the depths of my heart.

I love you,

Kate

Monday, February 1

Many Lost Everything

Special report: The rise of 'the African Taliban'

More than 500,000 displaced people live along the 20-mile Afgoye Corridor, west of Mogadishu. Many have lost everything, including their families, in their flight from the Shabaab – Somalia's terrifying Islamist militia


Rabbit and the Mad Hatter, Alice in Wonderland Party; Mick and Clementine in Paris, pixelated

Sunday, January 31

A Serious Man, Coen Brothers



I like this film. I like the way that it looks. I like the characters, and the sense I felt of what it might have been like to be within the Jewish community in 1967 in Minnesota, suburb of St. Louis. I did not feel uneasy, but amused whist watching. I particularly liked Larry, the protagonist. He does everything right yet unexpected and troublesome things happen upon him, and it seems there is no reason.

Friday, January 29

Good Grief

Interesting article on grief
Clementine showed me this article written for "The New Yorker" by Meghan O’Rourke on grief. Part of it talks about the work of this lady, Elisabeth Kübler-Ross, a Swiss-born psychiatrist. She wrote "On Death and Dying" and then "On Grief and Grieving" ..anyway she stated that there were five stages of the dying: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance... and the same for the grieving. At the end of her life, she knew that grief can't really be boxed into categorical stages..'Other research suggests that grief and mourning don’t follow a checklist; they’re complicated and untidy processes, less like a progression of stages and more like an ongoing process'.

The article also discusses resilience of the bereaved, the way in which non-grieving others may retract from the bereaved, or think that after a certain amount of time they should be finished with grieving, and how death is dealt with in different cultures and points in history.

Monday, January 25

It's nice to get out of the city








Saturday, January 23

I think about it sometimes but mostly do not

I've been thinking about obsession, what the word means, but mostly what it is like to be obsessed, fixated.
It's recognisable in all of us, but embarrassing to admit.

I found, for me fixation did not elucidate anything, but seemed a pleasant escape at the time.

Friday, January 22

Bear

Thursday, January 21

TUB OF ICECREAM AS A HAT

"Went surfing in Wales last weekend - painful. I'd liken the feeling to....
wearing a tub of ice cream as a hat."

Mr Dave Casey

Wednesday, January 20

this
this panda
HOT AIR BALLOONS THANK YOU VERY MUCH



Tuesday, January 19

Eve Ensler: "If your Vagina got dressed, what would it wear?"

Six-year-old girl: "Red high-tops and a Mets cap worn backward."

'The Vagina Monologues'

Sunday, January 17

Banana loaf cake

2 ripe medium bananas, mashed
2 medium eggs, separated
150g low fat plain yoghurt
80g soft light brown sugar
250g self raising flour
salt

*Preheat oven to 160, fan bake
*Mix mashed bananas with egg yolks, yoghurt
and sugar
*Sift in the flour and a pinch of salt
then stir together till mixed
*In a separate bowl, whisk egg whites to soft peaks
*Stir a spoonful in to slacken the mixture then fold
in the remainder
*Bake on centre shelf for 50-60 mins

CONGO NOW

People have looked at the Congo for over one hundred years and they’ve seen a great big pile of riches with some black people inconveniently sitting on top of them.

Thursday, January 14

Wednesday, January 13

I found this on 'Women's Asylum Charter' and once again was reminded that some of the dramas in my life are so trivial, pathetic. At the moment I am embarrassed because I made a reasonably substantial mistake at work. I just have to remember that it does not matter. Please watch this short clip about women's experiences with seeking asylum in the UK, possibly to put your own anxieties into perspective.

Every single woman from Asylum Aid on Vimeo.

Tuesday, January 12

I'm pretty sure that little piece of glass is still stuck in my finger.
It's concealed way down below layers of cells now though, so the pain minor and infrequent.
Time for some colour