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Born in Kaixian, Chongqing in 1971. Worked as a graphic designer from 1993 to 2000 in Chengdu, China. Co-founded Lan Se Fei Yang advertising agency in 2001. Studied in a studio of photography at China Central Academy of Fine Arts from 2006 to 2007. Currently lives and works in Chengdu.
link: Paris-Beijing Photo Gallery
[In the discourse that has arisen in wake of the Gates case in Cambridge, there has been a good deal of conversation about correct police procedure, situation control, and the like; the police officer in Cambridge has many defenders. I wonder what they'd say about the following description of police procedure. *TRH*]
Gizmodo writes:
OK, this police taser business has gone way too fraking far. Now, Boise officers got a taser inside a suspect's anus—who was already handcuffed—and fired it while everything was caught on tape (Warning: Strong audio violence).
Cop: Do you feel this?
Suspect: Yes, sir.
Cop: Do you feel that? That's my …
Suspect: Okay
Cop: … Taser up your ass.
Suspect: Okay
Cop: So don't move.
Suspect: I'm trying not to. I can't breathe.
Cop: Now do you feel this in your balls?
Suspect: I do, sir. I'm not going to move. I'm not gonna move.
Cop: Now I'm gonna tase your balls if you move again. (A full minute goes by)
Cop: Okay, I'm gonna take this Taser out of your asshole now. Are you going to fight with me?
Suspect: No, not at all, sir.
Cop: (to another cop) So far, for the last two minutes, he's been cooperative. But then my Taser's in his ass.
Then they placed the taser on his genitals and threatened to do the same. The suspect still had burns inside his right buttock 13 days after the brutal attack.
link: Police Sodomize Man with Taser - Taser rape - Gizmodo
A "Hispanics Keep Out" sign displayed on the front of an Azle home has stirred up unease for some residents in the Tarrant County neighborhood.
"It does offend people," said Dahlia Scarbro, a neighbor. "It's offensive, but it is his property."
Many residents said they would like to see the sign, which has been up for months, taken down.
"Well, you know, I don't care," said a 72-year-old woman who answered the door at the home.
"I'm upset about them coming over here illegally, too."
The woman did not want to disclose her name.
link: Home displays 'Hispanics Keep Out' sign | STATE NEWS | KHOU.com | News for Houston, Texas
The pickled head of an African chief murdered by Dutch colonialists almost 200 years ago was on its way back to Ghana yesterday, at the end of a strange voyage through the darkest corners of colonial history.
Preserved in a jar of formaldehyde, the head was discovered gathering dust in a laboratory in the Leiden University Medical Centre by Arthur Japin, a best-selling Dutch author, when he was researching The Two Hearts of Kwasi Boachi, his novel about 19th- century Africa. It had been there since its arrival in the late 1830s from what was then called the Dutch Gold Coast and is today Ghana.
The head belonged to none other than King Badu Bonsu II and on Thursday, the chief's descendants gathered at the Dutch Foreign Ministry for the handing-over ceremony. Dressed in dark robes and with red sashes around their necks, they toasted their hosts in Dutch gin before sprinkling more of the alcohol over the ministry floor in a rite of purification. They then signed a book acknowledging receipt of the head, which was expected to arrive with them in Accra last night on a KLM flight from The Hague.
The ceremony drew a long-delayed line under a bitter episode towards the end of Dutch involvement in what was then known as the Gold Coast, the strip of West Africa plundered by every European colonial power from the 15th century onwards.
A FOUR-YEAR-OLD girl who died after being turned away from a northwest Queensland hospital had tested negative to swine flu and the normal flu.
The little girl's grandfather Athol Walden yesterday said his granddaughter was turned away from the hospital because she was Aboriginal.
The girl, from Doomadgee, had been ill for days and was turned away from the Doomadgee Hospital several times in the past week before being admitted on Wednesday.
She died on Thursday before her family could get her transferred to the larger Mount Isa Hospital.
link: Doomadgee girl negative to swine flu | News.com.au Top stories | News.com.au
Wildlife officials in India plan to build a special school to improve the behaviour of delinquent monkeys.
They say the aim is to target monkeys that pose a serious threat to people in the state of Punjab.
Officials say monkeys are a growing menace in Punjab as the animals move into towns and cities looking for food.
The state government has asked India's Central Zoo Authority for funds to build the country's first monkey rescue and rehabilitation centre.
Punjab has more than 65,000 wild monkeys.
As more and more forests disappear, they are increasingly encroaching into human settlements, say experts.
link: BBC NEWS | South Asia | Indian school for rogue monkeys
Nancy Benac writes:
Trying to tamp down a national uproar over race, President Barack Obama acknowledged Friday he had used unfortunate words in declaring that Cambridge, Mass., police "acted stupidly" in arresting black scholar Henry Louis Gates Jr. "I could've calibrated those words differently," he said.
He stopped short of a public apology. But the president telephoned both Gates and the white officer who had arrested him, hoping to end the rancorous back-and-forth over what had transpired and what Obama had said about it. Trying to lighten the situation, he said he had invited the Harvard professor and police St. James Crowley for "a beer here in the White House."
link: Obama says words ill chosen, calls white policeman - washingtonpost.com
Dennis Overbye writes:
A team of astronomers used the newly refurbished Hubble Space Telescope to snap a picture of Jupiter’s new black eye on Thursday.
The spot, roughly 5,000 miles long, according to the Hubble team, led by Heidi Hammel of the Space Science Institute in Boulder, Colo., was formed when a small comet or other object crashed into the giant planet on Sunday. It was discovered Sunday night by an amateur astronomer in Australia, Anthony Wesley, who sounded an alert that has had all telescope eyes turning to Jupiter.
The Hubble photo marks a triumphant return to the scientific arena for the fabled telescope, which shut down last September when a computer router failed. It underwent its last orbital overhaul in May.
The Hubble astronomers, who were still in the process of bringing the telescope back on line when Jupiter was smacked, interrupted their methodical procedures to get a snapshot with the new Wide Field Camera 3, which was installed during the May mission and is still not completely calibrated.
Hubble scientists said they were planning to unveil the rejuvenated telescope with a barrage of new pictures and data in September. But for now the word is out. Hubble is back.
link: Hubble Takes Snapshot of Jupiter’s ‘Black Eye’ - NYTimes.com
Georgia Museum of Art writes:
Born in 1912 in Rabbittown, just outside of Gainesville, Ga., R.A. Miller spent most of his life working in cotton mills and preaching as a Free Will Baptist. After retiring due to a back injury and glaucoma in the late 1970s, Miller realized his calling and began creating art full time. Inspired by nature, popular culture and his personal life, Miller’s works take as their subjects animals and other “critters,” angels, devils and members of his family. His use of bold colors, humorous themes and fun designs helped him become a local celebrity.
By the mid-1980s, Miller’s lawn was completely decorated with hundreds of his whirligigs and other works. The sight of his vibrant property caught the attention of the Athens-based rock group R.E.M., who in 1984, along with filmmaker Jim Herbert, chose Miller’s home as the setting for their “Left of Reckoning” video. Although Miller considered his work “junk” instead of art, his popularity continued to increase. Since his death in 2006, Miller has been recognized as one of the great self-taught artists of the South.
Lord Love You will include whirligigs, wind ornaments and other works similar to those found on Miller’s hilltop. Some of Miller’s more personal works of art and more controversial images will also be on display. The works in the collection represent many of his best-known themes: God, country and religion. “This exhibition presents both typical and unique images by R.A. Miller, an important figure among the South’s contemporary self-taught artists,” said Paul Manoguerra, curator of American art.
Miller’s art was priced so inexpensively that his collectors number in the thousands, both in the state of Georgia and beyond, and the museum is asking anyone who has one of his works to contribute to an online gallery that will collect as many images as possible. If you would like to send an image of your R.A. Miller, please email digital files to gmoapr@yahoo.com or send prints c/o Jenny Williams, Georgia Museum of Art, 90 Carlton St., Athens, GA 30602. Photos and stories will be collected on the museum’s Flickr page at www.flickr.com/gmoa.
link: Artdaily.org - The First Art Newspaper on the Net
Hat Tip: Paul Manoguerra
35-year-old Liu Bolin, from Shandong, China, manages to camouflage himself in any surroundings, no matter how difficult they might be.
Liu works on a single photo for up to 10 hours at a time, to make sure he gets it just right, but he achieves the right effect: sometimes passers-by don’t even realize he is there until he moves.
The talented Liu Bolin says his art is a protest against the actions of the Government, who shut down his art studio in 2005 and persecutes artists. It’s about not fitting into modern society. Despite problems with Chinese authorities, Liu’s works are appreciated at an international level.
Allyson Siegel paid Calvin Owensby $4000 to ensure that Precious, the 5-legged puppy, would not live her life as a freak show exhibit. But that didn't stop sideshow owner, John Strong, from threatening to sue Owenbsy for ownership.
Strong insisted that his $1000 deposit and oral agreement was a binding contract, and he was going to move forward with a lawsuit to gain custody of the pup. Siegel intended to have the extra limb removed in the near future, but the threat of an ownership lawsuit encouraged her to move the surgery date up. It appears that a lawsuit would be a moot point at this stage of the game.
A veterinarian surgically removed the extra limb from Precious on Thursday in a 90 minute procedure. Although she is still at the vet clinic recovering, the surgeon reports that the puppy is doing well and should make a full and complete recovery. Prior to the surgery, the extra leg made simple tasks such as running or laying down, a struggle. With the leg gone, she will be able to enjoy life as a normal dog
link: Five Things - Salon.com
Douglas Martin writes:
John S. Barry, an executive who masterminded the spread of WD-40, the petroleum-based lubricant and protectant created for the space program, into millions of American households, died on July 3 in the La Jolla neighborhood of San Diego. He was 84.
The cause was pulmonary fibrosis, a lung disease, said Garry Ridge, president and chief executive of the WD-40 Company.
link: John Barry, Popularizer of WD-40, Dies at 84 - Obituary (Obit) - NYTimes.com
Ben Sisario writes:
John Dawson, a singer and songwriter whose band New Riders of the Purple Sage began as a country-rock offshoot of the Grateful Dead but had a long life of its own, died on Tuesday in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico, where he lived. He was 64.
The cause was stomach cancer, said Trebbie Thomas, a family friend.
Mr. Dawson, known as Marmaduke, founded New Riders of the Purple Sage in 1969 with David Nelson and Jerry Garcia, whom Mr. Dawson had known from Mother McCree’s Uptown Jug Band Champions, a Grateful Dead predecessor formed in 1964. Mr. Dawson was looking for a band to perform his country-inflected songs, and Mr. Garcia was eager for a project in which he could indulge his newest musical obsession, pedal-steel guitar.
David Robson writes:
HAVE you ever experienced that eerie feeling of a thought popping into your head as if from nowhere, with no clue as to why you had that particular idea at that particular time? You may think that such fleeting thoughts, however random they seem, must be the product of predictable and rational processes. After all, the brain cannot be random, can it? Surely it processes information using ordered, logical operations, like a powerful computer?
Actually, no. In reality, your brain operates on the edge of chaos. Though much of the time it runs in an orderly and stable way, every now and again it suddenly and unpredictably lurches into a blizzard of noise.
Neuroscientists have long suspected as much. Only recently, however, have they come up with proof that brains work this way. Now they are trying to work out why. Some believe that near-chaotic states may be crucial to memory, and could explain why some people are smarter than others.
continue at the link: Disorderly genius: How chaos drives the brain - life - 29 June 2009 - New Scientist
CHOJU GIGA (鳥獣戯画) “, the first manga in Japan. It was written 900 years ago by TOBA-SOJO. Rabbits, monkeys, frogs, foxes behave like human.
link: Vitro Nasu » Blog Archive » First Manga - Choju Giga
A Republican state senator from Tennessee–who is married and the father of two– has admitted to police that he had sex with a 22 year old intern after her boyfriend allegedly demanded money from the legislator to not make public a video of the legislator and intern having sex.
State Sen. Paul Stanley only recently sponsored legislation designed to prohibit gay couples in his home state from ever adopting children. He has also opposed family planning services, explaining that his “faith and church” require him to “promote abstinence.” And Stanley has run as a “pro-family” candidate in his campaigns for the Tennessee State Senate.
On Thursday, Stanley resigned his chairmanship of the Tennessee State Senate’s Commerce committee.
Stanley himself admitted to police that he had had a “sexual relationship” with the intern and had taken nude pictures of her in “provocative poses,” according to a sworn affidavit police made public yesterday. The couple also filmed a video of themselves having sex together.
link: Raw Story » Anti-gay, pro-abstinence legislator had affair with intern
Jason DeParle writes:
Years of state and federal neglect have hobbled the nation’s unemployment system just as a brutal recession has doubled the number of jobless Americans seeking aid.
In a program that values timeliness above all else, decisions involving more than a million applicants have been slowed, and hundreds of thousands of needy people have waited months for checks.
And with benefit funds at dangerous lows even before the recession began, states are taking on billions in debt, increasing the pressure to raise taxes or cut aid, just as either would inflict maximum pain.
link: NYT: Millions wait for delayed jobless checks - The New York Times- msnbc.com
Daily Galaxy writes:
A table-top black hole might sound the worst (and shortest-lived) idea since a Tiger-based daycare, but Berkeley scientists have made it happen. They're using brand new metamaterials to create simulated black holes in a chip, and we'd like to repeat that, but can't because that much coolness in one paragraph could be damaging to the reader.
A material's properties are based on the configuration of the smallest units - everything is made of protons, neutrons and electrons, but different arrangements in different elements lead to wildly differing properties. Metamaterials are mankind realizing "We don't need to be limited by what nature made", using nanotechnology to build brand new materials with otherwise impossible properties out of tiny repeating cells. These cells are bigger than molecules, but still small enough to work.
Professor Zhang and colleagues are experts in metamaterials and their latest creation is the most impressive yet: modeling black holes by taking "analogy" out of writing and into actual hard science. By designing a metamaterial whose reaction to light looks the same as another phenomena, you can effectively examine that phenomena. This is because "looks like" isn't based on color, or shape, but on having exactly the same equations defining its motion - so that it no longer matters if it's because of metamaterials reaction to light or general relativity's to matter. By setting up this "optical-mechanical analogy" you can study an all-consuming gravitational crusher in a simple chip of material.
link: Black Hole in a Lab? Yes, from the UC Berkeley "Believe It or Not Factory"
The city of Phoenix has told a local church they are no longer allowed to hold a Saturday service on their lawn during which they feed the homeless.
Crossroads United Methodist Church began holding the Saturday events in January. The homeless walk, ride their bike or take a bus to the church. The church feeds them breakfast and has a worship service on the lawn outside the church building.
“We have been feeding the homeless since (the church) began. It’s part of the mission of the church. It’s part of who we are,” said Dottie Escobedo-Frank, pastor at the church. “This is our mission. This is who we are. This is what we do.”
But now the city of Phoenix has told them to stop doing it. Some people from a neighborhood across the street have complained about the event, specifically the noise and the trash it carries along with it, the city said.
According to Escobedo-Frank, a neighbor said a homeless person was also hanging out in a nearby alley.
link: City To Church: Stop Feeding Homeless - Community News Story - KPHO Phoenix
When Im Chun-yong made his daring escape from North Korea, with a handful of his special forces men, there were many reasons why the North Korean government was intent on stopping them.
They were, after all, part of Kim Jong-il's elite commandos - privy to a wealth of military secrets and insights into the workings of the reclusive regime.
In video Interview: North Korea weapons threat But among the accounts they carried with them is one of the most shocking yet to emerge – namely the use of humans, specifically mentally or physically handicapped children, to test North Korea's biological and chemical weapons.
"If you are born mentally or physically deficient, says Im, the government says your best contribution to society… is as a guinea pig for biological and chemical weapons testing."
Even after settling into the relative safety of South Korea, for 10 years Im held on to this secret, saying it was too horrific to recount.
link: Al Jazeera English - Asia-Pacific - N Korea 'tests weapons on children'
A plan to build a 6,000km-long wall across the Sahara Desert to stop the spread of the desert has been outlined.
The barrier - formed by solidifying sand dunes - would stretch from Mauritania in the west of Africa to Djibouti in the east.
The plan was put forward by architect Magnus Larsson at the TED Global conference in Oxford.
A 2007 UN study described desertification as "the greatest environmental challenge of our times".
"The threat is desertification. My response is a sandstone wall made from solidified sand," said Mr Larsson, who describes himself as a dune architect.
The sand would be stabilised by flooding it with bacteria that can set it like concrete in a matter of hours.
North African nations have promoted the idea of planting trees to form a Great Green Belt to prevent the spread of the sand.
A similar proposal - known as the Green Wall of China - has also been proposed to stop the spread of the Gobi Desert.
link: BBC NEWS | Technology | Wall 'could stop desert spread'
Scientists have discovered a new species of lizard in the lush Western Ghats mountain range in the Indian state of Maharashtra.
The small reptile is a form of gecko and was found by taxonomist Varad Giri in the Kolhapur district. It has been named Cnemasspis kolhapurensis.
Mr Giri and his co-workers published their findings in this month's edition of the Zootaxa journal.
It is the third new species of lizard recently discovered in the area.
Mr Giri, a curator at the Bombay Natural History Society, told the BBC that the Western Ghats has never been surveyed for amphibians and reptiles.
"A gecko of this particular character has not been recognised elsewhere in the world," he said. . . .
The Western Ghats mountain range is said to be one of the world's "biodiversity hotspots".
But analysts say that the area is at risk of a biodiversity crisis, because it has long been under threat from logging and human encroachment.
Mr Giri says the discovery may well help in arguments to preserve parts of the landscape.
"This is really important now because there is a lot of human interference and deforestation," he said.
link: BBC NEWS | South Asia | New lizard species found in India
link: BBC NEWS | South Asia | New lizard species found in India
