HEAL THE WORLD

be brave

2007-12-14T17:54:00.000-08:00

Poem as palliative care from an Omani author, Nasra Al-Adawi Cancer is becoming a global challenge as leading cause for morbidity and mortality for individuals who are on their prime ages. Diagnosis and treatment of cancers still remain enigma in medical settings and much so in developing countries. In developing countries, the word cancer invokes apprehension and tribulation; it often perceived a death sentences. For a cancer sufferer, finding coping strategy is essential if the quality of life would be maintained. Some of the aggressive treatment available for cancer patients may paradoxically leads to functional loss, maiming or disfigurement in the midst of depleted emotion and spiritual stance. In the western countries, individual with intractable conditions such as cancer tends to get palliative care. This simply entails spiritual and emotional support and well as array of compassionate therapies to comfort and support patients and their families. Palliative care yet to crop up non-western countries where 80% of the world population lives and there is rising tide of cancer sufferers. This low-spirited situation is about to be lifted with snippets of poetry and rhymed prose of Nasra Al-Adawi, blooming `poet of compassion'. In her book, `Brave Faces: The Daring Stand Against Cancer', she narratives the experiences of breast and cervical cancer survivors in Tanzania. Nasra's writing does not only conjure to her readers with the inner experiences of cancer sufferers but also invokes pang of catharsis whoever is gripped with sense of impending loss. This book deserves to be on bookshelf of those individuals who know that cancer know no boundaries. As for the broad picture, Nasra's Brave Faces; the Daring Stand against Cancer' provides challenge for who have erroneously thoughts people from the `third world' lacks aptitude for introspection.

selected poems are from the book Brave Faces : The Daring Stand Against Cancer which can be bought at Amazon.com the proceeds of this book will go for cancer awareness in Tanzania. To read more on the book pls visit http://braveface-thedaringstandagainstcancer.blogspot.com/

Rage

2006-08-13T03:18:00.000-07:00

Us and Them

2006-07-20T00:45:00.000-07:00

, , as long as we have borders and cuntries as long as skin colours vary
as long as caste and creeds exist

as long as we have 2 genders
as long as the world is not ONE

we will have US and DEM
dats not a bad ting really

as long as we live in harmony
a music composition or a band

or a football team
have differentiations in the team

the forwards
the defence and the goalie
but the team is one

and in cuntries the concept of citizens and aliens but we can still be different and live in harmony
At 5:28 PM, saby said...
the division starts at family leveland extends to extended familythen village and townthen StateJAI MAHARASHTRAand then JAI HINDHence Jesus preachedleave brother sister father mother and follow meto LOVE ALL in equal measure

the last days of John the baptist

2006-03-18T23:21:00.000-08:00

And he came by the Spirit into the temple:
and when the parents brought in the child Jesus, to do for him after the custom of the law,

Then took he him up in his arms, and blessed God, and said, Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace, according to thy word: For mine eyes have seen thy salvation, Which thou hast prepared before the face of all people; A light to lighten the Gentiles, and the glory of thy people Israel.

And Joseph and his mother marvelled at those things which were spoken of him. And Simeon blessed them, and said unto Mary his mother,

Behold, this child is set for the fall and rising again of many in Israel; and for a sign which shall be spoken against; (Yea, a sword shall pierce through thy own soul also,) that the thoughts of many hearts may be revealed.

Luke 2:27-35 KJV

save a life

2006-03-03T15:32:00.000-08:00

Health - Recognizing a stroke!

The below message is a beautiful piece of medical fact. The points given here are 100% true. It might take u guys 2 mins to read the entire passage but it is really worth it. So plzzzzz go through .

It might help u sometime. Health - Recognizing a stroke! Maybe you are in perfect Health to bother about this. But then, you may have an opportunity to save a family member, friend or stranger.

During a outdoor dinner at a seaside resort near Chennai,a friend stumbled and took a little fall - she assured everyone that she was fine and just tripped over a brick because of her new shoes. They got her cleaned up and got her a new plate of food - while she appeared a bit shaken up, Lakshmi went about enjoying herself the rest of the evening.

Her husband called later telling everyone that his wife had been taken to the hospital - (at 6:00 pm, Lakshmi passed away). She had suffered a stroke at the dinner- had they known how to identify the signs of a stroke Perhaps Lakshmi would be alive today.

It only takes a minute to read this: A neurologist says that if he can get to a stroke victim within 3 hours he can totally reverse the effects of a stroke...totally. He said the trick was getting a stroke recognized, diagnosed and getting to the patient within 3 hours which is tough.

There is nothing more life saving than getting the patient to the hospital in the FIRST ONE HOUR!
The Golden Hour it is now known as to Doctors and emergency attendants alike!

RECOGNIZING A STROKE

Remember the "3" steps. Read and Learn! Sometimes symptoms of a stroke are difficult to identify. Unfortunately, the lack of awareness spells disaster. The stroke victim may suffer brain damage when people nearby fail to recognize the symptoms of a stroke.

Now doctors say a bystander can recognize a stroke by asking three simple questions:

1. *Ask the individual to SMILE.

2. *Ask him or her to RAISE BOTH ARMS.

3. *Ask the person to SPEAK A SIMPLE SENTENCE (Coherently) (i.e. . . It is sunny out today).

If he or she has trouble with any of these tasks, call Emergency immediately and describe the symptoms to the dispatcher. After discovering that a group of non-medical volunteers could identify facial weakness, arm weakness and speech problems, researchers urged the general public to learn the three questions.

Widespread use of this test could result in prompt diagnosis and treatment of the stroke and prevent brain damage.

- Umesh Mehta

A major hypothesis that clinical events such as endotoxemia and ischemia which could lead to shock stimulate platelet and white blood cell (WBC) secretions which modify cardiopulmonary function has undergone further scrutiny. Particular attention has been paid to the role of arachidonic acid derivatives. Several common events have been found which simulate the production of Tx such as exposure of blood to foreign surfaces, positive end-expiratory pressure ventilation and pulmonary embolism. The release of TxA sub 2 is associated with the formation of a circulating substance which causes a decrease in contractility and abnormalities in myocardial ATPase. Prostacyclin (PGI sub 2) has been found to be produced in large quantity following surgical trauma. Under these circumstances, endogenous PGI sub 2 which is formed, increases cardiac output and dilates the systemic vasculate. An infusion of PGI sub 2 in an experimental setting of severe cardiac depression induced by endotoxemia leads to rapid improvement of cardiac function. PGI sub 2 also has adverse effects and may paradoxically stimulate the production of TxA sub 2 in settings where blood is exposed to an artificial surface. The problem of permeability in shock states is documented and has been studied in several experimental preparations. It has been found that TxA sub 2 is centrally involved in the edema of acid aspiration, complement activation and burns. Leukotrienes are also of importance in the biochemical sequence which leads to capillary damage. The vasoactive agent serotonin (5HT) has been evaluated as a potential culprit in the induction of respiratory failure without pulmonary edema.

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Objective: The evaluation of physiological responses during graded ergometry in children has been proven to be useful to determine the growth and development of cardio-respiratory and musculo-energetic systems and is also essential in sports and games. In India few attempts have been made to determine the peak oxygen consumption (VO2) of children from different regions. This study aims to investigate peak VO2 and its relation to other anthropometric parameters of school boys (8 to 14 years age) from east region (ER) and north east region (NER) of India. Also, this stucdy attempts to find out the effect of regional variation, including their growth and development in comparison with the boys of other countries.

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Heart failure.

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Two million or more Americans have congestive heart failure (CHF), and the 400,000 new cases that occur yearly require over 900,000 hospitalizations each year.[1,2] In addition, based on years of cardiovascular data compiled in Framingham, Mass, there appears to be a 1% prevalence of CHF in individuals aged 50 to 59 years.[3] The incidence of CHF increases with advancing age to approximately 10% of people aged 80 to 89 years.[3] Because of the increasing age of the American population and newer medications and technologies that have increased survival at the expense of increased cardiovascular morbidity, the population of patients with CHF is markedly increasing.[4] In view of this, many individuals with a wide variety of heart and lung diseases will very likely develop CHF at some time during their lives,[5,6] manifesting itself as pulmonary congestion or edema.[1]The purposes of this article are to describe the pathophysiology and clinical manifestations of CHF and to review the important contributions physical therapists can make in treating patients with CHF.

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stop the world, i wanna get off

2006-02-20T04:20:00.000-08:00

STOPPING May Be The Best Way To Get Ahead!
Dr. Gary S. Goodman

There is a very interesting book that I read about a year ago, written by a former priest. It is called, STOPPING. The theme is straight forward. Most of us are so busy rushing from task to task, problem to problem, that we never take the time to fully question the patterns in which we are stuck. So, many feel discontented, somewhat sad and melancholic, without knowing the cause. What we do recognize, at least tacitly, is we are not fulfilled.

The author's suggestion for addressing this problem is STOPPING. In the psychedelic 60's and 70's, it was the third part of Dr. Timothy Leary's prescription to "Turn on, Tune In, and Drop Out."

Taoists say it this way: Practice NOT doing, and everything will fall into place. This isn't easy, if only for the reason that we fear that if our worlds stop spinning, we'll fall off, into a vacuum, into infinite space.

It's like people who live with trains going by so often, that when they go on vacation, they can't relax because there are no trains going by! Perhaps the hardest thing to stop is a life at which we're only marginally successful. With partial success, we have to keep working hard, and against our instincts, to derive minimal rewards.

The once obese exercise nut feels he has to obsessively work out to maintain his new shape; and even a slight relaxing of his discipline will spell disaster.

If he STOPPED, he might get quiet enough to tune into the reason he does anything compulsively, whether it's eating or exercising, and he might hear the inner voice telling him: "You're not good enough, the way you are!"

STOPPED, he might look deeper and realize this isn't his voice at all. It's the voice of a parent, a teacher, a lover or someone else who made him doubt his self-worth, and hooked him on receiving approval from others.

In other words, he might really understand the cycle of despair that he's in, explore it fully, and return to a full calendar of activity that is based on truer wants and needs; ones that he has chosen.

STOPPING, in this sense, may be the best method for getting ahead!

About the Author: Dr. Gary S. Goodman, President of Customersatisfaction.com, is a popular keynote speaker, management consultant, and seminar leader and the best-selling author of 12 books, including Reach Out & Sell Someone and Monitoring, Measuring & Managing Customer Service, and the audio program, "The Law of Large Numbers: How To Make Success Inevitable," published by Nightingale-Conant. He is a frequent guest on radio and television, worldwide. He is headquartered in Glendale, California, and he can be reached at (818) 243-7338 or at: gary@customersatisfaction.com. Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Dr._Gary_S._Goodman

laffter the best medicine

2006-02-19T04:33:00.000-08:00

laffter the best medicine for the pompous

What does laughter mean? What is the basal element in the laughable?What common ground can we find between the grimace of a merry-andrew, a play upon words, an equivocal situation in a burlesque anda scene of high comedy?

What method of distillation will yield us invariably the same essence from which so many different products borrow either their obtrusive odour or their delicate perfume? Thegreatest of thinkers, from Aristotle downwards, have tackled this little problem, which has a knack of baffling every effort, of slipping away and escaping only to bob up again, a pert challenge flung at philosophic speculation. Our excuse for attacking the problem in our turn must lie in the fact that we shall not aim at imprisoning the comic spirit within a definition.

We regard it,above all, as a living thing. However trivial it may be, we shall treat it with the respect due to life. We shall confine ourselves to watching it grow and expand. Passing by imperceptible gradations from one form to another, it will be seen to achieve the strangest metamorphoses. We shall disdain nothing we have seen. Maybe we may gain from this prolonged contact, for the matter of that, somethingmore flexible than an abstract definition,--a practical, intimate acquaintance, such as springs from a long companionship. And maybewe may also find that, unintentionally, we have made an acquaintancethat is useful. For the comic spirit has a logic of its own, even inits wildest eccentricities.

It has a method in its madness. It dreams, I admit, but it conjures up, in its dreams, visions that areat once accepted and understood by the whole of a social group. Canit then fail to throw light for us on the way that human imagination works, and more particularly social, collective, and popularimagination? Begotten of real life and akin to art, should it notalso have something of its own to tell us about art and life?

At the outset we shall put forward three observations which we look upon as fundamental. They have less bearing on the actually comic than on the field within which it must be sought.

I The first point to which attention should be called is that the comic does not exist outside the pale of what is strictly HUMAN. A landscape may be beautiful, charming and sublime, or insignificantand ugly; it will never be laughable.

You may laugh at an animal,but only because you have detected in it some human attitude or expression. You may laugh at a hat, but what you are making fun of,in this case, is not the piece of felt or straw, but the shape that men have given it,--the human caprice whose mould it has assumed.

It is strange that so important a fact, and such a simple one too, has not attracted to a greater degree the attention of philosophers.Several have defined man as "an animal which laughs."

They might equally well have defined him as an animal which is laughed at; for if any other animal, or some lifeless object, produces the same effect, it is always because of some resemblance to man, of the stamp he gives it or the use he puts it to.

Here I would point out, as a symptom equally worthy of notice, the ABSENCE OF FEELING which usually accompanies laughter. It seems asthough the comic could not produce its disturbing effect unless it fell, so to say, on the surface of a soul that is thoroughly calm and unruffled. Indifference is its natural environment, for laughter has no greater foe than emotion. I do not mean that we could not laugh at a person who inspires us with pity, for instance, or even with affection, but in such a case we must, for the moment, put our affection out of court and impose silence upon our pity.

In asociety composed of pure intelligences there would probably be nomore tears, though perhaps there would still be laughter; whereashighly emotional souls, in tune and unison with life, in whom everyevent would be sentimentally prolonged and re-echoed, would neitherknow nor understand laughter. Try, for a moment, to becomeinterested in everything that is being said and done; act, inimagination, with those who act, and feel with those who feel; in aword, give your sympathy its widest expansion: as though at thetouch of a fairy wand you will see the flimsiest of objects assumeimportance, and a gloomy hue spread over everything. Now step aside,look upon life as a disinterested spectator: many a drama will turninto a comedy. It is enough for us to stop our ears to the sound ofmusic, in a room where dancing is going on, for the dancers at onceto appear ridiculous. How many human actions would stand a similartest? Should we not see many of them suddenly pass from grave togay, on isolating them from the accompanying music of sentiment? Toproduce the whole of its effect, then, the comic demands somethinglike a momentary anesthesia of the heart. Its appeal is tointelligence, pure and simple.This intelligence, however, must always remain in touch with otherintelligences. And here is the third fact to which attention shouldbe drawn. You would hardly appreciate the comic if you felt yourselfisolated from others. Laughter appears to stand in need of an echo,Listen to it carefully: it is not an articulate, clear, well-definedsound; it is something which would fain be prolonged byreverberating from one to another, something beginning with a crash,to continue in successive rumblings, like thunder in a mountain.Still, this reverberation cannot go on for ever. It can travelwithin as wide a circle as you please: the circle remains, none theless, a closed one. Our laughter is always the laughter of a group.It may, perchance, have happened to you, when seated in a railwaycarriage or at table d'hote, to hear travellers relating to oneanother stories which must have been comic to them, for they laughedheartily. Had you been one of their company, you would have laughedlike them; but, as you were not, you had no desire whatever to doso. A man who was once asked why he did not weep at a sermon, wheneverybody else was shedding tears, replied: "I don't belong to theparish!" What that man thought of tears would be still more true oflaughter. However spontaneous it seems, laughter always implies akind of secret freemasonry, or even complicity, with other laughers,real or imaginary. How often has it been said that the fuller thetheatre, the more uncontrolled the laughter of the audience! On theother hand, how often has the remark been made that many comiceffects are incapable of translation from one language to another,because they refer to the customs and ideas of a particular socialgroup! It is through not understanding the importance of this doublefact that the comic has been looked upon as a mere curiosity inwhich the mind finds amusement, and laughter itself as a strange,isolated phenomenon, without any bearing on the rest of humanactivity. Hence those definitions which tend to make the comic intoan abstract relation between ideas: "an intellectual contrast," "apalpable absurdity," etc.,--definitions which, even were they reallysuitable to every form of the comic, would not in the least explainwhy the comic makes us laugh. How, indeed, should it come about thatthis particular logical relation, as soon as it is perceived,contracts, expands and shakes our limbs, whilst all other relationsleave the body unaffected? It is not from this point of view that weshall approach the problem. To understand laughter, we must put itback into its natural environment, which is society, and above allmust we determine the utility of its function, which is a socialone. Such, let us say at once, will be the leading idea of all ourinvestigations. Laughter must answer to certain requirements of lifein common. It must have a SOCIAL signification.Let us clearly mark the point towards which our three preliminaryobservations are converging. The comic will come into being, itappears, whenever a group of men concentrate their attention on oneof their number, imposing silence on their emotions and calling intoplay nothing but their intelligence. What, now, is the particularpoint on which their attention will have to be concentrated, andwhat will here be the function of intelligence? To reply to thesequestions will be at once to come to closer grips with the problem.But here a few examples have become indispensable.IIA man, running along the street, stumbles and falls; the passers-byburst out laughing. They would not laugh at him, I imagine, couldthey suppose that the whim had suddenly seized him to sit down onthe ground. They laugh because his sitting down is involuntary.Consequently, it is not his sudden change of attitude that raises alaugh, but rather the involuntary element in this change,--hisclumsiness, in fact. Perhaps there was a stone on the road. Heshould have altered his pace or avoided the obstacle. Instead ofthat, through lack of elasticity, through absentmindedness and akind of physical obstinacy, AS A RESULT, IN FACT, OF RIGIDITY OR OFMOMENTUM, the muscles continued to perform the same movement whenthe circumstances of the case called for something else. That is thereason of the man's fall, and also of the people's laughter.Now, take the case of a person who attends to the petty occupationsof his everyday life with mathematical precision. The objects aroundhim, however, have all been tampered with by a mischievous wag, theresult being that when he dips his pen into the inkstand he draws itout all covered with mud, when he fancies he is sitting down on asolid chair he finds himself sprawling on the floor, in a word hisactions are all topsy-turvy or mere beating the air, while in everycase the effect is invariably one of momentum. Habit has given theimpulse: what was wanted was to check the movement or deflect it. Hedid nothing of the sort, but continued like a machine in the samestraight line. The victim, then, of a practical joke is in aposition similar to that of a runner who falls,--he is comic for thesame reason. The laughable element in both cases consists of acertain MECHANICAL INELASTICITY, just where one would expect to findthe wide-awake adaptability and the living pliableness of a humanbeing. The only difference in the two cases is that the formerhappened of itself, whilst the latter was obtained artificially. Inthe first instance, the passer-by does nothing but look on, but inthe second the mischievous wag intervenes.All the same, in both cases the result has been brought about by anexternal circumstance. The comic is therefore accidental: itremains, so to speak, in superficial contact with the person. How isit to penetrate within? The necessary conditions will be fulfilledwhen mechanical rigidity no longer requires for its manifestation astumbling-block which either the hazard of circumstance or humanknavery has set in its way, but extracts by natural processes, fromits own store, an inexhaustible series of opportunities forexternally revealing its presence. Suppose, then, we imagine a mindalways thinking of what it has just done and never of what it isdoing, like a song which lags behind its accompaniment. Let us tryto picture to ourselves a certain inborn lack of elasticity of bothsenses and intelligence, which brings it to pass that we continue tosee what is no longer visible, to hear what is no longer audible, tosay what is no longer to the point: in short, to adapt ourselves toa past and therefore imaginary situation, when we ought to beshaping our conduct in accordance with the reality which is present.This time the comic will take up its abode in the person himself; itis the person who will supply it with everything--matter and form,cause and opportunity. Is it then surprising that the absent-mindedindividual--for this is the character we have just been describing--has usually fired the imagination of comic authors? When La Bruyerecame across this particular type, he realised, on analysing it, thathe had got hold of a recipe for the wholesale manufacture of comiceffects. As a matter of fact he overdid it, and gave us far toolengthy and detailed a description of Menalque, coming back to hissubject, dwelling and expatiating on it beyond all bounds. The veryfacility of the subject fascinated him. Absentmindedness, indeed, isnot perhaps the actual fountain-head of the comic, but surely it iscontiguous to a certain stream of facts and fancies which flowsstraight from the fountain-head. It is situated, so to say, on oneof the great natural watersheds of laughter.Now, the effect of absentmindedness may gather strength in its turn.There is a general law, the first example of which we have justencountered, and which we will formulate in the following terms:when a certain comic effect has its origin in a certain cause, themore natural we regard the cause to be, the more comic shall we findthe effect. Even now we laugh at absentmindedness when presented tous as a simple fact. Still more laughable will be theabsentmindedness we have seen springing up and growing before ourvery eyes, with whose origin we are acquainted and whose life-history we can reconstruct. To choose a definite example: suppose aman has taken to reading nothing but romances of love and chivalry.Attracted and fascinated by his heroes, his thoughts and intentionsgradually turn more and more towards them, till one fine day we findhim walking among us like a somnambulist. His actions aredistractions. But then his distractions can be traced back to adefinite, positive cause. They are no longer cases of ABSENCE ofmind, pure and simple; they find their explanation in the PRESENCEof the individual in quite definite, though imaginary, surroundings.Doubtless a fall is always a fall, but it is one thing to tumbleinto a well because you were looking anywhere but in front of you,it is quite another thing to fall into it because you were intentupon a star. It was certainly a star at which Don Quixote wasgazing. How profound is the comic element in the over-romantic,Utopian bent of mind! And yet, if you reintroduce the idea ofabsentmindedness, which acts as a go-between, you will see thisprofound comic element uniting with the most superficial type. Yes,indeed, these whimsical wild enthusiasts, these madmen who are yetso strangely reasonable, excite us to laughter by playing on thesame chords within ourselves, by setting in motion the same innermechanism, as does the victim of a practical joke or the passer-bywho slips down in the street. They, too, are runners who fall andsimple souls who are being hoaxed--runners after the ideal whostumble over realities, child-like dreamers for whom life delightsto lie in wait. But, above all, they are past-masters inabsentmindedness, with this superiority over their fellows thattheir absentmindedness is systematic and organised around onecentral idea, and that their mishaps are also quite coherent, thanksto the inexorable logic which reality applies to the correction ofdreams, so that they kindle in those around them, by a series ofcumulative effects, a hilarity capable of unlimited expansion.Now, let us go a little further. Might not certain vices have thesame relation to character that the rigidity of a fixed idea has tointellect? Whether as a moral kink or a crooked twist given to thewill, vice has often the appearance of a curvature of the soul.Doubtless there are vices into which the soul plunges deeply withall its pregnant potency, which it rejuvenates and drags along withit into a moving circle of reincarnations. Those are tragic vices.But the vice capable of making us comic is, on the contrary, thatwhich is brought from without, like a ready-made frame into which weare to step. It lends us its own rigidity instead of borrowing fromus our flexibility. We do not render it more complicated; on thecontrary, it simplifies us. Here, as we shall see later on in theconcluding section of this study, lies the essential differencebetween comedy and drama. A drama, even when portraying passions orvices that bear a name, so completely incorporates them in theperson that their names are forgotten, their general characteristicseffaced, and we no longer think of them at all, but rather of theperson in whom they are assimilated; hence, the title of a drama canseldom be anything else than a proper noun. On the other hand, manycomedies have a common noun as their title: l'Avare, le Joueur, etc.Were you asked to think of a play capable of being called le Jaloux,for instance, you would find that Sganarelle or George Dandin wouldoccur to your mind, but not Othello: le Jaloux could only be thetitle of a comedy. The reason is that, however intimately vice, whencomic, is associated with persons, it none the less retains itssimple, independent existence, it remains the central character,present though invisible, to which the characters in flesh and bloodon the stage are attached. At times it delights in dragging themdown with its own weight and making them share in its tumbles. Morefrequently, however, it plays on them as on an instrument or pullsthe strings as though they were puppets. Look closely: you will findthat the art of the comic poet consists in making us so wellacquainted with the particular vice, in introducing us, thespectators, to such a degree of intimacy with it, that in the end weget hold of some of the strings of the marionette with which he isplaying, and actually work them ourselves; this it is that explainspart of the pleasure we feel. Here, too, it is really a kind ofautomatism that makes us laugh--an automatism, as we have alreadyremarked, closely akin to mere absentmindedness. To realise thismore fully, it need only be noted that a comic character isgenerally comic in proportion to his ignorance of himself. The comicperson is unconscious. As though wearing the ring of Gyges withreverse effect, he becomes invisible to himself while remainingvisible to all the world. A character in a tragedy will make nochange in his conduct because he will know how it is judged by us;he may continue therein, even though fully conscious of what he isand feeling keenly the horror he inspires in us. But a defect thatis ridiculous, as soon as it feels itself to be so, endeavours tomodify itself, or at least to appear as though it did. Were Harpagonto see us laugh at his miserliness, I do not say that he would getrid of it, but he would either show it less or show it differently.Indeed, it is in this sense only that laughter "corrects men'smanners." It makes us at once endeavour to appear what we ought tobe, what some day we shall perhaps end in being.It is unnecessary to carry this analysis any further. From therunner who falls to the simpleton who is hoaxed, from a state ofbeing hoaxed to one of absentmindedness, from absentmindedness towild enthusiasm, from wild enthusiasm to various distortions ofcharacter and will, we have followed the line of progress alongwhich the comic becomes more and more deeply imbedded in the person,yet without ceasing, in its subtler manifestations, to recall to ussome trace of what we noticed in its grosser forms, an effect ofautomatism and of inelasticity. Now we can obtain a first glimpse--adistant one, it is true, and still hazy and confused--of thelaughable side of human nature and of the ordinary function oflaughter.What life and society require of each of us is a constantly alertattention that discerns the outlines of the present situation,together with a certain elasticity of mind and body to enable us toadapt ourselves in consequence. TENSION and ELASTICITY are twoforces, mutually complementary, which life brings into play. Ifthese two forces are lacking in the body to any considerable extent,we have sickness and infirmity and accidents of every kind. If theyare lacking in the mind, we find every degree of mental deficiency,every variety of insanity. Finally, if they are lacking in thecharacter, we have cases of the gravest inadaptability to sociallife, which are the sources of misery and at times the causes ofcrime. Once these elements of inferiority that affect the seriousside of existence are removed--and they tend to eliminate themselvesin what has been called the struggle for life--the person can live,and that in common with other persons. But society asks forsomething more; it is not satisfied with simply living, it insistson living well. What it now has to dread is that each one of us,content with paying attention to what affects the essentials oflife, will, so far as the rest is concerned, give way to the easyautomatism of acquired habits. Another thing it must fear is thatthe members of whom it is made up, instead of aiming after anincreasingly delicate adjustment of wills which will fit more andmore perfectly into one another, will confine themselves torespecting simply the fundamental conditions of this adjustment: acut-and-dried agreement among the persons will not satisfy it, itinsists on a constant striving after reciprocal adaptation. Societywill therefore be suspicious of all INELASTICITY of character, ofmind and even of body, because it is the possible sign of aslumbering activity as well as of an activity with separatisttendencies, that inclines to swerve from the common centre roundwhich society gravitates: in short, because it is the sign of aneccentricity. And yet, society cannot intervene at this stage bymaterial repression, since it is not affected in a material fashion.It is confronted with something that makes it uneasy, but only as asymptom--scarcely a threat, at the very most a gesture. A gesture,therefore, will be its reply. Laughter must be something of thiskind, a sort of SOCIAL GESTURE. By the fear which it inspires, itrestrains eccentricity, keeps constantly awake and in mutual contactcertain activities of a secondary order which might retire intotheir shell and go to sleep, and, in short, softens down whateverthe surface of the social body may retain of mechanicalinelasticity. Laughter, then, does not belong to the province ofesthetics alone, since unconsciously (and even immorally in manyparticular instances) it pursues a utilitarian aim of generalimprovement. And yet there is something esthetic about it, since thecomic comes into being just when society and the individual, freedfrom the worry of self-preservation, begin to regard themselves asworks of art. In a word, if a circle be drawn round those actionsand dispositions--implied in individual or social life--to whichtheir natural consequences bring their own penalties, there remainsoutside this sphere of emotion and struggle--and within a neutralzone in which man simply exposes himself to man's curiosity--acertain rigidity of body, mind and character, that society wouldstill like to get rid of in order to obtain from its members thegreatest possible degree of elasticity and sociability. Thisrigidity is the comic, and laughter is its corrective.Still, we must not accept this formula as a definition of the comic.It is suitable only for cases that are elementary, theoretical andperfect, in which the comic is free from all adulteration. Nor do weoffer it, either, as an explanation. We prefer to make it, if youwill, the leitmotiv which is to accompany all our explanations. Wemust ever keep it in mind, though without dwelling on it too much,somewhat as a skilful fencer must think of the discontinuousmovements of the lesson whilst his body is given up to thecontinuity of the fencing-match. We will now endeavour toreconstruct the sequence of comic forms, taking up again the threadthat leads from the horseplay of a clown up to the most refinedeffects of comedy, following this thread in its often unforeseenwindings, halting at intervals to look around, and finally gettingback, if possible, to the point at which the thread is dangling andwhere we shall perhaps find--since the comic oscillates between lifeand art--the general relation that art bears to life.IIILet us begin at the simplest point. What is a comic physiognomy?Where does a ridiculous expression of the face come from? And whatis, in this case, the distinction between the comic and the ugly?Thus stated, the question could scarcely be answered in any otherthan an arbitrary fashion. Simple though it may appear, it is, evennow, too subtle to allow of a direct attack. We should have to beginwith a definition of ugliness, and then discover what addition thecomic makes to it; now, ugliness is not much easier to analyse thanis beauty. However, we will employ an artifice which will oftenstand us in good stead. We will exaggerate the problem, so to speak,by magnifying the effect to the point of making the cause visible.Suppose, then, we intensify ugliness to the point of deformity, andstudy the transition from the deformed to the ridiculous.Now, certain deformities undoubtedly possess over others the sorryprivilege of causing some persons to laugh; some hunchbacks, forinstance, will excite laughter. Without at this point entering intouseless details, we will simply ask the reader to think of a numberof deformities, and then to divide them into two groups: on the onehand, those which nature has directed towards the ridiculous; and onthe other, those which absolutely diverge from it. No doubt he willhit upon the following law: A deformity that may become comic is adeformity that a normally built person, could successfully imitate.Is it not, then, the case that the hunchback suggests the appearanceof a person who holds himself badly? His back seems to havecontracted an ugly stoop. By a kind of physical obstinacy, byrigidity, in a word, it persists in the habit it has contracted. Tryto see with your eyes alone. Avoid reflection, and above all, do notreason. Abandon all your prepossessions; seek to recapture a fresh,direct and primitive impression. The vision you will reacquire willbe one of this kind. You will have before you a man bent oncultivating a certain rigid attitude--whose body, if one may use theexpression, is one vast grin.Now, let us go back to the point we wished to clear up. By toningdown a deformity that is laughable, we ought to obtain an uglinessthat is comic. A laughable expression of the face, then, is one thatwill make us think of something rigid and, so to speak, coagulated,in the wonted mobility of the face. What we shall see will be aningrained twitching or a fixed grimace. It may be objected thatevery habitual expression of the face, even when graceful andbeautiful, gives us this same impression of something stereotyped?Here an important distinction must be drawn. When we speak ofexpressive beauty or even expressive ugliness, when we say that aface possesses expression, we mean expression that may be stable,but which we conjecture to be mobile. It maintains, in the midst ofits fixity, a certain indecision in which are obscurely portrayedall possible shades of the state of mind it expresses, just as thesunny promise of a warm day manifests itself in the haze of a springmorning. But a comic expression of the face is one that promisesnothing more than it gives. It is a unique and permanent grimace.One would say that the person's whole moral life has crystallisedinto this particular cast of features. This is the reason why a faceis all the more comic, the more nearly it suggests to us the idea ofsome simple mechanical action in which its personality would forever be absorbed. Some faces seem to be always engaged in weeping,others in laughing or whistling, others, again, in eternally blowingan imaginary trumpet, and these are the most comic faces of all.Here again is exemplified the law according to which the morenatural the explanation of the cause, the more comic is the effect.Automatism, inelasticity, habit that has been contracted andmaintained, are clearly the causes why a face makes us laugh. Butthis effect gains in intensity when we are able to connect thesecharacteristics with some deep-seated cause, a certain fundamentalabsentmindedness, as though the soul had allowed itself to befascinated and hypnotised by the materiality of a simple action.We shall now understand the comic element in caricature. Howeverregular we may imagine a face to be, however harmonious its linesand supple its movements, their adjustment is never altogetherperfect: there will always be discoverable the signs of someimpending bias, the vague suggestion of a possible grimace, in shortsome favourite distortion towards which nature seems to beparticularly inclined. The art of the caricaturist consists indetecting this, at times, imperceptible tendency, and in renderingit visible to all eyes by magnifying it. He makes his modelsgrimace, as they would do themselves if they went to the end oftheir tether. Beneath the skin-deep harmony of form, he divines thedeep-seated recalcitrance of matter. He realises disproportions anddeformations which must have existed in nature as mere inclinations,but which have not succeeded in coming to a head, being held incheck by a higher force. His art, which has a touch of thediabolical, raises up the demon who had been overthrown by theangel. Certainly, it is an art that exaggerates, and yet thedefinition would be very far from complete were exaggeration alonealleged to be its aim and object, for there exist caricatures thatare more lifelike than portraits, caricatures in which theexaggeration is scarcely noticeable, whilst, inversely, it is quitepossible to exaggerate to excess without obtaining a realcaricature. For exaggeration to be comic, it must not appear as anaim, but rather as a means that the artist is using in order to makemanifest to our eyes the distortions which he sees in embryo. It isthis process of distortion that is of moment and interest. And thatis precisely why we shall look for it even in those elements of theface that are incapable of movement, in the curve of a nose or theshape of an ear. For, in our eyes, form is always the outline of amovement. The caricaturist who alters the size of a nose, butrespects its ground plan, lengthening it, for instance, in the verydirection in which it was being lengthened by nature, is reallymaking the nose indulge in a grin. Henceforth we shall always lookupon the original as having determined to lengthen itself and startgrinning. In this sense, one might say that Nature herself oftenmeets with the successes of a caricaturist. In the movement throughwhich she has slit that mouth, curtailed that chin and bulged outthat cheek, she would appear to have succeeded in completing theintended grimace, thus outwitting the restraining supervision of amore reasonable force. In that case, the face we laugh at is, so tospeak, its own caricature.To sum up, whatever be the doctrine to which our reason assents, ourimagination has a very clear-cut philosophy of its own: in everyhuman form it sees the effort of a soul which is shaping matter, asoul which is infinitely supple and perpetually in motion, subjectto no law of gravitation, for it is not the earth that attracts it.This soul imparts a portion of its winged lightness to the body itanimates: the immateriality which thus passes into matter is what iscalled gracefulness. Matter, however, is obstinate and resists. Itdraws to itself the ever-alert activity of this higher principle,would fain convert it to its own inertia and cause it to revert tomere automatism. It would fain immobilise the intelligently variedmovements of the body in stupidly contracted grooves, stereotype inpermanent grimaces the fleeting expressions of the face, in shortimprint on the whole person such an attitude as to make it appearimmersed and absorbed in the materiality of some mechanicaloccupation instead of ceaselessly renewing its vitality by keepingin touch with a living ideal. Where matter thus succeeds in dullingthe outward life of the soul, in petrifying its movements andthwarting its gracefulness, it achieves, at the expense of the body,an effect that is comic. If, then, at this point we wished to definethe comic by comparing it with its contrary, we should have tocontrast it with gracefulness even more than with beauty. Itpartakes rather of the unsprightly than of the unsightly, ofRIGIDNESS rather than of UGLINESS.IVWe will now pass from the comic element in FORMS to that in GESTURESand MOVEMENTS. Let us at once state the law which seems to governall the phenomena of this kind. It may indeed be deduced without anydifficulty from the considerations stated above. THE ATTITUDES,GESTURES AND MOVEMENTS OF THE HUMAN BODY ARE LAUGHABLE IN EXACTPROPORTION AS THAT BODY REMINDS US OF A MERE MACHINE. There is noneed to follow this law through the details of its immediateapplications, which are innumerable. To verify it directly, it wouldbe sufficient to study closely the work of comic artists,eliminating entirely the element of caricature, and omitting thatportion of the comic which is not inherent in the drawing itself.For, obviously, the comic element in a drawing is often a borrowedone, for which the text supplies all the stock-in-trade. I mean thatthe artist may be his own understudy in the shape of a satirist, oreven a playwright, and that then we laugh far less at the drawingsthemselves than at the satire or comic incident they represent. Butif we devote our whole attention to the drawing with the firmresolve to think of nothing else, we shall probably find that it isgenerally comic in proportion to the clearness, as well as thesubtleness, with which it enables us to see a man as a jointedpuppet. The suggestion must be a clear one, for inside the person wemust distinctly perceive, as though through a glass, a set-upmechanism. But the suggestion must also be a subtle one, for thegeneral appearance of the person, whose every limb has been maderigid as a machine, must continue to give us the impression of aliving being. The more exactly these two images, that of a personand that of a machine, fit into each other, the more striking is thecomic effect, and the more consummate the art of the draughtsman.The originality of a comic artist is thus expressed in the specialkind of life he imparts to a mere puppet.We will, however, leave on one side the immediate application of theprinciple, and at this point insist only on the more remoteconsequences. The illusion of a machine working in the inside of theperson is a thing that only crops up amid a host of amusing effects;but for the most part it is a fleeting glimpse, that is immediatelylost in the laughter it provokes. To render it permanent, analysisand reflection must be called into play.Next All
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Dreamweaver: Words of John F. Kennedy....

2006-01-29T20:20:00.000-08:00

Dreamweaver: Words of John F. Kennedy....

i can see clearly now

2006-01-29T08:03:00.000-08:00

I can see clearly now,
the rain is gone

I can see all obstacles in my way
Gone are the dark clouds that had me blind

It's gonna be a bright (bright), bright (bright)
Sun shiny day

I think I can make it now, the pain is gone
All of the bad feelings have disappeared

Here is the rainbow I've been prayin' for
It's gonna be a bright (bright), bright (bright)
Sun shiny day

Look all around, there's nothin' but blue skies
Look straight ahead, nothin' but blue skies

I can see clearly now, the rain is gone
I can see all obstacles in my way

Gone are the dark clouds that had me blind
It's gonna be a bright (bright), bright (bright)
Sun shiny day

Love, love, love

2006-01-29T07:03:00.000-08:00

"For if ye forgive men their trespasses,
your heavenly Father will also forgive you:

"But if ye forgive not men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses"

(Matthew 6:14-15 KJV)

"As far as the east is from the west, so far hath he removed our transgressions from us."

(Psalms 103:12 KJV)

http://www.teachingpages.co.uk/wordclasses/godslove(h).html

Life and who will cry when u die ?

2006-01-28T00:26:00.001-08:00

"Gandhi said 'One cannot do right in one area of life whilst he is occupied in doing wrong in another; Life is one indivisible whole.'

This point of wisdom is profound. A commitment to excellence is not just reserved for a few select areas of your life - it must be reflected in everything you do.

Your diet must reflect your commitment to excellence.
Your physique must reflect your commitment to excellence.
Your personal habits must reflect your commitment to excellence and your thoughts must reflect a commitment to excellence."

Robin Sharma

http://www.amazon.com/gp/reader/1401900127/ref=sib_fs_top/102-4895078-6349721?%5Fencoding=UTF8&p=S00K&checkSum=6JhwyBm64PoWFp6p9f5ZYbml7wz941tktXmUc68sk7w%3D#reader-link

Have a soft drink ?

2006-01-12T21:16:00.000-08:00

click on pic to enlarge

Liberation

2005-12-29T04:46:00.000-08:00

There is neither male nor female
for u r all one in Christ Jesus

- St Paul in Galatians 3:28

it dont matter if u r black or white

-Michael Jackson

'HIV+ people are not free at all'

2005-08-18T07:12:00.000-07:00

August 18, 2005
Independence means freedom. It means equal rights for everyone. That we are not slaves to anyone. But this is not the reality in our country. There are caste conflicts. The lower castes are not free. HIV+ people are not free at all.
Whatever our religion or caste, we are discriminated. We are not free in our minds. We are not free in reality.
It gives me a feeling of pride to be an Indian. But there are so many shortcomings. Apart from feeling proud of the fact that I am an Indian I am disappointed with most things happening in our country.
The inequalities here are too glaring. The gap between the haves and the have-nots. The gap between literates and illiterates. The gap between various castes. The gap between people of different religions. The gap between different language groups. This is all too much to achieve equality. They say that our country has 'Unity in Diversity' but there is no unity.

G Kumar is HIV+ crusader who says the only way to fight AIDS is for the infected to come out in the open.

Dont be silly
the girl above is not Ganesh Kumar

but she looka lott better than Ganesh
http://specials.rediff.com/news/2005/aug/18alive2.htm

evry body has a reason for being here ...

2005-08-17T06:03:00.000-07:00

Mission Impossible ...

John Abraham bares for PETA

2005-08-17T02:13:00.000-07:00

Bollywood star John Abraham has joined the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals cause.
In the latest PETA ad, John tries to raise awareness about the cruelty involved in the capture, breeding, and caging of birds."Birds aren't meant to learn silly human words or swing in a cage,"

the hunky actor says, holding an empty cage. "They are supposed to roam free in the skies and sing songs for each other."

The ad is shot by John's brother Alan Abraham.

u cant know Jesus by reading the Bible a 100 times ..

2005-08-03T21:41:00.000-07:00

u will not know me
unless i choose to reveal myself to u
- Jesus

BEWARE OF BIBLES !

bible reading led to Crusades
bible reading made BUSH bomb IRAQ

bible reading made a POPE imprison Galileo for life
bible reading led to burning of woomen deeemed to be witches

they put Joan of Arc to the torch too

we dont really see, we perceive .....

2005-08-02T17:28:00.000-07:00

Mercury is in retrograde (backwards) now and will be until mid August. Mercury is the planet of communication and when it goes into retrograde it can cause us to experience disruptions in communication.Disruptions create space and space creates doubt.When someone says they’re going to call at a certain time and we don’t hear from them we may second guess if we will hear from them at all. But what we may find later on is that the person got stuck in traffic or a meeting and they actually had every intention of calling. But during that space when we didn’t hear from them, we allow the doubts to kick in.As always, there is a lesson for us to learn from all of this: Don’t make mountains out of mole hills.What this means is that we are bound to misunderstand one another in the coming week. Communications will be jumbled and old issues we thought we put to rest will be resurfacing. We need to strengthen our consciousness so that we don’t let our reactions get blown out of proportion. We need clarity about what is communicating with us right now - the Light or the Opponent?Perhaps you’ve already begun to experience this. Something you heard or read triggered a doubt in your mind. This one little doubt then set off a firestorm of doubts and deeper negative reactions.And that is how the Opponent catches us.A phone message gets lost or WE get lost or someone says something we don’t like and suddenly we’ve been derailed off the spiritual track. All the opponent has to do is whisper a simple doubt into our ears and the domino effect of reactivity begins.As the sages teach, destroy the monster when it’s little. It’s those seemingly insignificant reactive moments that lead to the larger dramas of our lives. Be super aware this week of what’s bugging you and do your best to let it go.When your Opponent comes around to whisper in your ear, remember to say “SHHHH!!”
I am no longer a prisoner of my past—past regrets, earlier traumas, pain and suffering.I believe in miracles and a joy-filled future.I gain the courage to let go!I let go.Of everything.Period.
posted by Justin Thyme at 8:22 AM 2 comments
Monday, August 01, 2005

http://justin-thyme.blogspot.com/

to forgive is divine ...

2005-08-01T20:04:00.000-07:00

At 10:48 AM, Anonymous said...
Two annony mouse board a flight out of Mumbai. One sits in the window seat, the other in the middle seat. Just before take-off, Saby sits in the seat by the aisle. Saby kicks off his shoes, wiggle his toes, and starts to settle in, when the annony mouse in the window seat says, "I think I'll get up and get a coke." "No problem," says Saby, "I'm by the aisle. I'll get it for you." While he's gone, one of the annony mouse picks up Saby's shoe and spits in it. When he returns with the coke, the other annony mouse says, "That looks good, I think I'll have one too." Again, Saby obligingly fetches the drink. While he's gone, the other annoy mouse picks up the other shoe and spits in it. Saby comes back and they all sit back and enjoy the flight. As the plane is landing, however, Saby slips his feet into his shoes and realizes immediately what has happened. "How long must this go on?" he asks the annony mouse. "This fighting? This hatred? This animosity? This spitting in shoes and pissing in cokes?"

i owe dis post to
http://justin-thyme.blogspot.com/

Time stood still ....

2005-07-31T15:55:00.000-07:00

That moment - just after the previous one, following the next one
- there is a millisecond when the universe is motionless,
when the earth stops spinning,
when the mind calms and stills itself.
And all is good. All was good.

But the noise begins again. Symphony, cacophony ?
At this moment, I wait.

Welcome to my today...

posted by madame x at 2:33 AM
http://themadamefiles.blogspot.com/2005/04/that-moment-just-after-pre_111380600506396823.html#comments

Bloggers of the world UNITE ...

2005-07-29T20:52:00.000-07:00

We gotta save dis world, its the only one we have

its time to take over the management of this world
- Michael Jackson prompted
and these guys killed him for silly reasons

We need to book the pollly ticians for their mis demenaours
Lets follow his advice
Lets Make it a better place

For you and for me
And the entire human race
There are people dying

If you care enough
For the living

Make a better place
For you and for me
and the entire human race

http://imnutsincapsbushfires.blogspot.com/2005/07/nuclear-button.html