Rhodri Davies plays the harp in new and unexpected ways, often without plucking the strings. In this performance, set within his installation Room Harp, Davies goes well beyond the convention of playing the harp as a musical instrument, by methodically burning and restringing all 47 strings on a concert pedal harp. He has been interested in the relationship between destruction and creation in sound for many years and in 2008 collaborated with the artist Gustav Metzger, who also participated in AV Festival 10.

 

Biography

Rhodri Davies was born in 1971 in Aberystwyth, Wales and now lives in Gateshead. He plays harp, electric harp, live-electronics and builds wind, water and fire harp installations. His regular groups include: a duo with John Butcher, The Sealed Knot, a trio with David Toop and Lee Patterson, Common Objects, Cranc, a trio with John Tilbury and Michael Duch, SLW and Apartment House. In 2008 he collaborated with the visual artist Gustav Metzger on Self-cancellation, a large-scale event in London and Glasgow. New pieces for harp have been composed for him by: Eliane Radigue, Christian Wolff, Ben Patterson, Alison Knowles, Michael Pisaro, Carole Finer, Mieko Shiomi, Radu Malfatti and Yasunao Tone.

 

Credit

Commissioned by AV Festival 10 and produced in partnership with Hatton Gallery. Supported by Arts Council England.

 

I was 24 in Memphis on one of my first rotations as a medical student. Finally away from books and learning to learn in a new way. One day I was reading books and listening to lectures. Literally, the next day I had a stethoscope in my hand and I was learning in the four dimensions of human lives. I was disoriented, relieved, scared, truly excited--pounding heart and short, quick breaths. The county hospital in Memphis is called The Med. It is a wild ride to work there. I delivered about 30 babies, scrubbed in operations until ten at night, most nights for 3 months, saw gunshot wounds and stabbings at the surgical ER called the Elvis Presley Memorial Trauma Center--no kidding. On the medicine rotation I met a young man, Matt, who was short of breath.

 

He had a weird rash, looked pale under the rash, fast heart rate. My professor asked him to walk across the room and we measured the oxygen saturation in his blood before and after. It dropped 15% in 15 feet. Normally you can't make it drop that much even if you try. This kid was 19. I admitted him, took a very long history as young medical students usually do and felt the fear in him stronger than I felt his pulse. The year was 1989.

 

HIV changed all our lives around 1983, my senior year in high school. I remember thinking to myself that having sex could kill me. In the 50's school children learned that they lived in a world that could destroy itself any time with nuclear weapons. It changed how those kids felt about things like safety. By the 60's they were throwing off everything about the government that asked them to agree to that kind of world. HIV was a different kind of instability. Relationships, sex, were now unsafe. Safe sex. There is something in sex that should feel a little unsafe, like looking over the edge of a cliff. HIV made us practical, methodical.

 

Matt got caught in the undertow of the first set of waves that crashed into our lives with HIV. He, like thousands, millions now, died. He was dead within 3 days. I sat with him and his family while he died. Nothing anyone could do, especially me. He allowed me to sit with him. He was the fist person I saw die. His last breath lingered a little, the room filled with something and then, like a vacuum, it was empty. I cried, mourned. I tell Matt's story in gratitude for the courage and wisdom he gave me in his last, sad breaths.

 

www.bendlight.me

The water buffalo or domestic Asian water buffalo (Bubalus bubalis) is a large bovid originating in South Asia, Southeast Asia, and China. Today, it is also found in Europe, Australia, and some American countries. The wild water buffalo (Bubalus arnee) native to Southeast Asia is considered a different species, but most likely represents the ancestor of the domestic water buffalo.

 

Two extant types of water buffalo are recognized based on morphological and behavioural criteria – the river buffalo of South Asia and further west to the Balkans, Egypt, and Italy, and the swamp buffalo, found from Assam in the west through Southeast Asia to the Yangtze valley of China in the east. The origins of the domestic water buffalo types are debated, although results of a phylogenetic study indicate that the swamp type may have originated in China and was domesticated about 4,000 years ago, while the river type may have originated from India and was domesticated about 5,000 years ago. Water buffalo were traded from the Indus Valley Civilisation to Mesopotamia, in modern Iraq, 2500 BC by the Meluhhas. The seal of a scribe employed by an Akkadian king shows the sacrifice of water buffalo.

 

At least 130 million domestic water buffalo exist, and more human beings depend on them than on any other domestic animal. They are especially suitable for tilling rice fields, and their milk is richer in fat and protein than that of dairy cattle. The large feral population of northern Australia became established in the late 19th century, and smaller feral herds are in New Guinea, Tunisia, and northeastern Argentina. Feral herds are also present in New Britain, New Ireland, Irian Jaya, Papua New Guinea, Colombia, Guyana, Suriname, Brazil, and Uruguay.

 

CHARACTERISTICS

The skin of river buffalo is black, but some specimens may have dark, slate-coloured skin. Swamp buffalo have a grey skin at birth, but become slate blue later. Albinoids are present in some populations. River buffalo have comparatively longer faces, smaller girths, and bigger limbs than swamp buffalo. Their dorsal ridges extend further back and taper off more gradually. Their horns grow downward and backward, then curve upward in a spiral. Swamp buffalo are heavy-bodied and stockily built; the body is short and the belly large. The forehead is flat, the eyes prominent, the face short, and the muzzle wide. The neck is comparatively long, and the withers and croup are prominent. A dorsal ridge extends backward and ends abruptly just before the end of the chest. Their horns grow outward, and curve in a semicircle, but always remain more or less on the plane of the forehead. The tail is short, reaching only to the hocks. Height at withers is 129–133 cm for males, and 120–127 cm for females. They range in weight from 300–550 kg, but weights of over 1,000 kg have also been observed.

 

Tedong bonga is a black pied buffalo featuring a unique black and white colouration that is favoured by the Toraja of Sulawesi.

 

The swamp buffalo has 48 chromosomes; the river buffalo has 50 chromosomes. The two types do not readily interbreed, but fertile offspring can occur. Buffalo-cattle hybrids have not been observed to occur, and the embryos of such hybrids do not reach maturity in laboratory experiments.

 

The rumen of the water buffalo has important differences from that of other ruminants. It contains a larger population of bacteria, particularly the cellulolytic bacteria, lower protozoa, and higher fungi zoospores. In addition, higher rumen ammonia nitrogen (NH4-N) and higher pH have been found as compared to those in cattle

 

ECOLOGY AND BEHAVIOR

River buffalo prefer deep water. Swamp buffalo prefer to wallow in mudholes which they make with their horns. During wallowing, they acquire a thick coating of mud. Both are well adapted to a hot and humid climate with temperatures ranging from 0 °C in the winter to 30 °C and greater in the summer. Water availability is important in hot climates, since they need wallows, rivers, or splashing water to assist in thermoregulation. Some breeds are adapted to saline seaside shores and saline sandy terrain.

 

DIET

Water buffalo thrive on many aquatic plants and during floods, will graze submerged, raising their heads above the water and carrying quantities of edible plants. They eat reeds (quassab), a giant reed (birdi), a kind of bulrush (kaulan), water hyacinth, and marsh grasses. Some of these plants are of great value to local peoples. Others, such as water hyacinth, are a major problem in some tropical valleys, and water buffalo may help to keep waterways clear.

 

Green fodders are used widely for intensive milk production and for fattening. Many fodder crops are conserved as hay, chaffed, or pulped. Fodders include alfalfa, berseem and bancheri, the leaves, stems or trimmings of banana, cassava, fodder beet, halfa, ipil-ipil and kenaf, maize, oats, pandarus, peanut, sorghum, soybean, sugarcane, bagasse, and turnips. Citrus pulp and pineapple wastes have been fed safely to buffalo. In Egypt, whole sun-dried dates are fed to milk-buffalo up to 25% of the standard feed mixture.

 

REPRODUCTION

Swamp buffalo generally become reproductive at an older age than river breeds. Young males in Egypt, India, and Pakistan are first mated at about 3.0–3.5 years of age, but in Italy

 

they may be used as early as 2 years of age. Successful mating behaviour may continue until the animal is 12 years or even older. A good river male can impregnate 100 females in a year. A strong seasonal influence on mating occurs. Heat stress reduces libido

 

Although buffalo are polyoestrous, their reproductive efficiency shows wide variation throughout the year. Buffalo cows exhibit a distinct seasonal change in displaying oestrus, conception rate, and calving rate. The age at first oestrus of heifers varies between breeds from 13–33 months, but mating at the first oestrus is often infertile and usually deferred until they are 3 years old. Gestation lasts from 281–334 days, but most reports give a range between 300 and 320 days. Swamp buffalo carry their calves for one or two weeks longer than river buffalo. It is not rare to find buffalo that continue to work well at the age of 30, and instances of a working life of 40 years are recorded.

 

TAXONOMIC HISTORY

Carl Linnaeus first described the genus Bos and the water buffalo under the binomial Bubalis bubalus in 1758; the latter was known to occur in Asia and as a domestic form in Italy. Ellerman and Morrison-Scott treated the wild and domestic forms of the water buffalo as conspecifics whereas others treated them as different species. The nomenclatorial treatment of wild and domestic forms has been inconsistent and varies between authors and even within the works of single authors.

 

In March 2003, the International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature achieved consistency in the naming of wild and domestic water buffalo by ruling that the scientific name Bubalus arnee is valid for the wild form. B. bubalis continues to be valid for the domestic form and applies also to feral populations.

 

DOMESTICATION AND BREEDING

Water buffalo were domesticated in India about 5000 years ago, and in China about 4000 years ago. Two types are recognized, based on morphological and behavioural criteria – the river buffalo of the Indian subcontinent and further west to the Balkans and Italy, and the swamp buffalo, found from Assam in the west through Southeast Asia to the Yangtze valley of China in the east. The present-day river buffalo is the result of complex domestication processes involving more than one maternal lineage and a significant maternal gene flow from wild populations after the initial domestication events. Twenty-two breeds of the river type water buffalo are known, including Murrah, Nili-Ravi, Surti, Jafarabadi, Anatolian, Mediterranean, and Egyptian buffalo. China has a huge variety of buffalo genetic resources, comprising 16 local swamp buffalo breeds in various regions.

 

Results of mitochondrial DNA analyses indicate that the two types were domesticated independently. Sequencing of cytochrome b genes of Bubalus species implies that the domestic buffalo originated from at least two populations, and that the river and the swamp types have differentiated at the full species level. The genetic distance between the two types is so large that a divergence time of about 1.7 million years has been suggested. The swamp type was noticed to have the closest relationship with the tamaraw.

 

DISTRIBUTION OF POPULATIONS

The water buffalo population in the world is about 172 million.

 

IN ASIA

More than 95.8% of the world population of water buffalo are found in Asia including both river and swamp types. The water buffalo population in India numbered over 97.9 million head in 2003, representing 56.5% of the world population. They are primarily of the river type, with 10 well-defined breeds comprising Badhawari, Murrah, Nili-Ravi, Jafarabadi, Marathwada, Mehsana, Nagpuri, Pandharpuri, Toda, and Surti. Swamp buffalo occur only in small areas in the north-eastern part of the country and are not distinguished into breeds.

 

In 2003, the second-largest population lived in China, with 22.759 million head, all of the swamp type with breeds kept only in the lowlands, and other breeds kept only in the mountains; as of 2003, 3.2 million swamp-type carabao buffalo were in the Philippines, nearly three million swamp buffalo were in Vietnam, and 772,764 buffalo were in Bangladesh. About 750,000 head were estimated in Sri Lanka in 1997.

 

The water buffalo is the main dairy animal in Pakistan, with 23.47 million head in 2010. Of these, 76% are kept in the Punjab. The rest of them are mostly in the province of Sindh. Breeds used are Nili-Ravi, Kundi, and Azi Kheli. Karachi has the largest population of water buffalos for an area where fodder is not grown, consisting of 350,000 head kept mainly for milking.

 

In Thailand, the number of water buffalo dropped from more than 3 million head in 1996 to less than 1.24 million head in 2011. Slightly over 75% of them are kept in the country's northeastern region. The statistics also indicate that by the beginning of 2012, less than one million were in the country, partly as a result of illegal shipments to neighboring countries where sales prices are higher than in Thailand.

 

Water buffalo are also present in the southern region of Iraq, in the marshes. These marshes were drained by Saddam Hussein in 1991 in an attempt to punish the south for the uprisings of 1991. Following 2003, and the fall of the Saddam regime, these lands were reflooded and a 2007 report in the provinces of Maysan and Thi Qar shows a steady increase in the number of water buffalo. The report puts the number at 40,008 head in those two provinces.

 

IN EUROPE AND THE MEDITERRANEAN

Water buffalo likely were introduced to Europe from India or other Oriental countries. To Italy they were introduced about the year 600 in the reign of the Longobard King Agilulf. As they appear in the company of wild horses, they probably were a present from the Khan of the Avars, a Turkic nomadic tribe that dwelt near the Danube River at the time. Sir H. Johnston knew of a herd of water buffalo presented by a King of Naples to the Bey of Tunis in the mid-19th century that had resumed the feral state in northern Tunis.

 

European buffalo are all of the river type and considered to be of the same breed named Mediterranean buffalo. In Italy, the Mediterranean type was particularly selected and is called Mediterranean Italian breed to distinguish it from other European breeds, which differ genetically. Mediterranean buffalo are also found in Romania, Bulgaria, Greece, Albania, Kosovo, and the Republic of Macedonia, with a few hundred in the United Kingdom, Germany, the Netherlands, Switzerland, and Hungary. Little exchange of breeding buffalo has occurred among countries, so each population has its own phenotypic features and performances. In Bulgaria, they were crossbred with the Indian Murrah breed, and in Romania, some were crossbred with Bulgarian Murrah. Populations in Turkey are of the Anatolian buffalo breed.

 

IN AUSTRALIA

Between 1824 and 1849, water buffalo were introduced into the Northern Territory from Timor, Kisar, and probably other islands in the Indonesian archipelago. In 1886, a few milking types were brought from India to Darwin. They have been the main grazing animals on the subcoastal plains and river basins between Darwin and Arnhem Land since the 1880s. In the early 1960s, an estimated population of 150,000 to 200,000 buffalo were living in the plains and nearby areas.

 

They became feral and are causing significant environmental damage. Buffalo are also found in the Top End. As a result, they were hunted in the Top End from 1885 until 1980. The commencement of the brucellosis and tuberculosis campaign (BTEC) resulted in a huge culling program to reduce buffalo herds to a fraction of the numbers that were reached in the 1980s. The BTEC was finished when the Northern Territory was declared free of the disease in 1997. Numbers dropped dramatically as a result of the campaign, but have since recovered to an estimated 150,000 animals across northern Australia in 2008.

 

During the 1950s, buffalo were hunted for their skins and meat, which was exported and used in the local trade. In the late 1970s, live exports were made to Cuba and continued later into other countries. Buffalo are now crossed with riverine buffalo in artificial insemination programs, and may be found in many areas of Australia. Some of these crossbreds are used for milk production. Melville Island is a popular hunting location, where a steady population up to 4,000 individuals exists. Safari outfits are run from Darwin to Melville Island and other locations in the Top End, often with the use of bush pilots. The horns, which can measure up to a record of 3.1 m tip-to-tip, are prized hunting trophies.

 

The buffalo have developed a different appearance from the Indonesian buffalo from which they descend. They live mainly in freshwater marshes and billabongs, and their territory range can be quite expansive during the wet season. Their only natural predators in Australia are adult saltwater crocodiles, with whom they share the billabongs, and dingoes, which have been known to prey on buffalo calves and occasionally adult buffalo when the dingoes are in large packs.

 

Buffalo were exported live to Indonesia until 2011, at a rate of about 3000 per year. After the live export ban that year, the exports dropped to zero, and had not resumed as of June 2013.

 

IN SOUTH AMERICA

Water buffalo were introduced into the Amazon River basin in 1895. They are now extensively used there for meat and dairy production. In 2005, the buffalo herd in the Brazilian Amazon stood at roughly 1.6 million head, of which 460,000 were located in the lower Amazon floodplain. Breeds used include Mediterranean from Italy, Murrah and Jafarabadi from India, and Carabao from the Philippines.

 

During the 1970s, small herds were imported to Costa Rica, Ecuador, Cayenne, Panama, Surinam, Guyana, and Venezuela.

 

In Argentina, many game ranches raise water buffalo for commercial hunting

 

IN NORTH AMERICA

In 1974, four water buffalo were imported to the United States from Guam to be studied at the University of Florida. In February 1978, the first herd arrived for commercial farming. Until 2002, only one commercial breeder was in the United States. Water buffalo meat is imported from Australia. Until 2011, water buffalo were raised in Gainesville, Florida, from young obtained from zoo overflow. They were used primarily for meat production, frequently sold as hamburger.[38] Other US ranchers use them for production of high-quality mozzarella cheese.

 

HUSBANDRY

The husbandry system of water buffalo depends on the purpose for which they are bred and maintained. Most of them are kept by people who work on small farms in family units. Their buffalo live in very close association with them, and are often their greatest capital asset. The women and girls in India generally look after the milking buffalo while the men and boys are concerned with the working animals. Throughout Asia, they are commonly tended by children who are often seen leading or riding their charges to wallowing places. Water buffalo are the ideal animals for work in the deep mud of paddy fields because of their large hooves and flexible foot joints. They are often referred to as "the living tractor of the East". It probably is possible to plough deeper with buffalo than with either oxen or horses. They are the most efficient and economical means of cultivation of small fields. In most rice-producing countries, they are used for threshing and for transporting the sheaves during the rice harvest. They provide power for oilseed mills, sugarcane presses, and devices for raising water. They are widely used as pack animals, and in India and Pakistan also for heavy haulage. In their invasions of Europe, the Turks used buffalo for hauling heavy battering rams. Their dung is used as a fertilizer, and as a fuel when dried.

 

Buffalo contribute 72 million tones of milk and three million tones of meat annually to world food, much of it in areas that are prone to nutritional imbalances. In India, river-type buffalo are kept mainly for milk production and for transport, whereas swamp-type buffalo are kept mainly for work and a small amount of milk.

 

DAIRY PRODUCTS

Water buffalo milk presents physicochemical features different from that of other ruminant species, such as a higher content of fatty acids and proteins. The physical and chemical parameters of swamp and river type water buffalo milk differ. Water buffalo milk contains higher levels of total solids, crude protein, fat, calcium, and phosphorus, and slightly higher content of lactose compared with those of cow milk. The high level of total solids makes water buffalo milk ideal for processing into value-added dairy products such as cheese. The conjugated linoleic acid (CLA) content in milk ranged from 4.4 mg/g fat in September to 7.6 mg/g fat in June. Seasons and genetics may play a role in variation of CLA level and changes in gross composition of the water buffalo milk.

 

Water buffalo milk is processed into a large variety of dairy products:

 

- Cream churns much faster at higher fat levels and gives higher overrun than cow cream.

- Butter from water buffalo cream displays more stability than that from cow cream.

- Ghee from water buffalo milk has a different texture with a bigger grain size than ghee from cow milk.

- Heat-concentrated milk products in the Indian subcontinent include paneer, khoa, rabri, kheer and basundi.

- Fermented milk products include dahi, yogurt, and chakka.

- Whey is used for making ricotta and mascarpone in Italy, and alkarish in Syria and Egypt.

- Soft cheeses made include mozzarella in Italy, karish, mish, and domiati in Egypt, madhfor in Iraq, alghab in Syria, kesong puti in the Philippines, and vladeasa in Romania.

- The semihard cheese beyaz peynir is made in Turkey.

- Hard cheeses include braila in Romania, rahss in Egypt, white brine in Bulgaria, and akkawi in Syria.

- Watered-down buffalo milk is used as a cheaper alternative to regular milk.

 

MEAT AND SKIN PRODUCTS

Water buffalo meat, sometimes called "carabeef", is often passed off as beef in certain regions, and is also a major source of export revenue for India. In many Asian regions, buffalo meat is less preferred due to its toughness; however, recipes have evolved (rendang, for example) where the slow cooking process and spices not only make the meat palatable, but also preserve it, an important factor in hot climates where refrigeration is not always available.Their hides provide tough and useful leather, often used for shoes.

 

BONE AND HORN PRODUCTS

The bones and horns are often made into jewellery, especially earrings. Horns are used for the embouchure of musical instruments, such as ney and kaval.

 

ENVIRONMENTAL EFFECTS

Wildlife conservation scientists have started to recommend and use introduced populations of feral domestic water buffalo in far-away lands to manage uncontrolled vegetation growth in and around natural wetlands. Introduced water buffalo at home in such environs provide cheap service by regularly grazing the uncontrolled vegetation and opening up clogged water bodies for waterfowl, wetland birds, and other wildlife. Grazing water buffalo are sometimes used in Great Britain for conservation grazing, such as in Chippenham Fen National Nature Reserve. The buffalo can better adapt to wet conditions and poor-quality vegetation than cattle.

 

Currently, research is being conducted at the Lyle Center for Regenerative Studies to determine the levels of nutrients removed and returned to wetlands when water buffalo are used for wetland vegetation management.

 

However, in uncontrolled circumstances, water buffalo can cause environmental damage, such as trampling vegetation, disturbing bird and reptile nesting sites, and spreading exotic weeds.

 

RESEARCH

The world's first cloned buffalo was developed by Indian scientists from National Dairy Research Institute, Karnal. The buffalo calf was named Samrupa. The calf did not survive more than a week, and died due to some genetic disorders. So, the scientists created another cloned buffalo a few months later, and named it Garima.

 

On 15 September 2007, the Philippines announced its development of Southeast Asia's first cloned buffalo. The Philippine Council for Agriculture, Forestry and Natural Resources Research and Development (PCARRD), under the Department of Science and Technology in Los Baños, Laguna, approved this project. The Department of Agriculture's Philippine Carabao Center (PCC) will implement cloning through somatic cell nuclear transfer as a tool for genetic improvement in water buffalo. "Super buffalo calves" will be produced. There will be no modification or alteration of the genetic materials, as in genetically modified organisms.

 

On 1 January 2008, the Philippine Carabao Center in Nueva Ecija, per Filipino scientists, initiated a study to breed a super water buffalo that could produce 4 to 18 litres of milk per day using gene-based technology. Also, the first in vitro river buffalo was born there in 2004 from an in vitro-produced, vitrified embryo, named "Glory" after President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo. Joseph Estrada's most successful project as an opposition senator, the PCC was created through Republic Act 3707, the Carabao Act of 1992.

 

IN CULTURE

Some ethnic groups, such as Batak and Toraja in Indonesia and the Derung in China, use water buffalo or kerbau (called horbo in Batak or tedong in Toraja) as sacrificial animals at several festivals.

 

- Legend has it that the Chinese philosophical sage Laozi left China through the Han Gu Pass riding a water buffalo.

- According to Hindu lore, the god of death Yama, rides on a male water buffalo.

- The carabao subspecies is considered a national symbol in the Philippines.

- In Vietnam, water buffalo are often the most valuable possession of poor farmers: "Con trâu là đầu cơ nghiệp". They are treated as a member of the family: "Chồng cày, vợ cấy, con trâu đi bừa" ("The husband ploughs, the wife sows, water buffalo draws the rake") and are friends of the children. Children talk to their water buffalo, "Bao giờ cây lúa còn bông. Thì còn ngọn cỏ ngoài đồng trâu ăn." (Vietnamese children are responsible for grazing water buffalo. They feed them grass if they work laboriously for men.) In the old days, West Lake, Hà Nội, was named Kim Ngưu - Golden Water Buffalo.

- The Yoruban Orisha Oya (goddess of change) takes the form of a water buffalo.

 

FIGHTING FESTIVALS

- Pasungay Festival is held annually in the town of San Joaquin, Iloilo in the Philippines.

- Moh juj Water Buffalo fighting, is held every year in Bhogali Bihu in Assam. Ahotguri in Nagaon is famous for it.

- Do Son Water Buffalo Fighting Festival of Vietnam, held each year on the ninth day of the eighth month of the lunar calendar at Do Son Township, Haiphong City in Vietnam, is one of the most popular Vietnam festivals and events in Haiphong City. The preparations for this buffalo fighting festival begin from the two to three months earlier. The competing buffalo are selected and methodically trained months in advance. It is a traditional festival of Vietnam attached to a Water God worshipping ceremony and the Hien Sinh custom to show martial spirit of the local people of Do Son, Haiphong.

- "Hai Luu" Water Buffalo Fighting Festival of Vietnam, According to ancient records, the buffalo fighting in Hai Luu Commune has existed from the 2nd century B.C. General Lu Gia at that time, had the buffalo slaughtered to give a feast to the local people and the warriors, and organized buffalo fighting for amusement. Eventually, all the fighting buffalo will be slaughtered as tributes to the deities.

- "Ko Samui" Water Buffalo Fighting Festival of Thailand, is a very popular event held on special occasions such as New Year's Day in January, and Songkran in mid-April, this festival features head-wrestling bouts in which two male Asian water buffalo are pitted against one another. Unlike in Spanish Bullfighting, wherein bulls get killed while fighting sword-wielding men, Buffalo Fighting Festival held at Ko Samui, Thailand is fairly harmless contest. The fighting season varies according to ancient customs & ceremonies. The first Buffalo to turn and run away is considered the loser, the winning buffalo becomes worth several million baht. Ko Samui is an island in the Gulf of Thailand in the South China Sea, it is 700 km from Bangkok and is connected to it by regular flights.

- "Ma'Pasilaga Tedong" Water Buffalo Fighting Festival, in Tana Toraja Regency of Sulawesi Island, Indonesia, is a very popular event where the Rambu Solo' or a Burial Festival took place in Tana Toraja.

 

RACING FESTIVALS

Carabao Carroza Festival is being held annually every May in the town of Pavia, Iloilo, Philippines.

Kambala races of Karnataka, India, take place between December and March. The races are conducted by having the water buffalo (he buffalo) run in long parallel slushy ditches, where they are driven by men standing on wooden planks drawn by the buffalo. The objectives of the race are to finish first and to raise the water to the greatest height and also a rural sport. Kambala races are arranged with competition, as well as without competition and as a part of thanks giving (to god) in about 50 villages of coastal Karnataka.

 

In the Chonburi Province of Thailand, and in Pakistan, there are annual water buffalo races.

 

Chon Buri Water buffalo racing festival, Thailand In downtown Chonburi, 70 km south of Bangkok, at the annual water buffalo festival held in mid-October. About 300 buffalo race in groups of five or six, spurred on by bareback jockeys wielding wooden sticks, as hundreds of spectators cheer. The water buffalo has always played an important role in agriculture in Thailand. For farmers of Chon Buri Province, near Bangkok, it is an important annual festival, beginning in mid-October. It is also a celebration among rice farmers before the rice harvest. At dawn, farmers walk their buffalo through surrounding rice fields, splashing them with water to keep them cool before leading them to the race field. This amazing festival started over a hundred years ago when two men arguing about whose buffalo was the fastest ended up having a race between them. That’s how it became a tradition and gradually a social event for farmers who gathered from around the country in Chonburi to trade their goods. The festival also helps a great deal in preserving the number of buffalo, which have been dwindling at quite an alarming rate in other regions. Modern machinery is rapidly replacing buffalo in Thai agriculture. With most of the farm work mechanized, the buffalo-racing tradition has continued. Racing buffalo are now raised just to race; they do not work at all. The few farm buffalo which still do work are much bigger than the racers because of the strenuous work they perform. Farm buffalo are in the "Buffalo Beauty Pageant", a Miss Farmer beauty contest and a comic buffalo costume contest etc.. This festival perfectly exemplifies a favored Thai attitude to life — "sanuk," meaning fun.

 

Babulang Water buffalo racing festival, Sarawak, Malaysia, is the largest or grandest of the many rituals, ceremonies and festivals of the traditional Bisaya (Borneo) community of Limbang, Sarawak. Highlights are the Ratu Babulang competition and the Water buffalo races which can only be found in this town in Sarawak, Malaysia.

Vihear Suor village Water buffalo racing festival, in Cambodia, each year, people visit Buddhist temples across the country to honor their deceased loved ones during a 15-day period commonly known as the Festival of the Dead but in Vihear Suor village, about 35 km northeast of Cambodia, citizens each year wrap up the festival with a water buffalo race to entertain visitors and honour a pledge made hundreds of years ago. There was a time when many village cattle which provide rural Cambodians with muscle power to plough their fields and transport agricultural products died from an unknown disease. The villagers prayed to a spirit to help save their animals from the disease and promised to show their gratitude by holding a buffalo race each year on the last day of "P'chum Ben" festival as it is known in Cambodian. The race draws hundreds of spectators who come to see riders and their animals charge down the racing field, the racers bouncing up and down on the backs of their buffalo, whose horns were draped with colorful cloth.

Pothu puttu matsaram, Kerala, South India, is similar to Kambala races.

 

WIKIPEDIA

Discussion Panel: Learn from your Peers.

 

Barb Blair of Knack Studio, Michelle Jewel of Finkelstein's Center, Allison and Daniel Nadeau of Ink Meets Paper, Emily Jeffords, Will Shurtz of Methodical Coffee, Matt Moreau of Dapper Ink and The Landmark Project.

Company C, 2nd W. VA. Cavalry

The Star and Kansan, August 31, 1894:

   

AT REST

  

Just before midnight last Tuesday Ebenezer E. Wilson passed away. He had been in poor health for some time, but continued to attend to his duties as postmaster with a slight intermission for a visit to his daughter in St. Louis, until he turned over the office to Mr. Hill, on the first of May. Then he went to Denver, to visit his brother Jerre, and recuperate in the bracing air of the mountains; but instead steadily grew worse, and after his return was confined to his home, while paralysis day by day made slow but incessant advances toward the vital organs. He knew that recovery was impossible, and weakened and almost worn but in the battle of life, he felt as if it was hardly worth while to make the effort to recover. Indeed he asked his brother, after one of his sinking spells in July, whether it was worth while for him to try to get well, and seemed relieved when told that he need not. He simply faded out of life, bearing his sufferings with uncomplaining fortitude and Christian resignation.

 

As will be seen by the biographical sketch appended, Mr. Wilson has been identified with the history of this city and county from the first, settling here twenty-five years ago in September, being chosen the first mayor of Independence, and having been prominent in the politics and public life of the county ever since. Although opposed to him politically, he having always been an earnest and conscientious advocate of the principles of the Republican party, it gives me pleasure to say that I always found him a courteous and manly opponent. Indeed he was never a bitter partisan, but was always willing to allow others the same freedom of opinion he asked for himself. His nature was genial and kindly, and in the various official positions he held he was always accommodating and pleasant in the discharge of his duties. Methodical and accurate in his mental characteristics, while he was not especially rapid in his work his rugged integrity combined with the other qualities noted, made him almost an ideal official. Everybody was his friend; he never made enemies, and a whole people mourn his untimely death, at an age when it seemed that there ought to be many years of usefulness yet before him.

 

In his intercourse with those who knew him well, a vein of quiet humor was always cropping out to brighten the passing moments; and this was also apparent in his most ambitious literary production, the “History of Montgomery County,” written for Edward’s Atlas. This work, by one of the principal participants in the scenes described, will always be considered the most authentic and reliable narrative of the pioneer days; and the facts it contains will doubtless be the foundation upon which some ambitious “Historical Society” will build in the future.

 

The funeral services at the Congregational Church at 10 o’clock yesterday morning were attended by McPherson Post, G. A. R., in a body. The church was crowded, so that not another person could have found a seat. The banks were closed and the district court was adjourned by Judge McCue, as a token of respect to his memory, and to allow those connected with it an opportunity to attend the services. A choir composed of Mrs. A. C. Stich, Mrs. J. E. Pershing, W. E. Ziegler, and A. C. Stich, sang, “Beyond the Smiling and the Weeping,” Rev. G. W. Bean read the 103d Psalm, and Rev. E. Pershing preached the funeral discourse from II Timothy 4:7-8, “I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith; Henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness which the Lord, the righteous judge shall give me at that day; and not to me only, but unto all them that love his appearing.” After the choir had sung “Asleep in Jesus,” the procession formed for the last sad journey out to Mount Hope cemetery, headed by the veterans of the Post and including a very large number of citizens in carriages. The pall bearers were W. T. Yoe, W. Kincaid, J. S. Way, H. W. Conrad, E. T. Mears, and A. C. Stich.

 

E. E. Wilson was born at Elizabeth Allegheny county, Pennsylvania, Nov. 21st 1838, and would have been fifty-six years old if he had lived two months longer. He enlisted as a soldier April 23d 1861, but on account of a maimed hand caused by falling into the fire when he was a child, was rejected. On Sept. 25th of the same year he was, however, accepted and became a member of Co. C, 2d West Virginia volunteer cavalry. He served through the war, rising from the ranks to the position of Captain, to which he was promoted January 7th 1865, and was mustered out June 30th as captain of the company in which he originally enlisted. It testifies to his modest retiring disposition, that while so many men with no right to the title are daily dubbed “Captain”, I never remember to have heard him addressed by the military title he so well earned. In March 1867 he emigrated from Pennsylvania to Kansas, settling at Fontana in Miami county. He removed from there to Independence in September 1869, when it cost $2.25 a hundred pounds to move his goods across the country by wagon; and put up the first business building in Independence, a rough board structure which cost $500 and could probably be built now for $75. In partnership with F. D. Irwin, who became the first postmaster of the city, he opened this store October 1st. He became president of the town company; but subsequently removed to Elk City where he continued in business for a few months. He returned to this city early in 1870 and was a member of the Board of Trustees who incorporated the town July 23d 1870, and in 1871 became the first mayor of the city. In 1874 he was appointed Deputy County Treasurer, and he continued to perform the duties of that office with universal satisfaction, under both democratic and republican treasurers, for the next eight years. So well were the people pleased with his conduct of the office, that when he himself became a candidate for treasurer in 1881, he was elected by 1,1615 majority, probably the largest ever given for a candidate in this county. He was re-elected in 1883 and served until October 1886. During the next three years he was connected for a short time with the South Kansas Tribune and then took a position in the Commercial Bank, which he held until his appointment as postmaster by President Harrison, an office to which he succeeded on December 1st of that year, holding for five months over his four years’ term, and discharging the difficult and exacting duties of the office to the entire satisfaction of all its patrons.

 

Mr. Wilson was married February 23d, 1870, to Miss Rebecca Braden, of Washington, Pa., who died on the 21st of April following at Grandview, Ills., here they were on their way to Kansas. He was again married in this city on January 30th, 1872, to Miss Morna Moore, a native of Knox county, Illinois, who died in the spring of 1889, succumbing to la grippe. Six children survive them, the eldest daughter, Zell, being married to Arthur Stewart, and residing in St. Louis. The other five Albert E., Floyd M., Sallie R., Jennie M., and George are all still at home.

 

Contributed by Mrs. Maryann Johnson a Civil war researcher and a volunteer in the Kansas Room of the Independence Public Library, Independence, Kansas

Methodical teens at the Avondale Regional Branch Library's February Pizza &... program gather evidence at the crime scene of a deadly Valentine's date.

 

Dr. Beth Gardner, professor from the Justice Sciences program at UAB, created a “Valentine’s Date Gone Wrong” crime scene and invited the “detectives” in to gather and analyze evidence in a quest to identify the murderer. The murder scene was replete with a victim (one of Gardner's students) and all the trappings of a romantic dinner gone horribly wrong. The participants were outfitted with an evidence kit that included tools for collecting and preserving fingerprints, footprints, DNA, and other physical evidence from the crime scene. With the evidence gathered and clues from the police report, the students were able to identify the “killer.”

Quneitra was once a bustling town in the Golan Heights and southwestern Syria's administrative capital with a population of 37,000. The word Quneitra derives from Qantara, or 'bridge', between Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, and Palestine. Known for its abundant water resources, it has been continuously inhabited since the Stone Age. Over the millennia, many peoples, including Arameans, Assyrians, Caldeans, Persians, Greeks, and Arabs have occupied it. St. Paul, it is said, passed through Quneitra on his way from Damascus to Jerusalem.

 

In 1967, during the six-day war, Israel captured Quneitra. It then became a site of many battles but, except for a brief interlude, remained in Israeli hands until 1974, when a UN-brokered agreement led to an Israeli pullback. Before withdrawing, however, Quneitra was evacuated and systematically destroyed by the Israeli army (based on eyewitness accounts; UN General Assembly resolution 3240 in 1974 condemned Israel's role in its destruction. Israel disputes this account). Many prominent Western reporters, agreeing with the UN and Syrian version of events, saw this as nothing short of an act of wanton brutality — a whole town methodically ransacked, dynamited, and bulldozed.

Rhodri Davies plays the harp in new and unexpected ways, often without plucking the strings. In this performance, set within his installation Room Harp, Davies goes well beyond the convention of playing the harp as a musical instrument, by methodically burning and restringing all 47 strings on a concert pedal harp. He has been interested in the relationship between destruction and creation in sound for many years and in 2008 collaborated with the artist Gustav Metzger, who also participated in AV Festival 10.

 

Biography

Rhodri Davies was born in 1971 in Aberystwyth, Wales and now lives in Gateshead. He plays harp, electric harp, live-electronics and builds wind, water and fire harp installations. His regular groups include: a duo with John Butcher, The Sealed Knot, a trio with David Toop and Lee Patterson, Common Objects, Cranc, a trio with John Tilbury and Michael Duch, SLW and Apartment House. In 2008 he collaborated with the visual artist Gustav Metzger on Self-cancellation, a large-scale event in London and Glasgow. New pieces for harp have been composed for him by: Eliane Radigue, Christian Wolff, Ben Patterson, Alison Knowles, Michael Pisaro, Carole Finer, Mieko Shiomi, Radu Malfatti and Yasunao Tone.

 

Credit

Commissioned by AV Festival 10 and produced in partnership with Hatton Gallery. Supported by Arts Council England.

 

PRESIDIO OF MONTEREY, Calif. -- It was a double Cinderella story for the Presidio of Monterey volleyball championship Jan. 30 and the 229th Military Intelligence Battalion. Fourth-seeded Company D took on the loser's bracket entry, second-seeded Company A, that was a player short for the championship. The Black Sheep methodically won in the required two matches to become champs over Co. D, 25-12, 19-25, 15-6 and 24-13, 10-25, 15-13.

 

Official Presidio of Monterey Web site

 

Official Presidio of Monterey Facebook

 

PHOTO by Steven L. Shepard, Presidio of Monterey Public Affairs.

Catacombs, Montparnasse, Paris

 

I decided that today was a day for going underground, and I set off to Montparnasse to visit the catacombs. These are a vast maze of tunnels under Paris originally used for quarrying the stone out of which the city's main buildings are constructed. In the late 18th Century, the state of the city's churchyards had become so disgusting that the city removed the bones from all of them. They were brought here at night, the carts coming from the centre of the city accompanied by torch-bearing acolytes and priests chanting the requiem Mass. A skull count showed that almost six million corpses were removed in this way. They were buried deep underground, but these people being Parisians the skulls and bones were arranged in a neat and methodical way, a meaningful chaos. Layers of tibia and femurs are crowned by a layer of pelvises and skulls, and so on. Each churchyard was grouped together, and a plaque shows which parish provided the skeletons.

 

The work was interrupted by the French Revolution,which provided plenty more corpses for when the work was resumed. Altogether about a kilometre and a half of tunnels were filled with the remains of dead Parisians, and you can walk through them on a winding route under the streets around Montparnasse station. In fact, this is just a tiny fraction of the tunnels. The catacombs extend for hundreds of kilometres under the city, many of them rarely explored and difficult of access. Because of this, they are regularly broken into by intrepid adventurers, and many legends have grown up about parts of the network. However, my favourite story is one which is true.

 

In 2004, a group of police cadets on a training exercise were given the task of tracking an imaginary criminal in a part of the network which was little known. They got into the system through a manhole, and when they were about a hundred feet underground something rather odd happened. They triggered a motion sensor which set off the sound of barking dogs. Thinking that it was part of the exercise, they headed onwards only to come out into a vast cavern which had been fully equipped as a cinema. An anteroom had been equipped and fully stocked as a bar, and there was also a film storage room. When the cadets reported what they had seen, the electricity board were sent in to work out where the invaders were getting their electricity from. Instead, they found the wires all cut, the equipment removed, and a sign saying 'Don't try to follow us. You'll never find us.'

 

Perhaps the cineastes had got fed up with waiting to get into the system officially, because this was the only place all week that I encountered a serious queue. Worse, I was just in front of a small group of people who talked constantly in very loud voices. She was an American who obviously lived in Paris, and they appeared to be young relatives who'd come to stay. She was taking them down the catacombs, and the price to be paid for this by the poor kids was to suffer her pretentious nonsense. She went on about spirituality, and homeopathy, and psychoanalysis, and the inner energy, and so on. Fair play to the kids, they responded enthusiastically enough.

 

And then she got out some of her stream of consciousness poetry, and started reading it in a loud voice. Well, goodness me. I was put in mind of something the graphic artist Alan Moore said when he was in Hollywood helping turn his 'V for Vendetta' into a film, and he was asked at a director's lunch why he lived in Northampton, England. "Because it keeps me grounded", he replied, and I thought that this was exactly right. It was like the opposite of this pompous woman, although to be fair to her I expect that if I went to live in Paris I would also disappear up my own backside.

 

The catacombs are brilliant, worth every minute of the queuing time, worth every insufferable stream of consciousness adjective. And then I went and did some shopping.

 

You can read my account of my travels at pariswander.blogspot.co.uk.

youtu.be/Spo6hrSm5c0 Full Feature.

 

Starring Edward Kemmer, Sally Fraser, Buddy Baer, Morris Ankrum, Bob Steele, Oliver Blake, Joline Brand, and Billy Dix. Directed by Richard E. Cunha.

Brief Synopsis

After the residents of the small mountain town of Pine Ridge anxiously gather to discuss the mysterious death of local Harold Banks, Sheriff Parker reveals that Banks died from a severe beating, prompting the townspeople to speculate over the recent spate of animal deaths and question whether the tales of an ancient Indian curse may be true. Teenage brother and sister Ann and Charlie Brown scoff at the legends, but Indian Joe declares that if the locals continue to disregard his ancestral burial grounds in Devil's Crag, there will be more violence. After Parker dismisses Joe's warning, a townsman advises the sheriff to question scientific researcher Wayne Brooks, who was seen quarreling with Banks earlier that week. When Parker questions Wayne, however, Wayne insists that he and Banks had a simple disagreement. Soon after, Professor Cleveland and his daughter Janet arrive in town and Wayne recognizes Cleveland as the famous archaeologist whose lectures he attended while in college. Wayne offers the professor his services and at dinner that night Cleveland explains that he and Janet have been searching for the remains of a Spanish conquistador, Vargas, later known as the Diablo Giant, who abandoned the military to hunt for gold in the mountains. Later, Wayne takes Cleveland and Janet to his cabin to show them the artifacts he has unearthed, the most important of which is a live reptile that Wayne believes is centuries old. Cleveland is excited by the reptile's discovery and after piecing together a European crucifix from Wayne's relics, insists that they return to the site where they were found. The next day after Wayne, Janet and Cleveland set up camp at Devil's Crag, Parker arrives and reprimands Wayne for leaving town without his permission. The following morning as Wayne prepares breakfast, he hears a gunshot and discovers Joe nearby. After Wayne explains that he and the Clevelands are searching for ancient artifacts and will respect the Indian burial grounds, Joe thanks him for his honesty, but cautions him that the area is dangerous. Later, Cleveland and Wayne begin a methodical search of the area which continues for several days without success. On their final afternoon, however, Janet detects a metal object underneath an enormous log. Wayne and Cleveland dig under the log and discover an armored helmet, breast plate and several weapons, which Cleveland establishes are of Spanish origin. The men are more excited when they discover a skeleton, and Cleveland returns to camp to catalog the artifacts and begin his scientific paper. That afternoon as a rain storm threatens the site, Wayne finds an ancient axe handle, but is unable to dislodge it from the ground. Wayne returns to the camp, and soon after, the storm breaks and a bolt of lightning strikes near the log. The enormous figure of Vargas, the Diablo Giant, then rises from the ground clutching the axe. The next morning Cleveland and Wayne are stunned to find the axe gone and the ground disturbed. A medallion on the ground confirms Vargas' identity, prompting the men to wonder if the giant, like Wayne's lizard, has returned to life. Later when young Charlie comes by the camp, Cleveland, Wayne and Janet ask him not to reveal their discovery of the Spanish armor, arguing that it will bring townspeople to disturb the site. That evening, Vargas stalks the campsite and when the men discover the armor and medallion missing, they remain on guard. Further down the hill, Charlie frets about leaving Ann alone as he prepares for work, but she assures him she is safe. The following morning, as Wayne tells Cleveland they should report their suspicions of the awakened giant to Parker, the sheriff arrives with the news that Ann has been found brutally murdered. Parker arrests Wayne, claiming that Ann was clutching the Spanish medallion, and reveals that Charlie identified it as the one found by Wayne. Insisting that he is innocent, Wayne suggests that whoever stole the armor and medallion must have killed Ann. Parker agrees to question Joe, but when they find him murdered in his cabin, Parker takes Wayne into Pine Ridge. Cleveland follows them into town and after his departure, Janet is abducted by Vargas. In town, when Parker leaves Wayne unattended in his car momentarily, Cleveland appears and drives Wayne back to Devil's Crag, where the professor reveals that he took a plaster cast of a huge footprint which he believes will confirm that Vargas has returned to life and perpetrated the murders. Parker and the townsmen follow Cleveland and Wayne, but when they learn of Janet's disappearance and hear Cleveland's story about Vargas, they help search for her. Soon the men corner Vargas, and he attacks and kills several before he is wounded and escapes, leaving Janet unhurt. While the injured men are taken back to town, Parker apologizes to Wayne for not believing in his innocence. Charlie asks to help search for Vargas in retaliation for Ann's death, but when Wayne and Parker refuse, sneaks away on his own. Later the sheriff, Wayne and Cleveland hear shots and find Charlie badly wounded . While Parker goes for help, Cleveland remains with Charlie and Wayne pursues Vargas alone. Wayne catches up to Vargas at a windmill and after a brief fight, chases the giant to a bridge across a dam. As Cleveland, Janet and Parker arrive, the wounded Vargas topples off the bridge into the water below.

 

Since my last visit, some knife-psycho has spent hours methodically ripping the coat off the whole tower...

  

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BABUSHKA - SNAPSHOT OF A KILLER (Chapter Six)

  

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Охотник, как охотник

HUNTER AS THE HUNTED

  

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Pavlovsky Posad, East Moscow Oblast

  

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Pausing briefly by the old boathouse in which nestled Sergei's beloved wooden hulled sail boat that he'd hand crafted over the course of his lifetime, now burned and gutted, a sight capable of making her true friend turn in his grave if he'd been afforded such a common courtesy.

  

Sergei's quietly elegant retreat in Pavlovsky Posad, Sixty eight kilometres from Moscow where the Klyazma and Vokhna rivers converged, now resembled a war zone as Tatiana's saddened eyes perused the debris and mayhem left behind by uncaring hands that had ripped through every nook and cranny in an attempt to find or disguise any morsels of information that might be useful once the man himself had been disposed of. Moments and memories shared in the ample grounds now ransacked and desecrated, tears and toil, happiness and love buried beneath the chaos that had reigned down in hands of betrayal and fury.

 

Stepping from the once beautiful stone walled gardens into the main body of the building, Tatiana's heart sank as her eyes witnessed the devastating fall out of the assault. Graffiti daubed walls and human excrement, a staged cacophony of poverty fuelled aggression that left her numb in all respects. The necessity of the act overshadowed Tatiana's natural guilt at sifting through the wreckage of her mentor's life, her eyes saddened by the carnage, and mind fixated with the knowledge that all we are or ever were can be gathered up and categorized into a series of storage boxes in the cold light of day.

 

Broken antique wooden picture frames with photographs shredded by callous fingers and strewn across the sumptuous deep pile carpets, hallway mirrors smashed and hanging by strands of their metal chains, glass shards seated jagged and proud laying siege to delicate flesh, tossed lace lampshades and drawers of emptied items all that was left of the two lives who once shared the space with love and unity. How Sergei's smiling face now haunted her conscience.

  

Tatiana knew the methodical methods utilized by her agency, and despite the feeblest of attempts to disguise the ransacking as mere wanton waste at the hands of opportunist thieves, she could spot the tell tale signs of professionals at work. The clinical precision with which key objects were discarded and destroyed, items left behind that any self respecting crack head could swiftly trade for cash on the black market, precious metals that could be melted down, and the neat pathway through the mayhem left by those trying just a little too hard to fool untrained eyes. Working expeditiously, she examined the minutia of details, searching in the locations only her peers would think to hide documents or clues that might lead her to the root of the betrayal. All the while, the hairs on the back of her neck were raised, a feeling in her gut telling her that something here was not right. No trip wires or booby traps, but the sensation of impending doom which gripped her like a vice.

 

Tatiana's sixth sense told her that, no matter what her eyes and ears were relaying back to her brain, she was not alone in the house, as stealthily she moved room to room, limbs primed, senses heightened all the while. Sniffing the air for subtle tones, she could almost smell the heady aroma of testosterone and adrenalin that coursed through the fibre's of the atmosphere as she examined every cubby hole, eyes and ears on full alert. A subtle indentation in the carpet, a red velvet curtain pulled to one side enough to facilitate watchful eyes on her arrival at the scene. The sound of drawing breath, a heartbeat or murmur, a tiny creak from the wooden floorboards, all were tell tale signs to one so skilful as she.

 

When the attack came, as swift as it was deadly, it was met with pent up aggression, frustration at the loss of her mentor and an inner anger that knew no bounds. The first hostile blows reigned down from above as dropping silently from the loft hatch on the second floor, a diminutive Asian female executed several perfect crescent kicks to Tatiana's legs before she could turn instinctive defence into unbridled attack.

  

Tatiana smiled wryly as she considered the scene like an episode from a Tarantino movie with the stereotyped ninja warrior screeching as she executed jumps and leaps of truly astounding acrobatic finesse. Grabbing her assailants right thrusting fist in her hand, she pulled the woman inwards, connecting with a head butt that instantly broke the attacker's nose. The audible sound of the impact was followed by blood flow and Tatiana's shoulders under the woman's outstretched right arm, which she twisted with enough speed and power to instantly dislocate at the shoulder. A piercing scream was ejected as the attacker was tossed aside like a broken rag doll at the hands of a petulent child, a second attacker entering the fray from her side.

 

Thick set, male Caucasian, one hundred and eighty pounds and sporting an oiled and pristine Beretta 92FS Elite aimed straight at Tatiana's face. Funny how she picked up on those tiny details in the heat of the violent confrontation, as gun oil permeated her nostrils, sparking memories as flashbacks, years of training until she could strip and clean, reassemble and fire her pistol accurately, blindfolded with ease. Instinctively, she turned away from the gun, using the terrified would be assassin as a shield as she hoisted her towards her body, ducking down behind the injured woman as the three rounds fired in quick succession tore into her flesh, killing her in a heartbeat. As the realization of what he had just done registered upon the man's face, Tatiana moved outwards from the dead woman's carcass, pushing her to one side and pulling her knife from the confines of her right boot, tossing it with the precision of a circus knife thrower straight into the man's left shoulder.

  

The man fired a reflex round as he reeled backwards in pain, his right hand still on the trigger and left hand holding the knife at the handle as he quickly pulled it out. Tatiana jumped and rolled to her right, behind the sofa which the attacker now peppered liberally with his Beretta, trying to pick her off through the array of leather, springs and soft stuffing now acting as a shield which exploded into the room like daisy wheel spores on a summer's day. Tatiana pushed her body quickly on all fours, leaping into the kitchen room adjacent to her position.

  

Before she had time to think, the attacker was at the kitchen door, a fresh magazine pushed into place, locked and loaded with a defining clunk as the old one unclipped and found release in the velvet softness of the deep pile carpet. Tatiana came in lower than a snakes belly, and faster than a speeding locomotive, lashing out a carefully aimed foot which buckled the man's left leg and had him falling to the ground as she kicked again and dislodged the pistol from his grip, sending it flying into the air until it eventually came to rest in the corner near the wine fridge which held captive a dozen bottles of exquisite Champagnes.

 

The pair traded jabs and punches as they writhed on the kitchen tiled floor which was cold to the touch as flesh caressed it's sinews and limbs entwined in the deadliest of embraces. The power struggle was fierce and long as trained bodies grappled and groped, finely matched, fingers searching for bodily orifices to use in the game of one one-one-upmanship. Held in a headlock, sweaty palms fighting to contain the venom of her anger, Tatiana briefly broke free with a swift upwards punch to the man's head which allowed her a second to rise before a bony clenched fist impacted squarely with her face, sending her reeling backwards across the floor like a rag doll before she hit the wooden work units that had been pulled apart, their contents strewn across the floor all around her. The seering pain was intense and unrelenting.

 

As the man turned and reached for the pistol, his hand luxuriating in the satisfaction of metallic euphoria as it fell into his hand, Tatiana's eyes and hands were unified in agreement as she gathered up a poultry boning knife that lay near it's peers by the broken wooden Sabatier knife block that had been thrown down during the vigorous search earlier on.

  

A knife versus semi automatic pistol, the flick of the wrist against the sweet expelation of metallic brutality and both parties unleashed their weapons of choice. The boning knife impaled itself deliciously into the man's heart, his eyes temporarily glancing up before they glazed over, his hand caressing the handle as the finality of his last breath dawned upon a troubled mind. Lights out, his carcass crumpling into a heap at Tatiana's feet. But this pro was quick, loosing off a single slug which raced through the air at breakneck speed on a downwards trajectory that ended as it ripped through Tatiana's flesh, pulsating with fire and venom as it expelled through the back of her right arm, just above her elbow. She allowed herself the indulgence of a stunted yelp as the piercing pain came over her, knowing instantly that she needed to compress the exit and entry points and stem the trickle of rich ruby life blood if she was to make good her exit from the scene and live to fight another day.

 

Ripping a section of soft white cotton from the shirt of the dead body lying beneath her, she noted that the wound was relatively clean, the heat of the bullet having practically cauterized the wound in the violence of the act itself. Moving quickly into the living room just to her left, she located the drinks cabinet, glass fronted, a plethora of expensive bottles of varying colour liquids pulled and pushed from the neatness of their original locations, several smashed with carpet stains that lay interfused with aromas and concoctions not yet discovered by the partying elite. A partially opened bottle of Glenfarclas Single Highland Malt fell into her grasp, as, removing the lid with her teeth, spitting it onto the carpet in most unceremonious fashion, Tatiana liberally poured the contents across the small wounds front and back on her arm before wrapping the cloth strip around her flesh with her left hand, tying off the two ends as tight as she could bare before returning to the corpse of the first assailant.

  

Hand rifling through trousers and shirt faster than a pick pocket in Cairo on a summers day, she swiftly moved onto the dead woman's body, coming across a small cardboard envelope in which were housed a series of covert colour photographs that she studied each in turn. Two men, a bland hotel room, friendly handshakes and smiling faces. An outside shot from a French themed bar with figures at a table sipping grandiose coffee, shades on a overcast day, image angled from a distant balcony with a powerful telephoto.

 

Several other images portrayed similar meetings, different clothes, alternate dates, one constant amongst the details. What the hell was Dmitri doing in each of the frames. The final document in the cardboard wallet was a folded piece of white A4 paper detailing dates and transactions from a bank account of sorts. Large figures, reoccurring noughts, regular payments and a fat balance with scribbled observations noting withdrawal amounts and end user accounts in handwriting that Tatiana little recognised.

 

Her ears pricked up at the sound of a vehicle pulling to a less than conventional halt outside the house by the North entrance. Tyres squealing their protest and several doors opening at speed, had her at the window tucked to one side behind the expensive shades, eyes perusing the four burly men who climbed out, high end Italian leather shoes kissing the warm tarmac, hands adjusting jackets behind which sat holsters and guns. Tatiana moved quickly into the hallway, locating a stairwell cupboard in which was located the neat pipework for the gas supply which she loosened until the sound of the escaping gas greeted her ears. Door open, she entered the kitchen and grabbed a thick magazine from the pile thrown all over the floor.

  

In the corner on the worktop, a silver metallic toaster, four slice, pristine like every appliance in the house. Inserting the wall plug into the socket, she flicked on the power, pushed the folded magazines into two of the slots and depressed them as the bars heated to a red glow.

 

Making her way to the opposite door, she headed quickly out, leaving the magazines to begin burning as the intensity of the heat rapidly grew. Directly in her pathway came one of the hoodlums, a smart-ass who had taken the initiative to cut off any exit by the fleeing target. Somewhat taken aback by his fortuitous move, none the less pistol raised and intent obvious as he smiled, relishing the prospect of taking full credit for the kill. Tatiana stopped in her tracks and carefully placed a shell between his eyes without thinking. A gun placed in her weakest of hands was still a match for even the most opportune of opponents. Action and instinct in it's purest form. Placing a shoe soul onto freshly executed flesh, she walked across the dead man and made good her escape.

 

As she made her way from the scene she heard the explosion as the intruders unwittingly entered the front door, allowing oxygen to dance a delicious tango with the flames and gas that rose in the mix. Soon, she was away like a ghost, a million questions on her mind, tainted by doubt and with a need for answers to satisfy her natural curiosity. Behind her, the bodies char grilled like a Sunday afternoon barbecue.

  

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Rewritten in July 2011.

 

Original story penned in August 2010.

 

Photograph taken on May 25th 2011 in the grounds of Scotney Castle, Tunbridge Wells, Kent, England.

 

Nikon D700 50mm 1/125s f/4.0 iso200

 

Nikkor 50mm f/2.8. UV filter. MetaGPS geotag. Latitude: 51 7\'16.65"N Longitude: 0 13\'33.93"E

  

Chief Petty Officer Virgil Carver, a master at arms from Jesup, Ga., checks guard towers and briefs a Force Protection Team member on security updates and ammunition supplies during an attack in Kabul Sept. 13. Insurgents attacked the International Security Assistance Force Afghanistan headquarters and the U.S. Embassy in Kabul on Tuesday with small-arms fire from outside the secure zone surrounding these compounds. Afghan and coalition forces trapped the insurgents in the partially-constructed, multi-story building they were using as a firing position, and conducted a methodical, floor-by-floor clearing operation.

Whenever I find myself growing grim about the mouth; whenever it is a damp, drizzly November in my soul; whenever I find myself involuntarily pausing before coffin warehouses, and bringing up the rear of every funeral I meet; and especially whenever my hypos get such an upper hand of me, that it requires a strong moral principle to prevent me from deliberately stepping into the street, and methodically knocking people's hats off—then, I account it high time to get to sea as soon as I can. This is my substitute for pistol and ball.

 

neparliconheidegger.wordpress.com/

Rajesh Pudota (seated in the foreground and looking at the camera), the skipper, with Uma Shankar Gaddameedi (with a cap), team manager and ex-skipper, and Vikram Velumula (seated in the bg, and looking at the camera) -- all very good players and members of the AllStars team.

 

Rajesh does everything--bowling, batting, fielding, keeping and captaining. And he's bloody good at them all.

 

Uma is good at them all too, but he gave way for a younger Rajesh to captain the side.

 

Vikram is calm and very methodical in everything he does. He once said that the bowling speed of a pacer in the team would be 132kmph. And I got stuck with that for the entire game. 132? Seriously? So precise?

 

Shot on film Olympus OM-4T, G.Zuiko 50mm f/1.4

I have been reading in other directions rather than fiction. Fiction is still there though, starting on Joyce methodically, from his first short story, ‘The Sisters’, opening with a priest dying of syphilis. Looking at research papers too, treatments he took, especially something called ‘Galyl’ which was only ever prescribed as a syphilis treatment, comprising of arsenic and mercury, poisonous stuff. His description, in Ulysses, of European civilization resonates: "Their syphilisation, you mean, says the citizen. To hell withthem! The curse of a goodfornothing God light sideways on the bloody thicklugged sons of whores' gets!".

  

It is leading me in all directions of course, but back somewhat to fiction, our fiction. I am also looking at ‘Pox: Genius, madness, and the mysteries of Syphilis’ by Deborah Hayden, which has completely drawn me in. Last night we watched a 1997 movie about the ‘Tuskegee Syphilis Study’ called ‘Miss Evers’ Boys’. This, of course, can lead down a rabbit-hole relative to research, but it is a place I am far more comfortable in, rather in that place looking at other writers looking for points of style and whatever is 'au Courant' (pretentious moi?) in contemporary literature.

  

Of course, the real curse is shame and the purveyors of the same. I did a little family research over the last few days, relative to that notion of shame, sin, and Catholicism, that mire. I found yet another family member, another of the three priests (all brothers to my ever-loving mother), just defrocked, this year, for groping parishioners and kiddy fiddling. That makes three of her brothers I know of, three pedophiles, two of which were priests, the other being the one that courted yours truly. One, dear Father Eddy, ran out of Tampa and back to Kilmafuckingguddy, or some other awful Irish catholic enclave, chased back by the FBI, where he moved back in with his mammy until she died. You can imagine this makes my blood boil, a little, or at least just enough to make me want to say that there is no ‘shame’ in a sex-related virus, when it has been innocently caught by adults following the irreproachable urging of their natural hormones. The shame is in the workings of repression, and the exploitation of those who have been encouraged into that shame by the agents of abuse themselves.

  

So, I am getting somewhere I want to be. This shamelessness, this honesty, this way of writing that is not about writing itself, but is about an idea, an idea I can put into one word: Shamelessness.

  

It’s about, partially, a type of research, but it’s a brand of research I have been involved in before, with Duchamp and Goya, I mean. So, I want to extend it into a story around my ‘Rack and Ruin’, marrying syphilis and HIV, principally to attack shame and shame-mongers. But this is what I was doing with the ‘Icons’ and with my doctorate. It is all part of the same work.

The grouse moors get methodically burned hence the patterns on the hillside. This is to keep the heather at it's best for feeding the grouse. I think I can see two gravestones on the hillside.

... I begin with the people on Carre Verdi.

 

We met Esther, studiously, methodically and carefully mixing the paint on her palette to capture the right mood and intensity ...

 

To read this post, click on the link below:

 

barcalunacy.blogspot.com/2008/09/carrer-verdi.html

This shot was taken immediately when I got to the track on Friday morning. The pace cars were methodically lined up, morning dew beading off their brightly painted hoods! It was a great opportunity to shoot into that bright morning sun! By cranking up the shutter speed, the sun gave me a high amount of contrast to catch those droplets and the paint scheme hiding below.

The LS is the quintessential top-of-the-line luxury model for the Lexus brand and continues to evolve to satisfy upper echelon automotive connoisseurs. Recently updated with various performance modalities; Takumi craftsmanship (or detailed artisanship build quality); Omotenashi hospitality, an array of preemptive services to cater to customers' needs; and Lexus Driving Signature, a modern design approach to the vehicle’s development and refinement. As a frequent visitor to Nihon (Nippon), aka “The Land of the Rising Sun,” Automotive RHythms can attest firsthand to the methodical philosophies instilled into Japanese engineering. Yet, it is accomplished with a semblance of meditative balance.

PRESIDIO OF MONTEREY, Calif. -- It was a double Cinderella story for the Presidio of Monterey volleyball championship Jan. 30 and the 229th Military Intelligence Battalion. Fourth-seeded Company D took on the loser's bracket entry, second-seeded Company A, that was a player short for the championship. The Black Sheep methodically won in the required two matches to become champs over Co. D, 25-12, 19-25, 15-6 and 24-13, 10-25, 15-13.

 

Official Presidio of Monterey Web site

 

Official Presidio of Monterey Facebook

 

PHOTO by Steven L. Shepard, Presidio of Monterey Public Affairs.

The Old Market in the old town of Salzburg was laid out methodically in the early Middle Ages (13th century) as a trading center.

History

After the marketplace was moved from Waag square to Old Market, once joined the Dairy market and Herb market, the Beet and Cabbage market and the Potter market. It now consists of stately rows of town houses whose core mostly goes back to the Middle Ages, but which, in many cases, are shaped early modern.

Floriani fountain

Main article: Florianibrunnen

In the middle of the Old Market today stands the Market fountain which, as founded on documents, was erected here instead of an old draw well in 1488 as for the first time it was possible to guide water from the mountain Gersberg over the Town bridge to the Old Market.

Buildings at Old Market

Since the late 16th century, also the old prince-archbishopric Court farmacy is located at Old Market. In front of the Old Residence there are the traditional Café Tomaselli and Café/Cake shop Fürst, whose founder creating the Mozart ball. A former town house which now houses the headquarters of the bank Salzburger Sparkasse due to several reconstructions got a facade a bit too fancy for this place. In addition to the Café Tomaselli is located on Old Market 10a also the smallest house in the city of Salzburg.

Name

Between 1873 and 1927 the place was known as Ludwig-Viktor square, after the youngest brother of Emperor Franz Joseph I., Archduke Ludwig Viktor (* 1842, † 1919), who lived from 1861 in Schloss Klessheim.

Other

A nightly Würstlstand (sausage stand) at Old Market is a popular meeting place at a late hour for night owls and visitors of evening events in the old town.

 

Der Alte Markt in der Altstadt von Salzburg wurde im Frühmittelalter (13. Jahrhundert) als Handelsplatz planmäßig angelegt.

Geschichte

Nachdem der Marktplatz vom Waagplatz auf den Alten Markt verlegt wurde, schlossen einst der Milchmarkt und Kräutermarkt, der Rüben- und Krautmarkt und der Hafnermarkt an. Er besteht heute aus stattlichen Zeilen von Bürgerhäusern, deren Kern meist ins Mittelalter reicht, die aber vielfach frühneuzeitlich überprägt sind.

Florianibrunnen

Hauptartikel: Florianibrunnen

In der Mitte des Alten Marktes steht heute der Marktbrunnen, der urkundlich anstelle eines alten Ziehbrunnens 1488 hier errichtet wurde, als erstmals Wasser vom Gersberg über die Stadtbrücke bis zum Alten Markt geleitet werden konnte.

Gebäude am Alten Markt

Seit Ende des 16. Jahrhunderts befindet sich auch die Alte fürsterzbischöfliche Hofapotheke am Alten Markt. Gegenüber der Alten Residenz befinden sich das Traditionscafé Café Tomaselli und die Café-Konditorei Fürst, deren Begründer die Mozart-Kugel kreierte. Ein ehemaliges Bürgerhaus, in dem sich heute die Zentrale der Salzburger Sparkasse befindet, erhielt durch mehrere Umbauten eine etwas zu modern für diesen Platz ausgefallene Fassade. Neben dem Café Tomaselli befindet sich am Alten Markt 10a auch das kleinste Haus der Stadt Salzburg.

Name

Zwischen 1873 und 1927 trug der Platz den Namen Ludwig-Viktor-Platz, nach dem jüngsten Bruder von Kaiser Franz Joseph I., Erzherzog Ludwig Viktor (* 1842, † 1919), der ab 1861 Schloss Kleßheim bewohnte.

Sonstiges

Ein nächtlicher Würstlstand am Alten Markt bildet für Nachtschwärmer oder Besucher von abendlichen Veranstaltungen in der Altstadt einen beliebten Treffpunkt zu später Stunde.

www.salzburg.com/wiki/index.php/Alter_Markt

Black Knights on Patrol

The men and women of Task Force 3-66 are actively patrolling western Paktika province, taking the fight to the insurgents. Since assuming responsibility for the area, the Black Knights have been methodically clearing district after district to allow the provincial government to provide security and development. Western Paktika is essentially a rest stop for insurgents linked to Sirajuddin Haqqani traveling from Pakistan and continuing west. The heat, elevated terrain, and harsh landscape of Paktika province are unforgiving allies of these enemies of Afghanistan. With limited road networks the primary mode of travel here is walking. The relentless training planned and executed by the leaders of Task Force 3-66 back in Germany is now paying off.

 

Further attempts at a more methodical approach to photography (read: tripod, long exposure, landscape shots). Again, I had the polariser on the lens for these river photographs.

via Tumblr ift.tt/1oUhpXv

 

PLEASE READ THIS ENTIRE ENTRY THROUGH AT LEAST ONCE.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

S-I joint pain teaches compulsory lessons in patience,

persistence, and diligence, as you do what it takes

to recover your comfort and freedom of movement.

Be patient — methodical — gentle with yourself.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

CONTENTS

* How to Use This Program/Preparation

* What to Expect

* Units of the Regimen

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

This regimen consists of a series of somatic education exercises done in a specific order. Each exercise title (below) is followed by a link either to a freely-available YouTube video or to a purchase-page for the program containing the exercise. You can purchase either physical media or electronic download.

For downloads, you must use either Firefox or Internet Explorer.

To play downloaded files, you must use a player enabled to play MP4 and MP3 video — RealPlayer, Quicktime, or Microsoft Media Player, all freely available on-line.

You don’t do all the exercises in one sweep (which is why I divide the instructional into units of practice); you do them in units, as described, below.

Each exercise sets changes in motion that progress for some time after practice. Some release you so you can change; some initiate normalization of function; some integrate the changes that have occurred; and some flush up existing problems so you can deal with them by cycling through the regimen.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

As in a cake recipe, no one ingredient constitutes the entire recipe, and there are steps of preparation. A somatic education exercise may be viewed as an ingredient and the regimen is a recipe.

Gentle Spine Waves, given first in the regimen, is such an ingredient and a step of preparation. Do not expect it to relieve your symptoms by itself (although it works for simple back pain); it’s necessary preparation that addresses an element of the pain pattern: back tension.

This regimen came from solving my own problem. I had deep “gluteal” pain (which wasn’t gluteal pain, but referred nerve pain), sciatica-like pain in my right calf, deep waist pain and the other symptoms I describe in my entry on S-I Joint Pain / Pelvic Distress Syndrome.

I started with Gentle Spine Waves — done with respect for my own tolerance. Certain other movement patterns were key and exist in the regimen. The gist of it is to remove forces that simultaneously compress and twist the sacrum in the pelvis or twist the ilium (side-hip bone) in relation to the sacrum. Hence, the regimen’s extensive nature.

The regimen is good, it works, and it’s improving as I continue to develop it.

When I’m satisfied that it’s sufficiently optimized for my taste, I will publish it as a paid program. For now, significant portions of it are freely available.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

PLEASE VIEW THIS VIDEO:http://ift.tt/1kRK2DS

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I recommend this sequence for people who have groin pain that has persisted despite therapy for tight psoas muscles, for testicular pain, vulvar pain, deep pain in the pelvis, deep pain at the waist in back, and pain, numbness, or “lightning like” shooting/burning pain at the side or front of the thighs — symptoms I note in the write-up.

Each exercise produces specific effects, obvious after sufficient repetition and movement-learning, usually one or two practice sessions; you continue with practice until you’ve gotten the full result.. If you don’t feel changes that quickly, either you don’t particularly need that exercise or you were doing it differently than as described in the instructions. People often think they’re doing one thing, while they’re actually doing something different.

The exercises combine like the pieces of a jigsaw puzzle to produce the result. Don’t expect relief from any particular symptom from one exercise until you’ve discovered what changes that exercise produces; you’re dealing with a larger pattern that you must deconstruct and then reconstruct into a healthy pattern. However, you should feel changes in movement and balance from the beginning.

Here’s the regimen:

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

PREPARATION:

How to do somatic exercises well.http://ift.tt/SE1QGL

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

These tutorial videos are advance-notice, pre-publication versions that I’m making available to people in need. Please bear with any aesthetic or technical quality issues until I get the final versions into shape.

SELF-ASSESSMENT

Self-assessment is not optional. It’s required in order to know on which side to do which exercise. You assess yourself each time you do a practice session, and, if you are really meticulous, before and after each exercise.

If you can’t confidently assess yourself, get a therapist to teach you how and to confirm your accuracy; if you feel worse after practice, change sides.

Precede practice of UNIT 1 Spine Waves by Determining Sacral Position.Determining Sacral Position (self-assessment)

Determine which way (left or right/forward-backward) your sacrum is turned to determine which way to do the movements: Start with Leg Forward on the deeper side.Determining the Easier Direction of TwistingUNITS of PRACTICE

1. “Unit 1” (seven cycles, or so)

2. “Unit 1” + “Unit 2”

(subject to personal coaching recommendations)

3. “Unit 1” + “Unit 3”

In YouTube tutorials, read the Description section before proceeding.

Exercises not given in YouTube tutorials are available for purchase as part of a program available by clicking the adjacent link.UNIT 1 | Unlocking the Situation

From those preparatory exercises, expect relaxation and lengthening of the spine and of the whole side worked, feelable as you lie in repose after practice.

Follow the basic guideline: 7 cycles through this unit until you cease to get the improvement stated FOR THAT EXERCISE. Then, move on.A. Gentle Spine Waves

 

FREE: ift.tt/1kRK2U8

 

B. Sidelying Sacral Correction

FREE: ift.tt/SE1QGP

 

Video shows 3 repetitions. When you know the movement without guidance:

Leg forward on the deeper side. (5x)

Leg backward on the deeper side (5x)

Leg forward on the deeper side (5x)

 

C. Gentle Spine Waves (repeat)UNIT 2 | Normalizing Movement

Do one section (A, B, C, D, E, or F) in any ONE practice session.

Do the sections in sequence and do the number of practice sessions indicated for each section before moving to the next. Cycle through the sections.

If a movement is painful to do or produces an adverse effect (i.e., you’re not ready for it), switch to the next section of movements; you will return to the troublesome movements later, when you are more fit for them.SECTION A | two (2) practice sessionsA.1 - Walking into the Floor (from Free Your Psoas) | do the deeper side

PURCHASE: ift.tt/1kRK52r

 

A.2 - Lazy 8s (from Free Yourself from Back Pain) | do the shallower side

PURCHASE: ift.tt/1f4wp02

 

SECTION B | two (2) practice sessionsINSTRUCTIONS: Deeper side up, first, both movements, then shallower side up, both movements.B.1 - Nose in the Hole

FREE: ift.tt/1kRK2Uc

 

B.2 - Cat Stretch Lesson 5, sidelying

FREE: ift.tt/1kRK52s

 

SECTION C | two (2) practice sessions

C - The Twist that Untwists (from Get Free from that Back Pain)

PURCHASE: ift.tt/1f4wp02

 

SECTION D | one (1) practice session

IMPORTANT: Assess your condition before each practice session; start on the correct side. Do the seated assessment procedure shown in video. When you do, visually observe, as well as feel, which leg is easier to move forward and backward. Generally, whichever side of the sacrum was deeper, that leg and hip are more difficult to move backward. To go only by feel may give you inaccurate information, so assess visually, as well as by feel.D.1 - Reciprocity (Reciprocal Movements of the Pelvis and Shoulders)

The Reciprocity movements stir things up.

INSTRUCTIONS:

 

STARTING POSITION: Lying on the DEEPER side (MORE DIFFICULT to move that hip BACKWARD).

 

FREE:

 

sidelying | ift.tt/SE1QGZ

 

sitting | ift.tt/1kRK52u (same as self-assessment

 

Pay full attention to the sensations during movement. After doing the movement a few times, you may notice that it gets “sticky” when you reach a certain position. If you locate such a “sticky” or more painful place, move to the center of the “stickiness” and slowly relax. Begin the movement anew from that position and, EACH TIME, look for the first “sticky” or more painful place you encounter and relax in that position.D.2 - The Wheels of Synchrony (coordinating the pelvic and shoulder girdles)

FREE: ift.tt/1kRK52w

 

SECTION E | two (2) practice sessionsE.1 - Straight and Bent Leg Integation

INTRODUCTION:

 

FREE: ift.tt/1kRK52y

 

INSTRUCTION:

 

FREE: See clickable link at end of the INTRODUCTION video (bookmark/”favorite” the link).

 

E.2 - Three-Way Sidelying Integration (from Free Your Psoas)SECTION F | two (2) practice sessionsF.1 - 4-Way Walking Integration (from Free Your Psoas)F.2 - Freeing and Coordinating the Jaws (advanced jaw movements 1-5)

FREE: ift.tt/SE1OyH

 

After some cumulative/lasting improvement, or when your sacrum seems close to centered or changes position frequently, do the UNIT 3 Centering moves instead of UNIT 2.UNIT 3 | The Centering Moves

You may notice at some point that it becomes difficult to determine which side of the sacrum is deeper or which side moves more easily. This is not the result of lack of skill in self-assessment, but of changes of sacral position. (If you lack the skill to do self-assessment, see your chiropractor or other practitioner and work with him/her to develop that skill until you two agree consistently.)DO BOTH:

Centering the Sacrum

 

FREE: ift.tt/1kRK5iO

 

The Dog Stretch (from Get Free from that Back Pain)

PURCHASE: ift.tt/1f4wp02

 

AFTER EVERY UNIT 2 or UNIT 3 PRACTICE SESSION1. Gentle Spine Waves (5 minutes)2. Side Sway Balancing (one minute)

FREE: ift.tt/1kRK2Ug

 

3. Freeing Hamstrings, Standing Position (three minutes)

FREE: ift.tt/1kRK5iS

 

4. a 10-20 minute walk to integrate the changes

Most practice sessions take about 1/2 hour; some take longer. You may divide practice sessions into two (morning and evening) practice sessions daily.

Once you have been through all Units, you begin this regimen in sequence from the beginning and cycle through the Units until the trouble is entirely gone and you have superior functional freedom.

At that point, do all of Free Your Psoas from the beginning, following the standard practice guidelines. Then, do all of Get Free from That Back Pain from the beginning.

If you get stuck, don’t worry. You get 15 minutes free consultation for each program you purchase. Ongoing coaching or consultation (paid, with a satisfaction guarantee) is available. Please visit ift.tt/1kRK2Uk to schedule.

Lawrence Gold

 

The Institute for Somatic Study and Development

32 Herrada Road

Santa Fe, NM 87508

505 699-8284

You can end your own pain, and more.

Practice somatic education exercises.

You’ll soon feel, “Wow!

Look what I can do now!”

Twitter: @somatic_healing

Facebook (forthcoming)

Blog:

Full-Spectrum Somatics | ift.tt/1kRK5iU

YouTube channel: Lawrence9Gold | ift.tt/KE9yg7

 

Do it for yourself - ift.tt/1ejluPm

 

via Blogger ift.tt/SE1QXx

2012年入選 2012 Selected Work Award

 

陳況豪 / 大台南地區

拍攝動機：

本創作計畫需要採取一種抽離視野的方式，來大量尋找臺灣各處地景或建築風格怪異、差距大的地方，當有系統的呈現，構築出另一個約定俗成後的真實社會，藉由兩邊風格迥異，看似真實卻又超現實的場景、背景，以一種觀光客的凝視，指出照片中人與人、空間之間，如此靠近卻又不熟悉狀態的第三意義。

 

CHEN, KVANG-HAO / Greater Tainan area

Why I Took These Pictures：

My current project involves using an abstracted approach to record any peculiar or unique sceneries and architectural features that catch my eye in all corners of Taiwan, especially ones that offer marked contrasts of style or mood, and then present them in a methodical fashion to construct an alternative image of conventional society by superimposing the unusual and quirky on the commonly perceived reality. The result are apparently “normal” but simultaneously surreal scenes and backgrounds as seen through the gaze of a tourist, revealing how the interaction between people and people, as well as people and spaces, creates both nearness and a feeling of distance and strangeness.

Winner’s Speech:

Rhodri Davies plays the harp in new and unexpected ways, often without plucking the strings. In this performance, set within his installation Room Harp, Davies goes well beyond the convention of playing the harp as a musical instrument, by methodically burning and restringing all 47 strings on a concert pedal harp. He has been interested in the relationship between destruction and creation in sound for many years and in 2008 collaborated with the artist Gustav Metzger, who also participated in AV Festival 10.

 

Biography

Rhodri Davies was born in 1971 in Aberystwyth, Wales and now lives in Gateshead. He plays harp, electric harp, live-electronics and builds wind, water and fire harp installations. His regular groups include: a duo with John Butcher, The Sealed Knot, a trio with David Toop and Lee Patterson, Common Objects, Cranc, a trio with John Tilbury and Michael Duch, SLW and Apartment House. In 2008 he collaborated with the visual artist Gustav Metzger on Self-cancellation, a large-scale event in London and Glasgow. New pieces for harp have been composed for him by: Eliane Radigue, Christian Wolff, Ben Patterson, Alison Knowles, Michael Pisaro, Carole Finer, Mieko Shiomi, Radu Malfatti and Yasunao Tone.

 

Credit

Commissioned by AV Festival 10 and produced in partnership with Hatton Gallery. Supported by Arts Council England.

 

My fairly methodical pursuit of Chinese restaurants continued today on the Isle of Sheppey when I was able to include them in my list of subjects.

 

Choi's is in High Street, Sheerness.

 

P1180926

Great addition to my library. Five stars!

www.ebay.com/itm/Russian-Sambo-Mikhail-Martynov-Methodica...

kfvideo.ru/

kfvideo.com/

 

Mikhail Martynov. Methodical exercises and tasks for sambists.

 

In this film, Mikhail Martynov shows preparatory exercises for sambo wrestling techniques. You will see additional tasks that help to study the techniques of sambo wrestling. These exercises are easy to perform on the gym, on the warm-up, at home. You will see exercises with a sambist belt, with a sambist jacket. The film shows the exercises for the following throws: Inner thigh reaping, action "bychok", Forward undercut throw, reverse grip and back leg-show , throw over the back, throw over the thigh. On the basis of the exercises shown, you can develop your own variants of tasks and make a training plan.

 

European Sambo Championship 2012. The best throws.

 

In this film you will see a collection of the best throws of the 2012 European Sambo Championship, held in Moscow. All techniques are combined in the following groups: throws with leg clinch at (popliteal bend, heel clinch, two legs takedown), hooks (front, under the heel, at the pace of steps, from the inside), over the back, over the shoulder (from the standing position, from the knees ), "wind mill" (from the standing position, from the knees), "bychok", over the thigh, over the chest, side fall over, over the head, grip hook from the inside, back leg-show, hook from the inside, hook the shin from the outside, "scissors", throw the "twisting", "walking around." Each technique is repeated several times. This is an excellent tool for the study of Sambo wrestling techniques.

 

Product Features

 

Standard PAL DVD.

Region Code DVD: 0/All

Production Kallista Film. Russia.

Autor Pavlov D. Martynov M.

Release year 2019

Direction Technique of Sambo..

Delivery Russian mail anywhere in the world.

Payment PayPal

Duration 64 min.

Filming location Russia. Moscow.

Language Russian.English subtitlings

The streets of Barcelona are exploding with color and life, and a large part of the charm are the numerous performing artists which crowd the Ramblas passageway, impressing with their imagination, focus, concentration and inventiveness. This is the first of what will surely be many shots - killing time between rehearsals, I watched this man methodically paint his face and don his costume to BECOME Edward Scissorhands. The talent is really extraordinary!

By Bonitta Best Special to the Journal

DURHAM — Winston-Salem State went into Saturday's CIAA Championship Game with nothing to lose. And for a while, the Rams played like they were going to lose.

But the team came up with the big plays when it counted to defeat Bowie State 17-14 before a near sellout crowd at Durham County Stadium.

Kicker Will Johnson nailed a 23-yard field goal with 2 seconds left to give the Rams the come-from-behind victory. It is just the second time in CIAA championship history a game was decided by a field goal. The win is the Rams' third league title since 2011 and 11th overall.

“We’ve been playing in spurts all year long, but we finally saved our best game for last,” said coach Kienus Boulware of Winston-Salem State. “We played the old Rams defense today, and the team that we were looking for all season came to play.”

Redshirt freshman quarterback Rod Tinsley Jr. completed 15 of 27 passes for 175 yards and one touchdown, but, most importantly, no interceptions.

Tinsley led the Rams on their final drive from their 19-yard line down to the Bowie 6 that set up Johnson’s winning field goal. Senior running back Tyree Massey, who came up 57 yards short of reaching 1,000 for the season, converted on a big third-and-9 with a 12-yard run up the middle to keep the drive going.

“People doubted us all season,” said Tinsley, who was named the game’s co-MVP. “It was a hard-fought game, but we wanted to show everybody that we could do it, and we put it all together.”

Bowie State scored first on a methodical, 20-play, 86-yard drive that used up 6 minutes, 38 seconds. The drive was helped along by a fake punt on foiurth-and-7. Punter Christopher Palmer rumbled 13 yards for a first down to keep the drive alive. Quarterback Nyema Washington scored from the Rams' 1 on a sneak to put the Bulldogs up 7-0.

Both offenses stalled with a combined seven straight punts between them until Washington found wide receiver Kerrick Pollock with a 64-yard TD strike for a 14-0 lead with 1:19 left in the half.

But the Rams' offense found life. Tinsley led WSSU on a four-play, 75-yard drive in just 1:04 that culminated in Massey’s 4-yard run.

After going scoreless in the third quarter, WSSU started its rally in the fourth quarter. Starting at the Bulldogs' 45, Tinsley hit wide receiver Reggie Wilkins twice: the first for 25 yards and the second a 20-yard touchdown pass.

Meanwhile, WSSU’s defense kept the pressure on Washington. The Rams sacked Washington six times, the final one coming to force a Bowie State punt that set up the Rams’ winning drive.

“The defense played our best game all year,” said All-CIAA defensive end Michael Bloomfield, who finished the game with six tackles, five for loss of 19 yards, and four sacks. “We love being the underdog. This is the Winston-Salem State Rams Bowl game now.”

For Bowie State, it was a sad déjà vu. The Bulldogs lost the 2005 CIAA Championship to N.C. Central 26-23 on a last-second field goal.

“We didn’t do a good job of finishing plays,” said coach Damon Wilson, whose team is ranked No. 2 in Super Region 1. “They made the plays at the end, and we didn’t.”

WSSU 0 7 0 10 — 17

Bowie State 0 14 0 0 — 14

BSU – TD Nyema Washington 1 run (Christopher Palmer kick)

BSU – TD Kerrick Pollock 63 pass from Washington (Palmer kick)

WSSU – TD Tyree Massey 4 run (Will Johnson kick)

WSSU – TD Reggie Wilkins 20 pass from Rod Tinsley (Johnson kick)

WSSU – FG Johnson 23 FG

Attendance: 4,577

"So I caught this fish and it was this big!"

  

Cornell Labs:

(www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/American_White_Pelican/id)

 

Pelecanus erythrorhynchos

ORDER: PELECANIFORMES

FAMILY: PELECANIDAE

 

One of the largest North American birds, the American White Pelican is majestic in the air. The birds soar with incredible steadiness on broad, white-and-black wings. Their large heads and huge, heavy bills give them a prehistoric look. On the water they dip their pouched bills to scoop up fish, or tip-up like an oversized dabbling duck. Sometimes, groups of pelicans work together to herd fish into the shallows for easy feeding. Look for them on inland lakes in summer and near coastlines in winter.

 

Size & Shape:

A huge waterbird with very broad wings, a long neck, and a massive bill that gives the head a unique, long shape. They have thick bodies, short legs, and short, square tails. During the breeding season, adults grow an unusual projection or horn on the upper mandible near the tip of the bill.

 

Color Pattern:

Adult American White Pelicans are snowy white with black flight feathers visible only when the wings are spread. A small patch of ornamental feathers on the chest can become yellow in spring. The bill and legs are yellow-orange. Immatures are mostly white as well, but the head, neck, and back are variably dusky.

 

Behavior:

American White Pelicans feed from the water’s surface, dipping their beaks into the water to catch fish and other aquatic organisms. They often upend, like a very large dabbling duck, in this process. They do not plunge-dive the way Brown Pelicans do. They are superb soarers (they are among the heaviest flying birds in the world) and often travel long distances in large flocks by soaring. When flapping, their wingbeats are slow and methodical.

 

Habitat:

American White Pelicans typically breed on islands in shallow wetlands in the interior of the continent. They spend winters mainly on coastal waters, bays, and estuaries, or a little distance inland.

   

collection of the artist- I did quite a few of this series, my hill was rendered with a brush I made from a whisk broom. My facture,the back and forth, methodical yet vigorous arc like scratch work to gradually build up the surface of the hill, embeds a residual energy into these pieces. The same thing could be said for the pallet knife work in some of my other Hill Series work, but that tool when used for application of the pigment cause's a more random and given to chance build up... integrating "coincidence" into the working method.

PRESIDIO OF MONTEREY, Calif. -- It was a double Cinderella story for the Presidio of Monterey volleyball championship Jan. 30 and the 229th Military Intelligence Battalion. Fourth-seeded Company D took on the loser's bracket entry, second-seeded Company A, that was a player short for the championship. The Black Sheep methodically won in the required two matches to become champs over Co. D, 25-12, 19-25, 15-6 and 24-13, 10-25, 15-13.

 

Official Presidio of Monterey Web site

 

Official Presidio of Monterey Facebook

 

PHOTO by Steven L. Shepard, Presidio of Monterey Public Affairs.

Catacombs, Montparnasse, Paris

 

I decided that today was a day for going underground, and I set off to Montparnasse to visit the catacombs. These are a vast maze of tunnels under Paris originally used for quarrying the stone out of which the city's main buildings are constructed. In the late 18th Century, the state of the city's churchyards had become so disgusting that the city removed the bones from all of them. They were brought here at night, the carts coming from the centre of the city accompanied by torch-bearing acolytes and priests chanting the requiem Mass. A skull count showed that almost six million corpses were removed in this way. They were buried deep underground, but these people being Parisians the skulls and bones were arranged in a neat and methodical way, a meaningful chaos. Layers of tibia and femurs are crowned by a layer of pelvises and skulls, and so on. Each churchyard was grouped together, and a plaque shows which parish provided the skeletons.

 

The work was interrupted by the French Revolution,which provided plenty more corpses for when the work was resumed. Altogether about a kilometre and a half of tunnels were filled with the remains of dead Parisians, and you can walk through them on a winding route under the streets around Montparnasse station. In fact, this is just a tiny fraction of the tunnels. The catacombs extend for hundreds of kilometres under the city, many of them rarely explored and difficult of access. Because of this, they are regularly broken into by intrepid adventurers, and many legends have grown up about parts of the network. However, my favourite story is one which is true.

 

In 2004, a group of police cadets on a training exercise were given the task of tracking an imaginary criminal in a part of the network which was little known. They got into the system through a manhole, and when they were about a hundred feet underground something rather odd happened. They triggered a motion sensor which set off the sound of barking dogs. Thinking that it was part of the exercise, they headed onwards only to come out into a vast cavern which had been fully equipped as a cinema. An anteroom had been equipped and fully stocked as a bar, and there was also a film storage room. When the cadets reported what they had seen, the electricity board were sent in to work out where the invaders were getting their electricity from. Instead, they found the wires all cut, the equipment removed, and a sign saying 'Don't try to follow us. You'll never find us.'

 

Perhaps the cineastes had got fed up with waiting to get into the system officially, because this was the only place all week that I encountered a serious queue. Worse, I was just in front of a small group of people who talked constantly in very loud voices. She was an American who obviously lived in Paris, and they appeared to be young relatives who'd come to stay. She was taking them down the catacombs, and the price to be paid for this by the poor kids was to suffer her pretentious nonsense. She went on about spirituality, and homeopathy, and psychoanalysis, and the inner energy, and so on. Fair play to the kids, they responded enthusiastically enough.

 

And then she got out some of her stream of consciousness poetry, and started reading it in a loud voice. Well, goodness me. I was put in mind of something the graphic artist Alan Moore said when he was in Hollywood helping turn his 'V for Vendetta' into a film, and he was asked at a director's lunch why he lived in Northampton, England. "Because it keeps me grounded", he replied, and I thought that this was exactly right. It was like the opposite of this pompous woman, although to be fair to her I expect that if I went to live in Paris I would also disappear up my own backside.

 

The catacombs are brilliant, worth every minute of the queuing time, worth every insufferable stream of consciousness adjective. And then I went and did some shopping.

 

You can read my account of my travels at pariswander.blogspot.co.uk.

Firefighter Rob Snyder uses a drip torch to ignite the Willis Project Area training range’s dry grass in a slow, methodical manner on April 22, 2021. Removing this hazardous, dry vegetation in the spring when conditions are moderated allows for the greatest degree of control and produces less smoke and burns for a much shorter duration than a wildfire. Photo by Graham Worley-Hood, BLM AFS

Steve and Kaylan considers a Massimo Vitali print.

 

I attended this year’s Look3 photography conference (a festival/conference that celebrates the work of documentary photography/photojournalism and those behind the images). To hang around a large group of people who dedicate their lives to telling visual stories is a powerful experience. To do so with deeply thoughtful image maker friends beside you is even more so. This blog is titled “The Process of Remember” for a specific reason. It is a way for me to remember my personal journey on this earth in a meaningful and methodical way with a deliberate slowness of pace that allows me time to soak in more deeply things past that I would rather soon not forget. Look3 was one of those moments in my life. So perhaps for the next month, this page will be used as a daily vehicle allowing me to patiently practice the process of remembering. These images are a collection of my vision and feelings from the past several days.

 

To kick off my Look3 posts, I feel it appropriate to start with a picture of my friend Kaylan (click here to see it). Her strong, pretty and complicated look/expression feels like the perfect symbol of what this festival is all about---that more often than not, thoughtful image makers have a way for expressing more than a simple set of information in a picture. The truth that images have the potential to say a great deal more to us than a simple recording of history.

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- President Bush and his top aides publicly made 935 false statements about the security risk posed by Iraq in the two years following September 11, 2001, according to a study released Tuesday by two nonprofit journalism groups.

 

"In short, the Bush administration led the nation to war on the basis of erroneous information that it methodically propagated and that culminated in military action against Iraq on March 19, 2003," reads an overview of the examination, conducted by the Center for Public Integrity and its affiliated group, the Fund for Independence in Journalism.

 

According to the study, Bush and seven top officials -- including Vice President Dick Cheney, former Secretary of State Colin Powell and then-National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice -- made 935 false statements about Iraq during those two years.

 

The study was based on a searchable database compiled of primary sources, such as official government transcripts and speeches, and secondary sources -- mainly quotes from major media organizations. See CNN viewers' reactions to the study »

 

The study says Bush made 232 false statements about Iraq and former leader Saddam Hussein's possessing weapons of mass destruction, and 28 false statements about Iraq's links to al Qaeda.

 

Bush has consistently asserted that at the time he and other officials made the statements, the intelligence community of the U.S. and several other nations, including Britain, believed Hussein had weapons of mass destruction.

 

He has repeatedly said that despite the intelligence flaws, removing Hussein from power was the right thing to do.

 

Former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and Press Secretary Ari Fleischer each made 109 false statements, it says. Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz made 85, Rice made 56, Cheney made 48 and Scott McLellan, also a press secretary, made 14, the study says.

 

"It is now beyond dispute that Iraq did not possess any weapons of mass destruction or have meaningful ties to al Qaeda," the report reads, citing multiple government reports, including those by the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, the 9/11 Commission and the multinational Iraq Survey Group, which reported that Hussein had suspended Iraq's nuclear program in 1991 and made little effort to revive it.

 

The overview of the study also calls the media to task, saying most media outlets didn't do enough to investigate the claims.

 

"Some journalists -- indeed, even some entire news organizations -- have since acknowledged that their coverage during those prewar months was far too deferential and uncritical," the report reads. "These mea culpas notwithstanding, much of the wall-to-wall media coverage provided additional, 'independent' validation of the Bush administration's false statements about Iraq."

  

The quotes in the study include an August 26, 2002, statement by Cheney to the national convention of the Veterans of Foreign Wars.

 

"Simply stated, there is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction," Cheney said. "There is no doubt he is amassing them to use against our friends, against our allies, and against us."

www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/01/23/bush.iraq/index.html

  

U.S. Forces Afghanistan service members maintain security and return fire as rain falls during an attack Sept. 13 that lasted into the early morning hours. Insurgents attacked the International Security Assistance Force Afghanistan headquarters and the U.S. Embassy in Kabul Sept. 13 with small-arms fire from outside the secure zone surrounding these compounds. Afghan and coalition forces trapped the insurgents in the partially-constructed, multi-story building they were using as a firing position, and conducted a methodical, floor-by-floor clearing operation.

Sint Bavokerk in Haarlem, the Netherlands. It became the main church of Haarlem in the 1400's, and its organ is one of the great Organs of the world. When the organ was completed in 1738, it was the largest organ in the world. Famous composers like Mendelssohn, Handel, andMozart played on the Haarlem organ. Herman_Melville had this to say about it in Moby Dick:

 

"Seeing all these colonnades of bone so methodically ranged about, would you not think you were inside of the great Haarlem organ, and gazing upon its thousand pipes?"

methodical

I have no idea how many times I've flown over this spot. It's on a major jetway from SoCal to the east, so I'm constantly criss crossing the skies above it. Each and every time I'm pissed off thinking about all you photographers down there grabbing the good light. If I'm having a lucky day I'll create a big nasty contrail for you. I always try to time my bathroom breaks such that I'm doing work right as we cross over the Kofa range so I can try to drop a big chunk of blue ice on your asses.. Then I went to visit the Kofa's for myself and I couldn't BELIEVE that they didn't shut down air traffic over the region for me. The nerve! So we had a sunrise with nothing but HELLA nasty contrails. I finally just gave up, stacked as many ND's as I could on lens, and went for a several minute exposure just as the sun was rising. I would like to say that I had carefully planned this composition and was sitting on it waiting for the light, but I was running around this region like an absolute butthead trying to find something cohesive. I was running out of time, so this is where my tripod ended up. Fast forward to the evening. After a long day of scouting and picking cholla quills out of Breezy's ass (see other story on Medusa), the light started to fade and a gorgeous sunset ensued. As is typical, it was happening in ALL the wrong directions. So there I go again, running around like crazy trying to come up with something facing the best light. If waddling was a sport I would be an Olympic athlete. I waddled over hill and dale, through cactus, over cactus, through brush so thick I couldn't see my shoes. Waddled up hills, down hills, around the back of this mountain range, up one side and down the other. I probably did 3-4 miles of random criss crossing waddling during the golden hour and twilight. As is typical, I came home with nothing for the effort. Except for a MAJOR problem. I got ready to hoof it back to the rental car so reached into my camera bag to grab the keys.... which were not where I usually leave them. Huh. I must have put them in my pocket? Nope. Despite the desert cold starting to settle over the evening, I noticed a small bead of sweat on my forehead. I turned on my flashlight and started to methodically rip my bag apart. I'm trained to handle emergency and crisis, so naturally I had crap flying everywhere as absolute panic set in. No matter how you sliced it, the keys were gone. They were not in my bag, and they were not in any of my pockets. I swept my flashlight around the landscape and realized that they must have fallen out somewhere in my mad waddling. If you've been to this region, you know that it's an absolute MESS of cactus, brush, rocks, holes, hills, pits, and washes. And I had run across ALL of it. What was going to happen next began to work its way into my mind. We were probably 10 miles from a main road, and getting to this area is no picnic. I had no cell service. It was getting cold and my coat was locked safely in the car. NOBODY comes up here. Oh, and I had rented the car in San Diego, 4+ hours away. I could imagine that the only people who were going to be less happy about this than me were the folks at Budget. I had absolutely no idea what to do. I was now fully sweating, but I figured I had better save my strength for the 10 mile hike back to the road in the middle of the night that I was looking at having to make with no food and very limited water. Then it got worse. Much MUCH worse. It's one thing when your bone headedness screws up your day. It's another thing entirely when your bone headedness screws up someone ELSE's day. I was going to have to tell Breezy that the next 24 hours was going to go VERY differently than planned. We had bonded over the cactus in ass situation, and I felt closer to him than every before, which was just going to make my confession harder. After a mile hike I found him, happily shooting stars over the mountain range not far from where this image was made. "You get that light, Son??!!" He asked. I felt the sick rise up in my stomach. He was so free and gleeful, blissfully unaware of the horrific fate which I was about to bestow upon him. I could barely get the words out. "We are totally Effed, Son. I don't know what to tell you. I'm just sick". "What happened?" he asked. How could he be so calm? Oh yeah, because he thinks my memory card is full or something stupid. Not that we are about to become snake and coyote food. "Dude. Just.... Dude. I lost the keys. They fell out of my pocket somewhere out there" I swept my arm across the landscape for dramatic effect. "What?" He asked. Clearly he was in shock. "Dude, you gave me the keys like 3 hours ago when I went to put my hoodie back in the car." *Blink. Blink.* "Oh yeah........" via 500px ift.tt/1qSoyVd

Deliberate, methodical, and precise Jiu Jitsu technique

The water buffalo or domestic Asian water buffalo (Bubalus bubalis) is a large bovid originating in South Asia, Southeast Asia, and China. Today, it is also found in Europe, Australia, and some American countries. The wild water buffalo (Bubalus arnee) native to Southeast Asia is considered a different species, but most likely represents the ancestor of the domestic water buffalo.

 

Two extant types of water buffalo are recognized based on morphological and behavioural criteria – the river buffalo of South Asia and further west to the Balkans, Egypt, and Italy, and the swamp buffalo, found from Assam in the west through Southeast Asia to the Yangtze valley of China in the east. The origins of the domestic water buffalo types are debated, although results of a phylogenetic study indicate that the swamp type may have originated in China and was domesticated about 4,000 years ago, while the river type may have originated from India and was domesticated about 5,000 years ago. Water buffalo were traded from the Indus Valley Civilisation to Mesopotamia, in modern Iraq, 2500 BC by the Meluhhas. The seal of a scribe employed by an Akkadian king shows the sacrifice of water buffalo.

 

At least 130 million domestic water buffalo exist, and more human beings depend on them than on any other domestic animal. They are especially suitable for tilling rice fields, and their milk is richer in fat and protein than that of dairy cattle. The large feral population of northern Australia became established in the late 19th century, and smaller feral herds are in New Guinea, Tunisia, and northeastern Argentina. Feral herds are also present in New Britain, New Ireland, Irian Jaya, Papua New Guinea, Colombia, Guyana, Suriname, Brazil, and Uruguay.

 

CHARACTERISTICS

The skin of river buffalo is black, but some specimens may have dark, slate-coloured skin. Swamp buffalo have a grey skin at birth, but become slate blue later. Albinoids are present in some populations. River buffalo have comparatively longer faces, smaller girths, and bigger limbs than swamp buffalo. Their dorsal ridges extend further back and taper off more gradually. Their horns grow downward and backward, then curve upward in a spiral. Swamp buffalo are heavy-bodied and stockily built; the body is short and the belly large. The forehead is flat, the eyes prominent, the face short, and the muzzle wide. The neck is comparatively long, and the withers and croup are prominent. A dorsal ridge extends backward and ends abruptly just before the end of the chest. Their horns grow outward, and curve in a semicircle, but always remain more or less on the plane of the forehead. The tail is short, reaching only to the hocks. Height at withers is 129–133 cm for males, and 120–127 cm for females. They range in weight from 300–550 kg, but weights of over 1,000 kg have also been observed.

 

Tedong bonga is a black pied buffalo featuring a unique black and white colouration that is favoured by the Toraja of Sulawesi.

 

The swamp buffalo has 48 chromosomes; the river buffalo has 50 chromosomes. The two types do not readily interbreed, but fertile offspring can occur. Buffalo-cattle hybrids have not been observed to occur, and the embryos of such hybrids do not reach maturity in laboratory experiments.

 

The rumen of the water buffalo has important differences from that of other ruminants. It contains a larger population of bacteria, particularly the cellulolytic bacteria, lower protozoa, and higher fungi zoospores. In addition, higher rumen ammonia nitrogen (NH4-N) and higher pH have been found as compared to those in cattle

 

ECOLOGY AND BEHAVIOR

River buffalo prefer deep water. Swamp buffalo prefer to wallow in mudholes which they make with their horns. During wallowing, they acquire a thick coating of mud. Both are well adapted to a hot and humid climate with temperatures ranging from 0 °C in the winter to 30 °C and greater in the summer. Water availability is important in hot climates, since they need wallows, rivers, or splashing water to assist in thermoregulation. Some breeds are adapted to saline seaside shores and saline sandy terrain.

 

DIET

Water buffalo thrive on many aquatic plants and during floods, will graze submerged, raising their heads above the water and carrying quantities of edible plants. They eat reeds (quassab), a giant reed (birdi), a kind of bulrush (kaulan), water hyacinth, and marsh grasses. Some of these plants are of great value to local peoples. Others, such as water hyacinth, are a major problem in some tropical valleys, and water buffalo may help to keep waterways clear.

 

Green fodders are used widely for intensive milk production and for fattening. Many fodder crops are conserved as hay, chaffed, or pulped. Fodders include alfalfa, berseem and bancheri, the leaves, stems or trimmings of banana, cassava, fodder beet, halfa, ipil-ipil and kenaf, maize, oats, pandarus, peanut, sorghum, soybean, sugarcane, bagasse, and turnips. Citrus pulp and pineapple wastes have been fed safely to buffalo. In Egypt, whole sun-dried dates are fed to milk-buffalo up to 25% of the standard feed mixture.

 

REPRODUCTION

Swamp buffalo generally become reproductive at an older age than river breeds. Young males in Egypt, India, and Pakistan are first mated at about 3.0–3.5 years of age, but in Italy

 

they may be used as early as 2 years of age. Successful mating behaviour may continue until the animal is 12 years or even older. A good river male can impregnate 100 females in a year. A strong seasonal influence on mating occurs. Heat stress reduces libido

 

Although buffalo are polyoestrous, their reproductive efficiency shows wide variation throughout the year. Buffalo cows exhibit a distinct seasonal change in displaying oestrus, conception rate, and calving rate. The age at first oestrus of heifers varies between breeds from 13–33 months, but mating at the first oestrus is often infertile and usually deferred until they are 3 years old. Gestation lasts from 281–334 days, but most reports give a range between 300 and 320 days. Swamp buffalo carry their calves for one or two weeks longer than river buffalo. It is not rare to find buffalo that continue to work well at the age of 30, and instances of a working life of 40 years are recorded.

 

TAXONOMIC HISTORY

Carl Linnaeus first described the genus Bos and the water buffalo under the binomial Bubalis bubalus in 1758; the latter was known to occur in Asia and as a domestic form in Italy. Ellerman and Morrison-Scott treated the wild and domestic forms of the water buffalo as conspecifics whereas others treated them as different species. The nomenclatorial treatment of wild and domestic forms has been inconsistent and varies between authors and even within the works of single authors.

 

In March 2003, the International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature achieved consistency in the naming of wild and domestic water buffalo by ruling that the scientific name Bubalus arnee is valid for the wild form. B. bubalis continues to be valid for the domestic form and applies also to feral populations.

 

DOMESTICATION AND BREEDING

Water buffalo were domesticated in India about 5000 years ago, and in China about 4000 years ago. Two types are recognized, based on morphological and behavioural criteria – the river buffalo of the Indian subcontinent and further west to the Balkans and Italy, and the swamp buffalo, found from Assam in the west through Southeast Asia to the Yangtze valley of China in the east. The present-day river buffalo is the result of complex domestication processes involving more than one maternal lineage and a significant maternal gene flow from wild populations after the initial domestication events. Twenty-two breeds of the river type water buffalo are known, including Murrah, Nili-Ravi, Surti, Jafarabadi, Anatolian, Mediterranean, and Egyptian buffalo. China has a huge variety of buffalo genetic resources, comprising 16 local swamp buffalo breeds in various regions.

 

Results of mitochondrial DNA analyses indicate that the two types were domesticated independently. Sequencing of cytochrome b genes of Bubalus species implies that the domestic buffalo originated from at least two populations, and that the river and the swamp types have differentiated at the full species level. The genetic distance between the two types is so large that a divergence time of about 1.7 million years has been suggested. The swamp type was noticed to have the closest relationship with the tamaraw.

 

DISTRIBUTION OF POPULATIONS

The water buffalo population in the world is about 172 million.

 

IN ASIA

More than 95.8% of the world population of water buffalo are found in Asia including both river and swamp types. The water buffalo population in India numbered over 97.9 million head in 2003, representing 56.5% of the world population. They are primarily of the river type, with 10 well-defined breeds comprising Badhawari, Murrah, Nili-Ravi, Jafarabadi, Marathwada, Mehsana, Nagpuri, Pandharpuri, Toda, and Surti. Swamp buffalo occur only in small areas in the north-eastern part of the country and are not distinguished into breeds.

 

In 2003, the second-largest population lived in China, with 22.759 million head, all of the swamp type with breeds kept only in the lowlands, and other breeds kept only in the mountains; as of 2003, 3.2 million swamp-type carabao buffalo were in the Philippines, nearly three million swamp buffalo were in Vietnam, and 772,764 buffalo were in Bangladesh. About 750,000 head were estimated in Sri Lanka in 1997.

 

The water buffalo is the main dairy animal in Pakistan, with 23.47 million head in 2010. Of these, 76% are kept in the Punjab. The rest of them are mostly in the province of Sindh. Breeds used are Nili-Ravi, Kundi, and Azi Kheli. Karachi has the largest population of water buffalos for an area where fodder is not grown, consisting of 350,000 head kept mainly for milking.

 

In Thailand, the number of water buffalo dropped from more than 3 million head in 1996 to less than 1.24 million head in 2011. Slightly over 75% of them are kept in the country's northeastern region. The statistics also indicate that by the beginning of 2012, less than one million were in the country, partly as a result of illegal shipments to neighboring countries where sales prices are higher than in Thailand.

 

Water buffalo are also present in the southern region of Iraq, in the marshes. These marshes were drained by Saddam Hussein in 1991 in an attempt to punish the south for the uprisings of 1991. Following 2003, and the fall of the Saddam regime, these lands were reflooded and a 2007 report in the provinces of Maysan and Thi Qar shows a steady increase in the number of water buffalo. The report puts the number at 40,008 head in those two provinces.

 

IN EUROPE AND THE MEDITERRANEAN

Water buffalo likely were introduced to Europe from India or other Oriental countries. To Italy they were introduced about the year 600 in the reign of the Longobard King Agilulf. As they appear in the company of wild horses, they probably were a present from the Khan of the Avars, a Turkic nomadic tribe that dwelt near the Danube River at the time. Sir H. Johnston knew of a herd of water buffalo presented by a King of Naples to the Bey of Tunis in the mid-19th century that had resumed the feral state in northern Tunis.

 

European buffalo are all of the river type and considered to be of the same breed named Mediterranean buffalo. In Italy, the Mediterranean type was particularly selected and is called Mediterranean Italian breed to distinguish it from other European breeds, which differ genetically. Mediterranean buffalo are also found in Romania, Bulgaria, Greece, Albania, Kosovo, and the Republic of Macedonia, with a few hundred in the United Kingdom, Germany, the Netherlands, Switzerland, and Hungary. Little exchange of breeding buffalo has occurred among countries, so each population has its own phenotypic features and performances. In Bulgaria, they were crossbred with the Indian Murrah breed, and in Romania, some were crossbred with Bulgarian Murrah. Populations in Turkey are of the Anatolian buffalo breed.

 

IN AUSTRALIA

Between 1824 and 1849, water buffalo were introduced into the Northern Territory from Timor, Kisar, and probably other islands in the Indonesian archipelago. In 1886, a few milking types were brought from India to Darwin. They have been the main grazing animals on the subcoastal plains and river basins between Darwin and Arnhem Land since the 1880s. In the early 1960s, an estimated population of 150,000 to 200,000 buffalo were living in the plains and nearby areas.

 

They became feral and are causing significant environmental damage. Buffalo are also found in the Top End. As a result, they were hunted in the Top End from 1885 until 1980. The commencement of the brucellosis and tuberculosis campaign (BTEC) resulted in a huge culling program to reduce buffalo herds to a fraction of the numbers that were reached in the 1980s. The BTEC was finished when the Northern Territory was declared free of the disease in 1997. Numbers dropped dramatically as a result of the campaign, but have since recovered to an estimated 150,000 animals across northern Australia in 2008.

 

During the 1950s, buffalo were hunted for their skins and meat, which was exported and used in the local trade. In the late 1970s, live exports were made to Cuba and continued later into other countries. Buffalo are now crossed with riverine buffalo in artificial insemination programs, and may be found in many areas of Australia. Some of these crossbreds are used for milk production. Melville Island is a popular hunting location, where a steady population up to 4,000 individuals exists. Safari outfits are run from Darwin to Melville Island and other locations in the Top End, often with the use of bush pilots. The horns, which can measure up to a record of 3.1 m tip-to-tip, are prized hunting trophies.

 

The buffalo have developed a different appearance from the Indonesian buffalo from which they descend. They live mainly in freshwater marshes and billabongs, and their territory range can be quite expansive during the wet season. Their only natural predators in Australia are adult saltwater crocodiles, with whom they share the billabongs, and dingoes, which have been known to prey on buffalo calves and occasionally adult buffalo when the dingoes are in large packs.

 

Buffalo were exported live to Indonesia until 2011, at a rate of about 3000 per year. After the live export ban that year, the exports dropped to zero, and had not resumed as of June 2013.

 

IN SOUTH AMERICA

Water buffalo were introduced into the Amazon River basin in 1895. They are now extensively used there for meat and dairy production. In 2005, the buffalo herd in the Brazilian Amazon stood at roughly 1.6 million head, of which 460,000 were located in the lower Amazon floodplain. Breeds used include Mediterranean from Italy, Murrah and Jafarabadi from India, and Carabao from the Philippines.

 

During the 1970s, small herds were imported to Costa Rica, Ecuador, Cayenne, Panama, Surinam, Guyana, and Venezuela.

 

In Argentina, many game ranches raise water buffalo for commercial hunting

 

IN NORTH AMERICA

In 1974, four water buffalo were imported to the United States from Guam to be studied at the University of Florida. In February 1978, the first herd arrived for commercial farming. Until 2002, only one commercial breeder was in the United States. Water buffalo meat is imported from Australia. Until 2011, water buffalo were raised in Gainesville, Florida, from young obtained from zoo overflow. They were used primarily for meat production, frequently sold as hamburger.[38] Other US ranchers use them for production of high-quality mozzarella cheese.

 

HUSBANDRY

The husbandry system of water buffalo depends on the purpose for which they are bred and maintained. Most of them are kept by people who work on small farms in family units. Their buffalo live in very close association with them, and are often their greatest capital asset. The women and girls in India generally look after the milking buffalo while the men and boys are concerned with the working animals. Throughout Asia, they are commonly tended by children who are often seen leading or riding their charges to wallowing places. Water buffalo are the ideal animals for work in the deep mud of paddy fields because of their large hooves and flexible foot joints. They are often referred to as "the living tractor of the East". It probably is possible to plough deeper with buffalo than with either oxen or horses. They are the most efficient and economical means of cultivation of small fields. In most rice-producing countries, they are used for threshing and for transporting the sheaves during the rice harvest. They provide power for oilseed mills, sugarcane presses, and devices for raising water. They are widely used as pack animals, and in India and Pakistan also for heavy haulage. In their invasions of Europe, the Turks used buffalo for hauling heavy battering rams. Their dung is used as a fertilizer, and as a fuel when dried.

 

Buffalo contribute 72 million tones of milk and three million tones of meat annually to world food, much of it in areas that are prone to nutritional imbalances. In India, river-type buffalo are kept mainly for milk production and for transport, whereas swamp-type buffalo are kept mainly for work and a small amount of milk.

 

DAIRY PRODUCTS

Water buffalo milk presents physicochemical features different from that of other ruminant species, such as a higher content of fatty acids and proteins. The physical and chemical parameters of swamp and river type water buffalo milk differ. Water buffalo milk contains higher levels of total solids, crude protein, fat, calcium, and phosphorus, and slightly higher content of lactose compared with those of cow milk. The high level of total solids makes water buffalo milk ideal for processing into value-added dairy products such as cheese. The conjugated linoleic acid (CLA) content in milk ranged from 4.4 mg/g fat in September to 7.6 mg/g fat in June. Seasons and genetics may play a role in variation of CLA level and changes in gross composition of the water buffalo milk.

 

Water buffalo milk is processed into a large variety of dairy products:

 

- Cream churns much faster at higher fat levels and gives higher overrun than cow cream.

- Butter from water buffalo cream displays more stability than that from cow cream.

- Ghee from water buffalo milk has a different texture with a bigger grain size than ghee from cow milk.

- Heat-concentrated milk products in the Indian subcontinent include paneer, khoa, rabri, kheer and basundi.

- Fermented milk products include dahi, yogurt, and chakka.

- Whey is used for making ricotta and mascarpone in Italy, and alkarish in Syria and Egypt.

- Soft cheeses made include mozzarella in Italy, karish, mish, and domiati in Egypt, madhfor in Iraq, alghab in Syria, kesong puti in the Philippines, and vladeasa in Romania.

- The semihard cheese beyaz peynir is made in Turkey.

- Hard cheeses include braila in Romania, rahss in Egypt, white brine in Bulgaria, and akkawi in Syria.

- Watered-down buffalo milk is used as a cheaper alternative to regular milk.

 

MEAT AND SKIN PRODUCTS

Water buffalo meat, sometimes called "carabeef", is often passed off as beef in certain regions, and is also a major source of export revenue for India. In many Asian regions, buffalo meat is less preferred due to its toughness; however, recipes have evolved (rendang, for example) where the slow cooking process and spices not only make the meat palatable, but also preserve it, an important factor in hot climates where refrigeration is not always available.Their hides provide tough and useful leather, often used for shoes.

 

BONE AND HORN PRODUCTS

The bones and horns are often made into jewellery, especially earrings. Horns are used for the embouchure of musical instruments, such as ney and kaval.

 

ENVIRONMENTAL EFFECTS

Wildlife conservation scientists have started to recommend and use introduced populations of feral domestic water buffalo in far-away lands to manage uncontrolled vegetation growth in and around natural wetlands. Introduced water buffalo at home in such environs provide cheap service by regularly grazing the uncontrolled vegetation and opening up clogged water bodies for waterfowl, wetland birds, and other wildlife. Grazing water buffalo are sometimes used in Great Britain for conservation grazing, such as in Chippenham Fen National Nature Reserve. The buffalo can better adapt to wet conditions and poor-quality vegetation than cattle.

 

Currently, research is being conducted at the Lyle Center for Regenerative Studies to determine the levels of nutrients removed and returned to wetlands when water buffalo are used for wetland vegetation management.

 

However, in uncontrolled circumstances, water buffalo can cause environmental damage, such as trampling vegetation, disturbing bird and reptile nesting sites, and spreading exotic weeds.

 

RESEARCH

The world's first cloned buffalo was developed by Indian scientists from National Dairy Research Institute, Karnal. The buffalo calf was named Samrupa. The calf did not survive more than a week, and died due to some genetic disorders. So, the scientists created another cloned buffalo a few months later, and named it Garima.

 

On 15 September 2007, the Philippines announced its development of Southeast Asia's first cloned buffalo. The Philippine Council for Agriculture, Forestry and Natural Resources Research and Development (PCARRD), under the Department of Science and Technology in Los Baños, Laguna, approved this project. The Department of Agriculture's Philippine Carabao Center (PCC) will implement cloning through somatic cell nuclear transfer as a tool for genetic improvement in water buffalo. "Super buffalo calves" will be produced. There will be no modification or alteration of the genetic materials, as in genetically modified organisms.

 

On 1 January 2008, the Philippine Carabao Center in Nueva Ecija, per Filipino scientists, initiated a study to breed a super water buffalo that could produce 4 to 18 litres of milk per day using gene-based technology. Also, the first in vitro river buffalo was born there in 2004 from an in vitro-produced, vitrified embryo, named "Glory" after President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo. Joseph Estrada's most successful project as an opposition senator, the PCC was created through Republic Act 3707, the Carabao Act of 1992.

 

IN CULTURE

Some ethnic groups, such as Batak and Toraja in Indonesia and the Derung in China, use water buffalo or kerbau (called horbo in Batak or tedong in Toraja) as sacrificial animals at several festivals.

 

- Legend has it that the Chinese philosophical sage Laozi left China through the Han Gu Pass riding a water buffalo.

- According to Hindu lore, the god of death Yama, rides on a male water buffalo.

- The carabao subspecies is considered a national symbol in the Philippines.

- In Vietnam, water buffalo are often the most valuable possession of poor farmers: "Con trâu là đầu cơ nghiệp". They are treated as a member of the family: "Chồng cày, vợ cấy, con trâu đi bừa" ("The husband ploughs, the wife sows, water buffalo draws the rake") and are friends of the children. Children talk to their water buffalo, "Bao giờ cây lúa còn bông. Thì còn ngọn cỏ ngoài đồng trâu ăn." (Vietnamese children are responsible for grazing water buffalo. They feed them grass if they work laboriously for men.) In the old days, West Lake, Hà Nội, was named Kim Ngưu - Golden Water Buffalo.

- The Yoruban Orisha Oya (goddess of change) takes the form of a water buffalo.

 

FIGHTING FESTIVALS

- Pasungay Festival is held annually in the town of San Joaquin, Iloilo in the Philippines.

- Moh juj Water Buffalo fighting, is held every year in Bhogali Bihu in Assam. Ahotguri in Nagaon is famous for it.

- Do Son Water Buffalo Fighting Festival of Vietnam, held each year on the ninth day of the eighth month of the lunar calendar at Do Son Township, Haiphong City in Vietnam, is one of the most popular Vietnam festivals and events in Haiphong City. The preparations for this buffalo fighting festival begin from the two to three months earlier. The competing buffalo are selected and methodically trained months in advance. It is a traditional festival of Vietnam attached to a Water God worshipping ceremony and the Hien Sinh custom to show martial spirit of the local people of Do Son, Haiphong.

- "Hai Luu" Water Buffalo Fighting Festival of Vietnam, According to ancient records, the buffalo fighting in Hai Luu Commune has existed from the 2nd century B.C. General Lu Gia at that time, had the buffalo slaughtered to give a feast to the local people and the warriors, and organized buffalo fighting for amusement. Eventually, all the fighting buffalo will be slaughtered as tributes to the deities.

- "Ko Samui" Water Buffalo Fighting Festival of Thailand, is a very popular event held on special occasions such as New Year's Day in January, and Songkran in mid-April, this festival features head-wrestling bouts in which two male Asian water buffalo are pitted against one another. Unlike in Spanish Bullfighting, wherein bulls get killed while fighting sword-wielding men, Buffalo Fighting Festival held at Ko Samui, Thailand is fairly harmless contest. The fighting season varies according to ancient customs & ceremonies. The first Buffalo to turn and run away is considered the loser, the winning buffalo becomes worth several million baht. Ko Samui is an island in the Gulf of Thailand in the South China Sea, it is 700 km from Bangkok and is connected to it by regular flights.

- "Ma'Pasilaga Tedong" Water Buffalo Fighting Festival, in Tana Toraja Regency of Sulawesi Island, Indonesia, is a very popular event where the Rambu Solo' or a Burial Festival took place in Tana Toraja.

 

RACING FESTIVALS

Carabao Carroza Festival is being held annually every May in the town of Pavia, Iloilo, Philippines.

Kambala races of Karnataka, India, take place between December and March. The races are conducted by having the water buffalo (he buffalo) run in long parallel slushy ditches, where they are driven by men standing on wooden planks drawn by the buffalo. The objectives of the race are to finish first and to raise the water to the greatest height and also a rural sport. Kambala races are arranged with competition, as well as without competition and as a part of thanks giving (to god) in about 50 villages of coastal Karnataka.

 

In the Chonburi Province of Thailand, and in Pakistan, there are annual water buffalo races.

 

Chon Buri Water buffalo racing festival, Thailand In downtown Chonburi, 70 km south of Bangkok, at the annual water buffalo festival held in mid-October. About 300 buffalo race in groups of five or six, spurred on by bareback jockeys wielding wooden sticks, as hundreds of spectators cheer. The water buffalo has always played an important role in agriculture in Thailand. For farmers of Chon Buri Province, near Bangkok, it is an important annual festival, beginning in mid-October. It is also a celebration among rice farmers before the rice harvest. At dawn, farmers walk their buffalo through surrounding rice fields, splashing them with water to keep them cool before leading them to the race field. This amazing festival started over a hundred years ago when two men arguing about whose buffalo was the fastest ended up having a race between them. That’s how it became a tradition and gradually a social event for farmers who gathered from around the country in Chonburi to trade their goods. The festival also helps a great deal in preserving the number of buffalo, which have been dwindling at quite an alarming rate in other regions. Modern machinery is rapidly replacing buffalo in Thai agriculture. With most of the farm work mechanized, the buffalo-racing tradition has continued. Racing buffalo are now raised just to race; they do not work at all. The few farm buffalo which still do work are much bigger than the racers because of the strenuous work they perform. Farm buffalo are in the "Buffalo Beauty Pageant", a Miss Farmer beauty contest and a comic buffalo costume contest etc.. This festival perfectly exemplifies a favored Thai attitude to life — "sanuk," meaning fun.

 

Babulang Water buffalo racing festival, Sarawak, Malaysia, is the largest or grandest of the many rituals, ceremonies and festivals of the traditional Bisaya (Borneo) community of Limbang, Sarawak. Highlights are the Ratu Babulang competition and the Water buffalo races which can only be found in this town in Sarawak, Malaysia.

Vihear Suor village Water buffalo racing festival, in Cambodia, each year, people visit Buddhist temples across the country to honor their deceased loved ones during a 15-day period commonly known as the Festival of the Dead but in Vihear Suor village, about 35 km northeast of Cambodia, citizens each year wrap up the festival with a water buffalo race to entertain visitors and honour a pledge made hundreds of years ago. There was a time when many village cattle which provide rural Cambodians with muscle power to plough their fields and transport agricultural products died from an unknown disease. The villagers prayed to a spirit to help save their animals from the disease and promised to show their gratitude by holding a buffalo race each year on the last day of "P'chum Ben" festival as it is known in Cambodian. The race draws hundreds of spectators who come to see riders and their animals charge down the racing field, the racers bouncing up and down on the backs of their buffalo, whose horns were draped with colorful cloth.

Pothu puttu matsaram, Kerala, South India, is similar to Kambala races.

 

WIKIPEDIA

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Black Knights on Patrol

 

The men and women of Task Force 3-66 are actively patrolling western Paktika province, taking the fight to the insurgents. Since assuming responsibility for the area, the Black Knights have been methodically clearing district after district to allow the provincial government to provide security and development. Western Paktika is essentially a rest stop for insurgents linked to Sirajuddin Haqqani traveling from Pakistan and continuing west. The heat, elevated terrain, and harsh landscape of Paktika province are unforgiving allies of these enemies of Afghanistan. With limited road networks the primary mode of travel here is walking. The relentless training planned and executed by the leaders of Task Force 3-66 back in Germany is now paying off.

A small, dark heron arrayed in moody blues and purples, the Little Blue Heron is a common but inconspicuous resident of marshes and estuaries in the Southeast. They stalk shallow waters for small fish and amphibians, adopting a quiet, methodical approach that can make these gorgeous herons surprisingly easy to overlook at first glance. Little Blue Herons build stick nests in trees alongside other colonial waterbirds. In the U.S., their populations have been in a gradual decline since the mid-twentieth century. www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Little_Blue_Heron/id

 

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image by Photo George

copyrighted: ©2015 GCheatle

all rights reserved

 

locator: GAC_7252 02

Black Knights on Patrol

 

The men and women of Task Force 3-66 are actively patrolling western Paktika province, taking the fight to the insurgents. Since assuming responsibility for the area, the Black Knights have been methodically clearing district after district to allow the provincial government to provide security and development. Western Paktika is essentially a rest stop for insurgents linked to Sirajuddin Haqqani traveling from Pakistan and continuing west. The heat, elevated terrain, and harsh landscape of Paktika province are unforgiving allies of these enemies of Afghanistan. With limited road networks the primary mode of travel here is walking. The relentless training planned and executed by the leaders of Task Force 3-66 back in Germany is now paying off.

Title: Blue Skies / Tanner Wolfe, artist

 

Art form: 2-D

 

Medium: 35mm transparency/slide film

 

Year created: 2011 Tanner describes his offering:

 

Description of work: This piece is entwined with my work as a cinematographer. In filmmaking, the filmmakers must place each image next to each other in a way that drives the story forward. Each of these images leans into the next, promoting it and supporting it. My goal for this image was to be freed (a little) from the constraints of this rigid narrative process, but I also created for myself a very rigorous process in the physical creation of the image. This piece was created by using three 35mm still cameras, shooting in tandem. To document an image I shot 2 to 4 frames with the top camera then the same amount with the middle camera and so on for the bottom camera. Each frame in this piece was pre-visualized methodically, so that these pieces would all work as a whole. This process meant that 6 rolls of 36 exposure film all had to be shot, so that they could be aligned later to create the larger images. This piece deals with hope, but also with the crowding fears that shut out possibility.

Height: 1 feet

Width: 9 feet

Depth: 1 feet

 

Showing at Women's City Club